‘Like man and wife’: clerics’ concubines in the diocese of Barcelona

Clerical concubinage was a persistent problem throughout the Middle Ages, but scholars have largely ignored the historical experience of the women involved. Parish visitation records from the early fourteenth-century diocese of Barcelona reveal a wealth of information about these women. Although their lives were in part circumscribed by an inherently gendered legal category, their day-to-day lives and interactions with other members of their communities depended on more than their legal status, and were in fact as diverse as those of women in legitimate marital unions.     

‘Like man and wife’: clerics’ concubines in the diocese of Barcelona

Clerical concubinage was a persistent problem throughout the Middle Ages, but scholars have largely ignored the historical experience of the women involved. Parish visitation records from the early fourteenth-century diocese of Barcelona reveal a wealth of information about these women. Although their lives were in part circumscribed by an inherently gendered legal category, their day-to-day lives and interactions with other members of their communities depended on more than their legal status, and were in fact as diverse as those of women in legitimate marital unions.