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Work and Festa Ferianda in Medieval England1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Barbara Harvey
Barbara Harvey
Affiliation:
Fellow and Tutor of Somerville College and Lecturer in History, University of Oxford
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Extract

Much work that is absolutely essential for the continuance and progress of an ordered society has a severely limited attraction for those who perform it. How, nevertheless, men and women were persuaded to work regularly or at all in the Middle Ages has provided one of the central themes in the study of the period, for this is what we study in the institutions of slavery, serfdom and villeinage—all three were ways and means of persuading reluctant workers to work. But these were also means of escape from toil, and it is with one of these, the custom of abstaining from many habitual forms of work on church festivals, that this essay is concerned.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 289 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

page 289 note 2 Codex Justinianus, iii. 12. iii; Rordorf, W., Sunday, London 1968, 154 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 289 note 3 Wihtred, 9; Ine, 3.

page 290 note 1 For a summary of the Church's teaching at the end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth century, see Johannes de Friburgo, Summa Confessorum (1518), i. 12; see also, more generally, Rodgers, E. C., Discussion of Holidays in the Later Middle Ages, New York 1940, caps, i-iiiGoogle Scholar.

page 290 note 2 VI Aethelred, 22. i; cf. Capitularia RegumFrancorum, ed. A. Boretius (M.G.H., 1883), xiv. 14; xxii. 81, etc.

page 290 note 3 Whitelock, D. (ed.), English Historical Documents, c. 500–1042, London 1955, 380Google Scholar.

page 290 note 4 Edward and Guthrum, 7.

page 291 note 1 F. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (1903), 79.

page 291 note 2 Cheney, C. R., ‘Rules for the Observance of Feast Days in Medieval England’, in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xxxiv (1961), 117 ffGoogle Scholar. Professor Cheney has identified the surviving diocesan lists as those of William le Blois for Worcester (1218–36), Giles of Bridport for Salisbury (1257), Fulk Basset for London (1245–59), Peter Quinel for Exeter (1287), Ralph of Shrewsbury for Bath and Wells (1342), and a sixth as a list current in the diocese of Hereford in the mid-fourteenth century. One other thirteenthcentury list probably originated in the diocese of Norwich (ibid., 128–9, ‘39–40). For the provincial list of Simon Islip (1362), see ibid., 144–6. See also Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R., Councils and Synods, Oxford 1964, 318, 514–15, 561, 653–6, 1021–2Google Scholar.

page 291 note 3 Decretum, De Cons., D. iii. c. 1. 19.

page 291 note 4 B.I.H.R., xxxiv. 138.

page 291 note 5 Ibid., 136–7.

page 291 note 6 Mirk's Festial (E.E.T.S., extra ser., 96), 199. Myrc put the feast of St. Margaret in this category.

page 292 note 1 E.g. Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls Series 1874, 247–8.

page 292 note 2 A list of festa ferianda attributed by its first editor, Crabbe, to the Council of Oxford, 1222. Professor Cheney suggests that it may be the work of the bishops who met at Oxford in 1241. It closely resembles the Norwich list of the mid-thirteenth century: B.I.H.R., xxxiv. 124, 135, 139–40.

page 292 note 3 Codex Justinianus, iii. 12. iii; in The Civil Law, trans. S. P. Scott, Cincinnati 1932, xii. 275.

page 292 note 4 In Quinel's list 54 appear, but the texts of this are late and corrupt; the Hereford list includes 52. In counting, I have excluded one day of the prescribed holidays at Easter and one at Whitsun, since these feasts fell on Sunday, and, in the case of Exeter, one day for Sunday in the octave of Christmas. Fulk Basset prescribed more holidays for the City of London and the deanery of Middlesex than for the diocese of London as a whole. Where the lists do not give clear guidance, I have reckoned the feasts of the apostles as 11—i.e. St. Paul, St. Barnabas and St. Mathias are included, but St. Simon and St. Jude and St. Philip and St. James claim only two feasts between them; and I have assumed that the reference in such a list is to the shared feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

page 293 note 1 In the Norwich list this feast is a holiday in every respect, except for work with a plough lent out of charity (B.I.H.R., xxxiv. 140). For St. Leonard, see Acta Sanctorum, November, iii. 139 ff.; and for evidence of his cult in England, Arnold-Forster, F., Studies in Church Dedications, London 1899, iii. 391–2Google Scholar. His feast (6 November) was usually a simple of 12 or 9 lessons. For information about it I am indebted to Dr. M. B. Parkes. I have been unable to consult W. Hay, Volkstumliche Heiligentage (1932).

page 294 note 1 Cartularium Monasterii de Rameseia, ed. W. H. Hart, Rolls Series 1884–93, i. 350.

page 294 note 2 Ibid., 366.

page 294 note 3 Domesday of St. Paul's, ed. W. H. Hale (Camden Society, 69), 66; Rentalia et Custumaria, ed. C. J. Elton (Somerset Record Society, 5), 89; Thirteen Custumals of the Sussex Manors of the Bishop ofChichester, trans. W. D. Peckham (Sussex Record Society, 31), 6, 15.

page 295 note 1 Cf. Rodgers, op. cit., 95, and Bennett, H. S., Life on the English Manor, Cambridge 1948, 117Google Scholar, where the apportioning of feast days alternately between lord and villein is understood to mean that the villein worked on alternate feast days.

page 295 note 2 Cart. Mon. de Ram., i. 393, 398. Note that the reference is now to the quindene, beginning on the feast itself. The holiday mentioned in Alfred, 43 is the week before Easter and the week following; cf. Codex Justinianus, iii. 12. iii; Decretals, Gregory IX, Lib. II. t. ix. c. 5.

page 295 note 3 W.A.M. 8259 ff. Some virgaters, though not all, at Bourton-on-the-Hill owed 4 days’ work a week (on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). The following festa ferianda are mentioned: Circumcision, Epiphany, St. Vincent, Purification, St. Peter in Cathedra, St. Mathias, St. Oswald ep. and c, St. Gregory, Annunciation of B.V.M., St. Mark, St. Philip and St. James, Invention of the Holy Cross, St. Augustine, archb., St. Barnabas, Nativity of John the Baptist, St. Peter and St. Paul, trans, of St. Thomas m., St. Mary Magdalen, St. James, St. Peter in Chains, St. Laurence, Assumption of B.V.M., St. Bartholomew, Beheading of John the Baptist, Nativity of B.V.M., Exaltation of the Holy Cross, St. Matthew, St. Michael, St. Luke, St. Simon and St. Jude, All Saints, St. Martin, St. Edmund, king and m., St. Clement, St. Katherine, St. Nicholas, Christmas, St. Stephen, St. John ev.

page 296 note 1 W.A.M. 25431 ff. Some virgaters at Birdbrook owed 5 days’ work a week from 29 September to i August and 2½ days’ work a week from I August to 29 September. The following festa ferianda not in the Bourton list are mentioned: Conversion of St. Paul, Ascension, Corpus Christi, St. Margaret v., All Souls, St. Andrew, Conception of B.V.M., St. Thomas ap. Moreover, the villeins of Birdbrook had the whole working week at Christmas as a holiday, in addition to weeks at Easter and Whitsun. The following festa ferianda, recognised at Bourton, are not mentioned at Birdbrook: St. Vincent, St. Oswald ep. and c, St. Augustine archb., St. Peter in Chains, St. Bartholomew, All Saints, St. Clement. Both lists, however, are certainly incomplete.

page 296 note 2 W.A.M. 8259. Three feasts—those of St. Vincent, St. Peter in Cathedra and the Invention of the Holy Cross—mentioned as festa ferianda in other accounts for this manor were not allowed to the villeins this year, although all coincided with days on which week-work was owing, and only 6 days in all were allowed at Easter and Whitsun.

page 296 note 3 E.g. at Ashford (Midd.): W.A.M. 26732.

page 296 note 4 W.A.M. 25441.

page 297 note 1 W.A.M. 22107.

page 297 note 2 M. Chibnall (ed.), Select Documents of the English Lands of the Abbey of Bee (Camden, 3rd. ser., lxxiii), 106.

page 297 note 3 Court Rolls of the Abbey of Ramsey and of the Honor of Clare, ed. W. O. Ault, New Haven, 1928, 210.

page 297 note 4 W.A.M. 8356. The struggle over feast days at this manor can be followed in W.A.M. 25944 ff.

page 297 note 5 I use this word to signify the lists of accustomed villein holidays, known to both lord and villein; few, if any, of these were written in extenso.

page 298 note 1 Rentalia el Custumaria, 65–6.

page 298 note 2 Cf. Levy, M., Der Sabbath in England: Wesen und Entwicklung des Englischen Sonntags, Leipzig 1933, 26–9Google Scholar.

page 299 note 1 For these workers see M. M. Postan, The Famulus, Economic History Society, 1954. The remarks in the text apply mainly to the full-time famulus. 2 Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, ed. H. E. Salter, Oxford Historical Society, lxxxix, xvi; the calendar is also printed in B.I.H.R., xxxiv. 141–2.

page 299 note 3 E.g. Page, F. M., Estates ofCrowland Abbey, Cambridge 1934, 193Google Scholar. See also Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae, ed. W. H. Hart, Rolls Series 1867, iii. 214.

page 300 note 1 W.A.M. 8423. Oats were fed to the horses each night during this period, except on 10 feasts nights.

page 300 note 2 W.A.M. 26893. The phrase used—quasi per xlvi dies —suggests that the number of days on which some work was done was even larger than 46.

page 300 note 3 Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting, ed. D. Oschinsky, Oxford 1971, 315.

page 300 note 4 W.A.M. 16929 (the account for Staines, whence the horses were borrowed).

page 301 note 1 W.A.M. 26851*.

page 301 note 2 W.A.M. 26855.

page 302 note 1 W. O. Ault, Open-Field Husbandry and the Village Community (Trans. American Philosophical Society, n.s. 55, pt. 7), nos. 89, 99, 107, 140, 148. The vigil is mentioned only at Wistow.

page 302 note 2 Riley, H. T., Memorials of London and London Life in the xiiith., xivth. And xvth. Centuries, London 1868, 217, 227Google Scholar. Cf. the rule, temp. Edward 1, that carpenters might be paid for work until Vespers on a vigil marked by a fast {Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis, ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls Series 1859–62, ii. 542).

page 303 note 1 Colvin, H. M., Building Accounts of King Henry III, Oxford 1971, 289 ff.Google Scholar, 343 ff. These accounts do not cover the whole year, but the period 3 May-21 December. For the likelihood of a fortnight's holiday at Christmas, see ibid., 11, where, however, the editor interprets the feasts ‘that were the lord king's’ as feast days when work was done.

page 303 note 2 E.g. 4d. was deducted from the mason's wage of 4s. 4d. for each of the two feasts that were the lord king's in the fortnight beginning on 21 July, but nothing for the feast that was the mason's. Four masons, however, worked on one of the three feast days and received 4d. each for doing so: ibid., 315.

page 303 note 3 B.I.H.R., xxx.iv. 138–9.

page 303 note 4 Colvin, op. cit., 237.

page 304 note 1 J. Cate, L., ‘The English Mission of Eustace of Flay (1200–1201)’, in Études d’Histoire de’diees a la mimoire de Henri Pirenne, Brussels 1937, 67 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 304 note 2 Capitularia Regum Francorum, xxii. 81.

page 304 note 3 Rodgers, op. cit., 38–9.

page 304 note 4 Ledger-Book of Vale Royal Abbey, ed. J. Brownbill (Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, lxviii), 197 ff; see, in particular, the entry for 24 April 1278 (ibid., 199). For the royal summons in 1307 see Cal. Close Rolls, 1307–1313, 50; Edward n's journey was a preliminary to his marriage in France.

page 304 note 5 … aut fruges colligunt, aut cumulant, aut ducunt de campis: Bromiardus, Johannes, Summa Praedieantium, Venice 1586, i. 279vGoogle Scholar.

page 304 note 6 Rolls of Highworth Hundred, 1275–1287, ed. B. Farr (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, xxi-ii), i. 73.

page 305 note 1 25 Edward in. ii. cap. 1. See also Putnam, B., Enforcement of the Statutes of Labourers, New York 1908Google Scholar, passim; Ritchie, N., ‘Labour Conditions in Essex in the Reign of Richard II’, in Essays in Economic History, ed., Carus-Wilson, E. M., London 1962, ii. 91 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 306 note 1 4 Henry iv, cap. 14.

page 306 note 2 Knoop, D. and Jones, G. P., The Mediaeval Mason, Manchester 1933, 119 and nGoogle Scholar. The Eton workmen also observed the feast of St. Hugh, on 17 November.

page 306 note 3 Lapsley, G. T., ‘The Account Roll of a Fifteenth-Century Iron Master’, in English Historical Review, xiv (1899), 516 ffGoogle Scholar. I am indebted to Dr. Ian Kershaw for this reference.

page 306 note 4 Register of Edmund Lacy, bishop of Exeter, 1420–1455, ed. G. R. Dunstan, ii. (Canterbury and York Society, 132), 337. I am indebted to Professor Dunstan for this reference and for drawing my attention to this type of evidence about festa ferianda. 5 Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Davis, Oxford 1971, i. 96–7. (Wel a-payd: happy.) For this episode, see Trans. Royal Historical Society, 4th. ser., xxvi. 60.

page 307 note 1 E.g. York Memorandum. Book, i. (Surtees Society, 120), 101, 184.

page 307 note 2 John Myrc, “Instructions for Parish Priests (E.E.T.S., 31), 8773”.; see, in general, Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, Oxford 1961, passimGoogle Scholar.

page 307 note 3 Op. cit., 890–91.

page 308 note 1 Cf. Homans, G. C., English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century, New York 1960, 353 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 308 note 2 Barre, H., ‘La Croyance a l’Assomption corporelle en Occident de 750 a 1150 environ”, in Etudes Mariales, vii (1949), 63 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 308 note 3 Crane, T. F. (ed.), The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, London 1890, no. clxxxiiiGoogle Scholar.

page 308 note 4 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, xii. ii. no. 592.