For this case, only the response of the defendant survives. We can infer from Richard Clerk’s answers that he had been sued by a woman named Avice who alleged that the two had contracted marriage. He admitted that on a spring day in a field he had urged her to have sex with him as they had done at least twice before, and she responded that she would only do so if he agreed to marry her. He claimed that he had not then or at any point intended to marry her. Disagreements and conflicts regarding whether sex was premarital or not were, unsurprisingly, relatively common in Consistory marriage cases; usually, as here, men pushed for sex without marriage while women (who of course bore the potential burden of pregnancy) were more likely to seek promises of a marital contract.[1]
LMA, MS DL/C/A/001/MS09065, fol. 160v
Response of Richard Clerk, defendant, 20 Jul. 1493
Responses personally made by Richard Clerk, 20 July, by the lord Official in his dwelling house, in my, Richard Grome’s, presence. Richard Clerk, sworn on the positions etc. To the first position, he says that on a certain day between the feasts of Easter and Pentecost two years ago,[2] on which day he cannot specify, in a certain field called Cowleys,[3] this witness and Avice spoke together about contracting marriage. He did not, however, contract marriage with her nor was he about to contract it, but he wished to know her carnally and she responded that unless he would contract marriage with her he would never have his pleasure of her. To the second position, he does not believe it. To the third position, he admits that he knew her carnally twice in Avice’s house about a quarter of a year before this communication, and he says that at the time that he knew her carnally, Avice said to Richard in English, “[I] lie still or else I will cry.”[4] To its other contents, he does not believe them. To the fourth position, he believes what is believed and denies what is denied, and he does not believe the fame.
[1] Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 21-22, 66-71.
[2] In 1491, the feasts of Easter and Pentecost were 3 April and 22 May respectively.
[3] This may refer to a property called Cowleys at Stroud, Middlesex (now Stroud Green, Haringey). See ‘Islington: Other estates’, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (1985), pp. 57-69. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp57-69.
[4] This last phrase is added to the margin. It is not clear if the “I” is meant to be deleted or is part of the quotation – and it is not clear what this means or how it is relevant to the issues in the case.
Consistory 