The priest's household

Isabel of Kingsley

50, servant woman who has kept the priest's house since September 1353, on a year's term paid in grain each month from the tithe barn and the house's loft; lives in the priest's household with Sir John of Thornbury.

House: The priest's household
Born: about 1304
Age: 50
Pastime: tending her herb bed

Who they are

Broad, stooped a little at the shoulders, iron-gray hair under a plain veil. Red hands from a life of washing and scrubbing. Her knees are bad on the church path and behind the plough team, and her eyes are worse every month: she spins the last of the day by feel.
Fond of her ale and doesn't hide it: a cup at dinner, a second at supper, a third if the day went badly. Never falling down, only loosened. Most evenings find her on Stephen's bench at the inn; a night that keeps her home sours her.
Slow to forgive. Keeps a tally of slights in her head, with dates, and brings them out years later. Keeps a tally of kindnesses too, and that one galls her more, because it has to be paid.
Knows every saint's day and keeps the priest's calendar better than he does. Prays to St Anne and the Virgin, and to St Margaret for the girls she's seen through childbed. Her faith is a matter of days kept and candles lit, not of feeling.
Good at bread, small brewing, a tidy hearth, plucking fowl, and sharp bargaining. Brews for the house and sells the extra to the neighbors. Knows her herbs: sage, hyssop and betony to every sickbed.
Does the house's paying and its measuring: she counted the tithe barn herself while Sir John was at the sickbeds, and she put Beatrice's sixpence back in her hand when he only fretted over it.
Watches who calls at the priest's door and how long they stay. In six months she has learned more about Ambermead than the priest has in a year and a half.

Their life so far

Born in Kingsley, about 1304. Worked as a girl in a farmhouse kitchen there, and carried its sacks.
Married young. Her husband and her only child died in the Great Pestilence of 1349, within a week of each other. She rarely speaks of it.
Her mother Margaret and her three brothers, Thomas, John and Robert, are all dead. She has no one left in Kingsley.
After that she took service where she could, in kitchens and a priest's house, and has wanted no house of her own since.
6 September 1353: came to Ambermead from Kingsley to keep Sir John's house in place of Joan, who had married Adam Brewer, paid in grain from the tithe barn.
October 1353: took remedies to Stephen in the flux, Beatrice in the ague, and Alan Shepherd day after day through his flux.
November 1353: the Warreners and Beatrice helped with the priest's sowing. Sat with Juliana Miller through her sore throat, took pottage and herbs to Alice Warrener after the bough fell on her and to Amice for her cough, and remedies to Joan Brewer in her fever. Set the herb bed in rows with Beatrice's help.
Beatrice Shepherd lent the house fivepence, paid back on 30 November, and then sixpence, which Sir John paid on 12 December; Isabel called him a soft fool for paying from his own purse.
December 1353: brewed for the house and sold the ale to the neighbors over Christmas. On 31 December fed a black friar, Stephen of Westcott, at the priest's fire, and told him what she thought of trees that grow lambs.
14 January 1354: the manor court amerced Sir John 2d for her ale. Stephen Brewer married Elena the same day, and the inn has a new mistress.
30 January 1354: went up to the Warreners and asked Alice plainly what would serve; Alice would take nothing.
2 February 1354, Candlemas: stood before the steward for the Warreners and got the old terms kept another year.
4 February 1354: Sir John amerced 4d for her ale this time. February: betony up the lane to Alan in his fever, and pottage to Joan at the inn in her cough on the 6th.
13 February 1354: Beatrice lent the house sixpence till market day. It ran late; on 2 March the house sold peas at market and Isabel saw her paid.
Late February into March: walked behind the plough team and sowed the glebe barley, with Beatrice and Alan coming to help by turns.
6 March 1354: took pottage to the Brewers, Joan coughing again. Sir John's brother Nicholas slept by their hearth that night, and the pot stretched for one more.
9 March 1354: Beatrice lent the house twopence till market day.
4 March 1354: Isabel put the house's sixpence into Beatrice Shepherd's hand herself, since Sir John only fretted over it; the house owes her no coin now.
4 March 1354: Her knees give notice at the team and the sacks, and she still carries them as she did as a girl at Kingsley.
17 March 1354: Six months of Isabel's term with Sir John are gone, and he has not said a word of another year.
17 March 1354: The priest's house borrows small sums of Beatrice and pays them back on market day, out one door and in the other.
17 March 1354: Beatrice told Isabel she'll not be counted a servant, and Isabel was left wondering what that makes her.
17 March 1354: Isabel works behind the team till her knees ache, and her cup at the inn is what she keeps for after.
31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
30 March 1354: Alan Shepherd carries every word of the court down the lane, improved, and is fond of her fire, though he flagged before she did.
30 March 1354: The priest's house has had salt, twopence and seed off Beatrice, and Sir John frets over Michaelmas; the measuring falls to Isabel.
30 March 1354: Her knees are past arguing, and after the fog she can't swear to her eyes; she prays for sight enough to earn her keep.
16 April 1354: Isabel's knees carry the team, the seed and the wood, and she keeps two tallies on Beatrice; the kindness one won't come down.
16 April 1354: Isabel holds the priest's hearth only till September, and means to speak to Sir John herself about another year.
16 April 1354: Isabel lost her child and her man the same week in '49, and asks Our Lady to keep them for her.
16 April 1354: Sir John promises Henry's loaf by the fire, but Isabel knows it will be her hands in that rye.
13 May 1354: Beatrice wants Isabel by her at the lying-in about St John's, and Isabel prays Our Lady keep that child safe.
13 May 1354: She won't have the house's bread or her good name talked over at the inn.
13 May 1354: Going through the rain to the smith's sick boy, she thought of '49 and her own.
13 May 1354: She measures the house's bread herself and fears the loft won't carry them past Michaelmas.
29 May 1354: Isabel fears for her place past September, and for the eyes and knees that earn her keep.
29 May 1354: Sir John fears for the house's corn and purse; she fears with him, and he wouldn't look at her over the loveday money.
29 May 1354: Beatrice, eight months gone, asks only a seat and a kind word; Isabel knows the kindness has gone stiff in her since '49.
29 May 1354: They all tell her how Joan Brewer kept the priest's house, and the two now watch each other across the inn table.

Pastimes

A small herb bed behind the priest's house: sage, rue, hyssop, feverfew, betony, set in rows so she can find each kind in the dark. Beatrice helped her lift the betony in November; she meant to have stakes along them by Lady Day. It has gone by with the rows still bare, and she means to have them yet.
Tells saints' lives while she works, St Margaret and St Christina above all, with the gory parts left in.
Judging the tale-tellers and friars who come through the inn, and finding most of them thin.

How they talk

Blunt and dry. Short sentences, with a sniff before a judgment. "We'll see." "I said so before, and no one listened." "That girl."
Mutters to the pots. Sharper after the second cup, and sometimes warmer too.
To the priest: like an aunt to a nephew who won't eat. Gives orders as advice: "Pray over them with a shovel, Sir John."
To young women: tests them with a demand and watches what they do with it.
To a man who's done her a kindness: gruff, and changes the subject to his boots.
Likes a comparison from the yard: Stephen talks round a hard question "like water round a stone."
Kingsley is in her mouth when she's tired: what they did in the farmhouse kitchen there when she was a girl.
Called: Old Isabel, though not to her face.
Swears: "By the Mass!", after the second cup.

What she thought lately

Beatrice brought pottage and lent five pence again, with her own time so near. A kindness like that galls worse than a slight, for it has to be paid. We'll see how it's paid.
9 June

Sir John turned his ankle in a rut, and he'll be on his back for weeks. The sickbeds won't wait on him, and the steward's slate won't either. St Anne, keep my knees under me till he's up.
2 June

A gray friar begging his bread at a door that's borrowed salt. Sir John gave him the bed, as he would. Most of them come thin.
28 May

Round the parish the whole day, and I came in with my feet gone to lead. Our Lady, leave me strength for Whitsun; the church-ale will want every pair of hands in this house.
27 May

Firewood till noon, then the round on these knees. I carried sacks at Kingsley and thought nothing of it. St Anne, get me up that lane by St John's.
26 May

Overheard

17 June, evening at the home · John of Thornbury and Isabel of Kingsley

John: The rye and the oats in the barn will not stretch as far as I had hoped, Isabel.

Isabel: Four months is four months. Pray over the bread and then bake it sparingly, Sir John, and the loft will carry us past harvest if the peas hold.

John: The peas were five bushels threshed, and that is fair, but seed and the Shepherds' peck will come out of them yet. Would it serve if I went to Henry about the cart, to have the damp corner turned before the wheat is in?

Isabel: You will go to Henry when the hay is in, same as you said at Lent. The bread comes first, John of Thornbury, and I will do the measuring, as I always do.

16 June, midday at the fallow field · Isabel of Kingsley and Alan Shepherd

Isabel: Driving the team on this fallow is heavier than it was at Lady Day, and my knees say so. The lord's oxen are slow to turn at the headland, and the clay sticks to the share like pitch.

Alan: Right, and the toll on the mill grist took a larger bite than I like, Peter says it is the lord's rate and not his own doing. Still, the sky is clear and the wind is steady, so the sowing will go in before Midsummer if God keeps the rain off.

Isabel: God keep it off. I have seen fields lost to a wet week in June. Alan, what are they saying on the hill about the lord's men, that the bondmen are running off to the wool towns?

Alan: Nicholas of Norton, the wool buyer's man, came through sixteen days back and told it at the inn. He said bondmen have been slipping their manors to take land or wages elsewhere, and the lords send after them and seldom get them back. He had it as an old story, not new, and he may have had some of it wrong, but it was said plainly enough.

In the books

16 April 1354 Isabel of Kingsley is in bed with the ague.
2 February 1354 Isabel of Kingsley saw the steward about what the Warreners need; the old terms stand for another year.

The daily round (12 more)

3 June Isabel of Kingsley called on the Millers.
30 April Isabel of Kingsley is up again after the ague.
21 April Stephen Brewer took a remedy of herbs to Isabel.
30 March Isabel of Kingsley took pottage to the Warreners.
28 March Isabel of Kingsley took a remedy of herbs to Alice.
16 March Isabel of Kingsley called on the Millers.
6 March Isabel of Kingsley took pottage to the Brewers.
6 February Isabel of Kingsley took pottage to Joan at the Brewers.
24 November Isabel of Kingsley took a remedy of herbs to Joan.
22 October Isabel of Kingsley took a remedy of herbs to Alan.
18 September Isabel of Kingsley called on the Shepherds.
6 September Sir John has taken Isabel of Kingsley, 49, to keep his house, paid in grain from the tithe barn.