There were a series of crimes in the Middle Ages that were thought so dreadful they were considered to be a form of treason. High treason is the offence of attempting to injure or kill the king or queen, and little or petty treason involves any “underling” killing his or her superior Under the law of petty treason, codified in 1351, wives accused of murdering their husbands, or clergy killing their prelates, or a servant killing his or her master or mistress could be tried under this charge.
Why were such crimes considered treason? In the Middle Ages, hierarchy was seen as natural, as part of good order, created and ordained by God. God was always seen as male and at the apex of creation. Earth mirrored heaven, it was believed, and so man was held above woman. To a medieval man, a wife should obey her husband and be inferior to him, and the same was believed to be true for servants and their masters and mistresses.
Attitudes held at the time and the the demands of the church reinforced such ideas. One of the most popular lay stories of the fourteenth century was that of Patient Griselda, who submits to her odious husband while he takes her children from her, tells her he has killed them and finally tells Griselda he has divorced her. As an ideal, patient wife, Griselda then forgives him when her bullying husband reveals that all these ordeals have been fake and a test of her obedience. The church may have raised the Virgin Mary as a perfect woman but all other females and wives were said to be tainted by the sin of Eve, tempted by Satan in the guise of a serpent into stealing an apple from the tree of knowledge and then tempting her husband Adam into sharing it with her. For that sin, the church believed women should be subservient to their husbands.
The message was clear: wives must obey. To murder one’s husband (whom a medieval wife had promised to obey in the marriage ceremony) was seen as the ultimate betrayal, a deadly, intimate act. Servants, too, were encouraged to be servile, especially since they lived with the family, inside the family.
Writing as I do about relationships and romance, I am particularly appalled by the crime of petty treason. For a wife convicted of it, the punishment was dreadful – she was burnt at the stake. It was a crime where the same act – murder of a spouse – was treated in different ways. A man could kill his wife and be tried for murder, but a wife killing her husband was committing treason. A man was allowed to beat his wife because, it was believed by philosophers like Thomas Aquinas that women were less capable of reason than men. This last did mean, strangely enough, that women could be acquitted of the crime of Petty Treason if it was discovered that she had no “accomplices”. Women were not considered able to murder their husbands alone! So in 49 cases of husband killing brought before the justices in medieval Yorkshire and Essex, 32 were released. For those desperate women who were convicted however, a terrible fate awaited.
This horrific punishment was the same as for relapsed heretics and for the same reason. For a wife to kill her husband was seen as a form of heresy, a move against God’s order. Some “mercy” could be offered by the executioner’s choking the woman by cords before the flames touched her, but that often went wrong as the cords could also be burnt by the fire. The law was finally repealed in 1790.
[Renaissance image of Patient Griselda from Wikimedia Commons]
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Such terrible lives women must have led in the past. Powerless people had absolutely no recourse to justice. I was glad to read that women weren't deemed able to murder on their own, so at least when a woman snapped under duress, she found some kind of mercy.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Christine. Throughout history, women have always needed to be aware of creeping and overt misogyny.
ReplyDeleteIt is so galling and demeaning to know women were treated as inferiors, like cattle in Medieval times. Not all that much has changed over the centuries. Women are paid less, of lesser value than men in many institutions, and passed over for jobs they qualify for as men get those positions. And yet, the 3 highest IQ's ever recorded were ALL women--yes, higher than Enstein's IQ. Imagine that.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this peek into medieval history and the disparity between men and women.
All the best to you Lindsay.
Thanks, Sarah and I agree with your comments re the status of women in history. Women must always be aware of their rights and strive to maintain them. Even in these covid times, in the UK, the bulk of child care and house keeping has fallen on women during lock down. Ug
ReplyDeleteSo dreadful that the hierarchy of the Middle Ages was seen as natural and reinforced by religion. Sometimes it seems that we've come a long way since then. Other times, not so much.
ReplyDeleteI knew about high treason from reading so many historical novels, but did not know the devastating fate of a woman found guilty of killing her husband. Yet different rules applied when the husband killed the wife. Life isn't fair and that's true throughout the ages. What I've found really disturbing is the clergy's involvement in so many injustices. What part of holy have they chosen to forget? I'm relieved women are taking a stand, fighting for their rights in what is still largely a man's world. Injustice makes my blood seethe. An excellent article, Lindsay. I learned something new reading it.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Ann and Elizabeth. I feel the church has been very anti-women for far too long
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