Ffiona von Westhoven Perigrinor - Life in a Medieval Gentry Household: Alice de Bryene of Acton Hall, Suffolk, c.1360-1435

In the Middle Ages the household was such a fundamental part of the social structure that the post-1350 era has been termed the Age of the Household. Academic studies have generally focused on the grand, itinerant households of the wealthy aristocracy, illuminating the lifestyles and pastimes of this elite class. Using the household accounts of Alice de Bryene, a widowed gentlewoman, together with bailiffs and stewards reports from her home in Suffolk and other estates further afield, this richly detailed study paints a vivid portrait of the lives of ordinary people in the medieval countryside, of festivals and feast days, marriage and monuments, family loyalties and betrayals, life and death, the rhythms of the working day and year, and the changing scene in the wider world beyond the household.

ffiona von Westhoven Perigrinor is an independent scholar and Jungian psycho-analyst. Her previous publications include: Reluctant Pilgrim: The Lost Book of Margery Kempes Maidservant (2021) and Strange Tales from My Studio: A Psychotherapist in China (forthcoming). And under her pen-name ffiona Swabey: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Courtly Love and the Troubadours (2004) and Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a Widows Household in the Later Middle Ages (1999). www.perigrinor.co.uk

First published 2022

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Von Westhoven Peregrinor, Ffiona, author.

Title: Life in a medieval gentry household : Alice de Bryene of Acton Hall, Suffolk, c.13601435 / ffiona von Westhoven Perigrinor. Other titles: Medieval gentlewoman | Alice de Bryene of Acton Hall, Suffolk, c.13601435

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Originally published in 1999 by Sutton Publishing Limited (UK) and Routledge Kegan Paul (USA) as Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a Widows Household in the Later Middle Ages by ffiona Swabey. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021025470 (print) | LCCN 2021025471 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032030401 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032030418 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003186359 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Suffolk (England)Social life and customsTo 1500. | De Bryene, Alice, Dame, approximately 13601434 or 1435. | WomenEnglandSuffolkHistoryTo 1500. | HouseholdsEnglandSuffolkHistoryTo 1500. | GentryEnglandSuffolkHistoryTo 1500. | EnglandSocial life and customs1066-1485.

Classification: LCC DA670.S9 V66 2022 (print) | LCC DA670.S9 (ebook) | DDC 942.6/4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025470

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025471

Originally published in 1999 by Sutton Publishing Limited (UK) and Routledge Kegan Paul (USA) as Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a Widows Household in the Later Middle Ages by ffiona Swabey.

ISBN: 978-1-032-03040-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-03041-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-18635-9 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003186359

Typeset in Bembo

by codeMantra

Cover image: detail from a Flemish manuscript 1338-44. By permission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, (Ms Bodl. 264f 170v)

To the memory of my mother Elisabeth von Westhoven

4 October 1907 16 September 1974

And of her twin brother Rdiger von Westhoven

4 October 1907 27 September 1944

My greatest debt of gratitude is to Professor Emerita Caroline Barron who was a constant source of encouragement and support when I first wrote this book, and who later insisted that it was republished. I would also like to thank Joel Rosenthal, Emeritus Professor of History who gave me guidance for the first edition. And thanks are due too to Professor Martha Carlin and Professor Peter Coss for supporting this new edition.

I also thank the following people who saw parts of the original manuscript at its conception and offered their comments, or who answered specific queries: Dr Helen Bradley, Professor Christopher Dyer, Dr Christopher Given-Wilson, Professor Christopher Harper-Bill, Dr Ruth Harvey, Professor Richard Marks, Professor Colin Richmond, Professor Joel Rosenthal, Professor Ian Short, Dr Anne Sutton, Dr Jennifer Ward and Dr Christopher Woolgar.

Thanks are due again to the Rt. Hon. William Waldegrave for permission to quote the extract on page 86 from the book of his mother Mary, the late Countess Waldegrave.

I have kept French and Latin quotations in the original in some instances with a translation in the footnotes where necessary. Certain words and phrases such as materfamilias (literally mother of the family) and domina domus (lady of the household) cannot be accurately translated since they relate to medieval concepts of society and authority. I have also retained the medieval spellings for certain surnames such as Boteler for Butler, since that is how it appears in The Household Book, but have included modern forms in the Index. For the same reason Alices surname is given as Bryene which is how it appears in the Household Book, while other members of the family are referred to as Bryan. Sir in italics denotes a member of the clergy rather than a knight.

• Cash 1 = 240d or 100p
• 1s = one shilling, 12d or 5p
• 1 mark = 13s 4d
• Linear 1 yard = 0.9 metre
• Liquid 1 gallon = 8 pints or 4.5 litres
• Weight 1 lb = one pound, 16 ounces or 0.45 kilograms
• Grain was measured by dry weight, Hence
• 1 quarter = 8 bushels or 35.3 litres
• 1 bushel = 50 lbs or 22.680 kilograms

• CCR - Calendar of Close Rolls
• CFR - Calendar of Fine Rolls
• CIM - Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous
• CIPM - Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem
• CPR - Calendar of Fine Rolls

When I wrote this book over twenty years ago, at the end of the last century, my main interest was women in the later Middle Ages. I wanted to explore the lifestyle, status and autonomy of those who had sufficient wealth to maintain independent households and exercise their authority in the wider world, and also to write about the lives and occupations of women in rural communities in general. Alice de Bryene provided the ideal exemplar because she was a widow and so had femme sole status a legal identity of her own while married womens actions cannot easily be identified since they were generally subsumed under their husbands activities. Also Dame Alices household and stewards accounts, as well as the bailiffs reports relating to her farms and estates, proved to be a mine of information and a good starting-point for my research.