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Two Weddings and a Lawsuit: Marriage Litigation in Fourteenth-Century Portugal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2016

ANDRÉ VITÓRIA
ANDRÉ VITÓRIA*
Affiliation:
35 rue de la Tombe-Issoire, 75014 Paris, France; e-mail: a.m.dacunhavitoria@uva.nl
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Abstract

Based on one of the few surviving records of marriage cases brought before ecclesiastical courts in fourteenth-century Portugal, this article offers a rare glimpse of marriage practice in a small village in a remote corner of Western Europe and the complex ties that bound its inhabitants and which secular and ecclesiastical authorities sought to regulate. Clear parallels can be drawn with the patterns of marriage litigation observed in England and Northern France, but evidence also suggests that royal legislation played an important part in the resolution of marital disputes and in the shaping of conjugal behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 513 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 The process of selection and subsequent destruction or abridgement of royal records known as ‘Zurara reform’ (named after the fifteenth-century chronicler and custodian of the royal records Gomes Eanes de Zurara) was carried out in the 1460s and ’70s, following a complaint from the municipal representatives at the Cortes of Lisbon (1459) that the existing chancery records were too voluminous and difficult to read: Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho and Armando Luís de Carvalho Homem, ‘Origines et évolution du registre de la chancellerie royale portugaise (xiiie–xive siècles)’, Revista da Faculdade de Letras: História 2nd ser. xii (1995), 47–76, esp. pp. 52–3; Avelino de Jesus da Costa, ‘A chancelaria real portuguesa e os seus registos, de 1217 a 1438’, Revista da Faculdade de Letras: História 2nd ser. xiii (1996), 95–102.

2 For instance, the seventeen volumes of King Fernando's chancery were reduced to two neat volumes, while the forty-eight volumes that were a testament to João i's long and eventful reign were replaced by four clearly-written, double-column tomes: Costa, ‘A chancelaria’, 96.

3 ASV, A. A. Arm. I–XVIII 4274, mem. 1, lines 10–12 (subsequent references to this document, which is published as appendix 1, include only membrane and line numbers).

4 mem. 1, line 37.

5 mem. 1, line 54, in which may be implied the notion of marital affection (in the sense of enduring consent and loving partnership, expressed in X. 4.1.13 and 4.8.1) which medieval canonists borrowed from Roman law and made one of the constituents of marriage: Noonan, John T. Jr, ‘Marital affection in the canonists’, Studia Gratiana xii (1967), 502–9Google Scholar, and ‘Power to choose’, Viator iv (1973), 425–6Google Scholar; Brundage, James A., ‘Concubinage and marriage in medieval canon law’, Journal of Medieval History i (1975), 2, 5–7Google Scholar. See also, based on the cause papers of the audience of York, Frederik Pedersen, Marriage disputes in medieval England, London 2000, 153–75. For the notion of maritalis affectio in confessor's handbooks and in marriage sermons see Michael M. Sheehan, ‘Maritalis affectio revisited’, in Michael Sheehan, Marriage, family, and law in medieval Europe: collected studies, Toronto 1996, 272–7, and for Guibertus de Tornaco's definition of marriage as a partnership (‘dilectio socialis’) of equals (‘pares et socii’) see d'Avray, David L. and Tausche, M., ‘Marriage sermons in ad status collections of the central Middle Ages’, Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge xlvii (1980), 78, 106–7, 114–16Google Scholar.

6 mem. 1, lines 64–8.

7 See António Borges Abel, ‘Vilas de fundação medieval no Alentejo’, unpubl. MA diss. Évora 1995, 67–71.

8 The transcript of the public instrument is at mem. 2, lines 15–31.

9 ‘And the said Margarida Peres said the marriage was celebrated and agreed on by the said words de praesenti and consummated by carnal copulation which immediately followed, by agreement and consent of both’: mem. 5, lines 4–7.

10 ‘and that by that same sentence you may compel the said João to live with her and to treat her in bed or otherwise as in a marital matrimony, as his legitimate wife’: mem. 5, lines 12–14.

11 mem. 6, line 50. This was brushed aside by the vicar's interlocutory sentence: ‘the libel may proceed’: mem. 6, line 53.

12 The actual expression is ‘cova de trigo’, an underground granary or silo: Joaquim de Santa Rosa Viterbo, Elucidário das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antigamente se usaram e que hoje regularmente se ignoram, Lisbon 1865, i. 222. For other examples of such underground granaries in Évora see Maria Ângela Rocha Beirante, Évora na idade média, Lisbon 1995, 74–5.

13 mem. 7, lines 61–8.

14 The sentence is on mem. 8, lines 2–44. Corregedores were royal provincial administrators comparable to the French baillis or sénéchaux. They exercised their ample judicial and administrative authority over relatively large territorial divisions known as correições or comarcas. Entre Tejo e Odiana was a correição roughly circumscribed by the rivers Tagus to the north and Guadiana to the southeast.

15 ‘even if what she said were true, which he did not say it was, because he was head of household he should be in possession not only of the said wheat granary but also of the other properties, and it fell to him to maintain her and not the other way round’: mem. 8, lines 68–72.

16 PMH, 259 (nos 75–6), 262–3 (no. 87). For examples of community property and mutualisation of a couple's debts in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Portugal see Portugaliae tabellionum instrumenta: documentação notarial portuguesa, I: 1214–1234, ed. Bernardo de Sá Nogueira, Lisbon 2005, 51; José Marques, Os pergaminhos da confraria de S. João do Souto da cidade de Braga (1186–1545), Braga 1982, 87 (no. 47), 90 (no. 52); and especially ANTT, Chancelaria de D. Afonso iii, liv. 1, fo. 159r, which provides the strongest evidence in support of the hypothesis that only acquests were jointly owned by the couple.

17 mem. 3, line 49.

18 ‘given the nature of the suit and João Anes's deceit and wrongdoing, she argued that the reasons presented by the said João Anes did not excuse him from addressing the libel put forward against him, by either rejecting or admitting to it’: mem. 10, lines 13–16.

19 ‘the corregedor was certain that the said João Anes, personally and through his proctor, was wasting their possessions and transporting them to Evoramonte to waste them there with the mistress he was publicly maintaining’: mems. 10–11, lines 76, 1–2.

20 X. 4.3.1 (col. 679) and gl. ord. s.v. Viro incumbit probatio.

21 mem. 12, lines 43–58.

22 An identical merging of positions and articles (‘Item ponit et intendit probare’) became the norm in the audience of York in the fifteenth century: R. H. Helmholz, Marriage litigation in medieval England, Cambridge 1974, 17.

23 In the context of this enquiry, comadre (literally comother) may indicate either the relationship between mother and godmother or (although less likely) the relationship between godmothers of the same child. On the early medieval origins of coparenthood as an aspect of spiritual kinship in Western Europe see Joseph H. Lynch, Godparents and kinship in early medieval Europe, Princeton, NJ 1986.

24 Nos 4 to 10 (see appendix 1).

25 No. 8.

26 ‘[she] said that she is ill-disposed towards both [women] because of rough words exchanged between them, and because they led the said João Anes down the wrong path’: mem. 18, lines 20–1

27 ‘she, the witness, had asked the said João Anes if the said Maria Martins was his wife or if he had only promised not to leave her for another woman, and the said João Anes had told her that she was not his wife nor had he promised not to leave her for another woman. And she said she knew nothing further with regard to this article’: mem. 18, lines 30–4.

28 No. 4.

29 ‘[he] had heard the said João Anes say, as he [Aires Afonso] accompanied João Anes's father, that the said João Anes lay in bed and the said João Anes, father of the said João Anes, asked the said João Anes, calling him “traitor, cheat”, saying that he was married to the said Maria Martins. And the said João Anes had said that the said Maria Martins was his wife and that he had received her as his wife, and that the said João Anes, his father, told him to leave her for the sake of his properties and to waste none in this union. And the said João Anes had said may God forbid that, since he did not wish to lose his soul, as the said Maria Martins was his received wife. And he said he knew nothing further with regard to this article’: mem. 16, lines 43–53.

30 No. 3.

31 mem. 16, lines 3–14.

32 mem. 15, line 55.

33 mem. 15, lines 47–9.

34 No. 5.

35 ‘at the time when the said Maria Martins was living with João de Évora, and while she was singing the janeiras, João Anes took her with him, calling her, whereupon she immediately came to him and they went away together, and that he, the witness, asked the said João Anes how come he took Maria Martins like that, and that the said João Anes had told him that they knew each other. And then he, the witness, asked him in what way he was thus with the said Maria Martins and the said João Anes had told him that he was with her because she was his received wife. And he said he knew nothing further with regard to this article’: mem. 17, lines 10–17.

36 No. 12.

37 ‘the said witness said that he knew and was certain that the said João Anes received the said Maria Martins per verba de praesenti as his wife, saying “I João Anes receive you Maria Martins as good and legitimate wife according to the commands of the Holy Church.” Asked how he knew that, he said that he knew that because one day he, the witness, and his brother and another lad had gone up to Viçoso's hill to relax a bit, and there they asked the said João Anes to say to them whether Maria Martins was his wife. And that the said João Anes had told them that she was. And that he, the witness, and the others asked him, how could they be sure? And that the said João Anes said to them that he would receive her in their presence if they so wished. And that he, the witness, said to him that he would call up Viçoso, the owner of the hill where they found themselves. And that the said João Anes had said to him, why fetch the said Viçoso when he wanted to receive her again before them as his wife and the said Viçoso and his wife were aware of that, and the said Maria Martins was his wife and he her husband? And that then he received her before them, under no pressure and of his own free will, by the words written above. And he said he knew nothing further with regard to this article’: mem. 18, lines 55–70.

38 Anne Lefebvre-Teillard, Recherches sur les officialités à la veille du Concile de Trente, Paris 1973, 169.

39 mem. 10, lines 41–6.

40 James A. Brundage, Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe, Chicago–London 1987, 235–42, 260–78. Gratian's theory of marriage formation is expounded in Decr. C. 27, q. 2 (cols 1062–78); Decr. C. 30, q. 5, c. 1–3 (cols 1104–5); and Decr. C. 32, q. 5, d.p.c. 16 (col. 1137), which are part of what is sometimes referred to as Gratian's Treatise on Marriage (causae 27–36). For Huguccio, who rejected Gratian's theory, consent resulted in ‘[matrimonium] perfectum et integrum quoad essentiam’: J. Romain, ‘Summa d'Huguccio sur le Décret de Gratien, d'après le Manuscrit 3891 de la Bibliothèque Nationale – Causa xxii, Questio ii (Théories sur la formation du mariage)’, Nouvelle revue historique de droit français et étranger xxvii (1903), 749. The expression ‘essentia matrimonii’ is also used to denote consent by Goffredus de Trano: ‘sed quo ad essentia matrimonii et quo ad veritatem sufficiat solus consensus eorum de quorum coniunctione agatur’: Summa super titulis decretalium, Lyon 1519, repr. Aalen 1968, 352.

41 See Charles Donahue, Jr, ‘The policy of Alexander the Third's consent theory of marriage’, in Stephan Kuttner (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Vatican City 1976, 251–81; Michael M. Sheehan, ‘Choice of marriage partner in the Middle Ages: development and application of a theory of marriage’, in Sheehan, Marriage, family, and law, 98–100; and Helmholz, Marriage litigation, 26–7.

42 These are conveniently summarised in Jean Dauvillier, Le Mariage dans le droit classique de l’Église depuis le Décret de Gratien (1140) jusqu’à la mort de Clément V (1314), Paris 1933, 143–200, and Charles Donahue, Jr, Law, marriage, and society in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge 2007, 18–33. The evolution of canonistic thought on this matter is more thoroughly laid out in A. Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, rev. R. Génestal, 2nd edn, Paris 1929, i. 227–448.

43 Decrees of the ecumenical councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner sj, London–Washington, DC 1990, i. 258. However, canon 51 (X. 4.3.3) did not require marriage in church or celebration by a priest: David d'Avray, ‘Marriage ceremonies and the Church in Italy after 1215’, in Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe (eds), Marriage in Italy, 1300–1650, Cambridge 1998, 107–15.

44 X. 4.3.2–3 (cols 679–80), and Bernardus Parmensis, gl. ord. ad X. 4.3.3 (cols 679–80), s.v. Clandestina; Decr. C. 30, q. 5 passim (cols 1104–8); Esmein, Le Mariage, i. 205. These various senses of clandestine marriage were transposed to the secular Partidas of Alfonso x of Castile, which were translated into Portuguese and certainly used in Portugal as a convenient legal compendium: Las Siete Partidas, iv, trans. Samuel Parsons Scott, ed. Robert I. Burns, Philadelphia, Pa 2001, 895, title 3, no. 1. On the different degrees of solemnity of clandestine marriages in the diocese of Rouen in the fifteenth century see Avignon, Carole, ‘Marché matrimonial clandestin et officines de clandestinité à la fin du moyen âge: l'exemple du diocèse de Rouen’, Revue historique dclv (2010), 531–4, 546–7Google Scholar. A brief outline of what Avignon appropriately calls the ‘déclinaisons de la clandestinité’ can be found in ‘La Question clandestine de la critique médiévale aux critiques érasmienne et luthérienne: clandestinité, honorabilité et sacramentalité du mariage en question’, Viator xli (2010), 336–8. For the often misleading use of the word ‘clandestine’ see McSheffrey, Shannon, ‘Place, space, and situation: public and private in the making of marriage in late medieval London’, Speculum lxxiv (2004), 960–90, esp. pp. 970–1Google Scholar.

45 Decr. C. 30, q. 5 d.p.c. 9 (col. 1107). See Helmholz, Marriage litigation, 27–8. On the pecuniary penalties for clandestine marriages and the efforts of the diocesan courts of Rouen in the fifteenth century to enforce the solemnisation of the conjugal bond see now Carole Avignon, ‘Les Officialités normandes et la lutte contre les mariages clandestins à la fin du moyen âge’, in Véronique Beaulande-Barraud and Martine Charageat (eds), Les Officialités dans l'Europe médiévale et moderne: des tribunaux pour une société chrétienne, Turnhout 2014, 227–44. Fifteenth-century Portuguese synodal constitutions also prescribe pecuniary penalties: Synodicon hispanum, II: Portugal, ed. Antonio García y García, Madrid 1982, 235–6 (Guarda, 1500), 389 (Porto, 1496), 453–4 (ecclesiastical administration of Valença do Minho, 1486).

46 As Henry Swinburne observed, ‘When we shall view the small difference betwixt those words, whereby Spousals de futuro, or de praesenti are contracted, it cannot but seem strange that from so small difference of Forms, so great diversity of Effects should proceed’: A treatise of spousals, or matrimonial contracts, London 1686, 11.

47 For Canterbury and York see Helmholz, Marriage litigation, 26–73 passim, and Donahue, Law, 64–89 at p. 74 (select examples of enforcement actions are analysed at pp. 90–138); for Ely see Michael M. Sheehan, ‘The formation and stability of marriage in fourteenth-century England: evidence of an Ely register’, in Sheehan, Marriage, family, and law, 62, and Donahue, Law, 228–301 (with analysis of select cases).

48 For Paris, Cambrai and Brussels see Donahue, Law, 307–71, 395–417; for Troyes and Châlons-sur-Marne in the second half of the fifteenth century see Beatrice Gottlieb, ‘The meaning of clandestine marriage’, in Robert Wheaton and Tamara K. Hareven (eds), Family and sexuality in French history, Philadelphia 1980, 49–83.

49 Donahue, Law, 603–4. Based on her analysis of requests of marital dispensations made to the Holy Penitentiary at the time of the Council of Trent, Jutta Sperling has formulated the contrary hypothesis that joint ownership in marriage and equal inheritance amongst siblings might explain the prevalence of free-choice marriages in the Iberian Peninsula on the eve of Trent: ‘Marriage at the time of the Council of Trent (1560–70): clandestine marriages, kinship prohibitions, and dowry exchange in European comparison’, Journal of Early Modern History viii (2004), 67–108, esp. pp. 69–70Google Scholar. See also her ‘Dowry or inheritance? Kinship, property, and women's agency in Lisbon, Venice, and Florence (1572)’, Journal of Early Modern History xi (2007), 197–238Google Scholar. It must be stressed, however, that at least in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries joint ownership does not seem to have included more than acquests, and that a system of partible inheritance need not lead to less family influence over one's matrimonial choices.

50 Wentersdorf, Karl P., ‘The clandestine marriages of the Fair Maid of Kent’, Journal of Medieval History v (1979), 203–31Google Scholar.

51 Ormrod, W. Mark, ‘The trials of Alice Perrers’, Speculum lxxxiii (2008), 372–3Google Scholar.

52 Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca, 6th edn, Turin 1991, 162–3 (ii.3.35, 40), 536 (iv.6.9), 556 (iv.8.8–9), 637–9 (v.4.43–9), 1190–1, 1195–6 (x.8.48–9, 72–3, 78–80), 1237–8 (x.10.22–23).

53 Wentersdorf, Karl P., ‘Some observations on the concept of clandestine marriage in Troilus and Criseyde’, Chaucer Review xv (1980), 101–26Google Scholar; Kelly, Henry Ansgar, ‘Clandestine marriage and Chaucer's “Troilus”’, Viator iv (1973), 436–57Google Scholar.

54 On clandestine marriage in Tirant lo Blanch see Justina Ruiz de Conde, El amor y el matrimonio secreto en los libros de caballerias, Madrid 1948, 146–7 and especially pp. 156–62. This is how Estefanía described her marriage to Diafebo: ‘No courtiers came to my wedding, no cleric put on his garments to say Mass to us; my mother did not come nor did my relatives, and they did not have to go to the trouble of undressing me and dressing me up in my bridal shirt; they did not haul me by force into bed, for I knew how to climb into bed by myself; minstrels did not have to go to the trouble of playing and singing, nor knights and courtiers of dancing, for mine was a clandestine wedding (“bodas sordas”). However, everything I did was my husband's will’: Joanot Martorell and Martí Joan de Galba, Tirante el Blanco, Madrid 1974, ii. 399–400; translation from the Spanish is mine.

55 Namely, the dialogue between the Archpriest and the mountain-girl: ‘“What are you looking for in these parts? Why are you travelling off the road?” I said: “I am travelling through these hills, where I would gladly get married.” She said: “No one goes wrong who gets married here: look, and you will find what you want … / Here you'll find the kind of marriage that you're looking for; I will be glad to marry you if you will give me something: you'll be making a good decision”’: Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor, ed. Raymond S. Willis, Princeton, NJ 1972, 268, 270.

56 Reordering marriage and society in Reformation Germany, Cambridge 1995, 29–30.

57 Nos 5, 6, 7, 11.

58 On proof of marriage based on nomen, tractatus and fama see Esmein, Le Mariage, i. 222–4.

59 Synodicon, 15 (Braga, 1281).

60 ‘Prohibetur districte, sub pena suspensionis, ne ullus sacerdos aut capellanus exigat aliquid ante benedictionem nuptialem sive pro testimonio ferendo siue pro celebrando matrimonio’: ibid. 290 (Lisbon, 1240).

61 PMH, 175, no. 22. Under Hispanic canon law and Visigothic law, unmarried women and widows could not be forced to marry against their will or the will of their parents – except by royal command, according to the Lex Visigothorum – but families surveyed and were closely involved in the formation of marriage: Leges Visigothorum, ed. Carl Zeumer, MGH, LL nat. Germ. i, 1902, 145 (3.3.11); Concilios visigóticos e hispano-romanos, ed. J. Vives, T. Marín Martínez and G. Martínez Díez, Barcelona–Madrid 1963, 128 (Third Council of Toledo [589], c. 10).

62 The fourteenth-century compilation of royal decrees, legal precepts and procedural rules known as Livro das leis e posturas contains an undated item defining valid marriages, which basically restates what was stipulated by canon law: ‘Marriages can be celebrated by those words that the holy Church prescribes, as long as spouses are such that they can marry without sin. And any marriage that can be proven, be it clandestine or known, will be considered valid if those who married are of age as is the custom’: LLP, 114. This item was attributed to the reign of Afonso iii by Alexandre Herculano: PMH, 262, no. 85. Sperling's interpretation of this statute as an antifeudal alliance between the monarchy and the Church is seductive but unsupported by evidence: ‘Marriage’, 97.

63 PMH, 268, no. 71.

64 Unless the husband was considered a traitor, in which case the wife's approval would be immaterial: PMH, 259, no. 76.

65 PMH, 256–7, no. 46.

66 PMH, 259, no. 77.

67 PMH, 259, no. 75; 262–3, no. 87; ODD, 114, c. 119.

68 ‘it is to be presumed that such a sale of property is done collusively by the husband to defraud his wife’: OA, iv. 79–80, article 13; ODD, 120, c. 151.

69 Clandestine marriage between close relatives or between a man and a woman belonging to his lord's household is addressed in a decree issued by King Dinis on 9 August 1302: ODD, 187.

70 ODD, 443 (emphasis added); a slightly mangled transcript of this decree can be found at LLP, 421–2.

71 Las Siete Partidas, 897, title 3, no. 5. In fact the preamble to Afonso iv's decree is strikingly similar to the preamble of the title in the Partidas.

72 Myriam Greilsammer, L'Envers du tableau: mariage et maternité en Flandre médiévale, Paris 1990, 77–80; Statuta Veglae, ed. Aldo Lusardi and Enrico Besta, Milan 1945, 160–7 at p. 161.

73 mem. 16, line 50.

74 ODD, 216 (dotted underline indicates dubious passage); also in LLP, 225.

75 X. 2.23.11 (col. 355).

76 Lectura sive apparatus super quinque libris Decretalium, Strasbourg 1512, fo. 203va, ad X. 4.1.28 (col. 671) s.v. Consultationi. Hostiensis refers to X. 2.23.11 (col. 355), but grounds his opinion mainly on Roman law: C. 5.4.9 (p. 195); D. 23.2.24 and 25.7.3pr (pp. 296, 333); Auth. coll. 6, tit. 1, c. 5 (Nov. 74– c. 5, p. 376). Reviewing Hostiensis's argument, Panormitanus reinforces the association between marriage and property: ‘notabis bene hoc dictum quod per possessionem saltem longissimam probatur proprietas matrimonium’: Nicholaus de Tudeschis, Lectura super quinque libros Decretalium, with Antonius de Butrio's Additiones, Basle 1488, fo. 9va, ad X. 4.1.28 (col. 671).

77 ODD, 308.

78 OA, v. 48, title 14.

79 Ordenaçoens do Senhor Rey D. Manuel, Coimbra 1797, v. 66–9. Title 19 establishes several mitigating clauses under which the death penalty could be avoided, but admits the use of torture.

80 ODD, 440–1 (also in LLP, 319–21 and OA, v. 32–3, title 7). See also a harsher decree by King Dinis on adulterous women (19 Sept. 1302), prescribing the death penalty to both them and their paramours, regardless of their social condition: ODD, 188 (also in LLP, 201 and OA, v. 44–5, title 12).

81 ANTT, Chancelarias Régias, D. Fernando, liv. 3, fo. 16v (see appendix 2).

82 For the evolution throughout the Middle Ages of judicial procedure and jurisdiction over conjugal and sexual matters see Brundage, Law, 223–5, 253–4, 319–23, 409–14, 481–2, 544–6.

83 Decrees of the ecumenical councils, i. 322 (VI. 1.12 col. 977). This decree was a concession to the jurisdictional ambitions of secular authorities, presented, however, as a ‘stiffening of canon-law principle’: D. L. d'Avray, Medieval marriage: symbolism and society, Oxford 2005, 159–64 at p. 160; see also pp. 131–41 for the distinction between bigamy amongst the laity and bigamy amongst the clergy.

84 VI. 3.2 (col. 1019).

85 Cortes portuguesas: Reinado de D. Afonso IV (1325–1357), ed. A. H. de Oliveira Marques and others, Lisbon 1982, 154.

86 Maria Alegria F. Marques, O papado e Portugal no tempo de D. Afonso III (1245–1279), Coimbra 1990, 517.

87 This case is analysed in Peter Linehan, ‘Two marriage cases from medieval Iberia’, Zeitschrift der Savigny–Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte – Kan. Abt. lxxxiii (1997), 333–41. One of the records of the case is published at p. 341.

88 Ibid. 337.

89 Peter Linehan rightly observes that ‘in Portugal the secular arm had often remained unmoved’: ibid. This was a problem in the thirteenth century (see for instance Marques, O papado, 516) and remained so in the fourteenth: ‘[some], in great danger to their souls, carried on being excommunicated … and did not care to seek absolution, and our justices refused to arrest them, or avoid them or fine them’: OA ii. 82, article 28 (Elvas, 1361).

90 OA ii. 85, article 31 (Elvas, 1361); also in Cortes Portuguesas: Reinado de D. Pedro I (1357–1367), ed. A. H. de Oliveira Marques and Nuno José Pizarro Dias, Lisbon 1986, 26–7, article 31.

91 Linehan, ‘Two marriage cases’, 336, 338–9.

92 CDF, 197–211, 213–25.

93 CDF, 213–14.

94 CDF, 223–5.

95 CDF, 224.

96 CDF, 214.

97 ‘And the king saying that it was not so, that he would have taken it well, they let the matter rest and talked of something else’: CDF, 225.

* Line numbers are indicated by a vertical slash and superscript numbers; // indicates damage to the manuscript

† ‘em tende’ over erasure.

‡ Alegar?

§ ‘margarida perez’ over erasure.

** Cf. Saul António Gomes, Corregedores da comarca da Estremadura e suas intervenções no concelho de Leiria na Idade Média, Coimbra 1994, 260ff.

†† The clerk appears to have confused João Anes with his homonymous father.

‡‡ Wrong date; should be 27.

* Recte: prendades.