also most often committed at weekends–a combination of getting paid on
Friday, drinking over the weekend, and having to spend more time with the
family! In medieval times, there was no such thing as a weekend, but people
did get some time off on Sundays and saints’days.
Again, as today, most murders were committed in the evening and at night,
and more frequently in the summer than in the winter. Most murders were
committed by men, although the cities saw more female killers, such as
Juliana, the concubine of a chaplain. She was in bed with the chaplain when a
man, John de Maltone, entered the room and knifed the chaplain in the belly.
John ran with Juliana to a nearby church, where they confessed to being
accomplices in the murder.
Murder of children was relatively rare, with the occasional case of
infanticide, and most recorded cases of child murder happened during the
course of robberies. Many robberies and burglaries seem to have been
extremely violent, even sadistic, particularly in rural areas. Torture was used
to make householders reveal where they had hidden their valuables, and
burglars came equipped with knives and axes to kill or maim their victims.
Some murders were commissioned. In 1301 John of Weldon was asleep
when Reginald Porthors and Ralph le Chapman broke into his house and
murdered him with a hatchet. They then stole ten shillings, and returned to
their employer, Lord Ralph Porthors. The posse from the neighbourhood
followed the murderers but were denied entry to his manor. The lord then
assisted the murderers to escape. Warrants were issued for the arrests of all
three, but it seems clear that Lord Ralph would not have faced justice–nobles
almost always got an immediate royal pardon.
However, most murderers seem to have been otherwise respectable
tradesmen, as were most of the victims. Servants were also often murderers,
and prostitutes were often accused. Members of the clergy also appear in the
records as killers.
The murder weapon of choice was the ubiquitous knife or dagger, carried
by everyone. If no knife was available, a staff or cudgel was used. Very few
murders ended up with a successful prosecution. Only some thirty per cent
even ended up with a trial at all.^9
The medieval period was nothing if not imaginative in devising
punishments for crime. Public humiliation, with or without physical pain, was
popular. We have mentioned the pillory, and punishments such as being forced
to wear a barrel for selling bad ale or wine.
Women in particular might be sentenced to the thewe, a type of pillory
reserved for them. This was the punishment meted out to Alice de Salesbury
MEDIEVAL CRIME