Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages
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A compelling, lucid, and highly readable chronicle of medieval life written by the authors of the bestselling Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Medieval CityHistorians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century it follows the development — sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary — of significant elements in the history of the family:The basic functions of the family as production unit, as well as its religious, social, judicial, and educational roles.The shift of marriage from private arrangement between families to public ceremony between individuals, and the adjustments in dowry, bride-price, and counter-dowry.The development of consanguinity rules and incest taboos in church law and lay custom.The peasant family in its varying condition of being free or unfree, poor, middling, or rich.The aristocratic estate, the problem of the younger son, and the disinheritance of daughters.The Black Death and its long-term effects on the family.Sex attitudes and customs: the effects of variations in age of men and women at marriage.The changing physical environment of noble, peasant, and urban families.Arrangements by families for old age and retirement.
I.Origins1.Historians Discover the Family32.Roots: Roman, German, Christian16II.The Early Middle Ages3.The European Family: 500-700454.The Carolingian Age685.Anglo-Saxon England99Marriage and the Family in the Year 1000116III.The High Middle Ages6.The Family Revolution of the Eleventh Century1217.The Twelfth Century: New Family Models1338.Peasants Before the Black Death: 1200-13471579.The Aristocratic Lineage: Perils of Primogeniture18610.Children in the High Middle Ages196Marriage and the Family in the Year 1300218IV.The Late Middle Ages11.The Impact of the Black Death22312.The Late Medieval Peasant Family: 1350-150023513.A Family of the English Landed Gentry25114.A Merchant's Family in Fifteenth-Century Florence271Marriage and the Family After the Black Death291V.The End of the Middle Ages15.Legacy295Notes307Bibliography341Index359
