This study of the confinement of women highlights the disparity in regulation concerning male and female imprisonment in the middle ages, and gives a useful perspective on the nature of medieval law, its scope and limitations, and its interaction with royal power and prerogative. It examines situations in which women might be imprisoned without formal accusation of trial; how social status, national allegiance and stage of life affected the chances of imprisonment; the relevant legal rules and norms; the extent to which legal and constitutional developments in medieval England affected women's amenability to confinement; and how women were involved in situations of non-judicial imprisonment, aside from themselves being prisoners.

Gwen Seabourne is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, University of Bristol, UK. She specialises in medieval legal history, and has written on medieval crime, economic regulation and medieval women.

Introduction; Part I By Royal Power and Command: Maidens (and Other Women) in Towers; Chapter 1 Confinement of Women in War and Armed Conflict; Chapter 2 Other Species of 'Garde': Royal Wardship and 'Idiocy' Guardianship; Chapter 3 'A Dreary and Solitary Place' or 'Honourable Captivity'?; Part II Wrongful Imprisonment and Abduction: Legal Responses and their Limits; Chapter 4 'Countless Ravishments of Women'? Legislation and Other Royal Initiatives; Chapter 5 Common Law; Chapter 6 Escaping the Confines of the Common Law; Chapter 7 'Not Averse to the Arrangement'? Allegations of Collusion and Consent; Part III Other Roles; Chapter 8 Agency and Contagion: Further Aspects of Women's Participation; conclusion Conclusion;