medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
It's extremely important to be precise about where and when you are
referring to, because marriage law changed drastically over the
course of the medieval period. By the 13th century, canon law
recognized two ways to contract a valid marriage (assuming the two
parties were eligible to get married, and not disqualified by
consanguinity, previous marriage, clerical status, or other such
impediments)
1) Marriage by words of the present tense" I, A., marry you, B.." No
consummation was necessary. This was the form of marriage by which
Mary and Joseph were deemed to have been wed.
2) Marriage by words of the future tense, followed by consummation.
"I, A. will marry you, B." If A says this but does not follow up by
having intercourse with B, they are not husband and wife, and each is
free to marry someone else. If they do follow up with intercourse,
they are married. If they have intercourse and then A says he will
marry B, they are not married until they have intercourse again.
Neither witnesses, nor lawyers, nor priests are necessary for a
marriage, according to canon law. However, in the absence of
witnesses or priests, there is enormous room for disagreement about
whether a particular couple was married (essentially being a 'he
said, she said' situation), so the Church applied considerable
pressure for a wedding to be public, to be blessed by a priest, to be
announced by banns and so on, but it never required such things.
Andrew E. Larsen
On Aug 26, 2009, at 4:09 PM, Erik Drigsdahl wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
>
> Sorry, my references were wrong in the last mail.
>
> The wedding scene has not been reproduced in any of the two
> publications, and is not no.58 but Tenshcert HORAE no.85. The
> subject, however, is described in both.
> How wrong can it go when one writes from memory:-)
>
> The depiction is part of a popular calendar sequence of 12 pictures
> called 'Age de l'homme' , where the picture for June is showing the
> wedding scene in front of a church porch.
> A new version of these pictures was supplied by the printer
> Thielman Kerver, and first published by him in 1522.
> In Copenhagen do we have a Kerver edition from 1526, and I was
> thinking about my own photos of the pictures.
> I cannot refer to a picture in a recent publication. Sorry about that.
> Best
> Erik Drigsdahl
>
>
> At 18:17 +0000 26/08/09, Steve Higham wrote:
>>
>> In his book on The Civilising Process (1994), Elias remarks that
>> on their wedding night the medieval bride would be undressed by
>> her maids and mounted "in the presence of witnesses if the
>> marriage was to be valid" (1994:146). He was referring to Germany
>> and it is not clear which class of medieval bride he is referring to.
>>
>> Was this common and does this crowded bedroom not undermine the
>> role of the Church - or did the Church give its blessing?
>
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