Proles illegitima? Postępowanie wobec dzieci w praktyce sądu poznańskiego oficjała biskupiego w średniowieczu
Proles illegitima? Proceedings Against Children in the Practice of the Poznań Court of the Episcopal Official in the Middle Ages

Summary/Abstract: In this article, Magdalena Biniaś-Szkopek raises issues related to the situation of illegitimate offspring in the Middle Ages. In the introductory part of the text, Biniaś-Szkopek summarizes the current research and shows that in this period “bastards” were treated as inferior to legitimate offspring. The literature on this points out that an illegitimate child was not only socially disadvantaged, but that, moreover, this kind of person was deprived of all privileges, including the right to inherit from the father and to occupy higher positions — secular or ecclesiastical — in the state administration. Biniaś-Szkopek also draws attention to the fact that in late medieval Poland, which was a state monarchy, different laws were applied to different social strata, which, however, in the context of the issue discussed in this article, did not find an adequate reflection in historiography. Further in her article, Biniaś-Szkopek presents the results of her analysis of a source that has been neglected by historiography so far: books kept by consistory courts. Biniaś-Szkopek has scrutinized a group of files created by a Poznań official in the first half of the fifteenth century. She focuses on the cases in which conflicting couples came to the court to solve their problems and referred to the offspring born from their relationships. An analysis of the clerk’s decisions and verdicts concerning these children shows that they were usually treated with care and that their parents were obliged provide for them even when there was no clear legal basis for their relationship. Summing up the source material, Biniaś-Szkopek shows that the medieval “bastard” was treated very differently in a knightly family and among the lower social classes.

• Details
• Contents