[Sca-cooks] period traditions

[david friedman]

Huette writes

>I think that using a lack of case law as evidence it
>didn't happen is poor scholarship.  You appear to be
>making the assumption that the serfs/peasants were
>empowered enough to be able to bring a complaint
>against their local lord, who probably was also the
>local magistrate.

If the Droit really existed, it should have showed up in lots of
legal contexts other than someone complaining against it--most
obviously in cases where the lord was claiming the right and someone
else was disputing the facts on which it was based.

I've seen this question hashed out before. So far as I can tell, the
Droit is a myth--there is little or no evidence that it existed.

>As for stating that such was against canon law, while
>that is true, just because such laws are written
>doesn't prove that they weren't broken or ignored by
>local authorities.

The question isn't whether anyone ever committed adultery. It isn't
even whether any lords ever abused their power to take the virginity
of other people's brides. The question is whether they had a legal
right to do so--whether there actually was a feudal custom, called
the "droit de seigneur," giving them that right. It would be a bit
surprising to find a legal right in direct violation of canon law.

Sindara wrote:

>Actually Alban you are in error.  Droit de seigneur is mentioned in the
>Book of Esther-the story read on the Jewish Holiday of Purim.  I am not
>sure what it was called in ancient Persia, but I know that was something
>that I learned in Hebrew school when we learned the book of Esther.  We
>also learned that it happened in later periods.  It is supposedly one of
>the reasons why Jews combined the two parts of the Jewish wedding ceremony
>into one.  Before the 13th century the Erusin (what we would refer to as
>Prenuptual) and the Nesuin (actual marraige ceremony) were separate.  There
>was usually a year or so between them.  They were combined sometime during
>the 1200's partially to prevent the item of Droit de seigneur.  The tenaim
>(betrothal contract) was also not announced until just before the actual
>ceremony.

Note that the only evidence you  offer (the book of Esther) is for a
period a very long time before the European Middle Ages. You could
also have cited the Gilgamesh Epic, in which something similar is
charged against Gilgamesh--although not, I think, in the form of a
legal right.

Other that that, all you are saying is that someone once told you
that it existed in the middle ages and used that purported fact to
explain changes in Jewish marriage ceremony. But we already knew that
lots of people believed that the Droit de Seigneur existed--the
question is whether they were right.

Before you assert that Alban is in error, you need evidence. So far
as Alban's statement, which was about medieval Europe, you have
offered none so far.

Adamantius writes:

>I'm inclined to come out on this side, too. As much as many of us would
>like to dispel such stories (another being cannibalism) via revisionist
>history, it seems unlikely the precendents would exist with no
>foundation whatsoever.


I don't agree. One reason stories exist is that they happened, but
another is that they make a good story.

Cannibalism is actually an interesting case. _The Man Eating Myth_
argues that (non-famine) cannibalism is mythical. I suspect the
author overstates his case a bit. But I think he is correct in
arguing that many accounts of cannibalism come from tribe A telling
the anthropologists that neighboring tribe B is so horrible that they
eat people.

I am not sure, by the way, what you mean by "the precedents."
--
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/