The Ties That Bound

by Barbara A Hanawalt

  Conflicting myths and images surround love, sex, marriage, and adolescence among the peasantry and have done so since the Middle Ages. One view, that of the great analyst of love, Andreas Capellanus, held that peasant girls could not be won by sweet words but that a prospective lover from the upper class should simply take them by force. But other medieval authors associated romance precisely with young peasants and wrote pastoral poetry and plays, such as Le Jeux de Robin et Marion. Writers have assumed that young peasants were lusty, carnal, and attractive or, conversely lewd, bestial, and unattractive. Modern writers have added their overlay. Aries has argued that the Middle Ages did not accord to teenagers a period of adolescence, with its games and flirtations, which we consider appropriate to that age group. And Edward Shorter has denied the peasants any romance at all before the nineteenth century.I One would like to answer definitively what adolescence, love, and the formation of marriages was like for peasant youths, but such information is elusive. However, even such sparse information as is available dispels Aries's dreary view of children passing directly into adulthood without experiencing adolescence or having their teenage years recognized as a separate phase of the life cycle. The patterns of work and play, the rather late age of majority, and premarital sexual flirtation all point to teenage years not unlike our own. While we cannot reconstruct the pimpled faces, the other biological characteristics of teenage sexuality are abundantly apparent. As in the case of childhood, the stages of biological development must be given their due and cannot be entirely culturally suppressed.

  A Middle English poem, "The Mirror of the Periods of Man's Life," is primarily a vehicle for moralizing, but it also divides life in its stages by year. The period of infancy lasts until the seventh year when, the writer declares, the infant has become a child. By the fourteenth year "knowliche of manhode he wynnes" (or puberty). The period through the early twenties is one of struggle between the seven virtues and the seven sins. Reason dictates an education, but lust has other ideas:

  Music, drink, mock fights, and wild companions give way to pride, anger, gluttony, westling, and lechery as the man passes into adulthood. At forty and at fifty conscience begins to counsel him and health becomes a worry, but it is only at sixty that he thinks of mending his 2 ways.

  Medieval parents and priests were not unobservant and realized that teenagers were not yet adults and were still in training for adult responsibilities. Criminal law directed that children over the age of twelve must be in a tithing group and could be held responsible for their criminal acts because they knew and comprehended the wrongfulness of their felonious deeds, but that age plateau did not apply to matters of inheritance. We should have little trouble understanding a legal system that makes young people legally culpable for criminal acts but does not bestow other responsibilities (such as voting) until later. Among the nobility twenty-one was well established as the age of majority for inheritance, but even among the peasantry formal entry into a tenement usually was delayed until the young person was at least twenty. At Halesowen an heir had to be at least twenty, and at Chalgrave and Wakefield twenty-one was the usual age. John, son and heir ofJordan of Tebworth, demanded his father's land because he was heir and of full age. The court found that he was twenty-one years old and could inherit. Sale of land was only legal when the holder had reached the age of majority. Thus Wakefield found that since Cecily, wife of John the Miller, was twenty-one when she sold land, the transaction was legal and her husband could not regain it. But as we have seen from wills, a parent might stipulate inheritance in the middle or, occasionally, late twenties. Youths also did not enter into village governance until they were in their twenties, and probably did not become jurors or reeves until about thirty.3 Legal responsibilities, therefore, delineated a period between childhood and adulthood.

  The accidental-death pattern both at work and at play shows that the teenage years were a time of transition. The youths, as we have seen, were learning adult occupations in husbandry and crafts, but their activities fell into the categories of both adults and children. At play, as well, though youths were learning adult games, they were not participating in adult contests. Thus a boy of thirteen was playing a game with the other village boys in which the object was to make an arrow glance off the ground. One arrow glanced up and hit him in the stomach. Other boys played with staffs, at mock fights, and at random target practice. But many youths often simply amused themselves, as children did, by playing in the water, either swimming, fishing, or trying to cross bodies of water by pole-vaulting or swinging on ropes. Henry Chirston of Sauston, aged fifteen, and Richard Almar of Sauston, thirteen, went to the river on a Sunday afternoon in late June 1337 and jumped into it to cool off. They were pulled downstream by the current.4

  Teenagers played at ball games as well. William Fitz Stephen, writing in 1183, reported that the youth of London went out into the fields to play ball games and that the older men came out on horseback to watch "and after their fashion recapture their youth in the young ... partaking of carefree joys."5

  Games and other pastimes tended to be played only within a village age cohort. Teenagers, unless they were eighteen or nineteen, did not participate in adult games of archery, wrestling, and gambling. Although children and adolescents were not denied drink, all of the accidents involving drunkenness in which the age of the victim is mentioned show them to have been adults.

  The destructive rowdiness of teenage males also appears in records. The first appearances of young males in manorial court rolls is usually for a trespass, assault, or property damage. For example, four young villagers of prominent families in Broughton were charged with a spree of vandalism including breaking a neighbor's windows and pushing open doors. The jurors were outraged at their behavior and called them "vagabonds," a b completely inappropriate term but indicative of community censure.

  Although relations between siblings were a common matter at all stages of a person's life, the adolescent years often presented serious conflicts as concern over inheritance and sexual interests came to the fore. One exasperated widow, who had been married twice and had eight children, singled out two children for chief inheritances and made cash and goods settlements on the others with the provision that "if any are not satisfied with their share, their portions to be divided among they that be content."7

  The widow had a good idea of the sorts of rivalries that could arise among siblings over inheritances, for countercomplaints of cheating were common in the courts. Typical is the case of Agnes, daughter of Juliana, who claimed that she deserved part of the oxgang that her father had settled on Juliana for her life and had directed to be divided among their surviving children on her death. Only two children survived, Agnes and Thomas, but Thomas claimed that when he was young his father took him to manorial court and transferred ownership to him. The court said that he was wrong and divided the land between the two siblings according to the dead father's wishes.s

  Arguments over inheritances festered and could lead to violence. Since the reading of their father's will, Robert and Thomas le Parker had been arguing over a piece of land that their father had left to Thomas. Robert decided to force Thomas into a settlement. Taking two of his kinsmen to Thomas's house, he abducted Thomas to his own house, locked the door, and began to threaten him with a knife. Thomas tried to escape, but finding the door locked, he seized the knife from Robert and killed his brother in self-defense. Evidence from the manorial courts give a background to this particular type of dispute. For instance, in a Ramsey village the Porthos brothers, John Major and John Minor, were identified not only as belonging to one of the main families but as having had disputes with each other that appeared in manorial court. In 1333 these disputes between the brothers finally ended in an attack in which one brother was killed.9

  Sibling rivalries could go beyond the struggles over inheritances. Ballads emphasized the small amount of property that could lead siblings to fatal fights. In one case two brothers argued over a willow wand
. Such rivalries were not the stuff of legend alone, as in the case of two brothers who argued over a half-penny and fought until one brother killed the other. Another common ground for disagreement was selection of marriage partners. In some ballads a young sister marries before the older, uglier sisters, and this upsetting of birth order causes friction; or a brother is not consulted about a marriage. On Chalgrave manor John Saly took a wife against the will of his brother Walter. Walter defamed his brother to his wife's father "and said many outrageous thins to the grave damage of the said John," for which John sued 0 him.

  Another risk in sibling relationships is that they can be too intimate, even incestuous. We have noted that preachers urged parents not to allow brothers and sisters to sleep together as children for fear that they would get into incestuous habits. But actual prosecution of such cases was rare. Since incest was a moral matter, such cases fell to the jurisdiction of the bishop's court rather than manorial or royal courts. The possibility of committing such a deadly sin, either between brother and sister or parent and child, seems to have been somewhat of a preoccupation, if we may judge from literary references. In the Breton Lays, which enjoyed a broad popular audience, three of the stories involve mistaken identities and near-misses with incestuous relationships. Usually some garment indicated the true identity of the intended spouse before actual consummation of the marriage. In the ballads, however, incest did occur, and always with dire consequences. In "The Sheath and Knife" a brother gets his sister with child. Because of the shame involved, they go out to a deer park for the birth of the child, where both mother and child die in childbirth. In another popular ballad three girls on their way to church are accosted by a robber who demands sexual intercourse. The youngest says that she has a brother in the forest who will avenge her. The robber realizes that he is the brother and kills himself.ll The literary interest in incest, however, did not spill over into reporting local cases to bishops.

  Flirtation was very much a part of young people's lives and a subject of humor and condemnation in popular poetry. The writer of "A Little Sooth Sermon" complains about "those proud young men" and maidens who go to church and market "and talk light love and sly." When they are in church, they look around at each other and pay no attention to the mass or matins but think only of Wilkin and Watkin:

  But the poet says that "when her body showeth that childing is nigh," Robin will make excuses and not come near her.12

  The poems emphasize both the joys of young love and the risks of being jilted or becoming pregnant. Occasionally they give a direct account of the sexual slang of the day, as does the poem "Our Sir John" (Sir was a title of respect for a priest):

  The advice for the man who complained of being `fagged out" from too much sex was rest.14

  The physical ideal of young beauty also appears in poems. A young girl speaking of her boyfriend, who is a servant, praises his clothing and appearance and comments that "his face yt is so lyke a man." His kiss is worth "a hundred pownde." In one poem a woman's physical beauty was described as abundant brown hair, black eyes, a slender and wellturned waist, and a lovely face.15

  The flirtations and sexual activities among the village youths appears in records as well as poetry. A Berkshire squire of the early seventeenth century noted in his account book that he had gotten less malt from his barley than usual. He then recalled that one of his servants had been in love with Alice, the maid in charge of making malt. The distraction made her inefficient.16 Coroners' inquests record the activities of young couples as well. Christine, over twenty years old, and Nicholas were joking together in the highway and throwing his knife back and forth between them when it came out of his sheath and stabbed her.'7

  Village rituals institutionalized flirtatious behavior. The youths of Croscombe in Somerset belonged to gilds called the Younglyngs, for young men, and the Maiden's Gild. The Maiden's Gild blocked the thoroughfares of the village and made the young men pay for passing. On the next day the Younglyngs did the same to the maidens. The proceeds went to support the parish church.18 May Day was a fertility festival for youth. Village youths chose a king and queen of the May and performed the Morris Dance and the Robin Hood Games. In his moralizing, Robert Mannyng condemned the festivals in which young women gathered in fields, wearing garlands as crowns, and selected the fairest maiden. In his view, they were gatherings for lechery and pride. Caroling and dancing formed part of the youth celebrations, as one case from the Hundred Rolls shows. Some boys and girls were caroling for the prize of some doves. One of the boys singled out one of the girls as the best singer and gave her the doves. But the two men who had put up the prize disagreed and beat the boy.19

  A vignette of daily interactions among village youths is preserved in two late-thirteenth-century coroners' inquests in Radwell and Chell- ington in Bedfordshire. After vespers on a November evening a group of young men and women-Edith, daughter of Thomas the Fisher; Geoffrey, son of William of Chellington; Thomas, son of John le Hode of Chellington; Agnes, daughter of Daniel Atwell; Alice, daughter of Hugh the Fisher; and Agnes, daughter of Walter the Miller-gathered by the river. Edith wanted to take them by boat across the river to her father's house. The boat was old, however, and sank when the four women got into it. The young men were able to pull out all the girls but Edith, who drowned. Alice, daughter Hugh the Fisher, was perhaps married by the next year, or at least had a separate house, for her brothers Simon and Richard, were coming from her house on the night of March 30, 1270, on their way to their father's house. They cut across the courtyard of Robert Ball of Radwell and apparently surprised two lovers, Simon, son of Agnes of Radwell, and Juliana, daughter of Walter the Fisher, in a haystack there. Simon rose out of the haystack and struck one of the brothers over the head with an ax.20

  The dalliances could also lead to jealousies. Adam of Karlile of Peykirke and John Threscher argued over a serving girl whom John claimed to be his concubine. Adam killed John with a sword.21

  It was not murder, however, that worried moralists about these flirtations and fornications, but rather the future of the sinners' souls. Robert Mannyng warned about "foule kissing" with the authority of one experienced in the art:

  He thought that the devil was behind such kissing.22

  Assessing how widespread premarital sex was among village youth would seem initially an easy task, since lords fined young women for having intercourse before marriage or producing a baby out of wedlock. The first of these offenses brought a fine called legerwite (or lecherwite) and the second, childwite. Different manors and different bailiffs on the same manor administered these fines inconsistently. In Broughton the fines were collected fairly routinely, and thirty-four of the fifty-six fines of young women were for fornication or babies born out of wedlock (eight fornications and twenty-six babies). In Wakefield, on the other hand, legerwite was a rare fine except for one court session in January 1316. In this session it appears that all the young women were rounded up and fined for either being deflowered or married without license. Thus one finds entries such as "Juliana daughter of John Sibbeson, a naif, was deflowered before she was married and has not yet paid lechewytt nor merchet, 2s. Alice daughter of the same John, a naif, has been deflowered." The cases enumerate all pubescent girls in each family and amerce them. But this court session was unique and related to the lord's need for funds rather than a sudden decay of the moral fiber at Wakefield. In Halesowen legerwites, rather than birth out of wedlock, was the only fine. In seventy-eight years before the plague there were 117 legerwites but the number dropped to only 9 in the thirty-seven years following it. The dramatic drop is possibly attributable to earlier marriages and, hence, fewer cases of premarital sex, but it could also be a reporting phenomenon brought on by the general tendency of peasants to abandon the old fines that indicated servile 23 status.

  In Broughton women accused of sexual lapses were concentrated in the upper and lower status groups. But in Halesowen daughters of the middling and particularly the poor families pr
edominated in the charges of legerwites. The differences could be either regional or result from differing research methods in assessing a family's status. In any case, such data are difficult to interpret. Fornication can represent sex as a prelude to marriage, or it might indicate that these young women had to delay marriage, if not sexual activity, until they were better situated financially.24

  Ecclesiastical court cases suggest that society took a casual attitude toward premarital sexual encounters. In one case, for instance, a woman was cited as having had sexual relations with three different men. An ecclesiastical inquiry found that Stephan Gobat had agreed to marry Juliana Bigod in accord with a sentence by the bishop. But he later claimed that he could not marry her because of an affinity arising from Juliana's early sexual relationships with William Attemore. Stephan claimed he was related to William by a prohibited degree of consanguinity. Almost a year later another young man, Stephan Pertefeu, claimed that he had a marriage contract with Juliana. Meanwhile, however, Gobat had decided that his marriage to Juliana was legal, that he was not related to William Attemore, and that his marriage predated Juliana's contract with Pertefeu. Juliana's marriage to Gobat was nullified on the grounds of his affinity to Attemore, and Pertefeu was her legal husband. It was also not uncommon for two women to claim sexual consummation of a marriage with the same man.25 Although virginity before marriage was a common concern of moralists, it apparently did not worry prospective husbands.