Medieval Women and Urban Justice
Subtitle: Commerce, Crime and Community in England, 1300-1500
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2020
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9781526134615
Description: This book provides a detailed analysis of women's involvement in litigation and other legal actions within their local communities in late-medieval England. It draws upon the rich records of three English towns (Nottingham, Chester and Winchester) and their courts to bring to life the experiences of hundreds of women within the systems of local justice. Through comparison of the records of three towns, and of women's roles in different types of legal action, the book reveals the complex ways in which individual women's legal status could vary according to their marital status, different types of plea and the town that they lived in. At this lowest level of medieval law, women's status was malleable, making each woman's experience of justice unique.