How Ale Was Made | Tudor Monastery EP3 | Absolute History

500 years ago England was emerging into a new era after years of war plague and famine the kingdom was enjoying peace and prosperity under the reign of the first Tudor King Henry the seventh a new class of business savvy farmer was thriving boosting food production while wool from their sheep was generating half the nation's wealth many of the nation's farms were under the control of the biggest landowner in England after the king the monasteries their influence could be felt in every aspect of daily life they were not just places of religion they were at the forefront of Technology education and farming but with the daily lives of monks devoted to prayer they depended increasingly on tenant farmers who worked and tended their lands now historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pin phone and feet again are turning the clock back to Tudor England here at Weald and down land in West Sussex to work as ordinary farmers under the watchful eye of a monastic landlord do it to succeed they'll have to master long lost farming methods and get to grips with Tudor technology while immersing themselves in the beliefs customs and rituals that shaped the age this is Mary Engler for heaven's sake so to speak let's enjoy it this is the untold story of the monastic farms of Tudor England [Music] it's late spring the team have been running their tutor farm for two months they've set up a pig Enterprise breeding Tamworth to pay rent to the monastery sheared their South down sheep and sold the fleeces a big earner for the monastic farmer and they've mastered driving oxen the tractors of the age to sow a peak wrong now they're turning their attention to making the staple foods of everyday Tudor life bread and ale records show that it wasn't unusual for a person to consume a two pound loaf and eight pints of ale a day it's amazing how much of the diet bread and beer made up yeah 80% of Britain's total calorific intake was between bread and beer you know grain based which is quite that's just one really it's just one little tiny group of foods providing as your Energy's get through the day doing everything you need to do and it's gonna be cheaper than proteins it's going to be swimming out of calories in a point of beer as half a loaf of bread so when you think that like that that is a third of your calorie intake isn't it which when you consider that many people on the edge and that's pretty much all their eating that's an enormous part of the diet Tudor's drank a lot just for the calories but because water from wells was often contaminated the alcohol killed any bacteria making it safe to drink dieticians sort of analyzing this these days would say that the only thing that's missing from this diet is a bit of if Mincey but it doesn't take much you only have to have the occasional leaf now and again from something edible you know the old apple the occasional bit of cabbage and you've sorted that problem out [Music] to produce a daily ration of bread and ale six acres of wheat and barley were required per person per year failure of these crops could quickly result in famine and in Tudor England one in four harvests failed people had little understanding of agricultural science so to ensure a good harvest they were guided by age-old superstitions but most of all they turn to God prosper the work of those who enable us to supply the resources of our small world it's 40 days after Easter rotation tide when farm workers processed around their parish boundary praying for a successful harvest it was known as beating the bounds but there was another purpose to this ritual in 1500 parish maps were virtually non-existent so beating the bounds reminded everyone of landmarks that divided their parish from the next folklore historian professor Ronald Hutton has come to partake in the ritual we have to pass the knowledge down to the younger members of our parish how how do we get these guys okay remember here's the bad news it's a mixture of pain and pleasure to make it memorable pain because young boys are regularly beaten or hung up and down by their legs and bounced on the ground and then when you'd made the remember bitterly what this place was or why it was special you'll give them treats like cakes afterwards to cheer them up now young Edmund come on right this has happened to every parish a male parish in the past they need to remember this tree that's the tree see the tree see the landscape tree oh we think he remembers what's going on what's the payoff the payoff is cake it's fruitcake the better off supplemented their diet of bread and ale with meat the Tudor Age saw tenant farmers begin to breed pigs commercially for the first time farmers under the control of the monasteries these pigs represented essentially a pig factory lit ones are ready to go get the boar in get them pregnant carry on no longer are we subsistence farmers we're now business farmers the farm has two hours that will produce around 12 piglets a year between them a useful addition to the farms income the piglets are ten weeks old and should now be ready to wean from their mothers once the sows stops producing milk she'll be ready to breed again hi guys yeah pretty much farmer Neil Caswell is helping the boys lure the piglets away from the Czar's and into the sky the secret to any win is not to get into stress if we're calm they'll become come look it's hope but their joy is short-lived [Music] our little piglets have found out that they can burrow under our makeshift hurdles oh no another one it was close we always got there my mistake entirely it's always like this Peter and don't worry it never ever goes to plan and do you know what there's always one I'll reason with it no you're currently marking your cards as the one we're gonna eat [Music] finally after much cooling the piglets are separated and taken to the woods in Tudor England piglets were often fattened on common land in forests here they could eat fallen acorns beech nuts and chestnuts this ancient rite was known as panitch keep calling lost Tudor farmer putting his pigs in the woods it not only clearing that land out it's sensual for free to put on weight to these guys that is exactly what they need there be up here about three months or so yeah get them right up to weight and they'll absolutely love it there's loads of things to admit to to explore come on there guys come on come on greedy Pig as tenant farmers Tom Peter and Ruth would have employed workers to tend to the animals and crops it was the farmers duty to accommodate and feed his staff and the farm would have produced its own bread and ale essential to both was yeast it made the bread rise and inhale turn sugar to alcohol it was made by capturing bacteria from the air I come to see how my plan to capture some wild yeasts is going and it looks like I might have some success the idea is that I'm trying to harvest the wild yeasts that are in the air all the time I mean they grow naturally on grains it was a girl on the skins of fruits and these can start you off in your brewing and your baking so I've got a bowl of flour and water and there's tiny tiny little bubbles which suggests that fermentation has begun which means there must be yeast present [Music] making money from the pig enterprises relies on a continuous supply of piglets being bred with a large litter fending for themselves it's time to reintroduce the boar to the Sowers he is huge he is a big boy he is a big boy however he is only 18 months old oh really yes yes he looks very different those easier Tamworth no he's not it's still a very old English breed yeah a pretty Corder Oxford sandy and black now he's in the pen you might find there's a bit of scrapping bit of fighting going on it's just them figuring out who's boss they'll figure out very very quickly that he's the boss and then once these girls are pregnant it's gonna be what 3 months 3 weeks 3 days it is yes it is now she's obviously only just weaned she'll probably take about 3 to 5 days to come back into heat and once the ball takes an interest in her which he's certainly well once when she comes back into heat yeah I think we're looking at not very long 3 months 3 weeks 3 days fantastic you'll be a proud father [Laughter] a farm this size would have employed around ten workers together drinking up to 300 gallons of ale a month the job of producing these vast quantities often fell to women the raw ingredient was barley the first stage was to turn starches in the grain into sugar a process known as molting seed store their energy through the winter as starch become the spring a new process begins inside the grain and those starches get transformed into sugars and it's that sugar we want to capture so we actually need to start this grain growing but only just so far and then we'll kill it and use that sugar to make our beer but I think we've still got a lump mayor look your perfectionist don't I are perfectionist put me to work it water stimulates growth in the grain having let the grains swell now what we're trying to do is recreate the conditions of spring wheat they've got all the water they need and then a little bit of warmth over the next few days the barley is heaped into a smaller deeper pile to contain the heat and you can feel the warmth in it and that smells yeah almost like he's start thinking now about what you're actually making when you get that really punch in there absolutely making ale was a time consuming job that had to be fitted around tending to the crops and livestock despite this most tudor farmers had little real concept of time they simply worked from dawn till dusk life in a Benedictine monastery however was based around a strict routine Tom and Peter have come to meet abbot Aidan Bellinger to find out how time was managed or would a typical day be like for the monks every day of the year the monks gather and have seven services during the day and one at night so one will be talking about getting up in the morning as soon as it's light and then carrying on until dark and then getting up once during the night for a night prayer which is the eighth prayer of the day there will be time for silence time for reading time for eating even time for talking so I suppose a time measuring device is actually almost essential that's right yes because one of the things that some Benedict says that the abbot has to do is keep everything regular to remind monks when to pray a bell rang out across the monastery dictating the rhythm of life monasteries often had their own foundries where bells were cast Tom's come to the foundry to help Andrew lacy make a new Bell for the monastery he begins by making a mold first you've got to design the shape of bell so to do that we cut a shape like this okay so you can see that the design of the outside of the bell just cut into a piece of wood to put it on so blade like this which is stricka-- and you literally get some dog which is clay and hair and sound and then just keep swiping around until it makes the right shape this forms the inside of the Bell then Andrew builds up layers of wax which when smoothed off with a largest trickle forms the outside so the wax is on top of our initial dog we're gonna put Mordor bond yeah so the thickness of the wax is effectively thickness of our Bell the wax will be melted and replaced by our bronze that's exactly it everything that's wax now is going to be bronze later this is the lost wax method and it's typical of the Tudor period the wax is covered in dog then fired in a kiln this not only hardens the door but it melts away the wax leaving a bell-shaped cavity this is the mold this is the Belmont and it's quite heavy lump so all the wax that was in there that made up the Bell has been drained away so there's now a cavity where their backs was where our metal go exactly bell metal a type of bronze has been around for over 3,000 years and is an alloy of tin and copper well it's kind of conversation are we looking for well ideally is going to be 20% tin so the rest of it's going to be copper and when you mix those two together you get this lovely prompt what kind of temperature are we going to get to about 1100 serious Heat I think we're ready the poor I think we were totally there andrew has just one chance to get this right an air bubble in the bronze will ruin the Bell bells were so central to religious life that the abbot would actually come on to monastic land where the bells being made and blessed The Kills shows how important yeah I'm hoping that's perfect it felt good when it feels right it kind of intuitively intuitively it is right knowing when to ring the bell was vital early medieval monks relied on sundials or water clocks to tell the time the problem was someone then had to ring the bell by hand what was needed was a way of automating the process and it was in a 13th century monastery that a mechanical clock was invented [Music] Peter's meeting Alan Middleton from the British horological Institute to see how it worked suppose we take measurement of time very much for granted but this must have been amazing at the time it was an enormous breakthrough the mechanical cloth before the Industrial Revolution clocks were the most complex mechanisms they were ever made but of the time it would mean miraculous completely miraculous yes the key to the mechanical clock was a device called the folliat this ensured it ran at a constant rate so time could be measured reliably the foliage is is mounted on what's called a staff the staff has two flags or pallets on it and as the tooth of the escape wheel drops off one pallet it lands on the next one and and so it goes back and forth and this controls the rate at which heat unwinds if that wasn't there the wheels would spin around at high speed and the time stopping a couple of minutes per second but there was a complication to this system in monasteries religious services were split between those observed in hours of light and those during hours of darkness so day and night had to be divided into 12 hours each regardless of the season this meant summer daytime hours would be longer than 60 minutes and nighttime hours shorter in winter the reverse was true this is the genius of the foliage up here because you've got these two weights right here as you can see this is for either a long summers day or a long winter's night it goes it goes quite slowly by moving the weight in towards the center of the foliat the clock runs faster making each passing hour shorter for a winter's day or summers night that that's quite a strange concept to me in terms of you are actually altering your clock in order to delineate time based on the seasons you're still still you are doing that yes I tied into those seasons this is the way in which they operate in their clocks had to had to work to that standard it's amazing to think that need to regulate prayer throughout the day the impact that that has had on future societies it's absolutely crucial it's an the graces machines ever devised Peters installing a mechanical tutor clock at the monastery to call the monks to prayer oh wow he's setting it up to automatically ring Tom's Bell but hopefully it'll sound amazing when it's struck I'm really pleased with this to be honest as this goes round it's going from the one to the two very just kicks down which rings about close to you but Peters installation has disengaged the all-important foliage might be calling all night the monster for a little more often after some adjustments the clock is running properly that's good when this clock is set now to ring eight times a day calling the monster prayer so seven times during the daylight hours and once at night that is such an important development isn't it it all started in the monasteries mechanical clocks spread from monasteries to church towers across the nation and time became fundamental to people's lives back on the farm Ruth's producing ale for the farmworkers the Bailey's been malting in warm damp conditions for a week well it happened a barley is sprouted I need to stop this straight away before it sprouts anymore but the smell has changed too that is ready for the kiln the malting process has turned starch in the grain into sugar to stop the process Ruth's heating it in the bread oven I haven't got my oven as hot as I would for bread don't need that sort of temperature I just need to dry out the grain to kill all that shoot the sugar rich barley is ready to be turned into ale I'm not making beer I'm making ale beer is technically ale plus hops and there's going to be no hops involved in this beer was a Continental particular Dutch thing that eventually comes over to Britain but in 1500 almost all of us are completely drinking ale next the malted barley is boiled in water to release the sugars water from wells was often contaminated and dangerous to drink but this process made it safe this has to come up to the boil and then simmer for about half an hour and this of course this boiling is what makes the beer so safe to drink it's sterilizing the water and then the alcohol that we're going to produce will keep it sterile farmers provided food and drink for their small workforce monastry is on the other hand had to cater on a much larger scale not just to monks but all the lay folk who worked there so their brew houses and bake houses produced vast quantities of ale and bread Peters helping out in the monasteries bake house first he's saucing the main ingredient wheat flour this was ground on demand at one of the monasteries Mills you wouldn't mind just holding that while I [ __ ] up rather you me Peters come to high salvington windmill in Sussex where Miller Peter case beau begins by setting the sails tie on lamp although this mill dates from the 1750s it's of similar design to a Tudor mill [Music] there we've got it nicely spread okay yep and that should now catch the wind nicely trouble is with the wind it can be I've just taken the break off now okay and we lost the wind well I suppose you're at the mercy of the wind we don't have to turn the mill round and see if we can find some wind from a slightly different direction so what we good to do now is to lift the steps of the mill right so I do that by pulling up this lever which will do that and the steps are now clear of the ground so this this whole buildings going round it's just balancing on a post end well it's the post mill I suppose we're saying that 26 tonnes you know 26 tonnes so if we can get a bit more power out of a you're going quite well now yes the wheat is carried up to the grindstones by a winch powered by the sails take no off and you can see the stones underneath there you have one at the bottom called the bed stone and that's wage tight into the floor it's like that doesn't move so it doesn't move because it's quite a bit of friction when you're grinding and then you have the runner stone which is the one on the top and that runs over the slight gap above the base stone the surface of a millstone is carved with deep furrows now the bed stone has them cut in same as the runner stone and when they sort of the two come together you can imagine they act rather like a pair of scissors and they shear the grain create the flower that way it's supposed to be better than you know crushed like the modern bills a Miller was at the mercy of the wind and so far there hasn't been enough to grind but Peters sensed a change in the weather let's get this thing going okay put the brake on and that will enable us to then put us in gear that's right okay here we go is that you yeah that's him I'm just doing up the sprat oh cool it's actually your gonna grind we're gonna grind on this okay brakes coming off yes she's running we've got some stuff coming through now oh yeah yeah I can see that oh look and we'll actually test the quality of the flower by the rule of thumb okay yeah I can tell whether it's the right sort of consistency that's that's where the saying comes from a rule of thumb your yes and if it's fine enough then that's it I'm no expert but it feels fairly fine to me a little bit of the old a bit of granular I'm just like a whole meal isn't it it is whole milk yes as we say my son or another commodity required by the monasteries was wax essential to make Church candles candles represented the light of God and those made from beeswax rather than animal fat were particularly special as they burned with a pure clean flame to produce a continuous supply monasteries kept their own bees Tom's helping beekeeper Paul hand harvest the wax which came with a useful by-product honey the honey was the only form of intense sweetener that they'd got in those time but the beeswax it's the only form of wax today we've got paraffin wax and lots of different kinds of wax but then for for making ink for lost wax casting for jewelry for all sorts of little processes that was a major industrial product you give me some gear here a little bit of protection a little bit of protection this is my my overalls is it that will cover everything including your codpiece and you've got a wicker mask on there which I'm not sure how much you'll see but your face is obviously the bit that you want to protect more than anything else we're just turning option 2 derbies were kept in skips upturned wicker baskets I mean that visually that's amazing this was the way bees were kept for over 2,000 years until the invention of the modern beehive in the 19th century you can see that really quite dark these most you say black that this is the British black baby this would have been the B in Tudor times all right so this actually has a heritage oh definitely and it was only in Victorian times that people went off to Italy and round on their grand tour to saw their gold and bees out there and thought we'll have some of those and then we've got different kinds of bees now but people are keen to get back to the original to Derby because they're very suited to our climate the bees build wax honeycomb to contain their larvae and stores of pollen and honey that's incredible goose just uh sort of brushed them off and the goose feather basically is I hear a very safe way well they might get their legs stuck in it so if it's hairy this has got nothing to catch for the bees so we'll pop that on there and let's see if we can get a little bit more so why do bees make honey from wax well this colony and the Queen in here she could live for as long as nine years so they've got to have enough stores for the winter so the honey is their food for the winter but bees they're geared to produce lots of honey and if you give them space you know this konley go on and produce maybe 40 50 pounds of surplus honey in the year once the honeycomb has been extracted the two products honey and wax must be separated just break off the the comb and pop that into here and then you crush that with you and just runs out yeah I just want to taste sup you can see the little caps on there that sealed proper honey he's still warm from the hive and to me that's the best way to get stuck together but because sugars lovely and sweet but honey has an amazing flavor with it as well something really quite magical mmm it is fairly stunning stuff it's so good Peters brought the flower to David Carter in a monastic bake house where three types of bread were produced unleavened communion bread for use in church fine white bread for the abbot and Massillon bread for the monks and laypeople Massillon is a derivation of the French marceline and that means a mixture and hence what we've got here is a mixture of flowers to Peter's wheat flour barley and rye flours are added then mixed with salt so not only flavors and preserves bread it works with gluten in the flour to give the dough strength and elasticity into the middle to make it rise they're using Ruth's yeast produced in the barley field in Tudor times yeast was regarded as something really quite magic nobody really understood what it was or why it worked and in fact in a book from 1469 called the Brewers book yeast was referred to in a single word God is good and it wasn't until the 1800s that yeast was fully understood as an organism on its own on the board yep yeast reacts with sugars in the flour to produce carbon dioxide gas this is trapped in the gluten of the dough making it expand and rise if it fights back show it who's boss Peter you're going to eat the bread the bread is not going to eat you the dough is left to rise or prove they're knocked back to redistribute gas bubbles produced by the yeast just liberally just the top with a bit of flour I like that flourish it's the sign of a good bake or a good flourish great lovely one two three out after it's proved a second time it's ready to bake unveil the Magnificent lathe hey wow look at that I'll scrape out the oven you scrape out the oven I'll bring the Magnificent loaf the oven is heated by lighting a wood fire inside once it's up to temperature the fire is scraped out and the bread bakes using the residual heat nicely done nicely done my feet hop at the farm Ruth's following an ale making recipe that goes back to Neolithic times the malted barley has been boiled to produce a liquid rich in sugars known as work I can draw this first batch off so this batch of beer will be the strongest and once I've drawn all this water off I'll put another load of water on the same grain and boil it up again and that will make a much weaker beer so this is more sort of evening drinking getting drunk beer and the next batch will be a sort of daytime drinking beer when you're thirsty but you need to still have your wits about you now it's time for the flavorings so in goes my elderflower adding goes a small amount of honey just a little bit well the fears still hot like this flavors of the herbs will be drawn out into the liquor organic matter which would introduce bacteria finally I'll bomb a yeast is added to turn the sugar from the malted barley into alcohol a little bit of my l-bomb from the last brewed to that pot and the alcohol within the liquid well keep it sterile [Music] at the monastery the beeswax has been separated from the honey and melted ready to make church candles Paul starts by making the wick have you entered church and you'll seen these impressive candles that's don't smell bad they last yeah beautiful clean white light yeah I mean to us they may look slightly but compared to say LEDs or something but compared to yellowest pottery cat tallow candles clean light of ur beeswax oh it was very very clean and very bright yeah the wick is repeatedly dipped into the beeswax slowly building up the layers of the candles dripping there yep well solidify very quickly and we wanted as straight as possible because that's the the sense of the core Vox and if it burns off then it'll drip down the side so if you get it nice and straight then you get a nice clean even burn so that's now almost solid so then we can dip again [Music] pretty well enough for a light read so they'll be good enough for the monastery yeah I think so they'd get through a chapter perhaps [Music] finally the AL is stored in butts where the sugar will continue to ferment but in its but in the battery and that's what this room is for it's for storing all my ale and everything to do with drinking so all the jugs and the cups and everything come in here and then next door is my pantry and that of course is where we store all the bread and things to do with eating you know a bowl spoons napkins candlesticks that sort of thing together they form the sort of service end of the house ale brewed with malted barley was drunk by everyone but the type of bread Jewett was determined by social status at the monastic bake house Peter's making some of the finest quality loaves exclusively for the abbot man cheat bread this is going to be made with white flour it is exactly the same as the wholemeal wheat flour that went into the last loaf except it's been saved or bolted and it was that saving process that in fact made the flour so expensive and that is why it became associated with high status now that is so much finer against my fingers it's like mixing a cloud the whole thing about Manship loaves was they were very much lighter they were greater in volume they were softer and not as hard to eat as the nasty loaf this time the raising agent is al bomb the same yeasty foam Ruth used to ferment the ale often the brew house and the bakery were next door to each other because the Baker would rely on the brewer to provide him with the bomb to make the bread he is a such a tactile so such a tactile process after proving the dough is cut into portions for baking you think this is ready then I think so Pete looking forward to this this is gonna be a proper treat meanwhile the brown Maslin bread for the ordinary monks has been baking for an hour and should be done that is fantastic that looks so appetizing it's a nice dull hollow sound that's definitely bait and the baked man [ __ ] loaves are ready to be delivered to the abbot fantastic great I've managed to stopped on my eating on the way for two of us for my meal it's really good [Music] Tudor's drank I'll because water was often contaminated they also feared washing with water instead grease and sweat were removed from the body with just a dry cloth this was an error after all in which ordinary people like you and me did not bath they were scared that if they water washed that they would open up their paws allowing infection in and if you lived in a world where the black death and the sweating sickness was carrying people off in droves you too would be pretty scared about undertaking something that exposed you to disease hair too was cleaned without water you might think that without shampoo everybody had filthy disgusting hair you would be wrong this is remarkably effective if used regularly and that's the point you do have to comb thoroughly twice a day with a very fine-tooth comb I mean that sides all very well forget now they're not but it's that side there's gonna do the cleaning for me if you were to do absolutely nothing to your hair if you were just to abandon it for three months or so yeah the amount of oils it was produced would slow down but it would smell disgusting because all those dead skin would be trapped the oils would be trapped next to your scalp is it's not a good place to go however if you don't wash it but you do comb it you've pretty much solved the problem it's early June Peter and Tom have returned to the farm in two weeks it will be the summer solstice the longest day hopefully the bore has done his job and the sows are pregnant [Music] the cereal crops essential to make bread and ale are also thriving but all is not well with the peas something's eating on pea crop pretty much everything's had a bite taken out of it and we're talking deer here yeah you don't think rabbit oh pretty both the for potatoes reach these shores in the 1580s peas and beans were an important source of carbohydrate and vitamins well what can we do in Tudor times this situation really emphasizes the fact that I mean you are at the mercy of nature you are at the mercy of God and you really have to it's not what you can do often pray Tudor trades set up religious guilds to pray for prosperity in business the team have established their own guild with some Benedikt the patron saint of farming presiding over them masses would have been said to pray for special causes like the success of a crop there's the services in Latin most people couldn't follow word by word what was going on but if you attend church one day week every week of your life you quickly get an idea of the sort of shape of the service you know words you can recognize as the cues for when Tennille when to look up and you can follow the service in a sort of vague form even if you don't manage to follow every single word in meaning the most solemn part of mass is Holy Communion the priest blesses unleavened bread the host medieval Christians believe that this had now transformed it into the body of Christ a process called transubstantiation to receive it you had to be free from sin most people felt they were unworthy so they took blessed ordinary bread known as panis Benedictus [Music] but there was another more controversial use of the panis Benedictus records showed that some farmers took it from the church and sprinkled it on their crop to ensure a decent harvest accounts at the time thought that this the panis Benedictus had magical powers I mean it could perhaps heal the sick or it could fend off caterpillars from your garden or perhaps it could rejuvenate your deer eaten rabbit nibbled weather-beaten pea crop who knows and as that Sun sinks in the West and there's no more we can do to protect this for another night I'll take all the help I can get [Music] [Laughter] [Music] peas were an important food problem but sheep with a real money-spinner for the Judah farmer woollen cloth accounted for 75% of England's exports today the farms flock of southbound sheep have been sheared and now the boys are giving them a once-over to ensure they're healthy starting with their feet in right what I'm trying to do is just where the hoof is done to fold over just trying to get rid of that so it doesn't get infected cheaper design pretty much for living on on quite rocky outcrops and nibbling away at the grass that grows there as soon as you move your sheep into a Down 'land environment like this they're on quite soft land so there's nothing to wear away effectively what is their toenails so this is pretty much a sheep pedicure if I had demanded my money back right I think it's time to let it go right candidate number two this this can work well for us the main purpose of breeding sheep in the 1500s was for wool but any sheep past their prime would be slaughtered and eaten as mutton boning it out which is a much more efficient way of roasting you can roast with the bone still in but there are problems with it if you think there's the the shoulder the bones that I've taken out of the shoulder and you can see that you know that constitutes quite a barrier to heat moving through the meat which makes roasting it evenly a bit of a challenge if you take the bones out and roll it into a joint much easier and that's why traditionally roast meat is a roll joint so what I need to do is turn this into that perfect cylinder of solid meat you give me a hand putting this in the spit okeydoke push up as much as you can [Music] my spit is almost bit ducks in front of my brand is where the burning bronzer and a filter fire which is going to give me a sheet of flame in front of which I'm going to be roasting if you roast over the fire the fat from from the meat drips into the fire encourages huge great fat flames to come up and scorch the outside of the meat so you're going to end up all there's a strong danger of ending up with it black on the outside and raw in the middle roasting was always considered to be a really luxury method of cooking because it takes so much time it's so much labor to put this much meat in a pot and boil it well you know I could put it on and leave it could not I could get on with half a dozen other things but if I'm gonna roast me I actually have to be here casting and I every now and again giving a little turn but I also can use that attention the fact that I need to be here to add in flavor during the cooking and this this is the thing that really marks out the good roast meat of all Britain Ruth's basting the meat alternately with its own fat and dredge dredge was breadcrumbs and flour or oatmeal flavored with spices build up a really deeply flavored crispy coating around the meat it's a week since the guild mass for the pea crop and the boys are curious to see whether there's been any improvement I have to say that this pea crop is looking touchwood pretty fine very healthy I think that whether it's really helped you know so it seems like some of the animals who are attacking it when it was sort of weaker smaller they've laid off there and we just got this massive growth a little secret I took a piece of the panis Benedictus from the mass and I sprinkled it in tiny pieces across the entirety of this crop and I have to say it's worked a treat yes Sun rain might have been in there as well but good work let us be thankful amen it's 11:00 in the morning and the farm workers have assembled for the main meal of the day having risen at dawn this would keep them going until evening when they would eat just bread and ale don't your form oh.just mutton is apps are you fantastic I love roast meat here we are the top note I'm head of our household goodness and you'll notice that we haven't got any of the mutton on the other tables oh yeah anyway so it's up to you really if you think somebody deserves a slice of me then you send it to them and it's a really public message everybody in the room would notice they'd all know that not only were you giving a reward is it a public reward you also shun someone can you can make him mark statement definitely that person that person but not the person in the middle yeah that's one of the reasons why this whole meal is so formal this is the sort of central ritual of household you know you're making a whole load of social statements and this daily ritual of dining reinforces all those positions I think we need to curry favor with all you guys to be brutally honest but in the modern vernacular I am gonna say ladies first so Helen if you fancy coming up please it's Midsummer's Eve tomorrow will be the longest day and the Sun will be at its highest point in the sky for thousands of years this has been regarded as a special and mystical time Peter Ruth and Tom have come to a nearby hill to celebrate they're joined by people from their parish and folklore expert professor Ronald Hutton sahlan rises and sets of different points in the horizon through the year which is why days get shorter and longer but it slows down midwinter and midsummer and for a few magical days it appears to rise and set at the same points in the horizon so the laws of nature and the divine are suspended human beings can become magical the fairy folk can wander among us potential is limitless tonight's the last night of the Solstice Midsummer's Eve you Tom can find a fairy mistress tonight you could find your divine opposite number are you Peter and I can enjoy a drink [Laughter] fire was at the heart of midsummer celebrations and jumping through flames was believed to bring good luck to three [Applause] [Music] it was believed that at midsummer evil spirits roamed free and fire would ward them off in truth it wasn't evil spirits in the air it was disease that's where we are now the Tudor period this is the time when fleas breed and fleas brought bubonic plague this is the time when mosquitoes breed they brought malaria lice brought typhus the corn is growing it can now be flattened by storms or catch disease and it's the time when the sea is calm the rivers are low the roads are dry which means the armies and brigands can move easily we are in danger of being plundered we're looking at stock lethal danger and fire will keep us safe there was one fire that was especially effective at warding off evil the bonfire a fire made entirely of bones as a bonfire for which we get the word bonfire they smell dreadful and the pungent smoke drives away evil spirits so teachers convinced after few whales he's actually seen the dragon suddenly scare away evil traditionally and as for seeing a dragon on snail can you hear it it's a roaring Knights out there in the winds we hear the voice of the Dragons [Music] as well as warding off evil fire was also used to predict the farmers fortune with a burning wheel there's moisture in the air and the grounds damp do you think this will make it to the bottom he'll still alight I have no idea and no one's done this for decades never want a wonderful summer gets that dong wheel down that hillside we need all the luck we can get a cartwheel wrapped in straw was set alight and rolled down a hill if it reached the bottom still burning a good harvest was assured if not the crops would fail [Music] [Music] bloody will full marks for trying that is what is known as a roaring success I think you need a smart lawyer to convince any deity but that was rolling a wheel but for sheer ingenuity you are the pride of our species [Laughter] next time on tutor monastery farm how monasteries made money beyond farming from mining lead this is off fishing and running Inns for weary travelers [Laughter]

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 434,354

Rating: 4.9014106 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, tudor monastery, britain at war, british history, living in britain, ruth goodman, alex langlands, peter ginn, living in a farm, historic farm, tudor era, the tudors, british kingdom, british kingdom history, history documentary

Id: 0-uqQknglio

Length: 58min 33sec (3513 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/jfjacobc]

100% worth the time to watch!