Law and Private Life in the Middle Ages

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference ‘Law and Private Life in the Middle Ages’ held on 29 April–1 May 2009 at the Carlsberg Academy in Copenhagen. An international group of scholars present their work on a wide range of aspects of the impact of law upon the private life of individuals and communities in medieval societies. Offering a collection of essays that combine the approaches of several historical disciplines within the frame of legal history, the anthology covers a multitude of topics ranging from sexuality, gender, identity formation, marriage, age groups, and domestic violence, to categories of citizens in urban communities, the practice of law courts, and the place of the laity within canon law.  Students and scholars of European legal culture, medieval cultural, social, and economic history, and of the history of European societies in general, should find this collection of essays a valuable contribution to the continuing discussion about law and the social order, legal practice versus ideology, and the distinction between public and private spheres in pre-modern societies. Contributors to this volume are Mario Ascheri (Università degli Studi di Siena/Roma Tre), Bjørn Bandlien (Universitetet i Oslo), Chiara Benati (Università degli Studi di Genova), Bruce C. Brasington (West Texas A&M University), Hendrik Callewier (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Helge Dedek (McGill University), Harry Dondorp (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Frederik Keygnaert (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Richard H. Helmholz (University of Chicago), Frederik Pedersen (University of Aberdeen), Peter Petkoff (Brunel University, West London), Christof Rolker (Universität Konstanz), Kirsi Salonen (Tampereen yliopisto), Łukasz Truściński (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie), Stephen D. White (Emory University, Atlanta GA), and Jakub Wysmulek (Uniwersytet Warszawski).

Content 

I. Introduction

II. Were the English Ecclesiastical Tribunals Courts of law?

III. The Apostolic Penitentiary and Domestic Violence

IV. Marital Economy and Female Naming practices in Late Medieval Germany

V. Canonical Legislation on Incest and Excommunication in Sixth-Century Gaul

VI. Privates on Parade: Impotence Cases as Evidence for Medieval Gender

VII. School of Life: Learned law and the Scholastic Habitus

VIII. Prosecuting and Proving Sexual Infidelity at the Court of King Arthur

IX. Private Life in Canon Law Collections Attributed to Bishop Ivo of Chartres

X. Civil Custody as Coercive Measure in Medieval LawXI. Canon Law and Celibacy: The Sexual Urges of the Secular Clergy in Fifteenth-Century Bruges

XII. Sexuality in Early Church Laws in Norway and IcelandXIII. Voremunde Hebben: Children, Elderly and Impaired People in Eike von Repgow’s Sachsenspiegel

XIV. Family from a Perspective of Dying – Evaluating the Power of Testaments

XVI. Private Citizens between Law and Politics in a Tuscan Town

XVII. Marital Cases of Town Inhabitants in the Church Courts of Medieval Poland

XVIII. Contributors