Hypothèses sur la nuptialité en Angleterre aux Xllle-XIVe siècles - article ; n°1 ; vol.38, pg 107-136

Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations - Année 1983 - Volume 38 - Numéro 1 - Pages 107-136
Hypothesis on Nuptiality in England, Xlllth-XIVth Century
Recent work by historical demographers has shown that marriage behaviour in England from the middle of the sixteenth century was remarkably flexible and appears to have been the major factor determining population growth rates until the late nineteenth cen­tury. This paper assesses the evidence bearing upon the likelihood of marriage being equally flexible over time in the medieval period. It questions the evidence used by Hajnal to suggest that a non-European pattern of marriage was present in England in the fourteenth century by reworking the data in the poll taxes of 1377 and 1381. In addition, evidence from Lincolnshire serf genealogies of the late thirteenth century is assessed suggesting that the incidence of marriage and levels of geographical marital exogamy among the females are compatible with a European pattern of marriage. Evidence on widow remarriage from a Cambridgeshire manor in the fourteenth century shows that females were sought in the marriage market in ways which took great account of prevailing economic conditions. Widows with land were attractive marriage partners when incomes were falling and land was highly valued, conversely widows were less highly sought out when population levels fell and land values declined in the post-plague decades of that century. In all this evidence there is little to suggest a marriage regime that differed fundamentally from that documented for the early modern period in England.
30 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.