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Also, rather a pointed accusation to have the king's own administration put on record! "And that's why I'm inexplicably unable to contribute to your forthcoming military campaign, your highness" is just waiting in the wings...

Obviously a bit of both is nice, but if push comes to shove, I'll prioritize the new stuff—it's easier to get the gist of older works by osmosis if you read enough introductions, and I'd rather see what neat things current colleagues are doing!

I keep burying myself in digitized manuscripts when I can find them (which is, frankly, very cool that we can do it at all!), but it's just not the same...

Nice, which archive? (I don't think I've been able to visit any since 2022 and I'm feeling deprived 😭)

Interesting! There's a similar pattern in France, where you occasionally get the renouncement of any other rights to the bride in exchange for a fee—basically just another excuse to levy money, not a bodily liability that ever really existed.

(ugh, the "require alt text" setting turned itself off again, apologies! Here's the picture again)

It's also interesting that Jehannet could come in-person or not, allowing on-the-ground social navigation of this right each time. (Was it embarrassing to have him there, so you might work out a deal to just send him takeaway? Could he avoid the town bores? Was he fun at parties? I have questions.)

I imagine this right would actually have been enforced more rigorously when it involved the better-off townswomen, since they could afford a tastier wedding feast 😂

So, like the cases found by Boureau, this kind of claim was a way of reminding everyone of the lord's authority (here, by proxy) via gendered rituals and the ability to intrude on local lives—what Carocci has termed the "pervasiveness" of lordship. Again, no sex, just extra obligations and expenses.

He also claimed he was entitled ‘the right called “the bowl” from each woman being married in the said parish, that is to dine for free at the wedding, or if it please him better, one bowl, a piece of meat, and a pint of wine and a bread, as at a wedding’. Not a bad deal if you can get it I suppose!

In 1396, Jehannet Karitelle, feudal sergeant (i.e. executive officer, not actually a lord himself) at Nogent-sur-Seine, listed the various dues and expenses of his position, such as taxes on merchants, what we might call "roaming fees" for duties beyond the parish, and paying the town executioner.

However, Boureau points out that very occasionally, you get odd little ritual practices relating to either sex workers, women, or brides listed among the rights claimed by medieval lords. I work with this kind of document all the time, but hadn't found any... until now!

I'm currently re-listening to the Nine Tailors, and listening to Busman's Honeymoon for the first time!

I must say, AD Yonne has a *model* website: absolute breeze to navigate the cadre de classement, easy to access digitized versions of the old finding aids (hurray!), really good free search tool... it's got it all! A+

(Never had cause to look at the archives for Yonne before, I guess I'll find out shortly whether I love them or hate them 😂)

Oh neat, I hadn't realized that's near Guedelon! I've got the commune and no more—will try the AD online today, good call.

It's not an error, they're actually having it agree with masculine adjectives quite consistently. Very odd!

Now I want to get a grant to let me digitize the finding aids ><

Yeah, while we're at it, someone needs to have some serious words with the Gallica search function 🙃

100 years ago my maternal *great-*grandparents were running a mobile clothing business and thinking about having kids...?