‘Bound from Either Side’: The Limits of Power in Carolingian Marriage Disputes, 840–870

The article discusses four marriage disputes in ninth‐century Francia which involved noblemen: Count Stephen of the Auvergne, Count Boso of Italy, Baldwin of Flanders and the royal vassal Falcric. All these men were affected by Carolingian reforming measures on consanguineous marriage, divorce and raptus (abduction). The article examines how gender and social status affected the forms of power and the strategies used by different parties in the cases: archbishops and popes, kings, the women involved and the noblemen themselves. A paradoxical situation is revealed: despite the patriarchal basis of Carolingian society, the power even of elite men over women and marriage was often highly contingent. Yet such restrictions on power did not imperil the gender order: the masculinity of the men involved in these marriage disputes was not questioned.