Material and Social Life in the Middle Ages211Practical considerations were more important in the se-
lection of a mate. Property, strength, temperance, and,
in the case of wives, the ability to bear children, were
essential. The hope was that, given these virtues, caritas
would find a place in the household and a genuine af-
fection would develop with time.
Many of these ideas and practices were a departure
from those of the early Middle Ages. The church had
adopted marriage as its own in the days of the Cluniac
and Hildebrandine reforms and, in spite of its own
mysogynistic traditions, had greatly improved the con-
dition of women as a result. Concubinage was con-
demned if not eradicated, as was feudal interference in
the marriage of vassals and tenants. Divorce, a catastro-
phe for women who had no means of support, was vir-
tually eliminated for all but the very rich. Canon law,
confirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, de-
fined the terms under which a wedding might take
place and spelled out the impediments that might pre-
vent it. Most of them involved prohibited degrees of
relationship or consanguinity, including godparent-
hood. As the regulations were strictly enforced by
parish priests, they posed a considerable hardship for
the inhabitants of remote villages.
These efforts can be seen as a positive step toward
the development of patrilineal descent and companion-
ate marriages, but they did not assure domestic bliss.
Hostility between the sexes remained a common theme
in medieval writings. Evidence is available that many
women deeply resented their subordinate status. Begin-
ning in the early thirteenth century, increasing numbers
sought refuge in the convent, and widows frequently
chose not to remarry. A woman who was past the age
of childbearing and who could claim property of her
own experienced an immediate change of status upon
the death of her husband. With her legal and personal
rights restored, she could become a powerful figure in
the village community. Some, such as Chaucer’s Wife of
Bath, remarried, but they did so usually to a younger,
poorer man who posed little threat to their indepen-
dence. Companionship aside, only the poor suffered
from widowhood. Without property, a woman might
have to depend upon the kindness of her surviving chil-
dren or become a semioutcast living on the charity of
her neighbors.
Childhood, Old Age, and Death
In the natural law theories favored by the scholastic
philosophers, the birth of children was the justification
for marriage. A medieval child was brought into the
world by the village midwife and baptized as quickly as
possible, lest the terrible infant mortality of the day
carry it into Limbo before its salvation was assured. So
deep was this concern that the sacrament could be ad-
ministered by a layman if no priest were available. God-
parents, usually family friends, were designated to
support the child if its parents should die. In southern
Europe this role was sometimes given to a powerful
friend or patron of the father. The baby was typically
named for one of the godparents, a favored relative, or
a patron saint. This practice, together with the limited
number of names in contemporary use, sometimes re-
sulted in more than one sibling having the same name.
In everyday life, such children were differentiated by
the appellations major or minor or by nicknames.
If possible, most women preferred to nurse their
own babies. Infants were typically swaddled during the
day. At night they sometimes slept with their mothers,
though this practice was frowned upon because the
mother might roll over in her sleep and smother the
child. By the end of the first year children were permit-
ted to crawl about on their own.
Medieval parents did not sentimentalize childhood
as a world of innocence, but they loved their children
and were emotionally affected by their loss. This would
seem self-evident, but it has been the subject of a schol-
arly controversy. Parents also permitted their children
to develop in stages that were not unlike those of to-
day. Young children spent most of their time playing.
As they grew older and stronger they took on responsi-
bility for various tasks until, in their mid-to-late teens,
they began to do the work of adults. For most children,
this kind of informal apprenticeship was the only edu-
cation that they would receive. Few villages had a
school, and lords often claimed a fee from the parents
for sending their children away. Fearing that workers
would be lost to the manor, they also sought agree-
ments that forbade children to enter the church.
The little that is known about child rearing prac-
tices comes from the end of the Middle Ages and seems
to indicate that discipline was very harsh. This may not
be applicable to earlier times. The fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries were characterized by a deep fear of
social disintegration and the perceived decline of
parental authority. Criminals were punished more sav-
agely than they had been before. Children, too, may
have been increasingly victimized by the frustrations of
society as a whole.
As efforts to circumvent the laws of inheritance in-
dicate, every attempt was made to provide for a child’s
future. This included the possibility of orphanhood,