Tvång och rädsla. Om äktenskapshinder i medeltida kanonisk rätt

According to medieval canon law, a marriage could be declared invalid if the consent had been given through force or fear. This ruling was a natural consequence of the insistence on free consent as the only requirement for a valid marriage. It did, however, entail a number of both practical and theoretical problems. It could be difficult to prove force and fear within the family, but also to define what should count as sufficient force and fear to render a marriage non valid. In Roman law, the fictional figure of the ”constant man” was used to determine different degrees of coercion. The constant man standard was however difficult to use in marriage cases that often involved very young people, dependent on those most likely to use force and fear against them
In this article, I examine - through the development of papal legislation in force and fear cases and their subsequent commentary - how the constant man standard was reinterpreted during the Middle Ages, and how social reality and the requirement of freedom in spiritual matters redefined the concepts of coercion and consent.