medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
More to the point than Abelard might be the marriage of the Paston family's
steward, Richard Calle, to a daughter of the family. They eventually
accepted him, but not without some pretty difficult times. See the Paston
Letters.
Tom Izbicki
At 07:33 PM 10/28/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>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
>
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Thomas M. Izbicki
Collection Development Coordinator
Eisenhower Library
Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Telephone: 410-516-7173
Fax: 410-516-8399
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