*I am one of the priests of the village of Cornwall. My job is to keep the records of the lives of the village people. During the years of the Black Death, I was assigned to give the” Last Rites” to those on their deathbed. One woman I have remembered was Beatrix Foreman. As her final request she asked that I record her life’s story. While lying on her deathbed, she tells her story, starting from her birth to childhood, to teenage years to adult years, to eventually her death. I've written down everything that she told me, and other than my own notes next to hers, nothing has been changed.*

My name is Beatrix Foreman. I am an old woman now{1}, I think, lying on my deathbed from the Black Death. My husband has died from the plague, as well as my three children. I am the only one left in my family line. I cannot read. I cannot write. I tell you this story now, in hopes that my life will be forever immortalized.

I was born to Rose and Donald Rolfe in 1321. My parents were farmers, peasants rather, in 14th century England. When I was born, my mother was supported by an old aunt who was a midwife in the village. If it weren’t for that aunt my mother never would’ve survived; she barely did. After my birth, I was promptly baptized and christened the name Beatrix. My mother didn’t attend my ceremony; she was not allowed to come to neither the ceremony nor the church for a few weeks after my birth, and she had to do a purification ceremony before she was allowed back in. Because of my mother being sickly after my birth, a friend of hers had to take over feeding me. A few days later my mother recovered and so was able to care and nurse me again.

Soon after my mother recovered she went back to work in the fields. It was required for women after childbirth to immediately go back to work. She either carried me in a sling upon on her back, or bosom, or she left me in the care of my older brother or sister. Anna and Hadrian were 9 and 6 at the time. Hadrian hated taking care of me; he wanted to be with his father instead, helping with reaping hay and carrying it to barns in bales. Anna took more care of me; we were the best of friends and up until her death a few years ago from childbirth, we were still so{2}.

It was a difficult time for a child. When I was 7{3} my mother had died from childbirth; the baby was too stuck to be born properly. Anna was 16 at the time and Hadrian was 13. Anna took over as the leading woman of the household. In the times that we needed help, our aunt took the care. I never did like my aunt{4}. She was a sour, old woman, having had a baby die in childbirth years before Anna’s birth and since had never been able to bear anymore children. Her husband died a few months later after being gored by an angry bull from a herd he was caring for. This has made my aunt grow dreadfully bitter. She always seemed to take all of her bitterness out on me. I never knew why; even when I wasn’t doing anything wrong she found a way to discipline or chastise me. Despite all this she was the best midwife in the village.

When I was still 7 I had made myself a doll using straws of hay tied with an old cloth. I had loved this doll, having it remind me of my mother and it being extremely special to me. My aunt would have nothing to do with it. One day she took my doll and threw it into the cooking fire, saying that women were meant to work in the field and to bear children, not to play. Anna wasn’t present at the time, so I cried and my aunt struck me for acting like ‘a devilish child.’ She often made comments on how I either wasn’t properly baptized or was baptized with water tainted by the devil himself. I’ve hated her since that day, and dreaded days in which Anna was too busy to care for me and the aunt took over instead.

On the days that I was with Anna, I helped her out in the fields. From what she had learned from our mother, before she died, she taught me: how to reap, how much to reap in one stroke, and how much to carry. Unless you were a rich family, the only education you received was in farming or peasant life. Anna taught me which work was to be done, depending on what month or season it was. This all depended on the weather.

In January and February, farmers repaired fences or tools. If in need of new tools, they made some. In March, if the weather was dry, fields were ploughed and manure was spread upon them. In April, the beginning of spring, seeds were sowed into the fields.

Before the seeds were laid down, a tool called a harrow was used to cultivate the soil’s surface. Its use was for breaking up clods or lumps of soil that a plough wasn’t able to break up. The harrow provides a good tilth, or cultivation, perfect for sowing seeds. If needed, the harrow was used more coarsely to remove weeds and to cover the seeds. My father was an expert with the harrow, as was taught by his father and grandfather before him. Hadrian had his own skills with using the harrow, but not with as much expertise as father.

In May and June, in shower and sunshine then dry weather, ditches were dug, sheep were sheered, and hay was made. Fallow fields were ploughed as well. Fallows are fields that have not yet been ploughed but are still left unseeded, usually to preserve the moisture in the soil. In July, where the month should begin with dry weather and showers later on, more sheep were sheered, hay was made and crops were weeded.

In August was harvest time, when the weather was warm and dry. September and October was the last ploughing of the year, along with pruning of the fruit trees.

November was for collecting acorns for the pigs. This was my favorite time of year. I had always admired pigs, and visited their barns whenever I got the chance{5}. One time I watched a litter of piglets be born. Thomas Foreman was the pig keeper of the village, and he had a son named Peter; his wife died from an illness{6} years back. When Anna was too busy in the fields and my aunt was having her moments, I would help Peter and Mr. Foreman collect the acorns. My aunt, of course, said that pigs were vile and disgusting creatures and that I shouldn’t have anything to do with them. Anna didn’t mind, as long as I was getting some education and not out getting into trouble.

December, like January, was for repairing and making more tools. It was also the time for killing the animals for meat. I didn’t mind sheep mutton, but I hated to have to eat the pigs for the fact that I feared that I might be eating one of my favorites from Mr. Foreman’s stock. I had a habit of naming them all, which is foolish of me, because naming something means that you get attached to it. I learned that the hard way.

One time, when I was 10 years old, I was eating a ham supper with my family. Suddenly my aunt snidely made a comment on how ‘Count Benedict the Hairy’ was especially delicious and tender. I was horrified. I wanted to throw up right there but that would’ve been dreadfully impolite of me, and I wasn’t about to put up with my Aunt’s comments any longer. I lost my appetite for the rest of the night, even when an apple dessert was served. Count Benedict the Hairy was a special pig, he was in the litter that I watched be born a couple of years back and was the largest. I named him so because he was indeed hairy. Needless to say I refused to eat pork for a while. I hated my aunt even more than when she threw my straw doll into the fire.

When I was 11, Anna became married to the son of the sheep keeper. Gregory wasn’t exactly the prettiest of the boys in the village, but he and Anna loved each other greatly. A year later Anna bore their first child, a son, and named him John after Gregory’s grandfather. My father at this time was too busy with training Hadrian in his apprenticeship of tending to the fields and using the tools for ploughing and harrowing, so he gave me the choice of living with my aunt or with Anna. Of course I stayed with Anna. This was an excellent year for me; my aunt was glad to be rid of the ‘devilish child’ she so hated to care for.

A few years later when I was 15 my aunt died, alone except for the village priest{7} to prepare her and read her Last Rites. There were a few like me that didn’t like her but like me, had to show to her funeral out of respect. And we didn’t want to be accused of being heretic for not going to the church for the mass. My father took it especially hard losing his oldest sister. It was customary of our entire village to go to the church for mass, whether it is a newborn child or the oldest in the village. The priests gave psalms and sermons during the mass, telling of my aunt’s life and her excellence in midwifery. Afterwards she was buried in the church yard, the holy land. Those buried there would have the sure way of reaching Heaven. Personally I didn’t think she deserved to go there, but she was a devoted churchgoer, and to the church’s eyes earned her place{8}.

It was around this time that I started taking an interest in the village boys, especially Peter Foreman. He had red hair, traits acquired from a Scottish bloodline from his mother’s side. His eyes were what I was the most attracted to, they were the golden yellow of field hay, freshly dried. We had been best friends since we were children, and with maturity had gotten even closer. He was a couple of years older than me, almost 18, and had yet to marry. He wanted to complete his apprenticeship of pig keeping from his father.

One day he asked for my hand in marriage, to which I quickly accepted. It was unusual for a young man Peter’s age to marry, as most men were in their mid to late twenties before taking a bride. And yet our friendship was closer than it ever was before; it was love.

The problem was getting my father’s permission. He and Peter’s father never exactly got along but we persisted. I don’t know how but Anna managed to talk our father into accepting. There were times when I was grateful for Anna, and this time I was especially grateful. I didn’t have much as far as a dowry, except for cooking utensils of my mother’s that Anna allowed me to have, a milk cow, knowledge of field work, and excellent cooking skills. Being in the pig barn during my childhood also brought the extra skills for pig rearing. I was the only women willing enough to deal with pigs. Peter had offered some pigs to my father as some sort of a payment for allowing his youngest daughter to be married.

It took a few months of negotiations, but we finally set the date. I had just turned 17. We got married in front of the church, exchanging our vows then kissing. We then went inside the church to hear mass for the day as we had gotten married on a Sunday. Afterwards, we had a great feast with mutton, pork (I still refused to eat any), bread, milk, and other delicious foods that some might not find in the daily meals. Music was played and people danced. I recall when my sister had her wedding years ago, but this one I will remember always, probably because it was my own.

We lived with Peter’s father for a while. Mr. Foreman was up in years and didn’t have much longer to live due to a dreadful cough that brought up yellow or bloody phlegm. A year later, after my marriage with Peter, Mr. Foreman died. Peter inherited the farm and the pigs being the oldest and only living son. Peter took his fathers death especially hard. I was with child when his father passed on and a few months later I bore our first child. We named him Thomas Donald Foreman, after our fathers.

Being with child wasn’t exactly easy, carrying a child and working at the same time especially when the time got closer to giving birth. Occasionally, I’ll work out in the fields with Anna but most of the time I cared for the pigs. It was easier and less of a strain to my body. I’ve always believed that light work like this was how I was able to bear my three children so well. As with Thomas, Isabel and Rose were an easy birth with no problems. Unfortunately it wasn’t so for Anna. Like our mother, she died from a stuck baby. Anna was my best friend and like my father's feelings for my aunt, I took her death very hard.

As in my childhood, pig keeping was my favorite past time. I’ve told myself that I shouldn’t name the pigs, what with happened with “Count Benedict the Hairy” a few years ago. But, I had grown attached to a sow that I had named “Lady Matilda.” I had allowed myself to name her, as she was not bred for the meat, so I had no fear of her ending up being the next ham dinner like Count Benedict had. I had often treated Lady Matilda to milk from the cow and a few extra apples. She was an excellent mother to her numerous litters and had produced the best piglets a pig keeper had to raise.

When the piglets grew big enough most of the sows were kept for breeding, and they were kept in special breeding areas. The rest, most of them the large boars, were sold for meat. They sold well for their high weight and tender meat. My family lived quite well during those years, until 1347 when the Black Death came.

I was 26 years old when it happened. I had just borne Rose. I don’t know how the Black Death came, or where, but I remember everything that it caused. As with most wives and mothers, I feared greatly for Peter and our children, now 7, 4, and 2 weeks. Peter and I tried to do our daily tasks as we had usually done, but we can’t help but worry: for each other, for friends, for family. Some said that the devil has ravaged his wrath upon us, or God is punishing us for a sin, well at least that’s what the church says.

Many people died over the past year{9}. Most of them were young children and the very old of the village. We were ordered to eat bread, fruit and vegetables over meats, fish and cheese. The town was to be cleaned of animal and human waste. One person was even accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Whether or not he or she had done anything I don’t know.

Those that hadn’t contracted the disease either fled, such as the rich, or had been ordered to stay inside of the city grounds. Eventually it got so bad in my town that it was completely quarantined with the sick and healthy inside. Many people panicked. Many others died. The healthy helped the sick. At one point the church yards were so full of buried bodies that the church had no choice but to put everyone into body pits. They were burned outside of the village along with their clothing. I remember when I seen my own brother Hadrian and his family being thrown in that pit. The sight of his lifeless eyes looking at you, as if with betrayal for not burying him in the holy grounds, that memory has never left me.

Then sometime later my own family contracted it. My children, first Rose, then Thomas and Isabel, succumbed to the death. I was devastated and I refused to do anything. Peter tried his best to keep my spirits up, worrying that my depression would make me succumb to the death as well. His worrying over me eventually brought him down. Soon after Isabel’s death, he contracted the plague as well. He didn’t live long. He had made me promise to stay alive for him and his children. It was the beginning of 1348.

I held onto that promise for a few months, I don’t remember how many, but so many deaths I had seen. I was scared and exhausted caring for the sick. Anna’s family had died sometime that year. As far as I know I am the only family member left. My father had died years ago from something I don’t remember{10}. I wasn’t that close to him. Sometime in 1348 I contracted the disease myself.

I was told to lie in bed by the current caretakers in the village, the ones that had yet to contract the “Black Death”. They bathed me in vinegar and rose water. I had painful swellings all over my body and they cut them open to allow the disease to leave. Then they applied a mixture of resin from a tree, white lily roots, and my own body waste. It was extremely painful, much more than before the sores had been cut open. They cut me open in some larger veins hoping to bleed the disease out, and then applied an ointment of clay and violets. I felt that it wasn’t doing any good and I was beyond help anyway. Like me, the care takers were exhausted and weary of seeing so many deaths and like me they wanted it all to end.

So many days I’ve suffered from the pain of the sickness and from losing my own family. I know that I’m going to die, that I’ll end up being thrown into a body pit and burned. I hope Peter will forgive me for breaking his promise to live on, but I don’t want to, I want to be with my family. I’ve told you my story and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Please give me the Final Rites. I’m sorry but I think I’m just going to let myself go.

It’s getting hard to breathe now…

*Soon after this story was told Beatrix passed away. As was requested from her I kept the record of her story in my writings, and in my writings, her story will forever be immortalized. Such was the sad life of a medieval woman. May she reunite with her family in heaven.*