The Ties That Bound

by Barbara A Hanawalt

  Manorial court records describe people with appallingly little, particularly in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. On Chalgrave manor in 1279 a bondsman and vagrant, who had no tenement or dwelling place, could no longer hold body and soul together. In dying he directed that his surcoat be given to the Church and a cow, his only other possession, be given to his sister, who was a leper. The lord countermanded this last act of familial charity and took the cow as heriot.9 At Wakefield manor a widow who fled the manor left some oats and mixed grain, a small hutch, an empty jar, and other small utensils worth only 4s. 2d.1° Recognizing the poverty of many peasants, the subsidy taxes were limited to those whose assessed worth in movable chattel was at least 10s. 4d. Such poverty was much less common after the Black Death, when the standard of living for all peasants greatly increased.

  Combining information from archaeology, principalia, court cases, and coroners' inquests, we can construct the interior of a rudimentary cottage. With additions to this picture, we can also imagine the inside of a wealthier peasant's house. In a one-bay cottage the hearth would be in the center of the floor, raised up so that the straw on the floor would not easily catch fire. There would be a trivet and an earthen pot on it and perhaps a brass pot with feet. The coroners' inquests indicate that a fire was kept going all the time and that liquids were always warming there: milk, water, wort, porridge, and so on. The cooking qualities of the fire were never wasted, there was always a pot-au-feu. The hearth might also have a spit and a clay canopy to channel the smoke. Various bowls, jugs, buckets, and wooden spoons and forks were by the fire or in cupboards and hutches. A trestle table would certainly be part of the furnishings. These were convenient, for they could be taken down at night to make room for people to sleep on the floor and could be carried outside to work or eat on in good weather." The tables were unstable. A man was at his neighbor's and, in emphasizing a point, he banged his fist on the table, which jumped up and hit him on the head.12 Benches served when stools and chairs were not available.

  Sleeping arrangements included straw pallets for mattresses; it would have been an exceedingly poor house that could not put at least blankets on these rudimentary beds. Husband and wife shared one bed, sometimes with the infant child, while siblings slept together in another bed. The houses also had cradles that were set by the fire to keep the baby warm. 13

  Better houses had feather beds and bolsters that are mentioned in wills. But even in 1557 Harrison wrote about the laxity of the modern generation and described the beds of his youth:

  Our fathers and we ourselves have lyen full ofte upon straw pallettes covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dogswain or hopharlot and a good round logge under their heads insteade of a boulster. If it were so that our fathers or the good man of the house had ... a matres or flock bed and thereto a sacke of chafe to rest hys head upon, he thought himself to be as well loged as the lorde of the towne, so well were they contented.

  Servants, he goes on to say, did well to have a sheet above them because they had to sleep on pallets with the straws pricking their "hardened hides."14

  Chests, rafters, and sometimes a separate room or outshoot provided storage for family goods. Hams and other preserved meats hung from the rafters, and rope, clothing, and cloth might also hang from rods suspended there.

  Wills of prosperous peasants indicate greater comforts and more room. An animal breeder in York left a description of his house and its contents in 1451. He had a cellar that contained cloth, salt, silver spoons, and other treasures. In his chamber there were beds, blankets, sheets, chests, a coffer, and his clothing. The kitchen was separate and contained pewter dishes, ladles, trivets, and other such equipment. He also specified a variety of rings, silver objects, and broaches.15 By 1505 a man who was comfortably well off, and had already set up his son, left his grandson seven acres of land and most of his household effects (the rest being reserved for the boy's grandmother). The will gave him "a coffer that stands in the over chamber, another coffer standing in the guest chamber, another coffer standing `at his beds hede,"' two pair of flaxen sheets, one pair of hempe sheets, 3 pair of harden sheets, two pair of new blankets and two coverlets, two underclothes with bolsters and a tick, "the greatest brass pot," another pot, six pewter plates, six saucers, two latten candlesticks, a salt cellar, ten ewes, a plow, a share, coulter, an ox team and yoke, a painted cloth of the crucifix, and another painted cloth. When this fortunate young man married he was to receive a quarter of wheat, four quarters of barley and four of peas as well as eight marks, "an hawlyng of the story of Joobe," a pot hanger and spit, several saws and brewing equipment, two four-year-old oxen, three able horses, a broadcloth, a towel, a cart, and the best pan "save one."16 The testator obviously had a house of several rooms, including the guest room (perhaps that vacated by the grown son), an upper story, and such comforts of life as a bed. He decorated his walls with religious art.

  Recent research has suggested that comfort in housing was a sixteenth-century development coinciding with the great rebuilding and confirmed by probate inventories. Historians of the sixteenth century have been misled by the conservative Harrison, who said that the improvements in living standards were a recent corruption. But wills indicate the contrary." For some of the peasantry, life had become quite comfortable by the fifteenth century.

  The contents of homes were highly valued, and occasionally people lost their lives trying to save their possessions. One woman went to get water to put out a fire in her house, but when she realized that she could not save it, she rushed back in to get her cloth.18

  Houses were heated with wood, peat, and coal. One of the tenants' privileges, often paid for by fines, as in the "Man in the Moon," was to collect firewood in the lord's woods and waste. They were allowed to collect deadwood from the ground (the windfall) and from the trees and hedges (wood that could be pulled down using a hook or a crook; hence the phrase "by hook or by crook"). The wood was made into fagots and either carted or carried away in bundles. Women frequently carried the fagots on their backs with a strap across the forehead. The men of the family climbed into trees to get branches.19 A good wood supply would be that appearing in a listing of a peasant's possessions in 1414: three cartloads of wood.20 Women and children gathered straw and kindling to start the morning fire. For instance, one woman went out early one morning to get kindling from a tree in the usual way and fell from it.21

  Coal and peat were procured by the cartload and also by individuals digging a small supply for personal use. In Lincolnshire sea coal was carted from the docks for use inland. The cart trip was tedious. Thomas Quege of Toterton, who was riding on a cart full of sea coal belonging to Robert Trubbe of Sotterton, fell asleep and tumbled from the cart, only to be run over by another cart of sea coal bound for the same destination.22 Coal has been found on many of the deserted village sites, even those far away from sources. At Wharram Percy, for instance, the nearest supply of coal was sixty-two miles away.23 In regions where coal outcropped, people simply dug it out of the ground, often in places that inconvenienced the community; for example, Adam Isabel dug a pit in the high road and was fined for it.24 The exploitation of peat was similar to that of coal. Cartloads were brought in by those who could afford it, but women and children went to the turbaries (holes from which peat is cut) to get small amounts for their family's use.25 Charcoal was also used for ovens and industrial purposes.

  In discussing available fuel it is easy to assume that a cozy fire was readily available to all peasants. But one must not ignore the literary descriptions of "The Man in the Moon" or overlook the lengths to which people went to get their firewood. Getting wood by hook and by crook was not easy work, and one could fall from a tree or pull heavy limbs down on oneself. Two percent of all accidents occurred collecting wood. (See Appendix, Table 8.) The walls of turbaries were unstable because they were not systematically worked; rather, people dug out what they could get, so that walls occasionally collapsed on the digge
rs. Wood was not always dry, as we learn in Piers Plowman, for the peasants were hoarse and bleary-eyed with the smoldering fire and called a curse on those who were supposed to build fires with dry wood or blow them into a blaze.26 In winter, when doors and windows were closed to keep out drafts, houses became "ful sooty," as was the widow's house in the story of Chanticleer.27 Clothing, bedding, and people would have smelled of smoke the year around. Perhaps the smell was a welcome disguise for those originating from sweat and close contact with domestic animals.

  Other than the glow of the fire, the chief source of light in the peasant homes were candles. In a dark environment candles were muchprized objects. The peasants carried them about for light while walking and kept them in candleholders for use in the house. Upon retiring the housewife fixed the candle to a hook or shelf on the wall by the bed and hopefully remembered to blow it out or it could burn down during the night and fall on the straw.28 A book on urban household managment instructed the servants to put candles some distance from the bed.29 Candles, however, were expensive items and highly valued. A pound of hard fat for candles was four times as dear as meat, and beeswax, the only alternative, was a prized possession.30

  Equipment for farming and large vats for brewing and laundry were among the items mentioned in wills, principalia, and evictions. Farm equipment for agriculture would include oxen or horses, a plow, a wagon for carrying grain from the fields, a harrow, shovels, various forks, a seed lip, a flail, and a winnowing fan. There might be a dung cart and other farm tools and, very likely, cows, hogs, sheep, and poultry. John Mashon of Ombersley is a good example. He had nineteen and a half acres under crop, fourteen acres sown, and five and a half acres spring sown, so that it was estimated that he had 50s. in crops. In addition he had two oxen, a cow and calf, four hogs, twenty geese, one cock, and four hens. He had a wagon, winnowing fan, riddle, plow with iron attachments, three cartloads of firewood, 3 vats, and five bushels of malt.31 John Mashon was well equipped to cultivate, but we have seen from the principalia that a cottar would probably have to borrow a team and plow to do his few acres. Court rolls and bylaws contain cases and rules covering the borrowing of plow animals. While large animals were possible only for peasants with land in the open fields, even a cottar or servant might own one to a half-dozen sheep.32

  Regional differences were pronounced in the possession of animals. The examples we have given so far are largely from the grain-raising Midlands, but in the north sheep would have had a far more important place in the peasants' chattel.

  Animals pastured on the rough and waste areas and the fallow fields. Although temporary hurdles might be erected to restrict pasturing, herders usually tended swine, sheep, and cattle. Many families designated one of their boys (six years of age or older) to do this work. Herding was a good use of the boy's time because he could not do the heavy work in the fields and the member of the family who herded was exempt from harvest work for the lord.33 Animals had to be kept in check or they would run over crops and root in gardens. Pigs were particularly objectionable because they damaged crops and were vicious. Occasionally they even mauled a child. As one court entry commented, "Pigs, as the most perverse of animals, require the firmest and most vigorous handling." For these reasons bylaws required that they have rings in their noses .14

  Some animals were not checked in their wanderings. The free bull, the free boar, and the free ram were owned by the lord or someone who bought the right. They wandered unhindered through crops and villages, taking their food where they pleased and their mates from the village livestock. They were such a prevalent part of village life that Chaucer compared them to lecherous parish priests.35 These animals were a nuisance in the crops and a threat to villagers' lives. One woman met up with the lord's bull on a village street and was gored to death, while another woman, trying to avoid the free ram, drowned in a ditch.36

  One would not expect to find peasant shopping lists or menu books, but a variety of sources help to reconstruct their diet. Remains of animal bones at archaeological sites provide some insights into the animal protein in their diet. Such digs appear to contradict the common assumption that pork was the usual protein source since it could be preserved with salt and kept for the winter. On five different sites only 4 to 13 percent of the bones came from pigs, while oxen provided 18 to 46 percent and sheep were the most common at 41 to 78 percent. The age of the animals, as determined from bones and teeth, indicate that they were kept over the winter, contrary to previous assumptions that the peasants had insufficient hay to keep the animals alive. Sheep at Wharram were slaughtered after two years, but at Upton they were kept even longer, apparently because they were grown primarily for wool. Cattle were killed at two years, but some were much older and, presumably, used as plow beasts. Other bones included domestic fowl, geese, and rabbit.37 At least in Upton in Gloucestershire meat appears to have been very readily available, for old animals were thrown on the rubbish heap and heads and lower joints were not eaten. The slaughter of 60 percent of the cattle before they were three years old suggests a preference for tender meat. Horse meat did not form a large part of the diet at Upton.38

  Reports on animal bones from excavations are not entirely helpful in determining the availability of meat. They do not, for instance, indicate the length of time that the bone finds accumulated on the site. Such information woud be useful, but difficult to obtain without datable layers on the digs. We know from other sources that animals were scarce in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, because almost all available land was used to cultivate grains in order to sustain the overpopulated nation. With the drastic decline in population after the plague, land reverted to pasture and more animals were grown, both sheep for wool and cattle for the market.39 Animal protein, therefore, played an increasingly larger role in the diet by the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

  Likewise, on the basis of so few archaeological sites, one cannot dismiss the pig from a major dietary role. Although pigs will not eat indiscriminately, they are a hearty animal and bylaws indicate that they were a common nuisance in streets, gardens, and fields. Manorial court rolls indicate that panage, a fee for allowing pigs to eat acorns in the forests and woods, was routinely charged. Furthermore, we are confronted with the evidence of later times when the pig was fed at the expense of the household in the summer and at harvest so that the family could feed off it during the winter and spring.40 Pork bones are soft, and the brining and boiling of this useful beast caused the bones to disintegrate. Dogs and even pigs probably consumed the remains, thus depriving the rubbish heap of its fair share of pig bones.

  Archaeologists have also found few wild-animal bones. Such evidence could indicate that the prohibitions against peasants hunting the king's deer and the lord's rabbits and birds were successful, but digs also indicate a number of hunting arrowheads.41 The absence of wild-animal bones is less puzzling when one reads poaching cases. The meat was often butchered in the forest, and the hide and some of the bones were left there so that the theft would not be detected and the meat could be brought into the village in concealable pieces.42 Excuses for poaching were ingenious. One man, who had been caught taking a perch from a pond, told the judge that he had not really tried to take it but had only lain down by the pond with his hand in the water and the perch swam into his hands. He would have thrown it back, he claimed, but his wife was ill and could not eat or drink, although she had a great desire for perch.43

  Fish, both fresh- and saltwater, were important protein sources as well as being part of the Lenten celebration. The saltwater fishing industry was a major one in England and bones from saltwater fish have been found at archaeological sites located far from the sea. Some freshwater fishing was also done commercially, but boys were often sent out to fish in local streams. In seashore settlements women and children collected shellfish from the beaches.44

  Most houses had a few chickens and perhaps geese as well. The Christmas payment to the lord was often made in poul
try or eggs and the peasants might be invited to share the feast. Pigeons and doves were either raised in dovecotes or were collected from the church steeples where they roosted. Pigeon was prized at three months old (squab); these bones would have disintegrated rapidly and would not appear in archaeological sites, but there is artistic and record evidence of people collecting pigeons.45

  Cheeses were an important part of the diet, since they could be made from sheep's, goats', and cows' milk and would withstand long storage. There were cheeses in medieval England that have left the reputation of being delectable but are no longer available.46 Cheese, like eggs and fish, was also important in the Lenten season.

  Grains of various sorts were more basic to the diet than protein. By preference, peasants would have eaten good-quality, white wheat bread. It is not accidental that white bread is a fantasy found in such disparate literature as the lives of the saints' and the ballads of Robin Hood. For preindustrial society soft white bread was a luxury sometimes only fantasized about and sometimes eaten only at holidays. We learn that just before Christmas a man went to the mill especially to grind the grain for the holiday baking."' Such fine flour required good-quality wheat, fine grinding, and sifting (bolting) of flour. Our modern supermarket bread could be seen as the ultimate fulfillment of the peasant's dream of white bread. Although some historians have maintained that the English ate mostly wheat bread,8 other grains were also made into breads. Even most wheat bread would not have been a fine, soft white bread but a coarser, whole wheat bread.

  If wheat bread was the most desirable, it was not necessarily the most common in the peasant diet.49 Wheat and rye were planted together in the fields and produced a mixed grain called "marlin." In criminal records maslin was often mentioned among items stolen or goods confiscated from felons and outlaws. Although a vast amount of data is available on demesne land crops, these were chiefly the lord's cash crops from the manor and do not indicate what peasants ate. A more complete study would be desirable because the type of grain consumed would have implications for the occurrence of the nervous disorder ergotism among the population. Since rye was not grown everywhere in England, the eating of rye bread or a bread made of maslin might have been a regional phenomenon.