Greetings!
I'm pretty sure the place to look for a mention of "at the church
door" in Bracton would be in the section on dower. I'd have to get
down to the Law Library to have a good look at Bracton, but I seem to
remember quite clearly that "a proper dower is constituted at the
church door."
I'm also not surprised to see possible change by the fifteenth century.
Most of my study has been of the thirteenth century, where both dower
law and ecclesiastical attitudes towards how to properly constitute
marriage were changing. The important thing was not necessarily
the place, but the act of witnessing the marriage by the community,
thereby providing many witnesses to its validity.
Cheers--
Susan Carroll-Clark
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