For the medieval woman, marriage did dramatically increase her prestige compared to an unmarried girl, who had no real occupation or standing in her household and spent most of her time in the company of older female chaperones.
Medieval woman thus looked forward to marriage and the subsequent establishment of a home that was independent of those of their parents.
Medieval wedding ceremony (note the location and the bride’s dress)
In the medieval times, long before the engagement, after overcoming the various challenges of finding a suitable partner discussed in last month’s post, the next step was to plan for death. In particular, that of the man.
That is to say, there would be negotiations regarding the endowments the would-be bride and groom would grant each other.
A medieval betrothal
On the one hand, it seemed straightforward enough – far less complicated than today:
(Continued from part 1)
Despite the fact they resided at the top of the feudal pyramid, medieval noblemen were not all created equally.Rather, noblemen were subdivided based on whether they were lords, heirs, or younger sons.
Rather, the feudal system saw a single, all-powerful monarch as ruler of everyone and everything; a couple handfuls of earls or other magnates – direct liegemen of the king – below that; many more subinfeudated lords of lesser nobility below the magnates, sometimes two or three levels down; and finally, at the lowest levels of society, the non-noble peasants who held land in exchange for their labour upon it in producing their lord’s food.
Medieval knights paying a portion of their “knight’s fees”
A vassal’s assorted obligations to his lord – his so-called “knight’s fee” – were collectively deemed military in nature. However, as mentioned in my previous post on the feudal system, this isn’t to say all of a vassal’s responsibilities involved fighting.
Medieval commendation ritual
In the history books, all of this is more commonly referred to as the feudal system, which was the dominant structure of society in England for some four hundred years, and in continental Europe, even longer.
In this first of three post on this subject, I’ll provide a general overview of what the feudal system was.
Remnants of Peveril Castle’s keep: the basement as viewed from the upper level
As shown in the artist’s rendition to the right, it contained only two rooms – a principal chamber and a basement underneath that was likely used for storage and accessed via a spiral staircase.
The keep also had a latrine, a wall cupboard, and a large window looking out over the rest of the castle and the surrounding Hope Valley, but it didn’t have a fireplace, any food service rooms, or even a well.
Remnants of the keep and curtain wall of Peveril Castle in Derbyshire, England
These drawings always took a similar form: a large square in the middle of the paper, two taller turrets on either side, and a wall that extended the remaining length of the page on either side. I even owned a stencil that had a guide for making square waves that I used on the upper edges of each part of the picture.
For a frontal, ground level representation by an eight-year-old, I actually think I did pretty well, having depicted the three key components of the average medieval English castle: the keep, the tower, and the curtain wall.
Dinner scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)
The time has now come to take a seat at said table and finish finding out.
The very first point of difference one might encounter relates to the time of day “dinner” was actually served. One might expect that turning up anywhere between 6:00 and 8:00pm as is common for modern dinners (particularly in North America) would also apply to the 13th century.
A Frame Around Infinity 