A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3

by George Elliott Howard

"Here I take thee N. to my wedded wyfe, to haue and to holde, at bedde and at borde, for fayrer for fouler, for better for warse, in sekeness and in hele, tyl dethe us departe, and thereto I plyght the my trouthe;" and the woman makes the same vow in the same words.

"Then shall the man place gold, silver, and a ring upon a shield or a book. And the priest shall enquire whether the ring has already been blessed." If not, the priest is to bless it in prescribed form, and sprinkle it with holy water. Then follows a curious ceremony. The bridegroom "takes the ring with his three principal fingers, and says after the priest, beginning with the thumb of the bride, 'In nomine Patris;' at the second finger, 'et Filii;' at the third finger, 'et Spiritus Sancti;' at the fourth or middle finger, 'Amen;'[990] and there he leaves the ring, because according to the Decree ... 'in the middle finger there is a certain vein extending to the heart.'"[991]

After this delicious bit of popular superstition, handed down to our own days from remote antiquity, the bridegroom, holding his bride by the hand, says after the priest: "With this rynge I wedde the, and with this golde and siluer I honoure the, and with this gyft I dowe thee."

The priest next "asks the dower of the woman." If "land is given her in the dower," the bride "prostrates herself at the feet of the bridegroom;" but the York ritual does not go so far as one manuscript of the Sarum manual, in requiring that the woman shall "kiss the right foot" of her spouse.[992]

The ceremony ends with prayer and benediction, followed by the entrance into the church for celebration of the bridal mass.[993]

The historical significance of the ritual just analyzed is readily perceived.[994] In the ring, the gold, and the silver there is a plain recognition of the arrha, though it was coming to be regarded as a kind of symbolical assignment of the wife's dower.[995] It is noticeable that the tradition is still conducted by the "father or a friend." It is a private lay transaction in which the priest has no legal part. He is still a mere orator, rather than a necessary actor, though there is a manifest effort to gain the recognition of the priestly office as essential to a Christian marriage. Martene has pointed out that in all the early rituals the words vos conjungo[996] are unknown. It is the "parties who marry themselves." The matrimonial contract arises solely in their consent.[997]

II. THE PRIEST SUPERSEDES THE CHOSEN GUARDIAN, AND SPONSALIA PER VERBA DE PRAESENTI ARE VALID

Thus it appears that between the first and twelfth centuries the religious element in the marriage ceremony runs through three phases, not sharply defined by dates, but overlapping and blending; and for the sake of clearness it may be well to summarize the history of this development before proceeding farther. (1) During about four centuries no liturgy was prescribed; the ancient popular forms of contract were accepted; the nuptials were usually celebrated in the home of the bride, less often in church; and the priestly benediction, though doubtless commended as a religious duty, was not exacted by the church as essential to a legal or a canonical marriage. (2) Between about the end of the fourth century and the middle of the tenth the custom became well established for the newly wedded pair to attend religious service in the church to partake of the sacrament and receive the priestly benediction on their future married life; and this practice soon led to the institution of the regular bride-mass, containing phrases directly applicable to the nuptials. In the bride-mass may be found the genesis of the ecclesiastical marriage liturgy; but it is a purely religious office and adds nothing to the validity of the private contract. (3) In the next phase, falling between the tenth and the twelfth centuries, the clergy makes rapid progress. An elaborate and imposing ritual is developed; the priest, inheriting the functions of the ancient orator, directs the entire celebration; the nuptial ceremony takes place before the church door, and is followed by the bridal mass in the church itself; but even now the priest is a mere helper, and the religious service adds nothing to, nor its omission takes nothing from, the validity of the nuptial contract.

The next and final step is comparatively easy and already assured. By the beginning of the thirteenth century the western church had entered upon a fourth phase in respect to the solemnization of marriage. This was facilitated, according to Sohm,[998] by the custom, already mentioned, of choosing any third person as guardian to officiate at the nuptials, marking the transition from the ancient tradition through the natural guardian to the stage of self-gifta or tradition by the bride herself—a stage which is fairly being entered upon at the beginning of the thirteenth century. This new and more liberal form of lay tradition led directly to the gifta by the priest, or to ecclesiastical marriage properly so called.[999] In the third stage of development the priest could not venture to interfere with the prerogative of the natural guardian to give his ward in marriage. He could at most assist as orator and bestow his benediction. But from the moment that custom sanctioned the choice of any third person in place of the father or other natural protector, the clergy appropriated this function as their exclusive right. While the church "bestowed her blessing upon the tradition through the natural guardian, she directed against the lay chosen guardian her excommunication."[1000] So at this point arose the antagonism between private and ecclesiastical marriage.[1001] The motive of the church was clearly twofold. While she very naturally strove to gain control of the nuptial celebration, to give more and more a religious form to the institution already declared by her to be a sacrament, she doubtless foresaw something of the evils which would ensue from clandestine or private unions, now that the consent of the parent or natural guardian was no longer necessary, as in early days, for a valid marriage, and therefore began to legislate in the interest of publicity.

Henceforth the rituals of the continent show plainly that marriage was usually celebrated by the priest and not merely in his presence; though the ceremony still takes place at the church door. The parties no longer simply "marry themselves," repeating after the priest the solemn words of the nuptial vow; but in addition the priest "gives the woman to the man, saying in Latin words: I join you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen;" and this formula, taken from a typical French ritual of the fourteenth century,[1002] is never found, as already explained, in the liturgies of the preceding period. It is highly important to note that these words of power on the part of the priest do not appear in the English service before the period of the Reformation. In the earlier as well as in the later rituals the parties are the real actors, although the priest is leader and teacher in the whole ceremony. At most, so far as the form of tradition is concerned, evidence of a mere transition[1003] from the third phase in the rise of ecclesiastical marriage may be discerned. The priest does not step quite into the place of the father or other relative. He is not quite a "chosen guardian;" for he receives his power to "give" the bride to the bridegroom from the natural guardian or his representative, and not from the woman herself. Thus, according to the ancient liturgy of York, the priest says, "who gyues me this wyfe? Then the woman is given by her father or by a friend;"[1004] and this transitional form in substance is still preserved in the modern service of the English church.[1005] But, apparently, the function of the priest in the gifta is more pronounced in the York manual than in any of the other mediæval rituals which have been preserved. In some of them, as a matter of fact, it receives no mention at all.[1006]