General Lighting
06-07-2008, 07:11 PM
This is how young teenage parents were dealt with in the 1580s..
this girl on the Suffolk/Essex border who was working as a servant got pregnant by another servant lad, and then moved to another parish, but the parish council was trying to say the baby had to be paid for by the neighbouring council so both the youths had to go up before the magistrate!
Examination of Alse Mathewe, taken as above, who says and confesses that about the time aforesaid she was fellow-servant with the said [Davie], and that he allured her to commit whoredom with him, and that he has had the carnal use of her body divers and sundry times since, but how often she remembers not.
there were loads of allegations and counter allegations - went on for several months and this is what they put in the birth register!
On 16th Feb 1589, there is the following entry of a birth in the Pentlow parish register.
'Isabel, dau of Isabel (Alse?) Mathew a harlot;'
good thing we've moved on a bit since...
http://www.foxearth.org.uk/CarnalUseofherBody.html
this girl on the Suffolk/Essex border who was working as a servant got pregnant by another servant lad, and then moved to another parish, but the parish council was trying to say the baby had to be paid for by the neighbouring council so both the youths had to go up before the magistrate!
Examination of Alse Mathewe, taken as above, who says and confesses that about the time aforesaid she was fellow-servant with the said [Davie], and that he allured her to commit whoredom with him, and that he has had the carnal use of her body divers and sundry times since, but how often she remembers not.
there were loads of allegations and counter allegations - went on for several months and this is what they put in the birth register!
On 16th Feb 1589, there is the following entry of a birth in the Pentlow parish register.
'Isabel, dau of Isabel (Alse?) Mathew a harlot;'
good thing we've moved on a bit since...
http://www.foxearth.org.uk/CarnalUseofherBody.html