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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > AFAIK the official "church" possition in the middle ages was that marriage > was a freely-entered contract between two people, Yes. But the two people who enter into the contract are the Bride's Father and the Bridegroom. A woman was not a full legal person at any age and could not IIRC enter into a contract unless she was backed by her closest male relative who was a full legal person. The church would back a woman who did not want to marry because she wanted to be a nun, but would not back a woman who wanted to say no to one man in order to marry someone else. but I presume it's not a > myth that (at least amongst the nobility) there were plenty of arranged and > political marriages where the parents mde the decisions - and the > Anglo-Saxon law codes seem pretty clear that if someone "abducts" a woman to > marry her (it's unclear whether this presumes that she is unwilling) that's > a crime.... The point is, that a woman's willingness (or otherwise) did not come into the question. Her opinion was not of legal significance. So, my question... > > If a noblewoman elopes with a commoner (someone who her parents wouldn't > have approved of, and who could afford a reasonable endowment for her > anyway), then has either SHE or HE committed a crime under cannon or secular > law? And does this situation change through the Middle Ages? Well, we all know what happened to poor old Peter Abelard ...... (12th century) The furore that followed his castration - probably at the hands of employees of Heloise's Uncle Fulbert (Tho' for the record F denied it) was not that he had been castrated as such, but that PA was a clerk, and as a clerk he should have been exempt from any punishment that involved the shedding of blood whatever his offence. But then a clerk should not have been commiting fornication in the first place.... The cleric PA received a layman's punishment for a layman's offence. That was the real scandal. > > An obscure one, but I figured I'd see if anyone could help.... I think it was also accepted that if a man discovered a woman under his protection (wife, sister, daughter, mother, aunt &c) unlawfully in bed with a man, and he killed the man (or both) at the time of the discovery, he would be acquitted of murder. So I think your hypothetical eloping couple needed to run a long way ... Do you know the Border Ballad in which the seven brothers discover their sister in bed with her lover ? Six of them pronounce variations of "Oh how sweet!" but the seventh brother says nothing at all but runs "his bright brown blade" straight through the lover's body and the girl wakes up to find she is lying in a pool of blood ...... The Ballad is seen as a tragedy, but no where does it suggest the seventh brother had acted unlawfully (Mind you, there wasn't much law in the Scottish Borders until after the union of the Crowns ....) Final point, Peter Abelard in his "Carmen ad Astralabium" - written after his castration - says that if a woman marries without the consent of her parents she should forfeit her inheritance. A serious matter in a world where inherited land was the basic economic unit. Your eloping commoner had better be rich .... And if he owns land, Dad will know where to find them ... With his men at arms ... I think the convent was the safer option .... :-) BMC ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html