Siblings and Sibling Relations in Later Medieval England, 1300-1550

伊莱恩打开门，发现弟弟在抽泣，怀里抱着一个啼哭的婴儿。理查德无助而疲惫，不知如何照顾他在墓地里发现的被遗弃的孩子。经过仔细讨论，兄弟姐妹们同意共同抚养这个男孩。现代读者可能会惊讶地发现，这种容易辨认的家庭支持网络在14世纪的一部浪漫小说中有详细描述。尽管这种兄弟姐妹关系的本质很明显是错综复杂的，但几乎没有研究过家庭的中世纪学者详细研究过兄弟姐妹之间的关系；相反，学术研究主要是关于婚姻和亲子关系的历史（Lett, 2001）。关于中世纪兄弟姐妹的研究很少，也充满了问题：以牺牲对兄弟姐妹更细致入微的理解为代价，文学具有高于一切的特权传承（Howard, 2003; Larrington, 2015）。学术界也未能确定中世纪西方兄弟姐妹之间的关系如何随时间和空间以及社会环境而变化（Johnson和Sabean， 2011）。这个项目试图理解中世纪兄弟姐妹之间的关系。我将我的研究定位于中世纪后期英国社会的两个不同的社会群体，即绅士和大量的城镇居民，他们也是浪漫小说的主要读者。来自贵族和商人阶层的兄弟姐妹之间的互动仍然是中世纪学者完全没有探索过的话题。这两个群体有丰富多样的未开发的原始材料。帕斯顿（Pastons）、斯托尔斯（Stonors）和塞利（Celys）等家庭的信件收藏，让我们深入了解了兄弟姐妹之间的日常互动。约克郡博思威克研究所的教会法庭记录和遗嘱揭示了兄弟姐妹之间权力动态和依恋关系的广泛信息。文学作品，特别是像《Gamelyn》和《Octavian》这样的爱情小说，邀请他们的观众参与到兄弟姐妹的故事中，比如14世纪伊莱恩和理查德的故事（McDonald, 2004）。书信中暗示的竞争和嫉妒等情绪在浪漫中找到了发泄的渠道。跨学科的方法对这个项目至关重要，因为文献和文学来源提供了互补的视角。我的项目将集中在四个关键的研究方向上。首先，我的目标是揭示兄弟姐妹之间共同的情感经历，因为我探索了兄弟姐妹之间的依恋和冲突。其次，我将研究权力的动态，特别是探索父权制在多大程度上创造了兄弟姐妹之间的社会秩序。第三，该项目将探讨性别、出生顺序和生命阶段如何塑造姐妹和兄弟的身份。第四，我将试图理解兄弟姐妹之间不稳定和矛盾的特质。所有这些线索都将考虑多种兄弟姐妹关系：姐妹，兄弟和跨性别兄弟姐妹关系，以及半兄弟姐妹和继兄弟姐妹之间的网络。这个项目质疑了中世纪家庭迄今为止被认为的方式，并将为中世纪社会的运作提供新的视角。学者们关注的是父亲和母亲如何在孩子的早期生活中支持他们（Classen, 2005; Wheeler, 2014），但没有关注当前社会学研究揭示的关于孩子的问题：兄弟姐妹在社交和支持方面往往相互依赖（Goldberg, 2008）。我的分析将探讨年轻人如何依赖于他们的兄弟姐妹的成长，特别是考虑到父母的低预期寿命在这一时期（Shahar, 2004）。我的项目认识到，兄弟姐妹的动态是由社会构建的，并受到性别和社会地位的影响，这也将产生有利于当今对家庭支持网络的理解的见解。如今，公共部门的举措往往忽视了兄弟姐妹在抚养和保护彼此方面可以发挥的作用。

Elaine opened her door to find her brother sobbing, with a bawling baby in his arms. Richard was helpless and exhausted, at a loss as to how to care for the child he had found abandoned in a cemetery. After careful discussion, the siblings agreed that they would raise the boy together. Modern readers might be surprised to learn that this readily recognisable family support network is detailed in a 14th century romance. Despite the clearly enmeshed nature of this sibling relationship, almost no medievalist who has worked on the family has examined sibling dynamics in any detail; instead, scholarship is dominated by histories of marriage and parentage (Lett, 2001). The scant research there is on medieval sisters and brothers is also fraught with problems: at the expense of more nuanced understandings of siblingship, literature has privileged inheritance above all else (Howard, 2003; Larrington, 2015). Scholarship has also failed to establish how relationships between siblings in the medieval West differ across time and space, as well as social milieux (Johnson and Sabean, 2011).This project seeks to understand medieval sibling relationships on their own terms. I locate my research within two different social groups from later medieval English society, viz. gentry and substantial townsfolk, who were also the primary readers of romance. The interactions between siblings from gentry and mercantile ranks remains a topic wholly unexplored by medievalists. There is a rich variety of untapped primary material for these two groups. Letter collections from families like the Pastons, Stonors and Celys, give insight into the everyday interactions of siblings. Church court records and wills in the Borthwick Institute at York reveal a breadth of information about power dynamics and attachments between siblings. Literature, particular romances like Gamelyn and Octavian, invited their audiences to engage with stories of siblings such as the 14th century narrative of Elaine and Richard (McDonald, 2004). Emotions such as rivalry and jealousy, that are hinted at in letters, found an outlet in romance. An interdisciplinary approach is essential to this project, as documentary and literary sources offer complementary perspectives. My project will focus on four key strands of research. First, I aim to uncover the shared emotional experiences between siblings, as I explore both sibling attachment and conflict. Second, I will investigate the dynamics of power, particularly exploring the extent to which patriarchy created a social order among siblings. Third, this project will address how gender, birth order and life-stage shaped the identities of sisters and brothers. Fourth, I will seek to understand the fluid and paradoxical qualities of sibling bonds. All these strands will consider multiple kinds of sibling relationships: sororal, fraternal, and cross-sex sibling relations, as well as the networks between halfsiblings and stepsiblings. This project questions the way the medieval family has been thought about to date and will provide new perspectives into workings of medieval society. Scholars focus on how fathers and mothers, supported their children in their early lives (Classen, 2005; Wheeler, 2014), but have not engaged with what current sociological research reveals about children: that siblings are often dependent on each other for their socialisation and support (Goldberg, 2008). My analysis will explore how youths depended on their siblings for their upbringing, especially given the low life expectancy of parents in the period (Shahar, 2004). My project's recognition that sibling dynamics are socially constructed and inflected by gender and social standing will also generate insights beneficial to present day understandings of familial support networks. Public sector initiatives today often overlook the roles siblings can play in raising and safeguarding one another.