“If they remained as mere words”: Trent, Marriage, and Freedom in the Viceroyalty of Peru, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
The right of persons to marry without coercion and live their marriage freely was one of the foremost and frequently mentioned topics among synod and council fathers, moralists, and canon lawyers in colonial Spanish America. Within the territory of the viceroyalty of Peru, the recommendations of the Council of Trent in this regard took the form of a new set of ecclesiastical regulations, derived from synods and councils that occurred from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century.