Visual Representations of Weddings in the Middle Ages: Reflections of Legal, Religious, and Cultural Aspects

Abstract

Wedding rituals and ceremonies have been depicted in various forms of literature, art, and illuminated manuscripts in medieval times. These representations offer valuable insights into the cultural, religious, and social aspects of weddings during that period. This article considers the state of research on visual representations of the wedding ceremony in the Middle Ages and how these pictures reflect legal, religious, and cultural/social aspects of medieval life in Europe. Using examples from various religious, literary, and legal texts, several questions will be addressed: In which contexts were the pictures of wedding ceremonies created? What is depicted and what is not? Which legal, religious, and cultural aspects are reflected in the medieval visualizations of the wedding ritual and how do the visualizations correspond to the religious, legal, and cultural setting of the wedding ritual in the Middle Ages? Illuminated legal manuscripts, particularly the Liber Extra, the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, reveal much about the rituals that signified the essence of the medieval wedding ceremony: the exchange of consent, the joining of the right hands (dextrarum iunctio), and the blessing of the union by a priest. Since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, marriage was considered a sacrament by the Church, making the ritual a fulcrum of religious life. However, only the consummation of a marriage was able to bring the property-related effects of marriage into effect, and some pictures from a secular context refer to this part of the wedding ceremony. The primary function of these visual representations of marriage was the illustration of the text, in both canon law manuscripts and medieval literature. Therefore, they are, besides the textual transmission, valuable sources and crucial interpretive keys for understanding the legal and socio-cultural dimensions that shaped the institution of marriage in medieval Europe.

1. Introduction

The Middle Ages were marked by significant developments in the realms of religion, law, and culture. Marriage, being one of the vital social institutions, was governed by these domains. Visual representations of wedding ceremonies from this era, found in manuscripts, frescoes, and altarpieces, provide us with a nuanced understanding of medieval life. These images are not just artistic endeavors but are imbued with the legal, religious, and cultural connotations of the time. This paper seeks to provide an overview on the current state of research on visual representation of wedding ceremonies in illuminated manuscripts and to understand how exactly visual representations of wedding ceremonies in the Middle Ages reflect these aspects. At the same time, it aims to contribute to the history of marriage customs and ceremonies of the later Middle Ages by exploiting this hitherto neglected source material. Although there have been several contributions to the topic in recent years, the interdisciplinary approach to this topic, incorporating both the history of art and cultural/legal history, is still a desideratum, and no systematic approach to fill this gap has been proposed so far.

The latest publication on the iconography of visual representations of weddings from the early to the late Middle Ages is the excellent overview by Harriet Sonne de Torrens (Sonne de Torrens 2021), a Canadian historian of art. Her chapter, concluding a volume on the cultural history of marriage in the medieval period, overviews the development of marital iconography in Christian art, along the classical periods of the history of art: the early medieval, the Romanesque–Gothic, and the later Middle Ages. The author examines key iconographic elements and their evolution over time, emphasizing the portrayal of different types of weddings and their associated iconography. However, this overview does not take into account the doctoral thesis and publications of Kathleen Nieuwehuisen on the topic of manuscript illuminations.

For the early medieval period (4th to 11th century), Sonne de Torrens describes the integration of Greco–Roman and Judaic legacy in early Christian art. One central element is the adoption of Roman marriage customs, such as mutual consent and the idea of indissoluble marriage. In iconography, this included handclasp gestures, marital embraces, and the dextrarum iunctio, the joining of the right hands (on dextrarum iunctio see Iacobini 1991; Kötting 1957; Reekmans 1958; Walter 1979; Yang 2016). During the Romanesque and Gothic periods (12th to 13th centuries), she observes a greater ecclesiastical influence on the subject of marriage. This went hand in hand with a greater emphasis on the sacramental nature of marriage, with iconography reflecting both spiritual and consummated unions. One can observe the development of various symbolic gestures in medieval iconography to represent different types of marital relationships. In the late medieval period (14th to 15th century), more definitive statements about the church’s role in marriage and the marital ceremony are articulated. The portrayal of the legitimacy of marriages through iconographic elements such as the dextrarum iunctio is predominant in that period. At the same time, exchanging rings in wedding ceremonies or veiling can be observed in other regional contexts.

According to her findings, throughout the Middle Ages, the representation of wedding in art was influenced by theological, legal, and social contexts. The study reveals a shared iconographic language that evolved to represent wedding rituals across different periods. This language included gestures, stances, and attributes that carried specific meanings in the context of marriage, influenced by Roman, Judeo–Christian, and later ecclesiastical traditions. The use of specific gestures, such as the dextrarum iunctio and the left-handed clasp, evolved to represent different types of marriages—from spiritual and symbolic to consummated and legal unions. Over time, the presence of the church and religious figures in wedding scenes became more pronounced, reflecting the growing ecclesiastical authority over marital matters.

Equally useful in this context is the article by Jerome Baschet on matrimony in the Enciclopedia dell’arte medieval, giving a concise overview of the pictorial and iconographic programs related to wedding and marriage in medieval art (Baschet 1997). The best synthesis in the German language is the book on “Trauung und Jawort” by Clausdieter Schott, bringing together the history of law and the visual representation of wedding through the centuries (Schott 1992).

Probably the most exhaustive work on the iconography of wedding rituals on book illuminations so far is an unpublished doctoral thesis by Kathleen Nieuwenhuisen, presented in 2000 in Dutch at Amsterdam University (Nieuwenhuisen 2000). Her research concentrates on legal manuscripts and in particular on the various editions of the Liber Extra, the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (Nieuwenhuisen 2001). Central findings of her thesis have been published in a collective volume on the Liber Extra in 2012 (Nieuwenhuisen 2012). One of these findings is that in the copies of Liber Extra produced in France, the illuminations related to marriage all show the joining of the right hands in the presence of a priest. In the Italian copies, the priest is often absent, and the dextrarum iunctio does not exist. Instead, the transfer of the ring is the central motif (Nieuwenhuisen 2012, p. 138). These findings on divergent pictorial traditions remind us that particular ceremonies in different regions took place, evolved eventually over time, and represented different perspectives on marriage, although the context of exchanging consent at the wedding ceremony was always the same. Furthermore, it can be deduced that artists rather took inspiration for their illuminations from their immediate cultural background than from the illustrated text.

Another recent substantial contribution on medieval wedding representations in illuminated manuscripts is the article by Marta Pavón Ramírez, Marriage Symbolism in Illuminated Manuscripts of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, published in a volume on marriage symbolism edited by Line Cecilie Engh (Pavón Ramírez 2019; see also Engh 2019). Pavón Ramírez explores the relationship between visual images and theological ideas, as well as the role of artists and patrons in the construction of new images of the theological concept of marriage in the 12th and 13th centuries. Her work is concentrating on illuminated manuscripts from legal and liturgical context and manuscripts of the Song of Songs, which depicts the mystical marriage between Christ and the Church in a very emotional way. She observes that the material becomes denser in the 13th century, when we topic of controlling marriage became central for the church. The study of matrimonial images in three manuscripts of the Decretum Gratiani by Guiseppa Zanichelli goes into the same direction, emphasizing the important changes in the social embedding of marriage in the 12th and 13th centuries and its representation in art (Zanichelli 2014).

Originally, the topic of the iconographic representation of marriage was investigated in a substantial article by Chiara Frugoni, delivered for the Spoleto congress on marriage in the Middle Ages in 1976. This work is very much devoted to the origins of spousal iconography in the Western Roman Empire (mostly transmitted through reliefs on sarcophagi) and the reception of this tradition in the early and high Middle Ages. Although the iconographic representation of marriage often used the exchange of consent as a central motif, with joining of right hands and coronation, the topic of spousal and matrimonial life is of course broader than this one iconic moment (Frugoni 1977). Older research, such as the article on marriage in the Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et Liturgie (Leclercq 1931) or work on particular iconographic traditions such as The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Grootkerk 1975) or Hall on the Arnolfini Bethrothal (Hall 1994) are of minor importance in this context. However, there is a study on the dextrarum iunctio depicted on a proto-Byzantine gold medallion by Antonio Iacobini that is interesting for tracing back the origin and tradition of this central iconographic motif of the wedding ritual into early Christian times (Iacobini 1991).

As shown above, the research on visual representations of wedding and marriage in the Middle Ages has only started to gain substantial momentum in recent years, maybe also due to the better availability of the images online. Little to no research has been conducted on the Frankish and Ottonian periods, although the Roman tradition of late antiquity is well studied. The situation improves from the 12th century onwards, similar to the rising flow of material that has emerged.

2. Materials and Methods

There are several collections of manuscript illuminations online and in print relevant to our topic. The volume on “Decretales pictae”, edited by Martin Bertram and Silvia di Paolo, provides an extensive catalog of miniatures from 34 manuscripts of the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, the so-called Liber Extra. The most exhaustive of these printed collections is the three-volume compendium of illuminations in Gratians Decretum (Melnikas 1975). The third volume, including pages 863 to 1172, collects the illuminations from different manuscripts (12th–15th century) of the Decretum Gratiani, related to causae XXVII–XXXVI, which treat topics of sex and marriage. This thematic collection of pictorial variations connected to one base text is especially intriguing for investigation.

In recent years, the publication of digitized manuscripts has opened up new opportunities for research, particularly if the illuminations are described with appropriate metadata. The French database “plateforme ouverte du patrimoine” (POP) contains 205 illuminations that mention marriage in the description. Examples can be found from the legal and ecclesiastical domains, mostly decretals, books of hours, illuminated Bibles, but also some literary texts. Within this database, there are 16 examples of the marriage at Cana (noces de Cana), mostly from the 14th and 15th centuries. However, some illuminations, primarily ornamented initials, date back to the end of the 12th century (Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis, Avignon, Bibliothèque Municipale, 0593; Bible en Images, Amiens, Bibliothèque Municipale, 0108). These and the following numbers are all based on the content of the databases in April 2024.

Another French database is Mandragore (https://mandragore.bnf.fr/, accessed on 9 August 2024), the database of illuminated manuscripts at the French National Library. A simple search returns 362 results for marriage (marriage) and 49 for wedding (noces) for the Middle Ages. The majority of the manuscripts are, as usual, from the 14th and 15th centuries. Similar results are produced by “Initale”, a digital catalogue of French illuminated manuscripts provided by the CNRS (https://initiale.irht.cnrs.fr/, accessed on 9 August 2024).

A rich source of medieval book illuminations is the Getty art collection catalog, providing several examples of the marriage/wedding at Cana, the Marriage of the Virgin, and the exchange of consent by couples, dating from the beginning of the 14th century to the beginning of the 16th century (https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/search?images=true&q=marriage&date_range=482:1500, accessed on 9 August 2024). The Digital Scriptorium Catalogue of medieval manuscripts in US libraries (https://search.digital-scriptorium.org/, accessed on 9 August 2024) lists 66 hits for marriage and 2 for wedding but has no feature to filter for illuminations. Marriage contracts are retrieved together with illuminated volumes. The Penn Open Library also provides access to a database of illuminated manuscripts (https://openn.library.upenn.edu/, accessed on 9 August 2024) and uses Google Custom Search for retrieval. The search terms <“historiated initial” marriage> or <“historiated initial” wedding> bring up 26 and 36 mostly relevant results, although not all records have pictures associated.

The services of the British Library were recently disrupted due to a cyber-attack in November 2023 and only limited access to the databases was possible. However, the service has been re-established, and access to images can be obtained at https://imagesonline.bl.uk/ (accessed on 9 August 2024). More results from manuscripts in British holdings can be accessed at Bodleian Digital Library at https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ (accessed on 9 August 2024).

The imreal database of the Institut für Realienkunde of the University of Salzburg (Austria) has 23 hits for “Hochzeit”, mostly related to the marriage at Cana and the marriage of the lamb (of Jesus and the Church). Additionally, relevant illuminations of Wolfram von Eschenbachs “Willehalm” are present with three examples. For “Ehe” (marriage), there are just two relevant hits, one depicting the sacramental character of marriage in the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of Guilelmus Durantis. The e-codices project (http://www.e-codices.ch, accessed on 9 August 2024) allows filtering for illuminated manuscripts, but no iconographic details can be specified. The same holds true for the “Handschriftencensus” (https://www.handschriftencensus.de/, accessed on 9 August 2024). The catalogue of German illuminated manuscripts (KdiH) returns valuable results and detailed descriptions but has no links to the actual images (https://kdih.badw.de/datenbank/start, accessed on 9 August 2024). The HeidICON database of Bibliotheca Palatina at Heidelberg (Germany) provides 35 hits for medieval book illustrations related to marriage, mostly to the prose romance of Pontus and Sidonia from the Henfflin–Werkstatt, originally from France but translated later into middle-high German in the middle of the 15th century.

Although this is only a small portion of the possible source-material for book illuminations related to the wedding and the broader context of marriage, we can already deduce from this brief survey that the majority of representations of the wedding ceremony in this type of source are related to biblical themes: the marriage at Cana and the marriage of Christ to the church. However, depictions of the wedding at Cana always show the wedding party sitting at a table, experiencing the miracle of the transformation of water into wine. This is a different iconography from those illuminations showing the exchange of consent, the other important emblematic visualization of wedding and marriage in the Middle Ages.

The material in the printed collections and the databases concentrates on the high and later Middle Ages. We hardly find any pictures of exchanging consent and joining hands at weddings in manuscripts before the turn of the millennium. However, these low absolute numbers might also simply be the result of the relative scarcity of this type of sources for the early Middle Ages.

3. The Legal Background of the Wedding Ritual

The legitimate, inheritable marriage according to early medieval secular law was a complex, step-like process (mariage par étapes), involving various legal actions (formal acts), namely, the clan contract or betrothal, the formal handover of the bride, the ceremonial homecoming or bridal journey (Pastrnak 2023; Seidel 1994; Spiess 1997), the bedding, and finally the morning gift. In addition to these marriage acts, other customs with a customary legal character were added: the groom’s procession to the bride’s house, the wedding beer, and the drinking on the occasion of the bridal run (for the following paragraphs see Wettlaufer 1998, 1999, ch. 3, with references).

The ceremonial and ritualized transfer of the bride in exchange for the bridal treasure is often seen as the origin of the later developing marriage ceremony. The further elements of a “Muntehe” were betrothal, the solemn homecoming or bridal journey, the bedding, and finally, the morning gift. Especially the homecoming or the bridal journey appears in the early medieval sources as the designation for the marriage itself. These moments of the marriage had an important symbolic value in the sequence of the legal actions. The homecoming and bedding had to be attestable, as for a long time only the family and relatives or the village could take on the guarantee for the property law consequences of the marriage. In old Swedish law, the woman was entitled to a third of her husband’s estate as an inheritance if he died after the bedding. Some researchers therefore argue that the “public initiation of domestic and sexual cohabitation through the homecoming of the bride and bedding” (Schulze 1986, p. 495) were the actual and, in the people’s view, constitutive legal actions for marriage. This was accompanied by the payment of a morning gift, which, together with the consummation of the marriage, became the formal sign of marriage in the early Middle Ages.

Significant financial transactions were tied to a legitimate marriage, which was aligned with the church’s conception of marriage. The bride price, originally widespread among Indo-European populations, a payment from the groom to the bride’s clan, soon transformed into a payment to the bride herself (dotal marriage). From the bride’s family, another gift, the so-called dowry, was given to the bride in marriage. From this perspective, marriage was more about gift exchange and property transfer than anything else. Of course, the reason for these transactions was clearly the establishment of a new household of bride and bridegroom, enabling the couple to procreate offspring and raise children in a legal and customary way.

In the traditional perspective of legal history, the predominant form of marriage in Merovingian and Frankish times was the “Muntehe” (Mikat 1978). According to classical understanding, the defining moment of this form of marriage was the transfer of munt (in the sense of dominion) over the bride from the father to the groom at the marriage. For this, a bridal treasure or munt-money (mundium, wittimon, pretium puellae, mundr, meta) had to be paid by the man’s side or the groom, with later sources suggesting an interpretation of a purchase price for the munt. Recent research has put a question mark behind this claim of a model character of the transfer of mundium (cf. Dunn 2006; Karras 2006, 2012; Livingston 2012; Southon 2017). In the high Middle Ages, some crucial changes occurred. The importance of the dowry as the central gift from the bride’s family increased and often took on the meaning of an advance payment of an inheritance share. In any case, the dowry could take on considerable dimensions in the late Middle Ages, especially in higher social circles. The groom or his family made a corresponding counter-gift. However, these transactions only became legally valid when the marriage was consummated through the bedding.

Research has long been concerned with the influence of the church on marriage law by Christian religion and the church. Only a few studies have taken up the question of the actual enforcement of church norms in marriage practice. One of the first was the Paderborn church historian Joseph Freisen, who concluded in his study of the Nordic Catholic ritual books that marriage law in the Scandinavian countries “remained a secular matter in Catholic times”(Freisen 1909, p. 138). The church’s additions to marriage were initially only additive. This also applied to the joining of the spouses in front of the church and the subsequent bridal blessing in the church. The church wedding was originally an ecclesiastical approval of the will to marry corresponding to Christian doctrine. The benedictio in thalamo was, accordingly, the blessing of the bridal couple after the completion of the legal actions of the marriage. Interestingly, the situation was similar in medieval Italy, where marriage remained pretty much a private legal act during the Middle Ages. (Klapisch-Zuber 1995, 2020; cf. Nieuwenhuisen 2012).

The church eventually also tried to influence the property law component of marriage. By prejudicially determining the legitimacy of a marriage, it thought it had already decided on marital property law. An example of such an attempt at church interference is the dispute between King Henry II and Pope Alexander III, recorded in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, in which Alexander issued an instruction in an inheritance dispute that was changed upon Henry II’s protest so that the bishops were only tasked with determining a legitimate marriage and left the actual inheritance decision in secular hands. However, unlike in the question of marital consent and impediments to marriage, the church did not succeed in gaining judicial supremacy here. The property law consequences of marriage remained tied to the consummation act of the bedding. From a secular perspective, it could be advantageous to maintain an independent legal action for the property law concerns of marriage.

Undoubtedly, however, the church gained ever-greater authority over marriage, especially in the areas of marriage impediments and legal actions. In the 12th century, a dispute arose among jurists about whether the copula carnalis or the nudus consensus must be given constitutive significance for marriage. The church eventually sided with the concept of consent, which was included in the collection of Decretals of Gregory IX in 1234 through the adoption of a decision by Alexander III from 1170 into the Corpus Iuris Canonici. This had long-term consequences for the question of parental co-determination in the marriage of their children and, of course, for the legal actions of the wedding ritual. The importance of the ritual bedding for marriage was thus pushed back and subordinated to the consent of the spouses (Reynolds 2016).

The requirement of individual consent of the bridal couple probably spread hand in hand with the new church doctrine through social and economic changes in the high Middle Ages. An increasing number of people were released from their clan associations and the clan-public marriage was not possible for them, especially if it was not about the transfer of goods, or had lost its function. However, the requirement of consent was by no means an invention of the church, but it is anchored in Roman traditions. Furthermore, it seems that the idea of consent between the bride and bridegroom regarding the union was not absent even in tribal law (McCarthy 2004, pp. 19–50). The long-term process of establishing a Christian marriage model in the Western hemisphere had profound underlying social and economic changes, which led, under the increasing influence of the church, to a different conception of marriage itself. From about the 13th century onwards, a “Christian marriage model” was established. Since the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), marriage had become a sacrament, and the Church played a central role in regulating and sanctifying unions. Marriage was seen as a way to fulfill God’s command to procreate and establish a stable family structure. This ecumenical council, convened by Pope Innocent III, is often considered a pivotal moment in formally recognizing marriage as a sacrament. It established stricter rules for valid marriages and required the presence of a priest as a witness for a marriage to be valid. An important component of this marriage model was the church’s demand for publicity through a mandatory announcement of the banns before the marriage. This publicity of the marriage and its individual acts appeared in the late Middle Ages as the only means to control clandestine marriages, which the church had first made possible through its marriage doctrine with the absolute emphasis on the concept of consent.

Finally, in the late Middle Ages, the church exerted a strong moralizing and disciplining influence on the form of marriage. The wedding day was to be celebrated with a certain dignity and solemnity. The bridal couple was preached to about their special responsibility before God. The city councils in the late Middle Ages also took care of a proper and especially status-appropriate wedding.

4. Religious and Cultural Background of the Medieval Wedding Ritual

One of the earliest descriptions of the wedding ritual in the medieval West, and in particular of the customs in Rome in the ninth century, is the response of Pope Nicolaus I. to the questions of Tsar Boris-Michael of Bulgaria (866), the Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum (Heiser 1979; Laiou 1985; Sheehan 1991). In response 3 (see Appendix A below), we find a detailed description of the ceremonies and practice in the area of Rome at the time, at least how the pope whished them to be. We learn from the letter that the Romans exchanged rings rather than being crowned at the vows. The ceremony took place in the church and at the moment of the benediction by the priest, the couple was veiled as a sign of community with the church. After leaving the church, they carried crowns on their way home, but those crowns were stored in the church, and therefore they were only borrowed by the couple for that special day. The ritual of crowning the bride and bridegroom was a continued feature in the Byzantine marriage ceremony (Vikan 1990). The liturgical formulae used in the Roman church became predominant in all of Western Europe later on (Ritzer 1981, p. 329).

This text already mentions most of the relevant and constituent ceremonies for a legal Christian marriage and puts emphasis on the will of the bridal couple, therefore promoting consensus between the bride and groom as the most decisive part of the ceremony. The Judeo–Christian model for dextrarum iunctio was the marriage of Tobias and Sarah (Tob. 7:15, Vulgate Bible): “et adprehendens dexteram filiae suae dexterae Tobiae tradidit dicens Deus Abraham et Deus Isaac et Deus Iacob sit vobiscum et ipse coniungat vos impleatque benedictionem suam in vobis”. “And taking his daughter’s right hand, he gave it into the right hand of Tobias, saying: ‘May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you, and may He Himself join you together and fulfill His blessing in you.’” (Sonne de Torrens 2021, p. 149). This focus on the exchange of consent by vows is represented repeatedly in the depictions of the marriage ceremony in manuscript illuminations from the legal and religious context.

Detailed descriptions of the Christian wedding ceremony in the medieval West, varying from region to region in detail but always considering the exchange of consent as the decisive act for the church, can be found in the works of Korbinius Ritzer, Otto Opet, and Jean B. Molin and Protais Mutembe (Molin and Mutembe 1974; Opet 1910; Ritzer 1981). The benedictio in thalamo was common in early medieval France and Spain (Ritzer 1981, pp. 329–30), putting the emphasis on the legal and property-related consequences of a consummated marriage. From the 11th century onwards, the so-called Norman wedding ritual in front of the church had spread over many parts of Europe in the high Middle Ages and replaced the benediction of the couple in the wedding bed (Grass 1983). After the exchange of the consent in front of the church door, a mess was celebrated inside, and the benediction of the couple in front of family and other witnesses took place. This development might be one of the reasons why the majority of depictions of the benediction at the wedding are showing the dextrarum iunctio and not the benediction in thalamo, as the earliest pictures of Christian benediction stem from exactly that period of the high Middle Ages. No earlier visual representations of the benedictions have survived; only textual witnesses describe these original forms (Ritzer 1981, pp. 52–7, 206–13). Instead, the marriage of Cana is the predominant motif of Christian marriage in the early Middle Ages, signifying the acceptance and appreciation of Christ for the concept of marriage. Not surprisingly, the only depictions of the benedictio in thalamo we have today are from the late 15th century and represent heroic couples of the early Middle Ages in the literature (see also Figure 6 below).

The literature from the medieval period not only echoes similar rituals but also adds new details. While religious art focused on the Virgin Mary and the sanctity of her marriage to Joseph, secular literature often depicted marriages intertwined with themes of heroism, loyalty, and familial alliances. The contractual elements in marriages were visually represented in manuscripts through negotiation scenes and gift exchange, reflecting the social and economic dimensions of these unions. Symbolism and allegory were omnipresent (Reynolds 2019). Allegorical representations often extended the concept of marriage to symbolize divine union, epitomizing the amalgamation of human love with divine love. Social and cultural contexts were visibly encoded in these depictions. Regional variations presented in the artwork hint at localized customs and attire, indicative of a diverse cultural tapestry. The legal facets of marriage were tightly interwoven with the religious aspects. The rising influence of the church on marriage concerned also property rights, inheritance, and spousal responsibilities, adding another layer of complexity to the institution. The presence of a priest at these ceremonies not only sanctified the union but also legally authenticated and consecrated it. Nevertheless, only the consummation of a marriage was able to bring the property-related effects of marriage into effect in the later Middle Ages. This is also visible through pictures of the public bedding ceremony and the benediction of the couple in the wedding bed.

In the following chapter, I will supplement the legal procedure of marriage with examples of the pictorial sources from the manuscript material, indicating the possible reasons why several parts of this ceremony can be found more often in illuminations compared to others. This method of blending legal, religious, and cultural aspects of weddings with visual sources addresses several central questions on the visual material under consideration: In which contexts were pictures of wedding ceremonies created in illuminated manuscripts and early prints? What is depicted and what is not? How do the visualizations of the wedding ritual in the later Middle Ages correspond with the religious, legal, and cultural settings of that period? Do they change and develop accordingly?

5. The Mediatization of Medieval Weddings through Visual Representations

Starting from the legal, religious, and cultural background of the marriage ceremony, I would like to provide some examples of the ritual development outlined above, addressing the various aspects and stages of marriage and relating them to the associated visual representations. This can only be done by example and will not be exhaustive, due to the temporal and geographical dimensions of the topic. The first example stresses the importance of marriage for the transmission of wealth and the continuity of the family and the clan of the bride and bridegroom. Therefore, it represents the early medieval type of legal marriage, emphasizing the transmission of goods.

In a twelfth-century cartulary, the Liber Feudorum Maior (Figure 1), a scene of the Marriage of Ermangardis and Gausfred is rendered next to a marital agreement that outlines the contractual terms of the bride’s dowry. Sonne de Torrens describes the context and iconography as follows: “Beside the Ermengardis of Carcassonne and her spouse, Gausfred III de Rosellón, signed a marriage contract, dated to 11 May 1110, in which her father transferred her dowry to her bridegroom. The cartulary includes a representation of the bridal couple, Ermengardis and Gausfred, and the family members. Between the bridal couple stands the father of the bride, Bernat Ató de Bézier, in the traditional patriarchal role, authorizing the marriage. Prior to the full involvement of the church in marital unions the patriarchs of the two families were the ones who usually arranged the conditions and terms of the marriage contract. The father, not a priest, is shown officiating this marital agreement; but, his arms are crossed as he takes the couple’s right hands in a dextrarum iunctio. The mother of the bride, Cecilia, is seated to the left in the composition. Her right arm is raised and points toward the couple. Her right arm is supported by her left hand on her right elbow, again, an unusual gesture. The crossing of the arms was used by artisans in different compositions to reflect discord, negativity, changeability, and contradictions as well as malice and deception. For example, the arms of Adam and Eve are crossed in the Fall of Man rendered on the bronze doors of Hildesheim, c. 1015. The terms of the dowry in the marriage contract shed some light as to why the father crosses his arms. The contract stipulates the terms under which the groom can keep the dowry. Should his new bride die, in order to retain the property, he must marry one of her sisters. Other terms concerning children and property are carefully laid out in the contract as well as what happens when Bernat Ató de Bézier dies. The gesture of the father reflects the changing conditions of the dowry being given to the new groom: ‘And if the above Ermengardis daughter is dead, we give you the said Geoffrey, son of Guirardo, all of the above-mentioned by the said conveniencias with another one of our daughters whom you shall have as wife.’” (Sonne de Torrens 2021, pp. 159–61).

Our second example (Figure 2) is from Justinian’s Digest and shows the practice of gift exchange for legal marriage. Here, a nuptial belt is depicted in an early-fourteenth-century miniature illustrating the title, De Donationibus Inter Virum et Uxorem, in Justinian’s Digest (24. 1). Pledge and the counterpledge to marry (sponsalia) are sealed by the fiancé, who gives his fiancée a belt with a purse and in exchange receives a ring.

The dextrarum iunctio features most of the medieval visual representation of the wedding ceremony and is the most common type of wedding iconography in medieval manuscript illumination. The wedding ritual, and in particular the joining of the hands, took place according to the widespread Norman ritual, in front of the church or specifically at a church door. Some examples from literary manuscripts also show bride and bridegroom inside the church, kneeling or standing in front of the priest and receiving the blessing. In the following example (Figure 3) of a historiated letter from an exemplar of a Spanish law code called Vidal Mayor in the Getty collection from the end of the 13th century, we see a fine example of the joining of the right hands (dextrarum iunctio) by a priest in front of a church door.

Common iconographical elements associated with marriage are the dextrarum iunctio, the clasped hands, rings, crowns, veils, and the handfasting ritual (for an example of handfasting, see the Marriage of Raymon and Melusine, manuscript from the 15th century. Bibliothèque Nationale de France MS Français 12,575 fol. 26v.) After the exchange of consensus, couples received a blessing by the priest, often after a mess inside the church. The parents and public witnesses played a crucial role in legal marriage, especially in the later Middle Ages. In a volume on the life and works of Saint Hedwig, we see a picture of Hedwig’s marriage, at age twelve, to Duke Henry of Silesia (Figure 4). With the blessing of the priest at the center, Hedwig joins hands with Henry. As was common in thirteenth-century Europe, Hedwig’s father, standing behind her, played a major role in arranging the politically advantageous union. The numerous witnesses attest to the marriage’s strategic importance.

According to Baschet (1997), some elements of the matrimonial ritual are rarely found in imagery. This is the case with the different variants of velatio nuptialis (Molin and Mutembe 1974, pp. 228–29; Melnikas 1975, pp. 997–1000) and nuptial coronation, which in Byzantine marriage constitute the climax of the ritual (Vikan 1990). Other important elements of the rite, such as the deductio ad domum, where the woman is led to the home of her husband, seem to almost never be represented, while the final phase of the marriage could be recalled by depictions of feasts and banquets that characterized nuptial celebrations. The same is true for the copula carnalis. Only symbolic gestures related to that final but decisive element of the ritual have been reported in the context of marriage by procuration among the higher nobility. From a 14th century manuscript of the Decretum Gratiani, we have a depiction of the marriage ritual under the pallium (Figure 5, for other examples, see Melnikas 1975, pp. 1013–15).

As Christianity spread throughout Europe, it absorbed and adapted local customs and traditions into wedding practices. Pagan elements were sometimes incorporated into Christian weddings, resulting in a blend of religious and cultural influences. The consummation of the marriage and the ritual of “Beilager” in regions of Germanic law are good examples for these conflicting traditions. The benedictio in thalamo can therefore be understood as the incorporation of the pagan tradition of “Beilager” into the Christian ritual (Molin and Mutembe 1974, pp. 255–70; cf. Wettlaufer 1998).

Figure 6. “Wie Raymond und Melusina zusammen wurden gelegt und sy der Bischoff gesegnet in dem pette et cetera” (How Raymond and Melusina were put to bed together and received the blessing from the bishop). Melusine, Thüring. von Ringoltingen, 1468, GNM Hs4028, 41/17r, https://dlib.gnm.de/item/Hs4028/41 (accessed on 9 August 2024).

Figure 6. “Wie Raymond und Melusina zusammen wurden gelegt und sy der Bischoff gesegnet in dem pette et cetera” (How Raymond and Melusina were put to bed together and received the blessing from the bishop). Melusine, Thüring. von Ringoltingen, 1468, GNM Hs4028, 41/17r, https://dlib.gnm.de/item/Hs4028/41 (accessed on 9 August 2024).

6. Conclusions

Legal marriage becomes Christian marriage (sacrament) with exchange of consent and benediction by a priest in a long-term process, starting in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Christian authority, represented by the church, is symbolized by the act of joining together the hands of the couple, suggesting divine consent to the marriage project. Visible normative cultural elements present in medieval weddings are the consent of the couple as a foundation of marriage (marriage becomes a sacrament) and witnesses, the public sphere and a ceremony in front of or in the church (common, but not mandatory).

The visual representations of weddings in the Middle Ages often depicted a combination of important legal, religious, and cultural aspects that reflected the values, beliefs, and social norms of the time. The legal aspects are at the core of written or pictorial descriptions of weddings. The exchange of consent between the bride and groom was a central legal and religious aspect of medieval weddings. Artwork very often depicted this moment, highlighting the verbal agreement and commitment made by the couple when referring to the topic. Other elements. such as the exchange of rings or the veiling of the bride and bridegroom in France also had legal aspects. Illustrations sometimes included witnesses, such as family members or community members, who were present to validate the marriage and provide legal testimony about the consent. Not visible on these pictures are (in general) emotions (kissing, affection) or any sexual activity.

On the other hand, secular texts, and in particular the literature, often depicted marriages intertwined with themes of emotions, heroism, loyalty, and familial alliances. The contractual elements in marriages were visually represented in manuscripts through negotiation scenes and gift exchange, reflecting the social and economic dimensions of these unions. Symbolism and allegory were omnipresent. Allegorical representations often extended the concept of marriage to symbolize divine union, epitomizing the amalgamation of human love with divine love. Social and cultural contexts were visibly encoded in these depictions. Regional variations presented in the artwork hint at localized customs and attire, indicative of a diverse European and regional cultural tapestry.

The rising influence of the church on marriage concerned also property rights, inheritance, and spousal responsibilities, adding another layer of complexity to the institution. The presence of a priest at these ceremonies not only sanctified the union but also legally authenticated and consecrated it. Nevertheless, only consummation of a marriage was able to bring the property-related effects of marriage into effect in the later Middle Ages. This is visible through pictures of the public bedding ceremony and the benediction of the couple in the wedding bed, a custom well documented from the 6th century onwards in liturgical texts.

Visual representations of the wedding ritual mirrored the norms and values of their time while also serving as mechanisms for social instruction and continuity. The primary function of visual representations of marriage in illuminated manuscripts was the visualization and illustration of the canon law and medieval literature. Therefore, the images have a strong connection to the surrounding text. Nevertheless, these visualizations introduce an individual and sometimes regional layer of information through the depiction of local customs in an exemplary context. Therefore, besides the textual transmission, they are crucial interpretive keys for understanding the legal and socio-cultural dimensions that shaped the institution of marriage in medieval Europe. Through the detailed study of manuscript illuminations, we can uncover layers of meaning and interconnectedness that may otherwise be lost in written documents alone. They remind us that the institution of marriage has always been a complex interplay of various societal factors, many of which continue to influence us today.