Cullagium

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With cullagium (also Culagium French or cul (l) age ) in were the Middle Ages certain cash or in kind donations, usually referred to in connection with the marriage.

Mention and forms

According to the entry of the Benedictine Carpentier in Du Canges Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis in the 1733 edition, the cullagium was a levy that a peasant had to pay a landlord if he married his daughter outside the village. The same definition is given in a deed dated 1238 from the landlord Simon de Pierrecourt.

Several entries in a collection of requests for clemency (lettres de rémission), to which Carpentier also referred, suggest that the droit de coillage was a levy that a groom of a bachelor group in a village paid when he married would have.

According to the Belgian historian Jean-Joseph Raepsaet (1750–1832), “Cullagium” referred to the wedding meal traditionally donated by the groom.

The folklorist Duvivier stated in the Revue des Ardennes of 1825 and 1829 that it was only a question of a wedding custom: the bride and groom went through the village with a piece of meat and had culache! - the dialect word for culagium - shouted. The piece of meat was then roasted in an inn and offered by the young men to the girl who was thought to be the most in love in society.

The equation of the Cullagium with the law of the first night ("Droit de cuissage"), for example by Anatole de Barthélémy in the Revue des questions historiques of 1866, was possibly promoted by word association (French cul = "butt").

Henry Charles Lea gave a completely different meaning in his History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in 1884 :

A tribute known as “cullagium” became at times a recognized source of revenue, in consideration of which the weaknesses of human nature were excused, and ecclesiastics were allowed to enjoy in security the society of their concubines.
At times, a levy called a "cullagium" became a recognized source of income, in view of which the weaknesses of human nature were forgiven and church clergy were allowed to enjoy the company of their loved ones without fear.

literature

  • Alain Boureau, Rainer von Savigny (translation): The right of the first night. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-491-96002-9

Web links

credentials

  1. ^ Henry Charles Lea: History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church. Second Edition, enlarged. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1884, p. 257 ( scan )