Is the VMS a pamphlet of the bastards ? (theory)

[bi3mw]

It is also interesting to note that there were different categories of bastards. C. Dale Brittain (professor of medieval history) distinguishes four different categories. So there were not the bastards as Carl-Krüsi and Eggenberger suggest. One can assume that they were treated differently. So it was by no means a group with equal difficulties.

There were at least four different categories of illegitimate children in medieval law.  A manzer, a term with Hebrew roots, was a child born to a prostitute or sometimes to an incestuous union, that is a child whose parents' relationship was considered morally wrong.  A nothus, a word with Greek roots, was the child of a married woman due to an adulterous affair, also morally wrong.  A spurius was the child of a couple who could not have been married, such as a citizen and a non-citizen (in those cities that regulated who citizens could marry), or a well-born man and a slave in late antiquity, or a married man and a concubine.  A naturalis was the offspring of a couple who could have married and indeed might do so in the future; this last category was treated fairly indulgently, the product of "young love" that got carried away.

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