A History of Royal Weddings: Middle Ages – Enlightenment

Royal Weddings The Middle Ages Through the Enlightenment Ah, weddings! A day of romance and love. A day to promise your eternal devotion to your partner before your nearest and dearest. And probably the most elaborate and expensive party you'll ever throw. But if you happen to be royal, this celebration for family and friends is magnified to a national and even global scale. Throughout history and across the world, royal weddings have been an amplification of the marriage traditions of their time and culture. But the exalted positions of the bride and groom also meant important differences, like coronations, treaties, proxy weddings, and literal children walking down the aisle. Let's explore the evolution of the royal wedding in Europe, from the simple church blessing of the Middle Ages, where bride and groom might be laying eyes on each other for the first time, to the love matches of today rung in with celebrity-packed cathedrals, designer gowns, decadent feasts, and parties watched by the eyes of the world. The Importance of Matrimony In the early Middle Ages, marriage was only loosely influenced by the church. Couples merely needed to promise to be married to each other to be considered wed. They could do this in a pub, in the woods, or even in bed. This informal arrangement only became a problem if the couple had a dispute about their marriage. Without records, either party could claim that it never happened, or marry multiple partners. Royal marriages were a bit more formal, as the bride and groom were well-known. Their unions meant sealing treaties and alliances, and it was somewhat important to know if the child was legitimate or not if they were going to inherit a throne. But this didn't matter much in the case of William the Conqueror. Before he invaded England in 1066 and earned that illustrious title, he was known as William the Bastard. His father, Robert the Magnificent, Duke of Normandy, fell in love with the daughter of a tanner named Herliva. Their difference in social status made a marriage between them impossible, but Robert recognized Herliva's son as his own, and that was all that was needed for William to inherit the dukedom of Normandy. But in the 13th century, the Catholic church decided that they needed to rein in all of this bed-hopping and illegitimacy. So they made marriage a holy sacrament and began keeping records of who was married to whom. This way, the church could control this important social milestone and emphasize that sex without the sanction of the church would lead to damnation. The Medieval Wedding Ceremony Medieval church weddings in England would be fairly recognizable to us today. Bands were called three times before the wedding could take place, usually on three consecutive Sundays. The bands were an announcement of a couple's intention to wed and gave others the opportunity to come forward with claims of previous marriages or any other objections. The calling of the bands is still common today in Catholic, Church of England, and other Christian denominations. Weddings were not allowed on holy days. That meant you couldn't get married on a Sunday or any other Catholic feast day. This and the advent of the weekend centuries later is why Saturday is now the most popular day of the week to get married. Assuming no one objected to the union, once the big day arrived, the bride and groom would each have a good wash. Medieval women of all classes covered their heads with headdresses and veils as part of their everyday grooming. So wedding veils were not anything special. However, a wreath of flowers might be worn in their hair. Peasants usually didn't get special clothes made for their weddings, but they would wear the finest, cleanest outfit that they owned. Royal brides, on the other hand, wore rich and splendid outfits specially made for the occasion and often counted as part of their dowry. When Elizabeth of Riedland, daughter of King Edward I of England, married John I, Count of Holland, she wore a gown of embroidered silk with silver gilt buttons and a crown set with rubies, emeralds, and pearls. When King Edward IV's sister, Margaret of York, married Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, she wore a surcoat and mantle of crimson velvet embroidered with gold and a set between red, green, and white enamel letters of her name in Latin. The first princess ever documented to have worn white to her wedding was Philippa of England, daughter of King Henry IV. When she wed Eric of Pomerania, King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, she wore a tunic with a cloak in white silk bordered with grey squirrel and ermine fur. Once dressed, the bride and groom would be escorted by their respective families to meet at the door of the local church, or for royals, the cathedral. There, on the doorstep of the church, they would exchange vows, promising to take each other as man and wife before a priest and the community. The groom would give his bride a wedding ring, a tradition which dates back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The circle is a symbol of eternity and the perpetual love between spouses. It was placed on the fourth finger as the ancients believed this digit contained a vein, the vena amoris, which led directly to the heart. In the medieval Christian wedding, the priest would bless the ring and then the groom would place it on each of the bride's fingers as he recited the Holy Trinity. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. And with the Amen, he would place the ring on her fourth finger where it would remain. Medieval women wore their wedding rings on their right hands. After the exchange of vows, the couple would enter the church and attend a special wedding mass with specific prayers and songs dictated by the church to further bless their union and their future children. Following the mass, the priest would kiss the groom on the cheeks and then the groom would kiss the bride. The bride of the king might be crowned queen immediately following the wedding ceremony or in a separate coronation ceremony at a time after she had proven herself by producing an heir. This was King Henry VIII's plan for his third wife, Jane Seymour, but she died of childbed fever shortly after giving birth to Henry's only legitimate son and never got the chance to be officially crowned queen. Celebrating the Bride and Groom. Now married, the couple, their families, and the community would go and celebrate with a feast. Peasants usually enjoyed a bride ale specially brewed for the occasion. Their families and well-wishers would bring food to share and other gifts to set the couple up in their new home. Royal wedding feasts were on a significantly grander scale. At the wedding of King Henry III's daughter Margaret to Alexander III, King of Scots, in 1251, seven deer, 100 boar, 60 oxen, and 203 fish were cooked and consumed. When newlyweds Catherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur of England stepped outside of St. Paul's Cathedral following their wedding in 1501, the couple and the public were presented with a pageant including a mountain covered in herbs and precious gemstones. Atop the mountain were three life-sized trees with the heraldic symbols of England, France, and Spain. This awe-inspiring display was meant to impress the people with the greatness of the Tudor family who had only recently taken the throne by force. From the mountain flowed streams of wine for commoners to drink to toast the newlyweds. Filling public fountains with wine and providing food, plays, parades, and carnivals were common ways for royals to demonstrate their largesse to the people during jubilant times including weddings, coronations, and births. Following the feast, both peasants and royal newlyweds would have their union blessed once more in the bedroom. Bedding ceremonies were often bawdy, rowdy affairs where a joking, singing, drunken crowd carried the bride and groom off to bed. Once the couple were undressed and placed in bed together, unmarried guests would take turns throwing the couple's stockings at them. A direct hit meant that the thrower would soon be married themselves. The newlyweds were again blessed by a priest in the hopes that their marriage would bear fruit in the form of children. And then the thoroughly embarrassed couple was usually left alone to get on with consummating their marriage, assuming they weren't too drunk themselves. This was not the case for Catherine de' Medici when she married Henri, Duke of Orléans. The groom's father, King Francis I of France, stayed in the room until the marriage was consummated. He reported that each had shown valor in the joust. To add to her mortification, her uncle, Pope Clement, visited the newlyweds in bed the next morning to further bless the fruitfulness of their union. King Charles I of England wasn't about to be subjected to this public humiliation. When he married Henrietta Maria of France, he barred the door of his bedroom and kept all the drunk and rowdy guests out. If the thought of all these marriage traditions has you in a romantic mood, think again. For most of history, marriage had nothing to do with love and everything to do with family. Even among commoners, marriage was usually arranged between families and the bride and groom often didn't meet until their wedding day. It was hoped that love, or at least like, would develop after the exchange of vows. But if it didn't, meh. When selecting a spouse for their child, parents wanted to make a match with a good family that would secure or improve their own standing in wealth and in the community. Royal parents arranged nuptials for their children as part of treaties and alliances with other rulers. Each child a monarch had was another pawn in the game of dynastic ambition. And with a brutally short life expectancy of just 30 years, parents didn't waste time before using young children to gain political power. Babies were betrothed at just a few months old and children under the age of 10 were often married off. Joan, daughter of King Louis XI of France, was just 8 days old when she was betrothed to her cousin, Louis, Duke of Orléans in 1464. But don't worry, the couple weren't actually married until they were much more mature, ages 12 and 14. And remember the poor young princes Edward and Richard who were murdered in the Tower of London at just 12 and 9 years old? Did you know that the younger brother was When Richard was just 4 years old, he was wed to 5-year-old Anne de Molbraie, 8th Countess of Norfolk, who was the wealthiest heiress of her time. Anne had become a ward of the crown following the death of her father. In order to keep control of her vast estate, King Edward arranged the marriage with his son. Anne was then raised in the household of Richard's mother, Queen Elizabeth Woodville. When Anne died at the tragically young age of 8, her widower Prince Richard inherited her lands and title and became Duke of Norfolk. But these infantile newlyweds were not expected to live together as man and wife at such a tender age. The bride would most often move to the country of her new husband to be raised in the royal nursery or by other trusted members of the court until both husband and wife were considered mature enough to consummate their marriage. In 1108, King Henry I of England's daughter Matilda was betrothed to Heinrich V, Holy Roman Emperor. He was 24 and she was only 8. She was sent to the imperial court where the couple were officially betrothed and Matilda was crowned Roman-German Queen. But she was placed into the custody of the Archbishop of Trier, who educated her in the German language and culture. Matilda was considered old enough to marry and live with her husband at the age of 12 and their marriage went ahead with much fanfare. But as the couple never had any children, it is unclear when or if they actually went to bed together. Isabella of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France, was just 7 when she married 29-year-old English King Richard II as part of a peace treaty to end the Hundred Years' War. Young Isabella said that she was happy to be Queen of England because this made her a great lady. She was set up with her own court at Windsor Castle where the King, always respectful, visited her often. They had a friendly relationship and he would often talk and joke with her and her ladies. The marriage was expected to become physical only when Isabella was a teenager, but it never did as four years into their union, Richard was murdered. Isabella was returned to France where she was promptly married to her 11-year-old cousin. However, these rules of decency were not always followed. Margaret Beauford was the sole heir of John Beauford, Duke of Somerset, a key player in the War of the Roses. At 12, she was wed to 24-year-old Edmund Tudor, the brother of King Henry VI of England. Edmund was expected to wait a few years before going to bed with his young wife, but clearly he did not want to put off consummating this important political union. When Edmund died of the plague one year later, he left 13-year-old Margaret a widow and seven months pregnant. She gave birth to a son, the future King Henry VII, but because of her youth and immature body, she had an extremely difficult labor and nearly died. She was never able to have another child. The church insisted that a dowry be part of a marriage. This tradition goes back to prehistory and involves the family of the bride giving property and or valuables to the family of the groom. For peasants, this was whatever they could afford, maybe land, maybe livestock. In the case of royals, this often meant vast territories. Eleanor of Aquitaine was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine. When her father died in 1152, she inherited the largest territory in France. King Louis VI quickly married her to his own son in order to add the rich duchy to his lands. When Catherine of Braganza married King Charles II of England in 1662, her dowry included three major ports around the world, Tangiers, Mumbai, and Morocco, which were brought under English control. England was also granted the right to trade with Portuguese colonies around the world. The Enlightenment saw a flourishing of new ideas, emphasizing reason, individualism, and the improvement of people's lives, health, and happiness. And marriage wasn't really part of that. While the importance of married love was beginning to be talked about in the salons of France in the 18th century, most people still married who their family decided they should and hoped that they might grow to love or at least like each other later on. One positive change that did come to royal marriages in the 16th and 17th centuries, life expectancy was a bit longer at 40 years, so parents no longer married off their infants as they had done in the Middle Ages. They waited until their children were in their teens before sending them off to be married to complete strangers. Proxy Weddings As royal brides often had to travel for weeks across land and sea and through enemy kingdoms to meet their new husbands for the first time, it became an important practical step to marry the couple by proxy first. This way, the marriage treaty would be executed before the young woman set out on her long, treacherous journey. A proxy wedding was very much like a regular wedding, except someone else would stand in for half the couple, usually the groom. The stand-in was often a relative of the bride, such as Marie Antoinette's proxy wedding in Vienna, in which her brother Ferdinand stood in for Louis the Dauphin of France. The proxy wedding was often celebrated extravagantly and served as a farewell party for the bride, who may never return home or see her family again. Catherine de' Medici's proxy wedding included five days of festivals, a masquerade ball, and jousting in Rome, before she traveled to France for even more festivities when she married Henri, Duke of Orléans, in person. Proxy weddings sometimes went so far as to include a proxy consummation. After Elizabeth of Valois' proxy wedding at Notre Dame Cathedral in 1559, she and her stand-in groom were placed in bed together, fully dressed, but with one foot each exposed. They touched naked feet and the marriage was considered consummated. Then Elizabeth traveled to Spain to marry her real groom, King Philip II, and their marriage was actually consummated. In the next video, we'll explore the royal wedding traditions of the Victorian era, the emergence of the white wedding dress and the language of flowers, through to the over-the-top lavish royal weddings of today that draw billions of viewers and millions of dollars in revenue. And we'll find out how love became part of the royal wedding. If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, comment your thoughts, and check out my other royal history videos. If you really want to help, please consider supporting me on Patreon. A link is in the description. Thank you for watching!