Though only the response of the defendant survives for this case and even the full name of the plaintiff is unknown, we can infer some of her claims from John Remyngton’s denials: she evidently argued that they had exchanged tokens of marriage and had slept together as man and wife. Remyngton denied that either meant they were married: she had stolen the gloves, he claimed, and had wantonly climbed into his bed even as he shared it with three different men. Certainly, from the defendant’s response Alice’s case looks weak, and possibly it was (no other depositions survive, suggesting it may have been abandoned following this examination). Remyngton’s tactics, however, fit a common pattern of denials in which defendants take advantage of the ambiguous nature of certain courtship customs such as the exchange of gifts and premarital sex.[1]
[Collin Bonnell and Shannon McSheffrey]
LMA, MS DL/C/A/001/MS09065, fol. 171v
Response of John Remyngton, Nov.-Dec. 1493
Responses personally made by John Remyngton.
John Remyngton sworn etc. on the positions etc. To the first, second, and third positions, he denies them and the truth of their contents. To the fourth position, he does not believe its contents, but he says that Alice stole a pair of gloves from a certain chest belonging to this witness, this witness not knowing about it. To the fifth position, he admits that he frequently knew Alice carnally. And he says that this was more Alice’s fault than this witness’s, because she came to the bed in which this witness was lying many times, and three times she stayed the night with this witness in the same bed, on the first night John Clerk being in the same bed with this witness, on the second night Robert Wheler, and on the third night Robert Bullok. And he says that on each of those nights those people could have had sex with Alice just as this witness did, but whether in fact they did he doubts. To the sixth article [position], he believes what is believed and does not believe what is not believed, and he does not believe the fame.
[1] For more on this, see McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture, 65-66.
Consistory 