3 ms·

"There is no documentation" is too strong. There is a document from Maur, Canton Zurich, Switzerland, stating: "...soll der Bräutigam den Meyer in der Hochzeit

"There is no documentation" is too strong. There is a document from Maur, Canton Zurich, Switzerland, stating: "...soll der Bräutigam den Meyer in der Hochzeitsnacht bei seiner Frau liegen lassen oder fünf Schillinge und vier Pfennige bezahlen" (Rough translation: "...the groom should let the Meier [administrative manager] lie with his wife during the wedding night, or he shall pay five Shilling and four pence"). The document is from 1543, but it states in the very beginning that these rules are "von alters her" (rough translation: "since an old age"). Source: (University of Zurich, Faculty of Law) https://www.ius.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-1e72-6fc8-0000-00003edb822a/080208_T3K3_Reichs_Landes_und_Grundherrschaftsrechte.pdf https://www.ius.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-1e72-6fc8-0000-00003... It surely wasn't widespread or normal, as rennaissance and early modern porn fantasies would want us to believe. But it surely happened. I think this is the right conclusion, given the available evidence: "....the so-called right was simply the ability of the powerful to subject the less powerful to their will. Rape might be a better term to apply since husbands and families had to resort to subterfuge to thwart the desires of the powerful.? Source: Vern L. Bullough (1991) Jus primae noctis or droit du seigneur. The Journal of Sex Research. Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 163-166 - https://www.jstor.org/stable/3812958 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3812958

gattilorenz 3y ago
I said there is no contemporary documentation of it being “a thing”, which I meant as “a widespread/accepted custom” (this being one of the false belief about the dark ages). I’m not sure what to make of the document you shared: does it mean that in 1543 near Zurich this right was still being upheld? Because in Italy there are plenty of documents and popular stories in which “in the past we were subject to this horrible practice by an evil Lord”, but no contemporary source. In these cases it is likely a local legend to emphasise the improvements of living in a city and not under a lord. I can only see the preview of the article you linked, but it mentions the culagium (a tax on marriage, fundamentally), and it has been speculated that its name had an influence on the later perception of jpn: culagium sounds very much as “culus”, which means “ass” in Latin. For another explanation and a reference, see https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2omu3t/was_prima_nocta_an_actual_thing_in_european/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2omu3t/was_p...
- simbolit 3y ago
  > does it mean that in 1543 near Zurich this right was still being upheld I don't know. I am just saying: (1) there are rennaissance and early modern authors who want to make us believe this was common and usual and happening widely during the 'dark ages' (likely from a mixture of anti-medieval sentiment and pornographic fantasy, but I am speculating). (2) there are 20th Century and contemporary authors, who want to make us believe this was just a renaissance invention with no basis in fact whatsoever. (3) given the available sources (like some religious texts, like the 1543 document I linked, like a very few other sources) and what we know about power dynamics and the 'justice system' (lol) in the European Middle Ages (there were very few limits on what a lord could do to local peasants without repercussions), probably neither is true. (4) It likely happened, and it likely happened not just thrice over 1000 years. But it also wasn't something happening everywhere and all the time, and as a codified law. It wasn't "part of the package" of being a lord, with everyone just shrugging, saying "that's the way things are and ought to be". (5) the idea of a culturally-homogeneous medieval Europe is laughable, before printing and modern-ish communication networks, customs were very likely more varied than they were in early modern times. The only (exaggeration!) trans-european force were the Catholic (which back then had a meaning of 'universal') church, and gold coins being accepted everywhere. So, except a few ways of trading goods and a standardized-ish Latin mass there were very few things true for all of the european Middle Ages. (6) lords surely raped the peasant girls on their lands, and usually without any negative effect on the lord. That is the right way of putting it: rape. Even if there was (there very likely wasn't) such a 'law of the first night', it would still have been the same: rape. These are my points, and they seem well supported by our current historical knowledge. For anything more specific, ask not just a historian, but a historian specializing in sexual relations in pre-modern Europe. I am not.
  - gattilorenz 3y ago
    It's not that I disagree with your points, I just don't understand where this is going :) The starting point was "many people believe jus primae noctis was a thing, but it wasn't", which roughly meant "it was not a codified law and/or a widespread accepted custom". I never commented on raping (or the connection between power dynamics and sex, which I think also existed), this was just referring to "jus primae noctis", which literally refers to the (codified) right of a local lord to (potentially) have sex with every bride in the first night of marriage, legally. This was not common, accepted or normal in any region of Europe as far as I know (and who would accept this, in any case? There would be rebellions everywhere, everyone had a daughter or a wife!); however, a sizable amount of people think this was indeed the case. I think we're agreeing on this? I'm sure some (or many) lords convinced/threatened their pheasants to have sex, or directly raped them, probably with little repercussions, but that seems not limited nor peculiar to medieval times.

gattilorenz 3y ago

I said there is no contemporary documentation of it being “a thing”, which I meant as “a widespread/accepted custom” (this being one of the false belief about the dark ages). I’m not sure what to make of the document you shared: does it mean that in 1543 near Zurich this right was still being upheld? Because in Italy there are plenty of documents and popular stories in which “in the past we were subject to this horrible practice by an evil Lord”, but no contemporary source. In these cases it is likely a local legend to emphasise the improvements of living in a city and not under a lord. I can only see the preview of the article you linked, but it mentions the culagium (a tax on marriage, fundamentally), and it has been speculated that its name had an influence on the later perception of jpn: culagium sounds very much as “culus”, which means “ass” in Latin. For another explanation and a reference, see https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2omu3t/was_prima_nocta_an_actual_thing_in_european/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2omu3t/was_p...

simbolit 3y ago
> does it mean that in 1543 near Zurich this right was still being upheld I don't know. I am just saying: (1) there are rennaissance and early modern authors who want to make us believe this was common and usual and happening widely during the 'dark ages' (likely from a mixture of anti-medieval sentiment and pornographic fantasy, but I am speculating). (2) there are 20th Century and contemporary authors, who want to make us believe this was just a renaissance invention with no basis in fact whatsoever. (3) given the available sources (like some religious texts, like the 1543 document I linked, like a very few other sources) and what we know about power dynamics and the 'justice system' (lol) in the European Middle Ages (there were very few limits on what a lord could do to local peasants without repercussions), probably neither is true. (4) It likely happened, and it likely happened not just thrice over 1000 years. But it also wasn't something happening everywhere and all the time, and as a codified law. It wasn't "part of the package" of being a lord, with everyone just shrugging, saying "that's the way things are and ought to be". (5) the idea of a culturally-homogeneous medieval Europe is laughable, before printing and modern-ish communication networks, customs were very likely more varied than they were in early modern times. The only (exaggeration!) trans-european force were the Catholic (which back then had a meaning of 'universal') church, and gold coins being accepted everywhere. So, except a few ways of trading goods and a standardized-ish Latin mass there were very few things true for all of the european Middle Ages. (6) lords surely raped the peasant girls on their lands, and usually without any negative effect on the lord. That is the right way of putting it: rape. Even if there was (there very likely wasn't) such a 'law of the first night', it would still have been the same: rape. These are my points, and they seem well supported by our current historical knowledge. For anything more specific, ask not just a historian, but a historian specializing in sexual relations in pre-modern Europe. I am not.
- gattilorenz 3y ago
  It's not that I disagree with your points, I just don't understand where this is going :) The starting point was "many people believe jus primae noctis was a thing, but it wasn't", which roughly meant "it was not a codified law and/or a widespread accepted custom". I never commented on raping (or the connection between power dynamics and sex, which I think also existed), this was just referring to "jus primae noctis", which literally refers to the (codified) right of a local lord to (potentially) have sex with every bride in the first night of marriage, legally. This was not common, accepted or normal in any region of Europe as far as I know (and who would accept this, in any case? There would be rebellions everywhere, everyone had a daughter or a wife!); however, a sizable amount of people think this was indeed the case. I think we're agreeing on this? I'm sure some (or many) lords convinced/threatened their pheasants to have sex, or directly raped them, probably with little repercussions, but that seems not limited nor peculiar to medieval times.