THE WOMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES
There was an almost total lack of central authority or of legal
restraint throughout the land during the long conflict between Stephen
and Matilda, wife of the Count of Anjou, whom the feudal party, in
violation of their vows to Henry I., refused to accept as queen; and
to the other terrors of war were added the depredations of a host
of mercenary soldiers brought over from the continent. To quote the
chronicler William of Newburgh: "In the olden days there was no king
in Israel, and everyone did that which was right in his own eyes;
but in England now it was worse; for there was a king, but impotent,
and every man did what was wrong in his own eyes." The Petersborough
continuation of the _English Chronicle_ gives as dark a picture of the
state of affairs: "They filled the land full of castles and filled the
castles full of devils. They took all those they deemed had any goods,
men and women, and tortured them with tortures unspeakable; many
thousands they slew with hunger--they robbed and burned all the
villages, so that thou mightest fare a day's journey nor ever find
a man dwelling in a village nor land tilled. Corn, flesh, and cheese
there was none in the land. The bishops were ever cursing them, but
they cared naught therefor, for they were all forcursed and forsworn
and forlorn.... Men said openly that Christ slept and His saints.
Such and more than we can say we suffered for our sins," Such grim
experiences of unlicensed feudalism did much for the social education
of the English people, and similar lawlessness was never repeated in
the history of the country. Out of the furnace through which England
passed, the English character emerged, purified of some of its
dross of Anglo-Saxon sluggishness and Norman arrogance, and finely
representative of the tempered elements of both peoples. A sense of
solidarity was awakened.
The feudal system found its expression in various forms of homage and
of fealty, upon which it was founded. It embraced, among many services
and liabilities, some that related to women. On the death of a tenant
leaving an heiress under fourteen years of age, the lord upon whose
lands the tenant had dwelt, and to whom he owed the military and other
services of his lower position, became the guardian in chivalry to
the maiden, and had charge of her person and her lands until she
was twenty-one--unless, on reaching the age of sixteen, she availed
herself of her right to "sue out her livery" by the payment of a
half-year's income of her estate. Moreover, he was entitled to dispose
of her in marriage to any person of rank equal to her own. In case the
young lady did not approve of the selection made for her, and rejected
her guardian's choice or married without his consent, she had to
forfeit to him a sum of money equal to what was called the value of
her marriage--a sum equal to what the lord might have expected to
receive if the marriage as planned by him had taken place. During her
wardship the lord had the right to her land, and might assign or sell
his guardianship over her. These rights which the lord held over
the person and possessions of his ward applied, in the later feudal
period, equally to male and female.
Such was the relationship of the ward to her lord, and the same system
of knight service which gave him these rights in orphaned minors gave
him, as well, the right to collect a fee upon the marriage of the
daughters of any of his tenants. Such a system, while it deprived the
young woman of absolute freedom in her selection of a husband, did
not of necessity work great hardship, as each fair young woman had her
knight dedicated to her by the solemn vows of chivalry, from whom her
troth, once given, was not apt to be easily wrested. Upon the merits
of the system itself we are not called upon to pass judgment; but
certainly chivalry, which was its finest product, was responsible
for the introduction into the English character of splendid ideals of
womanhood, which found expression in a deference amounting almost to
worship.
Yet the picture has a reverse side as well, and it is only by
considering both aspects of the age that its real meaning as regards
its effect upon the womanhood of the time becomes clear. This other
side of chivalry is well expressed by Freeman, than whom no one is
better qualified to speak. He says: "The chivalrous spirit is, above
all things, a class spirit. The good knight is bound to endless
fantastic courtesies towards men and still more towards women of a
certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any degree of
scorn or cruelty.... Chivalry is short in its morals very much what
feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely personal obligations,
obligations devised in the interest of an exclusive class, for the
more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen."
The extravagant reverence and regard paid to women of the higher
ranks of society did not have a firm basis in inherent moral principle
either in them or in their worshippers, so that it was an easy passage
from idealized woman to materialized woman. Life cannot long subsist
on the perfervid products of a social imagination. As a revulsion of
noble minds from coarseness and as a protest against tyranny and vice,
chivalry fulfilled a high mission; but, unfortunately, its exalted
admiration of woman fell to a physical appreciation of its subject.
Not her womanhood, but her graces of person came to evoke the
passionate devotion of the knight. An admiration fantastic and
romantic, expressing itself in all sorts of extravagance, a worship
of mere physical beauty--such was the nature of chivalry in its later
expression. Instead of an idol, woman became but a toy.
In no respect was this sentimentality better illustrated than in the
nature of the knightly devotion of the time. When not in the camp, the
life of the knight was an idle one, and was spent for the most part
in sentimental attendance upon ladies at court or castle. It was there
that his deeds of prowess won rewards rather more generously than
discreetly given by the lady to whom he had pledged his devotion;
so that, with all the circumstances of outward respect for women,
surpassing in ostentatious display that shown by any other age, it
is a painful fact that in no other age was there such license in the
association of the sexes. It is a striking comment upon the manners
of the times that "gallantry" should have come to signify both bravery
and illicit love. Chastity was not one of the ornaments of the age of
chivalry.
In curious contrast to the attitude of chivalry--a product of the
Church--toward women was that of the Church in its official character
and expression. The knight elevated woman to the plane of angels,
while the priest went to the other extreme. Saint Chrysostom's
definition of woman as "a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a
desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a
painted ill," continued to be the orthodox view of the Church, Woman
was to be avoided as a temptation by all those who valued the security
of their souls; and yet it was the Church, more than any other social
force, which gave to woman the dignity and worth that she achieved.
The Church stood for order and even for progress; it summed up in
itself all the knowledge and the culture of the times. In the midst
of the turmoil and dangers of war and strife, it afforded to women the
one haven to which they might flee for security. But its protection
was bought at the price of authority over the lives and consciences
of its adherents. The lives of women were spent in a round of narrow
experience and of duty, and the feasts of the Church, with their
processions and ceremonials, furnished to them merely an agreeable
break in the monotony of their existence. This was especially true of
the lower classes. In an age when belief in supernatural appearances
and interferences formed part of the common credence of the masses,
the emotional sensibilities of the women were easily appealed to by
the priests. By taking advantage of this ignorance, the Church was
enabled to hold in absolute control the lives of the simple and
credulous women. Women did not hesitate to yield to the Church their
freedom of thought and of action, their minds and consciences alike
being at the disposal of their ecclesiastical directors; but when
the Church taught men to respect their wives, and raised its voice
and exerted its influence against the tyranny which placed women in
subjection to their male relatives, it was indeed befriending them in
a way that hastened the acquirement by them of the real equality which
they now enjoy with the other sex.
The relation of women and the Church was not without its anomalies.
This is shown curiously in the contrast between the Mariolatry of
the age and the attitude of the Church toward the sex of which Mary
was the exalted type The women were not esteemed fit to receive the
Eucharist with uncovered hands; they were forbidden to approach the
altar; their married state was yet, in theory at least considered a
condition of sin, for, even among the women of the laity, virginity
and celibacy were regarded as almost a state of especial sanctity.
But the Church was entirely consistent in its attitude toward women in
that it made no distinctions as to class or condition. Queen Philippa,
wife of Edward III., while on a visit to Durham Cathedral, after
having supped with the king, retired to rest in the priory. The
scandalized monks sought an interview with the king and made vigorous
protests, so that the queen was obliged to rise, and, clad only in her
night apparel, sought accommodations in the castle, beseeching Saint
Cuthbert's pardon for having polluted the holy confines with her
presence.
Ecclesiastical law operated disastrously against women in declaring
for a celibate priesthood. In Anglo-Saxon times the priests married;
but the Council of Winchester, in 1076, took a stand against the
marriage of the clergy, and forbade priests to take to themselves
wives, although it permitted the parish clergy who were already
married to continue in the marital state. In 1102, however, it was
declared that no married priest should celebrate mass, and in 1215
the Lateran Council definitely pronounced against marriage of priests.
Many of the clergy had by no means shown a docile spirit in relation
to this invasion of what they considered the domain of their personal
rights; when forced into submission, they evaded the ordinances by
taking concubines. Even in the fifteenth century, it was not uncommon
to find married priests. In the document entitled _Instructions for
Parish Priests_, those who were too weak to live uprightly in the
celibate state were counselled to take wives. Concubinage, as a
substitute for the interdicted marriage, continued to be practised
down to the sixteenth century, nor was this form of illicit living the
worst vice of the clergy. Debauchery spread throughout the country,
until in the sixteenth century it is said that as many as one hundred
thousand women fell under the seductions of the priests, for whose
particular pleasures houses of ill fame were kept. From the laity,
complaints became general that their wives and daughters were not safe
from the advances of the priests. In 1536 the clergy of the diocese of
Bangor sent to Cromwell the following remarkable plea against taking
away their women from them: "We ourselves shall be driven to seek our
living at all houses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and
vicarages we have none. And as for gentlemen and substantial honest
men, for fear of inconvenience, and knowing our frailty and accustomed
liberty, they will in no wise board us in their houses." All the
literature of the Middle Ages leads to but one conclusion--that the
clergy were the great corrupters of domestic virtue among the burgher
and agricultural classes. The morals of the lords and ladies of the
upper strata of the aristocratic class were of no higher grade; the
offenders, however, were seldom the priests, but the gallants of that
privileged circle. The lower rank of the aristocracy,--the knights and
lesser landholders,--which, with the decline of feudalism, came to be
more strongly defined as a separate class, appears to have preserved
the best moral tone of any of the classes of mediaeval society.
A great deal of light is thrown upon the manners and thought of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries by a body of literature which arose
during those centuries. The estimation in which the classes of society
were held is indicated by one of these _fabliaux_. A party of knights
passed through a pleasant and shady meadow, in the midst of exquisite
scenery; they were enchanted by the spot, and wished for meat and wine
that they might tarry there and dine on the grass. There followed them
a party of clerks, whose feelings were also aroused by the beauty
of the place; and, in accord with the frivolous character given them
throughout the _fabliaux_, they exclaimed: "Had we fair maidens here,
how pleasant a spot for play!" After they had passed on, there came a
party of villains, who, with their grosser ideas, thought not of the
beauty of the place at all, but proceeded to indulge themselves in
carnal pleasures and to use it for mean purposes.
These _fabliaux_ show us that Cupid disdained conventional restraint
then as now; for in them the marriage of persons in different classes
often furnishes a theme for the story--this, too, notwithstanding
the sharp caste distinctions which existed. Usually, the maiden is
possessed of more beauty than wealth and belongs to the poor-knight
class; she is wedded to a peasant or villain who has become wealthy.
The husband turns out to be a brute; the lady is crafty and cunning.
He beats and abuses her, according to the instincts of his boorish
nature; she, on the other hand, proves faithless as often as
opportunity presents. The writers never visit condemnation upon her,
for her husband is considered as undeserving of the possession of
such a prize. It is a curious commentary on the manner of the times
that upon the same manuscript, written by the same person, appear
_fabliaux_ of this sort and stories of holy women dying in defence of
their chastity. This contradiction runs throughout the literature of
the period--the praise of virtue and the narration of gross immorality
without an effort to condemn it. One of the most peculiar facts of the
age is the extreme to which was carried the adoration of the Virgin
and the strange things she is made to do and to countenance, in
the mythology of the Middle Ages--for so we must class most of the
mediaeval stories of the saints and of the Virgin--to ardent and
imaginative temperaments the Virgin took the character of Venus,
and is frequently represented as the patroness of love. One of the
religious stories tells us that some young men, while playing ball in
front of a church, approached the porch of the edifice, upon which was
a beautiful statue of Our Lady. One of them laid down his ring, which
he had received from his lady-love. Then, to his amazement, he saw
the image, which was "fresh and new," fix its eyes upon the ring. He
became enamored of it, and, after due obeisance, he addressed Our Lady
thus:
"I promise duly,
That all my life I'll serve thee truly;
For never saw I maiden fair
Whose beauty could with thine compare,
So courtly and so debonaire:
And she who gave this ring to me,
Though fair and sweet herself, than thee
A hundred times less fair, I trow,
Shall yield to thee her empire now.
'Tis true I've loved her long and well,
As many a fond caress can tell;
But now, forgotten and neglected,
Her meaner charms for thine rejected,
I give her ring--a lasting token
Of faith which never shall be broken,
Nor shared with maid or wife shall be
The love I proffer unto thee.'"
With this address, he placed the ring upon the finger of the image.
Our Lady appeared flattered by the conquest she had made, and bent the
finger on which the ring had been placed in order that it might not
be withdrawn. The lover was astounded by the miracle, and was advised
by his friends to retire from the world and to devote himself to the
adoration and service of the Blessed Virgin. Neglecting this advice,
he allowed love to resume its place and led to the altar the maiden
who had given him the ring. But Our Lady was not to be deprived of
her adorer, and when he laid himself upon the nuptial couch she
immediately threw him into a profound slumber, and when he awoke he
found her lying between him and his bride:
"She showed him straight her finger, where
Was still the ring he'd given her;
And well became her hand that ring
Upon her soft skin glittering.
'Instead of love, thou'st shown,' said she,
'But falseness and disloyalty.
And ill hast kept thy faith to me.
Behold the ring thou gavest, for token
And pledge of love fore'er unbroken,
And call'd me a hundred times more fair
Than ever earthly maidens were.
I have been ever true, but thou
Hast taken a meaner leman now;
Hast left for stinking nettle the rose,
Sweet eglantine for flower more gross.'"
In the end, Our Lady forces him to leave his wife that he may dedicate
himself entirely to her service. In other _fabliaux_ and in the
chronicles, Mary is represented under the guise of the Lady Venus, who
often appears in these romances. In this adoration of the Virgin as a
maiden impelled by the same loves and hates as any mortal woman, it is
not difficult to see the spirit of chivalry in its sensual expression.
Surely, if every lady had her knight, the Blessed Virgin, also, must
have her devoted admirers; and by the height of her position and
greater worthiness as the Queen of Heaven, by so much should she rise
above any other woman in her right to command such adorers.
When we pass from the status of woman in the Middle Ages to her
occupations, the subject becomes narrowed, not only by the lesser
importance of the facts which merely illustrate rather than
demonstrate her position, but also because we shall exclude from our
general consideration the women of the manors, the nuns, and, in
their industrial capacities, the women of the guilds. These important
classes demand separate treatment.
After the middle of the twelfth century, it is easier to study the
domestic manners of the people. We can, for instance, obtain very
precise information as to the style of the dwellings in which they
lived. There was a general uniformity in the houses, however they
might vary in particulars. In the twelfth century, the hall continued
to be the main part of the dwelling. Adjoining it at one end was the
chamber, while at the other end might be found the stable. The whole
building stood in an enclosure consisting of a yard in front and a
garden in the rear, surrounded by a hedge and ditch. The house had
a door in the front, and within, one door led to the chamber, and
another to the stable. The chamber, also, frequently had a door
leading out to the garden. There were usually windows in the hall,
the stable and the chamber being lighted by openings in the partitions
between them and the hall, as well as by slits in the outer walls.
The windows themselves were commonly merely openings, which might be
closed by wooden shutters. There was usually one such window in the
chamber, besides those in the hall, so that it was better lighted than
the stable.
From the _fabliaux_ we can obtain very precise ideas of the
distribution of the rooms in the houses of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Thus, in one of the _fabliaux_, an old woman of mean
condition of life is represented as visiting a burgher's wife, who,
from a feeling of vanity, takes her into the chamber to show her
the new bed, a very handsome affair. Afterward, when this lady takes
refuge with the old dame, the latter conducts her from the hall to
the chamber adjoining. The outer door of the chamber, by which egress
could be had from the house without going through the hall, often
figures in the stories as aiding the escape of the lovers of guilty
wives, on the unexpected entrance of the husbands into the hall. It
was in the chamber that fireplaces and chimneys were first introduced
into mediaeval houses.
As the grouping of the rooms upon the ground floor made the house less
compact and more susceptible to successful attack, the custom arose of
having upper chambers. The upper room was called the solar, because it
received much light from the sun. At first it was but a small chamber,
approached from the outside. These outer stairs are often referred to
in the _fabliaux_, as in the _fabliau_ of D'Estourmi, where a burgher
and his wife deceive three monks of a neighboring abbey, who make love
to the lady; she conceals her husband in the upper chamber, to which
he goes by an outer staircase. The monks enter the hall, and the
husband sees from the upper room, through a lattice, all that happens.
In another _fabliau_, a lady uses the solar as a hiding place for her
husband, who has disguised himself as a gallant in order to test his
wife's faithfulness. She penetrates his disguise, and, after closing
the door of the solar upon him, sends a servant to give him a good
beating, as an importunate suitor whom she desires to cure of his
annoying passion. The husband, too mortified to reveal his identity
and disclose his doubts as to his wife, has no redress but to sustain
his assumed character and to escape down the outer stairs, pursued by
the servants. The chamber soon came to be the most important part of
the house, and frequently its name was given to the whole dwelling,
a house with a solar being called an upper-storied chamber. The more
considerable manors and castles differed from the ordinary houses only
in having a greater assemblage of rooms and more details than were
found in the smaller dwellings.
Toward the fourteenth century, the rooms of houses generally began
to be numerous, and the houses were often built around a court, the
additions being chiefly to the number of offices and chambers. Wood
continued to be the usual material for their construction. A new
apartment was added to the house--the parlor, so called because it was
the talking room. It was derived from the religious houses, in which
the parlor was the reception room. As furniture was scanty, the rooms
of the mediaeval house were almost bare. Chairs were very few, and
seats in the masonry of the wall continued for centuries to be the
principal accommodation of the kind; benches for seats and places of
deposit of personal or household articles were usually made of a few
boards laid across trestles. In the thirteenth century, the beds in
the chamber came to be partitioned off by curtains, which showed an
advance in modesty, as it was customary to sleep wholly undressed.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the comforts of the houses were quite
primitive; even the houses themselves were generally without
architectural grace and frequently very unsubstantial. When watchmen
were appointed in the towns, they were provided with a "hook" with
which to pull down a house when on fire, if its proximity to others
threatened their destruction. As there was an absence of luxury in the
houses and their furnishings, much value was placed on plate, which
came to be a sign of wealth and social distinction. Dress, also,
aided in marking distinctions between the wealthy and those in less
fortunate circumstances, as did the luxuries found upon the tables of
the former.
This fact of the general character of the discomforts of living,
without regard to rank or condition, gave occasion for sumptuary
laws--"the toe of the peasant pressed closely on the heel of the lord,
and the gulf that parted them was the number of dishes upon their
table, the quality of the cloth they put on, and the kind of fur they
might wear to keep off the cold."
Glass began to be introduced into dwelling houses in the time of
Henry III., but was regarded as a great luxury. Pipes for carrying the
refuse water and slops from the houses to sewers or cesspools were one
of the great sanitary reforms of the reign of Edward I. The same able
monarch made the use of baths popular among his people. The floors of
the houses continued to be covered with an armful of hay, or a bundle
of birch boughs or of rushes, although during the fourteenth century
some of the wealthier farmers and persons of the trading classes and
the nobility had begun to use imported carpets and hangings. Table
linen and napkins were also coming into service. The use of forks was
confined to royalty.
When the fine ladies went abroad in their vehicles or were carried
in their chairs, they had to plow through streets deep with mire and
filth; so much so, that it was not unusual for coaches to stick fast
and depend upon the aid of some friendly teamster to extricate them.
The sanitation of the dwellings was little better than that of the
streets. The stench of the houses of the poor was so great that the
priests made it an excuse for failure to pay parochial visits to them.
The better class of houses were, of course, kept much cleaner.
The impression that food in the Middle Ages was coarse and not
elaborate is not borne out, as we have seen, by the facts; for, from
Anglo-Saxon times down, the people were very fond of the table, and in
the higher circles elaborate banquets stood as one of the most usual
resources of a hospitality which had to make up for its barrenness in
other ways by the bounties of elaborate feasts, so that we are quite
prepared for Alexander Neckam's list of kitchen requisites. This
ecclesiastic of the latter half of the twelfth century has left us a
list of the things to be found in a well-ordered kitchen. Besides
his list, we have the testimony of cookbooks of the time, which give
directions for making dishes that are both complicated and toothsome.
Indeed, the position of cook was one of importance, and upon him often
rested, in great houses, the honor of the establishment.
In this connection may be given some of the curious injunctions of the
Anglo-Saxon penitentials, which continued to be quoted throughout the
Middle Ages, becoming superstitious beliefs after they had lost their
ecclesiastical character and undergone the changes which, with the
lapse of time, develop folklore. One of the oddest prescribed that in
case a "mouse fall into liquor, let it be taken out, and sprinkle the
liquor with holy-water, and if it be alive, the liquor may be used,
but if it be dead, throw the liquor out and cleanse the vessel."
Another said: "He who uses anything a dog or mouse has eaten of, or a
weasel polluted, if he do it knowingly, let him sing a hundred psalms;
and if he knew it not, let him sing fifty psalms." These are but
samples of many superstitions with which the thought of the Middle
Ages was tinctured.
A considerable treatise might be written upon the superstitions of
the English women; it would contain astonishing disclosures as to
the effect of the unreal world of fairies, goblins, and the like
upon woman's development and status during the Middle Ages. She was
undoubtedly influenced in her daily life, in almost all her duties and
undertakings, by the terrors with which her superstitions filled her.
The legacy of a pagan system was slowly thrown off, and, with all
the credulity of the religion of the times, it is to the credit of
the Church that, by its proscriptions as well as by its healthier
teaching, superstition in many of its forms lessened its hold upon
the minds of the people. And yet it was needful, if historical fact
denotes a social necessity, that these superstitions should culminate
in a belief in witchcraft, and woman, because of her credulity, become
the scapegoat of the gnomes and witches which existed in her simple
faith. Even so cultured a person as Augustine, one of the most
prominent of the Church Fathers of his time, declared it to be
insolent to doubt the existence of fauns, satyrs, and suchlike
demoniac beings, which lie in wait for women and have intercourse with
them and children by them. It was this belief which extended into a
labyrinth of darkness and superstition throughout the Middle Ages.
The reasoning of the Church was perfectly simple: if the miracles of
the Apostles and of Christ were of divine agency, then the marvels
performed by magicians before the astonished eyes of the heathen were
to be accredited to Satan. The Church never doubted the existence of
malignant spirits, but bent its endeavors toward persuading the people
to give up converse with them. If a woman gave herself over to Satan
or any of his minions, the only resource was to put her to death.
Horrible as were the witch burnings of the Middle Ages, the Church
sincerely believed that it was exorcising the Devil from the lives
of the people; and by the terrible examples it made of those who were
accounted as having sold themselves to the Evil One, it believed
it was placing a deterrent upon others who might be minded to yield
themselves to diabolical possession. The Church was but sharing the
universal belief of the times, and, as the guardian of the spiritual
interests of mankind, it sought the purification of society by severe
measures which, it felt, were alone suited to the gravity of the
subject. From this belief in devil possession arose a veritable system
of Christian magic; charms, amulets, exorcisms, abounded; thus, white
magic was opposed to black magic.
But when the belief in witchcraft led to papal promulgations against
it and against all who dared entertain doubts upon the subject, and
when it led also to the appointment of tribunals for the trying of
"witches," there was placed in the hands of malice and ignorance
a power from which no woman, however exalted in rank or pure in
character, was secure, provided only she incurred the enmity of
someone bent upon effecting her ruin.
The genesis of the belief lies even back of the prevailing
superstitions of the times, and is to be found in the lower regard in
which the female sex was held. As we have said, chivalry did not cover
with its aegis all women, but only those of a certain class; in the
Middle Ages, the opinion held of women in general was not flattering
to the sex. The descriptions of witch trials and the processes for
the extortion of confessions; the indignities of many sorts to which
women were subjected; the horrors of a system which virtually made
one become an informer upon her neighbor, lest she be anticipated
by charges preferred against herself; the whole dreary round of the
subject and its literature: all these are too uninviting to permit
of detail. It is sufficient for our purpose to say that throughout
Europe--for the delusion was so widespread--certainly not less than
a million persons were burned, or otherwise put to death, as witches
during the Middle Ages. So great a holocaust had to be offered up by
women as a sin offering for their sex!
The state of education had much to do with the manners and opinions
of the Middle Ages. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there
was a feeling of the necessity for extending and improving education.
There was spread abroad a degree of popular instruction. It was not
an uncommon thing for ladies to be able to read and write. Among the
amusements of their leisure hours, reading began to have a very
much larger place than formerly. Yet, popular literature--the tales,
ballads, and songs--was still communicated orally rather than in
writing, though books were more extensively circulated. Often persons
of wealth and culture had extensive libraries. Excepting in the case
of those who followed or desired to follow the career of scholars, the
women were less illiterate than the men.
In considering the dress of the women of England during the Middle
Ages, the sumptuary laws passed for its regulation are of interest in
themselves as affording a view of the dress of the several classes of
society, and they also serve to illustrate upon what simple lines the
distinctions of society were drawn.
In the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Edward III., a curious
complaint was submitted to Parliament by the Commons against general
extravagance in the use of apparel; whereupon an act was passed in
regulation of the matter. One of the provisions of this act, as it
related to women, prescribed that the wives and children of the grooms
and servants of the lords and of tradesmen and artificers should not
wear veils costing more than twelvepence each. The wives and children
of the tradesmen and artificers themselves should wear no veils
excepting those made with thread and manufactured in the kingdom; nor
any kind of furs excepting those of lambs, rabbits, cats, and foxes.
The cloth for their dresses was also to be of a prescribed kind.
The wives and children of esquires--gentlemen under the estate of
knighthood--might not wear cloth of gold, of silk, or of silver;
nor any ornaments of precious stones, nor furs of any kind; nor any
purfling or facings upon their garments; neither should they use
_esclaires_, _crinales_, or _trosles_--certain forms of hairpins, and
suchlike ornaments.
In the case of knights of a certain income, their wives and children
were prohibited from wearing miniver or ermine as linings for their
garments or trimming for their sleeves. The lower classes were
restricted to blankets and russets for their attire, and these were
not to cost more than twelvepence per yard, unless the income of
the man was above forty shillings. It is not probable that these
enactments were rigidly enforced, and when Henry IV. came to the
throne he found it necessary to revive the prohibiting statutes of
his predecessor. A number of such sumptuary laws were passed during
succeeding reigns, but it is not probable that they were ever really
effective. Nor were the satires and witticisms of the poets and other
writers of the day more effectual than legislation in correcting the
extravagances and vices of dress. Whether the poet or the moralist
pointed their shafts against them, the dames and the dandies of the
time continued to dress as pleased them.
Some of these criticisms so sum up the dress of the day, that to quote
them is to see the fine lady attired in all her bewildering array
of beautiful stuffs. William de Lorris, in his celebrated poem,
the _Romance of the Rose_, has drawn the character of Jealousy, and
represents him as reproaching his wife for her insatiable love of
finery, which, he tells her, is solely to make her attractive in
the eyes of her gallants. He then enumerates the parts of her dress,
consisting of mantles lined with sable, surcoats, neck linens,
wimples, petticoats, shifts, pelices, jewels, chaplets of fresh
flowers, buckles of gold, rings, robes, and rich furs. Then he adds:
"You carry the worth of one hundred pounds in gold and silver upon
your head--such garlands, such coiffures with gilt ribbons, such
mirrors framed in gold, so fair, so beautifully polished; such tissues
and girdles, with expensive fastenings of gold, set with precious
stones of smaller size; and your feet shod so primly, that the robe
must be often lifted up to show them." And in a subsequent part of
the poem the ladies are advised, satirically, if their ankles be not
handsome and their feet small and delicate, to hide them by wearing
long robes, trailing upon the pavement. Those, on the contrary, who
were more favored in this respect were advised to elevate their robes,
as if it were to give access to air, that the passer-by might see and
admire their trim feet and ankles.
Such were some of the adornments of the fine ladies of the thirteenth
century. It is instructive to turn to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and
study the costumes of some of the characters as they are interpreted
by Strutt. This will afford a view of the dress of typical persons in
the ordinary ranks of life. The Wife of Bath is drawn by Chaucer at
full length as a shameless woman, pert, loquacious, and bold, whose
favorite occupation is gossiping and rambling abroad in search of
fashionable diversions, in the absence of her husband. She had the art
of making fine cloth. Her dress materials were expensive, for she had
kerchiefs, or head linen, which she wore on Sunday, so fine that they
were equal in value to ten pounds; and her stockings were made of fine
red scarlet cloth, and "straightway gartered upon her legs"; her shoes
were also new, and to them she had a pair of spurs attached, because
she was to ride upon horseback; she wore a hat as broad as a buckler
or a target; and she herself informs us that upon holidays she was
accustomed to wear gay scarlet gowns.
The Carpenter's Wife, the heroine of the Miller's Tale, has her dress
partly described: the collar of her shift was embroidered both before
and behind with black silk; her girdle was barred or striped with
silk; her apron, bound about her hips, was clean and white, and full
of plaits. The tapes of her white headdress were embroidered in the
same manner as the collar of her shift; her fillet, or headband, was
broad and was made of silk, and "set full high"; probably meaning with
a bow or topknot on the upper part of her head. Attached to her girdle
was a purse of leather, tasselled or fringed with silk, and ornamented
with _latoun_--a kind of copper alloy of which ornaments were made--in
the shape of pearls. She wore a brooch or fibula upon "her low
collar," as broad, says the poet, as the boss of a buckler; her shoes
"were laced high upon her legs."
In addition to these characters of Chaucer, it may be added that the
country Ale-Wife is thus described by a contemporary writer: "She put
on her fairest smocke; her petticoat of a good broad red; her gowne of
grey, faced with buckram; her square-thrumed hat; and before her she
hung a clean white apron."
The subject of public entertainment in the Middle Ages brings to
light curious practices. In the towns, the burghers were not willing
to entertain strangers gratuitously, notwithstanding the Scriptural
injunction to do so, reinforced by the reminder that thereby some have
entertained angels unawares. The custom of offering entertainment to
travellers was, however, still practised in the country districts,
but the Anglo-Saxon notion of three days as a reasonable limit for
the tarrying of wayfarers seems still to have obtained. Aside from
the public inns, rich burghers opened their homes, with their superior
comforts, to royal personages and to rich barons, for an honorarium.
They frequently practised extortion upon their accidental guests, and
had arts to allure such to their homes. While having the appearance of
great exclusiveness, they nevertheless employed persons to be on the
watch for travellers. These would approach such strangers, engage them
in conversation, and, on pretence of being from the same part of the
country, offer guidance and advice to the stranger, who was usually
glad to be directed to an "exclusive" place for entertainment. In some
of these places, as well as in the public inns, the guest would be
beguiled into contracting gambling or other debts beyond his ability
to pay in money, whereupon his belongings were seized, although their
value might be greatly in excess of his obligation. The manners and
morals of the women in these private places of entertainment were not
always commendable.
The tavern was the place of resort for a large part of the middle
class and practically all the lower class of mediaeval society.
Even the women spent much of their time gossiping and drinking in
such places, where they found great latitude for carrying out low
intrigues. The tavern was, in short, the great rendezvous for those
who sought amusement of any sort. It was the ordinary haunt of
gamblers. In one of the _fabliaux_, a young profligate is represented
as turning into a tavern before which the tavern boy is calling out
the price of the beverages on tap there. After inquiring the price
of the wines, and receiving the information from the host, the latter
goes on to enumerate the attractions of his house: "Within are all
sorts of comforts; painted chambers, and soft beds, raised high with
white straw, and made soft with feathers; here within is hostel for
love affairs, and when bedtime comes you will have pillows of violets
to hold your head more softly; and, finally, you will have electuaries
and rose-water, to wash your mouth and face." He orders a gallon
of wine, and immediately afterward a _belle demoiselle_ makes
her appearance, for such in those times were reckoned among the
attractions of the tavern. It is soon arranged that she shall share
his apartment with him, and then a general carousal ensues in which
he loses all his money and has to leave even his clothes in payment of
his bill. These alewives were looked upon as past masters in deceit,
and were heartily despised by those who did not fall into their
clutches. In a carved _miserere_ in Ludlow Church, representing
Doomsday, one of these characters is depicted as about to be cast
into the jaws of hell, carrying with her nothing but the finery of
her enticement and her short ale measure. The amusements of the times,
excepting those of a grosser order, or such as have already been
mentioned in the previous chapter, centred around the nobility and
persons of position; so that their consideration can be deferred
for the time being and be taken up in connection with the sports and
pastimes of the ladies of rank, as treated in the chapter following.