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One of the key aims of this book is to offer a synthesis of the main findings of current research on age. It is intended as an outline survey and consequently the scope of the book is deliberately broad: it covers two centuries, considers the large land mass of Western Europe with its diverse languages, customs and cultures, and ranges across the social spectrum. The book focuses solely on the Christian West, including consideration on the extent to which social rank influenced life expectancy, the methods and goals of upbringing, marriage patterns and funerary memorialisation. The book also demonstrates how extensive that range can be. Examples are drawn from manorial accounts, tax assessments, spiritual writings, didactic literature, romances, elegies, art and architecture. The main thrust is that age formed an essential part of a person's identity in late medieval Europe. During adolescence, men and women progressively took on their adult roles. Three chapters are devoted to educating girls. The book discusses young people's period of transition between childhood and adulthood. It draws attention to pious young women who fought against marriage and wanted a chaste life. Divergences between northern and southern Europe in terms of marriage patterns, family formation, opportunities for women and attitudes towards death and its rituals are discussed. The book shows that attitudes towards the undeveloped young meant that children had few legal responsibilities. Another aim of the book is to consider the changing opportunities and possibilities for people as they progressed through life.
case of social status, chapters will consider the extent to which social rank influenced life expectancy, the methods and goals of upbringing, marriage patterns and funerary memorialisation. Gender will feature prominently throughout the book, reflecting the current wealth of new research. It will be shown that at almost every stage of the life cycle, gender differences are apparent. Upbringing played an important part in
result of well-chosen partners, a point borne out by the various marriages of King Henry I (r. 1031–60). 33 Constance’s first marriage was to Hugh of Troyes, the Count of Champagne, and thus a noble with an ancient and esteemed pedigree. Though the union was not long-lasting – it was annulled for consanguinity in 1104 – Hugh’s status is deserving of closer attention. 34 The counts of Champagne were among the most powerful magnates in France, a point that fits well with what we know about Capetian marriage patterns in general. In 1033, King Henry was engaged to the
This study brings out the norms and culturally dependent values that formed the
basis of the theoretical regulation and the practical handling of incest cases
in Sweden 1680–1940, situating this development in a wider European context. It
discusses a broad variety of general human subjects that are as important today
as they were hundreds of years ago, such as love, death, family relations,
religion, crimes, and punishments.
By analysing criminal-case material and
applications for dispensation, as well as political and legislative sources, the
incest phenomenon is explored from different perspectives over a long time
period. It turns out that although the incest debate has been dominated by
religious, moral, and later medical beliefs, ideas about love, age, and family
hierarchies often influenced the assessment of individual incest cases. These
unspoken values could be decisive – sometimes life-determining – for the outcome
of various incest cases.
The book will interest scholars from several
different fields of historical research, such as cultural history, the history
of crime and of sexuality, family history, history of kinship, and historical
marriage patterns. The long time period also broadens the number of potential
readers. Since the subject concerns general human issues that are as current
today as they were three centuries ago, the topic will also appeal to a
non-academic audience.
which demographic catastrophe affected women’s economic position. The literature is seen to split into two strands with one captured by an absolutely autonomous interpretation of the reorganisation of economic and social reproduction and the other by a structuralist-functionalist account. In the section ‘The Black Death, the north-west European marriage pattern and the “Little Divergence”’ I show how the latter has been linked to influential readings of the ‘“Little Divergence”’, providing a woman-centred interpretation of regional variations in long-run growth with
such estate, having forgetten her former rank, believes herself truly to reign and disdains the other girls… 8. Memoriale Presbiterorum , anonymous English pastoral manual. Language: Latin. Date: 1344. Translated from quotation in P. P. A. Biller, ‘Marriage patterns and women’s lives: a sketch of a pastoral geography’, in P. J. P. Goldberg, ed
– and especially French society – suddenly experienced a far-reaching transformation that included the proliferation of castles, banal lordship and ‘evil customs’ ( malae consuetudines ), the progressive reduction of a free peasantry to serfdom, major changes in class structure, the reorganization of noble kin groups and familial strategies, changes in the character of the nobility, and corresponding shifts in marriage patterns and cultural outlooks. More recently, this interpretation has been underpinned by work on the ‘peace of God’ movement, which, according to
focused solely on marriage patterns between related individuals, an approach which excluded all criminal cases from the investigation. 50 However, a few researchers who have made the incest phenomenon their main object of investigation should be mentioned. German historian Claudia Jarzebowski has made a detailed study of the crime of incest in eighteenth-century Germany. As religion lost its explanatory power, the meaning of the concept of incest was renegotiated in society. Jarzebowski raises the
status 12 19 Total 161 199 Artisan marriage alliances On 4 September 1421, Johana, the daughter of the deceased mason Joan Vilar of Valencia, together with her mother Francesca, concluded a contract of marriage with the barber Joan Nouvell, also of Valencia. Johana brought a dowry of forty pounds in cash that had been donated by her mother. In choosing Joan as a husband, Johana followed the typical marriage pattern for artisan women in fifteenth-century Valencia. Eightyone per cent of artisan daughters married endogamously, in comparison to the 12 per cent who
the emergence of significant similarities across national boundaries when it comes to the question of how incestuous acts have been perceived and discussed in society. Previous research on this topic has focused either on crimes of incest and judgement-book material, or on marriage strategies and applications for dispensation. While the investigation of criminal cases has often dealt with the early modern period, when such crimes were punished most severely, studies of marriage patterns have concentrated on the nineteenth century, when marriages