Comparison of legal cases of Giovanni verse Lusanna and Martin verses Bertrande

Comparison of legal cases of Giovanni verse Lusanna and Martin verses Bertrande
Name:
Course:
Professor Name:
(February, 2013)
.

During the Renaissance (16th century), marriages were arranged in order to consolidate land. Money was not the measure of wealth, but wealth was measured in terms of the number of cattle owned, the number of acres of land cultivated, and other furnishing process. (Travitsky, 1994). Martin’s family receives several important “items” from Bertrand’s dowry. Freshly married people never had their separate homes but lived under the umbrella of their parents never to mention the mother of in-law ‘controlled’ the new daughter in law. Thus very few could attempt to set up their own households. Above all, land was shared since it was the source of a family’s wealth, reputation and pride (Certeau, 1986).
The church (Catholic Church) did play a bigger role in everyday life of people in these times. The thought of magic and witchcraft playing a role in bring calamities to the people had not evaporated even though they were Christians (Natalie, 1975). Priests participated highly in casting of demons. Popular festivals were more inclined to pagan than to Christianity. On Mardi gras men ride from farm to farm asking for the ingredients for a gumbo to be prepared by the women later that day in the town hall (Zemon, 2000).
The villages could be regarded as an extended family as people of the same blood lived confined in one place thus details of each were well know by each individual. Large number of the people never knew how to sign their names, only the few educated knew how to write, priests and wealthy (Norman, 2003). People never travelled and books were possessed by the wealthy only. Many died in the same vicinity; where they were born. Only they paid solders (mercenaries) did participate in war and mostly the ordinarily village never went to war unless forced by the local lord (Bloch, 2002).