Medieval Daily Life: Everything You Wanted To Know | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra
"People in towns are very worried about people working in the dark. The authorities are worried that if a weaver or a shoemaker goes on working in the dark, he'll make mistakes, and the town will get a terrible reputation, because it's it's selling wonky shoes or badly woven cloth. So they, they say you've got to stop working, when it's dark, you know, there's a and there. And of course, in towns, they have, unlike in the countryside, they have clocks, so they can, they can say you've got to stop work at six o'clock, or whatever the time is. So they they're a bit like us in that respect. They are, they are ruled by mechanical time...
The popular view, the popular assumption is that women have a very miserable, downtrodden time, you know, that they, they are subordinate to men, they have no public role. Remember, well, the Queen of England has a public role, but, but in normal towns and villages, they're not allowed to be mayors, or to serve on a jury or, or hold any of the offices or administrative positions...
It's very interesting to see that when a husband dies, and remember, people do die in the Middle Ages in their 30s and 40s, and 50s. So it's, being a widow is a very common experience. Many women will have two or three husbands, you know, it's not because of divorce as now. Divorce is really almost impossible, they're divorced by death, you know. But they, the widow, it's interesting to see that, although she's in theory, not playing any part in the husband's business, when the husband dies, you find she takes it up. You know, that a weaver's wife will suddenly become a weaver. And you realize that all along, she's been, let's take a shoemaker as an example, when a shoemaker dies as the widow takes over as shoemaker. And it's easy to see what's happening. But they are partners in effect.
The man will be, when they're both married and alive, the man will be working in the back of the shop, visible from the street, everyone wants to see what's being made, and how careful it’s being made. But the woman will be in the front selling the shoes, so so there will be a strong common interest on the part of husband and wife in the work they're doing. And it means that when, when the husband dies, she can take over, she'll hire a servant or an apprentice or something to do the work to make the shoes but she, essentially she, she's in charge...
There's a lot of work in what you might call the woman's sphere, in the household and around the house. But she gets out, you know, she goes to the mill to have her corn ground. She goes to the stream or the pond to, to fill a bucket with water because most people don't have wells, they have to bring the water from outside. She goes to the common oven to get her bread baked. And on all of those occasions of course, she has opportunities for social interaction. And you get the impression that there's a lot of talk, dare I say gossip at the, at the stream or in the mill or wherever there she might meet up with her with her chums. So there is, you know she has a public dimension to her life. She's not entirely confined to the home...
When it's market day in the nearby town, the peasant woman will go there with a basket with cheese, with eggs, with vegetables, and will sell them in the street or in the market... I've always suspected that if she does that work, if she does that marketing, she's allowed to keep the money...
If you begin to chip away at these legends, if you like about the rigidity of medical society, you find it's not quite as as rigid and controlled, as you might think. Take that business about controlling marriage, for example. The rule is that a servile woman cannot marry without the Lord's license. So in other words, you might think he chooses who she marries. In fact, what happens is that she goes to the manorial court. And it is the woman who often does this, the young woman, say in early 20s, will go to the court, and she will offer a sum of money for the license. And the Lord is very happy with that, because what he wants is the money, he does not really wants to control her marriage, he wants to get her revenue…
There are these dreadfully constraining rules, and regulations and, and demands. But when you, when you probe into them, you find that there are ways out of them, and people are not quite as as constrained as you might, as you might think...
As far as mobility is concerned, how does a serf or a peasant, someone just living on a few acres of land, how can they improve themselves? Well, one, one route, which is only taken by a small minority, but it's still an important one, is to become a clergyman. And what you find is that peasant men will go to their Lord and seek permission for their son to go to school. There are schools in almost all the small towns will have a school, so that the schools are accessible. They cost money, of course, so it's only the better off people who can afford to send their sons to school, and of course, as well as having to pay for their school fees, they're also losing their labour because boys work, you know.
So a peasant with say 30 acres of land, who’s relatively well off, will be able to afford to do that. And the son will take the exams, he'll become fluent in Latin, which is the qualification. And he can be ordained as a clergyman. And that can be a very good job. And there are examples of peasants’ sons who became bishops, you know, you, in theory, you could rise up into the very top of the church. So, so for a small minority, there was that avenue of, of mobility.
But for most people, the main ways out of their village, or out of the relative poverty in which they live, is migration. So you get people moving into the, you mentioned moving to the town, which can transform their lives, move to another village where opportunities are better. And the other thing they can do is to, if they're skilled at selling their produce, if they're able to make a bit of money from extra activities, like working in that craft or something, they can accumulate a bit of money and acquire more land. And so, you know, you find someone with only 20 acres of land can buy another 20 acres of land, and therefore become considerably better, considerably better off.
And just occasionally, you can show that a peasant can actually join the aristocracy, you know, the, the bottom of the aristocracy is not entirely sealed off. And, and you find, you can spot them because they've got very ordinary names, you know, you find someone called Smith becoming, becoming a gentleman, you know, but obviously, if your name’s Smith it means that your father or your grandfather was just an artisan. So it is possible by luck, judgment and skill, to acquire more and more wealth and to pass yourself off as being suitable for inclusion in the aristocracy.
So, you know, if you want the best example of that, of course, the most famous example, as I'm sure many people know, was the Spencer family. Who were sheep farmers, on a fairly small scale in the middle of Warwickshire in the, in the 14 sort of 50s, who acquired more and more land and more and more sheep. And eventually, in the early 16th century, they became Lords of the Manor, of a place called Althorpe in Northamptonshire, and they ended up, well, they almost ended up as Queen of England. They ended up Earl. They became Earls anyway, and, and really did join the big, big time aristocracy"