an "unfree woman."[1] Twenty-nine years after his death his sister Sophia and several others of his relations signed a declaration stating that Tycho's children were legitimate, and that their mother (though his inferior in rank) had been his wife, adding that he would not have been allowed to live with an unmarried woman in Denmark for twenty-six years. But this does not in the least prove that Christine had been formally married to Tycho. According to the ancient Danish law, a woman who publicly lived with a man and kept his keys and ate at his table was after three winters to be considered as his wife. In this rule the Reformation made no change, as Luther and his followers did not consider a Church ceremony necessary to legalise a marriage, but adopted the old rule of canonical law, that the consent of the parties made the marriage, which, therefore, really dated from the betrothal (matrimonium inchoatum), though the full consequences only began when the parties went to live together or were married (matrimonium consummatum). A natural result of these views was, that the parties frequently began to live together immediately after the betrothal, as they did not see the necessity of the Church ceremony, which could make no difference as to the legal effects of the connexion. Gradually a change took place in these views, as the Church could not look with indifference at this setting aside of its authority; but though in Denmark betrothed people about
- ↑ Danske Magazin, ii. p. 192 (Weistritz, ii. p. 70). The English traveller, Fynes Moryson, tells us that Tycho was said "to liue vnmarried, but keeping a Concubine, of whom he had many children, & the reason of his so liuing was thought to be this; because his nose hauing been cut off in a quarrell, when he studied in a Vniversity of Germany, he knew himselfe thereby disabled to marry any Gentlewoman of his own quality. It was also said that the Gentlemen lesse respected him for liuing in that sort, and did not acknowledge his sonnes for Gentlemen." Moryson heard this at Elsinore in 1593; see his "Itinerary of his ten Yeeres Travell through the twelve Domjnions of Germany, Bohmerland, &c." London, 1617, p. 59.
