Debt, gender and litigation in late medieval urban society
Teresa Phipps, University of Nottingham1
LSE Thesis Workshop, December 11 2013
Abstract
The medieval economy was characterised and dominated by credit
relationships, with most individuals involved in various credit networks
throughout their adult life, regardless of their social status. Both men and
women bought and sold numerous goods according to various personal
arrangements. When these agreements were not fulfilled, urban residents used
their local borough courts to seek restitution. This paper will explore debt
litigation found in the fourteenth-century records of the courts of Nottingham,
Chester and Winchester, three middling towns at the centres of their provincial
networks. These courts heard a large volume of litigation arising from everyday
interactions, and a large amount of records survive. Both men and women are
found in these records, pursuing and answering a large number of suits that
arose from a wide range of commercial dealings. These suits reveal details of the
economic activities of numerous individuals who otherwise go unrecorded, and
of the economic interactions that took place within towns. The paper will
demonstrate gendered patterns of debt litigation and the activities of men and
women as creditors and debtors, which in turn allows an insight into the role of
gender in forming economic identities and how this was perceived in local urban
environments. It will also discuss the role of married women in debt litigation,
interrogating traditional notions of marital coverture and the issue of using the
records of litigation to reconstruct activities within the household economy. The
legal activities of married women differed between the three towns, revealing
unique local patterns in the recording and resolution of economic disputes. This
research on debt litigation adds an important dimension to the study of
medieval women’s work, and allows for comparison with later periods where
female commercial and legal roles and the reality of coverture have been
assessed in more detail.
The late medieval economy was dominated by credit networks, existing in various forms at
all levels of society. Most individuals were involved in numerous credit arrangements and
transactions throughout their adult life, and this was true for both men and women. Smallscale credit was generally not recorded and therefore only becomes visible to the historian
when disputes arose leading to debt litigation in local courts. These suits provide essential
evidence for the study of local urban economies and the economic identities of both
individuals and groups. This paper will highlight the importance of these records for the
study of gendered economic identities and the reality of male and female legal status when
it came to economic suits. By comparing the fourteenth-century evidence from Nottingham,
1
Contact [email protected]
1
Chester and Winchester it will also demonstrate different local patterns in debt litigation
and in the legal status of men and women who engaged in these formal disputes. Central to
this study is the analysis of the way in which gender intersected with economic and legal
status to determine the involvement of individuals in debt litigation in urban courts. The
focus of this paper is therefore both on the law and the economic actions brought to light
through the processes of local justice.
Introduction: the mechanisms of local debt and credit
The study of credit and debt not only reveals much about the workings of the medieval
economy, particularly on small, local scales, but also helps us to understand the
relationships that developed between people who lived and worked in the same
communities, and how these relationships were governed by various laws and customs. The
extension of credit was essential to the medieval economy and was ubiquitous in the
everyday life of ordinary people, with most individuals being involved in multiple credit
networks.2 Debts were accrued through agreements of delayed payment for numerous
goods and services. When these agreements were not fulfilled, creditors could bring suits in
local borough courts such as those at Nottingham, Chester and Winchester. These are the
focus of this paper as well as my broader PhD research.
Debt litigation should not however be regarded as a form of local conflict. Debt was not
linked to crisis, and debtors were not necessarily poorer than their lenders.3 Creditors came
from every social status, with most debts found in local courts concerning small sums arising
from everyday transactions.4 Being a debtor demonstrated that an individual had the
economic and social status and reputation to engage in credit networks and be trusted to
repay money. Leading figures of urban society such as mayors and bailiffs were involved in
debt suits, demonstrating that debt was not a sign of poverty or financial mismanagement –
although of course it may have been in some cases. Records of debt were rudimentary or
often just committed to memory, with agreements to pay made orally based on
assessments of trust and reputation.5
2 P. Nightingale, 'Money and credit in the economy of late medieval England', in D. Wood (ed.), Medieval
Money Matters (Oxford, 2004), p. 51.
3 C. Briggs, Credit and Village Society in Fourteenth-Century England (Oxford, 2008), pp. 215.
4 Nightingale, ‘Money and credit’, p. 52.
5 M.C. Howell, Commerce Before Capitalism in Europe, 1300-1600 (Cambridge, 2010), p. 25.
2
For this reason very little is known about credit transactions that were fulfilled successfully.6
Pamela Nightingale has suggested that between 18 and 23 per cent of debtors defaulted,
based on a comparison of City of London and Coventry rolls that recorded loans and
certificates of unpaid debts.7 This high rate of default further indicates the normative nature
of debt litigation in medieval society. The regularity with which these suits were brought
before local courts demonstrates that cheap and accessible forms of debt litigation were a
key mechanism in the operation of local trade. The debts recorded in the civil courts of
Nottingham, Chester and Winchester were relatively small and most related to the everyday
provisions bought and sold in each town. Those concerning larger sums were given more
attention and recorded in more detail, revealing that these large debts were a rarer feature
of court business and represented a more serious infringement of local trading customs and
expectations. The highest value debts of sums above £40 could not be brought before
borough courts but were under the jurisdiction of the courts of the crown and dealt with
elsewhere, so are outside the scope of this research.
Reflecting their important role in the medieval urban economy, women were regular
litigants in these suits, particularly when single or widowed, but also when married. The
towns that are the focus of this study were medium-sized provincial towns with populations
of approximately 3-4,000 in the fourteenth century. Women were engaged in numerous
trades and crafts in these towns, including brewing, baking, cloth production, the supplying
of water and a wide range of victualing. Each town had its own court, collectively referred to
here as borough courts, which heard civil litigation relating to debt and the broad category
of social wrongs termed trespass, separate to the modern understanding of this term. The
courts were held regularly, presided over by local officials and were accessible for the
majority of the urban community, as the costs of engaging in litigation were low, usually a
few pence.
The accessible nature of the courts is also reflected by the large numbers of the urban
populace that featured in their local courts as either plaintiff or defendant, groups that will
be collectively termed ‘litigants’ here.8 For example, at Nottingham a figure of litigants
equating to approximately one quarter of tax payers (adults over 14 except for the very
poor) can be recovered in one year of court rolls. As this paper will continue to show, each
6 J.L. Bolton, Money in the Medieval English Economy: 973-1489 (Manchester, 2012), p. 191.
7 Nightingale, ‘Money and credit’, p. 63.
8 The number of different individuals at court in Nottingham varied between 395-469, while the Poll Tax taxed
1,477 people in 1377 and 1,266 in 1381, meaning that approximately a quarter of this eligible population used
the court each year. T. Foulds, ‘The Medieval Town', in J. Beckett (ed.), A Centenary History of Nottingham
(Manchester, 1997), p. 56.
3
town and its court understood and operated the mechanisms of gendered economic
litigation in unique ways. The records of these courts were brief and formulaic, meaning
that a degree of inference is required in order to draw conclusions on these issues of legal
practice and economic reality. It is these practices that will be the focus of the rest of this
paper, after a brief explanation of the historiographical background.
This research intersects with and builds on the well-established historiography of women
and work in the middle ages. Through studies of numerous English towns such as Exeter,
London, York and Shrewsbury, as well as rural areas, we know that women were involved in
economic life, though these studies have frequently highlighted the low status, low pay and
transient nature of this work.9 Some historians, notably Caroline Barron and Jeremy
Goldberg have emphasised the economic activities of women as evidence of female agency
in this period, in which some women were able to run successful businesses and prosper on
their own, particularly after the demographic crisis brought about by famine and plague.10
Barron in particular famously termed this a ‘golden age’ for women in London. Others, most
notably Judith Bennett, have argued that there was consistency in women’s low status due
to the ‘patriarchal equilibrium’ whereby women’s status relative to men did not improve
across the pre-industrial period.11 Though limited research has focussed on the activities of
women and the role of gender in ‘economically-oriented’ civil litigation, the work of
Matthew Stevens and Cathryn Spence on London and Scottish towns respectively allows for
a wider comparative perspective to be drawn through the addition of this research on
English towns.12 Spence in particular highlights the frequent action of married women in
debt suits.13 Matthew Stevens’ recent work on women in London courts reveals the decline
in female action in civil suits, also questioning the idea of a ‘golden age’.14 This research on
9 For example M. Kowaleski, ‘Women’s Work in a Market Town: Exeter in the Late Fourteenth Century’, in B.A.
Hanawalt (ed.), Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe (Bloomington, 1986), p. 147; D. Hutton, ‘Women in
fourteenth-century Shrewsbury’ in L. Charles and L. Duffin (eds), Women and Work in Pre-industrial England
(Beckenham, 1985), pp. 83-99; K.E. Lacy, ‘Women and work in fourteenth and fifteenth century London’ in
Charles and Duffin (eds.), Women and Work, pp. 24-82; R.H. Hilton, ‘Women traders in medieval England’ in
Hilton, Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism (London, 1990), pp. 132-142; P.J.P. Goldberg, Women, Work
and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire c.1300-1520 (Oxford, 1992); C.M. Barron,
‘The ‘Golden Ages’ of Women in Medieval London’, Reading Medieval Studies, 15 (1989), pp. 35-58; M.K.
McIntosh, Working Women in English Society, 1300-1620 (Cambridge, 2005), p. 252.
10 Barron, ‘Women in Medieval London’, pp. 35-58; Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle.
11 Bennett, ‘Confronting Continuity’, p. 73.
12 The phrase ‘economically-orientated’ has been borrowed here from Matthew Stevens’ work on London
women in court. See M.F. Stevens, ‘London’s Married Women, Debt Litigation and Coverture in the Court of
Common Pleas’ in C. Beattie and M.F. Stevens (eds.), Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest
Europe (Woodbridge, 2013), p. 116.
13 C. Spence, “For His Interest’? Women, Debt and Coverture in Early Modern Scotland’, in C. Beattie and M.F.
Stevens (ed.), Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe (Woodbridge, 2013, pp. 173-190.
14 M.F. Stevens, ‘London Women, the Courts and the ‘Golden Age’: A Quantitative Analysis of Female Litigants
in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, The London Journal 37 (2012), p. 83.
4
three middling English towns adds to the understanding of the role that gender played in
everyday urban society and how it determined the economic activities of men and women
by examining their legal status in debt litigation. By analysing these lawsuits it will add
further depth to the understanding of the status of urban women and the axes of difference
that could impact on this identity as well as elements of continuity and change in female
legal and economic identity.
For the purposes of my PhD research I have analysed in detail the court material from each
town at intermediate stages across the fourteenth century at early, post-Black Death and
late points. This allows for assessment of any patterns of change over the century, in line
with the ‘golden age’ thesis posited by Caroline Barron. The sporadic survival of records
means that exactly corresponding years cannot be assessed, but general trends and themes
may nevertheless be identified.
Gender and debt litigation
Participation in debt litigation differed according to gendered rules and norms regarding the
economic and legal status of men and women. In all three towns of this study, men
significantly outnumbered women as debt litigants. Comparing the relative percentages of
male and female litigants enables the gendered patterns of debt litigation to be identified,
both over the years of the fourteenth century and in different towns. The sample years that
have been used for this study are determined by the survival and quality of the extant
records, meaning that the records for some towns are fuller than others.
5
Stage
(14thC)
Chester
Total
debt
litigants
Nottingham
Winchester
Female debt
litigants (%)
Total debt
litigants
Female
debt
litigants (%)
Total debt
litigants
Female debt
litigants (%)
Early
277
38 (14%)
153
17 (11%)
170
22 (13%)
Mid
236
16 (7%)
327
54 (17%)
148
23 (16%)
Late
117
8 (7%)
280
43 (15%)
130
15 (12%)
Table 1: gender patterns in fourteenth-century debt litigation15
These figures reveal that in all three towns women never accounted for more than 20 per
cent of all individuals who engaged in debt litigation. However the comparative picture of
the three towns reveals significant local differences in gendered debt litigation. While at
Nottingham women accounted for a larger proportion of debt litigants at the end the
century than at the beginning, the reverse was true for Chester. This points to
improvements in the economic status of women in Nottingham, leading to greater
involvement in debt suits and a contrasting marginalisation of women in Chester. At
Winchester there was little overall change between the beginning and end of the century,
despite a brief mid-period rise in female debt suits. However, these figures only reveal the
basic patterns of gendered debt litigation. By breaking up female litigants into various
groups we can better understand how and why these changes occurred.
Categorising women as litigants
Female debt litigants from each town can be classified in various ways. This should not imply
that the experience and identity of each group is homogenous, but categorisation does
allow for more detailed quantitative analysis of women’s involvement in economic disputes
at each court. By categorising litigants as creditors – plaintiffs bringing suits to court – and
debtors – defendants answering accusations – we can examine the gendering of the urban
economy and legal customs in more detail.
15 Source: Nottinghamshire Archive (NA) CA 1258B, CA 1279, CA 1294; : Cheshire Archives and Local Studies
(CALS) ZSR 81-85, ZSR109-112, Chester City Courts, pp. 33-96; Hampshire Record Office (HRO), W/D1/3,
W/D1/13, W/D1/27. See also J.S. Furley manuscript transcriptions of Winchester City Court Rolls, vols. 2, 5, 13,
11M92W/25, 11M92W/28, 11M92W/36.
6
Stage
(14thC)
Chester
Nottingham
Winchester
Creditors
Debtors
Creditors
Debtors
Creditors
Debtors
Early
16 (12%)
22 (14%)
6 (8%)
11 (12%)
7 (8%)
15 (15%)
Mid
4 (3%)
12 (10%)
26 (14%)
28 (15%)
9 (11%)
15 (19%)
Late
5 (8%)
3 (5%)
21 (13%)
22 (13%)
6 (8%)
9 (14%)
Table 2: female debt litigants in the fourteenth century (female debt litigants split as
creditors and debtors with percentages of whole sample)
The ratios of female debtors and creditors changed in each town over the fourteenth
century. In most instances, women were more likely to be at court as debtors who had
failed to repay debts or exchange goods on time. The differences in the numbers of female
creditors and debtors were the most marked in Winchester. At Chester the proportion of
female creditors declined over the fourteenth century, as did the comparable figures for
debtors, again demonstrating general marginalisation from economically oriented forms of
legal action. However at Nottingham the proportions of female creditors and debtors were
much closer, revealing that women took a more active role in the pursuance of debts owed
to them here than elsewhere. Many individuals acted as both creditors and debtors, both
bringing and answering suits at court, often appearing numerous times over several years.
Agnes Halam, Joan Brailsford and Alice Wollaton, all from Nottingham, were regular debt
litigants highlighting their integration into the economic and credit networks of the town.
Chester and Winchester saw fewer repeat female litigants, suggesting that debt litigation
here was regarded a more drastic and final measure and perhaps that the courts of these
towns did not make female access to litigation as easy as at Nottingham.
Though women may have been in court more frequently as debtors, the medieval
understanding of debt means that was discussed earlier means that we should not view
them as unscrupulous members of the economic community but as integrated commercial
actors. However women may have been less likely to act regularly as creditors due to their
subordinate status within the medieval urban economy and limited access to capital and
cash.
7
Marital status as difference
Female debt litigants can also be classified by marital status. Particularly important here is
the intersection of marital status with female legal identity and the application of the
doctrine of coverture to the pursuance of debts at court. According to traditional notions of
coverture, married women lost their legal identity upon marriage and with this any
accountability for debts accrued before or during their marriage. In the eighteenth century
William Blackstone famously wrote about the legal relationship of husbands and wives, who
became one person in law, stating that ‘the very being or legal existence of the woman is
suspended during the marriage’.16 A century later, Pollock and Maitland writing on the
history of English law made a similar assertion, stating that wives’ debts became the
responsibility of their husbands upon marriage, but importantly adding that couples acted
as co-defendants and crucially cautioning against a unified essence and experience of
coverture.17 Medieval historians have also frequently commented on the inability of married
women to litigate in this area.18
According to this doctrine we would not expect married women to be named as litigants in
debt suits. This does not mean that married women did not participate in the urban
economy, either individually or as part of their household, but suggests that their economic
activities were often obscured in the records as a result of their marital status. For this
study, women are recorded as married when referred to as ‘wife of’ (usually alongside their
husband’s name) and the category ‘single’ is used to refer to other women who are not
known to be married. In reality this category includes both unmarried and widowed women,
though the majority of court roll entries do not specifically designate the status of women
who were not married.
16 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, book 1, chapter 15 (Oxford, 1765-9), pp. 430-3.
17 F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the time of Edward I, vol. II, 2nd edn.
(Cambridge, 1952), pp. 405-6.
18 M.K. McIntosh, Working Women in English Society, 1300-1620 (Cambridge, 2005) , p. 95; C. Muldrew, “A
Mutual Assent of Her Mind’? Women, Debt, Litigation and Contract in Early Modern England’, History
Workshop Journal, 55 (2003), p.54, 57.
8
120
100
Percentage
80
60
% 'Single'
40
% Married
20
Chester
Nottingham
1385-6
1365-6
1299-1300
1394-5
1375-6
1323-4
1395
1378
1317-18
0
Winchester
Figure 1: marital status of female debt litigants
The graph shows the percentage of female debt litigants at each court who were married
and single. Here again each town presents a different picture. At Nottingham married
women appeared frequently in debt litigation, never litigating alone but acting jointly with
their husbands. These debts often concerned everyday provisions, essential for trade and
household supplies. In 1375, Robert Anker and his wife Alice brought a suit against John
Briddesmouth for 16s. owed for a barrel of herring as well as a separate debt of 6s. 8d. In
another suit, Laurence and Isabella Tyrington sought payment of 2s. for ale from Richard
Grantham and his wife Margery.19 In some instances married women even outnumbered
single women at court. Though the margins were slim, these litigious married couples in
Nottingham appeared more frequently as debtors than as creditors.20 For example, John
and Isabella Douy were found to detain 10s. owed to Roger Dandeson for garlic and
onions.21 In 1395, John and Isabella Ward owed a debt of 8s. 6d. to John Bellman, and the
parties settled with the court’s permission, with John Ward being fined for the debt.22
However at Chester and Winchester married couples appeared very infrequently, revealing
a stricter adherence to the laws of coverture. Particularly important is the decline in married
19 NA CA1279
20 By the 1370s when the numbers of couples in debt suits had become substantial, they accounted for 5 % of
all creditors and 8% of all debtors; in 1394-5 they were 7% of creditors and 8% of debtors.
21 NA CA1279
22 NA CA 1294
9
female debt litigants in Chester over the middle stage of the fourteenth century which helps
to account for the overall decline in the proportion of female debt litigants at court. While
at the start of the period numerous couples litigated as both creditors and debtors in
Chester, they had disappeared by the 1370s. In 1317, William and Margery Blund sought
payment of 3s 6d for malt wheat from Henry de Doncaster and his wife Elena, while Robert
de Frodisham and his wife Wladusa sought 20s for malt oats sold to the same Henry and
Elena.23 William and Alice de Ellehale were described as merchants in a suit where they
were alleged to owe 42s. to William le Rous, who had lent the money to Alice.24 However,
after this point couples appeared very infrequently in debt suits. At Winchester, few couples
came before the court as defendants at the turn of fourteenth century, and they only
appeared as one-off anomalies by the time of the next extant court records in the 1360s.
There are two explanations for this divergent evidence. It may reveal differences in the
economic activities of married women in the three towns, resulting in greater or lesser
involvement in debt litigation. However, there is no supporting evidence for this theory
from the large body of work on women’s economic roles in this period. Alternatively, the
evidence may point to local differences in the way that married women were held to
account for their economic activities. Various recent studies by Matthew Stevens, Cathryn
Spence and Cordelia Beattie have commented on the reality of coverture and the ability of
married women to act alongside their husbands at court, bringing into question the
complete lack of legal identity that this principle often assumes.25 Several early modern
historians have also shown that the reality of married women’s economic agency was
greater and more complicated than the doctrine of coverture suggests.26
It is likely therefore that in Nottingham local legal custom allowed married couples to act
jointly in debt suits over the whole of the century and beyond, resulting in the significant
presence of married women at court. The suits reflect debts accrued by wives individually or
jointly with their husbands both before or during marriage. Matthew Stevens has argued
that actions of London couples in debt suits related to economic transactions by wives that
23
CA ZSR 21 m1, m4. Hopkins p. 36, 38.
24 Hopkins, Chester City Courts, p. 75, 78.
25 C. Beattie, ‘Married women, contracts and coverture in late medieval England’ in Beattie and Stevens (eds.),
Married Women and the Law, pp. 134-6; Spence, ‘Women, debt and coverture’; See M.F. Stevens, ‘London’s
Married Women, Debt Litigation and Coverture in the Court of Common Pleas’ in Beattie and Stevens (eds.),
Married Women and the Law , pp. 115-132.
10
occurred before their marriage.27 However at Nottingham couples continued to act together
in these suits over many years meaning that the disputes also represent economic activities
of wives during marriage. According to this thesis therefore, the marginalisation of married
women from debt suits in Chester and Winchester reflected not the reality of their
economic activities but a shift in the legal status that was applied to these activities once
women married. Where these customs changed suggestions may be made to account for
this, such as the possible impact of the Black Death on local justice. However, locating the
exact time and reasons of these changes is impossible.
Importantly, this evidence reveals that the legal status of women in relation to their
economic activities was not continuous across English urban society. Though the courts that
are the focus of this study operated with largely comparable jurisdictions, in towns of similar
size and nature, the results of this focussed gender analysis are distinctive. While married
women like Isabella Ward and Margery Grantham took part in debt suits in Nottingham,
their counterparts in Chester and Winchester were not granted or required to take on the
same legal accountability for their economic actions. The interrogation of this data as
evidence of either economic realities or legal representations of these realities is crucial in
aiding our understanding of the practical and everyday ways in which both commercial life
and legal identities were gendered in this period.
Change over time and the ‘golden age’
The evidence also reveals different patterns of change across the fourteenth century,
suggesting once again that any assumptions of broader ‘English’ trends in female economic
and legal status should be made with caution. Support for the ‘golden age’ would be
provided by an increase in the proportion of female debt litigants in the court of each town,
pointing to increased involvement in local economies. Again the evidence is inconsistent.
The Nottingham data cautiously points to a degree of a local ‘golden age’, with women
being more likely to engage in debt litigation at the end of the century than at the start.
However, the Chester evidence suggests that here there was a decline in female economic
and legal status, with decreasing involvement in debt suits and particular marginalisation of
married women from these actions. At Winchester, an extended view over the century
depicts continuity in female economic status. However, a brief ‘golden age’ is suggested by
a temporary rise in female activity in debt suits after the second major outbreak of plague in
11
1361.28 This notion is supported by evidence suggesting that this outbreak killed more men
than women, leaving a gender imbalance that would have included many widows who
undoubtedly would have engaged in the economic life of the town.
100%
90%
80%
Trespass %
70%
60%
Debt %
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
Chester
Nottingham
1385-6
1361-2
1299-1300
1394-5
1375-6
1323-4
1395
1378
1317-18
0%
Winchester
Figure 2: civil suits in Chester, Nottingham and Winchester
28 Churchill Babington and Joseph R. Lumby (eds), Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, Monachi
Cestrensis, 8, Rolls Series (1865–96), p. 360, also quoted in Horrox, Black Death, p. 85. See also J. Mullan,
‘Mortality, gender and the plague of 1361-2 on the estate of the bishop of Winchester’, Cardiff Historical
Papers, 2007/8, http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/share/resources/CHP8_Mullan.pdf, p. 7.
12
100%
90%
80%
70%
% female
trespass
litigants
60%
50%
40%
% female debt
litigants
30%
20%
10%
Chester
Nottingham
1385-6
1365-6
1299-1300
1394-5
1375-6
1323-4
1395
1378
1317-18
0%
Winchester
Figure 3: Female litigious activity in Chester, Nottingham and Winchester
Debt and trespass were the two main forms of civil suit in urban courts which together
accounted for around 90 per cent of all court business. These two graphs reveal the various
patterns of change within each town, the first showing the overall dominance of debt
relative to trespass, and the second revealing the patterns of women's involvement in these
suits. These patterns allow for analysis of the nature of debt litigation in each town over the
century, revealing changes in the urban economy as well as the litigious behaviour of urban
residents. Female litigation largely reflected the overall volumes of debt relative to trespass
litigation, highlighting the fact that women were integrated members of the economic
community, who benefited from commercial confidence and prosperity in much the same
way as men. They should not therefore be viewed as separate commercial actors but as part
of the larger system. The individual balance of litigation and the different rates at which
debt came to dominate in each town may equally be attributed to the individual economic
identities of the towns and to the legal customs and norms of each town. The people of
Nottingham, for example, appear to have been more willing to bring disputes over small
debts to court, to which a substantial proportion of the overall tax paying population came
at some point over the course of each year, suggesting a more litigious urban community
than that of Chester or Winchester.
13
The impact of the Black Death of 1348 may also have manifested itself in unique, local ways.
At Chester and Winchester where married women were largely marginalised in economic
law suits, particularly after the Black Death, this may in fact serve as evidence of the
opposite of a ‘golden age’. Rather, there was a ‘golden age’ for coverture where
demographic upheaval resulted in changes to legal practice and customs and a reversion to
traditional principles. For some reason this did not occur at Nottingham – perhaps the
community of scribes and officials was less badly hit here, allowing for continuity of legal
practice, or perhaps the transfer of previous legal custom and knowledge regarding female
status was more successful meaning that practice was not altered. At Nottingham there was
a slight increase in the proportion of female debt litigants after the Black Death, rising from
11 to 15 per cent. However, when situated within the wider urban context, the evidence
from Nottingham also does not equate to a ‘golden age’. As debt came to dominate court
business, female involvement in these suits also rose. Rather than change or progression
there was continuity through the integration of women into broader economic change in
which gender was not an issue or concern. Debt litigation was increasingly prominent at
Nottingham during the fourteenth century, and women were part of this. By the end of the
century debt suits accounted for 84 per cent of the two main categories of civil suit, debt
and trespass, while at the same time debt suits had risen to account for 70 per cent of all
women’s civil suits. If anything this was a ‘golden age’ of debt litigation in Nottingham
rather than a ‘golden age’ for women.
Conclusions
As one of few forms of evidence that reveal the economic activities of ordinary men and
women in this period, this paper has revealed the uses and problems associated with urban
court evidence. Key among these is the extent to which these records represent actual
economic realities or the more complicated ways that economic life interacted with local
legal custom. This paper has demonstrated that, while the answer to this question is
probably a combination of economic reality and legal custom, female debt litigation was
specific to place, time and person. Comparison of debt litigation to other civil suits also
reveals that there was a specific form of gendered economic legal status in each town that
was different from other categories of litigation. The experience and identity of women in
relation to economic litigation was defined by where and when they lived, and in Chester
and Winchester also by their marital status. This idiosyncrasy in the way in that coverture
was applied when determining the legal status of married women in each town is perhaps
the most significant finding of this research, and highlights the need to apply this custom
with caution when considering everyday economic and legal interaction.
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While each town had its own customs in terms of how gender impacted on dispute
resolution, the main concern of urban governments, exemplified through their local courts,
lay in fostering a harmonious urban community that was a positive and constructive place in
which to trade, and the way to do this was through expedient and efficient resolution of
economic disputes. This meant that overt expressions of gendered ideologies did not appear
as a concern in the documents left by these courts. Though these ideas did limit the legal
status of married women in Chester and Winchester, they were also not only place-specific
but also changed over the course of the century, highlighting the developmental nature of
local law during this period.
Though a minority, women were frequent economic litigants, and these actions were
dictated by their general involvement in the economic life of their communities. As well as
indicating the interaction of gendered economic and legal identities, there is further scope
for this material to be utilised in adding to the historiography of women’s work in this
period. The crucial issue revealed only by comparison of different, though seemingly similar
towns, is the uniquely local patterns that determined how women participated in debt
litigation in each town being studied here. There was no general ‘English’ pattern to this
legal action, despite these towns existing under the same common law system and having
broadly similar liberties. Through comparison and exploration of difference this paper has
highlighted the importance of local custom and scribal practice, which saw gendered
customs adopted and understood in varying manners and therefore cautions against
generalised conclusions regarding the economic and legal identity of women in the late
medieval period.
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