# Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003 > [!cite] > Domino, Lynda Pinney. ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year: Celtic Secular Marriage in Late Medieval Scotland’. Master’s thesis, Iowa State University, 2003. https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/2703c3a5-758e-42d4-b854-bcdc3a8cb0a5/content. > [!abstract] > According to oral tradition, medieval Scots appear to have participated in a Celtic secular marriage custom that was quite peculiar. These stories report a custom, which allowed for a temporary union between men and women. This was the custom of trial marriages or ‘handfasting,’ as it has been popularly known. But what exactly was this custom of trial marriage? More importantly, was the custom real or merely the product of overly active literary imaginations? And if it was real, how did such a custom come to be in use in Scotland? --- ‘On the Orkney Isles, the fragments of an ancient holed stone, called the Odin Stone, are said to have survived into the 1940s. According to legend, the Odin Stone was used for sealing agreements and binding marriages and unions. It was customary, when promises were made, for the contracting parties to join hands through this hole. Promises made this way were called the “promises of Odin”.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 8)]] ^552a70 ‘The term “handfasting” was also used to signify agreement to a variety of contracts in early times, much like shaking hands to seal a bargain today.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 8)]] ^2f0d80 ‘The term \[handfasting] promotes confusion because it has also been used to define betrothal. It is very likely that the terms were used interchangeably. After all, a trial marriage was, in some ways, like a betrothal. It was not a permanent contract of marriage.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 8)]] ^c558ec ‘The term “trial marriage”, being a straight-forward and more accurate term for describing this type of Celtic secular marriage \[…]’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 10)]] ^4d9190 ‘According to Pennant \[Thomas Pennant, in *A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772* ], trial marriages took place in Eskdale, which was in the upland border regions of southwestern Scotland. Unmarried men and women met each year at the Lammas Festival, at which time they selected a partner with whom they “handfasted” themselves until the next Lammas festival, a year and a day later. At that time, the couples could either have their union solemnized before a priest or go their separate ways, free to contract another handfast marriage.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 27)]] ^3603b5 ‘The *Old Statistical Account of Scotland*, assigns the annual Lammas Festival as the *loci* for trial marriages.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 28)]] ^85f2d5 ‘According to oral tradition, medieval Scots appear to have participated in a Celtic secular marriage custom that was quite peculiar. These stories report a custom, which allowed for a temporary union between men and women. This was the custom of trial marriages or “handfasting”, as it has been popularly known.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 1)]] ^e5a3a7 ‘\[Handfasting] was an agreement that was probably conditional to the fulfillment of specific terms, which were very likely to have been concerned with the production of offspring.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 8)]] ^aa57dd ‘Alexander E. Anton’s article, “‘Handfasting’ in Scotland”, which appeared in the *Scottish Historical Review*, is the prominent work on handfasting to date. Anton’s analysis of the available sources led him to the conclusion that handfasting probably did not exist, at least not in the sense described \[fiction] … However, he completed his study more than forty years ago and he did not include Celtic mythology, Celtic law, or oral tradition in his study. It should be noted that Anton was more concerned with analyzing the legal basis for trial marriages, particularly with regard to Canon law, than with seeking new information.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 4–5)]] ^82eb62 ‘In his article ‘Marriage, Divorce and Concubinage in Gaelic Scotland,’ in *Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness*, W.D.H. Sellar discusses Celtic secular marriage in detail and ably refutes Anton’s conclusions on trial marriages. \[…] Sellar’s study also advances the theory that Gaelic Scots mirrored the marriage customs of the Gaelic Irish.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 1)]] ^43a834 ‘In medieval Scotland, it appears that Christianity and pagan custom were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Therefore, trial marriages must not be considered *within* the framework of Canon law but rather, *in spite* of Canon law.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 6)]] ^a90800 The custom of trial marriage could contribute to great violence with a family, as some men took trial wife after trial wife. [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 22)]] ^bf57ca ‘For example, property laws that state that a woman may not inherit her husband’s property unless the union has lasted for more than a year and a day, gain new meaning when considered within the framework of trial marriages.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 6)]] ^d7f99a ‘\[…] the last contemporary reference to the ongoing practice of peculiar marriage customs appears in the “Statutes of Iona”, signed in 1609. The Lords of the Isles had managed to maintain a significant degree of sovereignty up to this time. As a result, the Statutes of Iona were passed by the Scottish government in an effort to take control of the western islands. Among other things, the “Statutes of Iona” outlawed marriages that were “contracted for certain years and then completely discharged”.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 10)]] ^87bfd7 ‘Skene describes a succession dispute related to trial marriage in his book, *The Highlanders of Scotland*. According to Skene, although the offspring of Celtic secular marriages were considered legitimate by the Highlanders, they were often looked upon as bastards by the government and therefore, unable to succeed.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 13)]] ^8c9da9 ‘The genealogy of the Clan MacDonald, as written by the Reverends Angus MacDonald and Archibald MacDonald, reports a trial marriage between the Macleods and the MacDonalds as follows: Alasdair Crottach the Hump-backed) MacLeod, who became the 8th Chief of the Clan MacLeod in 1500, had a daughter who was “handfasted” to and later repudiated by Allan MacDonald (Allan Mac Ian), 9th laird of Clanranald.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 10–11)]] ^41437e ‘Another instance of trial marriage is reported by Burke’s Peerage, which makes use of medieval chronicles, governmental documents, clan genealogies, and family archives to construct the. genealogies of the noble families of Scotland. This source briefly tells the story of Alastair MacAllan MacDonald, 7th laird of Clanranald and Moydart in the early-sixteenth century. This MacDonald chief was said to have had eight sons by three “handfast unions”.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 12)]] ^757e02 ‘The sixteenth-century historian, Lindsay of Pitscottie, author of *The Historie and Cronicles of Scotland*, reported a trial marriage between James Dunbar, 4th earl of Moray, and Isobel Innes, daughter of Sir Walter De Innes, 10th baron of that ilk. James Dunbar and Isobel Innes were “handfasted” in the early to mid-1400s, during the reign of James II of Scotland.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 12)]] ^dc510a ‘The late seventeenth-century author, Martin Martin, gave a similar, though less entertaining, description of the custom in his book, *A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland*. Martin, too, described a custom of marrying for a year that was practiced in earlier times by the inhabitants of the Islands of Scotland.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 2)]] ^f015df Pennant writes: ‘Unmarried men and women met each year at the Lammas Festival, at which time they selected a partner with whom they “handfasted” themselves until the next Lammas festival, a year and a day later.’ [[Domino, ‘He Kept Her The Space of a Year’, 2003|(Domino 2003, 27)]] ^563237