Aristocratic marriage and the English peerage, 1350–1500: social institution and personal bond

Marriage was obviously an important institution to the late medieval aristocracy. Almost all of the peers between 1350 and 1500 married: all but seven did so at least once, and 144 of the 424 peers (or 34 percent) married two or more times. Since marriages were for political and economic reasons, as much or more than for personal ones, we find that many of them were contracted within the forbidden degrees of kinship and affinity, by dint of an ecclesiastical dispensation. Some dispensations were issued before the marriage, while others — usually carrying some sort of penance — came afterwards. Few proposed marriages were actually repressed or prevented by the Church. But there is also considerable evidence for affection and partnership within a marriage. Husbands who died first usually left considerable personal goods to their widows. They often made them executrixes and spoke of them in terms of trust and continuing responsibilities. Though there is no question that marriage at first was more business than pleasure, qualitative data show that it often became a satisfactory personal relationship and that it offered considerable scope for sentiment and cooperation.