Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages

by Gies, Frances; Gies, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9780060914684
• ISBN10: 0060914688
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-12-01
• Publisher: Harpercollins

Summary

A compelling, lucid, and highly readable chronicle of medieval life written by the authors of the bestselling Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Medieval City Historians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century it follows the development -- sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary -- of significant elements in the history of the family: The basic functions of the family as production unit, as well as its religious, social, judicial, and educational roles. The shift of marriage from private arrangement between families to public ceremony between individuals, and the adjustments in dowry, bride-price, and counter-dowry. The development of consanguinity rules and incest taboos in church law and lay custom. The peasant family in its varying condition of being free or unfree, poor, middling, or rich. The aristocratic estate, the problem of the younger son, and the disinheritance of daughters. The Black Death and its long-term effects on the family. Sex attitudes and customs: the effects of variations in age of men and women at marriage. The changing physical environment of noble, peasant, and urban families. Arrangements by families for old age and retirement.

Author Biography

Frances and Joseph Gies have been married for forty-eight years. Together and separately they are the authors of twenty books

Table of Contents

Origins
Historians Discover the Family	p. 3
Roots: Roman, German, Christian	p. 16
The Early Middle Ages
The European Family: 500-700	p. 45
The Carolingian Age	p. 68
Anglo-Saxon England	p. 99
Marriage and the Family in the Year 1000	p. 116
The High Middle Ages
The Family Revolution of the Eleventh Century	p. 121
The Twelfth Century: New Family Models	p. 133
Peasants Before the Black Death: 1200-1347	p. 157
The Aristocratic Lineage: Perils of Primogeniture	p. 186
Children in the High Middle Ages	p. 196
Marriage and the Family in the Year 1300	p. 218
The Late Middle Ages
The Impact of the Black Death	p. 223
The Late Medieval Peasant Family: 1350-1500	p. 235
A Family of the English Landed Gentry	p. 251
A Merchant's Family in Fifteenth-Century Florence	p. 271
Marriage and the Family After the Black Death	p. 291
The End of the Middle Ages
Legacy	p. 295
Notes	p. 307
Bibliography	p. 341
Index	p. 359
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