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By Root 915 0

” G. G. Coulton once interpreted this recurring phrase as reflecting the lord’s control over the marriage of peasant women.46 The lord, however, had little to do with arranging peasant marriages. The same words are used in regard to men convicted of adultery, and a reasonable explanation is that the lord used the pretext of loss of village resources as an opportunity to collect a fine of his own in a province that was normally the Church’s. The Church court identified the guilty parties in a way that neighbors might be reluctant to do in the manorial court.47 In the Elton records between 1279 and 1342, six cases of adultery are cited, in three of which only the women are mentioned, in two only the men, in one both parties. Edward Britton, studying the Broughton court rolls between 1294 and 1323, found twenty-four adultery cases, ten citing both the guilty parties, eight only the man, six only the woman.48

Divorce (divortium—synonymous with annulment) was a recurring problem for the Church among the aristocracy, who searched for ways to dissolve a barren or disappointing marriage, but among the peasants it was a rarity. When it did occur among villagers, the commonest ground was bigamy. Couples sometimes separated, however, either informally or under terms arranged by a Church court, though the latter expedient was expensive and therefore not normally undertaken by villagers.

In the village as in castle and city, babies were born at home, their birth attended by midwives. Men were excluded from the lying-in chamber. Literary evidence suggests that the woman in labor assumed a sitting or crouching position.49 Childbirth was dangerous for both mother and child. The newborn infant was immediately prepared for baptism, lest it die in a state of original sin. If a priest could not be located in time, someone else must perform the ceremony, a contingency for which water must be kept ready. If the baptizer did not know the formula in Latin, he must say it in English or French: “I christen thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”50

The words must be said in the right order. If the baptizer said, “In the name of the Son and the Father and the Holy Ghost,” the sacrament was invalid. Robert Manning told the story of a midwife who said the wrong words:

She held it on her lap before,

And when she saw that it would die,

She began loud for to cry,

And said, “God and Saint John,

Christen the child both flesh and bone.”

When the priest heard the formula she had used, he cried, “God and Saint John give thee both sorrow and shame…for in default a soul is lost,” and he commanded her no longer to deliver babies. Robert Manning concluded,

Being a midwife is a perilous thing Unless she knows the points of christening.51

John Myrc in his Instructions for Parish Priests (early fifteenth century) advised that if the baby seemed likely to die, “though the child but half be born/ Head and neck and no more,” the midwife should “christen it and cast on water.” If the mother died before the child could be born, the midwife must free the child with a knife, to save its life, or at least to assure baptism.52

Under normal circumstances the child was washed and sometimes (though not universally) swaddled, the godparents were summoned, and godmother or midwife carried the baby to the church, where the font was kept ever ready. The mother was not present, and in fact was not permitted to enter the church until several weeks later, when she had undergone the ritual of “churching,” purification after childbirth.

Preliminary baptismal rites were performed, as in marriage, at the church door. The priest blessed the child, put salt in its mouth to symbolize wisdom and exorcise demons, read a Bible text, and ascertained the child’s name and the godparents’ qualifications. The party then moved into the church to the baptismal font. The child was immersed, the godmother dried it and dressed it in a christening garment, and the priest anointed it with holy oil. The ceremony was completed at the altar with the godparents making