Posted on 08/20/2005 9:03:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
For a year five experts ditched theory for practice, running a Welsh farm using 17th Century methods. What lessons for modern living did they learn?
The BBC series Tales from the Green Valley follows historians and archaeologists as they recreate farm life from the age of the Stuarts. They wear the clothes, eat the food and use the tools, skills and technology of the 1620s.
It was a time when daily life was a hard grind, intimately connected with the physical environment where routines were dictated by the weather and the seasons. A far cry from today's experience of the countryside, which for many involves a bracing walk ahead of a pub lunch.
While few would choose to live a 17th Century lifestyle, the participants found they picked up some valuable tips for modern life.
1. Know thy neighbours. Today it's possible to live alone, without knowing anyone within a 20-mile radius (the same goes for townies). That was simply not possible in the past - not only did the neighbours provide social contact, people shared labour, specialist skills and produce. "And women were judged on good neighbourliness," says historian Ruth Goodman. "If you were willing to help others - particularly during and after childbirth - then others would be more prepared to help you in times of need."
2. Share the load. It was nigh on impossible to run a 1620s farm single-handedly, and the family - either blood relatives, or a farmer, his wife and hired help - had to be multi-skilled. Labour, too, was often divided along gender lines, but at busy periods, such as harvest time, it was all hands on deck.
3. Fewer creature comforts have some benefits. No electricity meant once daylight faded, work stopped in favour of conversation, music-making and knitting. And no carpets meant fewer dust mites, which are linked to asthma and allergies. "They scattered herbs on the floor which released scent when trodden on - this drove out flies and other insects," says Ms Goodman.
4. Eat seasonally. Today it's because of "food miles" and the inferior quality of forced products. In the 1620s, it was because foods were only available at certain times of year - and not just fruit and veg. Mutton, for instance, was in abundance in spring, soon after shearing time. This was because a sheep's wool quality plunges after eight years - thus animals of that age were killed after their final fleece was removed.
5. Tasty food comes in small batches. Today farmers' markets are a tourist attraction and many delight in regional specialities. For these producers play to the strengths of their ingredients, unlike, for instance, the makers of mass-produced cheese. This has to taste the same year-round, despite seasonal variations in milk quality. "So high-quality milk in the spring is downgraded so the finished product is consistent throughout the year," says Ms Goodman.
6. Reuse and recycle. Today we throw away vast mountains of packaging, food, garden waste and other materials. In 1620s, there was a use for everything, with tattered bed linens made into fire-lighters and animal fat into soap. Even human waste had uses. Faeces was a fertiliser, and urine was stored to make ammonia to remove laundry stains.
7. Dress for practicalities. Today fashion and social convention dictate our wardrobes. While polar fleeces and high-performance tramping boots may be all the rage when going rural, the wardrobe of 400 years ago proved more comfortable. "While the crew shivered in their modern garb, we never felt the cold in just two layers - a linen shirt and woollen doublet," says archaeologist Alex Langlands. Breeches meant no wet and muddy trouser legs, and staying covered up - rather than stripping off in the heat - prevented bites, stings, sunburn and scratches.
8. Corsets, not bras. "By that I don't mean Victorian corseting," says Ms Goodman. "Corsets support your back as well as your chest, and don't leave red welts on your skin like bra elastic does. They made it hard to breath walking up hills, but I get short of breath doing that anyway. And most people feel sexy in a corset."
9. Biodiversity protects against unforeseen calamity. While the developed world no longer counts the cost of crop failure in starvation and mass migration - the result of Ireland's Great Potato Famine in 1845 - the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis decimated farms up and down the country as animals, the farmers' livelihoods, were put to death. The 1620s farm had grains, fruit and vegetables, and a range of animals - if one failed, alternatives were available.
9. Reliance on any one thing leaves you vulnerable. Hence the country ground to a halt during the petrol blockades of 2000, and a shortage of coal during 1978-9's Winter of Discontent caused electricity shortages. On the 1620s farm, when oxen used to plough fields fell ill, the implements were reshaped and horses did the job instead.
10. No pesticides means a richer variety of birds, butterflies and other insects, many of which feast on pests - a result as desirable for the gardener as the farmer. And the hedgerow and fields of wild flowers of the past are today making a comeback, as these provide habitats for these creatures and allow edible plants to flourish.
\Tales from the Green Valley will be broadcast weekly on BBC Two from Friday, 19 August, at 1930BST.
Interesting article. Thanks for the ping. Wish I could see the show, but we don't get BBC.
I've heard it sung in Welsh and it's beautiful. All in all, it is really one of THE best lullabies ever. It also really does put a baby to sleep quickly.
My favorite one was the BEEB's live in the late Victorian ages; though that family was terrible and the mother was a whinging shrew. The Edwardian one, was also pretty good. But most of the people who go on these shows, both British and American, are all horrible complainers. I always wonder WHY they do it.
The best of the US versions was the Plymouth Plantation one.
I loved the original captain who was from Texas. He and his family had to leave because of the death of his daughters boyfriend.
They made this real liberal the head of the plantation after that. The place really went to hell after that.
Well my family must be an anomaly ...I just check my family genealogy I have going back to arrival in Plymouth Col in 1635
Father lived to 70,
Grand Father lived to 87,
2GF 81,
3GF 63,
4GF 77,
5GF 73,
6GF 86,
7GF 78,
8GF 76
In the early 17th century, eucalyptus was unknown to Culpepper, whose HERBAL, is the best known book of that time dealing with herbs and their uses. Lavender was used as both as medicine and cleaner but not for a flea repellent. Fleabane was used as a flea repellent.
If you don't mind figures from 40 years hence, I can give you the life expectancy of someone born in 1660...it was 35. That's because so many people died from disease, childbirth, and accidents. Those who escaped all that, could expect to live into their early 60s.
Yes, to all of that. :-)
I told you to read the article, wherein it talks about "scattered ( which does NOT mean that herbs were thrown about but here and there sparsely! ) herbs" being in the floor, ergo, the floors were NOT bare. And as a matter of fact, in 1620, in middle to low class homes, wood floors would have been a LUXURY! Most probably, floors would be made out of stone or dirt.
And BTW, TAadams went to bat for you against me, when two other posters had already told you that you were wrong, that fleas can and do live in wooden floors. So why didn't she go after the others...hmmmmmmmm? Because she ALWAYS goes after me and is ALWAYS damned dead wrong in her smarmy, incorrect stabs at refutations and putting me down.
Anyone who has done even the smallest amount of readings about this time period knows what I do about what was on floors. Try sticking to what is said in thread articles and then not lying, when called on your posts. ;^)
Nope -- they were there. They appeared to be rare because of (1) inability to diagnose -- e.g. cancers that did not erupt externally. Breast cancer was one of the ones that got picked up because it tended to erupt from the lymph nodes under the armpit. Lady Anne Hyde (mother of Queen Mary II and Queen Anne) died of it; and (2) other things, especially epidemic infections, tended to get you first.
(I read a lot of history in college, and medical history has always been a hobby of mine. Although diagnosing people when they're sitting in front of you is hard enough, let alone when they've been dead a few hundred years.)
Ring around a rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down.Actually, I believe that that is an urban legend.Accding to herblore I have read, the rings and rosies were the symptoms of bubonic plague (black death), and the posies were the herbs people packed in their clothing to ward off the plague (turns out, fleas). Ashes were part of quicklime preps to scatter over the contagious corpses. We all fall down...and die.
Man...I have an urge to go visit Berkeley>>>
"9. Biodiversity protects against unforeseen calamity. While the developed world no longer counts the cost of crop failure in starvation and mass migration - the result of Ireland's Great Potato Famine in 1845 "
Sorry ... but the English lords took and sold all the other diverse products from these farms and left only the potato for the people to survive.
But the herb was used in religious ritual, so I'm inclined to credit the nursery rhyme to a certain extent. Several nursery rhymes have odd histories.
Rue means "regret"--it was also the most effective flea repellant of the renaissance, which means it really wasn't that effective. Nicotiana was used from the New World as an effective mothball additive to linen closets, however.
I was asking for now but thanks for the HERBAL lead....I'll try to find it, sounds very interesting as is this historical (sometimes hysterical)thread.
grandma mac
If you'd like info herbals written today and what they have to say about eucalyptus and lavender uses today, I'll have a look see and get back to you. :-)
Hooray for her Irish part!
You have to like that she grew up in a town called Mumbles, though.
I'd be very interested in what you know about lavendar, especially. It is so plentiful here--we have fields and farms that look like the sound, they are so blue & full of lavendar!
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