abbess: The head of a women’s monastery or double monastery. The word is also used to refer humorously to a bawd.
abortifacient: A preparation or substance that brings about an abortion.
anchoress: A religious woman who chooses to live in a small space, isolated from others, in order to pray constantly. A man is called an anchorite.
annulment: A declaration, made by a church court, that a marriage between two people never existed. Having a marriage annulled was one of the few recourses available to medieval people who wanted to leave a marriage.
arpent: A measure of land that is approximately 0.85 acre, or 0.34 hectare.
ascetic: A person who abstains from sex, food, and other pleasures for religious reasons.
banns: Public declarations that two people plan to marry, given on three successive Sundays in a parish church and designed to give warning to those who might object to the marriage.
bawd: A woman who oversees a group of prostitutes or a brothel. Sometimes also called an abbess.
Beguine: A woman who lives a religious lifestyle but does not take religious vows. Beguines became widespread in northern Europe in the 1300s.
Black Death: The popular name given to the outbreak of bubonic plague that occurred in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
bliaut: A dress that fits tightly in the bodice and is full in the skirt.
braies: A men’s loose garment, similar to short pants, tied around the waist with a cord, worn under other clothing.
bubonic plague: A bacterial disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the foundation of the fourteenth century Black Death.
bull: An official papal document, sealed with a lead seal called a bullum. Bulls often set out matters of policy or settle questions of theology.
canon/canoness: Man or woman who lives a simple life and takes a vow of chastity and obedience. Regular canons and canonesses follow a rule based on the writings of St. Augustine (d. 430). Canon is also a term for a man who is in charge of administering a cathedral church.
canon law: The laws and regulations pertaining to church matters, including religious crimes such as heresy and everyday matters such as marriage and adultery.
canonical hours: Saying of prayers at specific times of day. Traditionally the canonical hours are matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline. They are also collectively called the Divine Office.
celibacy: Abstaining entirely from sexual intercourse. In medieval Europe, celibacy was formally required of all clergy, although it did not always happen in practice.
chattel: A piece of movable property; this item can refer to either an object or an enslaved person.
chrisom: A cloth used during baptism to wrap the child and cover the oil and balm used in the ritual. Some newborns who died were buried in their chrisoms.
concubine: In some medieval communities, a woman who is in a regular sexual relationship with a man outside of marriage; sometimes these relationships were sealed with legal contracts.
conjugal debt: See “marriage debt.”
consanguinity: Sharing the same blood; blood relationship.
cribra orbitalia: Abnormal bone growth in the eye sockets of the skull that is a sign of childhood malnutrition.
cucking stool: A punishment dating to the early Middle Ages in which the convicted person was tied to a chair, sometimes a latrine chair, and exhibited in public. Not to be confused with a “ducking stool.”
denier: A penny; worth 1/12 of a solidus.
dental enamel hypoplasia: Horizontal lines on the teeth that are a sign of childhood malnutrition.
distaff: A long rod wound with raw wool that is going to be spun. This tool was associated with women’s work in the Middle Ages to such an extent that the female side of a family tree is called the “distaff side.”
Divine Office: See “canonical hours.”
double monastery: A monastery in which a men’s house of monks and a women’s house of nuns exist side by side, ruled by an abbess, and in which the monks provide spiritual services for the nuns.
dower: The money or gifts given to a new wife by her husband or his family.
dowry: The sum of money paid from the wife’s family to the husband’s family; brought with a woman into her marriage.
ducking stool: A punishment in which the convicted person was placed in a chair suspended over water and repeatedly plunged in. Not to be confused with a “cucking stool.”
emmenagogue: A preparation or substance that brings on a woman’s menstrual period.
enclosure: In women’s monasteries, the rule that nuns were not allowed to leave the monastery without permission and that outsiders could not enter the monastery.
excommunication: A situation in which an individual or group of individuals is denied membership in the Roman Catholic Church, often for a major sin.
farthing: A coin worth one quarter of a copper penny.
fulling: A process of shrinking woolen fabric, using urine and water, that makes the cloth softer and thicker.
garderobe: Literally, a wardrobe, but figuratively, a latrine or privy.
guild: A trade or craft organization that controlled the sale of goods or the production of crafts in medieval cities. Guilds provided both quality control and a social safety net for their members and forbade non-guild members from practicing in the craft or trade.
gynaeceum: A women’s workshop, usually for spinning and cloth production.
Harris lines: Horizontal lines on the long bones of a skeleton that are a sign of childhood malnutrition.
hennin: A tall, cone-shaped headdress that became fashionable in the fifteenth century.
houppelande: A long open coat worn by both men and women in the late Middle Ages, usually with wide sleeves and sometimes lined with fur.
humors: The four substances that learned medieval people believed made up the body. They are blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm.
jus primae noctis: The “right of the first night” in which the overlord of a serf had the right to have sex with her before her husband did. This idea is popular in fiction about the Middle Ages, but it did not exist.
kirtle: A garment for both men and women, worn over a linen chemise and sometimes laced on.
leprosy: A serious progressive illness, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, that can cause bodily disabilities and breakdown of facial features.
Little Ice Age: A period beginning in the late thirteenth century and lasting through the fourteenth century in which average temperatures in Europe dropped by 0.6 degrees Celsius.
maleficium: Literally “doing evil,” a word often used for magic or sorcery.
mancus: A gold English coin worth thirty pennies, or about one-eighth of a pound.
marriage debt: Doctrine that husbands and wives, who theologically owned one another’s bodies, were not allowed to deny sex to their spouses. Also called the “conjugal debt.”
misogyny: Hatred of women.
monastery: A Christian community in which men or women live together under a rule for the purpose of prayer.
Morgengabe: In Germanic societies, the “morning gift” given to a bride after her first night with her husband.
mystic: A person who seeks spiritual union with God through religious practices, often including asceticism.
necrology: A list of deceased people kept by a monastery or church that serves as a reminder for prayer.
novice: A person who is in training to become a nun or a monk.
oblate: Literally an “offering.” A word used to refer to a child who is given to a monastery to be raised as a monk or nun.
obol: One-half of one penny.
ordeal: A medieval judicial process in which an accused person submitted to a physical challenge in order to prove himself or herself in the right during a trial. Ordeals could be unilateral (for example, a person might be asked to pick up a hot poker in his/her bare hand) or bilateral (in which two representatives of the parties fought a duel to determine a winner).
paleopathology: The study of ancient diseases.
penitential: A list of sins and their corresponding penances intended for the use of a priest hearing confession.
penny: A coin of small value, one-twelfth of a shilling or sou.
pessary: An herbal tampon used medically to affect a woman’s reproductive health.
pillory: A kind of public punishment in which an offender was sentenced to put head and hands through a pair of wooden boards that held them in place for a specific period of time. See also “stocks.”
polygyny: Having more than one wife.
porotic hyperostosis: Abnormal bone growth on the skull that is a sign of childhood malnutrition.
pound: Also called a librus or livre: a coin made up of twenty silver solidi or shillings.
regent: A person who acts as the ruler of a country while the monarch is too young to rule, is absent, or is otherwise unable to rule.
relic: Something left behind by a saint or other holy person that was believed to have spiritual power. In the Middle Ages, relics often included personal belongings, bones or hair.
Renaissance: A term meaning “rebirth,” usually of interest in scholarship or Greco-Roman culture. Although the most common use of the word refers to the late Middle Ages, the ninth and twelfth centuries have also been called Renaissances.
rule of thumb: Many modern people believe that a man could legally beat his wife in the Middle Ages as long as the stick used was not larger than his thumb. This belief is wrong; the rule of thumb did not exist, although most medieval communities tolerated domestic violence.
sacrament: One of seven major religious rituals in the Roman Catholic church that are believed to be outward manifestations of grace. They are baptism, confirmation, marriage, the Eucharist (communion), holy orders, penance, and extreme unction (anointment of the sick).
saint: A person who is considered holy either because they have died for the Christian faith or because they lived a strict religious lifestyle. Medieval people believed that saints could intercede with Christ in order to obtain forgiveness of sins for their followers.
serf: An unfree agricultural worker. In the early and High Middle Ages, serfs were bound to the land that they farmed and could be sold or traded along with the land by their lords. There were several other varieties of unfree workers with varying rights.
shilling: A silver coin valued as twelve pennies. Also called a sou or a solidus.
solidus: Also called a sou or shilling; a silver coin valued at twelve deniers or pennies. Twenty solidi make up a pound.
spindle: A small instrument used to spin loose wool, silk, or flax into thread.
stocks: A type of public punishment in which an offender had his or her ankles bound between two boards for a specified period of time. See also “pillory.”
sumptuary laws: Laws from the late Middle Ages that governed what classes of people could purchase luxuries and wear certain types of clothing.
tertiary: A person who is attached to a religious or monastic order but who does not take vows; often called a “third order.”
thatch: Bundles of straw used as roofing material.
thewe: In medieval England, a pillory in which a woman accused of a minor crime was sentenced to spend time.
transubstantiation: The Christian doctrine that holds that the bread and wine of the Eucharist turns into the body and blood of Christ once consecrated in the mass.
wattle and daub: A method of building that consists of sticks woven together (“wattle”) into a wall that is plastered with mud (“daub”).
wergild: In Germanic societies, an amount of money assessed for harm done to one person by another person.
wet nurse: A woman who is currently producing milk who is employed to nurse a wealthy person’s child.