[Sca-cooks] period traditions

[Huette von Ahrens]

Your grace,

I think we are talking apples and oranges here.  I was
talking about the physical act and you are talking
about the written law.

--- david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
> 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.

I have found this in the archives:

From: sclark at chass.utoronto.ca (Susan Carroll-Clark)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Chastity belt an urban myth
Date: 16 Jul 1996 14:24:13 -0400

Greetings!

In a followup I seemed to have missed, someone said,
>Could you share your debunking with us? "Droit du
seigneur" is cross-
>referenced in Brewer's under "Jus primae noctis"; the
entry says, in
>part: "The custom seems to have existed in early
medieval Europe to a
>limited extent but was more often the excuse for
levying dues in lieu."
>Are you saying it didn't exist at all?

No. Few scholars of the topic will debate its
existence in limited locales, usually in France, and
as you say, usually for the excuse
for levying a fine. Even that may be misunderstood. A
recent query to the Medtextl listserv brought the
following cite from Peter
Binkley, which might help shed some light on the
matter:

"See Alain Boureau, _Le droit de cuissage: La
fabrication d'un mythe, XIIIe-XXe siecle_ (Paris:
Albin Michel, 1995). It received a
bravura review in the TLS , Oct. 6 1995, p.44, by
Peter Linehan, who wrote: "[Boureau] is exigent in his
taxonomy. Not any lordly
lust will satisfy him. He will only consider cases of
legal entitlement to a payment in lieu of ravishing a
female feudal dependant on
her wedding night. By that reckoning, all but five of
the dossier's seventy-two "proofs" for the existence
of the practice turn out
either to be legendary or to involve a confusion with
something entirely different, namely _merchet_, the
payment made for
"formarriage", when (in F.W. Maitland's words) "the
girl married outside the vill", an event about as
lubricious as a parish fete on a
wet Saturday. And such is the virtuoso quality of the
author's dismissal of the claims of the remainder that
the reader is left
regretting that there were not more of them deserving
of his scalpel and his lancet." Although the myth is
found as early as 1247, it
flourished in the 16th century and especially around
the time of the French Revolution."

The always reliable (in medievalist circles) Jim
Marchand added, " According to the Book of Leinster,
King Conchobar had the
_jus primae noctis_ in his realm.". That must be one
of the early medieva references cited by Brewer. It
has also been noted that
the motif appears in the epic of Gilgamesh.

In the particular case of "Braveheart", however, it
seems quite easy to prove that Edward I never
proclaimed it as law as a way to
subjugate the Scots. Suffice it to say that it is not
covered in Bracton, the most contemporary legal
treatise in England, there is no
mention of such a proclaimation by ANY historian of
the period, there is no evidence, even allusory in any
collection of legal
documents dating from the reign of Edward I, and in
fact, no one has yet provided even _one clear--or even
unclear citation which
could refer to the custom_ for England or Scotland in
the period under discussion. And yes, I've
looked--13th century English
history is my primary field of study.

So, to wind this up....yes, the custom perhaps existed
in a limited fashion in some areas of Europe, but
certainly not to the extent
believed in modern popular culture, and (so far)
definitely not in England or Scotland during the time
of Edward I. It is an
exception, not a rule, in medieval law.

Susan "But Patrick McGoohan made a _great_ EdwardI"
Carroll-Clark
PhD student, Medieval History, University of Toronto
sclark at chass.utoronto.ca


>
> >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.

Perhaps not in Christian Europe at the end of SCA
period, but not all of Europe was Christian at the
beginning of SCA period and under Christian canon law.
As Susan Carroll-Clark stated there is evidence of
this practice in pre-Christian Ireland.  I have a
feeling that the origins of this concept had a basis
in fact, but, like King Arthur or Robin Hood, became
romanticized and fictionalized as time passed and, as
you say, because it makes for a good story.

Huette

=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they
shall never cease to be amused.

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