In his Medieval Marriage Georges Duby posits an ongoing struggle between the noble and royal houses of twelfth-century France and the Catholic Church over the definition of the terms of marriage -- the marriage pact, the degrees of consanguinity within which marriage was permissible, the grounds and methods of dissolution of marriages, and other points. The Canons of the Lateran Council of 1215 demonstrate the ecclesiastical-legal grounds on which the Church's definition of marriage was eventually consolidated. These rules were the outcome of the struggle Duby describes and represent the final thinking of the Church after an extended period in which the Church's version gained ascendancy over that of the nobles. The memoirs of the Abbot Guibert of Nogent demonstrate both the effects that the nobility's attitudes toward marriage had on individuals and the growing strength of people's adherence to the Church as an authority on such questions -- both in the case of his mother whose life and religious experiences he chronicles at some length. The fourth item, the excerpt from the Historia Pontificales, includes selections that deal with the Church's (i.e., Pope Eugenius III's) responses to the possible divorce of Louis and Eleanor.
In the account in the Historia Pontificales it is easy to see the decision that Eugenius made regarding the whole matter as a decision to defend the indissolubility of marriage over and against the necessity of preserving the rule regarding degrees of consanguinity. In the account the motives of Eleanor do not come under much scrutiny although the situation, as recounted, makes it clear that she brought up the problem for her own ends. "And when the king made haste to tear her away, she mentioned their kinship, saying it was not lawful for them to remain together as man and wife" (53). The Pope overlooked the problem and "forbade any future mention of their consanguinity" (61). The Pope had been an...