If a wife disobeyed her husband, it was thought right and proper that she should be punishedĭefinitions of domestic violence were also radically different in the later Middle Ages. The case came to court because she died from her wounds. He broke into her house, attempted to rape her and “feloniously bit Margaret with his teeth so that he ripped off the nose of the said Margaret with that bite, and broke three of her ribs there”. In 1438, one Thomas Elam attacked Margaret Perman. Post-Black Death: a ‘golden age’ for medieval women?Ĭases that were eventually reported tended to be particularly brutal.What was life like for a medieval housewife?.Women had to be able to physically demonstrate their lack of consent, and risked their reputations and punishment themselves in doing so. It is very difficult to assess levels of rape, because the offence was subject to changing definitions, most of which would appear far too narrow to our modern eyes. It is much rarer to find women perpetrating violent crime more often they were the victims. WATCH Hannah Skoda discuss crime and violence in the Middle Ages: Female victims His gang’s actions mostly took the form of poaching and offences against property, though there were more brutal undertones – apparently “they threatened the gamekeepers with death or mutilation”. Stafford was a chaplain perhaps because of his clerical status, he wittily named himself ‘Frere Tuk’ after the figure from the Robin Hood legends. This sense of fraternity characterises a group of men led by Robert Stafford. In 1304, for example, one Gerlach de Wetslaria, provost of a church in the diocese of Salzburg, applied for a pardon for killing a fellow student many years earlier when a playful sword fight had ended in tragedy.Ĭarrying out acts of violence seems to have been as much about proving oneself in front of one’s peers, and belonging to a group, as it was about the victim – which probably explains why men in gangs were responsible for much of the mayhem. ![]() Often these were over-exuberant episodes gone horribly wrong. Homicides varied from premeditated attacks to tavern brawls that ended in disaster. ![]() Sociologists and historians have been able to demonstrate a correlation between levels of inequality and levels of violence, which is particularly compelling for late medieval Europe. They were also profoundly unequal cultures, characterised – particularly from the 14th century – by high levels of social unrest. If you hacked off a woman’s nose, for example, most people would recognise this as a signifier of adultery. These were cultures in which honour was paramount and violence was recognised as a means of communicating certain messages. Moreover, in an era of rudimentary medical care, many died from wounds that might today be successfully treated. There were no permanent police forces, as there are now, and in many cases the capture of a perpetrator depended on the co-operation of the community. Others have pointed to the prevalence of alcohol, and the fact that many people were wandering round armed with daggers and other knives on a daily basis. Honour was paramount and violence was recognised as a means of communicating certain messages Steven Pinker has put forward a psychological theory, claiming that humankind learned only recently to tame its most savage impulses, but this doesn’t really account for the complexity of reactions to violence in the medieval period, as we shall see. Why were levels of interpersonal violence so high in the Middle Ages? Historians have offered various explanations. Levels of violence there were considered unacceptably high by contemporaries: in the 1340s, the homicide rate was around 110 per 100,000. ![]() An exceptional case, even by medieval standards, is provided by 14th‑century Oxford. Certainly, we cannot doubt that it was a dangerous time in which to live. ![]() The historian Laurence Stone calculated that homicide levels in medieval England were at least 10 times what they are today. Definitions of criminal violence have also changed for example, rape and domestic violence were defined very narrowly in the Middle Ages. In part, this is because the changing nature of legal prosecutions means that we are not comparing like with like. Levels of interpersonal violence were certainly higher in the Middle Ages than today, but it’s very hard to quantify this precisely – even more so if we add war and the horrors of genocide into the equation. Homicide levels in medieval England were at least 10 times what they are today Measures of violence
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