A short note on single women owning or inheriting property in the Middle Ages: they did, although it was not the preferred method of passing land on. Sons always trumped daughters in inheritance. With mortality being what is was, some tradesmen or landowners had no living children. When Signy’s uncle chooses her to inherit the inn, he does because he has no possible male heir or even a married niece. No matter how competent the innkeeper may have thought Signy was, however, he also assumed she would marry and that her husband would take over the running of the business.
The story about Tibia being fined for falsely raising a hue and cry was inspired by an actual incident. In 1302, Matilda Coleman of Brigstock raised the hue and cry against Adam Swargere whom she accused of doing some injury to her daughter. Her act was found to be unjustified, and she was fined, as it were, for bothering everyone. That said, the tithingmen also decided that Adam had mistreated the girl, for which they assessed him a financial penalty. A very strange, split decision, but it meant that Adam was assessed only one fine, not two. Had the raising of the hue and cry been found appropriate, he would have paid for that as well as for committing the offense. To us, the logic of why a proper complaint was punished may seem strained at best, but Dr. Judith Bennett provides illuminating background on the rationale in her fascinating book, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock Before the Plague.
There are a few period terms used in the book which I hope are made clear enough so no reader will be jolted out of the story. Nonetheless, the following ones may merit additional detail.
A hobby-lantern (hobby is short for hobbedy or the devil) is also known as a corpse candle or a will-of-the-wisp. There are many other expressions used for this form of eerie light seen at night in marshlands, but the tales behind it range from Satan punishing a man who promised his soul if the Evil One would pay his bar tab (and then reneged) to a kinder, gentler Devil who tossed a lost soul a burning coal to keep warm as it wandered the earth.
A bawd in the medieval period (14th century) meant either a man or a woman. This individual arranged for those sexual encounters where marriage was not at issue. He or she could be a pimp, a brothel owner, a prostitute, or someone who arranged meeting places for lovers, either or both of whom were married to others.
A tithing was originally a group of ten men, over the age of twelve, who took responsibility for other group members coming to answer for any accused crime.
When Hob says that he and his unnamed companion are husband and wife in God’s eyes, he is referring to a common medieval marriage practice. Many marriages were performed in secret, with or without witnesses. These were quite valid under both ecclesiastical and secular law. Even if there were no witnesses, a man and a woman could exchange vows “in the present tense” and become as bound in marriage as those are today who get a license and go before a justice of the peace or religious authority. Vows spoken “in the future tense”, on the other hand, were the equivalent of an intent to wed and were closer to our current concept of an engagement. Needless to say, such marriages were often hard to prove or disprove. Barring strong evidence to the contrary, the ecclesiastical courts often found that a wedding had occurred. The practice eventually lost favor with both Church and State.
And, finally, a bit of information new to me but one of those delightful discoveries that brings pleasure, even if belated, and is common enough knowledge to others. According to Janet Backhouse in her beautiful book, Medieval Birds in the Sherborne Missal, the term mew was used in England for seagull until the 17th century. My cats have told me that they will never look at those birds quite the same again…
Bibliography
The following are a few books I found helpful, educational, and just plain fascinating while writing this story. Hopefully, I have not misinterpreted the concepts or information. If such proves to be the case, I apologize deeply. The authors are hardly to blame for my ineptitude. That said, I cannot thank them enough for the pleasant hours spent reading them all.
Treatises and Pastoral Prayer (Rule of Life for a Recluse) by Aelred of Rievaulx, Cistercian Publications, 1971.
A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c.1295-1344 by Judith M. Bennett, McGraw-Hill College, 1999.
Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies, Harper Perennial, 1990.
Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England by Ruth Mazo Karras, Oxford University Press, 1996.
Lives of the Desert Fathers, translated by Norman Russell, Cistercian Publications, 1980.
The Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth Century Recluse, edited and translated by C.H. Talbot, University of Toronto Press, 1997.
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