Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold turn the
clock back over 500 years to run a farm at the Weald and Downland Open Air
Museum in West Sussex exactly as it would have been in 1500, during the reign
of the first Tudor King, Henry VII.
分集介绍
Domestic Tasks
The farm team tackles domestic tasks, from lighting fires with flint, making
meals with depleted crops during the Hunger Gap and using a tread wheel to
fetch water from the well. Peter and Tom’s first job is to move the sheep to
fresh grass. Ruth makes a tallow light out of rushes and sheep fat, cooks the
favourite Tudor dish of Pottage and performs the ritual of laying the table,
an act full of Christian symbolism.
Wool Production
Wool production - known as ’the jewel in the realm’ of the English economy, it
accounted for around half the country’s wealth. The monasteries capitalised on
this massively, owning flocks that numbered thousands of sheep and keeping a
virtual monopoly on the export of wool to foreign countries. Monastic tenant
farmers were second to none when it came to exploiting the huge commercial
potential of sheep farming.
Bread and Ale
The team focus on preparing staple foods of everyday Tudor life - bread and
ale. With the monasteries owning much of the farmland, Ruth, Peter and Tom are
well aware of the importance of praying for a successful harvest. They join
their fellow parishioners in the tradition of ‘beating the bounds’ - circling
the parish boundary while praying for a good yield. Peter and Tom join pig
farmer Neal Careswell in weaning the piglets from their mother. Meanwhile,
Ruth is in the woods trying to harvest wild yeast from the air for the bread-
making, and Peter goes to a local windmill to help with the production of
wheatflour. Tom also visits a foundry to help cast a new bell, while Peter
helps harvest beeswax used to make candles.
Mining and Fishing
The monasteries’ lands covered a variety of terrain, which would need to be
exploited by the tenant farmer to raise income for themselves and the
monastery. Lead was an important building material and Tom and Peter mine
their own, using Tudor techniques while Ruth makes a stained glass window. On
the rivers owned by the monastery, tenant farmers could rent fishing rights
and Ruth makes baskets to catch eels in. Back on the farm, the team learn how
aspirational tenant farmers would have decorated their farmhouses. Ruth
produces a wall hanging and Tom experiments with a camera obscura, while Peter
sees if his pigs are pregnant. The team’s hard work is rewarded with a fine
meal of eels in their newly decorated home.
Welfare
With no other provision for the poor, monasteries played a key role in
providing welfare for those in need. But funding charity also meant extending
hospitality to wealthy donors. The monastery restores a corrody room which
would have been granted to an elderly worker as a form of pension. The room
needs a new floor so limestone is gathered and roasted to make lime putty.
Ruth is in charge of the home comforts and harvests rushes from the river to
make a mattress. The Abbot is planning a big feast to entertain a patron - a
good way to encourage the wealthier members of society to make large
donations. Tom oversees the production of a book to give the patron as a gift,
while Ruth lends a hand in the kitchen to produce some lavish dishes for the
Abbot’s table, and Peter distils wine into brandy. There is also a lesson in
Tudor etiquette for Tom and Peter before the feast is served.
Harvest
They bring in the barley and celebrate with a harvest feast. Ruth makes salt
so the team can preserve produce for the winter. The team also moves their
recreation of monastic farming conditions to the end of King Henry VII’s
reign, when his son, Henry VIII, banished the Church of Rome and replaced it
with the Church of England. Known as the Dissolution, this period would see
the skills and crafts once monopolized by the monasteries dispersed. This sees
Peter learn how to carve stone and make floor tiles, whilst Ruth makes some
tudor medicines. The series ends with a celebration of all of the hard work
undertaken over the course of the seasons. The team put on a mystery play to
mark the occasion, whilst Tom makes fireworks with an alchemist as he prepares
to take to the stage as Beelzebub.
