Tea at Trianon: Medieval Girls

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Medieval Girls

What was it like to be a girl in Medieval England? According to History Today:

There is indeed little reason to believe that relations between daughters and parents were other than the usual mixture of affection and infuriation. Parents no doubt backed moral instruction and discipline with physical chastisement, though the frequently with which they were urged not to spare the rod may tell of parents' own reluctance to strike their off- spring too readily. That many parents sent their daughters into service once they had reached their teens, and, according to contemporary theory, were deemed capable of rational choice is not evidence of a lack of parental concern any more than is the case of the modern parent who sends their child to school. But in going on to write about servants and service, I do not wish to imply that no daughters remained with their parents into adulthood. In rural areas it was not uncommon for daughters to remain, and this may have been especially true where mothers were widowed. In such instances adolescent daughters may have been an essential part of the familial work-force and essential to the mother's survival in old age. In urban society especially, however, it would appear that very few girls in their teens remained at home, but went instead into service. (Read entire article.)