Child Death, Grief, and the Community in High and Late Medieval England
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CHILD DEATH, GRIEF, AND THE COMMUNITY IN HIGH AND LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND _______________________________________ A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________________________________ by DANIELLE NICOLE GRIEGO Dr. Lois Huneycutt, Dissertation Supervisor JULY 2018 © Copyright by Danielle Griego 2018 All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Office of Graduate Studies, have examined the thesis entitled CHILD DEATH, GRIEF, AND THE COMMUNITY IN HIGH AND LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND presented by Danielle Nicole Griego, a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Lois Huneycutt Professor A. Mark Smith Professor Rabia Gregory Professor John Frymire Professor Michelle Morris For my parents, who have supported me throughout the entirety of my educational career. Thank you for all of your moral support. Thanks for standing by me when I wanted to be a Titanic historian, clipping out newspaper headings for my display, and the time I wanted to be the female version of Indiana Jones and then realized that an actual excavation required a trowel and sifter and not a fedora and bull whip. Thank you for encouraging me to travel overseas, igniting my passion for medieval history even further. You have been there in times of excitement and great stress and have helped me achieve many of my professional and academic goals. For all of this, I will be forever grateful. Also, thank you to Rupert and Steve, my fur babies. Rupert, you were my loyal companion, always by my side, protecting me during my first year at Mizzou. Steve, you are one of the sweetest dogs and make graduate school a lot more fun, even if you refuse to translate my Latin… ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my advisor, Lois Huneycutt, for six years of guidance in the History graduate program. Thank you for aiding in the growth of my professional development through conferences and fellowship recommendations. Thank you for encouraging my love of the “depressing” fourteenth-century and being supportive of my interest in everything macabre. Without your guidance and support throughout the graduate process, this dissertation would not be possible. I would also like to thank Rabia Gregory, who has gone above and beyond to help me on several of my projects. Thank you for reading dissertation and article drafts, and for giving me advice about academia, and life in general. I also appreciate the support of my dissertation committee: Mark Smith, John Frymire, and Michelle Morris. Thank you for guiding me in classes, writing letters of recommendation on my behalf, and for agreeing to be on my committee. Also, thank you to other faculty who have offered to help me with course syllabi, who have written letters of recommendation, and have offered other valuable pedagogy advice: Lawrence Okamura, Theodore Koditschek, Ben Park, and Robert Collins. Thanks also to Johanna Kramer for keeping my love for Old English alive, and Nancy Taube and Patty Eggleston for helping me in the office throughout the years. A big thanks to my friends and colleagues in medieval classes and weekly writing group sessions who have read countless drafts of my work, offered constructive feedback, and have offered ideas and book recommendations crucial to this project: Joe Genens, Alexis Miller, Heather Thornton McRae, Nina Verbanaz, Autumn Dolan, Colby Turberville, Chris Paolella, Eric Scott, Tanner Deeds, Amanda Kenney, Katelynn iii Robinson, and Doug Butler. Also, thanks to those in the department that have helped with writing and given moral support: Sarah Lirley McCune, Caitlin Lawrence, Mary Beth Brown, and Brandon Flint. Thank you also to my friends outside of the department for unconditional moral support throughout my education: Gabe Gabaldon, Elaine Obruca, Denise Gabaldon, Katie Carillo, Steph Servantes, Kristen Baca, Rebecca Benson, Kirk Gandy, and the Mizzou Swing Dance family. This dissertation would also not be possible without the financial support of the Medieval Academy of America, Richard III Society, the University of Missouri Office of Research and Graduate Studies, and the University of Missouri History Department. In addition, thank you to all the librarians, archivists, museum curators, both at the University of Missouri and overseas, that helped with my research. Special thanks to Rosemarie Tiffen and St. Margaret’s Church for allowing me to view and photograph the chrisom brass of Thomas Greville. Thanks also to Hazel Forsyth at the Museum of London and the curators at the Archaeology and Anthropology Museum at Downing College, Cambridge. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………....ii LIST OF IMAGES…………………………………………………………………………….iv INTRODUCTION: Examining Child Death and Emotion........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: “Death is Hiding Around a Dark Corner”: The Dangers of Medieval Childhood……………………………………………………………………………37 CHAPTER TWO: “I Should Have, But I Was Blind”: Displays of Maternal Grief.............................................................................................................................72 CHAPTER THREE: “I Beg You Father, Do Not Mourn For Me”: Displays of Paternal Grief………………………………………………………………………………....103 CHAPTER FOUR: “Neighbors Ran to the Sound of Their Strange Cries”: Community Responses to Child Death………………………………………………………………………………...141 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………...175 APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………….182 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………...188 VITA………………………………………………………………………………...199 iv List of Images: 1. Fifteenth-century chrisom brass of Thomas Greville from St. Margaret’s Church, Stanford rivers, Essex. 1 Introduction Examining Medieval Child Death and Emotion William of Canterbury, one of the authors of the Thomas Becket miracle collection, reports in a twelfth-century miracle that an eight-year-old boy named Phillip was looking at rocks by a lake located in the county of Cheshire, when he slipped and was overtaken by the water (aquis obrutus est). When he did not return home, his father, Hugh Scot, searched for him everywhere in the village and found his body submerged in the lake. Hugh was sighing and groaning (suspiriis et gemitu) after extracting him from the water, and when Phillip’s mother heard about his death, she indulged in tears and wailing (lacrymis indulget et plactui).1 Rather than preparing the boy’s corpse for a funeral, his parents attempted to revive him by suspending him by his feet in order to drain the liquid from his body, and when that did not work, by giving him holy water associated with Thomas Becket (aqua sancti Thomæ). According to William of Canterbury, because of the devotion of the parents (devotio parentum) and divine intervention, Phillip began to show signs of life, making his father leap forth (exsiliente) from his seat with excitement.2 In the Spring of 2015, I read the account about Phillip from Cheshire in the Thomas Becket miracle collection while searching for descriptions of medieval mortality for a conference paper. I was struck by the poignancy of the account, specifically by the 1 Gemitu can also be translated as “moaning,” according to the Oxford Latin Dictionary. 2 William of Canterbury, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Canonized by Pope Alexander III., A. D. 1173., ed. James Robertson, Vol. 1 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1875), 201. 2 imagery of Phillip’s father and mother seeing their son’s lifeless body sprawled on the ground, and of their refusal to accept his death demonstrated by their desperate attempts to revive him. Not just English mothers and fathers, but whole communities would have witnessed alarming rates of child mortality in the Middle Ages, a concept which is somewhat foreign to our modern minds. Today, the heartbreaking news about child death, in most cases, is viewed as “unexpected” or “rare.” However, the medieval corpus reflects the grim reality that child death was common. Children perished from complications during birth, illness, foul play, and from infortunia, or accidental deaths that occurred around the household and community. Death rates were only heightened with the onset of the Black Death and episodes of famine in the fourteenth century. The amount of emotional trauma brought on by child death is incomprehensible, which brings me to my next observation about the excerpt in the previous paragraph. Another aspect of the miracle story that caught my eye was the emotion portrayed within the account. William of Canterbury clearly depicts the grief of Phillip’s parents over his death, both by showing their persistent attempts to resuscitate him and by using emotional dialogue to describe their feelings after they discovered his body. Phillip’s father sighs and groans as he lays his son’s body on the ground. His mother weeps and cries out over the devastation of the loss. These two different forms of emotional expression inspired this project because of the following questions that they raised: Is grief associated with child death commonly depicted in miracle stories (and other medieval texts)? If so, is the language/imagery of grief found in the account about Phillip typical of grief descriptions?