Tag Archives: medieval

Musing on mayhem

Unable to get settled into marking after the excitement of this morning’s ‘French trip’, I have spent an hour or two this afternoon doing a little bit of preliminary reading for next year’s project on mayhem. May have been slightly distracted by references to Norwegian black metal and a film about loss of inhibition, but the actual relevant legal material is also interesting – the changing nature of an offence which was never quite pinned down, and then faded into a strange twilight, overtaken by various statutory provisions, and civil actions of trespass. My initial interest in it came from the very gendered early statements about it, which came to be ignored, allowing women to proceed for mayhem, and with the relationship between ‘crime’ and ‘tort’ here. Today’s reading, though,  has also got me thinking a little bit about categories of offence, and the weight of labels. ‘Mayhem’ feels more condemnatory than ‘trespass’, or wounding, or ‘an offence against statute X’. There’s something about its venerability, something about its … I don’t know … presumption of discrete existence … which demands attention and care. I am sure that a better way of articulating that will emerge as I read on.

In the end, more tightly drawn offences and processes seem to have fitted the needs of the law and those turning to it rather better than mayhem. But was anything lost when the category was de-emphasised and allowed to dwindle? I wonder whether there were victims who would have wanted to see their assailant labelled a mayhem-er (is there even a labelling noun like that?). Questions, questions! But … marking …

GS

4/6/2021

(Later re-musing: the more I ponder, the more it seems as if this might end up as something like ‘Mayhem: the long decay of an always-ailing concept’ … with or without the sick body imagery).

Photo by Charl Folscher on Unsplash

Presenting (and Indicting): talk on medieval sexual offences

In between the marking and admin today I am getting ready for a talk tomorrow (online, of course – in this case, with academics from various European universities, and nominally ‘in’ Paris – may purchase a croissant and coffee to get in the mood, since it starts relatively early). The topic is sexual offences, and the overall topic of the project, historicising sexual harassment. It is a challenge, to present the oddities of medieval common law to a mostly non-common-lawyer audience, but it has also been interesting preparing this, with a slight external perspective, thinking about what will be unfamiliar, and where the audience will probably know rather more than me (e.g. presenting on law-French to a ‘room’ full of French scholars is a new one on me).

I am looking at ways of making this available beyond the seminar itself, though I am not sure I want to go on with my experiment in YouTubing. Sticking it up on Mediasite and sending links on request might be the answer, should anyone be interested.

GS

3/6/2021

Lechery, pressure and escape in medieval Lincolnshire?

The entry I am interested in today is from the Michaelmas 1371 King’s Bench plea roll,[i] arising as part of a series of indictments relating to an alleged ne’er-do-well of Lincolnshire, Robert Gascall of Wold Newton. A Lincolnshire jury had accused Robert of a series of offences, some of them dating back several years, to 1364, ranging from homicide, through theft, to general menacing behaviour. The one I am interested in is a little more unusual, however.

Robert was accused of what we might define as sexual harassment or using sexual harassment as pressure for financial gain. The story was that one Joan Fettys of Bondeby had come to Glanford Brigg, apparently having business with an ecclesiastical court, on 3rd October, 1368, and Robert somehow got her into his room (I am assuming bedroom). Joan was said not to have known anything to Robert’s discredit (though by this point, according to the list of allegations, he had committed a number of offences, including homicide). When Robert had her in his room, he said he should have her as his concubine, and she refused. That, though, was not an end to the matter. Robert would not allow her to leave until she paid him off. The deal involved three pounds of silver and a purse with a silver clasp, price 40d.

There was difficulty, or reluctance, about getting him to appear for trial, but eventually Robert did appear to face this and the other charges. He was (surprise!) acquitted. A royal pardon was involved in relation to the homicide,[ii] but for the offence relating to Joan, and the other offences, he was simply found not guilty.

 

So what?

This one is interesting to me, in relation to the general picture of the treatment of women in medieval common law, but also, in particular, in relation to a paper I am preparing on traces of ideas about sexual misconduct/harassment other than rape, in medieval common law records, for the AVISA project. Such traces are rather scarce, and this one has some interesting aspects and hints, which I am currently turning over in my mind.

What can I do with it? Well, obviously there’s no way of getting anywhere with the ‘truth question’.  I think, though, that I can at least say that the entry shows that people (men) thought:

  • that the law might, or should, act here;
  • that this was unacceptable treatment of Joan
  • that it was something which added to their other accusations of Robert, who was clearly seen as a trouble-maker.

(It also strikes me that there might be a worthwhile investigation of the ways in which such multi-part indictments were put together, and their overall narrative. One interesting little touch here is the description of the exchange between Robert and Joan, when he is suggesting that he should have her as his concubine: reference is made to God’s help, as being involved in her resistance to this proposition. This does seem both to raise sympathy for Joan, and also to condemn Robert further).

In terms of the project aim to try and elucidate a historical background to condemnation of sexual misconduct, it is one of the fragments of evidence which show that ‘popular’ understanding of the relationship between law and sexual misconduct was much more complex and interesting than we might imagine, from the grim procession of appeals and indictments of rape. I look forward to discussing this further.

 

GS

21/5/2021[iii]

 

(Featured image – somewhere in the general vicinity. Hard to know what sort of image to use with a story of sexual harassment/pressure, so geography seemed a half-decent option).

 

 

[i] KB 27/443 Rex m. 34 (IMG 0223).

[ii] I have not found this yet. The homicide charge is mentioned in CPR 1367-70 p. 262.

[iii] (You know you are a dyed-in-the-wool legal history obsessive when all that is keeping you going through a hugely tiring and stressful time with ‘it all kicking off’ in the day job is the thought of that interesting little case which is crying out for a quick think and write up … That has very much been me today: good to get to it at last!)

A ‘Petty Treason’ Oddity

This really is a snippet, but, I think, worth mentioning as a little footnote to various recent posts on wives being treated as ‘petty traitors’ for killing their husbands.

A gaol delivery entry for a session at Bedford on 30th July, 1439 (JUST 3/210 m. 31) noted that William atte Halle of Bromham in Bedfordshire, labourer, had been indicted for the felonious killing of his wife, Alice. On 7th May the same year, at Bromham, he had allegedly posioned her food with ‘some deadly poison called arsenic and resalgar’. She had died on the 18th May. William’s not guilty plea was unsuccessful. He was found guilty and was ordered to be drawn and hanged.

So what?

The marginal note here, ‘distr’ & sus’ is not the usual expression of punishment for an ‘ordinary’ felony – we would expect just the ‘sus’ – referring to the hanging. ‘Drawing and hanging’ is usually only seen in cases of ‘petty treason’ convictions of men (so, servant kills master cases and counterfeiting). A husband killing his wife was not petty treason, since this was a category which related to offences against hierarchy, so there was no conjugal symmetry here. So was this a mistake? Was this particular case seen as particularly heinous for some reason? Could it have been the poison? A mystery – perhaps somebody can enlighten me.

I am also interested in the ‘cause of death’ aspect. Those who have ever done me wrong will be pleased to know that I have no expertise in the art of arsenic poisoning, so I do not know whether a death 11 days after ingesting arsenic would be likely to have been caused by the arsenic. Either way, it is interesting that a medieval jury would think so, and it’s one for my ‘post attack lingering deaths’ spreadsheet.

GS

16/5/2021

(Photo by Raphiell Alfaridzy on Unsplash – OK it’s a bit random, but generally suggesting meal preparation …)

Conjugal juxtapositions: petty treason and prosecution strategy in medieval Leicestershire

After many years of comparative neglect, medieval married women (of a non-queenly, non-noble sort) have been considered with much greater care, in the historical studies of recent years.[i] It has, I think, become clear that not even classical legal historians – with their customary focus on doctrine and procedure, rather than people – ought to be muttering ‘coverture’, as if that magic word gave a straightforward answer to all possible questions relating to wives and common law, and then moving back to writs and institutions.

A glimpse of the complexity, and perhaps contradictions, involved in common law construction of the married woman can be seen in a remarkable pair of entries on a Leicester gaol delivery roll from the reign of Henry V.[ii] These entries, from a session in 1419, revolve around the death of a certain John Chaloner of Leicester, and those found to have been involved in that death. John’s wife, Margery, had brought an appeal (individual prosecution) against John Mathewe of Leicester, tailor, accusing him of killing her husband in his bed, on a Saturday night in November 1418, and accusing Richard Bargeyn as an accessory to this offence. These men were found guilty, and they were ordered to be hanged.

So far so not very surprising: bringing appeals for the deaths of husbands was an acceptable role for a wife. By this time, they no longer had to claim that they had held their dying husband in their arms, in order to justify their prosecution of his alleged killers: it was simply uncontroversial that a wife could bring such an appeal, despite the general restrictions on prosecutions by women. They had their uses.

Immediately after this un-astounding entry, there is, in fact, something of a surprise – at least to the reader. Margery, formerly appearing as the wronged and avenging widow, is cast in a different role entirely.  She herself was the subject of an appeal, by the self-declared brother and heir of John Chaloner, John Smyth of Moreton, and was accused of participation in the death of her husband. A jury found her guilty of this and she was ordered to be burned. Presumably rather desperate, Margery then asked for a respite of the execution, claiming to be pregnant. The usual procedure was performed, with the ‘jury of matrons’ assessing Margery’s body. They adjudged her not pregnant, however, so the burning was ordered to go ahead.

This second case would be grim, but not in any sense odd, were it not for the fact of its association with the first appeal, and the role-switching which all of this involved. A woman was seen as an adequate bringer of an appeal against others, despite herself being the subject of an appeal for the same offence. In some ways this looks a little like an analogue of the approver appeal, in which one member of a criminal gang turns on the others and accuses them. Unlike the successful (male) approver, however, Margery was not immune from the consequences of her alleged actions. The idea that a woman suspected to have participated in her husband’s killing, could bring an appeal against her fellow-felons is one which was put forward in a judicial aside by William Babington, one of the justices of gaol delivery in this session, just a couple of years later, in a case in the Exchequer Chamber. It seemed rather unlikely to me, until I saw this case (and I am afraid I said so, in my recent book).[iii] I still find it a bit odd, but, clearly, it happened. It shows the ‘double edged’ effect of marriage – it was her marriage which gave Margery standing to pursue her appeal, but it was also her marriage which laid her open to especially spectacular punishment, when she herself was  convicted.

I note that Margery had, as pledges for the prosecution, John Smyth and Robert Chaloner, and then John Smyth had Robert Chaloner and one other man as his pledges. This suggests that the double appeal strategy was no accident, and that there was a very strong idea that if there was a wife, she was the one who had to bring an appeal for her husband’s death.  There was, presumably a reason why John Smyth could not simply appeal against Margery, and then, once she had been burned, as heir, appeal against the other alleged perpetrators, if he so desired – I imagine that this was to do with principal/accessory issues (the entries are not very detailed on this). I am yet to work out why Margery might have been co-operating with the man who was about to prosecute her to her fiery destruction. Was force involved, or trickery, or did she think she might somehow escape conviction and execution? In any case, the moving force in the legal process seems to be John Smyth, the heir to John Chaloner, who comes out at the end of the grisly story rather better off and not under suspicion … officially.

[There is also the possibility that John Smyth was not real, but a device to bring an appeal when nobody else could/would. Was there any procedural advantage in using somebody from outside Leicestershire (I believe Moreton is in Warks)? And I wish I knew who Robert Chaloner was – I am sure he would be able to tell us! Needs more thought …._Hope I come up with an answer before giving a paper revolving around it in the summer!]

GS

10/5/2021.

(Image: Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash. It’s not actually John Smyth watching, obviously).

[i] See references in GS, Women in the Medieval Common Law, c. 2. Anyone new to the area would be well advised to start with Married Women and the Law: Coverture in England and the Common Law World  ed. by Tim Stretton and Krista Kesselring (Montreal, McGill-Queen’s UP, 2013) and Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe. edited by
Cordelia Beattie and Matthew Frank Stevens (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2013).

[ii] JUST 3/195 m. 72d. They are mentioned in Edward Powell, ‘Jury Trial at Gaol Delivery in the Late Middle Ages: The Midland Circuit, 1400-1429’ in Twelve Good Men and True: The Criminal Trial Jury in England, 1200-1800, edited by J. S. Cockburn and Thomas A. Green, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 78-116 at 106.

[iii] GS, Women in the Medieval Common Law, 99.

Passion, poison, pardons … and pins: law and death in medieval London

When looking through medieval records, it is especially interesting to see the many occupations by which people (mostly men) were identified. Noting a man’s trade or position becomes essential in the fifteenth century, but is normal before that, and so we learn of various agricultural and industrial specialisms – some which seem very ‘niche’ to the modern reader. Such a specialised trade is that of ‘pinner’. The pin-making industry (pindustry?) is not something to which I have ever given much thought, though I have been doing some quick research on it today, in connection with an interesting case from the reign of Richard II, about a London pinner and his household.

This case can be seen in entries on a King’s Bench plea roll for Michaelmas term 1386, telling of an inquiry which the London civic authorities were ordered to carry out, by a writ dated 20th August 1386, and which took place in the Guildhall on 27th September 1386.

From this material, we find that our pinner, Hugh Bromhill, was married to a woman called Margery, and was employer to the other main character in the story, John de Shrewsbury. Hugh, perhaps, seemed to outsiders to be well-placed both in his trade and his domestic life. That, though, was not the truth of things, at least not according to a jury of London men. Yes, it was an inquest jury. Yes, he ended up dead. And yes, those of a suspicious nature, given to salacious speculation, there was allegedly something going on between Margery and John.

The story, as told by the London jurors, went like this. The pair had killed Hugh in the parish of St Martin Pomary in Ironmonger Lane in the ward of Cheap. Why? Well – John, at that time Hugh’s employee, a cardmaker (there’s another niche trade for us)  and Margery had been involved in an illicit relationship. They had slept together often, both at Hugh and Margery’s house and also in other secret locations. Not secret enough, however: Hugh learned what was going on, and threw John out.

We do not know why, but Hugh took John on once more. This makes me warm to him rather – but it was a mistake. John and Margery now, according to the jurors,  plotted Hugh’s death. On Thursday 1st September 1384. They put arsenic powder and realgar (arsenic sulphide, according to the internet – well actually it said ‘arsenic sulfide’, but I just can’t …cool alternative name – ‘ruby of arsenic’) in Hugh’s food and drink. The unsuspecting Hugh ingested it and fell ill, declining over a period of days, and dying early in the morning of 3rd September, in his house.

John and Margery then ran off, and were received by William Coventry, pinner, in the parish of St Mary le Bow, Ward of Cheap, Robert Byssheye in the parish of St Michael Bassishaw,  Nicholas Luffenham, wiredrawer, in the parish of St Benet Fink in the ward of Broad Street. These receivers were said to have known just what Margery and John had done. An innkeeper John de Harwell had also accommodated John de Shrewsbury, at his inn in the parish of All Hallows, Bread Street ward, but the jurors were careful to say that he did not know about the felony his guest had committed.

This all looked as if it might be heading for a burning for Margery, and a drawing and hanging for John de Shrewsbury, as the wife and servant of Hugh respectively, and so petty traitors both. But no.

Margery came to court in January 1389, and produced a pardon for offences between 1st Oct 1382 and 31st May 1388. This is CPR 1385-9, 519. (We have to wonder what else she had been up to! One suggestion is that is was really concerned with the Brembre/Northampton kerfuffle. Could it be that Margery was ‘repurposing’ a pardon to cover things it was never intended to cover?). She was also waving another letter, dated 2nd December 1388, telling the justices not to molest her, which I have not yet managed to track down. This all worked to ward off the possibility of conviction and punishment. She used her status as a citizen of London to get out of jail. John was, apparently dead by the time proceedings came to an end, and the people who had received the pair walked free.

All a bit anticlimactic perhaps, but still, some things to think about.

 

Points (!) of interest

  1. Margery

I think we have to conclude that Margery was somebody with a bit of clout in the pinning/wiredrawing community, since she got the support of a number of people, who sheltered her and John S, and helped out as sureties during the court cases. (Either that or all of the pinners just hated poor Hugh). Amongst a slightly less pin-focused group of Londoners, the evidence about Margery is equivocal. The inquest jurors were not backward in pinning (!) the blame on Margery and John S, leaving them open to the death penalty, with the extra relish of punishment for ‘petty treason’. On the other hand, however, Margery was acknowledged to be a citizen of London. If this  was a case in which she took over the status of citizen following the death of her husband, then it does seem interesting that a suspected husband-killer would not have been blocked from this, in some way.  In any case, she had enough money or (p)influence to obtain a pardon, during a period when the killing of husbands does seem to have been a particular concern to ‘the authorities’, which seems noteworthy. There is some easily-found evidence about the property interests of Hugh and Margery. Hugh had an interest in, and perhaps lived in, a tenement and shop in the parish of St Martin Pomary. Margery was his executor (which does suggest that he trusted her). I wonder if there is any more information on her, lurking about anywhere.

  1. Relationship drama

A woman committing adultery with her husband’s servant was fairly transgressive. The entry shows some interesting hints of the thinking of medieval (male) jurors about gender and hierarchy. It is one of those situations in which two different hierarchies collide – John S is the man but he is also the employee, so on the one hand he was the superior, on the other hand, the inferior, of Margery. How was the jury to understand the couple’s interactions in that case? Well, they seem to have gone with an unusually equal portrayal. As far as the sex was concerned, the pair ‘slept together’ and Margery is given some of the initiative at least. As far as the killing went, rather than the more usual story which is given in such situations, of the male doing the killing while the female procures or encourages, this was very much a joint venture. They acted with ‘unanimous assent’, and the poisoning activity is described in the third person plural.

  1. Cause of death

Poisonings – or alleged poisonings – are always interesting. The type of toxin used is not unusual really, but perhaps the separation of arsenic and realgar says something about popular understanding of poison, and we do have a few more details than usual on how it was administered, and the length of time it took to act and to prove fatal. Another one for my ‘lingering death’ spreadsheet and considerations of causation.

  1. Petty treason

How does this affect the picture of attitudes towards petty treason which I have been building up? It does trouble things a little, doesn’t it? Although wives killing husbands certainly had to be scared of being consigned to the flames, and the troubled state of England in the later fourteenth century did push authorities at various levels towards exemplary burnings of husband-slayers, not even this was immune from the prerogative of mercy. Thus Margery was left to enjoy her pins and presumed relative prosperity after the demise of her apparently unlamented spouse.

GS

7th May, 2021.  

(Image, Photo by Lisa Woakes on Unsplash – and yes, I know they aren’t medieval – just going for a general essence of pin).

Medieval monastic mental disorder: an ‘insanity plea’ from Tavistock Abbey

A few more ‘insane felony’ cases have come up in recent trawls of gaol delivery rolls, in the last part of the fourteenth century, bringing with them some variations on vocabulary, procedure or facts, which seemed worth noting.[i] At some point, I will get around to pulling all of this together, but, until then, these occasional posts will at least put them ‘out there’ for anyone with an interest.

Today’s intriguing entry is in a gaol delivery roll for a session in February 1369. It involves the tale of a monk, said to have killed a cook. Walter Thynnewode, a monk of Tavistock Abbey, had been arrested for the killing of Stephen Lyoun, a cook from the abbey kitchen. The killing was reported to have occurred in Tavistock on Sunday 5th February 1368, and Walter had been indicted before a coroner for the deed. Walter pleaded not guilty and put himself upon a jury. The jury said that, on the relevant day, Walter had been a lunaticus and insane memorie. He had left the Abbey at night (the implication is, I think, that he wanted to depart on a more than temporary basis). He encountered Stephen, who tried to bring him back to the abbey. Walter, being, at that time, non compos mentis, stabbed Stephen in the abdomen with a knife, and Stephen died. Walter was to be sent back to prison ‘until the next &c’.[ii]

 

So what?

Well, it’s the first time I have seen a monk in this context, so that is a little bit interesting. On the whole, the legal stuff is nothing particularly new: we know that insanity of particular kinds worked to avoid the consequences of actions usually deemed felonious. We might wonder, though, at the willingness of the jury to overlook the fact that Walter does seem to have been able to form an intention to leave the abbey, though they decided his mental disorder explained the killing of poor Stephen the cook. It is noteworthy that it is assumed that Walter had, by the time of the case, made a  recovery from his serious mental disorder: he is now pleading competently, for himself, and care is taken to restrict the ‘madness words’ to his past self. Another piece of evidence suggests that he was re-integrated into the community at Tavistock Abbey quite quickly, and not held in any sort of confinement there, since (unless there were two men with the same name) he was accused of illicit hunting on Dartmoor, in the company of his abbot, two other monks and various other local men, in 1371.[iii] Of the cook, Stephen, whose apparent attempt to enforce monastic discipline on the erring Walter (or, perhaps, to restrain him in his disordered state), no further trace appears to remain.

 

GS

18/4/2021

 

 

[i] For previous posts on this topic, see: Mental incapacity | Bracton’s Sister (bristol.ac.uk)

[ii] AALT Page (uh.edu) JUST 3/156 m. 36 (AALT IMG 83).

[iii] See G.H. Radford, ‘Tavistock Abbey’, Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association 46 (1914) 119-45, 128; CPR 1370-4, p. 172.

Extra memoriam existens: investigating the mental state of a medieval Gloucestershire killer

Today’s find is another for my growing collection of posts on medieval common law, felony and mental disorders.[i]  This time, we are in Gloucestershire, looking at a case in the King’s Bench plea roll for Michaelmas term, 1378,[ii] and the accused is a certain John le Botyler.

John was indicted as having committed two recent, violent and disturbing homicides. On the same day in 1378, he was said to have killed Elianor, daughter of Agnes Sheppester of Gloucester, at Hardwicke,[iii]  and Nicholas Roger at Haresfield. The story was that both killings had been carried out using the same sword. He had hit Elianor in the back of the head with the sword, and, when she fell down under this blow, had stabbed her in the back. In the case of Nicholas, it had apparently been a face-to-face attack, as John stabbed Nicholas in the right hand part of his abdomen. It was noted, however, that John had done all of this whilst out of his right mind (extra memoriam existens).

Before the royal justices, John was asked how he pleaded, but he did not respond. The record noted that he appeared to be insane (tanquam furiosus & omnino extra memoriam apparet). An inquiry was ordered to be made into the matter of his mental state, using a jury made up both of those in Gloucester castle who had had charge of John following his arrest, and also of those from the locations of the two homicides. These jurors said that John was furiosus and extra memoriam. He was sent back to prison, in Gloucester castle, and the sheriff was responsible for his safe-keeping.

In the next Hilary term, the court was informed that John had become sane – devenit sane memorie – so the sheriff was ordered to bring him to court to answer the charges. After various delays, he came and seemed sane (apparet sane memorie). He pleaded not guilty and accepted jury trial. He was bailed to appear for the trial, with four men, including a ‘knight’ acting as security for his reappearance and good behaviour in the interim (on pain of losing £10). Eventually, there was a jury trial before assize justices, and the jury said he was not guilty of the felonies charged, so he was acquitted.

So what?

It’s hardly news that somebody rated mentally incapable would not suffer the punishment of a felon, nor, that, by this point, mercy would be delivered via a ‘not guilty’ verdict rather than going through the process of waiting for a pardon, as would have been the case in previous generations. Still, though, there are a couple of points of interest here.

As ever, we have the puzzle of just how disturbed a person would have to be before he would not be held liable for his crimes. In this case, the language is almost all about ‘memory’, and not being of sane/healthy ‘memory’. There is a bit of ‘fury’ talk as well, but the main impression relates to being in or out of ‘sane memory’. Retrospective diagnosis is both pointless and beyond me, but I do note this variation in the language used in these cases, the fact that there does seem to have been some ability to form a plan – in the first case, he did not just lash out wildly once, but hit the girl or woman when she was down from his first blow – and the interesting idea of his restoration to full ‘memory’ at some point after his killing spree and imprisonment. There is no suggestion that somebody is appointed to keep him under surveillance, or under lock and key, afterwards – he is simply free to go, assumed to be able to be reintegrated into Gloucestershire life. One wonders what would have been the view on this of the victims’ families.

I am also interested in the process of using John’s gaolers as well as other local men, as a sort of special jury, to give a view on his mental state. This process is reminiscent of both the ‘jury of matrons’ in claims of pregnancy, and also that used for people who stood mute when charged with a crime, to say whether they were unable to speak, or were ‘mute of malice’. It is an interesting hybrid of – in modern terms – witnesses and neighbours. It is probably not a surprise that there is no trace of an ‘expert’ assessment of John’s condition – this case is a good reminder that varied mental states were something assumed to be understood by, and clear to, ordinary men.  For all that is difficult and disturbing about the treatment of those with mental disorders in the past, that idea that such problems were seen as an expected part of everyday experiences is a stimulating point of contact between people of the deep past and the present world in which we are (gradually) becoming a little more open to the idea of the normality of mental difference.

GS

7/4/2021

 

 

 

(image courtesy of Gloucester castle and gaol © Pauline E :: Geograph Britain and Ireland )

[i] (see also:  Plague, fire and ‘lunacy’: arson and acquittal in medieval Yorkshire | Bracton’s Sister (bristol.ac.uk)

Categories of incapacity in medieval common law: the ‘fatuous’ Warwickshire killer | Bracton’s Sister (bristol.ac.uk)

‘Lunacy’ and legal records | Bracton’s Sister (bristol.ac.uk)

‘Lunacy’ in a Legal Record | Bracton’s Sister (bristol.ac.uk)

Medieval mental health: describing, explaining and excusing a ‘furiosus’ | Bracton’s Sister (bristol.ac.uk) )

[ii] KB 27/471 m. 13 d (AALT IMG 362).

[iii] ‘the Hollywood of Gloucester’, so Wikipedia says – will have to visit once we are free again and I can cadge a lift.

Prophecy, ‘pagan’ magic and promises of wealth in medieval Devon

Here’s a colourful tale from fourteenth century Devon, showing an apparent scheme to fleece the locals using exotic claims to magic power, and playing on their greed.

The story comes out in the King’s Bench plea roll of Michaelmas term 1374, though it refers to events of quite some years earlier – in 1345, and a presentment before justices in Devon in 1354.[i] The tale was that  Gervase Worthy, Geoffrey Ipswich and William Kele had come to the home of Rouland Smallcumbe at Barnstaple, and had spun a yarn to his wife. Their patter was that they were rather more exotic than the sort of people she was likely to have met, being converted pagans (pagani – I’ll have to look into just what that word signifies at this period, but it’s clearly some sort of ‘non-Christians’). Presumably as a result of their claimed questionable past religious status, they were believed when they claimed special powers: they could tell fortunes, including how long a person would live. They also said that they had other gifts, and worked on Rouland’s wife in such a way as to get her to believe that they could make precious items reproduce themselves. They got her to give them all her gold, silver and jewels, and other valuables. When she handed them over, Gervase convinced the gullible woman that he had put these in a chest, but in fact, it would seem using some sleight of hand and misdirection,  he had made off with them. Getting her ‘invested’ in the magical process in a way modern magicians (or fraudsters) would appreciate,  Gervase locked the chest, and took away the key, instructing Rouland’s wife that every day for nine days she should go to the church for three masses, and that she should not open the chest, When he returned, as he promised to do after that, with the key, her jewels, in the box, would have doubled! The rogues did not come back though, and the desperate woman broke open the chest. Sadly, she did not find the promised increased hoard, but a piece of cloth full of lead and  (non-precious) stones. The presentment did not stop with this, however, but ascribed to the gang’s fraud another serious outcome: as a result of this deception, the woman became ill and soon died.  It was also noted that the gang had made 200 marks across Devon by similar ruses. There does not seem to have been a conviction, however, and who knows whether there was any truth in any of this, but there is always something to take away from these unusual entries.

The elaborate ruse, with the idea that people (women in particular?) might be bamboozled by tales of exotic magic,  says a lot about popular ideas of the existence of magic, but also its association with trickery. The combination of ‘pagan’ magic with Christian practices (note the masses), and the fact that the rogues claimed only to be former pagans – they were now safely Christian, so had the powers of the exotic pagan, but not the untrustworthiness – gives clues about ideas on non-Christians, and also their limitations. The idea of precious things breeding more precious things puts me in mind of usury (money breeding money – which was bad). And finally the idea that the poor woman’s death was thrown in as a bit of an afterthought – caused by the fraud in a sense, but not the main complaint – and the deceased never is named beyond the labelling as some absent man’s wife –  is something of a comment on the place of women in the medieval common law, isn’t it? If only somebody would write a book about that …

GS

4/4/2021

[i] KB 27/455 Rex m.29 (AALT IMG 340). The earlier presentment is at JUST 1/198 m. 8 (IMG 3622).

 

 

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Less of a ‘honey trap’, more of a cake trap? Bakes and fakes in fourteenth century Essex

Possibly due to the presence of all sorts of lovely baked goods and confectionery in the post-term exhaustion/lead up to Easter, this intriguing little allegation jumped out at me today – from the Rex section of the King’s Bench Michaelmas 1367 Plea Roll. For once, it’s not some piece of egregious and grievous violence – violence there is, but that’s not the main thing to think about: this is one to direct the mind towards far more interesting things –  love and relationships, vocabulary …  and cake.

The allegation in question was one amongst several indictments against a certain Robert Sterlyng or Starlyng of Essex,[i] also, in this case, involving the participation of his wife, Margery.

According to the indictment, back in 1362, Robert had had his  wife secretly get Roger, rector of the church of Little Birch, to come to Robert’s house, also in Little Birch, to eat a turtellum or cake [there are different wordings in different versions of the charge] pro amore. There was not much amor for the foolish Roger, however. He came as he was bidden, and once he was in the house, in the company of Margery, Robert popped up, waving a sword, and beat Roger. He also menaced Roger into cancelling a debt which Robert owed him, and handing over to Robert and his wife the 40d which Roger had on him. It was also alleged that Margery, on Robert’s order, asked Roger to come to a secret place called ‘Everardesdossous’ [one to think about – tempting to think ‘doss house’, but surely that’s far too late]  in the vill of Copford, that Roger came along and surprise, there was Robert! The latter drew his sword and attacked Roger. Roger, fearful of death, agreed to pay Robert 40s. [There were also other, unconnected allegations against Roger, of a more normal beating and robbing type.]

It is all fairly low-level, small town bullying by the sound of it, but there are a couple of interesting points. First, there is this business with cake, tarts and love. Was it just an offer of free cake (tempting enough, obviously)? Was the suggestion that Roger was being invited for some sort of sealing or mending of friendship ceremony, with Robert (in the manner of a ‘love-day’ – but with cake)? Was there a particular tradition of cake-sharing at the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, which was the nearest big holiday to the first alleged incident, or is the ‘pro amore’ thing about something a bit steamier (yes my mind did just go to steamed puddings) between Margery and Roger? Obviously, it would also be good to know what sort of baked item it was supposed to be, and what difference there might be between a ‘cake’ and a ‘turtellum’ (tart? tartlet?). The other thing which interests me is the role of Margery. We may note that the indictment is brought against Robert alone, despite the fact that Margery seems to have taken a quite active role, at times including taking action when Robert was not present. This choice, bringing the indictment against Robert alone, is a tiny piece in the puzzle of the development of the ‘doctrine of marital coercion’, something I dealt with to some extent in Women in the Medieval Common Law, and which was still very much under construction (or being baked?) in the fourteenth century. On that front, this is a good example of the husband’s orders (as opposed to his immediate presence and active pressure) apparently sufficing to shield the wife from joint responsibility, as far as those drawing up indictments were concerned. There is definitely room for further work on this issue. (My working theory is that there were rather different ideas in different sorts of offence, rather than one general doctrine, at this point in time).

We should return to the adventures of Robert Starlyng. Eventually, the Plea Roll entry tells us, Robert was acquitted on all charges, via a combination of jury verdicts and technical failings in the indictments. So, I can’t help but wonder, did Robert and Margery get away with extortion (have their cake and eat it?) or were the accusations a lot of ‘half-baked’ nonsense?

GS

27/3/2021

[i] KB 27/428 m17, AALT image 249.

Image: Reconstruction – a cakey/tartletty thing with raspberries. No idea what sort of tempting foodstuff I should have in my mental picture of this case, but this one looked rather desirable. Photo by Alexandra Kusper on Unsplash