The Law of the Lord, by Vassili Polenov (1874). A young bride is led by her family before the lord to spend her wedding night with him. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Regularly, an article, a novel, a film or a series agitates social networks because it evokes the "droit de seigneur", an expression referring to these men who used their status to obtain sexual favors from their vassals. If sexual abuse is an unfortunate constant in history, it is however necessary to wonder about the existence of such a "right" in the Middle Ages. Tiny evidence The right of seigneur, also called right of the first night, reserves to the feudal lord the deflowering of a young bride on her wedding night. It does not need to show any brutality because the bride, the groom, their parents and their family members cannot oppose it. It is undeniable that the examples of sexual violence exercised during the Middle Ages by the feudal lords are numerous. But the evidence is more tenuous as to the existence of a law or a custom which authorizes such an act on the wedding night of their vassals. Many documents from medieval times that would prove the existence of the droit de seigneur actually refer to other realities, such as the taxes paid by peasants to their lords in order to be able to marry. Several of the accusations that have reached us are intended to discredit the feudal lords. This is the case of the first mention of the droit de seigneur in the Middle Ages, dating from 1247, and which was discovered in the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. It is a poem recounting the harsh condition of the peasant and detailing the long list of taxes due to the lords. One of them obliges the peasant to pay his lord to obtain the authorization to marry his daughters who, in the contrary case, will be raped by this last. This poem could pass for a denunciation of the barbarism and tyranny of secular feudal lords, but it is actually a satirical poem. Its authors, the monks of the abbey, drafted it as a political tool whose aim was to attract peasants to their lands from the territories of neighboring feudal lords:they claimed to be fairer, and thus signaled to the peasants that they have every interest in working on their domains. In the Iberian Peninsula, the evidence attesting to the existence of the droit de seigneur is not more reliable. There are misinterpreted testimonies, such as these laws present in two legal codes from the reign of Alfonso X, entitled Fuero Real and Las Partidas . They refer in fact to distinct situations:one of them, for example, fixes the punishment incurred by those who offend the groom or the bride on their wedding day, provided that it is a verbal offense such as an insult. Angry peasants The strongest evidence for the existence of the droit de seigneur in medieval Spain is found in the decree titled Sentencia arbitral de Guadalupe , of 1486, in which the Catalan lords and their peasant vassals (called remensas ) sign a peace accord after a long uprising. In this decree, the tax "misuses" imposed by the lords on their vassals are suppressed, in particular those allowing the lord, "the first night that the peasant takes a wife, to sleep with her". Even if the meaning of the text leaves no room for doubt, the reality is more complex. When, years earlier, the remensas ask in the draft peace of 1462 that this "misuse" be abolished ("some lords claim that, as the peasant takes a wife, the lord must sleep the first night with her"), the feudal lords retort that they do not know anyone who demands such a service, but that, if it is proven, they would agree to remove it. We can clearly see the cynicism of these lords who deny the existence of practices of which they are perfectly aware. Nevertheless, it could also be a new example of peasant claims against seigniorial rights that never existed, as happened in France at the same time. Given the absence of clear documentary evidence, it can be deduced that the droit de seigneur is a myth, at least as an institution or social practice. If this right of the first night really existed, it seems surprising that in the Crown of Aragon, which has very rich archives, no other documents have ever been found referring to this right. However, some remensas may have believed that the rumors were true and were afraid that the lords would try to generalize this abuse. Faced with the absence of clear documentary evidence, we can deduce that the droit de seigneur is a myth, at least as an institution or social practice. On the other hand, it is undeniable that it existed in a fictional way in the minds of people in the Middle Ages, like current urban legends. A political rumor The history of the droit de seigneur has been circulating at least since the 13 th century in Western Europe as a political weapon against feudal lords. In the XVI th and XVII th centuries, it is exploited by jurists to degrade the image of the territorial lords for the benefit of the Crown. For example, Esprit Fléchier echoed the complaints of Auvergne peasants in 1665, and he relayed in his memoirs a rumor about the droit de seigneur:"There is a fairly common law in Auvergne, which is called the right of wedding […]. This right, in its origin, gave the power to the lord […] to be in the bed of the bride. But he doesn't provide any evidence for this. In the Age of Enlightenment, the droit de seigneur became a commonplace in the criticism of feudalism and tyranny. For example, in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert, the article entitled "Prelibation" explains that "it was this right that the lords arrogated to themselves before and in the time of the crusades, to sleep the first night with the new brides, their commoner vassals. […] And some have been paid in the last century by their subjects, the renunciation of this strange right, which was long current in almost all the provinces of France and Scotland. » In the 19 th century, the debate continues on the reality of this practice:the anticlerical scholars seek documents confirming its existence, while the partisans of the clergy consider that it is an invention. Certainly, if the myth has lasted so long, including today, it is because we tend to believe that the Middle Ages were a cruel and dark time. But she was no more so than another. Find out more Cuisage duty. The making of a myth. XIII e -XX e century, by Alain Boureau, Albin Michel, 1995. Mozart is indignant in music Mozart's Opera The Marriage of Figaro , which is inspired by the play of the same name by Beaumarchais, presents a nobleman, the Count of Almaviva, who decides to seduce his servant, Suzanne, just before she gets married. Figaro, her fiancé, rebels against what he considers feudal abuse. In the first act, Suzanne tells Figaro that the Count promises her his dowry in exchange for her favours.Suzanne:He gives [the dowry] to obtain from me certain half-hours that the lord's right… Figaro:How? On his lands, didn't the count abolish this right? Suzanne:Certainly, but he regrets it! And it is on me that he wants to restore it.
