I’ve just got back from living as a medieval person, AMA

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

First time in my life I’ve ever done anything worthy of an AMA!

Wow this sounds amazing. I’d love to do something like this in many different historical periods.

Does anyone know why it’s not letting me see the hole reading who’s wrote this all I can see is the first 2 lines .. I’ve selected see all thinking , it’ll let me read it all but it doesn’t it just takes me bk to the same thing ,,, thanks I’m advance mummy’s 💜

So cool - loved Living in the Past as a smallish child. And love Ruth.
3 thoughts - moonlight was very important. People would do a lot in the week there was good moonlight. But also in remote rural parts of France until circa 100 years ago, people would almost hibernate - eat/sleep for several winter months.
Food intolerence - remember classmates depserately tryign to avoid schoolmilk at break time as it made them sick. The European gene mutation made far more able to digest milk in non-cheese/yoghurt form.
Being local - seen a few Henry VIII age productions at CFT recently - really noticed how many sleeves are tied on - both very warm/cool and leaving armpits free!

This! Really must organise a trip.

I've used the Chichester Premier Inn loads in the past. Very pleasant. Parking. Got a restaurant but have never used it - much nicer places in town. With your room card you can use the nearby Nuffield gym/pool for a great price.

Soap? My extensive historical research (reading the 'Ayla Clan of the Cave Bear' series as a girl) leads me to believe that soap's been around a long time.

Made with lye (soaked wood ash) and some kind of fat (animal this far north, presumably) OP, did anyone use/make soap while there?

@mrwalkensir

"also in remote rural parts of France until circa 100 years ago, people would almost hibernate - eat/sleep for several winter months."

Excellent point. Sounds like you've read Graham Robb's fascinating book that includes information about this. Who knew? www.amazon.co.uk/Discovery-France-Picador-Classic/dp/033042761X

This has been such a great AMA! My parents used to do re-enactments back in the 80s and 90s, at local venues - but only daily. I remember my Dad making a crumhorn (musical instrument) for one of them.

We used to live near Gosport as children (1970s) - and loved the Weald and Downland houses! I had a cardboard 'make it yourself' model of the tudor one with the garderobe - we loved it!

Your stories sound amazing - almost tempted to look at doing something similar now I am retired.....

Thank you for this!

This has been a wonderful thread. Thank you OP and all of the other contributors. It's been a very interesting read.

Yes, we had modern toilets, as well as piss pots for the night.
I don’t think not using toilet paper would be that hard as long as you had a substitute, as long as there was a hygienic toilet equivalent and water nearby for handwashing, which there might not be if you time travelled.

A very important question which I too have spent a long time considering.

I think your mooncup is a good call.

I wouldn’t bother with the soap as that exists, though the imported soap made with olive oil was expensive and locally made soft soap was caustic and not at all nice for your hands. We had some that someone in the group had made, though not at this event, and I have seen it done. It needs a lot of wood ash but is not difficult.

Sharp knives - plenty of those around.

Parmesan - there were flavoursome hard cheeses (Suffolk Thump was a famous one).

My plan, if I go back in time, is to make miso. You can use Carlin peas instead of soya beans. I think it would blow their minds.

We had a lot to talk about!
A bit of storytelling and games and the odd song. It would be nice to do more of that but I think we were taking the time to absorb everything mentally.

It partly depends on what costume you have already got, I only have lower class. It would also come down to what activities you want to do or what is needed to get a good spread. One of the women is an incredible silk worker, so she has to be at least middle class to do that, and same for one of the men who does writing.

I wouldn’t bother with the soap as that exists, though the imported soap made with olive oil was expensive and locally made soft soap was caustic and not at all nice for your hands. We had some that someone in the group had made, though not at this event, and I have seen it done. It needs a lot of wood ash but is not difficult.

There would have been a lot of woodash, though, says person who grew up in an un modernised farmhouse in the 1980s, where wood fires were the only heating.

Didn't they use soapwort at all? The Romans did, so I'd be surprised if they didn't in 1461.

And Ruth Goodman and co did a tv series about it.
It’s an incredible thing.

Have you read the Sterkarm books by (I think) Susan Price? That’s a time travel series but the premise is that a company has opened up a tube to the past in order to extract resources. They get the locals on side by trading stuff including modern painkillers.

Much much worse for modern elderly people who can’t keep warm at home. They didn’t sign up to it and it goes on and on with no escape.
I don’t think any of us has any illusions that we experienced actual hardship. The lesson from our experience is that medieval clothes and kit are comfortable and practical even in below freezing weather, not that poverty is fun.

What a fascinating thread! Thank you - really illuminating. I love the back in time tv series. I remember the Lord and lady one!

There wasn’t much sun!

The person who got up and got the fire going did it when she heard the first birdsong in the morning. Then I would get up once it was light enough to find my clothes by which time she had a decent blaze going.
Tbh a competent medieval person would probably have been able to get dressed in the total dark, but I decided it was reasonable to wait until colour came back and I could see my scarlet hood and blue sleeves.

Arbitrary time definitely stopped mattering. There were meals and also the religious offices which were being read.

We were very bad at guessing the time after dark. It became a thing in the evening when we would all guess, at most the guesses were nearly two hours apart.

Also, normally with reenactment you are very conscious of how long you have got till the public come in, so you can get non authentic jobs done and hide anything modern. This was completely different because we didn’t HAVE anything modern to hide. We just lived our lives and sometimes there were visitors and we chatted to them.

Interesting, I wonder if they didn’t have pattens or if their mud was too deep, or if they were out in the rain all day doing agricultural labour. We sometimes had to go out in heavy rain but nobody had to be out in it for hours.

Re moonlight, the first night I could see a bit, and then it must have clouded over because I woke up and it was completely pitch black. We didn’t have much moon as it was a crescent phase but the stars were very bright.

We used soft soap that someone had made.
With hot water it works very effectively for greasy washing up.

Go on go on go on!

I don’t know if you have read the Ruth Goodman book I mentioned, but her main thesis is that wood shortage > switch to coal for many people > no constant free supply of lye > complete change in cleaning and laundry methods including much more buying of soap.

They did use soapwort btw but we didn’t. If we do it again one of the things I would like to do is more experimenting with different cleaning methods.