The legitimacy of bastards : the place of illegitimate children in later medieval England / Helen Matthews.
Material type:![Text](/opac-tmpl/lib/famfamfam/BK.png)
Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
wnor- Book | Wundowie Wundowie Adult Non Fiction | 306.85 MAT (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 31111076483351 |
Browsing Wundowie shelves, Shelving location: Wundowie Adult Non Fiction Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)
306 .8743 ADA The juggle : | 306.0942 HAM A day at home in early modern England : | 306.3 DAV Extreme economies : | 306.85 MAT The legitimacy of bastards : | 306.872 PHI OMG we're getting married : | 306.874 ANG Raising the transgender child : | 306.8745 ROS New age nanas : |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
For the nobility and gentry in later medieval England, land was a source of wealth and status. Their marriages were arranged with this in mind, and it is not surprising that so many of them had mistresses and illegitimate children. John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, married at the age of twenty to a ten-year-old granddaughter of Edward I, had at least eight bastards and a complicated love life. In theory, bastards were at a considerable disadvantage. Regarded as filius nullius' or the son of no one, they were unable to inherit real property and barred from the priesthood. In practice, illegitimacy could be less of a stigma in late medieval England than it became between the sixteenth and late twentieth centuries. There were ways of making provision for illegitimate offspring and some bastards did extremely well: in the church; through marriage; as soldiers; a few even succeeding to the family estates. "The Legitimacy of Bastards" is the first book to consider the individuals who had illegitimate children, the ways in which they provided for them and attitudes towards both the parents and the bastard children. It also highlights important differences between the views of illegitimacy taken by the Church and by the English law.
There are no comments on this title.