In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Power over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law
  • Bruce P. Frohnen
Power over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law. By Charles J. Reid, Jr. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2004. Pp. xi, 335. $35.00 paperback.)

At its core this book provides a very useful, comprehensive treatment of the rights accorded by medieval canon lawyers to various persons on account of their specific place within the familial structure. Reid provides a detailed discussion of the medieval canonists—including those well known to scholars in the field (e.g., Gratian and Hostiensis) as well as a number much less known. There also is a useful exposition of the Roman, Germanic, and other antecedents to the canonists, provided both in separate discussions and in Reid's exhaustive treatment of the sources used by them.

As its subtitle suggests, this book emphasizes the relational nature of rights in the medieval canonist literature. Thus, for example, in the chapter on the right to contract marriage Reid shows how the right was defined in significant measure through analysis of relationships between parents and their offspring. This analysis also contributed to greater understanding of parental authority and its limits—not coincidentally the subject of the chapter immediately following in the book. Reid also deals with the rights of women, in relation to husbands and fathers in particular, and the rights accorded testators and children in regard to testamentary dispensation.

Taken as a whole, Reid's book provides a helpful background to John Witte, Jr.'s From Sacrament to Contract and other histories of marriage more centered [End Page 785] on early modern and modern developments. Reid also is seeking to make a contribution to the broader discussion of the development of rights and rights theory in medieval Europe. To this end he provides a brief but helpful introduction to the creative tension between individual and community in medieval discussions of rights, and a very brief conclusion characterizing his work as one reconstructing an older understanding of rights that coexisted with underlying, naturalist premises regarding marriage and family law.

There also are occasional attempts in the body of the book to show the broader implications of its exposition of medieval sources. Such attempts seem to take their cue from the book's title, "Power over the Body, Equality in the Family." One might ask, however, whether the largely post-modern concerns indicated by these terms are well-suited for an understanding of the era and issues in question. For example, does an explicit emphasis on "equality" in the family during the Middle Ages allow one to come to grips with the central issues with which canonists dealt?

Reid references the work of Tierney and Berman in particular in discussing the formation of individual rights in the medieval era. Yet this formation grew, not from concern to establish equality, or even primarily to regulate "power" relations. Rather, it grew from the attempt to vindicate the rights of individuals who also were members of important, constitutive groups. Thus Reid spends considerable time rehearsing the apparent contradiction between the wife/daughter's subordinate position within the family and her equality as a being created in the image of God. Yet the canonists did not treat these as contradictory. Rather, they sought to mitigate the effects of a subordination they affirmed for women within the family so as to keep it from violating their inherent human dignity, in particular women's right to consent in matters crucially affecting their social being (e.g., whom to marry). Equality was seen in terms of dignity, not position or "power."

Such concerns reduce only marginally the value of Reid's exposition of a literature that has been too lightly skipped over and that is important for understanding the medieval synthesis of social, religious, and political rights and duties. Moreover, one can construct for oneself, in Reid's sources, the central consequence of the medieval development of rights: not mere individualism, but rather an integrated understanding of the multiplicity of authorities owed respect in daily life. As Reid shows, the canonists were attempting to...

pdf

Share