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184 Chapter 4
case, rather famous among historians of marriage because it established
the principle that consent makes a marriage, might never
have happened had there not been a long delay between present
consent and consummation. The following passage is central to the
history of medieval marriage as well as being directly relevant to
our specific problem:
As to your question concerning the sacrament of marriage, I give you this
brief answer. With regard to the lady who you said was given in marriage
by her father, and was returned into her father’s keeping by the man to
whom she had been given until on a day appointed he should take her into
his own house, I say that, if it was done by lawful consent, she was a wife
from the moment when by her promise freely given she consented to be
his wife. For it was not a promise for the future, but a present arrangement
with immediate e·ect.
Here we see a decision that present consent alone makes a valid
marriage. It is also mentioned as if quite normal that the wife went
back to live in her father’s house for a time. What looks like a similar
arrangement is agreed in a later thirteenth-century original charter
in the British Library. It is a marriage agreement, but some complex
financial arrangements between the fathers of bride and groom are
included in it. For our purposes what matters is a provision that
the bride, Maud, would remain with her father for a year after her
marriage before joining her husband.
The dowry theme discussed above in connection with Italy is
made explicit in a Berkshire case from the mid-thirteenth century.
We read that
Alexander . . . says that he did not keep any of the chattels of the aforesaid
The words are purportedly those of Pope Innocent II, as quoted in a letter of
the bishop of Winchester, quoted in a letter by Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury,
actually composed by his aide John of Salisbury! See The Letters of John of Salisbury,
ed. W. J. Millor, SJ, H. E. Butler, and C. N. L. Brooke, i. The Early Letters (1153–
1161) (Oxford, 1986), 228–9. For background see Brooke, The Medieval Idea of
Marriage, 148–52.
‘Et por cestes choses le dit Monser Barthe’ dorra au dit Monser Robert mil’ et
deux centz mars a paier, cest a saver deux centz mars lendemein de la seint Johan
prochein avenir, a quen iour le dit monser Robert fera la dite reconisaunce de vint
mil’ mars et deux centz mars ala seint Jake prochein suant a quen iour est acorde qe
le mariage se fera entre les avantditz Robert et Maud, et deux centz mars au Noel
prochein suant, deux centz mars ala Pasque prochein suant, deux centz mars ala
seint Johan prochein suant, et deux centz mars ala seint Michel prochein suant. Et
la dite Maud demorra en la garde le dit monser Barthe’ a ses custages un an apres le
iour du mariage’ (MS BL Harley Charter 45. F. 11, lines 18–23 (unprinted so far as
Iknow)).