Life in a Medieval Village - Frances Gies [52]
A pension contract that dated back to the early Middle Ages was originally developed in the monasteries to provide for the retirement of monks. The corrody consisted of a daily ration of bread and ale, usually two loaves and two gallons, plus one or two “cooked dishes” from the monastic kitchen. In the later Middle Ages, corrodies became available to lay pensioners, who purchased them like life insurance annuities. The purchaser might stipulate for a certain amount of firewood every year, a room in the monastery, sometimes with a servant, clothing, candles, and fodder for horses. A wealthy peasant might buy a corrody that even included a house and garden, pasture, and cash; a poor one might buy only a ration of dark bread, ale, and pottage.77
Still other arrangements might be made. A widow and her young son leased their holding at Stoke Pryor to a fellow villager for twelve years in return for an annual supply of mixed grain; presumably in twelve years the son would be old enough to take over the holding.78
The pension agreement implied bargaining power on the part of the aging tenant, nearly always meaning landholding. In its absence, an old man or woman might end like those whose deaths are recorded in the coroners’ rolls: Sabinia, who in January of 1267 went into Colmworth, Bedfordshire, to beg bread and “fell into a stream and drowned,”79 or Arnulf Argent of Ravensden, “poor, weak, and infirm,” who was going “from door to door to seek bread,” when he fell down in a field and “died of weakness.”80
When death was imminent, the priest was sent for, and arrived wearing surplice and stole, carrying the blessed sacrament, preceded by a server carrying a lantern and ringing a hand bell. If the case was urgent and no server could be found, the priest might hang the lamp and bell on his arm, or around the neck of his horse. According to Robert Manning, sick men were often reluctant to accept the sacrament because of a belief that if they recovered they must abstain from sex:
Many a one thus hopes and says,
“Anoint them not save they should die,
For if he turns again to life
He should lie no more by his wife.”
Manning counseled against the superstition and recommended more trust in God:
In every sickness ask for [the sacrament] always;
God almighty is right courteous.81
John Myrc advised that if death was imminent, the priest should not make the sick man confess all his sins, but only counsel him to ask God’s mercy with a humble heart. If the dying man could not speak but indicated by signs that he wished the sacraments, the priest should administer them. If, however, the dying man was able to speak, Myrc advised that he should be asked “the seven interrogations”: if he believed in the articles of the faith and the Holy Scriptures; if he recognized that he had offended God; if he was sorry for his sins; if he wished to amend and would do so if God gave him more time; if he forgave his enemies; if he would atone for his sins if he lived; and finally, “Do you believe fully that Christ died for you and that you may never be saved but by the merit of Christ’s passion, and do you think of God with your heart as much as you may?” The sick man should answer yes and be instructed to say, “with a good steadfast mind, if he can…‘Into thy hands I commend my soul.’” If he could not, the priest should say it for him, anoint him, and administer Communion.82
Wakes commonly turned into occasions of drinking and merriment, condemned by the Church. Robert Grosseteste warned that a dead man’s house should be one of “sorrow and remembrance,” and should not be made a house of “laughter and play,” and a fourteenth-century preacher complained that people “finally like madmen make…merry