Is there a medievalist in the house? (information / help request)

[BlackShanglan]

(If you're so kind as to be joining this thread with the thought of assisting, please see post #29. Many changes have been made to earlier ideas.)

I'm looking for someone who has a good depth of knowledge about the social, economic, and religious systems of medieval England and a patient attitude toward inquisitive horses. I'm working on a story that involves a priest living in a small town, and I'm trying to work out how (or indeed, if) he would function there.

I shan't throw a flood of details in just yet, since I don't know if anyone wants them. If you're able and willing to help, I'd be very grateful if you'd either post here or PM me. I'm happy to supply more information in the thread if anyone actually wants it.

 

[Sean]

I know bits and pieces. What do you need?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I'm looking for someone who has a good depth of knowledge about the social, economic, and religious systems of medieval England and a patient attitude toward inquisitive horses. I'm working on a story that involves a priest living in a small town, and I'm trying to work out how (or indeed, if) he would function there.

I shan't throw a flood of details in just yet, since I don't know if anyone wants them. If you're able and willing to help, I'd be very grateful if you'd either post here or PM me. I'm happy to supply more information in the thread if anyone actually wants it.

Oh, give a few hints please!

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Dates can be important, Shang. The Black Plague had a way of re-organizing villiage life. In some cases whole towns were wiped out. In others deaths among the clergy meant monks/lay brothers performed sacrements.

Here's a link to a good resource: Medieval-Life.net

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Sean]

As a complete non sequitur, did you know that the bicycle was one of the biggest boosts to human genetic diversity? Until the humble velocipede, only the aristocracy could travel, by horseback, so people tended to marry people from their own village. With the onset of the bike, peripatetic shagging became possible.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

As a complete non sequitur, did you know that the bicycle was one of the biggest boosts to human genetic diversity? Until the humble velocipede, only the aristocracy could travel, by horseback, so people tended to marry people from their own village. With the onset of the bike, peripatetic shagging became possible.

Hmmm - There are aspects of that that aren't totally incorrect, but it's still a bit off I fear. Bikes came along after rubber became available in 19th C, and at the same time that better road networks were expanding (still mostly not paved). A bike with no rubber tires isn't much good on two-rut wagon trails or bridle trails.

In America horses weren't owned by everyone, but were much more available than they had been in medieval Europe.

 

[TE999]

Priests in Medieval times were often the only literate persons in town, other than the landed nobility.

They were called upon to read and write for the citizenry, settle disputes and act as a spokesman for the town to said landed nobility. The church was a repository for vital records (ie: births, deaths, marriages, etc).

The priest and the church were often a pivot around which the town revolved.

 

[The_Fool]

Up through the Renaissance, the Priesthood was the shit, unless you came from nobility. It was the one way that peasants could escape poverty and the drudgery of the Feudal system. Remember, back then, tithing was required, not expected. And what the church didn’t get, the lord got. Most of that was in the form of goods. Barter was the rule.

Also, the priests were the only ones that came close to being considered “educated.” Very few nobles and certainly no peasantry was provided any schooling. The scribes of the day came from the priesthood.

As far as economics, we are talking about a complete agrarian society with a very few skilled craftsmen in very select fields.

 

[Sean]

Hmmm - There are aspects of that that aren't totally incorrect, but it's still a bit off I fear. Bikes came along after rubber became available in 19th C, and at the same time that better road networks were expanding (still mostly not paved). A bike with no rubber tires isn't much good on two-rut wagon trails or bridle trails.

In America horses weren't owned by everyone, but were much more available than they had been in medieval Europe.

Oh dear, you think bicycles were dependent on rubber tyres?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Oh dear, you think bicycles were dependent on rubber tyres?

Well not absolutely, but it's going to be pretty doggoned rough ride on an two-rut wagon trail without them!

As an aside I saw a model of a wooden bicycle that Leonardo supposedly designed at the museum in Vinci. The provenance of the drawing is very dicey and my guess is that it's not genuine.

I'm just saying that while it certainly was technically possible to build a bike before the era of industrial era materials, its practicality would have been very questionable. This from one who has ridden modern mountain bikes hundreds of miles on hiking trails and two-rut logging roads in National Forests. I actually have a pretty good appreciation for the constraints.

 

[BlackShanglan]

(If you're so kind as to be joining this thread with the thought of assisting, please see post #29. Many changes have been made to earlier ideas.)

Thank you all very much for responding to the thread. I will lay out the issues, and I do beg your pardon for a slowish response on my part. I never imagined so many delightfully eager hands.

Plot constraints leave me looking for the following elements:

- Time period between (EDITED for the wolves ) 1300-1450 AD, England.
- Location: a modest village (say fifty houses) by a small river / stream near the border of a forest, a good several hours' / short day's ride from other villages of the same size.
- The village should not be a manor village or seat of government. It should be rural and populated almost exclusively by farmers and low-level artisans.
- It needs to have a small, rough church / chapel that has a bell.
- It needs to have a priest who lives in the town. His background and order are open to a range of options, but he needs to handle all of the church business for the town.
- The village must be within four or five days' cart travel of a number of other small towns.
- It shouldn't be radically unusual to find a smith, a cooper, and a woodcutter in the village.
- It would be ideal if the town had something like a public house or inn, even if it only serves that function on certain days or in certain seasons.

Here are the problems I am trying to resolve:

1) As I understand it, the most typical way for a church or chapel to have been built in that time period would have been by the local lord, and usually close by the manor. I need a more isolated location without a lord or government official regularly present in it.

2) I know that the Franciscans and Dominicans were active in England as friars, but haven't been able to work out from the sources I've gotten to thus far whether they were allowed to live alone in a rectory serving a church (a typical modern model) or whether their vows of poverty forbade this. I need a priest who is not in a monied "title only" position and who is serious about his duties to his flock, but also one who can live in the village on his own.

3) I have seen references to small chapels built away from manor houses and parish center towns in order to provide some access to distant towns and villages, but I haven't been able to work out who would have built them or staffed them. Might such a thing exist with one priest assigned to duty at it?

4) I was working on the assumption that any mass said in the church would be said in Latin, which is a seriously annoying restraint. However, I saw a reference to Dominican friars being tasked to preach in the vernacular languages of the countries where they served. Did they actually hold mass in those languages, or just give what I would think of as the homily, or was this a wholly different and seperate thing to the mass altogether?

5) Are there any specific duties I ought to be aware of that a medieval priest would need to attend to throughout the day if he was in the position described? I've seen references to quite structured sets of prayers (matins, vespers, etc.) at monasteries and convents, but those seemed to me to be particular to those institutions. How often might a priest say mass - weekly? Daily? Dependent on the priest and order?

6) Re: inn / public house, what I really need is somewhere for people to exchange gossip, a place that might once have employed a young woman (sporadically would be OK). I need to get her in a position to hear more than most people would about what's happening in other towns. Might a town that small still have had something at least occasionally acting as an inn?

Many thanks for any and all answers! I know that those are some weirdly convoluted needs, but the plot got quite far along without waiting to hear whether the priest was really coming.

 

[BlackShanglan]

As a complete non sequitur, did you know that the bicycle was one of the biggest boosts to human genetic diversity? Until the humble velocipede, only the aristocracy could travel, by horseback, so people tended to marry people from their own village. With the onset of the bike, peripatetic shagging became possible.

*nods* A great boost to women's rights movements / female mobility, as well. The young woman on a bicycle was the poster girl of the era. I have a neat old essay about it, written in the late 1800's.

 

[slyc_willie]

Thank you all very much for responding to the thread. I will lay out the issues, and I do beg your pardon for a slowish response on my part. I never imagined so many delightfully eager hands.

Plot constraints leave me looking for the following elements:

- Time period between 1400-1600 AD, England.
- Location: a modest village (say fifty houses) by a small river / stream near the border of a forest, a good several hours' / short day's ride from other villages of the same size.
- The village should not be a manor village or seat of government. It should be rural and populated almost exclusively by farmers and low-level artisans.
- It needs to have a small, rough church / chapel that has a bell.
- It needs to have a priest who lives in the town. His background and order are open to a range of options, but he needs to handle all of the church business for the town.
- The village must be within four or five days' cart travel of a number of other small towns.
- It shouldn't be radically unusual to find a smith, a cooper, and a woodcutter in the village.
- It would be ideal if the town had something like a public house or inn, even if it only serves that function on certain days or in certain seasons.

Here are the problems I am trying to resolve:

1) As I understand it, the most typical way for a church or chapel to have been built in that time period would have been by the local lord, and usually close by the manor. I need a more isolated location without a lord or government official regularly present in it.

2) I know that the Franciscans and Dominicans were active in England as friars, but haven't been able to work out from the sources I've gotten to thus far whether they were allowed to live alone in a rectory serving a church (a typical modern model) or whether their vows of poverty forbade this. I need a priest who is not in a monied "title only" position and who is serious about his duties to his flock, but also one who can live in the village on his own.

3) I have seen references to small chapels built away from manor houses and parish center towns in order to provide some access to distant towns and villages, but I haven't been able to work out who would have built them or staffed them. Might such a thing exist with one priest assigned to duty at it?

4) I was working on the assumption that any mass said in the church would be said in Latin, which is a seriously annoying restraint. However, I saw a reference to Dominican friars being tasked to preach in the vernacular languages of the countries where they served. Did they actually hold mass in those languages, or just give what I would think of as the homily, or was this a wholly different and seperate thing to the mass altogether?

5) Are there any specific duties I ought to be aware of that a medieval priest would need to attend to throughout the day if he was in the position described? I've seen references to quite structured sets of prayers (matins, vespers, etc.) at monasteries and convents, but those seemed to me to be particular to those institutions. How often might a priest say mass - weekly? Daily? Dependent on the priest and order?

6) Re: inn / public house, what I really need is somewhere for people to exchange gossip that might once have employed a young a woman (sporadically would be OK). I need to get her in a position to hear more than most people would about what's happening in other towns. Might a town that small still have had something at least occasionally acting as an inn?

Many thanks for any and all answers! I know that those are some weirdly convoluted needs, but the plot got quite far along without waiting to hear whether the priest was really coming.

I can provide quite a bit of information about this, Shang, just not tonight. PM me if you wish, and I'll do my best to shed some light for you, by, say, tomorrow evening.

 

[neonlyte]

Shang, a useful source: Miri Rubin - The Hollow Crown, chronicles the social, political and religious life in England between 1300 and 1500. The late 1400's saw dramatic advances in social welfare, through parish priests and the gentry in the establishment of schools, almshouses and medical services. This period (post Caxton) saw the wider introduction of printed books. One of Caxton's early books, 1476, was a table-manners book for children (does anything ever change) including poems by Lydgate and the Salve Regina hymn to the Virgin Mary.

Caxton also printed religious instruction books for parish priests, user-friendly pastorial manuals containing standard answers to parishoners questions, e.g. 'Why does Christ's body remain in the appearance of bread and wine at the alter? A - Because if it were not, the parishoners would be afraid to eat it.' And, 'What is woman?' A - 'Man's confusion'.

By this period there was concern about the quality and quantity of clergy and to prevent a proliferation of poor clergy, candidates had to present, before ordination, access to sufficient income with private means, a parish living, or by serving some religious institution. This 'title' became in part a by-product of the socially affluent with some 15% of title being subscribed by lay people to encourage the ordiantion of relatives, friends or associates.

Rural parish priests had the assistance of a chaplain who could underatke some of the mundane ministries of the parish while the priest attended to other matters often including the management and administration of their church's assets, managing land, collecting rents, managing flocks of sheep. One such small parish was Oxnead in Norfolk described in 1478 as being a living worth £8.16s per year. The church was small, serving 20 persons, but its lands were extensive: a parsonage with halls and chambers, a barn and dovecote, two fruit gardens, twenty-two acres of pasture, a fishing river. The maintenance of all rivalled the business of a modest yeoman. It was a good living.

These were also prosperous times. Much effort went into enhancing even the smallest of parish churches. St Anne was a saint who's popularity soared from 1460 and parishes across the country had built tabernacles and rood screens, often ornately carved, towers and building extension paid for by local benefactors.

The Corpus Christi cycles appeared in the latter part of the century, York's famous 48 scenes (revived this century) led to itinerant actors performing in parishes across the country. These became bound up with the craft guilds and urban corporations seemlessly blending social and religious life.

Death and its aftermath became a prominent theme often staged in performance and symbilised in church paintings like the ther Last Judgement (1480) at St Peter's parish church in Wenhaston. Christ seated on a rainbow presides over the fortunes of humans. It depicts the liberation of a King, a pope and a cardinal from purgatory whilst devils drag the damned into the mouth of hell. These were new images used to reinforce the doctrine.

It was a time of 'giving'. Parishoners bestowed gifts upon the church, mostly for use in religious service. Churchwardens, elected from the parish, took on the duty of maintaining the physical and artistic heritage. They kept inventories, managed funds and provided the money to light the images and alters to the saints. They were usually people who'd served the community in some official capacity and were thus literate and competent. They took on the duty of mediating between officials of the royal and church courts and the localities by citing felons or criminals.

Churchwardens forged a network of social regulation citing people for anti-social behaviour. Women were eight times more likely to be cited for 'foul language' as men. Usually, these were married women who were required to comply with social etiquette. If a woman called someone a thief or a whore, she was made to walk through the town heralded by a piper.

Fornication (outside marriage one presumes) became an ecclesiastical crime and made up some 60% of court cases in the 1480's, the remaining cases were largely 'defamation'. Calling someone a 'serf' cast doubt upon their lineage and whilst the previous century had seen the practice of serfdom decline, it lingered in the rural parishes. Personal status was commonly linked to being capable of paying personal dues. Craftsmen labourers, lantern-makers, tailors, shepherds, would pay a few pennies a year to the manor in recognition of the 'free status'.

Other sources: R.N Swanson - Church and Society in Late Medieval England
Miri Ruben - Corpus Christi - the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture
Eamon Duffy - The Stripping of the Alters: Traditional Religion in England 1400 - 1580.

 

[oggbashan]

Thank you all very much for responding to the thread. I will lay out the issues, and I do beg your pardon for a slowish response on my part. I never imagined so many delightfully eager hands.

Plot constraints leave me looking for the following elements:

- Time period between 1400-1600 AD, England.
- Location: a modest village (say fifty houses) by a small river / stream near the border of a forest, a good several hours' / short day's ride from other villages of the same size.
- The village should not be a manor village or seat of government. It should be rural and populated almost exclusively by farmers and low-level artisans.
- It needs to have a small, rough church / chapel that has a bell.
- It needs to have a priest who lives in the town. His background and order are open to a range of options, but he needs to handle all of the church business for the town.
- The village must be within four or five days' cart travel of a number of other small towns.
- It shouldn't be radically unusual to find a smith, a cooper, and a woodcutter in the village.
- It would be ideal if the town had something like a public house or inn, even if it only serves that function on certain days or in certain seasons.

Here are the problems I am trying to resolve:

1) As I understand it, the most typical way for a church or chapel to have been built in that time period would have been by the local lord, and usually close by the manor. I need a more isolated location without a lord or government official regularly present in it.

A single Lord could and did own many manors. He need not live at or even visit a particular one. Many were owned by the Church and therefore wouldn't have a "Lord". A reeve or manager would run the manor and send the produce/profits to the Lord's main residence. The reeve could be no more than one of the local farmers.

Churches could be built by the Church as "Chapels of Ease" - to enable parishoners to worship without travelling to the Parish Church that could be several miles away.

In parts of England, e.g. Kent, the middle class could and did build Churches. Kentish Yeomen were renowned for being rich by comparison with some nobility yet were no more than farmers. The wool trade produced some remarkable Churches from the investment of some of the profits in the traders' souls...

2) I know that the Franciscans and Dominicans were active in England as friars, but haven't been able to work out from the sources I've gotten to thus far whether they were allowed to live alone in a rectory serving a church (a typical modern model) or whether their vows of poverty forbade this. I need a priest who is not in a monied "title only" position and who is serious about his duties to his flock, but also one who can live in the village on his own.

Francisans could not be Parish priests although they could and did hear confessions, give absolution and hold Masses. They were peripatetic. They caused some discord with Parish priests because they were considered easy targets for forgiveness of sins.

Dominicans were usually conventual - living in enclaves, therefore not Parish Priests.

The living of a church could be held by an absentee who took the revenue and paid someone else to perform the duties. The "Vicar" was the priest vice the actual holder and could be paid a third or less of the church's income. Vicars were often accused of being ill-educated and barely literate.

3) I have seen references to small chapels built away from manor houses and parish center towns in order to provide some access to distant towns and villages, but I haven't been able to work out who would have built them or staffed them. Might such a thing exist with one priest assigned to duty at it?

Yes - Chapels of Ease - see above. The revenues would be paid to the Parish Church and that would give some of the money back to the maintenance of the Chapel of Ease. Sometimes demographic change meant that a former Chapel of Ease became a Parish Church in its own right.

4) I was working on the assumption that any mass said in the church would be said in Latin, which is a seriously annoying restraint. However, I saw a reference to Dominican friars being tasked to preach in the vernacular languages of the countries where they served. Did they actually hold mass in those languages, or just give what I would think of as the homily, or was this a wholly different and seperate thing to the mass altogether?

The service would be in Latin. The congregation would be familiar with the form from constant repetition, but any sermon would be in the vernacular. In the reign of Henry VIII, the Bible was made available in English for use in Parish Churches but Henry's dates are probably too late for you.

5) Are there any specific duties I ought to be aware of that a medieval priest would need to attend to throughout the day if he was in the position described? I've seen references to quite structured sets of prayers (matins, vespers, etc.) at monasteries and convents, but those seemed to me to be particular to those institutions. How often might a priest say mass - weekly? Daily? Dependent on the priest and order?

Several times a day whether or not a congregation was present. A conscientious priest would follow the monastical rules. Of course many, particularly in rural areas, had to cultivate their own land for survival on a subsistence basis and so would slip from the ideal.

6) Re: inn / public house, what I really need is somewhere for people to exchange gossip, a place that might once have employed a young woman (sporadically would be OK). I need to get her in a position to hear more than most people would about what's happening in other towns. Might a town that small still have had something at least occasionally acting as an inn?

Yes. Probably a Hedge tavern with a branch of a bush above the door to indicate its function. Very crude. See Conan Doyle's books "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel" as good evocations of the period. "The White Company" gets to a hedge tavern in a few chapters.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Thank you all very much for your responses. It's wonderful to see so much thought, learning, and good will. It's just what I was hoping for - answers that can tell me where I need to be looking and what I should be investigating. I was feeling a bit adrift with the entire history of England and no compass to help me through it. It's a delight to find such ready guides.

Neonlyte, I very much appreciate both the information and the sources. It sounds like perhaps my character might be the sort of chaplain assistant you mention, handling the directly spiritual matters (perhaps at a smaller Chapel of Ease, as Ogg mentions) while a superior priest living elsewhere manages the larger estate / material issues / primary parish church. That would fit in pretty well with what I want for the character - someone without economic or political resources vastly greater than the rest of the village. I want any power he has to come from his character, his intellect, and his role as a spiritual leader, not from him having financial / material wealth or power.

A single Lord could and did own many manors. He need not live at or even visit a particular one. Many were owned by the Church and therefore wouldn't have a "Lord". A reeve or manager would run the manor and send the produce/profits to the Lord's main residence. The reeve could be no more than one of the local farmers.

Churches could be built by the Church as "Chapels of Ease" - to enable parishoners to worship without travelling to the Parish Church that could be several miles away.

In parts of England, e.g. Kent, the middle class could and did build Churches. Kentish Yeomen were renowned for being rich by comparison with some nobility yet were no more than farmers. The wool trade produced some remarkable Churches from the investment of some of the profits in the traders' souls...

Ah, that's interesting to me. Sheep are being raised in this story, so that locale is a possibility. What sort of priest would serve this kind of church? Would it be a priest running a bigger landed church estate that the church was tacked onto, or would it be someone whose job was just to tend to that church and group of people? I hadn't originally envisioned the town as prosperous, but I suppose that some middle ground could be found.

The living of a church could be held by an absentee who took the revenue and paid someone else to perform the duties. The "Vicar" was the priest vice the actual holder and could be paid a third or less of the church's income. Vicars were often accused of being ill-educated and barely literate.

Do you think it's possible for an educated or at least reasonably well-read man to be in that position (vicar)? It's fine if it would require a somewhat unusual history, say making himself unpopular with the local clergy or having an accidental or willful reversal of financial fortunes. I need the priest to be someone unencumbered by worldly status / ambitions, but also a man of reason and some education - someone who would function in the Aquinas tradition and not the Torquemada. He's got a gnostic streak, but he hasn't got his head in the clouds; he's spent several years in a rural village living a difficult life, and he's realistic about material reality.

Yes - Chapels of Ease - see above. The revenues would be paid to the Parish Church and that would give some of the money back to the maintenance of the Chapel of Ease. Sometimes demographic change meant that a former Chapel of Ease became a Parish Church in its own right.

That's really looking like the most appealing model to me, and it fits in with the plot as well, because at least one character travels to trade in other towns and villages. If their village is small enough not to be a parish center but is moderately sized and near trade routes, a Chapel of Ease looks like it would make sense. Would the person serving the chapel be a vicar or a chaplain? Would he be hired or appointed by the parish priest? And would he be called "Father <first name>," or some other title?

The service would be in Latin. The congregation would be familiar with the form from constant repetition, but any sermon would be in the vernacular. In the reign of Henry VIII, the Bible was made available in English for use in Parish Churches but Henry's dates are probably too late for you.

I'm trying to dodge Henry. The plot itself wouldn't suffer too badly from being pushed as far ahead as the early 1600's, but then the whole priest / religion thing turns into even more of a headache. Just reading up on the history of the friar orders was enough to make any horse doubt its sanity, particularly when one gets to the parts about people being burned to death for insisting on living lives of poverty and service to the poor. Heaven forfend. I don't want the religious history and conflicts of the time period to play a significant role in the story; I just want to make sure that I'm not creating circumstances that would never have occurred or grossly erring in names, duties, or roles.

Several times a day whether or not a congregation was present. A conscientious priest would follow the monastical rules. Of course many, particularly in rural areas, had to cultivate their own land for survival on a subsistence basis and so would slip from the ideal.

Ah, I like this. I was rather hoping that there might be room for a priest who was sober and serious enough about his role that he clung to a more monastic model as a sort of personal devotion. That is helpful to me.

Yes. Probably a Hedge tavern with a branch of a bush above the door to indicate its function. Very crude. See Conan Doyle's books "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel" as good evocations of the period. "The White Company" gets to a hedge tavern in a few chapters.

Thank you very much for the information and for the source. That's a great help!

 

[BlackShanglan]

And a few more ...

I've got a few more questions that have popped into my head, so I shall jot them down in hopes of appealing to your patience and good natures.

- Might a vicar or chaplain at a chapel of ease reasonably live in a small (say, three/four rooms) house near the chapel? Might he reasonably have some hired person doing light domestic work?

- It's essential to the plot of the story that a bad winter be capable of isolating this town. It doesn't have to render travel flatly impossible, but it does need to make it unlikely - bad enough that choosing to travel would be a surprising decision likely to attract attention both in this town and in any town one travelled to. Does that sound plausible for the time period and for a town significant enough to have a Chapel of Ease? Would it have to be very close to other towns?

- How far back in time would I have to go to have some wolves in that forest? It's important that they be there and that a bad winter be able to drive them closer to the town (and its sheep). I'm seeing general figures on the late 1400's / early 1500's as when wolves were wiped out in England - would say the early 1400's fit the wolves and the above priest model? I'm picturing a large forest that extends a long way from the borders of the village - probably some great lord's estate. I don't mind pushing further back in time so long as my Chapel of Ease model can still work itself out.

 

[neonlyte]

Do you think it's possible for an educated or at least reasonably well-read man to be in that position (vicar)? It's fine if it would require a somewhat unusual history, say making himself unpopular with the local clergy or having an accidental or willful reversal of financial fortunes. I need the priest to be someone unencumbered by worldly status / ambitions, but also a man of reason and some education - someone who would function in the Aquinas tradition and not the Torquemada. He's got a gnostic streak, but he hasn't got his head in the clouds; he's spent several years in a rural village living a difficult life, and he's realistic about material reality.

The church leaders sought educated priests in the latter half of the 15th century. Ecclesiastical records cite cases of complaints being levied against ignorant and ill informed priests - incidentally, up until HVIII it was Catholic England with priests rather than vicars. Many priests would have been younger sons of gentried family, educated to a degree, out of the inheritance line and priesthood might have made a suitable career for an exiled younger son.

I'm trying to dodge Henry. The plot itself wouldn't suffer too badly from being pushed as far ahead as the early 1600's, but then the whole priest / religion thing turns into even more of a headache. Just reading up on the history of the friar orders was enough to make any horse doubt its sanity, particularly when one gets to the parts about people being burned to death for insisting on living lives of poverty and service to the poor. Heaven forfend. I don't want the religious history and conflicts of the time period to play a significant role in the story; I just want to make sure that I'm not creating circumstances that would never have occurred or grossly erring in names, duties, or roles.

Sensible horse. Rubin stops 'her history' at 1485 claiming the battle for succession after Edward V muddies the political and religious waters, then Henry turns the whole can on its head.

The 'monastic lifestyle' worries me slightly since there appears to have been little crossover between monks and abbots to parish priests and bishops. The two sides of the religious coin were largely seperated by the need for 'the Church' to uphold civil law through the Ecclestical courts whilst the monasteries got on with interpreting the scriptures. Your parish priest or church warden might have been a former monk, devout and pious but on the whole favouring human society over monastic retreat.

On the question of trading, the larger towns and cities began to form craftman's guilds from around 1412. They traded in two ways with the rural communities, the purchasing of raw materials and the provision of specialist services. Craftsmen would have come into the parish to make repairs and alterations to church buildings, skills that wouldn't have been found in a small community.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The 'monastic lifestyle' worries me slightly since there appears to have been little crossover between monks and abbots to parish priests and bishops. The two sides of the religious coin were largely seperated by the need for 'the Church' to uphold civil law through the Ecclestical courts whilst the monasteries got on with interpreting the scriptures. Your parish priest or church warden might have been a former monk, devout and pious but on the whole favouring human society over monastic retreat.

*nods* The monastic lifestyle gave me the same concerns - how to get him out of the monastery. I was wondering if a boy from a middle-income family, say minor minor gentry or a prosperous tradesman, might have been educated by monks but with the intent of making him a priest who would serve in the community?

On the question of trading, the larger towns and cities began to form craftman's guilds from around 1412. They traded in two ways with the rural communities, the purchasing of raw materials and the provision of specialist services. Craftsmen would have come into the parish to make repairs and alterations to church buildings, skills that wouldn't have been found in a small community.

*nods* Gotcha. I'm thinking that this village should be small enough not to have guild houses - only about fifty families and perhaps three or four artisans of the smith/cooper/joiner immediately practical variety. The cooper might have a particular reason to be in this village - the forest has a specially good supply of close-grained wood that he makes into barrels and then takes to other trade towns and local villages to sell. Does that seem to make sense? If it makes any difference, he has another strong motivation to travel, so even if it's not the most efficient way to sell his goods, he would do it if it made some kind of sense. He also raises some sheep and I was thinking might take his wool / hides and possibly other people's (since he has a cart and a donkey or ox to pull it) with him in trade runs. Possibly he's something of the local "trader" as well as his skilled profession?

Oh, and I pushed the timeline back a bit earlier, for the wolves. Bloody wolves. *grumble* I'm hoping that a 1300-1400 time frame won't grossly offend either zoology or religious and economic history.

Shanglan

 

[Sean]

Ever read any of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels? The period is about right and the descriptions of monastic/ clerical rights and duties might be helpful. As an added bonus, they're entertaining.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ever read any of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels? The period is about right and the descriptions of monastic/ clerical rights and duties might be helpful. As an added bonus, they're entertaining.

That was the first thing I thought of also. They are lovely books. There's a gentleness and warmth, plus loads of good common sense and wisdom. Mostly in the main character, but not exclusively.

 

[colddiesel]

If you want a priest with Gnostic leanings I suggest perhaps a priest who has accompanied his lord on one of the later crusades(quite a common practice), has now returned and been given a small living to live out his life. Such a priest would have far more chance to have learned something of Gnosticism had he travelled in the east and encountered say either Nestorian or Coptic Christianity or even the Greek traditions.

This would also place your story well before the Black Death 1348 1351 .Then it would definitely be at the height of the feudal era . Post Black death the feudal system started to break up partly as a result of the consequent major labour shortage.

If this is a sheep raising area the main centres at that time were in Yorkshire, Norfolk or in the Cotswolds. As wool was Englands major export at the time (to the Low countries) that would provide a convenient rationale for traffic through your rural area.

If you base your story in Yorkshire remember that the Wool growing there was dominated by the monasteries (especially the Cistercians)

I won't repeat the good stuff mentioned by others above.

 

[colddiesel]

Small point . Roads were so bad that much commercial traffic was by pack horses and river boats rather than carts. this was especially so in Northern England.

 

[oggbashan]

Of course, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are a wonderful insight into the England of the period...

Some of the characters you need must be in there.

Og

 

[impressive]

Once again, I am impressed with the expertise in this smut joint.