Summary and Conclusions
The years between 1234 and 1348 were a period of substantial change in both law and society, change that affected the law of sex and marriage, as well as other aspects of human relationships.
Both canon law and secular law grew in volume, but the balance between the two shifted markedly. Between 1140 and 1234 the development of canon law had been spectacular. It had grown from a rudimentary and confused jumble of conflicting and often obscure regulations into an all-embracing and intellectually sophisticated legal system. During that same period, however, royal and customary law developed at much lower levels of intellectual refinement. In the years between 1234 and 1348, canon law conÂtinued to grow in volume, but showed fewer novel insights, less innovation in fundamental ideas than in the preceding period. So far as the regulation of sexÂual behavior was concerned, perhaps there was little need for further innovaÂtion at this point. By the mid-thirteenth century Western churchmen had arÂrived at a fairly clear consensus about the goals of the Church’s sexual policy, and canon law had devised workable solutions to many of the commonest difficulties.During that same period municipal and royal law made notable strides toÂward comprehensiveness and maturity. In the process, royal and municipal lawÂmakers had begun to interest themselves in kinds of problems, including probÂlems of sexual behavior, that previously had been the exclusive domain of the canonists. Since the goals of municipal lawmakers were not always identical with those of the Church’s leaders, civic law on sexual matters sometimes deÂparted fairly radically from canonical prescriptions.
This was particularly striking in the regulation of prostitution. Control of the activities and behavior of prostitutes, pimps, and panders increasingly became a concern of municipal authorities, while canonists had little new to say about this problem and concentrated instead on rehabilitating repentant whores.
Rape is another sex offense in which municipal and royal authorities took greater interest during this period. Also striking and significant is the increased involvement of secular authorities in the repression of homosexual behavior, which commenced to be defined as a major capital crime and attracted a far greater degree of attention than ever before from municipal law-makers.Europe’s long-term rise in population ended in 1348 with a catastrophe of gigantic dimensions: the Black Death. The dislocations that resulted from that disaster radically altered established social and economic relationships and in the process subjected European legal systems to enormous stresses. The legal mechanisms for the control of marriage and sexual relationships were sorely tested by these events but emerged from them remarkably intact. In the proÂcess, however, some significant readjustments took place. The following chapter will examine both what survived and what perished in the process.
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