Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries

Bouchard, Constance B.

doi:10.2307/2846935

Cited by 113 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…That they appear not to have been so used is interpreted as evidence that couples did not enter lightly into matrimony in the belief that their undisclosed relationship would later furnish them with an easy escape from it. Helmholz's argument on this point agrees with Brundage's assertion that people generally observed the rule down to the fourth degree, and with evidence that at a rather earlier date (tenth and eleventh century) the nobility aparently observed the rules strictly even when it was clearly against their economic interest to do so (Bouchard 1981). The same topic is addressed by Phillips (1988), who concurs with Helmholz that there is no evidence of kinship ties (or other impediments) being used as a convenient basis for annulment.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Estimating inbreeding from the Faculty Office Registers, 1534–1540

Smith

Asquith-Charlton

Blodwell

et al. 1993

Annals of Human Biology

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Estimates of inbreeding are rather scarce for British populations. A number of studies, especially of Scottish island populations, have focused on pedigree analysis, whilst others have used survey methods or inference from isonymy. By comparison with continental Europe, however, little is known of the historical development of inbreeding. This is undoubtedly due to the lack of evidence from dispensations to marry blood relatives, which are routinely available in the records of marriage of the Roman Catholic church. The paper uses as its data source the Faculty Office Registers, 1534-1540, which were the product of a new system of issuing dispensations following the Dispensations Act of 1533, and which are among the earliest administrative records of the Church of England, founded as a result of Henry VIII's breach with Rome. Dispensations are recorded in the Faculty Office until 1540, when all prohibitions on marriage beyond the proscribed relationships laid down in Leviticus were lifted. The data suggest surprisingly low levels of consanguineous marriage, including a lack of first-cousin marriages. These findings are discussed in terms of the reliability of the archive, and of the social and religious views attending marriage between blood relatives in the medieval and early modern periods.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Estimating inbreeding from the Faculty Office Registers, 1534–1540

Smith

Asquith-Charlton

Blodwell

et al. 1993

Annals of Human Biology

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“…A good indication of how seriously the ban was taken is that the nobility in the 10 th and 11 th century were not marrying (distant) relatives even though it became increasingly hard to find a noble marriage partner (Bouchard 1981). Studying this time period, the historian de Jong (1998) concludes that avoidance of kin-marriage had become one of the defining criteria of Christianity.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A prohibition to the 7 th degree thus meant that one was not allowed to marry any decedents of one's 64 great-great-great-great grandparents. Bouchard (1981) andde Jong (1989) locate the (decisive) switch from the Roman to the Germanic counting in the first half of the 9 th century. 15 At the council of Trullo in 692 the Greek Church condemned cousin marriage (probably up to second cousin).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Churches' Bans on Consanguineous Marriages, Kin-Networks and Democracy

Schulz

2016

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in

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“…Marrying within prohibited degrees appears to have been common practice in the twelfth century, especially at the highest levels of society. 94 Some of these people's marriages were annulled, at least ostensibly for this reason, and sometimes against the wishes of one or both of the parties, but such was not the case for the kings, queens, and nobles under discussion here. Politics and power seem to have most to do with explaining why so many technically illegal marriages were allowed to persist.…”

Section: The Making Of Modern Marriage In Medieval Francementioning

confidence: 94%

The Making of Marriage in Medieval France

McDougall

2013

Journal of Family History

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Georges Duby described medieval, Catholic marriage as the product of two competing groups of people, clergy and nobles, each with their own conflicting ideas of marriage. Clergy wanted indissoluble and monogamous marriage, while nobles wanted to divorce and remarry at will. This widely influential idea of marriage is extremely misleading. Clergy and nobles did not comprise distinct and competing camps, nor did they have opposing ideas of marriage. Instead, together, as members of the powerful families that dominated medieval Europe, these men and women created and implemented Christian marriage as monogamous and indissoluble. Using as a case study the scandalous marriage of a twelfth-century abbess, this article will demonstrate the flaws in Duby's argument, and also we can learn about medieval marriage, and medieval society more broadly, by applying this new approach.

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Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries

Cited by 113 publications

References 0 publications

Estimating inbreeding from the Faculty Office Registers, 1534–1540

Estimating inbreeding from the Faculty Office Registers, 1534–1540

The Churches' Bans on Consanguineous Marriages, Kin-Networks and Democracy

The Making of Marriage in Medieval France

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