Supplement
The term Beilager ( Beylager in older writings ) was used differently from region to region, and bedding and bedding have also been handed down. In a narrower sense, however, they all refer to the ceremonial part of the marriage , which has been attested from the High Middle Ages to around the 19th century, especially in German-speaking countries. The supplement is also another term for the celebration that we now call a wedding . After the previous courtship, part of the side camp as a festival was the ritual side camp, the wedding night with morning gift for the bride, the church blessing (later wedding ceremony) and the bringing home of the bride.
content
At the ritual side camp, the bride and groom were led one after the other into a festive marriage bed. Depending on the region, they were put in bed or laid with one another. In each case, the couple was covered with a common blanket (hence: "stuck under a blanket" as an expression for belonging together). The process had legal force and therefore needed witnesses who should later testify to the legal consummation of the marriage. In the oldest surviving Saxon law ( Sachsenspiegel around 1220) it says: He is her guardian and she is his comrade, and takes his right when he goes to bed. A senior witness or relative (sometimes a lawyer) asked for the couple's consent. The entire rite belonged to the Muntehe , the guardianship of the woman passed from the father to the husband.
A princely supplement was designed with appropriate pomp. The (pre-) marital intercourse copula carnalis ( Middle Latin: carnal = sinful connection , as it was said in church book entries ) was possibly part of the ritual supplement in the early High Middle Ages. However, descriptions from the 15th century let the bride and groom climb into the symbolic marriage bed clothed, the carnal union of the couple followed without witnesses on the wedding night. Some authors believe that sexual intercourse among witnesses still took place in the 14th century.
In a special form of the ritual supplement, the so-called chaste supplement, in which a representative or envoy of the groom performed the ritual supplement, a blank sword was symbolically placed on the bed as a symbol of the physical separation between the bride and the suitor. The advertising of emissaries lives on to our time in the form of so-called glove marriage, which is not legally recognized in Germany.
history
The ritual supplement is very seldom attested in the High Middle Ages, as there are hardly any descriptions of weddings. It is believed that it was so commonplace that there was no need to describe it. In the 14./15. From the 19th century there were more frequent reports of (mostly princely) supplements.
The ecclesiastical influence on the ritual supplement was limited; the ecclesiastical blessing was usually only obtained after the wedding night. But there were variants: at the princely supplement, Duke Johann Casimir (Saxony-Coburg) with Margarethe von Braunschweig-Lüneburg in Coburg in 1599, the Superintendent General Melchior Bischoff gave a short sermon at the ritual supplement bed with the title: Christian exhortation happened before the copulation on September 16 . But he did not give the marriage blessing until the following day after the wedding night. Jacob Grimm writes about the ecclesiastical part in the supplement: church marriage, initially insignificant for the beginning of the marriage, seems to have been added for a long time at least after the supplement has been completed.
In the Baltic Sea region, the public bedside is proven regionally until the 19th century, the rites were similar to those of the late medieval symbolic supplement. For Catholic Christians, ecclesiastical marriage was only made mandatory with the Council of Trent (1545–1563, Session VII). The ecclesiastical marriage became legally valid only very late. The Reformation had no direct influence on the evaluation of the public bedside and the supplement as a legal act.
literature
- Jörg Wettlaufer: Beilager and Bettleite in the Baltic Sea region (13th to 19th century). A comparative study on the change in the law and customs of marriage , in: Tisch und Bett. The wedding in the Baltic region since the 13th century, ed. by Thomas Riis, (Kieler Werkstücke. Series A: Contributions to Schleswig-Holstein and Scandinavian history, 19), Frankfurt a. M., pp. 81-128.
- Irene Erfen, Karl-Heinz Spieß : On the way to a strange husband; Bridal trip and marriage in European royal houses in: Fremdheit, Francia, research on Western European history , Stuttgart 1997
Individual evidence
- ^ Kurtzer report from Heyrath and Beylager deß Christiani II. Hertzog zu Sachsen ... Dresden 1602, Ponickau Collection, University and State Library Saxony-Anhalt
- ^ For the princely supplement of Duke Johann Casimir's at Heldburg Castle and in Coburg see: Norbert Klaus Fuchs: Das Heldburger Land - a historical travel guide ; Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86777-349-2
- ^ Jacob Grimm: Deutsche Rechtsalterthuemer, Göttingen, 1828
- ↑ Brander, Laura: Naked seduction and abstinent virgin. Function and instrumentalization of nudity in the context of courtship, side camp and wedding night see: And they recognized that they were naked , ed. by Stefan Bießenecker: Bamberg Interdisciplinary Studies, Bamberg, 2008