Wikipedia
The term Beilager (in older writings Beylager) was used regionally, and Bettleite and Bettsetzung are preserved. In a narrower sense, however, all refer to the ceremonial part of the marriage, since the High Middle Ages to about the 19th century mostly witnessed in Germany. But the Beilager is also another term for the feast that we call marriage today. To the nuptials included as fixed by the previous courtship ritual nuptials, the wedding night with a dowry for the bride, the Church's blessing (later marriage), and the repatriation of the bride.
When ritual nuptials bride and groom were successively introduced into a festive, ties and double bed. Regional differences, they were to each other put or sit to bed. In any case, the pair was covered with a joint cover (hence "in cahoots" as an expression of belonging together). The process had legal force and therefore need witnesses who should bear witness to the legal consummation of marriage later. The oldest surviving Saxon law (Saxony Mirror in 1220) it says: Er ist ihr Vormund und sie ist seine Genossin, und tritt in sein recht, wann si in sein Bett tritt(He is her guardian and she is his companion, and enters his right, when shi occurs to bed). A senior witness or relative (sometimes also a lawyer) inquired the consent of the couple. The whole rite belonged to Muntehe, the guardianship of the woman went from father to husband over.
A royal nuptials was designed with appropriate pomp. The (pre-) marital intercourse copula carnalis. (Medieval Latin sinful connection, it was said in church records) was probably in the early Middle Ages Beilagers part of the ritual. Descriptions of the 15th century, but leave the bride and groom get dressed in the symbolic marriage bed, the carnal union of the pair followed without witnesses on the wedding night. Some authors believe that in the 14th century took place under witness of sexual intercourse.
At a special form of ritual Beilager, called keusches Beilager (chaste nuptials), in which a deputy or messenger of the groom carried out the ritual nuptials, they put a naked sword symbolically as a symbol of physical separation between the bride and matchmakers on the bed. The Abgesandtenwerbung survived to our time in the form of the so-called Handschuhehe (marriage glove) on, which is not recognized legally in Germany.