The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century (11 page)

Nor is this violent loyalty confined to secular lords. On one occasion in 1384, after the bishop of Exeter has refused to let the archbishop of Canterbury visit his diocese, three of his household esquires force the archbishop’s messenger to eat the wax seal of the letter he is carrying.
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several members of the archbishop’s household exact revenge by seizing one of the bishop’s men and making him eat his own shoes. It is not exactly behavior appropriate for the servants of the highest-ranking clergy in the realm.

In any society as violent as this, it is vitally important to
belong.
Men from one town belong to that town in order to give them some protection when they venture to another. Men of one manor likewise belong to that place, for the sake of their security as well as their livelihood. Many men regard their membership of a town community as no less important than their nationality. When an untrustworthy trader (such as a fraudulent innkeeper) is made to forswear his trade and leave the city, he is not only losing his livelihood but also the companionship of those whom he could count on to protect him.

The passions of a violent society spill over into the sense of humor you will encounter. Yes, there is humor, lots of it, amid the violence and sexism. But whether you will find it funny is quite a different matter. For example, here is a medieval joke. One merchant asks another, ‘Are you married?” “I had three wives,” the second merchant responds, “but all three hanged themselves from a tree in my garden.” The first merchant retorts, “Pray, give me a cutting from this miraculous tree.”

Sarcasm might be commonly referred to as the lowest form of wit in our own time, but in the fourteenth century it is just about the highest. It is arguably the only form which does not require the humiliation of a victim. One of the most famous humorous letters of the century is written by the young Edward II to Louis d’Evreux, in which he promises to send him a present of “some misshapen greyhounds from Wales, which can well catch a hare if they find it asleep, and running dogs which can follow at an amble, for well we know how you love lazy dogs.”
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Similarly, if you visit court in late 1328 you might be amused by Roger Mortimer’s sarcastic reply to a letter from the earl of Lancaster, his avowed enemy. Having been accused of impoverishing the Crown, Mortimer denies everything vehemently and then adds, “But if any man knows how to make the king richer, he is most welcome at court.”
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Practical jokes are perhaps the most common form of humor. Men and women are often amused when other people injure themselves. Take hocking, for example: at one level this is the Hocktide custom of
capturing men and women and holding them prisoner and releasing them for a fee, in order to raise money for the parish. On Mondays men are captured by women, and vice versa on Tuesdays. But sometimes it gets out of hand. A group of lads lay a noose on the ground and wait for an unsuspecting passerby to step into it. Then they hoist him up, suddenly, by his ankles, often bashing his head on the ground in the process. Watch out at dusk, when it is difficult to see the rope against the mud of the street. Otherwise you will be kept hanging by one leg until you have paid a ransom. Those who see the spectacle will laugh heartily at your embarrassment.

In a violent society even the humor is violent. One day King Edward II is riding along the road behind one of his kitchen staff, called Morris, who falls off his horse. Something is wrong with Morris for he is unable to keep his balance and falls off again. Does the king ride up and offer him a helping hand? Or send a servant to inquire after the man’s health? Nothing of the sort. Instead, he laughs and laughs and laughs. Wiping away a tear, he gives the man the equivalent of a year’s salary as a present, not to help him get better but for making him laugh so much.
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Sometimes such violent ribaldry is enshrined in annual games, such as the Haxey Hood game, which permits the man playing the Fool to kiss any girl or married woman he meets. At the end of the celebrations he will be cut down from the bough of a tree above a fire and burnt badly for his amatory indulgences.

There is a fine line between this brutal sense of humor and plain trickery, which is not so funny. You will be surprised how many people laugh at the idea of a man persuading a woman to sleep with him after promising to marry her, with his sole guarantee of good intentions being a ring made of wound rushes—which soon falls apart, like his promise of marriage. The idea of a young woman cuckolding her old husband with a handsome young man is one which constantly entertains and delights people. Chaucer uses it to brilliant effect in discussing the relations between men and women in his
Canterbury Tales
. Of course, in Chaucer’s hands, even plain trickery can be hilariously funny. The end of “The Miller’s Tale,” where the carpenter cuts the rope holding his washtub in the rafters and falls to the floor, is slapstick at its very finest. But for every Chaucer there are ten thousand less-witty tricksters. In 1351 the mayor of London has to pass a bylaw prohibiting boys from playing practical jokes on the members
of Parliament. Among other things, they had been running up behind them and stealing their hoods.

You might now be thinking that the medieval English character is composed of cruelty and violence. If so, you would not be far wrong—it has been formed through an intense awareness of both. But it is also composed of many other things. Just as a biographer only begins to understand his subject when he comes to terms with the contradictions and tensions within the character, so too you will only begin to understand the medieval mind when you begin to realize its contradictions. For example, the supreme masters of violence are those military commanders who can direct sudden and overwhelming force at their enemy. But when you begin to examine their true characters, these men are rarely brutal. Henry, duke of Lancaster, is one of the greatest military leaders of the century. He leads an Anglo-Gascon army to victory after victory in 1345. And yet what are his pastimes and pleasures? He likes all the usual things—hunting, feasting, and, by his own admission, seducing women, especially peasant girls—but he also loves the song of the nightingale and the scents of roses, musk, violets, and lily of the valley. The image of a great war leader closing his eyes and inhaling the aroma of flowers reminds us that some medieval lords are very far from being two-dimensional violent thugs. Henry even writes a book of spiritual devotion. There is poetry and sophistication in such men, intellectual awareness, human kindness, and generosity of spirit. And there is deep sincerity too. When the same duke swears an oath not to give up a siege until he has planted his banner on the walls of the castle, you can be sure that he intends to fulfill it. Not even a direct order from the king himself can persuade him to do otherwise. Perhaps one of the things which will amaze you most of all is how often a man in armor—a fighting machine—will resolutely stand by what he personally believes is virtuous. And how easily he can be moved to tears.

There is no more obvious contrast to the bawdy, insensitive humor and violence of the time than people’s spirituality. To be modestly religious in the fourteenth century is to be fervent by modern
standards—you will find the depth of religious feeling in daily life quite astonishing. Many people attend Mass every single day. Many give alms to the poor every day. Many will go on four or five pilgrimages a year, and some will visit more than a hundred different churches annually. You might think that this is all a show of religion, a demonstration of piety, in order to encourage the lower classes to believe their superiors are closer to God. But such a view would not only be extremely cynical, it would be wrong. Just as there is a violent streak running through the whole of society, so too there is a religious one. One of the greatest fighting heroes of the century is Sir Walter Manny, a personal friend of King Edward III and Queen Philippa. He is the sort of swashbuckling character who will throw himself at a horde of French knights with the conviction of an indomitable man; he has been known to rush out of a besieged town and attack a siege engine just because it is disturbing his dinner. And yet he is also the sort of man who establishes a great monastery—the London Charterhouse—and who buys enough land so that the poor of London have somewhere to bury their dead during the Great Plague. He might be a fighting machine, but when he removes his armor he is a man of sympathy and piety, and these virtues are as much a part of his character as his military prowess.

The key to understanding such men is the notion of respectability. If you want to flatter a man in any walk of life, tell him he is of noble bearing and behavior and deserving of respect. Men want to serve in important positions of office in towns and manors—it adds to their stature. Men want to be seen to be valued by the great men of the realm, especially the king. Most of all, men want to be honored and loved in death. It is no exaggeration to say that at some great funerals you will see more than ten thousand people in mourning. The greater the numbers at your funeral, the more loved, the more honored, and the more respected you must have been in life. Hence great men start rewarding paupers for attending their funerals. When Richard Gravesend, bishop of London, is buried in 1303, a total of 31,968 poor people attend the ceremony.
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such determination to appear dignified and respected is common to most men and women. Cursing or defaming someone is a serious offense, and the victim’s pride may well cause the defamer to be hauled up in court. It is perhaps this very straightlaced respectability that explains why people find it so funny when a proud man has his hood stolen or gets hocked by his ankle and lifted into the air.

To what extent is character a result of education? In the Middle Ages it is arguable that the answer is “not very much.” Alternatively, you could turn the question around and say the opposite. The shortcomings of medieval education have a profound effect on the people.

In the towns and villages you will find the younger children being taught about the seven deadly sins once a week by the parish priest. Otherwise most forms of education are intended to do no more than equip boys and girls for the occupations for which they are destined. A knight’s son will be sent off at the age of seven to serve in the household of another knight, often his maternal uncle. Great lords’ sons and daughters are given their own private tutors. The children of an agricultural worker will be out in the fields at the age of seven. Craftsmen’s sons likewise become apprentices at a young age, learning how to keep accounts—whether in a written form or on tally sticks—as well as the techniques of the trade. Those destined for the Church are sent off at seven to be tonsured, which entails the rather severe haircut which commences a career of worship. Education—like so many other aspects of medieval life—is a practical exercise.

There
are
formal schools in most towns but only for the minority. Cathedrals, Benedictine monasteries, nunneries, and friaries normally have schools attached to them. Others are associated with city churches, and it is from such establishments as these that the clerks and the clergy and the undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge are drawn. The cost of a formal education can be as much as 10d per week per pupil—far too expensive for most parents. For villeins it is totally out of the question, as the parents would have to pay an additional fine to the lord of the manor for sending their child away. The minority who, at about the age of fourteen, do matriculate to one of the two universities can expect to study first the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and then the Quadrivium (arithmetic, music, astronomy, and geometry) for their liberal arts degree. But there are no more than a few hundred resident members of each university at any one time. Formal education is a rare privilege.

Given that only a small minority go to school, you will be mildly surprised by the number of people who are literate. You have probably been told at some time that only priests can read and write. That
was true for England in about 1200: in those days the ability to read was legally synonymous with being a clergyman. But at that time manorial courts did not keep records, most bishops did not keep registers, and few great estates issued any documentation other than charters. Now in the fourteenth century things are very different. The proceedings of every manor court are recorded in detail, and so are the extent and customs of almost every manor. Every bishop keeps a register. Every great estate and major landowner employs a series of clerks. Every judge has his clerical staff, and so does every sheriff, escheator, and coroner. Most wealthy merchants keep accounts of some sort. By 1400 even churchwardens are recording their income and expenditure in account rolls.
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All the professional men in a city—physicians, lawyers, scriveners, surgeons, and schoolmasters—can read and write, and maybe as many as 20 percent of other tradesmen are also literate. As for country areas, manorial clerks, parish clergy, and parish churchwardens form a literate core. When lists of the most reliable freeholders in a rural area are drawn up, literacy is often noted, revealing that many of them are literate.
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Villeins do not feature in such lists, the majority being unable even to recognize their own name, let alone write it. Despite this you should reckon on a male literacy rate of 5 percent of the adult population in rural areas, and 20 percent in urban areas.
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By the end of the century these are probably significant underestimates with regard to certain towns and cities.

Another myth often repeated in the modern world is that ordinary medieval people never travel more than five or six miles from their homes. As you will suspect from the masses pouring into towns on market days, this is not correct. It is true that most villeins do not travel more than a few miles from their manor, on account of their bond to their lord, but freemen can—and do—travel much farther afield.