The human, a social and intelligent being has developed innumerable customs and
rituals throughout history for everything that happens in the coexistence with their peers,
giving each action a sense and meaning that varies according to the time and context.
The simplest life cycle dictates that both animals and humans are born, grow, reproduce
and die... more or less, so our very nature and indoctrinated social construct leads us to seek
a partner at some point in our lives. This has always been true since the dawn of time, the only
thing that has changed is the perception of what relationships represent from one era to another.
Today we'll take a peek into the way men and women interacted with each other
during the Middle Ages, Welcome to Copernicus’s Galaxy.
What happened on the Wedding Night?
As we all know, the Middle Ages were difficult times in all senses and relationships were no
exception, rest assured that there were no "And they lived happily ever after"
fairy tales. On the contrary, what mattered least was love, most marriages were forced
and often decided by the parents while their sons and daughters were still in the cradle.
During this period, the nuptial ties were mainly a way to increase the goods, lands and power of
the families involved, something similar to an alliance or barter pact where the woman was the
bargaining chip par excellence. With this in mind, it became common during the ninth and
tenth century that nobles and kings sought to marry wives of promising families or with some
advantage, being most normal to see very young ladies married to noble knights of advanced age.
The legal process consisted of two parts, first a legal agreement was established where the future
husband and the father agreed on an exchange, the first would receive the hand of the woman
and the patria protestad without the need for her prior consent in exchange for a payment
in kind called "dowry" which could include land, property, valuables, servants and slaves.
This was called "betrothal" and was fixed in a legal document called "Letters of Arras".
Once the deal was closed, the future wife would remain in her father's house until she reached the
age of majority, being 12 years old for plebeian women and 15 years old for royalty. On that day,
the well-known ritual of the wedding would be celebrated,
officiating banquets and parties where food and wine was never-ending, marking the transition of
the patria protestad and the woman would move into the house of the now husband.
Once the night arrived, under the moonlight, the last and most important step of this contract
would be consummated, being almost impossible to overlook. The wedding night was very different
from what you would imagine today, because it was not exactly a moment of pure passion,
the newlyweds who were barely 18 years of age had to have intimate relations in front of
several twisted pairs of eyes of notaries, priests and servants who would certify the
union between the two and confirm both the man's ability in bed, as well as the woman's chastity.
Two people who hardly knew each other would probably have problems to carry out the act in
this situation, so sometimes the witnesses allowed them a little privacy by putting some curtains
up or even ignored the outcome of that night and attributed an impeccable virility to the husband
with the intention of avoiding the annulment of the wedding due to impotence.
The morning after such an uncomfortable night, it was customary for the husband
to give the wife an ostentatious gift in exchange for having given him her purity.
Pregnancy in the Middle Ages, on the edge of death.
A large number of women would confirm that being pregnant is a bittersweet mix of emotions
and unique sensations, mostly uncomfortable due to the nausea, pain and hormonal changes that having
a living being growing inside you causes, however, unless there are other complications involved,
the danger to mothers' lives today is considerably lower than in the ancient Middle Ages.
It must be remembered that during this time science was clouded by the influence of the church
and a tendency towards mysticism. The methods to know if a woman was pregnant,
to the moment of delivery were certainly pure beliefs with practically no foundation. Garlic
under the pillow that would or would not have flavor the next day, slightly reddish
urine or the darkening of the eyes could be indications that a new life was brewing.
Potions and home remedies to get pregnant or prevent complications were the order of the day,
such as lying down after finishing the act or boiling a mixture of peppermint,
spicanardo, mastic and incense in oil and rubbing it on the stomach.
Beliefs such as that if the baby was a boy the pregnancy
and delivery would be much more bearable, even giving birth in advance,
while if it was a girl the whole gestation time would be a real ordeal,
was all due to the great discrimination against the female gender that existed at the time.
Meanwhile, the church itself did nothing but complicate everything surrounding the
act of procreation and childbirth, because since it all began with an act of lust,
it said that the very gates of hell were open to both mother and baby for the duration of the
pregnancy and during childbirth. They imposed their own methods and steps to follow if you
did not want you and your child to be buried outside the cemetery and sent to the flames of
the underworld if something went wrong, which only caused greater anguish in mothers-to-be.
And things used to go wrong... only half of the children that were born survived the birth.
If they managed to live, they would possibly lose their mother since it was common for her
to die during the process. This was all thanks to the marked inequality of conditions in which they
were giving birth, based on different social strata. Commoners would be born on a pile of
straw or even on the ground if the time came while the woman was working or performing her duties,
while the nobles were greeted by soft white sheets and baths with essences.
Under the best circumstances, the mother would give birth on a bed surrounded by images of the
Virgin Mary as a means of protection, she would be assisted by a midwife ranging from
45 to 50 years of age, of Christian faith of course and preferably a mother, along
with an assistant. They would take care of everything, including performing a cesarean
section if the situation warranted it, which considerably increased the chances of death.
Truth or False: Wealthy nobles could choose any woman on their wedding night.
Having knowledge of the historical context experienced during the Middle Ages,
it isn’t hard to believe in the existence of a law allowing the men of the high royalty to
choose any woman under their dominion to marry without any resistance or reproach,
something like a tax on the wedding that had to be paid with the purity of the future wife.
This was called "ius primae noctis" or "right of pernada" in English, which consisted of the feudal
lord taking the chastity of the newlywed on her wedding night thanks to a supposed law or custom,
but in spite of the times and the irrefutable evidence of innumerable acts against women,
there is no document that proves that this was supported by law, the only mentions about this
right being in poems and writings whose main intention was to discredit the feudal lords.
However, this does not mean that there were not cases in which wealthy nobles took advantage of
their power for this purpose, finding among the evidence the "Arbitral Sentence of Guadalupe"
which ordered the abolition of the "bad usages" imposed by feudal lords on their peasant vassals.
Centuries later, the myth about the existence of this right was used for political purposes
as a criticism of feudalism and tyranny, which leads us to the conclusion that this practice as
an institution backed by law was nothing more than an urban legend fed by a few nobles who wanted to
take advantage of their position and strategies to demerit them, not to mention the significant
consequences that exercising this right would have had, such as secret weddings and an increase
in the number of feudal lords who were killed while exercising their right to the first night.
The Middle Ages was a unique era in each of its nuances,
from its customs rooted in mysticism and its excessive fanaticism for religion,
to its social construction, almost always showing us its less friendly side. They were
hard and dark times which we will continue to investigate here, at Copernicus’s Galaxy.