HIST 203
SYLLABUS
LECTURE OUTLINES
Week 10: Tuesday
Videos:
Aachen, 1200 years after Charlemagne (5:28 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFMhBCscH04
Life in 1000 AD Britain (documentary, 47:59 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGUVcMYC6oY
Plowing a field with oxen — Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts, 2009 (1:24 min.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuytRXRfyeI
How to make hay with a scythe (9:45 min.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs8qiucZZx0&feature=related
How to mow with a scythe (Wilson, Wisconsin, 2009; 3:36 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzdjOkLQw1s
Reaping wheat with a sickle (2011; 6:16 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXey-x3eCxc
Threshing with flails (0:21 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAmyKYPE3vo
Laxton: Surviving village of open-field farming (U. of Nottingham, 7:35 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zc57uJ-fPY
The Laxton Map (Bodleian Library, 5:01 min.):
https://youtu.be/aiaVvwrvJtA
Laxton documentary, 1975 (12:18 min.; watch 0:00-0:40; 3:00-4:18):
https://www.macearchive.org/films/laxton
Reconstruction of a Carolingian settlement at Koudekerk (Netherlands)
Countryside terms:
Serf (or villein)
Labor services
Slave
Free peasant
Village (Click for a photo of Midlem, a village in the Scottish Borders)
Manor (and another image)
Manse
Urban terms:
Town (click for a sketch plan of Norwich c. 1066)
Artisan (or craftsman/craftswoman)
Tradesman or tradeswoman
Merchant
Market (and another, from 1403)
Town and countryside terms:
Parish (click for an aerial photo of the destroyed parish church of Ashby, Norfolk, seen in crop marks)
Parish priest
Tithe (or decima)
Money:
£1 (libra, livre, lira, pound) = 20 s. (solidus, sou or sol, soldo, shilling) = 240 d. (denarius, denier, denaro, penny) (Click here to see a denier of Charlemagne, minted at Milan 793 x 812; and silver coin struck by hand)
12d. = 1s.
20s. = £1
240d. = 20s. = £1
Thursday:
DAILY WORK
Farming terms:
Field (click for a photo of the fields of the deserted medieval village of Little Oxendon, Northamptonshire)
Fallow (click for stylized plan of a manor, with arable fields, fallow, and pasture)
Meadow
Pasture
Demesne (or reserve)
2-field and 3-field crop rotation
- Cereals (“corn” in British English = “grain” in American English): wheat, rye, oats, barley
- Legumes: peas, beans, lentils
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Pastoral farming: cattle, sheep, goats
- Plow (see also this plowman from the Stuttgart Psalter, c. 820)
- Harrow
- Sow
- Prune (from Fécamp psalter, c. 1180)
- Mow
- Reap
- Thresh and winnow
- Mill (watermill, English, c. 1220-30)
Carolingian craft work included:
- Pottery excavated in a kiln
- Silver chalice from a princely tomb at Kolin
- Painted plaster and window glass from the royal palace at Paderborn
- Gold spurs and belt fittings from a magnate’s grave in Croatia
- Ivory comb showing Samson and the lion (Louvre)
- Jeweled brooch from Dorestad
- Weaving on a warp-weighted (vertical) loom
Seasonal labors included:
Winter months (from Carolingian “labors of the months,” c. 818, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek; Codex 387, fol. 90):
livestock slaughter, and meat-preservation
candle- and soap-making
wood-cutting
combing, spinning and weaving wool and flax (compare the Viking loom with the classical Greek loom)
making and mending tools and clothing
tending livestock and poultry
plowing, fertilizing, harrowing and sowing spring crops (barley, oats, peas, beans, lentils, flax)
(photo of sowing and harrowing flax seed in 2006 at the Weald and Downland Museum in Singleton, Sussex)
weeding and tending field crops
pruning and staking grapevines
caring for newborn animals
butter- and cheese-making
planting gardens
tending livestock and poultry
haymaking
shearing sheep; washing and sorting wool
picking fruits and berries
gardening
weeding and tending field crops
butter- and cheese-making
tending livestock and poultry
harvesting field crops
picking fruits, nuts, and berries
threshing and milling grain
harvesting flax in ancient Egypt and in Ireland in 1948 (pulling it up by the roots to preserve ends)
retting flax in a gently-moving stream or river
drying and dressing flax in Dorset
scutching flax (breaking to remove woody center; click here for view of modern re-enactor scutching flax)
hackling flax (combing to separate fine linen fibers from coarse tow fibers)
harvesting grapes and wine-making
butter- and cheese-making
plowing, fertilizing, harrowing, and sowing winter crops (wheat, rye)
gardening
drying herbs and vegetables
wood-cutting
tending livestock and poultry
