Other impediments were known as 'impeding' or 'prohibitive.' Fo this class belonged, for ex ample. a pre-contract do futuro ( i.e. a previous betrothal to another person) : also the non-ob servance of ecclesiastical rules regarding banns. Disregard of such impediments subjected the offender to penalties, but did not invalidate the Ina rriage.
It should he noted. however. that the Church's view of betrothal ehanged in the twelfth century. In the early Albldle Ages the Church was strongly influenced by the Oerman idea that betrothal was an inchoate marriage. In the twelfth cen tury it went back to the Roman view that an agreement de futuro was a thing Wholly distinet from marriage. Nevertheless some concessions were still made to German ideas. it was ad mitted that an agreement to marry in future and subsequent eoncubilus constituted ma cringe. Moreover, marriages not eonsummated were treated somewhat differently from those which had been consummated: they were annulled with more freedom.
On the whole, the canonical marriage was the consensual marriage of the Roman law. made
indissoluble. The ages of consent were the same. fourteen and twelve. It was customary to pub lish banns, to exchange troth-plight at the church door, and to have the marriage consecrated by the priest inside of the church, hut none of these things was necessary. The sacrament of mar riage was one which the parties could administer to each other, and the clandestine uneonseerated marriage was completely valid. The consent of parents to the marriages of their ehildren, was required by the Roman law. was not re quired by the Church, not even in the case of minors. The law was changed. after the Ileforma. tion, by the Council of Trout. The decrees of that emincil required that marriage should be celebrated by the priest of the parish in the presence of two witnesses. These decrees. how ever. were not put in force in all Catholic coun tries (it is affirmed that they were not int rm. dueed into the American possessiMIS of Spain), and where the Tridentine laws are not in force, the Catholic Church continues to recognize the secret and unconsecrated marriage.