A profane history of early modern oaths

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Volumn 11, Issue , 2001, Pages 37-63

  Spurr, John ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 20444485016     PISSN: 00804401     EISSN: 14740648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0080440101000032     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (175)

1. The case is recounted in A. Macfarlane, The Justice and the Mare's Ale - Law and Disorder in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 1981), 47-60, esp. 51.
2. Isaac Barrow, Theological Works, ed. A. Napier (9 vols., Cambridge, 1859), II, 44-6.
3. John Tillotson, Sermons (12 vols., 1757), ii, 65-6.
4. Robert Sanderson, De Juramenti: Seven Lectures Concerning the Obligation of Promissory Oaths (1655), 137-8;
5. John Tombes, Sephersheba: Or, The Oath-Book (1662), 105-7. These authors pride themselves on the strictness of their teaching compared to Catholic casuists such as Becanus and Azorius and even to Cicero.
6. See Misorcus, The Anti-Quaker (1676), 13-14;
7. [Richard Head], Jackson's Recantation, or, the Life and Death of the Notorious High-Way-Man (1674), sigs. C3v-C4v.
8. Robinson's was, of course, an assertory rather than a promissory oath.
9. I have been engaged on such a history of oaths and swearing for some time. I am grateful to the British Academy for the award of a post-doctoral fellowship between 1987 and 1990 that enabled me to begin work on the subject.
10. The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. M. Eliade (16 vols., New York, 1987), XV, 301;
11. also see H. Silving, 'The Oath', Yale Law Journal, LXVIII (1958-9).
12. J. L. Nelson, 'Dispute Settlement in Carolingian West Francia', in The Settlement of Deputes in Early Medieval Europe, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge, 1986), 60.
13. Hamlet, I, iii, line 115, in William Shakespeare - The Complete Works, ed. P. Alexander (1951), 1034.
14. R. L. Greaves, Society and Religion in Elizabethan England (Minneapolis, 1981), 680.
15. Quoted by P. Wormald, 'Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England', in Settlement of Disputes, ed. Davies and Fouracre, 151.
16. A. J. Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture (1985), 175;
17. cf. P. P. Howell, A Manual of Nuer Law (1954), 219-20.
18. L. Kolmer, Promissorische Eide im Mittelalter (Regensburger Historische Forschungen, 12; Kallmünz, 1989), 362;
19. also see the editor's remarks in the 'Postface' to Le Serment, ed. R. Verdier (2 vols., Paris, 1991), II, 429-36.
20. Paolo Prodi, Das Sakrament der Herrschaft - Der politische Eid in der Verfassungsgeschichte des Okzidents, trans. J. Else (Berlin, 1997);
21. originally published as Il Sacramento del Potere (Bologna, 1992).
22. B.J. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England (Princeton, 1983), 186;
23. C.J. Sommerville, The Secularization of Early Modern England (Oxford, 1992), 143;
24. C. Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (paperback edn, 1969), 371.
25. See Richard Trexler, 'Reverence and Profanity in the Study of Early Modern Religion', in Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe 1500-1800, ed. K. von Greyerz (1984).
26. The distinction was an early modern commonplace. 'Honour and Reverence consist onely in a separation from vulgar usage, in setting a greater value upon, in retaining more veneration for one then we commonly do for others', while 'to profane' is to break down that separation: John North, A Sermon Preached before the King at Newmarket October 8 1671 (Cambridge, 1671), 20-1.
27. John Allen, Of Perjury (1682), 10.
28. [John Digby], An Apologie of the Earl of Bristol (1647: reprinted Caen, 1656), 31.
29. Quoted in Boland and Sayer on Oaths and Affirmations: Second Edition, ed. W.J. Fell and A.G. Keats (1961), 1.
30. M. Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, trans. A. Sheridan (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 280;
31. also see C. Langlois, 'Le Serment Révolutionnaire 1789-1791: Fondation et Exclusion', in Serment, ed. Verdier, II, 394;
32. J.C. Colfavru, 'Le Serment', Revolution Françaises, 2 (1888);
33. T. Tackett, Religion, Revolution and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 (Princeton, 1986). In so far as I have been able to ascertain, French revolutionary oaths are of the 'je jure' or 'nous jurons' formula and what seems to be at stake for the conscience is less what people swear by than what they swear to.
34. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Everyman edn., 1914), 73.
35. The Illustrious Hugo Grotius Of the Law of Warre and Peace, trans. C[lement] B[arksdale] (1655), 234.
36. I infer this from the cases reported in S. McSheffrey, Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities 1420-1530 (Philadelphia, 1995), 12, 101.
37. Titus Andronicus, v, i, lines 70-80, in Shakespeare, 895.
38. John Locke: Epistola de Tolerantia: A Letter on Toleration, ed. R. Klibansky and J.W. Gough (Oxford, 1968), 135;
39. Hobbes quoted in R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 (Cambridge, 1993), 344.
40. W. L. Arnstein, The Bradlaugh Case: A Study in Late Victorian Opinion and Politics (Oxford, 1965), 40-44.
41. A contrast is provided by a Christian like Eamon De Valera who in 1927 subscribed an oath of fidelity to the British monarch while declaring that 'I am not taking an oath'; see T. R. Dwyer, Eamon de Valera (Dublin, 1980), 75-6.
42. See J. L. Austin, How to do Things with Words, ed. J.O. Urmson (Oxford, 1962).
43. The diary of Z. C. von Uffenbach quoted in J. B. Major, Cambridge under Queen Anne (1911), 377.
44. W. H. Hale, A Series of Precedents and Proceedings in Criminal Causes, Extending from the year 1475 to 1640: Extracted from the Act Books of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of London (1847), 88-9.
45. Troth-plighting is not strictly swearing an oath, it is the 'afor God' which differentiates this example; on troth-plighting see D. Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death - Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997), 267-76.
46. John Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr Badman, ed. J.F. Forrest and R. Sharrock (Oxford, 1988), 28.
47. C.A. Kratz, 'Genres of Power: A Comparative Analysis of Okiek Blessings, Curses and Vows', Man, 24 (1989);
48. J. Ziolkowski, 'Saints in Invocations and Oaths in Medieval Literature', Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 87 (1988).
49. See R. Ó Huiginn, 'Tongu da dia toinges mo thuath [I swear by the God by whom my people swear] and related expressions', in Sages, Saints and Storytellers, ed. D. Ó Corrian, L. Breatnach and K. McCone (Maynooth, 1989), 337. I am grateful to Professor Ralph Griffiths for alerting me to this essay.
50. For a survey see N. Hermann Mascard, Les reliques des saints - La formation coutumière d'un droit (Paris, 1975), 235-70;
51. and for the examples cited P. J. Geary, Furta Sacra - The Theft of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978), 43-4;
52. R. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075-1225 (Oxford, 2000), 180;
53. G.H. Jones, 'Celtic Britain and the Pilgrim Movement', Y Cymmrodor 23 (1912), 352-3;
54. R. Gillespie, Devoted People - Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester, 1997), 33-4.
55. 'The Voyage of Sir Richard Edgecumbe, 1488', in Hibernica: or, Some Antient Pieces relating to Ireland (1757), 32-5.
56. J-C. Schmitt, La Raison des Gestes dans l'Occident Medieval (Paris, 1990), 99, 291, 321;
57. B. Guenée, Un Roi et son Historien (Paris, 1999), 413-14;
58. F. Koller, Der Eid im Münchener Stadtrecht des Mittelalters (Munich, 1957), 44.
59. English Gilds, ed. T. Smith (Early English Text Society, original series, 40, 1870), 188-9.
60. See E. Cohen, The Crossroads of Justice: Law and Culture in Late Medieval France (Leiden, 1992), 57-61, 69-70;
61. J. de Vigurie, 'Contribution à l'histoire de la fidélité. Note sur le serment en France à l'époque des guerres de religion', Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest, 82 (Rennes, 1975), 291;
62. J.E. Tyler, Oaths, their Origin, Nature and History (1834), 58;
63. Tombes, Sephersheba, 40, 49.
64. It was not a necessary consequence of a Bible-centred piety that the book itself should be despised; Lollards, for example, revered the holy book as an object: see M. Aston, Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion (1984), 109-10.
65. John Ley, A Comparison of the Parliamentary Protestation with the Late Canonical Oath (1640), 30-3;
66. Edward Bowles, The Dutie and Danger of Swearing (York, 1655), 8;
67. C. Evans, Oaths of Allegiance in Colonial New England (Worcester, Mass., 1922), 41.
68. Also see H. Consett, The Practice of the Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Courts (1685), 99-100
69. and, for examples of kissing the book at King's Lynn and London, see The Journal of William Schellinks' Travels in England 1661-1663, trans. and ed. M. Exwood and H.L. Lehmann (Camden Society, fifth series, 1, 1993), 155, 167.
70. Digby, Apologie, 31.
71. The Diary of Henry Townshend, ed. H. Willis Bund (4 parts in 2 vols., Worcestershire Historical Society, 1915-20), III, 266.
72. William Smith, The Charge given by Sir William Smith Bt at the Quarter Sessions ... at Westminster ... 24 April 1682 (1682), 8.
73. R.A. Houlbrooke, Church Courts and the People during the English Reformation 1520-1570 (Oxford, 1979), 127.
74. Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, ed. S.R. Gardiner (Camden Society, new series, 39, 1886), 195-6.
75. Samuel Butler, Characters, ed. C.W. Daves (Cleveland, 1970), 169.
76. J. Spurr, 'Perjury, Profanity and Politics', The Seventeenth Century, VIII (1993), 38.
77. On the heretical tradition of refusing oaths see Prodi, Sakrament, 291-328;
78. A. Vauchez, 'Le Refus du Serment chez les Hérétiques Médiévaux', in Serment, ed. Verdier, II, 257-63;
79. Nicolau Eymerich, Le manuel des inquisiteurs, glossed by Francisco de Pena, trans. L. Sala-Molins (Paris, 1973), 127-8, 137, 197;
80. Aston, Lollards and Reformers, III;
81. A. Hudson, Lollards and their Books (1985), 134;
82. R. Bauman, Let Your Words be Few: Symbolism of Silence and Speaking among Seventeenth-Century Quakers (Cambridge, 1983), 95-119. There were many other Christians, including clergy, whose orthodox piety led them to shun oaths wherever possible.
83. See P. Seaver, Wellington's World - A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (1985), 64;
84. D. Underdown, Riot, Revel and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603-1660 (Oxford, 1985), 89, 178;
85. The Autobiography of Richard Baxter, abridged by J.M. Lloyd-Thomas and ed. N.H. Keeble (1974), 36;
86. The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. A.B. Grosart (5 vols., 1884-6), II, 21.
87. Silvestro Mazzolini da Priero quoted in J.P. Sommerville, 'The "New Art Of Lying": Equivocation, Mental Reservation and Casuistry', in Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, ed. E. Leites (Cambridge, 1988), 172;
88. cf. The thirteenth-century view of Thomas of Chobham quoted in R. Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal (Oxford, 1986), 80-1.
89. The Diary of John Ward AM, Rector of Stratford upon Avon, ed. C.M. Severn (1927), 306.
90. E. Rose, Cases of Conscience: Alternatives Open to Recusants and Puritans under Elizabeth I and James I (Cambridge, 1975), 90;
91. Elizabethan Casuistry, ed. P. J. Holmes (Catholic Record Society Publications, 67, 1981), 52.
92. Elsewhere Catholics believed that they were the victims of other religions that taught that 'it is lawful to swear a false oath with the mouth, yet break it in the heart'; B. Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice (1983; reprinted 1997), 19.
93. M.H. and R. Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy (2 vols., Cambridge, 1915), I, 259-60; Henry later reminded him of this assertion, II, 15.
94. R.A. Griffiths, Sir Rhys ap Thomas and his Family - A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics (Cardiff, 1993), 201, 203.
95. For exceptions to the rule that nobles testified on their honour, see J. Hawarde, Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata, ed. W.P. Baildon (1894), 275, 426.
96. J. Walker, 'Honour and the Culture of Male Venetian Nobles, c. 1500-1650' (PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1998), 130-1. I am grateful to Dr Walker for discussing this issue with me
97. Also see D.E. Queller, The Venetian Patriciate (Urbana, 1986), 60, 70, 110-11.
98. J. Pitt-Rivers, 'Honour and Social Status', in Honour and Shame - The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J.G. Peristiany (1965).
99. Quoted in S. Hindle, 'The Shaming of Margaret Knowsley: Gossip, Gender and the Experience of Authority in Early Modern England', Continuity and Change, 9 (1994), 402, 417.
100. M. Flynn, 'Blasphemy and the Play of Anger in Sixteenth-century Spain', Past and Present, 149 (1995), 43-7;
101. also see W. Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (1990), 166.
102. Henry Parrot, Lacquei ridiculosi (1613), Book I, epigrams 142 and 201;
103. also see Henry Fitzgeffrey, Satyres and Satyricall Epigrams (1617), Book II, sig. D3v, 'Aenigma'.
104. The Character of a Town Gallant (1680), 3.
105. Ben Jonson, ed. C.H. Herford and P. Simpson (10 vols., Oxford, 1925-50), III, 317, 320, 321;
106. The Works of Thomas Otway, ed. J.C. Ghosh (2 vols., Oxford, 1932), II, 328.
107. W.C. Hazlitt, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1869), 280.
108. Robert Allot, Wits Theater of the Little World (1599), 123-4.
109. Parrot, Lacquei, Book II, epigram 17.
110. R.J. Hexter, Equivocal Oaths and Ordeals in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 3.
111. Useful in this are H. Hattenhauer, 'Der gefälschte Eid', in Fälschungen im Mittelalter (Hannover, 1998), II, 667-72;
112. The Saga of Tristram and Isönd, ed. P. Schach (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1972), 91-3;
113. L. Seiffert, 'Finding, Guarding and Betraying the Truth: Isolde's Art and Skill, and the Sweet Discretion of her Lying in Gottfried's Tristran', in Gottfried von Strassburg, ed. A. Stevens and R. Wisbey (1990);
114. J. Gilbert, 'Gender, Oaths and Ambiguity in Sir Tristrem and Béroul's Roman de Tristran', in The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance, ed. A Putter and J. Gilbert (2000).
115. Hexter, Equivocal Oaths, 3.
116. P. Hyams, 'Trial by Ordeal: the Key to Proof in the Early Common Law', in On the Laws and Customs of England, ed. M.S. Arnold (1987), 98.
117. Some evidence of this is available in H. Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century - Mentalities and Social Orders, trans. P.J. Geary (Chicago, 1991), 404-15;
118. L. Jefferson, Oaths, Vows and Promises in the First Part of the French Prose Lancelot Romance (Bern, 1993).
119. The Lamentable and True Tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham (1592) - I quote from the 1971 Scolar Press facsimile.
120. There is a modern edition, The Tragedy of Master Arden of Faversham, ed. M. Wines (1973);
121. and oaths in the play are the subject of some interesting comments in F. Whigham, Seizures of the Will in Early Modern English Drama (Cambridge, 1996), chapter 2.
122. Arden, sigs. A3r, Jr; cf. Gilbert, 'Gender, Oaths and Ambiguity'.
123. Arden, sig. D2r.
124. Arden, sig. Ir.
125. Arden, sig. B4r.
126. George Ruggle, Club Law, ed. G.C. Moore Smith (Cambridge, 1907), 95;
127. Nathaniel Field, Amends for Ladies (1618), B4r;
128. Samuel Butler, Hudibras, ed. J. Wilders (Oxford, 1967), II, 2, 197-8;
129. Thomas Hobbes, De Cive: The English Version, ed. H.M. Warrender (Oxford, 1983), 60-1.
130. Public Record Office, STAC 8/288/16, fo. 35. I am grateful to S. Hindle, 'The Keeping of the Public Peace', in The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. P. Griffiths, A. Fox and S. Hindle (1996), which brought this source to my attention.
131. A similar instance from Sussex is reported in C. Herrup, The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1987), 112 .
132. Edward Bicknoll, A Sword agaynst Swering (1579), sig. iiv;
133. T.I., A Cure for the Tongue-Evill (1662), 13;
134. The Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, ed. M. H. Lee (1882), 50-1.
135. PRO, STAC 8/288/16, fos. 17, 11.
136. E. James, 'Beati pacifici: Bishops and the Law in Sixth-Century Gaul', in Disputes and Settlements, ed. J. Bossy (Cambridge, 1983), 33.
137. On Charlemagne's motives see S. Airlie, 'Narratives of Triumph and Rituals of Submission: Charlemagne's Mastering of Bavaria', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (sixth series, IX, 1999), 95, 107-8.
138. W. Davies, Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany (1988), 81-3.
139. There is a large but scattered literature on these themes. I have particularly benefited from Kolmer, Promissorische Eide;
140. Y. Bongert, Recherches sur les cours laiques de Xe au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1949), 205-10;
141. James, 'Beati pacifici'
142. K. Uhalde, 'Proof and Reproof: the Judicial Component of Episcopal Confrontation', Early Medieval Europe, 8 (1999);
143. H. Pryce, Native Law and the Church in Medieval Wales (Oxford, 1993);
144. R. Stacey, The Road to Judgement: From Custom to Court in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Philadelphia, 1994);
145. Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water.
146. Barlettt, Trial by Fire and Water, 30.
147. F.L. Cheyette, 'Women, Poets, and Politics in Occitania', in Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, ed. T. Evergates (1999), 160-1;
148. V. Reinburg, 'Hearing Lay People's Prayer', in Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honour of Natalie Zemon Davis, ed. B. Diefendorf and C. Hesse (Ann Arbor, 1993), 23-6.
149. E.D. Craun, Lies, Slander and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature - Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker (Cambridge, 1997), 9.
150. See, for one example, Jean Benedicti, La Somme dez Pechez (Rouen, 1608), 50-1, 57.
151. This interpretation should be read in the light of Amis and Amiloun, ed. M. Leach (Early English Text Society, original series 203, 1937), lines 1093-1104, 1250-96; Leach's comments at lxiii-lxv;
152. O. Kratins, 'The Middle English Amis and Amiloun: Chivalric Romance or Secular Hagiography?', Publications of the Modern Language Association, 81 (1966), 350-1.
153. See Guenée, Un Roi, 422-3, 461-2;
154. J. Sherborne, 'Perjury and the Lancastrian Revolution of 1399', Welsh History Review, 14 (1988-9);
155. J. de Vigurie, 'Les serments de sacre des rois de France (xvie, xviie et xviiie siècles)', in Hommage à Roland Mousnier - Clientèles et Fidélités en Europe à l'Epoque Moderne, ed. Y. Durand (Paris, 1981), 57-69;
156. K. Colberg, 'Der Eid des Königs: Kaiser Sigismund und das "Schwurverbot" ' in Staat und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter und der frühen Neuzeit - Festschrift für J. Leuschner, no editor (Hanover, 1983);
157. D.M. Jones, Conscience and Allegiance in Seventeenth-Century England - The Political Significance of Oaths and Engagements (Rochester, New Jersey, 1998).
158. K. Schreiner, 'Iuramentum Religionis: Entstehung, Geschichte und Funktion des Konfessionseides der Staats-und Kirchendiener im Terriorialstaat der frühen Neuzeit', Der Staat, 24 (1985);
159. G. Strauss, Law, Resistance, and the State: The Opposition to Roman Law in Reformation Germany (Princeton, 1986), III, 153-4;
160. Vigurie, 'Contribution à l'histoire de la fidélité', 292-3.
161. See E. Blemas, 'La montée des blasphèmes à l'age moderne du Moyen age au XVIIe siécle', in Injures et blasphèmes, ed. J. Delumeau (Paris, 1989).
162. See Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice (1618), 125-6, 264-5;
163. Hindle, 'Keeping the Public Peace', 220-1;
164. M.D. Gordon, 'The Invention of a Common Law Crime: Perjury and the Elizabethan Courts', American Journal of Legal History, XXIV (1980);
165. J.G. Bellamy, Criminal Law and Society in late Medieval and Tudor England (Gloucester, 1984), 23, 45-7, 110;
166. J.G. Bellamy, The Criminal Trial in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1998), 34, 102, 105-6, 108, 109;
167. J.H. Langbein, Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France (Cambridge, Mass., 1974);
168. J.R. Kent, 'The Centre and the Localities: State Formation and Parish Government in England, c.1640-1740', Historical Journal, 38 (1995), 387-90;
169. P. Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman 1689-1798 (Oxford, 1991), 98-118.
170. John Gauden, A Discourse Concerning Publick Oaths (1662), 9.
171. R. Rex, 'The Execution of the Holy Maid of Kent', Historical Research, 64 (1991), 219;
172. Langford, Public Life, 104.
173. Sir Edward Coke quoted in Jones, Conscience and Allegiance, 73.
174. Calendar of State Papas Spanish, Henry VIII, 1534-5 (1886), v. i. 131;
175. also see Chapuys' own arguments to the English Council, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (1883) vii, 263-8.