Force, Fear, and Consent to Marriage : Supplications to the Apostolic Penitentiary in the late Middle Ages
In this paper I investigate the petitions to invalidate forced marriages submitted to the Apostolic Penitentiary during the pontificate of Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492). The supplications will be analyzed both in relation to the late medieval scholarly discussion of force and fear as impediment to marriage, and in relation to the lived reality that emerges in the petitioner’s narratives. The Peni
