* COLLOQUIA MEDIEVALIA *

The Policing of Non-Marital Sex
in Late Medieval London and Paris

a lecture by
Ruth Mazo Karras
of the University of Minnesota

Thursday, February 22, 2007
4:00 p.m.
229 Nolte Center
315 Pillsbury Drive S.E., Minneapolis

Abstract:

Church court records from late fifteenth-century London and Paris reveal very different approaches to the perceived problem of couples forming unions outside of wedlock. Both jurisdictions operated under the same rules of canon law, but their modes of enforcement reflect varying degrees of community acceptance of rulebreakers.