Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Sellin, and today's lesson is our last one on mediaeval peasants and the sources that we use to discover more about their lives.

As always, and I think you know the drill by now, you'll need a pen and something to write on, you need to make sure that your phone is on silent and there's no other distractions nearby, and you'll need to get the title down correctly, it's, which sources reveal the most about mediaeval peasants? And as always, skip back to the start of the video if you need to check the spelling of anything.

And today you're going to do some excellent writing and it's going to be excellent because you've thought a lot about the issue so far, and therefore you're going to write one about it.

So without further ado, let's begin.

And we're going to start, as always, with our favourite peasants.

Here they are, our bird watcher, our pasta stirrers, I think I really should, by the end of this lesson, know what it is.

I think, having done a bit of research, that these guys are using a hoe, which is a long farming implement used to help with the crops, but you can tell I don't really know much more than that, and that's okay in history, sometimes we have questions which we'll never find the answers to.

And for many years, that's sort of the attitude that people took with mediaeval peasants, we don't know much about them.

They didn't write anything down, most of them couldn't read or write, but it's 85% of the country that we're talking about, these peasants made up a huge part of England for hundreds of years, and so it's important that we investigate the different sources that we can use to learn more about their lives.

And that's exactly what we've been doing.

We've looked at Domesday Book, we've looked at the Luttrell Psalter, and we've looked at material culture, three totally different types of sources, all saying similar things but with their own strengths and their own limitations, and we can use them constructively and together to find out the most we can about mediaeval peasants.

But before we go any further, I'm just going to give you a quick test on Domesday Book, the Luttrell Psalter and material culture so you can remind yourself of precisely what these things were.

The definition is on the right, but of course they're jumbled up, so I'd like you to take the name on the left and then find the correct definition on the right.

Pause the video and work that out now.

Fantastic.

The answers that you should have got are these.

Domesday Book provides an overview of the whole country, revealing how common villages were, the Luttrell Psalter is illustrations that give us an insight into how the mediaeval world looked, and material culture is the collective name we give for objects from the past that reveal the daily experiences of peasants.

It would be really useful to pause the video again, if you haven't already, and write these definitions down, definition on the right and the name of the source on the left.

The extended piece of writing that you're going to work on later in this lesson is all about the different questions that we can ask when we investigate mediaeval peasants, and therefore the different types of sources that work best to provide evidence to answer those questions.

Therefore, the different types of sources and the things that they can teach us is really important.

And before we get on to the writing, there's one last source that we're going to have a look at.

This is a map of a mediaeval manor.

Now, a little secret, it's actually a fictional map, it's been designed by a modern artist and he's imagined what a mediaeval manor could have looked like.

This is, because the drawing is clearer than anything we have from the time, and I wanted to use this one so we can really look at how complicated it is.

I mean, just look at it, the intricate details in this map, all those little lines, different coloured lines, they represent different strips of land.

You'll see that the vast majority of this map is farmland and the different colours refer to who owns it.

Some land is common land owned by all the peasants and some land is the lord's land, owned, of course, by the lord.

This picture isn't actually the source, it's just a demonstration, a reminder of what a mediaeval manor would look like, and remember when I say manor, that's the land that works around a manor house where a lord lives, and villages were often manors or had several manors within a large village.

You can see that it's complicated, as we've said, you can see that there's different ownership in this map, but what we can also see is that it's not very straight and it's not very regular, it's a bit of a higgledy-piggledy mess of things, and that's just because as the manor or the village has grown, the land ownership has grown with it, and it has stretched out organically across the landscape.

This means that keeping track of who owns what, who works what, and who is responsible for what was a complicated task, and it didn't fall just on the lord to have to complete all of that and keep up with all of that.

Instead, the peasants would often run their own court, this is known as a manorial court, but it could also just be a village court and there were various other names the peasants would give it.

The peasants would work out who was responsible for what bit of land, they'd keep track on who had done what in what year, who worked, which part of what year and who worked on what part of what land in what year and what part of what year, because these things did also change quite rapidly.

As you can imagine, the peasant courts gained quite a lot of specialist knowledge over the years.

They were experts at their local land, and they were often quite good at knowing how the law worked, understanding complicated landlords, about ownership and about work.

Court records, which are the records of what is discussed in these meetings and what decisions the peasants came to, also demonstrate a really good side of peasant behaviour, and when I say a good side, I mean for historians, I mean an interesting side, that's why it's good for us.

Well, sometimes it was good for the peasants because it was all about who owned what bit of land and who could work what bit of land, and sometimes it was bad for the peasants because it demonstrated that the peasants were not acting in the best of ways.

Some of these court records show criminal behaviour, and it's a really interesting insight, a view into the world of what it meant to be a peasant in mediaeval England.

We're going to look at one particular record today, the court records of Walsham-le-Willows, a village in the east of England.

Now I'm pretty sure you can all work out that this is a modern photograph, but it has existed as a village for hundreds of years, and Walsham-le-Willows, or Walsham as it's sometimes known, is a really interesting mediaeval village.

It had about 1,000 people in it, which is actually really quite large for a mediaeval village, so there's lots of variety, there's lots of activity going on for us to study.

There were also, rather unusually, two manor houses rather than just the usual one, and this meant that there were two lords, two sets of different laws recorded about who owned what part of land in what manor, and therefore the land that was divided between the common and the lord's land was even more complicated.

Walsham also has particularly detailed records, partly because it was a large village and there was lots going on, but also because there were a few key people who wanted to write, in great detail, what was happening in the Walsham.

Father John in the local church, for example, he was one of the men who wrote down a lot about what was happening in the village.

Now Walsham-le-Willows has been a really interesting village to study for various reasons that we've discussed already, but its court records give us a really good look at mediaeval life.

And one historian, Susan Kilby, published an article a few years ago, which is almost like a small book, it's where historians publish their ideas and their findings, she published an article which was the result of her research into the court records, and here are some of the claims that she came up with about how the peasants lived in Walsham.

She claimed that peasants often ignored rules about land ownership and trespassed, there were lots of different notes that she saw in the records where peasants had walked into land that wasn't their own, trespass is when you enter the land that you shouldn't be in, where it's against the local laws to do so, and this was quite common, this was a common crime recorded in the Walsham records.

It was also difficult to know why they trespassed, and this is where Kilby is quite honest in what she says, she says, we know that they did a lot of trespassing but we're not entirely sure why.

Now this could sound a bit frustrating because we don't know the answer, but there's potential here.

Maybe it's accidental, maybe they didn't really know which or where the boundaries precisely lay, maybe it was sometimes forgotten or it changed, or maybe they didn't even realise that they shouldn't be going there because no one really bothered to check and then, "Oh, has he walked over that line?" and "Okay, let's write it down".

Or maybe it was deliberate, maybe there was a deliberate sense of, "Oh, it's a long walk to the village centre, should we just cut through that land?", "Yeah, just take a shortcut", and you might think that's not too bad.

Or maybe it was deliberate of, "Well, we have a right to walk here, we're peasants, we work the land, the lord's over there in his manor house, fine, we're going to walk over his land if I say well please, da da, da da, da da, da da", I mean, we don't know, do we? But it's recorded as trespass whether it's accidental or whether it is deliberate.

Kilby also suggested that it might be a sort of toll system, a toll is money that you pay as permission to enter somewhere, normally nowadays we see it on motorways, especially in Europe, in places like France you have a toll road where you pay money to drive on it.

Peasants would occasionally have toll roads, they could also have a toll field and that the lord was happy for the peasants to trespass so he could fine them, and the peasants were happy to trespass because it meant that they got to the market square or wherever quicker, and they just paid their fine as some sort of almost ticket, again, we don't know for sure.

Kilby has also suggested that there is a range of different perspectives, and what she meant by that is that not all peasants followed the rules in the same way, some broke more rules than others, some never turn up in the records at all and seem to have lived absolutely angelic lives, we shouldn't think that all the peasants are exactly the same.

And it's one peasant in particular that I really want to look at.

Now, this guy here you may recognise, I've taken this picture from our bird watcher earlier, I mean, he's the guy who stood around in the field, and he's not from Walsham, again, we don't have pictures of the peasants from Walsham, they were too busy writing them down rather than drawing them, I think.

But I imagine that this person here, if he'd stood in the field any longer, bird watching any longer, he probably would have been recorded in the local rolls for standing in the field not doing any work and watching the birds go by.

But to be honest, this guy's crime of bird watching would absolutely pale in comparison to the crimes of Peter Robhood.

The name Robhood is almost certainly not his real surname, he was probably given the name Robhood as a nickname after Robin Hood, the person famous for committing all the crimes to help the poor, but it appears Peter Robhood was not helping the poor, and the only person he was helping was himself.

Now, before we go any further, I am treating Robhood with this sort of lighthearted nature, and he hasn't committed anything really serious, he's not some horrible murderer or anything like that, and so I think it's almost quite fun to have a bit of a laugh about what Robhood did because he just sounds like the most annoying neighbour that anyone has ever imagined.

27 different times his name has come up in the records as committing some sort of antisocial disturbance, whether it was trespassing on land that he shouldn't be in, whether it's poaching someone else's rabbits or someone else's geese or some other sort of animal that he's helping himself to.

There's also some various points where he's been accused of setting alight to some crops in the fields because he's fallen out with his neighbours and he's gone, "I'm going to go and set fire to your corn", and, you know, all this sort of petty stuff.

There was this scandal with the Typetot family where Robhood made it very, very clear, and he used the law quite cleverly here to say that "I should have the right over this land", the owner of the land had previously died and he said, "Well, I've got a closer connection to it, I've got a greater responsibility over it, I will make sure that land is mine and I will farm it properly" and the Typetot family, who were actually more closely related to the person who had died, said, "No, well we'd rather not, we'd like that land, it's special to us, it's dear to us and we think it should stay in the family", and Robhood said, "No, it should be mine and I'm entitled to it and I will look after it and I will make sure I'm doing it properly" and the Typetots argued back and it went to court and eventually Robhood won and out of spite, out of anger, he said, "Well, if you clearly didn't want me to work it, I won't work it" and he left it.

He still owned it, but he left it, and it got overgrown and ruined, and it annoyed the rest of the villagers, and they took him to court again and again and again and they fined him again and again and again and he still refused to do anything about it.

He was a stubborn man, Peter Robhood, and quite an annoying neighbour by the sounds of things.

Why is this important though? Why does the story of Robhood, one man in one village, tell us about mediaeval peasants across the entire country? Well of course, it doesn't, Robhood is unique, Robhood is exceptional, he's famous because he was such an annoying neighbour, but he does provide a reminder of a few key things for us to take forward.

Firstly, let's not think that all the peasants were the same, I think that's really obvious by now, the peasants were rich, they were poor, comparatively speaking.

Some of them were better behaved, some of them were worse behaved, they were different, they were people, they had interesting and diverse lives.

We also shouldn't assume that the peasants were passive.

They didn't just happily accept their place in life, never argue, never grumble, never try and fight back.

They were human, they were active, they wanted to have change in their lives when that was appropriate, they wanted to make sure that they were heard, they wanted to make sure that they lived their lives, like I say, there were people after all.

And also don't forget the precise knowledge that many of them developed.

I think one of my saddest things I ever hear people say is when they think that mediaeval peasants were stupid, that mediaeval peasants weren't very clever or they didn't know about the world.

Okay, they perhaps didn't know the science and the medicine and other things that we do nowadays, but they were cunning, they were clever, they were able to work things out.

They had their own precise local knowledge about farming, about land laws, about the church, they knew quite a lot about their world.

And so when we look at the sources that reveal the most about mediaeval peasants, we've got a lot to choose from and we've got a lot of peasants to study.

And we're going to pause the video in a moment and you're going to go and do some reading and some writing, but it's quite a quick exercise, and it's a quick exercise because I want you to come back, because it's not the main piece of writing we're doing.

When we come back, you're going to be ready to write some detailed paragraphs about the peasants in order to answer this question along the bottom of the screen, which sources reveal the most about mediaeval peasants? So therefore I'd like you to pause the video, read the slides on the next page and answer the comprehension questions, and then, as always, please do come back.

The reading and writing task that you've just completed is all about matching the correct statement to the correct source, and we're going to go over the answers now.

For Domesday Book, you should have got C, an excellent overview of rural life in England, but lacking precise information about women and daily life for peasants.

For 2, Luttrell Psalter, you should have got B, an excellent insight into peasants' jobs, but with no guarantees that the illustrations are fully accurate.

You might remember the monkey driving the waggon, for example.

For number 3, material culture, you should have got D, an excellent insight into what objects and buildings were used, but with a bit of guesswork needed to piece together the discoveries.

You might remember the story of the bucket that they thought was a crown and turned out to be a bucket, there's a bit of guesswork involved.

And of course, for 4, court records, you should have got A, an excellent insight into how peasants were punished, but lacking explanation of why these crimes were committed.

Why ultimately did the peasants trespass in Walsham, was it accidental, was it a sort of toll system, or were they deliberately marching through bits that they shouldn't be, we won't know.

So with these answers written in our book, and they're also at our fingertips, we're now really expert at knowing what the different types of mediaeval sources are and what they can be useful for.

Domesday Book, Luttrell Psalter, material culture, court records, you know these well, and I'd like you to imagine that somebody was coming to you for advice on which sources they should use for investigating our mediaeval peasants.

Because here's the problem with our big inquiry question, which sources reveal the most about mediaeval peasants? There isn't one source which reveals the most, we know there's no perfect source, and it also depends on what you're trying to find out.

If you want to know about the whole of England, Domesday Book is probably going to be better than a court record from a local village.

And this is where the writing takes place, because I'd like you to imagine that someone has said, "I'm interested in investigating the different types of peasant houses across England!".

I don't want you to worry about answering that right now or writing anything down because I'm going to give an example paragraph.

This is what I would say to this person who wants to investigate different types of peasant houses across England, I'd say something like this.

In order to investigate the different types of peasant houses across England, I would recommend using Domesday Book and a few examples of material culture.

Domesday Book would be an excellent start, because it would give you an accurate sense of where different types of villages were.

For example, Domesday reveals that villages were all over England, but that lots in the North and near Hastings were waste, which means destroyed by an army.

Once you have a few different villages to investigate, an archaeological study to look at material culture would help.

For example, you could look for pottery fragments in the homes, because richer houses would sometimes have pottery from all over England, whereas poorer houses had local examples.

This would be a very detailed and a really good paragraph, and there are a few things that I'd like to point out.

Firstly, it's really focused on the question, and the way I made sure it was focused on the question is by taking the words from the question, I'm interested in investigating the different types of peasant houses across England, in order to investigate the different types of peasant houses across England, that's a good start.

It's also very clear early on what I would recommend, and I've just used the sentence to start, I would recommend using, and then given Domesday Book and a few examples of material culture.

Remember, historians very rarely use one source, they combine, it's called corroborating when you check multiple sources to see if they've got similar information.

But rather than just stating which sources I'd recommend, I've explained why, because Domesday Book would be an excellent start because it would give you an accurate sense of where different types of villages were.

I've then been really precise, and this is where I had to go back to our first lesson on Domesday Book and try and find a specific fact about Domesday and what it contains to help my writing look richer.

For example, Domesday reveals that villages were all over England, but that lots in the North and near Hastings were waste, which means destroyed by an army.

You can see I've followed the same model here for material culture.

Once you've got a few villages to investigate, an archaeological study to look at the material culture would help.

For example, you could look for pottery fragments in the homes, because richer houses would sometimes have pottery from all over England, whereas poorer houses had local examples.

What we've got there is a focus on the question, a clear source, in fact, multiple sources that are mentioned, explanation of why are they useful, and a really precise example to really help that explanation look as convincing as possible.

And this is the model that you're going to use for some paragraphs of your own.

Here are three statements that are quite similar to that first one.

"I'm interested in understanding the lives of mediaeval peasant women!", "I'm interested in what mediaeval peasants thought about their surroundings and possessions!", and, "I'm interested in comparing different villages across England, examining how similar or different their lives were!".

I'd like you to choose at least one of these statements that you're going to write a similar type of paragraph about, or if you'd like to, even more than one paragraph.

And it's also worth saying that I'd rather that you write one very detailed response to one of the statements, rather than try and rush through all three and don't really do a good job of any of them.

I've put some sentence starters down here that you can use if you'd like to, and remember, we've just talked about why I think they're quite good, in order to investigate, I would recommend using, this would be an excellent source because, for example, you can use them in that order, you can change it up a bit, you can write your paragraph or your series of paragraphs in a different way, it's about you providing an answer.

Crucially, you will probably want to plan what you're writing, and it might mean going back to previous lessons to work out, what's the best fact I can use here? How can I make my argument as convincing as possible? And if you'd love to spend half an hour writing several pages on it, brilliant.

I'm about to tell you to pause the video so you can have time to write your own, but before you do that, just be aware that I do actually have examples of answers to all three of these that I've written myself, which we'll go through once you've written yours, okay? So pause the video, spend a decent amount of time writing your responses to these inquiries, and enjoy it, it's your chance to show off what you know.

If you haven't already, pause the video now and get writing.

Fantastic.

I'm sure what you've written is excellent, and I'll just go through an example of what I've done.

Remember, it will probably look quite different to what you've done because we would've recommended slightly different things or given a different example, that's absolutely fine, it's just a check.

So, "I'm interested in understanding the lives of mediaeval peasant women!".

What I've said is, in order to investigate the lives of mediaeval women, I'd recommend studying the Luttrell Psalter and perhaps some court records.

The Psalter showed, through its illustrations, that women's work and leisure was varied.

Sometimes they worked with other women, like when spinning took place, while during harvest they worked with the men in the fields.

Court records might also provide information, if peasant women were found guilty of any particular crimes.

For example, lots of peasants were often accused of trespassing on the lord's land, and if a record stated that lots of women were found guilty of trespassing in a particular area, it could reveal more about their daily routines.

That's what I said, you might have said something different, something similar, let's move on.

"I'm interested in what mediaeval peasants thought about their surroundings and possessions!".

This is what I've said.

In order to investigate what peasants thought about their surroundings, I'd recommend studying material culture.

If archaeological remains showed that peasants took care in keeping their houses free from rubbish, perhaps by showing that there was a large rubbish heap nearby, this would suggests peasants took pride in the appearance of their houses.

Furthermore, doom paintings might demonstrate the constant presence of the Church's teaching in peasants' lives, and finding large collections of pilgrim badges might suggest that peasants listened carefully and followed religious teaching.

And the last one, "I'm interested in comparing different villages across England, examining how similar or different their lives were!".

This is what I've said.

In order to investigate different villages across England, I would recommend starting with Domesday Book.

This record lists over 13,000 different settlements, which would allow you to know where they were and how spread out they were.

Furthermore, Domesday recorded the size of each settlement, and you could see if people were evenly distributed across England, or if there were more popular parts of the country.

If possible, you could also compare different court records from different villages, to see if criminal activity and family arguments were similar or different.

You could also do the same with material culture, some villages would be richer and have larger houses with locks and decorative ornaments, whereas others would be poorer and simpler.

Those are my three examples.

You've written at least one of your own and I'm sure it's excellent.

And that's us done, which sources reveal the most about mediaeval peasants? None of them, but all of them, they're all useful.

Well done.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about the mediaeval peasants and the sources that we can use to learn more about their lives.

Remember as well that history didn't first come from a textbook or from what a teacher has said.

History survives in the sources that the past provides, the sources that historians study, research, analyse, translate, all of those help us investigate the past, and that's what I think makes history so interesting.

But also, the peasants themselves are interesting.

They had varied lives, they were certainly not stupid, they weren't angelic, they were quite fun, and sometimes they sat around bird watching.

So well done, thank you very much, I'm Mr. Sellin, farewell.