THE MIDDLE AGES

In film and in literature, medieval life seems heroic, entertaining, and romantic. In reality, life in the Middle Ages, a period that extended from approximately the fifth century to the fifteenth century in Western Europe, was sometimes all these things, as well as harsh, uncertain, and often dangerous.

For safety and for defense, people in the Middle Ages formed small communities around a central lord or master. Most people lived on a manor, which consisted of the castle, the church, the village, and the surrounding farm land. These manors were isolated, with occasional visits from peddlers, pilgrims on their way to the Crusades, or soldiers from other fiefdoms.

The Catholic Church was the only church in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it had its own laws and large coffers. Church leaders such as bishops and archbishops sat on the king's council and played leading roles in government. Bishops, who were often wealthy and came from noble families, ruled over groups of parishes called "diocese." Parish priests, on the other hand, came from humbler backgrounds and often had little education. The village priest tended to the sick and indigent and, if he was able, taught Latin and the Bible to the youth of the village.

The Noble Men

In order to obtain the land, a vassal had to pay homage to his lord. To do this, a man went down on his knees before the lord without a weapon, placed his hands between his lord's hands and promised to be his man, to serve him and fight for him. The lord then granted the man a fief. A fief was usually a piece of land, although sometimes it was a right, such as the right to fish in a stream or the right to collect a toll on a certain road. This system of granting and holding fiefs or feuds was known as the feudal system.

Lords commanded a small army made up of vassals who owed him military service for their fiefs. When he made a law, he used this army to enforce it. However, he could not use his army to stop his vassals from fighting with each other, or to enforce laws in his vassals lands. He had to trust that his vassals would carry out his commands because he had no power except in his own lands. The lord made money by collecting tolls and custom duties from merchants traveling through his land and by requiring certain tributes from his vassals. These tributes were many, and included payment upon the knighting of the lord's eldest son and upon the marriage of his eldest daughter. However, the lord could not demand any new taxes or obligations unless his vassals agreed to them. He also had no control over his vassals' vassals. The lord was also a judge. If his vassals had disputes with one another, then they could bring the dispute to the lord to be settled.

The Common People

Not everyone could be a lord or a vassal though. The bottom rung of society was made up of peasants. This was the largest class of people and they did most of the work. The peasants farmed the lord's land in exchange for protection from the lord in times of war, a small strip of land that they could farm for themselves, and a house to live in. Some peasants were freemen and could move from place to place if they did not like their master. Most peasants though were serfs. Serfs belonged to the land and could not move off of it. They also could not be removed from it by their lord.

Childhood

Birth and infancy were the most dangerous stages of life for people in the Middle Ages. Records from the time period suggest that approximately 20% of women died during childbirth and 5% of infants died during delivery with another 10-12% dying in their first month. Healthy children were regarded as a gift from God. Most families wanted sons, who would one day carry on the family name, as opposed to daughters, who would require a large dowry when they married. However, many parents probably rejoiced at the birth of a daughter as well, especially if they had been childless for many years or their infants had died. Childbirth during the Middle Ages was very dangerous for both the mother and the infant. When the mother went into labor, she was attended by a midwife, and perhaps a doctor. If the delivery went well, so much the better, but in the event of complications the midwife could do very little. There were no Cesarean sections and no advanced medical equipment to help mother and child. Many women died during childbirth and many infants died during delivery.

If both mother and infant survived childbirth, the child was usually bathed in lukewarm water and then swaddled in warm cotton or wool fabric. If it was thought the infant would not live, it was immediately baptized by the midwife or by a man nearby, often the father. If the infant was thought to survive it was baptized several days after its birth in a local church. Here it was named, often after a close relative or a saint, and was promised to be brought up as a Christian.

After the baptism, the child was brought home and life returned to normal. The infant might be nursed at home by its mother, but more commonly was given to the care of a carefully chosen wet nurse, who would care for it until around the age of 2. At this point, children had learned to walk and were learning to talk. They returned home, where they were cared for by their mothers and nurses until they were around 7. They played games, and had toys. Medieval children had dolls, spinning tops, rattles, hobby-horses, blocks, bones, balls, whistles, puppets, and little girls had glass jewelry for dress-up. Little boys played with wooden soldiers, whips, toy horses, and had fights with wooden swords. In the winter, children of the nobility would make seats of ice and be pulled around a frozen pond by their playmates. Older boys tied animal bones to their feet to make ice skates, while girls danced in the great hall to music of lutes.

Noble children were also taught rudimentary manners and perhaps a bit of reading, writing, and dancing by their parents or tutors. At the age of about 7, boys were sent to another lord's castle to begin their training as a knight. If a boy was physically weak and unfit to become a knight, he was sent to the monastery to become a scholar or a monk. Girls were also sent to other castles, were they learned how to manage a household, care for children, weave, sew, play instruments, dance, sing, and other skills required of a marriageable young lady.

Marriage and Divorce

Members of the nobility almost never married for love. Marriages were arranged by the parents of the couple, often when both were still small children. Occasionally the future groom may have been able to choose his own bride, but his family had to approve of the girl. The two families reached an agreement in which a dowry (a payment from the bride's family to the groom or the groom's family to help offset the costs of matrimony) was settled and a wedding date was proposed. The couple was now betrothed, similar to being engaged today.
The bride was almost always several years younger than the groom. Girls were sometimes as young as 12, while their husbands were usually in their mid twenties or early thirties, though the man was sometimes as old as 50.

This was often the first time the future husband and wife had ever met or talked to each other for any length of time. Love was not a consideration in marriage, at least not at first. The families of the couple wanted to be sure that the lands and valuables of the parents would be passed into responsible hands and that the family of the other partner was respectable and of the same social class.
The couple were married in a simple ceremony unlike the elaborate marriage ceremonies today. The actual ceremony differed from place to place. In the early part of the Middle Ages, the Church was not very involved in the marriage ceremony and it was usually conducted at home with several witnesses present. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the Church became more and more involved in the marriage ceremony and by the end of the period, a Christian marriage ceremony almost always accompanied a wedding.
Once the wedding was over, married life began. It was undoubtedly awkward for both the husband and the wife for a time until they got to know each other better. Mutual friendship and respect eventually developed among most married people and sometimes the partners also grew to love each other. The man was the head of the household in the Middle Ages and the wife was legally his property. A husband was allowed to beat his wife, as long as she did not die. Husbands had complete control over all of their wife's belongings and any other property that was owned by the family. The husband had the final say in all matters. However, many husbands asked for and heeded the advice of their wives. Often, the husband would often be gone on business trips or away at war for a good portion of the time, leaving the wife in charge of the household. In this way, women gained a previously unheard of amount of freedom.
Husbands were allowed to divorce their wives for many reasons, the most popular being adultery. Wives, on the other hand, could not divorce there husbands. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, this changed slightly, and wives were allowed to divorce husbands convicted of certain crimes or away on a long campaign of warfare.

Recreation

The members of the nobility had the most free time of any class during the Middle Ages. The favorite pastimes of most of the nobility were hunting and falconry. The nobles kept the forests for themselves, making it illegal for any common person to hunt in the forest. Only nobles were permitted by law to kill fallow deer, roe, wild boar, and red deer. A typical hunting party included noblewomen as well, unless the prey was the dangerous wild boar. Hunting dogs also made up part of the party. These dogs were trained to find and run down prey.

Falconry was also a popular sport and each castle had a falconer whose job was to capture, train, and care for hawks as if they were human beings. A good hawk was prized almost as much as a good warhorse and members of the nobility were known to make pilgrimages to plead for the health of a sick hawk. Hawks were used to hunt herons, ducks, cranes, partridges, and pheasants. The hawk sat on the heavy leather glove of the hunter (or huntress) until prey was sighted. Then, its hood and leg straps, or jesses, were removed and the hawk quickly sighted the prey, killed it, and then returned to its owner.
Tourneys were another popular event during the Middle Ages. This was a gathering of knights who fought against each other. Aged knights acted as judges, awarding prizes to the winners (often the horse and saddle of the loser). Jousting was one such sport. There were also events for squires and pages to practice and develop their skills.
Other outdoor sports included playing with a ball and stick, broad jumping, archery, and putting the stone. Members of the nobility also gambled with dice and played chess and checkers.

Travel and Trade

Travel in the Middle Ages was slow, uncomfortable, and usually dangerous. Today, we can travel around 55 miles in one hour. In the Middle Ages, it would have taken a very fast horse over two days to travel the same distance. A few main roads in Europe had been paved by the Romans, and remained paved with cobblestones during the Middle Ages. However, most roads were made of dirt that turned into a river of mud when it rained. The paved roads were full of pot holes were peasants had "borrowed" a stone from the road to patch up their homes. The potholes and mud restricted travel to walking, horses, and light two-wheeled carts. Most people walked, because horses were very expensive and only the rich could afford them. Any heavy loads were transported on the ocean or by river. Robbers abounded on both sea and land and robbed and killed the unwary. Only very desperate people traveled by night, when the robbers were the most active. Most people didn't travel at all. Common people sometimes lived their whole lives never traveling more then 10 miles from the place where they were born. The nobility were more mobile, usually moving from castle to castle throughout the course of the year to check on each of their properties. Both peasant and noble made pilgrimages to various holy places in search of healing, forgiveness, and miracles.

Merchants also traveled a great deal in order to find new commodities to sell. These men usually traveled by sea or by established land routes. No one explored very far away from land, because everyone believed the world was flat and that if they went to far into the ocean they might fall off the edge of the world. No one in Europe knew that America or Australia existed. People did travel around Europe, Africa, and Asia though. Merchants brought back many luxuries from far off places. From Africa, merchants brought slaves, sugar, gold, ivory, and precious stones and from Asia came silk, furs, carpets, and the valuable spices such as pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land brought exotic goods such as rice, cotton, perfume, mirrors, lemon, and melons. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, many regions were making goods such as wine, salt, wool, copper, fish, and timber, for sale in other parts of Europe.
Merchants and the sailors that took them to distant lands took great risks in search of things to sell. Bad weather and pirates were constant threats. If a crew was shipwrecked, they had little hope of being rescued as many countries had laws that said all loot recovered from a shipwrecked vessel was the property of the finders unless there were survivors. Despite these dangers, trade gained popularity during the Middle Ages and trade routes were very busy during the height of the summer.

Town life

Most people worked as farmers during the beginning of the Middle Ages because farming methods were inefficient and most of the population was needed to farm the land for food. As farming methods improved towards the beginning of the eleventh century, more people were able to leave their farms and earn their living by becoming craftsmen and traders. As these people came together to practice their trades, they formed the first towns.

The people in towns were free; they owed service and obedience to no lord. Instead, the people paid a tax to the lords who owned the land on which the town stood. The towns government was led by a lord mayor and a council, who passed laws that were made public by a town crier with a bell. These mayors and councilmen were generally chosen from among the wealthiest of the craftsmen and traders and they zealously guarded the rights and privileges of their town against outsiders. Towns were almost always fortified with high stone walls that encircled the town and patrolled by guards in case the lord decided to go back on his agreement.

Inside the walls were a myriad of specialized industries such as weaving, leather working, bakers, and shoemaking, that provided many new jobs and many new goods. Merchants established new shops in the growing towns where there were many customers. Guards were needed to patrol the town walls and keep the peace, and musicians were needed to play at feasts and in civic processions. Bankers and lawyers arrived and set up there shops, developing a new middle class. There was no room for town residents to grow food, so peasants from the countryside came to sell their produce in markets and buy the specialized goods of the town at least once a week. Sometimes serfs tried to hide in the towns. If they could stay for one year and one day without their lord finding them, the serf would become a freeman.
Townspeople lived in tall skinny houses that lined narrow, winding lanes. These houses were usually at least two floors. The bottom floor was a long skinny workroom where the owner displayed his goods and waited on customers. Subsequent floors housed the owner, his family, servants, and any apprentices he had. If a townsmen needed to add a room onto his house, he simply built on another floor. The windows in the house were covered by wooden shutters, although a few wealthy merchants had thick pieces of glass to keep out the elements. The houses were constructed of wood, or rough quartz and flint cemented together. Most houses were also painted, usually black, red, or blue, with paint made of pitch and linseed. Both the paint and the roof were highly flammable and the cry of "Fire!" sounded often, striking terror in listeners.
Towns helped to usher in new goods and new luxuries. They also helped to increase the quality of goods produced through regulation by trade guilds and ushered in the end of feudalism by providing people with options other than farming.

Health and Medicine

Medical knowledge was very limited during the Middle Ages. No one knew about germs or how disease was spread. In towns, an open sewer ran down the middle of the street and people tossed garbage, dead animals, and human waste into it every day. No one bathed on a regular basis, contributing to skin diseases and further spreading of germs. Illness was surrounded by mystery and superstition. Doctors possessed little real knowledge to help cure people and there were no hospitals for the sick. When someone was sick, their friends and relatives prayed to the Saints to heal them and provided the sick person what comfort was available.
There were many plagues and epidemics in medieval Europe. Many people died very young of illnesses like cholera, dysentery, influenza, measles, and mumps. Leprosy was especially prevalent in Europe, and lepers were shunned wherever they went. The most famous plague was the Bubonic Plague or Black Death, that struck Europe in 1348 and killed 25 million people in one year.
Medical science did make some advances however. At Bologna University, doctors made the first human dissection in an attempt to understand how the body works. Two medical schools, on in Salernum, Italy and one in Montpellier, France, gave serious instruction in medicine, and their graduates were highly trained in the treatment of wounds.