Full Description
Drawing on the extensive and underused body of legal records on marriage that exist in Europe's ecclesiastical and secular archives, Marriage in Europe, 1400-1800 examines the institution not just as it was theorized by jurists and theologians, but as it was lived in reality.
A comparative history that examines England, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Low Countries, and Sweden, this volume features the extensive and meticulous research of twelve leading international experts in the field. Their essays make use of material from thirty-one European archives, as well as a range of canons and decretals, poems, letters, novels, and treatises, to offer a history of marriage, both Catholic and Protestant. Edited by Silvana Seidel Menchi, this collection is an essential resource for those interested in the history of marriage in Christian Europe.
Contents
Preface
Silvana Seidel Menchi
Introduction
Silvana Seidel Menchi
Section I: Continuity and Change
1. The Legal Background: European Marriage Law from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century
Charles Donahue Jr. (Harvard Law School)
2. Marriage in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century: Moral, Legal and Political Order
Heide Wunder (University of Kassel)
3. Marriage in Italy
Daniela Lombardi (University of Pisa)
4. The Legal Regulation of Marriage in England: From the Fifteenth Century to the 1640s
Richard H. Helmholz (University of Chicago Law School)
Section II: Licit and Illicit
5. Marriage Formation: Law and Custom in the Low Countries 1500-1700
Manon van der Heijden (University of Leiden)
6. Competing Logics of Public Order: Matrimony and the Fight against Illicit Sexuality in Germany and Switzerland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century
Susanna Burghartz (University of Basel)
7. Marriage and Love in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Spain
JesÚs M. UsunÁriz (University of Navarra)
8. Marriage in Sweden 1400-1700: Formalism, Collectivism and Control
Mia Korpiola (University of Helsinski)
Section III: Uniformity and Singularity
9. Marriage in France from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: Political and Juridical Aspects
Anne Lefebvre-Teillard (University of Paris Law School)
10. Mixed Marriages in Early Modern Europe
Cecilia Cristellon (University of Frankfurt)
11. Conjugal Experiments in Europe 1400-1800
Silvana Seidel Menchi (University of Pisa)
Conclusion
Silvana Seidel Menchi
Bibliography and Abbreviations
Subject Index
Index of Historical Names
