Scottish Society 1500 1800

Adultery fornication breach of marriage contract sexual slander - these along with religious offences of various kinds were typical of the cases dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts in Elizabethan and early Stuart England. What was it like to live in a society in which personal morality was regulated by law in this fashion? How far-reaching was such surveillance in actual practice? How did ordinary people view the courts - as useful institutions upholding accepted standards or as an alien system purveying unwanted values? How effective were the church courts in influencing attitudes and behaviour? Previous assessments of ecclesiastical justice coloured by contemporary puritan and common law criticisms have mostly been unfavourable. This in-depth richly documented study of the sex and marriage business dealt with under church law based on the records of the courts in Wiltshire Cambridgeshire Leicestershire and West Sussex in the period 15701640 presents a more balanced and more positive view.