Europe: 

From Black Death to  New Worlds

HIST10016
SUBJECT READER 
Document One

Of the wives of artisans and how they ought to conduct themselves.

Now it is time for us to speak of the station in life of women married to artisans
who live in cities and fine towns, like Paris, and elsewhere. They can use all
the good things that have been said before, but yet some tradesmen like
goldsmiths, embroiders, armourers, tapestry makers and many others are
more respectable than are masons, shoemakers and such like. All wives of
artisans should be very painstaking and diligent if they wish to have the
necessities of life. They should encourage their husbands or their workmen to
get to work early in the morning and work until late, for mark our words, there
is no trade so good that if you neglect your work you will not have difficulty
putting bread on the table. And besides encouraging the others, the wife
herself should be involved in the work to the extent that she knows all about it,
so that she may know how to oversee his workers if her husband is absent,
and to reprove them if they do not do well. She ought to oversee them to keep
them from idleness, for through careless workers the master is sometimes
ruined. And when customer s come to her husband and try to drive a hard
bargain, she ought to warn him solicitously to take care that he does not make
a bad deal. She should advise him to be chary of giving too much credit if he
does not know precisely where and to whom it is going, for in this way many
come to poverty, although sometimes the greed to earn more or to accept a
tempting proposition makes them do it.

In addition, she ought to keep her husband's love as much as she can, to this
end: that he will stay at home more willingly and that he may not have any
reason to join the foolish crowds of other young men in taverns and indulge in
unnecessary and extravagant expense, as many tradesmen do, especially in
Paris. By treating him kindly she should protect him as well as she can from
this. It is said that three things drive a man from his home: a quarrelsome
wife, a smoking fireplace and a leaking roof. She too ought to stay at home
gladly and not go every day traipsing hither and yon gossiping with the
neighbours and visiting her chums to find out what everyone is doing. This is
done by slovenly housewives roaming about the town in groups. Nor should
she go off on these pilgrimages got up for no good reason and involving a lot
of needless expense. Furthermore, she out to remind her husband that they
should live so frugally that their expenditure does not exceed their income, so
that at the end of the year they do not find themselves in debt.

If she has children, she should have them instructed and taught first at school
by educated people so that they may know how better to serve God.
Afterwards, they may be put to some trade by which they may earn a living,
for whoever gives a trade or business training to her child gives a great
possession. The children should be kept from wantonness and from
voluptuousness above all else, for truly it is something that most shames the
children of good towns and is a great sin of mothers and fathers, who ought to
be the cause of the virtue and good behaviour of their children, but they are
sometimes the reason (because of bringing them up to be finicky and
indulging them too much) for their wickedness and ruin.
Document Two

1). Henry Cook of Trotteslyve (Kent) and his wife were summoned because
each has turned away from the other and they do not live together. Both
appear in person. And Henry then alleged that he did not know why his wife
left him but she behaved as badly as possible towards him, with contumelious
words and other evil deeds, as he asserts. His [unamed] wife said that her
said husband loved several other women and therefore had a malevolent
mind towards her, and she could not go on living with Henry on account of his
cruelty. Finally both of them swore after touching the gospels that they would
live together in future and give each other the usual conjugal services
("suffragia"), and that she [blank left for name] will now be humble and
"familiaris" with her husband and not fighting, contumelious or insulting; and
that the husband will treat his wife with marital affection from now on ... [1347.
REGISTRUM HAMONIS HETHE, ed. Johnson, p. 974, courtesy Larry Poos.]

2.) John Marabel, a married man, is cited of adultery and incest with Alice,
daughter of Robert de Wywell, daughter of the said John's wife. The man
appears and admits (his sin). The woman is not found. And John is forbidden
from coition with either the mother or the daughter in future, unless the
mother, who is the wife, seeks the debt and he pays it with sadness. And he
will have as penance to make a pilgrimage with bare feet to St. Mary at
Lincoln, to St. Thomas [Becket] at Canterbury, and to [St. Thomas Cantilupe]
at Hereford and to beatings in penitential fashion round the church and round
the marketplace of Grantham. And he will forswear the sin and suspect
locations for the said Alice under pain of 40/-. It is later held that the same
John on his pilgrimage would take much from his said wife, (so) the penance
was changed so that he will fast on bread and water as long as he lives every
fourth and sixth week, unless work or sickness prevents this... We John warn
thee, the aforesaid John, once, twice and a third time that you, having been
parted for good from your wife, will eject the said Alice from your company
within the next six days under pain of greater excommunication which is now
(pronounced) most firmly on your person in these writings if you should
disdain to carry out the aforegoing. [1347. Lincoln Dean and Chapter, A/2/24,
fo. 72v, courtesy Poos.] Translated by Paul Hyams of Cornell University.
Document Three

“The valiant king of Bohemia called Charles of Luxembourg, son to the noble
emperor Henry of Luxembourg, for all that he was nigh blind, when he
understood the order of the battle, he said to the about him: "Where is the lord
Charles my son?" His men said: "Sir we cannot tell; we think he be fighting."
Then he said: "Sirs, ye are my men, my companions and friends in this
journey: I require you bring me so far forward, that I may strike one stroke with
my sword." They said they would do his commandment, and to the intent that
they should not lose him in the press, they tied all their reins of their bridles
each to other and set the king before to accomplish his desire, and so they
went on their enemies. The lord Charles of Bohemia his son, who wrote
himself king of Almaine and bare the arms, he came in good order to the
battle; but when he saw that the matter went awry on their party, he departed,
I cannot tell you which way. The king his father was so far forward that he
strake a stroke with his sword, yea and more than four, and fought valiantly
and so did his company; and they adventured themselves so forward, that
they were there all slain; and the next day they were found in the place about
the king, and all their horses tied each to other. *** [The contingent led by the
king's son, the Black Prince, was hard pressed in the fighting.] Then the
second battle of the Englishment came to succour the prince's battle, the
which was time, for they had as then much ado and they with the prince sent
a messenger to the king, who was on a little windmill hill. Then the knight said
to the king: "Sir, the earl of Warwick and the earl of Oxford, sir Raynold
Cobham and other, such as be about the prince your son, are fiercely fought
withal and are sore handled; wherefore they desire you that you and your
battle will come and aid them; for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt
they will, your son and they shall have much ado." Then the king said: "Is my
son dead or hurt or on the earth felled?" "No, sir," quoth the knight, "but he is
hardly matched; wherefore he hath need of your aid." "Well," said the king,
"return to him and to them that sent you hither, and say to them that they send
no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive: and
also say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs; for if God be
pleased, I will this journey be his and the honour thereof, and to them that be
about him."