Marriage and sexual transgressions in the late medieval diocese of London

Abstract

By the end of the 15th century, the moral control in London, looking at the Middle Ages as a whole, reached its peak. Both the Church and the secular powers sought to control people’s moral lives; either to reduce the number of transgressions or to punish severly those who committed them. Indeed, by the second half of the 15th century, there was a decline in the number of marriage cases, especially those involving clandestine marriages, while the number of sexual transgressions, such as adultery, increased. This trend was reversed at the beginning of the 16th century, when the number of marriage-related cases increased, while those involving sexual transgressions decreased.