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Sexual Relations and Marriage in Later Medieval Normandy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

A. J. Finch
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Extract

The evidence left by the medieval church courts has proved to be a rich source for the study of both the social and legal aspects of marriage. This has been particularly true for the records of matrimonial litigation generated by the English courts as well as those from the continent and, to a lesser extent, Ireland. Much of this interest has focused on the instance business of the courts, corresponding roughly to modern-day civil litigation. In the context of the English courts, this usually involved an attempt to establish the existence of a valid marriage. Less attention has been paid to the ex officio actions brought by courts against errant individuals. Interest has also tended to concentrate on the actual act of marriage itself and the degree to which this matched the Church's ideal system of how marriages should be formed. Questions concerning courtship and the alternatives to marriage have only begun to be addressed.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 236 - 256
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 See, for example, Cosgrove, A., ‘Marriage in medieval Ireland’, in Cosgrove, A. (ed.), Marriage in Ireland, Dublin 1985, 25–50 Google Scholar; Gottlieb, B., ‘The meaning of clandestine marriage’, in Wheaton, R. and Hareven, T. K. (eds), Family and sexuality in French history, Philadelphia 1980, 49–83 Google Scholar; Helmholz, R. H., Marriage litigation in medieval England, Cambridge 1974 Google Scholar; Laribière, G., ‘Le mariage à Toulouse aux xive–xve siècles’, Annales du Midi lxxix (1967), 335–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levy, J. P., ‘L'officialité de Paris et les questions familiales à la fin du xive siècle’, in Études d'histoire du droit canonique dediées à Gabriel le Bras, Paris 1965 Google Scholar, ii. 1265–94; Pommeray, L., L'officialité archidiaconale de Paris aux xve–xvie siècles: sa composition et sa compétence criminelle, Paris 1933 Google Scholar; Sheehan, M. M., ‘The formation and stability of marriage in fourteenth-century England: evidence of an Ely register’, Mediaeval Studies xxxiii (1973), 253, 261–3Google Scholar.

2 The position of concubinage in medieval canon law has been mapped out by Brundage, J. A. in his ‘Concubinage and marriage in medieval canon law’, Journal of Medieval History i (1975), 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Questions concerning the significance of courtship and custom in the formation of marriages have been examined in Goldberg, P. J. P., Women, work, and life cycle in a medieval economy: women in York and Yorkshire c. 1300–1520, Oxford 1992 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Smith, R. M., ‘Marriage processes in the English past: some continuities’, in Bonfield, L. R., Smith, R. M. and Wrightson, K. (eds), The world we have gained: histories of population and social structure presented to Peter Laslett on his seventieth birthday, Oxford 1986, 43–99 Google Scholar.

3 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 165–8Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘Marriage processes’, 48, 69fGoogle Scholar. The decline in contract litigation may not in itself be an accurate indicator of social practice since it can also be explained by the desire of the church courts to attract more lucrative forms of non-matrimonial business: Houlbrooke, R. A., Church courts and the people during the English Reformation, 1520–1570, Oxford 1979, 64f., 66Google Scholar.

4 Bennett, J. M., Women in the medieval English countryside: gender and household in Brigslock before the plague, New York 1987, 100 Google Scholar; Razi, Z., Life, marriage and death in a medieval parish: economy, society and demography in Halesowen, 1270–1400, Cambridge 1980, 69 Google Scholar; Rushton, P., ‘The broken marriage in early modern England: matrimonial cases from the Durham church courts, 1560–1630’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5th ser. xiii (1985), 187fGoogle Scholar; Sheehan, , ‘Formation and stability’, 253, 261–3Google Scholar. Richard Smith considers that the conclusions reached by Michael Sheehan from the Ely consistory court have had a significant influence on other writers who ‘appear to suggest an implicit pre-Alexandrine world of casual unions, often of a temporary nature in which continuous cohabitation was absent’: ‘Marriage processes’, 52.

5 Ibid. 52–69; Smith, R. M., ‘Some reflections on the evidence for the origins of the “European marriage pattern” in England’, in Harris, C. C. (ed.), The sociology of the family: new directions for Britain (Sociological Review Monograph xxviii, Keele 1979), 88fGoogle Scholar. See also Goldberg, P. J. P., ‘Marriage, migration, servanthood and life-cycle in Yorkshire towns of the later Middle Ages: some York cause paper evidence’, Continuity and Change i (1986), 156f., 160Google Scholar; Poos, L. R., A rural society after the Black Death: Essex 1350–1525, Cambridge 1991, 140 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sheehan, , ‘Formation and stability’, 246–9Google Scholar.

6 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 4f., 30–3, 59, 72f., 189Google Scholar; Sheehan, , ‘Formation and stability’, 263 Google Scholar.

7 Brundage, J. A., Law, sex and Christian society in medieval Europe, Chicago-London 1987, 297–300, 514–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Concubinage and marriage’; Cosgrove, A., ‘Consent, con-summation and indissolubility: the evidence of some ecclesiastical court records’, Downside Review, 04 1991, 98 Google Scholar; Sheehan, M. M., ‘Theory and practice: marriage of the unfree and the poor in medieval society’, Mediaeval Studies 1 (1988), 485fGoogle Scholar.

8 For the development of the system of church courts in France and England see respectively Fournier, P., Les Officialités au moyen áge: étude sur l'organisation, la compétence et la procédure des tribunaux ecclésiastiques ordinaires en France, de 1180 à 1328, Paris 1880 Google Scholar, and Owen, D. M., ‘Ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England 1300–1550: the records and their interpretation’, in Baker, D. (ed.), The materials, sources and methods of ecclesiastical history (Studies in Church History xi, 1975), 199–222 Google Scholar.

9 See, for example, Cosgrove, , ‘Marriage in medieval Ireland’, 25–50 Google Scholar, and ‘Consent, consummation and indissolubility’, 94–104; Donahue, C., ‘The canon law on the formation of marriage and social practice in the later middle ages’, Journal of Family History viii (1983), 144–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldberg, Women, work, and life cycle, ch. v; Sheehan, , ‘Formation and stability’, 228–63Google Scholar, and ‘Choice of marriage partner in the Middle Ages: development and mode of application of a theory of marriage’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History n.s. i (1978), 3–33 Google Scholar.

10 See, for example, Bossy, J. A., Christianity in the west 1400–1700, Oxford 1985 Google Scholar; Muchembled, R., Popular culture and elite culture in France 1400–1750, Baton Rouge–London 1985, 187f., 189, 192f.Google Scholar, Rossiaud, J., Medieval prostitution, trans. Cochrane, L. G., Oxford 1988, 49–51 Google Scholar.

11 This jurisdiction was held by the Benedictine abbey of St Vigor at Cerisy. The manuscripts were deposited in the Archives Départementales de la Manche. H1407, a manuscript of 87 folios bearing the title Registrum curie officialis Cerasiensis, was published in 1880, while H1408, a small book of 12 folios, was published in 1935: Registre de l'officialité de Cerisy, 1314–1457, ed. Dupont, M. G. (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 3e ser. x), Caen 1880 Google Scholar; Cacheux, P. Le (ed.), ‘Un fragment de registre de 1'officialité de Cerisy (1474–1486)’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie xliii (1935) 291–315 Google Scholar. All references to Dupont's edition are to paragraph numbers unless shown otherwise. Sections of later fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century registers noted in the edition of the later fifteenth-century fragments were never published and, like the other manuscripts, did not survive the destruction of the archive in June 1944: Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 294 Google Scholar; ‘Répertoire des bibliothèques et archives de la Manche’, Revue du départment de la Manche iv (1962), 403, 410Google Scholar.

12 Only one item of court business survives from 1414, and two items from 1458. In the absence of the original manuscripts it is impossible to determine the causes of the lacunae with any degree of certainty. Dupont was in little doubt as to the cause of the first hiatus, linking it explicitly to the arrival of the English in 1346: Registre, p. 275. Similarly the second interruption to the record between 1414 and 1451 closely matches the period of the Lancastrian occupation. Yet this may be purely coincidental, for snippets of court business survive from the fourteenth-century hiatus, and the arrival of the English in the following century did not interrupt the register of the officiality of Montivilliers in the Caux region: Dufresne, J. -L., ‘La délinquance dans une région en guerre: Harfleur-Montivilliers dans la première moitié du xve siècle’, Actes du 105e congrès national des sociétés (Caen 1980)Google Scholar, II: Questions d'histoire et de dia'ectologie Normande, Paris 1984, 179–214 Google Scholar. This was a region much more seriously affected by the occupation. Furthermore such an explanation cannot account for the loss of much of the register in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The ravages of time, the catholic tastes of mice and the actions of cost-conscious scribes might equally as well account for such losses.

13 The procedure to be followed is set out in a visitation of Littry in 1314: Registre, 9a, b, c, d.

14 Finch, A. J., ‘Crime and marriage in three late medieval ecclesiastical jurisdictions: Cerisy, Rochester and Hereford’, unpubl DPhil diss., York 1988, 22fGoogle Scholar.

15 Ibid. 5–7.

16 Registre, 23d, 131, 298c, 366h, 392k; Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 296 Google Scholar. Eight female and three male servants were involved in sexual offences between 1314 and 1346: Registre, 25d, 43b, 73c, 96c, d, 133c, 138c, d, 168c, 199b. Among these, a man was specifically described as famulo elemosine and a woman as construeria. In addition to these, another woman was described as forestaria: ibid. 25f. Other men who appear were a public notary, a former clerk of the priory of Deux Jumeaux, a lodger (locotore) and two foresters: ibid. 60a, 72b, 96b, 117, 195. After 1371, one male and three female servants appear in connection with sexual morality offences: ibid. 298c, 366h, 387f; Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 302 Google Scholar.

17 This figure is partly based on Dufresne's calculation of the number of households in Cerisy, Littry and Deux Jumeaux (see below n. 18) and on monnéage (hearth tax) returns which survive for other parts of the officiality between 1368 and 1419. (These may be found in Nortier, M., ‘Contribution à l'étude de la population de la Normandie au bas Moyen-Âge (XlVe–XVIe siècles): inventaire des rôles de fouage et d'aide. Première série: Rôles de fouage paroissiaux de 1369 à 1419’, Cahiers Léopold Delisle xix [1970], 1–92.)Google Scholar A multiplier of 4.5 was employed to give a rough estimate of population size. One well-known demographic historian of late medieval Normandy cautions against the use of hearth tax returns to establish population sizes rather than population densities: Bois, G., The crisis of feudalism: economy and society in eastern Normandy c. 1300–1550, Cambridge 1984, 33–5, 37–9. 162 n. 52Google Scholar.

18 Dufresne, J. -L., ‘Les comportements amoureux d'après les registres de l'officialité de Cerisy (xive–xve s.)’, Bulletin philologique et historique du Comité des travaux kistoriques et scientifiques for 1973, Caen 1976, 132 and n. 5Google Scholar.

19 Patterns in the presentments for adultery indicate that different criteria were in operation, and that married men in particular may have gone unreported if their behaviour was not too flagrant: Finch, , ‘Crime and marriage’, 105fGoogle Scholar.

20 The woman was pregnant or children had been born in eighty-two of the 206 relationships identifiable between 1314 and 1346. (Questions of consanguinity or affinity were involved in five of these eighty-two relationships, as well as in a further six relationships.) The widow of Colin le Rous left Cerisy pregnant, and later gave birth at the domus dei in Bayeux. The jurors did not know the exact identity of the father, although they suggested Pierre de Crueria. The matter was deferred until the woman herself could be questioned: Dupont, Registre, 25c.

21 At Cerisy, in addition to the case of the widow of Colin le Rous, the jurors were ignorant of the father's identity in a further five cases of fornication (Registre, 110b, d, 206b, 213c) and two of adultery (ibid. 110d, 138c). At Littry this was so in six cases of fornication (ibid. 132b, 137c, d, 153b [quodam homine de Monfiquet], 183b, 226b). In a further example, the Littry jurors could not identify the mother (ibid. 167d). Two of the examples from Littry are particularly instructive. In 1328, Jeanne, daughter of German le Rouz, was presented at visitation. She was pregnant and the jurors reported that they did not know the identity of the father, although they suggested that it might be Gaufrid le Porquier. Likewise the jurors were initially unaware of the identity of the father of the child of the filia Gosceaume until she was cited and questioned. At Deux Jumeaux in 1319, four women were presented. Two were pregnant, another had given birth and the fourth had given birth ‘recently’. In each case the jurors claimed to be unaware of the father's identity (ibid. 64b). Thejurors might also disagree amongst themselves. In 1324, the same Jeanne, daughter of German le Rouz, was presented for fornication with Eves de Fraxino and for being ‘common’. One of the jurors, Jean Evrart, disputed this (dicit contrarium): ibid. 119a, c.

22 A visitation, probably conducted in Cerisy during 1371, uncovered six cases of fornication. A visitation of Littry in 1374 found two cases of fornication, but it was principally concerned with the sexual misdemeanours of the parish priest, Guillaume le Deen. Another visitation of Littry in 1377 did not report any sexual offences. In tracing his career from April 1393, the Official, Matthew Guerot, noted that he had visited the churches of Littry, Deaux Jumeaux and St Laurent-sur-Mer and had corrected many delinquencies. He had also commissioned many inquisitions in the village of Cerisy and visitations of the officiality: ibid. 261a, b, c, d, 298a, b, c, 316a, b, 376s. His visitation of Littry in 1402 produced one presentment for adultery: ibid. 377a. Later visitations were concerned with church repair and the behaviour of priests (ibid. 378, 380a, 412; Le Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 294–7, 310–13).

23 Thomas Varignon caused great public consternation (‘miratifuerunt plures’) when he denied sexual relations with the widow Tronquoy: Registre, 411c. The role of the promoter in initiating prosecutions was growing in importance during the fourteenth century. The promoter is increasingly identified as the initiator of actions and this role gave greater scope for conflict with the court's constituents: ibid. 198, 204b, 256b, 257s, g, 263b, c, e, 269, 273b, 276a, 289c, 310a, 411c, f, 414a, 415a, b, 416h; Le Cacheux, ‘Fragment’, 297, 304, 307f, 311f, 312f. See Esmein, A., A history of continental criminal procedure with special reference to France, trans. Simpson, John, Boston 1913, 87fGoogle Scholar.

24 Registre, 389f (non ux[oratam]); p. 583 n. 1 (non conjugata); 394c, g (non uxorata). In 1372, a couple were said to have produced a child ex illicito coitu, and in 1455 Guillerma, daughter of Jean Belot, had conceived and born a child ex illicito cohitu (sic): ibid. 277b, 410d.

25 Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 301–3, 305fGoogle Scholar.

26 Registre, 4a, b.

27 Ibid. 96d, 110b, 119c, 126c, 130b, 152d, 168b, 213b.

28 Ibid. 25g (denied since previous correction and assigned purgation), 84b (dismissed), 84d (fame admitted and so assigned purgation with six neighbours), 152b (man purged by own oath), 153c (couple purged by own oaths). A further couple appear to have failed in their purgation (26e).

29 For example Raoul Osber and Agnes Riquent were defamed on 4 March 1333, and pledged a fine on 9 March; Jean Caruel and Hylaria Riquent were defamed on 8 June 1346, and pledged a fine on 20 June: ibid. 153b, 154, 226b, 228c.

30 l./l.t. = livre/livre tournois; s./s.t. = sous/sous tournois; d. = denier. Twelve deniers were equivalent to one sou and twenty sous to one livre. One franc d' or had an official value of 20 sous tournois, but the rate varied sharply between 20s. and 36s. over the period 1360–1423: Spufford, P., Handbook of medieval exchange (Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks xiii, 1986), 191fGoogle Scholar. Fines of 5s. were imposed on six occasions and fines of 105. on eleven others: 5s.: Registre, 84d, 137b, 138b, c, 143c, 144a; 10s.: 26f, 137b, 138e, d, 144b (for both), 215b. One fine of 6s. was also imposed: ibid. 167c. The higher fines were as follows: 20s.: ibid. 137b, 138d, 228c; 25s.: 11c, 25f; 40s.: 25f, 130c (for both); 60s.: 17b, 65b; 100s.: 25b. Fines were not always levied in full: Henri Rogier pledged a fine of 10s. but paid only 5s.; another man had his fine remitted amore amicorum suorum. One man, who was hired pro serviendo, was to receive six livres for a whole year. Another man hired out his unspecified services for 15 livres tournois. 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 nine francs d'or, a ‘good’ woollen tunic and a pair of shoes. In this case the contract was for fourteen months: ibid. 236, 335, 253.

31 Ibid. 4b, 9f, 25c, f, 130b, 138d, 139, 229 (…‘quam emendam nos taxamus ad decem libras vel ad penam corporalem que dividetur per nos.’).

32 Ibid. 9f. They were said to be paupers.

33 Ibid. 25b, f, 130c, 154 (40l./l.t.); 11b, c, 88, 95c, 98b (10 l/l.t.).

34 Ibid. 96b. This was probably a pillorying. In the case of a breach of an abjuration from 1331, the man involved faced a fine or the pillory propter perjuriam: ibid. 138b.

35 Ibid. 25f, 95b, 110b, 167c. In the case of Nicola, widow Jupin, and Jean de Mara, Nicola alleged conventiones matrimonii which Jean denied. The action was transformed into an instance suit: ibid, 11b, 17a, 18a.

36 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 172–81Google Scholar. See also Esmein, A., Le manage en droit canonique, Paris 1891, i. 145 n. 3Google Scholar.

37 Henri was said to have carnally known her many times, even within the three weeks prior to the visitation: Registre, 11a, 25b. His subsequent attempt to annul the marriage was thrown out by the court in May 1316: ibid. 46.

38 Ibid. 11b, c.

39 Ibid. 96b.

40 Ibid. 88, 113. Cf. Dufresne, , ‘Les comportements’, 140fGoogle Scholar.

41 Registre, 26e, 65b.

42 Ibid. 152b. Colin had been defamed with Guillemette in 1332, and she was probably the maid who appears with him in the previous year: ibid. 138d, 143b.

43 Ibid. 25b, 73b. ‘Sed inter se matrimonium contraxerunt et si sollempnizent in brevi, remittimus sibi totum’: ibid. 25e In 1480 Colin Varignon and his partner escaped a fine for fornication after he ‘took her to wife’: Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 306 Google Scholar. Jean de Mara was to be quit of a 50l. fine incurred for failing to give pledges of peace to Nicola, widow Jupin, if he solemnised his marriage to her quickly: Registre, 18a.

44 Fifteen individual paid fines of 10s./s.t.; six individuals fines of 20s./s.t., and two men paid fines of 40s./s.t. In one case this was for both parties. Three individuals paid 5s./s.t., while a couple were to pay 10s. between them. The couple who were to pay 10s. paid only 4s.; a man paid 15s. of a 20s. fine, and a woman paid half of a 20s. fine: ibid. 277b, 373C, 393d.

45 Ibid. 375g, 389a, 394q.

46 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 180fGoogle Scholar.

47 Registre, 393d, O, 394c.

48 Ibid. 387c, 394g (40s./s.t.); 375g, m (60s.); 375b, f, 393i (100s.); 375k (ten francs); 384q (10l.t. and scale).

49 Ibid. 375g, 383i.

50 This figure includes a couple who were assigned purgation, but who had been engaged in a relationship previously: ibid. 25g.

51 Ibid. 9e, 58. Jordan was presented again in 1316 charged with adultery with both Catherine and a second woman: ibid. 42c.

52 Ibid. 65b.

53 Ibid. 126c, 130b (1326–7); 130c, 133c (1327–8); 152b, 168b (1333–4); 152c, 168c (1333–4). The fertile unions were 11c, 25f (1314–15); 112, 119b (1323–4); 206b, 213c (1340–1); 206b, 213b (1340–1). One of these women, Emilie de Vasteigneyo, soon abandoned her partner to marry another: ibid. 30b.

54 Ibid. 95b, 119b (1322–4); 126d, 133b (1326–8); 138c, 152b (1331–3); 138d, 152c (1331–3); 138e, 152c (1331–3); 168c, 184b (1334–6).

55 Ibid. 137b, 167b (1331–4); 137d, 167c (1331–4); 137d, 144b, 167c (1331–4).

56 Ibid. 72b, 112 (1319–23); 130c, 138d (1327–31); 137d, 177b (1331–5); 137b, 177b (1331–5).

57 Ibid. 25d, 75b.

58 Ibid, 110d, 133c.

59 Ibid. 167c, 177b, 183b, 190, 209b, 215b.

60 Ibid. 223.

61 Ibid. 25f, 43b, 75a, 96d.

62 Ibid. 138b, 143b, 152d, 168b, 178b, 184b, 199c.

63 Ibid. 11b (Nicola and Jean); 121c, 126c, 130c, 133b, 138d, 152b (Laurentia and Mathew); 126c, 130b 133b, 152c, 168b (Colette and Jean).

64 Ibid. 138d, 143b, 152b, 199b, 206c. The widow Jupin alleged that marriage had occurred between herself and her partner in 1314 (11b). Another matrimonial suit may have been the result of a long-standing and concubinous relationship which had been transformed into a clandestine marriage (see below n. 84).

65 Ibid. 138d, 184b, 206c, 213b. Jeanne had been defamed for fornication with Henri de Cerisy in 1326: ibid. 126d.

66 Ibid. 138e, 168c, 199c, 213c.

67 Ibid, 110d, 126d, 130c, 133b, 138c, 143b, 152c, 168c.

68 Ibid. 43c, 75b, 98b, 110b, 121b, 133c.

69 Ibid. 126c, 130b, 133b, 138c, 143b, 152c, 168c, 184b, 199b, 206b.

70 Ibid. 195.

71 Ibid. 177b, 195.

72 Ibid. 25b, 26f, 96b, 133c.

73 Ibid. 12, 167c, 168c, 206c.

74 ‘Johannes le Faey debet accipere Mariam Gobout in uxorem; Johannes le Moys habet quandam uxorem vocatam Pujein [?] quam debet accipere in uxorem’: ibid. 137c. Le Faey was also alleged to treat Maria like a whore (‘tenet quasi meretricem’). Within the private forum of confession, at least, such a phrase would suggest that he had committed an act of unnatural intercourse with her: Thomas, of Chobham, , Summa confessorum, ed. Broomfield, F. (Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia xxv), Louvain 1968, 335fGoogle Scholar.

75 Registre, 184b, 199c.

76 Smith, , ‘Marriage processes’, 92 Google Scholar.

77 Registre, 178b.

78 Ibid, 11a, 226b.

79 ‘diu per fornicationem habitarent’: ibid. 75b, 84c.

80 Ibid. 9f, 139 (poverty); 64b, 84c, 110C, 126c, 127b, 128, 152b, d, 153b, 195, 226b (consanguinity); 25d, 43b, 72b, 96, 143b, 168c (servants). Colette de Quemino, who brought an action for marriage against Thomas de Cerisy, was excused a fine since she did not have the wherewithal to pay it. Thomas was able to contend successfully that a spiritual affinity existed between them both: ibid. 4a, b.

81 Ibid. 72b (‘cum scandalo populi simul steterunt et jacuerunt in concubinatu’), 73c, 88, 95b, 112, 113.

82 Brundage, , Law, sex and Christian society, 516 Google Scholar; Sheehan, , ‘Theory and practice’, 478 Google Scholar, 481f., 487; Spufford, M., ‘Puritanism and social control?’ in Fletcher, A. and Stevenson, J. (eds), Order and disorder in early modern England 1500–1750, Cambridge 1985, 48 Google Scholar. The priest and sexton of Littry were presented in 1341 for charging for the celebration of sponsalia: Registre, 215b.

83 Ibid. 11b, 17a, 18, 25b.

84 Ibid. 11a, 25b, 46. The suit which involved Gaufrid Aenor and Lucia Blondel may have also represented a clandestine marriage formed during the course of a long-standing partnership. In a departure from the usual rubric of a definitive sentence, it was noted that the court had taken account of the couple's children in reaching its verdict. In 1316 Jean Ferrant refused to respond in a matrimonial suit which found that he was married to the plaintiff. He was adjudged to be contumacious: ibid. 10a, 40b.

85 Only one reference to a pending defloration suit survives from Cerisy in 1315: ibid. 25f. At Paris between 1384 and 1387, five actions for defloration arose out of marriage suits, and a further action was brought for defloration and the maintenance of illegitimate children. Only one man subsequently married the plaintiff, thereby removing himself from the obligation to pay a fine for his fornication and make recompense to the woman. In the other cases the amounts agreed as compensation were significant: six gold francs pro defloratione; ten gold francs pro dotali; ten livres pro defloratione and forty livres pro dote et defloratione: Registre des causes civiles de l'officialité episcopal de Paris, 1384–87, ed. Petit, J., Paris 1919, 75, 85, 100, 200, 381, 385, 400, 440Google Scholar.

86 Registre, 126b, 243, 268; Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 303, 306Google Scholar.

87 Registre, 178b, 384i, 394q. The filia à la Mahee was also suspected of infanticide.

88 Ibid. 411c.

89 Ibid. 404e, f.

90 Ibid, 11C, 25f, 30b.

91 Finch, A., ‘ Repulsa uxore sua: marital difficulties and separation in the later Middle Ages’, Continuity and Change viii (1993), 17–20 Google Scholar.

92 Goldberg, , Woman, work, and life cycle, 234, 243–7, 248–51Google Scholar.

93 Between 1314 and 1346, ninety-five women were described as filia. A tentative impression of their age range may be gained from the example of the daughter of Alice Blanguernon who was defamed in 1341. An Alice Blanguernon had been pregnant in 1316 and again in 1323. If the daughter had been born as a result of either of these two pregnancies then her age in 1341 would have been around 18 or 25 years: Registre, 43b, 110b, 213d. In contrast only six men were described as filius: 73c, 75b, 133b, 138e, 152c, 213c. Thirteen widows are named, five of whom had previously been involved in extramarital affairs. They were: at Cerisy, the widow of Sylvestre Fiquet (ibid. 75c, 138c); at Littry, the widows of Jean de Vietu (73c, 124b), Jean de Seeley (95c, 215b), Adam de Bosco (73b, 84d, 153c) and Jean Bachelier (137c, 144b). Between 1371 and 1414, fifteen women were described as filia, together with three widows, one of whom remarried. In the mid-fifteenth century, four filiae, a juvena, and a widow appear. Two of the unmarried women were pregnant. In the later fifteenth century, ten of the thirteen women were described as Jilia on their first appearance in the record, and all were pregnant.

94 Ibid. 10b, 30a, b, 33a, 67c, 69, 86b, 90, 103, 108, 244, 265. The majority of sponsalia appear to have been made without the presence of a priest as was required by local synodal legislation. References survive from 1318 and 1319 to sponsalia made in facie ecclesie, and from 1474 and 1476 to betrothals made per manum sacerdotis: ibid. 60b, 68; Cacheux, Le, ‘Fragment’, 298fGoogle Scholar. In the mid fourteenth century, a couple betrothed themselves–apparently without witnesses – at the house of the woman's father; and in 1451 Guillaume le Tousey and Jeanne, daughter of Denis le Piquenot, betrothed themselves, then exchanged future consent before a priest, and finally slept together: Registre, 244, 397b.

95 Ibid. 30b, 58, 66, 68; Cosgrove, , ‘Consent, consummation and indissolubility’, 97fGoogle Scholar. Attempts to discourage consummation until after solemnisation feature in English synodalia of the thirteenth century: Sheehan, M. M., ‘Marriage theory and practice in the conciliar legislation and diocesan statutes of medieval England’, Mediaeval Studies xl (1978), 431 Google Scholar. In sixteenth-century Florence, the 1517 Provincial Constitutions protested that betrothed couples often sought to dissolve their engagements after indulging in ‘secret acts that have made a matrimony out of an engagement’: Trexler, R. C., Synodal law in Florence and Fiesole, 1306–1518, Vatican City 1970, 125 Google Scholar.

96 Registre, 4a, 58, 68, 411c.

97 Brissaud, Y., ‘L'infanticide à la fin du moyen âge, ses motivations psychologiques et sa répression’, Revue historique de droil français et étranger 4th ser. I (1972), 231f.Google Scholar; Brundage, , Law, sex and Christian society, 305, 517Google Scholar.

98 A visitation of the diocese of Lyon in 1378/9, although it was principally concerned with priestly irregularities, uncovered fourteen examples of lay concubinage: Merle, M. (ed.), ‘Visite pastorale du diocèse de Lyon (1378–1379)’, Bulletin de la Diána xxvi (1937–1939), 240, 244, 263, 273, 277, 286, 288, 296f., 315f., 327, 343Google Scholar. For the persistence of concubinage in Iceland, Wales and Gaelic Scotland see respectively Frank, R., ‘Marriage in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland’, Viator iv (1973), 473–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pryce, H., Native law and the Church in medieval Wales, Oxford 1993 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. iv; and Sellar, W. D. H., ‘Marriage, divorce and concubinage in Gaelic Scotland’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness li (1978–1980), 464–93Google Scholar.

99 Finch, , ‘Repulsa’, 27 Google Scholar.

100 Poos, , Rural society, 140f.Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘Some reflections’, 88 Google Scholar.