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Marriage, Annulment, and Divorce--Middle Ages and Renaissance
by Lydia Joyce

There was a conversation recently on a list about what marriage *was* and how marriages were ended in the pre-modern era, and my post bears repeating because it's so dang hard to research. *g* For more info, I recommend (among other sources) Beatrice Gottlieb's fascinating work on the pre-modern family.

Here is my email, a bit enlarged!

There was a huge battle throughout the middle ages about who was in charge of marriage--whether it was a social or a religious institution. And, despite all their efforts and all their empty proclamations, it wasn't until the 1600s that the church got her way, and even then it was a gradual process that led to a great deal of confusion (which Shakespeare tackles in Measure for Measure).

Until that point, if two individuals in Western Europe mutually said, using the present tense, "I take you for my wife/I take you for my husband," they were completely and legally married. Even if there were no witnesses, even if it was said while they were having sex in the woods. *g* This actually gave a woman a lot of power over a man who might otherwise chose to abandon her or make promises and not fulfill them because she could demand that he actually marry her at the moment he was, um, pressing his attentions. And in cases when the matter was disputed, if there was evidence that they'd had sex, the woman was usually believed.

Future promises--"I will take you for my wife"--were not marriage. What they were, exactly, remained a very murky subject that was never really clarified. This murkiness was part of the excuse for some of England's wars.

Almost everyone admitted that it was much easier for everyone involved if the deed was done in what gradually came to be seen as the "more legitimate" way--that is, if it was done in the most public place possible (before the doors of the church) and witnessed by other villagers and the one person most likely to be the best educated (the local priest). Even those who denied the church's claims that marriage was a sacrament and therefore under their control saw the sense in that, but old customs die hard, since recognizing this method took a lot of power away from women and prevented the spur-of-the-moment unions that were apparently pretty common!

As far as annulments go, they were possible and have been done on the grounds of nonconsummation. While a marriage was *binding* prior to consummation, it could still be annulled pretty easily through the church. At certain times, the consummation was actually witnessed (Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were an example) to prevent any party from backing out at a later date. Notably, the consummation of Isabella's own daughter's marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, was clearly NOT witnessed, so I am not claiming that this was by any means a universal at any time or, necessarily, in any place.

If a marriage was annulled on the grounds of nonconsummation, usually the "fault" was with the woman. There have been a number of cases where noblewomen have taken the veil immediately after marriage, especial during the later early middle ages and the early high middle ages. However, there was a very famous case where, though a total sham of a trial, Giovanni Sforza was "proven" to be impotent and his marriage with Lucretia Borgia (who was actually pregnant at the time with his child!!!) was therefore annulled. In frustration, he offered to have a whore brought into the trial room to prove the inaccuracy of the charges in front of the assembled clerics; he was denied. (Ironically, the line of the famous Sforza condottieri ended when Francesco II Sforza produced no heirs; one must but wonder what would have happened if that child of the Borgias had been recognized as part of the family, for I am not sure if anything if know of his own heirs.)

Strange things were at times done to make a technical consummation when a physical one was not possible (like because of a marriage by proxy). Elizabeth of France's marriage to Philip II of Spain was such an instance. Not everyone viewed such strange ceremonies with absolute seriousness, though. The Venetian ambassador described this one:

"The Queen retired to bed, and after her there entered, by the light of many torches, the King her father in the company with the Duke of Alba [who had stood proxy for Philip II]. That Duke, having one of his feet bare, lifted the coverlet of the Queen's bed, and, having inserted his foot beneath the sheet, advanced it until it touched the bare flesh of the Queen; and in such manner the marriage was understood to have been consummated in the name of King Philip through the agency of a third person--that which was never afterwards to be understood by anyone."

One of Ferdinand and Isabella's daughters (not Catherine) was married in a similar manner, and during her consummation-by-proxy, the proxy was supposed to get in bed with her and symbolically loosen some discreet article of his clothing. However, the poor man made was so nervous by the honor that he loosened a far more intimate garment instead, and it was to the princess's great credit that she found the situation quite funny rather than an insult to her royal personage.

Consanguity was far more common grounds for annulment than nonconsummation. Both before and after Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine was refused an annulment (for reasons of personal safety, not religion--the Holy Roman Emperor, her nephew, used the threat of Henry VIII's annulment as part of an excuse to charge into Italy and besiege the pope!), the use of such grounds to obtain an annulment was almost routine, though it declined in later years.

Divorce was also pretty common among the nobility during the high middle ages, sometimes on the grounds of infertility (which could also result in an annulment--also, if a man was capable of intercourse and ejaculation, only female infertility was recognized) but occasionally just because a nobleman saw a more advantageous match in the future. Especially during the high middle ages, powerful Frenchmen seemed to be breaking marriages as casually as people do today! However, today, fortunately, divorced women rarely end up spending the rest of their lives in a convent, which seemed to be, almost without exception, the fate of those poor set-aside women.

Articles Index > Marriage, Annulment, and Divorce