Carnal Knowledge - Ingram, Martin

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Résumé :
How was the law used to control sex in Tudor England? What were the differences between secular and religious practice? This major study reveals that - contrary to what historians have often supposed - in pre-Reformation England both ecclesiastical and secular (especially urban) courts were already highly active in regulating sex. They not only enforced clerical celibacy and sought to combat prostitution but also restrained the pre- and extramarital sexual activities of laypeople more generally. Initially destabilising, the religious and institutional changes of 1530-60 eventually led to important new developments that tightened the regime further. There were striking innovations in the use of shaming punishments in provincial towns and experiments in the practice of public penance in the church courts, while Bridewell transformed the situation in London. Allowing the clergy to marry was a milestone of a different sort. Together these changes contributed to a marked shift in the moral climate by 1600....

Biographie:
Martin Ingram is an Emeritus Fellow in History at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. His publications include Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570?1640 (Cambridge, 1988) as well as numerous articles on sex and marriage, crime and the law, slander and defamation, scolding women, 'rough music' and related topics.

Sommaire:
Prologue; 1. Contexts and perspectives; 2. Marriage, fame and shame; 3. 'Bawdy courts' in rural society before 1530; 4. Urban aspirations: pre-Reformation provincial towns; 5. Stews-side? Westminster, Southwark and the London suburbs; 6. London church courts before the Reformation; 7. Civic moralism in Yorkist and early Tudor London; 8. Sex and the celibate clergy; 9. Reform and Reformation, 1530?58; 10. Towards the new Jerusalem? Reformation of sexual manners in provincial society, 1558?80; 11. Brought into Bridewell: sex police in early Elizabethan London; 12. Regulating sex in late Elizabethan times: retrospect and prospect.