Examining the medieval English common law'e(tm)s ideas about and treatment of women, this book tackles the key issues of what legal sources can tell us about the view of women held by lawyers and legislators, and what light this can shed on understandings of women and gender in this period. It considers legislation, reports and records of litigation, and lawyers' discussions, exercises and treatises, and the petitions of those for whom the common law did not provide a satisfactory solution, drawing together a broad range of areas of law - land rights, civil claims and litigation, controls on sexual behaviour and crime. It highlights the vagueness of the common law when it came to women, and explores the reason behind this lack of clarity and how it relates to positive rules limiting women'e(tm)s lives, and the contrasting growth in regulation of male rights and duties over the medieval period.