'And they say she drew blood': Women, aggression and the vice of wrath on the Wakefield manor, 1323 to 1410

This study investigates women's aggression on the Wakefield manor from 1323 to 1410 through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. It demonstrates the value of looking back from the study of "female" crimes (i.e. prostitution, infanticide, and scolding) to the investigation of violent women in medieval England, first undertaken in the early 1970s by historians of crime. It suggests methods for addressing the perceived difficulty of the low numbers of violent women appearing in medieval court records and argues that women's aggression is understood best through a combination of statistical and qualitative analysis.;Next, the study turns to quantitative analysis of female aggression reported in 74 years of Wakefield tourns. Earlier studies have relied too heavily on aggregate data, and have been overly concerned with the volume of women's versus men's offences. Working with contemporary definitions, aggregate, and time-series analysis reveal more women than anticipated were reported for aggression and that more were reported for physical than verbal conflict. The trends of reported female and male aggression in the Wakefield tourns show a strong positive correlation, this close relationship was periodically disturbed by events within the manor or by exogenous shocks such as the plague. During periods of serious social disruption female aggression was more likely to be overlooked than male aggression because it was perceived to, be less threatening to social order; however, female aggression was less likely to be tolerated during periods of relative stability, especially when it involved fighting with men.;The study has two parts. Through an examination of the description of fighting in diocesan pastoralia and vernacular expositive treatises, the first part demonstrates that 'violence' has been anachronistically and narrowly defined. Both verbal and physical aggression must be included in any analysis of women's conflict because this more accurately represents contemporary beliefs. These treatises are important for their gendered portrayal of aggression: depicting women's fighting as petty gluttony (evil speech and scolding) more often than wrath, which was male, physical, and connected with vengeance. Widespread acceptance of such views may partially explain underreporting of women's aggression.