Folia Theologica et Canonica 3. 25/17 (2014)
IUS CANONICUM - Anne J. Duggan, The paradox of marriage law: from St Paul to Lateran IV (1215)
194 ANNE J. DUGGAN If a man wishes to betroth a maiden or a widow, and it so pleases her and her kinsmen, then it is right that the bridegroom (brydguma) according to God’s law (cefter Godes rihte) and proper secular custom (cefter worold-gerysnum) should first promise and pledge to those who are her advocates, that he desires her in such a way that he will maintain her according to God’s law as a man should maintain his wife; and his friends are to stand surety for it. The third directed: Then afterwards the bridegroom is to announce what he grants her in return for her acceptance of his suit [betrothal gifts], and what he grants her if she should live longer than he [the dower]. And the eighth declared: At the marriage (giftan) there should by rights (mid rihte) be a mass priest (incesse- preost), who shall unite them together with God’s blessing in all prosperity. Betrothal and wedding are clearly separated, with emphasis on the consent of the woman and her relatives and on the man’s commitment to maintain his wife and make provision for her if she should outlive him.23 Although this is a set of secular directives, the insistence that the man’s proposal should be in accordance with God’s law indicates the essentially Christian foundation of the union of man and wife in Anglo-Saxon England. No details of the nuptials are given, but the blessing of a priest was considered highly desirable. From early eleventh-century Germany comes evidence that public celebration and priestly blessing were the ideal. The penitential known as the Corrector, which formed Book xix of the Decretum, compiled by Bishop Burchard of Worms for the instruction of priests in his diocese possibly as early as 1012 and before 1023, contained this question to be put to male penitents:24 Accepisti uxorem, et nonfecisti nuptias publice, et non venisti ad ecclesiam tu et uxor tua, et non accepistis benedictionem a sacerdote, sicut in canonibus scriptum est, et non dotasti eam dote qualicunque potuisti, sive terra, sive mobilibus rebus, auro, argento, vel mancipiis, vel animalibus, vel juxta possibilitatem tuam: postremo, vel denario, vel predo unius denarii, vel predo unius oboli, tantum ut dotata fieret? Si nonfecisti, très Quadragesimas per légitimas ferias poenitere debes. (You have taken a wife, and you have not conducted the nuptials in public, and you and your wife have not come to the church, and you have not received a bles23 It is likely that the woman’s dowry, given by her father, was negotiated separately. 24 PL CXL 958.
