Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide

Helen Castor’s new series ‘Medieval Lives’ continues tonight at 9pm on BBC4.

According to her website, ‘this exploration of the medieval experience of life’s great rites of passage includes stories of the 15th-century Paston family, as told in Helen’s book BLOOD & ROSES.’ (Helen Castor.com)

(c) BBC4

The second episode of this three part series looks at marriage.

This is what the press has to say:

‘Dr Helen Castor continues her advance through life’s ‘great rites of passage’ by looking at marriage. Using as examples a royal wedding (Catherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur, the future Henry VIII’s older brother) and one bringing together two Norfolk gentry families, she shows how the church put its stamp on marriage after reforms in the 12th century – and also became sterner about sexual sin…Castor…describes a typical medieval wedding, including the priest ‘putting the couple to bed.’

(p.64, The Culture, Sunday Times, 13 October 2013)

‘Unlike birth and death, which are inescapable facts of life, marriage is rite of passage made by choice and in the Middle Ages it wasn’t just a choice made by bride and groom – they were often the last pieces in a puzzle, put together by their parents, with help from their family and friends, according to rules laid down by the Church.

Helen Castor reveals how in the Middle Ages marriage was actually much easier to get into than today – you could get married in a pub or even a hedgerow simply by exchanging words of consent – but from the 12th century onwards the Catholic Church tried to control this conjugal free-for-all. For the Church marriage was a way to contain the troubling issue of sex, but, as the film reveals, it was not easy to impose rules on the most unpredictable human emotions of love and lust.’

(BBC4 website)

‘Dr Helen Castor dips into the sacrament and significance of marriage during the Middle Ages. Medieval wedlock was, she explains, often used to forge links between families. But it was also, of course, a passport to the pleasures of the flesh at a time when fornication was punished with public whippings and excommunication (not to mention eternal damnation).

Historian Helen Castor explores marriage in the Middle Ages, revealing how family and friends were often heavily involved in the coupling of two individuals. She also discovers how the Catholic Church tried to impose controls on matrimony after the ability to hold a wedding almost anywhere had led to a free-for-all, driven by the unpredictable human emotions of love and lust.’

(Gary Rose, Radio Times website)

You can view a clip here:

BBC4 – Medieval Lives: A Good Marriage

Episode 2 – A Good Marriage will be repeated:

BBC 4
Thursday 17 October – 02.30
Sunday 20 October – 22.00

Sources

The Culture (The Sunday Times)
BBC 4 Medieval Lives
Radio Times.com

The BBC History Magazine interviewed Helen Castor about her new TV series ‘Medieval Lives.’

BBC History Magazine – Interview with Helen Castor

Reviews

The Guardian

The Telegraph

Daily Mail

Helen Castor’s new series ‘Medieval Lives’ starts tonight at 9pm on BBC4.

According to her website, ‘this exploration of the medieval experience of life’s great rites of passage includes stories of the 15th-century Paston family, as told in Helen’s book BLOOD & ROSES.’ (Helen Castor.com)

(c) BBC4

The first episode of this three part series looks at birth.

This is what the press have had to say:

‘After impressing in She-Wolves: England’s Early Queens, Helen Castor turns away from royals in a three-parter on ‘the great rites of passage’, looking instead at everyday life. However, a lack of evidence on commoners means she is often forced to talk about queens in her first programme on births, with the pregnancies of Henry VII’s wife Elizabeth and Jane Seymour, shedding light on what went on in the medieval birthing chamber. Full of detail, the film stresses the church’s role in shaping the era’s ambivalence towards mothers.’

(p.64, The Culture, Sunday Times, 6 October 2013)

‘For a medieval women approaching the moment of labour and birth, there were no antiseptics to ward off infection or anaesthetics to deal with pain. Historian Helen Castor reveals how this was one of the most dangerous moments a medieval woman would ever encounter, with some aristocratic and royal women giving birth as young as 13. Birth took place in an all-female environment and the male world of medicine was little help to a woman in confinement. It was believed that the pains of labour were the penalty for the original sin of humankind – so, to get through them, a pregnant woman needed the help of the saints and the blessing of God himself.’

(BBC4 website)

‘In an age before anaesthetic or antiseptic, death was never far from birth. But delivering a baby during the Middle Ages was also an intensely private and highly ritualised process, as Dr Helen Castor reveals in the first of her trips through medieval rites of passage.

Although men were barred from the delivery room, the physicians of the time were invariably male clerics, whose medical texts were based on scant understanding of female anatomy. Dr Castor is delighted when she gets to pore over one such archaic manuscript, known as the Wellcome Apocalypse, which makes for illuminating reading. According to this medieval manual for life, women are “effectively men inside out”; slightly toxic creatures, whose gaze could tarnish mirrors and kill fruit.’

(Gary Rose, Radio Times website)

‘While men faced the prospect of dying in battle, childbirth was one of the greatest threats that punctuated life for medieval women. In the first of a three-part series exploring how the most fundamental rites of passage were marked in the Middle Ages, Dr Helen Castor expertly explores how prayer bowls and’ natural magic’ were employed by prospective mothers, whether peasants or princesses, while pain relief could only come via divine intervention.’

(p.63, Event, The Mail on Sunday, 6 October 2013)

You can view a clip here:

BBC 4 – Medieval Lives: A Good Birth

Article in the Daily Mail

Our superstitious, gory and unsophisticated ancestors’ attitudes live on in us more than 500 years later, says historian Helen Castor

Episode 1 – A Good Birth will be repeated:

BBC 4
Thursday 10 October – 02.30
Sunday 13 October – 22.40

Sources

The Culture (The Sunday Times)
Event Magazine (The Mail on Sunday)
BBC4 Medieval Lives
Radio Times.com
Our superstitious, gory and unsophisticated ancestors’ attitudes live on in us more than 500 years later, says historian Helen Castor