Jacque the Serf

Jacques the Serf
John McLaughlin has a PhD in Medieval Studies from Harvard University. This is one of a series of books originally written for the Boston Children’s Museum. Children are asked to finish the story. What happens to Jacque? Have fun illustrating this book. john.mclaughlin4@verizon.net Jacque the serf is a tall, thick-bodied, sloping shouldered man, with heavy arms and thick, callused hands. His shaggy beard is roughly trimmed, and his hair is thick and wiry. He is thirty-one years old and looks at least forty-five. His ruddy face is heavily lined and his small, deep set blue eyes blink a lot. Thinking and speaking require a great deal of effort from Jacques, and he would rather work all day in the hot sun than get into an argument. On holy-days and feast days, however, he loves to wrestle with other strong men, such as the blacksmith, Robert. He also likes to compete at throwing great boulders. Sometimes he plays the wild game of football, in which the entire village splits into two teams, trying to kick the leather bladder through the opposing team’s goal; the playing field is the street of the village, and more than one small hut has been pushed over by the struggling teams. Between these wild games and his plodding field-tasks, Jacques is kept occupied. He goes to church on Sundays, and is trying to bring up his two sons to follow in his footsteps. He is a valuable serf, because he can be depended upon to get the manor work done in it due time. Jacque finished picking out the tools he would need for the morning’s work, and loaded the hoe, shovel, seed-bag and other items on the two wheeled donkey cart with the help of his two sons. There had been hailstorms and then an invasion of deer from the neighboring forest, which had ruined some of the carefully tended strip fields on Sir William’s land. The bailiff had assigned Jacques’ family to repair one of these strips. Jacques felt that there must be something personal in the particular assignment he had been given. Their own strips, like everyone else’s were intermingled all over the manor lands. They could have been assigned to a strip nearer their own strips. The bailiff knows as well as they did that if the work on Sir William’s land took too much time they would have little daylight left for repairing their own strips. But at least the bailiff had loaned them a donkey and cart to carry the tools. Part of the reason might have been Robert the blacksmith, the strongest man on the manor, and Jacques’ second cousin. He had “suggested” the idea to the bailiff, and of course Louis had not argued the matter. Jacques led the cart past the shop of Norman the carpenter, who was a half-cousin of Marie, Jacque’s wife. They exchanged greetings. Norman was preparing fence-slats to keep out the deer, and he would follow them to Sir William’s field later that morning. As Jacques walked along beside Marie, listening to his two boys chattering in the cart, he was thinking about how well his marriage had turned out. Marie had been a little young, of course, an orphan of thirteen years of age. Henry, the old bailiff who had long since died, had presented her and a small cottage - the one they still occupied - to the seventeen-year-old Jacques a strapping young serf just setting up as a farmer apart from his own family. Sir William’s father, also long since dead, had agreed that it was a good coupling, so there had been no merchet, or marriage fee, exacted from the young people. The lord hoped that they would have a large family to work the manor field in their turn. There had been the usual problems of settling in when the young people had first married. Jacques dimly regretted the black eye he had once given Marie for talking back to him. once the boys had been born, however, she had settled down, and now they were as contented a couple as existed on the manor. When they’d arrived at Sir William’s strip, the family spread out under the direction of Jacques. Marie set to work pulling up the broken plants. Francois, himself with a hoe, was just a little old man. Jacques was re-digging the stamped down furrows with a heavy shovel. Francois had to put the neat finishing touches on the rough spade work. Then, after they had finished each row, Jean came last, scattering the fresh seed along the furrow, taking care that it was even and that it stayed along the upturned row. The family worked quickly, and soon the end of the job began to show. Jacques paused at the end of one row to ease his back, and gazed across at the vineyard, whose heavy fence had kept out the deer. Soon Andre the vintner would have to chop away the useless branches, letting the sun in to play on the ripening grapes. It was a skilled job, and one that Andre would not allow anyone to help him with. Jacques was quite happy with that arrangement. Marie left to prepare their 10am dinner, and Jacques bent once more to his task. Luckily the damage had not been as bad as it looked at first, and the harvest was far from ruined. This new grain, in fact, would be nearly ripe by the time the village serfs came along to reap it with their sickles. Then they would get together and thresh the cut grain with heavy flails, separating the rich ears of grain from the useless chaff. Finally, they would winnow the grain, tossing hugh armfuls of it in the air for the loose chaff to blow away and the heavy ears to fall on the ground, to be gathered up by many hands. From their share of the grain, Jacques and his wife would bake the black bread that was a major part of their diet. Jacques and Marie paid a heavy price for the privilege of grinding their grain and baking their own bread at home, a fine amounting to one loaf out of every ten they made. It would perhaps be easier if he left the grinding to the miller, Jacques thought, instead of crushing the grain between two stones and sifting the resulting flour himself. It would certainly be easier if they had their bread baked in the manor ovens like everyone else, instead of doing it all themselves, but on this subject Marie was stubborn, and Jacques had to admit that the bread did taste better this way! Jacque looked over the fence toward the village common-land, where his five sheep were grazing under the eye of Bernard the village shepherd. The shepherd also took a fee for this service, one fleece from every second shearing batch. That left little enough wool for the family’s clothes from the tine flock. But at least it was better than leaving young Francois to watch the sheep while he was still too young to be careful. Jean, the thirteen-year-old son, had been forced to chase the hungry sheep from the grain, because the younger boy had wandered off into the woods. The last time his excuse had been that he wanted to watch the swineherd knocking down acorns for the pigs! Jacques smiled at the memory and bent once more to his digging. Chapter 2 Are the boys asleep yet, Marie?” “I think so. Francois is exhausted, I know. He’s still not used to working a full day in the fields, you know.” “Oh, I’m not worried about that. He’ll learn in time. Jean’s teaching him too - the big fellow isn’t a huntsman yet, thanks be.” “Then what is worrying you?” “What are you talking about?” “Don’t you try to fool me, Jacques! You’ve been sitting there staring at that fire, for an hour now, not giving me so much as a word. What is it?” “Well, I suppose you’d better know, Marie. You know Gautier the hayward? He’s been giving me trouble for quite a while now, and it looks as if it might be getting worse instead of better.” “How?” “It must have been about 2 months ago, I’d say. He came up to me when I was down near the forest, digging the ditch, and accused me pointblank of deer stealing.” “How could he? That’s not true! You never stole a deer in your life, Jacques - how could he say such a thing?” “Now be quiet, will you? I don’t want to waken the boys. Of course, I never stole any deer. I came near to braining that liar with my shovel, I’ll tell you that. But he kept out of my reach, a greasy smile on his face. He took back the accusation at once, but he didn’t stop there. He showed me how hard it would be to prove I didn’t, when it was only my word against his, and him with the bailiff to back him up. And he’s right, you know, Marie. Twenty years of manor service don’t mean a thing around here if fat Louis takes it into his head to get you.” “Oh Jacques, I don’t know what to say.” “Me neither,, Marie, me neither. So I just went back to my digging, sort of watching him out of the side of my head, you know. He didn’t go away, but just sat himself right down on a tree stump and began to whistle a tune bright as a lark.” “Oh, the beast! After all you’ve done for Sir William, and for his father before him, it’s just not fair. I don’t think you’ve missed a day’s corvee in your whole life. And with two fine lads to work his manor for him too - it’s not right, that’s what it’s not!” “It isn’t a court case yet, Marie, for heaven’s sake. Though maybe - well, we’ll see. Anyway, he sort of jawed back and forth, till I can’t remember the half of what he said. The upshot of it all was that he said he wouldn’t start trouble for me on one condition.” “I’m waiting to hear about it.” “Well, he asked me for one of the sheep.” “That one you told me got lost in the woods - you didn’t give him it?” “Now what would you have done?” Here’s this man, got the backing of the bailiff behind him, and Lady Elinor behind that in turn, and here’s me, a poor laboring man with no smart tongue to defend myself. Can you just see it in manor court - here’s me, can’t shake out two straight sentences, blabbering away, and here’s that pair of snakes, Gautier and Louis, smooth and sleek, biding their time until I’ve made a fool of myself, and then they drop on me like a tree! Oh, that would be just fine! How long do you think they’d take before they were stretching my neck just a little bit to teach me a lesson?” “Ssh, Jacques - the boys!” “You’re right - I’m sorry, Marie. Well I gave him the sheep and I thought god riddance. Oh, you know what’s coming now? You’re right. He came back the next month, and again the same business. So I gave him another sheep to shut him up.” “You can’t keep this up, Jacques. He’ll bleed you white before he’s done.” “Well, when he came back last month I told him the third was the last. I told him that if he tried it again there’s going to be an accident and they wont’ find him until next winter somewhere in the woods. I’m not the tough, murderous kind, Marie, but you should have seen him turning green with fright! He scampered away, anyhow, but when he was well out of reach he screamed that he’d get me for it.” “You don’t think he’d really accuse you to Louis, now, do you?” “Oh, I don’t think so. But well, maybe. I have heard some rumors that Louis is looking for a deer thief, but who can trust rumors?” “Oh, Jacques - what if...?” “Now stop that, woman! To tell the truth, I had heard it was three men Louis is looking for, so probably it’s got nothing to do with Gautier’s little game. Look, how do I know? I’m just tired of it all, just tired out. Cover up the fire, Marie. I’m going to get some sleep.” “All right, Jacques. You’re probably right about it. Gautier wouldn’t betray you now, not after you’ve done everything he asked for. Goodnight.”

Jacques the Serf

John McLaughlin has a PhD in Medieval Studies from Harvard University. This is one of a series of books originally written for the Boston Children’s Museum. Children are asked to finish the story. What happens to Jacque? Have fun illustrating this book.
john.mclaughlin4@verizon.net

Jacque the serf is a tall, thick-bodied, sloping shouldered man, with heavy arms and thick, callused hands. His shaggy beard is roughly trimmed, and his hair is thick and wiry. He is thirty-one years old and looks at least forty-five. His ruddy face is heavily lined and his small, deep set blue eyes blink a lot.

Thinking and speaking require a great deal of effort from Jacques, and he would rather work all day in the hot sun than get into an argument. On holy-days and feast days, however, he loves to wrestle with other strong men, such as the blacksmith, Robert. He also likes to compete at throwing great boulders. Sometimes he plays the wild game of football, in which the entire village splits into two teams, trying to kick the leather bladder through the opposing team’s goal; the playing field is the street of the village, and more than one small hut has been pushed over by the struggling teams.

Between these wild games and his plodding field-tasks, Jacques is kept occupied. He goes to church on Sundays, and is trying to bring up his two sons to follow in his footsteps. He is a valuable serf, because he can be depended upon to get the manor work done in it due time.

Jacque finished picking out the tools he would need for the morning’s work, and loaded the hoe, shovel, seed-bag and other items on the two wheeled donkey cart with the help of his two sons. There had been hailstorms and then an invasion of deer from the neighboring forest, which had ruined some of the carefully tended strip fields on Sir William’s land. The bailiff had assigned Jacques’ family to repair one of these strips.

Jacques felt that there must be something personal in the particular assignment he had been given. Their own strips, like everyone else’s were intermingled all over the manor lands. They could have been assigned to a strip nearer their own strips. The bailiff knows as well as they did that if the work on Sir William’s land took too much time they would have little daylight left for repairing their own strips. But at least the bailiff had loaned them a donkey and cart to carry the tools. Part of the reason might have been Robert the blacksmith, the strongest man on the manor, and Jacques’ second cousin. He had “suggested” the idea to the bailiff, and of course Louis had not argued the matter.

Jacques led the cart past the shop of Norman the carpenter, who was a half-cousin of Marie, Jacque’s wife. They exchanged greetings. Norman was preparing fence-slats to keep out the deer, and he would follow them to Sir William’s field later that morning. As Jacques walked along beside Marie, listening to his two boys chattering in the cart, he was thinking about how well his marriage had turned out. Marie had been a little young, of course, an orphan of thirteen years of age. Henry, the old bailiff who had long since died, had presented her and a small cottage - the one they still occupied - to the seventeen-year-old Jacques a strapping young serf just setting up as a farmer apart from his own family. Sir William’s father, also long since dead, had agreed that it was a good coupling, so there had been no merchet, or marriage fee, exacted from the young people.

The lord hoped that they would have a large family to work the manor field in their turn.

There had been the usual problems of settling in when the young people had first married. Jacques dimly regretted the black eye he had once given Marie for talking back to him. once the boys had been born, however, she had settled down, and now they were as contented a couple as existed on the manor.

When they’d arrived at Sir William’s strip, the family spread out under the direction of Jacques. Marie set to work pulling up the broken plants. Francois, himself with a hoe, was just a little old man. Jacques was re-digging the stamped down furrows with a heavy shovel. Francois had to put the neat finishing touches on the rough spade work. Then, after they had finished each row, Jean came last, scattering the fresh seed along the furrow, taking care that it was even and that it stayed along the upturned row. The family worked quickly, and soon the end of the job began to show.

Jacques paused at the end of one row to ease his back, and gazed across at the vineyard, whose heavy fence had kept out the deer. Soon Andre the vintner would have to chop away the useless branches, letting the sun in to play on the ripening grapes.

It was a skilled job, and one that Andre would not allow anyone to help him with. Jacques was quite happy with that arrangement.

Marie left to prepare their 10am dinner, and Jacques bent once more to his task. Luckily the damage had not been as bad as it looked at first, and the harvest was far from ruined. This new grain, in fact, would be nearly ripe by the time the village serfs came along to reap it with their sickles. Then they would get together and thresh the cut grain with heavy flails, separating the rich ears of grain from the useless chaff. Finally, they would winnow the grain, tossing hugh armfuls of it in the air for the loose chaff to blow away and the heavy ears to fall on the ground, to be gathered up by many hands.

From their share of the grain, Jacques and his wife would bake the black bread that was a major part of their diet. Jacques and Marie paid a heavy price for the privilege of grinding their grain and baking their own bread at home, a fine amounting to one loaf out of every ten they made. It would perhaps be easier if he left the grinding to the miller, Jacques thought, instead of crushing the grain between two stones and sifting the resulting flour himself. It would certainly be easier if they had their bread baked in the manor ovens like everyone else, instead of doing it all themselves, but on this subject Marie was stubborn, and Jacques had to admit that the bread did taste better this way!

Jacque looked over the fence toward the village common-land, where his five sheep were grazing under the eye of Bernard the village shepherd. The shepherd also took a fee for this service, one fleece from every second shearing batch. That left little enough wool for the family’s clothes from the tine flock. But at least it was better than leaving young Francois to watch the sheep while he was still too young to be careful. Jean, the thirteen-year-old son, had been forced to chase the hungry sheep from the grain, because the younger boy had wandered off into the woods. The last time his excuse had been that he wanted to watch the swineherd knocking down acorns for the pigs! Jacques smiled at the memory and bent once more to his digging.

Chapter 2

Are the boys asleep yet, Marie?”

“I think so. Francois is exhausted, I know. He’s still not used to working a full day in the fields, you know.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that. He’ll learn in time. Jean’s teaching him too - the big fellow isn’t a huntsman yet, thanks be.”

“Then what is worrying you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you try to fool me, Jacques! You’ve been sitting there staring at that fire, for an hour now, not giving me so much as a word. What is it?”

“Well, I suppose you’d better know, Marie. You know Gautier the hayward? He’s been giving me trouble for quite a while now, and it looks as if it might be getting worse instead of better.”

“How?”

“It must have been about 2 months ago, I’d say. He came up to me when I was down near the forest, digging the ditch, and accused me pointblank of deer stealing.”

“How could he? That’s not true! You never stole a deer in your life, Jacques - how could he say such a thing?”

“Now be quiet, will you? I don’t want to waken the boys. Of course, I never stole any deer. I came near to braining that liar with my shovel, I’ll tell you that. But he kept out of my reach, a greasy smile on his face. He took back the accusation at once, but he didn’t stop there. He showed me how hard it would be to prove I didn’t, when it was only my word against his, and him with the bailiff to back him up. And he’s right, you know, Marie. Twenty years of manor service don’t mean a thing around here if fat Louis takes it into his head to get you.”

“Oh Jacques, I don’t know what to say.”

“Me neither,, Marie, me neither. So I just went back to my digging, sort of watching him out of the side of my head, you know. He didn’t go away, but just sat himself right down on a tree stump and began to whistle a tune bright as a lark.”

“Oh, the beast! After all you’ve done for Sir William, and for his father before him, it’s just not fair. I don’t think you’ve missed a day’s corvee in your whole life. And with two fine lads to work his manor for him too - it’s not right, that’s what it’s not!”

“It isn’t a court case yet, Marie, for heaven’s sake. Though maybe - well, we’ll see. Anyway, he sort of jawed back and forth, till I can’t remember the half of what he said. The upshot of it all was that he said he wouldn’t start trouble for me on one condition.”

“I’m waiting to hear about it.”

“Well, he asked me for one of the sheep.”

“That one you told me got lost in the woods - you didn’t give him it?”

“Now what would you have done?” Here’s this man, got the backing of the bailiff behind him, and Lady Elinor behind that in turn, and here’s me, a poor laboring man with no smart tongue to defend myself. Can you just see it in manor court - here’s me, can’t shake out two straight sentences, blabbering away, and here’s that pair of snakes, Gautier and Louis, smooth and sleek, biding their time until I’ve made a fool of myself, and then they drop on me like a tree! Oh, that would be just fine! How long do you think they’d take before they were stretching my neck just a little bit to teach me a lesson?”

“Ssh, Jacques - the boys!”

“You’re right - I’m sorry, Marie. Well I gave him the sheep and I thought god riddance. Oh, you know what’s coming now? You’re right. He came back the next month, and again the same business. So I gave him another sheep to shut him up.”

“You can’t keep this up, Jacques. He’ll bleed you white before he’s done.”

“Well, when he came back last month I told him the third was the last. I told him that if he tried it again there’s going to be an accident and they wont’ find him until next winter somewhere in the woods. I’m not the tough, murderous kind, Marie, but you should have seen him turning green with fright! He scampered away, anyhow, but when he was well out of reach he screamed that he’d get me for it.”

“You don’t think he’d really accuse you to Louis, now, do you?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. But well, maybe. I have heard some rumors that Louis is looking for a deer thief, but who can trust rumors?”

“Oh, Jacques - what if...?”

“Now stop that, woman! To tell the truth, I had heard it was three men Louis is looking for, so probably it’s got nothing to do with Gautier’s little game. Look, how do I know? I’m just tired of it all, just tired out. Cover up the fire, Marie. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“All right, Jacques. You’re probably right about it. Gautier wouldn’t betray you now, not after you’ve done everything he asked for. Goodnight.”