Drawing on the extensive and underused body of legal records on marriage that exist in Europe’s ecclesiastical and secular archives, Marriage in Europe, 1400–1800 examines the institution not just as it was theorized by jurists and theologians, but as it was lived in reality.


A comparative history that examines England, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Low Countries, and Sweden, this volume features the extensive and meticulous research of twelve leading international experts in the field. Their essays make use of material from thirty-one European archives, as well as a range of canons and decretals, poems, letters, novels, and treatises, to offer a history of marriage, both Catholic and Protestant. Edited by Silvana Seidel Menchi, this collection is an essential resource for those interested in the history of marriage in Christian Europe.