Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London / Shannon McSheffrey.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: The Middle Ages SeriesPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2006Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812239386
  • 9780812203974
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.810942120902
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- PART I. LAW AND SOCIAL PRACTICE IN THE MAKING OF MARRIAGE IN LATE MEDIEVAL LONDON -- 1. Making a Marriage -- 2. Courtship and Gender -- 3. By the Father's Will and the Friends' Counsel -- 4. Gender, Power, and the Logistics of Marital Litigation -- 5. Place, Space, and Respectability -- PART II. GOVERNANCE, SEX, AND CIVIC MORALITY -- 6. Governance -- 7. Gender, Sex, and Reputation -- Conclusion: Sex, Marriage, and Medieval Concepts of the Public -- Appendix: Legal Sources -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: Awarded honorable mention for the 2007 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize sponsored by the Canadian Historical AssociationHow were marital and sexual relationships woven into the fabric of late medieval society, and what form did these relationships take? Using extensive documentary evidence from both the ecclesiastical court system and the records of city and royal government, as well as advice manuals, chronicles, moral tales, and liturgical texts, Shannon McSheffrey focuses her study on England's largest city in the second half of the fifteenth century.Marriage was a religious union-one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and imbued with deep spiritual significance-but the marital unit of husband and wife was also the fundamental domestic, social, political, and economic unit of medieval society. As such, marriage created political alliances at all levels, from the arena of international politics to local neighborhoods. Sexual relationships outside marriage were even more complicated. McSheffrey notes that medieval Londoners saw them as variously attributable to female seduction or to male lustfulness, as irrelevant or deeply damaging to society and to the body politic, as economically productive or wasteful of resources. Yet, like marriage, sexual relationships were also subject to control and influence from parents, relatives, neighbors, civic officials, parish priests, and ecclesiastical judges.Although by medieval canon law a marriage was irrevocable from the moment a man and a woman exchanged vows of consent before two witnesses, in practice marriage was usually a socially complicated process involving many people. McSheffrey looks more broadly at sex, governance, and civic morality to show how medieval patriarchy extended a far wider reach than a father's governance over his biological offspring. By focusing on a particular time and place, she not only elucidates the culture of England's metropolitan center but also contributes generally to our understanding of the social mechanisms through which premodern European people negotiated their lives.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812203974

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- PART I. LAW AND SOCIAL PRACTICE IN THE MAKING OF MARRIAGE IN LATE MEDIEVAL LONDON -- 1. Making a Marriage -- 2. Courtship and Gender -- 3. By the Father's Will and the Friends' Counsel -- 4. Gender, Power, and the Logistics of Marital Litigation -- 5. Place, Space, and Respectability -- PART II. GOVERNANCE, SEX, AND CIVIC MORALITY -- 6. Governance -- 7. Gender, Sex, and Reputation -- Conclusion: Sex, Marriage, and Medieval Concepts of the Public -- Appendix: Legal Sources -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Awarded honorable mention for the 2007 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize sponsored by the Canadian Historical AssociationHow were marital and sexual relationships woven into the fabric of late medieval society, and what form did these relationships take? Using extensive documentary evidence from both the ecclesiastical court system and the records of city and royal government, as well as advice manuals, chronicles, moral tales, and liturgical texts, Shannon McSheffrey focuses her study on England's largest city in the second half of the fifteenth century.Marriage was a religious union-one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and imbued with deep spiritual significance-but the marital unit of husband and wife was also the fundamental domestic, social, political, and economic unit of medieval society. As such, marriage created political alliances at all levels, from the arena of international politics to local neighborhoods. Sexual relationships outside marriage were even more complicated. McSheffrey notes that medieval Londoners saw them as variously attributable to female seduction or to male lustfulness, as irrelevant or deeply damaging to society and to the body politic, as economically productive or wasteful of resources. Yet, like marriage, sexual relationships were also subject to control and influence from parents, relatives, neighbors, civic officials, parish priests, and ecclesiastical judges.Although by medieval canon law a marriage was irrevocable from the moment a man and a woman exchanged vows of consent before two witnesses, in practice marriage was usually a socially complicated process involving many people. McSheffrey looks more broadly at sex, governance, and civic morality to show how medieval patriarchy extended a far wider reach than a father's governance over his biological offspring. By focusing on a particular time and place, she not only elucidates the culture of England's metropolitan center but also contributes generally to our understanding of the social mechanisms through which premodern European people negotiated their lives.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2022)