Promises, Promises

One vow has changed, because in the earliest English marriage services the bride’s vows included a promise to be:

“bonny and buxom in bed and at board.”

This wonderfully alliterative phrase comes from the Use of Sarum, the earliest English marriage service I have found, which was authorised by the Bishop of Salisbury in 1085. In this very early version some of the vows were still in Latin while others were in old English. The whole service is almost identical with our modern version except that the Latin has been translated and the line about bonny and buxom brides has been omitted.

Originally these words meant something rather different from now. “Bonny” is from the French ‘bon’, or ‘good’; “buxom” is from an old German word meaning ‘pliant’ or ‘obedient’; “board” is where you put food (on the ‘sideboard’) so this means mealtimes; and “bed” simply meant ‘night-time’. So “Be bonny and buxom in bed and at board” meant: “Behave properly and obediently through night and day.” The meanings of these words changed over the years and the church objected to talking about bonny and buxom brides in bed, so we have now lost this vow.

Watching the Tudors, Henry VIII and Catherine Parr used this phrase in their marriage vows. Odd, isn’t it?