The Past Asks You: Strange Families, c. 800

Carolingian genealogy
Berlin Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. fol. 295, f. 80v (12th c.)

Sometimes you ask the Past, sometimes the Past asks you. Today, it’s the latter.

If a father and his son take a widow and her daughter in marriage, so that the son marries the mother and the father the daughter, say, please, what is the relationship between the sons they will bear?

Alcuin (?), Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes

I would say that the relationship between the sons will be… awkward. Medieval bragging rights if you figure it out; I’ll post the answer tomorrow.