religious life 389
up through the Council of Trent, the laity, however, paid little heed to
such obligations, and the Church, while continuing to recommend the
procedures of the decrees and priestly benediction, seemed to have given
up trying to enforce them. The free consent of the betrothed was the only
necessary prerequisite to a marriage conferred with regular sacramen-
tal value. According to canon law, moreover, the promise of marriage,
followed by sexual intercourse, were enough to constitute a fully valid
marriage. Marriage sites could vary widely: the church but also the loft,
the portico, the family hearth, the bedroom, the study, the doorway, an
inn, a boat, and even a prison. The minister of the rite could be a family
member—generally the father, brother, or uncle, but sometimes even the
mother, or the employer of the bride; those, in other words, who were
responsible for the young woman or protected her honor, if she had
no family.
Women were not entirely excluded from this role, but a man’s presence
was thought to be more reassuring for the bride. The conductor of the
ceremony did not even have to be Catholic: in 1526 two nobles celebrated
their wedding officiated by the doctor of the bride, a Jew, who urged them
to give their nuptial consent “according to what god and your holy law
commands.”25 it was a matter of little relevance to onlookers whether the
officiating minister was a layman (be it man or woman) or an ecclesiastic,
such that a contemporary observer did not remember whether the cele-
brant “was the priest or a young woman of theirs who was there (1517).”26
This type of nuptial celebration was entirely acceptable not only to the
lower clergy but also to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. We have full confirma-
tion of it from Venetian wedding disputes whose judge was either the patri-
arch in person or his vicar. These documents show not only that the Church
hierarchies abstained from adopting punitive measures against those who
had contracted marriage without the presence of a priest; they furthermore
did not even assume a blameworthy tone as they corroborated the validity
of such unions, even defining them in their rulings as “legitimate and con-
tracted according to the canons ‘in facie ecclesiae.’” in Venice as elsewhere,
similar nuptial celebrations were even represented visually in churches.
such is the case, for example, of the Marriage of St Monica (c.1441) by Anto-
nio Vivarini, originally part of a series of episodes represented around the
25 ASPV, CM, vol. 25: Diana Minio vs Aloysium Caravello, 1526–1527.
26 AsPV, Filciae Causarum (from here on ASPV, FC), vol. 2: Pro dona Lucieta de contrata
Sanctae Trinitatis et ser Rocho, 26 giugno 1517.