The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

But cows only produce milk when suckling calves. They fall dry after that. So you make sure that they calve in spring, the sweet spring, when bullock sterteth etc. Otherwise you'd need to overwinter cow and calf.

For example, a good many girls - in particular - who came from large families went into 'service' in greatly different parts of the country or in the big cities. Sometimes, they moved back home once they'd built up a marriage portion.

But you might well overwinter them Orlanda, dry of milk or not. Cows were valuable animals - and I remember seeing houses in the North where one end of the house was actually a byre/stable to house the various beasts. Very warm it was as well.

Ah, sorry - you meant 'overwinter the calf as well'? Well - that would depend on your circumstances and the animals in question. Some years you might, some years you might not.

KLAXON

New BBC series about the 6 wives with Lucy Worsley at 9pm.

We have houses here where originally the animals lived downstairs and the family upstairs. Built in central heating.

many girls - in particular - who came from large families went into 'service' in greatly different parts of the country or in the big cities.

And boys from families with the money to afford it were often apprenticed , which may not have been local, depending on the trade.

If you read about the Jack the Ripper murders the thing that surprised me was how multicultural London was even then. Two of the victims were, if I remember correctly, Irish and Swedish. Irish I understand (and other refugee or economic migrants) but Swedish seems a bit random. Also, why are they all roaming around in the middle of the night? Not just the prostitutes, loads if people. Why would your shift at the knackers yard start at 4am? Were there that many horses a day to get through?

Apropos of the fascinating foot stuff, there's a saying in my family, the Scots side, that goes "he's a Jimmy Square toes " meaning he's a very stubborn Presbyterian. Interesting, that of course they would be square toed...

Yes, but unless you were rich and had masses of hay you wouldn't put them to calve before the winter. You kill off the weedy ones for salt beef, in the autumn/ winter, the ones you don't need to breed from or you think are going not to make it,, you cherish the rest, or your cowherd does, and at the appropriate time you put them to the bull so that the calves have maximum chance of survival and food post weaning. Same with sheep, why lambs are born in the spring. And you wouldn't expect to get more than one calving per cow per year; gestation period is about 285 days. So if you aim for March calving, you'll have milk for say three monthis plus and then put your cow to the bull again.

All I'm saying is your milk tends to be a spring and summer product, not a winter one. You prob haven't got enough hay for the cow to continue to feed her calf over the winter and in any case the calf is weaned by then.

Indeed, Bear. It could have been some way away, to a big city even, depending on the trade or some family connections or knowledge.

And yes, Devon long houses, Scottish black houses, Swiss chalets are all designed to have cows or livestock alongside or under the people. V efficient.

Yes. Hay is huge - or silage as soon as that became possible. As for the rest, I guess that that's why dairy farms evolved with the larger herds.

My forebears were more used to people having one or two cows but I imagine that some bright spark soon decided to sell to others and meet eg the needs of the city - especially with cheese.

Love the "Jimmy Square Toes" saying

I guess a more pertinent question re livestock and houses is when did we stop routinely designing our houses to accommodate livestock, at least for part of the year?

In reference to the Six Wives prog (and I recognise we aren't all watching)

Was part of the problem that the wives didn't get time to properly recover from the still births and miscarriages before they were expected to go again?

I'm sure I've just heard her say ALL of Katherine's pregnancies were within a 6 year time period, whereas if she'd taken a full 12 month break and let her body recover, no?

My 'guess' would be (i.e. I don't really have a clue) as soon as people felt secure or wealthy enough to build large barns and byres. It's still best to have them close by - to cater for animal husbandry in bad weather and at night - but I can just imagine some Good Wife berating her husband into building the 'new house' separately from the animal quarters. Or building separate animal quarters and expanding the old place for humans only.

As to when? I have no idea. I suspect that it would depend on the quality of the land available. (And the money.) In the North, certainly, animals were quartered under the same roof (sort of) until quite late on in many cases. Maybe until the late 19th century in some cases?

Going back for a moment to Weedsnseeds query re horses in London in the 19thc....according to Judith Flanders's (totally enthralling) 'The Victorian City', omnibuses at their peak utilised 40,000 horses in London...and this was without taking into account the dray horses, cart horses, carriage horses, riding horses or costermongers' donkeys and ponies...Pickford's Removals alone kept 1,500 horses to pull its vans in 1870.

So people dealing with horses in any capacity - including slaughtering the poor overworked beasts - would have been employed pretty much day and night, I'd have thought.

Must go and download 6 Wives now, I forgot it was on!

the thing that surprised me was how multicultural London was even then.

London's a port. Ports have always been more multicultural than other areas, by the very nature of why they're there. Jack the Ripper was 1880s - steam ships and the Empire were well-established, there would have been people from all over the place.

Hello, I've been lurking!

I enjoyed six wives, I knew about her 'phantom' pregnancy, but presuming the programme was correct with the time line, and she had an infection in her womb that grew to the size of a full (ish) term baby, how on earth did she survive it? And later conceive again (although perhaps that's why her other pregnancies did not go well).

Another question that came to mind in the programme was about Henry's mistresses. In a very religious time, where marriage was sacred, what was the deal with the women. (Thinking mainly here of the married one(s). Was it that he was so irresistible lots of women (and/or the men who had an interest in power) just wanted the attention of a king despite God's wrath? Or was it that you just didn't say no to a king? And if so how did Anne get away not giving in to him and playing the long game?

And my third thought/question, in the scroll that was created showing the joust to celebrate prince Henry, king Henry had black hair, (and a bit of a look of Richard III IMO). Did he have black hair when he was young? Or was that artistic licence?

That is a bit odd - maybe they drew him with black hair to make him stand out?

At least in the dramatisation bit they have a sensible-coloured K of A with reddish hair, not a dark "Spanish-looking" woman.

Some pigments degrade over centuries - it may not be the colour it was originally painted with. (I have no idea in this particular case, though.)

I watched the show after reading this and other figures nearby have reddish-brown hair. Maybe it's just a particular artistic style. Maybe it's not hair at all and it's some part of the hat?

It could have been a hat, I hadn't considered that.

Those are stormers of questions, Oreo. The second in particular - where I think I'd expand it to the men i.e. just how did they square their behaviour with their religion?

I have a vague memory that Communion was important eg the later French kings wouldn't go to Communion if they were having 'sinful relations'. (There are remarks from the 'royal watchers' about Louis XIV taking Communion in later life - which is why they reckoned he'd actually married Mme de Maintenon, albeit in secret.)

It's surely not that simple though?

Bloody difficult to say no, your family would probably suffer. Whereas if you said yes, they might do ok out of it. Which is why Anne was so extraordinary that she held out for so long.

Religion? I can't recall when he had his bastard son, but after all the problems with poor old Catherine not producing a living heir, he must have been v fed up with religion. He'd done that. I don't like him or consider him an estimable character but do have some sympathy. The golden couple at the beginning of the reign, going sour. And bloody clever too, so needing an intellectual justification.