The 15th Century French, illustration shows February as a time to cut firewood, dress warmly and stay by the fire. Food on the table is a nutritious pie and the fish are there to remind us it is the month of Pisces. In the other roundel is the other February star sign the Water Carrier, Aquarius.
Pisces From the zodiac from kalendar of shepherds
The poem above is a reference to Candlemas’s celebration of the presentation of the child Jesus at the Temple, and the paragraph below gives a summary of February. It ends with the idea that runs through the Kalendar – there are twelve apostles, twelve days of Christmas, twelve months in the year, and twelve blocks of six years in a person’s allotted 72 years of life. So February is linked to the second block of 6 years in a person’s life, ages 6 to 12. In January, the Kalendar suggests the essential uselessness of 0-6 year old children, while here, for February, it allows that from 6-12 years old children are beginning to ‘serve and learn’.
Below, is the text for February which gives a rural view of life in winter and ends with the line that February ‘is the poor man’s pick-purse, the miser’s cut-throat, the enemy to pleasure and the time of patience.’
About the Kalendar of Shepherds.
The Kalendar was printed in 1493 in Paris and provided ‘Devices for the 12 Months.’ I’m using a modern (1908) reconstruction of it using wood cuts from the original 15th Century version and adding various text from 16th and 17th Century sources. (Couplets by Tusser ‘Five Hundred Parts of Good Husbandrie 1599, and text descriptions of the month from Nicholas Breton’s ‘Fantasticks of 1626. This provides an interesting view of what was going on in the countryside every month.
19th Century illustration of St Blaise’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey
The Blessing of St Blaise helps protect the throat. The way it is done is that blessed candles are made into a cross, and then these are touched against the throat of the afflicted one. Why? Because a story was told that Blaise, on his way to martyrdom, cured a boy who had a fish bone stuck in his throat. So, he is the patron Saint of sores throats.
Blaise is thought to have been an Armenian Bishop of Sebaste, martyred (316AD) in the persecution of the Emperor Licinius.
Sage Advice for Sore Throats:
In the spirit of St Blaise, here is advice for care of your throats.
Sage Tea is excellent for many things including dental hygiene and alleviating sore throats. The Kalendar of Shepherds tells us how to treat our throats:
Good for the throat honey, sugar, butter with a little salt, liquorice, to sup soft eggs, hyssop, a mean manner of eating and drinking and sugar candy. Evil for the throat: mustard, much lying on the breast, pepper, anger, things roasted, lechery, much working, too much rest, much drink, smoke of incense, old cheese and all sour things are naughty for the throat.
The Kalendar of Shepherds 1604
The Martyrdom of St Blaise
So far, an uplifting, healing story, but the Medieval Church’s propensity for the gruesome, and its peculiar need to allocate a unique method of martyrdom to each early saint leads us to Blaise being pulled apart by wool-combers irons, before being beheaded.
Hence, he is also the patron saint of wool-combers, and by extension, sheep.
Internet Archive book illustrations collection on Flickr. (from wovember see below)
Wikipedia tells me that Combing was a regular form of torture.
Combing, sometimes known as carding (despite carding being a completely different process) is a sometimes-fatal form of torture in which iron combs designed to prepare wool and other fibres for woollen spinning are used to scrape, tear, and flay the victim’s flesh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combing_(torture)
I am horrified by the goriness of these martyrdoms, and it needs some explanation. If we believe in Richard Dawkins idea of the meme we can find an explanation. Allocating a different and gory death to each and every saint has advantages for the survival of the cult. It brings a uniqueness to the story of the Saint, particular details of death suggests authenticity; the extreme death creates an example of stoicism in the face of challenge to faith, and provokes empathy and piety. There is, also, we have to accept, a very human attraction in the bloodthirstiness of stories.
But, there is, I suspect, a financial interest too. In order for these cults to survive, they need adherents, worshippers, donors, patrons. They need income streams that can help support the expensive clergy and the fabric of the Church. One source is from the wealthy, but in the medieval town, urban wealth was held within the booming guild structure. If your martyred Saint, could attract a particular Guild then you (the sponsoring Priests, or Church) were quids in.
Wool was one of the mainstays of industry in the medieval period, particularly in Britain. A martyr like St Blaise would prosper wherever there were people working with wool, cloth or sheep. So, is it too cynical to suggest some one with an eye for the main chance added the detail of the wool combing death to attract donations from rich wool merchants? As a successful meme it spread throughout Europe.
Also, there were any number of endemic diseases and occupational hazards for which there was no clear cure. So if your Saint can become the Saint of ‘popular’, preferably incurably, illnesses, you can attract all those who suffer from that or similar diseases.
Of course, it may not always be a cynical drive for more income because, in exchange, the Church offered the sufferer comfort of a quality that would have maximised the placebo effect. This has been scientifically measured and was likely to be as effective a cure as the available, often bizarre, medieval remedies.
Blaise’s hagiography suggests he was a physician so he was able to grow into being not only the Saint for Sore Throats and Sheep but one of the go-to saints for diseases in both humans and animals.
Blaise in Britain
His cult came to Britain when King Richard I was ship wrecked on Crusade. Richard was helped by Bishop Bernard of Ragusa where Richard was washed up. When the Bishop was deposed he sought sanctuary in Britain and was made Bishop of Carlisle where he promoted the cult of Blaise. Several churches in the UK founded churches named for him.
St Blazey in Cornwall is named after his Church and celebrates him by a procession of a ram and a wicker effigy of the Saint. Milton, in Berkshire, dedicated its Church to St Blaise, probably because the village’s wealth depended on sheep. The village held a feast on the third Sunday after Trinity, and the day after held the Tadpole Revels at Milton Hall. Tadpole is thought to be a corruption from the word ‘Tod’ which means cleaned wool.
Blaise in London
Westminster Abbey has a chapel dedicated to Blaise (see image at top of page). In the Bishop’s Palace at Bromley is St Blaise’s Well. It is thought to have begun as a spring when the Palace ‘was granted to Bishop Eardwulf by King Ethelbert II of Kent around 750 AD.’ A well near the spring became a place of pilgrimage and an Oratory to St Blaise was set up. In the 18th Century the chalybeate waters of the well were considered to be useful for health. It still exists to day.
On February 3rd St Etheldreda’s Church in London holds the Blessing of the Throats ceremony. It was a Catholic Church in the medieval period, then, in Reformation was used for various purposes until returned to the Catholic Church in 1876. It has memorials for Catholic Martyrs killed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I
One of London’s oldest guilds is the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, first mentioned in 1180, when fined, for operating without a license, by Richard 1’s dad, Henry II.
Photo of London Fields in the snow of 2022 by Kevin Flude
In January 1776 Gilbert White observed:
‘On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the thermometer fell to 7, 6, 6, and at Selborne to 7, 6, 10, and on the 3ist of January , just before sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 degrees below the freezing point’
If there was a Giant upon whose shoulders Charles Darwin climbed, then it was Gilbert White’s. He was one of many churchmen of the 18th and 19th Century who spent their extensive leisure time, on observing God’s wonderful creation in their gardens and parishes. What made White so important was that his practice was ‘observing narrowly’ and regularly. For example, his observations of the importance of earth worms were fundamental to Charles Darwin’s own studies, Once Darwin came back from his travels on the Beagle, he settled in a country property in Orpington and, like White, used his garden and the local area as his laboratory with which he worked to prove his theory of evolution.
Earth worms were one of Darwin’s passions. This is what Gilbert White wrote about their contribution to nature:
“Earth-worms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass.”
By such minute and repeated observations, Gilbert White investigated the food chain, the migration of birds (which was at the time disputed) and laid the foundations of what we now call ecology.
White, although rising to Dean of Oriel College in Oxford, chose to spend his career in the relatively humble occupation of Curate. A Curate is the bottom-feeder in the Anglican Church food chain, and Jane Austen would tell you that a Curate hardly earned enough to maintain a position in the Gentry (£50 p.a.). Although White gained the title of Perpetual Curate (a title shared with Patrick Brontë), he still would only be pulling in, I guess, something like £200 p.a. But then White didn’t need much, he inherited his father’s property at Shelborne, Hampshire. White’s grandfather was the Vicar at Shelborne. But Gilbert could not inherit the title because he went to Oriel College, while the ‘living’ at Shelborne was ‘in the gift of’ Magdalen College, And they were not going to give the role to an alumnus of a rival college; however, he might deserve it.
The house, now open to the public, is just around the corner from Chawton where Jane Austen spent her last years. He was born in 1720; was 55 when Austen was born, and he died in 1793. He lived 4 miles away, so the families knew of each other. We know Jane Austen’s brother wrote a poem about Gilbert White and his natural history observations, particularly on birds
From ‘Selbourne Hanger’ by James Austen
Who talks of rational delight } When Selbourne’s Hill appears in sight } And does not think of Gilbert White? } Such sure he was – by Nature grac’d With her best gift of genuine taste; And Providence – which cast his lot Within this calm, secluded spot, Plac’d him where best th’enquiring mind Might study Nature’s works, and find Within her ever open book Beauties which others overlook. Enthusiast sweet! Your vivid style The attentive reader can beguile Through many a page, and still excite An Interest in what you write! For whilst observant you describe The habits of the feathery tribe Their Loves and Wars – their nest and Song, We never think the tale too long.
For more information on White and Austen go to Gilbert Whites House’s web page here:
Here is more of that epic cold January 1776
‘On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the thermometer fell to n, 7, 6, 6, and at Selborne to 7, 6, 10, and on the 3ist of January ‘, just before sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 degrees below the freezing point ; but by eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it sprang up to I6J,1 — a most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England \ During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds ; and in the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once so frozen over both above and below bridge that crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely encumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty ; and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt : what had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that, from first to last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city ; a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest housekeepers living…..’
‘The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, at the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the turnips came forth little injured. The laurels and laurustines were somewhat damaged, but only in hot aspects. No evergreens were quite destroyed ; and not half the damage sustained that befell in January, 1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched on the south-sides were perfectly untouched on their north-sides. The care taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches seemed greatly to avail the author’s evergreens. A neighbour’s laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was perfectly green and vigorous ; and the Portugal laurels remained unhurt.’
‘We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the thermometer in the morning was down to 10 with us, and at Newton only to 21. Strong frost continued till the 3ist, when some tendency to thaw was observed ; and, by January the 3d, 1785, the thaw was confirmed, and some rain fell.’
Rosemary flowering in my garden
Here, as a bonus, are food stuffs that are in season now.
Paganalia, also known as Sementivae, was a festival dedicated to seed, to Ceres (from whom we get the word cereal) and also the Earth Goddess. (There are many to choice from (Tellus, Demeter, Cybele, Gaia, Rhea etc.). Ceres can be seen on the top left roundel resting on the Globe on the marvellous Ceramic Staircase at the V&A, and in my slightly out of focus photograph below. (To be honest, in real life, it looks a little more like my photo than the gorgeous photo above!)
Ceres represented Agriculture, Mercury Commerce, and Vulcan Industry. Old Photo by the Author.
To create life, we need earth and water to nurture and seeds for fertility. And so into the cold dead world of January the Romans created a festival of sowing. It had two parts, one presided over by Mother Earth (Tellus) and the other by Ceres, the Goddess of Corn. The actual day of the festival (aka Paganalia) was chosen not by rote on a set day of the calendar but by the priests, in accordance with the weather. This seems very sensible, as there is no point sowing seeds in terrible weather conditions. I’m assuming the Priests took professional advice!
On the 24th-26th January Tellus prepared the soil, and in early February seeds were sown under the aegis of Ceres. Tellus Mater (also Terra Mater) was known as Gaia to the Greeks. Gaia was chosen by James Lovelock & Lynn Margulis in the 1970s as the face of their Gaia hypothesis.
To me, the importance of the idea is not the scientific principle that environments co-evolve with the organisms within them but, rather, Gaia as a personification of our world as a complex living ecosystem that we have to care for. Gaia exists as a series of feedback loops, and she will spit us out unless we can control our appetites to live in balance with our alma mater.
This is what Ovid has to say about Sementavia in ‘Fasti’ (www.poetryintranslation.com)
Book I: January 24
I have searched the calendar three or four times, But nowhere found the Day of Sowing: Seeing this, the Muse said: That day is set by the priests, Why are you looking for moveable days in the calendar? Though the day of the feast ís uncertain, its time is known, When the seed has been sown and the land ís productive. You bullocks, crowned with garlands, stand at the full trough, Your labour will return with the warmth of spring. Let the farmer hang the toil-worn plough on its post: The wintry earth dreaded its every wound.
Steward, let the soil rest when the sowing is done, And let the men who worked the soil rest too. Let the village keep festival: farmers, purify the village, And offer the yearly cakes on the village hearths. Propitiate Earth and Ceres, the mothers of the crops, With their own corn, and a pregnant sow ís entrails. Ceres and Earth fulfil a common function: One supplies the chance to bear, the other the soil. Partners in toil, you who improved on ancient days Replacing acorns with more useful foods, Satisfy the eager farmers with full harvest, So they reap a worthy prize from their efforts. Grant the tender seeds perpetual fruitfulness, Don’t let new shoots be scorched by cold snows. When we sow, let the sky be clear with calm breezes, Sprinkle the buried seed with heavenly rain. Forbid the birds, that prey on cultivated land, To ruin the cornfields in destructive crowds. You too, spare the sown seed, you ants, So you’ll win a greater prize from the harvest.
First Published in January 2023, republished in January 2024
Many plants can be used for hedges, but hawthorn is the most common. It can be planted as bare-root from Autumn to Spring, so January is as good a time as any. It can also be grown from the seeds from its red berries. But this takes 18 months to achieve. Interspersed along the hedge should be trees—either trees for timber, or crab-apples or pear-stocks. Trees were also useful as markers. Before modern surveys, property would be delineated by ancient trees. Hedges could be quickly moved, and perhaps not noticed. Trees couldn’t.
Hawthorn is an oasis for insects, mammals and migrating birds (who eat the berries). It is a lovely plant for May, and it is often called May, or the May Flower or May Tree and also whitethorn. The berries are called ‘haws’ hence hawthorn. For more on this, look at https://whisperingearth.co.uk.
Hawthorn produces white flowers in Spring, and it is one of the great pagan fertility plants, its flowers forming the garlands on May Eve. One of the chemicals in the plant is the same as one given out in decay of flesh, so it has been, in folklore, also associated with death. So, is not to be brought into the house.
It was also said to be the thorn in the Crown of Thorns, so sacred. A crown from the helmet of the dead King Richard III was found on a hawthorn at Bosworth Field, and so adopted as a device by the victorious Henry VII. For more on the plant, https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk
A ‘Quarry’ of Stained Glass showing the Crown, a hawthorn Bush and initials representing Henry VII and his, Queen, Elizabeth of York. Possibly from Surrey. Early 16th Century and from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain).
John Worlidge, wrote in 1697
‘And first, the White-thorn is esteemed the best for fencing; it is raised either of Seeds or Plants; by Plants is the speediest way, but by Seeds where the place will admit of delay, is less charge, and as succesful, though it require longer time, they being till the Spring come twelvemonth ere they spring out of the Earth; but when they have past two or three years, they flourish to admiration.’
Hawthorn is an excellent wood for burning, better than oak, having the hottest fire so that its charcoal could melt pig-iron without the need of a blast. It is also good for making small objects such as boxes, combs, and tool-handles. It takes a fine polish, so also used for veneers and cabinets.
This is the time, according to Moon Gardeners, to plant and sow plants that develop below ground. So rhubarb and garlic, fruit trees, bushes, bare-root plants and hedging plants.
Hawthorn has many medicinal benefits according to herbalists. Mrs Grieve suggests it was used as a cardiac tonic, to cure sore throats and as a diuretic. But don’t try any of these ancient remedies without medical advice!
First Published in January 2023, revised in January 2024
January from Nicholas Breton’s ‘Fantasticks 1626 from the Kalendar of Shepherds (digitised by Internet Archive)
The Kalendar of Shepherds was printed in 1493 in Paris and provided ‘Devices for the 12 Months.’ This is a modern (1908) reconstruction of it using wood cuts from the original and adding various text from 16th and 17th Century sources. The text of the month is provided from a 17th Century source and provides an interesting view of what was going on in the countryside in January. To see the full Kalendar, go here:
Nicholas Breton, the writer of the text above, concludes that January ‘is a time of little comfort, the rich man’s charge, and the poore man’s misery.’ The image for January shows that it is best spent indoors by a roaring fire, and while eating pies.
The Kalendar introduces their ‘conceit’ which is that the year mirrors our lives, and we can forecast what will happen in our lives by looking at the months.
Kalendar of Shepherds, January text
So our lives, which are of 72 years, can be divided into 12 ages of man, each of 6 years. So, January represents the first 6 years of a person’s life. And as you can see, that during these first 6 years, the child is ‘without witte, strength, or cunning, and may do nothing that profiteth‘. As the year changes every month, so, ‘a man change himself twelve times in his life’. At three times 6 (18 or March) a child becomes a man, and 6 times 6 (36 or June) man is at his best and highest. And at 12 times 6 (72 or December) man is at the end of his allotted span.
Shakespeare numbered the Ages of Man as seven, in the great speech of Jacques in ‘As You Like it’ I dealt with this and other Ages of the World in my post:
Bereton tells us that, in January, the ‘coney is so ferreted that she cannot keep in her borough’. To put that is modern speech, ‘the rabbit is so hunted with the aid of ferrets that she cannot keep in her burrow’. The London Illustrated Almanac of 1873 chose the Rabbit as its wild animal of the month.
January from London Illustrated Almanac of 1873
To have luck for a month, you are supposed to say ‘Rabbit, Rabbit’. No less a person than FD Roosevelt used to say this. No one knows why. Rabbit’s feet are lucky too. I remember some of my friends had them in our Surrey village in the early 60s. Some of the Dads kept ferrets, and I remember dead Rabbits hanging from walls. The history.com website gives an idea, possibly exaggerated view, of the merits of the feet which depended upon how they were collected:
“A 1908 British account reports rabbits’ feet imported from America being advertised as ‘the left hind foot of a rabbit killed in a country churchyard at midnight, during the dark of the moon, on Friday the 13th of the month, by a cross-eyed, left-handed, red-headed bow-legged Negro riding a white horse,’
As to why, no one really knows, but Pliny the Elder in 71AD reported that cutting off the foot of a live hare could cure gout and there are European traditions of rabbit and other animal’s feet amulets curing all sorts of ailments. There are associations with witches, who could shape-shift into a rabbit, so a rabbit’s foot would be witchy and therefore powerful. In March, I reported on the Hare, and their, similar, associations with witches:
For lovers of Music, Chas and Dave’s hit song ‘Rabbit’ has a chorus of Rabbit, Rabbit. According to the Cockney’s singers (they do love a Knee’s Up) it comes from the Cockney Rhyming Slang expression: Rabbit and Pork which means ‘Talk’ because it rhymes with ‘Talk’. To hear the song, its gestation and Royal connections, click here.
Now, I must stop rabbiting on. Time to get things done.
Hermes the ram-bearer, Roman 1st BCE copy of 5th Greek statue
My apology of the day is to Diane Stein, the author of the ‘The Goddess Book of Days’ because of the implied error in the book in the sentence (below). Republished yesterday:
Before we read Ovid’s ‘Fasti’ first note that he locates the Day on the 16th January rather than the ‘Book of Goddesses’ which puts her on the 17th
Not only did I get the name of the book wrong (which is ‘The Goddess Book of Days’, but I had another look at what Ovid actually said and I saw this:
‘Book I: January 16 Radiant one, the next day places you in your snow-white shrine,’
So, ‘the next day’, so Ovid agrees that January 17th is the appropriate day to honour Concordia.
Lambing
If a lamb be born sick and weak, the Shepherd shall fold it in his cloak, blow into the mouth of it and then, drawing the Dam’s dog, shall squirt milk into the mouth of it. If an Ewe grow unnatural, and will not take her Lamb after she has yeaned it, you shall take a little of the Clean of the Ewe (which is the bed in which the Lamb lay) and force the Ewe to eat it, or at least chew it in her mouth and she will fall to love a Lamb naturally. But if an Ewe have cast her Lamb, and you would have her take to another Ewe’s Lamb, you shall take the Lamb which is dead, and with it rub and daub the live Lamb all over, and so put it to the Ewe, and she will take to it as naturally as if it were her own.
Gervase Markham, ‘Cheap and Good Husbandry’ 1613 (quoted in the Perpetual Almanac by Charles Kightly.
Lambing can begin about now in the south-west, but it gets progressively later as you travel north. Itinerant shearers, now often from New Zealand, travel the country shearing sheep. They will begin in the south and then progress north.
March and April are peak lambing time in the UK, although the season runs from February to April, but some farmers even lamb before Christmas (and even November). If ewes are tupped in October, they will lamb in March. www.nationalsheep.org.uk
The country expression is ‘in with a bang and out with the fool’ which suggests an ideal time to tup, is November 5th, on Fireworks Night. So that the lambs will be born, 5 months later, around the 1st of April.
A litter is normally one or two but occasionally more. Ewe’s get fed depending on how many lambs they will be having.
In the ‘Return of the Native’, Thomas Hardy has a character called Diggory Venn, he is a reddle man. He travels the country in a little pony and trap selling reddle, a red ochre dye with which shepherds mark their flock. Part of the plot is about the reluctance of women to marry a man whose red, reddle-stained face, makes him look like a devil.
The reddle is used to mark sheep. The ram is given a collar or girdle with a marker full of reddle in it. When he mounts the ewe, she will have a red mark on her back. Once she has been tupped twice, she will have two red marks on her back, and she will be taken out of the field, to encourage the ram to impregnate the others. Reddle could also be used to mark lambs chosen for slaughter, or dipping, or weighing etc.
(Tup is a country verb: I tup. You tup, we are tupping etc, and means what happens when the ram ‘covers’ the ewe).
Gervase Markham was born in 1568, in Nottinghamshire, and was a prolific writer. Today, prompted by the Perpetual Almanac by Charles Kightly, I am looking through Markham’s eyes at Apples. Apples were an important source of joy as well as nutrition through a cold winter, as fresh produce became unavailable.
Markham wrote detailed books for use by the householders, the Husbands and the Housewives. And with the coming of frost, you would be advised to look at Markham’s books to ensure the survival of food in your food store. When the frosts hit, as they are now doing in the UK, you had to look after your store of apples, which were an important sweet food source over the winter, and Markham is the source of extensive advice on keeping your food deep into winter.
For the women, he wrote the English Housewife, published in 1615. Here is his recipe for Apple Tart (more of an apple purée tart, I think).
How to Make Apple-tart
Take apples and peel them and slice them thin from the core into a pan with white wine, good store of sugar, cinnamon and rosewater, and so boil it all shall it be thick. Then cool it and strain it, and beat it very well together with a spoon, and then put it into your coffin or crust and bake it. It carrieth with the colour red.
Gervais Markham, the English Housewife 1683 version (quoted by Charles Kightly).
For the men, he wrote the English Husbandsman, published in 1613 and ‘Printed by T. S. for Iohn Browne, and are to be sould at his shop in Saint Dunstanes Church-yard.’ This is the St Dunstan’s in Fleet Street, I think. The book is available on Project Gutenberg (Gervase Markham the English Husbandman. Project Gutenberg).
So to the frost – Markham ends his extensive piece on the best way to store apples as follows:
To keepe Fruit in frost. If the frost be very extreame, and you feare the indangering your fruit, it is good to couer them somewhat thicke with fine hay, or else to lay them couered all ouer either in Barley-chaffe, or dry Salte: as for the laying them in chests of Iuniper, or Cipresse, it is but a toy, and not worth the practise: if you hang Apples in nettes within the ayre of the fire it will kéepe them long, but they will be dry and withered, and will loose their best rellish.
I remember my Grandmother would store her excess apples from the tree, wrapped in paper and stored in cupboards in the pantry or outbuilding. I cannot remember which. They were often wrinkled but always delicious, and I think were Russets, which still remain my favourite apple.
At the bottom of the piece, I include the rest of his advice for storing apples. To summarise it, don’t store them near the ground, and put them on shelves ordered by variety based on which variety lasts longest. So at the back will be the long-lived species such as Russets and Pippins, to eat as spring approaches and at the front the ones you need to eat now such as the ‘Costard, Pome-water, Quéene-Apple‘ varieties.
Markham wrote many books, including one on the famous performing horse Marocco which starred in shows at the Bell Savage, just outside Ludgate in the City of London. Marocco would whinny in triumph with the naming of an English King, and snort with derision with the naming of a Pope, and could count and add up. He was rumoured to have been burnt at the stake as a witch in Edinburgh. But this does not appear to be true. Pocahontas also was shown at the Bell Savage, as was a Rhinoceros and other prodigies.
The Storage of Apples
If you want a more modern text on what to do with excess apples from your tree, have a look here, but do read on to get an insight into life in the 17th Century.
The place where you shall lay your fruit must neither be too open, nor too close, yet rather close then open, it must by no meanes be low vpon the ground, nor in any place of moistnesse: for moisture bréedes fustinesse, and such naughty smells easily enter into the fruit, and taint the rellish thereof, yet if you haue no other place but some low cellar to lay your fruit in, then you shall raise shelues round about, the nearest not within two foote of the ground, and lay your Apples thereupon, hauing them first lyned, either with swéet Rye-straw, Wheate-straw, or dry ferne: as these vndermost roomes are not the best, so are the vppermost, if they be vnséeld, the worst of all other, because both the sunne, winde, and weather, peircing through the tiles, doth annoy and hurt the fruit: the best roome then is a well séeld chamber, whose windowes may be shut and made close at pleasure, euer obseruing with straw to defend the fruit from any moist stone wall, or dusty mudde wall, both which are dangerous annoyances.
The seperating of Fruit. Now for the seperating of your fruit, you shall lay those nearest hand, which are first to be spent, as those which will last but till Alhallontide, as the Cisling, Wibourne, and such like, by themselues: those which will last till Christmas, as the Costard, Pome-water, Quéene-Apple, and such like: those which will last till Candlemas, as the Pome-de-roy, Goose-Apple, and such like, and those which will last all the yéere, as the Pippin, Duzin, Russetting, Peare-maine, and such like, euery one in his seuerall place, & in such order that you may passe from bed to bed to clense or cast forth those which be rotten or putrefied at your pleasure, which with all diligence you must doe, because those which are tainted will soone poyson the other, and therefore it is necessary as soone as you sée any of them tainted, not onely to cull them out, but also to looke vpon all the rest, and deuide them into thrée parts, laying the soundest by themselues, those which are least tainted by themselues, and those which are most tainted by themselues, and so to vse them all to your best benefit.
Now for the turning of your longest lasting fruit, you shall know that about the latter end of December is the best time to beginne, if you haue both got and kept them in such sort as is before sayd, and not mixt fruit of more earely ripening amongst them: the second time you shall turne them, shall be about the end of February, and so consequently once euery month, till Penticost, for as the yéere time increaseth in heate so fruit growes more apt to rot: after Whitsontide you shall turne them once euery fortnight, alwayes in your turning making your heapes thinner and thinner; but if the weather be frosty then stirre not your fruit at all, neither when the thaw is, for then the fruit being moist may by no meanes be touched: also in wet weather fruit will be a little dankish, so that then it must be forborne also, and therefore when any such moistnesse hapneth, it is good to open your windowes and let the ayre dry your fruit before it be turned: you may open your windowe any time of the yéere in open weather, as long as the sunne is vpon the skye, but not after, except in March onely, at what time the ayre and winde is so sharpe that it tainteth and riuelleth all sorts of fruits whatsoeuer.
Bob Cratchet is back to work by Boxing Day, some of us are back to work on 27th or 28th but increasing numbers holiday until January 2nd. But medieval society had even longer off. Distaff Sunday (yesterday) was the day that women traditionally went back to work and Plough Monday was the men’s turn. Plough Monday was not just a normal day of work though. Particularly in the North, it was celebrated with a procession of ‘plough boys’, with a decorated plough and team and known as ‘Fool Plough’. Mumming, sword dancing and foolery propelled people back to work.
Here is a lovely recipe for a ‘Norfolk Plough Pudding‘ brought to my attention by Sue Walker. The author is Karen Burn Jones who talks about her Grandmother’s plough pudding recipe, which is a great winter warmer being made of sausage meat and bacon. Norfolk also had traditions for Plough Monday, when the plough was blessed and the plough boys (Plough Jacks, Plough Bullocks or Plough Stots) performed “Molly Dances” partly to make up their income they had lost when the ground was too icy to plough.
The Christmas/Mid Winter break went on for some until Candlemas in early February, and in Jane Austen’s day the school boys had a 6 week holiday at Christmas much to the distress of Mary Musgrove in ‘Persuasion’, Chapter 18. She complains bitterly of children being left with her during the long winter holiday. But as it was written on 1st February I will leave the joy of that great FOMO letter till then.
I keep an archive of the walks I have done each year. This is the first entry for 2024.
My new year’s resolutions for my walks are:
Make the Virtual tours shorter.
Try some new technology to make the virtual tours more like a walk.
Begin publishing them.
I should note that 1 and 3 have long been on my list of desired improvements.
Ring in the New Year Virtual Walk
Old New Year Card
Monday 1st January 2024 7.00pm On this Virtual Walk we look at how London has celebrated the New Year over the past 2000 years.
The New Year has been a time of review, renewal and anticipation of the future from time immemorial. The Ancient Britons saw the Solstice as a symbol of a promise of renewal as the Sun was reborn. As the weather turns to bleak mid winter, a festival or reflection and renewal cheers everyone up. This idea of renewal was followed by the Romans, and presided over by a two headed God called Janus who looked both backwards and forwards. Dickens Christmas Carol was based on redemption and his second great Christmas Book ‘The Chimes’ on the renewal that the New Year encouraged.
We look at London’s past to see where and how the New Year was celebrated. We also explore the different New Years we use and their associated Calendars – the Pagan year, the Christian year, the Roman year, the Jewish year, the Financial year, the Academic year and we reveal how these began. We look at folk traditions, Medieval Christmas Festivals, Boy Bishops, Distaff Sunday and Plough Monday, and other Winter Festival and New Year London tradition and folklore.
At the end we use ancient methods to divine what is in store for us in 2024
ROMAN LONDON – A LITERARY & ARCHAEOLOGICAL WALK
Reconstruction View of Roman Riverside Wall being built
Sunday 21st Jan & 3rd March 2023 11.30 am Monument Underground Station
Our Guides will be Publius Ovidius Naso and Marcus Valerius Martialis who will be helped by Kevin Flude, former Museum of London Archaeologist, Museum Curator and Lecturer.
We disembark at the Roman Waterfront by the Roman Bridge, and then explore the lives of the citizens as we walk up to the site of the Roman Town Hall, and discuss Roman politics. We proceed through the streets of Roman London, with its vivid and cosmopolitan street life via the Temple of Mithras to finish with Bread and Circus at the Roman Amphitheatre.
REVIEWS “Kevin, I just wanted to drop you a quick email to thank you ever so much for your archaeological tours of London! I am so thrilled to have stumbled upon your tours! I look forward to them more than you can imagine! They’re the best 2 hours of my week! 🙂 Best, Sue
Jane Austen’s London Sunday Jan 21st 2.30 pm Green Park underground station,
An exploration of Mayfair, the centre of the London section of Sense & Sensibility and where Jane came to visit her brother
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Jane Austen devotee in possession of the good fortune of a couple of free hours today must be in want of this walk.”
People associate Jane Austen and her characters with a rural setting. But London is central to both Jane Austen’s real life and her literary life. So, this tour will explore Jane’s connections with London and give the background to Sense and Sensibility, a good part of which is based in this very area. We begin with the place Jane’s coach would arrive from Hampshire, and then walk the streets haunted by Willougby; past shops visited by the Palmers, the Ferrars; visit the location of Jane Austen’s brother’s bank and see the publisher of Jane’s Books. The area around Old Bond Street was the home of the Regency elite and many buildings and a surprising number of the shops remain as they were in Jane Austen’s day.
This is a London Walk Guided Walk lead by Kevin Flude
Myths, Legends, Archaeology and the Origins of London
Druids at All Hallows, by the Tower
Sunday 4th February & Saturday 23 March 2024 11.30pm Tower Hill Underground
The walk tells the stories of our changing ideas about the origins of London during the Prehistoric, Roman and Saxon periods.
The walk is led by Kevin Flude, a former archaeologist at the Museum of London, who has an interest both in myths, legends and London’s Archaeology.
The walk will tell the story of the legendary origins of London which record that it was founded in the Bronze Age by an exiled Trojan and was called New Troy, which became corrupted to Trinovantum. This name was recorded in the words of Julius Caesar; and, then, according to Legend, the town was renamed after King Ludd and called Lud’s Dun. Antiquarians and Archaeologists have taken centuries to demolish this idea, and became convinced London was founded by the Romans. Recently, dramatic evidence of a Bronze Age presence in London was found.
When the Roman system broke down in 410 AD, historical records were almost non-existent, until the Venerable Bede recorded the building of St Pauls Cathedral in 604 AD. The two hundred year gap, has another rich selection of legends. which the paucity of archaeological remains struggles to debunk.
The walk will explore these stories and compare the myths and legends with Archaeological discoveries.
The route starts at Tower Hill, then down to the River at Billingsgate, London Bridge, and into the centre of Roman London
Tudor London – The City of Wolf Hall
Sunday 4th February 2024 2.15pm Barbican Underground Station
Tudor London – The City of Wolf Hall Virtual Tour Sunday 4th February 2024 7.30 pm To book
Thomas Bilney martyred in Smithfield.
The Walk creates a portrait of London in the early 16th Century, with particular emphasis on the life and times of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More during the Anne Boleyn years.
More and Cromwell had much in common, both lawyers, commoners, who rose to be Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, and ended their careers on the block at Tower Hill.
The walk starts with an exploration of Smithfield – site of the stake where heretics were burnt alive and of St Bartholomew’s Monastery – given to Richard Rich after his decisive role in the downfall of Thomas More. We continue to St Paul where Martin Luther’s books were burnt, and later, where Puritans preached against dancing round the Maypole.
We walk along the main markets streets of London, to Thomas More’s birthplace, and to the site of More’s and Cromwell’s townhouses before, if time allows, finishing at the site of the Scaffold where More and Cromwell met their ends, overlooking where Anne Boleyn was incarcerated in the Tower of London
The Leap Year Pub Walk Thurs 6pm 29 February 2024 Tower Hill Underground
Sketched from a photo by simple-aign on pixaby
Thurs, 29 February 2024, 6pm Tower Hill Underground
We explore London, the Leap Year and 29th February through history A strange amazing day – and walk – that comes only once every four years. For the rest of the time it does not “exist.” A day – and walk – of temporal tune-up. A day – and walk – of unlocked potential. A day – and a walk – of unlocked London.
As the Sun, Moon and Seasons have different cycles and don’t fit into a set number of days, Londoners have had to cope with fixes to their Calendars to align the Cosmos with everyday life. As we walk through the streets of the ancient City of London, we explore how Londoners organised and celebrated their year throughout history
One of the most popular forms of publication in London was the Almanac. It was full of seasonal advice, of prophecy, traditional wisdom, and important events past and future. We will look at Almanacs and Diaries to find how Londoners spent their Leap Year.
We start with the Romans at the City Wall, near the Tower of London, and walk through history until we reach a historic pub to celebrate the New Year.
The Leap Year Almanac of the Past Pub Walk is led by Kevin Flude, a lecturer, curator and former archaeologist at the Museum of London. Join him to explore London’s History through its celebrations, festivals, calendars and almanacs.
This is a London Walks Guided Walk.
Roman London – A Literary & Archaeological Walk Sun 11.30 am 3rd March 2024 Monument Underground Station To book Jane Austen’s London Sun 2.30 pm 3rd March 2024 Green Park Underground station (Green Park Exit. Fountain in Green Park), To book Myths, Legends, Archaeology and the Origins of London Sunday 11.30am 23rd March 2024 Tower Hill Underground
London. 1066 and All That Walk
Old illustration Chapel of St Johns Tower of London
Sunday 2.30pm 23rd March 2024 Blackfriars Underground Station The Archaeological Walk that explores the City of London at the end of the Saxon period and at the beginning of the Norman.
The Norman Conquest of 1066 defines Britain in a way unmatched by any other event. And on this walk we explore the London that William conquered and how he changed England for all time.
London was England’s most important City, but not yet the capital. It was crucial to William in his attempt to conquer the realm. But his army could not fight their way across the heavily defended London Bridge after the defeat of the English King, Harold, at the Battle of Hastings.
The future of England was in the balance as he ravaged the country seeking a way across the river and to persuade the English that resistance was hopeless.
Once across the river, the English leaders sued for peace, and William was crowned at the newly built Westminster Abbey. The English hoped for a strong King who would rule with the people. But William began by building Castles to oppress the Citizens, and soon swept aside the English Aristocracy and establishment and replaced them with the Conquerors.
This was a death blow to Anglo-Saxon culture, but the City made an accommodation with the new regime and the first Lord Mayor of London was an Englishman.
So, on the walk we explore the Late Saxon City of London, and how it changed in the last 11th and 12th Centuries.
Walk is by Kevin Flude, former Archaeologist at the Museum of London Kevin
Chaucer’s Medieval London Guided Walk
Medieval Newgate
Sunday 7th April 2024 11.30pm & Saturday 6th July 2.30 Aldgate Underground
A Walk around Medieval London following in the footsteps of its resident medieval poet – Geoffrey Chaucer One of the spectators at the Peasants Revolt was Geoffrey Chaucer, born in the Vintry area of London, who rose to be a diplomat, a Courtier and London’s Customs Officer. He lived with his wife in the Chamber above the Gate in the City Wall at Aldgate. His poetry shows a rugged, joyous medieval England including many scenes reflecting life in London. His stories document the ending of the feudal system, growing dissatisfaction with the corruption in the Church, and shows the robust independence with which the English led their lives.
His work helped change the fashion from poetry in French or Latin to acceptance of the English language as suitable literary language. This was helped by the growth of literacy in London as its Merchants and Guildsmen became increasingly successful. In 1422, for example, the Brewers decided to keep their records in English ‘as there are many of our craft who have the knowledge of reading and writing in the English idiom.’
Chaucer and other poets such as Langland give a vivid portrait of Medieval London which was dynamic, successful but also torn by crisis such as the Lollard challenge to Catholic hegemony, and the Peasants who revolted against oppression as the ruling classes struggled to resist the increased independence of the working people following the Black Death.
A walk which explores London in the Middle Ages, We begin at Aldgate, and follow Chaucer from his home to his place of work at the Customs House, and then to St Thomas Chapel on London Bridge, and across the River to where the Canterbury Tales start – at the Tabard Inn.
