The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France

Translated by Barbara Bray. Until the Middle Ages, a king could marry his first cousin, a priest could have a wife and several concubines, and a nobleman could banish his wife if she didn't produce a son. Marriage was an instrument of control in the hands of kings and noblemen, who used it to keep their power intact; to gain land, wealth, and authority; and to bind women to the patriarchal system. In "The Knight, the Lady and the Priest", one of France's foremost historians examines the vital period during which the Church began to appropriate marriage, changing the whole fabric of life in medieval Europe and creating many of the laws we accept as almost God-given today. The chaos of abductions gave way to the rituals of courtly love; stringent definitions of incest forced kings and queens far afield in search of a royal spouse who wasn't a relative; and the new oath of consent curbed the tyranny of husbands over wives, and fathers over daughters. Using romances and chronicles, hagiography and sermons, Georges Duby paints a vivid portrait not just of marriage but of medieval life as a whole — the status of women, sexual morals and practices, the hazards of life as a younger son, the appeal of the monasteries and convents, and the confines of the feudal economy. In "The Knight, the Lady and the Priest", he traces the repercussions of the extraordinary power play between the Church and the nobility in family and social life 800 years ago and explains the origins of the myriad laws and customs that still govern marriage today.