had to resemble the union of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As recounted in the Book of Genesis, God created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs and joined the couple together, in a phrase constantly repeated throughout the Middle Ages, as “two in one flesh.”37 This first model marriage, instituted in paradise by God and blessed with the injunction “increase and multiply,” implied that Christians, if they could not live a life of sworn celibacy, should marry, one man to one woman, chastely united as two in one flesh, as closely and inseparably joined as in the model marriage of Adam and Eve.
Christian marriage was to resemble not only the Old Testament model of Adam and Eve but also the New Testament model of the union of Christ and the Church. Here the key text was the fifth chapter of Ephesians, which instructed Christians to imitate God.38 In particular, Ephesians compared marriage between a man and a woman to the symbolic “marriage” of Christ and the Church. Both marriages, earthly and spiritual, required love and submission, with husbands the head of their wives just as Christ was the head of the Church. All those who married should follow the model of Christ and Church. As the Church married only Christ and no other gods, so too should Christians take only one spouse.
In late antiquity the Church Fathers drew upon both these models in forming a definition of marriage as an exclusive, monogamous bond, one that could not be divided and one that should not be repeated.39 Just as priests and monastics were to consecrate themselves to the Church in an indissoluble bond, so laypeople ought to consecrate themselves once, if at all, but only once, to a marriage. To quote Saint Jerome:
The creation of the first man should teach us to reject more marriages than one. There was but one Adam and but one Eve; in fact the woman was fashioned from a rib of Adam. Thus divided they were subsequently joined together in marriage; in the words of scripture “the twain shall be one flesh,” not two or three. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.” Certainly it is not said “to his wives.” Paul in explaining the passage refers it to Christ and the church; making the first Adam a monogamist in the flesh and the second [that is; Christ] a monogamist in the spirit.40
Jerome was not alone in this view. The orthodox view shared among the Church Fathers, even as they expressed more or less extreme views on the subject, was clearly that Christian marriage ought to be this singular and indivisible bond. In insisting on this definition of marriage, they confronted a problem that was not precisely the same as that of late medieval bigamy: the problem of polygamy, which manifestly violated their definition of marriage. In particular, the polygamy of the Old Testament patriarchs seemed to pose a challenge to the Christian insistence on monogamy. Indeed, the patriarch Jacob had two wives and two concubines, and King Solomon had hundreds of each. As the Church Fathers claimed, however, the polygamy of the patriarchs was not to be understood as an example to follow but rather as a sign. Jacob’s marriages to Leah and Rachel, for example, prefigured Christ’s marriage to the Old and New Testaments. Weak-eyed Leah stood in for the blind Jews (who failed to recognize Christ’s divinity), while Jacob’s beloved Rachel was the spouse who signified the Church.41 These theological conclusions would also apply to the bigamous Christians of northern France who did not actually keep their multiple spouses with them but were married to more than one at a time.
In the Western Church, most clearly from the ninth century onward, an absolute ban on both bigamy and divorce with any right to remarry held firm throughout the Middle Ages.42 To give one example, in the thirteenth century Innocent III completely rejected the idea that the polygamy allowed to the patriarchs might also be permitted Christians:
We have read that the patriarchs and other just men before the law and after the law had many wives in common…. But this seems incompatible and contrary to Christian Faith, where from the beginning one rib was turned into one woman, and it was testified in divine Scripture that because of this a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. It did not say, “three or more” but “two” nor did it say “shall cleave to wives,” but “to wife.” … And so that truth may prevail over falsehood, without any hesitation we state: that it was never in any way lawful for anyone to have several wives at once, unless it was conceded by divine revelation….”43
In short, Christians who married were told to follow not the example of the patriarchs but the example of Adam and Eve.
In this context, what did canonists and theologians say about the real possibility that Christians might nevertheless, in defiance of the law, marry themselves to more than one living spouse? Here an important terminological question presents itself. To marry while already married to a living spouse was an offense that, in the Christian Middle Ages, had no name. In the modern world we describe such a marriage as “bigamous” and the twice-married person as a bigamist. However, in the Middle Ages, bigamy was a term used to describe any manner of remarriage, both those marriages made following the death of a spouse and also marriages contracted while a first spouse lived. The great thirteenth-century canonist Hostiensis made some effort at resolving this ambiguity by distinguishing between “true” bigamy (two at once) and “interpretive” bigamy (remarriage after death or annulment),44 but on the whole those called “bigamists” were spouses who had married more than once in succession, especially clergy.
Indeed, medieval canon law and theological texts emphasized most clearly the considerable importance of bigamy in determining clerical status.45 Under the rubric of “bigamy,” medieval canonists and theologians most often discussed the status of clerics who had either married more than one wife in succession or who had married a widow. In marrying in these ways, clerics transformed themselves into bigamists. This meant that they could never become priests and never rise in the ecclesiastical hierarchy above the rank of subdeacon. They also could not seek the milder justice of ecclesiastical courts if threatened by secular authorities.46
As this shows, to become a bigamist was to make an irrevocable change in one’s status. While even a priest guilty of fornication or some other crime might be allowed to continue as a priest after penance, a man married to more than one wife in succession could not ever become a priest. Drawing on Genesis and Ephesians and upon centuries of tradition, Innocent IV gave his reasons for this rule, reasons that we have seen before. Why did the priesthood exclude bigamists?47
I reply it is because the words: “os, caro, carne, uxori” “bone, flesh, from flesh, to wife” are in the singular. And also because of the final word of the phrase “they are two in one flesh” … marriage between two only is the sign of the one Church of which Christ is the one Husband.
But what about concurrent remarriages? As for those Christians already married to a living spouse who concurrently remarried, as another great thirteenth-century canonist, Raymond of Peñafort, insisted, it was improper to call those who had two wives at the same time “bigamists,” because it was not possible to be legitimately married to two women at once.48 If canonists debated over what to call the offender, the offense of marrying while already married at least had a name, if a rather imprecise one in that it could easily seem to describe successive remarriage as well as concurrent: “binae nuptiae” or “bina matrimonia.”49
The main topic of this book is not the bigamy that prevented clerics from advancing in holy orders but the crime of bigamy. Having just admitted that many weighty authorities said that one should not call a person who was married to more than one spouse at once a bigamist, such a statement may seem anachronistic or just wrong. In light of this traditional use of the term bigamy to describe clerical status rather than a criminal remarriage, the use of the word “bigamy” may seem inappropriate to describe a medieval act of concurrent remarriage. Indeed, David d’Avray included the text of Innocent IV quoted above in his discussion of bigamy in his book Medieval Marriage50 and drew from it and other passages the plausible conclusion that for the Church, concern over bigamy was concern over clerics who could not become priests, not Christians
