As my colleague Susan Carroll-Clark mentioned: Marriage was "not
*technically* part of the rite of marriage as per canon law, but rather
custom and tradition, and eventually (in England) subsumed under common
law (I'd actually have to check Bracton to see if it's mentioned, but I
believe it is)."
The wedding rite outside the church was part of custom and tradition, but
a ritual which was adopted gradually under the constant prodding of the
church to make public the marriage and bring it under the auspices of
canon law. As Brundage writes in his _Marriage Litigation in Medieval
England_ this was a major challenge of the church: to find out who was
married to whom and when. A primary reason for the church's desire to
know who was legitimately wed lay in its jurisdiction over testamentary
matters, determination of bastardy (see _Bracton De Legibus et
Consuetudinibus Angliae_ ed by Woodbine, vol. II, trans. introduction
pp. xv-xviii) and of course, the ever-cited reason of the church's desire
over the "full sacrament" of marriage. So marriage evolved from an
intensely private matter (as it was in Roman times) to a public matter
governed by the church. But this evolution was extremely slow and was a
major source of irritation to the medieval church.
My (very quick) glance at Bracton's calendar does not mention marriage but
rather does deal with "categories" of persons before the law: husband,
wife, widow, enfoeffed, etc. This may be because marriage itself did not
come under the authority of common law (or rather statutory law by this
time) until 1857 (again see Brundage).
As for the two requirements for valid marriage mentioned previously at
this site (vow and consummation), this figured largely in medieval canon
law debates. The Gratian/Bolognese school of thought on marriage, in
tension with Peter Lombard and the Parisienne school, addressed these
questions, i.e., what constituted marriage and was consummation
necesary? Pop Alexander III adopted the substance of Lombard's position
(a highly nuanced model of marriage as conditioned on the *type* of vow
exchanged) and held that publication of the banns of marriage, and
consent were the only valid criteria (and of course that the parties be
without legal impediment) and that consummation rendered the union
indissolvable. Otherwise, how could Mary and Joseph been legally
married? Court records (again Brundage and his _Law, Sex and Society in
Christian Europe_) show men and women in England being ecclesiatically
scolded for not having performed the banns properly or not having had the
marriage blessed, but these things did not affect the validity of the
marriage contract or the sacrament.
Hope this helps.
Kathryn Coughlin
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|