I thought this week I’d amuse you with some medieval insults. Some were used for good-natured ribbing, whereas others might be more defamatory in nature. Reputation was important in the medieval world, and slandering the wrong person meant you could find yourself in court. Men typically based their reputations on social status, whereas the reputations of women were more based on their virtue and the way they conducted themselves. Depending on where you live, some of these insults (or versions of them) might still be in use today. If this is the case, please know that no real offense is intended—this is all in good fun!
Bespawler: Someone who spits when they talk.
Bobolyne: A fool.
Churl: Coarse and peasant-like. Its origin is the Old English “ceorl” which meant “one level above a slave.”
Cox-comb: A vain, narcissistic person.
Cumberworld: A useless person.
Dalcop: A very stupid person.
Doxy: A promiscuous woman. Also literally the wife or lover of an outlaw who robbed people on the road.
Driggle-Draggle: A messy or untidy woman.
Fopdoodle: A stupid, idiotic person.
Fustilugs: A large, clumsy slob.
Glos Pautonnier: An Old French word for a gluttonous scoundrel.
Hedge-born: Of base birth, or illegitimate
Levereter: Corrupt (“Liver-eater”)
Mandrake Mymmerkin: Childlike. A puppet, or little man.
Muck-sprout: Someone who is overly talkative and curses a lot.
Mumblecrust: A toothless beggar.
Puterelle: A woman of ill-repute.
Raggabrash: A grubby, disorganized person.
Rakefire: A guest who has outstayed their welcome.
Ronyon: An old, mangy, scabby woman
Saddle-goose: A very stupid person.
Scobberlotcher: A lazy person who never works hard.
Skamelar: A scrounge, or parasite.
Snoutband: Someone who constantly interrupts a conversation to correct or contradict the speaker.
Sot: A drunkard.
Stampcrab: A clumsy person.
Trencherman: Someone who overeats and attends social events just for the food.
Wandought: A weak, ineffectual man.
Whiffle-whaffle: An indecisive person who wastes others’ time.
Yaldson: The son of a prostitute.
Use the Medieval Monday Index to discover more topics relating to daily life in the Middle Ages.
Medieval coopers were important craftsmen in the Middle Ages. Many different types of goods were kept in barrels, such as alcohol and salted meats. But barrels were not the only things coopers made. A variety of wooden vessels were needed for daily use by the average person as well as many other medieval craft and tradesmen. Buckets were needed to draw and transport water, and pails collected milk from cows, sheep, and goats. Wooden churns helped to preserve that milk by turning it into various types of butter and cheese. Tub like containers would have been used for jobs such as mixing flour into dough, pickling vegetables and fruits, salting meat, or making beer, ale, and cider. Larger tubs would have been used for fulling (processing wool), dying fabric, tanning, washing clothes, bathing, and crushing grapes for winemaking. Serving pitchers might also be made out of wood. Their sides were curved for pouring, just like vessels made out of glass or ceramic would have been. When barrels and large tubs had out-lived their usefulness, they were either taken apart and the wood re-purposed, or they were used to line wells and pits.
Oak, which was strong and durable, was the favored choice for wooden vessels, but beech, pine, and silver fir were also sometimes used. The wood grain needed to be straight. The tools of the trade were simple ones, with coopers using mallets, axes and shaving tools to shape the staves. These could be fit together to make the vessels water tight, though not all barrels were. Some were used for dry storage and water tightness was not required. Surprisingly, metal hoops were not used for large barrels until well after the Middle Ages. They were reserved for use on some buckets and expensive drinking vessels. Barrel hoops were made of wood, primarily willow, ash, hazel, and chestnut. Hoop making was a specialized craft of its own.
But on Easter morning, everything changed—Jesus had risen from the grave, and it was time for a celebration! Church began at sunrise, with everyone gathered outside of the church to sing hymns before going in for services. The darkness from before was replaced with light and the somber mood replaced by joy. Some monasteries put on plays to re-enact the day’s significance. The monks would wear white robes to represent the women who first discovered that Jesus’ tomb was empty, and that he was indeed risen. The forty day fast was finally over, and once all of the church-related activities had ended, it was it was finally time for feasting. Feasts were usually put on by royalty, lords, and wealthy nobles. Symbolically, putting on a great feast for the community was reminiscent of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. With no expense spared, it was an act of charity toward those who had much less, and whose winter reserves were nearing depletion (if not already depleted).
Certain fun traditions were observed as well, such as wearing or receiving new clothes and enjoying colorful Easter eggs. Eggs were boiled in salt water to preserve them during Lent, when eating them was forbidden. They made their re-appearance on Easter, sometimes painted or dyed for the occasion—usually red to symbolize the blood of Christ. In Germanic regions they were painted green and hung on trees. Children made games of rolling them downhill, or they were hidden (and found) to represent the disciples finding Jesus’ empty tomb. Egg coloring could be as simple as boiling them with onions to give them a golden color, or they could actually be decorated with gold leaf, as Edward I did with his Easter eggs in 1290.
Doves and pigeons were an important resource in the Middle Ages, valued primarily for their meat, eggs, and feathers. Falconries used them as quarry, and their guano was a highly sought-after fertilizer. In southern Europe, it was spread on hemp fields and vineyards. In Northern Europe, it was said that pigeon guano was worth ten loads of any other type of fertilizer.
The inside of the building had a large open space, with ledges or cubicles jutting out from the walls. Pigeons would enter and exit from openings just beneath the roof. The nests could be accessed with a ladder attached to a revolving pole called a potence.
Pigeons were able to deliver messages relatively reliably and quickly over hundreds of miles from their home. By feeding them in one location, and nesting them in another, they could be trained to fly back and forth between two locations. But more often, once they were released and delivered their messages, pigeons had to be transported back and forth by cart. This method of communication was not without its limitations, however. Any message sent by pigeon had to be very short, and the receiver on the other end would have to be literate enough to read it. Such messages could also be intercepted by trained falcons and hawks, or by archers.