Fifteen Eighty Four

One of my favorites children’s books was What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry. Repeatedly, I learned how the Busytown tailors, construction workers, and lumbermill employees lived their daily lives. I think this clarifies why my main question when I initiated my investigation into medieval English ladies-in-waiting was precisely this: how did these highborn female servants spend their days?

In an era before diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and even, with few exceptions, letters, this question was challenging to answer. Financial accounts, wills, and royal grants made it easier to understand what rewards ladies-in-waiting received for their good service, but what kinds of service were they doing?

Fortunately, a close reading of surviving account records, used together with clues from late medieval literature and art, can reveal the lived experiences of female servants. Although accountants were more concerned with documenting the transfer of money and expensive objects than with the activities of ladies-in-waiting, we nevertheless catch glimpses of their daily tasks by learning what items were purchased by elite establishments, and who was responsible for transferring them around the household.

For example, the stereotype that ladies-in-waiting spent much of their waking hours sewing or in needlecraft is somewhat supported by references in the accounts that show them creating or repairing clothes. I uncovered the velvet cloth delivered to Matilda de Wilmynton, damsel of Edward III’s sister Eleanor, and the twenty-two yards of cloth Edith Fowler received for making into gowns for her lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. Beaufort also paid Mistress Massey for mending her clothes, while Margery Mareschal, servant of Elizabeth de Burgh, paid five pence for thread used in the ladies’ chamber. From surviving artwork like manuscript illuminations and memorial brasses, we learn how fashion and hairstyles became more intricate over the fourteenth century, so that female servants would have spent more time dressing and fashioning their queens and noblewomen, and literary examples reveal some of these private moments between elite women and their courtiers. Clothing and fashion may seem unimportant, but keep in mind that they signaled wealth, power, and authority in an era of sumptuary laws. Ensuring that monarchs, noblewomen, and their entourages were properly attired was a key duty of medieval ladies-in-waiting.

Female servants were busy receiving and caring for valuable apparel and treasured objects. Elena de Sackville appears regularly in Philippa of Hainault’s records; on one occasion taking delivery of gold and other luxury cloth items, and another time in charge of the queen’s crowns. Yet she was involved in routine caretaking too. When the accounts refer to her receiving a delivery of diapered cloth to make into “secret” pieces for the queen, they are probably referring obliquely to the queen’s “unmentionables” or her menstrual cloths. In the household of Philippa’s son, John of Gaunt, a female servant named Alyne Gerberge cared for and delivered jeweled objects. In 1372/3 Gaunt ordered Alyne to deliver jewels to London for Christmas and New Year gifts and celebrations. We learn from Margaret Beaufort’s post-death inventory that her elite servant Edith Fowler kept custody of her valuables, including bejeweled gold rings, silks, and a “serpent’s tongue set in gold garnished with pearls.” There were even “pieces of a unicorn’s horn,” which presumably was actually walrus, narwhal, or rhinoceros.

In addition to caring for objects, ladies-in-waiting appear handling and transferring money in numerous examples of fiscal responsibility. Edward III and Queen Philippa chose the queen’s lady Katherine de Fauxiith to deliver funds to one of their scholarship students at Cambridge. In the fifteenth-century Howard family accounts, their servant, Agnes Banyard delivered money from Sir John to her lady, paid various tradespeople, and delivered wages to other household staff. Such tasks showcase the trust that royals and nobles had in their female servants.

Ladies-in-waiting enjoyed the same entertainments as their employers. They played chess and other table and dice games, sometimes gambling over outcomes. They read and listened to religious works and secular romances read aloud. They sang, played instruments, and danced, while also enjoying the performances of others, and they hunted with dogs and hawks. During festivities surrounding life-cycle and annual festivities such as coronations, betrothals, St. George’s Day and Christmas, ladies danced, feasted, attended tournaments, and entertained guests. Although all of these activities may sound like trivial leisure time, such engagements created and fostered relationships. Through such networking, female courtiers built connections that could be parlayed into marriage and patronage opportunities.

The tasks assigned to ladies-in-waiting meant that they engaged with not only royals, diplomats, high-ranking clerics, and nobles, but also artisans, tradespeople, physicians, and midwives, plus the menial household servants who cooked, cleaned, and laundered. Servants who kept their ears open could learn information that might assist their patron or help promote their own familial or personal interests. For their efforts, employers rewarded ladies-in-waiting with a variety of perks and gifts, from room, board, and clothing allowances to lifetime annuities and grants of land. Investigating the domestic duties and daily lives of these often-overlooked women reveals the integral role played by elite attendants at court, and underscores how their proximity to the queen and other power brokers might translate into authority and influence that my book explores in later chapters.

Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval
England by Caroline Dunn