The Secrets of Edwardian Sheep Keeping | Tudor Monastery | 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 [Music] now historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pin fold and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to Tudor England here at Wheeldon Darland in West Sussex two workers ordinary farmers under the watchful eye of a monastic landlord do it to succeed they'll have to master long last farming methods and get to grips with tutor 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] in 1500 England was at a crossroads the subsistence farming of the medieval era was giving way to a modern spirit of commercialization a world dominated by the church and the rhythm of farming was now opening up to a new force money as great landowners the monasteries had capitalized on their land and their tenants for centuries controlling everything from crop production to new technologies and trading relationships with merchants but now has more and more monastic farms were being rented out tutor tenant farmers realized that they too could make a profit from the land Ruth is doing the monthly accounts in 1500 those farmers who are in a position to rent large parcels of land from people like the monasteries were becoming much more business men and perhaps business women they were thinking much more in terms of profit and loss and accumulated wealth then perhaps have been the case before I mean this is a moment in which farming is beginning to change into something that's closer to the buying and selling and trading and merchant thinking that we're so accustomed to these days but for even the most industrious farmers the farming calendar was still shaped by the cycle of religious festivals it's May and the Feast of Whitsun also known as Pentecost is on the horizon traditionally celebrated with a special market day falling seven weeks after Easter it commemorated the descent of the holy spirit to Jesus's disciples although the team's main income will come from their sheep Tom and Peter have also been raising geese to sell six very angry ones their little Gosling's pretty soon great so you just hope these ones come out and a bit of hissing starting up pretty good condition those ones don't they this one gets exciting they're certainly good mothers aren't they because they're hissing they're protecting their nests yeah I've always a little wary of being in here if we don't feed them in here they might not go out for food so I'll start losing condition they won't be able to really young properly will have massive problems but little bit of pottage goes a long way it's better than it did last night actually in my opinion most rural households including monastic ones kept geese for their eggs meat and fat which was used in medicine back in the Tudor times good source of revenue exactly and we are here to make money we've got a whitson Fair coming up so might be nice to take a cup of our geese to mark especially since we've got little Gosling's coming on in 1500 the farming landscape was very different common lands had not yet been enclosed and farmers had the right to graze their animals on lush upland pastures kept fresh and green by the wet climate it meant sheep produced longer fuller fleeces putting English wall in great demand raw fleece and woollen cloth accounted for 75% of England's exports for hundreds of years the monasteries had dominated the trade keeping huge flocks of up to 20,000 sheep may was the time of year for flocks to be driven from the uplands back to the farm for the most profitable job in a sheep farmers calendar shearing Clare king is an expert in the history of shepherding she's making some tudor-style crooks to control the sheep on the journey made from hollow cow horns so you mud stones goes in there yep just sweet yes almost like a slingshot are these going to be any good for controlling our sheep they will be in the confined spaces of the lanes if you've got a gap you don't want them to go through or they're hesitating then you can throw some stones ahead of them and that will frighten them out of that gap that's the plan obviously they've got a practical purpose they do look quite fun they are fun I just missed them entirely the crooks known as who lets were invaluable to the tudor shepherd who looked after a whole community sheep in the wide-open countryside but gathering the sheep out in the open was a difficult task in addition to the crooks the team have enlisted the help of Bess and her owner Hugh Emerson to drive the flock back to the farm sheep naturally flock together right essential characteristic of sheep there are only really three commands go left go right and stop and that's the key one escape nice and simple if you don't stop your dog then she'll just drive them off and they'll disappear if you've got those three commands your dog will work sheep welcome Don best gone best get moving best is a bearded collie the traditional sheepdog that's this way Bess enemy the breed traces its roots back to 16th century Scotland you see how she drops her head down to the ground just tracking them yeah tracks are busy they don't seem too spooked at the moment that's best this way Wes here to me blond bus gone Bess welcome worth their weight in gold once out of the field the team need to get the sheep down the lane and back to the farm their off time is now and that did nothing kill sheep good I know he'll get there Tudor Shepherd's lived on a knife-edge disease commonly claimed up to a third of their flocks so safeguarding healthy sheep was vital those flanks a gonna gain stay on the lane these crooks are actually pretty good I'm going for the scattergun approach with stones love it of all they see the grass now no bother now [Music] safely back there's one more job to do in preparation for sharing because sheep was so valuable the farming manuals of the day had plenty of advice on how to rear them to secure a good price it was recommended that sheep must be well washed before their fleeces were removed normally sheep would have been washed by swimming in deep water but the pond on the farm is shallow so the team have decided to wash them by hand you'll get all the dirt out the fleece not just so you've got a nice clean fleece at the end but also if the shears come across anything it will blunt in them but things aren't going quite two-ply run away sheep it's going back Lupita's just driving around to the other side of the car [Music] right another victim enjoy it once you're in there everyone else has hello I mean what will see the deal with the wall if I mean if it's really mucky well if it's all glued together by dung then you can't use it becomes unsalable and unusable so doing this increases a farmer's profit margin I thought they were supposed to be white sheep these ones I know they lock dirty on the outside but if we've managed to get the donor off from underneath and now to the matting a bit of surface silt might not be that bad but they're fishing we're being we were definitely quicker naughty sheep I'll be honest I thought it was great fun the Sheep will need to dry out thoroughly in the Sun over the coming week before they can be shared [Music] in Tudor England religion formed part of the urban flow of everyday life but people also turn to the church in times of need especially during illness the church taught that Saints interceded on behalf of those who worship them bringing good health and curing ailments but people didn't rely solely on the Saints there was also a firm tradition of turning to nature to produce cures unfortunately I've got a summer cold and it's starting to get into my throat so I'm gonna try and find myself a remedy and in a tudor garden we've got a number of plants I can use we have ground ivy they called el hoof part because it looks like a hoof and the leaves are also used to flavor ale ale who AO hoof is rich in vitamin C perfect for treating a cold very interesting concept the idea of edible wades and essentially this is one of them peter has honey to the Ale hoof back in Tudor times was always honey because sugar is so exotic it's so expensive it's got so far to travel so I'm just gonna add a bit of hot water here you know what they say what doesn't doesn't kill you that's really nice that's really good hopefully that will work its magic so for me it's back to work [Music] in addition to revenue from sheep's wool money could also be made from their milk like many Tudor farmers Ruth plans to supplement the farms income by producing cheese to sell at the upcoming witsand market milking sheep for sheeps cheese was really common through the high middle ages but was already beginning to go out of fashion if that's the right word in 1500 basically a cow gets so much more milk than a sheep more than ten times much as much milk so many people who were beginning to leave off milking the sheep and turning from milk instead to a cow but monastic herds were a bit different basically cuz they were so large we've got these huge flocks up on the hill and somebody's got to be there looking after them day and night anyway milking them making use of that produce just makes a whole lot more sense and the milk itself well that was mostly used for cheese making and that's what I plan to do [Music] to guarantee a good return on their wool the fleeces will need to be of impeccable quality to help protect them during the shearing process Peter is making a special Tudor contraption a shearing bench made distinctive by the unusual shape of its seat they look a little something like this it's kind of bottle shaped so you got these curves and then the slats in between and this whole bench it's gonna keep the Sheep off the ground it's gonna keep the wall clean this bit as well the sheep's gonna go and this bit is where you're gonna sit now the bit I'm trying to do at the moment and I think the really hard bit are these outside edges I'm gonna try and steam Bend two pieces of Hazel and I've never steam bent a piece of wood in my life so he'll be interesting to see how it goes I know the theory Peters first task is to dig a pit in which to steam the wood looks disturbingly like a grave at the moment I think it's just the right size it'll contain a fire to generate enough heat to turn the water into steam these stones are going to act as a radiator they're going to retain the heat of the fire I'm then going to cover them with wet straw and wet grass into which I will put the piece of wood that I want to bend and the heat from those stones that will heat up the moisture in that grass and that'll turn into steam and force itself into the wood [Music] to make my fire I've essentially built a chimney and inside that I'm gonna put a few oak shavings and around it I'll put my my woods upright and the thing about the wood being upright is it will transport this heat up and just get that fire going a dairy was a vital part of any substantial Tudor farmstead run by the woman of the house the profits traditionally belonged to her rather than the household Ruth is getting straight to work making her sheeps cheese I've just heated the milk over the fire next door bringing it up to blood temperature and now I'm going to settle it in wooden bowls and I'm doing that because I don't want it to cool down too quickly I want the wood to insulate to keep my milk as warm as possible Ruth hads rennet - the sheep's milk rennet is an enzyme extracted from a lamb stomach and it will coagulate the milk into solid curds and a liquid called way having stirred it I now want to leave it very still and if I've got the right temperature and the right strength are rented over the next sort of half an hour or so it was set into curd someway seemingly simple in construction Tudor dairies were cleverly designed to regulate temperature vital especially in the summer months the dairies attached to the north facing side of the farmhouse so that the main building shields it from the heat of the Sun Daniel noticed the windows you can see that they provide loads of light but more importantly they provide ventilation I've got a through draught the next thing to look at is the floor tiles these tiles are not glazed they're porous which means that they will hold water and that is really important that's where the clever bit comes in here the water sinks into the pores of the tiles and sits there and then gradually over the next few hours it quietly evaporates and as it evaporates it cools the run and with my strong cross draft between my north from my East windows it's drawing that damp air out all the time allowing more to rise infinite space this room will sit at between five and six degrees almost regardless of what the weather does outside heat coming off this is intense we're pretty much ready to steam our wood idea either that we're gonna set fire to our straw and then we'll have to start again Peter is soaking his straw in hot water to ensure it's saturated when it goes it's this water that will be turned into steam by the heat of the fire stored in the stones I think I've got me pretty fast for this you can already see the steam coming up some sort of vision there we go wood in and of course this isn't gonna catch fire because fire these three things needs heat which is got it needs fuel which I'm giving it but it needs oxygen which I'm about to take away this technique dates back to anglo-saxon times but would still have been used in the Tudor period for the production of ships weapons and tools reason why have to work so quickly it's because already you can see the steam coming up and I got to keep that steam in there because otherwise the straw dry out and the way from the moisture to steam my wood every inch of the woods diameter needs an hour of steaming for the next two hours all Peter can do is wait okay just oh that's a good set after sitting for half a day Ruth's milk has transformed really pleased they've all set beautifully so now I have to start separating out the way from the curd you can see foot little bits of it are already here this very pale green yellow liquid that's the way and the next stage now is to cut it and to try and drain some of that way out in later centuries you'd use you know fancy knives to make perfect cubes of curd in fifteen hundred you use these Ruth transfers the curds and whey to strain through the cheese mold right I just pop that up on the draining store you should start to see the way is dripping through once all the way has drained Ruth consult the cheese and start pressing it hopefully this has had enough steaming time you still see a bit steam there that's a good sign right just get it in here yeah and there it goes that is pretty harshly two sides of our shearing bench that tom is also preparing for the upcoming shearing he's using a tutor recipe to make a sheep first aid kit when I'm doing this making sound for our sheep just in case of Nicks it's cut stop the parasites getting in there prevents things like maggots which will obviously harm the sheep but also affect the quality of the wall normally Shearer's would use tar to seal any wounds but tom is making a budget alternative quite simple just here we go to make broom salv four ingredients broom which is what I've just been cutting up I need suits any Bruyne I need urine I'm just gonna finish off this bit of room here most parts of the broom plant have a medicinal use for everything from curing a hangover to clearing the skin of parasites but the selves crucial ingredient is the urine the reason the urine works well if he leave at 3 weeks it reacts with the air creates pneumonia pneumonia is why she gives our selves is healing and cleansing prophecies sit together right that's out interesting things coops and they were using things they want a hundred percent sure why they worked I mean acts of faith the mixture will solidify as it cools those me in this so this one now has had a full press on both side it should be ready to come out of its class it's a little look she comes I'm doing now is maturing it and I I need to sort of develop a rind on the cheese so that's where the salt comes in from today onwards I'll wipe it down each day with brine and then tomorrow the next one will join it on the shelf and at the end of the week there should be five or six already for which the market [Music] it's the 19th of May some Dunstan's day and his time for spring cleaning Ruth has made herself a brush from butcher's broom the same plant Tom use to make his self works really well this broom less things get everything out of all the little cooks some families might stick a bigger longer handle in it the geese are fattening up nicely for market but there's some bad news about the eggs have a look around and it's just no evidence whatsoever of any eggs hatching I've got a goose here that's sitting but it's over a month now and no sign of any Gosling's and that means we can't actually increase our gaggle it's not the end of the world however we want to make money I mean this is why we have them this is what we're feeding them looking after them best we can hope for sell them for meat and feathers and that's about it but there's welcome news elsewhere on the farm after a run of fine weather the sheep are dry and ready for shearing [Music] in some areas of Tudor England the right time to share sheep was determined by astrological signs and the phase of the moon girls come on nice and steady that's it timing was crucial shir too early and the sheep might die of cold shear too late and maggots would grow in their overgrown hind parts [Music] the easy is it oh right let's get this cheering bunch together your tutor flat back my tutor flat pack it's very impressive Ashley [Music] what makes measure wise specialist Shearer's were often brought in to help get the job done [Music] Edie Noble and Doug Winkfield have come to give Peter and Tom a hand and she's down lovely richly and hopefully your shearling bench will be up to them our monastic flocks were sheared using a production-line system first the most experienced Shearer's removed the best wool and that is really this the flanks you don't want to go too high to the head and you don't want this belly will the other team all wear get that off a second less skilled team then removed the rest of the fleece today tom is trying his luck with the best wool you're right-handed aren't you so you want your left hand and your left arm just to pull the skin tight and try and make the blades you want to kiss the skin remember this is your high value all you want as much of it as possible and remember you're trying to do it all in one smooth motion something's come off really easily yes it's please go right through and if you get it right you will feel it almost fly through the wool far enough you're probably going just a little high can you see you a bit higher than me remember this is your high value all you want as much of it as possible just get down as close to the skin as you can you're doing really well well I'm slight cut here I'm gonna play some south to cover that up honestly we don't want maggots and stuff get in no that's it right well I think we're about done on this side shall we turn her that sounds interesting and if you bring her up here I will have a go at sharing a bit of her you get that other leg pass it on to the back to start with one two three and then over she goes still lively yes yes shearing benches were designed to protect the wool but also to save the Shepherd's back while shearing hundreds of sheep only going out of fashion with the advent of machine Clippers in the 19th century actually she's quite comfy it's well made so it's my steward isn't it it's coming off quite well this method of shearing was the first stage of quality control keeping the good wools separate from the scraps [Music] let's grab another one why not [Music] sheep in Tudor England were not yet organized into breeds so wool buyers used a system of classification based on the quality of the wool its color length and coarseness Claire is helping Ruth select the best wool to be sold not going to be doing a perfect job as a Shearer there'll be bits of field they'll be bits of manure or dung that would be hard to pull apart nicely get rid of it right the quality of fleece in the wool trade varied enormous Lee Tudor tenant farmers had a reputation for producing inferior wool and some merchants even refused to accept fleeces that weren't farm directly by the monastery why then it is it that the monasteries have this reputation for really good wool and tenant farmers have a reputation for much poorer wool money Monday if you own the land you'll put your sheep or the best bits if you have lots and lots and lots of sheep you can choose from a huge number for good genetics top good breeding stock if we're going to send this off to the monastery we have to select only the very best of our wall in order to meet that quality bar now the world just needs to be weighed for the farms records just leave it alone no it's too heavy that side level yeah looks that level so that's just a smidgen over 20 pounds so 410 fleeces very good that's not bad is it they're pretty good fleece is there any wool not good enough for the monastery is now Ruth's to make cloth for the home Peter and Tom are ready to take their wool to the monastery as dominant players in the industry the monasteries had strong relationships with the merchants and the boys will need to strike a good deal fifteen hundred was a good time to be a wool producer under Henry the seventh the value of sterling had fallen meaning British goods were now cheaper to buy in Europe and the cloth trade was expanding [Music] not only was English wool fine it also grew longer than on European sheep a result of better nutrition from English pastures professor James Clark and wool grader Richard Martin will judge its quality if it was good enough it would have been sold along with the abbeys wool to the merchant what do we actually think about this wool fantastic look at this you could judge some of it by just looking at it you're looking for wool which is fairly even colored and then if you feel the wool there's all sorts of things you can tell about the quality if you sort of spin a bit of yarn in your hand and you any braking next to your ear and it goes ping then the fibers are strong and the yarn will be strong but if it pulls apart the chances are there's weakness in the fiber um what would happen to it now the monastery of course is going to look after its own interest and they are concerned to manage their their brand image they want to collaborate with their tenants but only if they hold to that quality threshold if so then we will include it in the the deal that we do with the merchants and if you produce something that is substantive we certainly will overlook you we could end up with absolutely nothing all that work yeah with wool prices fluctuating constantly farmers would often delay selling gambling on when they would get the best price Subang I will pass the test are we likely to see any money at the end of the day uh well don't hold your breath it's it's gonna take a while we deal with the middleman the middleman brokers a deal with a merchant the merchant then sells the wool on the European market and really it's only when that sale is concluded that money begins to pass back down the chain to the producer you're putting your faith in the the whole deal coming off I guess the question is are you going to buy our wool I haven't got a recommend that we put this into our into our brand wool as James says the one thing I didn't think was I was going to go home empty-handed well as we say in the monastry you have to have faith [Laughter] [Music] faith wasn't just part of business transactions religion was a thread that ran through everyday life contributions to the church on the main holy days of the year were obligatory and took many forms it's just coming up to the feast of Pentecost or whitson one of the many religious festivals that punctuated the year and part of the celebrations live dove is released in the church or in some parishes and mechanical dove and I get this year's star prize of making mechanical Ruth is using a mixture of soft cheese and lime to fix the feathers to heard of the religious calendar of course was the calendar that was the way that people kept track of time knowing when to plant a crop when to reap it also knowing things like you know when you've got a meeting coming up you'd say you know oh well I'll meet you the day after st. Agnes day all sorts of ordinary practical things were linked and tied and counted by the religious rhythm of life [Music] in preparation for the upcoming widths and market the boys have been nurturing their flock of geese oricon he's the gander it's good exercise give me a sheep any day in the Tudor period geese would have been driven many miles to be sold and required protection for their feet good job good job no these these feet they're gonna have to walk long distances when these feet get designed for swimming aren't they now that beaks is on for pecking yeah I appreciate you holding there many Tudor farmers would have used tar and sand to form a hard coating on the feet but some use cloth or leather boots Peter and Tom are testing out their own version hey what do you think mmm convinced I'm nobly convinced just pull that tight tie that on behind I tell you what her heart isn't hammering or anything like that she's perfectly calm that one seems pretty secure looking pretty good give her a go yeah stand to one side Kasey's Oh boots off the other one's all right on no it's not back to the drawing board in 1500 manufacturing was the growth sector of England's economy and at its center was cloth before the Tudor period England's main will export was Rahl fleece but competition from Europe meant demand for English fleeces had fallen however the demand for woollen cloth made in England was growing English producers made some of the finest woolen fabrics which commanded high prices on the continent by the mid 1500s cloth exports topped 1.5 million pounds a year so the first process is to card it I mean really it's a sort of cleaning process cleaning and organizing the fibres as a well-off farmer Ruth would not have sold cloth but she is processing her wall in the same way as commercial producers to make cloth for the farmhouse but I think you can see that already it is starting to look more like soft fluffy wall once the wool is prepared it's time to spin some people call this a Great Wheel causes big and others quite a working wheel because you spend such a lot of time walking somebody once estimated that it could be about 30 miles a day a really good spin award I'm not quite and it's a really good spinster and that of course is the female form of somebody who spins they were mostly unmarried girls so you can see why it was that the word sister came to mean an unmarried girl as well as somebody who spins give the wheel one flick and walk backwards controlling the fibres with one hand 15 maybe even 20 feet before I'm moving her arm round and changing direction giving another flick the same motion wound a thread onto the spindle when you look at the textiles that were actually produced during this period this technology it just blows your mind there are threads produced by hand like this that rival anything any modern machine can achieve wool was not the only source of revenues for wealthy Tudor farmers who constantly explored other ways to make money in 1496 Henry the seventh was preparing to go to battle with Scotland and needed iron for the campaign he invested in a revolutionary new method for producing iron the blast furnace the results were so impressive that Tudor farmers began building their own furnaces a development encouraged by commercially minded monasteries a half size replica blast furnace has been built to the rural life centre in Surrey expert Jeremy Hodgkinson is showing Tom and Peter its possibilities the charcoal is headed from the top of the furnace as is the the iron ore and it slowly descends down through the furnace over the course of time and as it goes down of course it melts held in the bottom of the furnace in a liquid form and then you allow it to run out into a mold right have a hammer feel about every 12 hours you produce a length of iron probably 10 feet long weighing about wow that's huge the blast furnace produced the intense heat necessary to create liquid iron which was easier to purify to generate such heat required oxygen provided by the bellows the creat of the bellows of course it's water power because what is powering those fellows is a waterwheel so that they have pumped that blast of air into the birds hence the blast furnace furnace yes am i right in thinking these things ran for months at time yes they go into blast they blow them in as they blow them in after the harvest so once your labor force is available yeah and then you'd you'd work the iron through the winter because then you got a more reliable water supply once the iron was produced it was remelted in a refinery and any impurities hammered out what you get eventually is this which is bar iron suitable for blacksmiths to make into objects and iron mangers to sell yes a couple of pieces you can take back to the farm I'll take this one it's like me it's brought in flat and once that one is where this new plentiful source of stronger better quality iron opened up a world of possibilities without the blast furnace the Industrial Revolution would not have been possible in the rapidly expanding cloth industry loom technology had also been mastered by 1500 with a sharp eye for business the monasteries rented out commercial premises reaping the financial rewards of other people's enterprise including cloth production [Music] Ruth has brought her wool to Weaver Diane would the first job is to set up a loom a craft in its own right I mean we're we're putting all that yarn that we produced onto the loop and we start with each thread at that end and they all have to pass through these here these shaft strings are called Huddle's they have got two important knots here in the center and the knots create a lovely little eye through which every thread goes and the threads goes one thread through one Hetal yes so if we could take that thread there that comes through that comes through to this number one the threads are passed through either the first or second shaft alternating across the loom pull it through the eye they're not many to go but still let's get it right once all the threads have been passed through the heddles they must go through a comb structure called a reed the reed is designed to keep the threads evenly spaced we have something like 600 threads here we need to keep them all under control and that's what the stage of the processes are putting order into the threads otherwise we just have a John not you have I did have a terrible mess on your hands the threads are tied to a beam at the front of the Loom known as the cloth beam and just check that the tension is even all the way across but this only comes with practice they're getting the feels the feel it's in your fingertips yes yes it is very technical isn't it tiny subtle changes make the difference between success and failure and date better rods are inserted to spread the threads away from the cloth beam these threads are known as the warp the ones that Diane will weave adjacent to them are called the weft so you press down on one of the petals and one of the shafts comes up and the other one comes down so now we've got half of our threads going up half of our threads going down and a gap between the two the gaps called the shed and that's where we pull a shocking it's a first thread through and we pull the beater and beat the first weft into place press the other pedal and the other shaft comes up so now all the threads that were down were now up and all the threads that were up are now down and there we have weaving that is it isn't it in some ways this is a really simple piece of technologies in other ways it's it's really quite subtle and complex but whichever way you look at it right it hasn't actually changed that much yes the only difference is it's works a little bit faster it's just to do a speed [Music] with the cloth finished Ruth needs to take it to the monastic mill for a finishing process known as fooling the monasteries had invested heavily in water mill technology and for cloth production the fulling mill represents the first transition from a domestic craft to a factory industry Miller Dow Jones is in charge of operating the machinery so this needs fully what exactly is it the fulling does I don't know what happened with me to go outside and hold this to the light you see the light coming through the cloth after falling what happens a cloth will tighten down and it'll be no light coming through when the fat Sarah gives in my software fact - it changes something that looks almost like sacking into something that looks like this over time yeah will change into that and we do it by bashing it with hammers these two harmony will do the work for us just to make sure we don't get our hands caught just like this affect up and down and be quite noisy just created a moment when a waterwheel running through and a Hammers go and it'd be quite noisy a waterwheel is used to power the stalks Ruth has soaked her cloth in stale urine full of ammonium salts the urine will clean and whiten the cloth ready out [Music] [Music] frankly it is a bit but the end result will be nice is worth the effort [Music] but using the fulling mill didn't come free the monastery would have charged its tenants for centuries bullying was the only mechanised part of cloth production wool would go on being carded and spun by hand until the 18th century is changed look it's all gone it's all knitted up together needs a bit longer yet but we're definitely getting somewhere the following will take six hours to complete for the final stage of Ruth's cloth production peter is putting the iron from the blast furnace took good use by making tenterhooks the hooks are attached to a frame for the full cloth to be stretched across it stretch it out on the tender hooks get it under tension which obviously is where you know why we say that somebody's on tenterhooks if they're feeling really highly strung because that's exactly what I'm gonna do to the cloth stretching the cloth after fooling is one of the most important parts of the manufacturing process if you don't stretch it you end up with a sort of rumpled effect on the craft fit it never lies flat it always sort of lies puckered you also find that you can't abide by the law legally if you're going to sell the cloth you've got to be able to produce a perfect product a consistent product so if your cloth shrank too much it would be unsaleable unless you could stretch it back out to the prescribed legal length and legal width the cloth is stretched under the weight of rocks nice and taut when it's dry is Lissette square [Music] it's whitson morning the feast commemorating the descent of the holy spirit upon the disciples the team are attending church to see Ruth's mechanical dove a biblical symbol of the holy spirit take flight I've seen it all the cloth is finished a chest of talk like this represents a serious amount of wealth as to be honest did the clothes and stood up in Ruth has loaded up her cheese the boys have finally got the shoes on their geese and they're off to whitson market heard you the market [Music] attended by the whole community the market was one of the few times in the year when stripped trade regulations were lifted and ordinary farmers rather than merchants could sell their wares a few if you don't want a whole goose we got parts of geese process dairy products cheese and butter were often traded across considerable distances Ruth cheese might even have found its way to the markets of London with the geese sold the boys are off to see what their profits can buy them in the market the Tudor era saw the world begin to open up advances in shipbuilding meant people were sailing further and trade routes to the Middle East brought new and exotic products to England we take for granted these lemons I suppose feelings wealth is built on the world trade and this is competition coming in right here and it brings things like this in a bit of flavor something we're not used to it's very exciting yeah [Applause] Irish all right ready Oh how's your cheese laughs fantastic sounds like we've got bit time for a bit of fun with amorous dancing at Vale Vale didn't music a bit more I'll just go folklore historian professor Ronald Hutton has come to join the festivities Whitsun around 1,500 it's party time for two reasons the first is it's a gap in agriculture you've done your clowing and your sewing and your weeding there's a bit of a space in which you can relax and actually have some fun other reason is it's warming up well about 1,500 ordinary people have a serious shortage of indoor spaces which are warm where they can gather in large numbers the church is usually off-limits because it's a sacred buildings he can't party in it but come whitson usually England's warm enough to be able to get outside and the open spaces even have as many people as you like the Maypole was a central feature of witsand celebrations decorated with fresh foliage it symbolized growth and new life particularly significant in agricultural communities but while young people still danced in this traditional way there was also a new craze sweeping the country the Morris dance is really really hot and new and exciting round about 1,500 it's a courtly dance and it's leaking out into the villages around the Royal Palaces in the original courtly form it was an elaborate game by which strapping young men competed to show how far they could leap in the air to dance with and woo a lady quite fashionable very very much so cutting edge by Tudor times whitson had become one of the most popular feasts of the year where people let their hair down indulging in revelry and merrymaking the church initially was rather worried about this development because alcohol plus crowds equals misbehavior but then it learns how to cash in so the church ale was invented the whitson Ale which has this wonderful arrangement by people in the village would provide the raw materials for the food and drink and then the villagers when all this was ready would pay an entrance fee and the church would take the profits to supply its parish needs for the rest of the year and everybody was happy and it works like an absolute dream it's complete intertwining of social life and religious life and economic life it's so typical of this period isn't it everything has a religious element to it it's sort of almost like the air you breathe yeah I'm pretty free of tension on the whole it had got it right you created a perfect medieval society in many ways to perfect people began to worry there might be something wrong in the babies I mean you sleep on that you get a Reformation so if you enjoy the calm now before the storm again this is Mary England for heaven's sake so to speak let's enjoy it [Music] yes [Music] next time on tutor monastery farm the team learn about the rhythm of life lit ones ready to go get the ball in get them pregnant carry on what sustained people looking forward to this it's gonna be a proper treat that is fantastic that and how to celebrate summer [Music]

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 294,940

Rating: 4.9020791 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: L4EtG5WFxwc

Length: 58min 35sec (3515 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020