IMC 2017: Sessions
Session 719: The Other Children: Illegitimacy in the Middle Ages
Tuesday 4 July 2017, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Historisches Institut, Universität zu Köln |
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| Organiser: | Clara Harder, Historisches Institut, Universität zu Köln |
| Moderator/Chair: | Christof Rolker, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften und Europäische Ethnologie, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg |
| Paper 719-a | A (Double) Standard?: Male and Female Illegitimacy in Medieval Germany (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities, Social History |
| Paper 719-b | 'Bastard Feudalism?': Illegitimacy and Landed Society in Late Medieval England (Language: English) Index terms: Mentalities, Social History |
| Paper 719-c | The Golden Age of Noble Bastards Revisited: Bastards as Reservoir Children in the French Nobility during the Hundred Years War (Language: English) Index terms: Mentalities, Social History |
| Abstract | This session aims to exemplify the various ramifications of illegitimacy in the high and late Middle Ages. Children born out of wedlock are associated with being legally and socially discriminated. Their rank within their families and society in general differed from their brothers and sisters conceived in wedlock. The amount of discrimination, however, cannot be generalised. It seems that the existence of illegitimate children was not only a well-known fact of medieval societies, but could also be an advantage in the attempts of their families to secure and expand property and influence. Therefore, the roles ascribed to these children have to be examined with proper caution. |