Week 14: THE COURSE AND RHYTHMS OF LIFE

Tuesday:

Music:

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, “Queen Eleanor’s Confession” ( 5:13 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoKLn3aEOyE

Readings:

Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 552-555 (betrothal and marriage), 558-572 (love and sex)

Frances and Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages, Chap. 7 (“A Great Lady: Eleanor de Montfort”)

Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters of Medieval Life, pp. 219-225 (Documents 69-70), pp. 233-245 (Documents 74-78)

Glossary for Magna Carta (useful generally for legal terminology of early 13th-century England)

Maps:

The Angevin “Empire”:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil035.jpg

Henry III’s territories:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/gardiner/gard012.jpg

Medieval England and Wales:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil034.jpg

Wales and the Marches in the Thirteenth Century:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil036c.jpg

Map of England by Matthew Paris
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/319matthewparismapbig.jpg

Topics:

Betrothal and marriage
Dower and dowry (marriage-portion)
Love and sex
“Courtly love”
Sexual ideals: virginity, continence
Sexual realities: fornication, adultery, concubinage, bastardy, homosexuality, rape
Marital sex
Female sexuality
Dowry and dower
Relations within the royal family
Relations within noble families (spouses, parents and children, siblings)

Marriage: no barriers to marry (e.g., no consanguinity; permission of lord) +vows + consummation = valid marriage
(click here for a table of consanguinity from the late 1100’s, and a modern table in English)
Guardianship (of heirs and heiresses)
Merchet: fine payable to lord for permission of female serfs to marry
Dower: property granted to the wife by the husband at marriage to support her during her lifetime as widow, if she survives her husband
Dowry (marriage portion): property brought to the marriage by the wife
Divorce (annulment): only possible if original marriage was deemed invalid

Literary sources:

Jehan et Blonde, by Philippe de Beaumanoir

Images:

Seal of Eleanor, countess of Leicester [sister of Henry III]

Eleanor de Montfort and her children (from a later family tree)

Seal of Simon de Montfort’s father Simon (d. 1218)

Seal of Isabelle de Rochefort (French, 1272)

Odiham Castle (Hampshire):
remains of octagonal tower
another view

Kenilworth Castle (Warwickshire):
plan
aerial photo
keep (12th cent.)
with lake refilled

Dover Castle (Kent):
aerial view
Dover Castle and the white cliffs from the sea
white cliffs of Dover
keep
cutaway drawing of keep
spiral staircase
throne room and another view
king’s chamber and another view

Prof. James Brundage’s flow-chart on when it was licit to have sex, based on early-medieval penitential manuals

Videos:

Robert Bartlett, Inside the Medieval Mind: Sex (58:41 min.):
http://watchdocumentary.org/watch/inside-the-medieval-mind-episode-02-sex-video_272f1e2f6.html

0:00-9:42 minutes: introduction; female sexuality
10:00-11:25, Eve’s sin;
11:26-14:45, dowries;
14:46-19:37, courtly love: the poets
20:00 – 22:45, courtly love: the Rules;
22:50-27:28, Abelard and Heloise;
27:29-29:58, the Church’s view of sex
30:00-33:00, female virginity
33:00-36:00, Christina of Markyate
36:00-39:30, marriage and marital sex; impotence
40:00- 43:30, canon law and sex
42:41- 46:00, church courts and sex
46:00-47:50, clerical incontinence and pornography
47:40-48:40, brothels
48:40- 54:14, homosexuality
54:15-56:45, the Black Death
56:46-end, overview of medieval belief and behavior

Thursday:

Video:

The Roman Calendar (7:59 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG4nwf5E65M

Readings:

Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 633-645 (Rhythms of the Day, Week, and Year)

Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters of Medieval Life, pp. 257-268 (Documents 85-89), pp. 270-274 (Documents 91-92)

Topics:

Time reckonings and divisions
Solar year
Lunar year
7-day week
Day/night
Ecclesiastical calendar (holy days and seasons, vigils, sabbath)
24-hour day (“natural,” with variable hour lengths; “conventional” with equal hour lengths)
Sundials and water clocks
Mealtimes (dinner at midday or early PM)
Roman calendar (12 months; 7-day weeks; reckonings by calends, nones, and ides)
Botanical year and harvest seasons (click here for illustrations of the “labors of the months“)
Law terms (and academic terms)
Quarter-days for paying rent
Regnal or pontifical year
Dating by celebrated public or natural events (e.g., coronations, famous deaths, earthquakes)

Asking for favors; favor-exchange
Gambling
Disaster aid: appeals to family, friends, and neighbors, but not to Church or clergy