Abstract
In 1501, a vicar named Roger Homme was summoned to appear before the church court of the diocese of Hereford. The judge charged him with sexual incontinence, alleging that he had had sex with Isabel Herford, a married woman from a neighboring village. Despite Roger’s vow of chastity and Isabel’s marital status, theirs was no casual relationship. According to the charge, the two lovers behaved as husband and wife: ‘Sir Roger Homme, vicar of Canon Frome, is incontinent with Isabel Herford, wife of James Herford of Munsley, whom he holds [and] from whom he produced a child, as if he has married her.’1
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Notes
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Ralph Houlbrooke, Church Courts and the People During the English Reformation 1520–1570 (Oxford, 1979), 177–80.
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© 2010 Janelle Werner
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Werner, J. (2010). Promiscuous Priests and Vicarage Children: Clerical Sexuality and Masculinity in Late Medieval England. In: Thibodeaux, J.D. (eds) Negotiating Clerical Identities. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230290464_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230290464_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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