Secret marriage
Secret marriage , Latin matrimonium clandestinum , was the name of various informal or unofficial marriages. These included weddings that were concluded without public announcement in front of a clergyman under a few witnesses and the so-called angle marriage , which was entered into without any ecclesiastical participation.
The marriage of an angle marriage was very simple and took place without celebrations: Often the future wife was asked by the groom in a corner of the house if she would take him as a husband. If the answer was positive, the marriage became valid. Like all marriages in the Middle Ages, this marriage could not be divorced. However, in the absence of witnesses, it was difficult for an abandoned woman to prove that she had actually entered into a marriage if the man claimed otherwise.
history
In its 51st canon, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbade secret marriages without public notice . Since the 11th century, the clergy was fought by the church and later, especially in the cities, by the secular authorities and subjected to heavy penalties. In 1327, for example, a Nuremberg bad boy named Konrad was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment because he had entered into an angle marriage. In 1410 another citizen was banished from the city for five years for the same reason. At the Council of Trent , the decree Tam etsi (1563) made ecclesiastical marriage under witnesses the only valid form of marriage and priestly assistance was made mandatory.
The Franciscan Berthold von Regensburg († 1272) said the following about angle marriage: “One shouldn't have or make a marriage in the angles either. Therefore, women, through Almighty God, beware of angular marriage. Whoever does not want to vow marriage to you in front of people, you should never accept his vows in this corner ... because he wants to cheat you. "In 1832 the magistrate in Neustadt an der Aisch in Middle Franconia issued a ban on renting accommodation to couples living together.
Secret but valid marriages with priests and witnesses, who were obliged to maintain confidentiality, were very popular, especially among the high and low nobility from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century. Often widowed aristocrats chose their second partner, who was often below their class, after their first marriage, which was mostly for dynastic reasons. Such marriages were often unknown to the public.
Examples
One of the most famous secret marriages is the marriage between Maria Tudor , the younger sister of King Henry VIII of England , and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk . In her case, the secret marriage was exposed because the king wanted to marry her again for political purposes. Maria therefore had to confess that she had already entered into a secret marriage without her brother's permission and was therefore no longer available as a bride.
Another well-known example of a secret marriage is the connection between King George IV of England and Maria Fitzherbert .
The best-known case of a secret marriage in history is certainly the secret marriage between Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón , the later Catholic Kings of Spain , on October 19, 1469.
See also
literature
- Hans Erich Troje: Stolen Love. On the archeology of marriage - an attempt at rescue. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN ( dtv 35052 Dialog und Praxis ).
- Hans Erich Troje: The matrimonium clandestinum in humanism and the Reformation. In: Glossae. Revista de Historia de Derecho Europeo. 4, 1992, ISSN 0214-669X , pp. 191-214.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georg Denzler, p. 110
- ^ Max Döllner : History of the development of the city of Neustadt an der Aisch until 1933. 1950; 2nd edition, Ph. CW Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 1978, ISBN 3-87707-013-2 , p. 738.
- ↑ Winfried Dolderer: Marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón. In: Deutschlandradio , October 19, 2019, accessed on November 17, 2019.