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How was marriage between peasants in Europe during the Middle Ages? (self.AskHistorians)

PraecorLoth970 が 投稿

Did they choose freely? How was courtship? Were arranged marriages common? How often did nobles marry peasants? Was there a ceremony, and if so, how big? Did the women move to the men's house, even if he lived in the lands of another lord?

Some questions that came to my mind. I don't expect all of them to be answered. I'm asking this because there is a lot of emphasis on marriage between nobles, but not so much about the lower classes and I got curious.

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[–]vonadler 56ポイント57ポイント  (15子コメント)

I can answer a bit about traditions in Sweden during the era. A large part of the Swedish peasantry were odalbönder, which meant that they owned their own land and were relatively well off. Often, the patriarch of the house would decide who could marry whom, but there's evidence of wide-spread pre-martial sex. Interestingly, the sex ideas of the Victorian era (which has extended into modern days) was reversed. Males were considered closer to God and thus would easier be able to resist sexual desire while women were considered more animal-like in their sexual desire and thus more excusable if they were unable to resist their desires to sin.

In the eras before syphilis, pre-martial sex was less dangerous. However, if the female got pregnant, the male was supposed to 'man up' and marry her - a man that refused could be considered unmanly and become victim of rape from other men (only the recieving part of male sex was considered to be unmanly and homosexual).

During spring, young people would move the livestock (cattle, sheep, goats) up to the fäbodvall (a small farmstead up in the forests) where they would keep the animals and make cheese and butter from milk and cream. Pastures closer to the village was cut down for hay for the long winters so the cattle would survive. Young people were thus alone with each other, far away from authority, with only cattle to watch, in Spring and Summer. It was almost expected that they would, erm, fuck like rabbits.

Once someone was pregnant, it was a rush to betroth the two youngsters. Children born to betrothed parents were "upgraded" to non-bastard status when they got married, but not if the parents had not been bethrothed, the child would remain a bastard.

If there's no pregancy already going, young people could meet by serving as workers at other family's farms. Sometimes the fathers would arrange things early, but it was rather rare among common people. From the viking era remained the tradition that women and man agree themselves to be married.

Regardless how a marriange was arranged, it started by a bethrothal for a time - breaking a bethrothal was considered extremely dishonourable. When it was time for the actual act, the two would meet the priest outside the church, and he would ask them if they both freely wanted to be married. If both confirmed, they walked together into church down the aisle to be married (this tradition still lives on, in Swedish marriages the couple enters the church together to signal that they are freely entering an equal union - the father does not leave the bride to her groom).

[–]liotier 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

Pre-marital sex was more than tolerated - it was a survival strategy. A friend of mine analyzed his genealogical database of a large family of peasants in northern France, with a few centuries of history - he found that a surprisingly high number of births happened slightly less than nine months after marriage. The explanation : fuck whoever you want, until you find someone with whom you successfully reproduce - then marry that person fast to save face. The rationale : having heirs is essential to a land-owning peasant - therefore it is very important to marry a fertile partner, especially considering how frowned upon divorce was... And what better way to verify fertility ?

[–]vonadler 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Haha, very interesting!

[–]PraecorLoth970[S] 5ポイント6ポイント  (12子コメント)

That is very interesting. I am kinda ashamed that I didn't even think about Sweden when writing my question... The only thing I know about Sweden is that some vikings came from there. Now you made me read this article from wikipedia. Do you think people frequently forget about scandinavia during the Middle Ages?

[–]vonadler 21ポイント22ポイント  (11子コメント)

Well, it is a bit of a quiet time in our history - before it the vikings went everywhere to trade and plunder and found new countries (Russia, Normandy) and after it Sweden started a climb towards Grand Power status. Who remembers the quiet ones? :)

Then again, Sweden was not very "medieval" either. Self-owning farmers owned about half the arable land (with the rest split between church, the nobility and the king), there were no feudal system, there never were more than 280 knights at any given time. In the early 15th century, there was a grand total of 1, since only the king could knight someone, and most Swedes were revolting against the Danish king who held the Swedish throne too. Swedish peasants were also required by law to keep and train with arms, so they were not even close to being serfs in any way.

[–]--D-- 5ポイント6ポイント  (7子コメント)

I hadn't realized Sweden was not feudalistic - that's very interesting.

Were Denmark and Norway the same? And if not, how did that effect the Kalmar Union?

[–]vonadler 1ポイント2ポイント  (6子コメント)

Norway was pretty much the same - Denmark was something in between. The peasants were mostly self-owning, but when royal power (and thus tax collection) became strong in the early medieval time in Denmark, many peasants placed themselves under noblemen to pay less tax. When it was time to register who owned land during the 14th and 15th century, the noblemen claimed the land as their own and the peasants working it as their tenants. The noblemen were strong enough to enforce this - and even move in and claim land. In Sweden and Norway, the nobility was not strong enough to do this - especially as the peasants not only had rights to bear arms - by law they were required to own and train with arms.

It did affect the Kalmar Union a lot, since the Danish, German and Frisian tax collectors installed by the Danish kings were unaccustomed to free, armed and dangerous peasants. A common way to reward mercenary captains were to install them as tax collectors with the silent agreement that anything they can get from the peasants that is not due to the crown, they can keep. These mercenaries were often landless minor nobility (second and third sons etc) from Frisia, Lower Germany or Denmark and were used to unarmed serfs and tried to do the same in Sweden. The result was almost yearly revolts - and the death of the Kalmar Union. It was a Union in name only after the death of Margareta.

[–]--D-- 1ポイント2ポイント  (5子コメント)

Oh my gosh, that is SO interesting - thank you!

I especially liked this:

A common way to reward mercenary captains were to install them as tax collectors with the silent agreement that anything they can get from the peasants that is not due to the crown, they can keep. These mercenaries were often landless minor nobility (second and third sons etc) from Frisia, Lower Germany or Denmark and were used to unarmed serfs and tried to do the same in Sweden. The result was almost yearly revolts - and the death of the Kalmar Union. It was a Union in name only after the death of Margareta.

[–]vonadler 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

Here's some information on the problems of the Kalmar Union:

There were major differences between the interests of Sweden and Denmark.

  1. Denmark was moving towards continental serfdom - not fully so, but their peasant class was almost landless and had little power. The Swedish peasants were mostly free-holding (they owned 1/3-1/2 of the arable soil in Sweden, depending on when during the time-frame you check), had rights, were required by law to keep and train with arms. The Danish nobility, and especially their German mercenaries were not used to deal with free peasantry. The Danes often placed their German mercenaries as tax collectors (akin to an English Sheriff) as a reward for their service, with the non-written agreement that anything they could press out of the peasants that did not belong to the crown, they could keep. Many of them were quite surprised when the Swedish peasantry showed up and burned their forts.

  2. The Kalmar Union lasted in name only after Margareta's death. Sweden was at a constant civil war, between nobility that supported the Danes, the peasants and nobility that supported Swedish strong-men, usually of the Sture house, but also Karl Knutsson Bonde. Every Danish King had to force the Swedes by arms to crown him King. Sweden was a drain on Denmark's resources, not an addition to it.

  3. Swedish interests lie in the east - against the Teutonic Order and Novgorod, trying to get more of Finland under her power. Denmark's interests lie in the south, with Pommerania, Schleswig and fighting the Hansaetic Legue. The Swedes have nothing to gain from aiding the Danes and the Danes have nothing to gain from aiding the Swedes.

  4. The Hansaetic Legue would support any revolt inside the Kalmar Union. A strong centralzsed government controlling the Sound (and its toll) and trying to control Hansaetic trade cities such as Bergen and Visby was bad for the Hansa. Gustav Wasa got the ships and cannons he needed to take Stockholm from the Hansa. As long as the Hansaetic Legue benefits from the Kalmar Union being weak, they will add their considerable resources to any revolt. In the long run, this role will be taken over by England and the Netherlands, who need the tar, hemp and wood that is produced in Sweden and Finland and carry substantial trade on Polish and Livonian grain.

Let me give you a short run-down of the Kalmar Union:

1397: Erik crowned King of Sweden. By now King of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, with Margareta as regent. Margareta promises to respect Swedish laws and keep Swedish nobility as tax collectors. In an effort to strengthen royal power, she started to reduce the land ownership of the nobility. German and Danish tax collectors and a habit of appointing bishops herself had already alienated the peasants and much of the church. Small local risings happen now and then. They are mostly defused by negotiations, in which the nobility have to promise to respect the peasants' rights.

1434: First major revolt. The Engelbrekt rising. Citing forced service in wars abroad, Erik appointing bishops instead of the pope, high taxes, violation of the agreement in Kalmar regarding who will be named tax collectors, high tolls and no respect for the peasants' rights, the Swedish nobility and peasants rise almost all over Sweden, defeat the King's forces and declare him deposed (according to the old laws in which Swedes own the right to take Kings, but also to depose them). The revolters soon controlled all of Sweden, a lot of forts and castles being turned over to them. The King is forced to appoint the leader of the rising, Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson as Chief Chancellor of Sweden. Negotiations ensue, but Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson is murdered with an axe the next year in an internal dispute with another Swedish nobleman. The revolt petered out and Erik was re-affirmed as King in the negotiations. The King is forced to appoint Drots and Marsk (chancellor and military commander) from the Swedish nobility.

1436: Since lots of the issues were unresolved, revolts keep happening and the parties meet again in 1436 to negotiate. Erik is forced to sign a new union agreement that looks almost exactly the same as the one in 1397, but with an addition that the countries are separate entities and should rule themselves as much as possible. However, continued negotiations in Söderköping and an extensive agreement on how the Union should be ruled was ignored by Erik and the Swedish nobility started to appoint tax collectors themselves, which Erik did not approve of.

1440: Erik got into conflict with the Danish nobility, who deposed him as he tried to have his cousin Bogislav of Pommerania named heir. Christoffer of Bavaria was elected King instead, and confirmed after negotiations and crowned in Sweden 1441 where he promised to respect the old rights. Erik retreated to Gotland and terrorized the Baltic Sea with a fleet of pirate ships for the next eight years.

1448: Christoffer dies, and Karl Knutsson Bonde is elected King in Sweden, while Kristian of Oldenburg is elected King in Denmark. Kristian has to go to Norway to fight to be named King there too. 1449 Karl Knutsson Bonde is named King of Norway. Karl invades Gotland and takes Visby, but Erik trades the castle of Visborg to Kristian and the Danes.

1450 in negotiations both Kings agree that when they are both dead, a new Union King for all three countries will be elected. Kristian is crowned King of Norway.

1457, Karl is forced into exile after a revolt by Danish-minded noblemen. Kristian is crowned King of Sweden.

1458, Kristian is named Count of Schleswig and Duke of Holstein at the cost of 123 000 Rhenian gyllen. The price means new taxes and with them new revolts in Sweden 1463-1364. Karl returns and is successful enough in the new civil war to be elected King 1464-1465 and 1467-1470. Second half of the 1460s is one long, bloody civil war with the spice of constant peasant risings.

1470, Karl Knutsson Bonde dies and Sten Sture is elected Chief Chancellor. Kristian again tries to claim the Swedish crown. 1471, Kristian lands in Stockholm with a large army of mercenaries, with cannon and arqebuises and is decisively defeated by the Swedish peasantry led by Sten Sture at Brunkeberg. Probably the finest moment of the Swedish peasant armies.

1476, negotiations started and Kristian admits that the Swedes have the right to revolt under some circumstances (!). However, in the end, the negotiations are unsuccessful, Kristian is not crowned King of Sweden.

1481: Kristian dies and is replaced by Hans, who can rather quickly confirm himself as King of Norway and Denmark. Negotiations start in Sweden.

1483: The negotiations finish, Hans will have to admit the rights of the church, the peasantry, the nobility, all things Kristian and his predecessors agreed to and many other things, and he shall be crowned King of Sweden. Hans does not turn up, probably because he finds the deal far too outrageous to agree to.

1497: Renewed fighting between Sten Sture and Hans. Sten Sture and his peasant army is defeated at Rotebro and Hans is crowned King of Sweden after negotiations. The Danes place Danish and German tax collectors in Swedish castles again to reward the mercenary army that won at Rotebro, causing widespread dissent and discontent.

1501: The peasants and nobility rise again. It is from this campaign that Paul Dolstein drew his pcitures of German Landsknechts fighting Swedish peasant soldiers. Sten Sture dies 1503 and negotiations were started again.

1505: Hans lands in Kalmar with representation from the Holy Roman Emperor, executes some of the local burghers, puts together a court that judges all the Swedish nobility as guilty of treason and crime against the majesty, with the support of the Imperial representatives. New negotiations takes place as the Swedes refused to abide by the court's decision.

1509: The Swedes admit that Hans has a right to the Swedish throne and that Sweden shall pay a tribute.

1510: The Swedes refuse to pay the tribute, and war starts again. 1512, Svante Nilsson, the leader of the newest rising, dies and new negotiations take place. A new meeting is to be held 1513.

1513: Hans dies. in Sweden Sten Sture (the younger) is elected Chief Chancellor. The Swedes refuse to either pay tribute to or elect Kristian II of Denmark as King of Sweden and fighting breaks out again. Sten Sture (the younger) is wounded in the decisive Danish victory in the battle on the ice of Åsunden 1520 and dies soon after.

1520: Kristian II is after negotiations elected King of Sweden. Promising amnesty as part of the negotiations, he holds a great feast in Stockholm and then executes a lot of the nobility he has promised amnesty in the Bloodbath of Stockholm. He then leaves for Denmark early 1521. Southern Sweden rises in spring, central Sweden follows in summer and Gustav Wasa is chosen to head the rebellion. After two years of fighting Gustav Wasa is victorius and is elected King 1523.

Now, this is a very short description of the massive mess that was the Kalmar Union. You tell me if you can get this pile of crap to work as a state in any fathomable way.

The Union lasted 126 years. The Danish King was in control of Sweden for a grand total of 56 years. Of them, 37 years was in the beginning under Margareta and Erik. The Danes needed to negotiate and fight all the time to keep Sweden and in some cases Norway too, under control. You need to address this if you are going to make a time-line where the Kalmar Union survives. How do the Danes keep Sweden under control? It matters quite a bit for how the Union develops.

[–]--D-- 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

Thanks!

I did quite a bit of research into this some years ago - and if I went back to my notes would have a broad overview of the situation.

But somehow some VERY important factors slipped through the cracks of my research - like Sweden was not feudalistic!!!!

That and other details, like the Mercenary 2nd/3rd son tax collectors, really help bring the whole situation to life!

[–]vonadler 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

The Alnsö meeting created the Swedish nobility - in 1280! It decreed that any man who could raise a fully armoured rider was a knight (even if he himself could not ride) and was extempt from tax. There were probably only about 200-300 knights in Sweden at that time, and several hundred svennar (squires) that were not fully armoured but horsed. With an armed populace, this nobility is far too few to enforce any kind of feudal system - especially as they enter the area so late and are up against well-organised peasants with traditions dating back to the viking era with thing, law and keeping and training with arms - and having the money and resources to not only own their own land but also mount trading expeditions to sell their surplus.

Check out the amount of silver treasure found on Gotland - where the peasants formed proto-companies to send trading ships far and wide.

[–]--D-- 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I love this stuff! So different than so many other parts of Europe.

But its so difficult to get substantial information in English about anything but the British Isles, and to an extent, France and Italy when you're talking about the middle ages.

I even could not come up with a good basic history of Germany in the middle ages. I found one that seemed pretty good but when I checked the publication date, it had been written during the Nazi era so clearly was 'slanted' in its viewpoints!

[–]PraecorLoth970[S] 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

So Sweden has been more advanced socially than the rest of Europe for centuries? Man, you guys are awesome.

[–]vonadler 17ポイント18ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't know if I would say that. We instituted old testament fundamentalist laws in the early 1600s, got absolute monarchy based on fundamentalist protestantism and then descended into massive corruption and nobility rule in the mid-1700s. Then again, we have people like Anders Chydenius.

[–]--D-- 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Speaking only in relative terms, it strikes me Switzerland was a little more advanced then most of the rest of Europe - but that's not saying much.

The Netherlands are also a lot more interesting than a typical American historical curriculum would lead you to believe.

[–]--D-- 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

AFAIK:

In medieval Europe, pretty much all peasants were legal subjects of the man who owned the land on which they lived (their 'lord').

They could choose the person they wanted to get married to (though presumably there was much coercion by parents or superiors to marry a particular person), but their lord/master had to APPROVE it.

It could get difficult if a peasant wanted to marry a girl NOT part of the same estate, because it entailed getting approval from BOTH masters.

An interesting thing about being a peasant - like a tree, you were PART of the land on which you lived. If a nobleman wanted to sell a piece of land to someone else, the Peasants living on that land were generally considered to be part of that transaction.

Serfdom - which was being phased out by the middle-middle ages, is another status which is distinct from Peasantry. Serfs were just one step above chattel slaves, probably the one of the few freedoms they had was generally not having mates forced upon them by masters and their marriage ties to spouse and family were essentially respected (i.e, a man's wife and children would not be 'sold' to somebody else).

Arranged marriages were more common amongst the nobility in this period.

[–]wedgeomaticThought from Late Antiquity to 13th Century 6ポイント7ポイント  (6子コメント)

I'm not particularly familiar with the subject, but I do know that in the 12th and 13th centuries the Church began to codify marriage as a sacrament and introduce greater structure to the process (cf. Canons 51 and 52 of the Fourth Lateran Council). This, as with much of the reform in the period, resulted in quite a bit of kickback, and heretics often denied (or at least were claimed to deny) the utility and even morality of marriage.

[–]PraecorLoth970[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (5子コメント)

That is interesting. So the sanctity of marriage is something instituted by the church... Were there non-written rules or notions that marriage was sacred, before the church decided it was? Was something regarding the sanctity of marriage written in the bible?

[–]wedgeomaticThought from Late Antiquity to 13th Century 5ポイント6ポイント  (4子コメント)

Oh, marriage was considered a sacrament before that, and there were injunctions against adultery and divorce from the earliest days, inspired by Jesus in Matthew (also in Mark):

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The 12th-13th centuries are characterized by an increased clericalization and codification of religious practice (this began in the mid 11th century during the Gregorian reforms) and marriage was one aspect of this. So, it's more of a clarification and standardization than redefinition.

[–]agentdcfModern Britain | Environment 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

While there may have been injunctions within the Church from its earliest days, my understanding is that northern and central Europeans had much more widely varying marital practices, including multiple wives. Such codification by the Church could have been necessary in the first place because the people that were adopting Christianity had such variable marital practices.

Do you know any more about this?

[–]wedgeomaticThought from Late Antiquity to 13th Century 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't really know all that much, sorry. You may very well be right. There's of course always a disjunct between rhetoric and reality in these sorts of things, which is exactly what makes these codifcations necessary. Clerical celibacy is a great example of this, priests were nominally supposed to be celibate for centuries, but it wasn't until the 11th-12th when the Church got really serious about enforcing it.

[–]--D-- 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

By the 1400's Turkey (which is partly in Europe) was taken over by the Ottomans, and multiple marriages were/are perfectly acceptable in Islam.

They went on to take over some of the Balkans and Hungary, so its possible certain people either converted or just adapted the practice because it was not frowned upon by the rulers of their countries.

[–]PraecorLoth970[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Hmm. I see. Thank you.

[–]bonisaur 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

There are ledgers (typically recorded the amounts owed for what goods traded) which showed the dowry played a role in arranging marriages.