others, that the control of women was a constant issue ecclesiastics faced. 158 The
suspicions of Christina of Markyate and Geoffrey of St Albans is another example
of the unease that rested on male female interaction due to the sexual morality issue. 159 Across a period of change and enhanced religious ideals, these
examples present the suspicion that lied between sexes and their level of
devotion that continued to arise (even to the extent that it was defended so severely). 160
Marriage proposed the main choice of lifestyle for women of the age, but
the church reforms had just as much impact on the secular route as they did on religious vocations. 161 In the Anglo-Norman respect, the church’s new emphasis
on legitimate union meant that Norman marriages to English women had even
more efficacy at cementing an ideological claim over the land. Where divorce
was more widely accepted in Anglo-Saxon society, the onset of Christian reforms
made marriages indissoluble and henceforth women’s place in the male lineage far clearer. 162 The debate concerning what constituted a marriage was still
developing at the time of the conquest and beyond and therefore courts
frequently had to decide the legitimacy of marriages and the issue of bastardy for inheritance disputes. 163 The Anglo-Norman offspring were nonetheless born
into a society socially and politically more secure from the new religious
stronghold over the sacrament of marriage.
The impact of the new rules on the secular world was inevitably slow and the concepts had to be modified to the context of the time. 164 The church could
158 Thompson, p. 239. 159 Green, p. 361. 160 Constable, p. 208. 161 Green, p. 763. 162 Susan M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (New York: Manchester University Press, 2013), p. 195. See also Ward, p. 13-4. See also Green, p. 361. 163 Chibnall, Anglo-Norman England, 1066-1166 , p. 197. See also Ward, p. 22. 164 Ward, p. 12.
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