The Construction of Kinship at the Margins

Noble Bastards at the Bourbons in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

Natural children epitomize the transgression of Christian marriage, and thus are struck with legal inability as defined by customary law, the Church, and jurisprudence from the 11th century onwards. This aimed at preserving the successional rights of legitimate children. Those born outside lawful marriage found themselves discriminated inside a family group. Through the Bourbon ducal family (14th-16th centuries), the aim is to understand what place was given to natural children inside a family group of the nobility. Even though their successional exclusion did not transpose on a social point of view, they remained and were deliberately kept on the fringe of their family groups and were fated to serve the interests of the lineage.