[Sca-cooks] evidence for "droit de seigneur"

[Mark.S Harris]

Alban replied to me with:
> >Some of these traditions such as "droit de seigneur" where the lord
> >got first dibs with the serf's bride on the wedding night are sometimes
> >difficult for modern folks to understand or at least they wonder why
> >it was allowed.
>
> Errrr, it wasn't. Modern historical thinking suggests that droit de seigneur
> didn't exist; it was a myth imposed on those times by later historians with
> a bad attitude.

Yes, the file does mention this. However, while it was not as wide
spread as some people would seem to say it was, it apparently did
exist. Generally it just became yet another fee to pay to the lord
as the serfs earned the right to pay money instead. Please read the
file mentioned for more details.

Here are a pair of quotes from the file:
> Mistress Dorothea apparently wrote, in an article that I never saw here:
> >But "droit de seigneur" in the classic sense of "the lord has the right
> >to go with the peasants' wives" ... never happened.  It's a Renaissance
> >tall tale, ...
>
> This happens not to be the case.  In summary, _jus_primae_noctis_ is
> documented in customals in Normandy, Switzerland, Trentino, Catalonia,
> Burgundy, and Auvergne (most quoted below).  The custom was "sporatic",
> however, and its incidence is greatly exaggerated.  Also, it was not as
> severe as is commonly thought: "the serf has always, at least from about
> 1170 onwards, the power of redemption".

> "Art. 38.  Item, in the village of Aas, there are 9 houses with their
> appurtenances belonging to the said lordship [of Louvie] and affieffed
> to the same.  These houses, their inhabitants and their owners are and
> were serfs, of such servitude that they cannot and may not quit the said
> houses, but are bound and constrained to live and dwell there to do
> their service and pay their dues. ... The inhabitants of these houses
> are called and named, in an ancient term of the vulgar tongue, "the
> Bragaris of Louvie."  Art. 39.  Item, when the inhabitants of these
> houses marry, before they know their wives they are bound to present
> them the first night to the lord of Louvie, to do with them according to
> his pleasure, or else to pay him a certain tribute.  Art. 40.  Item,
> they are bound to pay him a certain sum of money for each child that is
> born to them; and, if the firstborn be a male, he is free provided that
> it can be proved that he was begotten in the work of the said lord of
> Louvie in the said first night of his pleasures aforesaid."

Stefan li Rous