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Medieval Nora Battys uncovered
THE age of equality, it seems, dates back to the medieval era if the lives of peasant women in a famous Yorkshire settlement are anything to go by.
Archaeologists have unearthed evidence which suggests that women who were living in North Yorkshire as long ago as the 11th century joined their male counterparts to toil on the land.
English Heritage has conducted studies on nearly 120 female skeletons that were found at Wharram Percy, which lays claim to being Europe's most famous deserted medieval village.
The research into the human remains has suggested that the members of the supposed "gentler sex" were in fact muscular and multi-tasking all-rounders, taking on often arduous and physically demanding tasks.
And the Wharram Percy women's stout and burly appearance coupled with an apparent no-nonsense approach to life has led to suggestions that they were a medieval version of Nora Batty, the curmudgeonly character from the BBC's Last of the Summer Wine series.
As part of English Heritage's study, the bones from the village's women, who lived between the 11th century and 14th century, were compared to the remains of female city dwellers which were found 25 miles away in York.
English Heritage's human skeletal biologist, Simon Mays, said: "The differences were really quite pronounced. Women at Wharram were much more muscular and bigger boned than their city counterparts.
"Whilst they were still doing the domestic chores and looking after children, as in York, they clearly also mucked in with the hard labour in the fields, building up their arm strength.
"The research underlines that the sexual division of labour was much less marked than in the cities. This might seem obvious given that Wharram was a poor rural community. But in fact only scanty documentary evidence exists describing the lives of medieval peasant women in country areas.
"The evidence from the Wharram bones, however, speaks volumes, and reinforces that notion that life in the village was far from a rural idyll."
Wharram Percy, which is near Malton in North Yorkshire, is the best preserved of the country's 3,500 deserted villages and is managed by English Heritage.
Between 1950 and 1990 it was the scene of the longest running dig in British archaeological history. Hundreds of well- preserved skeletal remains were found, mostly medieval, which have provided an unprecedented insight into the lives of peasants.
The new research has compared the upper arm bones, or humerus, of adult females from the village with those unearthed at a medieval burial site at Fishergate in York.
The studies were conducted by X-raying the bones from the two burial locations.
The remains from Wharram Percy possessed a greater diameter and also had thicker walls – a result of more bone being deposited as muscles are worked harder and gain mass.
Mr Mays added: "The Wharram bones also show a lot of osteoarthritis, brought about by a life of hard work and poor diet.
"Whilst many women in York were engaged in domestic service, or were effectively housewives, their country cousins coped with harsher economic realities."
Disease, infant mortality and malnutrition were all widespread problems in Wharram Percy, and villagers consumed most of the food they produced and often struggled to evade hunger.
Bumps and hollows tell sad history of domesday book village that perished
The deserted village of Wharram Percy, which is set on the side of a remote and picturesque valley in the Yorkshire Wolds, dates back to the 10th century and is mentioned briefly in the Domesday Book.
The settlement survived the devastation caused by William the Conqueror's "Harrying of the North" and the Black Death, although many of the villagers died, including the lord of the manor and the priest.
The village was finally abandoned soon after 1500, when, according to a legal document of 1517, the lord of the manor at that time, Baron Hilton, evicted the last four families and demolished their houses to make way for more sheep pasture, as England's wool industry began to take off.
The use of the village's church, St Martin's, continued for a further 400 years, but tailed off sharply when a new place of worship was built nearby in 1870.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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