Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Appendices
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes About This Book
- Introduction
- 1 The Background Rules and Institutions
- 2 Lying Witnesses and Social Reality: Four English Marriage Cases in the High Middle Ages
- 3 Statistics: The Court of York, 1300–1500
- 4 Story-Patterns in the Court of York in the Fourteenth Century
- 5 Story-Patterns in the Court of York in the Fifteenth Century
- 6 Ely
- 7 Paris
- 8 Cambrai and Brussels: The Courts and the Numbers
- 9 Cambrai and Brussels: The Content of the Sentences
- 10 Divorce a mensa et thoro and salvo iure thori (Separation)
- 11 Social Practice, Formal Rule, and the Medieval Canon Law of Incest
- 12 Broader Comparisons
- Epilogue and Conclusion
- Bibliography and Abbreviations
- Subject Index
- Texts and Commentary
- Table of Cases
- Table of Authorities
- Index of Persons and Places
5 - Story-Patterns in the Court of York in the Fifteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Appendices
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes About This Book
- Introduction
- 1 The Background Rules and Institutions
- 2 Lying Witnesses and Social Reality: Four English Marriage Cases in the High Middle Ages
- 3 Statistics: The Court of York, 1300–1500
- 4 Story-Patterns in the Court of York in the Fourteenth Century
- 5 Story-Patterns in the Court of York in the Fifteenth Century
- 6 Ely
- 7 Paris
- 8 Cambrai and Brussels: The Courts and the Numbers
- 9 Cambrai and Brussels: The Content of the Sentences
- 10 Divorce a mensa et thoro and salvo iure thori (Separation)
- 11 Social Practice, Formal Rule, and the Medieval Canon Law of Incest
- 12 Broader Comparisons
- Epilogue and Conclusion
- Bibliography and Abbreviations
- Subject Index
- Texts and Commentary
- Table of Cases
- Table of Authorities
- Index of Persons and Places
Summary
The focus of this chapter is twofold, on the differences in the fifteenth-century court's reaction to story-patterns that were well established in the fourteenth century and on story-patterns that emerged in the fifteenth century that were different from those of the fourteenth. This focus on difference can lead to the impression that radical changes occurred in litigation about marriage in the court of York in the fifteenth century. That was not the case, and a final section in the chapter will briefly sketch the large elements of continuity between the two centuries. It will, however, not be necessary to go into detail about the cases that were basically the same as those in the fourteenth century.
DIFFERENT REACTIONS TO OLD STORY-PATTERNS
The statistics have already showed us that plaintiffs' success rate went down in the fifteenth century, though the York court remained decidedly plaintiff-friendly. The decline is particularly noticeable in two-party actions, where defendants received favorable judgments in 37 percent of the cases that have judgments (11/30), while the comparable figure for the fourteenth century is 18 percent (6/34). If we exclude the abjuration cases, which, as we have seen, produced an unusually high number of judgments for defendants in fourteenth-century York and are virtually, though not entirely, missing in the fifteenth century, the contrast becomes even more dramatic: 39 percent (11/28) versus 12 percent (3/25).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle AgesArguments about Marriage in Five Courts, pp. 152 - 217Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008