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Adult brothers and juvenile uncles: Generations and age differences in families at the end of the Middle Ages
History of the Family 6 (2001) 391 – 400
Adult brothers and juvenile uncles: Generations and age differences in families at the end of the Middle Ages Didier Lett Universite´ de Paris-1, 17 Rue de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris, France
Abstract In medieval families, dependent relationships did not fall exclusively within the context of parental ties. For various reasons, children sometimes grew up with a much older brother or sister or with uncles or aunts younger than themselves. The article examines these relationships in the household at the end of Middle Ages using fiscal documents and accounts of miracles. The questions are what sort of relationships existed when age and generation did not coincide, how authority was exercised, how dependent relationships should be analyzed, and how autonomy was acquired. These questions can place avuncular and fraternal relationships in a new and different light. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Medieval; Generational relations; Age structure; Kinship
1. Introduction As a child grows up among family and relatives, he or she is progressively acquiring autonomy. The child nevertheless remains dependent materially, psychologically, and socially. Thus, the question of the child’s relationship to authority, which is indispensable for protection, support, and education, becomes more complex. Familial authority varies according to the child’s sex, place within the family group, and the personalities of the individuals concerned. In particular, authority is legitimized by the substantial difference in age and by the generation gap (defined, in this case, as the interval of time separating two degrees of filiation) between the one exercising power and the one who must obey. Parents possess and use authority over their children, not only because the law authorizes it, but also because a generation and considerable difference in age separate them from their son or daughter. 1081-602X/01/$ – see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 0 8 1 - 6 0 2 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 7 - X
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In families living during the ancien re´gime, however, the dependent relationship did not fall exclusively within the context of parental ties. The frequent disappearance of parents resulted in a large number of orphans being taken in by another family member who assumed the position of authority. The large number of remarriages also produced step-parenthood, generating new relationships. The relative expansion of the household to include other people (whether relatives or outsiders hired as servants) multiplied the ties within domestic groups. Finally, the considerable length of time between the first and last births of siblings created wide age differences between the eldest and youngest. So many elements oblige the historian studying families of earlier times to consider not only parental authority but to analyze other relationships as well. This is particularly true when age and generation differences do not coincide. What is the nature of a child’s relationship with a brother or sister (either full or half) who, though of the same generation, is 15 or 20, indeed, sometimes 25 years older? What is the nature of the ties between a child and the son or daughter of an older brother or sister, a niece or nephew, who may be in his or her age group but belongs to the next generation? In this context, how is authority exercised, how are dependent relationships analyzed, and how is autonomy acquired? To observe these particular family relationships, we have chosen the final centuries of the Middle Ages. Documentation from this period, more plentiful than that from preceding centuries, sometimes allows the historian to recompose families. Moreover, the remembrement liganger (Le Roy Ladurie, 1966), as a result of crises and the ensuing demographic and economic recovery, brought about more often than before the cohabitation of different generations under the same roof.
2. Number and ages of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts Did families during the ancien re´gime tend to be large? It is difficult to answer, since the situations observed contrast greatly with each other. In fact, even if there were many large families (Le Bras, 1982) because of the high birthrate, many households were diminished by infant mortality. But whether they belonged to large or small families, siblings at the end of the Middle Ages were characterized by wide age differences between the firstborn and the youngest, a result essentially of the long period of women’s fertility. The average age at which girls married in the Middle Ages was very precocious: 14 or 15 in the families belonging to the legal profession in Paris (Autrand, 1981), 15 to 16 in Reims (Desportes, 1966), 17 to 18 in Montaillou (Le Roy Ladurie, 1975), and 16 in the Tuscan towns and countryside in 1427 (Herlihy & Klapisch-Zuber, 1978). The first births tended to come soon after marriage, transforming those very young girls into mothers. Eight, ten, or twelve births were not unusual. Thus, Florentine women, who married between ages 15 and 19 and were fortunate enough to live at least until the end of their fertile period, bore on average of 11 children (Klapisch-Zuber, 1988). In contrast with today’s patterns, childbearing continued over two or, sometimes, three decades. Fifteen to twenty years could separate siblings. A mother sometimes saw the birth of one or more children to her daughter before bearing her last child or children.
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The great differences in age between the first and last offspring were accentuated by the longer length of the intervals between births, as women grew older, delaying still further the final birth. Thus, the average interval preceding the last born of fifteenth century Florentine women having had at least six children, is around 25 to 30 months, while the intervals separating the first births do not exceed 21 months (Klapisch-Zuber, 1988). The age gaps were also reinforced by the frequency of remarriage (a phenomenon that affected 30–40% of all conjugal unions). The existence of ‘‘recomposed families’’ or stepfamilies, in which the widowed husband often chose a much younger woman, increased the number of brothers and sisters and, in particular, accentuated the age differences between the eldest and youngest child. In medieval families, born of the same parents or ‘‘recomposed,’’ the first offspring of an older sister was sometimes the same age as the young mother’s little brother or sister. Some uncles could even be younger than the oldest nephew and certain nieces older than their aunts. In the demographic ancien re´gime, within each degree of kinship, the age gaps were thus very substantial, ‘‘provoking a certain confusion between family relationship and age groups’’ (Le Bras, 1982). Several fiscal documents from the end of the Middle Ages bring these phenomena to light. On June 4, 1384, intending to impose a new tax on salt, the commune of Bologna undertook a census, neighborhood by neighborhood. The scribe noted the number of households, the age of each household member, and his or her kinship relation to its head. Unfortunately, only fragments of that document remain (Montanari, 1966). They are sufficient, however, to show that in that time of demographic growth in the aftermath of the Black Plague (1348) and the Children’s Plague (1363) families were becoming larger. The siblings presented wide differences in age, and there were uncles and aunts belonging to the same age groups as their nieces and nephews. Thus, in a contrada in the parish of Santa Caterina de Saragozza, which was located in the Porte San Procolo quarter, there lived under the same roof Ser Muzolino de Maxino, a butcher, aged 70; his wife Luzia (60); Cholo, their son (25) with his wife Mexina (20); and their son Polo (3). There were also Nanino, Muzolino’s second son (16); Chatelina (18), daughter of Maxino, the deceased father of Muzolino; Zorzo, Chatelina’s brother (10); Jachoma (25), the widow of Maxino; and her two youngest children, Horsolina (6) and Bertolomia (3) (Fig. 1). This household contained four generations. Since the last wife of Maxino was very young, her two daughters (Horsolina and Bertolomia) belonged to the same age group as little Polo, who, however, was a member of the fourth generation. Muzolino had children (aged 16 and 25) who fell within the same age group as his father’s last wife, Jachoma, who was only 25. In the next contrada (Contrada dela Noxadela), there lived Rustigano de Gnudolo di Pariano, 35 years old and also a butcher, with his wife Zohana (25) and their two children, Gnudolo (8) and Cholo (7). Bertolomio, his brother (23), his brother’s wife Zana, (20) and their two children, Tuonio (3) and Betina (1), resided in his household as well. Also lodging with Rustigano were his mother Mexina (70), his two nieces Jachoma (28) and Charavita de Fino (17), and a nephew, Jachomo (10) (Fig. 2). In this family, Jachoma, undoubtedly the eldest of the siblings, descended from an older brother or sister, was older than her uncle (Bertolomio) and her aunts (Zana and Zohana). She was born 18 years before her little brother, Jachomo.
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Fig. 1. The household of Ser Muzolino de Maxino.
Unfortunately, the sparseness of these fiscal documents tells us nothing about the bonds that were formed among members of a household. In the one headed by Muzolino, who surely exercised authority over them, Horsolina and Bertolomia, aged 6 and 3, respectively, undoubtedly played and quarreled ‘‘like sisters’’ with little Polo who was only 3 years old. Polo, however, was the grandson of Muzolino, the patriarch, whose father was also the father of the little girls. When Nanino energetically insisted that the children be quiet, did he distinguish between his son and the son’s young aunts? In Rustigano’s house, what could have been the nature of the ties between Bertolomio (23) and his niece, 5 years older? Since the parents were absent (deceased?), would not Jachomo exercise ‘‘maternal authority’’ over her little brother, 18 years younger? The examination of other documents provides partial answers to these types of questions. In particular, there are the accounts of miracles, which mention people (very often family members) close to the person who has benefited from the miracle, and hence, provide some information on these relationships (Lett, 1997).1 The
1
The accounts of miracles: In this study, medieval accounts of miracle have proved to be of primary importance for understanding the society and mentalities in general, and the history of childhood and the family in particular. From the end of the twelfth century, the necessity for a rigorous investigation to determine a person’s sainthood forced hagiographers to be precise and thus added to the richness of the documents they produced. The reports of miracles, which aimed to demonstrate that the saint interceded for everyone, illustrate the variety of those whose lives have been miraculously ‘‘touched,’’ presenting both sexes at various stages in life and from all social categories. The hagiographer described the reactions of all those who, at different periods in the miraculous process, came in contact with the person suffering from an illness or accidental wounds or who had died. In so doing, he provided valuable information on family relations for the historian. The examples cited in this study were taken from the following collections: R.R. Darlington (1928), Benedict de Peterborough (1875), Guillaume de Saint-Pathus (1932), N. Occhioni (1984).
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Fig. 2. The household of Rustigano de Gnudolo di Pariano.
hagiographer often noted the family relationships uniting those miraculously ‘‘touched’’ to others in the narrative. Unfortunately, ages were mentioned only rarely.
3. Under the authority of the eldest Born from the same mother and placed under the authority of a common father, siblings generally enjoyed a relationship of equality among themselves. That does not mean, however, that great inequalities did not exist. As He´ritier (2000) has written, ‘‘the shared status of brothers and sisters where the positions are a priori similar and equivalent, is formed from the inside by two differentiating elements: if the siblings are numerous, they are not necessarily of the same sex and only rarely have been born at the same time. The order of birth implies the establishment and recognition of rank based on age within the group, which like precedence of generation, determines hierarchical superiority.’’ In examining the relationship between brothers and sisters, it is not enough to pose questions about complicity, love, or jealousy (Lett, 1997). There are also questions of authority, dependence, and autonomy. In large medieval families, ‘‘older children’’ exercised great authority over their brothers and sisters when substantial age differences existed between the eldest and the youngest and when the parents — whose time and energy were completely absorbed by hard work in the fields or workshops — were not always present. Although in contemporary Western society this ‘‘parentification’’ (i.e., the assumption of a parental role) has posed problems, in the Middle Ages, fathers and mothers seemed readily to delegate a large part of their authority to their older offspring. In traditional societies, these ‘‘big brothers and sisters’’ had a role as educators clearly recognized by their siblings, and they participated in the transmission of knowledge and know-how. As the humanist Maffeo Vegio da Lodi wrote in 1444: ‘‘It is equally judicious to entrust one’s child to be instructed by a more educated companion or, better still, by a close friend or relative or, indeed, by an older brother . . . It is when they are helped by adults that little ones learn best and most rapidly; and as for the grownups who teach them, they reinforce what they have learned and achieve results that, we feel, have great importance to the family’’ (Maffeo Vegio da Lodi, 1933–1936). The eldest was supposed to set an example for the youngest. In Lancelot, written in prose in the thirteenth century, Lionel
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got up from the table in a rage and knocked it over. Pharien chastised him: ‘‘Why did you leave the table this evening at such a time and in such bad humor? Come and eat. Even if you are not hungry, you ought to pretend to be, for the sake of my lord, your brother who, without you, will not himself eat.’’ The eldest, like the father or mother, was a role model. His or her exemplary conduct was the keystone of the medieval pedagogical system. The accounts of miracles sometimes presented an older sister who, having a handicapped, impoverished, or ailing mother, replaced her, undertaking all or part of her sibling’s education or taking the initiative in seeking a miraculous solution to an illness or misfortune suffered by a younger brother or sister (Lett, 1993). Thus, in the miraculum attributed to Saint Louis, written by Guillaume de Saint-Pathus (circa 1302–1303), Eideline, whose age was unspecified although she has supposedly already left home, came back and without consulting her parents carried her 10-year-old sister, Adete, to the sanctuary of Saint-Denis where subsequently she was miraculous healed (de Saint-Pathus, 1932, Miracle 10). It was often difficult, especially for a girl, to oppose the wishes of her family. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, there was an 18-year-old girl from Gloucester who, at the age of 3, had lost her sight in one eye. She had a vision in which the Virgin told her that if she prayed at the tomb of Saint Wulfstan in Worcester she would recover her sight totally. When the girl reported this supernatural appearance to her mother and brothers, they mocked her, not understanding why she should want to go to a neighboring town to pray to an unfamiliar saint. It was almost a year before the girl dared to follow the Virgin’s advice and defy her brothers and mother (Darlington, 1928, Book I, 34). In this tale, the absence of a father conferred on the (older?) brothers’ power to influence their sister’s decisions. Among medieval siblings, the older brother’s authority was so powerful that it sometimes continued for a long time. Jean Gerson (1363–1419), the eldest of 12 children, always exercised great influence over his four brothers and seven sisters even though the differences in ages were such that he had spent little of his own childhood with most of them (Ledwidge, 1984). For his younger sisters, he composed treatises (including the Dialogue spirituel) and kept up a regular correspondence with them. He also sent numerous letters to his two younger brothers. In one, dated 1408 and addressed to Nicolas, he wrote, ‘‘I preferred to express all this to you rather than to our brother Jean [the youngest], insofar as, like a father or indulgent brother, I could fulfill my duty towards someone who, given his delicate health, remains both my son and brother.’’ The confusion of the fraternal and paternal functions could not be better expressed. The writer’s clearly asserted position as a much older elder brother made it easy to forget that the two brothers belonged to the same generation. The authority exercised on very young brothers and sisters was sometimes transferred, at the parent’s death, by a legal document. In Rouergue, on November 21, 1334, Pierre Landel drew up his will. At the time he had 10 children. Since some of them were still very young, he delegated their education and support to his two eldest sons who were to be his inheritors (Landes-Mallet, 1985). When a parent died, children who were still minors were sometimes entrusted to an older brother, as was the case in the town of Gand in the fourteenth century (Nicholas, 1985). Also, when a younger sister married, the brothers sometimes participated in creating her dowry. Thus in 1193, in Be´ziers, three brothers, having heeded the advice of their mother and uncle, sold a house in order to provide a dowry for their 18-year-old sister.
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However, the authority of the eldest sibling (whether male or female) cannot be measured simply by age differences. In 1325, Pope John XXII instigated an investigation to verify the sainthood of an Augustinian monk, Nicola da Tolentino, who had died 20 years earlier. Among 365 witnesses questioned were three members of the same family: the 50-year-old father, Berard Appillaterre, a lawyer from Tolentino, and his two daughters, Berardescha (25) and Ceccha (23) (Occhioni, 1984, Witnesses 16, 84, and 85). By cross-checking these three testimonies, a partial reconstitution of the family is possible. Berard, a widower, had been married to Margarita, who had always shown great devotion to Nicola da Tolentino. The couple remained childless for many years, because a number of their offspring died at birth. Margarita implored the holy man to intercede on her behalf and ask God to bring an end to her misfortune. Nicola had replied, ‘‘Don’t worry. You are going to conceive a daughter who will have a very long life. And if I am still alive, she will often bring me things to eat sent by you.’’ Thus, under these seemingly miraculous circumstances, Berardescha was born. Berard and Margarita subsequently had at least three more children: Nicolocius, Ceccha, and Tucius. (Possibly there were others, but the questions asked by the investigators concerned only those who had benefited from a miracle). Although she was only 2 years younger than her sister, Ceccha learned about certain family events solely from the testimony of Berardescha and her mother. Thus, when she reported a serious illness from which she suffered as a child or mentioned a stillborn brother whose soul had been saved by Nicola da Tolentino, Ceccha specified her source of information: ‘‘audivit dici a dictis matre et sorore ipsius testis.’’ Because Berardescha had been chosen by Nicola da Tolentino to replace her mother, who honored the saint as long as she lived, Berardescha became the depository of a part of the memories belonging to all the siblings. Her authority stemmed less from being older, than from the authority bestowed upon her by the saint. Ceccha admired her older sister greatly and had a real desire to identify with her. Nevertheless, veneration did not exclude her wishing to be different. Before recounting, in her turn, the miracles already described by her father and sister, Ceccha related the marvel that had happened to her daughter Clarucia, immediately giving originality to her testimony.
4. Uncles and aunts who were still children Although little is known about brothers and sisters in the Middle Ages, still less is known about uncles and aunts and their relationships with their nephews and nieces. Certainly, the fundamental role of the maternal uncles in the kinship structure has been observed ever since the epic literature of the Middle Ages (Bezzola, 1970). The families of the nobility generally practiced hypergamous marriages, in which the wife came from a higher social stratum than the husband. The mother’s older brother, often the inheritor of paternal authority, had a strong position within the lineage, sometimes taking in or ‘‘fostering’’ his sister’s children to perfect their noble education and, in fact, becoming a ‘‘second father’’ (Bezzola, 1970; Duby, 1986). The fabliaux (La bourgeoise d’Orle´ans, Estormi) also present the avuncular bond in a positive light, a kind of prolongation of the strong fraternal relationship. Accounts of miracles sometimes contain uncles and aunts in cameo roles in the marvelous events. At the end of the
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twelfth century, Laetitia, an invalid girl of 14 about whom we know only that her mother was from lowly origins (matre ignobili genita), had been educated (educare) by her maternal aunt (matertera sua). Whereas the mother is absent from the story, it is the aunt who takes the girl to sanctuary, who guides her in the rites of intercession and invocation of the saint, and stays at her side until she is healed (de Peterborough, 1875, Book IV, 31). Jehenne, aged 15, lived in Saint-Denis with her uncle (Pierre) and aunt (Agne`s). When, following an accident, she lost consciousness, it was they who assumed the parental functions. When the neighbors ‘‘believed that she was dead (. . .), Pierre and Agne`s began to weep,’’ but they continued to watch over the girl. The aunt pried open her niece’s mouth with a knife to feed her a bit of cooked apple. It is known that on the evening of the accident, Jehenne’s mother, accompanied by another woman, came to visit her daughter in the home of Pierre and Agne`s. When, after being carried to Saint Louis’s tomb, Jehenne began to regain consciousness, her first words were to her aunt (not her mother): ‘‘And when she regained her powers of speech she called her aunt, whom she believed was nearby, and said, ‘My lady! My lady!’’’ Guillaume de SaintPathus (1932, Miracle 53) noted the joyful reaction of the uncle and aunt when the niece was healed but said nothing about the mother. It was not unusual in urban environments to find nephews and nieces living under the same roof as their uncles and aunts. In 1422, in Reims, 23% of households of the parish of SaintPierre contained relatives other than parents, their children, and servants. There were nephews, nieces, younger brothers and sisters, or older fathers and mothers. These individuals belonging to the extended family represented 17.5% of the total population and were found in 10% of the households in the parish (Desportes 1966). Unfortunately, these accounts give no information regarding the age differences between uncles/aunts and nephews/nieces. Other documents might perhaps prove more informative. We must be content to draw attention to two consequences for the kinship structure when an uncle or aunt belonged to the same age group as a nephew or niece. At the end of the Middle Ages, women married at a much younger age than men. The age difference between husband and wife was, on average from 9 to 12 years in the affluent families of Toulouse, 11 years in Bologna (when the previously mentioned census was taken in 1384), and 13 years in 1427 in Florence (Herlihy & Klapisch-Zuber, 1978). The slight difference in age or the inversion of the age gap between uncles/aunts and nephews/nieces was thus more frequent in the mother’s lineage than in the father’s. Consequently, the authority exercised by one generation over another within kinship structures was weaker in the maternal than in the paternal branch. This phenomenon had a tendency to reinforce patrilineal bias at the end of the Middle Ages. Moreover, a strong correlation exists between highly agnatic regions and those areas where a significant age difference in husband and wife can be observed. This is the case for both northern and central Italy. The maternal branch, in which the bonds of complicity, affection, equality, and ‘‘fraternity’’ were stronger and ‘‘generational conflicts’’ more tenuous offered an egalitarian pole of resistance to a paternal line with more clearly defined generations. By looking at this closeness in age between uncle and nephew, we can view the avuncular relationship in a different light. It could be more than a unifying bond in the case of fostering, for example, of a child or an adolescent by a ‘‘patriarch’’ who had authority that his position
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as a member of the preceding generation and his higher social rank has bestowed on him. It could also be an ‘‘egalitarian’’ relationship between two individuals belonging to the same age group. This brief survey falls within the scope of a much broader study, only barely sketched out, focusing on the interaction between brothers and sisters in medieval societies. The historians of children and the family have tended to concentrate on ‘‘vertical’’ relations between parents and children (generally ignoring grandparents, however). They have studied ‘‘horizontal’’ (brothers, sisters, and cousins) and ‘‘diagonal’’ (uncle/aunt–nephew/niece) relationships hardly at all. The demographic and cultural context of earlier societies should encourage us to explore these ties. The separation of generations remains immutable: a brother and sister will always belong to the same generation and an uncle to the preceding one. But the age gaps between family members vary according to the demographic, economic, social, and cultural context. The historian studying childhood and the family must take account of this fact as well when analyzing relations among siblings. Wide differences in age within the same generation alter the relationship between equality and authority. For a better understanding of the history of how children have grown up over the centuries, it would be useful to also study the type of bond that has linked them with a much older brother or sister or to an uncle or aunt in their age group.
References Autrand, F. (1981). Naissance d’un grand corps de l’Etat: les gens du Parlement de Paris, 1345 – 1454. Paris: Presses Universitaires de la Sorbonne. Bezzola, R. R. (1970). Les neveux. In: Me´langes de langue et de lirte´rature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, textes offerts a` Jean Frappier ( pp. 89 – 114). Gene`ve: Droz. daLodi, M. V. (1933 – 1936). M. W. Fanning, & A. S. Sullivan (Eds.), De educatione liberorum et eorum claris moribus. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Darlington, R. R. (1928). The vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury. London: Offices of the Society. dePeterborough, B. (1875). J. G. Robertson (Ed.), Materials for the history of Archibischop Thomas Becket. Rolls series, vol. 2, (o. 67). London: Longman and Co. deSaint-Pathus, G. (1932). P. B. Fay (Ed.), Les miracles de saint Louis. Paris: Champion. Desportes, P. (1966). La population de Reims au XVe sie`cle d’apre`s un de´nombrement de 1422. Le Moyen Age, 71, 463 – 509. Duby, G. (1986). Guillaume le Mare´chal ou le meilleur chevalier du monde. Paris: Fayard. He´ritier, F. (2000). Articulations et substances. Question de parente´, L’Homme, 154 – 155, 21 – 38 (April – September). Herlihy, D., & Klapisch-Zuber, C. (1978). Les Toscans et leur famille. Une analyse du catasto florentin de 1427. Paris: EHESS. Klapisch-Zuber, C. (1988). La fe´condite´ des Florentines (XIVe – XVIe sie`cles). Annales de De´mographie Historique. p. 41 – 57. Landes-Mallet, A. M. (1985). La famille en Rouergue au Moyen Age. Rouen: P.U. de Roven. Le Bras, H. (1982). L’e´volution des liens de famille au cours de l’existence. Une comparaison entre la France actuelle et la France du XVIIIe sie`cle. In: Les Ages de la vie, actes du VIIe colloque national de de´mographie, Strasbourg les 5-6-7 mai 1982 ( pp. 27 – 45) (Cahiers 96, Tome 1. Paris). Ledwidge, F. (1984). Relations de famille dans la correspondance de Gerson. Revue Historique, 271, 3 – 23.
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Le Roy Ladurie, E. (1966). Les paysans de Languedoc. Paris: SEVPEN. Le Roy Ladurie, E. (1975). Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 a` 1324. Paris: Gallimard. Lett, D. (1993). La sorella maggiore ‘‘madre sostitutiva’’ nei miraculi di san Luigi. In: A. Arru & S. Boesch Gajano (Eds.), Fratello e sorella, Quaderni Storici (pp. 341 – 353). 83, a, 28, 2 (August). Lett, D. (1997). L’enfant des miracles. Enfance et socie´te´ (XIIe – XIIIe sie`cles). Paris: Aubier. Montanari, P. (1966). Documenti sulla popolazione di Bologna alla fine del Trecento (Fonti per la storia di Bologna): I. Bologne. The first household is described on p. 64 and translated in Archives de l’Occident (1992) under the direction of Jean Favier, t. 1, Le Moyen Age, Ve – XVe sie`cle, by Olivier Guyotjeannin. Paris: Fayard: 707. The second can be found on p. 73. Nicholas, D. (1985). The domestic life of a medieval city: women, children, and the family in fourteenth-century Ghent. Lincoln: London University of Nebraska Press. Occhioni, N. (1984). Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolendino. Rome: Ecole Fransc¸aise de Rome.
Adult brothers and juvenile uncles: Generations and age differences in families at the end of the Middle Ages Didier Lett Universite´ de Paris-1, 17 Rue de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris, France
Abstract In medieval families, dependent relationships did not fall exclusively within the context of parental ties. For various reasons, children sometimes grew up with a much older brother or sister or with uncles or aunts younger than themselves. The article examines these relationships in the household at the end of Middle Ages using fiscal documents and accounts of miracles. The questions are what sort of relationships existed when age and generation did not coincide, how authority was exercised, how dependent relationships should be analyzed, and how autonomy was acquired. These questions can place avuncular and fraternal relationships in a new and different light. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Medieval; Generational relations; Age structure; Kinship
1. Introduction As a child grows up among family and relatives, he or she is progressively acquiring autonomy. The child nevertheless remains dependent materially, psychologically, and socially. Thus, the question of the child’s relationship to authority, which is indispensable for protection, support, and education, becomes more complex. Familial authority varies according to the child’s sex, place within the family group, and the personalities of the individuals concerned. In particular, authority is legitimized by the substantial difference in age and by the generation gap (defined, in this case, as the interval of time separating two degrees of filiation) between the one exercising power and the one who must obey. Parents possess and use authority over their children, not only because the law authorizes it, but also because a generation and considerable difference in age separate them from their son or daughter. 1081-602X/01/$ – see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 0 8 1 - 6 0 2 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 7 - X
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In families living during the ancien re´gime, however, the dependent relationship did not fall exclusively within the context of parental ties. The frequent disappearance of parents resulted in a large number of orphans being taken in by another family member who assumed the position of authority. The large number of remarriages also produced step-parenthood, generating new relationships. The relative expansion of the household to include other people (whether relatives or outsiders hired as servants) multiplied the ties within domestic groups. Finally, the considerable length of time between the first and last births of siblings created wide age differences between the eldest and youngest. So many elements oblige the historian studying families of earlier times to consider not only parental authority but to analyze other relationships as well. This is particularly true when age and generation differences do not coincide. What is the nature of a child’s relationship with a brother or sister (either full or half) who, though of the same generation, is 15 or 20, indeed, sometimes 25 years older? What is the nature of the ties between a child and the son or daughter of an older brother or sister, a niece or nephew, who may be in his or her age group but belongs to the next generation? In this context, how is authority exercised, how are dependent relationships analyzed, and how is autonomy acquired? To observe these particular family relationships, we have chosen the final centuries of the Middle Ages. Documentation from this period, more plentiful than that from preceding centuries, sometimes allows the historian to recompose families. Moreover, the remembrement liganger (Le Roy Ladurie, 1966), as a result of crises and the ensuing demographic and economic recovery, brought about more often than before the cohabitation of different generations under the same roof.
2. Number and ages of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts Did families during the ancien re´gime tend to be large? It is difficult to answer, since the situations observed contrast greatly with each other. In fact, even if there were many large families (Le Bras, 1982) because of the high birthrate, many households were diminished by infant mortality. But whether they belonged to large or small families, siblings at the end of the Middle Ages were characterized by wide age differences between the firstborn and the youngest, a result essentially of the long period of women’s fertility. The average age at which girls married in the Middle Ages was very precocious: 14 or 15 in the families belonging to the legal profession in Paris (Autrand, 1981), 15 to 16 in Reims (Desportes, 1966), 17 to 18 in Montaillou (Le Roy Ladurie, 1975), and 16 in the Tuscan towns and countryside in 1427 (Herlihy & Klapisch-Zuber, 1978). The first births tended to come soon after marriage, transforming those very young girls into mothers. Eight, ten, or twelve births were not unusual. Thus, Florentine women, who married between ages 15 and 19 and were fortunate enough to live at least until the end of their fertile period, bore on average of 11 children (Klapisch-Zuber, 1988). In contrast with today’s patterns, childbearing continued over two or, sometimes, three decades. Fifteen to twenty years could separate siblings. A mother sometimes saw the birth of one or more children to her daughter before bearing her last child or children.
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The great differences in age between the first and last offspring were accentuated by the longer length of the intervals between births, as women grew older, delaying still further the final birth. Thus, the average interval preceding the last born of fifteenth century Florentine women having had at least six children, is around 25 to 30 months, while the intervals separating the first births do not exceed 21 months (Klapisch-Zuber, 1988). The age gaps were also reinforced by the frequency of remarriage (a phenomenon that affected 30–40% of all conjugal unions). The existence of ‘‘recomposed families’’ or stepfamilies, in which the widowed husband often chose a much younger woman, increased the number of brothers and sisters and, in particular, accentuated the age differences between the eldest and youngest child. In medieval families, born of the same parents or ‘‘recomposed,’’ the first offspring of an older sister was sometimes the same age as the young mother’s little brother or sister. Some uncles could even be younger than the oldest nephew and certain nieces older than their aunts. In the demographic ancien re´gime, within each degree of kinship, the age gaps were thus very substantial, ‘‘provoking a certain confusion between family relationship and age groups’’ (Le Bras, 1982). Several fiscal documents from the end of the Middle Ages bring these phenomena to light. On June 4, 1384, intending to impose a new tax on salt, the commune of Bologna undertook a census, neighborhood by neighborhood. The scribe noted the number of households, the age of each household member, and his or her kinship relation to its head. Unfortunately, only fragments of that document remain (Montanari, 1966). They are sufficient, however, to show that in that time of demographic growth in the aftermath of the Black Plague (1348) and the Children’s Plague (1363) families were becoming larger. The siblings presented wide differences in age, and there were uncles and aunts belonging to the same age groups as their nieces and nephews. Thus, in a contrada in the parish of Santa Caterina de Saragozza, which was located in the Porte San Procolo quarter, there lived under the same roof Ser Muzolino de Maxino, a butcher, aged 70; his wife Luzia (60); Cholo, their son (25) with his wife Mexina (20); and their son Polo (3). There were also Nanino, Muzolino’s second son (16); Chatelina (18), daughter of Maxino, the deceased father of Muzolino; Zorzo, Chatelina’s brother (10); Jachoma (25), the widow of Maxino; and her two youngest children, Horsolina (6) and Bertolomia (3) (Fig. 1). This household contained four generations. Since the last wife of Maxino was very young, her two daughters (Horsolina and Bertolomia) belonged to the same age group as little Polo, who, however, was a member of the fourth generation. Muzolino had children (aged 16 and 25) who fell within the same age group as his father’s last wife, Jachoma, who was only 25. In the next contrada (Contrada dela Noxadela), there lived Rustigano de Gnudolo di Pariano, 35 years old and also a butcher, with his wife Zohana (25) and their two children, Gnudolo (8) and Cholo (7). Bertolomio, his brother (23), his brother’s wife Zana, (20) and their two children, Tuonio (3) and Betina (1), resided in his household as well. Also lodging with Rustigano were his mother Mexina (70), his two nieces Jachoma (28) and Charavita de Fino (17), and a nephew, Jachomo (10) (Fig. 2). In this family, Jachoma, undoubtedly the eldest of the siblings, descended from an older brother or sister, was older than her uncle (Bertolomio) and her aunts (Zana and Zohana). She was born 18 years before her little brother, Jachomo.
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Fig. 1. The household of Ser Muzolino de Maxino.
Unfortunately, the sparseness of these fiscal documents tells us nothing about the bonds that were formed among members of a household. In the one headed by Muzolino, who surely exercised authority over them, Horsolina and Bertolomia, aged 6 and 3, respectively, undoubtedly played and quarreled ‘‘like sisters’’ with little Polo who was only 3 years old. Polo, however, was the grandson of Muzolino, the patriarch, whose father was also the father of the little girls. When Nanino energetically insisted that the children be quiet, did he distinguish between his son and the son’s young aunts? In Rustigano’s house, what could have been the nature of the ties between Bertolomio (23) and his niece, 5 years older? Since the parents were absent (deceased?), would not Jachomo exercise ‘‘maternal authority’’ over her little brother, 18 years younger? The examination of other documents provides partial answers to these types of questions. In particular, there are the accounts of miracles, which mention people (very often family members) close to the person who has benefited from the miracle, and hence, provide some information on these relationships (Lett, 1997).1 The
1
The accounts of miracles: In this study, medieval accounts of miracle have proved to be of primary importance for understanding the society and mentalities in general, and the history of childhood and the family in particular. From the end of the twelfth century, the necessity for a rigorous investigation to determine a person’s sainthood forced hagiographers to be precise and thus added to the richness of the documents they produced. The reports of miracles, which aimed to demonstrate that the saint interceded for everyone, illustrate the variety of those whose lives have been miraculously ‘‘touched,’’ presenting both sexes at various stages in life and from all social categories. The hagiographer described the reactions of all those who, at different periods in the miraculous process, came in contact with the person suffering from an illness or accidental wounds or who had died. In so doing, he provided valuable information on family relations for the historian. The examples cited in this study were taken from the following collections: R.R. Darlington (1928), Benedict de Peterborough (1875), Guillaume de Saint-Pathus (1932), N. Occhioni (1984).
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Fig. 2. The household of Rustigano de Gnudolo di Pariano.
hagiographer often noted the family relationships uniting those miraculously ‘‘touched’’ to others in the narrative. Unfortunately, ages were mentioned only rarely.
3. Under the authority of the eldest Born from the same mother and placed under the authority of a common father, siblings generally enjoyed a relationship of equality among themselves. That does not mean, however, that great inequalities did not exist. As He´ritier (2000) has written, ‘‘the shared status of brothers and sisters where the positions are a priori similar and equivalent, is formed from the inside by two differentiating elements: if the siblings are numerous, they are not necessarily of the same sex and only rarely have been born at the same time. The order of birth implies the establishment and recognition of rank based on age within the group, which like precedence of generation, determines hierarchical superiority.’’ In examining the relationship between brothers and sisters, it is not enough to pose questions about complicity, love, or jealousy (Lett, 1997). There are also questions of authority, dependence, and autonomy. In large medieval families, ‘‘older children’’ exercised great authority over their brothers and sisters when substantial age differences existed between the eldest and the youngest and when the parents — whose time and energy were completely absorbed by hard work in the fields or workshops — were not always present. Although in contemporary Western society this ‘‘parentification’’ (i.e., the assumption of a parental role) has posed problems, in the Middle Ages, fathers and mothers seemed readily to delegate a large part of their authority to their older offspring. In traditional societies, these ‘‘big brothers and sisters’’ had a role as educators clearly recognized by their siblings, and they participated in the transmission of knowledge and know-how. As the humanist Maffeo Vegio da Lodi wrote in 1444: ‘‘It is equally judicious to entrust one’s child to be instructed by a more educated companion or, better still, by a close friend or relative or, indeed, by an older brother . . . It is when they are helped by adults that little ones learn best and most rapidly; and as for the grownups who teach them, they reinforce what they have learned and achieve results that, we feel, have great importance to the family’’ (Maffeo Vegio da Lodi, 1933–1936). The eldest was supposed to set an example for the youngest. In Lancelot, written in prose in the thirteenth century, Lionel
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got up from the table in a rage and knocked it over. Pharien chastised him: ‘‘Why did you leave the table this evening at such a time and in such bad humor? Come and eat. Even if you are not hungry, you ought to pretend to be, for the sake of my lord, your brother who, without you, will not himself eat.’’ The eldest, like the father or mother, was a role model. His or her exemplary conduct was the keystone of the medieval pedagogical system. The accounts of miracles sometimes presented an older sister who, having a handicapped, impoverished, or ailing mother, replaced her, undertaking all or part of her sibling’s education or taking the initiative in seeking a miraculous solution to an illness or misfortune suffered by a younger brother or sister (Lett, 1993). Thus, in the miraculum attributed to Saint Louis, written by Guillaume de Saint-Pathus (circa 1302–1303), Eideline, whose age was unspecified although she has supposedly already left home, came back and without consulting her parents carried her 10-year-old sister, Adete, to the sanctuary of Saint-Denis where subsequently she was miraculous healed (de Saint-Pathus, 1932, Miracle 10). It was often difficult, especially for a girl, to oppose the wishes of her family. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, there was an 18-year-old girl from Gloucester who, at the age of 3, had lost her sight in one eye. She had a vision in which the Virgin told her that if she prayed at the tomb of Saint Wulfstan in Worcester she would recover her sight totally. When the girl reported this supernatural appearance to her mother and brothers, they mocked her, not understanding why she should want to go to a neighboring town to pray to an unfamiliar saint. It was almost a year before the girl dared to follow the Virgin’s advice and defy her brothers and mother (Darlington, 1928, Book I, 34). In this tale, the absence of a father conferred on the (older?) brothers’ power to influence their sister’s decisions. Among medieval siblings, the older brother’s authority was so powerful that it sometimes continued for a long time. Jean Gerson (1363–1419), the eldest of 12 children, always exercised great influence over his four brothers and seven sisters even though the differences in ages were such that he had spent little of his own childhood with most of them (Ledwidge, 1984). For his younger sisters, he composed treatises (including the Dialogue spirituel) and kept up a regular correspondence with them. He also sent numerous letters to his two younger brothers. In one, dated 1408 and addressed to Nicolas, he wrote, ‘‘I preferred to express all this to you rather than to our brother Jean [the youngest], insofar as, like a father or indulgent brother, I could fulfill my duty towards someone who, given his delicate health, remains both my son and brother.’’ The confusion of the fraternal and paternal functions could not be better expressed. The writer’s clearly asserted position as a much older elder brother made it easy to forget that the two brothers belonged to the same generation. The authority exercised on very young brothers and sisters was sometimes transferred, at the parent’s death, by a legal document. In Rouergue, on November 21, 1334, Pierre Landel drew up his will. At the time he had 10 children. Since some of them were still very young, he delegated their education and support to his two eldest sons who were to be his inheritors (Landes-Mallet, 1985). When a parent died, children who were still minors were sometimes entrusted to an older brother, as was the case in the town of Gand in the fourteenth century (Nicholas, 1985). Also, when a younger sister married, the brothers sometimes participated in creating her dowry. Thus in 1193, in Be´ziers, three brothers, having heeded the advice of their mother and uncle, sold a house in order to provide a dowry for their 18-year-old sister.
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However, the authority of the eldest sibling (whether male or female) cannot be measured simply by age differences. In 1325, Pope John XXII instigated an investigation to verify the sainthood of an Augustinian monk, Nicola da Tolentino, who had died 20 years earlier. Among 365 witnesses questioned were three members of the same family: the 50-year-old father, Berard Appillaterre, a lawyer from Tolentino, and his two daughters, Berardescha (25) and Ceccha (23) (Occhioni, 1984, Witnesses 16, 84, and 85). By cross-checking these three testimonies, a partial reconstitution of the family is possible. Berard, a widower, had been married to Margarita, who had always shown great devotion to Nicola da Tolentino. The couple remained childless for many years, because a number of their offspring died at birth. Margarita implored the holy man to intercede on her behalf and ask God to bring an end to her misfortune. Nicola had replied, ‘‘Don’t worry. You are going to conceive a daughter who will have a very long life. And if I am still alive, she will often bring me things to eat sent by you.’’ Thus, under these seemingly miraculous circumstances, Berardescha was born. Berard and Margarita subsequently had at least three more children: Nicolocius, Ceccha, and Tucius. (Possibly there were others, but the questions asked by the investigators concerned only those who had benefited from a miracle). Although she was only 2 years younger than her sister, Ceccha learned about certain family events solely from the testimony of Berardescha and her mother. Thus, when she reported a serious illness from which she suffered as a child or mentioned a stillborn brother whose soul had been saved by Nicola da Tolentino, Ceccha specified her source of information: ‘‘audivit dici a dictis matre et sorore ipsius testis.’’ Because Berardescha had been chosen by Nicola da Tolentino to replace her mother, who honored the saint as long as she lived, Berardescha became the depository of a part of the memories belonging to all the siblings. Her authority stemmed less from being older, than from the authority bestowed upon her by the saint. Ceccha admired her older sister greatly and had a real desire to identify with her. Nevertheless, veneration did not exclude her wishing to be different. Before recounting, in her turn, the miracles already described by her father and sister, Ceccha related the marvel that had happened to her daughter Clarucia, immediately giving originality to her testimony.
4. Uncles and aunts who were still children Although little is known about brothers and sisters in the Middle Ages, still less is known about uncles and aunts and their relationships with their nephews and nieces. Certainly, the fundamental role of the maternal uncles in the kinship structure has been observed ever since the epic literature of the Middle Ages (Bezzola, 1970). The families of the nobility generally practiced hypergamous marriages, in which the wife came from a higher social stratum than the husband. The mother’s older brother, often the inheritor of paternal authority, had a strong position within the lineage, sometimes taking in or ‘‘fostering’’ his sister’s children to perfect their noble education and, in fact, becoming a ‘‘second father’’ (Bezzola, 1970; Duby, 1986). The fabliaux (La bourgeoise d’Orle´ans, Estormi) also present the avuncular bond in a positive light, a kind of prolongation of the strong fraternal relationship. Accounts of miracles sometimes contain uncles and aunts in cameo roles in the marvelous events. At the end of the
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twelfth century, Laetitia, an invalid girl of 14 about whom we know only that her mother was from lowly origins (matre ignobili genita), had been educated (educare) by her maternal aunt (matertera sua). Whereas the mother is absent from the story, it is the aunt who takes the girl to sanctuary, who guides her in the rites of intercession and invocation of the saint, and stays at her side until she is healed (de Peterborough, 1875, Book IV, 31). Jehenne, aged 15, lived in Saint-Denis with her uncle (Pierre) and aunt (Agne`s). When, following an accident, she lost consciousness, it was they who assumed the parental functions. When the neighbors ‘‘believed that she was dead (. . .), Pierre and Agne`s began to weep,’’ but they continued to watch over the girl. The aunt pried open her niece’s mouth with a knife to feed her a bit of cooked apple. It is known that on the evening of the accident, Jehenne’s mother, accompanied by another woman, came to visit her daughter in the home of Pierre and Agne`s. When, after being carried to Saint Louis’s tomb, Jehenne began to regain consciousness, her first words were to her aunt (not her mother): ‘‘And when she regained her powers of speech she called her aunt, whom she believed was nearby, and said, ‘My lady! My lady!’’’ Guillaume de SaintPathus (1932, Miracle 53) noted the joyful reaction of the uncle and aunt when the niece was healed but said nothing about the mother. It was not unusual in urban environments to find nephews and nieces living under the same roof as their uncles and aunts. In 1422, in Reims, 23% of households of the parish of SaintPierre contained relatives other than parents, their children, and servants. There were nephews, nieces, younger brothers and sisters, or older fathers and mothers. These individuals belonging to the extended family represented 17.5% of the total population and were found in 10% of the households in the parish (Desportes 1966). Unfortunately, these accounts give no information regarding the age differences between uncles/aunts and nephews/nieces. Other documents might perhaps prove more informative. We must be content to draw attention to two consequences for the kinship structure when an uncle or aunt belonged to the same age group as a nephew or niece. At the end of the Middle Ages, women married at a much younger age than men. The age difference between husband and wife was, on average from 9 to 12 years in the affluent families of Toulouse, 11 years in Bologna (when the previously mentioned census was taken in 1384), and 13 years in 1427 in Florence (Herlihy & Klapisch-Zuber, 1978). The slight difference in age or the inversion of the age gap between uncles/aunts and nephews/nieces was thus more frequent in the mother’s lineage than in the father’s. Consequently, the authority exercised by one generation over another within kinship structures was weaker in the maternal than in the paternal branch. This phenomenon had a tendency to reinforce patrilineal bias at the end of the Middle Ages. Moreover, a strong correlation exists between highly agnatic regions and those areas where a significant age difference in husband and wife can be observed. This is the case for both northern and central Italy. The maternal branch, in which the bonds of complicity, affection, equality, and ‘‘fraternity’’ were stronger and ‘‘generational conflicts’’ more tenuous offered an egalitarian pole of resistance to a paternal line with more clearly defined generations. By looking at this closeness in age between uncle and nephew, we can view the avuncular relationship in a different light. It could be more than a unifying bond in the case of fostering, for example, of a child or an adolescent by a ‘‘patriarch’’ who had authority that his position
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as a member of the preceding generation and his higher social rank has bestowed on him. It could also be an ‘‘egalitarian’’ relationship between two individuals belonging to the same age group. This brief survey falls within the scope of a much broader study, only barely sketched out, focusing on the interaction between brothers and sisters in medieval societies. The historians of children and the family have tended to concentrate on ‘‘vertical’’ relations between parents and children (generally ignoring grandparents, however). They have studied ‘‘horizontal’’ (brothers, sisters, and cousins) and ‘‘diagonal’’ (uncle/aunt–nephew/niece) relationships hardly at all. The demographic and cultural context of earlier societies should encourage us to explore these ties. The separation of generations remains immutable: a brother and sister will always belong to the same generation and an uncle to the preceding one. But the age gaps between family members vary according to the demographic, economic, social, and cultural context. The historian studying childhood and the family must take account of this fact as well when analyzing relations among siblings. Wide differences in age within the same generation alter the relationship between equality and authority. For a better understanding of the history of how children have grown up over the centuries, it would be useful to also study the type of bond that has linked them with a much older brother or sister or to an uncle or aunt in their age group.
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Le Roy Ladurie, E. (1966). Les paysans de Languedoc. Paris: SEVPEN. Le Roy Ladurie, E. (1975). Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 a` 1324. Paris: Gallimard. Lett, D. (1993). La sorella maggiore ‘‘madre sostitutiva’’ nei miraculi di san Luigi. In: A. Arru & S. Boesch Gajano (Eds.), Fratello e sorella, Quaderni Storici (pp. 341 – 353). 83, a, 28, 2 (August). Lett, D. (1997). L’enfant des miracles. Enfance et socie´te´ (XIIe – XIIIe sie`cles). Paris: Aubier. Montanari, P. (1966). Documenti sulla popolazione di Bologna alla fine del Trecento (Fonti per la storia di Bologna): I. Bologne. The first household is described on p. 64 and translated in Archives de l’Occident (1992) under the direction of Jean Favier, t. 1, Le Moyen Age, Ve – XVe sie`cle, by Olivier Guyotjeannin. Paris: Fayard: 707. The second can be found on p. 73. Nicholas, D. (1985). The domestic life of a medieval city: women, children, and the family in fourteenth-century Ghent. Lincoln: London University of Nebraska Press. Occhioni, N. (1984). Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolendino. Rome: Ecole Fransc¸aise de Rome.