Categories: HIgh Middle Ages (c. 1000-1300 AD)

12 Jun 2010, Comments (0)

Childhood in Medieval England, c.500-1500

Author: Ann Scott

Childhood in Medieval England, c.500-1500

Paper by Nicholas Orme,
University of Exeter

Introduction:
This toy knight comes from a rich harvest of archaeological finds, made in the mudbanks of the River Thames in London during the last 30 years. It was manufactured in about 1300, and illustrates several facets of medieval childhood. Then as now, children liked playing with toys. Then as now, they had a culture of their own, encompassing slang, toys, and games.

Then as now, adults cared for children and encouraged their play. An adult made this toy and another adult bought it for a child, or gave a child money to buy it. The toy knight was made from a mould, and produced in large numbers. It probably circulated among the families of merchants, shopkeepers, and craft workers, as well as those of the nobility and gentry. The finds also include toys that girls might have liked: little cups, plates, and jugs, some sturdy enough to heat up water by a fireside. There is even a self-assembly kit: a cupboard cut out of a sheet of soft metal, instead of the plastic that would be used today.

Read Orme’s paper:

http://www.representingchildhood.pitt.edu/pdf/MedChild.pdf

19 May 2010, Comments (0)

Chicken Husbandry in Late-Medieval England: c.1250-1400

Author: Ann Scott
1580s Oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Chicken Vendors

Chicken Husbandry in Late-Medieval Eastern England: c. 1250-1400
Paper by Philip Slaven, Yale University

ABSTRACT
Philip Slavin of Yale University, offers a unique paper on the place of the chicken within the changing environment of late-medieval England. First, Slavin’s paper examines the seigniorial sector of chicken farming, in terms of size of stocks, patterns of disposal and scale of consumption. It then explores the patchy data regarding the peasant sector. The study shows that overall patterns differed between the pre- and post-Black Death periods. After the pestilence, chicken husbandry started shifting from the demesne to the peasant sector of agriculture. The post-1350 changes reflect larger processes, which occurred in late-medieval society, economy and environment.

INTRODUCTION
The present paper explores the place and importance of the chicken within the shifting context of late-medieval English agriculture, society and environment, between c.1250 and 1400. It shows how the history of chicken husbandry reflects larger processes and phenomena connected to this context. During this period, England experienced a long series of profound changes and shocks, which transformed its society, economy and environment.

Read Slavin’s paper:  http://www.mnhn.fr/museum/front/medias/publication/23772_35_56_HD_N.pdf

18 May 2010, Comments (0)

Medieval Pipe Organs Large and Small

Author: Ann Scott

Early medieval organs did not have keys or stops, but were controlled by a slider mechanism.

Pipe organs were an important instrument in medieval cathedrals for use at mass, as well as at coronations and other state events. Early medieval organs had no keys or stops and all the pipes sounded simultaneously. Foot pedals pressed the air through the pipes and was controlled by a slider mechanism (see image at left). Medieval Englishmen were especially fond of organs and relatively large instruments could be found in England’s sixteen cathedrals, as well as in some of the grander churches and for the benefit of the royals. By the high Middle Ages, organ-makers began fitting their Gothic organs with some keys and stops.

Small chamber organs also became popular, as did portable organs that could be easily transported to seasonal aristocratic residences. The Renaissance brought change and complexity to the instruments as their popularity and numbers increased across Europe.

- Ann Scott -

17 May 2010, Comments (1)

The History of the British Coal Industry

Author: Ann Scott

For additional information on medieval British coal and coal mining, see the comprehensive  book by John Hatcher, The History of the British Coal Industry, Vol. I, Before 1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Click Here for Content on Google Books

This is the first volume which completes the definitive five-volume History of the British Coal Industry. Well before 1700 Britain had become heavily dependent upon coal for its fuel, and coal mining had taken its place among the nation’s staple industries. Hatcher traces the production and trade of coal from the intermittent small-scale activity which prevailed in the Middle Ages to the rapid expansion and rising importance which characterized the early modern era. Thoroughly grounded in a formidable range of sources, the book explores the economics and management of mining, the productivity and progress of technology. Hatcher examines the owners and operators of collieries and the sources of mining capital, as well as the colliers themselves, their working conditions, and earnings. He argues that the spectacular growth of coal output in this period was achieved more through evolutionary than revolutionary processes.

12 May 2010, Comments (0)

Peasants and Serfs: Freemen or Villeins?

Author: Ann Scott


Within the medieval European peasant culture, people differentiated between themselves based on their own social and economic status. Most peasants were serfs; but not all surfs were equal. The villeins and freemen described below represent the most common type of surfs.

Freemen
Freemen rented their land from a lord, as tenant farmers. In most other ways they were independent from any responsibilities of servitude. Freemen made up around one tenth of the serf population in England, while there were far fewer freemen on the continent.

Villeins
Villeins also rented homes and sometimes property, but their houses were generally very small one-room buildings and the land they were allowed to use was often of inferior quality to their lord’s agricultural fields. Villeins were the most numerous type of European serfs. Legally tied to the land, they literally belonged to the lord’s estate and could not move away without their lord’s permission—which was seldom given.  Villeins had to work their lord’s lands for a time percentage of each year, and were allowed to work their own in their remaining time. Ultimately, however, their own crops and possessions still technically belonged to the lord.

The economic loyalty of the lord’s villeins was especially important to his estate. Typical requirements included that they buy all their grain from the lord (generally at very inflated prices). More frustrating still, they were usually also required to have this grain ground in the lord’s mill, again at much higher prices than they would have to pay in town.

Social economics, too, played a close and personal role for velleins. They could not marry without their lord’s permission, and accordingly often could not marry whom they chose. If a young woman wanted to marry a man from another estate (and if the lord gave her permission), her parents who remained behind had to pay a heavy fee for the lord’s long-term loss of the girl’s reproductive potential for his labor force. Additionally, a widowed woman on the lord’s estate had to remarry within a short period of time for the same reasons. If she could not find someone willing to marry her, then the lord would assign her a husband.

Despite all these constraints, a villein’s status was still considered much better than landless and homeless peasants who constantly wandered in search of work and often remained unemployed and incapable of providing for their families.

- Ann Scott -

25 Apr 2010, Comments (2)

Medieval English Woodlands

Author: Ann Scott

Oak - 800 Years Old - Sherwood Forest

If you live in British Isles or have visited, you may think you have a general idea of what kind of foliage you would have seen above your head in medieval England. Some of the trees you notice in the present day include red oaks, pine, larch, holm oaks, redwoods, spruce, cedar, Turkey oaks, cypress, fir and horse chestnut. You would have found none of these in the medieval English countryside, as none of these species had yet been introduced from continental Europe and from even farther abroad.

What you would see in Medieval England were trees introduced during the Bronze Age and the Roman conquests, in addition to some native species. You would find elm, willow, walnut, aspen, sweet chestnut, beech, hornbeam, whitebeam, poplars, rowan, silver birch, field maple, beech, alder, ash, hazel, and perhaps most surprisingly, lime trees. There were almost no evergreens. The only species you might see would be juniper, scotch pine, yew, and evergreen holly—if you choose to classify the large variety of holly as a tree.

- Ann Scott -

See references to these and other flora and fauna in Ian Mortimer’s The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England.

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14th Century 1300s Augustine's City of God Benedict's Rule Benedictine Monasticism Cenobitic Monasticism Christian Philosophy Constantine I Daily Life in the Middle Ages English LIterature Fall of the Roman Empire Medieval England Medieval Sounds polytheism Saint Augustine's Confessions Saint Benedict’s Rule St. Augustine's City of God Theodosius I