Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 2530
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): McSheffrey , Shannon.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Priests Behaving Badly: Clerical Sexual Misconduct in Fifteenth-Century London
  • Source: Gender and Conflict in the Middle Ages. Gender and Medieval Studies Conference, York, January 5-7 2001.. 2001.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Conference Paper Abstract
  • Subject (See Also): Cities and Towns- Government Clergy- Sexual Behavior London Morality
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 15
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract: Whether the dissolute and licentious priest was a typical figure in late medieval England--and certainly a number of historians argue that he was not--it is nonetheless hard to escape the evidence that clerics made up a large proportion of the men who were prosecuted for sexual misdemeanours in the late medieval ecclesiastical and secular courts of England. This paper will examine the response of late medieval London civic authorities to the problem of priests who behaved badly and will argue that this response reflected the urban leaders' changing attitudes towards their masculine roles as moral governors of their society. [Reproduced by permission of the Gender and Medieval Studies Conference organizers].
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Concordia University
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2001.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: Not Available