| dc.description | This dissertation examines spousal abuse in later medieval England, focusing MAG specifically on the counties of Yorkshire and Essex in order to discern regional approaches to the regulation of marital violence, while simultaneously constructing an understanding of the particularly English approach to abuse from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. Violence of this gendered nature implicitly involves notions of power and identity that require profound consideration. Accordingly, the goal of this study is to uncover the copious layers within medieval English understandings of the acceptability of marital violence and their impact upon actual rates of abuse through both a statistical and discursive analysis of court records. With such a perspective, this study is capable of addressing some of the most intriguing concerns in legal and social history of the medieval period in England. This study also places itself firmly within the context of Marjorie McIntosh's most recent work in which she situates the inception of a 'crisis' in communal conduct clearly in the mid-fourteenth century. The emergence of communal intolerance of assertive female behaviours, as well as the creation of legislation categorising the homicide of a husband as treasonous, are reflected in changing attitudes about spousal abuse. For this purpose, then, the evidence of community representatives as witnesses or jury members is utilised to interpret fluid notions of liability, gendered constructs and social expectations in the regulation of domestic violence. | en_US |
