Although wills clearly establish the value and trust a man placed in his wife on his deathbed, they do not indicate how or if he expressed these sentiments during his lifetime. The economic contributions may have been equal, but decision making may not have been. The moralist writing "How the Good Wife Taught her Daughter" recommended that women not gad about the town or get drunk on the money they made from selling cloth, thereby implying that they had control over their butter and eggs money.44 The law protected women's rights to their dowry and lands they inherited from their family, so that a husband could not legally demise it without the wife's permission. But more than one woman came into court complaining that she had not been consulted about the sale of land, because she feared to cross her husband. Joan, wife of Hugh Forester, was typical. She demanded and won the rights to one and a half acres that her husband demised without her permission because she was "not able to gainsay it in his lifetime."45
The argument for a partnership in the peasant marital economy, however, is a persuasive one, even if some husbands were tyrants. Many of the decisions that would have to be made during the course of the marriage would be ones in which mutual expectations or mutual needs would determine the course of action. Both partners shared the common assumption that children should receive a settlement from the accumulated family wealth. The couple would also share assumptions about investment in seed, tools, and household equipment. The needs of the economic unit were common to both. If the couple survived to retire ment age, they would have a mutual interest in making arrangements for their support. Land transactions in manorial courts indicate a strong practice of mutual responsibility and decision making. When a villein couple married, it was common for the man to turn the land back to the lord, taking it again in both his name and that of his wife. Husband and wife also appear in manorial court purchasing or leasing pieces of land either for themselves or for their children or acting in concert in other business matters as well. While men appeared more frequently in economic transactions, they were not necessarily acting unilaterally. After all, a man would not leave his wife his executor if he had not gained some respect for her economic judgments during his lifetime.
The peasant family economy was based firmly on the contributions of both sexes with their separate skills and their separate domains. The initial goods and capital of the woman's dowry set up the household, and her labor and supplemental economic activites helped keep it going. The marriage was an economic partnership in which gender ordinarily determined the division of labor, but in which the goal of both partners was the survival and prosperity of the household unit. The mutual dependence of a couple on each other's economic contribution encouraged remarriage if one partner died and discouraged intrafamilial violence and homicide.46
The economic contributions of children and servants had much in common. In the larger sense of the word familia that was employed in the Middle Ages, children and servants were dependents of the householder and his wife. They were young and took their sustenance and discipline at the husbandman's table. They might, in fact, be one and the same person in the household, for the poll taxes of the late fourteenth century sometimes list an individual as "daughter (or son) and servant." Their chores in the household and about the fields were similar, but they were the sort of tasks that seldom needed to be recorded in official records. Manorial court rolls sometimes mention servants of peasant families and also the permanent servants on the manor. Children occasionally appear in the manor court rolls, but usually only when they trespassed. The poll taxes of 1377, 1379, and 1380-1381 are the only sources that give something approaching a systematic listing of servants. With such sparse sources, the coroners' inquests become invaluable for describing the working life of children, teenagers, and servants.
The nature of children's and servants' work is of vital importance to the investigation of medieval family life. Earlier we argued that their contribution was essential to the smooth functioning of the peasant economy and asserted that for this reason children had a high value in the society. Illegitimacy was not the taint that it would have been in a society in which labor was not welcomed, and infanticide would have been more frequent if children were viewed as simply encumbrances. Furthermore, we must come to grips with the problem of fostering or sending children out to other households to work. For the upper classes it was common for children to be placed in another household after they reached the age of seven or eight, and in apprenticeship agreements a child might also leave home at this relatively early age. Was it common for medieval peasants to place their children in the homes of others? And would young people in their late teens expect to spend four or five years of their lives as servants? Although in the early modern period it was common for young people to be fostered or serve as agricultural servants living in another person's home, we must take care not to project such evidence back on to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for agrarian conditions changed substantially in the sixteenth century. The famous description of English attitudes toward children made by an Italian observer, although widely quoted, cannot be accepted as decisive evidence. He observed only the upper classes and the upwardly mobile, and had no interest in what peasants did:
The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested towards their children; for after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age of seven or nine years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people ... and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for everyone, however rich he may be, sends away his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own. And on enquiring the reason for the severity, they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners.'
Thus, although the evidence is scattered, we must take up the difficult questions of children's work and the role of service both for the household economy and for a young person's life-cycle experiences.
Young children-infants and toddlers-could not contribute to the household economy and were, in fact, a drain on the time of the housewife. By the age of two and three, however, children's identity with their parents' work began to emerge in the pattern of accidental deaths. Little girls are already becoming involved in accidents that paralleled their mother's routine working with pots, gathering food, and drawing water (17.2 percent of their fatal accidents), even though these accidents only involved playing at these tasks. (See Appendix, Tables 6 and 7.) For instance, a two-year-old girl tried to stir a pot of hot water but tipped it over on herself.2 The boys were more actively involved in play and observation of men working. One three-year-old boy was following his father to the mill and drowned; another was watching his father cut wood when the ax blade came off the handle and struck him.3 The division of labor by sex thus began very early in a child's life and was part of their early identification with the roles of their parents.
By four and five work appears in children's accidental-death pattern. They were often assigned to baby-sit and go for water. For instance, a one-year-old boy was left in care of his five-year-old brother, but because the older boy was such a poor custodian, the inquest says, the cradle caught fire. Even if children of four and older were simply sitting and observing their parents work, they were beginning to learn some tasks such as cooking, brewing, milking, and digging.'
During the years six through twelve, children began to have real chores around the house, aiding both their parents in work and contributing to the supplemental income of the household through fishing and gathering food (6 percent of their fatal accidents involved such activities). From five to twelve fishing was a common pastime for boys. Those who lived by the coast searched for shellfish and those who lived near ponds, rivers, and streams, fished for eels and freshwater fish. William, son of Nicholas Baly of Spalding, aged twelve, was collecting cockles on the coast at Multon in March 1357 when a wave caught him and washed him out to sea. One five-year-old boy was looking for eels in
the Humber and drowned. And in July 1348 two boys, one twelve and the other eight, went to a pile dam on the river in Cambridgeshire and fell in.5
Boys were useful for gathering various items for the family's use. One six-year-old drowned while gathering reeds in a Cambridgeshire marsh, and a seven-year-old, who was sent to get peat, died when a turf fell on him. In the manorial court rolls children were frequently fined for collecting dry wood, wild fruit, nuts, ivy, and so on.'
Herding was the traditional occupation for boys between the ages of seven and twelve and accounted for 7 percent of their fatal accidents. Herding geese was a task that young lad could do easily. A sevenyear-old boy was guarding a neighbor's geese in May 1335 at vespers. The geese were on a green near a pond and the boy, playing while he worked, drowned. Boys often whiled away the time with various games and other diversions rather than watch their flocks and herds. Two boys, aged nine and ten, were watching sheep and playing with staffs. John, son of William le Wyte of Wilden, twelve years old, was watching his father's lambs in late April when he took off his clothes to bathe in a stream and drowned. Herding was pleasant enough in the summer, but in the winter it could be cold, miserable work. John Wayhe, aged twelve, was a swineherd on a manor. He was so cold one morning in December 1348 that he went into the manor's bakery and climbed into one of the huge ovens to keep warm and burned to death.
The pasturing and especially watering of horses also fell to the boys. They would ride the horses to the water and let them drink. Often the horse would want to head for the deeper water and the boys, riding bareback, would be swept into the river; or they took the horses to pasture in the evening and the horses took fright or the boys foolishly encouraged them to run and were thrown off. Their recklessness with horses accounted for 8 percent of their fatal accidents.'
Although the boys could be unskilled and even foolhardy, they were an important part of the economy for their household and for the village and manor in general. They could take the place of women as thatcher's assistants or as binders of grain at harvest, and at only half the wages. They could be used for errands and for carrying torches at night. They began to be of economic use as assistants to parents or employers. Play, however, was still predominant in their accidents. Furthermore, their tasks, if one may judge from the accidental-death cases, centered on chores rather than on work in the fields or on a trade or craft which accounted for only 2 percent of their fatal accidents, respectively.'
Girls from six to twelve also began to contribute to the household economy. They did much of the fruit picking, and nut, herb, and wood gathering. They picked apples, pears, and cherries in the closes or in the wilds. They also collected shellfish along the coast. Such activites resulted in 5 percent of their fatal accidents. Much of their work, however, aided their mothers in their daily work routine. They fetched the water, built fires, and helped with the cooking. Drawing water accounted for 32 percent of their fatal accidents, and cooking, laundry, and so on accounted for 14 percent. And, of course, they continued to baby-sit for their younger siblings, although often their carelessness led to the death of their charges. The youngsters tended to run off and play with the other village children rather than keep a watchful eye on the baby in the cradle. For the most part their tasks were not as dangerous as those of boys the same age and began to resemble the pattern for adult females. Occasionally, however, their work was beyond their physical abilities. A ten-year-old girl went to a neighbor's pit to fill up her water bowl, but when filled, it was too heavy for her to lift and she fell in.9
Some children learned adversity at a young age. Joan, a poor fiveyear-old, had risen early to beg bread. On returning home she failed to negotiate a bridge and fell in. Joan was a local villager and had a home, but one inquest stated that an eight-year-old boy had been found drowned in a pit in March 1341. He was a stranger to the place and was described as a vagabond who had been wandering at night."
From the ages of thirteen to nineteen, the pattern of work and other activities came increasingly to resemble that of adults. For adolescent males agricultural activites caused 18 percent of their accidental deaths, essentially the same as for adult males. (See Appendix, Table 3.) Adolescents played less of a role in the skilled labor of construction and crafts than did men and continued to work on supplemental economic activites such as fishing and gathering wood and food, 23 percent of their fatal accidents arising from these ventures. For instance, Roger, son of Walter le Muth, ascended the church steeple at night to get pigeons when he fell and broke his neck. " Working with horses and carts involved 26 percent of their fatal accidents."
The places of accidents changed as the youths matured. At four and five the boys still had a large portion of their fatal accidents at home, but from six to twelve their accidents were spread among home, other people's property, public and work areas (11 to 17 percent), with only deaths in bodies of water predominating with 43 percent of the accidental deaths. (See Appendix, Table 4.) But between the ages of thirteen to nineteen accidents at home accounted for 21 percent; on private property, 7.7 percent; in public areas, 17.9 percent; and in bodies of water, 31 percent of accidental deaths. The largest jump of all involved accidents in the work place (15.7 percent). On the other hand, their accidental-death pattern had not yet come to resemble that of adult males entirely. They still had 11 percent more fatal accidents in the home and 6 percent fewer fatal accidents in work places than adult males.
The high number of accidents in the home is important for two reasons. First, contrary to Aries's claim that teenagers behaved like adults in the Middle Ages, their accident pattern shows similarities to those of both children and adults. They still lived and worked around the house and spent time fishing and gathering rather than following the pattern of their fathers in working primarily in the fields or at a craft. Second, the large percentage of those involved in accidents in the home suggests that teenagers did not routinely live in another person's house as servants. This latter problem is one that we must investigate further in this chapter, while AriCs's assumptions about medieval teenagers will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.
Because females were involved in fewer accidental deaths, information on their ages is scanty. The meager evidence on the age and activity of females (22 cases with age given for those six to twelve; 11 cases for those thirteen to nineteen; and 180 for adult females of unspecified age) indicates that females settled into their mothers' patterns more rapidly than males into their fathers'. While play and personal activites still occupied much of a girl's life from age six to twelve, she was also increasingly doing tasks about the home. From the ages of thirteen to nineteen their accidental-death pattern closely resembled that of the adult female. Most of their accidents involved household tasks, walking or other transport, supplemental economic activities, and some agricultural work. The places of death also show an essential similarity. Teenage girls went for water and wood and would often be left in charge of cooking.13 (See Appendix, Table 5.)
The closer resemblance of girls' work to that of their mothers, compared to boys taking up their fathers' routine, suggests both the earlier maturity of girls and the usefulness of boys and adolescent males in helping out with supplemental economic activites and caring for animals. A boy's youth, like that of his sister, was largely spent on relieving the burden on the housewife, perhaps so that the latter could do some supplemental activity such as brewing. Since their strength and agrarian skills were only just developing, their full participation in men's work was delayed until the late teenage years.
Learning the skills of household work, husbandry, and crafts took place primarily during adolescence, either at home under the tutelage of parents, or as servants, apprentices, and occasionally as students. Experience in fieldwork came from watching and helping at an early age. Boys served as ox goaders at plowing, helped weed and hoe, and made the bands that women used to tie sheaves at harvest. As teenagers they graduated to plowing, casting seed, learning to use scythe and re
aping hook, and loading and driving carts. Teenagers who worked at mills repaired sails and adjusted the mechanism of the mill. One fourteen-year-old boy in Norfolk was working on the sails when a wind came up, turning the sail and throwing him to the ground. They were also left to guard the mill when their father or master was absent. Thus William, son of Ralph Sucel, a serving boy of twelve, was left at the mill at lunchtime when a man came in and wanted to grind some maslin. Although William forbade him to do it, the man ignored him and got caught in the wheel and cogs and was killed.14
Teenagers were sometimes apprenticed to learn a craft such as dyeing cloth. At noon in April a dyer took his twelve-year-old helper with him to wash newly dyed cloth in a pit. The master was swinging the washing beaters when by accident he struck the legs of the boy because they were caught in the cloth. Another boy of the same age was apprenticed to a tailor. He was sitting cross-legged on the table in the tailor's shop when, wanting to cut thread, he leaned back against the scissors. s
Some peasant sons received an education. The lord exacted a fine of 6d. to Is. for permission to attend school and sometimes imposed the stipulation that the boy could not take clerical orders or receive a tonsure. The lords had two motives for keeping peasants from ecclesiastical service. One was the desire to keep cultivators on the land and the other was that the lord himself needed trained secular clerks for his estate management. Those educated young men who did enter the lord's service had a great advantage in raising their social status and that of their families. A foresightful family would find investment in a son's education well worth the expense. Three boys from one manor sought education in 1348, and at Norton over a three-year period, 1331 to 1333, nine boys went to school. Fathers sometimes made provision in wills for a son's inheritance to include schooling or a craft.16
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