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The church restricted marriages between couples on various grounds, including those within certain degrees of kinship, Kinship links could also be counted if one of the couple had had intercourse with someone related to his/her fiancee, as in the example below. Couples applied to Rome for a marriage dispensation to allow the marriage to go ahead. Some dispensations, such as this one, were applied for after the marriage had taken place, in order to ensure the legitimacy of any children born of the marriage. The original dispensation request and the resulting dispensation were in Latin.

7 Feb 1420 marriage dispensation

It is represented that for the part of Robert de Glestanys and Janet, daughter of William Turnbul, Glasgow diocese, that before they had contracted matrimony together Robert had committed fornication with a certain Janet, daughter of John Turnbul, said diocese, related in the third degree of consanguinity to the above Janet, daughter of William. But since they wish to remain in the contract of matrimony, may the Pope dispense them lawfully so to do, and declare legitimate the offspring, born and to be born, of the marriage.

Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1418-1422 eds E.R. Lindsay and A.I. Cameron. Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 3rd series, vol 23, 1934, pp 166-7