Why Was Normal Life On A Medieval Farm So Gruelling? | Tudor Monastery Farm | Chronicle

this channel is part of the history hit network [Music] 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 viii a new class of business savvy farmer was thriving boosting food production and then over she goes 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 pinfold and peter ginn are turning the clock back to tudor england here at wheeldon downland in west sussex to work as ordinary farmers under the watchful eye of a monastic landlord here to succeed they'll have to master long last farming methods those flanks are going again and get to grips with tudor technology [Music] it's a really violent process [Music] while immersing themselves in the beliefs customs and rituals that shaped the age this is mary england for heaven's sake so to speak let's enjoy it [Music] this is the untold story of the monastic farms of tudor england [Music] ruth tom and peter are traveling to their new farm at wielden downland in sussex on england's south coast in 1500 england was 15 years into the rule of its first tudor king henry vii the previous two centuries had seen the country ravaged by war economic depression and plague the black death had cut england's population from four million to just two and a half million but under the new tudor dynasty the nation was slowly emerging from the darkest of times this is our marketplace this is our little town what a day to start out on eh look at it welcome to tudor england the early tudor world is a catholic world suffused with religious thought even very practical stuff it was always there whatever you did whatever you talked about whatever you thought there was no other system of understanding the world it was undisputed in 1500 monasteries were almost as powerful as the state itself they exerted their influence over the entire population not only in matters of religion but in every aspect of daily life this was a god-fearing nation people believe they risked eternal damnation even social isolation if they didn't attend church at least once a week in this period most people were living in small wooden structures and the focal points of these communities were these massive cathedrals or inspiring stone built dominating the landscape and this shows how central the church and religion were to people's everyday lives [Music] it was a time when religion rather than science was relied upon to explain everything from the weather and the growth of crops to health and well-being our lives this country the values we have the the laws we have the way we approach life it's all shaped by the past i mean this is one of those periods that really forges the identity of england [Music] history hit is a streaming platform that is just for history fans with fantastic documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world with familiar faces such as dan jones and dr elena yanega we've got hundreds of documentaries covering the greatest figures and events of medieval history not only that but we have a huge podcast network releasing new episodes every day so you'll always have something to listen to sign up now for a 14 day free trial and chronicle fans get 50 percent off their first three months just be sure to use the code chronicle at checkout professor james clark an expert in medieval monastic life is introducing them to their new farm what was the relationship between monasteries and farms such as this by the early tudor period monasteries are preferring increasingly to put out a large proportion of their agricultural property to tenants so we're not employed directly by the monasteries but rather a sort of little private enterprise paying rent to the monasteries and we're taking all the business risks absolutely so and it's down to your ingenuity and perhaps your ability to read the dynamics of the market to make a success of it as well as having a good head for business monastic farmers needed shelter not just for themselves but also to accommodate and feed their workers it's huge hmm heating bill is going to be a bugger isn't it wow this is our house wow how many people would have lived in here there would be the tenants in their immediate family but they would also be living domestic servants so maybe eight to ten people in total this was the heart of the house where the farmers would eat carry out business and house extra labourers at harvest time [Music] wow so where do we sleep well that'll be for us upstairs the upper chamber called the solar was the farmer's private bed sitting room started already wow and a pull-out truck a truckload yeah yeah it's on wheels it shoves underneath during the day that's where you'll be on the truck to pay their monastic landlords tudor farmers had to turn a decent profit their farm has five acres of enclosed fields as well as access to hundreds of acres of common land and woods they have cows to pull plows and carts a barley crop poultry and a flock of south down sheep so what kind of farming are we going to be doing then well your main focus will be sheep and here's where the relationship between the tenant and the monastery is absolutely central to your your productivity your wool crop may well be required by the monastery to satisfy the merchants that it's under contract with but we can't be completely wool specialist we do also have to grow arable crops yes certainly you'll um you'll probably have a barley crop for example also at this time what we do see is tenant farmers taking up pig farming in a small way as a an additional small enterprise peter i think we should definitely get some pigs right if we're getting some pigs we need a place to put them that's the project right there it's spring ruth peter and tom have to get their money spinning enterprises up and running as soon as possible they have just a few weeks to sew crops and get in livestock before easter wool was central to the early tudor economy it was known as the jewel in the realm as it generated half the nation's wealth sheep were the backbone of the british economy for clothing mostly and not just for us british wool was clothing most of europe it was the finest quality it was all about grazing the quality of the grass influenced the quality of the wool and the british system involved quite a lot of moving sheep about in the winter months you wanted them down on your arable land nibbling at the weeds dropping their dung on your fields but come spring he moved them up into the hills into areas where you can't run a plow there the grasses come fresh and lush and will sustain your sheep through the summer and allow them to grow that perfect coat only when the sheep are sheared in a couple of months time will they know the quality of the wool most tudor households kept a pig since pigs ate almost anything they were a good way of turning kitchen scraps into meat but in the early 1500s monastic farmers began rearing pigs to sell on a commercial scale i suppose modern age you've got a lot of pig breeds but the closest to the tudor breed is the tamworth isn't it yeah a little tamer now though aren't they much wilder much more aggressive back then the monasteries laid down strict rules for their tenants it was forbidden for pigs to run free as they could destroy crops and attack people so peter and tom must build an enclosure i suppose pigs i mean they're forest dwellers so to keep them inside they want they want to get out it's gonna be a proper construction project yeah no messing around the monastery's most valuable asset was their land in an age when almost every craft relied on wood management of the coppices was essential john roberts looks after this coppice and is helping tom cut some hazel to build a pig enclosure this is all based around the broad leaf's ability to basically regenerate very quickly isn't it yeah basically it releases all sorts of hormones in it that kids into thinking it's young again so you can make them virtually immortal after the wood is cut new branches quickly sprout and within a few years it will have produced another crop of hazel poles as a tenant farmer how much wood can i actually take well that will sort of depend on your tenancy really and like today you get what you pays for so the more rent you're paying generally the more rights you have and they might restrict you to how many car loads you could take or they might restrict you to how long you could be in their cutting for you're just spending your time basically time and effort [Music] materials gathered peter and tom begin to build the pig enclosure tudor farmers had to master all types of building skills to survive these things are never as easy as they look [Music] they found an area that's already fenced on three sides so they just need to close it off we're making good progress with this peter it's hard work but it's satisfying between these stakes the coppiced hazel is woven to create what is known as a wattle fence so you need to start there yeah okay bob holman is an expert at building two defenses do you think this will hold pigs oh yes without a doubt yeah this'll hold an elephant by the by the time we finished it so what we're going to do is put our first wand in there and then weave this through these pushing it down all the time push it down with your feet give it a good shove and that's the first one in the next one of course will go on the other side right so in that one goes all the butts will then go on the inside so we followed that process through right the way through to the other end commonly known as a cockrell lobbler cockle nobler a cockrell knobbler to sort of polish a cockerel off we used to give it a tap on the head before that knobbler yes it's just an expression of speech but it's very good for for tapping the ends in that's right the other side of the pig pen is enclosed with a different type of tudor fencing a dead hedge rotten wood isn't it it's just rotted away that's just come out ruth and tom are making some repairs instead of using valuable coppiced hazel otherwise unwanted twigs could be used basically two rows of posts or stakes driven into the ground then we take all the stuff that on the face of it looks like it's not needed hawthorns brambles a little bit of a black thorn there you look at the thorns on here about an inch long i mean they're sharp as well they're going to hurt so if you're an animal trying to force your way in you've got something to contend with you can't can you you can't it's going nowhere yourself against it nothing happens exactly [Music] i think your aim will improve as time goes on peter i think that is about there no pigs getting through there is this [Music] after just a day's work the enclosure is complete this fence is as secure as it's going to get so hopefully pig's contained i mean that's the great thing about tudor building it's all about sourcing your materials from your landscape [Music] to the monasteries farming was a sideline a way of earning money their primary purpose was to perform religious worship on such a scale that its spiritual power would benefit every christian soul party the oldest of all the monastic orders were the benedictines established by benedict of narcia in the 6th century they were bound by vows of celibacy poverty and obedience and followed a demanding daily routine of worship study and prayer [Music] peter is visiting downside abbey a benedictine monastery to meet its abbot father aidan bellinger hello father abbott hello peter very good to see you too always is tuda tradesman formed religious guilds to ensure prosperity in this life and safe passage to heaven in the next peter wants advice on setting up a guild for farmers rich patron saint do you think a guild of farmers would adopt i think in general the most likely patron for a farmer would actually be benedict himself right okay and one that i'd particularly like to think goes in hand with some benedict is saint benedict's sister saint scholastica who is often seen as the patron saint of good weather and i think that must be very important for any farmer every area of life was represented by a different saint as illustrated by this medieval prayer book they begin with calendars yeah and the months are the same as the months we have now but many people would identify the day less by the day of the month than by the saint of the day and some parts of the year are absolutely full of saints which gave the people an excuse for jollification and having a good party but they were also a reminder of the way in which the church and god and the saints intervened in everyday life [Music] the first stage in establishing the guild of saint benedict is to create a register of its members inspired by the prayer book peter's commissioning a richly illuminated document monasteries employed lay folk to do domestic work like cooking and laundry and skilled workers to do stone carving book binding and calligraphy josie brown has begun the calligraphy on vellum made from calf skin so how are you getting on with our manuscript it's coming along very nicely i remember making a quill but mine it had quite a lot of feathers on it absolutely you very often see the romantic idea of using a pretty quill and but we don't use them like that we cut the ends off because they get in the way and we strip the barbs and use the pen like that not quite so attractive but much more authentic you squeezing that to suck ink into this or you simply dipping it in i'm simply dipping it in but that's also why the board is at an angle because if you're writing flat gravity will take over so you want your pen almost horizontal to stop the ink flooding once the calligraphy is finished the document will move on to an artist within the abbey to illuminate the text [Music] the tudor farmer's day began at sunrise [Music] brush the grits off my feet i don't want a little stone in the bottom of my hose now these are made out of sheep's wool hence the the pure whiteness of the doublet here is what's going to hold the hose up the doublet it's just like a a jacket essentially um i sew myself together but being laced into clothing created problems all of its own the book of manners which essentially tells a page boy how to dress the squire uh suggests that he first makes sure that the privy is available because the implication is that once you're sewn into this you'd much rather have used the facilities before you did up all the stitches than afterwards and it certainly is something that you begin to start considering we talk about rhythms of daily life well i've certainly established my own rhythms of my own daily life once in the morning twice and evenings in case you're wondering um to preserve modesty a flapper fabric known as a cod piece was worn on the front of the hose it's not something you're used to coming across in modern life and it's tied at the top here so you can undo the ties and go to the loo it's essentially a fly so it's just like the zip on your jeans and it's it's it's functional and surprisingly comfortable for the woman of the house the first job of the day was to light the fire got my flint in the steel struck together they spark the trick though is to catch one of those sparks and to keep it to light and it ah there there you see it little spark ruth uses charred cloth for tinder which will catch light from a tiny spark now we surround it we have fire farm houses had no glazed windows because glass was expensive to keep warm a fire was essential so one of the things you may notice is that i'm not doing this in the middle of a half you know with a chimney and there's several reasons for that most important is probably to do with fuel efficiency the heating of your home about 70 of the heat of a fire goes straight up a chimney that means that if i wanted to keep a house like this warm i would have to have nearly three times as much fuel day in day out day in day out with a chimney as i do with a little fire in the center of the room so this is really really fuel efficient for the men the first job was to feed the livestock peter and tom are sourcing water from the farms well look at this wow look at that the water is over 20 feet down limey that is that is deep to reach it some ingenious tudor technology is called for i think slow and steady wins the race here peter [Music] tread wheels were the engines of the day used to power cranes to build cathedrals monasteries and castles as well as to drive machinery slow down peter i'm applying the break okay let's get this into the buckets okay this is going to be ideal water from for our cattle isn't it yeah but humans back then you know you've got to keep yourself healthy haven't you so you need to purify the water and the best way of doing that it's making beer which suits us very well i think yeah let's get these to our cows since water from wells was often contaminated people drank ale all day every day the alcohol killed any bacteria making it safe to drink are those tight clothes working for you now peter animals on the other hand have better resistance to the bacteria in dirty water so we're less likely to get ill from drinking it perfect i like that treadwell it's really cool in a world without electric light work indoors like writing accounts or mending clothes had to be done during daylight hours the only illumination came from dim lights made from rushes and sheep fat what i want to do is sort of end up with pure fat so that means i've got to cook out all the little bits of blood vessel skin and the easiest way to do this is to just boil it all up i want to boil it until all those great big solid lumps of tallow have dissolved the fat needs to boil continuously all morning [Music] as well as breeding sheep pigs and geese the tudor farmer also cultivated crops the farm is already growing barley used for making bread and ale another essential tudor crop would be peas i mean obviously peas are very much a crop you associate with garden yes but all the sort of texts and evidence that we have that comes down to it shows that they were using it as a field crop as well on a smaller scale than the barley and the wheat but nonetheless something you have out in the field for your livestock and for yourselves i think it's ideal in modern britain we ride quite heavily on potatoes don't we whereas in tudor britain or tudor england there are no potatoes that is a good point that is a very good point yeah potatoes didn't arrive in britain until the 1580s to sow their peas they are seeking guidance from a tudor farming manual fitz herbert's book of husbandry you know if we're following the advice in this book then we're following the sort of ideas and the farming practice of this era yeah in tudor english spelling was yet to be standardized as peter is discovering how will you a know yeah seasonal time to go upon the land that is plowed and if it's sing oh yeah and if it sing or cry or make any noise under thy feet then it is too wet to sow and if it makes no noise and we'll bear the horses then sow in the name of god you're listening to the land that's the the idea isn't it so if it's absolutely saturated with water or anywhere in between it's going to make a noise it's going to be squelchy or it's going to be squishy or it's going to sing or cry you're going to hear those sticky noises yeah but as soon as that noise ceases that's when you hit it that's when you sow this certainly isn't singing or crying under my feet is pretty darn dry to me before sowing the land must be plowed to turn over the soil and return it to bare earth in tudor times the plow would have been pulled by cattle often oxen rather than horses gwyn and graceful are one of the only pairs of cattle left in britain trained to pull a plow but they haven't worked for a couple of years so the boys will have to break them in again i don't think good old biddy hi charles oh hi peter they've called on someone with a lifetime's experience in working with cattle charles martell this is gwen she's on the near side always the short the short name on the on the near side of a pair of oxen and then she's graceful uh double syllable so that eventually they respond to their name they don't actually understand english too well but they can hear the difference in the length of the word quinn graceful for the first time in two years gwyn and graceful are being fitted with a yoke one yoke all right there you are so just hold it just so it doesn't she doesn't walk away held in place with oxbows the yoke is what the plow will be attached to well they almost look happy this is the easy bit it's when we get out in the field they see some open grassland and who might not see them again because they haven't seen grassland for the best part of winter i suppose oh deer don't say that [Laughter] steady steady steady steady [Applause] it's like the blue circle isn't it what old biddies that's all right that's just got the edge off them now yeah we have we need to convince them to do some work before they get their food get them into routine here they come again yeah i don't think we should let them out actually because i'm afraid that's what they're after their grub yeah so because i'm afraid if they do go they'll think it's a great laugh and we might not catch them tonight they can smell their grub there that's what it is so what exactly do people move away from uh plowing like oxen cattle towards horses um two things i think first of all fashion there's a big a big part in it yeah you you're going to see a farmer now he's careful to say but you know the track that's got to be the latest one it's got to be the modern one right bigger one oxen would were regarded as lowly and sort of poor beasts and the other thing is speed horses were more expensive but they were fast so that's why we're in the situation today we're working oxen in britain this is probably one of the only pairs and it's a great shame [Music] the sheep fat has spent the morning boiling and has been left to cool leaving pure tallow on the surface ruth's reheating it to make the rush lights if you think about modern life we get sort of fats and oils from a huge number of sources things like olives sunflower seeds linseed rapeseed as well as crude oil and all its various derivatives but if you're living in around 1 500 then the animal fats are pretty much all there is and those animal fats have got to do every food job every lighting energy job every axle grease job anything that needs fat has to come from animal fats and this is the other ingredient rushes and the salt you want are those that have a sort of solid pith-like center and what i want to do is to soak the fat into the pith and then that little bit of green rind will act as the wick which helps that to burn right all i want to do is to soak that just briefly in the fat and that pith draws the fat into it that is a rush light it's really simple in it [Music] it's the moment of truth for gwyn and graceful they are about to work for the first time in years whoa once in the field charles's fears are realized dear but look at them now look you see they're not least bit upset they had their little run they're quite fat so it wasn't very far i just need to work out what stop is then to stop yeah we've got to get a plow into that soil in the next week or so otherwise you know we're not going to get a crop before the plow is attached charles has suggested letting them pull a much lighter implement it's vital that the plowed furrows are absolutely straight to ensure every inch of land is turned over [Music] so tom and peter must persuade gwyn and graceful to walk in a straight line move on move on come on good one there we go just need to tap them ever so gently don't you and they just move it's amazing they look kind of happy they're owning their food now come home come home and keep them moving that's the trick apparently don't let them stop come on come on [Music] well there they are they're working i'm amazed he's pizza pizza's a bit noisy you don't need to show them like that they've got quite good hearing oxen but i'll tell them about that in a minute i'm impressed it's lovely and uh the next stage is ploughing well done girls well done as night fell with the farmhouse plunged into darkness the tudor farmer would go to bed about the same as a candle flame isn't it not much different smells a lot worse there ain't much work you can do by rush light [Music] beautiful day it was believed that devotion to a patron saint through a religious guild was the key to success at the monastery the calligraphy on the gilderson benedict register is complete next a painter illuminates the text as with all trades of the day it wasn't only creative skills that were required but also craft skills to make the tools for the job artist mark goodman begins by making a brush from a feather simple way to get a point on it is just to cut it through just over halfway we've got a point on our feather we can cut the feather off we can then make a tube and then we can push the feather through the tube and as you see there we have a brush then the only last bit that you've got to worry about is your stick which of course you get anywhere there we have it paintbrush to paint these very fine details the tudor artist had an ingenious solution just a gli a glass globe full of water if it's not full of water nothing happens with it really as you can see there the trick is filling the water as soon as you fill it with water then it becomes a large magnifying lens this one's around about 16 times magnification illumination was a complex and expensive process so reserved only for special books and documents like this register [Music] after many hours of delicate work the register is complete an indelible record of the guild of saint benedict's paying members the guild would have funded an altar in the local church dedicated to their cause [Music] pre-reformation churches look completely different look at all the imagery on the walls these chaplets and faggons has been restored to how it would have been in fifteen hundred in the late fifteen twenties henry viii broke away from the roman church and formed the church of england beginning a process that would see the monasteries destroyed and parish churches like this one stripped of their splendor this is the the side altar of our guild or the one that we maintain and look after and here we as ordinary lay folk pay for a priest to come and do additional masses for the souls of all of us within the guild for now and forevermore these are in need of some tlc aren't they look at that not only covered in wax but filthy so that's the job for me [Music] tom and peter have spent the last week getting the cattle used to working again we've got five winning participants at the moment i believe ruth's happy peter's kind of happy there we go now they're ready to take the plow for the first time in years this is the moment of truth these cows are getting restless they want to get on with some work okay tommy we're in your hands welcome [Music] straight line tomorrow straight line this is good i think yeah we are we are experimenting here it's vital that gwyn and graceful plow in straight lines now that's nice that's good keep that straight line feel it we're going straight what are you doing at the back those cows straight they need a line to follow and unfortunately for us [Laughter] we've got a bit of spaghetti plowing spaghetti plowed that's worse than spaghetti plowing but the plowing goes from bad to worse welcome you're right tommy walk on we've got cow mutiny welcome gwyn and graceful are exhausted after just a couple of furrows oh dear there's problems they're really hating this aren't they i think they're just not used to having the equipment on them they're just not happy with it so once you've got that pressure of pulling the plow when we're trying to go deeper it's too much work for them they're just not happy getting the peas in the ground within the next week is crucial otherwise the crop will fail also pressing is the pig concern [Music] oh there we go timber the enclosure's complete but now they must build a shelter within it pigs don't like drafts so if they're to breed successfully the shelter must have solid walls they're basing the design on medieval buildings they've excavated as archaeologists but constructing the walls without nails is proving tricky oh this one's high yeah i think i might need to get the axe or or we could bash it tom and peter have rather different ideas as to how it should be built you split that timber i think basically it should be a shape starting with the axe and uh peter's just enjoying hitting stuff with a piece of wood that one's fat you damaging my timber wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle right move that across like that there we go bob on i'm so impressed by this tom you really have outdone yourself yeah friendship's still intact just it's two weeks until easter for tudors it was preceded by lent 40 days of fasting and reflection ending on easter sunday the church dictated that no meat or fish be eaten and in this god-fearing society it was a practice observed by almost everyone vegetables from the garden were essential for survival of course the whole point of gardening at this period of history is to have something to eat every day and if you look around you you can see just how hard that can be oddly enough you might think that the hungriest period of the year is in the dead of winter but that's not quite true it's really sort of now that we call traditionally the hungry gap that part of the year it between your supplies your stores beginning to run low and the new harvests arriving there are just leeks parsley and a vegetable that's long since disappeared from the kitchen this is alexander's i think the romans brought them over to begin with they're very versatile these young leaves are edible just as they are and these are a real treat can you see the flower heads in here just beginning just forming underneath poach just those they're absolutely delicious this is a real favorite of mine this time of year primroses delicious salad you just pull the petals so you just get that bit out and they are so lovely and if the sun's been on they're really sweet [Music] they're really tasty here we go weevy weavey weavey to construct the pig shelter walls peter and tom are using a building technique that's been around for over six thousand years wattle and dawg thin hazel sticks are woven around the uprights to create a fence then a mixture of clay horse tongue and straw is daubed onto it creating a solid draught-proof wall [Music] i mean look how easily that just works into the into the wattle that's amazing the stickiness comes from the manure sorry this is really quite horrible probably going to be as strong as bricks all the pressure is spread out over all the different bits of wattle all this is going to dry goes solid you know it's not hard to work with it's just unpleasant 500 years ago this was the way most houses were built and obviously our farm cottage you can see the uh the timber structures and the panels in between they're a wattle dorbz beautifully smoothed off we're building pig styles in exactly the same way that that tudor cottage was built [Music] ruth's equipping the farmhouse with utensils and tableware in tudor times these were sourced from local craftsmen and most villages would have had a dish maker today there's just one professional wooden dish maker left in britain aptly named robin wood all right here we go all right so this is what you're going to make our house out of yeah out of each each log like this i get three dishes so we're not trying to make them out of slices that way it's not like that's the bottle yeah exactly um all of all the strength in wood is the fibers running along this way so if you just cut a cut a ring off like this then they'd all be very short fibers and it'll just break apart the dishes are hewn from a hardwood such as beach nice let's see see what we've got there it goes the dish is roughly shaped using just one tool an axe and these are your chisels yeah forge all these myself and traditionally then forging forging your tools would have been part of the apprenticeship of the job right then it's turned using a foot operated pole lathe it's a device so simple and ingenious that it saw use from the 10th century right through until the 20th i love the way it's turning around really is as simple as that throughout history these wooden dishes have gone in and out of fashion in the roman period they all ate from ceramic and then we had about a thousand years when people ate from wood and then it was really the 18th century when the stoke pottery started mass producing very cheap ceramic that we went back to being a ceramic culture there we go there we are all finished wow that is beautiful probably a thousand years of accumulated knowledge handed down through the generations gone into that bowl in the 1500s people at their main meal at 11 o'clock in the morning having risen at dawn by then the farm workers would have been ravenous taking pride of place on the tudor table was the salt without salt people for centuries and centuries and centuries would have found living in the northern climes nigh impossible salt allows you to preserve meat it allows you to preserve fish like most things in tudor life even setting the table was laden with christian symbolism you might look at it and think it looks rather like an altar in a church and that's what many people in the period thought too they made the connection between dining and god's table there was something of the sacred in in the daily ritual of eating a meal something of remembering christ something of echo of the last supper and people were quite conscious of that they wrote about it at the time they talked about it at the time and they quite deliberately made the most of it [Music] it's the week before easter if the peas aren't planted now they won't have time to germinate and grow peter and tom have spent the week getting gwyn and graceful used to working they're again they're faster i thought they'd be that's good come on guys finally the field is plowed and harrowed to break up the soil i'm just giving a little helping hand here take a bit of the pressure off whoa the peas can now be sown peter's taking advice from the book of husbandry let thy left foot before and take a handful of peas and when they'll take up thy right foot then can fro hand broadcasting seeds was inevitably haphazard it wasn't until the invention of jethro tull's seed drill 200 years later that seeds could be sewn in regular rows evenly spaced by putting your left foot forward and then throwing you the right left foot forward throwing with your right does mean that you are trying to get them broadcast as evenly as possible come summer they should have a crop to harvest [Music] it's palm sunday marking the last week of lent it commemorates jesus's triumphal entry into jerusalem when palm leaves were laid before him days before he was betrayed and crucified peter has a key role in the celebrations palm sunday starting around about 1490 people used to dress up as prophets basically a yeoman or a respected member of the village but a layperson such as myself with don the outfit of a prophet and the more dramatic the better such as john the baptist emerging from the wilderness the records show that villagers would actually hire in beards so they could dress up their profits accordingly it wasn't meant to poke fun it is i john the baptist right i wonder if they'll recognize me [Music] the most important ritual of palm sunday was [Music] delivered in latin the text would not have been understood by the congregation but its rituals were nominated central to the mass was the blessing of greenery symbolizing the palms that were laid before jesus then the blessed branches were turned into crosses symbolic of the crucifixion finally the congregation processed from the church with their crosses which would then be taken home to protect them for the year to come professor ronald hutton an expert on english rituals explains the importance of palm sunday celebrations in early tudor england you get three things in one you get people reminded of what this the christian message and the christian story is all about you get the greenery which symbolizes spring and hope and new life and you get something which is actually going to protect your house and your family and your farm and all this in one symbolized in this procession with a layman that's peter up there dressed up as a prophet to dress this up as fun to make a thing which people can engage in and which they can make their own is just a totally brilliant way of giving religion to the people and enabling them to share in it by the 1500s there was a new raucous side to the celebrations the truly insanely wonderful thing about palm sunday ritual is it ended in the kind of spring version of a snowball fight and it's a wonderful example of the way in which religion around about 1500 introduced an element of just sheer merry-making at the end of something solemn and profound to remind us that we're alive and being alive means having fun [Music] being a prophet has its advantages i'm staying with me like this is the last ritual of palm sunday but it's a really important one it's where we take the crosses woven out of our consecrated greenery and put them over the doorway of your home to protect it for the next year against witchcraft curses demons and general misfortune it's the ultimate security system circa 1500 does it work so england's still here can't argue with that have a nice tudor easter thank you thank you comey bye bye [Music] it's late spring the pea crop is coming through it's a really healthy looking crop isn't it i mean the sun's really helping you just look out there i mean that's very impressive if i say so myself but the pig's ties are still not finished without a shelter they can't introduce pigs and breed them for cash this was all we've been doing this project it would happen like that but the problem is we've got the field to sort out we've got the farm to sort out we've got the animals to sort out everything needs attention everything requires your time we've sweated we've bled we've argued we've argued we've road tested not only our skills but our friendship from here on in you and i can do anything absolutely anything for the roof they're making shingles wooden tiles that's pretty good actually but i think it will shed water well they are pigs so they can't be too fussy [Music] it's time to get the pigs in yeah i think so cool as soon as lent was over meat could be eaten once again and at this time of year it's one particular meat this is deal you have to kill a young calf if you want to have cheese for the rest of the year so easter is all about veal rennet from the calf stomach is essential in cheese making with the meat ruth's cooking a tudor favorite pottage this with its easter veal and its fresh young alexander's last year's leeks and last year's beans is just typical of this couple of weeks of the year two or three weeks time i won't be able to make this pottage half these ingredients won't be around so although in some ways a diet in the late medieval early tudor period can sound a little boring you know bread and pottage bread and pottage next day bread and pottage next day bread and pottage nonetheless it actually hides those words hide quite a lot of variety as week by week by week that pottage changes all through the year local farmer neil caswell is delivering two tamworth sows and six piglets tamworths can be dangerous but neil's got some advice on how to move them safely around if you try and push a pig from behind they're a lot bigger than you they're a lot stronger than you and if they don't want to do it they will just come through the other way so if you try and use psychology more than brute strength right um you'll be a little bit more successful the best thing to do is convince them that you're brilliant and you've got some food um as you can tell you know definitely enjoying that they are not taking a blind bit of notice of us uh which is a good sign peter it's amazing how much they complete this area yeah i mean it's been quite sterile up until now and all of a sudden it's like ah that's that's why you're doing all the work lord let us remember just how much effort goes into putting food on the table man [Music] by 11 o'clock in the morning with the livestock fed and watered workers would head to the farmhouse for their main meal of the day well it's not every day you find yourself in a leonardo da vinci painting is it the last supper it does doesn't it have that sort of religious feel echo's just how much the church influenced society yeah absolutely it's sort of embedded ingrained through absolutely everything you do powers have changed kings have come and gone but the church has always been there it was the one way you understood where you come from where you were going to how you related to the natural world and really we should see our farming through that lens you know how the crops grow what we're doing on the land we if we want to get into the minds of people in 1 500 we should be trying to see that through the lens of the church [Music] next time on tudor monastery farm the team explore how farms made money to pay the rent by farming sheep well i guess the question is are you going to buy our wall as we say in the monastery you have to have faith yeah we certainly will adopting new technology quite noisy and trading their wares so geese for sale people anyone want a goose if you if you don't want a whole goose you've got parts of geese

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 93,234

Keywords: history documentary, medieval history documentary, middle ages, medieval history, the middle ages, tudor monastery farm, ruth goodman, tudor farm, life as a medieval person, life in the middle ages, chronicle

Id: 7_yQ0VGuQDo

Length: 59min 9sec (3549 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 27 2022