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There were different kinds of education depending on when someone was attending. Grammar school was through the church and focussed on subjects such as Latin, rhetoric, Greek, and basic sciences, and it wasn't until later in time that geography and other natural sciences were added.

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Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was under the Frankish ruler Charlemagne that a concerted campaign began to offer education to the people. Beginning in the late 8th century, monasteries and cathedrals started establishing schools of their own where they would educate young boys in a variety of sciences.

Most of the secular education was concerned with classical Greek and Roman subjects while a significant section of the taught syllabi comprised religious education.

Role of Church in Medieval Education

The Church played a very significant role in medieval education. At the time of Charlemagne's ascension, the Roman heritage and culture of Western Europe had largely been forgotten. It was the Church and its bishops and monks who continued learning and teaching classical subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

As a result, when Charlemagne sought to have his subjects educated, he had to turn to the Church. This remained the case not just in France but also elsewhere throughout Europe until at least the High Middle Ages. The Church, as the primary patron of arts and education, would remain the key institution that aided in imparting education to medieval Europe.

Medieval Education *Subjects Taught

A wide range of subjects was taught as part of education during the medieval period. In grammar schools which typically fell under a large church, subjects such as Latin, rhetoric, Greek, and basic sciences such as arithmetic were taught. Towards the later medieval period, this list included geography and a number of other natural sciences as well.

In monastic schools which were directly associated with monastic orders, a wider latitude was exercised in the choice of subjects. Such schools typically taught directly from the rich treasure-trove of Greek and Roman books, often exploring even such subjects as physics, philosophy and botany.

Medieval Education Important Facts

Education in the early medieval period was imparted and overlooked by the Church. Frankish king Charlemagne was among the first in medieval Europe to support formal education. Medieval education institutions were of three types

The first university in medieval Europe was established in Italy in 1088. Only 5% of the European population had any formal education by 1330. If a peasant or serf family attained education without the permission of the nobility, they were fined.

Medieval Universities

The establishment of universities in Europe began in the 11th century. The primary purpose of a university was to provide advanced education to those who had already attained formal education in a monastic or grammar school. Initially, universities fell under an ecclesiastical authority such as the Church, and the students, as well as teachers at the universities, enjoyed significant privileges.

A wide range of subjects was taught at the universities which included arithmetic, geometry, music theory, astronomy, rhetoric, logic, grammar, metaphysics, physics, and moral philosophy.

Once a student had attained sufficient education in these subjects, he could go on to follow a specific field such as theology or law, or medicine. Typically, he then had to spend another few years pursuing the specific literature of that field before qualifying for the practice of say, law or medicine.

Social Stratification in Medieval Education

Until the High Middle Ages, formal education for serfs or peasants was simply never considered. Education was mostly limited to the nobility or the rich and wealthy.

It was towards the late High Middle Ages that this began to change as more and more members of the nobility started to support education for the common person. Even in this period, a peasant or serf could get an education only with the permission of his lord.

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important facts about medieval education

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social stratification in medieval education

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Medieval Education | Medieval Chronicles

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Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was under the Frankish ruler Charlemagne that a concerted campaign began to offer education to the people. Beginning in the late 8th century, monasteries and cathedrals started establishing schools of their own where they would educate young boys in a variety of sciences.

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People’s Belief about Animals in the Middle Ages

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People’s Belief about Animals in the Middle Ages

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In the Middle Ages, cats were one of the common animals to keep as a house pet. One cat was name Cubine which means “little paws” in the medieval text.

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What Did People Believe about Animals in the Middle Ages?

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Schools were typically organized/run by people of the church, as they were often the only educated and literate citizens. Boys from wealthy families were often the ones to attend these schools, while women were homeschooled by their mothers. Peasants and surfs often had no education, as they were not allowed inside these schools. - CR

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Schools in medieval Europe typically fell under the jurisdiction and care of Church personnel. Since the clergy and the monks were usually the only educated and literate people in early medieval Europe, they were naturally assigned the task of imparting education at these schools.

Formal education at schools was largely limited to the boys hailing from wealthy families whereas girls were educated at home by their mothers. Peasants and serfs were also forbidden from gaining an education at these schools.

Three main types of schools existed in medieval Europe. These include monastic schools, grammar schools, and elementary song schools.

Elementary Song-School

Medieval Schools were mainly controlled by the Church in Medieval Times and the main types of Medieval schools were elementary song schools, grammar schools, and monastic schools. The elementary song school, as its name suggests, was a school where the most basic type of education was imparted to the boys. In fact, in many cases, the education imparted at an elementary song school was largely limited to the reading and singing of Latin hymns and songs.

Although the singing was limited to ecclesiastical literature, it helped the boys understand the basics of the Latin language and laid the foundations for their subsequent education in the language.

The elementary school itself was attached to a church and was monitored by church authorities. In some cases, if the church to which the school was attached had a particularly learned priest, he would impart other forms of education to the students, for instance teaching them to write.

Important Facts about Medieval Schools:
There were three types of schools in the medieval period: elementary song schools, grammar schools, and monastic schools. Education was limited to the rich and the wealthy while the poor were usually forbidden from attaining education.
The language of education in medieval Europe was Latin. It was taught as the first subject in grammar schools. Girls could not get a formal education in medieval Europe, even if they had aristocratic origins. The Church overlooked and monitored the imparting of education in medieval Europe.

Grammar Schools

In contrast to elementary song school, grammar schools were larger, offered a more advanced form of education, and were typically attached to a larger church or a cathedral. As their name suggests, grammar schools were primarily concerned with educating boys in Latin grammar. Since Latin was the primary language of literature, arts, and theology in the medieval period, it was incumbent for anyone seeking education to first learn the language.

This first requirement was fulfilled at a grammar school. However, a grammar school also taught other subjects such as logic and rhetoric with teachers having recourse to the rich Roman heritage of books on these subjects. In some grammar schools, the educators could decide to impart education on other subjects such as arithmetic as well but this was rare as sciences were not considered important through most of the medieval period.

By the late medieval era, this changed when grammar schools began to include subjects such as Greek, geography, and a wide range of natural sciences in their curriculum.

Monastic Schools

Monastic schools were typically associated with one of the monastic orders such as the Benedictine order. These schools were run by monks of the order who also taught the pupils at the school. The monastic schools in the medieval period became centers of learning where monks would diligently study Greek and Roman texts related to a variety of subjects.

The monks would then teach these subjects to the students at the monastic schools as well. It was here at the monastic schools that a large body of Greek and Roman literature was revived, especially on secular subjects such as philosophy, physics, astronomy, and botany.

Medieval Schools Summary

Discover the History of Medieval Schools. Images, Facts, and Information about Medieval Schools including Elementary Song-Schools, Grammar Schools, and Monastic Schools. Medieval Schools were mainly controlled by the Church in Medieval Times and the main types of Medieval schools were elementary song schools, grammar schools, and monastic schools.

Elementary Song-School, Important Facts about Medieval School, Grammar Schools, Monastic Schools, Elementary Song-Schools
Medieval Schools: Roman Britain to Renaissance England Hardcover - August 24, 2006 Monastic schools in the middle ages ... (v.10) Paperback - September 3, 2010

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Schools in medieval Europe typically fell under the jurisdiction and care of Church personnel. Since the clergy and the monks were usually the only educated and literate people in early medieval Europe, they were naturally assigned the task of imparting education at these schools.

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Organ practice in the middle ages (basically the accordion) (musical)

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Organ practice in the middle ages (basically the accordion) (musical)

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This article discussed organ practice in the middle ages and the different kinds of organs used. Basically the invention of the accordion. CM

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Flutes and recorders were said by one medieval writer to "arouse or exasperate amorous spirits, and to an extent move them to the sweetness of [religious] devotion." Organs were seen as consisting of a "variety and multitude of flutes" and, therefore, most appropriate for church use. In fact, the organ was virtually the only medieval instrument that seems to have been officially allowed in churches except, perhaps, on procession days. The idea of an organ comprising a number of flutes may also help to explain why the term organ usually appears in the plural even when describing a single instrument.

https://artscimedia.case.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/146/2015/04/14233249/13.organetto_vielles.mp3

Organetto with vielles. Trouvères: Courtly Love Songs from Northern France. Ensemble Sequentia. Benjamin Bagby, organetto. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi RD77155-2-RC (1984). Trk 14a Dame, par vo dous regard (excerpt).

The organ has its origins in antiquity as the hydraulis or water-organ. Until about the l2th century, the key action resembled more the stops on a modern tracker organ, where the player had to pull out the key then replace it to stop the note. By the l4th century the arrangement of keys was basically as it is today although the keys were generally quite shallow. Organs came in a wide array of sizes - from large cathedral models, to small, lap-held instruments called portative organs, where the player pumped the bellows with the left hand and played the button-like keys with the right.

https://artscimedia.case.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/146/2015/04/14233249/14.positiveOrgan.mp3

Positive organ. A dance in the garden of mirth. Dufay Collective. Peter Skuce, organ. Chandos CHAN 9320 (1994). Trk 7 Retrove (excerpt - in Pythagorean tuning).

Larger chamber organs were called positive organs because they were "deposited" in one place to be played. The earliest surviving music which seems to have been written for such an instrument is from the l4th century English Robertsbridge Codex. Medieval organs would have differed from later examples also in the use of Pythagorean tuning: the prevailing medieval tuning system where 5ths were acoustically pure.

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Flutes and recorders were said by one medieval writer to "arouse or exasperate amorous spirits, and to an extent move them to the sweetness of [religious] devotion." Organs were seen as consisting of a "variety and multitude of flutes" and, therefore, most appropriate for church use.

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Hygiene and Sanitation in the Middle Ages (Bad & Ugly)

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Hygiene and Sanitation in the Middle Ages (Bad & Ugly)

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This article talks about several factors that played into the Bubonic Plague. Weak immune systems, lack of privacy, and waste disposal were the main contributors to the spread of disease. Up until scientific advances were prominent (late 19th century- 20th century), the disease was blamed on other minority immigrant groups instead of what was happening in their environment. (TL)

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Almost everyone used privies or chamber pots, which were emptied into open sewers that typically fed into streams, creeks, or adjacent rivers, as in the case of London and the Thames. Cities also contained public latrines and outhouses. Waste from these vehicles fed into ditches that ultimately emptied into nearby bodies of water.

Urban dwellings were constructed as primitive tenements, the upper levels extending over the lower so as to block out sunlight onto the narrow passageways below. This led to severe overcrowding and an acute lack of privacy. In most cases, beds were considered a luxury. When sickness inflicted one or more members of the "household," there was no possibility of isolation; medical care was practically non-existent.

The absence of personal hygiene and the prevalence of poor dietary habits weakened immune systems, making it impossible to physically combat disease when it struck. Most Europeans living in France, Spain, and Italy, for example, subsisted on porridge-type meals devoid of protein. Not until the 16th Century, with the Columbian Exchange and the diffusion of agricultural products like the potato from the Americas, would European life expectancy rise.

Italian historian Giulia Calvi, writing about the impact of Bubonic Plague in Italy, comments that, "...poor people attracted contagion and vice, serving as a sort of putrifying pimple where all sorts of diseases coagulated."

In addition to the town dwellers, cities attracted the homeless, beggars, abandoned children, and students denied admittance to early universities. Wanderers, known as "vagabonds," traveled from city to city.

In 1212 hundreds of children made their way to Southern France and Italy, compelled by charismatic leaders to participate in the European crusading mentality. This Children's Crusade is still a mystery and historians like the late John Boswell question whether they were truly "abandoned," but the phenomenon suggests a characteristic of medieval everyday life: many people, especially the youth, were prone to homelessness and living on the very edge of destitution.

Calvi's link between poverty and "contagion" takes on greater meaning when viewed through the actions of, for example, rootless children making their way through towns and cities while pursuing a perceived noble and sacred cause.

Disease Epidemics Linked Historically to the Wrong Causes

Not until the scientific advances of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century would urban disease and epidemic outbreaks be blamed on poor sanitation, overcrowding, and dietary considerations. In the 1830s, for example, a severe cholera outbreak in American cities was blamed on Irish immigrants. As late as the 1890s, immigrant groups were blamed for disease epidemics, linked to ethnic considerations rather than environmental realities.

Lincoln Steffens' Shame of the Cities, published in 1904, definitively explained the causes and effects of urban blight. These same reasons can be tied to the rise of European urban centers in the Middle Ages and how everyday living conditions contributed to on-going epidemics, notably the Bubonic Plague which reemerged in France well into the reign of the "Sun King," Louis XIV in the late 17th Century.

Wars such as the Thirty Years' War and attempts at early "urban renewal" beginning in the 15th Century replaced the narrow streets with wider avenues.

Napoleon Bonaparte and his French successors redesigned Paris, building sewer systems and eliminating the narrow medieval passages, albeit for political reasons: it was far more difficult to erect barricades across wide avenues. But the efforts indirectly affected urban sanitation.

It took European society centuries to transition from the unsanitary conditions of medieval towns and cities. The few remaining examples of walled towns with their picturesque passageways hardly bear witness to the noisy, stench-ridden cities of the Middle Ages, ripe for disease and premature death.

Sources:

Dominique Barthelmy and Philippe Contamine, "The Use of Privte Space," A History of Private Life II: Revelations of the Medieval World (The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1988)

Giulia Calvi, Histories of a Plague Year: The Social and the Imaginary in Baroque Florence (University of California Press, 1989)

Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Harper & Row, 1971)

William H. McNeill, Plagues and People (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976).

Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter, Western Europe in the Middle Ages 300-1475 (McGraw-Hill, 1992) p 482.

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Living conditions in the Middle Ages contributed to weakened immune systems that led to premature death when disease and pestilence ravaged communities. Poor hygiene and sanitation in medieval cities contributed to the spread of disease, especially the devastating plague years of the mid to late 14

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bad: treatment of people with disabilities 

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bad: treatment of people with disabilities 

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being disabled in the middle ages was seen as a punishment for sin, or being stuck in purgatory for eternity.

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Provision and care

There was no state provision for people with disabilities. Most lived and worked in their communities, supported by family and friends. If they couldn't work, their town or village might support them, but sometimes people resorted to begging. They were mainly cared for by monks and nuns who sheltered pilgrims and strangers as their Christian duty.

Care for sick and disabled people was based on the Church's teachings. The monks and nuns would follow the seven 'comfortable works' which involved feeding, clothing and housing the poor, visiting them when in prison or sick, offering drink to the thirsty, and burial. The seven 'spiritual works' included counsel and comfort for the sick.

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Disability in the medieval period 1050-1485 | Historic England

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There was no state provision for people with disabilities. Most lived and worked in their communities, supported by family and friends. If they couldn't work, their town or village might support them, but sometimes people resorted to begging. They were mainly cared for by monks and nuns who sheltered pilgrims and strangers as their Christian duty.

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The church was not very fond of children outside of wedlock, so the measures they went to in order to prevent that are pretty interesting and disturbing????
LG

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The study of history highlights the differences and disparity of knowledge between the past and the present, yet certain practices across all cultures have remained unchanged. What unites all individuals, for example, is our need to eat, stay hydrated, and procreate. Whether they are enacted out of necessity or for the sole purpose of pleasure, this trio exists as some of life's most obvious bare necessities and form the robust foundations for the continuation of a population. This article will speak to different forms of birth control in the Medieval Period, a form of medicine that societies continue to dispute today.

When considering sex in history, there tends to be a rather generalist view that it was a taboo subject. Past societies had limited knowledge pertaining to contraception, birth control, and even the act of sexual intercourse itself. Though comprehension of these subjects was undoubtedly less compared to the present day, the notion that people in the past were uninformed is simply not true.

One era particularly demonstrative of this notion is the Medieval period, where medicine (including sexual medicine) is typically considered as something that was dictated by superstition and magic and practiced by occupations tinged with elements of the fantastical such as herbalists, witches, quacks, and charlatans.

However, this is incorrect. Medieval historians have extensively studied sex and contraception, while the critical examination of contemporary sources from this period has demonstrated that society had a relatively good understanding of these topics and employed an extensive range of birth control practices.

Despite certain artistic and literary representations that suggest otherwise, the idea that all of society abided by Canon law and engaged in sex for procreational purposes is not true.

In a time that pedaled ideas of chivalry and romanticism yet simultaneously made marriage unattainable for many due to factors such as larger families, primogeniture, and pressure to work within the church, it is unrealistic to assume that everyone stayed celibate. Similarly to today, a large proportion of society in the Medieval period would have engaged in both extra-marital and other forms of "sinful" sex for lots of different reasons. Prostitution, for example, is an ancient practice that was legal, and concubinage amongst clergy was present until as late as the 12th century.

Birth Control Methods In The Medieval Period

With such a high rate of sex going on, this raises an obvious question: What birth control methods were being used in the Medieval period? Read on to discover the various physical and herbal ways that women in this period attempted to avoid unwanted pregnancy.

5. Menstrual Regulation

Given that lack of menstruation is one of the main symptoms of pregnancy, it is no wonder that it features in some birth control methods. Even now, there are apps invented for women to input their days of menstruation in order to tell when they are most fertile, and by proxy, when they are most likely to fall pregnant when having unprotected sex.

In the Medieval period, women managed their periods similarly. They used them as a marker to establish whether contraception has been successful. However, as they could not ascertain the exact moment of conception, there was no distinction between preventing pregnancy through contraception or ending one through abortion. Instead, remedies to "evoke the menses" were widely used. Recipes for various concoctions to essentially encourage abortion were shared between women and even were present in some household handbooks.

These would have been particularly popular, as they were normally made from a variation of household or easily sourced ingredients. Whilst some ingredients would have had little effect; many remedies contained particular herbs or plants that to this day are recommended as avoided by pregnant women due to their potency and potential as a fertility inhibitor. These included ingredients such as parsley, Queen Anne's lace and pennyroyal. Other herbs and spices commonly used included arum, opium, artemisia, pepper, licorice, and peony which were mixed with varying levels of complexity and incorporated methods such as straining and steeping.

Similar to the condoms used today, physical methods were greatly relied on as a method of birth control in the Medieval period. In addition to being the ingredients that were stirred, steeped, and sprinkled into ingestible remedies, herbs were also recognized as physical barriers against conception and used as pessaries. In the eleventh century medical encyclopedia, the Canon of Medicine Avicenna, recommends inserting mint within the cervix before engaging in intercourse.

Although stuffing herbs in such a delicate area are unfathomable by today's standards, it does indicate that people had a relatively good understanding of the female anatomy in relation to conception. The cervix, after all, remains a key area that modern birth control is orientated around and is the space to which an IUD (intrauterine device) is inserted.

3. Spermicide

The recognition that physical barriers minimize the risk of pregnancy also prompted the creation of early forms of spermicide within the Medieval period. A far cry away from modern spermicides of today that use the chemical nonoxynol-9 as the active ingredient, the medieval equivalent recommended mixtures made from pulped plants, leaves, and even animal dung. The Canon of Medicine Avicenna, for example, referred to cedar as something which "corrupts sperm" and thus "prohibits impregnation." Such unconventional methods are also echoed in other, non-medical texts of the period such as Chaucer's Parsons Tale where the ingestion of specific herbs and placement of tangible barriers to stop conception are presented as a sin.

Other vaginal contraceptives employed in the Medieval period included inserts of cloth soaked in honey or vinegar. The belief in various sweeteners and fermented fruits as effective birth control methods can be traced as far back to the Egyptian period, where a spermicidal recipe from 1521 BC directed the reader to "mix grated Acacia leaves and honey and soak a gauze to be inserted into the vagina." Although peculiar to the modern ears, this unconventional concoction may have been fairly successful due to both the stickiness of the honey, which would prevent sperm motility, and the acacia lactic acid present in the sap, which is effective as a spermicide.

Another birth control method in the Medieval period was less preventative, and more about damage control by concealing both pregnancy and birth. Pregnancy out of wedlock was very much condemned by the church and would have tarnished most women's reputation and chances of marrying well. This, therefore, meant many felt pressured to hide the fact they were with a child or had given birth.

For example, in the 17th-century French libertine novel L'ecole des filles, a woman is presented as telling a sixteen-year-old girl about sex education. When the subject of pregnancy arises, instead of emphasizing any contraceptives, she instead states:
"[...] moreover, to remove any worry, there is one more thing to consider, it is that this mishap is not so extraordinary that one should fear it so much. There are so many pregnant girls who never attract notice, thanks to certain corsets and dresses made to order, which they use, and which do not prevent them from having a good time with those who made them pregnant."
Following this perspective of pregnancy as little more than an inconvenience, the woman then goes onto list the varying ways in which the physical symptoms of pregnancy, and birth itself, can be accounted for, explaining: "[...] and during that interval, you can simulate illness, trips, pilgrimages. When the time comes, you will identify a midwife who is obliged in conscience to keep the fact hidden." The woman concludes that by following the instructions, the child would eventually be taken away and the mother can resume her pre-child life and "be merry as a lark."

Of course, this perspective of pregnancy and birth represents a particular middle-class experience and offers insight into the privilege that money offered women who found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. The options and reality for the majority of working-class women in the Medieval period were far more limited as they could not afford the luxury of simply purchasing a new, larger dress or going abroad for nine months. As such, there was no way to hide, and it was unlikely that they could emerge unscathed and unjudged in a period where both the church and society continued to vilify illegitimate birth and the women associated. Pregnancy for most women had to be managed or hidden and often resulted in sad cases of infanticide.

Although it is unrealistic that most of society remained celibate, there would have been a small proportion of people in the Medieval period who avoided unwanted pregnancies by avoiding sex outside of marriage. As the church viewed sex as a necessity to procreation, extra-marital or sex before marriage was not encouraged and had social repercussions not only for the parents but the child too, whereby in many cases they would not have been seen as legitimate. Therefore religion in this context, acted as a form of contraception as it played a huge part in influencing people's personal decisions regarding their body and sex.

Religious values also were a factor in when people chose to have sex. Just as people consciously come off birth control when trying for a child, it also dictated for many, when sex was appropriate. To this date, the Catholic Church sees procreation as an essential of marriage, and entering into an intentionally childless invalidates its sacrament. This is a view dating back as far as Pope Gregory IX and his decretal dating between the early and mid-thirteenth century, which states that marriages with the intent to avoid offspring were null.

Sex Education In The Medieval Period

Although this period's general knowledge of sex education and anatomy may be limited compared to the modern-day, they nevertheless had a good understanding of how pregnancy could potentially be avoided. As has been explored, there was a wide variety of both physical and moral birth control methods employed by Medieval society in bids to regulate their bodies, prevent pregnancy and ultimately, have some control over their fate.

If you enjoy discovering more about the Medieval period, check out our article on five of the most impressive Medieval Castles, and find out why Baby Jesus was portrayed in a particular stylistic way within this period here.

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5 Birth Control Methods In The Medieval Period

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The study of history highlights the differences and disparity of knowledge between the past and the present, yet certain practices across all cultures have remained unchanged. What unites all individuals, for example, is our need to eat, stay hydrated, and procreate.

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Your ancestors think you’re a minger (ugly)

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Your ancestors think you’re a minger (ugly)

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This article outlined 13 interesting beauty “hacks” used in medieval times across the world. Including boob jobs using glass, using urine to brush teeth, just some real gross stuff. TP

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No one likes to believe they're ugly, but the sad truth is your ancestors would probably think you're a minger.

Pearly white teeth, golden glow and clean, shiny hair? No thanks.

We're talking blackened nashers, wee and mouse fur to get this lot going.

Here's 13 reasons we'd be ugly in the olden days.
1. Black-toothed beauty
In Japan, there was an ancient tradition of dying teeth black, called ohaguro, which was practised until the 1800s.

The ingredients used prevented tooth decay, the shiny black lacquer was considered beautiful and also marked a noblewoman's coming of age.
2. Taking the piss
Looking for some DIY mouthwash? How about urine?

The Romans digged this wee-ly rank trend and thought it was a great way to keep their teeth white and breath fresh.
3. Sexy foreheads
In the Middle Ages, the forehead was the most desirable trait in a woman, so ladies would regularly pluck off their eyelashes and shave their eyebrows for that every so attractive, super- surprised look.
4. Get drop dead gorgeous with arsenic
In Victorian Britain, women would go on a diet of Arsenic for that clear-skinned, rosy-cheeked glow.

There were a few small negatives mind - there was a possibility you could go bald, get convulsions or die.
5. Mouse-terpiece eyebrows
In the 1700s, ladies would stick strips of dead mouse fur to their heads, for striking, more defined brows.

White, dusky grey, black - the different shades of mouse hair is endless and easily matched to one's face, apparently.
6. Bosoms of glass
That's one way to get Delavigne brows.

Boob jobs in the first half of the twentieth century were made from ivory or glass balls.
7. Fix your hair with fat
Think we prefer to see glass balls in a fortune teller's tent, rather than in our bras.
8. Vein women
People in Ancient Egyptian times would gel their hair with animal fat, for that rock hard wet look that will last the test of time.

Marie Antoinette made veins 'en vogue ' when they appeared in her portraits.

Marie was a trendsetter to the other ladies in court who would paint on light blue veins to fit in.
9. For non blondes
Talk about peer blood pressure!

As well as favouring women resembling boiled eggs, folk from the Middle Ages also had a dislike for blonde women.
10. What lice hair your have
Blonde hair was the colour of fornication and promiscuity - prompting many golden-locked gals to colour their hair dark with lye.

In the words of Dolly Parton, 'the bigger the hair, the closer to God' so perhaps the Georgians were on to something.

In the 1700s, it was fashionable to wear 3ft high poufs with fruit and mini ships attached as accessories.
11. Unhappy feet
Most ladies had nits so would carry around a special scratching rod to reach their hair.

In Chinese history, grown up ladies with baby-sized feet were seen as a step above the rest (all be it an excruciatingly painful one).
12. One brow that wows
Girls' feet would be bound from the day they were born and would cause life-long disabilities for most of those subjected to this beauty trend.

Nothing is sexier than a woman with a bushy unibrow, no?

The Ancient Greeks believed women blessed with one bushy brow were both beautiful and intelligent.
13. Drain your blood
Fear not, though, you could always fool people into thinking you're a dish by attaching a piece of goat's hair to the middle of your eyebrows - which the Greeks would stick on with resin.

Back in the 1500's, women would use a poisonous mix of white lead and vinegar to achieve the white matte look that was in fashion.

If you were really rich you could afford to pay for someone to come in and drain your blood to achieve a more natural look.

MORE : 10 of the weirdest dating traditions from around the globe

MORE : 18 things you never knew about boobs

MORE : 12 fascinating facts you never knew about balls

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13 reasons we would be ugly in the olden days

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No one likes to believe they're ugly, but the sad truth is your ancestors would probably think you're a minger. Pearly white teeth, golden glow and clean, shiny hair? No thanks. We're talking blackened nashers, wee and mouse fur to get this lot going. Here's 13 reasons we'd be ugly in the olden days.

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Fast Food Began in the Middle Ages (Good)

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Fast Food Began in the Middle Ages (Good)

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Since cooking utensils, fuel, and other kitchen items were too expensive, people were likely to go to a "restaurant" for their meals. HRW

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By Vickie L. Ziegler

Published Online (2008)

Introduction: While we generally think of fast food as a uniquely American invention of the late twentieth century, it has in fact been around since Roman times in urban settings in which there were a great many poor and /or single adults living in small rooms. These people had no money or space to lay in stores of food; they could afford neither cooking utensils nor fuel to prepare food. Already in the late 12th century, there was a "fast food" area on the Thames in London, a medieval version of a "drive-in", where hungry travelers could fill up; these shops provided a range of pricing and foods and were open around the clock.

By the high and late Middle Ages, there were many urban centers in Britain and continental Europe where such conditions, as in ancient Rome, were also present. 13th-century Köln and Venice had around 50,000 inhabitants, while London was nearing the 25,000 mark in its smaller confines. However, studies of the city of Colchester, England, in the early 14th century show that only 3% of households that paid taxes [11 out of 389] had a kitchen. Many artisans, other workers, and classes of the urban poor, such as impoverished widows, lived in single rooms, where there were no cooking facilities, not even a hearth.

From wills that inventoried possessions, it is possible to gain a glimpse of the difficult circumstances in which they lived. The bequests of the poor women included only clothing and bedding, which means that they must have lived in inexpensive lodgings with neither furnishings nor cooking equipment. Langland's Piers Plowman notes that impecunious widows had to spend the little money they earned spinning on their rent, milk, and oatmeal. Coroners' rolls for convicted criminals reveal a similar picture. In 14th-century London, murderers and other perpetrators of violent crime were listed as having no possessions; in the rolls that still exist, only seven criminals had kitchen utensils.
Click here to read this article from Penn State

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Fast Food in Medieval Europe - Medievalists.net

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Already in the late 12th century, there was a "fast food" area on the Thames in London, a medieval version of a "drive-in", where hungry travelers could fill up; these shops provided a range of pricing and foods and were open around the clock.

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skin care/personal hygiene (kinda good?--they did what they could lol)

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skin care/personal hygiene (kinda good?--they did what they could lol)

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It's believed that people in the medieval period were just straight up nasty, but they did the best they could. They frequently washed in basins if there wasn't a running source of water nearby.
(HT)

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Ever wonder how women in ancient times or in the Renaissance used to make themselves beautiful?

Well, let's just say they didn't have the skincare wonders we have now - med spa procedures, Botox, and countless anti-aging creams and serums.

Curious to learn more about the history of skin care? Then travel back through time with us as we discuss how women in ancient cultures up to modern day cared for their skin.
HOW DID PEOPLE LOOK HOT CENTURIES AGO? Ancient Egypt
Did you know that the first archaeological evidence of cosmetics is from Ancient Egypt roughly 6,000 years ago? But cosmetics weren't just for aesthetics - they also protected the Ancient Egyptians from the elements, like the sun and insects. Makeup was also used to honor gods and goddesses. In terms of skincare, the Ancient Egyptians used castor, sesame, and moringa oils to fight wrinkles and preserve their youth. Ancient Egyptians also made a soap paste out of clay and olive oil to cleanse their skin. What is more, Egyptian women incorporated honey and milk masks into their beauty regimes to moisturize their skin, and they also took milk baths and used dead sea salts to exfoliate, rejuvenate, and heal their skin.
Ancient Greeks
In Ancient Greece, precious oils, perfumes, cosmetic powders, eye shadows, skin glosses, paints, beauty unguents, and hair dyes were in universal use. Ancient Greeks made their own skincare products using local, natural ingredients. One of the most widely used skincare treatments was mixing fresh berries with milk, and then applying the paste on the facial area. The Ancient Greeks also used olives and olive oil as exfoliants and moisturizers. Lastly, honey along with milk and yogurt were used as anti-aging preparations.
Medieval Times
During the 12th century, cosmetics were regularly used in medieval Europe. Ointments consisted of animal fats. Smooth, white skin was highly regarded, and many women used herbal remedies to promote fair skin and diminish pimples. Aloe vera, rosemary, and cucumbers were used to cleanse the skin. Seeds, leaves, and flowers were also mixed with honey to create face masks, and vinegar was used as an astringent.
Renaissance
Women in the Renaissance period used silver mercury, lead, and chalk to color their faces. Most of the skin care practices were the same as the medieval period, and women primarily relied on herbs and honey to cleanse and rejuvenate their skin. Some other skin care remedies included using broom stalks to cleanse the skin and oatmeal boiled in vinegar to treat pimples. Bread soaked in rose water was also used to soothe puffy eyes.
The Baroque Era
During the Baroque Era, women believed in saunas and sweat cleansing. Milk baths were also used for smoother, clearer skin. Make up during this time was intended to look like paint, and heavy makeup was considered more respectable. Rouge was very popular, and in the 1780s, French women used two million pots of rogue per year. Women's lips were reddened with distilled alcohol or vinegar.
1800s
Exercise, cleanliness, and skincare were all held in high regard during the 1800s. Zinc oxide was used to lighten skin, but often caused allergic reactions. Hygiene products became less expensive and more accessible. Harsh cleansers were often used as were egg yolks, honey and oatmeal to often the skin and help diminish blemishes. Lemon juice was also used to naturally bleach the skin a few shades lighter. During this time, too, Chapstick, Vaseline, and baby powder were invented, all of which were used in skincare regimes.
1900s
The 1900s was an explosion in terms of accessible skincare for women. Carmex was invented in 1937, and sunscreen in 1944. In 1946, Estee Lauder launched their cosmetics line in NYC, and then in the 1950s Clearasil, Ponds, Oil of Olay, and Clinique were all launched, too. The 1980s saw a rise in all natural skincare products. Dr. Howard Murad's line was launched in 1989, and Burt's Bees in the 1980s, too. In 2002, the FDA approved Botox for frown lines on the face. In 2007, The Zeno, a hand-held, battery-operated device, transfers heat onto a blemish, killing the bacteria and making them disappear after only a few treatments.

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A Brief History of Skincare Through the Ages

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We are a manufacturer and marketer of skin care​, beauty and wellness products. Our collections include anti-aging products and treatments, body lotions, face serums, eye serums, face cleansers, face masks, moisturizers​, and red and infrared light therapy hand-held medical devices.

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Apparently, choir books in the middle ages were quite easy to see. Singing in the choir was a major religious responsibility, so maybe optimal visibility helped minimize error. However, it has also been much easier for us to understand this notation than ancient Greek or Roman notation. (TH)

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Aleteia - Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture

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The old plainchant system was easy to read, even for the short-sighted singer.

Singing from the same hymn sheet is a figure of speech that had more meaning during the Middle Ages. At that time, the people doing the singing were members of the choir. It was a serious religious duty rather than an excuse for belting out a favorite song. Choristers in monasteries and churches needed to get it right. As song sheets were made of parchment - and very rarely paper - they were extremely expensive. Members of the choir had to sing from the same sheet, literally. This required a very large page.

Many choir books are more than three feet tall. Also making life easier for those using the page was the way that notes were written. Simpler than modern musical notation, medieval musicians used only four lines rather than the five we are used to nowadays. There are none of the complexities that ranged from breves to demisemiquavers. The old plainchant system was easy to read, even for short-sighted singers.

Thanks to the choir books, we understand medieval Christian music much better than, for example, ancient Greek or Roman notation. Scores from the classical world are almost non-existent despite the huge number of writers engaged in musical criticism at the time. Of those few scores that have survived from the ancient world, the performance is seldom a happy experience for modern listeners. The use of quarter tones creates an obstacle, although recent research at Jesus College, Oxford University, has provided a breakthrough in listening pleasure with re-created instruments and melodies. Medieval plainchant, on the other hand, consistently sounds as serene and spiritual today as it did a thousand years ago. It has been a continuous tradition in those places where the Reformation didn't destroy it. These days it is no longer sung from the same choir book.

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Medieval choirs sang from these 3-foot-tall books

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Singing from the same hymn sheet is a figure of speech that had more meaning during the Middle Ages. At that time, the people doing the singing were members of the choir. It was a serious religious duty rather than an excuse for belting out a favorite song.

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Hahaha, no. Good luck

RG

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Hay For Toilet Paper And A Poo Moat: Everything You Didn’t Want To Know About Medieval Bathrooms

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The toilet was also called a garderobe, which is a French term for a room of valuables such as clothes or jewelry.

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Bathing was indeed a common practice and it would be done differently depending on one's monetary status/class. It was believed that bathing had many benefits when it came to staying healthy. In general, spring and winter are the best times of the year to bath, while bathing in the summer should be avoided as much as possible. GE

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It is often thought that medieval men and women did not care too much about personal hygiene or keeping clean. One nineteenth-century historian writing about daily life in the Middle Ages commented that there were no baths for a thousand years. However, a closer look shows that baths and bathing were actually quite common in the Middle Ages, but in a different way than one might expect.
There are stories of how people didn't bathe in the Middle Ages - for example, St Fintan of Clonenagh was said to take a bath only once a year, just before Easter, for twenty-four years. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxons believed that the Vikings were overly concerned with cleanliness since they took a bath once a week. On the other hand, we can also see many literary references and works of art depicting people taking baths, and noting that it was part of daily activity.

Personal hygiene did exist in the Middle Ages - people were well aware that cleaning their face and hands was a good idea - health manuals from the period note that it was important to get rid of dirt and grime. They also explained that it was important to keep the entire body clean. For example, the fourteenth-century writer Magninius Mediolanesis stated in his work Regimen sanitatis that "The bath cleans the external body parts of dirt left behind from exercise on the outside of the body."

He also adds a second reason for bathing: "if any of the waste products of third digestion are left under the skin that were not resolved by exercise and massage, these will be resolved by the bath." There was a strong connection between bathing and eating, which could affect one's overall health (these ideas have not quite left us - many people might remember their mother telling them not to go swimming for an hour after a meal). Baths could relieve digestion, stop diarrhoea - but taken improperly cold lead to weakness of the heart, nausea or fainting.

Medieval writers saw bathing as a serious and careful activity. One medical treatise, the Secreta Secretorum, has an enitre section on baths. It notes that the spring and winter are good times for bathing, but it should be avoided as much as possible in the summer. It also warns that excessively long baths lead to fatness and feebleness. Meanwhile, Magninius Mediolanesis offers over 57 bathing prescriptions to use in specific conditions, like old age, pregnancy and travelling and his rules for bathing run 1500 words long.

Some famous bathing sites had their own rules. In 1336, Pietro de Tussignano formulated twelve rules for those coming to the Italian town at Burmi, which lies near Switzerland, to get the healing effects of its bath. They include that the person should beforehand not to have too much sexual intercourse nor have abstained from it, and that he should also enter the bath with an empty stomach (if they had to have food it could only be two spoons of raisins with a little wine). You could only pour the water over your head if you were clean-shaven, otherwise your hairs might impede the effects of the water. The person should take the baths for fifteen days, spending up to an hour a day getting washed, but if all goes well, the bather will benefit for over six months with improved health.

If people could afford a to have private bath - and not many could - they would use a wooden tub that could also have a tent-like cloth on top of it. Attendants would bring jugs and pots of hot water to fill the tub. In John Russell's Book of Nurture, written in the second half of the fifteenth-century, he advises servants that if their lord wants a bath they should:
hang sheets, round the roof, every one full of flowers and sweet green herbs, and have five or six sponges to sit or lean upon, and see that you have one big sponge to sit upon, and a sheet over so that he may bathe there for a while, and have a sponge also for under his feet, if there be any to spare, and always be careful that the door is shut. Have a basin full of hot fresh herbs and wash his body with a soft sponge, rinse him with fair warm rose-water, and throw it over him.
He adds that if the lord has pains or aches, it is good to boil various herbs like camomile, breweswort, mallow and brown fennel and add them to the bath.

Records from medieval England show that its kings often enjoyed these baths. When King John traveled around his kingdom, he took a bathtub with him, and had a personal attendant named William who handled it. Meanwhile, in 1351 Edward III paid for taps of hot and cold water supply to his bathtub at Westminster Palace.

Royalty throughout Europe often entertained guests with baths, often trying to impress each other with how luxurious they could make it. This tradition even goes back to the Carolingians - Einhard says that Charlemagne loved taking baths, and that "he would invite not only his sons to bathe with him, but his nobles and friends as well, and occasionally even a crowd of attendants and bodyguards, so that sometimes a hundred men or more would be in the water together."

Wealthy monasteries often could pipe in water and have baths as well. Some monastic rules suggest that monks did not take regular baths. The monks of Westminster Abbey, for example, were required to have a bath four times a year: at Christmas, Easter, the end of June, and the end of September. It is hard to know if these rules were being followed, or if they were intended to mean that the monks could only bathe then. We do know, however, that Westminster Abbey employed a bath-attendent who was paid daily two loaves of bread, as well as a stipend of £1 per year, which seems to indicate his services were regularly used.

For most people, having a private bath was not an option - it was simply too costly and too time-consuming to have their own baths. That does not mean they went without bathing, for public baths were very common throughout Europe. By the thirteenth-century one could find over 32 bathhouses in Paris; Alexander Neckham, who lived in that city a century earlier, says that he would be awakened in the mornings by people crying in the streets that 'that baths are hot!"

In Southwark, the town on the opposite side of the Thames River from London, a person could choose from 18 hot baths. Even smaller towns would have bathhouses, often connected with the local bakery - the baths could make use of the heat coming from their ovens to help heat their water.

In her book Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity Virginia Smith explains,"By the fifteenth-century, bath feasting in many town bathhouses seems to have been as common as going out to a restaurant was to become four centuries later. German bath etchings from the fifteenth century often feature the town bathhouse, with a long row of bathing couples eating a meal naked in bathtubs, often several to a tub, with other couples seen smiling in beds in the mid-distance."

Public bathhouses were very popular throughout medieval Europe but they also raised controversy as some objected to the fact that men and women could see and be with each other naked, and that this could lead to illicit sex. A thirteenth century church writer made this prohibition: "Hast thou washed thyself in the bath with thy wife and other women and seen them nude, and they thee? If thou hast, thou shouldst fast for three days on bread and water."

However, it seems that church officials had little influence on bathhouses in the Middle Ages. Medieval people, in fact, seems to have accepted that the bathhouse was not only a place to get clean and healthy, but it could also be a place where sex and prostitution could occur. The bathhouses in Southwark were called the Stews, and were largely seen to be just fronts for brothels. These practices were usually overlooked by local authorities, who believed that it was best to allow some level of sexual outlets for its young men, otherwise risk more serious problems.

The prominence of the public bathhouse went into rapid decline in the sixteenth-century. Several suggestions have been made to as why - were more puritanical religious people able to impose their moral values on the community, or were the diseases that struck Europe since the Black Death convincing people from to avoid them. The disease of syphilis, which broke out in Europe the late fifteenth-century, would have also motivated people to stop their sexual promiscuity, thus reducing the other reasons for having a bathhouse.

The Dutch philosopher Erasmus, writing in 1526, notes the fall of the public bathhouse. "Twenty-five years ago, nothing was more fashionable in Brabant than the public baths," he remarked. "Today there are none, the new plague has taught us to avoid them."
Sources
Archibald, Elizabeth, "Did Knights Have Baths? The Absence of Bathing in Middle English Romance," Cultural Encounters In The Romance Of Medieval England, edited by Corinne Saunders (Boydell, 2005)

Caskey, Jill, "Steam and "Sanitas" in the Domestic Realm: Baths and Bathing in Southern Italy in the Middle Ages," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 58, No. 2 (1999)

Harvey, Barbara, Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience (Clarendon Press, 1993)

Holmes, Urban Tigner, Daily Life in the Twelfth-Century (University of Wisconsin Press, 1952)

Lucas, A.T., "Washing and Bathing in Ancient Ireland," The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 95, No. 1/2 (1965)

Newman, Paul B., Daily Life in the Middle Ages (McFarland and Co., 2001)

Smith, Virginia, Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (Oxford University Press, 2007)

van Dam, Fabiola I., "Permeable Boundaries: Bodies, Bathing and FLuxes, 1135-1333," Medicine and Space: Body, Surroundings and Borders in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Patricia Baker (Brill, 2012)

van Winter, Johanna Maria, "Medieval Opinions about Food and Drinking in Connection with Bathing," Spices and Comfits: Collected Papers on Medieval Food (Prospect Books, 2007)

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Did people in the Middle Ages take baths? - Medievalists.net

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It is often thought that medieval men and women did not care too much about personal hygiene or keeping clean. One nineteenth-century historian writing about daily life in the Middle Ages commented that there were no baths for a thousand years.

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This site displays pictures, names, and descriptions of Medieval instruments. LF

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Chalumeau
A simple rustic reed-pipe, an ancestor of the clarinet, with 6 to 8 finger-holes.

chalumeau sound http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/mshawm.wav
http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/renshawm.wav

Tambourine
The tambourine is a single headed frame drum consisting of a shallow ring of wood covered on one side with parchment. It usually had small metal discs (sometimes bells) arranged singly or in pairs hanging loosely in openings in the shell.

Finger Cymbals
Finger cymbals have been known since antiquity, perhaps from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. They are played in pairs, sometimes one in each hand, and often in one hand, one held on the thumb and the other on either the index or middle finger. They are used to accompany dances, and sometimes held by the dancers themselves.

Drum
Drums along with other percussion instruments were probably among the earliest instruments. There is evidence that the first drums consisted of naturally hollow tree trunks covered at one or both ends with the skins of water animals, fish, or reptiles. Later, skins of hunted game and cattle were used. Drum bodies could be of wood, metal, earthenware, or bone. The head or heads could be fastened by glue, nails, or laced or lapped to the body of the drum. Sometimes there would be the hoop tensioned by rope.

finger cymbal accompaniment sound http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/f_cymbal.wav

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Erica Annis, Rosemary Stahl, Sharon Coll

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Chalumeau A simple rustic reed-pipe, an ancestor of the clarinet, with 6 to 8 finger-holes. chalumeau sound http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/mshawm.wav http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/renshawm.wav Tambourine The tambourine is a single headed frame drum consisting of a shallow ring of wood covered on one side with parchment.

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The original BAMF: Hildegard von Bingen 

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The original BAMF: Hildegard von Bingen 

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This legendary multi-talented woman rose above her station and wrote about theology, her literal visions from God, her love of plants, and her original music and plays
RG

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The Life of Hildegard von Bingen | Classical Music

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We take you through the extraordinary life of the 12-century nun, Hildegard von Bingen: her many talents, achievements and visions.

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Masterclasses Began in Medieval Times (Musical)

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Masterclasses Began in Medieval Times (Musical)

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In Medieval Times, Musicians were likely educated through workshops or masterclasses. One "Master Musician" would teach a group of musicians-to-be. HRW

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The role of the workshop in late medieval and early modern northern Europe (article) | Khan Academy

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Animals could be put on trial for crimes (Bad) 

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Animals could be put on trial for crimes (Bad) 

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Animals in the Middle Ages could be put on trial for secular suits against individual creatures and ecclesiastic against groups of vermin. Some animals were even punished with excommunication despite being unlikely candidates for Catholicism.

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In 1386, in the old Norman city of Falaise, a " vast and motley" crowd gathered to witness the execution of a convicted murderer. Spectators donned their best velvet and feathers, the prisoner was given a new suit for the occasion, and an artist memorialized the scene in fresco. For more than 400 years (until its careless destruction in 1820 by a whitewasher), the west wall of the town church was a testament to that day's incredible proceedings: the aforementioned criminal was a pig, which "had indulged in the evil propensity of eating infants on the street" and was sentenced to be maimed in the head and forelegs prior to hanging.

Although we often think of strange lawsuits as an American pastime, medieval Europe has the U.S. beat. For centuries, the courts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and other nearby countries tried pigs, dogs, rats, grasshoppers, and snails for crimes against people, property, and God. These animal trials were of two kinds: (1) secular suits against individual creatures who had maimed or killed humans; and (2) ecclesiastic cases against vermin like mice and locusts, who were excommunicated for their grain-related crimes. Ever since then, scholars have been trying to figure out why these bizarre proceedings happened at all: As William Ewald once wrote, "Nobody knows what they were for, and nobody has ever known."

The most exhaustive tome on the topic, authored by E. P. Evans, is the Chronological List of the Prosecution of Animals from the Ninth to the Twentieth Century, which details 196 cases from 14 countries. According to the lawyer and legal historian Hampton L. Carson, whose The Trial of Animals and Insects described the final moments of the sow of Falaise, "This wide distribution of time and territory shows how persistent and prevalent the practice was, and corrects any notion of its being due to local passion or territorial superstition. The most numerous cases were in France, but this is due to a more careful study of ancient records by French antiquarians than by those of other nations."

In December of 1457, France was again the scene of a bloody murder-this time in Savigny, where a sow had turned to violence with six piglets in tow. After all seven pigs were caught in the act, they were imprisoned and eventually brought to trial. Esther Cohen, the author of Law, Folklore, and Animal Lore, notes that from the very beginning of the legal proceedings, it was clear the owner of the pig-though formally the defendant-was accused only of negligence and faced no actual punishment for the killing of five-year-old Jehan Martin; the sow, on the other hand, faced the death sentence. After hearing testimony and consulting with men wise in local law, the judge sentenced the porcine criminal to hanging by her hind legs, in accordance with the custom in Burgundy. The six piglets escaped death since no one could prove they participated in the crime, though they were found covered in blood.

The judge, lawyers, councilors, and hangmen took the cases as seriously as they would any other murder.

When all was decided, the court called a professional hangman to carry out the sentence. In all instances of recorded animal trials, the judge, lawyers, councilors, and hangmen took the cases as seriously as they would any other murder. In Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach, the historian Peter Dinzelbacher argues that the use of traditional court employees rather than ones appointed specifically for animal trials is the "foremost proof" of how serious these proceedings were. Judges, bailiffs, and the rest "did not officiate for nothing," and jailers "charged the same daily rates for a pig's board as for that of a human prisoner." (The hangman in the case of Falaise, it turns out, is still owed for both the execution and a purchase of new gloves.)

The pig trials of Falaise and Savigny were typical secular animal trials, both in location and time period. Additionally, pigs "[seemed] to have accounted for the deaths of many unattended infants" and were common culprits, though records also show bloodthirsty cows, horses, and dogs. Most of all, Cohen concludes, "the [Savigny] trial is typical in its painstaking insistence upon the observance of legal custom and proper judicial procedure."

Comparisons have also been made with cases brought against witches as well as with cases brought against inanimate objects or effigies. Though trials against individual animals usually did not involve the premise of possession or other demonic activity, an 1474 execution of a cock was somewhat of an exception. The bird, a citizen of Basle, was facing death for laying an egg; sources disagree as to whether the egg would become a basilisk or a cockatrice, but both options were unwelcome, and the cock was put to death. "Though the belief in the basilisk was age-old," Cohen writes, "it occurred to no one actually to execute a living cock before the fifteenth century."

Dinzelbacher believes a proper understanding of animal trials necessitates an understanding of several unique factors present in the late Middle Ages. The time period was one of crisis, "when extreme measures to ensure law and order were held to be necessary." He notes that such trials took place "only under extremely unusual circumstances in order to help the local community cope with an otherwise recalcitrant threat-not because they were proven to work but because they created the impression that the authorities were assiduously maintaining law and order in a cooperative and decided manner, even if the delinquents were not human beings." They were by no means an invention of the Dark Ages, instead taking place primarily between the thirteenth century and the Enlightenment, though there are modern cases, like that of a Macedonian bear convicted in 2008 of stealing honey from a beekeeper.

Despite being unlikely candidates for Catholicism, vermin were punished with excommunication.

While domestic animals like pigs, foxes, wolves, goats, asses, bulls, cows, dogs, horses, and sheep fell under the jurisdiction of civil and criminal courts and would have been summarily executed by hanging or burning after a guilty verdict, ecclesiastical tribunals handled all vermin, from field mice, rats, and moles to bugs, beetles, eels, leeches, locusts, serpents, snails, termites, weevils, and worms. Despite being unlikely candidates for Catholicism, such creatures were punished with excommunication, not execution. This distinction is held because "rodents and insects were not the subject of human control, and could not be seized and imprisoned by the civil authorities." Hence, it became necessary to appeal to the intervention of the Church.

For vermin trials, the procedure was often as follows: A town or district that found itself plagued by animals would launch an investigation. An advocate would be named to defend the pests should grounds for bringing them to trial be found sufficient. A summons would then be served by a court official who would read it-in a loud and solemn voice-"at such places as the animals frequented." The animals would have three opportunities to appear in court and plead their case; if they lost, which they usually did, they would be asked to leave the district within a certain period of time. Inability to show up for sentencing and adhere to its resolution resulted in an unlikely punishment: excommunication.

Why the Church involved itself thusly is up for debate, but the economist Peter T. Leeson has an interesting theory. In " Vermin Trials," an article appearing in a journal of law and economics, Leeson posits that the Catholic Church used ecclesiastic animal trials to increase tithe revenue in areas of high tithe evasion. The trials, Leeson argues, "achieved this by bolstering citizens' belief in the validity of Church punishments for tithe evasion: estrangement from God through sin, excommunication, and anathema."

In the sixteenth century, the citizens of Autun, France accused local rats of feloniously eating and wantonly destroying their barley crop. In the 15th, a species of beetle called an "inger" found itself under fire for devastating the fields of Berne, Switzerland. That same century, a lawsuit was brought against flies in Mainz, Germany. "Ecclesiastic judges showed impressive fairness toward vermin in such trials," Leeson writes; when the flies refused to appear in court after being justly summoned, the court took pity on their small size and young age and appointed them more adequate defense counsel to prevent further no-shows. Communities often sued pests collectively, as well: "in 1659," Leeson writes, "the Italian communes of Chiavenna, Mese, Gordona, Prada, and Samolico banded together to prosecute caterpillars they charged with trespassing on and damaging their fields."

Leeson's economic analysis would explain why judges "used excommunication and anathema to punish creatures that were never communicated in the first place." It also brings sense to the vermin trials' geographic distribution (France, Italy, Switzerland) as well as their occurring primarily in the 15th through 17th centuries. Vermin trials, Leeson argues, were based on a superstition that took hold because the time period's knowledge of pests and how to control them was poor. Pesticides available during those centuries included "sprinkling weasel ashes or water in which a cat had been bathed over fields to drive away mice; capturing a rodent, castrating it, and releasing it among other rodents to deter them; putting castor oil plants in afflicted fields to drive away moles; and hanging garlic around flock leaders' necks to protect sheep from wolves." An ecclesiastical trial, compared against such remedies, does not sound altogether unsound. Call it divine pesticide.

Leeson's theory also ties in with witchcraft and heresy, and his article includes a chart that shows vermin trials mapped against witch trials.

Like vermin, the mystery of animal trials has long plagued us-or, at least, it has long plagued medievalists and historians of law. The trials have been called exaggerations or the results of bad record-keeping, parodied in the seventeenth century by the great French dramatist Racine, whose Les Plaideurs follows a dog tried for stealing a capon. Accelerating right when man was supposed to have discovered logic and then mysteriously dying down, the trials don't line up with how we view our own history.

They also continue to this day, mostly in remote areas where Catholicism maintains an influence. Cohen believes that though they "settled no disputes and kept no peace," the trials were important in other ways. They defined our relationship with animals and reaffirmed our judicial rights over the world, logical and illogical. Through the lens of history, they teach us that one century's quest for rational order is another's bizarre fact.

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When Societies Put Animals on Trial - JSTOR Daily

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In 1386, in the old Norman city of Falaise, a " vast and motley" crowd gathered to witness the execution of a convicted murderer. Spectators donned their best velvet and feathers, the prisoner was given a new suit for the occasion, and an artist memorialized the scene in fresco.

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Medieval Friars had gut parasites (bad and ugly)

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Medieval Friars had gut parasites (bad and ugly)

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Despite having clean water and sanitation, many friars from medieval times were recently found with gut parasites by archaeologists. The reason- they fertilized their crops with their feces. MB

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In medieval times, you could do a lot worse than being a friar.

Friars lived in stone complexes, with lush gardens full of fresh fruits and vegetables to enjoy - far healthier than the mushy, boiled porridge concoctions the average peasant ate for dinner every night.

They also had access to proper latrines with running water, while peasants relieved themselves in bowls or outdoor cesspits.

And yet, a new study published in the International Journal of Paleopathology has found medieval friars were riddled with gut parasites - almost twice as many as those of everyday folks.

"That really surprised us," lead author Piers Mitchell, a University of Cambridge archeologist, told As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner.

"The basic levels of sanitation and cleanliness in a typical friary or monastery should, in theory, have been a lot better than we would find in the peasants who were living in the town."

You are what you eat

For the study, Mitchell and his colleagues examined the remains of 19 people unearthed at a medieval Augustinian friary in Cambridge, U.K., and compared them to 25 bodies buried in a nearby parish cemetery.

But instead of studying the bones directly, the researchers examined the soil on and around the pelvises, where intestines would have once been.

"When they decompose, any intestine or parasitic worms that would have been in those intestines, their eggs would still be left in the soil that we can study using microscopy," Mitchell said.

Of those buried in parish cemetery, 32 per cent had intestinal parasites - specifically roundworms and whipworms - which Mitchell says is about on par with what experts would expect for medieval populations in Europe. But among the Augustinians, 58 per cent had the intestinal worms.

Even those numbers are likely an underestimation. The study notes some traces of worm eggs in the pelvic sediment would have been destroyed over time by insects and fungi.

"If it's to do with sanitation, and if the monks and the friars had toilets and better sanitary setup, then it may be the way they were manoeuvring their crops that would explain it," Mitchell said.

Mitchell and his colleagues theorize the friars would have used their own feces to fertilize their vast crops, as was common practice at the time, thereby regularly re-infecting themselves again and again with parasites.

The average peasant, by contrast, would have only had a small garden plot - if they were lucky enough to have any agriculture at all.

What's more, medieval Europe's poorest people, he said, most commonly ate a food called pottage - a kind of stew or porridge of grains, cereals, herbs and root vegetables boiled into a mush and served with bread.

The friars, on the other hand, were munching on fresh salads full of uncooked produce.

"And so cooking ... is much more likely to kill off parasites than if you were to have fresh fruit and fresh vegetables and salads and so on," Mitchell said.

They didn't know what they didn't know

Nowadays, the World Health Organization recommends that human feces used as fertilizer be composted for six months beforehand. That way, most parasites will die off.

But, of course, medieval friars would have no way of knowing that.

Mitchell says there's plenty of evidence that folks in medieval times knew they had gut parasites. Medical texts from that period describe them in detail. What they didn't know, he said, is where they came from.

"They had no idea that feces could spread parasitic worms. They thought these worms were spread or created by an imbalance of the four humors that people had in their bodies, as they understood medicine at that time - phlegm, black bile, yellow bile and blood. And if they were out of balance or had too much of one of those, then diseases happened," he said.

Lessons for the present

Findings like these, he says, not only shed light on how people used to live, but also help us "understand the benefits of all the modern health care that we have today."

"A lot of people take health for granted and say, 'Oh, we don't need vaccinations or we don't need hand-washing and I don't need to bother washing myself or cleaning my teeth,' or this kind of stuff," he said.

"If you study populations in the medieval period ... you start to see evidence for all these diseases that we take for granted as being really rare or not affecting us today. And it does highlight the importance of taking those basic things to keep yourself healthy, not only at home, but also when you travel to parts of the world that don't have the luxuries of good sanitation that we're all used to."
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Kate McGillivray.

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Medieval friars had fresh food and clean water. So why were they riddled with gut parasites? | CBC Radio

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In medieval times, you could do a lot worse than being a friar. Friars lived in stone complexes, with lush gardens full of fresh fruits and vegetables to enjoy - far healthier than the mushy, boiled porridge concoctions the average peasant ate for dinner every night.

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Why don't priests get married? (bad kind of?) 

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Why don't priests get married? (bad kind of?) 

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This article discusses why marriage among priests was outlawed in the middle ages. Some priests felt as though they weren't real men and they were being humiliated because they had to be celibate. Interesting when considered that nuns had to be sworn celibate and didn't react this way. CM

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Among the issues that the current-day Roman Catholic Church is debating are whether or not priests should marry, and how accepting they should be of homosexuals. Interestingly, about nine hundred years ago both of these issues were intertwined in the Anglo-Norman world.

During the early Middle Ages clerical marriage was not allowed in theory, but widely accepted in practice. If a priest did marry, the marriage itself was considered valid. However, in the eleventh-century church reformers pressed hard for any form of clerical marriage to be abolished with strict penalties for those who refused to accept the new laws.

One of the main battlegrounds between pro and anti-marriage forces was in the Anglo-Norman kingdom. It is the topic of a recent paper by Jennifer Thibodeaux, entitled 'The defence of clerical marriage: Religious identity and masculinity in the writings of Anglo-Norman clerics." She examines four treatises written between the late 1070s and 1110 that support the pro-marriage viewpoint.

The arguments they lay out in favour of clerical marriage include noting that this is a long-held practice and that preventing priests to have wives would make them susceptible to more grievous sexual sins. They also point to various Biblical passages to reinforce their position. As one writer asks, "Why are we, who are made from the same matter and assume the sin of the flesh from Adam's sin, not allowed to have wives?"

These writers go on to assert that being married was an essential part of the manliness of a priest. To be forced into celibacy was an assault on their honour and a kind of public humiliation. One letter between two groups of clerics adds that ban on marriage has resulted in them losing the respect of the community: "we have fallen into the contempt of our neighbours, and we have become a source of derision and mockery to those around us."

However, much of the writings by the pro-marriage clerics is actually centred on homosexual behaviour - not only do they fear being celibate will lead to this, but they also claim that those in favour of the reform are active homosexuals.

Thibodeaux writes:
The Cambrai clergy noted that the advocates of celibacy 'detest marriage because they practice with impiety and without respect a vice both abominable and without name', here referring to sodomy. Both Serlo of Bayeux and the anonymous author of 'We married clergy' reveal this very perception that while reformers portrayed a clerical marriage as an abomination, the same reformers turned a blind eye to sodomy, the 'unnatural' offence, and allowed it to run rampant without prosecution. Serlo wrote the the 'men who live the shameful, obscene lives of sodomites,' created the laws against clerical marriage. He accused reformers of banning what was lawful (clerical marriage) and hiding what was "a kind of sickness which might cause a grievous end to the human race.' The author of 'We married clergy' uses similar language to express disgust at the acceptance of sodomy while married clerics were persecuted. Like other writers of his time, he defends his argument by recourse to a 'natural order', saying that 'this response rightly takes account of the laws of nature: if no one propagated, if no man procreated, everything would come to an end ... you are driven by a lust which all of nature abhors'. He goes further than Serlo by directly positing procreative sex as oppositional to sodomy, the former marking manliness while the latter rendered one 'a half man, an effeminate'.
It is difficult to note how valid the accusations against reformers were - it would be easy for the pro-marriage forces to tarnish the reputations of those trying to end the practice by accusing them of being sinners as well. However, Thibodeaux also notes that they might have been justified in complaining that while clerical marriage was being eradicated, homosexual practices were being allowed to go unpunished. "A survey of Anglo-Norman regional ecclesiastical councils from 1072 to 1128 shows that there was no legislation created against sodomy, with the exception of Anselm [Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109]'s 1102 Westminster decree, which may have not been published. In contrast, many of these councils contained some measure against clerical marriage. The monastic William of Malmesbury, writing in 1125, made a rather curious statement that 'the rule about sodomites being excommunicated every Sunday Anselm himself later changed, for good reasons; but that only encouraged the evil to break the other rules more freely.'"

In the end, the arguments made by the pro-marriage supporters failed to get acceptance by the Roman Catholic church, and by the mid-twelfth century the practice of priests being allowed to marry was stamped out (however, many priests would continue to have concubines, often with the acceptance of their parishioners). The next couple of centuries would also see harsher measures enacted against homosexual practices as well.

The article, 'The defence of clerical marriage: Religious identity and masculinity in the writings of Anglo-Norman clerics" appears in Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages, edited by P.H. Cullum and Katherine J. Lewis. The book includes 11 articles that explores masculinity and religion during the medieval period.

Jennifer Thibodeaux teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She has also edited the book Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages.

Amazon.com Widgets Amazon.com Widgets

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Gay Reformers? Why the Medieval Church Banned Priests from Marrying - Medievalists.net

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Among the issues that the current-day Roman Catholic Church is debating are whether or not priests should marry, and how accepting they should be of homosexuals. Interestingly, about nine hundred years ago both of these issues intertwined in the Anglo-Norman world.

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Women's lives in Medieval Ages (mostly bad) 

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Women's lives in Medieval Ages (mostly bad) 

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Women did not have much say about the direction of their lives unless they were wealthy/ had power. The bible had some say in how a woman should lead her life. LF

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This article goes through the High and Late Middle Ages reviewing fashion at that time and comparing it to todays fashion. They also explain what each type of clothing item represents. TP

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wikimedia commons; public domain

The Evolution of Fashion

In the High and Late Middle Ages, European clothing began to evolve into what we think of today as fashion. The cut, shape, style, and decoration of clothing changed at a much faster pace than in the Early Middle Ages (sometimes known as the Dark Ages), when styles varied little over time. While we think of fashion changes occurring from year to year, the clothing designs of the Late Middle Ages changed from generation to generation.

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Fashion History of the High and Late Middle Ages: Medieval Clothing

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In the high and late Middle Ages, attractive styles became more available to a new middle class. Clothing styles changed more quickly due to new technology, Eastern influences, and a better economy.

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entertainment in the medieval period (musical)

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entertainment in the medieval period (musical)

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During the medieval period, entertainment played a big role in everyday life. Music, dance, and theatrics were the main source of entertainment at this time.
(HT)

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Other entertainers would come through as well, including jugglers, acrobats and those with trained animals. These were the early origins of traveling circuses. Traveling puppet shows were common as well.

Card, dice and guessing games were popular. The noble classes began to play new games like chess and backgammon that were brought back from the Orient during this period.

Vikings swept in from the north to England, Scotland, Denmark, Germany and northern Gaul.

Music

Musical Form describes the organization of sound. A template or blueprint supplies us with the outline necessary to complete a document or build a house. Composers use form to build a song. Form is a musical blueprint that helps the composer put his sounds together in different ways. The song can be simple or complicated depending on the choices the composer makes.

Form is not limited to something that we see with our eyes. We can also hear forms with our ears. When you are able to hear patterns in music, you are beginning to understand form.

One of the most popular musical forms during The Middle Ages was the rondo, which is based the French poetry form called Rondeau. The French poetry style features a quintet, a quatrain and a sestet.

Medieval Instruments

Chalumeau: A simple rustic reed pipe, an ancestor of the clarinet, with 6 to 8 finger holes. Very similar in design to the Pocket Clarinet.

Dulcimer: A shallow, closed box over which are stretched wires to be struck with 2 wooden hammers held in the player's hands.

Flute: A woodwind instrument of ancient origin formerly made of wood. From Medieval times two methods of producing sound were used: blowing across a round mouth hole as on the panpipes (side blown) flute, or blowing into a whistle mouthpiece (end blown) as on the recorder.

Harp: The Harp can be simply described as an open frame over which is stretched a graduated series of strings, which are vibrated by plucking with the fingers.

Lute: A fretted stringed instrument played by plucking with fingers. The lute has a round body, like a halved pear, a flat neck with seven or more frets, and a separate pegbox usually bent back from the neck at an angle.

Lyre: An ancient Greek instrument, like a small harp in which strings were fixed to a cross-bar between two arms and plucked by fingers or plectrum.

Mandolin: A plucked instrument of the lute family, usually with 8 strings tuned in pairs and played with a plectrum, generally in a sustained tremolo.

Pan Pipes: An ancestor of the flute, this instrument is a series (usually four to twelve) of short vertical pipes of wood, cane or pottery fixed side by side and graduated in length to give the pitches of the different notes. The player blows across the open ends.

Recorder: A woodwind instrument of ancient lineage, made without a reed. The recorder is the forerunner of the flute, but is end blown through a whistle mouthpiece. It has seven finger holes in front and one thumb hole behind, and a beak shaped mouthpiece.

In Flanders Fields

A rondo using the AABBA format found in Rondeau.In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

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Entertainment | Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament

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Other entertainers would come through as well, including jugglers, acrobats and those with trained animals. These were the early origins of traveling circuses. Traveling puppet shows were common as well. Card, dice and guessing games were popular. The noble classes began to play new games like chess and backgammon that were brought back from the Orient during this period.

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Animals could be put on trial during the middle ages for wrongdoings just like humans could. I find this to be a wonderful way of handling strife within the animal kingdom and firmly believe we should bring it back.
LG

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In A Nutshell

An amazing, and seemingly superstitious, part of the legal systems throughout the medieval period in Europe involved the question of how animals should be treated by the law. Animals of all kinds, from pigs to birds to insects, were sometimes put on trial-just like people. A fascinating 1906 book, called The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, gives us a window into this little-known aspect of the medieval world, where animals were granted public defenders and legal papers were left where they would conveniently find them.

The Whole Bushel

Medieval animal trials mostly took place in Western Europe and from the late medieval to early modern period. To understand this practice, it's useful to know how legal proceedings involving animals were separated. Domesticated animals-considered members of their owner's household-were handled by civil authorities, while vermin (who could not be seized and imprisoned) were dealt with by the church.

In the latter cases, animals "appeared" before ecclesiastical courts, who determined a course of action. For example, was a locust swarm was an act of God (not to be interfered with) or possession by demons or evil spirits? If an animal tried by the Church was involved in murder, it was turned over to secular courts if guilty, the way heretics were.

Since possession was part of the typical worldview among medieval men and women, it isn't surprising that this was reflected in legal proceedings.

Animal prosecution had connections to scripture based upon Old Testament admonitions to stone oxen that had killed (Exodus 21:28), but there were also secular factors. Because they were a part of daily life, medieval law had to determine how animals fit into a legal framework, how disputes involving animals were resolved, how victims of someone's animal were compensated, and so on. Many trials were attempts by institutions to assert order and keep control.

One 1386 trial involved a sow accused of murder. The pig had partially eaten a child who was sleeping, who died thereafter. Found guilty, it has been said that the sow was dressed in male clothing, given an armed escort, and was mutilated with a knife before being hung, although there is no evidence for the embellishments beyond the fact of the execution.

Another case involved Bartholomew Chassenee, an important legal figure in French law. He defended the rats of Auten, who were devastating crops. Chassenee hit upon a brilliant argument for the rat's failure to show in court, and it formed the basis for legal standards in use today.

Chassenee argued that the "non-appearance of his clients [should be excused] . . . on the ground of the length and difficulty of the journey, and the serious perils that attended it, owing to the unwearied vigilance of their mortal enemies, the cats, who watched all their movements, and with fell intent, lay in wait for them at every corner and passage."

Chassenee used variations of this defense to successfully defend human clients.

Bizarrely, rats and other vermin were sometimes served a "writ of ejection." To ensure that the papers were perused by rodents, they were greased (to provide an attractive odor), rolled up, and placed within rat holes. This practice continued throughout Europe and parts of the United States until at least 1892.

Sometimes, simple revenge against animals was to blame. Egbert, Bishop of Trier, issued an anathema against swallows because they had a habit of "chirping and chattering, and [they] sacrilegiously defiled his head and vestments with their droppings when he was officiating at the altar."

Superstition was a factor, as when roosters were accused of laying eggs. In 1474, a rooster was actually executed for this crime.

One of the longest animal trials documented was brought before Francois Bonnivard against a species of green weevil, which was devastating vineyards throughout a region of France. The defense maintained that, as God created all things, and supplied food not just for humans, but also for animals, the court must consider the insect's affairs.

The Church decided to exorcise the insects and insisted that villagers help maintain harmony (and pay their tithes). According to accounts, the insects departed.

Here the Church used the animal world and the law to exert control and influence over earthly affairs, including filling the holy coffers.

But 30 years later, the insects returned. This time, the case went to trial. The defense remained, but the plaintiff insisted that the land and lower creatures were subordinate to man and that it was therefore permissible to order them off land set aside for his use. After a drawn-out case, a plot was picked for the weevils' use-if the advocate approved.

Unfortunately, the advocate wasn't satisfied. How did it end? We don't know. The last pages of the documentation were eaten by insects!

Show Me The Proof

The criminal prosecution and capital punishment of animals, by E.P. Evans
Executed Today: The Sow of Falaise, seeing justice done

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When Animals Were Put On Trial In The Middle Ages

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An amazing, and seemingly superstitious, part of the legal systems throughout the medieval period in Europe involved the question of how animals should be treated by the law. Animals of all kinds, from pigs to birds to insects, were sometimes put on trial---just like people.

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In the middle ages, the lower class (peasants) consisted of freemen, serfs, and slaves. Freemen had limited rights to property and were just poor farmers. Serfs were basically slaves who weren't bought/sold, and slaves were... well, slaves. (TH)

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There was a very distinctive social class system during the Middle Ages. Most Medieval people were peasants, over 90%, but the divide between peasants and nobility was very clear-cut. Clergy were also an important part of the social order during the Middle Ages, though they were not necessarily considered a separate class.

Royalty

The Royalty were the highest of the Social Classes in the Middle Ages. The Royalty included Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses. Royals had complete power over the land and political and economic decisions during the Middle Ages.
Kings
The King was the highest authority in the land. The King had to make laws, attempt to remove poverty from the Kingdom and take care of the citizens in his kingdom.
Queens
Though they did not often rule alone, Queens played an important part in the Medieval class system. Queens were usually second in command to Kings, and often served as regents when their King was unfit to rule, either because he was ill or considered too young to make intelligent decisions. Queens also served as hostesses and event planners.
Princes
Depending on their birth order, a prince may have been next in line for the throne when his father died. Princes most likely sat in on courtly meetings.
Princesses
Princesses were not usually next in line for the throne unless there was no male heir who could take the place on the throne that was being left. Princesses were oftentimes married off to princes in other countries in order to secure long lasting friendly economic and political ties with those countries. Sometimes this was successful, but more often than not it backfired.

Nobility

After the Royals, Nobility had the most power of the social classes in the Middle Ages. Nobility included hereditary nobility, which were those whose power was bestowed on them through blood relations, and non-hereditary nobility, which included those who rose to power through non-familial means.

Hereditary Nobility
Dukes
The main responsibility of a Duke was to be the ruler of a province. A Duke was also the direct superior of a Count. The Duke was the highest ranking in the nobility. The female equivalent of a Duke was a Duchess.
Barons
A baron was responsible first to his king and second to the people who lived on his manor. The king might require the baron to serve in the military or engage in various other activities. By complying with the King's requirements the Baron was possibly able to earn a higher title, more land, or prosperous marriages for his children and other family members.

If he did not comply, the baron could lose his manor, his luxurious lifestyle, or maybe even his life. As a percentage of each manor's crops was sent to the King, a baron also had to make sure that all of the serfs on his estate was protected in order to ensure that a plentiful crop was produced. A baron also sometimes served as judges in a court of crime or passed out sentences in court.

Non-Hereditary Nobility
Knights
Knights often served as vassals during the Middle Ages. Their primary duty as a vassal was to aid and protect the lord in his army. They also would assist their lord in court and watch over their lord's manor, keeping an eye on the day-to-day activities of the manor.
Peasants
The lowest social rank in the Middle Ages were the peasants. The peasant class included Freemen, who had some rights and land, serfs, who had no rights, and slaves, who were bought and sold.
Freemen
Freeman were poor farmers who had control of small portions of land. Freeman usually made just enough money to live on. They sold their crops and may have worked with a trade. Wives of freeman sometimes did "stay-at-home" trades, such as brewing ale.
Serfs
Serfs had no political power and were not allowed having control of property. They lived on the property of a noble vassal, and, in order to repay the vassal for letting the serf live on his property, the serf worked the land and was at the disposal of the vassal. Serfs were slaves in all but name.
Slaves
Slavery, the practice of buying and selling human workers, was outlawed for much of the Middle Ages, but it was still conducted throughout Europe for most of the time period. Slavery was a favored practice among the Vikings, who took slaves when they invaded and raided new territories.
Clergy
The clergy was not considered one of the social classes of the Middle Ages, but it did play an important and influential role at the time and did have a hierarchy of its own. The Pope was, naturally, at the top of the order, while nuns and monks were at the lowest end.
Popes
For much of the Middle Ages, Popes were the last word in anything to do with the church. Popes had a heavy influence over political and economic decisions as well for a time. However, towards the end of the Middle Ages Popes lost their political power when the Catholic Church came under a lot of scrutiny from the public.
Bishops
After the Pope, the Bishop was the highest ranking official in the church. Bishops were considered to be nobility and were usually very wealthy. They had many responsibilities such as settling annulments of marriages.
Priests
Priests gave Mass in Church and in the Castle. They were also responsible for collecting church taxes and spreading alms to the poor. Because they were usually the only people in the village who could read and write, priests often were the ones who kept records for the church.
Monks
Monks were the lowest ranking in the church. Monks lived in monasteries and usually wore brown robes. Monks devoted their lives to learning and they could usually read and write in Latin. Some of the first Bibles were scribed by monks as the printing press had not yet been invented.

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Social Classes in the Middle Ages - The Finer Times

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There was a very distinctive social class system during the Middle Ages. Most Medieval people were peasants, over 90%, but the divide between peasants and nobility was very clear-cut. Clergy were also an important part of the social order during the Middle Ages, though they were not necessarily considered a separate class.

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Pale faces and pink lips were seen as the "epitome of beauty" in this time period, so many women created versions of lipstick and foundation to fit this idea. They got creative with their concoctions and often made cosmetics out of wheat flour and colorful foods. - CR

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beauty,
health &
hygiene

general
healthcare
skincare

cosmetics

body hair

cleanliness,
bathing &
perfumes

hair care

hair styles

oral care
& dentistry

intimate
feminine
hygiene

Medieval Cosmetics
FOUNDATION - EYELINER & EYESHADOW - LIP BALM - ROUGE

Many debate the use of cosmetics to enhance the female appearance during medieval times, but there is a considerable amount of evidence for make-up during this period.

The statue at right is dated at 1350 and shows a well-made up woman, her skin fashionably pale with plucked eyebrows, high hairline and round forehead and a rosy glow which could not be due to anything other than a generous amount of rouge. We could suspect that this was just artistic endeavours to make an attractive sculpture, but written records also support the use of cosmetics for the medieval woman.

Respectibility
Opinions varied even between members of the clergy as to the respectability of wearing cosmetics. It was felt that it was generally not a desired state, although it was mentioned that women who had been afflicted with illness and were thereby made unattractive, were excused from the sin of vanity by using cosmetics.

The desire to not repel others or their husbands was deemed an acceptable excuse for enhancement.

Thomas of Aquinas was questioned about the use of cosmetics by woman and also grudgingly conceded that for a woman to make herself as attractive as possible to her husband so that he might not stray into the sin of adultery was itself not a sin, however, it was cautioned that a woman should not make herself so beautiful that she should attract other women's husbands.

Foundation
Studies have shown that women in England 'painted their faces white' to achieve a paler-looking complexion. Women often painted their faces with blaunchet or wheaten flour or used lead-filled cosmetics. It was assured that the root of the Madonna lily would whiten the face.

Research also suggests ground lily root made a powder for faces, although it does not specify what kind of lily was recommended. The Compendium Anglicus from 1240 written by Gilbertus Anglicus recommends cyclamen root.

One recipe for a flour-based cosmetic to whiten the face comes from the L'ornement des Dames in the 13th century. The method is as follows:

' There is a white make-up that is very easy to make. Put very pure wheat in water for fifteen days, then grind and blend it in the water. Strain through a cloth, and let it crystalise and evaporate. You will obtain a make-up which will be as white as snow. When you want to use it, mix it with rosewater, and spread it on your face which has first been washed with warm water. Then dry your face with a cloth.'

Eyeliner and eyeshadow
Many books say that eyecolours and eyeliner were available during the medieval period, and it is commonly known that since early antiquity, Egyptians, Spainish women and later the woman of the Rus at Staraya Ladoga in the 10th century were using eyeliner and eyeshadow.

Paintings and sculptures for the High Middle Ages like the one at left, show women with pale and unadorned eyes and eyebrows heavily plucked.

It would seem, therefore, that although the technology to produce eyeliner and eyeshadow was available, fashion dictated that it wasn't used.

Lip balms, lipsticks and stains
Lip tinctures and balms seem to be the lip treatments most commonly referred to.

One recipe for a medieval lip balm described as a ' sweet smelling grease that will keep the lips and hands from chapping and make them moist and soft' comes from the book Secrets of Don Alessio Piemontese, published in 1557.

'Take 12 oz of fresh suet and 6oz of marjoram and pound them together. Form into balls and sprinkle with good wine. Next put into some vessel and seal it tightly so that the odor of the marjoram does not escape. Place in the shade for 24 hours and then put into water. Cook slowly, then strain. This process must be repeated 4 or 5 times always adding another 9oz of suet. Finally a little musk or civet can be added.'

There appeared also available a lip stain in use, but I have no information about those at this point.

Rouge
The ground leaves of angelica, Angelica archangelica, were the principal ingredient for the manufacture of 'ladies' red powder'. Dried flowers of the safflower, Carthamum tinctorius, were also used in the making of rouge. In a poem by a monk of Montaudon from 1180-1215AD, the writer stated that the statues of the churches complain to God:

'that there is not enough paint left to adorn them because of all the ladies who use rouge and cream.'

The Compendium Anglicus from 1240 written by Gilbertus Anglicus, mentions brazilwood chips soaked in rosewater would give a clear, pink dye which can be rubbed on the cheeks. Shown at right is the Bust of Saint Juliana Circle of Giovanni di Bartolo dated 1375.

A 13th century French song described in Love Lock'd Out, A Survey of Love, Licence and Restriction in the Middle Ages by James Cleugh refers to a peddlar who carries for sale:

'razors, tweezers, looking glasses, toothbrushes and tooth-picks, bandaus and curling irons, ribbons, combs, mirrors, rosewater... cotton with which they rouge themselves and whitening with which they whiten themselves.'

showing the large range of grooming cosmetics and tools which were in use and available at the time.

Copyright © Rosalie Gilbert
All text & photographs within this site are the property of Rosalie Gilbert unless stated.
Art & artifact images remain the property of the owner.
Images and text may not be copied and used without permission.

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beauty, health & hygiene general healthcare skincare cosmetics body hair cleanliness, bathing & perfumes hair care hair styles oral care & dentistry intimate feminine hygiene Medieval Cosmetics FOUNDATION - EYELINER & EYESHADOW - LIP BALM - ROUGE Many debate the use of cosmetics to enhance the female appearance during medieval times, but there is a considerable amount of evidence for make-up during this period.

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How did everyone get down during the middle ages to disperse those plague blues? Every party had live music complete with drums, recorders, and lutes, and women would even get crazy and wear ribbons and their hair. Wine was bonteous. Parties were not limited by class so every class!
-LW

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The holiday season is upon us once again, which means that it’s time to get medieval and party like there’s no fifteenth century!

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Animals during the middle ages were tried and convicted for crimes against man, property, and God. In 1457 a pig and her six piglets were imprisoned after they became violent with an individual.
(MM)

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In 1386, in the old Norman city of Falaise, a " vast and motley" crowd gathered to witness the execution of a convicted murderer. Spectators donned their best velvet and feathers, the prisoner was given a new suit for the occasion, and an artist memorialized the scene in fresco. For more than 400 years (until its careless destruction in 1820 by a whitewasher), the west wall of the town church was a testament to that day's incredible proceedings: the aforementioned criminal was a pig, which "had indulged in the evil propensity of eating infants on the street" and was sentenced to be maimed in the head and forelegs prior to hanging.

Although we often think of strange lawsuits as an American pastime, medieval Europe has the U.S. beat. For centuries, the courts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and other nearby countries tried pigs, dogs, rats, grasshoppers, and snails for crimes against people, property, and God. These animal trials were of two kinds: (1) secular suits against individual creatures who had maimed or killed humans; and (2) ecclesiastic cases against vermin like mice and locusts, who were excommunicated for their grain-related crimes. Ever since then, scholars have been trying to figure out why these bizarre proceedings happened at all: As William Ewald once wrote, "Nobody knows what they were for, and nobody has ever known."

The most exhaustive tome on the topic, authored by E. P. Evans, is the Chronological List of the Prosecution of Animals from the Ninth to the Twentieth Century, which details 196 cases from 14 countries. According to the lawyer and legal historian Hampton L. Carson, whose The Trial of Animals and Insects described the final moments of the sow of Falaise, "This wide distribution of time and territory shows how persistent and prevalent the practice was, and corrects any notion of its being due to local passion or territorial superstition. The most numerous cases were in France, but this is due to a more careful study of ancient records by French antiquarians than by those of other nations."

In December of 1457, France was again the scene of a bloody murder-this time in Savigny, where a sow had turned to violence with six piglets in tow. After all seven pigs were caught in the act, they were imprisoned and eventually brought to trial. Esther Cohen, the author of Law, Folklore, and Animal Lore, notes that from the very beginning of the legal proceedings, it was clear the owner of the pig-though formally the defendant-was accused only of negligence and faced no actual punishment for the killing of five-year-old Jehan Martin; the sow, on the other hand, faced the death sentence. After hearing testimony and consulting with men wise in local law, the judge sentenced the porcine criminal to hanging by her hind legs, in accordance with the custom in Burgundy. The six piglets escaped death since no one could prove they participated in the crime, though they were found covered in blood.

The judge, lawyers, councilors, and hangmen took the cases as seriously as they would any other murder.

When all was decided, the court called a professional hangman to carry out the sentence. In all instances of recorded animal trials, the judge, lawyers, councilors, and hangmen took the cases as seriously as they would any other murder. In Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach, the historian Peter Dinzelbacher argues that the use of traditional court employees rather than ones appointed specifically for animal trials is the "foremost proof" of how serious these proceedings were. Judges, bailiffs, and the rest "did not officiate for nothing," and jailers "charged the same daily rates for a pig's board as for that of a human prisoner." (The hangman in the case of Falaise, it turns out, is still owed for both the execution and a purchase of new gloves.)

The pig trials of Falaise and Savigny were typical secular animal trials, both in location and time period. Additionally, pigs "[seemed] to have accounted for the deaths of many unattended infants" and were common culprits, though records also show bloodthirsty cows, horses, and dogs. Most of all, Cohen concludes, "the [Savigny] trial is typical in its painstaking insistence upon the observance of legal custom and proper judicial procedure."

Comparisons have also been made with cases brought against witches as well as with cases brought against inanimate objects or effigies. Though trials against individual animals usually did not involve the premise of possession or other demonic activity, an 1474 execution of a cock was somewhat of an exception. The bird, a citizen of Basle, was facing death for laying an egg; sources disagree as to whether the egg would become a basilisk or a cockatrice, but both options were unwelcome, and the cock was put to death. "Though the belief in the basilisk was age-old," Cohen writes, "it occurred to no one actually to execute a living cock before the fifteenth century."

Dinzelbacher believes a proper understanding of animal trials necessitates an understanding of several unique factors present in the late Middle Ages. The time period was one of crisis, "when extreme measures to ensure law and order were held to be necessary." He notes that such trials took place "only under extremely unusual circumstances in order to help the local community cope with an otherwise recalcitrant threat-not because they were proven to work but because they created the impression that the authorities were assiduously maintaining law and order in a cooperative and decided manner, even if the delinquents were not human beings." They were by no means an invention of the Dark Ages, instead taking place primarily between the thirteenth century and the Enlightenment, though there are modern cases, like that of a Macedonian bear convicted in 2008 of stealing honey from a beekeeper.

Despite being unlikely candidates for Catholicism, vermin were punished with excommunication.

While domestic animals like pigs, foxes, wolves, goats, asses, bulls, cows, dogs, horses, and sheep fell under the jurisdiction of civil and criminal courts and would have been summarily executed by hanging or burning after a guilty verdict, ecclesiastical tribunals handled all vermin, from field mice, rats, and moles to bugs, beetles, eels, leeches, locusts, serpents, snails, termites, weevils, and worms. Despite being unlikely candidates for Catholicism, such creatures were punished with excommunication, not execution. This distinction is held because "rodents and insects were not the subject of human control, and could not be seized and imprisoned by the civil authorities." Hence, it became necessary to appeal to the intervention of the Church.

For vermin trials, the procedure was often as follows: A town or district that found itself plagued by animals would launch an investigation. An advocate would be named to defend the pests should grounds for bringing them to trial be found sufficient. A summons would then be served by a court official who would read it-in a loud and solemn voice-"at such places as the animals frequented." The animals would have three opportunities to appear in court and plead their case; if they lost, which they usually did, they would be asked to leave the district within a certain period of time. Inability to show up for sentencing and adhere to its resolution resulted in an unlikely punishment: excommunication.

Why the Church involved itself thusly is up for debate, but the economist Peter T. Leeson has an interesting theory. In " Vermin Trials," an article appearing in a journal of law and economics, Leeson posits that the Catholic Church used ecclesiastic animal trials to increase tithe revenue in areas of high tithe evasion. The trials, Leeson argues, "achieved this by bolstering citizens' belief in the validity of Church punishments for tithe evasion: estrangement from God through sin, excommunication, and anathema."

In the sixteenth century, the citizens of Autun, France accused local rats of feloniously eating and wantonly destroying their barley crop. In the 15th, a species of beetle called an "inger" found itself under fire for devastating the fields of Berne, Switzerland. That same century, a lawsuit was brought against flies in Mainz, Germany. "Ecclesiastic judges showed impressive fairness toward vermin in such trials," Leeson writes; when the flies refused to appear in court after being justly summoned, the court took pity on their small size and young age and appointed them more adequate defense counsel to prevent further no-shows. Communities often sued pests collectively, as well: "in 1659," Leeson writes, "the Italian communes of Chiavenna, Mese, Gordona, Prada, and Samolico banded together to prosecute caterpillars they charged with trespassing on and damaging their fields."

Leeson's economic analysis would explain why judges "used excommunication and anathema to punish creatures that were never communicated in the first place." It also brings sense to the vermin trials' geographic distribution (France, Italy, Switzerland) as well as their occurring primarily in the 15th through 17th centuries. Vermin trials, Leeson argues, were based on a superstition that took hold because the time period's knowledge of pests and how to control them was poor. Pesticides available during those centuries included "sprinkling weasel ashes or water in which a cat had been bathed over fields to drive away mice; capturing a rodent, castrating it, and releasing it among other rodents to deter them; putting castor oil plants in afflicted fields to drive away moles; and hanging garlic around flock leaders' necks to protect sheep from wolves." An ecclesiastical trial, compared against such remedies, does not sound altogether unsound. Call it divine pesticide.

Leeson's theory also ties in with witchcraft and heresy, and his article includes a chart that shows vermin trials mapped against witch trials.

Like vermin, the mystery of animal trials has long plagued us-or, at least, it has long plagued medievalists and historians of law. The trials have been called exaggerations or the results of bad record-keeping, parodied in the seventeenth century by the great French dramatist Racine, whose Les Plaideurs follows a dog tried for stealing a capon. Accelerating right when man was supposed to have discovered logic and then mysteriously dying down, the trials don't line up with how we view our own history.

They also continue to this day, mostly in remote areas where Catholicism maintains an influence. Cohen believes that though they "settled no disputes and kept no peace," the trials were important in other ways. They defined our relationship with animals and reaffirmed our judicial rights over the world, logical and illogical. Through the lens of history, they teach us that one century's quest for rational order is another's bizarre fact.

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When Societies Put Animals on Trial - JSTOR Daily

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In 1386, in the old Norman city of Falaise, a " vast and motley" crowd gathered to witness the execution of a convicted murderer. Spectators donned their best velvet and feathers, the prisoner was given a new suit for the occasion, and an artist memorialized the scene in fresco.

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LGBTQ+ Lives in Medieval Times (Good & Bad) 

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LGBTQ+ Lives in Medieval Times (Good & Bad) 

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Good: there were some monks or saints that were assigned female at birth but lived out there lives as men
Bad: while still discouraged by the church, it was mainly royalty and political powers that would make gay relationships illegal to persecute other political powers
RG

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The Overlooked Queer History of Medieval Christianity

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One might assume same-gender desire is at odds with historical Christianity, but the medieval past offers potent glimmers of queer community

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People's Beliefs about Animals in the Middle Ages (Good)

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People's Beliefs about Animals in the Middle Ages (Good)

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People in the middle ages were mystified by animals as a whole. Oftentimes, people would have pets, cats or dogs, while other times they were viewed as characters in stories linked to Christianity. This article also discusses fictional characters, like dragons or unicorns. (TL)

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What Did People Believe about Animals in the Middle Ages?

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childbirth in the medieval period (ugly)

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childbirth in the medieval period (ugly)

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During the Medieval period, childbirth was deemed as a private affair. The privacy of childbirth was due to the high risk of the mother's death in the process of childbirth.
(HT)

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Childbirth is openly discussed in today's society. Images of pregnant women appear in magazines and women giving birth can be seen on television and in movies. Yet during the medieval period, childbirth was deemed a private affair. Giving birth in the middle ages was a dangerous time for women and childbirth did not discriminate. Young mothers, older mothers, poor or rich mothers, all could die not only in childbirth but also due to complications afterwards. Sadly, more than one in three women died during their child-bearing years.

Initially, some women would not have even known they were pregnant until they felt the first movement of their baby inside of them at around five months. This was known as the "quickening". It seems amazing to us that a woman would not know that she was pregnant for several months, but there were no reliable tests for pregnancy during the Tudor period. A woman may have turned to a doctor to see if she was pregnant, but the tests were far from reliable. One pregnancy test during the Tudor period was to examine the colour of the urine and if it was a pale yellow to white colour with a cloudy surface the woman may have been pregnant. Other tests involved examining a needle left in the woman's urine to see if it rusted, or seeing what happened when wine was mixed with the woman's urine. Also a women's lack of regular menstruation could be related to several factors including illness, breast-feeding, excessive fasting or even a poor diet.

There was no way of monitoring the baby's heart rate or to take blood pressures, and thus women replied heavily upon other experienced women to support and help them. Childbirth was predominantly women's business and physicians and doctors only attended under the most extreme circumstances, such as in Queen Jane Seymour's case when she was giving birth to the future king and had problems. More commonly if a woman had the funds or contacts she would have sought advice and support from a midwife, a woman who had a great deal of experience and knowledge in delivering babies.

There are very few accounts of what giving birth was like for the common, every-day Tudor woman, as not only was it a private affair but women generally did not write down or record their lives. However, if a queen gave birth, well that was a public matter as she could be giving birth to the next heir. Therefore we can turn to the pregnancies and births of royal women to see what giving birth might have been like for some women during the Tudor period.

Women of noble birth, such as the queen or of higher classes, would close themselves off from the world for a period before they gave birth. This was commonly known as 'lying in' or 'taking her chamber'. Before this, an elaborate service was held where the Church would ask God for his blessing for the birth. After the service and the prayers from the clergy, the queen went into her private rooms. The common woman may have gone to church or sought the blessing from the Priest before she too removed herself from the public eye for her own 'lying in'. Other women, sadly those of the much lower class, may have had to work right up until they went into labour as there was no one to cover their daily responsibilities.

No men were allowed in this private room, or rooms, and the pregnant woman was only allowed to be attended to by other women. The mother's rooms would be closed off and tapestries would be hung over the windows to block out as much light from the outside world as possible. Only a single window would have been left open to allow fresh air into the room and only a small amount of light, as it was believed that too much light could damage the expectant mother's eyes. The room would have been hung with calming tapestries and images as not to upset the mother, which could in turn harm the unborn child. Crucifixes and other religious items would have been kept within the room to provide spiritual support for the mother. The idea was to recreate the womb: warm, dark and quiet.

England during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was a devout Catholic nation. Religion and faith were part of everyday life and closely entwined with the act of childbirth. The pain associated with labour and childbirth was thought to be due to Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden. Her original sin meant that all women were to suffer great pain and without the pain killers that we have available today many women turned to religion to provide them with the support and relief they greatly desired. There was also the strong possibility that a mother in labour could die, so religion and faith played a hugely important role within the role of childbirth.

Women often clutched holy relics or recited religious prayers and chants to help them throughout the birthing process. Amulets and amber could also be placed upon the mother's stomach, or prayer rolls could be read or even wrapped around the stomach to help with the pain of labour and to aid safe delivery of a baby. Some mothers even clutched pieces of tin or cheese or butter which had charms engraved upon them. The church would have approved of these as they called upon God and that which He had created. Many women called upon St Margaret, the patron saint of pregnant women and childbirth. St Margaret was eaten by a dragon but spat out again due to the crucifix she had been holding. It was hoped that babies would be delivered as easily as St Margaret had come out of the dragon. Although physically these things could not have assisted in the birth, the faith and belief that women had in them would have helped them psychologically and could have helped them deal with their fear and worries over child-birth.

The midwife also played an extremely important role during birth. Midwives had years of experience delivering babies and thus had a great deal of knowledge. The midwife had to be a woman of good character who was greatly trusted, she had to take an oath which dictated that she would not keep anything from the childbirth, such as the umbilical cord or placenta, which could possibly be used in witchcraft. The role of the midwife might be to suggest different ways to deliver the child, such as sitting in a birthing stool or being cradled from behind. The midwife also had knowledge on how to turn a child if it was not in the right position to be delivered.

It is interesting to examine medieval texts to see what they say about what happened during childbirth. Most of these texts were written by men, many of whom were clergy and members of the church. This is rather ironic as these men had taken a vow of celibacy and thus could neither have sex or, as men, enter the birthing chamber. Many men of the time believed that the female sexual organs were male organs turned inwards. Women were deemed subordinate to men as their sexual organs had not grown outside of the body and so were not fully formed or developed. In essence, they were inferior versions of men. Some people even believed that they could choose the sex of their baby by the types of foods they ate, things they drank or medicines they concocted. They had no concept that it was the male sperm that dictated the sex of the child. It all lay heavily upon the shoulders of the woman.

What happened behind closed doors with the midwife would have been very different from what was written within the medieval text books. It would have been more like what happened today, with the midwife supporting and providing advice to the pregnant mother and helping to deliver the child.

The English Reformation had a dramatic effect not only upon the church but it also filtered down to the delivery room. Holy relics and other Catholic practices were destroyed. Many women no longer had access to holy relics, images or icons to reply upon and draw strength from while they were giving birth. Women were also banned from promising to go on pilgrimage for the safe delivery of their unborn children. Instead of relying upon the saints and relics, women were only allowed to call upon God for support and help. One cannot help but wonder if some women still turned to their Catholic relics and other items for support without the knowledge of the larger community.

If a woman and her baby survived the birth there were still dangers ahead. The midwife was allowed to baptise a baby so if it was sickly or close to death then its soul would go to heaven. The act of baptism would remove the natural sin and cleanse the soul. It was the only time that a woman was ever allowed to deliver one of the sacraments and only to be done if the child was going to die. Caesarean sections were not a common occurrence and were only performed if the mother had died, in the hope of saving the unborn child. The loss of a child no matter the time is a traumatic experience that has huge emotional impacts upon the family.

During the medieval period, men believed that a woman's purpose in life was to get pregnant and have babies. Childbirth during this period was a very dangerous time for women and many wrote their wills before they gave birth in case they did not make it through the delivery. However, despite the dangers many women gave birth multiple times and had large families of healthy children who, lucky for us, would grow to become the next generation.

See also the Claire Chats video on Pregnancy and Childbirth in Tudor Times.

If you enjoyed this article then you can enjoy many more like this in our monthly magazine, along with weekly videos and quizzes, and monthly historian/author talks by joining the Tudor Society. Click here to find out more.
Sarah Bryson is the author of Mary Boleyn: In a Nutshell. She is a researcher, writer and educator who has a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education with Honours and currently works with children with disabilities. Sarah is passionate about Tudor history and has a deep interest in Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn, the reign of Henry VIII and the people of his court. Visiting England in 2009 furthered her passion and when she returned home she started a website, queentohistory.com, and Facebook page about Tudor history. Sarah lives in Australia, enjoys reading, writing, Tudor costume enactment and wishes to return to England one day.
Sources

Licence, Amy (2012) In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex lives of a dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I, Amberley Publishing, Gloucestershire.

Licence, Amy (2013) "How Times Change! Two Royal births: Edward V (1470) and Prince George of Cambridge", viewed 18 July 2015, http://royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/how-times-change-two-royal-births-edward-v-1470-and-george-prince-of-cambridge-14075.

Licence, Amy (2013) "Christopher Marlowe's family and the birth of Modern English midwifery in Elizabethan Canterbury", his story, her story, viewed 18 July 2015, http://authorherstorianparent.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/christopher-marlowes-family-and-birth.html.

Medieval Lives: Birth, Marriage and Death 2013, BBC Scotland.

Rendfeld, Kim (2015), Midwifery: Magic or Medicine in the Dark Ages, viewed 10 July 2015, https://kimrendfeld.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/midwifery-magic-or-medicine-in-the-dark-ages/.

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Childbirth in Medieval and Tudor Times by Sarah Bryson - The Tudor Society

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Childbirth is openly discussed in today's society. Images of pregnant women appear in magazines and women giving birth can be seen on television and in movies. Yet during the medieval period, childbirth was deemed a private affair. Giving birth in the middle ages was a dangerous time for women and childbirth did not discriminate.

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During the middle ages, nuns were treated horribly and confined to prison like conditions against their will. This commonly created mass hysteria among them, which people equated to meowing.
LG

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Written accounts of mass hysteria come from all over the world and date back to the Middle Ages at least. They involve mostly women but not solely, people of all ages, and occur in a variety of settings. Often the backdrop is an institution that imposes rigid moral and behavioral codes on its residents, such as a boarding school or convent.

One of the odder accounts is about a seemingly contagious bout of meowing - like a cat - at a convent in France. The first person to document the episode was German physician and writer Justus Friedrich Carl Hecker. (All other accounts seem to spring from his.)

In The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, 1844, he writes:

"I have read in a good medical work that a nun, in a very large convent in France, began to mew like a cat; shortly afterwards other nuns also mewed. At last all the nuns mewed together every day at a certain time for several hours together. The whole surrounding Christian neighbourhood heard, with equal chagrin and astonishment, this daily cat-concert..."

Eventually, probably prodded by complaining convent neighbors, police placed a bunch of soldiers at the convent's entrance. The nuns were told the soldiers had rods "and would continue whipping them until they promised not to mew anymore." Which apparently did the trick.

While meowing as a form of release or resistance or whatever is plain bizarre to us, context matters. As American medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew has pointed out, once upon a time many people believed in and terribly feared demons and possession - including possession by animals as familiars. Cats still are a receptacle for our superstitions, imagine how potent that fear might have been in the Middle Ages.

Bartholomew and author Simon Wessely shed other light as well, on the emotional and spiritual deprivation these early nuns suffered. Many were sent by their families to the convent rather than answering a call to serve Jesus. "Young girls typically were coerced by elders into joining these socially isolating religious orders," the two men write, "practising rigid discipline in confined, all-female living quarters. Their plight included forced vows of chastity and poverty. Many endured bland near-starvation diets, repetitious prayer rituals and lengthy fasting intervals. Punishment for even minor transgression included flogging and incarceration."

The case of the meowing nuns is one of many historical accounts of sisters behaving in remarkable ways. There's biting nuns, barking nuns, profanity-spewing, rolling-around-in-the-muck naked nuns - you get the idea. But whose to say how any of us would respond to such an impossible life? Convents in the Middle Ages could be places of learning for girls and women. Prayer and community can bring joy. But if you are a young woman forced into a life of poverty, chastity, dusk-to-dawn labor - all under the unbreakable seal of a lifetime vow - you might meow or bark or scream like a leg-trapped animal, too.

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Written accounts of mass hysteria come from all over the world and date back to the Middle Ages at least. They involve mostly women but not solely, people of all ages, and occur in a variety of settings. Often the backdrop is an institution that imposes rigid moral and behavioral codes on its residents, such...

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Ever wondered how the Lords and Ladies, Barons and Baronesses, and Kings and Queens got their titles? One word: Feudalism (or Favoritism... take your pick). HRW

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Feudalism was the system in 10th-13th century European medieval societies where a social hierarchy was established based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (fiefs). A landowner (lord) gave a fief, along with a promise of military and legal protection, in return for a payment of some kind from the person who received it (vassal).

The payment of the vassal to the lord typically came in the form of feudal service which could mean military service or the regular payment of produce or money. Both lord and vassal were freemen and the term feudalism is not generally applied to the relationship between the unfree peasantry (serfs or villeins) and the person of higher social rank on whose land they laboured.

Problems of Definition

Although the term 'feudalism' and 'feudal society' are commonly used in history texts, scholars have never agreed on precisely what those terms mean. The terms were applied to European medieval society from the 16th century onwards and subsequently to societies elsewhere, notably in the Zhou period of China (1046-256 BCE) and Edo period of Japan (1603-1868). The term feudalism was not used by the people who lived in the Middle Ages. Neither can the feudal system, once defined, be applied uniformly across different European states as there were variations in laws and customs in different geographical areas and in different centuries. As a consequence, many historians beleive that the term feudalism is only of limited use in understanding medieval societies.

The Oxford English Dictionary has as concise a definition for feudalism as anywhere while still including its various levels of application:

The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

Origins of Feudalism

The word 'feudalism' derives from the medieval Latin terms feudalis, meaning fee, and feodum, meaning fief. The fee signified the land given (the fief) as a payment for regular military service. The system had its roots in the Roman manorial system (in which workers were compensated with protection while living on large estates) and in the 8th century kingdom of the Franks where a king gave out land for life ( benefice) to reward loyal nobles and receive service in return. The feudal system proper became widespread in Western Europe from the 11th century onwards, largely thanks to the Normans as their rulers carved up and dished out lands wherever their armies conquered.

The vassal received any income from the land, had authority over its inhabitants & could pass the same rights on to his heirs.

Lords & Vassals

Starting from the top of society's pyramid, the monarch - a good example is William the Conqueror (r. 1066-1087) who considered all the lands of England as his personal property - could give a parcel of land (of no fixed size) to a noble who, in return, would be that monarch's vassal, that is he would promise loyalty and service when required. Thus, a personal bond was created. The most common and needed service was military service. Military obligations included fighting in that monarch's army or protecting assets of the Crown such as castles. In some cases, a money payment (known as scutage), which the monarch then used to pay mercenary soldiers, might be offered instead of military service. The vassal received any income from the land, had authority over its inhabitants and could pass the same rights on to his heirs.

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The nobles who had received land, often called suzerain vassals, could have much more than they either needed or could manage themselves and so they often sub-let parts of it to tenant vassals. Once again, the person was given the right to use and profit from this land and in return, in one form or another, then owed a service to the landowner. This service could again take the form of military service (typical in the case of a knight) or, as tenants might be of a lower social class (but still be freemen) and they might not have had the necessary military skills or equipment, more usually they offered a percentage of their revenue from the land they rented (either in money or produce) or, later in the Middle Ages, made a fixed payment of rent. There were also irregular special fees to be paid to the lord such as when his eldest daughter married or his son was knighted.

The arrangement which created a vassal was known as 'homage' as they often knelt before their particular feudal lord and swore an oath of loyalty, for which, in return, they not only received the land but also their lord's protection if and when required. The promise of protection was no small matter in times of war, when there were frequent raids from hostile neighbouring states, and when there was a perpetual danger of general banditry. Protection also came in the form of legal support and representation if a vassal found himself in a civil or church court. A tenant usually handed down their tenancy to their heir although it was sometimes possible to sell the right of tenancy to a third party, provided the lord who owned the land agreed.

Another type of relationship in feudal societies, especially in medieval Germany and France, involved the allod, an inalienable property, i.e. one that could not be taken back. Holders of an allodstill owed some form of allegiance to a superior local lord but the relationship was not based on land ownership and so that allegiance was harder to enforce.

The feudal system perpetuated itself as a status quo because the control of land required the ability to perform military service & land was required to fund military service.

The feudal system perpetuated itself as a status quo because the control of land required the ability to perform military service and, because of the costs involved (of weapons, armour and horses), land was required to fund military service. Thus there was a perpetual divide between the landed aristocracy (monarchs, lords, and some tenants) and those who worked the land for them who could be free or unfree labourers. Unfree labourers were serfs, also known as villeins, who were at the bottom of the social pyramid and who made up the vast majority of the population. The peasantry worked, without pay, on the land owned or rented by others to produce food for themselves and, just as importantly, food and profit for their masters. They were often treated as little more than slaves and could not leave the estate on which they lived and worked. The term feudalism, however, is generally applied by modern historians only to the relationship between lords and vassals, and not the peasantry. Rather, the relationship between serf and landowner or tenant is referred to as the manorial system after the most common unit of land, the 'manor'.

Consequences & Effects

The consequence of the feudal system was the creation of very localised groups of communities which owed loyalty to a specific local lord who exercised absolute authority in his domain. As fiefs were often hereditary, a permanent class divide was established between those who had land and those who rented it. The system was often weighted in favour of the sovereign as when a noble died without an heir, his estate went back to the monarch to either keep for themselves or to redistribute to another noble. Monarchs could distribute land for political purposes, fragmenting a noble's holdings or distancing him from the court. It also became difficult to keep track of who owned what which led to such controls as Domesday Book of 1087.

Additional effects were the presence of vassals in the local courts which deliberated on cases involving the estates of their lords. Thus, there could be a clear conflict of interest and lack of impartiality, even if the more serious criminal cases were referred to the courts of the Crown.

In addition, the system of feudal relationships could create serious unrest. Sometimes a monarch might insist on active military service because of a war but nobles might also refuse, as happened to King John of England in 1215 and the Barons' Revolt which led to the signing of the Magna Carta. In 1215, and in subsequent revolts in the 13th century, the barons were acting collectively for their own interests which was a direct threat to the entire system of feudalism, based as it was upon single lords and vassals working out their own private arrangements. Military service was reduced to fixed terms, typically 40 days in England, in an effort to reduce the burden on nobles so that they did not leave their lands unattended for too long. However, 40 days was not usually enough to see out a campaign and so a monarch was obliged to pay mercenaries, dealing another blow to the tradition of feudalism and vassalage.

Decline of Feudalism

Medieval feudalism was essentially based on the relationship of reciprocal aid between lord and vassal but as that system became more complex over time, so this relationship weakened. Lords came to own multiple estates and vassals could be tenants of various parcels of land so that loyalties became confused and even conflicting with people choosing to honour the relationship that suited their own needs best.

Another blow to the system came from sudden population declines caused by wars and plagues, particularly the Black Death (which peaked between 1347-1352), and by peasant revolts (most famously in England in 1381). Such crises caused a chronic shortage of labour and the abandonment of estates because there was no one to work them. The growth of large towns and cities also saw labour leave the countryside to find a better future and the new jobs available there.

By the 13th century, the increase in commerce and the greater use of coinage changed the way the feudal system worked. Money allowed feudal lords to pay their sovereign instead of performing military service; the monarch's use of mercenaries then meant military service, and thus the barons themselves became less important to the defence of the realm. Conversely, a monarch could now distribute money instead of land in his system of rewards. A rich merchant class developed with no ties of loyalty to anyone except their sovereign, their suppliers and their customers. Even serfs could sometimes buy their freedom and escape the circumstances into which they were born. All of these factors conspired to weaken the feudal system based on land ownership and service even if feudalism would continue beyond the medieval period in some forms and in some places.

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Feudalism was the system in 10th-13th century European medieval societies where a social hierarchy was established based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (fiefs). A landowner (lord) gave a fief, along with a promise of military and legal protection, in return for a payment of some kind from the person who received it (vassal).

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In the middle ages, parties (especially around the holiday season) were very popular. Even peasants would dress up and eat, drink and play music to their hearts content. (TH)

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The holiday season is upon us once again, which means that it’s time to get medieval and party like there’s no fifteenth century!

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This website lists some music from the medieval times and gives some background of each piece. TP

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Early medieval music was primarily ecclesiastical in nature, with different forms of religious chants developing independently in different parts of Europe.

Notable among these were

1. Celtic Chants

2. Gallic Chants

3. Gregorian Chants

http://www.medievalchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/beltane-celtic-firedance-music-613.mp3
Development in ecclesiastical music further led to the invention and usage of different musical instruments. By the high medieval period, these instruments were also used for secular music which primarily emerged from the troubadours of southern France, especially Provencal.

Secular music from this period, given its association with the troubadours, is noted for its ideals of courtly love and chivalry. Some of the most notable examples of medieval songs are listed below.

Greensleeves

Greensleeves was an English folk song that became immensely popular in England during the late 16th century.

There is no accurate historicity of the song and it had been traditionally associated with Henry VIII who purportedly wrote it to woo Anne Boleyn, formerly his mistress and then his wife.

However, the song itself follows a composition style that shows directly Italian influences. Based on this, it has been surmised that the song was originally written during the Elizabethan era.

Song of Roland

The Song of Roland is a medieval piece of epic poetry that was frequently used in the oral singing tradition in medieval Europe.

The poem itself was composed sometime in the 10th or 11th century and recounts the tale of Roland who fought in the 778 Battle of Roncevaux and was killed in the battle.

The tale, embellishing Roland's character with many chivalric qualities and features, became a prominent representation of the prevailing ideals of chivalry in the High Middle Ages.

Foy Porter

The Foy Porter is one of the songs composed by the famed French composer, Guillaume de Machaut. Machaut composed music in 14th century France and was one of the foremost composers of the time. The "Foy Porter" is a monophonic song composed by him.

Courtly love in medieval times in a medieval garden is a beautifully intricate love poem. Like most medieval songs dealing with chivalric love, this song is about the ideals of courtly love and states how much pure love could move the protagonist of the poem to become a better person.

L'autrier m'iera levaz

This song was composed in 12th century France by a composer whose identity is unknown. The song was classified as a pastourelle, a form that frequently depicted scenes of love between knights and women of common origin.

This particular song is about a French knight who professes love to a woman of common origin but his attempts are rebuffed by her. The pastourelle song form was common among the troubadours of the period and many examples of it are extant today.

Lamento di Tristano

Like Romeo and Juliet in the later Renaissance period, Tristan and Iseult were famous examples of lovers in the medieval period.

This medieval Italian song deals with the story of this famous pair and the song itself is portrayed as a lament composed by Tristan himself. The actual history of the song dates back to 14th century Italy.

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Medieval Songs List | Medieval Chronicles

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Early medieval music was primarily ecclesiastical in nature, with different forms of religious chants developing independently in different parts of Europe. Notable among these were Celtic Chants Gallic Chants Gregorian Chants http://www.medievalchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/beltane-celtic-firedance-music-613.mp3 Development in ecclesiastical music further led to the invention and usage of different musical instruments.

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Babies in Medieval Art were often drawn terribly and look like old men. This was often because they were depictions of Jesus in some form, and they didn't want them to look too realistic. BB

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To find the answer, I spoke to Matthew Averett, an art history professor at Creighton University who edited the anthology The Early Modern Child in Art and History. But really, just how ugly are these babies?

Ugly might be too weak a word for medieval babies

These babies look like horrifying tiny men with high cholesterol and strong opinions about housing association rules.

They're babies like this one from 1350:

Or this one from 1333:

These scary man-babies make one wonder how we went from ugly medieval depictions to the recognizably cherubic babies of the Renaissance and today. You can use the slider below to see just how much our idea of a "baby face" has changed:

So why were there so many ugly babies? The reasons turned out to say a lot about art, medieval culture, and even the way we think of children today.

Were medieval artists just bad at drawing?

These ugly babies were very intentional. Drawing a line between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is a useful tool when considering ugly babies and significantly more lovable ones. The two eras tend to show a difference in values.

"If we're thinking about children in a fundamentally different light, the painting will reflect the attitudes," Averett says.

"Style is chosen," he continues. "We might look at medieval art and go, 'These people don't look right.' But if your goal is to look like Picasso and you make a realistic painting, they'd say you didn't do it right, either." Though there were artistic innovations that came with the Renaissance, they aren't the reason babies became better-looking.

(Ugly baby note: Generally, people believe the Renaissance began in Florence, Italy, in the 14th century and rippled outward from there. However, like any intellectual movement, that characterization is simultaneously overly broad and narrow: It's too broad in that it gives the impression that Renaissance values were everywhere, instantly, and it's too narrow in that it limits a mass movement to a single pocket of innovation. There were holes in the Renaissance - you might easily see an ugly baby in 1521, if the artist were committed to the style.)

We can break down the following two reasons for the man-babies of medieval art:

Most of those medieval babies were depictions of Jesus. The concept of the homuncular Jesus affected how children were portrayed.
Medieval portraits of children were usually commissioned by churches. And that made the range of subjects limited to Jesus and a few other biblical babies. Medieval concepts of Jesus were deeply influenced by the homunculus, which literally means little man. "There's the idea that Jesus was perfectly formed and unchanged," Averett says, "and if you combine that with Byzantine painting, it became a standard way to depict Jesus. In some of these images, it looks like he had male pattern baldness."

That homuncular, adult-looking Jesus became a convention for painting all children. Over time, it simply became the right way that people thought that they should paint babies.

Medieval artists were less interested in realism
This unrealistic depiction of Jesus reflects a broader approach to medieval art: They were less interested in realism or idealized forms than Renaissance artists were.

"The strangeness that we see in medieval art stems from a lack of interest in naturalism, and they veered more toward expressionistic conventions," Averett says.

In turn, this made most of the people in medieval art look similar. "The idea of artistic freedom to depict these people however you want would have been new. There were artistic conventions."

That style of painting kept babies looking like out-of-shape soccer dads, at least until the Renaissance happened.

How the Renaissance made babies beautiful again

So what changed to make babies cute again?

Non-religious art flourished - and people didn't want their own babies looking like creepy men
In the Middle Ages, "we see less art of the middle class or even the common people," Averett says.

Once the Renaissance happened, that began to change as Florence's middle class flourished, and people were able to afford portraits of their own children. As portraiture expanded, people wanted their babies to look like cute babies instead of ugly adult homunculi. That changed the norms for a lot of art, including, eventually, portrayals of Jesus.

Renaissance idealism changed art
"In the Renaissance," Averett says, "there's this new interest in observing nature and depicting things as they're actually seen" rather than the expressionist attitudes of earlier art. That included more realistic babies - and beautiful cherubs that picked the best features drawn from real people.

Children became viewed as innocents
Averett cautions against reading too much into the changing role of children in the Renaissance world - parents in the Middle Ages didn't love their kids any differently than Renaissance parents did. But during the Renaissance, a transformation of the idea of children was underway: from tiny adults to uniquely innocent creatures.

"We later have this idea of children being innocent," Averett notes. "If children are born without sin, they can't know things."

As adult attitudes toward children changed, so did adult portrayals of kids. Ugly babies (or beautiful ones) are a reflection of how a society thinks about their kids, about art, and about their goals as parents.

Why we still want our babies to be beautiful

With all those factors combined, babies became the cheek-pinchable figures we know today. And that's easy for modern viewers like us to understand, since we still have some post-Renaissance ideals about kids.

That's why, to our eyes, it's a good thing baby pictures changed. Because this is a face only a mother could love:

WATCH: How infants can learn to save their own lives

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Watch: Why babies in medieval paintings look like ugly old men

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To find the answer, I spoke to Matthew Averett, an art history professor at Creighton University who edited the anthology The Early Modern Child in Art and History . But really, just how ugly are these babies? These babies look like horrifying tiny men with high cholesterol and strong opinions about housing association rules.

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Gregorian Chant Comes From Dove (Musical)

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Gregorian Chant Comes From Dove (Musical)

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Supposedly the standardizing elements came from a dove who whispered to Pope Gregory.

CG

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Women's Rights in the Medieval Period (BAD) 

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Women's Rights in the Medieval Period (BAD) 

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During the medieval period women were considered second class citizens. Women were restricted from participating fully in church services (singing), and aristocratic women did not share equal status with aristocratic men. Of all the classes, peasant women actually had the most in common with their male counter-parts, because peasants generally had limited status anyway.

mm

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Eels as Currency- Weird (Good? Bad? Ugly?...)

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Eels as Currency- Weird (Good? Bad? Ugly?...)

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Eels were seen as a widely accepted and even valuable form of payment! It was common for tenants to pay their rent with extensive numbers of eels. They were also seen as an ideal food to consume for sustenance throughout the period of Lent, as Catholics were allowed to eat fish while avoiding other meats, so as not to encourage "carnal desires". (ED)

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Heritage Images/Getty Images

Catholics were expected to practice abstinence - refrain from sex - during Lent. Meat was thought to excite people's libidos, so they had to abstain from meat as well. Fish, and especially eels, however, were not believed to encourage carnal desires, and so were fine to eat. Because eels only develop sex organs at the end of their life, they were thought to be asexual and therefore an ideal Lenten dish.

The eels weren't just a valuable source of food, however. They became their own de facto currency, and landlords who received eels as payment could turn around and use them to pay for purchases. For example, monks at the Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire traded 4,000 eels in exchange for access to the limestone quarries at Peterborough Abbey, according to History Extra.

Throughout the 13th century, eel payments continued to drive the economy, but after the Black Death, eels rents gave way to other forms of payment. Meat became more readily available as a greater number of people converted farmland into pastures, and demand for eels dropped. Eel payments steadily declined until around 1500, when the practice disappeared almost entirely.

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This Is How Eels Powered The Economy In Medieval England

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Heritage Images/Getty Images Catholics were expected to practice abstinence - refrain from sex - during Lent. Meat was thought to excite people's libidos, so they had to abstain from meat as well. Fish, and especially eels, however, were not believed to encourage carnal desires, and so were fine to eat.