Childlessness was a widespread concern for late medieval couples. In the southern French diocese of Maguelone, an average of 43 percent of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century urban testators and of 25 percent of rural testators had no children alive although they were or had been married. This article investigates, first, patterns of childlessness in time and space based on the analysis of close to 1,100 wills. In a second time, the focus shifts toward the causes of childlessness, understood as resulting from both the death of children and issues of infertility. A series of factors, some environmental, other due to the nature of sources, explain why urban couples exhibit higher rates of childlessness than rural couples. The last section of this article explores the consequences of the absence of children on the transmission of estates and on support for the elderly.

中文翻译：

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第十四和第十五世纪朗格多克的无子女家庭

对于中世纪晚期的夫妇来说，无孩子是一个普遍关注的问题。在法国南部的马格隆教区，十四世纪和十五世纪的城市遗嘱者中有43％，农村遗嘱者中有25％的人虽然已经或已经结婚，但他们没有活着的孩子。本文首先基于对近1,100份遗嘱的分析，调查了时间和空间上的无子女模式。第二次，重点转移到了导致儿童死亡和不育问题的无子女原因上。一系列因素，其中一些是环境因素，另一部分是由于资源的性质所致，这解释了为什么城市夫妇的无子女率要高于农村夫妇。