- [Announcer] This channel is part of the History Hit Network. (gentle music)
(birds chirping) - [Narrator] 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 VII. (metal scraping) A new class of business
savvy farmer was thriving, boosting food production. - [Ed] And then over she goes. - [Narrator] While wool from their sheep was generating half the nation's wealth. (birds chirping) Many of the nation's farms
were under the control of the biggest landowner
in England after the King, the monasteries. (birds chirping) Their influence could be felt
in every aspect of daily life. (water splashing) 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. - [Farmer] There thee go. (hay rustling) (pigs squealing) - [Narrator] Now, historian, Ruth Goodman and archeologists Tom
Pinfold and Peter Ginn, are turning the clock
back to Tudor England, here at Weald and Downland in West Sussex, to work as ordinary farmers under the watchful eye
of a monastic landlord. - [Farmer] Here. (wood thudding)
- That's the way, nice. - [Narrator] To succeed
they'll have to master long lost farming methods. - [Peter] Watch those
flanks, they're going again. - [Narrator] And get to
grips with Tudor technology. (fire crackling) (women shouting) - Quite noisy.
- Wow! It's a really violent process. - [Narrator] While immersing
themselves in the beliefs. - [All] Amen. - [Narrator] The customs. (crowd shouting) - [Narrator] And rituals
that shaped the age. (cheering) - This is merry England for
heaven's sake, so to speak, let's enjoy it. (laughs) (cheering) - [Narrator] This is the untold story of the monastic farms of Tudor England. (upbeat orchestral music) - [Narrator] It's late spring. The team have been running
their Tudor farm for two months. (pig snorts) They've set up a pig enterprise, breeding Tamworths to pay
rent to the monastery, sheared their Southdown
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 pea crop. - They're fast, they're faster
than I thought they'd be. - [Narrator] 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. (liquid trickling) - [Peter] 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 the main sustenance. - It's your carbohydrates, isn't it? - It is, it is.
- That's your energy to get through the day,
- Absolutely. - Doing everything you need to do, and it's gonna be cheaper than proteins. There's gonna be the
same amount of calories in a pint of beer as half a loaf of bread, so, when you think of it like that. (laughs) - That is a third of your
calorie intake, isn't it? Which, when you consider that
many people are on the edge, and that's pretty much all they're eating, that's an enormous part of the diet. - [Narrator] Tudors drank ale,
not 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 vitamin C,
but it doesn't take much. You only have to have the
occasional leaf now and again from something edible. You know, the odd apple, the
occasional bit of cabbage, and you've sorted that problem out. (gentle music) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] 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. - [Announcer] History Hit
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off their first three months. Just be sure to use the
word Chronicle at check out. - [Narrator] 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 turned to God. - Prosper the work of those who enable us to supply the resources
of our small world. - [All] Amen. - [Child] Amen. - [Peter] Right, onwards and upwards. - [Narrator] It's 40 days
after Easter, Rogationtide, 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. (child giggling) 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 do we get these guys to remember? - Okay. Here's the bad news, it's a mixture of pain and
pleasure to make it memorable. Pain because young boys
were regularly beaten or hung up and down by their
legs and bounced on the ground. And then, when you'd made
them remember bitterly what this place was
and why it was special, you'd give them treats, like cakes, afterwards to cheer them up. - Now, young Edmund, come on. Right, this has happened
to every parishioner, male parishioner in the past, they need to remember this tree. (laughs) - Don't drop him.
- Ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh.
- Ow! - Ooh, ooh. - Look, being dangled upside down. (laughs) - There's the tree, see the tree? - [Edmund] Er, yeah. - See the landscape? - Yeah. - Tree, gonna remember? - Yes.
- Yes that's the right answer. (laughs) (playfully growls) - Ow.
- Ooh. - We think he remembers what's
going on, what's the pay off? - The pay off is cake. - Oh.
- It's fruitcake. - Oh, yummy. (laughs) - Another generation sorted. (laughs) (gentle upbeat music) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] The better
off supplemented their diet of bread and ale with meat. (pigs snorting) The Tudor age saw tenant farmers begin to breed pigs
commercially for the first time. - For farmer's under the
control of the monasteries, these pigs represented,
essentially, a pig factory. The little ones are ready
to go, get the boar in, get them pregnant, carry on. No longer are we subsistence farmers, we are now business farmers. - [Narrator] The farm has two sows that will produce around 12
piglets a year between them, a useful addition to the farm's income. The piglets are 10 weeks
old and should now be ready to wean from their mothers. Once the sow stops producing milk, she'll be ready to breed again. (cheerful violin music)
(pigs snuffling) - [Neil] Alright guys? - [Tom] Yeah, we're good
thanks, Neil, how are you? - [Neil] How are you getting on, alright? - [Tom] Yeah, not bad, how are you? - [Neil] Right, you ready for it? - [Peter] Pretty much. - [Narrator] Farmer, Neal Careswell, is helping the boys lure the
piglets away from the sows and into the sty. (pigs snorting) - The secret to any wean is
not to get them too stressed. If we're calm, they'll be calm. - [Peter] Come on then,
in you go, in you go. - [Neal] Come, this way, (whistles). Georgie, Georgie, come on. - [Tom] Look it's home, what's in there? In. - Four in.
- Don't even try and go in. - Five in, six in. Yeah!
- Yes, yes, yes! (laughs) Six small pigs in there,
two big pigs out there. - Well done. (pigs snorting) - [Narrator] But their joy is short lived. - Come on, come on.
- An escapee. - All right, you stay there.
- Oh no, boys! (laughs) - Our little piglets have found out that they can burrow under
our makeshift hurdles. Now, another one. It was close, we almost 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. - Look, I'll reason with it, look. (laughs) - You're currently marking your cards as the one we're gonna eat. - [Neal] You know, that's not
reasoning, that's threatening. - You really, you really
wanna go in there. (laughs) (gentle violin music) (pigs snorting) - [Neal] Come on guys. - [Narrator] Finally, after much cajoling, the piglets are separated
and taken to the woods. - [Peter] Come on piggies. - Come on pigs.
- Come on pigs. - Come on pigs.
- Come on pigs. - [Narrator] 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 pannage. - [Neal] Keep calling. I'm over here. (laughs) You're not lost. - Tudor farmer, putting
his pigs in the woods. Not only are you clearing that land out, it's essential for food to put
on the weight to these guys. - That is exactly what they need, and they'll be up here about,
I dunno, three months or so. And get 'em right up to weight, and they'll absolutely love it. There's loads of things
for them to explore. Come on then guys, come on.
- Come on. (whistles)
- Come on. Up you go. Go on. Come on greedy pig. (gentle cheerful music) - [Narrator] As tenant
farmers, Tom, Peter, and Ruth would have employed workers to tend to the animals and crops. It was the farmer's duty to
accommodate and feed his staff, and the farm would have
produced it's own bread and ale. Essential to both was yeast. It made the bread rise and, in
ale, turned sugar to alcohol. It was made by capturing
bacteria from the air. - I've come to see how my plan
to capture some wild yeast 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 grain, they also grow 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. (gentle upbeat music) (pigs snorting) - [Narrator] Making money
from the pig enterprises relies on a continuous
supply of piglets being bred. With the last litter
fending for themselves, it's time to reintroduce
the boar to the sows. - Come on.
- He is huge. - He is a big boy, he is a big boy. However, he is only 18 months old. - Oh, really?
- Yes. - Wow.
- Yes. - [Peter] He looks very different though. Is he a Tamworth? - No, he's not a Tamworth, he's still a very old English breed, a breed called a Oxford Sandy and Black. (pig squeals) Now he's in the pen, you might find there's a bit of scrapping,
a 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, three
months, three weeks, three days? - It is, yes, it is. Now she's obviously only just weaned. She'll probably take
about three to five days to come back into heat, and once the boar takes
an interest in her, which he certainly will once
she comes back into heat, yeah, I think we're
looking at not very long. Three months, three weeks, three days. - Fantastic. - You'll be a proud father. (laughs) (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] A farm this
size would have employed around 10 workers, together drinking up to 300 gallons of ale a month. The job of producing these vast quantities often fell to women. (barley rustling) The raw ingredient was barley. The first stage was to
turn starches in the grain into sugar, a process known as malting. - Seeds store their energy
through the winter as starch, but come 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. (gentle upbeat music) But I think we've still
got a lump there, look. - You're a perfectionist, aren't you? - I am a perfectionist. - Putting me to work here. (water trickling) - [Narrator] Water stimulates
growth in the grain. - Having let the grains swell, now what we're trying to do
is, sort of, I don't know, recreate the conditions of spring. They've got all the water they need and then they need a little bit of warmth. (barley rustling) - [Narrator] 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, can't you? And that smell. - Yeah. They always say, if you start thinking now about what you're actually making, when you get that really pungent now. - Absolutely. - [Narrator] Making ale
was a time consuming job that had to fitted around tending to the crops and livestock. Despite this, most Tudor farmers had little real concept of time. They simply worked from dawn 'til dusk. (soothing church music) Life in a Benedictine monastery however, was based around a strict routine. Tom and Peter have come to
meet Abbot Aiden Bellenger to find out how time was managed. - [Tom] What 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 would 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 would 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 St. Benedict says
that the abbot has to do is keep everything regular. (gentle music)
(bell ringing) - [Narrator] To remind monks when to pray, a bell rung 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 gotta design
the shape of the bell. So, to do that we cut a
shape like this, okay. So, you can see the design
of the outside of the bell just cut into a piece of wood. Put it onto a blade like
this, which is a strickle, and you literally get
some daub, which is clay, and hair, and sand, and then
you just keep swiping it round until it makes the right shape. (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] This forms
the inside of the bell. Then Andrew builds up layers of wax which, when smoothed off with a larger
strickle, forms the outside. - So, the wax is on top of
a initial mound of daub. We're gonna put more daub on. So, the thickness of
the wax is, effectively, the thickness of our bell. The wax will be melted and
replaced by our bronze. - That's exactly it. Everything that's wax now
is gonna be bronze later. (gentle upbeat music) This is the lost wax method and it's typical of the Tudor period. - [Narrator] The wax is covered in daub then fired in a kiln. This not only hardens the daub
but it melts away the wax, leaving a bell shaped cavity. - This is the mold, this is the bell mold, and it's oh, quite a 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 that wax was. - Where our metal will go. - Exactly. - [Narrator] Bell metal, a type of bronze, has been around for over 3,000 years, and is an alloy of tin and copper. - Which kind of composition
are we looking for? - Well, ideally, it's gonna be 20% tin, so the rest of it's gonna be copper. And when we mix those two together you get this lovely bronze. (dramatic upbeat music) - [Tom] What kind of
temperature are we gonna get to? - About 1,100. - [Tom] It's serious heat, isn't it? - Oh yeah, yeah. I think we're ready to pour,
I think we're totally there. - Alright (laughs). - (laughs) This is spot on. - [Narrator] 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 onto monastic land, where the bells are being
made, and bless the kilns. Shows how important these items were.
- Oh yeah, yeah. I'm hoping that's perfect. It felt good. (laughs) You know, when it feels
right kind of intuitively, intuitively, it is right. (slow dramatic music) - [Narrator] Knowing when
to ring the bell was vital. Early medieval monks relied
on sun dials 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. Peter's meeting Alan Middleton from the British Horological
Institute to see how it worked. - I 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 clock. Before the Industrial Revolution, clocks were the most complex
mechanisms ever made. - [Peter] But, at the time,
it would have been miraculous. - [Alan] Completely miraculous, yes. - [Narrator] The key
to the mechanical clock was a device called the foliot. This ensured it ran at a constant rate so time could be measured reliably. - The foliot is mounted
on what's called a staff. The staff has two flags or pallets on it, and as the tooth of this gate
wheel drops off one pallet, it lands on the next one so it
goes backwards and forwards. And this controls the
rate at which it unwinds. - [Peter] If that wasn't there? - The wheels would spin
around at high speed and the clock would stop
in a couple of minutes so. (slow dramatic music) - [Narrator] 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 day
time hours would be longer than 60 minutes and
night time hours shorter. In winter, the reverse was true. - This is the genius of the foliot up here because you've got these
two weights on here. As you can see, this is for
either a long summer's day or a long winter's night. It goes quite slowly. - [Narrator] By moving the
weight in towards the center of the foliot the clock runs faster, making each passing hour
shorter for a winter's day or summer's night. - That is 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 quite-
- We are doing that, yes. - Quite tied into those seasons. - This is the way in which they operated and their clocks had to
work to that standard. - [Peter] 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 one of the greatest
machines ever devised. (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] Peter's installing
a mechanical Tudor clock at the monastery to call
the monks to prayer. - Oh, wow! - [Narrator] He's setting it up to automatically ring Tom's bell. - Well, hopefully, it'll sound
amazing when it's struck. I'm really pleased with
this, to be honest. - [Tom] As this goes round, it's going from the one to the two, then it just kicks the arm down, (bell rings)
which rings the bell. - [Peter] Close to, yeah. (gears buzzing)
(bell rings) - [Narrator] But Peter's installation has disengaged the all important foliot. (gears buzzing) - You might be calling oh
no, all the monks to prayer a little more often than they want. (laughs) (gear buzzing) - Calm down. (laughs) It's very temperamental. - [Narrator] After some adjustments, the clock is running properly. - That's good. Then this clock is set now
to ring eight times a day, calling the monks to prayer. So seven times during the
daylight hours and once at night. I mean, that is such an
important development, isn't it? (clock ticking) - But it all started in the monasteries. (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] Mechanical clocks spread from monasteries to church
towers across the nation, and time became fundamental
to people's lives. (birds chirping) Back on the farm, Ruth's producing
ale for the farm workers. The barley's been malting
in warm damp conditions for a week. - Well, it's happened,
the barley has sprouted, I need to stop this straightaway
before it sprouts any more. (sniffs) But the smell has changed too. That is ready for the kiln. (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] 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. - [Narrator] 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 gonna be no
hops involved in this. Beer was a continental,
particularly a Dutch thing, that eventually comes over to Britain. But in 1500, almost all of us
are completely drinking ale. - [Narrator] Next, the malted
barley is boiled in water to release the sugars. Water from wells was often contaminated and dangerous to drink. (water splashing) But this process made it safe. - Now, 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 gonna produce will keep it sterile. - [Narrator] Farmers
provided food and drink for their small workforce. - Pop the lid on, come
back in half an hour. - [Narrator] Monasteries
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. Peter's helping out in the
monastery's bake house. First, he's sourcing the
main ingredient, wheat flour. - [Peter C.] Hi Peter, you alright? - [Narrator] This was ground, on demand, at one of the monastery's mills. - If you wouldn't mind just
holding that while I shin up. - [Peter G.] Rather you than me. - [Narrator] Peter's come
to High Salvington Windmill in Sussex where miller, Peter Casebow, begins by setting the sails. - Tie on there. - [Narrator] Although this
mill dates from the 1750s, it's of similar design to a Tudor mill. - That's it. There we've got it nicely spread, okay? And that should now catch the wind nicely. The trouble is with the wind is it can be, I've just taken the brake off now, okay, and we lost the wind. - [Peter G.] Well I suppose
you're at the mercy of the wind. - We'll have to turn the mill round and see if we can find some wind from a slightly different direction. So, what we gotta do now is
to lift the steps of the mill. So, I do that by pulling up
this lever which will do that. - Wow.
- And the steps are now clear of the ground. Oye, so, this whole building
is just going round. - [Peter G.] It's just
balancing on a post then. Well, it's a post mill, I suppose. - [Peter C.] Well, they
say about 26 tons you know. - [Peter G.] 26 tons? - See if we can get a bit
more power out of her. She's going quite well now.
- She is. (windmill gently clattering) (winch creaks) - [Narrator] The wheat is
carried up to the grindstones by a winch powered by the sails. - [Peter C.] Take that off and you can see the
stones underneath there. You have one at the bottom
called the bed stone, and that's wedged tight into the floor. - So, that doesn't move? - So that doesn't move because there'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 bed stone. - [Narrator] The surface of a mill stone is carved with deep furrows. - Now, the bed stone has them cut in the 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 sheer the grain and
create the flour that way. It's supposed to be better
than, you know, crushed, like the modern mills. (dramatic upbeat music) - [Narrator] A miller was
at the mercy of the wind, and so far there hasn't
been enough to grind. But Peter's sensed a
change in the weather. - Let's get this thing going, okay? - [Peter G.] Okay. - [Peter C.] Put the brake on. - And that will enable us
to then put this in gear. - That's right. Okay, here we go. (groans) Is that in? - Yeah, that's in.
- Well done. - [Peter G.] I'm just
doing up the sprattle. - Actually, you're gonna grind. We're gonna grind on this. Okay, brakes coming off. Yes, she's running. We've got some stuff coming through now. - [Peter G.] Oh, yeah, yeah,
I can see that, oh, look. - And we'll actually test
the quality of the flour by the rule of thumb. Okay? I can tell whether it's the
right sort of consistency. - So, that's where the saying
comes from, 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. Little bit of
- It's not too bad. - The odd bit of granular. I mean, it's like a wholemeal, isn't it? - It is wholemeal, yes. As we say, mice and all. (laughs) (gentle upbeat music) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] 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 byproduct, honey. (bees buzzing) - The honey was the only
form of intense sweetener that they'd got in those
times, but the beeswax was the only form of wax,
today we've got paraffin wax, and lots of different kinds of wax, but then, for making ink,
for lost wax casting, for jewelry, for all
sorts of little processes, that was a major industrial product. - You've given me some gear here. - [Paul] A little bit of protection. - A little bit of protection. This is my overalls, is it? - [Paul] So, that will cover everything, including your codpiece. So, that will, sort of. (laughs) 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'll just turn them up gently. - [Narrator] Tudor bees
were kept in skeps, upturned wicker baskets.
(bees buzzing) - [Tom] Oh, I mean, that,
visually, that's amazing. - [Narrator] This was
the way bees were kept for over 2,000 years, until the invention of the modern beehive in the 19th Century. (bees buzzing) - You can see they're
really quite dark bees, almost you'd say black. But this is the British black bee. This would have been
the bee in Tudor times. - [Tom] 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, they saw their golden bees
out there and thought, oh, 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 Tudor bee, 'cause they're very suited to our climate. (bees buzzing) - [Narrator] The bees build wax honeycomb to contain their larvae and
stores of pollen and honey. - [Tom] That's incredible. - Goose, just to sort of brush them off. - [Tom] And the goose feather, basically, is like a very safe way. - Well, a brush really 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. - [Tom] So, why do bees
make honey and 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, this colony will go on and produce maybe 40, 50 lbs of
surplus honey in a year. - [Narrator] Once the
honeycomb has been extracted, the two products, honey
and wax, must be separated. - [Paul] Just break of the
comb, and pop that into here. - [Tom] And then you crush
that with your hands? It just runs out. - [Paul] Yeah. - [Tom] I just wanna taste some. - You can see that the caps on there, that's sealed, proper honey. It's still warm from the hive and to me, that's the best way to... - That's amazing. My lips are almost stuck together but... - 'Cause sugar's lovely and sweet, but honey has an amazing
flavor with it as well, something really quite magical. It is fairly stunning stuff. - [Tom] It's so good. (laughs) (soothing church music) - [Peter] Hi David. - [Narrator] Peter's brought
the flour to David Carter in the monastic bake house, where three types of bread were produced. Unleavened communion
bread for use in church, fine white bread for the abbot, and maslin bread for the
monks and lay people. - Maslin is a derivation
of the French, masseline, and that means a mixture. And, hence, what we've got
here is a mixture of flours. - [Narrator] To Peter's wheat flour, barley and rye flours are
added, then mixed with salt. Salt not only flavors and preserves bread, it works with gluten in the flour to give the dough strength and elasticity. - So, pop it in, into the middle. - [Narrator] 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 Brewer's 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?
- On the board, yep. (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] 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's not going to eat you. - [Narrator] The dough is
left to rise, or prove, then knocked back to
redistribute gas bubbles produced by the yeast. - Just liberally dust the
top with a bit of flour. I like that flourish, it's the sign of a good
baker, a good flourish. Great. Lovely, one, two, three, out, lift the-- - [Narrator] After it's
proved a second time, it's ready to bake. - [David] Unveil the magnificent loaf. Hey, wow, look at that. - I'll scrape out the oven.
- You scrape out the oven, I'll bring the magnificent loaf. (metal scraping) - [Narrator] The oven is heated by lighting a wood fire inside. Once it's up to temperature,
the fire is scraped out. - [David] Let's get this in the oven. - [Narrator] And the bread
bakes using the residual heat. - And we're going to give
it a push and a pull, and there we are.
- Oh nicely done, nicely done. Let me, oh. (thuds) Ah, oh, my feet are hot. (pants) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] 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 wort. - And I can draw this first batch off. (liquid splashing) 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 your
sort of evening drinking, getting drunk beer, and the next batch would be your sort of
daytime drinking beer, when you're thirsty, but you need to still
have your wits about you. (liquid splashing) Now it's time for the flavorings. So, in goes my elderflower and in goes a small amount of honey. Just a little bit. Stir that through. And while the beer's still hot like this, the flavors of the herbs will
be drawn out into the liquor. (liquid sloshing) Now that it's cooled, I'm just straining 'cause, naturally, I don't
want any organic matter which would introduce
bacteria into the beer. - [Narrator] Finally, ale
balm, a yeast, is added to turn the sugar from the
malted barley into alcohol. - So, a little bit of my ale balm, from the last brew, into that pot, and the alcohol within the
liquid will keep it sterile. (gentle upbeat music)
(birds chirping) - [Narrator] At the monastery, the beeswax has been separated
from the honey and melted, ready to make church candles. (fire crackling) Paul starts by making the wick. - If you go into church, and you're seeing these impressive candles that, you know, don't
smell bad, they last, yeah. - And a beautiful, clean, white light. - Yeah.
- I mean, to us they may look slightly
but, compared to, say, LEDs or something, but compared to yellowy, spotty tallow candles, the clean light of beeswax, it was very, very clean and very bright. - [Tom] Yeah. - [Narrator] The wick is
repeatedly dipped into the beeswax, slowly building up the
layers of the candle. - See it dripping down?
- Yeah. - [Paul] That will
solidify fairly quickly. - And we want it as straight as possible 'cause that's the center,
the core of our candle. - It is, it's the center,
and if it burns off then it'll drip down the side, so if you get it nice and straight, then you'll get a nice clean, even burn. So, that's now almost solid,
so then I can dip again. (mellow music) Pretty well enough for a light read. - So, that'll be good
enough for the monastery. - Yeah, I think so, they'd
get through a chapter perhaps. (laughs) - [Narrator] Finally, the
ale is stored in butts, where the sugar will continue to ferment. - That's another batch in the butt, in it's butt, in the buttery. 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, bowls, spoons, napkins, candlesticks,
that sort of thing. Together they form the sort
of service end of the house. (soothing church music) - [Narrator] Ale brewed with malted barley was drunk by everyone, but
the type of bread you ate was determined by social status. (clock ticking) At the monastic bake house, Peter's making some of
the finest quality loaves exclusively for the abbot, manchet 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 sieved or bolted. And it was that sieving 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 manchet loaves was they were very much lighter, they were greater in
volume, they were softer, and not as hard to eat as the maslin loaf. - [Narrator] This time the
raising agent is ale balm, 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 balm to make the bread. (upbeat violin music) - It is such a tactile process. - It is such a tactile process. - [Narrator] After proving, the dough is cut into portions for baking. - [Peter] D'you think this is ready then? - [David] I think so Pete. - I'm looking forward to this. this is gonna be a proper treat. - [Narrator] Meanwhile,
the brown maslin bread for the ordinary monks has
been baking for an hour and should be done. - Phwoar, that is fantastic,
that looks so appetizing. - [David] There's a
nice dull, hollow sound, that's definitely baked. - [Narrator] And the baked manchet loaves are ready to be delivered to the abbot. - Some fantastic bread, I've managed to stop Tommo
eating it on the way. - It looks brilliant. It looks enough for
two of us for one meal. (laughs) Very generous. - [Peter] Looks really good. (hair softly rustling) - [Narrator] Tudors drank ale 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 era after all, in which ordinary people
like you and me did not bath. They were scared that if they water washed that it would open up their
pores 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 softly rustling) - [Narrator] Hair, too,
was cleaned without water. - You might think that without shampoo everybody had filthy, disgusting hair. You would be wrong. (laughs) 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 toothed comb. I mean, that sides all very
well for getting out the knots but it's that side that'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 that
was produced would slow down, but it would smell disgusting
because all this dead skin would be trapped, the
oils would be trapped, next to your scalp, 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. (soothing music) - [Narrator] 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 boar has done his job and the sows are pregnant. (pigs snorting) The cereal crops, essential
to make bread and ale, are also thriving. But all is not well with the peas. - [Peter] Something's eating our pea crop. - Pretty much everything's
had a bite taken out of it. I think we're talking deer here. - Deer, you don't think rabbit? - Well, probably both. - [Narrator] Before potatoes
reached these shores in the 1580s, peas and beans were an important source of
carbohydrate and vitamins. - Well, what can we do? I mean, in Tudor times I think
you couldn't really do much. 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,
there's not much you can do, apart from pray. (gentle music) - [Narrator] Tudor trades
set up religious guilds to pray for prosperity in business. The team have established their
own guild with St. Benedict, the patron saint of farming,
presiding over them. (bell ringing) Masses would have been said
to pray for special causes, like the success of a crop. (soft Latin chanting) - As the service is in Latin,
most people couldn't follow word by word what was going on. But if you attend church one day a week, every week of your life,
you quickly get an idea of the sort of shape of the service. You know, words you recognize
as the cues for when to kneel, 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. (bell ringing)
(soothing church music) - [Narrator] The most solemn
part of Mass is Holy Communion. (bell rings) The priest blesses
unleavened bread, the Host. Medieval Christians believed 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. But there was another,
more controversial use of the panis benedictus. Records show 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. (gentle music) (upbeat horn music) (ducks quacking) - [Narrator] Peas were
an important food crop, but sheep were the real money
spinner for the Tudor farmer. - [Peter] No, which way you going? - Oh, that one, that
one, that one, that one. Yep, that one. - [Narrator] Woolen
cloth accounted for 75% of England's exports. - [Tom] Shoulda had her. (sheep bleating) - [Narrator] The farm's
flock of Southdown sheep have been sheared and now the boys are giving them a once over
to ensure they're healthy, starting with their feet. - Pack it in. - Right. What I'm trying to do
is just where the hoof is starting to fold over,
just trying to get rid of that so it doesn't get infected. - Sheep are designed pretty much for living
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. - Although if I had a pedicure like this I'd be demanding my money back. (laughs) Right, I think it's time to let her go. - Okay.
- Going out that way there. (sighs)
(sheep bleats) - Right, candidate number two. (sheep bleating) - [Tom] Oh, this is
gonna work well for us. (laughs) - [Narrator] 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. - I'm gonna roast the mutton, a bit of a treat that,
rather than boiling it. And naturally, of 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, yeah, there's 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 what traditionally
roast meat is, a rolled joint. So what I need to do is turn this into that perfect cylinder of solid meat. (birds chirping) Would you give me a hand
putting this on the spit? Okie doke. (gentle horn music) Push up as much as you can. (fire crackling) My spit is on the spit ducts
in front of my brand irons, where the burning brands are. And I've built a 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 the meat drips into the fire, encourages
huge, great fat flames to come up and scorch
the outside of the meat. So you're gonna end up, or 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, couldn't I? I could get on with half
a dozen other things. But if I'm gonna roast meat,
I actually have to be here, casting an eye 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 old Britain. - [Narrator] Ruth's basting
the meat alternately with its own fat and dredge. Dredge was breadcrumbs
and flour or oatmeal flavored with spices. - What I should be able to do is build up a really deeply flavored,
crispy coating around the meat. - [Narrator] 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, touch wood, pretty fine. - It's looking very healthy, I think the weather's really helped. But also, it seems like
some of the animals that were attacking it when it
was sort of weaker, smaller, they've laid off a bit and we've 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 and rain, might have
been in there as well, but good work. (gentle upbeat music) - [Peter] Let us be thankful, amen. - [Ruth] Amen. - [Workers] Amen. - [Narrator] It's 11 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. (people chattering) - [Tom] Don't you want your offal? - [Peter] This mutton
is absolutely fantastic. - [Ruth] Oh, I love roast meat. - [Peter] And here we are
at the top of the table. - Head of our household.
Good, isn't it? (laughs) And you'll notice that we
haven't got any of the mutton on the other tables. - Not yet, anyway.
- Not yet, anyway. So, it's up to you really, if
you think somebody deserves a slice of meat then you send it to them, and it's a really public message. - [Woman] Yes, but not very. - Everybody in the room would notice, they'd all know that not only
were you giving a reward, but it's a very public reward. - You could also shun
someone, couldn't you? You could make a marked statement in another way.
- Oh, definitely. - [Peter] 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're making a whole
load of social statements, and this daily ritual of dining reinforces all those positions. (people chattering) - 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. (laughs) - Oh, yeah.
- You could take the whole lot.
- Yeah, take the whole lot. - Thank you, thank you. We've
obviously been very good. We've been working very hard. (people chattering) (laughing) (gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] It's Midsummer's eve. Tomorrow will be the longest day and the sun will be at its
highest point in the sky. (horn blowing) For thousands of years, this has been regarded as a
special and mystical time. (fire crackling) 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. (clapping) - The sun rises and sets at
different points on the horizon through the year, which is why
days get shorter and longer, but it slows down at
Midwinter and Midsummer, and for a few magical days
it appears to rise and set at the same points on 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, the last night of
the solstice, Midsummer's eve, you, Tom, can find a fairy mistress. Tonight, Ruth, you could find
your divine opposite number. And you, Peter and I, can enjoy a drink. (laughs) (gentle upbeat music) (fire crackling) - [Narrator] Fire was at the
heart of Midsummer celebrations and jumping through flames was
believed to bring good luck. - Ruth, would you do me the honor of leaping the Midsummer fire with me. - Alright, I'll try. - The rest of you get back a bit. - Oh, my goodness. - [Ronald] One, two, three. (Ruth shouts) (laughs) - Hooray!
- Yes! - [Narrator] It was
believed that at Midsummer evil spirits roamed free and
fire would ward them off. (cheering) In truth, it wasn't evil spirits
in the air, it was disease. (cheering) - Back 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, and 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 that armies and
brigands can move easily. We are in danger of being plundered. We're looking at stark, lethal danger, and fire will keep us safe. (fire crackling) - [Narrator] There was one
fire that was especially effective at warding
off evil, the bonfire. - A fire made entirely
of bones is a bone fire, from which we get the word bonfire. They smell dreadful and the pungent smoke drives away evil spirits. (eerie music) - [Tom] So, Peter's
convinced after a few ales, he's actually seen a dragon. - Certainly scare away
evil, traditionally. And as for seeing a dragon
on some ale, can you hear it? It's a roaring night,
out there in the winds we hear the voice of the dragons. (soft eerie music) - [Narrator] As well as warding off evil, fire was also used to
predict the farmer's fortune with a burning wheel. - There's moisture in the
air and the ground's damp, do you think this will make it to the bottom of the hill still alight? - I have no idea, no-one's
done this for decades, but if you want a wonderful summer, get that darn wheel down that hillside. - We need all the luck we can get. (laughs) - [Narrator] 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. (gentle upbeat music) (laughs) - [Peter] Pick it up from burning. (laughs) (cheering) (clapping) - Wow! - [Peter] Bloody wheel. (laughs) - Full marks for trying. - That is what is known
as a roaring success. (laughs) - I think you need a smart
lawyer to convince any deity that that was rolling a wheel
but, for sheer ingenuity, you are the pride of our species, yes. (laughs) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Next time,
on "Tudor Monastery Farm," how monasteries made money beyond farming. (laughs) (thudding) From mining lead. - This is hard. - [Narrator] Fishing. - Oh, get back in, if it doesn't, I can't! - [Narrator] And running
inns for weary travelers. (laughing)
