Conviviality and charity in medieval and early modern England - response to Judith M. Bennett, Past and Present, no. 134, February 1992

Past & Present, Feb, 1997 by Maria Moisa

We do not really know whether help-ales, which could be quite small, `celebrated the cohesiveness of communities'. This conclusion, while predictable, may be based on undue generalizations and ambiguous meanings attributed to terms; moreover, it does not appear to be supported by the medieval sources, which rather suggest that help-ales served as a mutual-help practice within separate groups at unequal levels.

(1) Judith M. Bennett, `Conviviality and Charity in Medieval and Early Modern England', Past and Present, no. 134 (Feb. 1992).

(2) Ibid., 38, 39.

(3) Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), 257.

(4) The large manor of Wakefield belonged successively to the Warennes, the crown the Lancasters and again the crown. It was divided into twelve graveships and contained several sub-manors, extending from the area around Wakefield in the east to the upper Calderdale, bordering on Lancashire in the west. It held tourns in four towns: Wakefield, Kirkburton, Brighouse and Halifax.

(5) Bennett, `Conviviality and Charity', 28, 40, n. 53. Bennett seems to stretch the evidence on the participation of women in parish ales. A woman employed for the preparation of the event is neither a contributor nor a beneficiary. To prevent misinterpretations, it should be made clear that the `women's gatherings' at St Mary at Hill were not gatherings of women but gatherings of money for the benefit of the parish. These gatherings were unrelated to ales.

(6) Ibid., 28.

(7) Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, ed. W. Baildon et al. (Yorks. Archaeol. Soc. Record Ser., xxix-, Leeds, 1901-), i, 1274-97; ii, 1297-1309; iii, 1313-16 and 1286; iv, 1315-17; v, 1322-31, tourns for the year 1326, The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, ed. H. M. Jewell et al. (Yorks. Archaeol. Soc., Wakefield Court Rolls Ser., ii-, Leeds, 1981-), ii, 1348-50, all tourns; iii, 1330-32, 1350-52. For a brief account of the fines imposed on alewives, see H. M. Jewell, `Women at the Court of the Manor of Wakefield (1348-1352)', Northern Hist., xxvi (1990). We cannot follow the help-ales through the fourteenth-century crises since such offences were not mentioned at that time.

(8) The 1430s were the only serious patch of bad harvests in the fifteenth century. Unfortunately some of the Wakefield rolls for this decade have not survived, while others are unrestored or illegible. The 1439-40 rolls, however, can be read without much difficulty: Yorks. Archaeol. Soc., W. Yorks. Archive Service, Leeds, MD 22511/165-1 and 165-2. For years of good and bad harvests, see Dyer, Standards of Living, 263, 268. On the crisis in the north, see P. J. P. Goldberg, `Mortality and Economic Change in the Diocese of York, 1390-1514', Northern Hist., xxiv (1988).

(9) H. Ling Roth, The Yorkshire Coiners, 1767-1783, and Notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax (Halifax, 1906), 138.

(10) The maximum fine for drawing blood was 12d. in 1399, it reached 40d. in 1406 and again in 1412: Yorks. Archaeol. Soc., MD 225/11125/1-2, 132/1-2, 136/1-2.