All Things Medieval

It’s the late 13th century and you’re a prosperous cooper in a mid-sized town in Flanders. Your daughter, age 17, is getting married in the spring, and you need to put on a feast for 100. You live in/above your shop; the largest room seats about 8.

You’ll have to rent a hall, since the weather is still iffy a week after Easter. (Of course, you can’t put on a wedding feast during Lent, since it’s a fast season by definition.) The church has a smallish hall, and the Coopers’ Guild hall is bigger, seats about 50. You think very hard about the Guild hall and try to imagine cramming more people on benches, but it just won’t work. Fortunately, the Coopers have an agreement with the larger Blacksmiths that guild members can rent the Blacksmiths hall for a small fee, if no blacksmiths need it that day. By shifting the day from Tuesday to Wednesday, you’ll be able to get the larger hall, so that’s settled.

The hall has an outdoor kitchen shed with a few cauldrons and skillets. Since you’re a cooper, you won’t have any problems getting any wooden containers your cooks might need, like barrels, buckets and tubs. But you’ve decided to hire a cookshop to cater the meat pies, and it turns out that they also rent kitchen equipment for feasts. The cookshop can help hire a few cook assistants, too. They promised that these guys will show up with clean hands, but you’ll make sure that a stout bucket with soap and water is standing by. Some of these hired day workers can be filthy and even sick.

As the day approaches, two bakers agree to supply you with trencher loaves two days in advance. The loaves will have time to dry up and harden, so that their slices will make good plates. A poor man who sweeps the baker’s shop for a small loaf hears these plans, and he will spread word among his friends so that they can be first in line to get the used trenchers. Trencher bread isn’t prime stuff; it’s made from flour that has any old weed mixed in. But once it’s soaked up a lot of meat sauce, it’s the best thing the beggars will get for a few days. The saucer lets you know that cinnamon and pepper have both dropped in price lately and you will be able to afford a spiced sauce for the meat.

So the staff at the guildhall, overseen by the cookshop and your wife, will stew mutton and pork in light brown sauce, and they’ll also make frumenty, which is like rice pudding made with Cream of Wheat cereal. You want the feast to have three courses, since this is your only daughter and you want it done right. Each course will be the same type of array of meats and side dishes; the fashion for separating courses into different types of food hasn’t arrived yet. Now all that’s left is to get the alewives to brew extra pots of ale and fill up some of your barrels the day before. A barrel of wine will arrive from the local vintner who was late on barrel payments, too.

Weddings in medieval Italy were a little bit different.

The betrothal was a much bigger deal in Italy than in Northern Europe. The bride’s family prepared a lavish feast at their home. The bride’s male relatives met the groom and his family at a notary’s office, and they signed the betrothal agreements (detailing dower and dowry). Then they went back to the bride’s home for the feast. Since medieval Italian girls were sheltered at home more than French or English girls, it may have been the first time the groom got to meet her.

Italian merchants and nobility tended to live in family compounds in the city. The extended family owned all of the buildings in a square of city blocks. Houses as high as four stories surrounded an inner courtyard, and many of the upper stories had balconies or walkways facing the courtyard. The compound generally had its own well and chapel. With servants to go to the market, ladies in the compound rarely had reason to leave it.

Italian brides were probably on average a bit younger than brides in the north, and this may be why Italian betrothals tended to be long. As long as a year might pass before they held a wedding ceremony. This ceremony was much more involved than the simple wedding of the north.

It began with Ring Day. The groom’s family arrived with a gold ring, and wedding guests gathered to witness the vows. As in other medieval weddings, the vows were made in a public place, usually outdoors. The church steps may have been the place of choice, or some other public square, or just outside the family’s house. Notaries could conduct the entire ceremony, asking the questions and hearing the vows. Priests could be involved, but they did not have to be. After the vows, the families had another lavish feast at the bride’s house. The families gave each other impressive gifts. The bride’s trousseau was sent to the groom’s house, but she didn’t go anywhere.

Even in middle-class Italian neighborhoods, the wedding feast became a really big deal. For families that did not have courtyards, the street outside the house would have to suffice. This outdoor space was turned into a royal hall for the occasion. By the end of the Middle Ages, Italian cities were trying to limit the conspicuous consumption with “sumptuary laws” that forbade people below a certain rank from using various fabrics or furs. But never mind that: if possible, the bride was dressed in pure gold.

Most families could never afford cloth of gold, so they borrowed or rented the dresses. They could also rent tapestries to hang over balconies, turning the street into a feast hall. They could rent sculptures, vases, paintings, and draperies. Hired musicians showed up, and lanterns kept the “hall” going well into the night. Guests ate, drank and danced.

The next day, the families sent gifts to each other, and maybe the groom’s side gave a feast. After at least one day of feasting, maybe more, the bride’s family set out at night, with torches, to her new home. She rode a white horse. In Rome, they always stopped at the church for Mass on the way. At last, with pomp and circumstance, the girl was married and moved. And then they had another feast, and maybe another.

In medieval Europe, they believed in men and women choosing freely whom to marry. Among the royalty and aristocracy, since marriage was connected to property and government, marriages were basically arranged. But for the rest of medieval European society, marriages were chosen and freely consented to.

Families were still at the heart of the matter; they made alliances with each other, and property was still at stake. Families did the main choosing, and marrying “to disoblige one’s family” was not much done. In fact, since most wealth was still derived from things, mainly stationary things, not portable property or cash, it wasn’t easy to do it. So girls were asked to consent, and usually they did consent.

To put it another way, they always consented. There are many reasons to consent. Some girls consented to marriage after being locked in their rooms for six months. Some girls consented to marrying their father’s creditor to save the family farm. Some men consented to marry a girl, on threat of being fired and blackballed from further work in their trade if they didn’t (what we might call a “crossbow wedding”).

But unlike societies that considered it unseemly for a girl to meet her husband before the wedding, medieval Europe believed in courtship. In courtship, the man brought the girl gifts and tried to make himself likable. Even before the 14th century’s fashion of romantic love, they considered it a very good thing if the couple actually liked each other. They believed in love, even if it was a practical daily kind of love.

By the late Middle Ages, the diaspora-scattering of Provencal troubadours informed wealthy young ladies that love was only real if it carried no obligation. Although the songs praised adultery, the main popular effect was to raise expectations about courtship.

Marriage was a formal, official financial contract. Promising to marry someone needed to be formal and it was often notarized. This was especially true in Italy, where Roman notary customs had continued almost without interruption. In the later centuries of the Middle Ages (1200+), the Italian custom of notarization became more popular, along with using a name signature instead of a seal.

But verbal agreements to marry were binding, too. As paper was more readily available, local court records became more common and detailed, and some still exist. Many court rolls tell us of disputes in which witnesses were called to tell whether they had heard Richard ask Joan to “live with him,” and whether they understood him to mean marriage, and had she accepted a gift from him in token of acceptance? Even if was done seemingly in jest, it could be held as binding in court.

The man may only have been attempting a seduction in a tavern, but witnesses could repeat what he had carelessly said. Usually the circumstances were such that he had found a richer woman who would have him, and he wanted the girl in the tavern to get lost. But courts could enforce the first verbal contract and forbid the man to go through with marriage to the richer girl.

For this reason, the first step in planning a wedding was to publish the intention to marry. In archaic English, this was called publishing the “banns.” On at least two Sundays before the wedding date, the announcement of intention had to be made publicly in church. This gave the jilted girl, Joan, full notice of Richard’s perfidy and sufficient time to find and bring her witnesses. Was it wise for Joan to force Richard to marry her? Probably not; in our terms, we would see Richard outed as bad husband material. But I think they usually did go on to marry, and it may not always have worked out badly.