Spiritual Marriage

Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock

Dyan Elliott

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780691010885
  9780691086491
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400844340
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

The early Christian and medieval practice of spiritual marriage, in which husband and wife mutually and voluntarily relinquish sexual activity for reasons of piety, plays an important role in the development of the institution of marriage and in the understanding of female religiosity. Drawing on hagiography, chronicles, theology, canon law, and pastoral sources, Dyan Elliott traces the history of spiritual marriage in the West from apostolic times to the beginning of the sixteenth century.

INDEX

Abelard, 175n.138, 184, 188

Abelites, 48

Abraham Kidunaia, 105n.44

Achachildis (sister of Empress Cunegund), 130n.149

Achelis, Hans, 12–13, 33n.61

Adalbero (bishop of Laon), 113–114

Adalbert (bishop of Prague), 105

Adalbert (deacon of Bamberg), 129n.147, 130–131n.150

Adalbert of Danzig. See Dorothea of Montau

Adalbold (bishop of Utrecht), 119

Adamites, 48n.141

Adelaide (countess of Savoy), 100n.25

Ado, martyrology of, 54n.13

Adorno, Giuliano. See Catherine of Genoa

adultery: and dangers of spurious heirs, 183–184n.167; and dissolution of marriage, 76, 76n.99, 81, 82, 83; suspends right to conjugal debt, 148

Aelred of Rievaulx, 123, 130n.149

Æthelbald (king of Mercia), 115n.91

Æthelbert (king of Kent), 79n.107

Æthelburh (queen of Northumbria), 191n.188

Æthelred (prince of Mercia), 75n.93

Æthelthryth (queen of Northumbria), 74, 79, 80n.116, 298

affectio maritalis, 47, 139, 165

Agde, Council of (506), 87n.147, 168n.112

Agnes (martyr), 240, 241

Akeley, T. C., 115n.88

Alan of Lille, 132, 136n.11, 169n.116

Albert the Great: on the adornment of wives, 153; condemns vow not to exact conjugal debt, 193; on the husband’s authority over the wife’s vow of chastity, 164; on John the Evangelist’s abandoned bride, 172n.126; ranks celibacy over marriage, 137; on sex in holy places, 150n.57; on sexual pleasure, 136

Alexander III (pope): canonized Edward the Confessor, 123; upholds consensual definition of marriage, 139; on the dissolution of an unconsummated marriage, 143n.32, 146; on marriage and monastic vows, 162n.97; on sexual abstinence during feast days, 196; and Waldo, 197

Alexis, confessor: in Christina of Markyate’s psalter, 209; cult of, 105–106; Edward the Confessor compared with, 122; Elzear of Sabran compared with, 275; flees spouse, 85n.138, 143; heals Frances of Rome, 223; influence of Julian’s passio on vita of, 64n.57; inspires Waldo, 176; as paradigm, 7, 208; as paradigm for men, 65, 104–105, 106–108; parents of, 85, 106, 172n.128, 174n.132

Alfonso II (the Chaste; king of Asturias), 114–116, 126

Alfonso X (king of Castile), chronicle of, 126n....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• One: "A Place in the Middle": Intramarital Chastity as Theoretical Embarrassment and Provocation
• Two: Spiritual Marriage as Insoluble Problem or Universal Nostrum?
• Three: Eleventh-Century Boundaries: The Spirit of Reform and the Cult of the Virgin King
• Four: The Conjugal Debt and Vows of Chastity: The Theoretical and Pastoral Discourse of the High and Later Middle Ages
• FIVESpiritual Marriage and the Penitential Ethos
• Six: Virgin Wives
• Conclusion
• Appendixes
• Select Bibliography
• Index