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

伊莱恩打开门，发现她的哥哥在抽泣，怀里抱着一个哭泣的婴儿。理查德束手无策，筋疲力尽，不知该如何照顾那个被遗弃在墓地里的孩子。经过仔细的讨论，兄弟俩同意一起抚养这个男孩。现代读者可能会惊讶地发现，这个显而易见的家庭支持网络是在14世纪的浪漫故事中详细描述的。尽管这种兄弟姐妹关系具有明显的相互联系的性质，但几乎没有一个研究过家庭的中世纪学者对兄弟姐妹的动态进行过任何详细的研究；相反，学术研究主要是由婚姻和亲子关系的历史决定的(Lett，2001)。关于中世纪兄弟姐妹的研究很少，也充满了问题：文学以牺牲对手足关系更细微的理解为代价，将继承置于一切之上(霍华德，2003；拉林顿，2015)。学术研究也未能确定中世纪西方兄弟姐妹之间的关系在时间和空间以及社会环境方面是如何不同的(Johnson和Sabean，2011)。这个项目试图从他们自己的角度来理解中世纪的兄弟姐妹关系。我将我的研究定位在中世纪晚期英国社会的两个不同的社会群体中，即。绅士和重要的市民，他们也是浪漫主义的主要读者。绅士和商人之间的兄弟姐妹之间的互动仍然是中世纪学者完全没有探索的话题。对于这两个群体来说，有丰富的未开发的初级材料。来自帕斯顿、斯通纳和塞利等家庭的信件收藏，让我们深入了解兄弟姐妹的日常互动。约克博思威克研究所的教会法庭记录和遗嘱揭示了关于权力动态和兄弟姐妹之间的依恋的广泛信息。文学，特别是像甘美莲和屋大维这样的浪漫故事，邀请他们的观众参与到兄弟姐妹的故事中，比如14世纪的伊莱恩和理查德的故事(麦克唐纳，2004年)。在书信中暗示的竞争和嫉妒等情绪，在浪漫中找到了发泄的途径。跨学科的方法对这个项目至关重要，因为纪录片和文学资料提供了互补的视角。我的项目将专注于四个关键的研究方向。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的依恋和冲突。其次，我将调查权力的动态，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，这个项目将解决性别、出生顺序和人生阶段如何塑造兄弟姐妹的身份。第四，我将努力理解兄弟姐妹纽带的流动性和自相矛盾的性质。所有这些股将考虑多种类型的兄弟姐妹关系：姐妹、兄弟姐妹和跨性别兄弟姐妹关系，以及同父异母兄弟姐妹和同父异母兄弟姐妹之间的网络。这个项目对人们迄今为止对中世纪家庭的看法提出了质疑，并将为了解中世纪社会的运作提供新的视角。学者们关注于父亲和母亲如何在孩子的早期生活中支持他们(Classen，2005；Wheeler，2014)，但没有涉及到当前的社会学研究揭示的关于儿童的问题：兄弟姐妹在社会化和支持方面往往相互依赖(Goldberg，2008)。我的分析将探索年轻人是如何依赖兄弟姐妹养育他们的，特别是考虑到那个时期父母的预期寿命很低(Shahar，2004)。我的项目认识到，兄弟姐妹的动态是由性别和社会地位在社会上构建和反映的，这也将产生有益于当今对家庭支助网络的理解的见解。今天的公共部门倡议往往忽视了兄弟姐妹在相互抚养和保护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.