Medieval Woman

COPYRIGHT

First published in Great Britain in 1996 by

Michael O’Mara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

This electronic edition published in 2012

Copyright © 1996 by Ann Baer

Every reasonable effort has been made to acknowledge all copyright holders. Any errors or omissions that may have occurred are inadvertent, and anyone with any copyright queries is invited to write to the publishers, so that a full acknowledgement may be included in subsequent editions of this work.

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of Ann Baer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

The verses quoted at the beginning of each chapter are taken from John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78243-058-2 in ePub format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-059-9 in Mobipocket format

ISBN: 978-1-85479-656-1 in hardback print format

Typeset by Bibliocraft, Dundee

Cover design by Greg Stevenson

Cover artwork: Master of the Life of the Virgin/The Birth of Mary

Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The Yorck Project: 10,000 Meisterwerke der Malerei/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

www.mombooks.com

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,

When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-who;

Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,

And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whit;

Tu-who: a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

EPIGRAPH

LIST OF CHARACTERS

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

THE CHARACTERS

Marion, a medieval woman

Peter Carpenter, her husband

Peterkin, their son

Alice, their daughter

Sir Hugh, the Feudal Lord

Dame Margaret, ‘M’Dame’, his wife

Magda, their daughter

Rollo, Sir Hugh’s brother

Tom

Ed-me-boy, his son

Joan, bastard half-sister of Sir Hugh

Milly

Old Mavis, Joan’s mother

Loppy Lambert

Father John, the priest

Old Sarah, his housekeeper

Simon Miller, Marion’s older brother

Betsy, his wife

Lisa, Roger, Gib, Ellen, Kate, their children

Matt, ploughman at the Hall

Nell, his wife

Rob, their son

Dick Shepherd

Hilda, his wife

Meg, Mary, their daughters