Marriage Flashcards
How was a royal or noble marriage celebrated?
With feasting and tournaments. Peasant marriages had eating and drinking, like noble ones.
Who did a marriage involve?
The bride and bridegroom and their families were at the centre of attention. Family and friends were witnesses. A marriage occured after much negotiation between Church and state, and frequent intervention from King and lords.
How did economic factors influence marriage?
Expanding settlements and colonization, growth of towns and markets made the population more mobile leading to migration. People moved to find work or better prospects. For women, migration was often the result of marriage. Migration made for greater marriage choice.
What is endogamy?
marrying within a close circle of families. Most common among urban patricians and nobles looking to consolidate wealth and power.
What is exogamy?
Marrying outside a close circle of families, and it was widespread.
About how far did women marrying outside the manor go?
15 miles.
About what fraction of people married within their parish in Florence?
about 1/3
When might a marriage cross language barriers?
When a merchant married someone in a place he was doing business. This was rare.
When did the Church approve a betrothal? A marriage?
At age seven, and age 12 for girls, 14 for boys.
What was most needed for a marriage to take place?
Economic means - access to land to make a living.
What factors determined marriage age in northern Italy?
Men were not to marry until they completed their apprenticeship - mid to late twenties. In girls, purity and virginity were highly prized, so marriage while still a teenager was desirable.
What did Alberti and his treatise on The Family advise for choosing a wife?
A list of well-born girls in the neighourhood should be made to pick from.
Beauty, family, and wealth should be considered. Beauty was body, manners, and mind.
She should be young, virtuous, and a fit mother and companion.
A medium-sized dowry was preferable.
How did Alessandra Strozzi advise marriages?
She wanted her sons to marry someone from an old, distinguished wealthy family. Secure political connections. She should be pretty, healthy to bear an heir.
What was the ideal state for a woman, according to the Church?
Virginity, though they realised children were needed to carry on the race and to avoid sin (be fruitful and multiply).
In what context should sexual activity take place according to the Church?
Within marriage.
What constituted a valid marriage according to Gratian in his Decretum (1140)
Consent and consummation
What did Peter Lombard think validated marriage?
Present consent (as opposed to betrothal, which is future consent). He didn’t think consummation was needed. His views were adopted by Pope Alexander III and Poper Innocent III and were laid down by the Third Lateran Council in 1179 and the Fourth in 1215.
How did the Church view forced marriages?
They were condemned.
What did the church think of clandestine marriages?
Not fans. It should be a public event and published in the parish Mass. Priests were forbidden from taking part in them. They were nonetheless valid until the Council of Trent in 1563 said their must be a religious service to validate a marriage in Catholic Europe.
What was the position on marriage between relatives?
In 1215, the Church made it illegal to be married to a relative closer than 4 degrees of consanguinity. It also applied to relatives by marriage and godparents.
Was was one of the few reasons a woman could divorce her husband?
Impotence.
Where was long-term concumbinage acceptable?
Spain, Siciliy, and Ireland
How did most marriage liturgies go?
Consent was exchanged at the church door before Mass on Sunday (not on advent or Lent), and the bride was handed to the groom, the blessing and giving of the ring, and the husband’s gift to his wife of dower and money. After prayers the priest took them into the church for nuptail Mass, where they were blessed. If they had any kids, they were declared legitimate. Some places, like in Naples, the father had to give his daughter in marriage. Later, the nuptial chamber and bed, and couple were blessed before consummating the marriage.
Who needed to consent to noble marriages?
The couple, but also the parents and families involved.
