Community regulation and its effects: the aggressive actions of parishioners against priests and women in Paris, 1483–1505

At the start of the sixteenth century, the archidiaconal court of Paris lacked centralised means of enforcement and relied heavily on parishioners to supervise one another and their priests. This article analyses cases from court registers dating from 1483 to 1505 that detail instances in which parishioners reacted aggressively to illicit contact between priests and women. It argues that the court appropriated parishioners' intimidating and sometimes violent separations of priests and women as a means to enforce ecclesiastical statutes calling for strict domestic segregation between the two. While the court relied upon the aggression of parishioners, it also protected priests, more than women, against extreme actions such as assault. The decisions made by the court created a system in which violence against women could be an acceptable means for enforcing its statutes at parish level.