A note on conventions: 1./l.t = livre/livre tournois; s./s.t. = sou/sou tournois; d. = denier. This system had the denier as its base. Twelve deniers were equivalent to one sou and twenty sous to one (livre. It was a so-called ‘money of account’: a measure of value – often linked to an actual system of coinage – used for accounting purposes. Such a system was necessary in situations where a wide variety of coins were in circulation. Accounts would be kept in the money of account while actual transactions would be made in coin, such as the franc d'or). This had a value of 20 sous lournois (see Spufford, P., ‘Coinage and currency’, in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1965), 593–5Google Scholar, and Vale, M. G. A., Charles VII (London, 1974), 241f.).Google Scholar

1 Dupont, M. G. ed., Registre de l'officialité de Cerisy, 1314–1457, Mémoires de Ia Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, 3^e ser., 10 (Caen, 1880)Google ScholarLe Cacheux, P. ed., ‘Unfragment de Registre de l'Officialité de Cerisy (1474–1486)’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 43 (1935), 291–315.Google Scholar Reference is made to two manuscripts dating from the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Le Cacheux's edition. No printed editions appear to exist and it must be assumed that they were lost in 1944 when the St.-Lô archive was destroyed. I should like to thank M. Y. Nedelec, Directeur des Services d'archives de la Manche, for answering my queries on this matter.

2 For a fuller discussion of the method and sources used in arriving at this figure see Finch, A. J., ‘Crime and marriage in three late medieval ecclesiastical jurisdictions: Cerisy, Rochester and Hereford’ (unpublished D. Phil thesis, University of York, 1988), 3–5.Google Scholar

3 Dupont, Registre, 259a and b, 357e. (References to the Registre are to paragraph numbers rather than pages.)

4 Ibid., 298, 316, 376s. See also 261, 375c and d.

5 Ibid., 55, lO9a, 162, 309c.

6 One, involving the return of a cattle thief, has been noted. In the second the bishop's court heard an appeal from the Cerisy court in a marriage suit (Dupont, Registre, 175).

7 Dupont,Registre, 1a, 207b, 218, 230, 383a, 384a Le Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 300, 313f. On one occasion the individuals cited were in fact subject to the bishop's jurisdiction (Dupont, Registre, 383r).

8 The accounts of the bishop of Rouen show that 1,642 tonsures were performed between December 1390 and June 1392, and in Normandy from 1409 to 1413, 14,484 men acquired clerical status. At Montivilliers in the Caux region, 42 clerks received the tonsure in 1386 and the late-fifteenth-century fragment of the register records the tonsuring of 36 clerks by the abbot of Cerisy on Easter Saturday, 1476 (Geremek, B., The margins of society in late medieval Paris, trans. Birrell, J. (Cambridge, 1987), 137, n. 8Google ScholarDelsalle, L. R., ‘La fin du moyen-âge’, in Chaline, N. J. ed., Diocèse de Rouen – Le Havre (Histoire des diocèses de France, Vol. V, Paris, 1976), 56Google ScholarDufresne, J-L., ‘La délinquance dans une région en guerre: Harfieur-Montivilliers dans la première moitié du xv^e siécle’, Actes du 105^e congrès national des sociéiés savantes (Caen 1980). Vol. IIGoogle ScholarQuestions d'histoire et de dialectologie Normande (Paris, 1984), 182 n. 14Google Scholar Le Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 3 14f.).

9 Neveux, F., ‘Les marginaux et le clergé dans la ville et le diocèse de Bayeux au xiv^e et xv^e siécles’ in Marginalité, déviànce, pauvrété en France XIV^e–XIX^e siécles (Caen, 1981), 23.Google Scholar For a similar connexion between clerks and crime in late-medieval Paris see Geremek, , Margins of society, 120 and 136–43Google ScholarPommeray, L.. L'officialité archidiaconale de Paris aux XVe–XVIe siècles: sa composition et sa compétence criminelle (Paris, 1933), 223–5.Google Scholar

10 A random selection of five examples is reproduced here to demonstrate both the nature of the recorded detail and how it tends to vary through the register: (1321) ‘Johannes Rogeri confessus fuit manus injecisse in Reginaldum de Heris: dicit tamen quod defendendo; quod negavimus. Dies jovis post festum sancti Egidii ad probandum primo. Dies lune ante nativitatem beate Marie ad probandum secundo. Solvit emendam et absolutus est’; (1371) ‘…Guillermus de Beinnes, clericus, presens in judicio coram nobis gagiavit nobis emendam eo quod verberavit Thomam le Tort eum turpitur vulnerando multis plagis, ita quod dubitatum fuit de vita ejus; tamen savatus fuit; quam emendam taxavimus ad quadraginta solidos sub moderatione domini abbatis’; (1411) ‘Jouetus le Touze, clericus, nobis gagiavit emendam eo quod animo malivolo dedit unam alapam Hugoni Sauvegrain, taliter quod de naso exivit sanguis, propter hoc quod dictus Sauvegrain sibi dicerat quod de aliquibus menciebatur; quam emendam taxavimus ad X solidos. Et injunctum fuit dicto Joueto quod faceret se absolvi’; (1456) ‘Johannes Hennault gagiavit emendam in manibus domini officialis ex eo quod manus injecerat in personam Colini le Blont, dando sibi unum ictum pugni supra caput. Interrogatus an dictus le Blont sit clericus vel non, dicit quod nescit’; (1480) ‘Johannes le Feyvre de Ceraseio gagiavit emendam ex eo quod animo malivolo manum apposuit in personam Yvonis de Tournieres dando sibi unam alapam sic quod aparuit liquor sanguinis per os dicti de Tournieres, et fuit declaratus excommunicatus, audita dicti Le Feyvre confessione, sententiam excommunicationis incurisse et prolem, salvis promotoris ex expensis [sic]et dicti de Tournieres’(Dupont, Regisire, 87b, 262a, 3921, 411e Le, Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, p. 304f.).Google Scholar

11 Given, J. B., Society and homicide in thirteenth-century England (Stanford, 1977)Google ScholarHanawalt, B. A., Crime and conflict in English Communities 1300–1348 (Harvard, 1979)Google ScholarHammer, C. I., ‘Patterns of homicide in a medieval university town: fourteenth century Oxford’, Past and Present 78 (1978), 3–23CrossRefGoogle ScholarSharpe, J. A., ‘Domestic homicide in early modem England’, Historical Journal 24 (1981), 29–48CrossRefGoogle ScholarCrime in seventeenth century England: a county study (Cambridge, 1983), 127f. Stone, L., ‘Interpersonal violence in English society 1300–1980’, Past and Present 101 (1983), 22–33CrossRefGoogle ScholarWiener, C. S., ‘Sex roles and crime in late Elizabethan Hertfordshire’, Journal of Social History 8 (1974–1975), 38–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Britton, E., Community of the vill (Toronto, 1977)Google ScholarDewindt, E. B., Land and people in Holywell-cum-Needingworth (Toronto, 1972)Google ScholarDufresne, , ‘La délinquance’, 179–214Google ScholarHogan, M. P., ‘Medieval villainy. A study in the meaning and control of crime in an English village’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, n.s. 2(1979), 121–215Google ScholarLanhers, Y., ‘Crimes et criminels au xiv³ siècle’, Revue historique 240 (1968), 325–38Google Scholar Neveux, ‘Les marginaux’ Raftis, J. A., Warboys: two hundred years in the hfe of an English mediaeval village (Toronto, 1974) ‘Changes in an English village after the Black Death’, Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967), 158–77.Google Scholar

13 One man had his arm broken or severed by a swordstroke (‘cum ense brachium scidit’). In another case a man's arm was so badly injured in an attack that the forearm had to be amputated following the advice of medici. The victim's erstwhile assailant obligingly carried out this task, using his sword. The victim placed the bones in a bag and took them to show to the official. The case was prorogued by the abbot and its outcome is not known (Dupont, Registre, 87a, 306).

14 These were variously in someone's house or a tavem (Dupont, Registre, 319, 384r, 389a, 390m) a public place (ibid., 3, 18b, 140b, 158, 164a, 188a, 212a, 221, 232, 234, 270, 346, 363b and q, 365i and k, 366f, 385b, 392h and m), or in a field, in a wood or on the open road (ibid., 81a, 340, 347, 353a, 363d, 365c, 366c, 390f, 392a, g and k.) Four other victims were attacked while on horseback (ibid., 367f, 389d, 392g and i).

15 For the financial implications of such fines see below n. 60. The gradation of fines closely mirrors those found in the secular Vieux coutumier Normand (Dufresne, ‘La délinquance’, 183 n. 21).Google Scholar

16 Registre, 397e.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 375f, 387k and 1, 390h.

18 Hanawalt, , Crime and conflict, 123–5, 152–4.Google Scholar

19 Hammer, , ‘Pattems of violence’, 13f.Google ScholarSee also Hair, P. E. H., ‘Deaths from violence in Britain: a tentative secular survey’, Population Studies 25 (1971), 18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Hoskins, W. G., ‘Murder and sudden death in medieval Wigston’, Transactions of the Leicesrershire Archaeological Society 21 (1940–1941), 176, 178Google ScholarRuggiero, G., Violence in early Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, 1980), 171–80.Google Scholar Masculine violence appears as a commonplace in studies of crime in both the medieval and early modern periods: see Given, Society and homicide, 194 Hanawalt, , Crime and conflict, 158, 171f, 182Google Scholar; Sharpe, , ‘Domestic homicide’, 34Google ScholarStone, , ‘Interpersonal violence’, 25Google Scholar; Wiener, , ‘Sex roles and crime’, 44–7.Google Scholar

20 Britton, , Community of the vill, 51fGoogle Scholar; Hanawalt, , Crime and conflict, 123.Google Scholar

21 Dufresne, , ‘La délinquance’, 188.Google Scholar See also Lorcin, M. T., ‘Les paysans et la justice dans la région Lyonnaise aux xiv^e et XV^e siècles’, Le Moyen Age 74 (1968), 284Google ScholarNeveux, , ‘Marginaux et clergé’, 28.Google Scholar

22 Hogan, , ‘Medieval villainy’, 138–40, 142f.Google Scholar In pre-plague Halesowen, women formed 15 per cent of assailants between 1272 and 1322. The majority of their victims appear to have been women rather than men (Hilton, R. H., ‘Small town society in England before the Black Death’, Past and Present 105 (1984), 71).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 See Hanawalt, , Crime and conflict, 115–25.Google Scholar

24 Dupont, , Registre, 359b.Google Scholar

25 Hanawalt, , Crime and conflict, 117Google Scholar; Hanawalt, B. A., ‘The female felon in fourteenth-century England’, Viator 5 (1974), 256.Google Scholar

26 Dupont, , Registre, 114aGoogle Scholar; Le, Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 299.Google Scholar

27 Dupont, , Registre, 114a, 348, 366d, 384f (with husband)Google Scholaribid., 216 (with husband and daughter) Le, Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 299 (with an in-law).Google Scholar

28 See Hanawalt, , Crime and conflict, 125Google ScholarRuggiero, , Violence in Venice, 174f.Google Scholar

29 These women may have been; the wife of Adam de Tallence – an Adam de Tallence appears as an assailant in 1407 and was involved in a fight in 1412 (Dupont, , Registre, 387k, 393s)Google Scholar Petronilla, wife of Cohn Guiart – a Cohn Guiart was involved in assaults in 1391 and 1406 and in a fight(?) during 1406–(ibid., 363h, 384m and n, 387m) Philipott, wife of William Agolant – a William Agolant appears twice in 1406 (ibid., 384i) Johanna, wife of Reginald Morice – several other men named Morice were involved in violent behaviour (ibid., 280a, 323a, 393h and 1, 393m, 394p) the wife of Gaufrid Grandin – a Robert le Grandin appears in 1374 (ibid., 302c).The daughter of Peter Ediene also assaulted a man – Peter Edience was involved in a rape and also appears as the victim of an assault (ibid., 235b and d, 346, 39Op).

30 Bennett, J. M. found that women formed distinctive networks in their dealings with the manor court of Brigstock. These were characterised by a heavy reliance on assistance from male kinGoogle Scholar(‘The tie that binds: peasant marriages and families in late medieval England’), Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15 (1984), 122f,Google ScholarWiener, , ‘Sex roles and crime’, 47.Google Scholar At Cerisy the wife of W. le Parfit and possibly also the wife of W. Bartot were drawn into such conflicts (Dupont, , Registre, 384f, 393b).Google Scholar

31 Sharpe, J. A., ‘Plebian marriage in Stuart England: some evidence from popular literature’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, xxxvi (1986), 80f.Google Scholar

32 The armed assault by the widow Quenet has already been noted. The other weapons used were a jar (olla), a pot (cisum), a candlestick and a pot of mead (Dupont, , Registre, 375d, 383b, 389d, 390p).Google Scholar

33 Ibid., 86a (brother-in-law)323 (father-in-law); 379 (husband and brothers).

34 Ibid., 17a, 217.

35 For some secular evidence see Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Monaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French village, 1294–1324, trans. Bray, B. (London, 1978), 192–4Google ScholarDay, J., ‘On the status of women in medieval Sardinia’, in Kirshner, J. and Wemple, S. F. eds., Women of the medieval world: essays in honour of John H. Mundy (Oxford, 1985), 310Google Scholar; Given, Society and homicide, 60f., 195Google Scholar; Sharpe, , ‘Domestic homicide’, 32f.Google ScholarLorcin, , ‘Les paysans et la justice’, 284.Google Scholar For material from ecclesiastical jurisdictions see Aston, M., Thomas Arundel, a study of church life in the reign of Richard II (Oxford, 1967), 41Google ScholarDolesalek, G., Das Imbreviarturbuch des erzbischöflichen Gerichtsnotars Hubaldus aus Pisa, Mai bis August 1230 (Cologne, 1969), 96f.Google ScholarGottlieb, B., ‘The meaning of clandestine marriage’, in Wheaton, R. and Harevan, T. K. eds., Family and sexuality in French history (Philadelphia, 1980), 63Google ScholarHelmholz, R. H., Marriage litigation in medieval England (Cambridge, 1974), 101–3, 105f.Google ScholarLevy, J.-P., ‘L'officialité de Paris et les questions familiales à la fin du xiv^e siècle’, Études d'histoire du droit canonique dediées à Gabriel le Bras (2 vols., Paris, 1965), Vol. 2. 1278, 1281 n. 113Google ScholarLaribiere, G., ‘Le manage à Toulouse aux XIV^e–XV^e siècles’, Annales du Midi 79 (1967), 351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Brothers: 5s. (Dupont, , Registre, 383s, 392k)Google Scholar 15s. (ibid., 373k) 20s. (ibid., 373k). Nephews: 7s. 6d. (ibid., 387m) 10s. (ibid., 375a, 397m). In one case in which a 10s. fine was levied, the assailant was a woman. A man who assaulted compatri sui was fined 40s. It is assumed that in this context compatri refers to a godfather rather than the less common meaning of a friend (ibid., 392g).

37 Thomas of Chobham, writing in the context of the private forum of the confessional in the early thirteenth century, considered that uxoricides deserved heavier penances than parricides, not because parricide was less heinous, but because men were more likely to kill their wives (Thomas of Chobham,Summa Confessorum, ed. Broomfield, F., Analecta medievalia Namurcensia, 25 (Louvain, 1968), 458f.).Google Scholar

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42 An example from medieval Cumberland is a case in point. William, son of Patrick was killed after he was mistaken for a rapist, William had been coming from Penrith to Lazonby in a drunken state. His attacker had heard a woman cry out and, rushing to her aid, had dealt William a mortal blow with a shovel (Summerson, H., ‘Crime and society in medieval Cumberland’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, n.s. 82 (1982), 119).Google Scholar A case is recorded in the late-fifteenth-century sections of the Act book of the Archdeaconry of Buckinghamshire of a woman who was refusing to attend divine service because she feared that a certain man would rape her. The case against the man was dismissed.(Elvey, E. M. ed., The courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham 1483–1523, Buckinghamshire Record Society 19 (Welwyn Garden City, 1975), 161).Google Scholar Le Roy Ladunie considers that the young women of Montaillou and the Ariège generally went about in fear of rape, though he offers no statistical evidence to support this assertion (Le Roy, Ladunie, Montaillou, 149).Google Scholar

43 In the Canterbury Consistory court in the fifteenth century only three cases of rape appear: one in the middle years of the century and two in 1471. The court may well have lost much of its appeal in this area to secular jurisdictions (Mills, P. A., ‘Spiritual correction in the medieval Church Courts of Canterbury’ (unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Rochester, 1980), 38f.).Google Scholar

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47 Ibid., 3, 6, 7a, 150, 188b, 205, 235b and d, 292, 3731.

48 Rossiaud, , ‘Prostitution, jeunesse et société’, 293.Google Scholar

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53 Henry Goie was also known by the alias le Panetier. John l'Arquier was accused of a variety of crimes including housebreaking and assault. Of the other men, Peter Ediene was known as le Farey. He appears at a prandium nupciarum at Cerisy where he had been entrusted with the sword of the Abbot's armiger (Dupont, , Registre, 309c).Google Scholar The rector and priest of Littry, Stephen Bernart, was accused of the rape of his former concubine. John Onfredi, John Goie and Hugh Defense were described simply as clerks.

54 Colin de Neuilly and Radulf Rogeri were both described as filius and they pledged fines with their fathers' authority. The fathers, and possibly the uncles, of Gaufrid and Peter les Guillours, who were cousins, gave sureties at their trial. Richard Quesnel, rector of the church of St.-Marcouf was described as junior.

55 Rossiaud, , ‘Prostitution, jeunesse et société’, 293.Google Scholar

56 Ruggiero, , Violence in Venice, 153. However, Carter considers that rapists were largely unknown to their victims (Rape in medieval England, 53, 81, 85).Google Scholar

57 Dufresne, ‘Cerisy’, 144. While canon law held that a harlot could not be raped in legal terms, it had to be shown that the victim was an acknowledge prostitute and a public woman. It was not sufficient as a defence to show that she had a lewd reputation (Brundage, ‘Rape and marriage’, 71). Civil lawyers also held that a prostitute could not be raped (Geremek, , Margins of society, 225 n. 79).Google Scholar

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60 An attempted rape tried before the Foix official brought the accused a 20l. fine. This was a considerable sum, equivalent to half the cost of a village house, though Le Roy Ladurie considers that rape generally was not regarded as a very serious offence (Ladurie, Le Roy, Montaillou, 149f.).Google Scholar Details of work contracts contained within the late-fourteenth-century sections of the Cerisy register can be used to give some indication of the financial severity of such fines if levied in full. One man who was hired pro serviendo was to receive 6 livres for a whole year. Another man hired out his unspecified services for 15l.J. The period of this contract was again for one year. Finally a man who apprenticed himself out as a wheelwright did so on condition that he would receive 9 francs d' or, a ‘good’ woollen tunic and a pair of shoes. In this case the contract was for 14 months. One franc d' or was worth 20s.t. (Dupont, , Registre, 236, 335, 253).Google Scholar

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62 Mills considers that the church in general dealt ‘softly’ with rapists but that this was in some way mitigated by the advice of one legal handbook that convicted rapists, especially those of virgins, should be denied leave to appeal (Mills, ‘Spiritual correction’, 39f. and n. 40).Google Scholar

63 Dupont, , Registre, 42d.Google Scholar

64 ibid.,, 25c, 130c, 157. In 1340, the priest of Littry was charged with several offences, including purifying unmarried women without a licence (ibid., 207).

65 Brissaud, Y. B., ‘L'infanticide à la fin du moyen âge, ses motivations psychologiques et sa répression’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 4^e série, 50 (1972), 231–3. Brissaud notes that ‘nos ancêtres se livraient volontiers au commerce charnel sans que cela semblât troubler beaucoup leur conscience’.Google Scholar

66 Dupont, , Registre, 178b, 183b.Google Scholar

67 Helmholz, R. H., ‘Infanticide in the Province of Canterbury during the fifteenth century’, History of Childhood Quarterly 2 (1975), 386f.Google Scholar For a study of the crime in Florence see Trexler, R. C., ‘Infanticide in Florence: new sources and first results’, History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1973), 98–116.Google ScholarPubMed

68 Kellum, B. A. (‘Infanticide in England in the later middle ages’, History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1973), 367–88)Google Scholar argues for the widespread practice of infanticide in this period from the evidence of literary sources in an article liberally littered with the jargon os psycho-history. For a more considered argument see Goldberg, P. J. P., ‘The public and the private: women in the pre-plague economy’, in Coss, P. R. and Lloyd, S. D. eds., Thirteenth Century England III. Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference 1990 (Woodbridge, 1991), 78f.Google Scholar

69 Helmholz, R. H., ‘Canonical defamation in medieval England’, The American Journal of Legal History 15 (1971), 260CrossRefGoogle ScholarWoodcock, B. L., Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (Oxford, 1952), 88.Google Scholar

70 Dupont, , Registre, 79, 84d, 333b and c.Google Scholar

71 ibid.

72 ibid., 164b, 318, 373g and h, 3750.

73 ibid., 387i, 390h, 393a, 414a.

74 Mills, , ‘Spiritual correction’, 55, 80. Hilton considers that ‘Women's principal form of aggression was vituperation’, though he notes that in absolute terms men were presented as often as women (Hilton, ‘Small town society’, 71).Google Scholar

75 Fourteen of the cases appear in this manner (Dupont, , Registre, 8d, 26f, 91, 164b, 173b, 198, 269, 276b, 365b, 3750, 383f, 392g, 414b Le Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 300).Google Scholar

76 Dupont, , Registre, 373g, 387i, 390h, 392i, b, k, 1 and p, 393a, b and m, 394e, m and r, 414a Le Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 301.Google Scholar

77 Dupont, , Registre, 394p and eGoogle ScholarLe, Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 307.Google Scholar

78 Lamer, C., Enemies of God: the witch-hunt in Scotland (London, 1981), 97f.Google ScholarRushton, P., ‘Women, witchcraft and slander in early modern England: cases from the church courts of Durham, 1560–1675’, Northern History 18 (1982), 116–32CrossRefGoogle ScholarUnderdown, D. E., ‘The taming of the scold: the enforcement of patriarchal authority in early modern England’, in Fletcher, A. and Stevenson, J. S. eds., Law and disorder in early modern England (Cambridge, 1985), 119–21.Google Scholar

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