The Making of the Medieval Family: Symmetry,Structure,and Sentiment

Abstract

Across the long centuries of the Middle Ages, households seem to have acquired three distinctive characteristics. In the ancient Mediterranean world, judging from the terminology used to describe them and from the failure to use them as units in social surveys, it appears that households were not commen surable. From the Carolingian age, however, medieval households do appear as commensurable units within a symmetrical array. In other words, the observer (or surveyor) was likely to see roughly the same kind of household no matter in what direction he looked—toward urban or rural areas, or up or down the social scale. From about the twelfth century, a new form of descent group, the agnatic lineage, comes to be superimposed upon, but does not really replace, the older bilineal kin group. This lends the medieval household, at least in the elite classes, a distinctive structure. Across the central and late Middle Ages, particular forms of emotional bonds come to link the household members. In fostering these three developments, religious laws and values were highly influential although never solely determinant.