The Black Death Read Free Page A

he wanted to retire at the end of the year. In theory his successor would be elected by all the tenants of the village at a Manor Court but in practice the steward and vicar between them made sure that their candidate was the only one to be nominated. The identity of the new reeve was already decided on and known to all the village. It was to be Roger Tyler; descendant of tilers perhaps, but with no knowledge of the trade himself. Instead he was said to be the best handler of cattle in the neighbourhood and a sensible, determined man whose authority would willingly be accepted by the other villagers.
    As befitted one of the richest of the villeins, Roger Tyler lived in a large, three-bayed house with matting on one of the floors and, a feature of rare luxury, a strip of oiled linen-cloth over one of the four windows. With him lived his old and invalid father, his wife, his sister and his four children – three sons, the eldest aged fourteen, and a girl of six. The family lived well, eating meat more often than any other household in the village except that of the steward. Certainly Roger’s standard of living was higher than the parson’s. Eggs were to be had most days, fish at least once a week and cabbages, leeks, onions, peas and beans were all available in season. For the main meal of the day it would be quite usual to eat a vegetable gruel, rye bread, meat and a piece of cheese, washed down with cider or a thin beer made without hops. He had a few fruit trees as well: apples, pears and a medlar , and he took a share of the walnuts and chestnuts from the garden of the manor. In winter, of course, things were harder, but there was almost always a piece of salted bacon in the house. Unfortunately salt was so expensive that even Roger Tyler was forced to skimp and the bacon was often rancid and almost uneatable long before spring arrived.
    Things were different next door where Roger’s widowed aunt lived alone. Roger had tried to persuade her to join his family butshe valued her independence too high. In Chaucer’s words again she was:
    A poure wydwe somdel stape in age
    Was whilom dwelling in a narwe cotage
    Beside a grove, stondynge in a dale …
    … Thre large sowes hadde she, and namo,
    Thre keen, and eek a sheep that highte Malle,
    Ful sooty was hir bour and eek hire halle,
    In which she eet ful many a sklendre meel …
    No wyn ne drank she, neither whit ne reed;
    Hir bord was served moost with whit and blak –
    Milk and broun bread, in which she found no lak-
    Seynd bacon, and somtyme an ey or tweye;
    For she was, as it were, a maner deye. *
    Where Roger’s family slept on bags of flock, she made do with a few handfuls of straw on the mud floor; cider and beer were an unknown luxury in her house and, as against Roger’s well-organized messuage and commodious barn where he stored fodder for his cattle, she had only a tumbledown shed where her pigs jostled for standing room. But she never complained about her lot and comforted herself with the thought of her good luck compared to those unfortunates at Preston Stautney who often had not got a single pig or even a chicken to their name. Besides, her relationship to Roger gave her a standing among the élite of the village: a select group which included the families of such worthies as the manorial clerk, the miller and the reeve.
    Though Roger himself made a point of keeping the domestic animals out of the house this was by no means an invariablerule. In some of the houses goats, sheep and sometimes even cows lived jumbled up with the family, spreading their fleas amid the soiled straw and adding their smells to the rich compound which the medieval household could generate even without such extra help. Washing was a luxury and probably weakening to the constitution – to be indulged in with caution and only at long intervals . Bathing was unheard of. Needless to say, in such conditions, almost everyone had some sort of skin disease. Eye infections were also common