Tag Archives: Marriage

St Dwynwen's Church, ruined. If you know, you know.

The embraces of the past

(I am not sure that this one is ever going to see the light of day as a proper REF-able ‘output’, but I enjoyed writing something on aspects of the common law’s treatment of married women it for a conference on coverture in 2022, and I feel moved to put some of it ‘out there’, for anyone who feels inclined read it, so here we are: some marital musings)

‘Coverture’ is a word well known to legal historians: the explanation for many limitations placed upon married women, and sometimes something of an excuse to leave them out of consideration, and get on with telling the more agreeable story of rises, triumphs and men. Nevertheless, the last decade or so has seen some particularly keen excavation and questioning of the nature and place of ‘coverture’ in legal history. Building on that work, I have a few thoughts.

I am going to start in what might seem like fairly unpromising territory to anyone but the most obsessive medieval property law fan: pleading in relation to voucher to warranty. And if anyone needs a refresher on what voucher to warranty is, this is something which might happen in a land dispute: a defendant is calling on somebody to back him up, and say that he does actually have a claim to the land in question. Sometimes that backer-up, the ‘vouchee’, does not want to take on this potentially onerous responsibility, and might ‘counterplead’ (i.e. argue that he should not have to) and so there would be a trial within a trial, to sort out that matter.

We can see an example of this counterplea to voucher to warranty in a land case from Herefordshire from 1292 – a mort d’ancestor case, in which one party (Ralph de Toni) claims that he should have [seisin of] some land, currently held by Roger son of Richard de Hereford, because it was held by his (Ralph’s) aunt Margery at her death, and he is next in the conventional line of inheritance. Roger was not having it, and vouched to warranty Thomas, son and heir of William de St Omer. Why should Thomas have to warrant? Well, the story was that Roger’s father, Richard, had been granted the land by William de St Omer and Petronilla his wife, by a charter with a clause which said that William, Petronilla and their heirs would warrant Richard and his heirs – so they committed themselves and their heirs to supporting Richard and his heirs if the latter faced a legal challenge of this sort. Thomas did not want to warrant, though. He found fault with Roger’s pleading: pointing out that the charter was in the names of William and Petronilla, and though William was dead (and so was represented by Thomas), Petronilla was alive, and should also have been vouched, but had not been. Roger tried to say that it was fine to leave her out, and he had not made the sort of mistake which would mean his case could not succeed. His argument was that even though the charter was under names of both William and Petronilla, it only ‘had vigour’ under William’s name. Why? Because [and here comes the ‘coverture’ bit at last] Petronilla could not oblige herself by charter, as, at the relevant time, she fuit inter brachia Willelmi viri sui’ (was within the arms of William, her husband). It was found, however, that, in this case, the ‘‘in his arms so effaced and irrelevant’ argument did not win. At law this was a joint transfer, so both William’s representative and Petronilla should have been included. The immediate outcome was that this was a bad voucher and Thomas did not have to warrant Roger.[i]

There are other quite interesting aspects to this case, but let us focus on this idea, this formula, of a wife being ‘in her husband’s arms’, and unable to do things. It seems that this was not a complete ‘one-off’, nor a factual statement about Petronilla actually being within William’s arms at the key moment, but a juridical term: there was a similar usage in a French-language Year Book report, attributed to 1311, and to everyone’s favourite cantankerous early 14th C judge, Chief Justice Bereford. This was another voucher to warranty case, and, once again, a husband and wife had transferred some land to X, defendant in a land action, and X vouched only one party – here, the wife’s heir, the wife now being dead but the husband alive. It was argued – successfully – that both the husband and the wife’s heir should have been vouched, because the wife, who was, at the time, ‘enter ses bras’ could not make a transfer of land on her own.[ii] [Substantive point QI – both parties needed].

That is a lot of land law to get to [a fairly arcane legal point and] two little phrases. Why do I think these cases, and this ‘within his arms’ business, are interesting? Well, first of all, I think these examples show something of the contexts in which ‘coverture’ type questions could arise in medieval common law. These are hardly big, exciting cases dealing head-on with the patriarchy and the rights of women: the reports show us that these are instances of men arguing about land, looking for a technical mis-step in pleading or procedure. Nobody really cares about Petronilla in that 1292 case: she is a device. It seems important – telling – that ‘the coverture stuff’ quite often comes up on very small pleading points, not big ‘rightsy’ questions.

Secondly, there is the image itself: the wife in the husband’s arms. What does that specific image suggest, and how does it relate to existing scholarship on ‘coverture’? It seems to me to be very ambiguous: should we be seeing it as an embrace or a restraint? Should we be thinking vertically or horizontally? There are resonances with the formula in medieval ‘criminal’ law, in appeals (individual prosecutions) brought by a widow for the killing of her husband: until the later 14th century, she had to claim that he had died ‘in her arms’. The ‘in his arms’ formulation is a bit different to the better-known expressions relating to married people in medieval and later legal sources, with their ideas of unity or domination. ‘Within his arms’ seems to me to be more complex, and more obviously temporary. In my view, it reinforces the argument – made by others[iii] that the central idea of ‘coverture’, or the husband/wife relationship at common law was unsettled in the medieval period (though within male control, since the power in that embrace, to contain, or to release, was all with the man).

And does it matter, this argued-for unsettled nature of medieval ‘coverture’? Is this just some academic navel-gazing, disappearing up her own backside and furiously ‘nuancing’ things long gone? It does seem to me that it is important to keep making the point that some of the apparently monolithic, unchanging, institutions and ‘doctrines’ of the common law were not inevitable, nor did they descend, fully formed, without being adopted and adapted by individuals and groups with influence over the content of the law, who saw in them some advantage to themselves and their view of the way things should be. Throwing back the sometimes lazily-arranged covers, exposing the complexity the common law’s treatment of women, appears necessary, both to do what we can to understand the conditions (physical, legal, cultural) in which countless women lived their lives, and also to recognise the continuation into our own lives and times of some ways of talking about, thinking about, and behaving in, marriage and other domestic relationships.

And so, dearly beloved, will I continue on my obscure little way, going on about this women stuff, and possibly even using the word ‘patriarchy’ from time to time?

I will.

 

GS

30/9/2023

 

[i] JUST 1/303 m.21.

[ii]Seipp 1311.21

[iii] See, in particular, Married Women and the Law : Coverture in England and the Common Law World, edited by Tim Stretton and K. J Kesselring, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013 (editors’ very helpful introduction, and c. 2 (S.M. Butler).

Wedding un-dress: a ‘vulgar error’ occupying Victorian men of letters

No doubt people who know more about the 18th and 19th Cs would be familiar with this, but it was a new one to me …

Whilst continuing my investigations of coverture, I came across [dis-covered?] a rather scandalous supposed marriage custom, which was considered to ward off some of the obligations which a husband would incur, in the normal course of things, in relation to his wife’s debts. The generally sensible C.S. Kenny notes the existence of ‘an old legal superstition … that a man does not become liable for his wife’s debts if she marries him in her shift’.[i] The idea was that this practice of turning up for the wedding without much in the way of clothing showed that the bride was not bringing property to the groom, and, since his obligation to pay her debts could be conceived of as a consequence of, or some sort of balance to, the property she brought to him, he was not undertaking to pay the debts. Kenny, in an essay published in 1879,  tells us that ‘old newspapers’ give examples of such marriages. Checking that up sounds like an enjoyable little project for a less busy time.

For now, I note that there are some exchanges on this in Notes and Queries in the 1850s, referring to these events as ‘smock marriages’ or marriages ‘en chemise’ (in French, so much posher – or more sexy and salacious?) all started off by a question by one J. Eastwood, who found a ‘Curious Marriage Entry’ in the ‘register books of a small village in Wiltshire’ (frustratingly not named! – though there is mention of a parish, Chiltern All Saints! – which presumably = Chitterne, near enough to Warminster), to the effect that Anne Sellwood, who was married to John Bridmore ‘in her smock, without any clothes or head-gear on’, on 17th October, 1714’. [ii] Another correspondent, C.H. Cooper, noted that this business of smock marriages and their supposed effect had been pointed out as a ‘vulgar error’ in a work of 1842, but also that it was ‘still prevalent at Cottenham [Cambs]’.[iii] The field of operation of the ‘vulgar error’ was extended north and west by a further letter from one Shirley Brooks, who reported it in Shropshire, and also came up with an ingenious interpretation of its supposed justification: the bride was conceived of as purchasing her husband’s protection – so entering into a contract – but if she came to him with nothing, then there was no consideration for that purchase of protection. Clever, eh? Mad, but clever.[iv]

It is also said to have been known at Kirton, Lindsey (Lincs) – possibly in even more scandalous form: there is mention of ‘a state of nudity’. As ‘K.P.D.E.’ puts it, on the authority of  ‘a venerable person’, there had been an example of the practice, in that ‘highly civilised town’, in his lifetime, the bride to be leaving her home ‘from a bedroom window’ and putting some clothes on while on the ladder, coming down.‘[v]

It is mentioned, in historical scholarship, in the context of whether or not it preserved a woman’s financial independence.[vi] (Contrast this context with the concerns of the Notes and Queries letter writers, who were really bothered about the other side of the coin: the husband’s independence of claims relating to his wife’s debts).

I find myself wondering how this particular myth might have grown up. What conversations might there have been in the lead-up to a marriage, with brides being persuaded to eschew dressing up, in favour of a spot of streaking? And what place might there have been for the desire to see – and write about  – [more or less] naked women?

GS

8/4/2022

Image – no, not a naked woman. Nor some sort of racy undershirt, of the sort to quicken the pulse of a Victorian Notes and Queries reader. We are sticking to safer ground here, with a general suggestion of love and such … using swans. Things are much simpler for swans … Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

 

 

[i] C.S. Kenny, The History of the Law of England as to the effects of Marriage on Property and of the wife’s legal capacity (London, 1879). 94.

[ii] Notes and Queries, 1st ser, vol VI, 485, 561; (1852)

[iii] N & Q 1st ser. vol. VII, 163 (1853).

[iv] ibid.

[v] N & Q VII, 17. Further 18th C examples are given, from Kent and London, and a later query mentions an early 18th C instance from Yorkshire: N & Q vol. 152 (1927) p 169, by P.D.M. See also R. Chambers, Book of Days vol. 1 (London and Edinburgh, 1863), 259, cited in Erickson, below.

[vi] e.g. A.L. Erickson, Women and Property : In Early Modern England, (London,  1995( 146.

To Marry and to Burn: punishing domestic treachery in medieval England

(A version of this was posted on the Bristol Law School Blog on 24th May 2021.  I will continue to update this version, including adding to the ‘grand total’ mentioned in the sixth paragraph below, as I find new instances).

One of the less enthusiastic endorsements of marriage is to be found in the words of St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: ‘it is better to marry than to burn’. His point was that celibacy was the best way to live, but those too weak to resist the temptations of the flesh could take the second best option of monogamous marriage. Before the Protestant Reformation in England, there were those who followed what this passage portrayed as the higher path, dedicating themselves to a life of celibacy and the service of God in monasteries and convents, but for most people, the expectation was marriage. Marriage and fire were, however, not as distant, one from the other, as St Paul’s words would imply.

Marriage in medieval England was understood to be hierarchical, with the husband expected to control and correct the wife, and the wife to obey the husband. He was (again in words attributed to St Paul), ‘the head of the wife’.  No doubt, as a great deal of historical research over the past few decades has shown,  there were many variations in practice, with more and less amicable situations, more and less mutual respect.  Even so, the husband’s authority over the wife was a fundamental principle, with real consequences; and one of these was connected with fire.

We can see an example of this connection between marriage and fire in an entry on a medieval legal record from the late fourteenth century. This notes a case from Essex, dealt with by John Cavendish and others, sent to the county as royal justices, in 1378. An indicting  jury of twelve men had said that, when John Trilly junior was lying in bed one Saturday night, his wife, Margaret, and a certain  John Robat of Walden, killed him with an axe or hatchet. The suspects were arrested, brought to court, pleaded not guilty, and accepted jury trial. Unfortunately for them, the trial jury said that they were both guilty, as well as noting that, at the time of the killing, Margaret was John Trilly’s wife. It was ordered that John Robat should be hanged. Margaret, however, was to be burned.

From at least the first half of the fourteenth century, and probably from the thirteenth century, the accepted punishment for a wife who killed her husband was death by burning. This was an unusual mode of execution: most convicted felons (including husbands convicted of killing their wives) faced the rope rather than the fire. For those of us for whom capital punishment of any sort is entirely abhorrent, it may be difficult to feel particularly exercised about the use of one method of ending a life rather than another, so long ago. (We may, though. note the reference, in a document relating to the execution of Anne Boleyn, of the move from burning to decapitation as a matter of royal mercy, as some sort of indication that there was seen to be a difference, at least in the sixteenth century), and it is certainly the case that, for a legal historian, it is important to try to look into the flames, and see what can be learned from past law, past practice.

Why burn husband-killers? Three overlapping factors were relevant: sex/gender, marital status and nature of the offence. This was not, in fact, the only type of offence in which a woman might be burned while a man would face a different penalty. The same applied to counterfeiting offences, and to killings of one’s employer, and there are occasional, earlier, examples of women being burned for other felonies. The use of burning for husband-killers is, however, clearly connected with a wish to make a particular example of those who transgressed against the hierarchical understanding of marriage. For a wife to kill her husband was not simply homicide, but a form of rebellion against her natural superior. It was mentioned in the Statute of Treasons 1352, and from the fifteenth century onwards, it came to be called ‘petty treason’.

The burning of husband-killers has tended to be minimised in classical accounts of legal history, and is sometimes assumed to be associated with the Statute of Treasons. My research in this area has, however, highlighted both the longer, deeper association of husband-killing and fire, and also the greater number of examples of women consigned to the flames for this offence than had previously been suggested. While they were never numerous, there were certainly enough of them to confirm in the minds of lawyers and the population more generally, that this was the expected outcome, in the event of a conviction for husband-slaying. I have discussed the matter in a chapter of my recent book on women and common law in medieval England, and continue to collect examples of women sentenced to death by burning, from the vast corpus of medieval legal records which remain to us. The current total on my ‘spreadsheet of doom’, compiled from work on records of late medieval criminal sessions (13th-15th Cs, the majority being from the late 14th C and early 15th C), stands at 65 burnings ordered for women convicted of husband-killing. While it is not possible to elicit comprehensive, reliable, statistics from such searches, it may be of interest to note that this is considerably higher than the number of executions for rape which I have seen in the same records, though considerably lower than the number of executions for theft, for example. It is certainly high enough to be worthy of attention.

The idea that the offence was particularly heinous and should be punished in this spectacular and symbolic way was not something which was being imposed on communities by ‘the powers that be’: it was something much more pervasive. In some contrast to other areas of crime, in which jurors were willing to bend facts to let defendants avoid punishment, trial jurors, and those men in local communities in a position to initiate prosecutions by indictment or presentment, seem to have been keen to ensure that husband-killers would be burned. On occasion, we see them making it clear that a woman charged with homicide was married to the deceased at the time he was killed, though this might be obscured by the fact that she was now married to somebody else. This was done so that conviction would lead to burning, not hanging. There seems to have been no doubt in the minds of the leading men in medieval communities that it was right to mark out husband-killers in this way.

The fact that the penalty was used, and accepted as appropriate by men at different social levels, over a long period of time, would seem to make it likely to have exerted an influence on the minds and behaviour of married women. This is particularly so, if we add in other things which I have noted emerging from my archival work: accusations were sometimes made on what looks like a relatively slender basis, with rather quick leaps to an accusation that a woman whose husband was killed by somebody else was ‘in on it’, and even over-zealous prosecution when the husband was not, in fact dead at all. These findings do tend to suggest that the threat of fire as a judicial penalty, as well as an eternal punishment, is something which should receive further consideration in studies of medieval marriage and gender, as well as law.

As well as telling other people what they ought to think is worthy of investigation,  a post on a research blog  is a good place to include a little reflection on the process of conducting research. I began looking at this area as a result of being unconvinced by the accounts I had read in secondary sources, and suspicious that they were over-simplifying matters, in a way which played down the importance of the executions of women by burning. To understand what more there was to say, and how accounts might need to be adjusted, it has been necessary to trawl through a very large number of pages of medieval manuscript (in recent times, this has been via the magnificent Anglo American Legal Tradition collection of scanned images), looking for accusations of husband-killing, and orders that somebody should be burnt. Finding a needle amongst the fields of haystacks does sometimes feel like a bit of a ‘win’, each instance strengthening the emerging argument. Nevertheles, each time I come across one of the Latin abbreviations indicating that a burning has been ordered, in the margin of a roll, there is the realisation that it indicates a terrifying end to a real person, as human as the rest of us. I have come to recognise that that feeling, that discomfort, that connection, is itself important in an investigation of the people whose lives and deaths are noted in the rolls.

 

Here endeth the lesson.

GS

1st May, 2021.

(Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash)

A Bad Man called Bonehomme? Crime and non-punishment (?) in medieval Yorkshire

This snippet from the 1360s has some interesting sub-snippets relating to crime, (non-) punishment, marriage, women and pardons. (Great build-up, I know, but stick with it…)

The patent rolls for May 1364 contain a pardon for one Master Hugh Bonehomme of Bugthorpe (Yorks). The Rex roll of the King’s Bench for Trinity term 1364 shows that Hugh had been indicted (under slightly different versions of his name) on some serious charges – the homicide of Gilbert son of John Grayve of Bugthorpe, and the ravishment/abduction (raptus) of Agnes, daughter of John Gyles of York, as well as allegedly having committed a currency export offence, and having challenged another man to a duel, or perhaps attacked him (there is mention of a shield and lance).[i]

The homicide is interesting in that the KB entry has a variety of different charges, with different variations of the alleged victim’s name – at first sight, it seemed to be suggesting that Hugh was something of a serial killer, but there seems to be some repetition. Otherwise there is nothing noteworthy in it. It is the abduction of Agnes which is my focus It was alleged that Hugh had acted with others in this, that it had happened in Lent 1362, at York, and that the abduction had been part of a dastardly plan. The offenders had used coercion and threats to make Agnes consent to marry a man called Simon Porter. Forced marriage is not unknown in this period (I have at least one example in Women in the Medieval Common Law (c.6), and it was enough of a perceived problem, at least in so far as it concerned well-off women, that there was specific legislation on the matter in the fifteenth century (which I considered somewhat in Imprisoning Medieval Women). This was not just any forced marriage, however, it was, allegedly, a forced invalid marriage – since Agnes already had a husband: Thomas Gillyng. Thomas was allegedly down some goods as well as a wife, because the entry and the pardon on the patent roll both note that Hugh and his associates removed some of Thomas’s chattels.[ii]

In the case of Agnes, there is, for once, no suggestion of ‘not unwillingness’ or complicity with regard to the leaving of her husband. In the plea roll, we have the allegation that the offenders took, ravished and abducted her with force and arms, and then used compulsion and threats: per cohercionem et minas, they made her consent (consentire) to contract an unjust marriage (matrimonium iniustuminiustum because of ‘the other husband’, presumably).[iii] I think it is very much worth noting that ‘consent’ here is used to mean something far from free, far from voluntary. It should be a further warning against assuming we know what these words apparently denoting an exercise of free will mean, when we see them used in shorter, less contextualised, entries.

I have not come across quite such an outrageous forced ‘marriage’ before – and it will be interesting to see whether there is any further information to be had from the perspective of the Church – did any sort of matrimonial proceedings follow, to ensure that the position was clear? Did she get back to her real husband, or did he die too soon? Did she actually end up with (apparently) dodgy Simon?

Following the case through to its bitter end at common law, though, surprise, surprise, there are no serious consequences for Hugh. Clearly a man with influential friends, his pardon is said to have been granted after requests by  John II of France (d. April 1364) and by certain cardinals. He was a man of some learning – called ‘Master’ (sometimes), and the Plea Roll describes him as a proctor/procurator. He had, perhaps, endeared himself to the hostage king in this capacity. The pardon – again, surprise, surprise – has absolutely nothing to say about Agnes. Jurisdictional responsibilities would, of course, dictate that the (in)validity of her marriage to Simon was something for the Church to sort out, if there was a dispute about it. Nevertheless, the entries on the patent roll and plea roll relating to Hugh and Agnes do underline the gendered nature of the concerns of common law, and its exercise.

GS 18/3/2021

[i] CPR Edw III 1361-4, 515; KB 27/415 m. 35d (IMG 455)

[ii] He is described as having been her husband ‘then’ – so possibly he also lost his life after these events.

[iii] Roman law has much to say about matrimonium iniustum, but I think the intention here is simply to call it against the rules, because of the existence of a husband.

Discord, fraud and an attack of conscience? Some dodgy dealings with land in the fourteenth century 

As I prepare materials for modern Land Law teaching, it is interesting to think of the potential difficulties medieval people might have in guarding against losing their rights in land, in a world without the sort of registration and record-keeping which my students love hearing about so much …

The source: a 1339 King’s Bench plea roll. KB 27/315 m. 13d (AALT IMG 262)

The scene: mid-fourteenth century Cambridgeshire (and, as all pretentious reviews of films and books say, the land itself is a sort of character too. And the law. And the plea roll. Enough – on with the alleged facts …)

In Michaelmas 1338, jurors of various hundreds presented that John Allberd and his wife Nicolaa[i] held 20 acres of land in Hokyton, in right of Nicolaa, but there was discord between them, and Nicolaa went away from her husband and the area. [Alas, as our esteemed PM would say] John then died. [At this point, Nicolaa should have had the land back, or, if she had died, as seems to have been the case, then it should have gone to her heir, BUT… there was a conspiracy between an observant/nosy local and some ‘incomers’, from Norfolk, and even that London]: John son of John Riston of Hokyton, John Godefeld, citizen of London, and a certain Margaret of Norwich conspired together and in 1334, Margaret was passed off as Nicholaa (de Kelm, wife of John Allberd of Hokyton) and, acting as Nicolaa, Margaret had a false charter drawn up in favour of John son of John Riston, transferring the land to him, not to William de Kelm, nephew and heir of Nicolaa. John Riston entered by virtue of this false feoffment. [And he would have got away with it, if it hadn’t been for her meddlesome conscience]. Confessione ducta, she had gone along to the church of Hokyton and coughed to her misconduct. After this, William de Kelm had got the land as the result of a concord (no details), and the law was put on to the two male alleged conspirators.

The sheriff was ordered to bring the parties into court to hear about the misconduct. John Riston and John Godefeld pleaded not guilty (and things are still rumbling on, trying to get these two into court in 1347 – KB 27/348 m.32d (AALT IMG 1590) – I am yet to get to the end of the matter.

So what?

I know – just another unfinished case, but …

Well, you have to admire the cunning of such a plan, if it happened. It does rather point to a weakness in the system of land holding: identifying individuals who had not been seen for some time. Presumably it was plausible that one woman might be passed off as another, even in relatively close-knit areas with small populations.

I am also quite taken by the throwaway line that there was discord between the spouses and Nicolaa just exited the scene. Seems somewhat at odds with what we think we know about conjugal debts and the need to get a divorce a mensa et thoro before doing this. I suppose we would have to presume that women could leave if men were not bothered. As this case shows, though, there might be a cost to them, in terms of the risk of losing rights to the land they left behind.

(All rather far away from the bureaucracy and formality of modern Land Registration schemes, to which, I suppose, I had better return …)

GS

28/1/2021

 

[i] A moment of appreciation, please, for this fabulous medieval spelling, and I take my hat off to anyone who is able to resist pronouncing it pirate-style as NicholAAAAAAH!

Bastardy, Presumptions and a Plague of Beatrixes

(Sheldon arms, apparently: see VCH reference, below)

I am writing something about difficult questions at the start of life – determining whether (legally recognised) life is present in a foetus or newborn, and determining legitimacy – from periods before the development of some important medical techniques and instruments (to c. 1900 –  in 10,000 words …). One of the aspects I am investigating is the use of presumptions, to help come to an answer, when everyone accepted that there was a high level of uncertainty. An important presumption in the area of determinations of legitimacy was the common law’s long-lasting and rather strong presumption of legitimacy for a child born to married parents. I have just spent quite some time chasing down a Year Book/Plea roll match for an interesting case from the later years of Edward III, which has a bearing on this, and, since it won’t get more than a short mention, perhaps no more than a footnote, in the paper itself, I thought I’d write it up here.

The Year Book report is Seipp 1370.044 or YB Pasch. 44 Edw. III pl. 21 f. 12b. The Plea Roll record is CP 40/438 m. 370d (AALT IMG 5516). It is a Common Pleas case. As is often the way, the names in YB and PR don’t match up, but I think we can be pretty certain that these documents refer to the same case. There is also  information in other sources which gives some indications about the people involved in the case.[i] This is my reconstruction of the whole story, based on all of this.

There was a need to determine whether or not a girl was to be classed as ‘legitimate’ or ‘a bastard’ at common law, in order to deal with a land dispute. The land in question was in the West Midlands of England, in Warwickshire, centred on the manor of Sheldon, and included different parcels of land and associated rights. Once upon a time, it had been held by Henry de Sheldon and Beatrix his wife (HS and B1) and John Murdak had been granted an interest which would come into play if HS and B1 died without heirs of their bodies.

This had all happened in the 1330s. The central characters in the 1370 dispute were Thomas Murdak, knight (TM), son of John, who claimed that he should hold the land, and  a married couple, (Sir) John de Peyto and Beatrix his wife, who  were in fact holding some of the relevant land and rights. John and Beatrix (JP and B2) argued that they held a tenancy for life in the land, from one Beatrix (B3), eventual successor of HS (as daughter of John de Sheldon, JS, who was HS’s son and heir). When they wished to use B3’s superior right as the foundation of their own right, and against TM’s claim to it, TM made the argument that they could not do so, because B3 was a bastard. (And bastards were outside the scheme of succession at common law).

Why was there a doubt about B3’s legitimacy? Well, it seems that the circumstances of her birth were slightly unusual: she was said by JP and B2 to be the posthumous child of JS, born to his wife after a short marriage (at most fifteen days), though conceived before the marriage. TM told it rather differently: in his version, there had been some very dubious behaviour, which could mean that there was no real marriage, and so no presumption of legitimacy, and also, in fact, B3 was the child of another man entirely. His tale was of a very unwell JS, sick to death with plague, and not in his right mind, being physically carried to the church in Yardley, to marry (desponsare de facto) ‘some woman’ (not named – the odds seem to be in favour of her having been called Beatrix, like everyone else …) who was, at the time ‘grossly pregnant’.  As he told it, this was part of a fraudulent plan, essentially to do him out of his rights, which, remember, would come into play on the death of HS and B1 and their legitimately procreated heirs, and to protect the holding of JP and B2. JP and B2, however, expanded on their version, stating that B3 was in fact the biological child of JS: he and B3’s mother had been lovers (and had had two previous children) and he had promised to marry her, then impregnated her with B3 before going off to Calais for three months, and, on his return, he had fulfilled that promise. Though he had been ill, he had been sane and had married her at the behest of his conscience (presumably wishing to ‘make an honest woman of her’, and secure her future provision). They had lived together for a fortnight, then he had died. B3 had been born afterwards (interestingly, neither a date of birth, nor a gestation period, is included). Essentially, their tale denied both the ‘not JS’s biological child’ and the ‘not a valid marriage’ aspects of TM’s case.

Argument continued, with the aim of narrowing things down to one issue which could go to proof. According to the Year Book report, there followed some back and forth about exactly how pregnancy, espousals and legitimacy worked together, as far as the common law was concerned. TM’s side had a go at saying that the fact that it was accepted that B3’s mother was very pregnant before the espousals meant that Alice was a bastard. This seems to imply an argument that pregnancy had to start, as well as end, after espousals had been made.  This argument did not prevail, but it is interesting that it could be made, since it suggests the possibility of insisting on very exacting standards of continence and of ‘bastardising’ quite a number of children born within a marriage. The orthodox, less exacting, rule was stated by Fyncheden JCP: a child would be found to be legitimate, if the mother was pregnant by the man she then married, and she married him before the birth. Interestingly for my investigation, though, his reported words also suggest that a child conceived in the period between promise to marry and actual marriage (I have been doing too much Land Law because I automatically think of this as ‘conception between contract and conveyance’) does not automatically get the benefit of the strong presumption of legitimacy which would have applied to a child conceived after marriage.

In the end, rather than deciding B3 was definitely a bastard, (either because she was admittedly conceived before marriage, or because the marriage was invalid), or deciding that the conclusion would rest upon her presumed legitimacy as a result of having been born after the espousals, it was decided that the issue to be put to a jury was to be (effectively) whether the biological father of Alice was HS or the ‘other man’. This strikes me as a rather difficult thing for a jury to conclude upon, and it is interesting that it was thought feasible that they could do so. Also of interest is the point that the fact of there having been espousals did not blot out the possibility of B3 being found to be a bastard. My inquiries into later versions of the presumption of legitimacy within marriage show some interesting ups and downs in terms of its strength, and what sort of doubts might be entertained about paternity after the mother’s marriage, but it seems that, at least at this point, challenging legitimacy in these circumstances was a real possibility: if the ‘unloaded’, neutral, question ‘was X or Y the biological father of Z’ could be left to a jury, there would seem to be a fairly even chance of a finding of bastardy or of legitimacy. I am also pondering the issue of there having been a particular fascination amongst common lawyers at this point for the question of bastardy/legitimacy within marriage – another project I have done looked at a case from just before this one, Tyryngton v Beauchamp (1369),[ii]  the report of which saw common lawyers introducing a gratuitous discussion of just this issue (that case did not concern a child whose legitimacy was in dispute, but the report shows lawyers ‘going off on one’ about this).

The reporter loses interest once the issue is identified, as is usual, but the record tells us (some of) what happened in the end. The record includes later stages of procedure, which went on for some terms, and, to cut a long story short, TM dropped out, and so the case came to an end, leaving JP and B2 in possession of the land. There never was a jury verdict. It may be that some deal was struck, or it may be that TM decided that a jury would not have believed that B3 was the biological child of the mysterious ‘other man’.

So there we have it – for my immediate purposes, it represents an interesting stage in the development of doctrine around determinations and presumptions of legitimacy. More broadly, it is fascinating both legally and socially. The legal structure is set up so that it is in order – and perhaps it is an early resort – for claimants to land to cast aspersions about the sexual behaviour of non-party individuals. We see insights into a plausible story of a long term non-marital relationship which might be regularised on the point of death, and also a deep-seated suspicion of deathbed marital dealings (generally of the ‘woman as gold-digger’ variety: given the unequal system of real property, such marriages would tend to be for the benefit of women rather than men). If the background to this case was indeed a recurrence of plague, it is also interesting to ponder the effects of such crises of mortality on law and practice with regard to marriage, legitimacy and succession.

[And then of course there is the oblique evidence provided for the otherwise unknown ‘Statute of Beatrixes’ (or should it be ‘Beatrices’?), under which all female children in the West Midlands were required to be called Beatrix.]

GS

23/10/2020

(For more on bastardy in common law and canon law, and jurisdictional issues, in medieval England, including a 1364 case which might also support the idea of particular attention on this issue in this era, see, e.g. R. H. Helmholz, ‘Bastardy Litigation in Medieval England’, American Journal of Legal History 13, (1969): 360-83).

[i] VCH Warkwickshire (not going to pretend I can get to libraries at the moment): https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol4/pp200-205

[ii] William de Tyryngton and Johanna his wife v. John Beauchamp del Holte and Joan his wife (1369).CP 40/435 m.387, 387d (IMG 773 and 1857(; Seipp 1369.059; YB 43 Edw. III Trin. pl. 5.

Licence, Denial and Disobedience: a ravishment case from fifteenth-century Oxfordshire

Today I tracked down the Plea Roll entry corresponding to Anon. (1461) YB Mich. 1 Edw. IV pl. 2 f.1a; Seipp 1461.018: the King’s Bench report, Thomas Wilcotes v John Newers, can be found at KB 27/802 m. 43. It is a ‘ravishment of wife and goods’ case, in which the plaintiff is complaining that the defendant has taken away both his wife and also some of his goods. The offence was well-established, having been introduced under Edward I, and there are many examples of its use in medieval plea rolls, although there is debate as to what we should understand ravishment or raptus to mean in this context. Much attention has been paid to the idea that a proportion of these cases might, in fact, have been consensual on the part of the wife, who wanted to leave her husband. Wilcotes v. Newers is relevant to the idea of consent – but it is the consent of the husband which is alleged, not that of the wife.

The story, briefly, is that Eleanor, wife of Thomas Wilcotes, had been taken away from his house and kept for an unspecified period at the house of her kinsman, John Newers.  Wilcotes alleged that this taking was against his will, (and also listed a number of items which he said had gone missing with his wife) but Newers had a different version of events: he said that Wilcotes and his wife had been at odds for some time, and Wilcotes had given him permission to take Eleanor away to his (John’s) house, and to try and encourage and cajole her to be obedient to her husband. As far as Newers was concerned, he had done nothing which was against the law, since he had this permission. Wilcotes’s side had tried to argue that, even if there had been permission, Newers would still have been guilty of an offence, but this did not seem to go down well with the court, and so the issue which would go to the jury was whether or not there had in fact been a granting of permission by Wilcotes to Newers.

What I am going to say next will be all too familiar to those who have had dealings with plea rolls: it is not clear what the end result was. The entry peters out after listing steps taken to have the case tried in Oxfordshire, where there were problems with finding an appropriate jury, and noting that it was to come back to King’s Bench, and, so far, I have not found any sign of later episodes (though Thomas Wilcotes is involved in litigation with another Newers in 1462).

Even so, having this much is very interesting. Whether or not Wilcotes had given Newers any sort of licence or encouragement to become involved, it is notable that it seemed a plausible story that a kinsman might be brought in in this way, and might hold and pressurise his kinswoman to be obedient to her husband. This suggests an interesting collaboration between men in enforcing women’s obedience, and at the same time it is based on the idea that some husbands are not capable of keeping their wives appropriately subservient: so there is a rather equivocal message here about the situation of women (nothing new there then). There are also some good comparisons to be made between the information in the two different documents, Year Book and Plea Roll, and I hope to have time to include these in a paper I am writing for a fast-approaching conference in Swansea in June.

To go back to the story, I would really like to know why Thomas Wilcotes brought the case: was the story about planning and permission a lie – or did the plan just make an unhappy marriage even worse, leading him to lash out in frustration against his partner in the failed Operation Make My Wife Do What I Want?

GS 12th May, 2017