Medieval Women and Urban Justice: Commerce, Crime and Community in England, 1300–1500

Teresa Phipps reconstructs women’s encounters with local justice in English towns between 1300 and 1500. Drawing on court records from Nottingham, Chester and Winchester, she follows hundreds of women through disputes, litigation and regulation to show how law operated in the practical setting of late-medieval urban communities.

The book examines debt and commerce, women’s work, trespass, violence, public disorder and speech, paying particular attention to the ways marital status, type of legal action and local custom affected a woman’s position before the courts. Combining quantitative evidence with individual cases, Phipps presents women’s legal status as variable rather than fixed and uses local records to recover their roles in commerce, neighbourhood life and systems of justice.