Note 1132 — Chapter VIII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW

Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 378. Cf. Friedberg, op. cit., 56. "The canonists themselves having made marriages all too easy, and valid marriages all too difficult, had been driven into a doctrine of possessory marriage." In a case where a valid or canonical marriage could not be proved by the plaintiff, he was given a possessory action, actio spolii, and "in this the defendant will not be allowed to set up pleas which dispute, not the existence of a de facto marriage, but its validity," while the "plaintiff must prove a marriage celebrated in face of the church": Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 379. Cf. Esmein, op. cit., II, 15 ff.