A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages

by Thomas Wright

No. 70. A Man warming himself.

A new characteristic was introduced into the Norman houses, and especially into the castles, the massive walls of which allowed chimney-flues to be carried up in their thickness. The piled-up fire in the middle of the hall was still retained, but in the more private apartments, and even sometimes in the hall itself, the fire was made on a hearth beneath a fire-place built against the side wall of the room. An illumination, in the Cottonian MS. Nero, C. iv., which we have already had occasion to refer to more than once, represents a man warming himself at a fireplace of this description. It appears, from a comparison of this ([No. 70]) with similar figures of a later period, that it was a usual practice to sit at the fire bare-legged and bare-foot, with the object of imbibing the heat without the intermediation of shoes or stockings. On a carved stall in Worcester Cathedral, represented in our cut [No. 71], which belongs to a later date (the latter part of the fourteenth century), and the scene of which is evidently intimated to be in the winter season, a man, while occupied in attending to the culinary operations, has taken off his shoes in order to warm himself in this manner. The winter provisions, two flitches of bacon, are suspended to the left of him, and on the other side the faithful dog seems to enjoy the fire equally with his master. From a story related by Reginald of Durham, it appears to have been a practice among the ladies to warm themselves by sitting over hot water, as well as by the fire.[20] In some of the illuminations of mediæval manuscripts, ladies are represented as warming themselves, even in the presence of the other sex, in a very free and easy manner. The fuel chiefly employed was no doubt still wood, but the remark of Giraldus Cambrensis that the name of Coleshulle (in Flintshire) signified the hill of coals (carbonum collis) implies that mineral coals were then known.

No. 71. Indications of Cold Weather.

It is hardly necessary to remark that, in the change in the mode of living which had suddenly taken place in this country, a form of society had also been introduced abruptly which differed entirely from that of the Anglo-Saxons. On the continent, throughout the now disjointed empire which had once been ruled by Charlemagne, there had arisen, during the tenth century, amid frightful misgovernment and the savage invasions of the northmen, a new form of society, which received the name of feudalism, because each landholder held, either direct from the crown or from a superior baron, by a feudal tenure, or fee (feodum, feudum), which obliged him to military service. Each baron had sovereignty over all those who held under him, and, in turn, acknowledged the nominal sovereignty of a superior baron or of the crown, which the latter practically was only sometimes able to enforce. One great principle of this system was the right of private warfare; and, as not only did the great barons obtain land in feudal tenure in different countries under different independent princes, but the lesser holders of sub-fees obtained such tenures under more than one superior lord, and as these, when they quarrelled with one superior, made war upon him, and threw themselves upon the protection of another who felt bound to defend his feudatory, war became the normal state of feudal society, and peace and tranquillity were the exceptions. One effect of feudalism was to divide the population of the country into two distinct classes—the landholders, or fighting-men, who alone were free, and the agricultural population, who had no political rights whatever, and were little better than slaves attached to the land. The towns alone, by their own innate force, preserved their independence, but in France the influence of feudalism extended even over them, and the combined hostility of the crown and the aristocracy finally overthrew their municipal independence. Feudalism was brought into England by the Normans, but it was never established here so completely or so fully as on the continent. The towns here never lost their independence, but they sided sometimes with the aristocracy, and sometimes with the crown, until finally they assisted greatly in the overthrow of feudalism itself. Yet the whole territory of England was now distributed in great fees, and in sub-fees; amid which a few of the old Saxon gentry retained their position, and many of the Norman intruders married the Saxon heiresses, in order, as they thought, to strengthen the right of conquest; but the mass of the agricultural population were confounded under the one comprehensive name of villains (villani), and reduced to a much more wretched condition than under the Anglo-Saxon constitution. The light in which the villain was regarded in the twelfth century in England is well illustrated in a story told in the English “Rule of Nuns,” printed by the Camden Society. A knight, who had cruelly plundered his poor villains, was complimented by one of his flatterers, who said, “Ah, sir! truly thou dost well. For men ought always to pluck and pillage the churl, who is like the willow—it sprouteth out the better for being often cropped.”

The power and wealth of the great Norman baron were immense, and before him, during a great part of the period of which we are now speaking, the law of the land was a mere nominal institution. He was in general proud, very tyrannical, and often barbarously cruel. A type of the feudal baron in his worst point of view is presented to us in the character of the celebrated Robert de Belesme, who succeeded his father Roger de Montgomery in the earldom of Shropshire, and of whom Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in his time, tells us, “He was a very Pluto, Megæra, Cerberus, or anything that you can conceive still more horrible. He preferred the slaughter of his captives to their ransom. He tore out the eyes of his own children, when in sport they hid their faces under his cloak. He impaled persons of both sexes on stakes. To butcher men in the most horrible manner was to him an agreeable feast.” Of a contemporary feudal chieftain in France, the same writer tells us, “When any one, by fraud or force, fell into his hands, the captive might truly say, ‘The pains of hell compassed me round.’ Homicide was his passion and his glory. He imprisoned his own countess, an unheard-of outrage; and, cruel and lewd at once, while he subjected her to fetters and torture by day, to extort money, he forced her to cohabit with him by night, in order to mock her. Each night his brutal followers dragged her from her prison to his bed, each morning they carried her from his chamber back to her prison. Amicably addressing any one who approached him, he would plunge a sword into his side, laughing the while; and for this purpose he carried his sword naked under his cloak more frequently than sheathed. Men feared him, bowed down to him, and worshipped him.” Women of rank are met with in the histories of this period who equalled these barons in violence and cruelty; and the relations between the sexes were marked by little delicacy or courtesy. William the Conqueror beat his wife even before they were married. The aristocratic class in general lived a life of idleness, which would have been insupportable without some scenes of extraordinary excitement, and they not only indulged eagerly in hunting, but they continually sallied forth in parties to plunder. They looked upon the mercantile class especially as objects of hostility; and, as they could seldom overcome them in their towns, they waylaid them on the public roads, deprived them of their goods and money, and carried them to their castles, where they tortured them in order to force them to pay heavy ransoms. The young nobles sometimes joined together to plunder a fair or market. On the other hand, men who could not claim the protection of aristocratic blood for their evil deeds, established themselves under that of the wild forests, and issued forth no less eagerly to plunder the country, and to perpetrate every description of outrage on the persons of its inhabitants, of whatever class they might be, who fell into their power. The purity of womanhood was no longer prized, where it was liable to be outraged with impunity; and immorality spread widely through all classes and ranks of society. The declamations of the ecclesiastics and the satires of the moralists of the twelfth century may give highly-painted pictures, but they lead us to the conclusion that the manners and sentiments of the female sex during the Norman period were very corrupt.

Nevertheless, feudalism did boast of certain dignified and generous principles, and there were noble examples of both sexes, who shine forth more brightly through the general prevalence of vice and of selfishness and injustice. It was in the walls of the feudal castle, amid the familiar intercourse which the want of amusement caused among its inmates, that the principle, or practice, arose, which we in modern times call gallantry, and which, though at first it only led to refinement in the forms of social manners, ended in producing refinement of sentiments. It was among the feudal aristocracy, too, that originated the sentiment we term chivalry, which has varied considerably in its meaning at different periods, and which, in its best sense, existed more in romance than in reality. After the possession of personal strength and courage, the quality which the feudal baron admired most, was what was termed generosity, but which meant lavish expenditure and extravagance; it was the contrast between the baron, who spent his money, and the burgher or merchant, who gained it, and laid it up in his coffers. “Noblemen and gentlemen,” says the “Rule of Nuns,” already quoted, “do not carry packs, nor go about trussed with bundles, nor with purses; it belongs to beggars to bear bag on back, and to burgesses to bear purses.” In fact, it was the principle of the feudal aristocracy to extort their gains from all who laboured and trafficked, in order to squander them on those who lived in idleness, violence, and vice. Under such circumstances, a new class had arisen which was peculiar to feudal society, who lived entirely upon the extravagance of the aristocracy, and who had so completely abandoned every sentiment of morality or shame, that, in return for the protection of the nobles, they were the ready instruments of any base work. They were called, among various other names, ribalds (ribaldi) and letchers (leccatores); the origin of the first of these words is not known, but the latter is equivalent to dish-lickers, and did not convey the sense now given to the word, but was applied to them on account of their gluttony. We have already seen how, in the crowd which attended the feasts of the princes and nobles, the letchers (lecheurs) were not content with waiting for what was sent away from table, but seized upon the dishes as they were carried from the kitchen to the hall, and how it was found necessary to make a new office, that of ushers of the hall, to repress the disorder. “In those great courts,” says the author of the “Rule of Nuns,” “they are called letchers who have so lost shame, that they are ashamed of nothing, but seek how they may work the greatest villany.” This class spread through society like a great sore, and from the terms used in speaking of them we derive a great part of the opprobrious words which still exist in the English language.

The early metrical romances of the Carlovingian cycle give us an insight into what were considered as the praiseworthy features in the character of the feudal knight. In Doon of Mayence, for example, when (p. 74) the aged count Guy sends his young son Doon into the world, he counsels him thus: “You shall always ask questions of good men, and you shall never put your trust in a stranger. Every day, fair son, you shall hear the holy mass, and give to the poor whenever you have money, for God will repay you double. Be liberal in gifts to all; for the more you give, the more honour you will acquire, and the richer you will be; for a gentleman who is too sparing will lose all in the end, and die in wretchedness and disgrace; but give without promising wherever you can. Salute all people when you meet them, and if you owe anything, pay it willingly, but if you cannot pay, ask for a respite. When you come to the hostelry, don’t stand squabbling, but enter glad and joyously. When you enter the house, cough very loud, for there may be something doing which you ought not to see, and it will cost you nothing to give this notice of your approach, while those who happen to be there will love you the better for it. Do not quarrel with your neighbour, and avoid disputing with him before other people; for if he know anything against you, he will let it out, and you will have the shame of it. When you are at court, play at tables, and if you have any good points of behaviour (depors), show them; you will be the more prized, and gain the more advantage. Never make a noise or joke in church; this is only done by unbelievers, whom God loves not. Honour all the clergy, and speak fairly to them, but leave them as little of your goods as you can; the more they get from you, the more you will be laughed at; you will never profit by enriching them. And if you wish to save your honour undiminished, meddle with nothing you do not understand, and don’t pretend to be a proficient in what you have never learnt. And if you have a valet, take care not to seat him at the table by you, or take him to bed with you; for the more honour you do to a low fellow, the more will he despise you. If you should know anything that you would wish to conceal, tell it by no means to your wife, if you have one; for if you let her know it, you will repent of it the first time you displease her.” The estimate of the female character at this period, even when given in the romances of chivalry, is by no means flattering.

With these counsels of a father, we may compare those of a mother to her son. In the romance of Huon de Bordeaux (p. 18), when the youthful hero leaves his home to repair to the court of Charlemagne, the duchess addresses her son as follows: “My child,” she said, “you are going to be a courtier; I require you, for God’s love, have nothing to do with a treacherous flatterer; make the acquaintance of wise men. Attend regularly at the service of holy church, and show honour and love to the clergy. Give your goods willingly to the poor; be courteous, and spend freely, and you will be the more loved and cherished.” On the whole, higher sentiments are placed in the mouth of the lady than in that of the baron. We must, however, return to the outward, and therefore more apparent, characteristics of social life during the Norman period.