1 I wish to thank Prof. R. B. Dobson for his encouragement and helpful suggestions during my time in York, Dr R. M. Smith for his invaluable comments on a number of specific issues and Dr P. P. A. Biller and Dr C. F. Richmond for reading an earlier draft of this paper. I am also most grateful to Mrs D. M. Owen for first introducing me to this source.

2 This contrasts with the somewhat fuller literature describing the administration of the courts, cf. Helmholz, R. H., Marriage litigation in medieval England (Cambridge, 1974), 1, note 1.Google Scholar

3 Owen, D. M., ‘White Annays and others’, in Baker, D., ed., Medieval Women: Studies in church history, subsidia i, (1978), 311–46.Google Scholar Cf. Donahue, C.,‘Roman canon law in the medieval English Church: Stubbs vs. Maitland re-examined after 75 years in the light of some records from the church courts’, Michigan Law Review 72 (1974) 656–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his ‘Proof by witnesses in the church courts of medieval England: An imperfect reception of the learned law’, in Arnold, M. et al. , eds, On the laws and customs of England: Essays in honor of Samuel E. Thone (Chapel Hill, 1981) 127–58Google Scholar; also Adams, N. and Donahue, C., eds, Select cases from the ecclesiastical courts of the province of Canterbury c. 1200–c. 1301, Selden Society, xcv (1981), 49.Google Scholar

4 Helmholz, Marriage litigation. We must also note Sheehan, M. M., ‘The formation and stability of marriage in fourteenth-century England: Evidence of an Ely register’, Medieval Studies 33 (1971), 228–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ingram, M., ‘Spousals litigation in the English ecclesiastical courts c. 1350–c. 1640’, in Outhwaite, R. B., ed., Marriage and society: Studies in the social history of marriage (London, 1981), 35–57.Google Scholar

5 Smith, R. M., ‘Hypothèses sur la nuptialité en Angleterre aux XIII^e–XIV^e siecles’, Annales E.S.C. 38 (1983), 107–36.Google Scholar

6 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 7–11, 20, note 51.Google Scholar A few books of depositions survive, viz. Dean and Chapter Library, Canterbury x. 10. 1 (1410–21); G.L.C. Record Office, London DL/C/205 (1467–76); Guildhall Library, London MS. 9065 (1489–97). The York act books are at the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York (hereafter BIHR) Cons. AB 1–5. Act books comprise the minutes of routine court activity compiled on a day to day basis. These were working documents and the information provided is often minimal.

7 The material is dated c. 1200, 1271–2 and 1291–3. Adams, and Donahue, , eds., Select cases.Google Scholar

8 Several York causes are printed in full or in part in the appendix to Helmholz, Marriage litigation, and one more in the appendix to Owen, ‘White Annays’.

9 The cause papers thus selected are tabulated in the appendix.

10 For a description of the types of document referred to here see Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 13–22.Google Scholar

11 There was no verbal cross-examination of witnesses.

12 For example, Roger Awstynmore recalled that Emma Hare had heatedly declared to John Selby's wife, ‘I say to the fals harlot Selby Wyfe and that strang thefe and mans mortherer thi husband the whilk was ones at the rope ende and zit I trouwe to bryng hym a gayne thar to when he sail noght skape’. BIHR CP. F. 116 (1436).

13 Helmoholz, , Marriage litigation, 159.Google Scholar

14 BIHR CP. F. 184, 185 and 237. This is a complex multi-party action.

15 Cf. Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 132–3.Google Scholar

16 BIHR CP. F. 99 (1430).

17 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 155 citing Hostiensis, Summa aurea ii (Venice, 1574), tit. de testibus, no. 2Google Scholar; Adams, and Donahue, , eds., Select cases, 50–1.Google Scholar In fact by the fifteenth century the courts appear to have preferred only older witnesses.

18 BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366) is an early example, but here only a handful of witnesses in a remarkably full case are so identified.

19 BIHR CP. F. 63 (1414).

20 BIHR CP. E. 126 (1382); CP. F. 113 (1434).

21 BIHR CP. F. 185 (1450); CP. F. 104 (1432).

22 BIHR CP. F. 111 (1432); CP. F. 175 (1432).

23 BIHR CP. E. 159 (1393).

24 Ibid.

25 Cf. the arguments used in Rouclif c. Marras, BIHR CP. E 89 (1366) pertaining to the age of Alice de Rouclif which was in dispute.

26 BIHR CP. F. 101 (1431).

27 BIHR CP. F. 174 (1430).

28 The only conspicuous example is BIHR CP. E. 159 (1393) which includes five saddlers. Sheehan also observes a large number of artisans and, significantly, servants amongst Ely litigants. Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 234.Google ScholarCf. Ingram, , ‘Spousals litigation’, 44.Google Scholar I have used occupational descriptions for both deponents and contestants, but have not added to these from the depositions themselves. The evidence suggests that at least a quarter of individuals identified were servants. We may additionally note 11 tailors, 12 textile workers (including spinsters and walkers in addition to weavers and a dyer), 17 leather workers (including 8 cordwainers), 7 metal workers, 7 mercantile traders, 6 traders in foodstuffs, 6 clerks and 12 religious.

29 The lesser aristocracy are represented in BIHR CP. E. 89 (1365–6), although this group is not prominent within our urban orientated sample, which could be said to embrace a veritable panorama of medieval society ranging from the itinerant monk to the teenage servant, from the innkeeper to the young scholar, from the poor widow to the ancient hermit.

30 Sometimes witnesses are asked to assess the value of their property and possessions as in BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366). Here one Agnes Quystler had only the clothes she stood up in and Joan Symkynwoman had only a bed and a brass pot in addition.

31 ‘… dixit quod huismodi testes nisi mulieres fuerunt…’. BIHR CP. F. 104 (1432). For the male bias in thirteenth-century Canterbury material see Adams, and Donahue, , eds., Select cases, 18, 25, 118 and 365.Google Scholar

32 A few individuals were still in service at the time of their depositions and so are also included in the first sample.

33 A young girl is also noted as a servant, but she appears to have been considered too young to act as a deponent. BIHR CP. F. 155 (1425).

34 BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366); CP. G. 32 (1346). These are the only examples I have found among the York cause papers earlier than c. 1520.

35 BIHR CP. E. 102 (1367); CP. E. 248 (1346); CP. E. 257(1349). CP. E. Ill (1372) does record ages, but fails to include place of birth. CP. F. 79 (1418) does not include duration of stay. CP. E. 89 (1366) includes much incidental migration data, but again ages are not noted.

36 BIHR CP. E. 248 (1346); CP. F. 79 (1418).

37 BIHR CP. E. 102 (1367); CP. E. 257 (1349).

38 BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366).

39 Cf. Goldberg, J., ‘Female labour, service and marriage in the late medieval urban North,’ Northern History xxii (forthcoming 1986).Google Scholar

40 Viz. Walmgate (BIHR CP. E. 111), Holgate Lane and (?) Holy Trinity, Micklegate parish (CP. F. 79).

41 This observation is based on an analysis of the Ouse Bridge and Vicars Choral rentals for the city of York in the later Middle Ages. York Minster Library, York VC 4/1 various, VC 6/2 various (Vicars Choral); York Civic Archives, York C80–C85 various (Ouse Bridge).

42 BIHR CP. E. 111 (1372).

43 BIHR CP. F. 64 (1412).

44 All are male. Two were ‘scholars’ studying in York. Their ages at deposition were 17, 18 and 20 years. BIHR CP. F. 185 (1450).

45 Laslett, P., Family life and illicit love in earlier generations (Cambridge, 1977), 43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 BIHR CP. E. 238 (1398); CP F. 46 (1422); CP. F. 63 (1414); CP. F. 64 (1412); CP. F. 81 (1418); CP. F. 101 (1431); CP. F. 111 (1432).

47 See Goldberg, , ‘Female labour’.Google Scholar

48 ‘…per tantum temporis fuit ista deponens trahens moram et coniugata in villa de Kyngeston predicta’. BIHR CP. F. 46 (1422).

49 BIHR CP. E. 111 (1372); CP. E. 121 (1372);CP. E. 159 (1394); CP. E. 242 (1396); CP. F. 22 (1402); CP. F. 127 (1417).

50 BIHR CP. E. 111 (1372).

51 Both poll tax and rental evidence (see note 41 above) point to women living in shared or adjacent accommodation.

52 BIHR CP. F. 129.

53 Alice originated from Knaresborough, Elena from across the Pennines in Preston. Wetherby is on the road from both Knaresborough and Lancashire to York. It is possible that the two women were already on their way to York when they stayed the night near Wetherby. BIHR CP. F. 79 (1418).

54 BIHR CP. E. 241 p (1363).

55 BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366); CP. E. 221 (1396); CP. E. 241 p (1363); CP. F. 36 (1410).

56 BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366); CP. F. 182 (1439); CP. F. 336 (1465).

57 Martinmas is still a Scottish quarter-day, whereas Michaelmas is the English equivalent.

58 Kussmaul, A., Servants in husbandry in early modem England (Cambridge, 1981), 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kitchen, F., Brother to the ox (London, 1940)Google Scholar; Reffold, H., Pie for breakfast (Cherry Burton, 1984).Google Scholar

59 Kussmaul, , Servants in husbandry, 50.Google Scholar

60 Only two cases refer to the period after 1410, viz, from BIHR CP. F. 182 (1439) and CP. F. 336 (1465).

61 Such dates are invariably given as a point of reference for remembering events relevant to the cause, c.f. BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366).

62 Isabella had contracted to serve John de Rissleton, rector of St Peter's School for a year from Martinmas to Martinmas. Her then master, Thomas de Queldale, forced her to remain with him after Martinmas’….quod in dicto festo sancti martini et omni tempore citra compulsa fuit et est per minas terrores et capcionem incarceracionem et corporis sui cruciatum ac iniustum metum qui cadere poterant et debebant in constantem mulierem in servicio died Thome de Queldale remanere ac eidem Thome et non dicto magistro Johanni deservire’. BIHR CP. E. 241 p (1363).

63 BIHR CP. E. 89; CP. E. 121; CP. E. 221; CP. F. 56; CP. F. 336.

64 BIHR CP. E. 89.

65 One witness, Cecily, wife of William Redeness, said to be 24 or more was in service when present at a marriage 13 years earlier. This would make her at least 11, but perhaps a year or two older. BIHR CP. F. 56 (1410).

66 Agnes de Polles. BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366).

67 BIHR CP. E. 121 (1372).

68 BIHR CP. E. 128 (1382); Bartlett, N., ed., The lay poll tax for the city of York in 1381 (Hull, 1955), 65.Google Scholar Likewise may be noted Thomas Cartwright, 26+, John Haukeshed, 36+ and John Cuthbert, 50+, servants to Christiana Harryngton of Bishophill, York.

69 Joan Wales, the servant of Robert Lee was 28 when she testified in 1509 and a woman in service at Moor Monkton in 1398 was of like age. BIHR CP. E. 238 (1398); CP. G. 40 (1509).

70 BIHR CP. E. 221.

71 E.g. Alice de Rollston, the daughter of Anabilla, wife of Stephen Wascelyne. BIHR CP. E. 89.

72 E.g. Idonea Bower. BIHR CP. E. 128.

73 Save for two scholars already noted, no males of equivalent status appear among the sample population.

74 BIHR CP. E. 89.

75 BIHR CP. F. 115 (1435).Google Scholar There are a number of widows in service included in the unusually full Howdenshire poll tax for 1379. ‘Assessment roll of the poll-tax for Howdenshire… 1379’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 9 (1886), 129–61.Google Scholar

76 There are twenty-two couples from York, three Hull couples, two Pontefract couples, a Wakefield couple and a couple from Howden. The remaining two couples are non-urban.

77 I have included in this last class differences expressed as + or − + (N + − N= +, N − N − = − +, where + represents amplius (or more) years).

78 This range includes differences of 6 and −6− (50 − 56 = 6 − ).

79 Laxton: BIHR CP. F. 36 (1410), Prob. Reg. 2 fo. 539; del Close: D/C CP. 1417/2 (1418), Prob. Reg. 2 fos. 45, 308; Bolton: CP. F. 114 (1434), Prob. Reg. 3 fo. 575. William Pottow according to his will had two wives both called Alice, but since he died some 25 years after his deposition it is most likely that the Alice of this deposition set is indeed his first wife. CP. F. 62 (1411), Prob. Reg. 3, fo. 444.

80 It is unfortunate that none of these couples can be identified by cross-reference to testamentary sources. Richard Wall has observed a similar disparity of age between remarried widowers and their wives in Bruges in 1814. Wall, R., ‘The composition of households in a population of 6 men to 10 women: South-east Bruges 1814’, in Wall, , ed., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 Laslett, P., ‘Characteristics of the Western family considered over time’, in Laslett, Family life and illicit love, 12–49.Google Scholar

82 Twenty-two of our sample belong to the period 1394–1435 using the dates of causes.

83 BIHR CP. E. 89 (1366); CP. G 32 (1508); CP. E. 105 (1370).

84 Agnes Den BIHR CP. F. 75 (1418), Roger Awstynmore CP. F. 116 (1436).

85 Any such bias appears only to have been directed against individuals in their early or perhaps middle teens.

86 Allegations of promiscuity are commonly directed against unmarried women within our cause paper sample. This sort of sexual slander was, of course, designed to undermine confidence in the deponent's evidence and need not be taken too seriously.

87 See Goldberg, , ‘Female labour’.Google Scholar

88 Smith, ‘Hypothèses sur la nuptialité’. These observations run counter to the ‘medieval’, early-marrying regime advocated by Zvi Razi in his study based on the manor court rolls of Halesowen. I am doubtful of Razi's methodology which equates age at marriage for sons with the customary minimum age at inheritance and depends on correctly identifying first-born children. This last introduces a very great element of subjectivity into Razi's arguments as where the data might suggest late marriage, Razi concludes that other children, absent from the record due to death at an early age, must have been born before the subject. Zvi, Razi, Life, marriage and death in a medieval parish (Cambridge, 1980), 57, 60–1.Google Scholar For an alternative critique of Razi's analysis see Poos, L. R. and Smith, R. M., ‘“Legal windows onto historical populations”? Recent research on demography and the manor court in medieval England’, Law and History Review ii (1984), 128–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

89 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 27Google Scholar; Lyndwood, W., Provinciale (Oxford, 1679), 274–7.Google Scholar

90 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 25–73Google Scholar; Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 229–30Google Scholar; Pollock, F. and Maitland, F. W., History of English law (Cambridge, 1898), ii, 368–74.Google Scholar

91 BIHR CP. F. 237 (1449).

92 Matilda, wife to Robert Stillyngton, testified that the couple had intercourse both before and after their contract to which she was a witness. BIHR CP. F. 108 (1433).

93 BIHR CP. F. 46 (1422) and CP. F. 63 (1414).

94 BIHR CP. F. 79. Cf. Sheehan's recognition of such open contracts as ‘formal public acts that satisfied the couple that they had entered a contract, assured them of witnesses and made it possible for the marriage to be generally known in the neighbourhood’. Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 244.Google Scholar The blanket use of the canonical term ‘clandestine’ only obscures these real distinctions.

95 The concern here is with publicity. The reading of banns was perhaps the most effective way of gaining such publicity within the parish community.

96 BIHR CP. F. 115 (1435). Cf. Sheehan's own observations based on a study limited to the period 1374–82. Sheehan, ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 239.

97 Houlbrooke, R. H., Church courts and the people during the English Reformation 1520–70 (Oxford, 1979), 64–5.Google Scholar

98 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 166–7Google Scholar; Woodcock, B. L., Medieval ecclesiastical courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (London, 1952), 85.Google Scholar

99 Houlbrooke, R. A., The English family, 1450–1700 (London, 1984), 78–9.Google Scholar

100 Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 64.Google Scholar

101 BIHR CP. F. 99 (1430) reveals a case history of bribery and corruption.

102 BIHR CP. F. 103 and 108 (1433).

103 BIHR CP. F. 74 and 127 (1417). Both contracts are openly witnessed. CP. F. 127 is printed in Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 224–8.Google Scholar Helmholz appears to have overlooked the judgement in CP. F. 74, but gives evidence of an appeal which reversed this first judgement.

104 BIHR CP. E. 126 and 127. Isabella, daughter of Alan de Belyngham, who lived with Elena in Aldwark and Idonea Bower, who lived in nearby Monkgate, both testified to an earlier contract made in Elena's brother's house in Newcastle on Tyne. Idonea stated that ‘ista iurata et dicta Isabella scientes prefatos Willielmum et Elenam in dicto lecto existentes venerunt ad gradus predictos ut audirent an prefatos paries aliqua verba in matrimonio sonanter inter se proferrent…’. Each of the witnesses regularly saw the couple naked together in bed either in their Monkgate or Aldwark homes. Idonea even claimed to have shared her bed with them once (‘ista iurata interfuit in eodem lecto in quo iidem Willelmus et Elena iacerunt…’) and ‘audivit dictos Willelmum et Elenam carnaliter adinvincem commiscentes…Et in crastino ista iurata audivit a prefata Elena ipsa a predicto Willelmo carnaliter fuisse cognatam ut dicit’.

105 Three later fifteenth-century matrimonial causes all concern contracts which were witnessed, but were not in facie ecclesie. BIHR CP. F. 254, 261, 336. Some of our earlier sixteenth-century causes also concern marriage contracts that were not followed by church solemnisation, but as one party is alleged to have claimed (BIHR CP. G. 115) ‘that at is ons done cane nott be undone’, it does not follow that such contracts were considered incomplete or invalid. Subsequent ecclesiastical rites, however, may have been by this period thought normal.

106 The same was true of Canterbury in the thirteenth century. Adams, and Donahue, , eds., Select cases, 82.Google Scholar

107 Helmholz's analysis fails to distinguish the sex-specific direction of actions.

108 BIHR CP. E. 124 (1381); CP. E. 138 (1386); CP. E. 238 (1398); CP. E. 245 (1391); CP. F. 33 (1407); CP. F. 64 (1412); CP. F. 115 (1435).Google Scholar Sheehan also found a high proportion of multi-party actions in the period 1374–82. Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 251.Google Scholar A discussion of the changing economic status of urban women over this period is contained within my essay ‘Female labour’.

109 BIHR CP. E. 126 (1382).

110 Goldberg, , ‘Female labour’.Google Scholar

111 Cf. Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 75Google Scholar, citing Pollock, and Maitland, , History of English law ii, 393Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘Hypothèses sur la nuptialité’, 109.Google Scholar

112 Donahue, C., ‘The canon law on the formation of marriage and social practice in the later Middle Ages’, Journal of Family History 8 (1983), 144–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

113 These are just the main points of difference noticed by Professor Donahue and clearly the whole subject requires much fuller treatment than is possible here. My own arguments differ somewhat from those put forward by Professor Donahue, ibid. 150–7.

114 This is very much the world of the Menagier of Paris, but it must be admitted that some of Donahue's data relate to the prosperous urban élite, as is true of the Parisian register. (I am grateful to Dr P. P. A. Biller for first bringing this point to my attention). This group would have had the strongest interest in arranged marriages for reasons of property and may not be representative of society more generally. The élite bias of the Parisian evidence does not necessarily apply, however, to all Donahue's sources. Our treatment of Donahue's speculative paper is itself necessarily speculative. The purpose is to suggest the direction in which further research might go. Little is yet known of marriage regimes in northern France at this period, cf. Smith, , ‘Hypothèses sur la nuptialité’, 110.Google Scholar It is unfortunate that the very full Paris register cited by Professor Donahue contains no age data.

115 This pattern is similarly suggested for Coventry in the early sixteenth century. Adams, C. Phythian, Desolation of a city: Coventry and the urban crisis of the late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1979), 84–7.Google Scholar

116 Hajnal, J., ‘European marriage patterns in perspective’, in Glass, D. C. and Eversley, D. E. C., eds., Population in history (London, 1965), 101–43.Google Scholar

117 This is implicit in the writings of, to cite but two instances, David Herlihy on marriage and Shulamith Shahar on women.

118 E.g. Laslett, , ‘Characteristics of the Western family’; Wall, R., ed., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar

119 Cf. Smith, R. M., ‘The people of Tuscany and their families in the fifteenth century: Medieval or Mediterranean?’, Journal of family history 6 (1981), 107–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

120 The term cause paper was coined by Canon Purvis. He was also intrumental in setting up the Borthwick Institute which is now administered by the University of York.

121 BIHR D/C CP. 1417/2. For a useful study of litigation in the Dean and Chapter Court see Brown, S., ‘The peculiar jurisdiction of York Minster during the Middle Ages’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of York, 1980), 180–228.Google Scholar

122 The depositions in BIHR CP. E. 89 were originally arranged in two rolls comprising item numbers 27, 20, 21 and 16, 4, 10, 17, sewn end to end as indicated.