To Have and to Hold: Marrying and Its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400–1600 (review)

This useful volume explores the documentation, definitions, and practices of marriage in the premodern, Christian West. In thirteen articles, an international assembly of distinguished scholars addresses “how, why, and when pre-modern Europeans documented their marriages . . . both the function of documentation in the process of marrying and what the surviving documents say about pre-modern marriage and about how people in their day understood it” (ix). They consider how marriage was defined and recorded in different regions for 1,200 years in both secular and religious contexts. The volume reveals that even though contracting a legal marriage for the purpose of ensuring the legitimate devolution of property remained a principal concern, the ways to express it could be subject to alteration or interpretation. Liturgical practice and charter formulae might reflect differing secular and sacred marital traditions, and the sometimes-competing religious, political, and personal interests.

Reynolds begins with a learned explication of often misunderstood premodern marriage terminology, followed by a discussion of issues regarding marital consent. In a later chapter, he discusses Frankish dotal charters based on documents from Karl Zeumer’s Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi (Hannover, 1886). Judith Evans Grubbs looks at written contracts of later Roman marriage law across a broad area of the Empire, and David G. Hunter concentrates on the Tabulae Nuptiales for Roman North Africa. Laurent Morelle examines five dower charters from Laon and Soissons for the later twelfth century, specifically addressing lineage strategies in marriage. Cynthia Johnson also treats twelfth-century France in her analysis of seven Occitanian marriage agreements. The emphasis on property devolution is unmistakable in her examples.

The British Isles are represented first by R. H. Helmholz’s analysis of marriage contracts in medieval England; next by Frederick Pederson’s examination of consistory court evidence from York; and finally by Art Cosgrove’s discussion of medieval Irish depositions. Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir explores marriage documents for medieval Iceland. Thomas Kuehn puts a novel spin on the controversial and (in)famous case of Giovanni and Lusanna in Renaissance Florence. Martha C. Howell compares northern and southern marriage practices in her examination of late medieval Douai. John Witte, Jr., concludes the volume with a study of Reformation Geneva, demonstrating the persistence of property concerns against the backdrop of a changing theology that did not seem to affect marriage contracts.

This volume makes three especially noteworthy contributions to scholarship and education: Reynolds’ aforementioned introductory essay; the authors’ translations of the (mostly complete) documents that support their articles and their explanations of the methodologies that they employed to unearth clues about marriage practices; and a snapshot of the current state of scholarship for this type of social and legal history. A comprehensive bibliography, organized geographically, would have been helpful, but the book is nonetheless a marvelous contribution to our understanding of medieval marriage traditions based on an analysis of the documents that preserve them.