My final article about the life of medieval women is about widowhood. The three female owners of Bowthorpe were all widows, and inherited Bowthorpe from their husbands. Clearly these men felt their wives were capable of running large estates or they would have left their lands to a male relative.
When a woman became a widow, one option she had was to choose the name she wanted to be known as. So, she could be known as “X, the widow of” or could revert to her maiden name. Those women who chose not to remarry they were able to take on masculine roles.
As mentioned in the previous article, when a woman got married, she was given a dower by her husband; when she became a widow she had full rights over her dower for the rest of her life. She kept it whether she remarried or not. She was also entitled to a third of her husband’s goods and chattels. Another third was given to the children and the final third was used for the benefit of the husband’s soul. You can see how the church became so rich.
A poor widow got by as best she could; however, a rich widow could attract the attention of the King. Like under-age heirs and heiresses, widows could become wards of court and the King could give them in marriage to whoever he pleased. And he would collect hefty fines for using this privilege, both for the dower, the marriage and from the suitors. As time went by, these fines became more and more exorbitant. The system denied many women any choice at all, and if a woman needed to raise any money for the right to refuse to remarry, she might
have to sell her dower.
If a widow chose not to remarry, she could take a vow of chastity in the presence of a bishop. This was done by Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII), who was married four times. Widows of businessmen were expected to continue the business. Widows of freemen, who decided to remain unmarried, were entitled to take up the freedom of the city themselves. This was a valuable privilege, as it gave women the right to carry on their trade, freedom of tolls throughout the country (the same as paying for toll roads today but there were a lot more of them) and the 15 right to maintain apprentices. Widows living in cities, who could not work or were homeless, had some chance of charity, mainly from hospitals (like the Great Hospital in Bishopsgate), with many women
taking refuge or employment in them.
Peasant widows would take over the tenement and, due to the nature of the holding, had to continue to work, even into retirement, unless they had some sort of settlement. They became the head of the household and had to answer for their own debts and misdemeanours and conduct their own litigation and land transactions. But, at manorial court, there were no official positions of responsibility open to them. In 1382, in Hindolveston, a widow with a holding of about 18 acres was no longer able to look after herself or her tenurial obligations, so the manorial court assigned her land to her nearest kin.
In this period of history, children were expected to take care of their parents in their old age. Those who failed to meet this obligation were often disinherited by their parents, who showed no hesitation in doing so. Like the previous articles, the information for this one came from Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1550 by Henrietta Leyser.
Rebecca Domek,
Three Score
