Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Katherine L. French, "Household Goods and Good Households in Late Medieval London: Consumption and Domesticity After the Plague"

Date: September 23, 2025
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Professor Katherine L. French

Overview

In this episode, Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews Professor Katherine L. French about her book Household Goods and Good Households in Late Medieval London. The discussion explores how the Black Death reshaped domestic life in London, specifically examining how consumption, material wealth, and household management evolved between 1350 and 1530. Through rich examples drawn from wills, inventories, and the archaeological record, French illuminates the transformation of everyday life and the shifting meanings of "stuff" in post-plague London. The episode delves into the interplay of gender, social change, piety, and trauma on the domestic sphere.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Scope of the Project

[02:23 - 06:50]

• Personal and Academic Motivation:

  • Katherine French’s interest was sparked by renovating a 200-year-old farmhouse and pondering how earlier inhabitants lived.

  • Her career shift to the University of Michigan provided resources to expand her initial focus into a broader social and economic investigation.

    "I was curious about how people had lived in houses in the Middle Ages. And so I started exploring just that question. How did you live in a medieval house?"
    — Prof. Katherine French (03:10)

• Timeframe Chosen:

  • The book examines post-Black Death London (1350–1530) for a focused look at medieval change, with a comparison to pre-plague life as context.

    "It's a book about 1350 to about 1530 ... If you're gonna ask how something changes with the plague, you have to look a little bit at the world beforehand."
    — Prof. Katherine French (05:39)

2. Sources and Methodology

[07:25 - 12:57]

• Main Sources:

  • Last wills and testaments (thousands survived), chiefly from ecclesiastical courts.
  • Probate and bankruptcy inventories for supplemental insights.

• Sample and Data Collection:

  • French built a relational database, sampling extensively to track items, relationships, gender of testators/beneficiaries, and descriptions.

    "In the end, I read about 3,000 wills ... In the end, this may have been about 20 to 25% of all the wills that survive for London."
    — Prof. Katherine French (09:44)

• Challenges:

  • Wills are relatively systematic; inventories were processed more ad hoc.
  • Categorizing and cross-referencing took years and considerable trial and error.

3. Shifts in Material Wealth and Its Significance

[13:23 - 18:02]

• Increase in Valuable Goods:

  • More possessions, especially movable goods, became important for wealth and inheritance—indicating economic and emotional value.

    “Movable goods become an increasingly important part of people's wealth, their estates ... possessions are becoming not only financially valuable, but emotionally valuable.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (13:43)

• Descriptive Bequests:

  • Wills start containing vivid personal details, showing attachment to specific objects (e.g., bequeathing a “ring that I bought with Elizabeth Goodwin”).

    “That's a way of beginning to see that possessions are becoming not only financially valuable, but emotionally valuable.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (14:52)

• Material Culture:

  • Households gained colorful wall hangings, decorated bedding, painted items—comfort and aesthetic value grew in importance.

    “They're adding things that will brighten up a room ... There's this sense of just making your room brighter and more cheerful.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (16:22)

4. Legal and Behavioral Changes in Response to New Wealth

[19:35 - 23:41]

• More Frequent Wills:

  • With more possessions, more people began making wills, not just for legal purposes but possibly as a reaction to trauma and to secure the future for children.

    “I actually think more people are leaving wills because they have more stuff and it has value and they need to dispose of it.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (20:30)

• Impact of the Plague's Trauma:

  • Patterns in wills reflect anxiety over orphaned children and unclaimed property.
  • Detailed guardianship provisions increase, suggesting a response to mass mortality.

5. Redistribution of Goods and Social Change

[23:41 - 27:11]

• Vacant Houses and Property:

  • After the plague, empty houses led to goods being redistributed, sometimes officially, sometimes through informal means.

    “In the wake of the plague ... there's just a world of empty houses ... I suspect that an awful lot of people did sort of go through houses and take stuff, especially people who had been poor.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (23:52)

• Rise in Comfort and Social Mobility:

  • Formerly poorer residents acquired "nicer stuff," with tangible improvements in life quality and comfort.

6. Household Management and the Learning Curve of Material Abundance

[27:11 - 32:18]

• Managing More Stuff:

  • Initially, both men and women inherit goods equally. Over a century, gender patterns emerge in the types of possessions bequeathed.

    "A lot of stuff is given pretty equally to men and women ... around mid 15th century you begin to have some items shake out as being preferred to be given to women, or preferred to be given to men..."
    — Prof. Katherine French (28:25)

• Organization and Gender:

  • The rise in chests for storage; the necessity of organizing possessions creates new domestic practices.

    “That century of learning how to gender things, I began to think of as a century of learning how to live with more things.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (28:53)

• Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Sources:

  • Literature often prescribes female domesticity before it’s widely practiced; “learning to live with things” is gradual.

7. Care Work and the Material Culture of Care

[32:43 - 38:53]

• Caring for Children and the House:

  • Wills and inventories reveal gendered objects for childbirth, healing, and nurturing—such as girdles with coral (for childbirth) and amber (for teething).

    “Women are leaving the majority of girdles and they are leaving the majority of their girdles to women ... you realize her daughter is young, she's probably of childbearing age. This girdle is going to be useful to her when she has children.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (34:25)

• Children’s Material World:

  • Archaeology shows toys and shoes for children appear in larger numbers post-plague; these are not in wills, indicating low value but high usage.

    “People want their children to have toys, but toys are also educational... We know that women are inheriting dishes more than men. We know that men are inheriting weapons more than women. And so this is a way of shaking out, you know, how are people responding to their children?”
    — Prof. Katherine French (36:18)

8. Attitudes Toward Consumption and Social Class

[39:53 - 43:55]

• Positive Attitudes Among Commoners:

  • Increased material wealth is a source of pride and security for most Londoners. They value providing for their children.

    “This idea that medieval people didn't love their children, it's frankly nonsense ... Why wouldn't you want to be able to take care of your children?”
    — Prof. Katherine French (40:21)

• Elite Anxiety:

  • The ruling classes are concerned about “social climbing” and class emulation, uneasy with non-elites acquiring the trappings of wealth.

    “Elites are very unhappy about what they perceive to be social climbing ... But the merchant is using that wall hanging not only for comfort and for decoration, but he's also using it to make the aristocrat who is his customer comfortable in his house so that he can sell him more goods.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (41:44)

9. Domestic Piety and the Growth of Religious Material Culture

[44:31 - 50:10]

• Religious Practices at Home:

  • The period saw increased private devotion and acquisition of religious objects for the household (prayer beads, images, shrines).

    “Certainly there is more material for religious practice in homes after the plague ... There might be a shrine in the bedroom ... that's a really common place to have religious objects.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (45:07, 46:10)

• Variety and Scale:

  • Wealthier households might have a dedicated domestic chapel, while others have miniature shrines or artifacts tailored to budget.

• Not a Direct Path to Reformation:

  • The flourishing of household piety is not equivalent to the rise of Protestantism; there are centuries of “orthodox” domestic religious customs.

10. Current Research and Looking Forward

[50:10 - 52:27]

• Continuing the Study of Houses:

  • French is researching the history of one London house traced from 1321 through the Great Fire, focusing on its period as a lodging house, offering a window into women’s and working-class lives across centuries.

    “I'm writing a history of this house where the bulk of the book is about the time when it is a lodging house. A quarter of the tenants are women renting rooms on their own ... tracing...the changing stability and mobility precarity of the people who are living in this house.”
    — Prof. Katherine French (51:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the emotional value of goods:

  "Describing something as, you know, my best drinking cup with a lion's head in the bottom that my mother gave me adds information that's actually not legally necessary."
  — Prof. Katherine French (14:44)

• On legal anxiety post-plague:

  "There were empty houses and unclaimed objects ... people didn't want that to happen ... you needed to lock down your estate."
  — Prof. Katherine French (21:05)

• On the shift in domestic management:

  “A century of learning how to live with more things.”
  — Prof. Katherine French (28:53)

• On elite discomfort with social mobility:

  “Elites are very unhappy about what they perceive to be social climbing ... as they are dressing and eating above their station, they're probably also moving, walking, carrying themselves differently.”
  — Prof. Katherine French (41:16)

• On the resilience of London:

  “London’s government does not collapse, which is also quite remarkable. You know, lots of aldermen die, mayors die, livery men die, people who have institutional memory die, and new men come in and step in.”
  — Prof. Katherine French (24:02)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and Book Overview – 01:24–04:43
• Sources and Methodology – 07:25–12:57
• How the Plague Changed Possessions – 13:23–18:02
• Growth in Wills and Legal Shifts – 19:35–23:41
• Redistribution and Social Change Post-Plague – 23:41–27:11
• Household Management and Gender – 27:11–32:18
• Material Culture of Care and Children – 32:43–38:53
• Attitudes to Consumption and Social Mobility – 39:53–43:55
• Domestic Piety and Material Religion – 44:31–50:10
• Current Research and Preview – 50:37–52:27

Tone and Style

The conversation is accessible, engaging, and packed with vivid historical examples and storytelling. French’s explanations balance scholarly rigor with relatable analogies, and Dr. Melcher’s questions invite nuanced, personal reflections and clarifications.

Final Thoughts

Professor French’s research provides a rare, detailed view of Londoners’ evolving domestic life after the Black Death, linking the abstract consequences of calamity to concrete shifts in daily life, family, care, and faith. Listeners come away with a much deeper understanding of medieval domesticity—not as static or grim, but dynamic and deeply human.

End of summary.