Dispensation versus generations

[volu...@chello.nl]

Just a short enquiry to verify my research finding, browsing the
newsgroup.

At the Fourth Latheran Council of 1215 the prohibited degrees between
marriage partners was changed from 7th to 4th grade.
Since then marriage dispensation was needed for intended spouses
related in the 4th degree.
The marriage partners need not be of the same generation of descent.
In those examples the longer line of descent was dominating the way of
counting.

So when one finds a dispensation for consanguiny in the 4th degree one
might assume that in any case the (longer) line of descent would have
to be a descent from a great-great grandfather/mother.

great-great-grandfather/mother....=....great-grandfather/mother....generation
4

great
grandfather/mother..........................grandfather/mother.....generation
3

grandfather/mother...grandfather/mother....father/mother.............generation
2

father/mother...........father/mother............marriage partner
Y.....generation 1

marriage partner X....marriage partner Y

Correct?

With regards,
Hans Vogels

[Chris Phillips]

Hans Vogels wrote:
> At the Fourth Latheran Council of 1215 the prohibited degrees between
> marriage partners was changed from 7th to 4th grade.
> Since then marriage dispensation was needed for intended spouses
> related in the 4th degree.
> The marriage partners need not be of the same generation of descent.
> In those examples the longer line of descent was dominating the way of
> counting.
>
> So when one finds a dispensation for consanguiny in the 4th degree one
> might assume that in any case the (longer) line of descent would have
> to be a descent from a great-great grandfather/mother.

That's my understanding.

If in doubt I go by Nat Taylor's online summary (with diagrams) here:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~medieval/consang.htm

Chris Phillips

[Nathaniel Taylor]

In article <dsgeii$22v$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>,
"Chris Phillips" <c...@medievalgenealogy.org.uk> wrote:

Since I wrote that I've seen more examples (from 13th but more often
from 14th c.) where a text specifies that two people are related in the
'3d and 4th degree' (for example), which means two different
generational lengths from a common ancestor, rather than two separate
common ancestors. But in any case, I think the longer line would still
be the determining factor in measuring against a consanguinity or
affinity threshold, though I would like to this confirmed by example or
statute / commentary.

Nat Taylor

a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/

my children's 17th-century American immigrant ancestors:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/immigrantsa.htm

[Tompkins, M.L.]

<<Since I wrote that I've seen more examples (from 13th but more often
from 14th c.) where a text specifies that two people are related in the
'3d and 4th degree' (for example), which means two different
generational lengths from a common ancestor, rather than two separate
common ancestors. But in any case, I think the longer line would still
be the determining factor in measuring against a consanguinity or
affinity threshold, though I would like to this confirmed by example or
statute / commentary.>>

It is definitely the case that the longer line is used. I assume the
logic is that: consanguinity is not a measure of the relationship
between two people, but of the relationship from one person to another,
so that between two people there will always be two degrees of
consanguinity - A to B and B to A - and if they are of different
generations then those degrees will be different (since each measure is
from the individual back to their common ancestor), sometimes with the
result that it is lawful for A to marry B but not for B to marry A - and
thus prohibiting marriage between them.

For authority for the rule, there is the following statement of it in
the Extravagantes of John XXII (1322), Title VI, chapter I, Rules for
Calculating Consanguinity:

"II. For collaterals of different generations, there are as many degrees
as persons between the common ancestor and the person most distant from
him."

(This can be found in 'Marriage Canons from the Decretum of Gratian and
the Decretals, Sext, Clementines and Extravagantes', translated by John
T. Noonan (University of California, Berkeley) and Augustine Thompson
(University of Oregon), 1993 at
http://faculty.cua.edu/Pennington/Canon%20Law/marriagelaw.htm).

There is also Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law, ii, p 387,
which says:

'To meet the more difficult case in which the two lines are unequal,
another rule was slowly evolved:- Measure the longer line'.

The footnote refers to c. 9, X4.14, which I think is a reference to the
Extravagantes and the above decretal of John XXII.

Incidentally references to relationships in the third and fourth degree
can be found in the 15th century as well: here is the text of an
application for a papal dispensation to a 1472 marriage which everyone
will recognise:

'Rome, at St Peter's, 22 April 1472. Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
layman, Lincoln dioc., and Anne Nevile, York dioc. wish to marry, but
since they are related in the third and fourth degrees of affinity, they
may not do so without a papal dispensation, hence they request one and a
littera declaratoria for the third and fourth degrees.'

This and other similar 15th century cases are discussed in an article by
Peter D. Clarke (University of Wales, Bangor), 'English Royal Marriages
and the Papal Penitentiary in the Fifteenth Century' English Historical
Review 120 (2005), pp 1014-1029 (on-line at
http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/120/488/1014).

Matt Tompkins

[Nathaniel Taylor]

In article
<93EC899E92A38749B4B9...@Saffron.cfs.le.ac.uk>,
ml...@leicester.ac.uk ("Tompkins, M.L.") wrote:

[I had written earlier:]

Thanks for these, Matt. I knew the longer line to be determinant, but
was thinking of Pollock and Maitland's 'slow evolution' since it implies
some difference of opinion--and would like to see contrary examples
somewhere. But since the measurement was 'degrees', theoretically an
ancestor could marry a direct descendant or niece /nephew who was
removed by more than four degrees (though essentially impossible in
practice), and the 'longer line' should always have been made the
determination, since the issue was the closeness of two persons to each
other, not to the common ancestor.

[volu...@chello.nl]

Chris, Nat, Matt,

Thanks for your input. There were a lot of newsgroup posts. Some
infered but no one was as clear on the subject as was needed by me.

Hans Vogels