Chapter 3 - Daily Life and Domestic Duties

Summary

Chapter 3 focuses on the kinds of domestic duties expected of women in gentle, noble, and royal establishments and thus offers an understanding of everyday life in a late medieval elite household. The range of activities required of highborn household servants was broad, encompassing both public and private obligations. They saw to their queens’ or noblewomen’s personal needs in terms of apparel, entertainment, and piety. They traveled when duties demanded it and assisted their queens and ladies with medical care. To perform these tasks, they were entrusted with significant household resources and also, sometimes, care and custody of royal and noble children. Over years of service, through daily serving the needs of their employers, some serving women and their mistresses developed affectionate relationships as they shared literary tastes and devotional practices. Their employment provided opportunities for elite female servants to live a sumptuous lifestyle surrounded by luxury and entertainments, and also to network with other courtiers. I argue that investigating the domestic duties and daily lives of these often-overlooked women completes our understanding of courts and great households by showing the importance of female employment in the Middle Ages.