The Fishers

Joan Fisher

35, wife of Adam the smith; came from Fairford with him and their three boys, Alan (17), Robert (14) and John (10), on 12 March 1354. Spins and weaves for the house's keep, and blows the forge's bellows of a morning when she's wanted.

House: The Fishers
Born: about 1319
Age: 35
Husband: Adam Fisher
Son: Alan Fisher
Son: Robert Fisher
Son: John Fisher
Pastime: spinning

Who they are

Thin, sharp-eyed, devout. Sour to strangers, and not much sweeter to her own; she thinks a house is kept by saying no.
Pious in the old, hard way: she has fasted the whole of Lent and has a saint for every trouble. Her prayers are short and to the point, and most of them are about what things cost or who's to be spared.
She keeps the purse, and has since before Alan was born, because Adam would give the forge away a share at a time.
Left her mother Alice (57) and her brother Peter (31, married) at Fairford. Her father William and her brother Walter are dead.
Lent drew her thin as wire: hollow under the ribs by noon, and feet like two shoes off the fire by night. She wouldn't ease it, and she wouldn't hear it said.
Will work anything she's put to: the bellows, the leek bed, the spindle, the line. She'd rather be tired than idle in a house that isn't paying.

Their life so far

Born at Fairford about 1319, daughter of William and Alice. Her father and her brother Walter dead before 1352.
Married Adam Fisher at Fairford; their boys Alan, Robert and John were born there.
12 March 1354: came to Ambermead with Adam and the boys when he took up the empty forge.
19 March 1354: word from Fairford, after a week of wondering, that her mother was well.
23 March 1354: took the great pike from the lake, the best fish the house has had.
26 March 1354: brought home a good string from the lake, and Adam took pottage to Alice at the Warreners while she wove.
27 March 1354: had words at the well with the Norton widow, neither giving an inch; easier with her the day after.
7 April 1354: shriven by Sir John for Easter.
12 April 1354: Joan frets over money: the bellows leather must be paid for, the forge isn't paying, and the chest has come down since Fairford.
12 April 1354: Jack must have a place, in service or at his letters, and Joan wonders who'd take him; she prays to see her boys placed.
12 April 1354: A month here and she knows the fish better than the wives; at Fairford she'd have been at three doors by noon.
12 April 1354: Joan was civil to Elena at the inn but watches her: Elena's boy is to lift a hammer, and that anvil is theirs now.

Pastimes

The spindle and the loom; a fair web on it by April. The garden: the bed by the wall, leeks and cabbage seed, peas in the trench.
The lake, for the pot and not for pleasure. She took the great pike on 23 March, the best fish the house has had, and has said only what it saved.

How they talk

Short and dry. "That's to be paid for." "Who's paying?" Asks the price before she's said good day.
To God, plain and often: "The Lord send us rain for the peas."
To Adam: the sum, and then the sum again. "Fair enough isn't enough." She has words with him at the hearth, and she's done by the time the pottage is.
To her boys: orders, and she doesn't look up. A good string gets a nod; a smile for Rob's eel was the most anyone's had.
At the well, to a woman she doesn't know: one question, then another, and nothing of her own unless it's asked for straight out. She'll give her people and her town and stop.
Crossed: she gets drier and more exact, and asks what it cost.
Called: "the smith's wife," or Joan Fisher, there being a Joan at the inn.
Swears: "Mary keep us," and nothing worse.

What she thought lately

Long light evening, and the wheel turned past the last of the sun. The Lord gives the light. Might He give Rob and Jack a place in it?
25 June

Elena at the well swore by the Lord and bristled at the first word I said. I gave her none back. At Fairford I'd have known whose temper that was by the sound of the door.
17 June

Married at Fairford, and all three boys born there. Here I know no door to knock at unasked. The Lord knows I'd sooner be at one.
16 June

Bellows at the forge before the sun was high, then the spindle, then the loom by evening. The leather's still unpaid, and the cloth is the only thing in this house that earns while I sit.
14 June

Down to 261 pence in the chest, from 380 when we came. Bellows this morning, spindle after. It won't go up on thanks. The Host goes round tomorrow. I'll have the boys scrubbed for it. That costs nothing.
11 June

Overheard

23 June, midday at the home · Joan Fisher and Alan Fisher

Joan: Sit down and eat your pottage. Did your father say anything about the court?

Alan: Only that Adam Fisher and John Carter are to answer on the first of July, and the warrener means to say we had two coneys out of his warren before light on the twenty-second of May. Who told him, I'd like to know. I'll warrant it was Stephen, with his cup in his hand.

Joan: And what is it they say we took? The lord's coneys went to his kitchen, did they? Then who ate them, and who is to pay for them?

Alan: The lord's kitchen, the warrener says. Father says he was nowhere near the warren that night, and I'll not say where I was. But what happens now, Mother? Is it fines, or the stocks, or worse?

21 June, midday at the home · Edith atte Well and Joan Fisher

Edith: Joan, I've brought you a loaf from the oven this morning. Margaret's name is on my tongue, so I'll ask after her, if you'll tell me how she does at Fairford.

Joan: Margaret was well when my brother Peter last had word of her, and that was before the thaw. You'll forgive me if I don't yet know what Fairford wants from this house.

Edith: Stephen told me Isabel of Kingsley came to you eight days since, with the priest's business on her mind. Twopence in January and fourpence in February, on Sir John's name. Is that the truth of it?

Joan: It is, and I'd sooner have had it from you than from Isabel's mouth at the well. She stood at my bench and told me as if it were the weather. Who's paying that money, Edith? Not the priest, and not the lord.

In the books

Nothing yet beyond the daily round.

The daily round (4 more)

21 June Joan Fisher lent the Brewers a spade.
22 May Joan Fisher took the Coopers a peck of meal, in return for their kindness.
26 March Joan Fisher brought home a good string of fish from the lake.
23 March Joan Fisher took a pike from the lake, near a yard long.