In Shakespeare’s play, Measure for Measure, there’s a fictional court case against Claudio for extra-marital misconduct. The play separately asks the audience to pass judgement on Angelo regarding a marriage pre-contract that was known as a “Spousal” contract for Shakespeare’s lifetime. In 1604, when Measure for Measure was first performed, these cases of immoral behavior were being tried in real life in what were known as “ecclesiastical courts,” or colloquially, the “Bawdy Courts.” Many of the real people that had been brought up on charges in these bawdy court cases were members of the audience being addressed by the play’s fictional court portrayal. It was this same year that church courts started cracking down on engaged couples who were becoming secretly engaged or “bethrothed” to one another without witnesses or parental consent. Here today to tell us about the battle between civil and canon law that governed couples intending to get married and the specific changes to the canonical law that occured in 1604, is our guest and theatrical historican, Cynthia Greenwood.  

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