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Bigamy 141
is marriage symbolism the sole relevant factor but without taking
account of marriage symbolism one cannot make sense of the social
history of either.
(b) The Marriage Ceremony
Suspicion of second marriages and its ritual implications
Symbolism may not have been crucial to the history of second
marriages until relatively late in our period. In the early period
other rationales seem to have influenced attitudes more, and this
background must be sketched in first. From an early period priestly
intervention in second weddings was limited. Some such rule seems
to be common to both Eastern and Western Christianity, in itself a
symptom of antiquity. So far as the West is concerned, a decisive
moment was the reception of early fourth-century legislation of the
Council of Neocaesarea into the influential canon-law collection
of Dionysius Exiguus, c.500, which would ensure its currency in
the Latin Church. In the form in which we find it in Dionysius, it
states:
It is inappropriate that a priest should join in the meal at the marriage of a
person who has been married previously, for since the twice married person
needs to do penance, what priest could give consent to such a marriage for
the sake of a banquet?
The need to do penance after a second marriage had already been
spelt out in another decree of the same council, also adopted by
Dionysius.
K. Ritzer, Formen, Riten und religi•oses Brauchtum der Eheschlie¢ung in den
christlichen Kirchen des ersten Jahrtausends, 2nd edn., ed. U. Hermann and W. Heckenbach
(Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen; M•unster Westfalen,
1981), index, s.v. ‘Wiederverheiratung’.
‘A Cappadocian Council of uncertain date (probably early 4th cent., before 325).
It passed 15 canons concerned chiefly with disciplinary and marriage questions’
(F.L.CrossandE.A.Livingstone(eds.),The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church (Oxford, 1997), 1136).
‘Presbyterum in nuptiis bigami prandere non convenit, quia cum poenitentia
bigamus egeat, quis erit presbyter qui propter convivium talibus nuptiis possit
praebere consensum’ (Dionysius Exiguus, Codex Canonum Ecclesiasticorum, ‘Regulae
prolatae in synodo Neocaesariensi XIV, no. li, inMigne,PL 67. 156).
‘De his qui in plurimas nuptias inciderunt, et tempus quidem praefinitum
manifestum est, sed conversatio eorum, et fides, tempus abbreviat’ (Regulae ...,
no. xlvii,inMigne,PL 67. 155). A more up-to-date and critical edition of Dionysius’
canon-law collections is much to be desired.