HIST 203 Lecture Outline (Fall 2022 – Week 10)

HIST 203
SYLLABUS
LECTURE OUTLINES

 

Week 10: Tuesday AND Thursday

EARLY MEDIEVAL SOCIETY

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.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20191218173903/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 a flail (Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 0:43 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsezK8tElAE

Threshing wheat in Nepal (3:11 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63L_dec9Yok

Winnowing with a basket (Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 0.54 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGUxnh2plq8

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

 

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)

Fair

 

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

 

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

Arable farming:
  • Cereals (“corn” in British English = “grain” in American English): wheat, rye, oats, barley
  • Legumes: peas, beans, lentils
Sowing seasons:

Pastoral farming: cattle, sheep, goats

Farming tools:
Farming activities:

Carolingian craft work included:

 

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 and a reconstructed 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 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

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 County Down, N. 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)

sun-bleaching linen cloth (bleaching fields, N. Ireland, 20th cent.)
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