Phipps on medieval women and urban justice

Teresa Phipps (Swansea University) has published Medieval women and urban justice: Commerce, crime and community in England, 1300-1500 with Manchester University Press. From the publisher:

This book provides a detailed analysis of women's involvement in litigation and other legal actions within their local communities in late-medieval England. It draws upon the rich records of three English towns - Nottingham, Chester and Winchester - and their courts to bring to life the experiences of hundreds of women within the systems of local justice. Through comparison of the records of three towns, and of women's roles in different types of legal action, the book reveals the complex ways in which individual women's legal status could vary according to their marital status, different types of plea and the town that they lived in. At this lowest level of medieval law, women's status was malleable, making each woman's experience of justice unique.

 Here's the Table of Contents: 

Introduction

1 Women, town courts and customary law in context

2 Commerce, credit and coverture: women and debt litigation

3 Law and the regulation of women's work

4 Violence, property and 'bad speech': women and trespass litigation

5 Public disorder, policing and misbehaving women

Conclusion

Further information is available here.

--posted by Mitra Sharafi