(Limoges, France, the home of Pelagia.)
‘Since the pressures of the world weighed heavily on a woman, not least on a widow, Erkanfrida needed to be wary.’ [1]
One of the many impressive aspects of the early medieval scholarship of Dame Jinty Nelson, who sadly died last month, was the way she took the personal lives of historical people seriously. As Pauline Stafford writes in her tribute:
‘Who else would have noted the sound of the little feet of “the three-year-old show-stealer” Charles the Bald as he pattered along in the stately procession of the court, or have had a section of a chapter in her great biography of Charlemagne entitled “How Charles lost his first milk tooth”?’
In one study, quoted above, Nelson suggested that the potential vulnerability of widows to outside pressures inclined them to be wary: widows took measures to try to secure their property and bestow it as they sought fit, in the face of potential interference by male relatives and lords. A widow could become ‘in a sense, one of the pauperes’, so far as she was dependent on the good faith of men and social superiors. [2] Nonetheless, ownership of property gave widows a basis to act independently, to bestow patronage, and to forge their own social networks.
The ninth-century widow Erkanfrida was Nelson’s main case study. To St Maximin in Trier, Erkanfrida granted land with ninety-six named male and female mancipia, though she freed seven of them. A widow may have been without husband, or parents, or children, but she was not alone: Erkanfrida had unfree people for support and to work her estates. These mancipia were not peers who could extend their protection towards her. Nonetheless, their subordinate status to Erkanfrida probably made them a reliable source of financial security. And Erkanfrida may have intended those whom she freed to view her as a patron deserving of respect and loyalty, strengthening her social network.
Evidence from the earlier Merovingian period shows how a widow might have expected her servile dependents to commemorate her life:
‘When she was oppressed by fevers and near death, she called her son and said: “I ask, my most beloved son, that you not bury me for four days, so that all the [male slaves/servants (famuli) and female slaves/servants (famulae)] might come and see my body and so that none of those whom I have most carefully [nurtured] might be excluded from my funeral.” As she said this, she sent forth her spirit.’ [2]
This is from the sixth-century bishop Gregory of Tours’ description of the funeral arrangements of Pelagia of Limoges. Although Pelagia had a son – Aredius, an acquaintance of Gregory – she took responsibility for their estates and slaves when her husband died: it was arranged that ‘all the care of the home, whether the improvement of the household or the management of the fields or the cultivation of vines, should fall to her, so that none of these things should become an impediment to Aredius and take him from prayer’. [3] The will of Pelagia and Aredius confirms that they owned substantial agricultural estates with mancipia, though the famuli and famulae mentioned above were probably domestic workers.
Widowhood, combined with the spiritual vocation of her son, left Pelagia with authority over slaves and other property. During her funeral, she presumably anticipated that her household slaves would wish to express their thanks not just to her, but to God. The widow wished to ensure that it was not only her son who could carry on her memory.
Outside the sphere of sexual relations (where sex between a woman and male slaves was more harshly punished in Frankish law than sex between a man and female slaves, and where a widow’s activities may have attracted even more scrutiny), the relationship of widows to their slaves was probably not intrinsically different to master-slave relationships generally. Slaves were meant to serve and obey their owners, regardless of their gender. Nonetheless, the service of slaves to widows may have had a special significance for both parties involved. In a world ruled and largely controlled by men, slaves and freedpeople of both genders served women—and without the presence of a male authority figure in the home if the woman was widowed. Childless widows or those with absent children likely relied upon their servile dependents for care and as enablers of their aristocratic lifestyles. This was at least one crucial respect in which certain widows could avoid becoming a pauper.
We can speculate about the tensions of a wealthy early medieval widow’s household. Did male slaves and servants feel emasculated in these circumstances? Did a widowed mistress ever worry about her vulnerability to the servile men in her home?
Ultimately, though, Pelagia’s wish that her slaves have time to repay her care for them seems full of confidence. For all the wariness of the widow, the household was one area where she might safely exercise her authority and expect it to be respected.
Endnotes
[1] Janet L. Nelson, ‘The wary widow’, in Leslie Brubaker and Julia Smith (eds.), Gender in the early medieval world: East and West, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 82–113 (111).
[2] Ibid., p. 110.
[2] Translation modified from Raymond Van Dam (trans.), Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Confessors (Liverpool, 1998), c. 102, p. 77.
[3] Gregory of Tours, Ten Books of History, X.29. My translation.
