Concubinage, Clandestine Marriage, and Gender in the Visitation Records of Fourteenth Century Catalonia
Abstract
Concubinage looms large as a lived experience for both men and women, especially for people at the lowest levels of society. Elite concubinage has received far more attention due to the numerous studies on royal lineages and the nobility, but the concubinous unions between two people of low status has left less information in the records and thus has been little studied. Based on fourteenth-century episcopal visitation records from the dioceses of Barcelona, Girona, Tortosa, Urgell, and Vic in the Crown of Aragon, this study offers a unique opportunity to study the concubinous relationships of non-elites. When compared to other parts of Europe, it is clear that many among the laity in Catalonia chose an informal marriage rather than a legitimate and canonically binding marriage. These sources disclose that peasants and villagers used concubinage not only as an alternative to marriage when poverty rendered the formation of a legitimate and church sanctioned union impossible, but also as a trial run before committing to marriage with their current partner. A significant number of couples’ relationships purposefully persisted in an ambiguous state where their union was not considered a fully valid marriage. The prevalence of informal unions, moreover, permitted women to exercise more agency in the choice of their sexual partner as well as the kind of union they chose for themselves. Catalan episcopal authorities, in their visitations to parishes, sought to compel these couples that remained in a not quite married state to formalize their unions with the threat of fines and excommunication. The application of episcopal discipline, however, was very much gendered. Men, not women, were punished more severely. Ecclesiastical authorities placed the onus on men in their ability to exert male authority in their household to bring respectability to their unions and contract proper marriages.References
Maria Theresa García Egea, La Visita Pastoral a la diocesis de Tortosa del Obispo Paholac, 1314, (Diputació de Castelló, 1993).
Josep Maria Martí Bonet, “Las Visitas Pastorales y los ‘Communes’ del primer año del pontificado del Obispo de Barcelona, Ponç de Gualba (1303),” Anthologica Annua 28-29 (1981-1982): 659.
Ruth Mazo Karras, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).
Ruth Mazo Karras, “The Regulation of Sexuality in the Late Middle Ages: England and France,” Speculum 86 (2011): 1025 – 1027
Andrew Finch “Sexual morality and canon law: The evidence of the Rochester consistory court,” Journal of Medieval History 20 (1994): 273.
Andrew J. Finch, “Sexual Relations and Marriage in Later Medieval Normandy,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47, no. 2 (1996): 248. See also Finch, “The Disciplining of the Laity in Late Medieval Normandy,” French History 10, no. 2 (1996): 163 – 181.
Charles Donahue, Jr., Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages: Arguments About Marriage in Five Courts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Josep Baucells i Reig, Vivir en la edad media: Barcelona y su etorno en los siglos XIII y XIV (1200-1344), vol. I (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institución Milá y Fontanals, Departamento de Estudios Medievales, 2006).
Christian Guilleré, “Les visites pastorales en Tarraconaise à la fin de Moyen-Âge (XIV-XV siècle). L’example du diocèse de Gérone,” Melanges de la Casa de Velázquez 19 (1983) 125-167
Lluís Monjas, Eugeni Perea, Joaquim M. Puigvert, i Xavier Solà, “Usos historiogràfics” in Les Visites Pastorals: Dels Orígens Medievals a l’Època Contemporània (Diputacíon de Girona, 2003), edited by Joaquim M. Puigvert, Lluís Monjas, Xavier Solà, and Eugeni Perea,
Tomas Noguer i Musqueras and Josep M. Pons Guri, “Constitucions Sinodals de Girona de La Primera Compilacio,” Anales del Instituto de Estudios Gerundenses, no. 18 (1966-1967): 55
Beatrice Gottlieb, “The Meaning of Clandestine Marriage,” in Family and Sexuality in French History, ed. Robert Wheaton and Tamara K. Hareven (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 54-55.
Lindsay Bryan, “Marriage and Morals in the Fourteenth Century: The Evidence of Bishop Hamo’s Register,” The English Historical Review 121, no. 491 (2006): 467 – 486.
Sara McDougall, “The Prosecution of Sex in Late Medieval Troyes,” in Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 691 – 713.
Sara McDougall, “The Opposite of the Double Standard: Gender, Marriage, and Adultery Prosecution in Late Medieval France,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 23, no. 2 (2014): 206 – 225.
Eukene Lacarra Lanz, “Changing Boundaries of Licit and Illicit Unions: Concubinage and Prostitution,” in Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Eukene Lacarra Lanz (New York: Routledge, 2002), 158 – 194.
Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave, “A una mesa y una cama. Barraganía y amancebamiento a fines de la edad media,” in Saber y vivir: mujer, antigüedad y medievo, ed. Maria Isabel Calero Secall and Rosa Francia Somalo (Universidad de Málaga, 1996), 127 – 154.
Agustín Rubio Semper, “La normativa sexual en Castilla en tiempos de Alfonso X,” Celtiberia 85-86 (1993): 247 – 260.
Flocel Sabaté, “Evolució i expressió de la sexualitat medieval,” Anuario de estudios medievales 23 (1993): 175.
Francisco Vázquez García, “De la sentina al colegio: La justificacíon de las macebías entre los períodos medieval y moderno,” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 33, no. 1 (2003): 149 – 184.
Carol Lansing, “Concubines, Lovers, and Prostitutes: Infamy and Female Identity in Medieval Bologna,” in Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy, ed. Paula Findlen, Michelle M. Fontaine, and Duane J. Osheim (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 85 – 100.
Dana Wessell Lightfoot, Women, Dowries, and Agency: Marriage in Fifteenth-Century Valencia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).
Cordelia Beattie, ‘“Living as a Single Person’: marital status, performance and the law in late medieval England,” Women’s History Review 17, no. 3 (2008): 334.
Marie A. Kelleher, The Measure of Woman: Law and Female Identity in the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 49 – 53.
Jesús Lalinde Abadia, “Los pactos matrimoniales catalanes,” Anuario de historia del derecho español 33 (1963): 133 – 266.
Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
Michael Sheehan, “The Formation and Stability of Marriage in Fourteenth-Century England: Evidence of an Ely Register,” in Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies, ed. James K. Farge (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 55.
María del Carmen García Herrero, “Matrimonio y libertad en la Baja Edad Media aragonesa,” Aragón en la Edad Media, 12 (1995): 278, 267 – 286.
Allyson Poska, “When Love Goes Wrong: Getting Out of Marriage in Seventeenth-Century Spain,” Journal of Social History 29, no. 4 (1996): 872 – 874.
Allyson M. Poska, Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Federico R. Aznar Gil, “Penas y sanciones contra los matrimonios clandestinos en la península Ibérica durante la baja edad media,” Revista de estudios histórico-jurídicos 25 (2003): 189 – 214.
Josep M. Pons Guri, “Constitucions conciliars Tarraconenses (1229 – 1330),” Analecta sacra tarraconensia: Revista de ciències historicoeclesiàstiques 47, no. 1 (1974): 19
Christine Peters, “Gender, Sacrament, and Ritual: The Making and Meaning of Marriage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England,” Past & Present 169 (2000): 87.
Janelle Werner, “Promiscuous Priests and Vicarage Children: Clerical Sexuality and Masculinity in Late Medieval England,” in Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. Jennifer D. Thibodeaux (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 179.
Josep Maria Martí Bonet, “Las Visitas Pastorales y los ‘Communes’ del primer año del pontificado del Obispo de Barcelona, Ponç de Gualba (1303),” Anthologica Annua 28-29 (1981-1982): 659.
Ruth Mazo Karras, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).
Ruth Mazo Karras, “The Regulation of Sexuality in the Late Middle Ages: England and France,” Speculum 86 (2011): 1025 – 1027
Andrew Finch “Sexual morality and canon law: The evidence of the Rochester consistory court,” Journal of Medieval History 20 (1994): 273.
Andrew J. Finch, “Sexual Relations and Marriage in Later Medieval Normandy,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47, no. 2 (1996): 248. See also Finch, “The Disciplining of the Laity in Late Medieval Normandy,” French History 10, no. 2 (1996): 163 – 181.
Charles Donahue, Jr., Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages: Arguments About Marriage in Five Courts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Josep Baucells i Reig, Vivir en la edad media: Barcelona y su etorno en los siglos XIII y XIV (1200-1344), vol. I (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institución Milá y Fontanals, Departamento de Estudios Medievales, 2006).
Christian Guilleré, “Les visites pastorales en Tarraconaise à la fin de Moyen-Âge (XIV-XV siècle). L’example du diocèse de Gérone,” Melanges de la Casa de Velázquez 19 (1983) 125-167
Lluís Monjas, Eugeni Perea, Joaquim M. Puigvert, i Xavier Solà, “Usos historiogràfics” in Les Visites Pastorals: Dels Orígens Medievals a l’Època Contemporània (Diputacíon de Girona, 2003), edited by Joaquim M. Puigvert, Lluís Monjas, Xavier Solà, and Eugeni Perea,
Tomas Noguer i Musqueras and Josep M. Pons Guri, “Constitucions Sinodals de Girona de La Primera Compilacio,” Anales del Instituto de Estudios Gerundenses, no. 18 (1966-1967): 55
Beatrice Gottlieb, “The Meaning of Clandestine Marriage,” in Family and Sexuality in French History, ed. Robert Wheaton and Tamara K. Hareven (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 54-55.
Lindsay Bryan, “Marriage and Morals in the Fourteenth Century: The Evidence of Bishop Hamo’s Register,” The English Historical Review 121, no. 491 (2006): 467 – 486.
Sara McDougall, “The Prosecution of Sex in Late Medieval Troyes,” in Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 691 – 713.
Sara McDougall, “The Opposite of the Double Standard: Gender, Marriage, and Adultery Prosecution in Late Medieval France,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 23, no. 2 (2014): 206 – 225.
Eukene Lacarra Lanz, “Changing Boundaries of Licit and Illicit Unions: Concubinage and Prostitution,” in Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Eukene Lacarra Lanz (New York: Routledge, 2002), 158 – 194.
Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave, “A una mesa y una cama. Barraganía y amancebamiento a fines de la edad media,” in Saber y vivir: mujer, antigüedad y medievo, ed. Maria Isabel Calero Secall and Rosa Francia Somalo (Universidad de Málaga, 1996), 127 – 154.
Agustín Rubio Semper, “La normativa sexual en Castilla en tiempos de Alfonso X,” Celtiberia 85-86 (1993): 247 – 260.
Flocel Sabaté, “Evolució i expressió de la sexualitat medieval,” Anuario de estudios medievales 23 (1993): 175.
Francisco Vázquez García, “De la sentina al colegio: La justificacíon de las macebías entre los períodos medieval y moderno,” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 33, no. 1 (2003): 149 – 184.
Carol Lansing, “Concubines, Lovers, and Prostitutes: Infamy and Female Identity in Medieval Bologna,” in Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy, ed. Paula Findlen, Michelle M. Fontaine, and Duane J. Osheim (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 85 – 100.
Dana Wessell Lightfoot, Women, Dowries, and Agency: Marriage in Fifteenth-Century Valencia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).
Cordelia Beattie, ‘“Living as a Single Person’: marital status, performance and the law in late medieval England,” Women’s History Review 17, no. 3 (2008): 334.
Marie A. Kelleher, The Measure of Woman: Law and Female Identity in the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 49 – 53.
Jesús Lalinde Abadia, “Los pactos matrimoniales catalanes,” Anuario de historia del derecho español 33 (1963): 133 – 266.
Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
Michael Sheehan, “The Formation and Stability of Marriage in Fourteenth-Century England: Evidence of an Ely Register,” in Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies, ed. James K. Farge (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 55.
María del Carmen García Herrero, “Matrimonio y libertad en la Baja Edad Media aragonesa,” Aragón en la Edad Media, 12 (1995): 278, 267 – 286.
Allyson Poska, “When Love Goes Wrong: Getting Out of Marriage in Seventeenth-Century Spain,” Journal of Social History 29, no. 4 (1996): 872 – 874.
Allyson M. Poska, Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Federico R. Aznar Gil, “Penas y sanciones contra los matrimonios clandestinos en la península Ibérica durante la baja edad media,” Revista de estudios histórico-jurídicos 25 (2003): 189 – 214.
Josep M. Pons Guri, “Constitucions conciliars Tarraconenses (1229 – 1330),” Analecta sacra tarraconensia: Revista de ciències historicoeclesiàstiques 47, no. 1 (1974): 19
Christine Peters, “Gender, Sacrament, and Ritual: The Making and Meaning of Marriage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England,” Past & Present 169 (2000): 87.
Janelle Werner, “Promiscuous Priests and Vicarage Children: Clerical Sexuality and Masculinity in Late Medieval England,” in Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. Jennifer D. Thibodeaux (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 179.
