This volume analyzes how, why, and when pre-modern Europeans documented their
marriages – through property deeds, marital settlements, dotal charters, church court
depositions, and other indicia of marital consent. The authors consider both the function
of documentation in the process of marrying and what the surviving documents
say about pre-modern marriage and how people in the day understood it. Drawing on
archival evidence from classical Rome; medieval France, England, Iceland, and Ireland;
and Renaissance Florence, Douai, and Geneva, the volume provides a rich interdisciplinary
analysis of the range of material customs, laws, and practices in Western
Christendom. The chapters include freshly translated specimen documents that bring
the reader closer to the actual practice of marrying than the normative literature of
pre-modern theology and canon law.