By the middle of the twelfth century according to the laws of England, marriage was held to appertain to the spiritual forum.[35] In the memorable law suit of Richard de Anesty, in 1143, a marriage solemnly celebrated by the church, and from which a child had been born, was declared to be void in favor of a prior marriage, constituted by a mere exchange of consenting words, without the formality of a religious ceremony at all.[36] Soon after this decision, Glanville acknowledged the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts upon all issues touching the validity of marriage and because of the acknowledged inability of the king’s court to solve the issue, where the legitimacy of a litigant had been raised, the canon law was subsequently looked to in all such cases.[37] In 1215, at the Council of Lateran, Pope Innocent III. extended to the whole western portion of Christendom the custom of publishing “banns of marriage,” calling upon all men to declare any just cause of impediment, if any could be urged to the union and from this time on, marriages with banns, had certain legal advantages over a marriage without banns, but still the unblessed, formless marriage was a marriage, before the law.[38] During the reign of Henry II., Alexander III. decreed that a marriage by mere consent, in terms of a present, existing contract, would be given precedence over a later marriage by another man with the same woman, duly solemnized in religious form, and followed by physical union.[39] It seems a strong case, to give effect to the bare consent, in present form, “unhallowed and unconsummated” as against a solemn formal contract, followed by a consummated union, yet this decree was consistent with the ecclesiastical law, as interpreted from the middle of the twelfth century until the Council of Trent, and no religious ceremony or the presence of a priest was essential to constitute a valid marriage, before the catholic church.[40] In 1254 the interesting case of William de Cardunville, a tenant in chief of the Crown, came before the court, upon an _inquisitio post-mortem_, to determine which of two conflicting claimants was his rightful heir. He had solemnly espoused one Alice, with whom he had lived for sixteen years and had several children, the youngest being a son, four years old, named Richard. Long before his espousel of Alice, he had lived with and had a son by one Joan, and this son was also named Richard and was twenty-four years old at the death of his father. Joan established a common-law marriage, without the religious ceremony, and she was adjudged the rightful wife of the deceased and her son, the first begotten Richard, was awarded the livery.[41] From an early date, the interpretation of the English Courts, as to the validity of a marriage based upon a present mutual consent of the parties, was followed in the United States, with the exception of Massachusetts, Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky.