How did a farm work in Britain 400 years ago? That’s the key question behind a 12-part documentary series I produced and directed for the BBC.
As the start of a new agricultural year loomed in the fall of 2003, five specialists tried to turn back the clock to find out. They had to take over a remarkable farm on the Welsh border, restored to how it would have been in 1620, the reign of King James I. For the previous 17 years, a historical group had worked to restore the site: the farm and outbuildings . furnished with period materials, orchards planted with period fruit trees and planted with contemporary crop varieties. Now, a team of archaeologists and historians have taken on the challenge of running it for a full calendar year (each program follows one month), using only tools and materials available in the 17th century.
It was my job to film them trying to turn theory into practice. I knew from the beginning what I didn’t want to do, which was to do another reality series, where the concerns would be ‘could they survive without shampoo?’ What I did want to do were shows that would go as deep as possible into the social history of the time and spotlight the experts struggling with the technology of the time rather than each other.
Things didn’t just start. To plow the main field in September we brought a pair of English longhorn oxen, Arthur and Lancelot, from Yorkshire. They are one of the few working couples in the country. Although horses are much faster than oxen, they are more expensive to feed and maintain (they need horseshoes to begin with) and were not traditionally eaten in this country, so farm manuals of the time recommended against using them.
“If any surprise [injury] it comes to… an ox, and it grows old… then it is man’s food… the horse, when it dies, is nothing more than carrion. And therefore I think that, all things considered, the oxen plow is far more profitable than the horse plough.” The Book of Husbandry William Fitzherbert 1534
As far as possible we try to follow contemporary agricultural texts. They were a great starting point, but they often left out vital bits of information, probably considered obvious at the time. That’s where practice came in and history met reality. We built a replica of the plow according to the descriptions and illustrations of the time, but from the beginning the team had trouble making it work.
The ground was pretty hard and they couldn’t get the plow to bite, it just skimmed the surface. When they finally buried it, there was a loud crack as the plow buckled under the pressure. A few hasty repairs and they were back to work, finally producing their first glorious groove. It wasn’t long before they ran into further difficulties when stubble from the field got stuck between the cleaver (the sharp iron pin that cuts through the surface) and the ploughshare (the blade that splits the land). It was a preview of how the whole following year would turn out, an enthusiastic first try and then back to the drawing board. As he adjusted the blade and added more weight to the plow, his method seemed to click and the team’s faces broke into big smiles. Suddenly furrow upon furrow. They were clumsy, a little shallow in places, and slow in coming (since an acre is the amount of land a team of oxen should be able to plow in a day, they were way behind), but they felt successful.
Technique was perhaps the main slogan throughout the year. For most of the specialists, it was the first time they had had period tools in their hands. They had read about them and knew the theory, but putting them into practice was something else entirely, whether it was digging with one of the heavy wooden shovels, using a chest plow, or threshing grain with a flail. I can remember the magical moments when Stuart, Alex, Fonz, Ruth or Chloe stopped using brute force and let a tool do its job.
One of my favorites was when Peter ‘Fonz’ Ginn was trying to win the chaff from the wheat. He was using a replica winnowing basket, a bit like a large wicker plate raised on three sides. The idea is to spin the material and give it a blow, allowing any breeze to blow the light thatch away. Unfortunately, his pimple began to fly all over the yard. Only after hours of practice, and with sore arms, did he pull it off. His action became light and fluid and easy and his satisfaction was obvious.
Doing everything manually, without modern machinery, we all painfully realized how much time it took to complete just the most mundane tasks, whether it was sowing wheat by hand, plucking pigeons, or building a dry stone wall. Winnowing was just one of a long series of processes required to make bread, and when Fonz poured his now-clean grain into a sack, we realized that a farmer 400 years ago had to be a highly talented jack of all trades simply to survive.
It was not only the farmer who had to be versatile. I was surprised to learn the vital importance of the farmer’s wife. Theirs was an essential partnership. Without a wife, running a farm was nearly impossible. Records from the period show how a widowed farmer usually had another woman by his side within a very short time. It was a simple matter of time, work and economy. From managing the dairy, brewing the beer, and managing the essential vegetable garden, the stay-at-home mom was certainly not an idle lady. Being the farm doctor was another of her roles. Because professional medicine was so expensive, she maintained the health of the home with homemade ointments, pills, and concoctions made from herbs and plants from the garden.
And for you, Mr. Apothecary, alas! I don’t look once every seven years in your shop… but for myself, if I’m sick… I take a kitchen doctor; I make my wife my doctor and my garden my apothecary. Robert Greene, A Joke for an Upstart Broker 1592.
Of course, nothing was wasted on a 17th century farm. The waste product of one process became the fuel for another. The ashes from the fire were used to make lye, the period equivalent to Persil, a homemade washing up liquid for washing clothes. Any leftover feed went to the pigs, the perfect ‘green’ disposal unit. Animal waste like today was scattered on the fields, even human waste was reused. Human feces composted in a toilet was used as fertilizer, and urine from a house was stored to produce ammonia, an excellent stain remover for clothes. In fact, the urine was collected on a large scale; Chamber pots were placed outside pubs and the urine was used to make saltpeter, a vital ingredient in the manufacture of gunpowder, a flourishing industry at the time. At a time when ‘organic’ and ‘recycling’ are key environmental issues, it’s fascinating to step back and learn a few lessons from our past.
We filmed through torrential rains, snowstorms, and blazing sun, watching the farm change through the seasons. Away from our pampered urban lives, it became apparent just how much the farmer, then and now, is ruled by the elements. Not only in the short term, but year after year, from the plowing in September to the harvest in August, the farmer’s life is marked by the natural cycle. For a farmer in 1620, planning, ingenuity, and aptitude were essential to survival. Looking at the hard work of our experts, we wonder how long any modern person would survive if he found himself in this environment. Though the Valley team arrived from the fields sweating, bruised and exhausted, they felt an overwhelming sense of pride in what they had accomplished, a closeness to nature, and a very different degree of satisfaction from a job divorced from the land.