Love and Marriage in the Norwich Heresy Trials, 1428–1431

Abstract

Twenty-nine of the heresy trials conducted between 1428 and 1431 by Bishop William Alnwick of Norwich involved charges that defendants had maintained heterodox positions about the sacrament of marriage; these trials comprise a significant archive for historians of marriage and love, in addition to historians of heresy. Defendants in Norwich were accused of denying the need for the exchange of spoken consent between the spouses, as well as the need for church weddings, but these were not the only reasons these defendants were perceived as threatening to church and society. Church officials may also have been concerned to rebut what they saw as the radical implications of their defendants’ views about consent and love. By setting these cases against the background of late medieval perspectives on consent, love, and marital affection, this article argues that the Norwich defendants’ claims reinforced inquisitors’ fears concerning the incursion into England of continental heresies.