This page explores the life of the matrilineal line (female - sometimes called the distaff side) of families from each of three classes: the lower class (serfs, servants, and peasants), the middle class (town dwellers, burghers, and tradespeople), and the upper class (gentry, nobility, and royalty). Birth, childhood, marriage, and death were four things common to all classes. |
Childhood
Medieval childhood was a risky business. A child could die from a number of illnesses and accidents. Girls and boys played games that are the ancestors of many we have today, but their games were generally more dangerous and could result in death. Peasant girls began to work with their mothers when they were about eight years of age. Peasant women tended to confine themselves to "indoors" tasks -- sewing and cleaning and tending livestock -- but during the labour-intensive parts of the year, such as harvest-time, they often joined their husbands and brothers in the fields. Middle-class girls could be apprenticed to another woman or sometimes a man. They would learn the master or mistress's trade until the girls were ready to open their own business or to marry. Upper-class girls could be fostered out to other wealthy homes, where they would learn sewing and embroidery and manners and music and other skills of leisure. They were always preparing for marriage. Fashion was not a major part of a girl's life. It was important to the wealthy to keep up with current styles, but even a rich young lady could not afford more than a few gowns. Since ready-to-wear was not available, fashion could not change at the rate it does today. Peasants wore the same style of clothing for several centuries. |
On her husband's death, a widow automatically received a third of her late husband's property for use during her lifetime, unless his will specifies otherwise. A peasant widow, however, often inherited all of her husband's worldly goods and land. Though she might be pressure to remarry (to ensure that the lands would be worked), she could maintain her independence by hiring workers. Peasant widows in England had to pay heriot, or death-tax, to their husbands' liege lord. Heriot usually consisted of the family's best beast, or its equivalent in cash. Pregnancy and delivery were fraught with hazards. Midwifery, though crucial to a pregnant woman's survival, was primitive. Breach presentations of children were not handled easily; Caesarean section was reserved for cases when either mother or child was dead, and then it was performed without anaesthesia or antiseptics. A woman's life expectancy was twenty-four. Few people, men included, could expect more; most people died before the age of thirty. If a woman survived her childbearing years, she stood a good chance of outliving her husband to marry again. People who made it to the thirty-year milestone might well live to be a ripe old fifty or sixty -- but a medieval woman at thirty might resemble a modern woman at sixty. A dying woman received extreme unction, the last chronologically of the seven Christian sacraments. Her soul was commended to God and would be saved from the torments of Hell. (However, if the woman recovers after receiving the last rites, she must live a life similar to a nun's -- poor, chaste, and penitent.) The corpse was anointed, wrapped in a shroud, sewn up in a leather sack, and placed in a coffin. Mourners in black followed the funeral procession to the body's final resting place -- which might not have been its final resting place. The body could have been dug up a few years later and placed in a charnel house so the grave could be reused.
Adapted with permission of Dominion and Domination
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