Tag Archives: Divorce for impotence

A mind-boggling aspect of late medieval church courts was the employment of “juries of matrons” in suits for divorce by reason of impotence: the court could order a group of women to investigate on its behalf whether a man was capable of “having carnal knowledge” of a woman. In other words, they performed a court-orderedContinue reading “Alice Barbour c. William Barbour”