Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe : : Collected Studies / / Michael M. Sheehan; ed. by James Farge.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Sheehan, Michael M.,
• MitwirkendeR: Farge, James K.,; Rosenthal, Joel T.,
• HerausgeberIn: Farge, James,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1997
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (362 p.)

The family has become a subject of increasing scrutiny in recent years, giving special relevance to this work by the late Michael Sheehan. Collected here for the first time, Sheehan's papers contain the fruits of a forty-year-long career of archival research and interpretation of documents on property, marriage, family, sexuality, and law in medieval Europe. Marked by an early orientation and developing focus on the status of women in the Middle Ages, the work of Michael Sheehan displays a unique tapestry of the social and legal realities of medieval marriages and family life.Sheehan's research focused on the parallel study and interpretation of Church law and cases drawn from ecclesiastical court registers. By analysing the emergence of the last will as a legal and social document, he brought a new interpretation to the definition and codification of Christian marriage and the family and how these institutions functioned in society. Although his approach was largely by way of canon law, he was invariably at pins to incorporate solid support from such related fields as theology, the social and popular history of religion, and the history of sexuality and sexual behaviour. As a result, these essays throw light on many social realities in medieval Europe and illustrate the development of a methodology for others to follow.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- 1. Report of a Thesis on the Will in Medieval England -- 2. A List of Thirteenth-Century English Wills -- 3. The Influence of Canon Law on the Property Rights of Married Women in England -- 4. Canon Law and English Institutions: Some Notes on Current Research -- 5. The Formation and Stability of Marriage in Fourteenth-Century England: Evidence of an Ely Register -- 6. Marriage and Family in English Conciliar and Synodal Legislation -- 7. Choice of Marriage Partner in the Middle Ages: Development and Mode of Application of a Theory of Marriage -- 8. Marriage Theory and Practice in the Conciliar Legislation and Diocesan Statutes of Medieval England -- 9. The Wife of Bath and Her Four Sisters: Reflections on a Woman's Life in the Age of Chaucer -- 10. English Wills and the Records of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdictions -- 11. Theory and Practice: Marriage of the Unfree and the Poor in Medieval Society -- 12. The European Family and Canon Law -- 13. Maritalis affectio Revisited -- 14. The Bishop of Rome to a Barbarian King on the Rituals of Marriage -- 15. Sexuality, Marriage, Celibacy, and the Family in Central and Northern Italy: Christian Legal and Moral Guides in the Early Middle Ages -- 16. The Bequest of Land in England in the High Middle Ages: Testaments and the Law -- Bibliography of Michael M. Sheehan, CSB