Baldus de Ubaldis

"Blood, Heredity and Kinship in the Middle Ages : Biological and Social Models. Albert the Great and Baldus"

The article studies the role of blood and heredity in the works of two great medieval thinkers : the theologian and philosopher of nature Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280), and the legal scholar Baldus degli Ubaldi (d. 1400). After an overview of the “hereditary turn” of the early fourteenth century, which saw the coining of several new concepts (royal blood, hereditary disease), the article investigates to what extent Albert the Great and Baldus used biological models to explain legal kinship structures. Albert is one of the few medieval thinkers who used detailed physiological arguments to justify the ecclesiastical ban on consanguineous marriage. Natural philosophy also influenced Baldus’s theory of kinship and descent. However, Albert’s ideas had little influence, and neither Albert’s nor Baldus’s hereditary thought falls under the term “hereditary determinism”. Albert’s theory of generation, as well as Baldus’s casuistry about noble bastards, show that in discussions about legal kinship natural philosophy was often glossed over, or was a reflection of social norms. In this respect, the role of hereditary blood in the Middle Ages may be compared to the flexible meanings and uses of ethnic DNA testing today.

This contribution offers an updated and commented edition of one of the most discussed treatises in feudal law, transmitted by only one witness (Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Parm. 1227), the authorship of which is largely hypothetical. Textual and structural analyses of this tradition, compared with MS Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 2094 and Baldus de Ubaldis’s Lectura Feudorum, aim at proving that the author might be Iacobus Aurelianus, alias Jacques d’Orleans, a French lawyer probably educated in Italy in the mid-thirteenth century whose writings – thirty-odd marginal additiones mostly to feudal law literature – have not been considered as a whole thus far.

This paper intends to analyze a simile used by Baldus de Ubaldis to describe the combinations of presumptions to obtain full proof. There he resorts to the imaginary of species hybridization. Starting from the restrictive theory that medieval jurists develop about the combination of legal devices, the goal here is to explore the relationships between the principle of law fictio non parit fictionem and the coordinates of medieval cosmology with its differentiated treatments about the natural and the artificial entities. For this reason, this paper aims to contextualize by linking the aforementioned principle with two homologous formulae of the medieval literate world, pecunia pecuniam non parit and affinitas non parit affinitatem. From the bond established by jurists between fiction and nature and the conscious reflection on its artificiality, this paper seeks to examine which legal operations are proscribed as a kind of teratologization, as an autonomous reproduction of the artificial.

the article studies the role of blood and heredity in the works of two great medieval
thinkers : the theologian and philosopher of nature Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280), and
the legal scholar Baldus degli ubaldi (d. 1400). after an overview of the “hereditary
turn” of the early fourteenth century, which saw the coining of several new concepts
(royal blood, hereditary disease), the article investigates to what extent Albert the Great
and Baldus used biological models to explain legal kinship structures. Albert is
one of the few medieval thinkers who used detailed physiological arguments to justify
the ecclesiastical ban on consanguineous marriage. natural philosophy also influenced Baldus’s theory of kinship and descent however, Albert’s ideas had little influence,
and neither Albert’s nor Baldus’s hereditary thought falls under the term “hereditary
determinism”. Albert’s theory of generation, as well as Baldus’s casuistry about noble
bastards, show that in discussions about legal kinship natural philosophy was often
glossed over, or was a reflection of social norms. in this respect, the role of hereditary
blood in the middle ages may be compared to the flexible meanings and uses of ethnic
DNA testing today

Cet article etudie la place de l’heredite et du sang hereditaire chez deux grands penseurs du Moyen Âge, le theologien et philosophe de la nature Albert le Grand (vers 1200-1280), et le juriste Balde degli Ubaldi (m. 1400). Apres avoir decrit le tournant hereditaire du xive siecle, avec l’emergence de plusieurs nouveaux concepts (le sang royal, la maladie hereditaire), on cherche a etudier comment des modeles biologiques pouvaient etre repris pour expliquer les structures juridiques de la parente. Albert le Grand est l’un des rares penseurs de l’epoque a justifier les empechements du mariage pour consanguinite par des arguments physiologiques detailles. De meme, la philosophie naturelle influence les theories sur la filiation developpees par Balde. Cependant, les theories d’Albert sont peu reprises et on ne peut pas parler de determinisme hereditaire chez Albert le Grand ou chez Balde. La theorie de la generation albertienne, de meme que la casuistique developpee par Balde sur les bâtards nobles, montrent que dans les debats sur les structures juridiques de la parente la philosophie naturelle est souvent oubliee ou un simple miroir des convenances sociales. On peut comparer la place du sang hereditaire au Moyen Âge avec l’ambiguite des usages actuels des tests ADN sur l’origine ethnique.