At Northwich, in Cheshire, by authority of the charter of the church, the senior scholar of the grammar school was entitled to receive marriage fees to the same amount as those taken by the clerk, or in lieu thereof to receive the bride's garters.

A paper in the collection of Dr. Kennett in the Harleian MSS., says that it was an old custom in the dioceses of St. Asaph and Bangor, in North Wales, for the curates to take a tenth part of all the goods of both the man and the woman, whether rich or poor, upon their marriage. And although they had paid the usual tithe upon the crops at harvest, they were still obliged to pay another tenth if they happened immediately afterwards to get married. Persons living in adultery paid a fine of eleven shillings a year to the ordinary. These customs caused matrimony to be very scarce in the diocese. The marriage tithe of goods in Wales was declared to be illegal by an Act of Parliament passed about 1549.

Pennant says: "In North Wales, on the Sunday after marriage, the company who were at it come to church, i. e. the friends and relations of the party make the most splendid appearance, disturb the church, and strive who shall place the bride and groom in the most honorable seat. After service is over the men, with fiddlers before them, go into all the ale-houses in the town."

The Rev. Dr. Lort says in a manuscript note, cited by Brand: "At Wrexham, in Flintshire, on occasion of the marriage of the surgeon and apothecary of the place, August, 1785, I saw at the doors of his own and neighbors' houses throughout the street where he lived, large boughs and posts of trees, that had been cut down and fixed there, filled with white paper, cut in the shape of women's gloves and of white ribbons."

It was the custom in some parishes in South Wales, not

long since, for the bridegroom, upon uttering the words, "With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," to produce money from his pockets, which he handed to the clergyman, who out of it took his fee, and delivered the remainder to the bride. So in Cumberland not long back, the bridegroom provided himself with gold coins and crown pieces, and when the service reached the endowing words, he gave the clergyman his fee, and poured the rest of the money into a handkerchief which was held for the bride by one of her maids. These usages were relics of the old church regulation, that “the accustomed duty to the priest and clerk" should be laid upon the book with the ring; and also of the ancient custom of purchasing the woman's virginity.

An old Welsh law tells us that a husband might administer three blows with a stick to any part of the person of a misbehaving wife except her head; and another law provided that the stick should not be longer than the husband's arm, and not thicker than his middle finger.

CHAPTER X.

Marriage among the Early Christians.—Marriage among the Ancient Britons. -Marriage among the Anglo-Saxons.-Marriage among the Anglo-Normans.-The Power of Feudal Lords over their Wards.-Infant Marriages.Betrothal Customs.—The Nuptial Kiss.-Breaking Money.-Crooked Ninepence.-Locks of Hair.-Tokens of Engagement.-Love Pledges.

As a preface to our notes upon the archæology of mar

riage in England, to which our remaining chapters will be devoted, it is necessary that we should give an outline of the history of nuptials in the early Christian church, upon which many of our present rites and ceremonies are based.

Christian marriage was developed out of the marital customs of pagan Greece and Italy, and also out of the like usages of the Jews. At first it was not a religious ceremony, the only necessary form of it being that the bridegroom should go to the bride's house, and lead her to his own home in the presence of witnesses; or, in other words, marriage was a mere social contract, the essence of which was the taking of the woman by the man. When the church first exercised its control over marriage is not quite clear. Probably in early days it recognized marriage as a civil contract even before it interfered in the ceremony. Afterwards, in order to correct abuses, the priesthood introduced the custom of celebrating marriages before themselves, and of giving the nuptial benediction.

The church forbade marriage in Lent, in A.D. 364. The decrees of Pope Siricius in 385, spoke of marriage as being

regularly contracted by the benediction of the priest. The canonical answers of Timothy, who succeeded to the bishopric of Alexandria in 380, mentioned also, "the performing of the oblation" at marriages. St. Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, in the fifth century, referred to the celebration of espousals in church; and in the same century, Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, intimated that the wedding ceremony was not deemed to be complete until the bride had gone home to the bridegroom's house.

Marriage was first forbidden to bishops in 692, and to priests in 1015; and the latter were obliged to take vows of celibacy in 1073. In 1138 the penalty for priests marrying was deprivation of their benefices, and exclusion from the celebration of divine service. Nevertheless, instances of married priests are not uncommonly found in ancient charters, at least to the end of the reign of Edward III. Charlemagne enacted in the eighth century, for the western empire, and Leo Sapiens in the tenth century, for the eastern, that marriage should be celebrated in no other way than by sacerdotal benediction and prayers, to be followed by the eucharist. Pope Nicholas, in the ninth century, wrote that crowns or garlands were worn on the heads of married couples, and that such articles were kept in the church for the purpose. These facts may be taken as evidence of the interest which the early ecclesiastics took in matrimonial affairs; but it was not until 1199 that marriage was systematically preceded in the Latin church by the publication of banns, and uniformly celebrated in the sacred building. In that year Pope Innocent III. decreed that espousals should be a church ceremony; and the great Council of Lateran, convoked by him in 1215, confirmed the same decree. The earliest canonical enactment on the subject of marriage-banns in the English church is said to have been made by the Synod of Westminster or London

in 1200, which ordered that no marriage should be contracted without banns thrice published in the church, unless by the special authority of the bishop. Some record that the practice was introduced into France as early as the ninth century, and that Odo, bishop of Paris, ordained it in 1176.

With the savage inhabitants of Britain before the time of Cæsar's invasion, an indiscriminate, or but slightly restricted, intermixture of the sexes was the practice; polygamy prevailed, and several brothers often had only one wife among them all. Frequently the only method of fixing the obligation of paternity, was by the uncertain one of resemblance. When, however, the ancient Britons celebrated their marriages, they did so at a cromlech in the open air, and sacrifices were offered. The lover of a British virgin addressed himself first to her father, whose absolute authority took away all power of refusal from the daughter. If the father agreed to the suitor's request of the lady in marriage, he was introduced to her; the period of courtship was very short, generally only a few days. As the Britons advanced in civilization they practised monogamy, the violation of which was considered to be a disgrace.

By the Anglo-Saxons the bond of matrimony was held to be most sacred. No man could lawfully marry without first obtaining the consent of the woman's Mundbora, or guardian, who was her father if living, and, if not, some other near relation. If such consent was not obtained, the husband was liable to penalties, and he acquired no legal rights over either the wife or her goods. For this consent the lover always paid a mede or price, in the nature of a present, according to the rank of the lady. It was therefore advantageous to a father that the "spindle-side,” or female part of his family, to use Alfred's term, should outnumber the "spear-side," or male members thereof. The