Medieval England The offence of scolding developed from the late Middle Ages in England. A British historian suggests attempts to control and punish 'bad speech' increased after the
Black Death, when demographic shift led to greater resistance and threats to the
status quo. This included prosecutions for scolding. Scolds were described using Latin terms, including and , found in masculine and feminine forms (, etc.) in medieval legal records and all referring to negative forms of speech, chatter, quarrelling or reproachment. These offences were commonly presented and punished in
manorial or borough courts that governed the behaviour of peasants and townspeople across England; with a scarce few to the parish
vestry. The most common punishment was a fine. Some historians write of scolding and bad speech coded as feminine offences by the late medieval period. Women of all marital statuses were prosecuted for scolding. The married were featured most often, whereas widows were only rarely labelled scolds. In places such as
Exeter scolds were typically poorer women—elsewhere scolds could include members of the local elite. Women who were also charged with matters such as violence, nightwandering, eavesdropping, flirting or adultery were also likely to be labelled scolds. People were in some parts frequently labelled 'common scolds', indicating the impact of their behaviour and speech on a community. Karen Jones identified 13 men prosecuted for scolding in Kent's secular courts, compared to 94 women and 2 couples. Many of the male minority convicted were co-accused with their wives. In 1434, Helen Bradwall (wife of Peter Bradwall), scolded Hugh Welesson and his wife Isabel in Middlewich, calling Isabel a "child murderer" and Hugh a "skallet [wretched] knave". Isabel and Hugh also scolded Helen, calling her a "lesyng blebberer" (lying blatherer). All parties were fined for the offences—Hugh and Isabel: jointly. Like women, male scolds were often accused of many other offences, such as fornication, theft, illegal trading, and assault.
Later punishments of scolding in Colonial
New England, from a lithograph in
A Brief History of the United States by Joel Dorman Steele and Esther Baker Steele from 1885 Later legal treatises reflect the dominance of scolding as a charge levied against women. In the
Commentaries on the Laws of England,
Blackstone outlines the offence: This ascribes the shift to
ducking stool to a
folk etymology. Other writers disagree with this: the
Domesday Book notes the use of a form of cucking stool at
Chester as a , a "dung chair", whose punishment apparently involved exposing the sitter's buttocks to onlookers. This seat served to punish not only scolds, but also brewers and bakers who sold bad ale or bread, whereas the ducking stool dunked its victim into the water. French traveller and writer
Francois Maximilian Misson recorded the means used in England in the early 18th century: The ducking stool, rather than being fixed by the water, could be mounted on wheels to allow the convict to be paraded through the streets before punishment was carried out. Another method of ducking was to use the tumbrel: a chair on two wheels with two long shafts fixed to joining axles. This would be pushed into the water and the shafts would be released, tipping the chair up backwards and ducking the occupant. A
scold's bridle, known in Scotland as a brank, consists of a locking metal mask or head cage that contains a tab that fits in the mouth to inhibit talking. Some have claimed that convicted common scolds had to wear such a device as a preventive or punitive measure. Legal sources do not mention them in the context. Anecdotes report their use as a public punishment. In 17th-century
New England and
Long Island, scolds or those convicted of similar offences—men and women—could be sentenced to stand with their tongue in a cleft stick, a more primitive but easier-to-construct version of the bridle—alternatively, to the ducking stool. ==Prosecutions==