5 things you (probably) didn't know about... late medieval England

Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence to show that people were distressed and concerned about violence. They didn’t merely accept it with a shrug of the shoulders. When Sir Thomas Courtenay and his henchmen murdered the Devon lawyer Nicholas Radford in 1455, there was widespread horror. Contemporary accounts described the act as “heinous” and lacking “compassion or pity”.

Legal authorities were dependent on the cooperation of local communities to bring accused people to justice, and in many cases actually avoided violent punishment – deciding, for example, that someone had already suffered enough while awaiting trial in prison. Notably, judicial torture was avoided in medieval England.

They knew how to have a good time

Life was extraordinarily tough in late medieval England, with many people living at, or below, the subsistence level. The 14th century saw a series of cataclysms, with a wave of cold, wet winters exacerbating harvest failures and livestock disease, and causing famine. In 1348, bubonic plague arrived, killing up to 60 per cent of the population and becoming endemic.

Yet communities were extremely resilient. Imaginative literature blossomed: this is the period of the so-called alliterative revival, referring to a rich form of poetry that flourished in the second half of the 14th century. It’s the period of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, John Gower and so many other literary greats.

The visual arts were vibrant: painting, sculpture, architecture and textile work were exuberant and exquisite. And much of the material can be described as really good fun. Take, for example, the stories of Robin Hood, which were popular in this period. These may have voiced subversive critiques of the corruption of the law, but they also provoked laughter and merriment.

They were politically engaged

Medieval societies were certainly exploitative and oppressive. But we should not assume that those at the lowest rungs of society remained silent.

This was a period of dramatic revolts, in which a wide range of people took their grievances to the highest level. The peasants’ revolt of 1381 is an extraordinary moment. It is marked by the fiery preaching of the priest John Ball who, as the revolt was gathering momentum, exhorted his fellow rebels to “consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty”.

Alongside outright rebellion came a vast increase in the number of petitions brought by communities and individuals across the land to the highest levels of government. The entire political community had found its voice.

Their family values were surprisingly modern

Medieval people cherished their families, and mass mortality did not make loss any less painful. There is a wealth of evidence pointing to the love parents bore their children: numerous miracle stories tell of parental devastation at the death or illness of a child, and communal rejoicing at a miraculous cure. Families lived lives with just as much emotional texture as we do today.

Many women were lucky enough to experience relationships of mutual respect, even at the highest level

Medieval marriage was certainly profoundly patriarchal, but women did not just put up with oppression. We have evidence that some unhappily married women brought a peck of oats to the saint Wilgefortis in the hope that she would relieve them of their husbands. Yet many women were lucky enough to experience relationships of mutual respect, even at the highest level. The marriage of John Duke of Bedford and Anne
of Burgundy in 1423 was marked by affection and friendship. When she lay dying, Bedford’s grief was loud and public.

They pushed the boundaries of religious experience

This was an era of dogmatism, with religious deviance harshly persecuted. And yet there was space for profoundly personal approaches to spirituality. Margery Kempe was an early 15th-century woman whose passionate spiritual experiences pushed the boundaries of what it was to encounter Christ. This was also an era when many people used Books of Hours to guide their prayer outside a liturgical context. Individu- als were at once part of communities defined by shared belief, and absorbed in their own personal spiritual lives.

And religion was not just imposed top-down: some of the most popular saints were chosen locally. The cult of John Schorne in North Marston, famous for popping a devil into a boot (perhaps a misreading of his apparent miraculous cure for gout – a devilish pain in the foot), never gained papal approval. However, it was so popular that it drew pilgrims from far and wide, and the sought-after relics were eventually moved to Windsor Great Chapel.

Hannah Skoda is tutorial fellow in history at St John’s College, Oxford. Her books include Medieval Violence: Physical Brutality in Northern France, 1270–1330 (OUP, 2013)