Rereading rape and sexual violence in early modern England

Gender and History

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 1-25

  Walker, Garthine ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 11544249832     PISSN: 09535233     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.00087     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. Nazife Bashar, 'Rape in England between 1550 and 1700', in The Sexual Dynamics of History, ed. London Feminist History Group (Pluto Press, London, 1983), pp. 28-42; J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986); Roy Porter, 'Rape - Does it have a Historical Meaning?', in Rape, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986), pp. 216-36; Edward Shorter, 'Writing the History of Rape', Signs , 3 (1977), pp. 471-83.
2. Nazife Bashar, 'Rape in England between 1550 and 1700', in The Sexual Dynamics of History, ed. London Feminist History Group (Pluto Press, London, 1983), pp. 28-42; J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986); Roy Porter, 'Rape - Does it have a Historical Meaning?', in Rape, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986), pp. 216-36; Edward Shorter, 'Writing the History of Rape', Signs , 3 (1977), pp. 471-83.
3. Nazife Bashar, 'Rape in England between 1550 and 1700', in The Sexual Dynamics of History, ed. London Feminist History Group (Pluto Press, London, 1983), pp. 28-42; J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986); Roy Porter, 'Rape - Does it have a Historical Meaning?', in Rape, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986), pp. 216-36; Edward Shorter, 'Writing the History of Rape', Signs , 3 (1977), pp. 471-83.
4. Nazife Bashar, 'Rape in England between 1550 and 1700', in The Sexual Dynamics of History, ed. London Feminist History Group (Pluto Press, London, 1983), pp. 28-42; J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986); Roy Porter, 'Rape - Does it have a Historical Meaning?', in Rape, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986), pp. 216-36; Edward Shorter, 'Writing the History of Rape', Signs , 3 (1977), pp. 471-83.
5. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
6. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
7. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
8. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
9. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
10. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
11. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
12. Miranda Chaytor, 'Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth Century', Gender & History, 7 (1995), pp. 378-407; Anna Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (Pandora, London & New York, 1987); Shani D'Cruze, 'Approaching the History of Rape and Sexual Violence: Notes Towards Research', Women's History Review, 1 (1992), pp. 377-96; Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Maidens in Medieval French Literature and Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991), esp. ch. 5. Cynthia Herrup's forthcoming monograph on the Castlehaven trial is eagerly awaited; meanwhile, see her 'The Patriarch at Home: The Trial of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven for Rape and Sodomy', History Workshop Journal, 41(1996), pp. 1-18. For the use of narratives in the history of crime, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), History from Crime, tr. Corrada Biazzo Curry, Margaret A. Gallucci and Mary M. Gallucci (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1994), and several of the essays in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (UCL Press, London, 1994). On narrative jurisprudence, see David Ray Papke (ed.), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: A Reader in Storytelling and the Law (Deborah Charles Publications, Liverpool, 1991).
13. Primary material has been drawn from the records of a range of national and local courts which were governed by criminal, civil or canon law: Star Chamber, the Northern Circuit Assizes, Palatinate of Chester Great Sessions (equivalent to assizes), Cheshire Quarter Sessions, City of Chester Quarter Sessions and Crownmote, and the Chester Diocesan Consistory Court. Spelling and capitalisation in narrative evidence are reproduced here as they appear in the original documents. For the sake of clarity, punctuation has occasionally been modernised, contractions have been expanded, repetitive and formulaic legal phrases have sometimes been removed without ellipses, and narratives have been returned to the first person singular. Much of what Chaytor has to say about Northern Assize Circuit informations applies to the narrative evidence of other courts analysed in this present study: Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 380-81 and p. 402 nn. 6-8. It should be noted, however, that in the Cheshire common law courts documents were classified differently from those of the Northern Circuit; 'examinations' in the former were not necessarily structured according to the questions of JPs, but were characterised by syntax, rhythms, hesitations and digressions just as indicative of ordinary speech as 'informations'. However, the main argument of this essay pertains even to narratives into which clerks or scribes had a major input, and to those in which the content was heavily influenced by formal interrogatories (as in consistory court material).
14. I shall explore the impact of these disparate contexts on the narrative construction of sexual violence elsewhere. Here, I focus on the general characteristics of narratives of rape and attempted rape produced in a variety of contexts.
15. E.g., her arguments about changing perceptions of rape as a property crime and the unavailability of appropriate narratives to raped widows. For a call to restore rape to the literal, to the body, through a conscious, critical reading of representations of rape, see Lynn A. Higgins and Brenda R. Silver, 'Introduction: Rereading Rape', in Rape and Representation, ed. Lynn A. Higgins and Brenda R. Silver (Columbia University Press, New York, 1991), pp. 3-4.
16. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 404 n. 16, pp. 385, 383-4.
17. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 382-3, 394-5, 399-400.
18. Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence (Polity, Cambridge, 1988), p. 116. It should be noted, however, that memory might function similarly regarding non-traumatic incidents. There is certainly no consensus on the validity of theories that memories of sexual violence are repressed. See, e.g., 'False memories "wreck 100,000 families"', Observer, 8 December 1996; D. Stephen Lindsay and John Briere, The controversy regarding recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: pitfalls, bridges, and future directions', Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12 (1997), pp. 631-47.
19. Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence (Polity, Cambridge, 1988), p. 116. It should be noted, however, that memory might function similarly regarding non-traumatic incidents. There is certainly no consensus on the validity of theories that memories of sexual violence are repressed. See, e.g., 'False memories "wreck 100,000 families"', Observer, 8 December 1996; D. Stephen Lindsay and John Briere, The controversy regarding recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: pitfalls, bridges, and future directions', Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12 (1997), pp. 631-47.
20. Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence (Polity, Cambridge, 1988), p. 116. It should be noted, however, that memory might function similarly regarding non-traumatic incidents. There is certainly no consensus on the validity of theories that memories of sexual violence are repressed. See, e.g., 'False memories "wreck 100,000 families"', Observer, 8 December 1996; D. Stephen Lindsay and John Briere, The controversy regarding recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: pitfalls, bridges, and future directions', Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12 (1997), pp. 631-47.
21. Joan Scott, 'Experience', in Feminists Theorise the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (Routledge, London & New York, 1992), pp. 22-40; Kathleen Canning, 'Feminist History after the Linguistic Turn: Historicising Discourse and Experience', Signs, 19 (1994), pp. 368-404.
22. Joan Scott, 'Experience', in Feminists Theorise the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (Routledge, London & New York, 1992), pp. 22-40; Kathleen Canning, 'Feminist History after the Linguistic Turn: Historicising Discourse and Experience', Signs, 19 (1994), pp. 368-404.
23. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 392, 380, 382.
24. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 379-80. Her italics.
25. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', p. 394.
26. Garthine Walker, Crime, Gender and Social Order in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, forthcoming). Cf. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', p. 383, p. 404 n. 16.
27. Helen Haste, The Sexual Metaphor (Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York & London, 1993), pp. 53, 11; Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985).
28. Helen Haste, The Sexual Metaphor (Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York & London, 1993), pp. 53, 11; Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985).
29. My theoretical understanding of language, communication and storytelling owes much to Haste, Sexual Metaphor, and Ken Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds (Routledge, London & New York, 1995). In particular, here: Haste, Sexual Metaphor, pp. 9-10, 38-9, 51; Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 21, 167, 13, and ch. 5.
30. My theoretical understanding of language, communication and storytelling owes much to Haste, Sexual Metaphor, and Ken Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds (Routledge, London & New York, 1995). In particular, here: Haste, Sexual Metaphor, pp. 9-10, 38-9, 51; Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 21, 167, 13, and ch. 5.
31. My theoretical understanding of language, communication and storytelling owes much to Haste, Sexual Metaphor, and Ken Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds (Routledge, London & New York, 1995). In particular, here: Haste, Sexual Metaphor, pp. 9-10, 38-9, 51; Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 21, 167, 13, and ch. 5.
32. My theoretical understanding of language, communication and storytelling owes much to Haste, Sexual Metaphor, and Ken Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds (Routledge, London & New York, 1995). In particular, here: Haste, Sexual Metaphor, pp. 9-10, 38-9, 51; Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 21, 167, 13, and ch. 5.
33. For the legal history of rape see, e.g., J. B. Post, 'Ravishment of Women: the Statutes of Westminster', in Legal Records and the Historian, ed. J. H. Baker (Royal Historical Society, London, 1978), pp. 150-64; Antony E. Simpson, 'Vulnerability and the Age of Female Consent: Legal Innovation and its Effect on Prosecutions for Rape in Eighteenth-century London', in Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, ed. G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1987), pp. 181-205; Jennifer Temkin, 'Women, Rape and Law Reform', in Rape: An Historical and Cultural Enquiry, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, London, 1986), pp. 16-40.
34. For the legal history of rape see, e.g., J. B. Post, 'Ravishment of Women: the Statutes of Westminster', in Legal Records and the Historian, ed. J. H. Baker (Royal Historical Society, London, 1978), pp. 150-64; Antony E. Simpson, 'Vulnerability and the Age of Female Consent: Legal Innovation and its Effect on Prosecutions for Rape in Eighteenth-century London', in Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, ed. G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1987), pp. 181-205; Jennifer Temkin, 'Women, Rape and Law Reform', in Rape: An Historical and Cultural Enquiry, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, London, 1986), pp. 16-40.
35. For the legal history of rape see, e.g., J. B. Post, 'Ravishment of Women: the Statutes of Westminster', in Legal Records and the Historian, ed. J. H. Baker (Royal Historical Society, London, 1978), pp. 150-64; Antony E. Simpson, 'Vulnerability and the Age of Female Consent: Legal Innovation and its Effect on Prosecutions for Rape in Eighteenth-century London', in Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, ed. G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1987), pp. 181-205; Jennifer Temkin, 'Women, Rape and Law Reform', in Rape: An Historical and Cultural Enquiry, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Basil Blackwell, London, 1986), pp. 16-40.
36. PRO STAC 8 143/8, m. 8, Complaint of Edward Frye [Southamptonshire, 1611]; STAC 8 150/18, m. 3, Complaint of John Goodwyn [Kent, 1611]. This is not to say that such conventions are never present in tales told elsewhere, but that in Star Chamber they provide a clear narrative framework as a matter of course.
37. For the importance of law and legal process in ecclesiastical testimony, see Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London (Clarendon, Oxford, 1996). Cf. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 381-2.
38. For the importance of law and legal process in ecclesiastical testimony, see Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London (Clarendon, Oxford, 1996). Cf. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 381-2.
39. Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 15, 24, 29, 35, 172. For distinctions between different sorts of narratives, see Norman K. Denzin, Interpretive Biography (1989), p. 48. On theorising narrative more generally, see Barbara Herrnstein Smith, 'Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories', and Hayden White, 'The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality', both in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1981).
40. Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 15, 24, 29, 35, 172. For distinctions between different sorts of narratives, see Norman K. Denzin, Interpretive Biography (1989), p. 48. On theorising narrative more generally, see Barbara Herrnstein Smith, 'Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories', and Hayden White, 'The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality', both in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1981).
41. Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 15, 24, 29, 35, 172. For distinctions between different sorts of narratives, see Norman K. Denzin, Interpretive Biography (1989), p. 48. On theorising narrative more generally, see Barbara Herrnstein Smith, 'Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories', and Hayden White, 'The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality', both in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1981).
42. William M. O'Barr and John M. Conley, 'Litigant Satisfaction versus Legal Adequacy in Small Claims Court Narratives', in Narrative and the Legal Discourse, ed. Papke, p. 67; Gregory M. Matoesian, Reproducing Rape: Domination Through Talk in the Courtroom (Polity Press, Oxford, 1993).
43. William M. O'Barr and John M. Conley, 'Litigant Satisfaction versus Legal Adequacy in Small Claims Court Narratives', in Narrative and the Legal Discourse, ed. Papke, p. 67; Gregory M. Matoesian, Reproducing Rape: Domination Through Talk in the Courtroom (Polity Press, Oxford, 1993).
44. For a female sexual subculture, see Patricia Crawford, 'Sexual Knowledge in England, 1500-1750', in Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: the History of Attitudes to Sexuality, ed. Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994), pp. 94-6.
45. Cf. Ulinka Rublack's comment on the lack of historical evidence for either female solidarity or homogeneity in women's attitudes: 'The Public Body: Policing Abortion in Early Modern Germany', in Gender Relations in German History: Power, Agency and Experience from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey (UCL Press, London, 1996), p. 58.
46. Cf. Chaytor's analysis of the Margaret Wilson case in which over-interpretation of the term 'father-in-law' leads to a speculative discussion of an imagined earlier trauma caused by the death of Margaret's father and 'the step-father's theft/rape' of her mother: 'Husband(ry)', pp. 389-91; the deposition is reprinted in full at p. 389. For the original, see [Public Record Office, hereafter PRO] ASSI 45 2/1/42 [1647]. In my view, the wording of the deposition fails to provide evidence of how Margaret Wilson experienced or remembered either of these former events, and certainly goes no way to substantiating the statement that Margaret 'felt herself caught in an incest-like knot, a knot formed of her fears and imaginings about the household in which she lived'.
47. Sandra Walklate, Gender and Crime: an Introduction (Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, London & New York, 1995), p. 95.
48. Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. & London), p. 172.
49. E.g., [Cheshire Record Office, hereafter CRO] QJF 79/1/61, Examination of Randle Bathoe [1651]. CRO QJF 79/1/76, Examinations re. William Hill [1651]. Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early Modern Society (Arnold, London, New York, Sydney & Auckland), ch. 5.
50. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, pp. 74, 92, 103, 109.
51. Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1995), ch. 6.
52. PRO CHES 38/41 [unfoliated], 'Examinations against John Wolfe and Joseph Lowe' [1682].
53. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, p. 78; Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, London & New York, 1994), p. 60.
54. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, p. 78; Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, London & New York, 1994), p. 60.
55. The identification of enforced submission with consent has endured in certain legal and cultural discourses: Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women (Polity Press, Oxford, 1989), pp. 13, 72, 78-9.
56. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 398-9.
57. ASSI 45 2/1/13, Examination of Jane Bingley [1647].
58. ASSI 45 7/1/33, Information of Hester Burton [1664].
59. CHES 38/41, Examinations against John Wolfe and Joseph Lowe [1682]; ASSI 45 10/2/31, Information of Jane Moore [1672]; [Chester City Record Office, hereafter CCRO] QSF 79/1/39, Examinations against Joshua Taylor [1667]. It is notable that these examples are all drawn from the later seventeenth century. Cf. Chaytor's argument that from the mid-seventeenth century onwards 'the sexuality had to be expunged from the [woman's rape] narrative because legally, culturally, it had for the first time begun to get in': 'Husband(ry)', p. 395. Future research may throw some light on the issue of whether rape was previously seen more as a property crime than a sexual or violent one, but the issue is often confused by a tendency to compound rape and abduction which, although defined legally by the same statutes until 1557, were nevertheless discrete offences. It should be noted, however, that even in abduction, where concerns about property were often paramount, it is not the abducted woman herself who was inevitably constituted as property. Rather her abduction raised a series of legal concerns about land and inheritance which were inseparable from concerns about marriage and woman's place within it.
60. Haste, Sexual Metaphor, p. 55. See also, Michael Billig, Arguing and Thinking (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987).
61. Haste, Sexual Metaphor, p. 55. See also, Michael Billig, Arguing and Thinking (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987).
62. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 382.
63. Julie A. Allison and Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Rape: The Misunderstood Crime (Newbury Park, London & New Delhi, 1993), p. 201.
64. Walker, Crime, Gender and Social Order, ch. 3; Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England and Germany (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville & London, 1992), pp. 199-202.
65. Walker, Crime, Gender and Social Order, ch. 3; Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England and Germany (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville & London, 1992), pp. 199-202.
66. Sir Francis Bacon and Michael Dalton, cited in Bashar, 'Rape in England', p. 32; see also, Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1987), p. 81. Alain Chartier, Delectable demaundes and pleasant questions, with their several answeres, in matters of love (London, 1596), cited in Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society (Arnold, London, 1995), p. 228.
67. Sir Francis Bacon and Michael Dalton, cited in Bashar, 'Rape in England', p. 32; see also, Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1987), p. 81. Alain Chartier, Delectable demaundes and pleasant questions, with their several answeres, in matters of love (London, 1596), cited in Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society (Arnold, London, 1995), p. 228.
68. Sir Francis Bacon and Michael Dalton, cited in Bashar, 'Rape in England', p. 32; see also, Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1987), p. 81. Alain Chartier, Delectable demaundes and pleasant questions, with their several answeres, in matters of love (London, 1596), cited in Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society (Arnold, London, 1995), p. 228.
69. Sir Francis Bacon and Michael Dalton, cited in Bashar, 'Rape in England', p. 32; see also, Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1987), p. 81. Alain Chartier, Delectable demaundes and pleasant questions, with their several answeres, in matters of love (London, 1596), cited in Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society (Arnold, London, 1995), p. 228.
70. Susan Dwyer Amussen, '"Being Stirred to Much Unquietness": Violence and Domestic Violence in England', Journal of Women's History, 6 (1994): 70-89; Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women.
71. Susan Dwyer Amussen, '"Being Stirred to Much Unquietness": Violence and Domestic Violence in England', Journal of Women's History, 6 (1994): 70-89; Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women.
72. QJF 89/1/43, Examination of Mary Janson [1661].
73. QJF 89/1/43, Examination of William Cookson [1661].
74. QJF 91/4/54, Examination of Ellen Howley [1663].
75. QJF 91/4/54, Examination of Ellen Howley [1663]; ASSI 45 4/3/78, Information of Elizabeth Frith [1653]. Other examples can be found in B. S. Lindemann, 'To Ravish and Carnally Know: Rape in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts', Signs, 10 (1984), pp. 65, 68;
76. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, pp. 136-7.
77. Similar notions about female physical weakness appear to have been brought to bear on verdicts in rape cases in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Allison and Wrightsman, Rape, pp. 203-4.
78. CCRO MF 86/125, Examination taken 5 August 1668.
79. [Chester Diocesan Record Office] EDC 5(1639)120, Parnella Mugginson v. Thomas Croakes.
80. ASSI 45 9/3/41, Information of Katherine Ireish [1670]. Chaytor's interpretation differs: 'Husband(ry)', pp. 386-7.
81. Matthew Hale, cited in Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., & London, 1990), p. 162. Claims that male violence had resulted in miscarriage were common in women's narratives of non-sexual assault.
82. ASSI 45 9/3/42, Information of Frances Mountaine [1670]; ASSI 45 9/3/42A Informations of Isabel Popleton & Olive Robinson [1670].
83. QJF 89/1/97, Examination of Anne Leadwarde [1661].
84. The answer of Bridget Pakeman' [1570], printed in F. G. Emmison, Elizabethan Life: Morals and the Church Courts (Essex County Council, Chelmsford, 1973), p. 212.
85. QJF 56/2/37, Petition of Margaret Knowsley [1625]. This case has been discussed by Steven Hindle, 'The Shaming of Margaret Knowsley: Gossip, Gender and the Experience of Authority in Early Modern England', Continuity and Change, 9 (1994), pp. 391-419, and Lynda E. Boose, 'The Priest, the Slanderer, the Historian and the Feminist', English Literary Renaissance, 25 (1995), pp. 320-40.
86. QJF 56/2/37, Petition of Margaret Knowsley [1625]. This case has been discussed by Steven Hindle, 'The Shaming of Margaret Knowsley: Gossip, Gender and the Experience of Authority in Early Modern England', Continuity and Change, 9 (1994), pp. 391-419, and Lynda E. Boose, 'The Priest, the Slanderer, the Historian and the Feminist', English Literary Renaissance, 25 (1995), pp. 320-40.
87. QSF 73/2/65, Examination of Sarah Stretch [1629].
88. QSF 73/2/64, Examination of Nicholas Browne [1629].
89. STAC 8 140/7, m. 40 [Essex, 1623].
90. For the cultural value of clothing see N. B. Harte, 'State Control of Dress and Social Change in Pre-Industrial England', in Trade, Government and Economy in PreIndustrial England, ed. D. C. Coleman and A. H. John, (Weidenfeld, London, 1986), pp. 132-65; Beverley Lemire, 'Consumerism in Pre-Industrial and Early Industrial England: the Trade in Second Hand Clothes', Journal of British Studies, 27 (1988), pp. 1-24; Daniel Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the 'Ancien Régime', tr. Jean Birrell (Cambridge University Press, 1996 edn).
91. For the cultural value of clothing see N. B. Harte, 'State Control of Dress and Social Change in Pre-Industrial England', in Trade, Government and Economy in PreIndustrial England, ed. D. C. Coleman and A. H. John, (Weidenfeld, London, 1986), pp. 132-65; Beverley Lemire, 'Consumerism in Pre-Industrial and Early Industrial England: the Trade in Second Hand Clothes', Journal of British Studies, 27 (1988), pp. 1-24; Daniel Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the 'Ancien Régime', tr. Jean Birrell (Cambridge University Press, 1996 edn).
92. For the cultural value of clothing see N. B. Harte, 'State Control of Dress and Social Change in Pre-Industrial England', in Trade, Government and Economy in PreIndustrial England, ed. D. C. Coleman and A. H. John, (Weidenfeld, London, 1986), pp. 132-65; Beverley Lemire, 'Consumerism in Pre-Industrial and Early Industrial England: the Trade in Second Hand Clothes', Journal of British Studies, 27 (1988), pp. 1-24; Daniel Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the 'Ancien Régime', tr. Jean Birrell (Cambridge University Press, 1996 edn).
93. STAC 8 140/7, m. 40 [Essex, 1623].
94. CRO DLT/UNLISTED/18, Leicester-Warren of Tabley Collection, Peter Leicester, 'Briefe Notes Concerning a Justice of Peace for myne owne memory' [1660], p. 58.
95. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, p. 78.
96. STAC 8 185/15, m. 12 [Cambridgeshire, 1605]; STAC 8 18/22, m. 2 [Suffolk, 1607]; STAC 8 199/20, m. 171 [Buckinghamshire, 1614].
97. See for example, ASSI 45 2/1/42, Information of Margaret Wilson [1647].
98. STAC 8 199/20, m. 171, Answer of Elizabeth Sansbury [Middlesex, 1614].
99. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, p. 71. In literature, too, the chaste woman is described with mixed metaphors of confining attire and locked and well-guarded buildings. Her body should be 'locked up close' and 'hidden' in 'Castles impregnable', 'the closest prisons', or a mere dwelling house, where her chastity can be shielded behind 'impregnable walls': 'with modest and comely garments, such as are warm and wholesome, having every window closed with a strong Casement and every Loophole furnished with a strong Ordinance that no unchaste eye may come near to assail them, no lascivious tongue to woo a forbidden passage, nor no profane hand touch relics so pure and religious', Hic Mulier; Or, The Man-Woman... (London, 1620), reprinted in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640, ed. Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara McManus (University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1985), pp. 264-76, quotations at pp. 266, 271-2.
100. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, p. 71. In literature, too, the chaste woman is described with mixed metaphors of confining attire and locked and well-guarded buildings. Her body should be 'locked up close' and 'hidden' in 'Castles impregnable', 'the closest prisons', or a mere dwelling house, where her chastity can be shielded behind 'impregnable walls': 'with modest and comely garments, such as are warm and wholesome, having every window closed with a strong Casement and every Loophole furnished with a strong Ordinance that no unchaste eye may come near to assail them, no lascivious tongue to woo a forbidden passage, nor no profane hand touch relics so pure and religious', Hic Mulier; Or, The Man-Woman... (London, 1620), reprinted in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640, ed. Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara McManus (University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1985), pp. 264-76, quotations at pp. 266, 271-2.
101. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, p. 71. In literature, too, the chaste woman is described with mixed metaphors of confining attire and locked and well-guarded buildings. Her body should be 'locked up close' and 'hidden' in 'Castles impregnable', 'the closest prisons', or a mere dwelling house, where her chastity can be shielded behind 'impregnable walls': 'with modest and comely garments, such as are warm and wholesome, having every window closed with a strong Casement and every Loophole furnished with a strong Ordinance that no unchaste eye may come near to assail them, no lascivious tongue to woo a forbidden passage, nor no profane hand touch relics so pure and religious', Hic Mulier; Or, The Man-Woman... (London, 1620), reprinted in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640, ed. Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara McManus (University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1985), pp. 264-76, quotations at pp. 266, 271-2.
102. Garthine Walker, 'Expanding the Boundaries of Female Honour in Early Modern England', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 6 (1996), pp. 235-45.
103. STAC 8 215/9, m. 2 [Northamptonshire, 1608],
104. E.g., STAC 8 210/14, m. 10 [Cornwall, 1619]; STAC 8 185/15 [Cambridgeshire, 1605].
105. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, pp. 1-6, 20.
106. STAC 8 46/16, m. 1 [Gloucestershire, 1613]; STAG 8 102/16, m. 3 [Southampton, 1619], See also STAG 8 210/14, m. 5 [Cornwall, 1619].
107. E.g. see STAG 8 102, m. 16 [Southampton, 1619]; STAG 8 185/15 [Cambridgeshire, 1605].
108. QSF 79/1/39, Examinations taken 20 October 1667.
109. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', p. 395.
110. Chaytor, 'Husband(ry)', pp. 382, 385-6.
111. Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence, p. 8; Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, p. 143-4, and ch. 5. See also Porter, 'Rape', p. 217.
112. Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence, p. 8; Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, p. 143-4, and ch. 5. See also Porter, 'Rape', p. 217.
113. Clark, Women's Silence, Men's Violence, p. 8; Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, p. 143-4, and ch. 5. See also Porter, 'Rape', p. 217.
114. Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories, pp. 66-7; see also pp. 75-7.
115. M. M. Bakhtin, cited in Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, 'African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race', in Feminism and History, ed. Joan Wallach Scott (Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1996), p. 196.