Translating between the lines: the rape of Constance Mauduit and histories of violation

Abstract

This article illuminates the life of Constance Mauduit, a twelfth-century Anglo-Norman heiress, patron and rape victim, while problematizing the modern historiography around her. Drawing on feminist theory and gender history, the article recasts her life (and assault) by centring her experiences, elucidating wider social concerns with violent disruptions – actual and metaphorical – to social and spatial hierarchies. Constance’s experiences are finally drawn as important beyond this singular life as her rape speaks of sexual violence in warfare in the period, a topic that needs much more study, particularly as medieval records of sexual violence can be difficult to discern.