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Abstract: »This thesis examines victim/survivor experiences of rape and other sexual violations in late medieval France and Burgundy. Though scholars have studied rape in medieval France, few have considered what it was like for the women who endured rape, and none have explored how victims/survivors thought about their own consent. This thesis addresses that gap in the scholarship, proposes new methods for how we might examine victim/survivor experience in medieval documents, and argues that the only ethical study of rape is one that foregrounds such experiences. When rape was violent, women often resisted violently, and understood their ability to consent as something worth physically defending. The discourse of consent had great rhetorical power, and it was used to justify the victim’s/survivor’s violent actions in the face of rape, reinscribing them with personhood. But other, non-violent sex acts could also be harmful, such as marital promises used to coerce women into sex. Women in medieval France understood that their husbands might perpetrate sexual abuse against them, and that these acts were violative, even if they were not termed rapes. Victim/survivor experience was shaped by the community they lived in, and how others responded to the rape. Dijon was a community with a culture of rape and a culture of resistance. Its rape culture was characterized by physical violence, gang rapes, and the victimization of marginalized and/or vulnerable women. The culture of resistance was characterized by the anger and fear that victims/survivors felt and the defence they mounted against the rapists, but also by the community support they received in the form of testimony and direct intervention. Sex workers were extremely vulnerable to rape due to the nature of their employment, their social status, and the manner in which men tended to treat them. But despite this vulnerability they too had community ties and access to the courts.« (Source: Thesis)

Contents:

	Short Abstract
	Long Abstract
	Acknowledgements i
	Abbreviations ii
	Formatting Note iii
	Introduction 1
		Historiography (p. 7)
		Literary Approaches: Are There Any Truly Fictional Rapes? (p. 16)
		The Sources (p. 35)
		Letters of Remission (p. 36)
		The Officiality of Paris: Marriage Cases (p. 41)
		Dijon (p. 45)
	Chapter 1: Methods for Understanding Victim/Survivor Experience 51
		Emotions and Trauma (p. 53)
		Voices in the Archives (p. 61)
		Towards a Social and Cultural Understanding of Rape (p. 64)
		Experience and Life Stories (p. 73)
		What Can Consent Do? (p. 83)
	Chapter 2: Consent Defined 97
		The Language of Rape and Customary Law (p. 99)
		Rape, Virginity, and Clearly Defined Consent (p. 106)
		Sexually Active Women and Consent (p. 114)
		Murdering Rapists and Consent in the Cité (p. 126)
		Consent Defined Clearly & Rape Reported (p. 138)
	Chapter 3: Consent Questioned 145
		The Rules of Marriage (p. 147)
		Knowledge of the Courts (p. 151)
		Knowledge Leveraged and Consent Renegotiated (p. 153)
		Imbalances of Power (p. 160)
		Defloratio (p. 164)
		The Use of Force: ipsa invita (p. 171)
		Rape Within Marriage: the Conjugal Debt (p. 174)
		Chaste Marriage and the Conjugal Debt (p. 183)
		Conclusion (p. 190)
	Chapter 4: A Culture of Rape and Resistance: The Case of Dijon 195
		Ducal Power and Municipal Justice (p. 197)
		Controlling Rape in the City (p. 200)
		Community Response to Rape (p. 206)
		The Limits and Uses of Testimony (p. 211)
		Rape in the Community: the Cases of Gillote de Mons and Katherine Vougeot (p. 213)
		Direct Intervention: the Case of Richote, fille de Perrenin Mercerot (p. 227)
		The Limits of Community Aid (p. 231)
		The Leveraging of Power and Status (p. 233)
		The Case of Jehanotte de Vauls (p. 234)
		The Case of Jehanotte le Bonnet (p. 245)
		Culture of Rape and Culture of Resistance (p. 253)
	Chapter 5: Sex Workers and the Right to Consent 261
		Why Sex Workers? (p. 261)
		Sex Workers, Subjectivity and Language (p. 262)
		The Regulation of Sex Work in Medieval Society (p. 266)
		The Impact of Regulation (p. 272)
		Jehannette la Charronne (p. 274)
		Gilon (p. 282)
		‘De son bon gre’: the Case of Jehanotte de Briefville (p. 288)
		Conclusion (p. 293)
	Conclusion 297
		Medieval Rape Culture (p. 297)
		Changing a Rape Culture (p. 300)
		Life After Rape (p. 306)
	Bibliography 309
		Manuscripts (p. 309)
		Printed Primary Sources (p. 310)
		Databases and Inventories (p. 310)
		Secondary Sources (p. 311)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of France / France in the Middle Ages, History of Burgundy | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in France