ABSTRACT
The mention of women and ordeals brings to mind an image that appears in Old French literature, historical event and in the historiography surrounding the subject of ordeals. In women's history and literary criticism, as well, it is a time-honored assumption that women were faceless and voiceless in legal procedure. However, there is more to discuss about women and ordeals than adultery, or even heresy, and thus far modern historiography has not explored the ordeal as it relates to gender. Since the canons that discuss the ordeal do not mention women specifically, it is easy to guess that the participation of women in ordeals was guided by the same set of customs and assumptions that governed the participation of men. A look at ordeal cases in the Ronceray cartulary versus those in the cartularies of the several other Benedictine monasteries of Angers shows that the Ronceray cartulary mentions a comparable number of ordeals to the cartularies of the men's monasteries.
