E-Book Overview
Although recent years have witnessed the histories of crime and of women become two major areas of historical research, this collection of essays is the first attempt to synthesize such studies for the early modern period. The volume focuses on the nature and extent of women's criminal activity and how the legal system and society perceived women and crime between the late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. Drawing together current research the essays illuminate various aspects of the lives of ordinary women: how they interacted with each other and in the community generally; the ways in which they participated in the formal legal process; the treatment they received at the hands of the judiciary and justices of the peace; ways in which "deviant" women perceived themselves and how they were viewed by contemporaries. Each essay in turn poses a challenge to accepted notions of the relationship between women and the courts. This book is intended for undergraduate courses: Early modern British history, women's history, specials on witchcraft, punishment and crime. Women's studies.
E-Book Content
Women, crime and the courts in early modern England Women, crime and the courts in early modern England edited by Jenny Kermode University of Liverpool & Garthine Walker University of Warwick © Jenny Kermode, Garthine Walker and contributors 1994 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. First published in 1994 by UCL Press This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” UCL Press Limited University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by UCL Press with the consent of the owner. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available ISBN 0-203-99367-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN: 1-85728-140-3 HBK ISBN: 1-85728-141-1 PBK Contents Notes on contributors vii Acknowledgements ix 1 Introduction Garthine Walker and Jenny Kermode 1 2 Language, power, and the law: women’s slander litigation in early modern London Laura Gowing 25 3 “Scolding women cucked or washed”: a crisis in gender relations in early modern England? Martin Ingram 47 4 Women, theft and the world of stolen goods Garthine Walker 81 5 Women, witchcraft and the legal process Jim Sharpe 113 6 Witchcraft and power in early modern England: the case of Margaret Moore Malcolm Gaskill 131 7 Negotiating for blood money: war widows and the courts in seventeenth-century England Geoffrey L.Hudson 153 8 Women, custom and equity in the court of requests Tim Stretton 177 Glossary 197 vi Bibliography 199 Subject index 219 Notes on contributors Malcolm Gaskill is completing a doctoral dissertation for the University of Cambridge, on attitudes to crime in early modern England. He is currently lecturing in history at Keele University. Laura Gowing is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London. She is writing a book on women, sex and honour in early modern London. Geoffrey L.Hudson is completing a doctoral dissertation for the University of Oxford. His research interests include gender relations, war and society, and the social hi