Life in a Medieval Village

by Frances Gies

  Not all village violence was drink-related. The subject of the numerous altercations recorded in the Elton court records is not usually given, but the coroners’ rolls report quarrels about debt, in one case a halfpenny one brother lent another, thefts (a bushel of flour, a basket, a hen), trespass, and once simply “an old hatred.” Occasionally the subject was a woman: two brothers in Radwell, Bedfordshire, found their sister Juliana “lying under a haystack” with a young man who “immediately arose and struck [one of the brothers] on the top of the head, to the brain, apparently with an axe, so that he immediately died.” The lovers fled.44 Domestic quarrels got out of hand, as when Robert Haring of Aston, Bedfordshire, and his wife Sybil fell to quarreling, and a friend eating lunch with them tried to intervene as peacemaker and was slain by an axe blow.45

  Occasionally violence came on a larger scale. The Bedfordshire coroner reported homicides resulting from a melee between the men of a knight’s household and those of the prior of Lanthony; from the siege of a church in a dispute over the right to a piece of land, involving large numbers of attackers and besiegers; and from a pitched battle between the villages of St. Neots and Little Barford.46

  Besides such amateur lawbreakers, bands of professional criminals roamed the countryside. Bedfordshire coroners recorded the depredations of one gang of thieves who in 1267 came to the village of Honeydon at about vespers, armed with swords and axes, seized a boy named Philip “who was coming from his father’s fold,” “beat, ill-treated, and wounded him,” and forced him to accompany them to the house of Ralph son of Geoffrey. Recognizing the boy’s voice, Ralph opened the door, the thieves fell upon him, wounded him, and tied him up, killed his mother and a servant, and ransacked the house. They then broke into and burglarized seven more houses, killing and wounding several more people. The boy Philip at last managed to escape and give the alarm, but the gang fled and apparently was never apprehended.47

  Another band of “felons and thieves” committed a similar assault on the village of Roxton in 1269, breaking through the wall of a house and carrying away “all the goods,” breaking into the house next door and murdering a woman in her bed, finally invading the house of John the Cobbler by breaking a door and windows, dragging John out and killing him, and wounding his wife, daughter, and a servant. A second daughter hid “between a basket and a chest” and escaped to give the alarm. In this case the thieves were identified by the dying wife of John the Cobbler, one as a former servant of the prior of Newnham, the others as men who had collected the tithes for the prior of Cauldwell and as “glovers of Bedford.” They were arrested and brought to justice.48

  One thief became a victim of his own crime when he entered a house by a ladder to purloin a ham hanging from a roof beam. When the householder, Matilda Bolle, saw him leaving and gave the alarm, he panicked, tumbled from the ladder, and died of a broken neck.49

  6

  MARRIAGE AND

  THE FAMILY

  WITHIN THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY, THE BASIC social and economic unit was the family household. The number of its members fluctuated through the generational cycle: young couple, couple with children, with grandparents, with brother or sister (or aunt or uncle), solitary widow or widower. Information about the composition of the average household is scarce and unreliable, but the consensus among scholars is that it was small, with no more than five members, and most commonly nuclear—that is, husband and wife with or without children. Size of household tended to reflect economic status, rich households supporting more children, other relatives, and a servant or two.1

  One important characteristic of the thirteenth-century peasant household was its autonomy. The larger kinship groupings (clan, sippe, kindred) that had played an important role in Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval France and Germany had lost their powers of protection and supervision, along with the need for such powers. Their functions had been taken over by new police and judicial agencies of the community and state.

  The two great fundamentals of family history are marriage and inheritance, always closely linked. In open field country, impartible (undivided) inheritance was the general rule, holdings passing to a single heir, usually the eldest son. A study of seventy-five cases of succession in the Midland village of Wakefield showed that a single son inherited from a father in fortyseven cases; in nine, in the absence of a son, a daughter or daughters did so. In the remaining nineteen cases, a son or daughter succeeded a mother, a brother or sisters succeeded a brother, an uncle succeeded a nephew or niece, a cousin succeeded a cousin, and in one case a (presumably second) husband succeeded a wife. If there was no son but two or more daughters, land was divided among the daughters.2

  Widows had inferior but definite rights that varied from place to place. Under common (feudal) law, a widow’s portion of an estate was from one third to one half, but a widow often automatically succeeded a husband in a peasant holding, not as the heiress, but as the surviving co-tenant. This arrangement allowed her to support the family and hold it together. A widow might be pressured by the lord to remarry, to insure that the holding had a man to perform its labor services, but she might preserve her freedom by hiring workers. Most widows eventually married, or turned over the holding to an adult son, but some, like Cecilia Benyt of Cuxham (Oxfordshire), remained in possession of the family holding, never remarrying, although her son was an adult and in fact reeve.3 Widows’ rights, says Rosamond Faith, “seem to have been by far the most durable and firmly established of all inheritance customs.”4 Widows’ rights, and inheritance customs in general, were influenced by the long-term fluctuations in availability of land. The scarcer land became, the more attractive a widow became.

  A grand principle of inheritance had come to be very widely accepted: “An established holding ought to descend in the blood of the men who…held it of old,” sometimes expressed as “keeping the name on the land.”5 No one yet disputed the lord’s title to his entry fee and even his heriot [death duty], but by now, legal doctrine notwithstanding, the land was felt to belong to the tenant, villein or free, who plowed, harrowed, and planted it. Tradition was even strong enough to inhibit the lord from raising the rent on a holding when a normal succession took place (alert lords and stewards made sure to raise it when a tenant died without heir and a new tenant was found).

  The entry fee was substantial, arbitrary, and proportional to the size of the holding: in Elton in 1313, “four shillings from Henry Reed to have one cottage formerly his father’s”; “13 shillings 4 pence from Ralph son of Gilbert Shepherd to have one cottage and eight acres of land formerly his father’s”; and “60 shillings from John son of Henry Reeve to have one virgate of land formerly his father’s.” Sometimes the connection between heir and dead tenant is not clear; while Gilbert Shepherd’s son Ralph inherited his father’s holding, another son, John, paid an entry fee of 2 shillings “to have one cottage formerly belonging to Margery Carter.”6

  Manorial courts sometimes had to rule on complicated inheritance questions. In the Bedfordshire village of Chalgrave in 1279, Richard son of Thomas Ballard presented himself and “demanded the land which was his father’s.” Investigation showed that Richard had had an elder brother named Walter, who had died, leaving sons. These sons “would have been the next heirs if Walter had held the land while he lived, but he did not have possession of the land, therefore [the jurors] say that Richard himself is the next heir.” The custom of the manor, however, was that “no customary tenant can enter such land after the death of his father while his mother is alive, unless the mother shall agree, and…his mother will hold the land all her life if she shall wish.” Richard therefore agreed to pay his mother, Avice, a yearly ration of winter wheat (frumentum), beans, and spring wheat (tramesium). Richard paid 12 pence entry fee and promised to do the services “due and accustomed” for the holding, as well as to “maintain the houses of the same tenement.”7

  If the inheriting son was a minor and an orphan and no other relative could be found, the l
ord might exercise his right of “wardship.” Thus at Elton in 1297 John Ketel was “in the custody of the lord,” slept and ate in the manor house, and was apparently clothed; at least he was bought a pair of shoes which had to be repaired at the manor’s expense.8 John Daye, who “tore up and carried away” the house on his father’s holding “which had come into the hand of the lord through the minority of John son and heir of…Richard Daye,” was undoubtedly also in wardship.9

  Where no heir could be found, the lord provided a tenant. “One cottage which John Stabler formerly held in bondage for 12 pence a year is in the hand of the lord,” reported the Elton court record in 1342. “Therefore it is commanded to make provision of one tenant. Afterward, they say, Alexander Cook came and paid entry fee.”10

  The Elton accounts also record several cases in which the land of a deceased tenant was rented out by the lord, sometimes to several villagers, in small parcels: “three rods,” “an acre,” “four acres of land and an acre of meadow.” Usually the rent was substantially raised, and the lease made “for the term of life.”11

  Heriot passes unmentioned in Elton documents except for the comment that a widow succeeding to a holding did not pay it (implying that a son succeeding did).12 Most manors exacted heriot from the widow. A custumal of Brancaster, a Norfolk manor belonging to Ramsey Abbey, states: “If [the villein] virgater dies, the lord has his best beast of the house, if he has a beast. If there is no beast, she gives 32 pence and she holds her husband’s land for the service which pertains to it.”13 Usually a person inheriting a virgate gave a cow or horse, one inheriting a half-virgate a sheep. On some Ramsey Abbey manors, the village rector rather than the lord received the best beast, under the name of “mortuary.”14 Sometimes the fine was simply levied in money: at Abbot’s Ripton, Hemmingford, and Wistow the widow of a virgater gave five shillings as heriot, half the price of a horse, ox, or cow.15

  At Chalgrave in 1279, a jury weighed the question of the rival claims of lord and church on the estate of a man who had no animal. The jury decided that the lord “should have the best cloth or grain whichever shall please him the more, before holy church may have anything of the dead person.” They cited the precedent of “a certain Ascelina who was the wife of Roger the reeve,” and who had held eight acres of land in the time of the grandfather of the present lord, “and had no animal.” The lord took in heriot “the best cloth which she had, to wit, one tunic of blanket [cloth], before holy church took away anything. Afterwards a certain Nigel the Knight, holding the same land, died as tenant, and had no animal. Therefore the lord by custom took one tabard [tunic] of gray in the name of heriot, and he can rightly do so from all his customary tenants in the manor of Chalgrave.”16 One study shows that of eighty-six heriots exacted at Langley, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, in 1348, twenty-two were horses, seventeen cows, eight bulls, five sheep, and the remaining thirty-two insignificant chattels such as a mattock or a pitcher, or “nothing because they are poor.”17

  Among the villagers as among the nobility, primogeniture created some problems while solving others. It kept holdings intact, but as land grew scarce, older sons of both nobility and peasantry had to wait until their fathers died or retired before marrying. Younger sons of the nobility traditionally had to leave the family estate to seek their fortunes in war, or embark on careers in the Church. Younger sons of the peasantry might enlist as common soldiers, or (on payment of a fee to the lord) undertake training for the lower ranks of the clergy. Among the better-off peasants, many fathers gave younger sons small grants of land, often purchased in the growing peasant land market. Edward Britton found that in Broughton 44 percent of the elite families had two or more sons established simultaneously in the village. Younger sons of the poor peasants were not so lucky, generally having to choose between staying home, celibate, and taking their chances as day laborers, perhaps slipping into vagabondage and crime.18

  A few peasants made wills, an increasingly popular measure in the fourteenth century, often recorded in the manorial court rolls. In King’s Ripton in 1309, Nicholas Newman bequeathed a rod of land to his daughter Agnes, and Roger Dike an acre to his sister Margaret; in 1322 Nicholas son of Hugh left his sister a house and yard “lying next to the manor of the lord abbot,” to be held by her for life and then to pass to Joan daughter of Thomas Cooper, and half an acre of land on the Ramsey road to Ivo son of Henry. Alternatively, land might be transferred to a daughter or sister or younger son on the deathbed, evading the inheritance custom. In the period before the Black Death, such transfers were usually not of land handed down in the family, but of acquisitions that the peasant had made during his own lifetime. In the fifteenth century, peasant wills became common.19

  The land market also facilitated acquisition of dowries for daughters of the richer villagers, who might seek alliance with another village family of their own class or even with the lesser gentry without sacrificing any of the family holding. The dowry of a middling peasant’s daughter might also include an acre or two of land, but more often would consist of money, chattels, or both. A poor peasant’s daughter might marry with nothing at all. Substantial dowries came into play mainly in the increasing negotiations for upwardly mobile marriages.20

  Dowries aside, peasant women inherited, held, bought, sold, and leased land. The Elton records disclose many land transactions carried out by women: “And they say that the wife of Geoffrey in Angulo let one acre of land to Richard of Thorpe Waterville, chaplain.”21 “And they say that Muriel atte Gate demised [sold] one acre of her land to Nicholas Miller.”22

  In all transfers of property held by villeins, the lord had an interest. The tangible sign of his interest in peasant marriage was merchet, the fee or fine usually paid by the bride or her father. The origin of merchet (along with its etymology) is lost in the earlier Middle Ages, but by the late thirteenth century it was so long established that it had become a legal test for villein status. In the Elton manorial court of 1279, Reginald son of Benedict tried to escape jury service by claiming that he was free, but lost his case because his sisters had paid merchet. Elias Freeman also was adjudged unfree (in spite of his name) because his ancestor John Freeman had paid merchet for his daughters.23

  Merchets were once regarded as taxes on persons, but Eleanor Searle has argued persuasively that the dowry granted to a daughter was a form of inheritance, and that merchet may better be seen as an inheritance tax on property: “Girls were given land, chattels, or coin…as their part of the inheritance.” Searle observes that merchet was paid only where a substantial dowry was being given the bride. “A foolish girl or a poor one might marry as she liked.” Only if she received part of the family inheritance was she obligated.

  Significantly, the size of the merchet evidently related to the value of the dowry. A St. Albans formulary for holding a manorial court included the instruction to inquire “whether any bondman’s daughter has married without leave, and what her father has given her by way of goods.” When the dowry was in the form of land, it was often transferred at the same time that the merchet was paid. Searle sees an analogue to merchet in the fine paid by a villein for having his sons licensed to be educated for the clergy.24

  Whatever the relationship of merchet to dowry, the Elton records supply evidence of its close relationship to landholding. When Margery daughter of John atte Gate paid two shillings for “giving herself in marriage,” the transaction was recorded by the clerk in the accounts of 1286—1287 as an entry fee (gersum),25 and in the 1307 accounts, entry fees and merchets are mixed together as if they were interchangeable terms.26 The Ramsey Abbey register known as the Liber Gersumarum includes not only gersums but 426 merchets.27

  Merchet has traditionally been thought of as paid by the bride’s father, yet in many cases the daughter paid the fee, and sometimes the prospective bridegroom, or occasionally the mother, or a collateral relative. In the surviving Elton records between 1279 and 1342, eight fathers, eight daughters, and one mother are recorded as payi
ng. A recent study of the Liber Gersumarum showed that payments were made as frequently by daughters as by fathers—each in 33 percent of the cases. The bridegroom paid in 26 percent, and some other relative in the remaining 8 percent.28 Who paid seems to have depended on circumstance. A bride who paid her own merchet was probably marrying late, and may well have earned the money herself, working as a servant or dairymaid, or even at such masculinesounding tasks as road repair, manuring, thatching, weeding, mowing, sheep-shearing, carrying, and plowing.29

  When a widow remarried, on the other hand, the merchet was usually paid by the prospective husband, who would benefit from taking possession of her first husband’s lands. An unfree woman marrying a free man, however, was the one who benefited, and she or her father paid the fee, never the bridegroom.30

  In short, the decision as to who paid merchet was part of the marriage negotiations, usually depending on who gained the most from the marriage. The amount was subject to haggling with the lord’s steward—the villein must “make the best bargain he can,” in the words of a Ramsey Abbey custumal.31 Several circumstances influenced the price: whether the woman was marrying a villein in the same village, or a freeman, or a man from outside the village, or “whomever she wished.” It was more expensive to marry a freeman or an outsider, or to marry at will, since the lord risked losing the woman’s services, chattels, and future children.32