The Warreners

Roger Warrener

28, the lord's warrener, keeper of the coneys; the Warreners, come from Hatherley in May 1353. A widower since 31 March 1354, when his wife Alice died of a fever; their daughters Amice (6) and Margery (3) are at home with him. Two acres, a cow, a pig, three hens, and nothing in the house. Seven shillings and fourpence on the steward's slate, and the lord's mercy refused. Ale-taster for the year since the October court.

House: The Warreners
Born: about 1325
Age: 28
Wife: Alice Warrener (dead)
Daughter: Amice Warrener
Daughter: Margery Warrener
Pastime: carving wooden coneys

Who they are

Lean, wiry, quick-eyed. Dark hair cut short with a knife, a nick through one eyebrow from a ferret bite as a boy. Strong as a rope: won the wrestling at the wake in July, and it's the one day of the year he'd live again.
Slow to forgive and slower to be forgiven. He remembers to the day when he took each man in the warren, and he knows the street remembers too.
Proud of his post and jealous of his name: no man will say he let a thing pass or isn't fit for the warren.
A watcher by trade. Half his day is spent standing still on the warren bank, and he sees who goes in at which door. He has learned that watching the street does him no good, and mostly stops himself. Since Alice he catches himself watching his own door from the mounds instead.
Patient and quiet with animals, stiff and wary with people. Can sit half a night in the cold and never mind it.
Prays to St Hubert, short and to the point, and says the old charms his father taught him against foxes and fever under his breath at the hutches. He thinks God, like the steward, prefers a man who keeps it brief. Confesses short at Easter and doesn't dress it up. The one time he asked God for anything at length, it was for Alice.
His days have gone over to her work: the churn most mornings, the pot, the bank after, and more evenings than not at Stephen's bench on trust, with Amy minding Mag at home. He learned the pot and the loaf when the bough laid her up; he never had to learn the quiet. He goes to the inn to drown it and says himself it doesn't work, and goes.
His chest has been tight since the cough in November, and the dawn cold on the bank finds it, the wet too. His hands crack from the wet nets, and the smoke at home sets him coughing when the wind turns it back down.

Their life so far

Born near Hatherley, a warrener's son. The plague of 1349 took his father and mother, and he took on the priory's warren young, with no one to tell him how.
Married Alice at Hatherley; Amice was born about 1348 and Margery about 1351.
30 May 1353: came with Alice and the girls to keep the lord of Ambermead's warren.
13 July 1353: came on Peter Miller at the warren before light with three of the lord's coneys. 20 July: won the wrestling at the St Margaret's wake.
August 1353: sat with Elena Smith, and then Margaret, through the flux. The furze rotted in the wet; the girls fevered.
September 1353: bought cloth for a gown for Alice at St Giles's fair, with the last of the money. Brought Thomas atte Well's pig before the court; on the 11th came on Adam Brewer and Henry Cooper at the warren with two coneys; on the 21st the lord made Thomas pay him 2d and ring the pig.
1 October 1353: chosen ale-taster for the year with Peter Miller. On the 2nd the lord fined Adam and Henry 6d each.
October 1353: sat with Alan Shepherd in the flux. Three weeks of rain kept him off the warren.
5 November 1353: helped the priest's household and the atte Wells with their sowing.
6 November 1353: a falling bough struck Alice while she was cutting wood. He took over the cooking and baking: burnt the first loaf, and did better by the tenth.
16–22 November 1353: in bed with a bad cough caught from Amice. On the 17th the lord dismissed Adam Brewer's complaint over Roger's pig.
December 1353: pottage, firewood and alms from nearly every house through the rain and the first snow. Put a hurdle roof over the cut furze on the 14th. Gave the Coopers a day at their firewood on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day the steward let him keep the loan of the oxen on the old terms for another year.
5 January 1354: found the bean in the Twelfth Night cake at the inn and was king of the night. 13 January: dragged the plough round the doors with Adam, Alan and Robert Fowler on Plough Monday for the plough-light.
14 January 1354: the Warreners asked the lord's mercy on the rent at the manor court, and were refused.
January 1354: made the atte Wells a pair of hurdles (16th) and the Brewers a pair (23rd). Stephen split their wood on the 31st.
February 1354: Candlemas passed with the coneys still light. Sat with Alan Shepherd in his fever on the 5th.
February–March 1354: took Thomas at the warren before light on 18 February and said only what he saw at the court, praying St Hubert for it. Sat at Sir John's hearth more than once and found him easy company. Beatrice Shepherd came to sow their barley unasked on 3 March. The steward's oxen strayed on his barley strip and he kept quiet, and never got to Henry about the team.
9 March 1354: took a pike from the lake, after a winter off the willow point without a touch.
16 March 1354: Henry Cooper sowed their strip while waiting on his answer about the steward's team; Roger put it off three times before he gave it, and Henry went on sowing after.
25–30 March 1354: Alice took a fever and lay gravely ill from Lady Day. Juliana brought herbs, and Sir John the sacrament on the 26th, 27th, 29th and 30th; the street came up the path with pottage, Peter to the door among them. He made the Coopers their hurdles, roofed the furze, killed a hen for her broth, and sat by her bed with his hands empty. He's no asking man, and he asked God to let him keep her.
31 March 1354: Alice died of the fever, at 26, and was buried that day on the south side of the churchyard. He cut wood, mended the bank and fished that evening.
1 April 1354: took up her churn, and has been at it nearly every day since. He never once watched how she did it.
6 April 1354: made a loveday with Thomas over the furrow, Beatrice between them, for 2d. Two days later Thomas had the pig read out in the hall.
12–13 April 1354: took Henry Cooper at the warren before light on Easter Eve, the man who'd sowed his strip. Went without communion, not at peace with Thomas. On Easter Day made lovedays with Thomas and with Edith, Beatrice between them each time; the pig plea cost him 2d damages and 2d licence.
15 April 1354: put out his hand for the miller's dole, the first man he took in that warren. On 20 April and 25 May it was the Brewers'.
17 April 1354: took the Fletchers meal out of a thin bin. Fair is fair.
1 May 1354: danced most of the afternoon on the green with Maud Miller, a month after the burying, and wanted Alice's Mass said before he danced again.
19 May 1354: walked the bounds in the Rogation procession.
22 May 1354: came on Adam Fisher and John Carter at the warren before light, with two coneys. It was before the court of 10 June, and it's gone up to the lord.
27 May 1354: went to Beatrice to ask her to mind the girls, and she said she would, and he came away ashamed of asking a woman near her time.
7 June 1354: took pottage to Sir John, laid up with his ankle, and told him about the Mass and the flail.

Pastimes

Pate, a tame jackdaw taken from the church tower in June 1353 after a fall killed its fellow. Rides his shoulder, steals his whetstone, and sits on the furze roof to see who's coming. Amice named it.
Carving a flock of wooden coneys for the girls; the crooked-nosed one is Margery's for good. He carves at Stephen's bench of an evening, and learned from him to leave the feet and the ears till last. The ears split when he rushes them, so he means to fix them on a block of green beech for the next dozen.
Fishing the lake at evening: roach and perch mostly, and he'd tell Alice of a tench before he remembered. Elena told him to lay a dead roach on a long cord for the pike under the willow and let it make up its mind.
Knows every bird and track in the wood. Whistles to the ferrets and they come.

How they talk

Short and flat. The least he can. Blunter when crossed. "That's mine to see to." "We'll see." "Fair is fair."
To the steward and at the tastings: plain and exact, like a man giving evidence, which he often is. "If it's thin I'll say thin."
To Amice: patient and slow, showing her the tracks; he's another man at the warren with her. To Margery he hums; it isn't the song she wants.
To Alan, Stephen over the knives, and Sir John: almost easy. He'll answer a question about the trade at length and then stop, embarrassed. With Beatrice he'll sometimes try a dry joke, and looks surprised when it lands.
Gives counsel when asked, and only then, short and sound.
Never asks for anything. When he must, he says it like a man reading a bill.
Called: the warrener; "the coney-man" behind his back.
Swears: "By St Hubert", low, and he means it.

What he thought lately

Churned and pressed all morning, then the pillow mounds in the afternoon. The steward's oxen aren't on my fallow strip yet and Midsummer is ten days off. God, let them come in time.
14 June

An arm made for nets at the churn from noon to dusk, and it aches in a place the bank never found. Who knew Alice's arm was that strong? Sir John says a Mass for the Shepherds for their kindness. What would Alice's cost me, and what have I got?
12 June

Two bushels of rye left, and the oats and peas to stretch past it. Mended the bank this afternoon with that in my head the whole while. God, let it last to harvest.
11 June

Stood at Alice's grave after Mass with nothing to say to it. Cheese and butter the rest of the day, the girls fed, and the inn to drown it. It doesn't drown.
8 June

I took the priory's warren young, with the plague just through and nobody to show me how. Nobody's showing me the house either. Cheese this morning, the bank this afternoon, then the inn.
5 June

Overheard

15 June, morning at the church · John of Thornbury and Roger Warrener

John: Good morrow, Roger. Your hens are scratching under the church wall again, I see. Mine are hiding from the drizzle in the lean-to, the lazy things, though I can't blame them for it. I've been telling them the news of the house this morning, and they took none of it seriously.

Roger: They never do. Pate's the same, only he answers back. What news have you been giving them, John, that's so wearisome?

John: Only that the one speckled hen, the one I'd named for St Margaret's sake, is gone since the broth in April, and the rest won't lay as they should without her. I'm not sure they understand what they've lost. I told them I mean to set a clutch of eggs under the old brown one before Midsummer, if she'll sit, and see whether I can raise a hen worth the name.

Roger: Set them when the moon's on the wane, John, and keep the dog from the coop. And don't be surprised if the brown one gives you two eggs and then sulks for a week. Put them under her in a dry corner, not the lean-to, which is damp as a fish-pond.

14 June, evening at the inn · Roger Warrener and Beatrice Shepherd

Roger: Beatrice, is that the grist from the mill on your face or the pie you had at Stephen's? You've flour in your eyebrows, God help you.

Beatrice: It's the miller's own flour, Roger, and I'll thank you not to look at me as if I'd stolen it. The toll took its bite again this week and the grist came back light, so I'm in no humour for teasing. My ale's turned a little sour at the vat with this cold, and I'm sure Peter's mill has had the bran as well as the toll.

Roger: Then you'll have the reeve telling you the same as Peter, that the cold stops every vat in the village, and you'll both be right. I'll wager the warren's the only thing in Ambermead the frost hasn't touched, since the coneys don't drink ale. Now, tell me what's been on your mind, because you've been turning that sixpence over all the way from the mill.

Beatrice: It's the priest's sixpence, lent on the thirteenth of February till market day, and it came back late, on the second of March, out of the peas they sold. The house is square with me now, but I mean to have the next loan in writing, or in front of Isabel, before I hand over a single penny more. Alan says I'll be a miser by Midsummer, and I expect he's right, with the child to come.

In the books

22 May 1354 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Adam Fisher and John Carter at the warren before light, with two coneys out of the lord's warren. They must answer for it at the manor court.
13 April 1354 Edith atte Well and Roger Warrener made a loveday at the inn, Beatrice Shepherd standing between them, and drank on it.
13 April 1354 Thomas atte Well and Roger Warrener made a loveday, Beatrice Shepherd standing between them, and drank on it. Roger paid 2d damages and 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Thomas's plea was withdrawn.
12 April 1354 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Henry Cooper at the warren before light, with a coney out of the lord's warren. He must answer for it at the manor court.
8 April 1354 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Thomas atte Well asks the lord about rent for the empty holding by the mere; Alan Shepherd asks the lord about meadow ground for hay; Thomas atte Well against Roger Warrener, a pig in the garden; Peter Miller against Stephen Brewer, a furrow over the mere. The steward has put it all to the lord.
6 April 1354 Thomas atte Well and Roger Warrener made a loveday, Beatrice Shepherd standing between them, and drank on it. Roger paid 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Thomas's plea was withdrawn.
18 March 1354 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Thomas atte Well against Roger Warrener, a furrow over the mere; the Coopers ask the lord's mercy. The steward has put it all to the lord.
18 February 1354 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Thomas atte Well at the warren before light, with a coney out of the lord's warren. He must answer for it at the manor court.
13 January 1354 Plough Monday: Adam Brewer, Roger Warrener, Alan Shepherd and Robert Fowler dragged a plough round the houses and collected 1s 2d for the plough-light in church.
25 December 1353 Roger Warrener saw the steward about the loan of his oxen for the spring ploughing; the old terms stand for another year.
16 November 1353 Roger Warrener is in bed with a bad cough, caught from Amice Warrener.
12 November 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Adam Brewer against Roger Warrener, a pig in the garden; the ale-tasters' presentments. The steward has put it all to the lord.
1 October 1353 At the manor court Roger Warrener and Peter Miller were chosen ale-tasters for the year, and Thomas atte Well hayward, and Henry Cooper reeve.
11 September 1353 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Adam Brewer and Henry Cooper at the warren before light, with two coneys out of the lord's warren. They must answer for it at the manor court.
10 September 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: the merchet for Beatrice Shepherd's marriage; the reeve's presentment: boon-work not done; the ale-tasters' presentments; John of Thornbury against Thomas atte Well, beasts in the corn; Roger Warrener against Thomas atte Well, a pig in the garden. The steward has put it all to the lord.
13 July 1353 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Peter Miller at the warren before light, with three coneys out of the lord's warren. He must answer for it at the manor court.
30 May 1353 Roger Warrener came from Hatherley with his wife Alice and two children, Amice and Margery, and took up the keeping of the lord's warren.

The daily round (32 more)

7 June Roger Warrener took pottage to John of Thornbury at the priest's household.
4 May Roger has the hurdle roof up over the furze at last, and what's under it is drying.
1 May Roger Warrener and Maud Miller danced together most of the afternoon.
17 April Roger Warrener took the Fletchers a peck of meal, in return for their kindness.
12 April Roger Warrener would not make peace with Thomas atte Well before Easter, and did not take communion.
12 April Edith atte Well would not make peace with Roger Warrener before Easter, and did not take communion.
28 March Roger Warrener put a hurdle roof over the cut furze in the lean-to, to keep it dry through the winter.
27 March Roger Warrener made the Coopers a pair of hurdles, in return for their kindness.
9 March Roger Warrener took a pike from the lake.
20 February Roger Warrener helped the priest's household with their sowing.
20 February Roger Warrener made the atte Wells a pair of hurdles, in return for their kindness.
23 January Roger Warrener made the Brewers a pair of hurdles, in return for their kindness.
16 January Roger Warrener made the atte Wells a pair of hurdles, in return for their kindness.
5 January Twelfth Night at the inn: Roger Warrener found the bean in the cake and was king of the night.
31 December Roger has put a hurdle roof over the furze, so the rest of the summer's cutting is kept dry, and he has told Thomas of Elmstead so in plain words.
24 December Roger Warrener gave the Coopers a day's work at their firewood, in return for their kindness.
14 December Roger Warrener put a hurdle roof over the cut furze in the lean-to, to keep it dry through the winter.
22 November Roger Warrener is up again after a bad cough.
21 November Edith atte Well took pottage to Roger at the Warreners.
20 November Edith atte Well took pottage to Roger at the Warreners.
19 November Adam Brewer took a remedy of herbs to Roger.
18 November Stephen Brewer took pottage to Roger at the Warreners.
17 November By the lord's ruling: Adam Brewer's complaint of Roger Warrener's pig was dismissed.
17 November Joan Brewer took a remedy of herbs to Roger.
17 November Stephen Brewer took a remedy of herbs to Roger.
5 November Roger Warrener helped the priest's household with their sowing.
24 September Roger Warrener called on the Shepherds.
21 September By the lord's ruling: Thomas atte Well paid Roger Warrener 2d for the damage done by his pig, and must ring it.
3 September Roger Warrener of the Warreners went to St Giles's fair in the town and bought cloth for a gown.
20 July St Margaret's Day, the village wake: games and ale on the green, with folk over from Northshire, and Roger Warrener won the wrestling.
19 July Roger Warrener called on the Smiths.
22 May Word has come that Roger Warrener and family, from Hatherley, would keep the lord's warren.