A History of Matrimonial Institutions (Vol. 1-3). George Elliott Howard
had been pronounced nemine dissentiente." A "rule of law thus judicially expressed must be taken as for law till altered by an act of Parliament." The "law laid down as your ratio decidendi, being clearly binding on all inferior tribunals, and all the rest of the Queen's subjects, if it were not considered as equally binding upon your Lordships, this house would be arrogating to itself the right of altering the law, and legislating by its own separate authority." It "may seem startling," comments Pollock, "that questions of legitimacy and property should be treated as irrevocably settled by the result of an equal division of the House of Lords, on argument and information admittedly imperfect with regard to the history of the law; that result, moreover depending on the accident of the form in which the appeal was presented: but so they were." Thus in Beamish v. Beamish an opinion of seventeen years earlier was accepted as binding, "which in 1861 was believed by a majority of the House of Lords and the judges who advised them, and is now believed by most competent scholars, to be without any real historical foundation."[1028]
CHAPTER VIII
RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW
[Bibliographical Note VIII.—For the evolution of the canonical theory of marriage the Richter-Friedberg Corpus juris canonici (Leipzig, 1881 ff.), Peter Lombard's Sententiae (Incunabula, Textus sententiarum, 1488, Sutro Library), and the Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, 1885-87) are of the first importance. The collections of Haddan and Stubbs, Thorpe, Schmid, Hale, and Johnson, mentioned in Bibliographical Note VII, are available for this chapter; as are also the collections of Richter-Schulte, Theiner, and Waterworth, the works of Sarpi and Pallavicino, the monographs of Salis, Fleiner, Riedler, and Leinz, the papers of Meurer and Schulte, with the other authorities already cited for the Council of Trent. Well-known treatises on the canon law are Lyndwood, Provinciale (ed. of 1505 and Oxford, 1679); Sanchez, Disputationum de sto matrimonii sacramento (Venice, 1625); and Godolphin, Repartorium canonicum (3d ed., London, 1687). With these may be used Smith, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law (New York, 1882); Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law (London, 1873-76); Stephens, Laws Relating to the Clergy (London, 1848); Burn, Ecclesiastical Law (London, 1842); and the excellent summary of Geary, Marriage and Family Relations (London, 1892), chap, xvi, where the principal sources are mentioned. Dodd's History of the Canon Law (London, 1884) is too general to be of much service. A good handbook of Catholic doctrine, with full citation of authorities, is Gury's Compendium of Moral Theology; and in this connection may also be consulted Amat's convenient Treatise on Matrimony (San Francisco, 1864); the works of Cigoi, Didon, Roskovány, Perrone, and Scheicher-Binder described in Bibliographical Note XI.
The rise of the system of enforced celibacy of the clergy, with the consequent evils, is most fully treated by the brothers Theiner, Die Einführung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit (3d ed., Barmen, 1891-98), whose book, first published in 1828, has been fiercely attacked by Catholic critics; and Lea, Sacerdotal Celibacy (2d ed., Boston, 1884); supplemented by his History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church (Philadelphia, 1896). The immorality of the mediæval clergy is also described by Bouvet, De la confession et du célibat des prêtres (Paris, 1845); Gage, Woman, Church, and State (Chicago, 1893); idem, an article under the same title in History of Woman Suffrage (New York, 1881); Lecky, History of European Morals (3d ed., New York, 1881); and Huth in the third chapter of Marriage of Near Kin (2d ed., London, 1887). For a later period the subject is dealt with by Michelet, Le prêtre, la femme, et la familie (new ed., Paris, 1889); and "A. F. R.," Betrachtungen über den Klerikal- und Mönchsgeist im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (1805). In this connection see also Bucksisch, De apostolis uxoratis (new ed., Wittenberg, 1734); Essich, De clericis maritis dissertatio historica (Augusta Vindelicorum, 1747); Feyerabend, De privilegiis mulierum (Jena, 1667); Recherches philosophiques et historiques sur le célibat (Geneva, 1781); De l'institution du célibat (Paris, 1808); Klitsche, Geschichte des Cölibats ... zum Tode Gregor's VII. (Augsburg, 1830); Lind, De coelibatu christianorum per tria priora secula (Havniae, 1839); the anonymous Letters on the Constrained Celibacy of the Clergy (London, 1816); Zimmermann, Der Priester-Cölibat (Kempten, 1899), presenting the loyal Catholic point of view; and the monograph of Schulte, Der Cölibatszwang und dessen Aufhebung (Bonn, 1876). A favorable view of the conventual life is taken by Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism (Cambridge, 1896); and curious monuments of the contempt for woman produced by asceticism are the books of Valens Acidalius and his adversary Simon Geddicus, mentioned in a footnote below. For the controversy in France regarding the validity of the marriage of a priest under the temporal law see Nachet, Liberté du mariage des prêtres: Mémoire produit à la Cour de Cassation pour M. Dumonteil (Paris, 1833); and Horoy, Du mariage civil du prêtre en France (Paris, 1890).
The manifold evils arising from the canonical distinction between sponsalia de praesenti vel futuro are best described in the vigorous words of Martin Luther. In particular should be read the thirty-sixth chapter of the Tischreden (folio, Frankfort, 1571), and the Von Ehesachen: Werke, XXIII (Erlangen ed.) or Vol. V in Bücher und Schriften (Jena, 1555-80). The quaint and learned book of Swinburne, Of Spousals (London, 1686), contains a striking passage bearing on the subject; while for the mediæval English law should be consulted Glanville's Tractatus; Bracton's De Legibus (ed. Twiss, London, 1878-83); idem, Note Book (ed. Maitland, London, 1887); and Maitland's Select Pleas of the Crown. With Sohm's view as to the essential identity in form of the two kinds of sponsalia compare the various works of Biener, Bierling, Sehling, Scheurl, and Dieckhoff mentioned in Bibliographical Note VII. The text of Master Vacarius's Summa de matrimonio is edited by Maitland in Law Quarterly Review, XIII (London, 1897); and in the same volume he discusses Vacarius's theory of marriage, differing essentially from that of Gratian or Lombard. Assistance may also be had from Weber, De vera inter sponsalia de praesenti et nuptias differentia (Parchimi, 1825); Hoffmann, De aetate juvenili contrahendis sponsalibus (Regiomonti et Lipsiae, 1743); Lipold, Arbor consanguinitatis et affinitatis (n.p., n.d.); Niemeier, De conjugiis prohibitis dissertationes (Helmstadt, 1705); Born, De bannis nuptialibus (Leipzig, 1716); and the dissertations on parental consent and clandestine marriage mentioned in Bibliographical Note IX.
Remarkable testimony as to the existence of clandestine marriage in England during the first half of the sixteenth century is given by Richard Whitforde, A Werke for householders (1530; 2d ed., 1537); and in Miles Coverdale's translation of Bullinger's Christen State of Matrimonye (1st ed., 1541, in British Museum).
Indispensable guides for the study of the entire subject are still the works of Sohm, Friedberg, and Pollock and Maitland; but by far the best systematic histories of canon-law marriage are Freisen's Geschichte des canonischen Eherechts (Tübingen, 1888; Paderborn, 1893); and Esmein's masterly Le mariage en droit canonique (Paris, 1891). A similar work for the eastern church is Zhishman's Das Eherecht der orientalischen Kirche (Vienna, 1864). Illustrative decisions are communicated by Frensdorff, "Ein Urtheilsbuch des geistlichen Gerichts zu Augsburg aus dem 14. Jahrhundert," in ZKR., X (Tübingen, 1871); and Loersch, "Ein eherechtliches Urtheil von 1448," ibid., XV (Freiburg and Tübingen, 1880). There is an article on the beginnings of ecclesiastical jurisdiction by Sohm, "Die geistliche Gerichtsbarkeit im frankischen Reich," ibid., IX (Tübingen, 1870). Wunderlich has a serviceable edition of Tancred's Summa de matrimonio (Göttingen, 1841); and among the works relating to special questions are Sehling, Die Wirkungen der Geschlechtsgemeinschaft auf die Ehe (Leipzig, 1885); Heinlein, Die bedingte Eheschliessung (Vienna, 1892); Andreae, Einfluss des Irrthums auf die Gültigkeit der Ehe (Göttingen, 1893); Eichborn, Ehehinderniss der Blutsverwandtschaft (Breslau, 1872); Gerigk, Irrtum und Betrug als Ehehinderniss (Breslau, 1898); Benemann, De natura matrimonii (Halle, 1708); Baier, Die Naturehe in ihrem Verhältniss zur ... christlich-sakramentalen Ehe (Regensburg, 1886); Hahn, Die Lehre von den Sakramenten (Berlin, 1864); and the standard Catholic treatise of Oswald, Die dogmatische Lehre von den heiligen Sakramenten (5th ed., Münster, 1894).
In general, besides the works of Gide, Loening, Combier, Tissot, Burn, Thwing, Blackstone, Jeaffreson, Lingard, Makower, Madan, and Morgan, elsewhere described, the following have been drawn upon in various connections: Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen (Halle, 1851); Schmitz, Bussbücher (Mainz,