The history of the formalization of marriage law in the Latin medieval West is very much like a series of normative tensions. Although the conflicts of norms cannot be restricted to theological and legal controversies, their interest lies in the fact that they sometimes gave rise to the expression of contradictory norms, depending on the forum at stake. This was more particularly the case when it came to the question of settling the moral and judiciary issues in connection with the hierarchical status of clandestine marriages and that of public ones, or ones of “sexual intercourse followed by words of future” and those of a marriage contracted by “words of present.” Which of these processes guaranteed a “true” marriage? And according to which normative references? The different solutions provided by canonical doctrine, theology, the manuals for parish priests and confessors or even synodal statutes enable us to assess the different goals of the clerics concerned by matrimonial issues. Much is at stake, because what is concerned is the salvation of the laity and the balance of the whole society. These normative tensions sometimes led to conceptual and lexical evolutions, but they also entailed certain forms of competition that could undermine the usual means of social regulation, which the actors involved in the marriage could sometimes take advantage of.