OrderingFamilies,Neighborhoods,andCities 143
wanted to marry her off. She threw herself into the river Guisciana, ‘‘out of
laudable zeal, but without reflection’’ (ex bono zelo, licet non secundum scientiam).
Water plants miraculously formed themselves into a mat so that she passed
over to the other side and escaped without getting wet. Or so the story went.^7
Early-thirteenth-century Milanese laws, among the earliest communal legis-
lation on marriage extant, protected the father’s decision in matches.^8
It would have been unthinkable that a ‘‘decent’’ woman, that is, a suitable
future wife, not be under her father’s control. Dutiful sons also respected
their fathers. Parental power extended to sons, as well as daughters, at least
until they were sixteen. Parma fined any male reckless enough to marry a
woman without his own father’s consent £ 300 parm. Admittedly, the city
could not control those who lacked fathers and brothers, but they did forbid
independent women from contracting marriage until they were twelve years
of age, a rather tender age to be independent.^9 One way around uncoopera-
tive fathers was abduction (raptus). The Church defined abduction as ‘‘carry-
ing a woman off by force for the sake of marriage.’’ Canon law stipulated
that abduction impeded marriage vows and rendered the union void. It also
specified that the ‘‘force’’ need not be physical and that it might be against
the woman, her father, or both. Abduction with force used only against the
father was nothing but elopement, and cities made this subversion of pater-
nal authority a civil crime. They divided abduction fines between the city
and the offended father; Bologna punished abduction of males—suggesting
that some women who eloped got help from their own male relatives if their
beloved’s father was not cooperative.^10
Assuming that civil and ecclesiastical proprieties were observed, the proc-
ess of marrying off a daughter began when her father settled on her the sum
that would become her dowry. By Roman, canon, and Italian statute law,
this money became and remained the property of the daughter, not her
husband.^11 In a few rural and smaller communes, some marriages were still
conducted without dowries, following the Lombard law. By that law, a wife
got her personal property as a gift from her husband on the morning after
the wedding (morgengab).^12 But the communes were slowly ending this prac-
7 .Legenda Beatae Christianae Virginis de Castro S. Crucis Vallis Arni Lucanae Dioecesis,ed. Giovanni Lami,
5 ,Vita della b. Oringa Cristiana fondatrice del venerabile convento di S. Maria Navello e di S. Michele Arcangelo
dell’Ordine Agostiniano nella terra di Santa Croce in Toscana(Florence: Albiziniani, 1769 ), 193 – 94.
8. Milan,Liber Consuetudinum Mediolani Annimccxvi,ed. Labertenghi, 18 , cols. 897 – 900.
9. Parma Stat.i( 1229 , 1255 ), p. 289.
10. For communal abduction laws, see Treviso Stat. ( 1233 ), 436 , 2 : 165 (divides fine of £ 1 , 000 between
city and father); Pisa Stat.i( 1286 ), 3. 3 , pp. 361 – 63 ; Pisa Stat.ii( 1313 ), 3. 2 , pp. 281 – 85 ; Bologna Stat.ii
( 1288 ), 4. 30 – 31 , 1 : 194 (punishes abduction of males); Lucca Stat. ( 1308 ), 1. 4 , pp. 8 – 9 (punishes churches
where such unions occur), and 3. 4 – 7 , pp. 136 – 39 (a rare reference to the possibility that the women might
be unwilling); Florence Stat.ii( 1325 ), 3. 69 ,p. 229.
11. Although male relatives did try to challenge women’s dowry rights in court: see Duane Osheim,
‘‘Countrymen and the Law in Late Medieval Tuscany,’’Speculum 64 ( 1989 ): 329.
12. Treviso Stat. ( 1233 ), 654 , 2 : 257 ; San Gimignano Stat. ( 1255 ), 2. 19 ,p. 692 ; Brescia Stat. ( 1313 ),
151 – 52 , col. 175. On the Lombard law of marriage, see Airaldi, ‘‘Matrimonio,’’ 222 – 24.