Earls Served as Advisers to the King

The United Kingdom’s upper house of Parliament, known as the House of Lords, has its roots in a body of government from Anglo-Saxon England (the period of English history before the Norman Conquest) called the witan. Named for the Anglo-Saxon phrase “witenagemot,” or “meeting of the wise men,” the witan was made up of noble lords, including earls and barons, as well as religious officials such as abbots and bishops. This group served as a council of advisers to the king (England did not have a ruling queen until Mary I was crowned in 1553). The king would call on the witan to get support for decisions such as granting land, making new laws, or levying taxes. 

In the 14th century, two distinct houses of Parliament were established. The House of Commons was made up of representatives from the towns and counties, while the House of Lords was composed of religious leaders, known as lords spiritual, and nobles, including earls and other members of the peerage, known as lords temporal. Before the Norman Conquest, the title of earl was not automatically hereditary, and the territory that defined an earldom was not permanent. By the reign of King Richard II in the 14th century, earldoms were either hereditary or life appointments, and by the 15th century, the vast majority of lords temporal in the House of Lords had inherited their titles. This tradition continued for centuries, and it wasn’t until 1999 that nobles’ automatic right to inherit a seat in Parliament was abolished.

Medieval Earls Were Also Military Leaders

In Anglo-Saxon England, a role known as ealdorman served as a high-ranking court official responsible for enforcing the king’s laws within a local shire. The office of ealdorman evolved into the title of earl, a word of Scandinavian origin that was introduced during the reign of the Danish King Canute (Cnut) in the 11th century. Earls assumed many of the leadership duties of the role: They were tasked with keeping the peace, exercising justice, and raising armies in the king’s name. Under the feudal system, earls granted small parcels of land to knights and vassals in exchange for military services. Knights helped enforce the laws, defending landholdings and seizing other nearby lands, and could become lords themselves.

After William the Conqueror reduced the size of earldoms, earls took on the role of military governors over smaller, more strategic areas of land. They were responsible for overseeing coastal areas and vulnerable borders, and had the authority to imprison lawbreakers. In later centuries, the number of earls and earldoms were reduced through extinction of titles and sale of land. By the 1800s, the role of earl was increasingly focused on social obligations, helping to facilitate important alliances for the crown and strategic marriages between nobles. Despite the reduction in formal responsibilities and landholdings, earls and other members of the British peerage continued to hold a substantial amount of power through personal wealth and political influence as members of Parliament.

Bathing at Home and in Public

Wooden bathtubs were typically found in the houses of wealthier members of society, who would bathe fairly regularly. Commoners in rural areas didn’t always have bathtubs, but would take dips in the river, or — when nothing else was available — a handy horse trough. Since many citizens worked in sweaty manual labor, they bathed quite frequently, often every day. In the towns, bathing was done at public baths, which were especially common during the late Middle Ages. These bathhouses were often connected to bakeries, using excess heat from the ovens to warm the water. Medieval public baths weren’t for the shy, as men and women bathed naked together. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the amount of nude flesh on display, bathhouses often had an illicit side to them, doubling as brothels. 

Don’t Forget the Soap

Yes, people used soap back in the medieval period. Soap was available as a trade good in Europe as early as the ninth century CE, and could also be made at home. Numerous soap-making recipes exist from the Middle Ages, often including ingredients such as ashes from an oak tree, tallow (animal fat), lime (heated to become quicklime), salt, and flour. The soap was scented using fresh herbs such as sage and thyme. Shampoo didn’t exist, so most people simply washed their hair with water. The more well-off citizens, however, washed their hair with a mixture similar to soap, made from ashes and egg whites and scented with herbs and flowers. People also brushed their hair with combs, but not only for cosmetic reasons. Fine-toothed combs were used as delousing implements, specifically designed to remove lice from the hair.  

Doing the Laundry

Of course, taking a nice bath is fairly pointless if all your clothes stink. Medieval people were well aware of this and tried to keep their clothing clean. While heavier outer garments might have received only an occasional brushing, undergarments and household linens were frequently laundered. Advice books from the Middle Ages recommended that underwear should be changed every day. Those who could afford it sent their laundry to a washer, who scrubbed and beat the dirt out of linens in a large wooden tub or in the river. To help clean and deodorize fabrics, a plant called soapwort, or herbs such as marjoram, could be added to the water. And to keep those whites nice and bright, people washed their linens in chamber lye — a mixture that included wood ash and urine, the latter carefully gathered from chamber pots. 

How Medieval Cities Got Their Water 

Clean water wasn’t always as easy to come by in densely populated urban environments that were further removed from natural sources. There was also a high risk of contamination due to runoff from local businesses such as tanneries and butchers. With these concerns in mind, many cities instituted ordinances and imposed fines on anyone who polluted the local water supply. 

Over time, cities began constructing intricate networks of pipes to bring fresh water into the city center from nearby water sources. In 1237, the city of London was given the authority to build a system of underground pipes connected with springs in nearby Tyburn (a manor located in Middlesex county) in order to supply residents with a fresh supply of water. Known as the “Great Conduit,” it was among the first major plumbing projects of its kind. The pipes were made of wood and lead, and safely transported water into London for people to enjoy at no charge. The system was expanded throughout the 14th and 15th centuries before being damaged beyond repair by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Those who were wealthy enough could actually pay to have private pipes installed that brought water directly to their homes. These were known as “quills,” and anyone who illegally tapped into the pipes was subject to a sizable fine. Many wealthy Londoners also paid water delivery people, known as “cobs,” to bring them 3-gallon tubs of water each day. However, these perks were difficult for the majority of people to afford, and most folks relied on the communal water supply instead.

Where Did the Beer Myth Come From?

Given the plentiful amount of clean drinking water available during the Middle Ages, it’s natural to wonder how the myth of beer-guzzling medieval folk formed to begin with. One theory is that it stemmed from various written works at the time that highlighted excessive drinking as a popular activity — William Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, are full of inebriated characters, none so famous as Sir John Falstaff. But the myth was also likely perpetuated by the fact that people often drank beer along with water, as the former was a staple in many medieval diets. 

Ales were frequently consumed by farmers and other workers as a type of energy drink. The ales brewed at the time often had a lower alcoholic content than modern-day beers, with an average ABV as low as 1%, versus an average around 5% today. (There were stronger beers, too, but they were harder to come by.) These low-alcohol ales still contained plentiful amounts of calories, though, especially compared to water. That’s why at the end of a long shift, it was common for workers to enjoy several glasses of ale not only to quench their thirst but also to provide them with caloric fuel to recoup the energy they lost that day.

The upper classes, meanwhile, often turned to fancy wines and liquor as their beverages of choice, as they believed water to be the drink of the common folk. While everyone could easily acquire water for free, only those of a higher status could afford the most expensive and decadent wines. Members of high society who chose to drink water often added ingredients that only the wealthy could afford, such as ice, honey, fruit, and spices. Nevertheless, it’s likely that people in medieval times weren’t inebriated any more frequently than people in any other era of history, and when they were, it wasn’t for a lack of safe drinking water. 

Spellcasting

A typical grimoire could contain all manner of instructions for casting spells. Once learned and perfected by a sorcerer, these spells could be used for crafting magical objects, finding lost items, healing sick people, curing impotence, and numerous other acts both benevolent and malevolent. The casting of spells was widely accepted during the early Middle Ages, except for spells with obviously devious, dangerous, or demonic intentions. With the rise of witchcraft during the late Middle Ages and the start of the early modern age, a far stronger stance was taken by the church against spells, and people accused of witchcraft could find themselves facing an inquisitor — and possible execution.   

Herbology

Herbology, using plants to make magic potions and healing medicines, was a fundamental part of what was considered medicinal magic. This, on the surface, would seem like a fairly innocuous, if not altogether positive, practice. But herbology could spill over into areas  frowned upon by the church, despite the use of herbal medicine by medieval monks. The influential medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that he saw nothing wrong in “employing natural things” for their useful effects, but warned that “if in addition there be employed certain characters, words, or any other vain observances which clearly have no efficacy by nature, it will be superstitious and unlawful.” In other words, practitioners of herbology had to be careful, as their actions could easily be seen as the acts of a malevolent sorcerer if they took things even slightly too far. 

Alchemy

Medieval scrolls reveal how alchemy was a fundamental part of magic during the Middle Ages. This is perhaps unsurprising, as alchemy has been a part of occult tradition for millennia, handed down from ancient Egypt and Arabia to Greece and Rome and throughout much of Europe in the Middle Ages. Through alchemy, practitioners sought the key to the transmutation of metals (allowing them to turn common materials into gold) as well as a path to eternal youth. This potential power was naturally of interest to sorcerers, as well as intellectuals not otherwise involved with the dark arts. Both, however, could find themselves in trouble with the law for practicing alchemy. Making gold out of nothing was a potential threat to the power of the ruling classes, and so some governments made alchemy illegal and publishable. King Henry IV of England, for example, signed the Act Against Multiplication in 1404, making alchemy a felony. 

Divination

Divination, or the power to predict or see the future, has long been a staple of sorcerers and other practitioners of magic. During the 12th and 13th centuries, classical Greek and Arabic texts on divination were translated into Latin, and soon this new magical knowledge spread throughout France, Italy, Germany, and England. Numerous methods of divination existed, from astronomical observations to the casting of dice and reading the flight patterns of birds. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, various types of divination were banned by church law, including hydromancy (divination by water), pyromancy (fire), chiromancy (palm reading), and scapulimancy (divination using an animal’s scapula). 

Summoning

Summoning was one of the more powerful types of magic common in the Middle Ages. Practitioners of white magic would try to summon angels or spirits to help them with problems or provide information. But those involved in black magic — the malefici evildoers — tried to summon demons to do their bidding. This was considered dangerous for both the potential targets of the sorcerers and the sorcerers themselves. The complicated rituals often involved creating a protective circle to keep the summoner safe from the demons they invoked, but many cautionary tales told of instances in which these circles failed, and the demons killed the summoner. 

Necromancy

Few acts of magic struck more fear into the hearts of the common folk during the medieval period than necromancy. This form of magic shared some traits with both divination and summoning, but more specifically, it involved conjuring the dead. By communicating with the dead, the sorcerer sought to obtain insight into the future or help with some impossible or otherworldly task such as magical transportation or illusion. Necromancy was considered one of the higher and more dangerous forms of magic. It was the antithesis to natural magic, and therefore something very much frowned upon by the church. But for a sorcerer with the education and ability to learn from books of necromancy, it offered some of the most powerful black magic available to devotees of dark magic.