The Redefinition of Clandestine Marriage by Sixteenth-Century Lutheran Theologians and Jurists

Abstract Within the medieval Catholic Church, term ‘clandestine betrothal’ was associated with absence of witnesses, solemnities, and other formalities. Parental consent not a legal requirement for betrothal or marriage, which based on free decision spouses. However, Martin Luther held that will parties sufficient, because couple joined by God, God’s reflected in parental consent. intended parents to be public authority, he therefore proposed different definition clandestine marriage combined witnesses lack approval. Medieval canonists had enumerated numerous types betrothal. their treatises, jurists Johannes Schneidewin, Conrad Mauser, Joachim von Beust translated Luther’s into terms, reducing only two. The first type, continued regulated canon law, some exceptions. second, approval, governed Roman law reinterpreted according Scripture. Cardinal Bellarmine criticized this as confused, prompting Lutheran theologians Paul Tarnov Johann Gerhard reply ‘clandestine’ acquired new meaning: violation imposing