One foresightful husband tried to cover all the possible contingencies in providing for his widow and his mother. He left his eldest son, John, the family holding with the provision that "he pay the testator's mother £4 per year for life and to find her meat and drink if she wants to live with him." His wife was to have a place with the second son and receive 20s. from each of the three younger sons when they reached the age of majority. If the wife was not satisfied with the annual payment, she could have her dower as provided by law.28 Husbands also appealed to finer sentiments in wills. One stepfather provided for the daughter of his wife and instructed his own son to keep his wife "during her lifetime, as he would have kept his own mother." 9
The men leaving provision for widows in wills had, for the most part, lived a comfortable life. Those who lived their span to the fullest had already distributed the family tenement to a son but had retained a house, some land, and possessions for themselves. The majority of men leaving wills (72 percent) had wives and their own homes. But Thomas Smyth intended to sojourn at his son's hearth and rewarded the kindness of his son and daughter-in-law. His will was, in fact, a retirement contract. He left his daughter-in-law all the goods in the house that still belonged to him and two bushels of malt. As long as he lived he would give his son 40s. at Christmas for board and "for his good attention to him and his labours" another 40s.3°
The extent to which kin were relied on for care in age is difficult to determine. If we may again use later studies as an inference, it would appear that living with children, other kin, or strangers was not the preferred arrangement for retirement. In rural Austria, where there were legal and customary mechanisms for stem families, they were still rare in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. In early modern England only when all else failed did an aged parent live with an offspring.31 All medieval evidence suggests that this was already an established pattern: People lived on their own as long as they could manage (usually as long as they had a spouse alive and were healthy), and even when they were driven to maintenance contracts only a third made them with kin.
Another solution that the aging person might pursue was hiring a caretaker to come and live in the house. Thomas Cyne, for instance, had become very prosperous, as had his two brothers and a sister whom he mentioned in his will. He appeared to have no wife or children but left money to a woman whom he described as his "keeper." Katherine Vyncent, a widow, had no children but remembered her "wench" and her "keeper" in her will. Aging parish priests often hired caretakers for their old age, although there were hospitals that specialized in the care of aged clergy.32
For the most part, peasants would not have had access to hospitals or monasteries for their retirement and final sickness. They did, however, form voluntary associations of their own that provided some benefits to the aged and impotent. Of the 507 gilds that returned descriptions of their charters in 1389, about a third of them (154) provided their members with benefits during disaster or old age. In a fifth of the gilds the benefits were a weekly allowance and perhaps clothing in the event of disaster. The average weekly allowance was 7d., only enough to buy a loaf of bread a day. An additional 7 percent offered to bury a brother or sister who was too impoverished to pay for interment.33 Since the time of payment was limited to a few months or a couple of years, the dole from the gild was obviously not meant to support a prolonged retirement and may only have helped the indigent members or those terminally ill.
The gilds were significant, however, in providing psychological comfort to aged brothers and sisters, one of those important aspects in the treatment of the aged that Goody has identified. Testators (48 of the 389 Bedfordshire wills) left money, malt, and sometimes land to their gilds. The gilds were in some respects an extension of family, for they provided gild feasts, visitors to the sickbed, and a chaplain, or at least prayers, for their members.
The people we have considered so far had some property with which to negotiate care and perhaps respect. But what of those who had little or no land and had lived on wages earned by the sweat of their brow or those whose ungrateful children actually threw them into the streets? These people often appear, as is the case today, in a coroner's inquest where they are described as having died of exposure or some accident relating to their poverty. Alice Berdholf of Donyngton, a beggar seventy years of age, was drunk and near a well in the highway. She saw a straw and fell in the well trying to get it.34 Alice was known and died near her home, but often the person is simply described as an old stranger such as one who was found dead of cold and exposure in a cowshed in December 1362. 35 The impoverished elderly were sometimes forced to beg even when they had adult children living in the village:
On 14 January 1267 Sabina, an old woman, went into Colmworth to beg bread. At twilight she wished to go to her house and fell in a stream and died by misadventure. The next day her son Henry searched for her, and found her drowned.36
This was not an isolated incident, so that the warning of the homilies to beware of children mistreating their parents was not entirely misplaced.
Wanderers were dependent on community charity for their meals, food, and space in the cowshed. If the person was known in the community, he or she might fare moderately well at begging; but strangers were regarded with suspicion. The village bylaws permitted the very young, the old, and the impotent to glean in fields after harvest. But as we have observed, gleaning could only provide grain for several weeks and assumed that the old person was still sufficiently able-bodied to do the arduous, backbreaking labor of gleaning. Religious houses and parish priests were expected to give charitable contributions of food and perhaps clothing for the poor, including the aged poor, and gilds and private individuals often made alms part of the burial ceremony. Such aid, however, was sporadic and could not be counted on every day.
Old age and possibly retirement upon them, how did the elderly spend their days? While coroners did not normally record the ages of adults, in eighty cases we are either given an age over fifty or the person was described as old. Even such a small number of cases is suggestive of these peoples' lives. First, their accidents occurred either as they were working around their homes or when they were in transit. Twenty-two percent of their accidents occurred in their homes and crofts while fortyfour percent occurred in some public place such as a ditch, highway, river, or stream. This pattern is quite different from the distribution for adults in general, who had more accidents in fields, barns, neighbors' closes, forests, and marl pits. John Ballard, who was described as old and debilitated when he died on the highway in early January 1368, was returning from West Acton. Mariot, the widow of a reeve, was living with another family, perhaps on a retirement contract. While the rest of the family went about their morning chores, she lay in bed, being old and infirm. Becoming thirsty, she rose from her bed and took a pitcher to the well to get water but fell in because of her feebleness. The accidents, in general, show that the aged remained as physically active and as involved in daily work as they were able. Even an old blind woman could be pressed into baby-sitting during harvest. We know of her role because the child in her charge drowned.37
The causes of old people's deaths have a familiar ring. Thirty-eight percent died from falls, compared to 15 percent of adults in general. For instance, Isabella, wife of John, the son of Margery of Bodekesham, was described as an old woman but she rose early in the morning and took a ladder to get straw from a stack to start the fire. She must have done that every morning, but in October 1334 she fell from the ladder and died. Another woman, at least sixty years old, went to collect fruit by a well. When the tree limb on which she stood broke, she fell in. Here the old woman seems to have taken up again the tasks assigned to girls in their early teens.38 Considering the instability of the aged, it was unfortunate that their retirement quarters were sometimes in a solar that could only be reached by a ladder.
While old people were no more likely to drown than adults as a whole, they were 4 percent more likely to be describ
ed as drunk when they drowned. This higher percentage could indicate alcoholism after years of drinking ale, but is just as likely to be attributable to a more general lack of surefootedness, as in the cases of falling. They were also more susceptible to dying from excesses of heat and cold. Thus, when one looks at the distribution of their deaths by season, they have a higher mortality in January, February, March, and August than do adults in general. In winter bad weather led to deaths among beggars and travelers in this age group, and in the summer they died at harvest overexerting themselves in the heat.
Inattention or physical weakness made them 3 percent more likely to die by fire than adults in general. One old woman had returned from gleaning at harvest and had retired to her solar to count her grain. She fell asleep without putting out the candle and died in the ensuing fire. A vicar over sixty years old had also gone to bed, probably a more comfortable one than the old woman's pallet, but he too forgot to blow out the candle.39
To the extent that the first finder of the dead person indicated who was concerned about the individual, old people resembled adults in general: 15 percent were found by close relatives. Sons and daughters were somewhat more likely to be first finders of the aged.
Senility and its problems, as well as the usual frailties of old age, were well known to medieval people. Margery Kempe explains in her autobiography that she cared for her husband during his decline. He was "of great age passing three score years" when he fell down some stairs and broke open his head. Athough it was sewed up again, he was enfeebled and could not take care of himself. She provides a classic description of senility: "in his last days he turned childish again and lacked reason that he could not do his own easement to go to a sege [latrine], or else he would not but as a child voided his natural digestion onto his linen cloths." She complained that she was kept busy washing and wringing and had to keep a fire in her cottage to keep him warm.
The literary image of the aged was overwhelmingly pessimistic. In folklore age was associated with evil for both men and women.41 In more formal poetry such as the "Proverbs of Alfred," old age was commensurate with the departure of worldly goods, friends, and health.42 An early fourteenth-century poem on old age speaks derisively of the loss of hair, good fortune, love, eyesight, and the acquisition of repulsive mannerisms that come with aging:
But a fifteenth-century poem describing the general degeneracy of the times deplored the scorn for old men. 44
If literary references and accidental-death cases tend to impose a gloomy hue on the everyday life of the aged, wills with their bias to the propertied can present a surprisingly happy and optimistic picture. Widows' wills reveal a great deal about the village networks in which they participated and show them surrounded by kin, servants, neighbors, and friends. Since they did not have extensive lands to give away but wished to reward those who had shared their days, they took great care in distributing their household goods, clothing, and other movables among those they held dear. One widow, who lived with her son, rewarded not only him but a servant who took care of her. She also left bequests to two grandsons and three relatives.45 Alice Tichemarch was the second wife of a man with a number of connections in Bedfordshire. In her will she honored his wishes to leave the household goods to his daughters by his first wife. She also left a variety of dishes, spoons, sheets, and household goods to nieces, nephews, and godchildren. She belonged to the local parish gild and left her gild brothers and sisters money as well. 46 Finally, one widow must have endeared herself to the village young people, for she left 6d. to all of marriageable age.47
Old men also appear surrounded by material comforts and their circle of family. One will presents a particularly homely picture of an old man's comfortable last days. He had a young grandson of whom he was very fond and to whom he left all the contents of his house except that which he reserved for his wife. The house was commodious by peasant standards, having at least four rooms and being furnished with beds and bed linen, pots and pans, candlesticks, and even wall hangings with religious pictures painted on them. One also reads occasionally that the skill of the older workman was particularly valued. In Upwood in 1411 a plowman described as "ancient William" was paid more than younger men because of his greater skill in plowing.49
The aged were preoccupied through the last years of life with dying and with the fate of their souls. Those who lived to old age had seen many die before them of illnesses, accidents, and perhaps even a homicide. But the sudden violence depicted in our sources should not mislead us into believing that most people died away from home. On the contrary, most people died at home in their own beds. A typical deathbed scene appears in manorial records. Philip Barnabie was lying in his bed in "grete sicknesse," surrounded by friends including John Wyndover. At about ten or eleven o'clock at night John was sent over to the bailiff's house because Philip wanted to settle his estate. John went to the bailiff's chamber where he found the bailiff too sick to come to Philip, but he commissioned John to take the deposition for him saying, "John, thou art a trew man." By the time John got back, Philip could not speak comprehensibly. Another man, knowing that his end was near, got a blanket and placed his back against a venerable tree where he died peacefully. Others, of course, were not as fortunate. John de Bristowe had falling sickness (epilepsy) in church. He lay near a pillar from morning to midday, when he finally died. The inquest observes that "many [people] were passing by and praying" but none stopped.50
If a person had reached the age of sixty, he would enter into what was considered the last stage in the "Ages of Man" and prepare himself for death:
Death was most likely to occur from January through April, the cold dreary months when food might be short and a variety of respiratory diseases were rampant.52 The pattern was very different from the accidental deaths which peaked in summer when labor was difficult.
Graphic descriptions of physical death indicated very few pleasant illusions about the process:
And so the person was dead and ready for burial amid the pealing of the parish church bells.
The burial place was the sunny side of the churchyard. It would not be a lonely grave, but one crowded with ancestors and neighbors. At Wharram Percy there were up to four levels of burials. New graves were cut into the old ones, with the bones of various generations mixing together. However, the layout was orderly, going from east to west, and graves must have had some marker to facilitate adding new ones.5*
The passing of a family member and neighbor, did not go unobserved. Indeed, the ceremonies surrounding death were some of the most expensive for the family budget. The two big expenses were to the lord and the Church; the best beast went to the lord as heriot and the second-best beast to the Church as mortuary. Failing animals, goods or money was demanded. These death dues were an onerous burden and severely handicapped the person taking over the tenement. Feasting and drinking were the ceremonial debts owed to the community. The family held a wake for the dead, even though the Church tried to discourage such revelry. At a wake in Bedfordshire two boys, John, son of Hugh de Lodey, and Henry, son of Thomas of Duloe, apparently accompanied the adults to the vigil of a dead man in the hamlet of Duloe. They went outside to play and both fell into a pit and drowned.55
The spiritual welfare of the departed Christian's soul also cost the family a pretty penny. Perhaps because of the gloom cast by the high mortality, preoccupation with death and dying increased in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Fears about purgatory or worse were enhanced through graphic depictions on the church walls and popular stories. For instance, in the visions of Child William, a boy of fifteen:
He saw grown-up people placed in caldrons and boiled till they became, in size and shape, to all appearances newly-born babes. And after being taken out with burning flesh-hooks, they recovered quicky their former aged appearance and were again boiled, and this same process was continually repeated.
If this dreadful rendering of the soul was purgatory, one could only shudder at what hell
was like. A person would have to take precautions, at least at the end of his or her life, to avoid the prospect.
Prayers, masses, and a fine funeral were prescribed for the escape from the worst of purgatory. The testators were scrupulous about making provisions; 67 percent put aside some of their wealth for prayers and Masses for their souls. At their most extreme, the funerals could be very expensive. The will of a gild chaplain indicates how elaborate even a village funeral might be:
... to the rector and high alter 3s. 4d.; fabric of cathedral church 6s. 8d.; fabric of parish church for burial of body in church 6s. 8d.; upkeep of altar of St. John the Baptist 3s. 4d.; altar of Holy Trinity 3s. 4d.; St. Mary 3s. 4d.; to parish church in Lympne in Kent 40s., to each chaplain at burial 8d.; to each clerk, same, 4d.; to each clerk who reads lesson 2d.; to each poor scholar, ld.; each bell ringer 2d.; fees for bells 12d....57
As we have seen, some laymen went to extremes and essentially mortgaged their family's future well-being by an excessive bequest for prayers for their soul. The testators expressed great anxiety that their children would not keep their obits or not have the masses said at their funerals. Many instructed the executors that children were not to have land or goods unless they honored the prerequisite observances.
The Ties That Bound Page 30