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Eleanor Rykener

Eleanor Rykener

Eleanor Rykener

In December 1394, Rykener was brought before the mayor of London, John Fressh, and the aldermen. Rykener had been arrested in Soper’s Lane with John Britby, a man from Yorkshire. Britby testified that he had approached Rykener in women’s clothing and taken Rykener for a woman. The immediate reason for the arrest was therefore paid sex. Individual prostitutes, however, were often tolerated in London at this time. The issue was therefore not sex work alone, but the question of whether sodomy had taken place.

This was precisely the question the court found difficult to define clearly. Rykener called herself Eleanor, wore women’s clothing and appeared before the court in that clothing. The record is written in Latin and identifies Rykener as “John Rykener, calling himself Eleanor”. Sexual contacts with men are described in the document as acts performed “as with a woman”. In sexual contacts with women, by contrast, Rykener is classified “as a man”. The court scribes thus recorded name, clothing, social role and sexual acts without placing Rykener clearly into a single category.

The interrogation recorded that Rykener had previously lived in London as a man named John. Rykener stated that Elizabeth Brouderer had first dressed her in women’s clothing and called her Eleanor. A woman named Anna had taught her to have sex with men “in the manner of a woman”. Rykener also spoke about her life outside London: in Oxford she had lived for several weeks in women’s clothing under the name Eleanor and worked as an embroiderer. Later, she worked in an inn in Burford and continued to have sexual contacts in exchange for payment.

During the interrogation, Rykener named contacts with men and women, including students, priests, chaplains, monks, foreign men and nuns. Some paid her with money or gifts.

The verdict has not survived. It also remains unclear whether a formal charge was ever brought, or whether an additional ecclesiastical proceeding for sodomy took place.


Scan of the first page of the records of the interrogation of John / Eleanor Rykener, Guildhall, London, December 1394 to January 1395.
The London Archives, CLA/024/01/02/03

Transcript of the questioning of Eleanor Rykener

On 11 December, 18 Richard 11. were brought in the presence of John Fressh, Mayor. and the Aldermen ofthe City of London John Britby of the county of York and John Rykener., calling [himself] Eleanor, having been detected in women's clothing, who were found last Sunday night between the hours of 8 and 9 by certain officials of the, city lying by a certain stall in Soper's Lane" committing that detestable unmentionable and ignominious vice. In a separate examination held before the Mayor and Aldermen about the occurrence, John Britby confessed that he was passing through the high road of Cheap on Sunday between the abovementioned hours and accosted John Rykener, dressed up as a woman, thinking he was a woman, asking him as he would a woman if he could commit a libidinous act with her. Requesting money for [his] labor, Rykener consented, and they went together to the aforesaid stall to complete the act, and were captured there during these detestable wrongdoings by the officials and taken to prison. And John Rykener, brought here in woman's clothing and questioned about this matter, acknowledged [himself] to have done everything just as John Britby had confessed. Rykener was also asked who had taught him to exercise this vice, and for how long and in what places and with what persons, masculine or feminine, [he] had committed that libidinous and unspeakable act. [He] swore willingly on [his] soul that a certain Anna, the whore of a former servant of Sir Thomas Blount, first taught him to practice this detestable vice in the manner of a woman. [He] further said that a certain Elizabeth Bronderer first dressed him in women's clothing; she also brought her daughter Alice to diverse men for the sake of lust, placing her with those men in their beds at night without light, making her leave early in the morning and showing them the said John Rykener dressed up in women's clothing, calling him Eleanor and saying that they had misbehaved with her. [He] further said that certain Phillip, rector of Theydon Garnon, had sex with him as with a woman in Elizabeth Bronderer's honse outside Bishopsgate, at which time Rykener took away two gowns of Phillip', and when Phillip requested them from Rykener he said that [he] was the wife ofa certain man and that if Phillip wished to ask for them back [he] would make [his] husband bring suit against him. Rykener further confessed that for five weeks before the feast of St. Michael's last [he] was staying at Oxford, and there, in women's clothing and calling himself Eleanor, worked as an embroideress; and there in the marsh three unsuspecting scholars - of whom one was named Sir William Foxlee, another Sir John, and the third Sir Walter - practiced the abominable vice with him often. John Rykener further confessed that on Friday before the feast of St. Michael [he] came to Burford in Oxfordshire and there dwelt with a certain John Clerk at the Swan in the capacity of tapster for the next six weeks, during which time two Franciscans, one named Brother Michael and the other Brother John, who gave [him] a gold ring, and one Carmelite friar and six foreign men committed the above-said vice with him, of whom one gave Rykener twelve pence, one twenty pence, and one two shillings. Rykener further confessed that [he] went to Beaconsfield and there, as a man, had sex with a certain Joan, daughter of John Matthew, and also there two foreign Franciscans hall sex with him as a woman. John Rykener also confessed that after [his] last return to London a certain Sir John, once chaplain at the Church of St. Margaret Pattens, and two other chaplains committed with him the aforementioned vice in the lanes behind St. Katherine's Church by the Tower of London. Rykener further said that he often had sex as a man with many nuns and also had sex as a iman with many women both married and otherwise, how many [he] did not know. Rykener further confessed that many priests had committed that vice with him as with a woman, how many [he] did not know, and said that [he] accommodated priests more readily than other people because they wished to give [him] more than others.

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