'The House at Old Vine' (1) - Josiana's Tale Quiz | Literature

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. This was the late 15th century, when to be born out of wedlock was a shameful thing. The only person who showed Josiana any love at all was her mother, who was not in a position to ease her daughter's lot in life; both were worked hard and abused by the old couple as Josiana grew up. While her mother refused to name the man who fathered her child, we do learn what her name was - but what was it?

Answer: Joan

"Mother and I led miserable lives, but I at least was so ignorant of any other condition that I was not troubled by any comparison. To me it seemed natural enough to rise very early, work all day, to be shouted at and slapped, to get the worst of the food my grandmother's careful housekeeping set on the table. Mother was the only one who ever pitied me; she sometimes whispered that she would finish a job for me, but as I grew and realized how heavily burdened she was already I hesitated to add to her load."

2. When Lady Rancon (who had been born Maude Reed) visited the Greenwood farm to buy wool, she was able to get the better of Josiana's grandfather in the deal. Josiana had heard about this woman, and expected the woman to be 'more than life-size, brightly dressed, and her hands all shining with rings like Lady Shelmadine's when she came to church at Easter'. She was to be disappointed, however, for Lady Rancon was not like that. What single thing shocked Josiana more than anything else?

Answer: she gave her horse an apple

It wasn't just a reflection of Josiana's upbringing that the sight of a woman giving a horse an apple would have shocked her, for she says that even Tom Thoroughgood, their neighbour who bred horses, would not do such a thing.

It is possible that the horse Martin Reed promised Maude in Nicholas Freeman's tale may have been a Thoroughgood horse as he said he knew of a horse-breeder out Flaxham way, and the Greenwood Farm was also called the Flaxham farm.

3. When Josiana's grandmother was unable to go to the Market, she was sent along with her mother - to spy on her! While in Baildon Josiana met Master Haywood when she was looking longingly at a display of gingerbread. They were to meet him again, but under what circumstances?

Answer: he came to the farm and asked her grandfather for her hand

In return for Josiana, Master Haywood would send one of his younger sons to live and work on the farm ('for his keep and a noble a year spending money, and see them both comfortable until they died'), and he would give them a young horse and a heifer calf.

4. Josiana escaped the farm and ran off to safety, but where did her mother take her?

Answer: Clevely

It was while she was with the nuns at the poor House at Clevely that Josiana met Walter and they fell in love. Her mother said that she wanted to take her to the Old Vine, but it was too far away to make this a viable option, as she did not want to be associated with Josiana's disappearance.

5. Josiana had been crying after her mother told her that she and Walter could not get married because they were half-brother and sister, and she was unwilling to face the nuns with the marks of her grief on her face. What did she do to clear the evidence or give another reason for her tears?

Answer: she smashed her thumb with a large stone

"My mind recovered first. I recognized the need for secrecy. In some bygone age, in another life, I had left the House, supposedly to work in the pea-field. I must have some good reason for returning white-faced and trembling and all blubbered with tears. I got up.

The track was stony, for it sloped and the rain had washed away the covering earth. I found a large flattish stone and took it in my right hand. I laid my left thumb on another stone, firmly embedded. I struck my thumb one hard blow and somewhere within the fierce hurt there was a pleasure. I hated myself because of what had happened to me. I hit my thumb again and again."

6. When Lady Rancon came to see Josiana and offered her a home at the Old Vine she left the nunnery and started a new life. For a year and a half she lived with the old woman, learning yet another type of life, before her mother came to see her. What news did her mother give her when she came?

Answer: her grandfather was dead

Joan had stayed at the farm in spite of her parents' treatment, because she knew that her father had been spiriting money away in a box. After he died, she buried most of it in the muck heap so as to show that she was not rich - after many years of toil and hardship she did not see why she should lose her inheritance through taxes and charity.

When Josiana refused to return to the farm, Joan had to accept it, but as Josiana found when she visited for Christmas, the sudden freedom from her father and the acquisition of a large amount of money had turned her head.

7. Where did Walter go while Josiana was at the Old Vine?

Answer: Amsterdam

After Josiana admitted that she would be unable to see Walter in any other manner than that of a lover, he had gone to oversee the family business in Amsterdam. It wasn't until after Josiana returned from Christmas with her mother, and announced that she was prepared to accept the proposal from Arthur Kentwoode, that he planned to return for good.

8. Unwittingly continuing a connection between generations, Josiana went to live at Minsham Old Hall (where Anne Blanchefleur, Lady Rancon's mother, had lived as a girl) with her husband, Arthur Kentwoode. When she was expecting their first child, Arthur asked Walter to be the child's godfather. What was Walter's reply?

Answer: No

This was when Walter first admitted to his heretic tendencies. At this time in history there were many intellectuals who were reading the Bible - usually Wycliffe's translation - and were questioning the Church's teaching on various theological points, as well as becoming disillusioned with the physical structure of the Church itself, with the Pope, Cardinals, Priests, monks and nuns. Because it was considered blasphemy to question the Church in any way, this made people like Walter heretics, and they could be burned at the stake for their beliefs.

9. Knowing that his time was limited, and that after he was found guilty of heresy his property would be forfeit, Walter offered the Old Vine and the business to Arthur. Scraping together all the money he could, Arthur bought both with 'every penny we have in the chest' - the price Josiana received for the Flaxham farm left to her by her mother and some the couple had in reserve. At a conservative estimate, what proportion did Josiana believe they paid for the Old Vine?

Answer: less than a twentieth

After selling the Old Vine to his half-sister (whom he called his cousin), Walter rented himself a very cheap lodging; Josiana would take him food and comforts herself, not trusting the job to servants who may talk about the fact that they were aiding heretics.

10. How did Josiana die?

Answer: she threw herself onto the fire where they were burning Walter

She had spent the last night of her life in the chapel, praying that Walter would recant - "They don't like this burning of heretics. A heretic who recants is defeated and finished, one who burns scores a kind of victory." When it came time to burn Walter, she broke away from the crowd and threw herself onto the bonfire to die with him.

Her husband was to remarry to provide a mother for their two children, and lived to see Henry VIII overturn the Roman Catholic Church. The Abbey, which was to provide succour for Martin Reed in his deepest need, was destroyed and the stone from it used in a building frenzy which was not to be repeated for many centuries, giving the Old Vine neighbours for the first time.

Source: Author ArleneRimmer

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'The House at Old Vine' (1) - Josiana's Tale Quiz

Josiana Greenwood grew up as the despised granddaughter on a small farm, the product of a liaison between her mother and an un-named man, and the reason her grandfather was unable to enlarge his territory.

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