This has been interesting!
The treizain was discussed in a nineteenth century French magazine
called "l'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux", the Intermediary
for researchers and the curious.
In 1887 there was a brief piece about the treizain and marriage in the
south-west of France, saying:
Around Bordeaux it is the custom to give the priest officiating at a
wedding thirteen coins.
He blesses them, keeps one and returns twelve to the groom who then
gives them to the bride. Rich families give gold coins, working
families silver coins, and the poor alloy coins.
The coins returned by the priest, although only twelve, keep the name
of treizain. The bride looks after them carefully. Ladies sometimes
turn their treizain into a bracelet.
Can anyone tell me in which provinces this custom still survives and
give me any notions about its origin. Is it a memory of Germanic law
when one had to buy a wife? Supposing that it is only practised in the
south-west of France, did it have Spanish origins? Is it known abroad?
25 July 1887
page 418-9
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-61458
-----------------
The question was revived in 1892 and some responses were published.
One respondent said that just a few years earlier the treizain was
customary in the north. The couple gave a certain number of deniers to
the priest with the ring. They were blessed and returned, then kept
until their children's marriage, when the same deniers would once
again be blessed. But the clergy now (1892) refuse to do this, saying
it is pagan.
Another writer says this still goes on in Languedoc, Poitou and
Limousin. He says just two coins are blessed, one kept by the groom
and called the "pièce de mariage". This represents the earlier twelve
coins, while the other, the thirteenth or "part du diable" (devil's
share), is kept by the priest to prevent the devil coming to the
couple's new household. Once upon a time, people used rare or
interesting coins for treizains. Doublons or Spanish onzas were
popular. People even made special coins. The writer has a treizain
which was used by three generations of his ancestors in Poitou. It has
two entwined hands on one side and a heart on the other.
30 April 1892
page 425-426
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-61463
Later that same year someone says the treizain is still current in
Ardennes, or at least at Charleville.
The priest blesses twelve coins, plus a thirteenth which is a medal
called the "pièce de mariage".
The priest keeps ten of these coins as his fee and gives the married
couple two coins and the medal.
The custom of coins struck or gilded specially for marriage is very
old. M. Poëy d'Avant had a collection of such coins which are all
described or illustrated in a catalogue printed at Fontenay-Vendée in
1853.
10 July 1892
page 19
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-61464&M=pagination&Y=Image
-----------------
In 1893 another correspondent wrote to say that the treizain was known
in the north too.
He had been married in Amiens nearly 40 years earlier and put thirteen
coins in the plate. Twelve were current coins, while the thirteenth
was a Louis XII gold sol. This was the only coin returned to him by
the priest, but it had piqued his (the priest's) curiosity and he
asked to see it again after the ceremony.
10 October 1893
Page 372-373
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-61466&I=186&M=pagination&Y=Image
The Intermédiaire is online in the Gallica section of the French
National Library site.
Searching the documents on this website can be tricky at times, but if
the links I gave you don't work, I hope you will be able to access
this material by searching with "treizain" in the "recherche libre"
box.
http://gallica.bnf.fr/
Do get back to me if you need any help with the Gallica site, or with
translating the French. I'd be happy to help.
Thanks for a fascinating question, and for the interesting information
on your own website.
Good luck with your research.
Best Wishes - Leli |
Request for Answer Clarification by
fstokens-ga
on
11 Apr 2004 14:30 PDT
Sounds like a great answer! However, I'm having some trouble with the
links provided. Whether I use the direct links, or do a search at
gallica.bnf.fr, when I get the the page where I think I should see the
actual "document" all I can get is a sort of title page. I've tried
using both Mozilla and Internet Explorer, with the same results.
Either way, what I get is two pdf windows; on the left is an "index"
with some link, and on the right (where it seems like the document
should be) I just get a single page, and it just appears to be a
title. Any idea of what I'm doing wrong, or something else I can try
to do to access the documents?
|
Clarification of Answer by
leli-ga
on
11 Apr 2004 15:35 PDT
Probably the easiest thing will be to use the page numbers I gave you.
If your list on the left is an index, click "pagination" at the top of
the page, and you should get a list of numbers instead. Then you can
click on the page number you want (on a pink background) and it should
take you to the right place.
It can also be done by finding "treizain" in the index (table des
matières) on the left and clicking on highlighted numbers. However, I
found this fairly troublesome and had to keep shifting back and forth
between that and the "pagination" list.
I do hope I've understood your query properly and that this will help,
but please tell me if this still isn't working for you.
You can also download part or all of each document by clicking on
"télécharger". Rather to my surprise, I have just managed to make this
work - slowly.
Your options are:
Choisissez le début de votre sélection :
Choose where your selection should begin:
1ère page
First page
Dernière page lue
Last page read
Choisissez la fin de votre sélection :
Choose where your selection should end:
Jusqu'à la fin de l'ouvrage
The end of the whole work
Seulement page(s)
Only [number] pages
Good luck - Leli
PS Afraid I will soon be closing down for the night, as I am in the
UK, but I will be more than happy to grapple with Gallica again in the
morning, if necessary.
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
fstokens-ga
on
11 Apr 2004 16:57 PDT
Okay, I think I've got the hang of it now. It only loads one page at
a time, so I do just see the title page at first. Then I need to
check the index (or your citation), click on "pagination" at the top,
and then click on the correct page, and that page will load. It seems
like there should be a more direct way to get to an article (and maybe
there is) but it works!
|
,
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