Vecinatati domeniale: casatoria in mediul nobiliar din comitatele Banatului medieval (1300–1450)

Abstract

Marriage was in the nobiliary environment a familial question they usually didn’t dwell at random upon. Seen as a regulation and formalizing of a certain social status, the institution of marriage was submitted, due to its role and position, to severe rituals and interdictions. To create new alliances, to consolidate the old ones or to set political relations through the means of matrimonial strategies and women operated as a capital obligation for the head of any nobiliary family. After all, joing in marriage was taken along the way for a contract with obligations and rights involving both the couple and the members of the widened family. On the other hand, from a spiritual point of view, matrimony was defined by ecclesiastic statements, as a sacral mystery with moral and religious implications, an unbreakable relation between a man and a woman. A model of the Christian marriage was after conceptualized, placed exclusively under the control of the ecclesiastic authorities, not under that of the secular ones. First of all, nobiliary domenial neighborship created opportunities to matrimonial alliances in order to sanction, consolidate, and secure certain agreements in the case of neighboring noble families. In fact, given the low mobility at that time, marriages were set most frequently in proximity and reflected the nature of some relations of neighborliness.