What we would call family life for a high-medieval French aristocrat was centered on
the hereditary castle, which was both a defensible fortress and an elegant home. Until the
end of the 12th century, there was generally only one married couple in a castle, the lord
and lady, who served as the symbolic parents of everyone living there. With the
exception of a few women attending the lady and her own daughters, she was generally
the only woman in the castle. All the rest, knights, servants, cooks, chaplains, stablemen,
and the like, were men. The knights who served the castellans seem in many cases to
have been local men who served until they were too old to fight, perhaps in their thirties,
at which time they married and settled down nearby and might in time send their own
sons to serve in the castle.
The girls born to the castellan and his lady were raised and educated at home. A girl’s
most important lessons were in household management, for noble girls married in their
teens and were expected to take over administration of a castle. A girl’s husband, who
might be twice her age, was generally chosen by her parents. A castle’s keys hung from
its lady’s belt as she planned, supervised, and bought the necessary food, clothing, and
supplies for everyone who lived there. She kept peace among a castle’s inhabitants and
even defended it if necessary while her husband was away.
Noble boys spent only the first years of their life at home. By the time they were six or
eight, they had been sent to a monastery or cathedral school if their parents intended them
for a life in the church; boys entered the ecclesiastical life far more frequently than girls.
Those boys who became warriors were generally trained in the castle of an uncle or
feudal lord rather than at home. With their knightly training complete, they might spend
time on crusade or on the tournament circuit until their fathers died and they inherited.
Only at this point did a young noble marry, unless he had found an heiress with her own
castle. Until the 13th century, usually only one or two of a castellan’s sons ever married.
Constance B.Bouchard
Bouchard, Constance B. “The Structure of a Twelfth-Century French Family: The Lords of
Seignelay.” Viator 10(1979): 39–56.
Duby, Georges. The Chivalrous Society, trans. Cynthia Postan. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1977.
——. The Knight, the Lady, and The Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France,
trans. Barbara Bray. New York: Pantheon, 1983.
FAMILY AND GENDER
(BOURGEOISIE)
. Socioeconomic status was an important factor in determining family experience among
the urban residents of medieval France. The marriages of the patriciate or urban elite, for
example, were generally arranged unions heavily influenced by parental desires, business
considerations, and property arrangements. Marrying at a younger age (in their mid- to
late teens) than women from artisanal families and with access to more comfortable and
healthier living conditions, patriciate women had larger families because they
experienced a greater number of fertile years and lower infant mortality. The patriciate’s
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