The most important difference between Catholic and Reformed atti­tudes to sex was the Protestant aspiration to perfection. The traditional Catholic view had been that fleshly lusts were reprehensible but inevitable: to restrain them completely might be impossible, or coun­ter-productive. The enforcement of sexual discipline was accordingly balanced by a certain amount of toleration of organized […]

[Magistrates should prosecute] common whoremongers, and common whores; for (by good opinion) adultery and bawdry is an offence temporal, as well as spiritual, and is against the peace of the land. . . a constable [may seek out and arrest] a man and a woman [committing] adultery or fornication together. Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice […]

In truth this was an over-determined matter, for many different pat­terns of thought underpinned sexual discipline and were invoked in its justification. The most basic was the patriarchal principle that every woman was the property of her father or husband, so that it was a kind of theft for any stranger to have sex with […]

The orthodox ideals of the church and state continually came up against attitudes that were more tolerant of illicit sex. These alterna­tive views are, however, not easy to recover in detail. Because they were neither respectable nor very fully developed, they were rarely written down at length. In poetry and fiction, love was endlessly cele­brated, […]

In fact, by the early sixteenth century the main public criticism was that existing practice was far too lenient. This was a major complaint of the Protestant movement, which began around 1500 as a campaign to purify the church from within, but pretty soon developed into a cataclysmic struggle for truth that tore apart the […]

The further back in time we go, the more fragmentary the record becomes. Most of it has been lost, and what survives is often sparse and abbreviated, so that we can gain only intermittent glimpses of the law in action. Yet its general thrust is clear: the principle that illicit sex was a public crime […]

We could start anywhere in the British Isles, on any date almost from the dawn of recorded history to the later seventeenth century. But let’s pick Westminster, on the bank of the Thames. It is Tuesday, 10 March 1612. If we hurry into the town’s courthouse, we shall find its magis­trates in session, dealing with […]

I should never have aspired to become a historian, nor persevered with this book, without the example and encouragement of several outstand­ing scholars and friends. I recall with gratitude the support of Ian Archer, Peter Biller, Jan Blokker, Michael Braddick, Robin Briggs, Marilyn Butler, Robert Darnton, Rees Davies, Anthony Fletcher, Clive Holmes, Joanna Innes, Ian […]