HIST 203 Lecture Outline (Fall 2015 – Week 14)

Week 14: DAILY LIFE; HARDSHIPS

Tuesday

Videos:

Plowing with oxen at Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts, 2009 (1:24 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuytRXRfyeI

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

Readings:

Riché, pp.47-56, 61-3 (demography, sex, and marriage), 159-77 (housing, clothing, hygiene, food)

Tripartite society (“the three orders”):

Those who fought (aristocracy)
Those who prayed (clergy)
Those who worked (peasants and artisans)

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
Spring months:	plowing, fertilizing, harrowing and sowing spring crops (barley, oats, peas, beans, lentils, flax) (photo of sowing and harrowing flax seed nin 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
Summer months:	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
Autumn months:	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 line 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

Walafrid Strabo (“squinty”), scholar, poet, and gardener, tutor to Charles the Bald, and abbot of Reichenau (d. 849), wrote a poem describing his garden; click here for a plan of his garden (in Latin and French)

Artisanal crafts included:

Metalwork: Carolingian sword; Viking sword hilt (from Hedeby boat burial, 9th cent.);
- front cover and back cover of Lindau Gospels (c. 870; J. P. Morgan Library, New York City)
Building construction: Carolingian gatehouse at Lorsch, and a detail of the construction; carved wooden church portal (Norway, 11th cent.)
Textile production: remains of tools and textile fragments and from the Oseberg ship burial of a Viking queen, 9th cent.;
- reconstruction of a Viking loom

Demographic factors included:

Famine
Malnutrition
Pestilence
Abortion and infanticide
Contraception (illegal) and sexual abstinence (required on many holy days)
- (click here for Prof. James Brundage’s flow-chart on when it was licit to have sex, based on early-medieval penitential manuals)

Important primary source on early medieval sexuality:

Penitentials

Marriage requirements:

Betrothal
Dower
No consanguinity between spouses (click here for a table of consanguinity from the late 1100’s, and a modern table in English)
Public nuptials
Morgengab (“morning-gift”)

Furnishings included:

Beds
Benches
Stools
Chairs
Chests
Cradles
Tables
Wooden and pottery dishes
Pottery and metal cookware
Cushions, curtains and wall-hangings
Pottery oil lamps (especially in S. Europe) or torches and tallow candles (especially in N. Europe)
Miscellaneous tools and utensils (wood, stone, horn, metal, bone, etc.)

Male clothing:

Linen shirt and drawers, leggings or stockings, shoes, short belted tunic, trousers, mantle

Female clothing:

Linen shift (chemise, smock), stockings, shoes, long belted tunic, veil (if married), mantle

Some examples of clothing:

Monks presenting bible to Charles the Bald (“Vivian Bible,” Tours, 846)
Man, woman, and two fighters (English, 10th cent.?)
Warrior (English, 10th cent.?)
“Patience,” from the Psychomachia of Prudentius (English, late 10th cent.)
Adam and Eve (English, c. 1000)
King Cnut and Queen Emma of England (Winchester, 1031)
Two women and a man, Biblical scene (English, 11th cent.)
Farmers digging and sowing seed (English, 11th cent.)

Health practices included:

Baths (click here to see a strigil), bleeding (phlebotomy and leeches), medicinal herbs, laxatives, emetics, diet, charms

Food and drink included:

Bread, porridge, gruel
Meat, poultry, fish
Eggs, butter, cheese, milk, cream
Legumes (beans, peas, lentils)
Root vegetables (leeks, onions, parsnips)
Fruits and nuts
Wine, ale, mead, cider

Thursday:

Videos:

Sheep-shearing with hand clippers (5:00 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L62EmEsacEY

Spinning wool into yarn with a drop spindle (Tibet, 1:03 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUodkNJ4lqI

Spinning wool into yarn with a distaff and spindle (Romania, 0.30 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShSIOF0o5js

Weaving on a warp-weighted (vertical) loom, from the beginning of Utlaginn (Gisli the Outlaw: 1:40:29 min.; view 3:09-4:56 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AlJZuywXo

Readings:

Riché, pp. 24-8 (landscape), 76-81 (war), 249-54 (hardships)

Aelfric, Colloquy (“On Laborers”), c. AD 1000
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1000workers.asp

Topics:

Forests and wild spaces dominated the landscape

Forest animals were game to aristocrats, but dangerous to others

Weather extremes (hot, cold, wet, dry) represented dangers and difficulties, e.g.:

damaged or destroyed the harvest
caused floods
made roads, fords, and bridges unusable

Warfare was constant; the victors looted, destroyed, massacred, and enslaved unrestrainedly

All free laymen (after 807, holders of c. 80 acres or more) were liable to army service each summer

Epidemics and plagues ravaged human and livestock populations

Beggars — many disabled, invalid, or elderly — were ubiquitous

Brigands infested the roads and were often protected by powerful landowners

Physical brutality was common (see, e.g., lists of mutilations covered by Germanic laws)

Important primary source on daily work:

Aelfric, Colloquy (“On Laborers”), c. AD 1000 (Aelfric, a monk, wrote this as a dialogue for teaching Latin.
Click here to see part of a manuscript of Aelfric’s Latin grammar. British Library, Harley MS 107, fol. 63r, English, c. 1025-75.)
Click here to see a drawing of a medieval wheeled plow and a reconstruction of a Roman plow