Friday, November 16, 2007

The Featured Book of the Week


This Week's Featured Book is To Have and to Hold: Marrying and its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400-1600, edited by Philip L. Reynolds and John Witte, Jr. and published by Cambridge University Press.


“This volume analyzes how, why, and when pre-modern Europeans documented their marriages - through property settlements, prenuptial contracts, court testimony, church weddings, and more. The authors consider both the function of documentation in the process of marrying and what the surviving documents say about pre-modern marriage. After analyzing the foundations of Western marriage set by Roman law and Patristic theology, the chapters provide vivid case studies of marital documents and practices in medieval France, England, Iceland, and Ireland, and in Renaissance Florence, Douai, and Geneva.”- Book Description


To Have and to Hold will be available to borrow after Friday, November 23, 2007

No comments: