Jews in Medieval England
Jews in Medieval England I’m updating this post, in large part because of a comment a reader left about my use of the word ‘pogrom’ in Footsteps in Time, having not heard the word before. A ‘pogrom’ is defined as: “An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews.” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Pogrom Jews lived in England during the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods, but not as an organized community. This page states: “When William the Conqueror arrived in England in 1066, he encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans from northern France to move to England. The Jews came mostly from France with some from Germany, Italy and Spain, seeking prosperity and a haven from anti-Semitism. Serving as special representatives of the king, these Jews worked as moneylenders and coin dealers. Over the course of a generation, Read more…
Medieval Diseases
In the Middle Ages, the range of types of diseases was similar to what we experience today, with some exceptions (HIV/AIDS). Viruses, of course, are no easier to combat now than then, but without vaccines and if the infected person was living in unclean or freezing conditions, or suffering from a poor diet, the disease was made that much worse. Antibiotics help with some diseases, but then again, more have sprung up in response to them (C-diff). That said, these are some of the most common diseases people experienced in Europe in the Middle Ages (not including the Black Plague, see: https://sarahwoodbury.com/?p=1000; or leprosy, see: https://sarahwoodbury.com/?p=223) Dysentary: Still common in poorer countries today, Dysentary is an infection caused either by bacteria or amoebas, spread through contamination of food and water by infected fecal matter. Typhoid is another such disease spread through bacteria and fecal matter which Read more…
The Statute of Wales
King Edward I issued the Statute of Wales (sometimes referred to as the Statute of Rhuddlan) in 1284 as part of his program of subjugating Wales to English law. For Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, and his people, being able to live under Welsh law had been a primary concern and one of the most compelling reasons to war with England. Edward, knowing this, saw to it that the Welsh laws were overthrown, and this act was not repealed for centuries. It was comprehensive and complete–the most comprehensive any King issued during the middle ages (Bowen 1908). To download your own copy: http://www.archive.org/details/statuteswales01bowegoog This site states: “At the Statute of Rhuddlan, 1284, Wales was divided up into English counties; the English court pattern set firmly in place, and for all intents and purposes, Wales ceased to exist as a political unit. Read more…
Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Llywelyn Fawr)
Llywelyn Fawr was possibly the most renowned Welsh ruler of the medieval period. Upon the death of Owain Gwynedd in 1170 AD, his eldest son, Hywel, purportedly a most capable man, succeeded to the rulership of Gwynedd. In Wales, all sons, regardless of their legitimacy, can inherit, provided their father had acknowledged them. This should have been the case with Hywel. As I wrote in this post, the downside of this enlightened approach to illegitimacy is that it divided the kingdom between all the heirs and fostered animosity among brothers over their portion of their inheritance. Such was the case when Owain Gwynedd overcame his brothers to take the throne, such was the case many years later after the death of Llywelyn Fawr, and such was the case in 1170. Thus, Dafydd ap Owain Gywnedd conspired with his mother (Owain Gwynedd’s Read more…
Dolbadarn Castle
? Dolbadarn Castle is only 6 1/2 miles as the crow flies from the Menai Straits, and yet, the topography of the area is such that it was built by Llywelyn Fawr (Llywelyn the Great) to guard the mountain pass from Caernarfon to the upper Conwy Valley. ‘Its position at the tip of Llyn Padarn allowed the garrison to blockade anyone’s movement through that part of the north, then as now a main link to the rest of Wales. The military worth of the spot was evidently recognized as early as the 6th century but surviving masonry dates no earlier than the 1200’s.’ http://www.castlewales.com/dolbd.html Llywleyn Fawr built the castle in the early 13th century and it was one of the last defenses of Dafydd ap Gruffydd–Llywleyn Fawr’s grandson–in 1283 after Edward had defeated Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Dafydd’s brother (Paul Davis, Castles Read more…
Aberffraw
Aberffraw was the seat of Rhodri Mawr, one of the great kings of Wales, in the early Middle Ages. Nothing of it remains–it seems to have shared a similar fate with Aber Garth Celyn upon the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. We do have information that some of it lasted until 1316 when the last remaining timbers were stripped to repair Beaumaris (or Caerfarnon) Castle, both part of Edward’s ring of iron castles that he built after the conquest of Wales. My favorite Castles of Wales site doesn’t even have Aberffraw in its database because, quite literally, nothing of it remains. The book by Paul Davies, ‘Castles of the Welsh Princes’, states only: ” . . . a modern village sits on top of Aberffraw; the occasional discovery of richly-carved stones hints at the vanished splendour of the great court.” Read more…
Historiography of the Welsh Conquest
Thank you to Brynne Haug for the next installment of her essay on the conquest of Wales. While there has been some measure of historical debate on the benefits and detriments of the English conquest of Wales on the country itself, the majority of scholars have agreed that in terms of identity and culture, the conquest had a negative impact. Wales prior to 1282 was fiercely independent, its people pastoral and very much devoted to the land on which they lived. In the years that followed the conquest, however, Edward I, in an attempt to “civilize” the Welsh, built walled towns throughout Wales and brought English settlers to live in them. Thus, by the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Welsh—who were in theory entirely excluded from these English towns of privilege—were, in the words of R.R. Davies, “outsiders in Read more…
Gwynedd after 1282
After the Treaty of Aberconwy in 1277 AD, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was reduced to lordship over a small area of land in Gwynedd, mostly west of the Conwy River. Over the course of the 1282 war, he took back much of what he’d lost. He was killed, however, on 11 December 1282, and all of Wales ultimately fell the forces of Edward I. The map at right shows: Green: Gwynedd, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s principality Blue: Territories of Dafydd ap Gruffydd Pink: Territories ceded forever to the English Crown This defeat of the native Welsh forces led by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and then briefly after Llywelyn’s death by his brother, Dafydd, resulted in a much divided Wales. On the top of the hierarchy, instead of native rulers, were English (mostly) absentee landowners. Within the Marche and portions of southern Read more…
Did Europeans smoke in the Middle Ages?
The short answer to that question is ‘no’. Tobacco is a New World good, and thus, not available to Europe until after 1492. The native peoples of the Americas used tobacco primarily for ritual purposes. The longer answer is that ‘smoking’, though not as we understand it today (with tobacco), was a factor in cultures other than Europe, though even those never caught on much in Europe, even after the Crusades. From Wikipedia: The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals.[2] Many ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonians, Indians and Chinese, burnt incense as a part of religious rituals, as did the Israelites and the later Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches. Smoking in the Americas probably had its origins in the incense-burning ceremonies of shamans but was later adopted for pleasure, or as a social tool.[3] The Read more…
Medieval Cursing
Contrary to what how we curse today, bodily functions were not the worst of the worst for medieval people when it came to swearing. Here is what Melissa Mohr, author of “Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing,” has to say: “generally, people of medieval England did not share our modern concept of obscenity, in which words for taboo functions possess a power in excess of their literal meaning and must be fenced off from polite conversation…Medieval people were, to us, strikingly unconcerned with the Shit.” People back then “did not have much of an issue with describing bodily functions in ways that we might find less appropriate. Going into a city you might find a street called ‘Shitwell Way’ or ‘Pissing Alley’. Open a school textbook for teaching children how to read and you might find the words arse, shit Read more…
Life Expectancy in the Middle Ages
What was the typical life expectancy in the Middle Ages? Life expectancy varied according to diet, climate, location, relative wealth, etc., but the answer is definitive: not as long as we do now. For starters, infants and children died at a horrific rate (some say up to 1/3 of all died before the age of 5) and a significant percentage of women died in association with childbirth: 5% perhaps from the birth itself, often dying with the child, and a further 15% from childbed fever–the infections that followed a poorly managed delivery (by our standards). Following that, if a person made it out of childhood, they could be expected to live into their middle forties, provided they maintained good health and weren’t killed in war. Both those, of course, are big ‘ifs’. Below is the recorded birth and death date for the adult royal Read more…
The Little Ice Age and the MWP
We all realize that temperature is not a constant. It’s hard enough to imagine what life was like in the Middle Ages, without adding in differences in temperature. As it turns out, many of my books falls directly into the ‘medieval warm period’ of 950 to 1250. “The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) is generally thought to have occurred from about AD 950–1250, during the European Middle Ages.[9] In 1965 Hubert Lamb, one of the first paleoclimatologists, published research based on data from botany, historical document research and meteorology combined with records indicating prevailing temperature and rainfall in England around 1200 and around 1600. He proposed that “Evidence has been accumulating in many fields of investigation pointing to a notably warm climate in many parts of the world, that lasted a few centuries around A.D. 1000–1200, and was followed by a decline of temperature levels till between Read more…
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