In the medieval world, crime was not just about survival or greed—it was deeply influenced by gender roles and social norms. How men and women committed crimes, and how they were punished, reflected broader societal views about masculinity, femininity, and authority. Violence, theft, and domestic abuse were all shaped by these gendered expectations, creating a complex pattern of crime that offers us a window into medieval life.
Crime is a gender-associated activity.
The vast majority of criminals were, and are, men. Ideas of what constituted ‘manly’ behaviour in the medieval world reinforced the idea that violence was far more acceptable for men than for women.
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Women were predominantly victims rather than perpetrators — and, even when they were criminals, they tended to commit different crimes. Female crime tended not to encompass murder or other serious violence, for instance, and was far more focused on theft and petty fraud.
Women were also treated differently in terms of trials and punishment compared to men. Female criminals tended to receive more lenient punishments and sentences. They were less likely to get capital or corporal punishment — women were rarely given a whipping, for instance. They were also more likely to receive pardons than male offenders.
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Gender and crime were reflected in very different patterns of behaviour — this was particularly true regarding violent crime, where women played a relatively minor role. Crime data is always problematic, and we do not have much quantitative data for the crusader states. Other contemporary case studies in European societies shed light on the gender patterns underlying violent offences, however. In mid-thirteenth-century England, for instance, fewer than 10% of the people accused of murder were female.
Similarly, in France, the court records for the period 1389-1422 show that women represented only 4% of those petitioners seeking pardon for serious crimes. And, even when women were the perpetrators, they were far less likely to be prosecuted, as such crimes were often less serious than those associated with men. The lack of serious consequences was not just a matter of physiology — if women were fighting, they were far less likely to be carrying weapons than their male counterparts. As a consequence, violent crime for women rarely escalated into outright murder.
There was a similar pattern of behaviour associated with stealing — women tended to be involved less often and, even when they were guilty, their transgressions were largely at the less serious end of the sentencing spectrum.
Female criminals tended to be involved with petty crime, rather than with more serious thefts. Where they were ‘professional’ or habitual criminals, they tended to be operating in roles such as fencing stolen goods. The typical medieval female criminals were nurses or servants or pub landladies who stole from their clients rather than cold-blooded bandits or violent muggers. Petty theft by deception was the classic female crime.
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This scene of a woman hitting a man with a stick, is from the 14th-century Smitgfield Decretals. In reality, violence was committed far more frequently by men against women. British Library MS Royal 10 E IV fol. 148r
Domestic Violence and Gender Imbalance
But it was in the role of victim that women generally featured in medieval crime. And even in clear-cut cases of domestic violence, the odds were invariably stacked against them. In fact, any abuse that stopped short of murder was unlikely to ever get to court.
When a wife was murdered, for instance, the punishment for the killing involved a far smaller sum of money than the penalties for killings outside the family. In the case of northern France, this was generally less than twenty per cent of the sum involved when killing someone beyond the (highly male-dominated) family hierarchy — it was, the law implied, a far less important incident.
Domestic violence was an issue, as always. But it was even harder to define in the Middle Ages.
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Then, as now, violence was often learned behaviour — children who grew up in a household where violence was accepted as normal were naturally more likely to become perpetrators themselves in later life. This phenomenon may well have been even more exaggerated in the crusader states, where military and other violence, or at least the permanent and imminent threat of violence, was such an ingrained part of their common social experience — but we do not have the evidence to be definitive about this.
Social and Legal Norms of ‘Correction’
There was also the issue of what was ‘unacceptable’ domestic violence, and what was somehow deemed to be acceptable ‘correction’ or ‘discipline’ within the confines of a marriage. Although this concept has gradually become alien in Western society, in many instances a man was actively encouraged and expected to punish his wife for her perceived transgressions.
Husbands might be criticised (and very occasionally even prosecuted) for ‘excessive’ punishments, but the definition of what constituted ‘excessive’ was difficult to pin down — the line at which what was perceived as legitimate discipline moved from ‘correction’ and strayed into ‘abuse’ was never clear-cut. But, as a broad rule, beatings administered by hand were rarely considered abusive, whereas more savage beatings or violence, particularly when involving weapons, were far less acceptable.
A French incident, in this case from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just to the west of Paris, in 1325, shows the kind of escalation that could occur once matters were pushed too far by either party.
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Legal System Favours Men
A married couple were known to have been arguing incessantly. The husband, a man with the deceptively harmless name of Colin the Barber, said that his wife habitually threw many ‘villainous and injurious’ insults at him. This had been done publicly enough for many in the local community to believe what he later said in mitigation — or at least to understand his side of the case.
One evening, Colin had had enough. He left the marital home to get away from it all. He went, again, endearingly and incongruously, to play billiards with his friends down the pub. His wife, Eustache, had not finished the argument, however. She followed him down to the tavern. She continued berating him in front of his friends.
Goaded on by his comrades, and doubtless much disinhibited by alcohol, Colin tried to punish her for what he claimed were her harsh words. Matters escalated quickly. The ‘correction’ soon came to include the use of a billiard cue. The evening ended with Eustache being beaten ferociously in the pub. She lay bloodied and severely injured on the floor, the culmination of the most savage kind of domestic abuse. She died shortly afterwards of the wounds she had received.
Even by the low standards of medieval France, the case was so serious that it could not be ignored. But Colin’s evidence in mitigation was cleverly constructed to exploit social prejudices. He claimed that the death of his wife was an accident; that he had not used a bladed or sharp weapon (though it could clearly be argued that a billiard cue is, in itself, a weapon); and that he had ‘only’ been seeking to frighten and chastise her.
Strangely to our eyes, this elaborate and fundamentally flawed mitigation was enough to get him an acquittal. Coupled with the character references provided by his friends and his previous lack of convictions for violent behaviour, the defence was sufficient for the court (which was, not coincidentally, all-male). They gave him the benefit of the doubt.
To add insult to her very real injury, the court even tried, with the extraordinarily perverse logic for which the Middle Ages has become famous, to imply that Eustache was largely responsible for her own death. If only she had treated her wounds with greater care, the court opined, she could have saved herself. The court decided that if she had been more assiduous in her wifely duty of wound care, she might have been able to save her husband from the embarrassment of appearing in court at all. The bizarre implication, of course, was that it was all her fault, and that Colin had not actually delivered a truly fatal blow, even though she had subsequently died of it.
Fortunately enough for Colin, the murder of a spouse (the spouse, usually, of course, being the wife) was most generally achieved through stabbings — the use of a billiard cue was sufficiently unusual to allow him to argue that it was ‘not really’ a weapon. Stabbing your wife to death clearly involved the explicit use of a weapon, however, and was thus unequivocally ‘illicit behaviour’, even in the eyes of the most patriarchal medieval judge.
The widespread carrying of daggers did not help in this regard, but it at least created a clear line, beyond which it became easier to get the police and the community at large involved. A certain Jehan Duquesne, for instance, stabbed his ex-wife to death in the street. Rather than being given a rap over the knuckles, he found himself being pursued by the entire local community. After a dramatic candlelit hue and cry, he was cornered and held captive until he could be taken into custody.
But Jehan’s case was an exceptional one. Then, as now, women were usually the victims — of crime in general and of sexual violence and domestic abuse in particular.
While the medieval world was dominated by men both in the courtroom and on the streets, the echoes of those skewed legal systems still resonate today. Gender played a crucial role in shaping crime and punishment, with women often seen as less violent but more prone to petty deception. Yet, understanding how crime and justice were influenced by gender in the past allows us to see how far we've come—and how far we still have to go. The disparities in how men and women were treated remain a reminder of the deep-rooted biases that shaped the legal landscape of the Middle Ages and continue to influence society today.
Want to learn more about crime during the Crusades? Check out Steve Tibble’s new book Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land.
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Steve is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
By Steve Tibble
In the medieval world, crime was not just about survival or greed—it was deeply influenced by gender roles and social norms. How men and women committed crimes, and how they were punished, reflected broader societal views about masculinity, femininity, and authority. Violence, theft, and domestic abuse were all shaped by these gendered expectations, creating a complex pattern of crime that offers us a window into medieval life.
Crime is a gender-associated activity.
The vast majority of criminals were, and are, men. Ideas of what constituted ‘manly’ behaviour in the medieval world reinforced the idea that violence was far more acceptable for men than for women.
Women were predominantly victims rather than perpetrators — and, even when they were criminals, they tended to commit different crimes. Female crime tended not to encompass murder or other serious violence, for instance, and was far more focused on theft and petty fraud.
Women were also treated differently in terms of trials and punishment compared to men. Female criminals tended to receive more lenient punishments and sentences. They were less likely to get capital or corporal punishment — women were rarely given a whipping, for instance. They were also more likely to receive pardons than male offenders.
Gender and crime were reflected in very different patterns of behaviour — this was particularly true regarding violent crime, where women played a relatively minor role. Crime data is always problematic, and we do not have much quantitative data for the crusader states. Other contemporary case studies in European societies shed light on the gender patterns underlying violent offences, however. In mid-thirteenth-century England, for instance, fewer than 10% of the people accused of murder were female.
Similarly, in France, the court records for the period 1389-1422 show that women represented only 4% of those petitioners seeking pardon for serious crimes. And, even when women were the perpetrators, they were far less likely to be prosecuted, as such crimes were often less serious than those associated with men. The lack of serious consequences was not just a matter of physiology — if women were fighting, they were far less likely to be carrying weapons than their male counterparts. As a consequence, violent crime for women rarely escalated into outright murder.
There was a similar pattern of behaviour associated with stealing — women tended to be involved less often and, even when they were guilty, their transgressions were largely at the less serious end of the sentencing spectrum.
Female criminals tended to be involved with petty crime, rather than with more serious thefts. Where they were ‘professional’ or habitual criminals, they tended to be operating in roles such as fencing stolen goods. The typical medieval female criminals were nurses or servants or pub landladies who stole from their clients rather than cold-blooded bandits or violent muggers. Petty theft by deception was the classic female crime.
Domestic Violence and Gender Imbalance
But it was in the role of victim that women generally featured in medieval crime. And even in clear-cut cases of domestic violence, the odds were invariably stacked against them. In fact, any abuse that stopped short of murder was unlikely to ever get to court.
When a wife was murdered, for instance, the punishment for the killing involved a far smaller sum of money than the penalties for killings outside the family. In the case of northern France, this was generally less than twenty per cent of the sum involved when killing someone beyond the (highly male-dominated) family hierarchy — it was, the law implied, a far less important incident.
Domestic violence was an issue, as always. But it was even harder to define in the Middle Ages.
Then, as now, violence was often learned behaviour — children who grew up in a household where violence was accepted as normal were naturally more likely to become perpetrators themselves in later life. This phenomenon may well have been even more exaggerated in the crusader states, where military and other violence, or at least the permanent and imminent threat of violence, was such an ingrained part of their common social experience — but we do not have the evidence to be definitive about this.
Social and Legal Norms of ‘Correction’
There was also the issue of what was ‘unacceptable’ domestic violence, and what was somehow deemed to be acceptable ‘correction’ or ‘discipline’ within the confines of a marriage. Although this concept has gradually become alien in Western society, in many instances a man was actively encouraged and expected to punish his wife for her perceived transgressions.
Husbands might be criticised (and very occasionally even prosecuted) for ‘excessive’ punishments, but the definition of what constituted ‘excessive’ was difficult to pin down — the line at which what was perceived as legitimate discipline moved from ‘correction’ and strayed into ‘abuse’ was never clear-cut. But, as a broad rule, beatings administered by hand were rarely considered abusive, whereas more savage beatings or violence, particularly when involving weapons, were far less acceptable.
A French incident, in this case from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just to the west of Paris, in 1325, shows the kind of escalation that could occur once matters were pushed too far by either party.
Legal System Favours Men
A married couple were known to have been arguing incessantly. The husband, a man with the deceptively harmless name of Colin the Barber, said that his wife habitually threw many ‘villainous and injurious’ insults at him. This had been done publicly enough for many in the local community to believe what he later said in mitigation — or at least to understand his side of the case.
One evening, Colin had had enough. He left the marital home to get away from it all. He went, again, endearingly and incongruously, to play billiards with his friends down the pub. His wife, Eustache, had not finished the argument, however. She followed him down to the tavern. She continued berating him in front of his friends.
Goaded on by his comrades, and doubtless much disinhibited by alcohol, Colin tried to punish her for what he claimed were her harsh words. Matters escalated quickly. The ‘correction’ soon came to include the use of a billiard cue. The evening ended with Eustache being beaten ferociously in the pub. She lay bloodied and severely injured on the floor, the culmination of the most savage kind of domestic abuse. She died shortly afterwards of the wounds she had received.
Even by the low standards of medieval France, the case was so serious that it could not be ignored. But Colin’s evidence in mitigation was cleverly constructed to exploit social prejudices. He claimed that the death of his wife was an accident; that he had not used a bladed or sharp weapon (though it could clearly be argued that a billiard cue is, in itself, a weapon); and that he had ‘only’ been seeking to frighten and chastise her.
Strangely to our eyes, this elaborate and fundamentally flawed mitigation was enough to get him an acquittal. Coupled with the character references provided by his friends and his previous lack of convictions for violent behaviour, the defence was sufficient for the court (which was, not coincidentally, all-male). They gave him the benefit of the doubt.
To add insult to her very real injury, the court even tried, with the extraordinarily perverse logic for which the Middle Ages has become famous, to imply that Eustache was largely responsible for her own death. If only she had treated her wounds with greater care, the court opined, she could have saved herself. The court decided that if she had been more assiduous in her wifely duty of wound care, she might have been able to save her husband from the embarrassment of appearing in court at all. The bizarre implication, of course, was that it was all her fault, and that Colin had not actually delivered a truly fatal blow, even though she had subsequently died of it.
Fortunately enough for Colin, the murder of a spouse (the spouse, usually, of course, being the wife) was most generally achieved through stabbings — the use of a billiard cue was sufficiently unusual to allow him to argue that it was ‘not really’ a weapon. Stabbing your wife to death clearly involved the explicit use of a weapon, however, and was thus unequivocally ‘illicit behaviour’, even in the eyes of the most patriarchal medieval judge.
The widespread carrying of daggers did not help in this regard, but it at least created a clear line, beyond which it became easier to get the police and the community at large involved. A certain Jehan Duquesne, for instance, stabbed his ex-wife to death in the street. Rather than being given a rap over the knuckles, he found himself being pursued by the entire local community. After a dramatic candlelit hue and cry, he was cornered and held captive until he could be taken into custody.
But Jehan’s case was an exceptional one. Then, as now, women were usually the victims — of crime in general and of sexual violence and domestic abuse in particular.
While the medieval world was dominated by men both in the courtroom and on the streets, the echoes of those skewed legal systems still resonate today. Gender played a crucial role in shaping crime and punishment, with women often seen as less violent but more prone to petty deception. Yet, understanding how crime and justice were influenced by gender in the past allows us to see how far we've come—and how far we still have to go. The disparities in how men and women were treated remain a reminder of the deep-rooted biases that shaped the legal landscape of the Middle Ages and continue to influence society today.
Want to learn more about crime during the Crusades? Check out Steve Tibble’s new book Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land.
Please visit the publisher’s website or buy this book
on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Steve is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
You can check out Steve’s other books: Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain, The Crusader Armies and The Crusader Strategy
Further Readings:
Dean, T., "Domestic Violence in Medieval Bologna,: Renaissance Studies, Vol 18:4 (2004)
Finch, A., "Women and violence in the later Middle Ages: the evidence of the officiality of Cerisy," Continuity and Change 7 (1992).
Skoda, H., Medieval Violence: Physical Brutality in Northern France, 1270-1330, Oxford, 2013.
Top Image: British Library MS Royal 10 E. IV, fol.139
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