Video 1: What Was Life Like in the Middle Ages?
● 500-1500 CE
● Two distinct classes during the middle ages.
○ Lower Class
○ Nobility
● Lower class were self-sufficient
○ Could feed their families even if there were severe restrictions.
Food
● Food in the middle ages came from farms and although hunting was still prevalent, it
became a sport.
○ This sport was only for the Upper-Class to enjoy.
● Main foods: Bread, fruits, porridge, and vegetables.
● Chicken, cows, and sheep were more valuable
○ They were able to provide different goods for example: milk for cheese, eggs,and
wool for clothing.
● Farmers grew wheat, barley, and vegetables like leeks, onions, peas, carrots, turnips, and
parsnips.
● Dill, thyme, and coriander were grown as well (spices)
● Affluent households had access to ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and salt.
● Salt was an indicator of wealth
○ Important people would sit “above the salt”
Beer
● Beer wasn’t as alcoholic as it is now.
● Main reason for consuming this beer is for the caloric content
○ Energy for jobs
● Beer then had a texture of porridge
● They drank it as a supplement to their diet than as a social thing
Professions
● People were self-sufficient.
● Many people were farmers, farming their lord’s land to maintain their own patch of land
from where they supported their families.
● Some specialists would sell their services or wares (pottery)
● Most medieval professions were reflected in people’s surnames.
● After 1066, Normans introduced surnames to England.
○ Surnames could be changed at will but later they stuck.
■ Ex: Smith; descendant of medieval blacksmiths.
■ Ex: Fletcher; descendant of fletchers, people who made the feathers that
steadied the arrow in flight.
● Thatchers constructed thatch roofs
● Butchers cut animals up for meat
● Masons worked with stone
● Weavers worked on looms or made baskets
● Wrights made wheels
● Tanners made leather
● Children as young as 11 were considered adults.
○ Many took up the profession of their parents by helping out in the family
business.
● Education was reserved for the nobility and the clergy.
● Most people didn’t have the need to read or write.
● Girls were excluded from formal education
● 1322: Elizabeth de Clare took an interest in schooling and education
○ She thought that education should be available to the lower classes and paid for
many people who lived in her villages to go to school.
Entertainment
● Festivals, fairs, and carnivals
○ Related to the seasons
● Storytelling
● Singing
● Music
● Dancing
● Wandering storytellers and troubadours would travel the country entertaining the rich and
the poor alike w/ tales and instruments.
○ Drums, Harps, bagpipes, and fiddles
■ Most complex: Hurdy-gurdy
● Games were also prevalent pastimes
● Chess was for the nobility
● Cards, dice and animal racing were more common.
● Sports and athletic events occurred during festivals.
○ Archery, hammer throwing, and jousting
■ Some areas had an early form of soccer.
● King Edward II outlawed soccer in 1314 as he felt it wasted the valuable energy of his
soldiers.
Fashion
● Fabric was a labor-intensive commodity back in the Middle Ages
● Outer garments were made out of woll, while undergarments were spun from flax fibers.
● Task to spin clothes were mainly given to women, particularly unmarried women
○ Referred to as spinsters.
● Weaving was seen as a man’s work
● Dye was a big commodity in the Middle Ages.
○ Purple dye was highly sought after for religious garments.
Travel
● You could travel as far as your status would allow you
● Serfs or villeins (tenant farmers): could not travel or marry without the express
permission of their lord.
● Traveling alone was not a safe thing
○ Maps were not used for navigation, and most people used the old Roman roads to
get around
○ Bandits would frequently stalk the roads and hope to get an unprotected wealthy
person.
● As a poorer person, you would have the opportunity to travel the country, if the lord
would call you to serve in the army.
○ Not an enjoyable experience.
● Nobles and clergy were free to travel where they wished
○ Best way to travel in the medieval times was to be a merchant of work on a
merchant ship.
■ This meant buying and trading goods.
● As most villages were self-sufficient, traded goods were usually exotic spices, wines,
jewelry, fine cloth, and other luxury items.
Castle Life
● The castle would host the family of the lord, soldiers, servants, cooks, gardeners,
treasurers, and entertainers.
● Usually castle owners would own more than one castle.
○ Traveled between them at their leisure
● Life in a castle was cramped, cold and lacking privacy.
○ Communal toilets
■ Only the lord and the lady would enjoy private chambers.
● Castles were fortresses made of stone w/ tiny slit windows and were still extremely cold
and dark in summer
● Invention of the fireplace w/ chimney in the 11th or 12th century did a lot to make life in
a castle more bearable.
● Moats were used for defensive purposes and were essentially pools of stagnant water.
● Life expectancy was ~35 years if you made it past 10 years old.
● Lords and nobles saw their power fall after the Crusades.
● Trade grew among countries giving rise to a money system and the birth of a middle class
and ushered in the Renaissance.
Video 2: The Bayeux Tapestry-Seven Ages of Britain-BBC
● Commissioned to celebrate Wilians conquest of England.
● Begins w/ events that led up to the conquest.
○ Death of Edward the Confessor, King of England, and the succession of a new
king.
● 70 m long.
● Begins with the death of Edward the Confessor and his burial in West Minister Abbey.
● Harold receives the crown
○ W/ orb and scepter
● Spies come around and alert William in Normandy about what has happened in England.
○ Harold has seized the crown
■ William orders ships to be built for an invasion.
● The boats set sail to Pevensey
● Tureen: A deep dish where stuff would be cooked.
● They built a castle of wood at Hastings.
○ William’s Followers set light to some of the anglo-Saxon houses.
● Done by people only a few years after the event.
Video 3: The Castle Builders: Siege and Storm
The Middle Ages
● The Middle Ages were originally considered an era dominated by violence.
○ Unbalanced picture for reality.
Masonry
● A castle’s primary function was to defend a lord/noble/king/his family/and his household
○ Command the territory of which he’s the owner.
● In the 10th century onwards, thousands of castles sprang up all over western Europe.
○ Most of those castles have disappeared.
■ Mainly because they were made out of wood.
● By building defenses in stone, you were able to keep your attacker away.
● Masonry gave you greater security and a more permanent answer to the problem of
defence.
○ Masonry gave much more resilient material to the castle, and a properly
constructed building was more of a match for the armory of individual weapons
which an enemy might deploy.
Weapons
● Sword technology used tempered steel
○ Sword became a feared weapon.
● Swords were forged in a great variety of forms
○ Broadswords
○ Sabres
■ Clubs
■ Falchions
■ Pikes
■ Lances
■ Crossbows
■ Longbows
● Against just one person, these weapons were deadly
● Against a stone castle wall, none of these weapons would do anything
● If you wanted to breakdown castle walls, you’d need a trebuchet
○ Ability to toss up to 100 pounds of artillery.
● If that wouldn’t work, sit and wait until the enemy runs out of resources.
Rules of Engagement
● This wasn’t an age of total war
● Rules of Engagement were viewed as a matter of honor.
● Honorable surrender: the defenders were allowed to leave the castle or town but the
attacker would take possession.
● If you’re a defender, you would try to agree to a timetable that allowed a reliving force to
come and drive away the beesechers.
● If the defenders fail to honor a negotiated state of surrender they gave their right to a safe
passage and could only pray that the castle didn’t fall into enemy hands.
● If you broke the rules, attackers could loot and pillage what they found.
○ Town/castle would be devastated.
● One of the most famous sieges of the middle ages happened at Rochester in Kent (1215)
○ King John had broken many of the promises he’d made.
■ Provoked a widespread rebellion in England and a battle for control of the
country between King and Barons
● Rochester castle stood guard over one of the few bridges across a crucial waterway
(River Medway)
● When Rebel Baron seized the castle, King John knew he had to act.
● The king’s men soon managed to regain control of the bridge and they laid siege to the
castle.
○ The Siege of 1215 is one of the bloodiest sieges in English history.
● King John was not going to be merciful.
○ His archers sent volley after volley over the walls of the castle.
■ People inside were not troubled.
● King John sent up 5 siege engines to attack the defences of Rochester, the trebuchet.
○ It wasn’t enough
Williams Keep
● Williams @ Rochester was 35 m high and one of the tallest in England.
○ Weakness: Square shape left it susceptible to collapse if undermined.
○ Strength: Cross walls
● King John ordered that 40 pigs (fat ones) be brought there.
○ Pig fat could set a fire w/ almost incendiary force.
● King John’s men lit the fire underneath the Keep and the tower came crashing down.
● William of Corbei had designed it w/ a sturdy cross wall that still split it in half.
○ The defenders were able to barricade themselves inside the surviving half of the
keep until their hunger forced them to surrender.
● Later, the breach was rebuilt w/ a stronger round tower w/ outer barbican to protect it.
Dover Castle
● Two decades before the Rochester Siege, King John’s brother, Richard the Lionheart,
found a way to combine numerous round towers in one unbroken defensive line.
● (Chateau Gala in Normandy)
● Building a castle on this scale required a monumental effort in time and money
● End result would be a statement of dominance.
● Richard’s authority across a wide length of Normandy while his brother was battling to
keep a grip on his power.
● Dover Castle(Known as the key to England shows him struggling to keep up in this
period of transformation in defensive construction.
● Dover Castle is a good example of how castle building technology changed around the
12th and 13th century.
● Dover Castle was built by Henry II from 1180 was built in a particular style where the
tower is square and the surrounding towers on the curtain wall are also square but Dover
is besieged a generation later.
(I ended here as the 24 minute mark is only a brief section of Caerphilly, and I don’t think that
that’s enough info for Caerphilly)
