Royal Bastards The Birth of Illegitimacy, 800-1230 Oxford Studies In Medieval European History Series

The stigmatization as 'bastards' of children born outside of wedlock is commonly thought to have emerged early in Medieval European history. Christian ideas about legitimate marriage, it is assumed, set the standard for legitimate birth. Children born to anything other than marriage had fewer rights or opportunities. They certainly could not become king or queen. As this volume demonstrates, however, well into the late twelfth century, ideas of what made a child a legitimate heir had little to do with the validity of his or her parents' union according to the dictates of Christian marriage law. Instead a child's prospects depended upon the social status, and above all the lineage, of both parents. To inherit a royal or noble title, being born to the right father mattered immensely, but also being born to the right kind of mother. Such parents could provide the most promising futures for their children, even if doubt was cast on the validity of the parents' marriage. Only in the late twelfth century did children born to illegal marriages begin to suffer the same disadvantages as the children born to parents of mixed social status. Even once this change took place we cannot point to 'the Church' as instigator. Instead, exclusion of illegitimate children from inheritance and succession was the work of individual litigants who made strategic use of Christian marriage law. This new history of illegitimacy rethinks many long-held notions of medieval social, political, and legal history.

Sara McDougall is Associate Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York and is a member of the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research focuses primarily on marriage and law in medieval Europe. She is the author of Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne (2012) and has also published on adultery, marriage, illicit sex, and the role of gender in canon law. She was a Mellon fellow in Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 2014-2015.