ot_ make a marriage, that it is
not the benediction of the priest, but the mental purpose of the man and
woman. Other things only establish testimony and record. Weinhold[1362]
cites a poem of the eleventh century in which a wedding is described.
After the betrothal is agreed upon by the relatives, and property
agreements have been made, the groom gives to the bride a ring on a
sword hilt, saying, "As the ring firmly incloses thy finger, so do I
promise thee firm and constant fidelity. Thou shalt maintain the same to
me, or thy life shall be the penalty." She takes the ring, they kiss,
and the bystanders sing a wedding song. In a Suabian document of the
twelfth century, the bridegroom is the chief actor.[1363] He lays down
successively seven gloves, the glove being the symbol of the man himself
in his individual responsibility and authority. Each glove is a pledge
of what he promises according to the prescriptions of the Suabian mores,
for which his formula is, "As by right a free Suabian man should do to a
free Suabian woman." He enumerates the chief kinds of Suabian property
and promises to write out his pledges in a _libellus dotis_, if the
bride will provide the scribe. Then the woman's guardian, having
received these pledges, delivers her, with a sword (on the hilt of which
is a finger ring), a penny, a mantle, and a hat on the sword, and says:
"Herewith I transfer my ward to your faithfulness, and to your grace,
and I pray you, by the faith with which I yield her to you, that you be
her true guardian, and her gracious guardian, and that you do not become
her direful guardian." "Then," it is added, "let him take her and have
her as his." This must be a very ancient form, of German origin. There
is no _consensus_ expressed in it and the symbolism is elaborate. The
_libellus dotis_ is evidently an innovation. It has a Latin name and is
a contingent, not a substantive part of the man's acts. The old German
form shows that the Latin church usage had not yet overturned the German
tradition.

+431. The canon law.+ In the Decretals of Gratian[1364] the doctrine of
nuptials is that they begin with the public ceremony and are completed
by _concubitus_. Agreement to cohabit, followed by cohabitation,
constituted marriage by the canon law. This is the common sense of the
case. It was the doctrine of the canon law and is the widest modern
civilized view.

+432. Mediaeval marriage.+ In the thirteenth century began the
astonis