Woman, Church & State. Gage Matilda Joslyn

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257

Les Cuisiniers et les marmitons de l’archeveques de Vienne avaient impose un tribut sur les mariages; on croit que certains feuditaires exigeaient un droit obscene de leur vassaux qui se mariaient, quel fut transforme ensuite en droit de cuissage consistant, de la part du seigneur, a mettre une jambe nue dans le lit des nouveaux epoux. Dans d’autres pays l’homme ne pouvait coucher avec sa femme les trois premieres nuits sans le consentement de l’eveque ou du seigneur du fief. Cesar Cantu. —Histoire Universelle, Vol. IX. p. 202-3.

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Moral History of Women.

259

There are those who to enrich themselves would not only rob their sisters of their portion, but would sell for money the honor of those who bear their name. The authority of the son during the feudal period was so absolute that the father and mother themselves often winked at this hideous traffic. —Ibid, p. 46.

260

Unless an heiress, woman possessed no social importance; unless an inmate of a religious house no religious position. There are some records of her in this last position, showing what constant effort and strength of intellect were demanded from her to thwart the machinations of abbots and monks. —Sketches of Fontervault.

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See page 193. —Fleta.

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Bracton, 26, 195, 208. Littleton’s Tenures, 55, 174, 209.

263

Gratain, Canon for Spain in 633, says the nuptial robe was garnished with white and purple ribbons as a sign of the continence to which young married people devoted themselves for a time.

264

Eight young men, living in the vicinity of North Rose, Wayne County, have been held to await the action of the grand jury for rioting. A young married couple named Garlic were about to retire for the night when they were startled by the appearance of a party of men in the yard. The party immediately commenced beating on pans, discharging guns and pistols, pounding with clubs, screaming and kicking at the doors of the house. The bride and groom were terrified, but finally the groom mustered enough courage to demand what the men wanted there. Shouts of “Give us lots of cider or we’ll horn you to death,” were the answers. An attempt was made to break in a rear door of the house. The bride and groom and John Wager, who was also present in the house, braced the doors from the inside to prevent a forcible entrance, and the inmates had to defend the property nearly all night. The horning party, at last weary of calling for cider, left the premises giving an extra strong fusillade of firearms and a series of yells as they departed. The eight young men were arrested a few days later on suspicion of being in the horning party. —Press Report, Jan. 14, 1887.

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Whenever we discover symbolized forms, we are justified in inferring that in the past life of the people employing them there were corresponding realities. McLennon. —Studies in Ancient History, p. 6.

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He was thrown into the moat to cool his ardor, pelted with stones, derided as a proud and envious wretch. —Michelet.

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The maids redeeme their virginities with a certain piece of money, and by that Terme their lands are held to this day. Heywoode. —History of Women, London, 1624; Lib. 7,339.

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Margaret was canonized in 1251, and made the Patron Saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite royal protestation, kept up in the famous practice until a late date. One of the earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, popularly known and dreaded as “Earl Brant,” in the sixteenth century, was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right, the literal translation of droit de jambage. —Sketches of Feudalism.

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The feeling is common in the north that a laird, or chieftain, getting a vassal’s or clansmen’s wife or daughter with child, is doing her a great honor. Burke. —Letters from an English Gentleman, about 1730.

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Pres de cet etang, et devant sa maison.

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In days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound man’s heart. The Lord Spiritual had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband. The courts of Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally. Michelet. —La Sorciere, p. 62.

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Among the rights asserted by the Protestant clergy in the middle ages, and which caused much dispute, was exemption from lay jurisdiction even in cases of felony.

From the throne downward every secular office was dependent upon the church. Froude. —Times of Erasmus and Luther.

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Among these de coucher avec leur femmes, d’enlever les premices de leurs filles.

274

H. S. Maine.

275

In Babylon every young woman was obliged once in her life to offer her person for sale, nor was she permitted to leave the temple, where she sat with a cord about her waist, until some stranger taking it in hand led her away. The money thus obtained passed into the treasury of the temple as her “purchase money, or redemption, releasing her from farther prostitution, and permitting her marriage, which was forbidden until such sale had been consummated.”

276

Although a similar custom is said to have prevailed in India under Brahaminical rule, it must be remembered that wherever found it is an accompaniment of the Patriarchate, and under some form of religion where the feminine is no longer considered a portion of the divinity, or woman allowed in the priesthood.

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It has been too readily believed that the wrong was formal, not real. But the price laid down in certain countries exceeded the means of almost every peasant. In Scotland, for instance, the demand was for several cows, a price immense, impossible.

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Christian History, First Period, by Joseph Henry Allen.

279

In the history of Julius Caesar there is something peculiarly curious and mythical. Caesar had all the honors paid to him as to a divine person. At the end of five years a festival was instituted to his honor, as to a person of divine extraction. A college of priests was established to perform the rites instituted for the occasion. A day was dedicated to him, and he had the title also of Julian Jove, and a temple was erected to him. —Anacalypsis, I, 611.

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Law of the first night.

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The lord’s right.

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Leg right – the right to place a naked leg in bed with the bride.

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Droit de cuissage, c’ele droit de mettre une cuisse dans le lit d’une autre, ou de coucher avec le femme d’un vassal, ou d’un serf.

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Droit d’afforge, the right to prey upon the bride.

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Droit de marquette, took its name in Scotland from the redemption piece of money, a demi-mark, marquette, or little mark, a weight of gold or silver used in Great Britain and many other European countries.

286

Mrs. Josephine Butler, so stating.