Medieval Communes

People sort of know what a commune is.  A group of hippies all living together in a big house, right?  And (in popular imagination) probably engaged in a lot more exciting activities than going to work and soaking the chick peas for supper, which surely occupied a lot more time, realistically.

The Middle Ages didn't have hippie communes but it certainly had communes, by which they meant sworn alliances of people governing themselves.  Working together as a community was an essential part of medieval society.  Monasteries, castles, and villages functioned in many ways like big families, and communes were part of this trend.

Urban communes developed at the same time as cities started growing in the twelfth century--the eleventh century in Italy.  A tiny city that had been dominated for centuries by count and bishop would, as it grew in population and became the home to many merchants and artisans, have its citizens decide they needed to be self-governing.  A commune would be set up, sometimes with the support of count and/or bishop, sometimes against their opposition.  These three major entities (count, bishop, merchant/artisan commune) would then have to work out some sort of agreement among themselves over issues like judging and tolls.

In France, the kings often supported the foundation of communes in various cities.  There are clear indications that money changed hands in the process.  It would be hard for a local authority to try to dissolve a commune when they had a royal charter.  The French kings, however, never allowed a commune in Paris.

Communes started with city councils, to make important decisions, and with judges or magistrates, to judge disputes between townspeople and punish malefactors.  Judges would be citizens of the city.  By the late twelfth century, most cities also had a mayor, a single elected individual who would be able to make decisions on crucial issues more expeditiously than could the whole city council.

Although city communes have gotten most of the scholarly attention, peasant villages had them too.  Here the beginning was the village of Lorris, not far from Paris, where the local landlord wanted to attract new settlers to his land and promised them a commune in return for settling there.  The "customs of Lorris" were approved by King Louis VI at the beginning of the   twelfth century and reconfirmed by his son and grandson in the following generations.  These customs were seen by all parties as symbols of liberty, because they gave the peasantry the authority to regulate disputes themselves and specified that the landlord could expect certain annual payments but not impose what the villagers considered arbitrary demands and taxes.  The customs of Lorris were widely copied in other villages.

This demonstrates what can be called peasant agency, the ability of peasants to make their own decisions or, at a minimum, fight back against what they considered oppression.  Medieval peasants might have lived in what we would now consider intolerable conditions (dirt-floored huts, no modern sanitation or modern medicine, back-breaking work), but they were neither silent nor passive.

In one well documented quarrel between the count of Nevers and the abbey of Vézelay, in Burgundy, both sides turned to the peasants and villagers of Vézelay for support.  The count, weeping what a monk of the abbey called obviously false tears, said that he was saddened to see the peasants so oppressed by the vile abbot, and he promised them a commune if they would forswear allegiance to the abbey and be his men instead.

(The image above is the interior of the church of Vézelay, as it would have looked at the time.)

The abbot in turn made a number of insulting remarks about the count and reminded the peasants that they had promised to be faithful to him.  Nonetheless, lured by the promise of a commune, the peasants threw their allegiance to the count, who promised to protect them from the "evil" abbot and who appointed magistrates and city council members from among their numbers.

The quarrel continued for a year, with many twists and turns, the intervention of two cardinals delegated by the pope, councils, threats, the abbot sneaking out of Vézelay claiming his life was in danger, various excommunications, and the like.  It was finally settled by compromise (as were most medieval disputes), with the peasants giving up their commune but getting the abbot to agree to drastically roll back what he had been demanding in dues.  The point is that peasants and townspeople were entirely capable of making the powerful pay attention to them and make concessions to them.  After all, they outnumbered them.

© C. Dale Brittain 2020

For more on medieval peasants and townspeople, see my ebook, Positively Medieval:  Life and Society in the Middle Ages.  Also available in paperback.

Light in medieval churches

 In modern times, churches' light is provided by electricity.  Indeed, many medieval churches today have lights where the tourist puts in a euro to turn on the electricity and illuminate some interesting architectural feature for five minutes.  But in the Middle Ages churches of course had no electricity, and candles won't make up the difference.  The builders had to focus much more on sunlight coming into the church, which is why the windows and stained glass were so important.  Architects positioned their churches to take full advantage of the sun.

As I have noted previously, the altar ("choir") end of a medieval church was aimed (or "oriented") toward the east (the Orient), supposedly toward Jerusalem.  But what about the west end, you ask?

The west end was where the main doors of the church were.  As well as opening to let people in, these doors also served to frame the view from inside looking outside.

The image above is looking out from the church of Brancion, on a high hill in Burgundy, where the view is of the countryside.  At the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, in the Auvergne, the view is of the highest volcanic peak in the region, Mont d'Or.  Clearly the western view was also significant.

In fact, there is some indication that architects decided on the "east" on which they oriented their churches in part by deciding first on the direction of the main doors, to face west.  Most commonly true west was considered to be where the sun set at the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.

But when was the longest day of the year?  We look at a calendar and confidently say June 21.  But remember that medieval people were still on the Julian calendar, which got off by a day every century.  In cloudy Europe it was sometimes hard to say exactly when the sun set at the furthest north point and when its setting point started moving south again each day by a tiny bit.  So sometimes the doors would be lined up to face the setting sun at the solstice, and sometimes to face it on what they called June 21 and we would call the middle of July.

The other day's sunset to which church doors might be aimed seems to be Michaelmass.  This is the feast of the Archangel Michael, officially September 29, although it seems to have been intended to fall on the equinox a week earlier (and again, there seems to have been some difference of opinion whether to focus on where the sun actually was or on the calendar).  Michaelmass was an important day because it was when quarterly rents were routinely due.

Sometimes different architects had different ideas of east and west.  At the abbey church of Vézelay, for example, the eastern end was built first, in the early twelfth century, pointing toward what the architect thought was true east, but there's a slight kink in the church, because the western end, built a generation later, was done by an architect who had a different idea of how to aim west.  This second architect did do a very nice job of getting sunlight to come straight down the nave from the high windows at midsummer and to illuminate the carved capitals at the tops of pillars at midwinter.

© C. Dale Brittain 2019

For more on medieval churches and other aspects of medieval history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.

Dives and Lazrus

One of the favorite Bible stories in the Middle Ages was that of Dives and Lazarus, sometimes called "the rich man and Lazarus" in modern translations.  In the early modern period it became an English Christmas carol, and Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a series of beautiful variations on the tune.

There are several different men named Lazarus in the New Testament.  These days most people will think of the one whom Jesus brought back to life after he had been dead and buried three days--a clear prefiguration of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.  This Lazarus gave rise to the urban legend of the Wandering Jew, the man who could never die because he had, after all, already died once, and who has spent the last two thousand years wandering around.

This story also has the classic line (in the King James version) of one of Lazarus's sisters objecting when Jesus wanted her dead brother dug up--"But Lord, he stinketh."

Today we are talking about a different Lazarus.  This one appears in a parable.

He was a poor man lying at the door of Dives, a rich man.  Dives refused to give him even a crumb from his table, even though he had far more than he or his guests could eat.  Instead Dives set the dogs on Lazarus and, when the dogs refused to bite him, set his thugs on him.  But they couldn't touch him either.

Now I myself would have thought maybe there was some sort of message here, but Dives just laughed it off.  Imagine his surprise when demons seized his soul as he died.  All his wealth did him no good.  The twelfth-century carving pictured above, from the abbey church of Vézelay, shows him on his death bed, money bags stacked underneath, and the demons grabbing his soul with great enthusiasm as it emerges from his body.  His wife, on the left, is understandably horrified.

Poor Lazarus, in the meantime, also died (probably from starvation), but he went straight to heaven.

The remarkably clear message from this was that it was the responsibility of the rich to help the poor, as I discussed in more detail earlier.  The well to do, including both noble households and monasteries, would routinely give leftover food out at the back door to poor people who gathered there.  They were quite deliberately avoiding the error of Dives.

In a broader sense, the story was a radical rejection of the value of worldly wealth and power.  Even though there were plenty of wealthy and powerful people (including church leaders) in the Middle Ages, the parable of Dives and Lazarus, frequently represented in church decorations (as here), was a constant reminder that wealth was not going to matter a bit when it came to your soul.

© C. Dale Brittain 2016

Pilgrimage

Medieval pilgrimage was a way to atone for one's sins, a way to grow spiritually, a way to seek healing, and a way to get the heck out of town.

Pilgrimage began in the first centuries of Christianity, when the faithful from communities all around the Mediterranean decided to travel to Jerusalem, to "see the places where Christ's feed trod," as one writer put it.  Pebbles from various holy sites would be brought home as souvenirs.  Even after the Muslims took over the Holy Land, Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem continued.

Rome was the other major pilgrimage goal in the early Middle Ages, to the extent that the popular Old French term for pilgrims was "Romies," even if in fact they weren't headed for Rome.  Here one could visit the tombs of Saint Peter and Paul, perhaps get a glimpse of the pope (revered in the abstract as Peter's successor, on whom see more here), and pick up the bones of a purported martyr in the catacombs.

By the eleventh century, another major pilgrimage destination emerged, Santiago in northwest Spain.  This was where Saint James, Jesus's brother (or step-brother), had supposedly died after taking ship in the Holy Land, and sailing the length of the Mediterranean and up the Atlantic coast.  (Iago is the same name as rendered as James in English.)

Major pilgrimage routes quickly became established all across western Europe, leading to Santiago.  The best known starting point for this trip was Vézelay, in Burgundy (the interior of this early twelfth-century church is shown above).  The monks of Vézelay claimed to have the bones of Mary Magdalene.  She had supposedly also taken ship from the Holy Land, but unlike James she put in at the Riviera.  According to the monks of Vézelay, she was not suitably appreciated there, which is why they brought her bones to where they could be properly revered.

The Santiago pilgrim's route is still popular today, though few walk the whole distance (there are, I hear, regular buses to take modern pilgrims over the Pyrenees and across the long and dusty miles of northern Spain).  Medieval pilgrims, however, walked the whole thing, planning on about twenty miles a day.  Given that a lot were ill and going to seek healing, this is quite impressive.

Pilgrims on the way to Santiago wore badges in the shape of a cockleshell, the saint's emblem.  Churches on the pilgrimage route were built with very large enclosed porches, where pilgrims would sleep on the floor.

Someone accused of a crime could often get out of their richly deserved punishment by taking off on pilgrimage.  Fulk Nerra, count of Anjou, went as a pilgrim to Rome five times, staying away until the excitement blew over (from such peccadillos as killing his wife).

Initially what we call Crusades were referred to as pilgrimages.  Those going on the journey wore the sign of the cross, rather than a cockleshell.  These armed journeys to the Holy Land were indeed treated as opportunities to see the land Christ's feet had trod, as well as to kill Muslims.

© C. Dale Brittain 2014
For more on medieval religion, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.

Superstition

Medievalists don't like to use the term "superstition" when discussing medieval religion.  For one thing, it is always pejorative:  "My religion is good and true, but yours is nothing but superstition."

For another thing, superstition has a very specific meaning.  It means doing certain acts unrelated to the desired outcome, in order to bring about the desired outcome.  Baseball players are notoriously superstitious, as they will acknowledge readily.  Always eating peanuts before an afternoon game, or turning your lucky socks inside out, or twirling the bat twice and tapping it three times are clearly unrelated to whether you will get a pitch you can hit.  This is why it's superstition.

It's possible to make a pigeon superstitious.  Watch until it does a scratch (or other action) in an unusual way.  Quick drop in a food pellet.  Keep watching.  When it does it again, drop in another food pellet.  A few repeats is all it takes.  Now set up the food pellet drop so it's totally random.  The pigeon will keep on doing the unusual scratch all day—and, sooner or later, the pellet will come!

In medieval Christianity, being a good person and praying kept your soul out of Hell.  The actions were clearly related to the desired outcome, so, by definition, it was not superstition.  (Click here for more on medieval belief in miracles.)

In the image above (a capital on a column in the twelfth-century church of Vézelay), a dying rich man (note the bags of money under the bed) has his soul rising from his chest and being seized by a pair of enthusiastic demons, while his wife looks on in horror.

Now a modern person who didn't believe in demons might say, "Hah, nothing but superstition."  But to medieval people, demons were real.  Many claimed to have seen them.  This particular capital illustrated the story of Dives and Lazarus (it's in the New Testament, look it up—Dives is now usually called "the rich man" in modern translations).  The rich man callously turned the poor man from his door and set his dogs on him, but when he died he went to Hell, where his hoarded money did him no good.

Christianity began as a religion preached to the poor and marginal.  In spite of everything, this message was never forgotten in the Middle Ages, any more than now.  A message like this was aimed at rich people within the church hierarchy (like bishops) as well as at rich laymen.

© C. Dale Brittain 2014