Table of Contents

Introduction
PART I. LAW AND SOCIAL PRACTICE IN THE MAKING OF MARRIAGE IN LATE MEDIEVAL LONDON
Chapter 1. Making a Marriage
Chapter 2. Courtship and Gender
Chapter 3. By the Father's Will and the Friends' Counsel
Chapter 4. Gender, Power, and the Logistics of Marital Litigation
Chapter 5. Place, Space, and Respectability
PART II. GOVERNANCE, SEX, AND CIVIC MORALITY
Chapter 6. Governance
Chapter 7. Gender, Sex, and Reputation
Conclusion: Sex, Marriage, and Medieval Concepts of the Public
Appendix: Legal Sources
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments

Promotional Information

Using extensive evidence from archival documents from both the ecclesiastical court system and the records of city and royal government, as well as advice manuals, chronicles, moral tales, and liturgical texts, McSheffrey examines how marital and sexual relationships were woven into the fabric of late medieval London.

About the Author

Shannon McSheffrey is Associate Professor of History at Concordia University in Montreal and author of three other books, including Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420-1530, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Reviews

"A superb book, not only in terms of its sympathy with the evidence and concern for context but in showing us that our knowledge of how the church courts interacted with society must be based on more local case-studies of this kind."
*EHR*