Comparison of legal cases of Giovanni verse Lusanna and Martin verses Bertrande

Comparison of legal cases of Giovanni verse Lusanna and Martin verses Bertrande
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(February, 2013)
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During the Renaissance (16th century), marriages were arranged in order to consolidate land. Money was not the measure of wealth, but wealth was measured in terms of the number of cattle owned, the number of acres of land cultivated, and other furnishing process. (Travitsky, 1994). Martin’s family receives several important “items” from Bertrand’s dowry. Freshly married people never had their separate homes but lived under the umbrella of their parents never to mention the mother of in-law ‘controlled’ the new daughter in law. Thus very few could attempt to set up their own households. Above all, land was shared since it was the source of a family’s wealth, reputation and pride (Certeau, 1986).
The church (Catholic Church) did play a bigger role in everyday life of people in these times. The thought of magic and witchcraft playing a role in bring calamities to the people had not evaporated even though they were Christians (Natalie, 1975). Priests participated highly in casting of demons. Popular festivals were more inclined to pagan than to Christianity. On Mardi gras men ride from farm to farm asking for the ingredients for a gumbo to be prepared by the women later that day in the town hall (Zemon, 2000).
The villages could be regarded as an extended family as people of the same blood lived confined in one place thus details of each were well know by each individual. Large number of the people never knew how to sign their names, only the few educated knew how to write, priests and wealthy (Norman, 2003). People never travelled and books were possessed by the wealthy only. Many died in the same vicinity; where they were born. Only they paid solders (mercenaries) did participate in war and mostly the ordinarily village never went to war unless forced by the local lord (Bloch, 2002).
In the case of disagreements arising between the people, mostly of which were land disputes, the cases could be heard by ‘travelling judges’ who could come to village collect testimonies of the parties involved and render his judgment 9Darnton, 1984). Losers in the cases were required to refund to winner. Very few cases the parties could appeal their cases in larger towns under a panel of judges. Cases handled by the panel of judges were major cases and very serious to individual as it could mean death to them.
In the case of Giovannia and Lusanna who met in 1450, Kathryn urges Giovanni followed Lusanna and approached her in public areas which portrayed his intentions clearly. Lusanna had nothing to do with him until 1453 when her husband died. His husband’s death made Giovanni more aggressive in his intentions as he could be seen moving back and forth outside her father’s house (Kathryn, 2001). His father was concerned and warned she should have nothing to do with him if they were not married. She married him in the father’s house after he agreed to the requests. A friar officiated at the ceremony and several members of her family were in attendance. However, there was no notary present to legalize the marriage which was vital in Florance (In Florence, it was normally a notary, not a clergyman, who performed the ceremony). And as result the marriage was not made public as her husband did not want his father to know he had married a lady of low birth (Chojnacki, 2000).
She therefore continued to have on widow clothing, only having married clothing in her family home. Her husband visited her regularly and once in a while took her to the countryside where they could enjoy their matrimony. Unfortunately she discovered the guy had publically married another young lady of high class family. She was hurt and this forced her to file a case with Archbi...