Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 28183
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Brundage , James A.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: The Crusader's Wife: A Canonistic Quandry
  • Source: Collectanea Stephan Kuttner. II.  Edited by Giuseppe Forchielli and Alfons M. SticklerStudia Gratiana, 12.  Institutum Gratianum, 1967.  Pages 425 - 441.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Adultery Canon Law Crusades Husbands Marriage Thomas Aquinas, Saint Wives Women's Nature
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area:
  • Century: 12- 13
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  • Abstract: The medieval canonists’ treatment of the position of the wife of a crusader centered upon two problems: (1) the conflict between the marital obligations of a would-be crusader and the votive obligations resulting from his crusade commitment; and (2) the problem of the remarriage of the wife of a crusader who disappeared permanently or for an extended period. Only the first of these problems is dealt with here. One major difficulty is presented by the problem of the consent of the wife to her husband’s proposal to undertake a crusade. Ivo of Chartres, Gratian, and most of the twelfth-century decretists assumed that the mutual consent of the spouses was required for this purpose. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, however, two decretals of Innocent III altered the existing law, especially by a provision that husbands might make the crusade vow without the consent of their wives. The decretalist treatment of these decretals was conservative and reserved. St. Thomas Aquinas effectively rejected on moral grounds the legal right of husbands to assume the crusade obligation without their wives’ consent if there were reason to fear that their wives might thereby be led into infidelity.
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  • Author's Affiliation: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1967.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: Not available