Rape and Violence Against Women

Women of the Renaissance experienced violence in virtually all of their roles and vocations, across all socioeconomic classes, and at all ages. Forms of violence were many and varied, occurring in domestic, social, and political arenas, and they ranged from murder, rape, and incest to beatings, whippings, and other forms of torture. Domestic punishments were most common. While frowned upon, especially by Protestant ministers, wife beating was legal in England, France, and Italy; husbands could batter wives with impunity. Likewise, though parents and teachers were advised to use some restraint, the physical “correction” of girls was believed to be a critical component of education. Employers could and did beat their servants (many of whom were female) for insubordination or disobedience. Rape and violence against women were portrayed in a staggering number of stories, plays, and poems, indicating the culture’s fascination with such matters.

Though it was a felony, rape was underreported, underprosecuted, and underpenalized. In England rapes represented less than 1 percent of criminal indictments. Rape accusations and convictions decreased for several reasons as the period progressed. First, in accordance with beliefs that female orgasm was essential for conception, if a raped woman became pregnant, her condition seemed to indicate that she had consented to the crime. Second, as legally defined, rape required penile penetration, which was very hard to prove;judges dismissed rape cases where bloodstains or torn clothing were unconvincing or lacking. Third, accusers, seen as revengeful or opportunistic, were open to charges of slander and other reprisals. Fourth, rape victims had to report graphic details before all-male officials, an act that was itself perceived as shameful. Fifth, it cost time and money to travel to court to testify against a culprit who was unlikely to be convicted.

Whereas in the Middle Ages rape was considered a crime against family property, in the Renaissance it began to be regarded as a personal crime. This shift resulted in an emphasis on the victim’s consent, making it more likely that women from the laboring classes would bring up charges. But the focus on consent was sometimes beneficial for rapists in that it created the pregnancy loophole and gave the accused room to claim that consent had been granted. It also meant that, despite strict laws, rape began to be treated as a relatively minor crime.

Though rape was a capital crime, convicted rapists were most likely to be fined or briefly imprisoned, especially if the victim was a servant, a laborer, or without a family. In Venice, the median penalty for a rape was six months in jail or a fine of one hundred lire. The penalties were heavier if the rapist drew blood; if abduction, robbery, or breaking and entering also occurred; or if the victim was prepubescent (virginal) or wealthy. Rapists of young girls tended to receive harsh penalties, but if the victim had passed through puberty, the sentence was mild. Punishments for rape and attempted rape tended to be similar, indicating that the crime was not so much in the completion of the act but in the violence of it. Rapes and attempted rapes of married women were punished more severely, possibly because the word of a married woman, who had little to gain from accusing a man of rape, was taken more seriously than that of unmarried ones. Single women were sometimes encouraged to marry their rapists; in other cases, a portion of the fine was allocated for the victim’s dowry.

A 1576 statute in England denied the benefit of clergy for convicted rapists. Before the statute, rapists could read some lines of Scripture and receive a branding rather than death by hanging. In closing one legal loophole, the statute opened another; it made the rape of a girl under the age of ten a felony, whether she consented or not. This had the auxiliary effect of reducing the age of consent from twelve to ten. The courts tended to doubt the rape accusations of children younger than seven, possibly because they believed penetration impossible in girls so young. Reports of incest, which presupposed intercourse, were rare; more frequent were cases of “incestuous abuse” (Ingram 2001, 64). Because of their vulnerability to masters, stepfathers, neighbors, bawds, workmen, and customers, a large number of girls under the age of sixteen were raped, and the consequences were grave. Victims often contracted infections. The abuse of a child would come to light when she had trouble urinating or walking or when there was a noxious discharge. The girls themselves were often blamed and had to endure subsequent physical chastisement from their parents.

Rape occurred most often to females of the laboring classes who had little protection from their employers and fellow workers. In France, gang rape appears to have been more common than in England and Italy; in fourteenth-century Dijon, 80 percent of rapes were group attacks. In Italy, rapes of servants and slaves by their employers were most frequent. Among the aristocracy, rape prosecutions were rare, and, because of the wealth and power of highborn rapists, generally there were no concomitant crimes of breaking and entering or robbery, which meant that penalties were light.

The rape of nuns was often prosecuted as fornication rather than rape, the assumption being that they had desired and invited the attention. Though they tended to be of the nobility, nuns were less valuable than heiresses, and so the penalties for raping them varied. In France, it was reported that, in various uprisings, the Huguenots invaded the convents and raped nuns.

Rape, of course, was only one form of violence against women. Girls vulnerable to rapists were also vulnerable to beatings, and, because of the imbalance of power between husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and servants, physical harm was common. Men were thought to be violent by nature, and, because most carried some form of weapon, their aggression could easily become deadly.

Criminalized women endured particular kinds of violence. Scolds (shrews), especially repeat offenders, were sometimes forced to wear painful bridles; they could be whipped or dunked into water, a practice called “cucking.” Prostitutes could have their ears cut off or noses slit. For other crimes such as the watering of ale, women could be sentenced to the “thew,” a pillory for women to which they were attached by a neck ring. Women convicted of capital crimes such as murder, heresy, and witchcraft could be buried alive, burned, drowned, or hanged. Tortures such as whippings and “prickings” were used to extract confessions from accused witches. Given the large number of witch executions, especially in France, it is likely that more witches than rapists were punished with death in this period.

Sid Ray

See also Courtesans and Prostitution, Italy;

Gentileschi, Artemisia; Morra, Isabella di; Religious Persecution and Women; Witches, Witchraft, and Witch-Hunting.

Bibliography

Bashar, Nazife. “Rape in England between 1550 and 1700.” In Sexual Dynamics of History Edited by London Feminist History Group, 28—42. London: Pluto Press, 1983.

Ingram, Martin. “Child Sexual Abuse in Early Modern England.” In Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland. Edited by Michael J. Braddick and John Walter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Rossiaud, Jacques. Medieval Prostitution. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. London: Blackwell, 1988.

Ruggiero, Guido. Violence in Early Renaissance Venice. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980.

Walker, Garthine.“Reading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England.” Gender and History 10:1 (April 1998): 1-25.