Note 1141 — Chapter VIII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW

For the growth of the doctrines of the canonists as to the age of consent and the consequences of espousals before puberty see Freisen, Geschichte des can. Eherechts, 323 ff.; Esmein, op. cit., II, 149 ff., with whom Pollock and Mitland, op. cit., II, 387 ff., appear to agree. Read also Jeaffreson, Brides and Bridals, I, 70 ff., 276 ff., who gives interesting illustrations of infantile betrothals and marriages; the learned monograph of Hoffmann, De aetate juvenili, 22 ff.; Lyndwood, Provinciale (ed. 1505), liber quartus, fol. cxcvi; Tancred, Summa de mat., tit. 4, pp. 4, 5.

The constitution De desponsatione impuberum of the primate Edmund de Abingdon (1233-40) runs thus: "Ubi non est consensus utriusque non est conjugium. Igitur qui pueris dant puellas in cunabulis, nihil faciunt, nisi uterque puerorum, postquam venerit ad tempus discretionis, consentiat. Hujus ergo Decreti auctoritate inhibemus, ne de caetero aliqui, quorum uterque vel alter ad aetatem legibus constitutam et canonibus determinatam non pervenerit, conjungantur; nisi urgente necessitate pro bono pacis talis conjunctio toleretur."—Lyndwood, Provinciale; quoted by Jeaffreson, op. cit., I, 74.