THE GEOPOLITICS OF INCEST: SEX, GENDER AND VIOLENCE IN THE FOURTH BRANCH OF THE MABINOGI

I the City of God, St. Augustine explains the severity of the Christian marriage laws in terms of charity: marriage between unrelated persons multiplies the bonds of kinship and thus "weld[s] social life more securely" ("ad socialem vitam diligentius conligandam").l Marriage between kin, or incest, is like "cross[ing] the boundary of a field motivated by greed of grain.,,2 In the twelfth century, however, Peter Damian eschews the praises of lawful marriage in favor of a focused condemnation of incest: he denounces the marriage between King Robert the Pious and his third cousin as having produced a man with the head and neck of a goose. Across the Channel, John of Salisbury complains that the Welsh live like beasts, bartering concubines and baring the foulness of their blood kin ("consanguinearum turpitudinem reuelare").4 Thus, in addition to