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It wasn't all work...... they got to "play" too ~
Quiet spells of lonely toil were enlivened by neighbourly gatherings at sheep shearing, hay saving, harvest, and the gathering of livestock from the commons. There was a holiday atmosphere at such times and work goes lightly and happily with sky-larking amongst the young men and maidens. There was also wrestling, races, both on foot and ponyback, cock fighting, hunting, bowling and keels - a form of nine-pins, with the pins set square instead of diagonally. Music was a serious communal concern, bell-ringing, the choir, and the village orchestra led hymns and songs. Folk tales of the district were recounted by the fireside and handed down from generation to generation.
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OK you men................ here's your list!
The farmer or husbandman of that time -
"He rises at four in the morning, feeds his cattle and mucks them out, he gets the tackle for the day ready and then has breakfast. From 7 a.m. till 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon he does his "journey" or days work with his oxen in the field. After stabling, feeding and grooming them, he has his dinner and then prepares their food for the next day (this would probably mean, threshing some sheaves to provide straw for the oxen and corn for the house, or possibly bruising a few oats or some furze). Then supper at six followed an evening by the fireside with the rest of the family, mending shoes or preparing rushes for rush lights or some other duty. He may pound his apples for cider or grind malt for beer. At 8 o’clock he takes his lantern to see the cattle once more, and then goes with all his household to rest".
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No wonder he mentions 'Servants' !
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Ask yourself how many of these skills you have acquired.
We think we are clever now but we would not survive without our modern machinery.
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Well, that's what I expect my wife to do!
Honestly, modern women!!
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I hope Fitzherbert is puce with rage, looking down on us 'modern' women..
Or up, as the case may be...... ;-) ;-) ;-)
Twat !!
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Fitzherbert in his "Boke of Husbandry" 1523 describes the work a country housewife should do:
"First sweep thy house, dress up thy dishboard, and set all things in good order within they house: milk thy kine, suckle thy calves, sye up (strain) thy milk, take up thy children and array them, and provide for thy husband’s breakfast, dinner, supper, and for thy children and servants, and take thy part with them. Ordain corn and malt to the mill, to bake and brew withall when need is, and meete it to the mill (measure out what you send to the mill), and from the mill, and see that thou have thy measure again beside the tolle (the proportion the Miller kept as payment). Thou must make butter and cheese when thou mayest, serve thy swine both morning and evening, and give thy poleyn meat (feed your fowls) and when time of the year cometh, thou must take heed how thy hens, ducks and geese do lay, and to gather up their eggs, and when they wax broody, to settle them where no beasts, swine, nor vermin, hurt them. And thou must know that all whole footed fowls will (ducks) sit a month and all cloven-footed fowls will sit but three weeks. And when they have brought forth their birds, to see that they be well kept from the gleyd (kite), crows, fullymartes (polecats) and other vermin. And in the beginning of March, or a little time before, is time for a wife to make her garden, and to get as many good seeds and herbs as she can, and specially such as be good for the pot, and to eat, and as often as need shall require, it must be weeded."
In addition to this she was expected to spin and weave, make clothes and blankets, winnow the corn and help make hay, shear the corn and if her husband needed her help to fill the muck waine or dung cart and also ride to market to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, capons, hens, pigs and geese. She was, however, advised "sometimes thou shalt have so many things to do, that thou shalt not know well where is best to begin - so do that first that she will lose most by not doing".
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