<jats:p>DANGEROUS LIAISONS? INFORMAL RELATIONS BETWEEN UNMARRIED PERSONS AND THEIR TREATMEN... more <jats:p>DANGEROUS LIAISONS? INFORMAL RELATIONS BETWEEN UNMARRIED PERSONS AND THEIR TREATMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITHUANIAN CATHOLIC ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS Recent decades saw historical scholarship to pay more attention to the phenomena which were earlier considered unimportant or, in some cases, non-existent. Intimate relations between men and women who were not yet married, extramarital affairs, cohabitation, etc. were rediscovered and reassessed as indispensable to the more accurate understanding of the formation of marriages, families and communities. Theoretically, physical and emotional intimacy could only take place in marriage, and as such all relationships that were extraneous to marital status were prosecuted by legal authorities – civil and ecclesiastical alike. This paper seeks to present how one group of these institutions – Lithuanian ecclesiastical courts – treated informal relations between unmarried laymen and women and what kind of penalties they imposed for such delinquencies. At the first glance it seems that neither canon law, nor the law of the Lithuanian Statutes or the Magdeburg law paid much attention to this kind of illicit sexual practices. The legal norms describe them rather vaguely and, as a result, the prescribed punishments seem to be unclear (except for the Third Lithuanian Statute, which, depending on the interpretation of the text, prescribed capital punishment for unmarried women). Analysis of the court material from three consistories (Vilnius, Samogitia and Trakai) has shown that Lithuanian Catholic consistories might not have been very concerned with such cases as there is only a handful of them mentioned and even less addressed. They seem to have been more common among the Catholic population of Samogitia, and men were likely to be condemned more often than women. The penalties for such crimes were mild – the delinquents mainly had to do public penance, pay fines, and observe fasting. The reasons behind such a low number of cases and even lower number of decisions are not clear, yet. It is possible, that while being mainly concerned with the marital litigation ecclesiastical courts left more initiative to the secular authorities, which could also act in the name of good Christian order and provide harsher punishments if necessary. Since most of the plaintiffs were parish clergymen, who generally initiated judicial processes against fornicators, it is plausible that they could take care of such delinquents themselves, without the help of the court. One must not forget that the Church had even more measures at its discretion – for example, missionary activities of the religious orders, during which the missionaries also attended to the illegal sexual practices of the population, and intervened with them. Keywords: the eighteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, informal relations, fornication, ecclesiastical courts, consistories, canon law, the Lithuanian Statutes, the Saxon-Magdeburg law, gender relations.</jats:p>
Relying on the up to now sparsely in Lithuania’s historiography used complex of sources of the Co... more Relying on the up to now sparsely in Lithuania’s historiography used complex of sources of the Consistory of the Vilnius diocese, the article analyzes the cases about cancelled betrothals judged in this court in the second half of the 18h century. In this category are included not only those cases when there were concrete agreements between both sides about the future weddings, but also seductions after making a promise to marry. As the carried out investigation showed in one or another case the church court first of all sought to confirm the main principle of Catholic marriage – free will. Relying on the Catholic marriage doctrine, the formation of a marriage on a free will basis was an essential condition for the validity of the marriage itself, so therefore any coercion forming the marriage was in essence an action making it void. Therefore, in the cases of both seduction as well as of cancelled betrothals in the narrow sense, first of all one sought to adopt such a judgement, wh...
The Union of Brest (1596) marked a new period in the history of Christianity. Both Catholic and O... more The Union of Brest (1596) marked a new period in the history of Christianity. Both Catholic and Orthodox Churches achieved unity (at least in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth) albeit with concessions on the Orthodox side. However, the newly-formed Uniate church lacked administrative resources that would allow it to recruit and train its clergy in the specially designed educational system. Although several attempts were made to establish an institution of higher education for the Uniate clergy, none of them were at least partially successful. The Catholic Church offered the solution of its own: papal seminaries or alumnates aimed at the youth and originating from the regions affected by the Reformation or those located in the close vicinity of the other religious adversary, the Orthodox Church. The Society of Jesus, the most influential religious order of the post-Tridentate Church, was particularly interested in the matters of the Union and was instrumental in its design. One parti...
<jats:p>DANGEROUS LIAISONS? INFORMAL RELATIONS BETWEEN UNMARRIED PERSONS AND THEIR TREATMEN... more <jats:p>DANGEROUS LIAISONS? INFORMAL RELATIONS BETWEEN UNMARRIED PERSONS AND THEIR TREATMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITHUANIAN CATHOLIC ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS Recent decades saw historical scholarship to pay more attention to the phenomena which were earlier considered unimportant or, in some cases, non-existent. Intimate relations between men and women who were not yet married, extramarital affairs, cohabitation, etc. were rediscovered and reassessed as indispensable to the more accurate understanding of the formation of marriages, families and communities. Theoretically, physical and emotional intimacy could only take place in marriage, and as such all relationships that were extraneous to marital status were prosecuted by legal authorities – civil and ecclesiastical alike. This paper seeks to present how one group of these institutions – Lithuanian ecclesiastical courts – treated informal relations between unmarried laymen and women and what kind of penalties they imposed for such delinquencies. At the first glance it seems that neither canon law, nor the law of the Lithuanian Statutes or the Magdeburg law paid much attention to this kind of illicit sexual practices. The legal norms describe them rather vaguely and, as a result, the prescribed punishments seem to be unclear (except for the Third Lithuanian Statute, which, depending on the interpretation of the text, prescribed capital punishment for unmarried women). Analysis of the court material from three consistories (Vilnius, Samogitia and Trakai) has shown that Lithuanian Catholic consistories might not have been very concerned with such cases as there is only a handful of them mentioned and even less addressed. They seem to have been more common among the Catholic population of Samogitia, and men were likely to be condemned more often than women. The penalties for such crimes were mild – the delinquents mainly had to do public penance, pay fines, and observe fasting. The reasons behind such a low number of cases and even lower number of decisions are not clear, yet. It is possible, that while being mainly concerned with the marital litigation ecclesiastical courts left more initiative to the secular authorities, which could also act in the name of good Christian order and provide harsher punishments if necessary. Since most of the plaintiffs were parish clergymen, who generally initiated judicial processes against fornicators, it is plausible that they could take care of such delinquents themselves, without the help of the court. One must not forget that the Church had even more measures at its discretion – for example, missionary activities of the religious orders, during which the missionaries also attended to the illegal sexual practices of the population, and intervened with them. Keywords: the eighteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, informal relations, fornication, ecclesiastical courts, consistories, canon law, the Lithuanian Statutes, the Saxon-Magdeburg law, gender relations.</jats:p>
Relying on the up to now sparsely in Lithuania’s historiography used complex of sources of the Co... more Relying on the up to now sparsely in Lithuania’s historiography used complex of sources of the Consistory of the Vilnius diocese, the article analyzes the cases about cancelled betrothals judged in this court in the second half of the 18h century. In this category are included not only those cases when there were concrete agreements between both sides about the future weddings, but also seductions after making a promise to marry. As the carried out investigation showed in one or another case the church court first of all sought to confirm the main principle of Catholic marriage – free will. Relying on the Catholic marriage doctrine, the formation of a marriage on a free will basis was an essential condition for the validity of the marriage itself, so therefore any coercion forming the marriage was in essence an action making it void. Therefore, in the cases of both seduction as well as of cancelled betrothals in the narrow sense, first of all one sought to adopt such a judgement, wh...
The Union of Brest (1596) marked a new period in the history of Christianity. Both Catholic and O... more The Union of Brest (1596) marked a new period in the history of Christianity. Both Catholic and Orthodox Churches achieved unity (at least in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth) albeit with concessions on the Orthodox side. However, the newly-formed Uniate church lacked administrative resources that would allow it to recruit and train its clergy in the specially designed educational system. Although several attempts were made to establish an institution of higher education for the Uniate clergy, none of them were at least partially successful. The Catholic Church offered the solution of its own: papal seminaries or alumnates aimed at the youth and originating from the regions affected by the Reformation or those located in the close vicinity of the other religious adversary, the Orthodox Church. The Society of Jesus, the most influential religious order of the post-Tridentate Church, was particularly interested in the matters of the Union and was instrumental in its design. One parti...
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Papers by Karolis Tumelis