Women and Crime in Later Mediaeval England: An Examination of the Evidence of the Courts of Gaol Delivery, 1388 to 1409

Abstract

For more than a century now criminologists have been giving some attention to the phenomenon of female involvement in criminal activity. However, the female criminals of earlier eras, particularly those of the later mediaeval period, have not been the subjects of such scrutiny. Indeed, if we are to give credence to the romance literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the woman was the meek, self-effacing and virtuous helpmeet of her husband. We cannot imagine, for example, that the daughters of the Knight of La Tour Landry would ever fall foul of the law or even be suspected of the most trivial offence. Yet the legal evidence of the period makes it clear that women could and did appear before the courts as accused as well as accusers. They are found to such an extent that a Victorian interpreter of the court records has concluded that the women of the later mediaeval period were, "except in the very highest rank, almost as brutal as their husbands or paramours," that they were, indeed, "such as the circumstances in which they lived had made them — strong in muscle but hard of heart - more fit to be the mothers of brigands than to rear gentle daughters or honest sons."