Note 1071 — Chapter VIII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW
Reading edition
This is proved by Sohm, op. cit., chap, iv; idem, Trauung und Verlobung, chap, iii; and by Esmein, op. cit., I, 119-37.
Magister Vacarius, who lived in England ca. 1148-98 and probably taught law at Oxford, has a theory differing from that of Gratian or Lombard. According to him, the "true act of marriage, the act which marks the moment at which the marriage takes place, is the mutual delivery (traditio) of man and woman each to each. Of course as a condition there must exist a pact of the appropriate kind.... Again, as a condition there must be the natural power of effecting a carnal union; but the carnalis copula is unessential." The marriage is made by the tradition: Maitland, "Magistri Vacarii summa de matrimonio," Law Quart. Rev., XIII, 136-38. In the same volume, 270-87, Maitland publishes the text of the Summa.
On the two kinds of canonical sponsalia see the dissertations described in Bibliographical Note VIII.