DISCUSSION

Apart from illustrating how a young girl might become a pawn in the affairs of men, this case – which later became part of a compilation of examples used to help law students learn about legal manoeuvring – gives an indication of the drawbacks of medieval legal records.

The legal system required careful adherence to formulae, both in the procedure of a complaint and in the narrative of the accusation and defence. Bracton outlined the procedure to be followed by a virgin who had been raped; the record of the case above reflects that procedure and the emphasis on loss of virginity. Rape of a married woman or widow was considered less serious, but rape of a virgin – at least from the time of the second Statute of Westminster (1285) – was a felony and punishable by mutilation or death.

The information provided for the legal record is shaped at least as much by what the law required as by the real details of events. This included drawing the crime to the immediate attention of neighbours who could witness wounds and torn clothing, then to the attention of the authorities, and – after Raymond has won his first acquittal, before the King's Bench – subsequently to the coroners, who would ensure the trial came before the eyre. Joan must have had to repeat the facts of her charge on several occasions, very carefully to ensure the formulae were respected; in this she would surely have received coaching from family and neighbours, who also may well have taken a leading role in the hue-and-cry following Joan's ordeal, since Joan would surely have fled home first.

We can also see that the formal record of the case is only a summary of the evidence presented during court proceedings. For the legal report which happens to have survived for this eyre provides fuller information. It describes, for instance, the location of the alleged rape in greater detail, while the description of the assault itself is even more detailed:

In the middle of the room ... [Raymond] took the same Joan ... between his two arms and, without her consent and against her will, lay her down on the floor, her belly facing up and her back against the ground, and with his right hand pulled Joan's clothing – she being dressed in a coat of blue say and a dress of a light cloth – up as far as her navel.... Using both hands he pushed apart Joan's legs and thighs and, with his right hand took his penis of length etc. and of size etc. and put it into Joan's cunt, breaking through her "watershed" and laying her open, making her bleed, and depriving her of her virginity.

And yet this level of detail is open to question, for we may doubt whether a probably terrified young girl would have been able to focus on the details of what was being done to her. Again, we may be seeing instead an emphasis for legal purposes on the force and injury.

Due in part to the brevity of the legal records, it is difficult for us to reach our own conclusions as to the true guilt or innocence of accused parties. The case against Raymond of Limoges who, as his surname suggests and as evidence from another source indicates, was a merchant of Bordeaux and presumably only in London on a business trip, appears to be strong. His attempt to delay matters – perhaps a panic reaction, prompted by the prospect of being hung – by claiming benefit of clergy cannot endear us to him. His defence strategy rested more on the discrepancies in Joan's case – the inexplicable inconsistency in the dates of the alleged rape, and the question of whether he could be tried twice for the same offence (such being an issue debated by the eyre lawyers) – than on grounds to believe his innocence.

Joan's complaint, whether on 9th or 19th March, was taken seriously enough to warrant Raymond's arrest on 23 March and his imprisonment until 25 June, when he was acquitted. After acquittal, Raymond pursued legal damages of £100 against Joan's father and the others, claiming a conspiracy to frame him had been formed in February 1320. This case dragged on from October 1320 to at least June 1321; its conclusion is not known. Meanwhile, Eustace's daughter's complaint of rape had been renewed before the coroner, despite the 40-day limitation for such a complaint under London custom (also a subject debated by the lawyers), in order to have the case referred to the eyre.

It is possible that Raymond used the delay won from his claim of clergy to influence the jurors to support him – although such influence (e.g. bribery) could not have been easy from within prison unless he had others to help him – or to have Joan or her father intimidated into dropping their prosecution. That Raymond was able to obtain a royal writ obliging the eyre court to admit into evidence the copy of his earlier acquittal suggests he had money and/or influence.

A further factor in Raymond's acquittal was the fact that a legal system dominated by men may have been reluctant to condemn their fellows to mutilation or hanging for a crime they did not consider warranted such severity. Professor Hanawalt (Of Good and Ill Repute: Gender in Social Control in Medieval England, Oxford: University Press, 1998), who has analyzed the Seler vs. Lymoges case from this perspective, points out that rape charges were far less common than homicides, few of the rape charges that were brought obtained a conviction, and convictions leading to capital punishment are virtually non-existent. Unless the accused admitted guilt by fleeing, leading to outlawry, the best a complainant might hope for would be to damage the reputation of her attacker.

On the other hand, without clearer evidence, we cannot dismiss the possibility that Eustace and his friends had fabricated the story of the rape in order to have Raymond imprisoned, perhaps in relation to business dealings; Professor Cam suggests it may have been to prevent Raymond claiming a debt owed him. That Raymond avoided in his defence addressing the substance of the accusation does not help us in determining whether there was any substance.

Raymond's countersuit implies a connection with Eustace prior to the date of the alleged rape, and conceivably Eustace may have been looking to obtain the financial compensation due from a convicted rapist, to counterbalance a debt he owed. Nor is it beyond the realm of possibility that Eustace was pimping his own daughter – something Raymond could not have used as a defence, given the age of the girl. It was not unknown for women to be used as tools to bring charges before the courts; in fact, the royal justices at Wigan in 1323 were assigned, as one of their articles of investigation, to enquire about any cases of persons making use of underage children to accuse others of felony and obtain their incarceration.

We will probably never know if poor Joan suffered a terrible rape, only to see her attacker go free through legal technicalities and, possibly, corruption or bias of a jury; or whether Eustace was heartlessly using his own daughter to bring pressure on a creditor. As Professor Cam (Eyre of London, cxxiv) concluded: "Either way it was a dirty business."