Review: Everyday Life in Medieval Times, Pt. 1

    These are old, occasionally sarcastic notes I took while reading Rowling's book on the daily lives of normal-ish people during the Middle Ages.  It's an excellent introductory text for those wishing to learn more about normal life in the medieval period, as opposed to list of battles or major political figures.  Here is the proper citation:
    Rowling, Marjorie. Everyday Life in Medieval Times. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.

  NB: This post is not so much a Cliff Notes as a stream-of-consciousness piece.  It should not be taken as actual scholarship, and does not necessarily reflect the author's beliefs.

INTRODUCTION

• picture opposite title page shows a building being demolished!
• looks like most pics will be French, some English, rarely Italian/German
• prob. most pics from illustrated manuscripts, e.g. Tres Riches Heures?
• acknowledgement: Waddell, Helen. The Wandering Scholars. pub. pre-1968
  

CH. 1 CHARLEMAGNE & SOCIETY

• map opposite first page shows empire @ time of Charlemagne is bas. France plus half of Germany; empire @ time of Crusades is bas. Germany plus half of Italy
• starts w/ Charlemagne's death in 814
• Charlemagne added to Nine Worthies* alongside Abraham & Caesar (others?)
• claims he "revived the late Roman ideal" of a Xian empire
• may be responsible for reviving £sd coinage? (as monetary system, not actual coins)
• may have developed vassalage system?
• enjoyed swimming & bathing in hot springs @ Aachen
• fav garb supposedly a "jerkin of otter skins"
• anecdote on p.15 proves he was kind of an ass
• ostensibly we have his sword (Fig. 4, no credit)
• Charles' grandpa stopped the Moorish expanse @ Poitiers, Pepin beat them in Aquitaine, & Charles himself started La Reconquista
• lost Battle of Roncesvalles; a Breton count who was a friend of his died there, & became immortalized in Song of Roland
• his "greatest struggle" was against pagan Saxons (in Germany)
• HE destroyed Irminsul, & forced Saxons to undergo mass baptism
• forced all men to retake oaths after each revolt (786 & 792)
• Turpin the Archbishop "hacked the Moslem chief rib from rib" wtf
• vassals, who took extra special oaths, were rewarded for service w/ gifts of land from the king
• vassal gets land, becomes landed elite, becomes lord in his own right, is in charge of tenants (serfs), may also be an abbot? abbot granted land or random vassal granted an abbey?
• oh yes apparently an abbot swore vassalage & had to show up for military service
• 60 solidi fine for not showing up for military service!
• had laws about extradition of robbers from sanctuaries, not letting your serfs starve to death, & providing for the education of female orphans by "honorable matrons" under the supervision of the clergy
• accounts had to be rendered @ Xmas
• Charles def. had pointless pleasure estates
• few slaves but serfdom increased
• sounds like peasant women were expected to cook, clean, feed/herd swine, poss. gather eggs, AND spin/weave/dye own clothes?? even w/ kids to help this seems unreasonable...
• 2 shillings currently worth one ox or two sheep
• sounds like we do have hobby horses (tho' no citation)
• apparently the whole month of October was given over to the festival of St. Denis in Paris
• many monks & clerics were apparently illiterate or at least poorly educated (Charles complained about typos in letters he got from monasteries)
• Carolingian schools tended to specialize, so some were famous for their singers & some for copy manuscripts
• 9th-c. copy of Juvenal contains a curse upon would-be thieves damning them to the fires(!) of Hell
• Basilica of St. Mary the Virgin @ Aachen was adorned w/ columns & statues stolen from Ravenna & the roof was topped w/ a golden apple
  

CH. 2 LORDS & VASSALS

• now after Charlemagne's death & the break-up of his empire
• "homage" from Fr. homme is the process by which one becomes another's "man"
• "between 10th & 13th centuries" that commendation (entering into this system of feudal obligation/protection) reached its "fullest development" so that is what this chapter will focus on in terms of time
• due to Saracen pirates, Magyar horsemen, & Norse vikings, any portable gold was removed from Xian Europe & all wealth was concentrated in land
• this oath of vassalage (& also all of Charlamagne's) sworn over relics of saints
• kiss in rite of vassalage supposed to emphasize friendship (this was skipped in Germany where they resented having to be subordinate & were not friendly)
• oh snap, political commentary on rich folks in quote on p.33 "they fight all the time to gain power & crush rivals"
• landed estates now have ambitious men bribed others into fighting for them
• others "fiefs" could incl. tolls & market dues, right of minting coinage, right of justice, holding of offices (e.g. mayor steward), & even *gasp* money payments
• originally any knight could dub another knight; by 1250 you couldn't join Knights Templar w/out being a knight's son or male line descendant as well
• by 1150, church had taken over knighting ceremony, involving a priest & prayers & injunctions to use it for "goodness" to defend "the just & the right"
• forbidden to peasants to carry lance or sword (further attempts to exclude working class from knighthood)
• no serf could marry anyone except another serf from the same manorial estate (to avoid legal conflict?)
• 11th cent. agricultural innovations incl. heavier plows & a furrow board(?) for tilling, shoulder collar & harnessing one animal behind the other for livestock, & water-powered grain mills
• loads of former serfs resettled as free men in new territories due to this sudden freeing-up of new (formerly unusable) land for agriculture
• trade also increased & by the 13th c. was "in full swing once more" in Europe
• new flow of money meant more fancy churches, universities, palaces, & libraries
• war meant mercenaries roaming the countryside & looting/pillaging/raping  :/ peasants fled to walled towns w/ their children & livestock
• Black Death & other plagues caused labor shortages that improved peasants' bargaining power @ same time as self-supplied heavy cavalry (nobles & knights) were replaced w/ light infantry & longbowmen (commoners), generally helping to level the playing field among the Three Estates
  

CH. 3 TOWNSMEN & TRADERS

• growth of trade & subsequent increase in urban population helped destabilize feudal hierarchy
• Mediterranean trade routes kept some southern European towns intact thru the "Dark Ages," while northern European towns that became the seats of bishoprics were also able to survive
• early monasteries founded just outside towns kept urban life going via pilgrimage tourism
• lots of Jewish, Greek, & Syrian merchants or artisans keeping trade & culture alive
• after Muslim conquest of Spain & northern Africa, France had to swap eastern goods for homemade substitutes (e.g. parchment for papyrus, woad for indigo, butter for olive oil)
• 9th c. Jewish merchants brought goods from western Europe to Persia, then loaded up ships & set sail for India or China
• "the route behind Rome" went overland thru Europe, into Slavic lands, & across Siberia to China (poss. western China?)
• major Jewish trading centers incl. Prague "city of stone," Itil on the Volga, Samkarsh on the Sea of Azov, & various banking houses in the Near East
• by 7th c. European traders began to emerge
• Pope Gregory I forbade the sale of Xian slaves to pagan purchasers
• large-scale commerce mainly occurred at massive international fairs, e.g. fair @ St. Denis, which often developed out of popular religious festivals
• buying & selling of perishable or everyday goods instead took place @ local weekly markets
• temporary stalls tended to become permanent stalls & then shops, while sections of a market tended to specialize, so soon streets in a town were known for their wares, e.g. Baker Street or Goldsmiths' Row
• the inhabitants of Arles turned the old Roman amphitheater into a fortress & hid inside during 9th c. Muslim raid
• Naples & other maritime republics would sometimes ally w/ Muslim pirates in exchange for trade concessions
• Venice "developed the system of lending out capital in order to make a profit on it" by the 9th c.
• towns & trade really took off in Europe during the 11th & 12th centuries
• merchants have to be free of the feudal system to trade effectively; hence the liberties granted to cities & the self-government via mayor or town council
• bishop of Laon tried to strip townsfolk of their liberties & they revolted in 1115
• introduction of broad loom requires 2 weavers but produces wider cloth than older single loom
• because fulling by "hand" (treading the cloth) was such hard work, a law in Arles specified that at least 3 men had to work on a single cloth
• cloth pressed into dye vats w/ ess. oars, which could then be used to lift the cloth out again
• "roadmender" was apparently a job & had its own guild
• guilds put on or participated in miracle plays, w/ much ribaldry
• in 13th c. England & Flanders, the cloth-making guilds refused membership to weavers, fullers, & dyers unless they quit their jobs & got rid of their tools; generally, wage-earning artisans were forbidden entry so craftspeople had no say in guild matters (which involved regulating prices & quality)
• a 14th c. French king decreed no lunch breaks for weavers
• in 12th & 13th c. Italians began to compete w/ northern cloth-makers, at least in dyeing & finishing fabrics
• slave trade declined in 13th c. but labor shortages after Black Death revived demand
• by end of 14th c. most wealthy Italian households had at least one slave
• tiles & some glazed windows being used in nicer Italian houses by this time
• in 1293, shipping magnates seized control of govt. from landed nobility in Venice, & by 1300 had formed their own conservative patrician elite
• 14th c. Europe entered crisis & decline due to plague & Hundred Years' War
• after Hundred Years' War, Charles VII set about rebuilding French trade
• wants me to believe that wealthy ladies spending money on fripperies & new fashions helped keep "culture & learning" alive during the Middle Ages
  

CH. 4 WOMEN & WIVES

• immediately w/ the Madonna-whore complex
• laws supporting wife-beating
• villages were threatened or fined for failing to punish women who "railed against their husbands," usu. by ducking
• serfs & villeins often had early marriages arranged by their overlords bc marriage meant babies meant cheap labor
• sounds like free men would rape "young girls" (teens & preteens) who were serfs & didn't consider them worthy of marriage
• discovering your wife was descended from a serf was sufficient cause to annul a marriage
• some guy wrote a creepy advice book to his child bride (poss. frame narrative justification, poss. real)
  
• a 40-yr-old w/ a 15-yr-old wife (and they were cousins, even tho' we were just told that "relation within the 4th degree" rendered a marriage null & void; must have gotten special dispensation?)
• Knight of La Tour-Landry apparently had a very happy marriage until wife died, despite writing w/ approval of wife-beating
• growth of Virgin Mary's cult in 12th c.
• same period saw cult of the lady & medieval-style chivalry rise
• supposed formal ceremony for lady bestowing favors on a lover?!
• apparently had "courts of love" w/ lady judges to try romantic cases
• Romance of the Rose mostly written by romantic poet, but after he died was finished by a bitter misogynist
• Christine de Pisan wrote Epistle to the God of Love in response to Romance of the Rose's accusations & she got to present one of her many books to the queen
• book counts "aristocratic poetesses" among the troubadours
• Countess of Provence, Countess of Die, Clair d'Anduze, Adelaide de Porcairgues, & Dame Capelloza all wrote poems praising their lovers in the 12th c.
  
• older girls sent to live w/ noblewomen from "neighboring castles & great houses" to learn courtly behavior
• women "became skilled in massage"?
• ale freq. used for cooking fish
• sometimes ate gulls  :/
• many cattle killed off before winter (hopefully male?)
  
• trade goods had to be bought from nearest town (e.g. spices, silk)
• they had coal! 12th or 13th c. price for 2 sacks of coal is 10s, says the Goodman of Paris
• 15th c. ladies (or at least Margaret Paston) constantly defending their multiple properties against seizure by dukes & lords
• "carol" orig. name for a dance accompanied by song
• alehouses often kept by women & functioned as gathering place for working women or burghers' wives
• farces to mystery plays as satyr plays to tragedies (tho' sprinkled throughout rather than after?)
• public baths reintroduced to "Europe" by mid-13th c. due to Crusaders
• public baths suppressed in England by 1546 but continued on the continent
• women engaged in hunting to the point someone complained about it
• a "rache" is a scent hound
• ladies hunted rabbits using ferrets (men prob. did the same), in addition to hawking, haring, & fishing
  

To be continued in Part 2!