M
MariaVonTrippy
Guest
This might be a little more traditional than many of the posts here… 
I am searching for accessible (ie. not in Latin, not $500, not available at one university in Kansas) references that discuss the standard practices of the Church and the state of canon law before the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent. I’m especially looking for information from the late 15th and very early 16th centuries regarding the sacrament of marriage and how the Church handled consanguinity and affinity.
I’m asking because having delved into some of the ecclesiastical cases coming out of England in the 1490s during my research for my next novel it seems that affinity did at the time beget affinity and to a startlingly distant level - in one case a man required dispensation to marry his elderly father’s third wife’s second husband’s third cousin! There are also cases of consanguinity so remote (in one instance, sixth half-cousins, both descending from Edward I) that dispensation would never be considered necessary today - and, regrettably, cases where the level of consanguinity requiring dispensation seems to vary based on the resources of the petitioner, as there was often a fee charged. I know these are likely due to fallible men misinterpreting canon law, but I’d still feel as if my feet were more solidly on the ground if I had some idea of what the Church itself taught at the time, which from the evidence is clearly very different from the rulings of the Council of Trent.
If anyone knows of a good reference, I’d appreciate hearing of it very much - and if I’ve put this in the wrong forum, please point me in the right direction. Thank you!
I am searching for accessible (ie. not in Latin, not $500, not available at one university in Kansas) references that discuss the standard practices of the Church and the state of canon law before the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent. I’m especially looking for information from the late 15th and very early 16th centuries regarding the sacrament of marriage and how the Church handled consanguinity and affinity.
I’m asking because having delved into some of the ecclesiastical cases coming out of England in the 1490s during my research for my next novel it seems that affinity did at the time beget affinity and to a startlingly distant level - in one case a man required dispensation to marry his elderly father’s third wife’s second husband’s third cousin! There are also cases of consanguinity so remote (in one instance, sixth half-cousins, both descending from Edward I) that dispensation would never be considered necessary today - and, regrettably, cases where the level of consanguinity requiring dispensation seems to vary based on the resources of the petitioner, as there was often a fee charged. I know these are likely due to fallible men misinterpreting canon law, but I’d still feel as if my feet were more solidly on the ground if I had some idea of what the Church itself taught at the time, which from the evidence is clearly very different from the rulings of the Council of Trent.
If anyone knows of a good reference, I’d appreciate hearing of it very much - and if I’ve put this in the wrong forum, please point me in the right direction. Thank you!