A Cultural History of Marriage in the Medieval Age

Joanne M. Ferraro, Frederik Pedersen, Joanne M. Ferraro, Frederik Pedersen

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350179714
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

Marriage in Europe became a central pillar of society during the medieval period. Theologians, lawyers, and secular and church leaders agreed on a unique outline of the institution and its legal framework, the essential features of which remained in force until the 1980s. The medieval Western European definition of marriage was unique: before the legal consequences of marriage came into being, the parties had to promise to engage in sexual union only with one partner and to remain in the marriage until one of the parties died. This requirement had profound implications for inheritance rules and for the organization of the family economy; it was explained and justified in a multitude of theological discussions and legal decisions across all faiths on the European continent. Normative texts, built on the foundations of the scriptures of several religious traditions, provided an impressive intellectual framework around marriage. In addition, developments in iconography, including sculpture and painting, projected the dominant model of marriage, while social, demographic and cultural changes encouraged its adoption. This volume traces the medieval discussion of marriage in practice, law, theology and iconography. It provides an examination of the wider political and economic context of marriage and offers an overview of the ebb and flow of society's ideas about how expressions of human sexuality fit within the confines of a clearly defined social structure and ideology. A Cultural History of Marriage in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual; Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of Marriage.

CHAPTER ONE

Courtship and Ritual

EDITH J. BENKOV

While contemporary Western society may assume it has a relatively clear idea of what constitutes marriage—the question of same-sex marriage notwithstanding—in the Middle Ages such certainty was not as apparent. Practices and rituals surrounding marriage varied depending upon class, region, historical moment, and religion. Although customs and cultures would begin to solidify after the fall of the Roman Empire, this was a period of inconsistencies and revisions, especially in the Western Christian world. Further, even though Judaic rituals and those of the Byzantine Empire maintained some level of continuity, following practices from the earlier period, they were not entirely static. Yet in all cases the process surrounding marriage differed significantly from that of Western society in the twenty-first century. Among the most salient differences was the relation of the desire of the individuals who formed the couple to the interests of the family. Free choice of a spouse was far from the norm. Rather, the stages of the union would typically comprise a formal agreement between the families of the intended. The betrothal might take place in front of witnesses and include the exchange of gifts, specific financial arrangements in a written form, of which the bride’s dowry was a part, the wedding ceremony itself, followed by consummation. Yet, under other circumstances, typically in the West, among Christians, a couple could simply agree to marry and thus, by means of their words, establish a legal union. The notion of courtship itself must be viewed in an entirely different fashion. If we consider our twenty-first-century views, one assumes that a version of courtship depends upon a certain independence and mobility of the individuals involved in the courting. Courtship in medieval Europe would more likely be an interaction between two fathers, or at least two males who are responsible for a younger female and perhaps a younger male.

Given the range of and the length of the period covered, nearly 1,000 years, this chapter takes a chronological approach and divides the period into two not quite equal segments. It also takes a comparative approach and highlights the points of convergence among the three groups, and it considers the social, theological, and political aspects of courtship and ritual. The essay examines courtship and rituals in the Byzantine Empire, and western Europe pre and post the Great Schism of 1054, and in the Jewish population. Notably, after the eleventh century Byzantine practices were subject to relatively little change and did not, in any case, follow the dictates of the Latin church. In the West under Innocent III, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) codified a number of regulations concerning marriage. Jewish ceremonies existed prior to the advent of Christianity and followed a somewhat different pattern. Nonetheless, there are many commonalities among the practices of these groups.

THE EARLY PERIOD (500–1054)

The Byzantine Empire

In Byzantium, as in the Latin West, one of the principal reasons for marriage was procreation, and among upper-class individuals, safeguarding property and wealth. As late as the eighth and ninth centuries, Byzantine marriages were viewed primarily as civil contracts between consenting partners (following the Roman model) and, as in Western Christendom, there was no specific involvement of the clergy. Notably, however, John Meyendorff suggests some fundamental differences. He posits that in Byzantium the ideal of celibacy as a state more desirable than marriage was not present as it was in the teachings of the Latin church fathers. In 692, the Council of Trullo specifically endorsed earlier statutes that rejected the ideals of celibacy and asceticism. Marriage, including that of a member of the clergy, was the norm in Byzantine society and remained so. The Eastern Christian version of marriage stood in stark contrast with that of the Latin West. Thus, Meyendorff posits: “Consequently, the main struggle of the church in the West was to preserve the indissolubility of marriage, while condoning any number of remarriages after widowhood. In the East divorce is even required in some circumstances (for instance, in cases of adultery), but remarriage is never encouraged.”¹ These opposing views continued throughout the period examined and became perhaps stronger after the East–West schism and after the Fourth Lateran Council.

Early Byzantine laws allowed betrothal at seven, but the age fourteen for young men and twelve for girls in Justinian’s Code became the norm for the betrothal as frequently the two stages of the process were in close temporal proximity. It was assumed that girls would have reached a childbearing age by twelve.² Ofttimes, however, these rules were not strictly observed, and younger couples were betrothed. The case of a girl from Epiros, betrothed at the age of five, is such an example. When she was twelve, she threatened suicide rather than going through with the marriage.³ One of the impediments of marriage were the degrees of consanguinity. Even a marriage between a couple at the seventh degree of consanguinity was forbidden. However, synodal dispensations could be granted and betrothals and marriages between younger individuals, as well as marriages between more closely related individuals, were sometimes permitted.

Marriages that were arranged limited any interactions that might be considered courtship between the prospective groom and his future wife, at least until after the betrothal. In the case of an impending imperial marriage, some sources in the ninth and tenth centuries mention a “bride show,” not unlike a fashion runway, where a selection of eligible young women would be paraded. If the proposed bride were of foreign origin, portraits would be sent to the emperor. The betrothal ceremony at all levels, however, involved gifts, including the arrha sponsalia on the groom’s side, an exchange of rings frequently with joined hands symbolizing the linking of the couple, and a formal contract stipulating an agreed upon dowry (Figure 1.1). The bride retained ownership of the dowry but the husband had usufruct of it during the marriage. In the Justinian period, the groom also gave a gift, the donatio propter nuptias, at betrothal equal to the amount of the dowry. In the ninth century the gift, the hypobolon, was more typically one-third to one-half of the total dowry. In the tenth century, the groom’s gift, the theoreton was one-twelfth of dowry and the exclusive property of the wife should the marriage end in divorce or through death of the husband.⁴

Once the formal aspects of the betrothal were concluded, the wedding ceremony was preceded by a ritual bath for the bride, who dressed in white and left for church. The couple was blessed by a priest who also “crowned” them. At that time they exchanged rings and shared wine. The crowning ceremony, stefanoma, typically took place during the Eucharist. After the crowning, the couple was escorted to the groom’s house, followed by well-wishers singing marriage songs (epithalmia). At some time during the wedding feast the couple went off to the bedroom where the groom gave his bride the marriage belt before consummation of their union. Often times the party continued while the couple was consummating the marriage.⁵

FIGURE 1.1 Byzantine marriage ring, sixth century, Greece. © Walters Art Museum via Wikimedia Commons.

Both the betrothal and the crowning ceremony preexisted Christianity. The crowning evolved from its pagan origins to a symbolic representation of the Christian couple’s triumph over carnal pleasure. For imperial weddings, the patriarch performed the crowning. Nonetheless, for the most part, the Eastern clergy had only minimal participation in the betrothal and marriage rituals in the early period.

Something of a legal and social watershed occurred with the publication by Emperor Leo VI (886–912) of his Novel 89: “We order,” the emperor wrote, “that marital cohabitation be sanctioned by the witness of the sacred blessing.” This text gives the church, for the first time, an exclusive privilege to legalize marriages, placing church courts in charge of all legal problems connected with marriage, including divorce and its consequences.⁶ A secular, private agreement was transformed into an ecclesiastic ceremony. Thus, in the eighth and ninth centuries, a new practice comes into being: the couple is brought to church, placed before the altar and, during the Eucharist, “in front of the whole people,” the priest recites a short prayer: “O Lord, stretch out Thy hand from Thy holy dwelling place, and unite Thy servant and Thy handmaid: unite them in one mind; crown them into one flesh, since Thou has blessed them to be wed to each other; make their marriage to be honorable; preserve their bed blameless, mercifully grant that they may live together in purity.” An early Byzantine text (eighth century) states that the couple must receive communion after the blessing of the crown, from a “common cup.” A second practice coexisted with the crowning, occurring after the general communion, with the couple receiving communion from a common cup reserved for them. However, with the requirement of clerical participation for all marriages, the public Eucharist and the marriage ceremony were formally separated.⁷ By the late medieval period, the Byzantine marriage ritual was essentially the same as that practiced today.

Early Western Christendom

The church fathers, among them St. Augustine and Tertullian, commented directly or indirectly upon marriage and its associated rituals. While they were not explicitly forming church doctrine, the question of whether celibacy was a superior state to marriage (and by extension, sexual activity) appears to have preoccupied the church fathers. Augustine’s conclusion in the Good Marriage that procreation was a good thing cannot be other than significant: “A consequence is the union of society in the children who are the only worthy fruit, not of the joining of male and female, but of sexual intercourse.”⁸ Nonetheless, there is little detailed information on practices during the fifth through eighth centuries to provide a fuller picture of the church fathers’ influence in relation to marriage and its associated rituals within the early Christian community.

As the Roman Empire weakened, Germanic tribes began to move south. Ultimately, the former empire could be divided between those areas where Roman law had a greater influence—Italy, Spain, and southern France—areas that continued to follow a modified version of Roman law, and more northern regions where Germanic traditions prevailed. Eventually these two traditions would begin to resemble each other, although certain distinctions remained until the north had been thoroughly Christianized.

Tacitus’s Germania offers an early description of Germanic customs in the first century and details the marriage process. There were three patterns: Kaufehe (purchase); Raubehe, abduction with or without the woman’s consent; and Friedelehe (mutual consent). The bride price, as Wemple notes, could refer to the Morgengabe, given after consummation, either in the case of consent or purchase or it could be the dos, the dowry set at the time of the betrothal. In the Merovingian period, marriage comprised three stages: petition (the suit); desponsatio (the betrothal); and nuptiae (the wedding itself). A pledge (arrha) would be given by the suitor to the future bride as a good faith sign of the agreement. The engagement could not be broken after the pledge by one of the parties without some sort of penalty, monetary or, in the extreme, death if an engaged girl married another man. Marriage did not necessarily follow closely after the betrothal. It was not unusual for a year or more to pass before the wedding.⁹ Abduction as a means of obtaining a wife did not disappear entirely—the story of St. Radegund is a notorious example—but it was not promoted.

In the Carolingian period, Christianity began to exhibit an influence over marriage. Pepin, king of the Franks, was crowned by St. Boniface with papal permission. It was under Pepin that consanguinity to the seventh degree of kinship in affinity and spiritual relations, including “god” parents, came into effect. With that increased prohibition, Pepin effectively prevented aristocratic families from forming extended alliances through marriage. The Frankish church moved closer to a secular model of marriage during the second half of the ninth century. Despite insistence on a religious ceremony, the traditional Germanic procedures of parental consent and property settlement were recognized as necessary steps for legitimate unions. Hincmar of Rheims added to the stipulation that the marriage was not valid until consummated.¹⁰ However, by the tenth century, the Carolingian Empire had crumbled and noble families exercised greater power.

HIGH AND LATE MIDDLE AGES

By the beginning of the eleventh century, a general outline of Western Christian practices regarding the marriage process can be constructed, taking into account the variations in the many cultural communities that formed western Europe. Of capital importance was the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• List Of Figures
• Contributors
• General Editor’s Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Courtship and Ritual
• 2 Religion: Theology, Symbolism, and Sacrament in Medieval Marriage
• 3 State and Law
• 4 The Ties That Bind
• 5 The Family Economy
• 6 Love, Sex, and Sexuality
• 7 Breaking Vows
• 8 Representations of Marriage: Iconographical Origins and Trends
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright