“The pre-Reformation rule was to begin the marriage service at the door of the church. In his ‘Wyf of Bathe,’ Chaucer [in the days of Edward III.] refers to this custom:–
‘Housbandes atte chirche dore I have had fyve.’
This old usage was abandoned by authority in the time of Edward VI. Yet there is reason for thinking that it was not entirely given up. “There is a poem of Herrick’s, written about 1640, which is entitled, ‘The Entertainment or Porch Verse at the Marriage of Mr. Hen. Northly.’”[[409]]
“When Edward I. married Marguerite of France, in 1299, he endowed her at the door of Canterbury Cathedral.” Selden declares that “dower could be lawfully assigned only at the door;” and Littleton affirms to the same effect.[[410]]
“At Witham in Essex it is, or was, the custom to perform the first part of the marriage service at the font [near the door]. When the Rev. A. Snell was appointed to the benefice in 1873, he spoke to a bridegroom about this usage, and he (the bridegroom) particularly requested that he might be married at the font, as he liked old customs.”[[411]]
Another survival of the primitive rite of threshold covenanting seems to be shown in certain customs observed in various parts of Europe, which look like the substitution of an altar-stone for a threshold altar, in the marriage ceremony.
“Thus in the old temple of Upsal [in Sweden], wedding couples stood upon a broad stone which was believed to cover the tomb of St. Eric.”[[412]] Corresponding customs in other regions would go to show that the earlier practice was to leap over the stone, as a mode of threshold covenanting, instead of standing on it. The latter was a change without a reason for it.
For instance, just outside “the ruined church, or abbey, of Lindisfarne, is the socket or foot-stone, in which was mortised a ponderous stone cross, erected by Ethelwold, and broken down by the Danes. This socket stone is now called the “petting stone,” and whenever a marriage is solemnized in the neighborhood, after the ceremony the bride is obliged to step upon it; and if she cannot stride to the end thereof, the marriage is deemed likely to prove unfortunate and fruitless.” While this would seem to point to the custom of standing upon the stone, in the modern marriage customs of the same region, a barrier is “erected at the churchyard gate, consisting of a large paving-stone which was placed on its edge and supported by two smaller stones. On either side stood a villager, who made the couple and every one else jump over it.”[[413]]
“In Lantevit Major Church was a stone called the ‘marriage stone,’ with many knots and flourishes, and the head of a person upon it, and this inscription:
‘Ne Petra calcetur