HISTORY OF THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Course title: Marriage forms: alliances, properties, rituals
In early medieval societies, the role of parental structures was much more relevant than today's: marriage constituted an important link between two parental groups. Studying marriage forms and their transformations means understanding the ways of social reproduction from within society. The course will focus on the five themes:
1. Anthropological theory on marriage
2. Medieval historiography on marriage and 'Germanic' contribution.
3. The phases of marriage, the gifts, the rituals.
4. The marriage of the clergy.
5. Break the marriage: divorce, repudiation.

From the archaeological point of view, we will examine the cases of some early medieval necropolis, to observe how the spatial organization of the burials was determined by biological kinship between individuals or if other forms of grouping prevailed, by gender or age groups.
From the chronological point of view three moments of change in the structures of marriage are identified: late antiquity (centuries V-VII); Carolingian age (VIII-IX centuries); post-carolingian age (X-XI centuries).