Agency, Authority, and Power before the Edinburgh Courts, 1560-1660

On 8 October 1644 servant woman Jonet Thompson appeared before Canongate kirk session (local church court) in a complex case of adultery, involving, bribery, forged documents, an illegitimate pregnancy, and infant mortality. Adopting a case study approach, my paper addresses the dynamics of female agency before the ecclesiastical courts, attending to the intersectionality of age, employment, marital status, and social rank as factors influencing disciplinary experiences, and expressions of power. Within a deeply patriarchal society, there were ways in which women could express power over their contemporaries, even within, and sometimes because of, the rigid structures of the established Church. 

Claire McNulty is a Carnegie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.