How To Celebrate Christmas...Medieval Style! | Tudor Monastery Farm Christmas | Chronicle

[Music] 500 years ago christmas was celebrated every bit as enthusiastically as it is today if anything it was bigger [Music] [Applause] all work stopped on christmas eve for 12 days of revelry and feasting on the 12th night with the biggest party of the year when madness reigned [Music] [Applause] historian ruth goodman and archaeologists tom pinfold and peter ginn have spent the last six months turning the clock back to tudor england working as farmers under the watchful eye of the country's biggest landowners the monasteries now they are returning to celebrate christmas tudor style they must revive lost skills to prepare feasts learn the art of falconry to catch game for a grand banquet at the monastery [Music] while welcoming new life to their farm merry christmas little pigs this is the untold story of how the farms of tudor england celebrated the twelve days of christmas celebrating the winter solstice is a tradition that goes back millennia from this point on the sun is getting higher in the sky and the days are getting longer [Music] the romans celebrated it with saturnalia the norsemen had yule and by the tudor era it had evolved into a christian feast marking the birth of christ it has got that christmas feel don't you think it does but let's face it christmas for the tudors was 12 days of feasting and fun looking forward to that but all the prep work we've got to do beforehand before the 12 days of christmas came advent 24 days of fasting while preparing food for the feasts to come advent's a long time isn't it tom it is but this is our prep time for the 12 days of christmas isn't it well are you looking forward to it i am you know there's going to be a lot of celebration more rail it'll be fun but we've still got plenty to do beforehand during advent no meat eggs or cheese were to be eaten [Music] this was not just a religious observance but also a chance to save food and money for the feasting ahead oh don't say that ruth will be slaving over a hot fire somewhere the teachings of the church dictated that the farmer downed his tools for the 12 days of christmas so it was important the animals were well stocked with fodder whoa the thing is farming it is relentless it is a way of life it is continuous and even though christmas is coming up the farm has to continue our pigs are due at any moment it's going to coincide with christmas so we just got to keep our eye on them keep feeding them and just make sure they're healthy in the early 1500s it became popular to rear pigs to sell on a commercial scale i haven't started nesting yet so keep our eyes on you though keep strength up pigs were the perfect animal for a tudor farmer to breed they not only ate pretty much anything but provided many essential resources bristles to make brushes fat to lubricate machinery and almost every part could be eaten i'm going to give you my my big sharp knife neil caswell is helping tom butcher a pig right what you need to do is follow a nice smooth line all the way behind the ear turkey didn't become popular until the late 18th century the centerpiece of the tudor christmas dinner was the pig's head should we flip it over and do the other side okay it was a tradition that dated back to the anglo-saxons back then it would have been the head of a wild boar but they were hunted to extinction in the 13th century the bit that not many people like doing is you've literally just got to twist their head off you're serious you're serious do you want me to do it tom i think it's probably best i'm gonna watch that he says there we go remarkable christmas dinner tom's taking the pig's head to ruth who will prepare it for the christmas dinner for you [Music] first the skull is removed to create a cavity that will be stuffed with meat that's what i need to do is to keep all the flesh and the skin in one piece because i'm going to reform it into a pig's head without the skull christmas was such an important celebration that people went to extraordinary lengths for it you can see that this is not the sort of thing you'd want for an everyday dinner it just takes ages it might seem strange to us that that it was a boar's head that was the christmas dish but i think you have to think of it in its sort of cultural context to hunt a wild boar is a really scary thing to do they are really feisty beasts an adult wild male boar is a big creature and it can easily kill a person and if you've only got spears to hunt it with and that's what they used then it takes a real degree of courage and as such it had a very special place you know the boar's head the trophy from such a hunt must have made a big impact that's the skull and there's my pig's head next the head must be pickled so i've got a blend of ale vinegars alega and herbs mostly bay leaf and a little bit of mustard seed i'll just press it under the pickle and leave it until christmas gets a little bit closer and i'm ready for the next stage the tudors cooked everything on wood fires so in preparation for the 12 days of feasting peter's stocking up on firewood anyone who's done any cooking on christmas day knows that some of the most stressful period of your life is the three hours you spend in the kitchen with saucepans here mixing bowls there is the is the turkey defrosted will it fit in the oven roots got like 12 days of this so i've just got to make sure that this wood pile is stocked nicely and she's a happy lady otherwise i might find myself sleeping in the cowshed the only way to adjust the heat on a tudor stove was by burning different types of wood so the majority of your wood pile will be made up of beech and ash because they are your sort of mid-range burners however if you want a slightly slower longer heat you need a denser wood like oak whereas if you want to flash fry go for hazel and there he is the pig's head has been pickled in vinegar herbs and mustard now it's ready for the next stage stuffing with chopped pork so i'm trying to make him look in the finished thing as life-like as possible [Music] tough stuff pigskin to contain the stuffing ruth's sewing up the head as she goes so i made him into a sort of floppy bag now i can carry on stuffing a little bit more meat there she's also adding an ingredient that was a rare delicacy in tudor england raisins and i've made this raisiny paste and that's going to go right in the center of the boar's head imported from the mediterranean they would have been very expensive and used sparingly once stuffed and sewn up the entire head is wrapped in cloth to hold it together ready for cooking now when he comes out cooked and he's going to boil for about two to three hours he'll still be very soft to be cooked through but the whole thing will be very soft i'll be able to take all the bandages off and sort of reform him into a slightly more pig like appearance midwinter was a dark depressing and tough time that needed cheer so peter's headed out onto the monastic estate with woodsman john roberts to collect holly and ivy which have been used since pre-christian times to brighten up the home [Music] insert myself into the prickly nightmare that is this holly in pagan customs holly was associated with the sun god whose birth was celebrated on the 25th of december a date later adopted by christians as the birthday of christ holly is such a symbolic tree i mean i know that it's got the religious connotations of um i suppose the crown of thorns and the drop of blood of the berries but it's also got a much much older pagan connotations it's a very male plant isn't it yes yes they always said in their sort of the later middle ages that uh you went to look at the decorations in the house and there was more ivy than holly and ivy was considered female but it was a house where the women wore the britches we're gonna have a lot of ivy i think we can take these these lower bits yeah yeah yeah they definitely would rather than timber when you say wood rather than timber you you mean there's a difference there is yes size matters um anything over 24 inches in circumference was timber and that definitely belonged to the landowner he wanted that he had to buy it off him and below that size it's wood which as a tenant of the landlord you were allowed to gather how far up do we want to go uh well i should think um to decorate the whole of the uh the farmhouse you're going to need a a good ox cart load do you think we need to climb we might need to yes ah there we go oh wow that was satisfying right oh oh oh it's there much folklore surrounding holly oh yes a great deal a lot of people believe that shouldn't be brought into the home unless it was christmas time or fact you shouldn't cut it unless it was christmas time um and locally on the on the estate here the up until the 1960s 70s the woodsmen wouldn't fell holly trees they would pollard them they trimmed them but they wouldn't fell them i just think it's a good excuse for them not to get prickled yes oh that's satisfying yep andy stay together marvelous right [Music] while the pig's head cooks ruth makes a tudor version of christmas pudding [Music] right i'm going to make from tea fromentee was a popular tudor dish made by boiling cracked wheat in milk but at christmas there were special added ingredients now to put in the flavoring and this really is the flavor of christmas then like now the flavors of christmas were dried fruit and spices now that's quite exotic all those raisins coming in from the mediterranean but the spices they're truly exotic so i've ground up a little cinnamon bark scraped half of a nutmeg and crushed a dry ginger root these had traveled such a distance to get here halfway around the world traded hand to hand by one merchant to the next to the next and the next but that's why people wanted them at christmas they're just that hint of the luxury of the aristocracy and the royalty they're a taste reminder of the best the most expensive experience that you could have in tudor britain decorating the house at midwinter is a tradition that goes back millennia so peter and tom are making a christmas crown to hang from the ceiling of their farmhouse that's good yeah yeah yeah i like it although there are records of huge decorated crowns there are no surviving instructions as to how they were made but yeah i was thinking arching arching arching arching weaving so the boys are experimenting you can snap at any moment oh i hate this crown already i hate this crown so we've realised that to keep the tension in these vertical rods we need to actually wait down the middle and that way it'll be a lot easier to weave in and out refuse to be beaten and if you are going to be beaten it's not going to be something like this they're reinforcing the crown by weaving hazel around the rim using fence building skills that every tudor farmer would have known this is just like water work or basketry i suppose this is a giant basket and as we build up say six inches we will have a very very solid structure although this seems over engineered if you think about a tudor farmstead you think about tudor cottage it's a huge open space because you've got a fire in the middle of the room and in order to fill that with greenery you need something on this scale suspended and it will be a fixture a centerpiece and there are records of people doing this not just uh oh some people did this this was a very very common thing the crown structure built the boys are decorating it with foraged holly and ivy this greenery is so symbolic it's got the christian connotations it's got pagan connotations it really puts you in the mood doesn't it tom you've got something that looks festive colorful and enjoyable [Music] this is our christmas crown it's a celebration of color and christmas meat should we get it inside i think so [Music] the tudor equivalent of the mince pie was the shred pie as well as containing the familiar dried fruit cinnamon ginger and nutmeg there was originally another essential ingredient meat it's funny isn't it over 500 years and yeah christmas food has changed but there's these little sort of threads of continuity through it particularly that that spice and raisin mix over time naturally the spice and the fruit in particular content rises and rises and rises by sixteen hundred hundred years later you would have doubled the amount of raisins and spices in there at the same sort of cost by 1900 there was next to no meat left at all the tudor cook didn't have pie tins the technology to make them cheaply didn't come along until the 1800s so the pastry had to be robust enough to support itself in the oven come in hand's out the way that goes on top yep the pies are then baked in the bread oven let me [ __ ] what a way to light your oven eh no boring pressing the button takes this oven about 40 minutes 45 minutes to get the heat just right and i gauge the temperature by watching the flames if you look at the moment they're very orange yellow and very vertical it's really cold in there but as this [ __ ] starts to burn down and i start to put the other [ __ ] in the heat will start to build push the last bits in you might notice that there's no chimney there the waste gases the smoke and any other heat has to come out the same hole that the wood goes in and that's deliberate if you put a chimney in you've totally ruined it it won't work as an oven what i need to do is trap all the heat from the fire it is the space that i'm heating not the food there's no food anywhere near it at the fire at the moment as these stones get hot they become the oven when it's hot enough i take the fire out put the food in where the fire used to be and the hot stones do the cooking for me in tudor england december the 21st was saint thomas's day when those who couldn't afford to celebrate christmas appealed to the better off for charity oh that must be the thomases hang on it was known as thomasing i've got a bowl prepared for them already hi happy christmas i've got a bowl for you already there we go enjoy it bye bye it was the tradition for poorer members of the community to go all around their neighbors banging on the door begging i suppose but in a nice way for some ingredients towards their christmas dinner and the traditional gift was a big bowl of flour the oven is now up to temperature so the fire is raked out and the pie is put in [Music] christmas eve was the last working day before the holidays began so final preparations were made for the celebrations ahead the boys are moving their crown into the farmhouse but it appears they've made a rather unfortunate miscalculation what do we do just tilt it yeah okay i'll go low i'm humoring you it's not even going to fit in sideways tom right cut the strings no you're saying no go for it go for it promise you promise it ruth said no string there's obviously a reason why they didn't use string in the construction these things okay we're losing some hazel down here are we yeah [Music] finally the christmas crown takes pride of place in the farmhouse that's good that's good that's good there isn't it look at that it's up there i can smell the cooking can't good you good [Music] in the kitchen the finishing touches are being applied to the christmas day feast ruth decorated the stuffed pig's head there's also pork and ham from the pig frumanti [Music] shred pies peas pudding pickled salads and a tudor favorite leech made from milk set in gelatin peter's even made some festive candles apart from the fact i've waxed my fingers to the wick that's a splendid candle christmas day in 1500 this was the first of the twelve days of christmas celebration started with holy mass in the village church corpus mayum qui provobius tradeto [Music] then after 24 days of fasting it was time to begin feasting this is fantastic it was such a great job did you make it in here let's go that would have been a good idea to make it in here it's almost as good as the food i know stuff yourself stupid at christmas it might be plain but it's plenty of it come on in come on in do you want to take these [Laughter] as was the custom peter tom and ruth have invited those who have worked on the farm over the past year to their banquet benedictus benedika christian dominum nostrum oh man [Music] meals this extravagant with so much meat would have been a once a year treat for most ordinary people [Music] according to tutor theory of food digestion the pork being the closest to the human body is the thing that gives the most nutrient but unfortunately it can sometimes overwhelm your system so if you eat too much pig and pork and your system isn't up to it it can all go horribly wrong you can get yourself very ill so you line the base of your stomach with with things particularly like a pottage and then you put the grosser meats on top and then you close it all off with cheese you know modern dining technique still follows that same medieval digestion that we still have soup followed by red meat followed by the sort of pudding things and then finished with cheese [Music] professor ronald hutton an expert in folklore believes there was a good reason why romans vikings and christians all feasted in december all over ancient europe midwinter is a time for celebration it's the worst part of the year the darkest certainly often the coldest and the muddiest so you need to keep cheerful and there are always three components first is feasting which is what we're doing just to bring out your best in order to make a party at the worst of the year second is lighting up your place we got the sunlight screaming paddling through the windows now in the evening we'd have logs in the grate we'd have candles blazing and the third thing is greenery which is what the holly and ivy is about it's bringing in whatever is still green in the woods to remind us that out there life is still going on it's really good therapy what's the [Music] hell nowadays christmas day is the culmination of the festive season but for the tudors there were still 11 days to go the second day of christmas now called boxing day was the feast of saint stephen for farmers although no work was done in the fields there were still the animals to check on how many of you are there in the pigpen there are some new arrivals and we're doing minimal farming for the 12 days of christmas but we're still checking on our animals and sure enough the rustling in the back of the sky has turned into the greatest christmas present ever we have piglets i mean they're almost pure breed tamworth they have been crossed with another breed which hopefully make them quite hardy and i mean not only are the piglets healthy and running around but also the mothers they've come out the sky as well because you know if they take their beds for too long it could be an indicator of a much more serious illness maybe something like farring flu which is a killer but no they're good which means the piglets are good god the way you're done with the place made it all muddy [Music] the third day of christmas was the feast of saint john the apostle the fourth day was the feast of the holy innocents although lay folk didn't work over christmas few could afford to feast every day for the monasteries however all the main feast days of christmas were a time for communal celebration whereas the lay folks christmas banquet meant red meat for the monks it was very different christmas is a time of feasting for everyone in society you ate as much as you could afford to eat and that implied right across the board but in the monasteries there was still just a little hint of a nod towards the austerity of an acetic life too much red meat stimulated virility and for monks and indeed numbs that was something of a problem so the feasting that went on within the monasteries over christmas tended to be much more towards the poultry swans were quite regularly part of people's poultry yards they were kept alongside the geese and the ducks if we're going to help the monks to have a really great christmas we're going to need to be supplying them with a huge volume of poultry today swans are a protected species in england so cannot be killed for food but tudor monasteries would have raised them especially for the table along with geese ducks and chicken these were complemented by wild game like pheasant partridge and woodcock but catching game in an age without shotguns was not easy falcons were deployed to intercept birds in the air and bring them to the ground this is exactly the kind of bird that would have been used for specialist fowling guests emma and mike rafael are teaching ruth and tom the art of falconry there were two types of falconer aristocratic amateurs who practiced it as a sport and professionals who captured game for the dinner table you are amazing and how else do you get a bird to do this for you you cannot train a bird of prey it's not got the mental aptitude to be trained so when you're out hunting it's hunting actually for itself you're more witnessing what's going on and hopefully managing to do that in in an enclosed area whereby when the bird has caught something you can make in swap it for what it's caught what it's called goes in your bag for for your table and then you give it some different food on the glove to get the bird up to the glove she'll actually never know who i am so she'll never actually come back to me there'll never be any bond between birds and man they might be between man and bird but not from bird to match it's one of these things it's one of these things [Laughter] although falcons cannot be trained their hunting instincts can be controlled using a hood ben long makes leather hoods for falcons which can be quickly removed when the bird is required to hunt it's not like sewing it's more of an engineering project really covering a falcon's eyes effectively switches it off so what did they do before they actually had the hoods for the falcons ah well this is a strange one they sewed their eyelids up now that sounds awful it was called sealing and it was four little silk stitches on the bottom eyelid pulled up tied nicely over the head but before as soon as the training commenced that was taken away but in fact although it sounds barbaric it of course was the nearest thing that they've got to be inhumane because these are birds that only react to things so when the hood is on there's nothing to react to and therefore you're sort of switched off and so if we can put the hood on and switch the bird off switch the bird on when we want the training and everything about the thing becomes easier [Music] with their eyes covered falcons could be safely transported to the hunt on a frame known as a catch if you just lift up the two bars and stand up the carriage was carried by a boy or young man known as a cadger and how comfortable does that feel i'd be more comfortable it's like being surrounded by four samurai warriors i'm going to start moving if they go crazy yeah i'm in attendance i'm just going to level you up a bit i feel like i'm at some kind of finishing school i should have a book on my head let's try and keep it as steady as possible although this was a menial job it was an important one as the cajo was responsible for valuable cargo yeah the punishments for damaging birds were quite severe weren't they well yes they're stealing all damaging uh very chopping off hands and well there's evil there's even talk of uh you know things like carving meat off your chest and feed to the bird that got injured or stolen falcons must get accustomed to being handled by humans and learn to respond to food then the hood comes off and then he should see the low and let him go your job is to shout ho which will get his attention how young birds are encouraged to fly from one falconer to another lured by a piece of meat next they must practice flying free you only get one shot at this right so it's got to be spot on allure meat on the end of a string is thrown up to get the falcon used to catching game when you think that they've got the distance right the speed of the bird right this is all going on inside your head you shout hoe and then you throw it up in the air and the bird takes it like that good guys simple as that it's as easy as that hey done success that's it and the hood is off raise it up and just let nature take its course this is going to be a real high one shout ho and up now now oh well done that was precision throwing he takes no prisoners this bird the game birds caught by falcons were taken to the monastery's kitchen to be prepared for the table ruth and tom are joining kitchen staff who unlike farmers worked throughout christmas when you're roasting you as well you want skin to stay whole so when you're plucking you don't want to tear it if you can avoid it well so it's got to look as nice as it's going to take to look as nice as it can taste this is the expensive meat the posh meat rather than chicken you know you think so it's all this work for these tiny little birds but that's the point people want to show off the whole bird and they won't want it to turn up on the table in a recognizable form so with the beak and heads everything on as much on as possible so that when it turns up to table you know they're going to go oh yes well you know my falcon brought down those wood [ __ ] you know that that's the point and it symbolizes something that the rest of us can only pluck for somebody else the fifth day of christmas was also one of the most important the feast of saint thomas beckett beckett was the archbishop of canterbury murdered during christmas 1170 after challenging the king's authority over the church [Music] it was observed with a banquet and a mass [Music] the choir is performing a christmas antiphon the precursor to a modern hymn [Music] professor james clark explains its origins this has evolved over over centuries of medieval christian worship and in the reign of henry vii it's really reaching its high point [Music] this was a new style of singing that was being adopted in the late 1400s [Music] that variety of vocal sound they've brought in professional adult singers and the boys and so they can have the the richness of the different voice parts coming together to create that wonderful wonderful [Music] you'll be over 20. you would in fact we know at this time of year that they spend more on candles in parishes they would they would rival each other to have the most richly illuminated church and the monks would hope that everybody witnessing this this sensory experience would be transported transported towards a sense of the divine and of course that's what they're aiming for at this particular time of year [Music] tudor monasteries were hierarchical and strictly organized right boys it's the time of year where we have to choose a boy bishop but at christmas for one day only rules were relaxed and rolls reversed these are the boy bishop revels and the boys who attend the grammar school that the monks have set up they're being allowed to let their hair down after all of their hard work to subvert authority a little bit so this year's boy bishop is josh and we'll get you dressed so they elect one of their favorite fellow school boys um to become bishop for a few hours our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name letting off steam a little bit there's a little safety valve in a society that's so very rigidly ordered yes that's right this is a society that not only has a strong sense of social hierarchy but also understands that everybody has their allotted role and for these boys they've they've lived under that authority throughout the year and now they can turn the tables [Music] role reversal at christmas happened throughout tudor society in schools pupils took over by locking out staff for a day and even the aristocracy got in on the act allowing a peasant to take charge of the celebrations in the kitchens final preparations are being made for the monk's banquet [Music] tom's been given a job at the very bottom of the kitchen hierarchy the spit boy no bit of garnish i'm just staying out the way ruth can't get angry with me over here i can't do anything wrong per se got the fire going a spit boy rose at dawn to light the fire working all day in unbearable heat range i've got 14 pigeons and i thought if we just sit them in a nice little row this is so typical i have everything under control nice fire good food now you come along with your pigeons 14 pigeons well we've got to feed a lot of people so we've got we've got all the pigeons to get through we've got partridges to get through geese to get through and then we've got all those ducks as well and there's a couple of pheasants so those ones are going to eat well aren't they yeah it's christmas mate [Music] in the refectory the feast is served the centerpiece of the banquet was a magnificent swan pie once the meat was removed and put in the pie the swans feathers were stuffed and placed on top swan was one of the most expensive and luxurious dishes so a show was made of its presentation the food just looks magnificent those monks do very well yeah well it is christmas [Music] the seventh day of christmas was new year's eve christmas gave people some rare time for recreation and the usual restrictions on the playing of games in public were lifted but there was an expectation that some of that holiday spirit would be channeled into something useful like archery i suppose both henry vii and henry viii put in place legislation to protect archery i suppose it was being threatened by other sports yeah i mean people were starting to sort of spend their sunday afternoons playing things like football and what happened to that so the government is all set you know the kings are saying we need you out there practicing your archery chaps you know archer derek hutchinson is teaching the team the basics so at this short range you've got to put the point below the target one smooth motion get there and just let go smooth and controlled go look at that [Music] so this is something that every boy and every man up and down the country had to do every sunday that's it and you wouldn't want to be at that end of it men aged between 17 and 60 had to practice archery after church the entire british armed forces depended upon men like you and everyboy in the land was expected to have a bow and arrows we get you so used to the idea that fighting is done by professional soldiers but it just wasn't there were no such people at this date it is ordinary farming people who if the call goes up you're supposed to turn out archery practice would take place in open spaces where targets known as butts were set up derek has organized a competition for the team closest arrow to the red flag more wins more more another inch go there don't panic about what tudor longbows had a draw weight of up to 170 pounds they're in line with the flag and they're beyond to the right that's three times that of a modern bow so how far can one of these go then if that if if something like this can get that far then a really good archer john john's big one will go about 220 yards and the the record for longbow self wood longbows is over 300 easily and that's with a proper heavy arrow [Music] good height it's time to see how the team have fared look at this one no what no that is two in a bit meters you know the worst thing everyone will think that we just put that arrow there for the sake of tv genuinely close yeah the eighth day of christmas was new year's day another opportunity for revelry [Music] unlike today where seeing in the new year marks the end of the holidays the tudors had another four days to go [Music] but the biggest party was saved until the very end on the twelfth night the fifth of january i have been feeding such large numbers for so many days now this is going to be the final final blast of our 12 days of feasting on the twelfth night there was music abundant food and alcohol and an especially indulgent treat twelfth night cake i'm going to use eggs and butter in large quantities and work them in to enrich it italian panettone is the nearest thing the modern world has i'll just keep going now start with the flavors so we're back on the christmas flavors handful of raisins we're getting a bit low on raisins so i thought we'd have some nuts in this one as well plenty of hazelnuts the last little bits of my spice i've been saving there's one more addition to the cake a precursor to the sixpence that victorians put in their christmas puddings one tiny little lonely dried pea little pea goes in the middle there and whoever finds that p will be our lord of misrule for the night the lord of misrule would lead the celebrations like the boy bishop he represented role reversal and subverting normal social order for a few hours a peasant would have permission to order his master about the lord of misrule would dress as a king and peter's putting together a costume for the occasion first he's making a crown out of felt a fabric produced by matting wool fibers together felt is such an amazing material it's it's perhaps one of the oldest fabrics known to man and that is essentially my inspiration for making a crown for the lord of misrule layers of sheep's fleece are laid down with their fibers at opposing angles got some red dye in there a bit of green a bit of red very christmassy colors the holly the ivy whisp this over the top like a woolen mist through which our christmas colors will glow boiling water and soap are poured onto the wool then peter agitates it hot potato oh jeez that's hot it's got to be an easier way to do this necessity is the mother of invention as they say this agitation interconnects the fibers into a solid mass the scales are opening up they're locking together they're closing again so it's virtually impossible to unfelt felt right so i think this is ready for the next stage of agitation i just want to just keep working those fibers this is going to be very very similar so i suppose a party hat you might get in a cracker perfect accoutrement to the lord of misrule and there we have it when i sew this up hopefully we have a crown fit for a lord of misrule right chaos no one else here hmm right [Music] tom's visiting sean jones to get some instruments to play at the revels in an age without recorded music singing dancing and playing instruments were essential ingredients of a tudor christmas party reed pipes are what everybody played through history made out of the stems of plants this is teasel so all you really need is a knife you can actually make your own musical instrument to move from this to a fancier instrument we're going to make it out of wood based on the same principle as the teasel pipe shawn's making tudor bagpipes first wooden poles are hollowed out to make the pipes though scottish bagpipes are the most well known today they were once just as popular in england and have been played throughout europe since the 15th century start to pair down the outside that is amazingly quick i imagine it's one of those jobs you could actually end up taking off too much because you're just trying to perfect it's there's no way back you have to think about the shape of thing that you're making and not get distracted really from that so what are you doing now this is the final polish what's this material you're using is that sandpaper it's well it doesn't exist you know it's a piece of dogfish skin yeah the scales are very sharp they only run one way so you have to hold it the right way round but it cuts nicely the drone pipes are made in two sections that must be joined together yes so well these form parts of the drone which goes over the shoulder and they need to be adjustable because the length of the drone fixes the pitch it plays out in order to tune it to the chanter so i need to make an airtight joint between these two and let them still slide and the way i'm going to do that thank you is with the thread with lapping you just wrap it around yes lap it on and make a nice tight airtight joint between the two which is adjustable we've done all the woodwork for our bagpipes now we're going to do the bag how you doing that i've got an awl to make the hole with and then i'm sewing with hogs bristles on the end of the thread it's very flexible very strong yeah it means you can actually sew round corners the difficult part is actually attaching them to the thread but once they're on they make a flexible needle that will go through a hole as small as a thread it's thought that the bags evolved from leather water carriers used by shepherds connecting them to teasel pipes produced the first bagpipes so what does the breed do well the reed actually makes the noise the chanter at the end of the day is a stick with holes in and the bore down the middle the reed there's two blades that beat together and let the air through opening and closing all the time and when we put it in the bore the pitch of the reed drops and it makes the instrument resonate [Music] it's a bit deeper doesn't it it is it's lower pitch and obviously the pitch of the note depends on the length of the tube so all the pieces are now made we've just got to put it together [Music] brilliant as the twelfth night approached as well as preparing for a final feast farmers also got ready for the return to work to ensure a bountiful harvest farmers asked the monastery to bless a relic of a saint and parade it across their land professor james clark has come to explain the ritual so what would we as tenants be hoping this would achieve for us you would hope that because of the presence of the relic there would be a charge of the spiritual power that would ensure good farming year the right climate for crops to grow and for the livestock to thrive you bring the relic and crops grow it's almost like a magic amulet yes that's right that there is a sense in which this again is a tangible link to something that is very intangible something that is um charged with a kind of supernatural air and there would be hope amongst the onlookers that something supernatural would happen here [Music] the twelfth night was the culmination of the tudor christmas [Applause] in the farmhouse the celebrations [Applause] with abundant food and drink consumed it's time to select a lord of misrules for the evening who's got the pee who's got the pig [Applause] i have made you proud [Applause] and we have our lord [Applause] for most of the year you must toil tonight you may make festivity proclaim misrule [Applause] it's an idea that has come from ancient rome where at saturnalia the feast of midwinter a slave used to be put in charge of noble households in order to turn the world topsy turvy and devise party games and entertainments for midwinter the lord of misrule has called for a game to be played the egg game was a tudor favorite an egg was tossed back and forth as the players moved further apart the first to drop it lost [Applause] another popular game was snapdragon raisins soaked in brandy was set alight the person who dared to retrieve the most raisins was the winner [Applause] [Music] next the revelers would head out carol singing known as wassailing accompanied by the [Music] they're bagpipes the tudor carol the boar's head describing the traditional sacrifice of a boar at christmas carols are something that first comes to the fore in the 14th and 15th century and their heyday is just about now that started way back in the 12th 13th century as a sort of sun dance you you sang to provide your own music as you danced in a circle that's what a carol was but by 1500 the dance and the song had become separate and there was this whole new crop of christmas orientated carols [Applause] we wish you a merry christmas ding dong merrily on high in dulce jubilee and the coventry carol all have their roots in this period rossella's moved from house to house receiving food and drink in exchange for goodwill i'll tell you what those bagpipes sound fantastic yeah i know they are absolutely perfect although i i know i'm not sure that's music [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] while the carol singers process around the village tom and peter have some important business to attend to though it's christmas you've got to think about the smallest members of the farm now exactly you've got to go and check on our piglets they're going to be our sustenance they're going to be our money dude it's christmas give them a break from the butcher's knife [Music] all snuggle together with their mums we're happy they're happy i feel quite content merry christmas little pigs we'll see in the morning [Music] may you live as long as you want to and want to as long as you live [Music] the tudor farmer would make the most of this last night of revelry as the next day it was back to work the first monday after christmas was plow monday and the farming year would begin all over again [Music] you

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 333,072

Keywords: Ancient rituals, Ancient traditions revival, British history, Christmas traditions, Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, Customary celebrations, Farmhouse decorations, Festive nostalgia, Historical reenactments, History Hit Network, Holiday customs, Netflix for history, Pig's head centerpiece, Retrospective celebrations, Ruth Goodman, Seasonal decorations, The Tudors era, Traditional feasting, Tudor Christmas, Tudor England, Yuletide festivity

Id: BY2TN8E5yAs

Length: 58min 34sec (3514 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 18 2021