Woman, Church & State. Gage Matilda Joslyn
from all women, not alone the daughters of villeins and serfs, but also of those of noble birth who were freed by payment of a ransom in silver known as the “Maiden Rents.” Lands were even held under Maiden Redemption.267 In Scotland this ransom became known as “Marquette”; Margaret wife of Malcolm Canmore, generally spoken of for her goodness as Saint Margaret,268 exercising her royal influence in 1057 against this degradation of her sex. Numberless seditions having arisen from this claim upon the bride, the king more willingly established a release upon the payment of a piece of silver, a demi-marc, called marquette (whence the name), and a certain number of cows. The piece of silver went to the king, the cows to the queen, and from that period cuissage was known as the droit de marquette. But this nefarious custom possessed such strength, appealing directly to man’s basest passions, his love of power, his profligacy – the human beast within him – that it continued in existence nearly seven hundred years after the royal edict in Scotland against its practice.269 This vile power extended over all ranks of women; the king holding it over the daughters of the grand seigneur, the suzerain over the daughters of his vassals; the seigneur over the daughters of his serfs, even the judge or bailie enforcing this right upon all women who passed upon his road.270
The Church has ever been the bulwark of this base claim. Holding the powers of penance and of excommunication, such custom could neither have originated nor been sustained without the sanction of the church.271 At this date the privileges of the lower clergy were extraordinary. Even in England they were not amenable to the common law; they ruled the laity with iron hand, but the laity possessed no power over the priesthood.272 All appointments were in priestly hands, the union of church and state complete.
God himself seemed to have forsaken woman, and the peasantry lost all belief in the justice of earth or heaven. The customs of feudalism which were akin to the customs of power wherever existing throughout christendom did more to create what the church terms “infidelity” than all the reason of the philosophers. No human being is so degraded as not to possess an innate sense of justice; a wrong is as keenly felt by the most humble and ignorant as by the educated and refined, its effect more lasting because of the impossibility of redress. The power of the seigneur was nearly equal to that of the king himself. Manorial courts entirely local aided the seigneur in the enforcement of his traditional privileges273 at the expense of the villeins. The crown possessed no jurisdiction over these courts. The lord held the right to make laws, render justice, lay imposts, declare war, coin money, dispose of the goods and lives of his subjects, and other prerogatives still more closely touching their personal rights, especially of the women living in his dominion.274
To persons not conversant with the history of feudalism and the church it will seem impossible that such foulness could ever have been part of christian civilization. That the vices they have been taught to consider the outgrowth of paganism, and as the worst heathendom could have existed in Christian Europe upheld many hundred years by both church and state will strike most people with incredulity. Such however is the truth; we are compelled to admit well attested facts of history, however severe a blow they strike our preconceived beliefs.
The seigneural tenure of the feudal period was a law of Christian Europe more dishonorable than the worship of Astarte at Babylon.275 In order to fully comprehend the vileness of marquette, we must remember that it did not originate in a pagan country, many thousand years since; that it was not a heathen custom transplanted to Europe with many others adopted by the church,276 but that it arose in christian countries a thousand years after the origin of that religion, continuing in existence until within the last century.
The attempt made by some modern authors to deny that the claim of the feudal lord to the person of his female serf upon her marriage ever existed, on the ground that statutes sustaining such a right have not been discovered, is extremely weak.277 The authority of a custom or “unwritten law” is still almost absolute. A second objection that such customs are unchristian has been answered. The third plea in opposition, namely that those so outraged, so oppressed, left no record of resistance is false. Aside from the fact that education was everywhere limited, no peasant and but few of the nobility knowing how to read or write, and within the church learning very rare, we have indisputable evidence of strong character in the revolt of serfs at different periods, through which concessions were gained; the final refusal of the serfs to marry, and in the travesty upon religion known as the “Black Mass.”
We can not measure the serf’s power of resistance by the same standard as our own. The degradation of man with but a few exceptions was as great as that of woman. Civilly and educationally the peasant man was on a par with the peasant woman. No more than she had he a voice in making the laws; the serf was virtually a slave under the absolute dominion of his lord. No power existed for him higher than that of his feudal superior. It is nearly impossible to realize the hopeless degraded condition of the peasant serf of the middle ages. It has had no parallel in the present century, except in the slavery of the southern states. Free action, free speech, free thought was impossible. But our respect for humanity is increased when we know that these vassals, although under the life and death power of their lords, did not tamely submit to the indignities enforced upon their wives and daughters.
It must also be remembered that the historians of that period were generally priests by whom the fact of such usage or custom would pass unmentioned, especially as the church taught that woman was created to meet the special demands of man. Other important historical facts have been as lightly touched upon, or passed over entirely. The deification of Julius Caesar while Emperor of Rome, is scarcely referred to in the more familiar literary sources of Roman history. And yet his worship was almost universal in the provinces, where he was adored as a god. The records of this worship are only to be found in scattered monuments and inscriptions but recently brought to light, and deciphered within the last few years. Through these it is proven that there was an organized worship of this emperor, and an order of consecrated priests devoted to him.278 Higgins refers to this deification of Caesar.279 It is not alone proof of the low condition of morality at this period, but also of the universal disbelief in woman’s authority over, or right to herself, that so few writers upon feudal subjects have treated of the libidinous powers of the lord over his female serfs. Even those presenting the evils of feudalism in other respects, have merely expressed a mild surprise that christian people should have admitted that right of the lord over his feminine vassals. The various names under which this right was known as jus primae noctis,280 droit de seigneur,281 droit de jambage,282 droit de cuissage,283 droit d’ afforage,284 droit de marquette,285 and many other terms too indelicate for repetition, indicating this right of the lord over all the women in his domain, is still another incontestable proof of the universality of the custom.
The Mosaic teaching as to sacredness of “first fruits,” under Judaism, dedicated to the Lord of Heaven, doubtless was in part the origin of the claim of the feudal lord. The law of primogeniture, or precedence of the first born son as the beginning of “his father’s strength” is also a translation from Judaism into the customs of many nations, but nowhere under the law of primogeniture at the present day does even a first born daughter receive as high consideration as a first born son. This is especially noticeable in royal families. It is not therefore singular that men who took the literal sense of the bible in science, who believed that the world had been created in six days, this work having so greatly fatigued the Lord Almighty as to make rest of the seventh day
The maids redeeme their virginities with a certain piece of money, and by that Terme their lands are held to this day. Heywoode. —
Margaret was canonized in 1251, and made the Patron Saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite royal protestation, kept up in the famous practice until a late date. One of the earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, popularly known and dreaded as “Earl Brant,” in the sixteenth century, was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right, the literal translation of
The feeling is common in the north that a laird, or chieftain, getting a vassal’s or clansmen’s wife or daughter with child, is doing her a great honor. Burke. —
In days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound man’s heart. The Lord Spiritual had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband. The courts of Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally. Michelet. —
Among the rights asserted by the Protestant clergy in the middle ages, and which caused much dispute, was exemption from lay jurisdiction even in cases of felony.
From the throne downward every secular office was dependent upon the church. Froude. —
Among these de coucher avec leur femmes, d’enlever les premices de leurs filles.
In Babylon every young woman was obliged once in her life to offer her person for sale, nor was she permitted to leave the temple, where she sat with a cord about her waist, until some stranger taking it in hand led her away. The money thus obtained passed into the treasury of the temple as her “purchase money, or redemption, releasing her from farther prostitution, and permitting her marriage, which was forbidden until such sale had been consummated.”
Although a similar custom is said to have prevailed in India under Brahaminical rule, it must be remembered that wherever found it is an accompaniment of the Patriarchate, and under some form of religion where the feminine is no longer considered a portion of the divinity, or woman allowed in the priesthood.
It has been too readily believed that the wrong was formal, not real. But the price laid down in certain countries exceeded the means of almost every peasant. In Scotland, for instance, the demand was for several cows, a price immense, impossible.
In the history of Julius Caesar there is something peculiarly curious and mythical. Caesar had all the honors paid to him as to a divine person. At the end of five years a festival was instituted to his honor, as to a person of divine extraction. A college of priests was established to perform the rites instituted for the occasion. A day was dedicated to him, and he had the title also of Julian Jove, and a temple was erected to him. —
Law of the first night.
The lord’s right.
Leg right – the right to place a naked leg in bed with the bride.
Droit de cuissage, c’ele droit de mettre une cuisse dans le lit d’une autre, ou de coucher avec le femme d’un vassal, ou d’un serf.
Droit d’afforge, the right to prey upon the bride.
Droit de marquette, took its name in Scotland from the redemption piece of money, a demi-mark, marquette, or little mark, a weight of gold or silver used in Great Britain and many other European countries.