RootsChat.Com
Wales (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wales => Topic started by: Huwcyn on Saturday 28 September 13 21:20 BST (UK)
-
I recently came across a writ for 'defamation' that my 6 x g-grandmother was served with in 1749, apparently for insulting another woman in the same parish. What would the circumstances have been here - is it the verbal equivalent of libel ? . The writ was served in Llanddeiniolen, Caernarfonshire, so I wondered if anybody knew where I could start searching for the result of this case.
-
Hi
Information as to the origin of the info might be helpful.
Emyr
-
I found it, quite by chance, on the NLW search engine. I then looked at it at the library.They had the original citation/writ. Its written by a lawyer called John Owen, who seems to be an official of the diocese of Bangor. It orders Catherine to appear before a court at the catherdral on11/07/1749 to answer a case of 'defamation' . I'm afraid a part is missing, and I canot make out a lot of the detail ( which seems to be legal jargon, in any case).
In the corner, seemingly written later on, in a stronger ink, is something along the line of " appears for the def, and denies the fact that the words being whore or buttain (sic) .......(there then follows a sentence which is unclear, but containing the words 'libel' and 'in writing.
I didn't think to try and find out how the document had come to be there. It might well be part of their 'crime and punishment' section.
-
" appears for the def, and denies the fact that the words being whore or buttain (sic) "
For info, "putain" is the welsh for prostitute, so possibly defamation in the welsh language
-
I suggest you write in the first instance to Dr Norman Doe, of the Institute for Religion and Law at Cardiff University. Norman may well have an LLM student whose dissertation study is in the historical jurisdiction of the Welsh diocesan courts who would like to know of this and to research it further; but even if he has not, he will I am sure be intrigued, and will point you in the right direction to investigate it further yourself.
This is an ecclesiastical case, rather than a civil one; and it is VERY late for the ecclesiastical jurisdiction for opprobrious words to be invoked. So something interesting is going on here.
I suspect that what has happened is that as there was no way of bringing home an action on the case for words in the civil courts for an allegation of being a whore, somebody had the bright idea of trying to invoke the ancient ecclesiastical jurisdiction instead. Such cases were ten a penny in the ecclesiastical courts in the 16th century: when I looked through the published records of the 16th century Norwich consistory court cases, I estimated that well in excess of 50% of all cases of intemperate words concerned calling somebody a whore, or variations thereon.
Alternatively, if you would like me to have a look at it (I am a canon lawyer myself, and graduated LLM in Canon Law in 1997) and can print off some hard copies I'll be happy to have a look at them for you. However, although Norman tried to persuade me to do my LLM dissertation on the historical jurisdiction of the church courts, I actually investigated something altogether different for my dissertation, so I probably will not have any answers for you. What I will have, however, is a pretty shrewd idea of what sort of questions to ask and of whom to ask them ... and I must confess to being more than a little intrigued.
-
Thank you very much indeed for your interest. I've not got any further information, I'm afraid.