A kind of marriage: Marriage in dispute in medieval Lucca (1341--1361)

There has been much scholarly discussion of medieval marital litigation, but significant lacunae remain for medieval Italy. Historians of marriage disputes have tended to focus on medieval northern Europe or on early modern Italy. However, medieval Italy differed greatly from northern Europe in marriage patterns, marital property rules, and types of marital litigation. Extrapolating from studies of early modern Italian marriage disputes is likewise problematic, as marriage formation and litigation changed dramatically after the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century.;To address this problem, I have turned to the rich, understudied records of the epsicopal court of Lucca. Beginning with the earliest extant volume, I have examined the marriage disputes that appeared in the court bewteen 1341 and 1361. Taking a qualitative approach, I have divided these 41 cases by type and analyzed the petitions and testimonies of litigants and witnesses in order to determine what strategies litigants and their lawyers employed. Analysis of these marriage disputes shows that the vast majority of plaintiffs were men, though women could and did bring petitions to the episcopal court. This disparity bewteen male and female plaintiffs is a sign of the significant role that gender played in medieval marital litigation.;Medieval marriage was predicated on ideas of marital gender roles that emanated from Christian doctrine, Roman and canon law, and local statutory law and tradition. When it went wrong, litigants and their lawyers founded strategies on these gendered constructs in order to achieve their ends. Litigants took their cues from the types of allegations involved, the legal requirements, their lawyers, and the court itself in order to shape their strategies effectively. The flexibility that canon law accorded ecclesiastical judges in some cases allowed male and female litigants and their lawyers to employ strategies that appealed to the legal and cultural constructs of marital gender roles that they shared with judicial officials, and, in so doing, to refine and promulgate those same constructs.