ABSTRACT
Three trials from late medieval France introduce the three themes: the crimes that women committed, the crimes against women, and the treatment of female victims and offenders in the courts. The situation of these women was not unusual, and that marriage, and the social forces acting to contain women that marriage served, significantly controlled women's involvement in crime. When considering women and crime, the broader issue of gender also needs to be addressed. It is often claimed that crime, especially crimes of violence, are a gendered behaviour. Infanticide has been called 'the female crime par excellence', but the number of prosecutions was very low. The crimes perpetrated against women, rape stands out for the apparent ineffectiveness of the law. The gravity attached to female infringements of the dress laws contrasts, of course, to the levity attached to male violations of female bodies, and would justify feminist descriptions of late medieval criminal law as patriarchal.
