Throwing Stones in the Middle Ages
He Threw Stones at His Neighbour's Door. What on Earth?
Look what I found in a medieval court record.
It's 1249.
Someone has been throwing stones at his neighbour's house in the middle of the night.
The neighbour has raised the hue and cry.
And, nearly 800 years later, the whole ridiculous argument is still sitting in a court record.
So what actually happened?
One surviving manor court roll from Ogbourne, Wiltshire, records what happened during Whitsun week in 1249.
A man described simply as Robert Carter's son went to the house of Peter Burgess after dark.
And started throwing stones at his door.
Peter responded by raising the hue โ the medieval public alarm that called on neighbours to come and help pursue an offender.
The court record tells us:
"It was presented that Robert Carter's son by night invaded the house of Peter Burgess and in felony threw stones at his door so that the said Peter raised the hue. Therefore let the said Robert be committed to prison. Afterwards he made fine with 2s."
Robert was ordered to be committed to prison, but subsequently made a fine of two shillings.
And suddenly medieval justice feels rather different.
This isn't a king ordering an execution.
It isn't a spectacular medieval crime.
It's two neighbours having some sort of extremely unpleasant disagreement.
Someone goes to someone's house.
Stones are thrown.
The alarm is raised.
Neighbours become involved.
And eventually the whole thing ends up before the manor court.
So what was the manor court?
Most of the disputes that affected ordinary village life didn't go anywhere near the royal courts.
They could be dealt with through the manor court, where the lord's steward and local community dealt with matters arising within the manor.
Surviving court rolls record an extraordinary variety of everyday disputes and offences.
People could be presented for things such as:
- allowing animals to stray into someone else's crops
- failing to maintain boundaries or hedges
- taking timber or firewood without permission
- breaking local trading regulations
- assaults and quarrels
- creating a nuisance
- failing to attend court when summoned
And, apparently, throwing stones at your neighbour's door.
But here's the thing I find fascinating.
The record doesn't tell us everything.
We don't know exactly why Robert was throwing the stones.
We don't know what had happened between him and Peter beforehand.
We don't know what Peter thought was going to happen when he raised the hue.
And we don't know what either man thought about the whole thing afterwards.
What we do have is the surviving record of the dispute.
Someone complained.
The community responded.
The matter was presented before the court.
And Robert eventually paid two shillings.
Which makes me wonder what else is hiding in these records.
Because this is the bit about medieval history that I find irresistible.
We don't have to imagine a medieval village in the abstract.
Sometimes, someone actually wrote down what happened.
Not what medieval people were supposed to do.
Not what a later historian thinks they might have done.
What one particular person actually did.
And sometimes that person did something as gloriously ordinary as throwing stones at their neighbour's door.
And now I want to know what the argument was about.
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Sources
- Manor Court of the Abbey of Bec, Ogbourne (Wiltshire), Whitsun Week 1249. Translated manor court roll recording the prosecution of Robert Carter's son for attacking the house of Peter Burgess and the raising of the hue and cry.
- Dresden Sachsenspiegel (Landrecht I), fol. 4, c. 1350. Illustration of church and secular courts. Public domain.