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The Transformation of Adultery in France at the End of the Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2014

Extract

In 1522, Marie Quatrelivres, accused of adultery by her husband and found guilty, was condemned to be beaten with sticks on three Fridays and afterwards enclosed in a convent. The court allotted her husband 2 years to decide if he wanted to take her back. If he did not choose to reconcile with her, she was to be enclosed for life and lose all of her property. So wrote eminent jurist Jean Papon (1505–1590) in his collection of notable cases heard before the royal courts of France. Papon described a handful of other sixteenth century adultery cases similarly decided, and then cited a contemporary and fellow eminent jurist, Nicolas Bohier, as having stated that another common punishment for adultery in France was to cut off an adulterous woman's hair, tear her clothes, and parade her in shame throughout the town or city in which she lived.

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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2014 

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References

1. What actually happened with Marie was far more complicated. See the conclusion of this article.

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19. Lefebvre-Teillard, Les officialités, 122.

20. All found in their respective departmental archives in the series, identified, following archival cataloging practice, as “G” for church court records, and “B” and “BB” for the secular court records of Burgundy, and for the National Archives in the case of Paris and the Paris Parlement, series “Z.” Select registers of Tournai have been transcribed and edited. Vleeschouwers-van Melkebeek, Monique, ed., Compotus sigilliferi curie Tornacensis 1429–1481 (Brussels: Koniklijke Academie van België, 1995)Google Scholar.

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27. See, for example, Laspeyres, Ernst Adolh Theodor, ed., Summa decretalium Bernard of Pavia, (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1956), 228Google Scholar “ex sola suspicione.”

28. Friedburg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, v. 2: Adulterans vir uxorem adulter. am dimittere non potest, De divor., Significasti, 4.19.4.

29. Edward Reno III, “Categories of Coercion: The Administrative Framework for Heresy and Adultery Legislation under Pope Gregory IX, 1227–41,” Paper presented at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI, May 9, 2013; see also idem, “The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort's editing of the Decretals of Gregory IX (1234)” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2011), 395–404.

30. Johannes Teutonicus, Glos. ord. to C 32 q. 1 c. 5 k et calvatas. And also: c. 5 n in alium. C.de adult.auth.sed hodie. Decretum emendati v.2, 1594.

31. Glos. ord. to C. 12 q. 2 d.p.c. 58, m: si qua cum servo. Decretum emendati, v.1, 1260.

32. Ibid, n. Capituli: Hodie adultera verberatur, & detruditur in monasterium, ut C. de adul. auth. sed hodie. 1260.

33. Justinian, Novellae Constitutiones, Novel 134, ch. 10.

34. Hillner, Julia. “Monastic Imprisonment in Justinian's NovelsJournal of Early Christian Studies 15 (2007): 205–37Google Scholar.

35. That said, Hillner has demonstrated elsewhere that Gregory the Great envisaged this type of punishment as appropriate for lower status persons, such as a colonus, a sort of peasant farmer. Hillner, , “Gregory the Great's ‘Prisons': Monastic Confinement in Early Byzantine ItalyJournal of Early Christian Studies, 19 (2011): 433–71; 443CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. See above, page 1–2.

37. McDougall, “Opposite.”

38. Guy Geltner, working on monastic confinement, or detrusio, in medieval Italy, has found several references to the enclosure of women in monasteries as punishment for crime, if never explicitly for adultery. See his article A Cell of Their Own: The Incarceration of Women in Late Medieval Italy,” Signs 39:1 (2013): 2751Google Scholar. I thank Guy for sharing his work with me before it was published.

39. Sara McDougall, “Enclosure as Punishment for Adultery,” in Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Toronto, August 3–9, 2012. Goering, Joseph, ed., Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, expected publication 2015)Google Scholar.

40. Ibid. See also, Brown, Elizabeth A. R., “Blanche of Artois and Burgundy, Château–Gaillard, and the Baron de Joursanvault,” in Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe: Gender, Power, Patronage and the Authority of Religion in Latin Christendom, ed. Smith, Katherine and Wells, Scott (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 223–48; 225Google Scholar: “No documentary evidence supports the widespread belief that she died at the abbey of Maubuisson, perhaps as a nun.”

41. Journal de Nicolas de Baye, Greffier du Parlement de Paris 1400–1417, ed. Tuetey, Alexandre 2 vols. (Paris: Librarie Renouard, 1888) 2:246–7Google Scholar; Journal de Clement de Fauquebergue, greffier du Parlement de Paris, 1417–1435, Alexandre Tuetey and Henri Lacaille, eds. 2 vols. (Paris: Laurens, 1909) 1:37–38; x1a1480f52rv (first enclosure); x1a1480f102v (14 August 1417); x1a1480f145r (second enclosure); x1a65f19r (1426).

42. X2a34f145r-153r; and de Mandrot, Bernard, ed., Journal de Jean de Roye ou Chronique Scandaleuse (Paris: Librarie Renouard, 1894), 1:156–157Google Scholar.

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44. Transcriptions of the court records are found in Taschereau, Jules-Antoine, “Condamnation d'une dame noble, au XVe siècle, pour complicité dans l'assassinat de son mari, adultère et vol,” Revue rétrospective, ou Bibliothèque historique, contenant des mémoires et documents authentiques inédits et originaux (Paris: Rue de Seine-Saint-Germain, 1838), 1:130–37Google Scholar.

45. In an example of the only other fifteenth century punishment by enclosure I have found, in 1455, Philip of Burgundy remitted the execution of noblewoman Antoine de Claerhout, found guilty of infanticide. Her property was confiscated and she was ordered to become a nun and remain in a closed convent until her death: “entrer en quelque monastere fermé, deveniret demourer religieuse tous les jours de sa vie, sans en partir…” B 1686f27v; and Petit-Dutaillis, Charles Edmond, ed. Documents nouveaux sur les moeurs populaires et le droit de vengeance dans les Pays-Bas au XVe siècle (Paris: H. Champion, 1908), 1922Google Scholar.

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48. Champion, “Un Scandale.”

49. Otis-Cour, “‘De jure novo,’” 381–83. On the punishment of running, see also Carbasse, Currant nudi 83–102. There is an image of this punishment included in the Customs of Agen (Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 42, fol. 39v), reproduced in Karras, Sexuality, 2nd ed., 119.

50. Coutumes de Toulouse, BnF, ms. lat. 9187 f.31v.

51. In 1474 a woman in Amiens found guilty of prostituting her daughter was sentenced to the pillory, having her hair burned off, and banishment. Archives Municipales d'Amiens, BB12f1v, (hereafter A.M Amiens, BB…).

52. For an overview of Northern French church courts' prosecution of adultery see Tabbagh, “Recherches.”

53. Royal confirmations of local law issued in 1357 and 1362 in Villefranche (Perigord) and Prisey (near Maçon in Burgundy) gave adulterers the choice of paying a fine or being whipped (forced to run naked in Villefranche).

54. Such a punishment typically required that offenders dress in penitential garb, which usually meant bare feet, a loose shirt, and a bare head, and process with a lit candle, loudly confessing to their sins, and offering a candle.

55. Dubois, Auguste, “Justice et Bourreaux à Amiens dans les XVe et XVIe siècles,” (Amiens: Caron & Lambert, 1860): 1–34; 8–9Google Scholar; see further Collection D. Grenier, BNF 14.

56. Dubois, “Justice,” 16–17.

57. Paresys, Isabelle, Aux marges du royaume: Violence, justice et société sous François Ier (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998), 226–28, 243–46Google Scholar.

58. Archives Nationales, Parlement de Paris, x1a16f579r (hereafter A.N…).

59. A.N. x1a11f52v.

60. Beaulande–Barraud, Véronique, “Les sanctions pronuncées par l'official de Cambrai au XVe siècle,” in Amender, sanctionner et punir: Histoire de la peine du Moyen Âge au XXe siècle, ed. Bourguignon, Marie-Amélie, Dauven, Bernard, and Rousseaux, Xavier (Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2012), 101–12Google Scholar.

61. A French farm laborer might hope to make between 35 and 50 sous (pennies) for 4 months' labor helping with a harvest. Hoffman, Philip T., Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside, 1450–1815 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 47Google Scholar.

62. McDougall “Opposite.”

63. Ibid.

64. Archives Departmentales de l'Aube (hereafter A.D. Aube), série G 4172 f.51r. (1441) Thomas Brioys de Nogento super albam emendavit eo quod ipse maritatus secum maintenavit Margueritam relictam defuncti Johannis Lasue de Chandeyo [fined] lx s[olidi].

65. McDougall, “Opposite.”

66. Otis-Cour, “‘De jure novo,’” 347–92; Naessens, Mariann, “Judicial Authorities' Views of Women's Roles in Late Medieval Flanders,” in The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in the Southern Low Countries, ed. Kittell, Ellen E. and Suydam, Mary A. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 5177Google Scholar.

67. See previous note, see also Tabbagh, “Recherches” and McSheffrey, “Men.” The cities of Constance and Lucerne offer interesting contrast. In these places, it was women who sometimes bore the brunt of punishment for extramarital sex in the fifteenth century. See Stokes, Laura, Demons of Urban Reform: Early European Witch Trials and Criminal Justice 1430–1530 (New York: Palgrave, 2011), 146–48Google Scholar; and Schuster, Peter, Eine Stadt vor Gericht: Recht und Alltag im spätmittelalterlichen Konstanz (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000) 111–19Google Scholar.

68. These records often include non-financial punishments, such as the banishment and ear cropping of (male) thieves in Burgundy or the banishment of two female heretics. None of these sources offer any indication that women were punished as often or more often than men for adultery, not even by banishment. In 1432, the great artist, and married man, Robert Campin was found guilty of adultery and sentenced to banishment from Burgundy for a year, but with the intercession of a powerful patron, his punishment was reduced to a fine. See Frinta, Mojmír Svatopluk, The Genius of Robert Campin (The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1966) 98Google Scholar; and Poirier, Pierre, Initiation à la peinture flamande (Brussels: La Renaissance du livre, 1962), 29Google Scholar.

69. Out of a sample of twelve husbands fined for adultery in secular courts in fourteenth and fifteenth century Burgundy, six were accused of sex with prostitutes.

70. See above, note 7.

71. Smail, Daniel Lord, The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264–1423 (New York: Cornell University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

72. G4175 (1457) f66r, 68r, 71r.

73. Beugnot, Auguste–Arthur, Les olim, ou registres des arrêts rendus par la Cour du Roi : sous les règnes de saint Louis, de Philippe Le Hardi, de Philippe Le Bel, de Louis Le Hutin et de Philippe Le Long, (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1833) 3:508Google Scholar.

74. A.N. x1a 36 f68v–69r.

75. A.D. Aube, G4171f54r–56r.

76. A.N. x1a31f97v–98v.

77. See above, note 59.

78. Local secular courts also faced repeated complaints, from both municipal and consular powers as well as royal courts. In 1335, as part of an agreement with the consuls of Narbonne, Viscount Amyeric promised that his officers would stop “abusively arresting and excessively fining” the citizens of Narbonne for adultery. See Otis, Leah, Prostitution in Medieval Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 2930, 168 note 25Google Scholar.

79. Libellus D. Bertrandi Cardinalis sancti Clementis adversus magistrum Petrum de Cugneriis, ed. Brunet, Jean-Louis, Traité des droits et liberté de l'Eglise gallicane, 2 vols. (Paris: Pierre Dupuy, 1731) 1:361–394Google Scholar; and de Maillane, Pierre Toussaint Durand, ed., Les libertez de l'Eglise gallicane, 5 vols. (Lyon: Pierre Bruyset Ponthus, 1771) 3:425–503; 499–500Google Scholar.

80. Maugis, Édouard, Documents inédits concernant la ville et le siège du bailliage d'Amiens: extraits des registres du Parlement de Paris et du Trésor des chartes, 3 vols. (Amiens: Yvert et Tellier, 1908–1921), 2:31–33Google Scholar.

81. A.D. Aube G137 f.21r–33v; 23v. See also Boutiot, Théophile, “Recherches sur la juridiction du roi sur celle de l'évêque dans le Bailliage de Troyes et sur les coutumes de ce bailliage,” in Mémoires de la Société académique d'agriculture, des sciences, arts et belles–lettres de l'Aube 36 (Troyes: Dufour Bouquot, 1872): 674Google Scholar.

82. A.D. Aube G 137 f.22r. Item Et sur ce quilz sefforcent et de faict traient en cause ex officio plusieurs hommes et femmes mariez super lapsu carnis sans querimonie alternis coniugum et quamvis quid ex illo lapsu nullum sit ortum scandalum in matrimonio, et de ce levent et exigent plusieurs grandes amendes contre droict et Raison. “And because they initiate and prosecute ex officio many married men and women concerning carnal lapses without the accusation of the other (not adulterous) spouse, and even though no scandal arose out of this lapse in the marriage, and concerning this they levied and obtained many large fines against law and Reason.”

83. We should take this “new” as quite relative, perhaps a few centuries old, as opposed, for example, to ancient law.

84. Valois, Nöel, Histoire de la Pragmatique sanction de Bourges sous Charles VII (Paris: Picard, 1906), 214Google Scholar.

85. The Troyes officiality continued to prosecute laymen and women for adultery well into the 1460s, with far fewer adultery cases in the last remaining decades of the century. By 1500, there were no traces of the earlier efforts to repress male adultery. The court thereafter restricted itself to prosecuting only laywomen involved with clergy, laymen accused of impregnating women (other than their wives), or marriage litigation.

86. For church courts, see Lefebvre–Teillard, Les officialités, 122–23. Lefebvre–Teillard cites a 1520 appeal to Parlement in which the Parlement proclaimed that church courts could only act against adultery on the complaint of the wronged spouse, and that church courts could not act ex officio against adulterers, even in notorious cases. A.N. x1a4867f61v (December 3, 1520).

87. Le Maistre, Gilles, Decisiones notables de feu Messire Giles Le Maistre (Paris: Benoist Rigaud, 1595), 470–73Google Scholar; and Papon, Recueil 472–73. See also Valois, Histoire.

88. Soman, Alfred, “La Justice criminelle, vitrine de la monarchie français,” Bibloithèque de l'Ecole des chartes 153 (1995): 291304Google Scholar.

89. Paresys, Aux marges, 144–77.

90. According to Josse de Damhoudere and Jean Papon, any adult could accuse a notorious adulteress but husbands and fathers had priority. Josse, Practicque et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles (Louvain, 1555), 187–93Google Scholar. Jean Papon, Trias Iudiciel du Second Notaire de Jean Papon, Conseiller du Roy. Second edition revised and augmented by the author (Lyon, Jean de Tournes: 1580), 457Google Scholar. See also Carbasse, Histoire, 341–42.

91. Papon, Recueil, 465. See also Gauvard, “Honneur,” 178.

92. Papon, Recueil, 465.

93. Paresys, Aux marges, 144–77; and Maugis, Édouard, Recherche sur la transformation du régime politique et sociale d'Amiens (Paris: Picard, 1906), 297–99Google Scholar.

94. Paresys, Aux marges, 231–32.

95. For further examples of adultery prosecutions, see Bohier Decisiones, decisio 297 and 298, 623–27; and Chenu, Jean, Privileges octroyez aux maires et eschevins bourgeois… (Paris: Nicolas Buon, 1603) 114–115Google Scholar. See also Schnapper, Bernard, “La répression pénale au xvie siècle. L'exemple du Parlement de Bordeaux. (1510–1565),” in Voies nouvelles en histoire du droit. La justice, la famille, la répression pénale (Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1991), 5960Google Scholar.

96. Tyler Lange's forthcoming publications should prove a great resource on this question.

97. Génestal, Robert, Les origines de l'appel comme d'abus; notes de cours publiées par les soins de Pierre Timbal. Avant–propos par Jean Dauvillier (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1951)Google Scholar; and Lefebvre–Teillard, Officialités, 130–38. For the sixteenth century, see Decrucy, Jourdan, Athanase-Jean-Léger, Isambert, François-André, Taillandier, Alphonse-Honoré, Recueil général des lois (Paris: Belin–Leprieur, 1821–1833), 12:601–2Google Scholar.

98. Lefebvre–Teillard, Officialités, 134–38.

99. See, for example, Tyler Lange's forthcoming work on excommunication for debt.

100. Gauvard, “Honneur,” 177.

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131. Diefendorf, Paris, 173.

132. Ibid, 76. Hamon here cites the Archives Nationales, Minutier Central, v.122 1038 and 1043.

133. Reported in Sauval, Henri, Histoire des antiquités de la ville de Paris (Paris: Moette and Chardon, 1724), 3:615Google Scholar. Sauval's transcription of the “Comptes et Ordinaires de la Prevote de Paris” on f.572v included a payment made to the men who took Marie from the monastery to the convent. See also Hamon's source for Marie's enclosure, Guiffrey, Georges, ed., Les oeuvres de Clément Marot de Cahors en Quercy: valet de chambre du Roy, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie I. Claye, 1876), 3:491Google Scholar.

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135. Hamon, “Une affaire,” 82–83.

136. Nassiet, “La sanction,” 129–40.