0:00:18 > 0:00:23In the church in the village of Ashwell in Hertfordshire,
0:00:23 > 0:00:30medieval graffiti still survive as witnesses to a far-off Age Of Terror.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44And the year when the Great Plague first came
0:00:44 > 0:00:49was one thousand and three hundred and fifty...
0:00:49 > 0:00:51minus one.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56Merciless and terrifying.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05The 14th century is the most conflicted time in British history.
0:01:05 > 0:01:12The country went from boom to bust, ran into climate change, pestilence and famine,
0:01:12 > 0:01:17was involved in foreign war and then the Black Death, the greatest catastrophe in history.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20It's a defining epoch,
0:01:20 > 0:01:23but not in the way that you would have thought.
0:01:37 > 0:01:44A few years after the Black Death, a poor Midlands cleric called William Langland had a dream.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48"One summer season when the sun was soft", Langland begins,
0:01:48 > 0:01:52"I rigged myself out in shaggy woollen clothes like an easy-going hermit,
0:01:52 > 0:01:58"and I set out to wander the world, hoping to hear of wonders."
0:02:00 > 0:02:05"And one May morning in the Malvern Hills, tired by my travels, I fell asleep.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08"And I dreamt a marvellous dream."
0:02:12 > 0:02:20"I saw a fair field full of folk, high and low together, some labouring at ploughing and sowing.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24"No time for pleasure, sweating to produce food for the rich to waste.
0:02:24 > 0:02:30"The ones who spend their lives in vanity parading themselves in their fine clothes.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35"Although their crown comes from us, the commoners."
0:02:39 > 0:02:45Langland's poem about an honest ploughman is the first great social commentary in English history,
0:02:45 > 0:02:48the first to see the world through the eyes of the poor...
0:02:51 > 0:02:56..Medieval reality as opposed to medieval myth.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03'I called you here as free-born Englishmen, loyal to our king.'
0:03:03 > 0:03:07Since Prince John has seized the regency,
0:03:07 > 0:03:11Guy of Gisborne and the rest of his traitors have murdered and pillaged.
0:03:11 > 0:03:17You've all suffered from their cruelty. The ear-loppings, the beatings, the blindings...
0:03:20 > 0:03:23You know, watching history movies on the cinema and TV,
0:03:23 > 0:03:26reading history books, you so often get the impression
0:03:26 > 0:03:29that history is made by the people at the top,
0:03:29 > 0:03:30the rulers, Lords and Kings.
0:03:35 > 0:03:41But what's so wonderful about this period, the 14th century, is that documents are so rich.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46For the first time in English history, you can actually sense the energies of history
0:03:46 > 0:03:49just bubbling up from the grass roots as the ordinary English people,
0:03:49 > 0:03:54even the unfree peasants, for the first time, see the possibilities of change
0:03:54 > 0:03:58and begin to fight for their basic rights.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03It's time we put an end to this!
0:04:08 > 0:04:12This is a journey into Langland's fair field full of folk,
0:04:12 > 0:04:17searching not for kings and queens but for the ordinary English people.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21It's the tale of one village, Codicote in Hertfordshire.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25The story of what happened to its people in a time that changed Britain forever.
0:04:28 > 0:04:35This is the kind of house that the medieval peasants of Codicote would have lived in. Let's have a look.
0:04:40 > 0:04:45It's small, very few possessions.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47And they all mattered.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51You would have brought your animals in at night, especially your cow.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53This is the world of our medieval ancestors.
0:04:53 > 0:05:00And this is the story of one community of them, and one family and especially one woman.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04A medieval peasant, a one-parent family.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06And her name - Christina.
0:05:06 > 0:05:11Now you might have thought it impossible to tell the story
0:05:11 > 0:05:14of a poor peasant 700 years ago, let alone a woman.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17But that's to reckon without the medieval obsession
0:05:17 > 0:05:19with record-taking.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21This is the Court Book for
0:05:21 > 0:05:26Codicote village, a couple of hundred years of records,
0:05:26 > 0:05:32all written down by the secretaries of the Abbot of St Albans for the purposes of taxation.
0:05:32 > 0:05:38Fines, fees, tenancies, it's the brain-crunching detail
0:05:38 > 0:05:44with which medieval landlords ruled their unfree population.
0:05:47 > 0:05:53And here we are in 1277, and the first mention of the family -
0:05:53 > 0:05:58Hugh Cok, that's Christina's father,
0:05:58 > 0:06:03and he rents a place in the market where fish is sold.
0:06:03 > 0:06:08A tiny little plot, just enough for a shop, 14ft by 12ft.
0:06:08 > 0:06:14And pays eight shillings rental to the Lord.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16It's the beginning of Hugh's career.
0:06:16 > 0:06:23He starts off as the poorest villein in the village and over the next 20 years,
0:06:23 > 0:06:28squirrels bits of holdings, bits of land, bits of property, a plot here, a plot there.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33Two and a half acres and another place in the market, rent of 1p,
0:06:33 > 0:06:41fine of 6p, one and a half acres, a house and three acres, an acre with a hedge. It's goes on and on.
0:06:41 > 0:06:48You get a real impression of the almost mind-numbing detail that medieval landlords put you to.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51The amount of kind of semi-intellectual effort that must have gone into
0:06:51 > 0:06:56remembering and forgetting this great web of obligations.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02'This system of scattered holdings has remained unchanged
0:07:03 > 0:07:06'through the centuries. The autumn ploughing is the best time
0:07:06 > 0:07:09'to get a good idea of the strips.'
0:07:09 > 0:07:13Amazingly, Hugh's world survived into the 20th century.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20And there are still traces of their ways in our thought and speech.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24This, for example is broadcasting.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29When Christina was a little girl,
0:07:29 > 0:07:35she would've helped her father in the field, guiding the plough team with a goad.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48What you have to remember about the medieval strip systems is they're
0:07:48 > 0:07:51much more complicated than we were taught at school.
0:07:51 > 0:07:58And here in Codicote, in this part of the Chilterns, they had many fields, not just three big fields.
0:07:58 > 0:08:00Codicote had about 15 fields in the Middle Ages.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05This map gives you an idea. In yellow, I've coloured in what were the peasants' lands.
0:08:05 > 0:08:11The Lord's lands in the middle, the peasants have to go out from the village to work on the strips.
0:08:11 > 0:08:17Hugh Cok, for example, Christina's father, would have had 20 or 30 little bits of land
0:08:17 > 0:08:22dotted around the perimeter so he had to walk each day, maybe a mile and a half out to his strip.
0:08:22 > 0:08:29When you came back in the evening you would have been exhausted, fed up with this irksome system.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33And in fact, throughout the court documents, the ill will between
0:08:33 > 0:08:37the peasants and the landlords is, well, barely concealed.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44To work such a complicated system, you needed a jury.
0:08:44 > 0:08:4612 men, not women.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49I filmed the Laxton Jury in the 1980s.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05And there's the Codicote jury in the Court Book.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Hugh Cok was born around 1250.
0:09:10 > 0:09:15He and his wife Agnes had three children, Christina, John and Adam.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18They were villeins. We still use that word too, don't we?
0:09:18 > 0:09:23It means unfree peasants who rented land from their lord and worked his fields too.
0:09:23 > 0:09:28Labouring to feed their betters, and then to feed themselves.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32Well, this is a basic fromity.
0:09:32 > 0:09:34Fromity? What's a fromity?
0:09:34 > 0:09:37It's a cracked-grain...
0:09:37 > 0:09:40sort of porridge, really,
0:09:40 > 0:09:43and you would mix it with stock or ale or anything like that.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Then you'd put in the things we grow in the garden.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50So today we're just coming out of Lent, so we've got a bit of kale
0:09:50 > 0:09:53and a bit of flat-leaf parsley and some onions,
0:09:53 > 0:09:58which I'll just stick in. Of course, these are quite strong flavours,
0:09:58 > 0:10:01they're going to flavour the grain for you.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04And it'll be, hopefully, quite tasty.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08You'd have had this on its own or you could put it with some meat
0:10:08 > 0:10:09if you were rich enough.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28How's this doing? Are we... Can we sample it?
0:10:28 > 0:10:31Well, you can sample some if you would like to.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34I can't guarantee the taste, but you are welcome.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38Well, this is experimental archaeology, you see, so we've got to do that.
0:10:38 > 0:10:39Well, let's...
0:10:39 > 0:10:42get some for you, then. Do you want some bread?
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Just a bit of that. So these are ordinary peas here, are they?
0:10:45 > 0:10:49They're dried peas, so I've just put them in there basically to soak.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52And we would soak them for quite a while, really.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55- So peas would be a part of their diet too.- They would.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58- Right, and they ate off wood. - They did.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00You'd have a bowl for everything.
0:11:00 > 0:11:07You know, we've got wooden buckets and plates and spoons.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08Happy eating!
0:11:11 > 0:11:13It's very good.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17I don't know whether I could manage this every day, but...
0:11:17 > 0:11:19It's very heavy.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27Christina's parents were smallholders,
0:11:27 > 0:11:31their most valuable possessions their plough oxen and their cow.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37The smaller peasant farmer, we believe, would've used a cow,
0:11:37 > 0:11:41because she's multifunctional. You can use her to work small acreages,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44you can have a calf from her and you milk her as well.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57Modern beef animals, all the money's in the back end, whereas you look at
0:11:57 > 0:12:01the pictures of the old ox teams, they're big front-ended animals, big shoulders.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06They generally started them at about three, they went into the teams,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10worked them for two years, then they went off to fatten for two years.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13So, they increased in value.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15Whereas the horse decreased in value.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21They're named as well.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26This is Grin and Graceful, single-syllable nearside,
0:12:26 > 0:12:28double-syllable offside.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31So when you work in a team they know who you're talking to.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Come on, heads up.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37Come on! Oi, Graceful...
0:12:46 > 0:12:52As a medieval peasant, you had to be averagely good at a lot of things.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56You didn't have many professional woodsmen back in the Middle Ages,
0:12:56 > 0:13:02you were just a farm worker doing woodland work because it was necessary to your year.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06So what's the deal with being able to...
0:13:06 > 0:13:10Do the peasants have a common land or common wood where they can do this
0:13:10 > 0:13:13or do they have to get permission from the landlord?
0:13:13 > 0:13:17If they're tenants of the landlord, often their rental payment
0:13:17 > 0:13:22will cover gathering certain types of wood and sometimes
0:13:22 > 0:13:27in certain quantities. This is actually where you get the difference between wood and timber.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33Wood was generally the stuff that peasants were allowed to gather.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38Locally around here it was stuff up to about four inches thick.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41Timber was a commercial product. It didn't necessarily mean
0:13:41 > 0:13:44you were going to build anything out of it, it just meant
0:13:44 > 0:13:47it belonged to the land owner and he could sell it.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52So the landowner would be keen for the woodlands on the estate to have lots of what we'd call
0:13:52 > 0:13:56standard trees, ones that will grow to their full height, whereas the peasantry
0:13:56 > 0:14:01wanted lots of coppice or pollard trees where they'd get lots of these poles.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03- And you get the firewood as well. - The thicker stuff
0:14:03 > 0:14:07at the bottom for firewood. The straight bits in the middle for fencing.
0:14:07 > 0:14:12The twigs at the top that I'm sitting on here, you can actually make beds out of them.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17But most would be tied into bundles called faggots and they would be used to heat your bread ovens.
0:14:28 > 0:14:33Now on one level you might think that this is just an everyday story
0:14:33 > 0:14:36of medieval country folk, but there's more to it than that.
0:14:36 > 0:14:43Here in 14th-century Hertfordshire, Christina and her neighbours are already set on the path which will
0:14:43 > 0:14:48lead England to become the first capitalist nation in history.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53"Money, money, money, thou art king,"
0:14:53 > 0:14:57said a poet of the time, "and rulest the world over all."
0:15:01 > 0:15:05By the late 13th century, money was in wide circulation and markets were
0:15:05 > 0:15:11opening everywhere, where peasants could sell their surplus - the first step to freedom.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19I do barn eggs, I do duck eggs, I do quail eggs...
0:15:19 > 0:15:25The nearest big market, St Albans, was already here in 1086.
0:15:25 > 0:15:32I think it goes back to at least the 11-1200s. I'm sure it does. It might even go back a bit before that.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36My father-in-law's had a stall here for about 30 years and my son's
0:15:36 > 0:15:39working here as well, so that's three generations.
0:15:39 > 0:15:44And my husband's grandma used to work on the stall with his father as well so, at one time, when Tom was a baby,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47there were four generations on the stall.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51Christina's parents leased a stall in a new market in Codicote.
0:15:51 > 0:15:57You might think it almost impossible to recover the 13th century
0:15:57 > 0:16:02from a modern commuter village, but it's still here.
0:16:07 > 0:16:12That's the main road from Hitchin to St Albans. Medieval road, pilgrims' road, in fact.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17The George and the Dragon was built there in the 14th century as a pilgrims' hostel.
0:16:18 > 0:16:23In 1267 the King allowed the villagers to have a market, and this is the marketplace.
0:16:23 > 0:16:29It's been filled in with these cottages in later times but this is where all the market stalls were -
0:16:29 > 0:16:33fish stalls along there for salted fish,
0:16:33 > 0:16:39the fleshmongers - the butchers - the tanners, the coopers and so on. All around here.
0:16:41 > 0:16:47And it's this point in the story of England, as well as the story of the village, that you see the growth
0:16:47 > 0:16:49of capitalism at the grass roots.
0:16:54 > 0:17:00Christina herself was born around 1285 at the end of a boom time.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04In 200 years the population had gone from two million to six,
0:17:04 > 0:17:08and, with the King needing to feed his court and fight his wars,
0:17:08 > 0:17:11this was the real beginning of the English tax system.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17There's 175 kms of shelving
0:17:17 > 0:17:21here in the stores of the National Archive - the records of the English
0:17:21 > 0:17:25and the British state for 1,000 years, almost.
0:17:27 > 0:17:34These shelves contain the court rolls of the 13th and 14th century.
0:17:34 > 0:17:40Nothing to my mind gives a better idea of the capacity of a medieval government to gather information
0:17:40 > 0:17:47than to tax even the poorest people down to the level of Christina and her father,
0:17:47 > 0:17:48Hugh Cok.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54These are pieces of parchment that are sewn together
0:17:54 > 0:17:55to form the long roll.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58See the sewing on the first strip here?
0:18:01 > 0:18:04It's just fantastic, isn't it?
0:18:06 > 0:18:11Of course, you have to remember, it's not organised by modern local government blocks.
0:18:11 > 0:18:17It's organised on hundreds, which are the divisions of the shire.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20It had to be right at the end, didn't it?
0:18:20 > 0:18:25So we know where we are, because this is the hundred of Cashio and here...
0:18:27 > 0:18:28..Codicote.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31And the...
0:18:31 > 0:18:3329...
0:18:33 > 0:18:38taxable people of Codicote in 1307.
0:18:38 > 0:18:44They're people with enough property - shop in the market, land, cottage and so on - to be taxable.
0:18:44 > 0:18:48All of them would have been well- known to Christina and her family.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52The Arnolds... There's still an Arnolds' farm in Codicote.
0:18:52 > 0:18:54There's still a Thickney. Roger Polin.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59They end up being one of the wealthiest villein families in the 14th century,
0:18:59 > 0:19:03did very well out of all the crises of the time.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09And Hugh Cok, Christina's father.
0:19:09 > 0:19:11His tax rating -
0:19:11 > 0:19:1513 pence and 3 farthings.
0:19:15 > 0:19:22In 1277 he'd been estimated at six pennies, so he's more than doubled
0:19:22 > 0:19:28his tax liability after 30 years of hard slog out in the fields of Codicote.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34If you want to understand the medieval mind, you have to remember this -
0:19:34 > 0:19:39that along with death, the other great constant is tax.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51Then, as now, money meant social mobility. It brought peasants property,
0:19:51 > 0:19:55and even education and literacy,
0:19:55 > 0:20:00and it shaped the class system that the English have loved and hated ever since.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06There were quite big class divisions -
0:20:06 > 0:20:14poor people on one side, like Christina, and rich families like the Salecoks and the Polins,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17who built up quite big estates and properties, shops.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20They might have been able to afford to build themselves
0:20:20 > 0:20:25a fine house like this, with a little hall and a bedroom at one end.
0:20:29 > 0:20:35So social change was in the air and in the art of the time too.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37This most beautiful of all medieval books
0:20:37 > 0:20:40was commissioned in Christina's lifetime by a rich lord -
0:20:40 > 0:20:42Sir Geoffrey Luttrell.
0:20:45 > 0:20:49It's just so rare for the Middle Ages for anything concerning the great unwashed
0:20:49 > 0:20:53to make it through. We're used to it being the realms of Time Team
0:20:53 > 0:20:55and pot shards etc,
0:20:55 > 0:20:58but here you've actually got it, red of tooth and claw,
0:20:58 > 0:21:02and the scenes that run around the marginal space in this incredible book,
0:21:02 > 0:21:07populated not just by the great and the good but by the ordinary people who made Luttrell plc tick.
0:21:07 > 0:21:14And that's an incredibly brave thing for a patron to actually want to do.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16- So these are real people? - Oh, real people.
0:21:16 > 0:21:22And this is a century in which we're beginning to experiment with portraiture. Imagine the thrill
0:21:22 > 0:21:28of these people in the household if they saw this thing in the church, seeing themselves too.
0:21:28 > 0:21:34And you can say something from the subsidy roles etc. of how much these estates were worth each year,
0:21:34 > 0:21:38but if we want to see what makes the man tick and how he's seeing his universe,
0:21:38 > 0:21:43this is the best route in. It's very rare for somebody to leave something that personal.
0:21:51 > 0:21:56I think one of the things that runs throughout the agenda
0:21:56 > 0:22:02is a concern with social justice, with poverty and posterity.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08"Just look around you,"
0:22:08 > 0:22:10wrote William Langland,
0:22:10 > 0:22:12"especially at the women among the poor.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16"Burdened with children, often famished with hunger,
0:22:16 > 0:22:21"their lot is too hard for me to describe in poetry."
0:22:32 > 0:22:37Now, Christina's father knew that, and when she reached her late teens
0:22:37 > 0:22:43he passed on to her his property in the market, the house and shop with its yard and garden.
0:22:43 > 0:22:51Hugh gives over these holdings and tenements to his daughter, Christina...
0:22:53 > 0:22:58..on condition that he will still hold them in name for the rest of his lifetime.
0:22:58 > 0:23:00So he maybe has become infirm.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04Maybe, you know, hard work for 30 years as a villein,
0:23:04 > 0:23:09ploughing his lord's fields as well as his own,
0:23:09 > 0:23:10has really finished him off.
0:23:14 > 0:23:19Christina's parents also brewed and sold ale.
0:23:22 > 0:23:28Brewing traditionally was a woman's trade, and Christina will have learned the job when she was young.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31You just pour it in,
0:23:31 > 0:23:34and you have to keep the temperature just below simmering the whole time.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39The mashing process forces the sugar out
0:23:39 > 0:23:44of the malted barley into the liquid, which will eventually be called wort.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47And the liquid is what you're going to turn into the ale.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51So medieval women who are brewing ale literally will spend two hours
0:23:51 > 0:23:54over their hot bowl doing this each day that they brew ale.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58Yes, it's quite a careful process, and one that I think they would
0:23:58 > 0:24:03have been very skilled in, because it was their main drink. It was their daily drink.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05God, I'm starting to smell it now.
0:24:05 > 0:24:07I feel as if I'm...
0:24:07 > 0:24:09in a medieval brewery now.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12I think women would have almost used it like cooking.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17They would have added all sorts of ingredients, like nettles or dandelions,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20to flavour their own ale, and had their own personal recipes.
0:24:26 > 0:24:32In the village book, Christina's parents were fined for breaking the Assize of Ale.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36Now Christina herself had to deal with this notorious area of medieval life,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40controlled by the ale-tasters.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47BELL RINGS
0:24:47 > 0:24:54Make way for the High Bailiff, ale tasters and members of the ancient Henley Court and their guests.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58I command you to draw a glass of your beer and give it
0:24:58 > 0:25:02to my ale-tasters that they may taste it and judge of its quality.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06The excesses that all the women brewed, they wanted to sell,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09and with the act, to actually sell it,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12in theory they needed to put a pole outside their garden,
0:25:12 > 0:25:19outside their house, with a brush on it to indicate to the ale-tasters to come and taste it
0:25:19 > 0:25:22to make sure that it was fit for consumption and sale.
0:25:23 > 0:25:28"Port of Codicote, the feast of St Mark,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32"the ale-tasters present that Christina Blosten,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36"Agnes Boner, Ralph the Miller,
0:25:36 > 0:25:43"have brewed ale and sold it contrary to the Assize of Ale, and are fined."
0:25:43 > 0:25:49So for a peasant, whether you were ploughing or brewing, you ignored the law at your peril.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55It's a very bureaucratic period.
0:25:55 > 0:26:00There are all sorts of rules and regulations.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03If you break them, you have to pay money to a lord
0:26:03 > 0:26:05or whoever has control of the market,
0:26:05 > 0:26:10or whoever has control of the land where you put your dung heap.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12So there'd be a lot of very local litigation,
0:26:12 > 0:26:18which was really a means of somebody raising money.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22But there were other courts and forms of law.
0:26:22 > 0:26:27Local courts, manorial courts, or court leet, as they were called,
0:26:27 > 0:26:32and also of course the Church was a huge landowner.
0:26:32 > 0:26:38When disputes arose about church property, they would often be tried
0:26:38 > 0:26:43in the church courts, because they had jurisdiction over it, which were sometimes called consistory courts.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49Christina's landlord, the earthly agent of Christ's
0:26:49 > 0:26:54great consistory court in the sky, was St Albans Abbey.
0:26:55 > 0:27:02By the 1300s, St Albans Abbey was an ancient and wealthy centre of power and privilege.
0:27:04 > 0:27:12It was founded on what was supposed to be the oldest Christian shrine in Britain, of a Roman saint, Alban.
0:27:12 > 0:27:17The monks had been endowed by the Saxon King Offa in the 8th century.
0:27:17 > 0:27:23The lands of Codicote had been given to the monks in 1002 by King Ethelred the Unready.
0:27:23 > 0:27:28So by Christina's day, the people of Codicote had worked for,
0:27:28 > 0:27:32and been owned by, the King and the Church for many centuries.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34Dear, oh, dear!
0:27:34 > 0:27:38Those medievals were shorter and smaller than me.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47Well, if the Abbot of St Albans ever came up here,
0:27:47 > 0:27:52which I can't believe he did, having been up that narrow staircase, he'd have been able to
0:27:52 > 0:27:57look out over his domain and pretty much as far as the eye could see,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01was land that belonged to the monks.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07"I Christyn, dohtyr of Hugh Cok,
0:28:07 > 0:28:11"tak this londe in villenage to holden for me and myne,
0:28:11 > 0:28:16"and I woll do alle maner service and costomes
0:28:16 > 0:28:21"and in alle thyngis I woll obeye the wylle of the lorde."
0:28:23 > 0:28:28As through most of our history, the system was loaded against women.
0:28:28 > 0:28:291539.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32- Absolutely.- Do you want to open it? - A long time ago.
0:28:34 > 0:28:36'That's why Christina's father,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39'while he was still alive, set her up with property,
0:28:39 > 0:28:41'so she wasn't dependent on a man.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46'And it's why she will always insist on it passing down through her heirs.'
0:28:46 > 0:28:49So these are the court rolls for Norton, aren't they?
0:28:49 > 0:28:52Just to the north of Codicote.
0:28:52 > 0:28:57Yes. They have been made into books, rather than rolls, which is quite interesting. Quite unusual.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00'The truth was that a peasant needed to know the law
0:29:00 > 0:29:05'and if you were smart enough, and if you could read a little, you could use it to your advantage.'
0:29:05 > 0:29:08There we go. Here's the tale.
0:29:13 > 0:29:17Alice, who was the wife of Richard le Bounde, Alice le Bounde.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21She's a widow, she's a villein, she's a semi-free peasant
0:29:21 > 0:29:28and she's come here to make her petition.
0:29:28 > 0:29:34The Lord's Sergeant has unjustly taken as death duty from her husband
0:29:34 > 0:29:37this property, which should have come to Alice
0:29:37 > 0:29:42on the grounds of her hereditas. It had come to her through her family.
0:29:42 > 0:29:48But the judgement that was made was that her marriage - she had been married
0:29:48 > 0:29:53only by the licence of the Lord - and that this property
0:29:53 > 0:29:58could then be taken as death duty
0:29:58 > 0:30:03- and nothing go to her, because... - HE SPEAKS LATIN
0:30:03 > 0:30:07..The man is the head of the woman.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11And I can hear you saying, how medieval is that?
0:30:11 > 0:30:15But before you jump to conclusions, don't forget that arguments like this
0:30:15 > 0:30:20over the married woman's property continue right through the Victorian era,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24even after the Married Women's Property Act of 1882.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27The road to women's equality, even in Britain,
0:30:27 > 0:30:32has been long and difficult and not yet in some areas achieved.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41So if Christina were looking for a husband, she needed to be careful.
0:30:42 > 0:30:47Christina's, I think, in her late twenties and she's got property,
0:30:47 > 0:30:53so she's potentially a catch, is she? Even though she's a villein woman.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56Her father saw to it that she had some property.
0:30:58 > 0:31:02It's interesting that it's market property.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05That would have meant that she was up and about.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08She travelled, she moved, she bought, she sold.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12It's really interesting. The early 14th century is probably
0:31:12 > 0:31:17the peak of pressure on availability of landed resources in England.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22The population is really, really growing and we find
0:31:22 > 0:31:29many, many cases enrolled of men that are clearly younger marrying women that are older and with property.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32These are definitely working relationships.
0:31:32 > 0:31:34She has something to offer.
0:31:34 > 0:31:38She's not being coerced into this. She's made a choice.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42And to have a young vigorous, interested man, perhaps of some
0:31:42 > 0:31:48talent or skill, around the place, is, as we know, extremely useful. HE LAUGHS
0:31:50 > 0:31:53She would know the value of documentation.
0:31:53 > 0:31:59The fact that she's involved in market activity means she has to be aware of
0:31:59 > 0:32:06- the importance of documentation, of licensing, and of leaving that, dare I say, the parchment trail.- Yeah.
0:32:09 > 0:32:14And her parchment trail now leads us to 1314 and a husband.
0:32:14 > 0:32:21She's making provision for a property in the market with a man called William Baron
0:32:21 > 0:32:27and special provision for its descent through her true heirs.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34So she's thinking about children.
0:32:34 > 0:32:40There were many dangers in pregnancy then, so you sought all the help you could get.
0:32:40 > 0:32:47You might pray to a great saint like Alban or a local holy woman, like her namesake Christina of Markyate.
0:32:47 > 0:32:50But you might also turn to magic.
0:32:52 > 0:32:54There was a beautiful classical cameo.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57Matthew Paris, our famous historian monk,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00drew a picture of it.
0:33:00 > 0:33:06And this was thought to be very effective for fertility.
0:33:06 > 0:33:11We hear about women laying it on themselves, lying down and placing it on their stomach.
0:33:15 > 0:33:19So you could imagine our Christina made a pilgrimage to this shrine
0:33:19 > 0:33:26and laid the magic onyx stone on her belly and prayed to Alban for children.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29Gosh, you would pray, wouldn't you?
0:33:29 > 0:33:35Such dreams were the refuge of the medieval mind, but medieval life was governed by hard reality.
0:33:38 > 0:33:43If there wasn't much to go round, the boys and men got it because they were working in the fields.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46So the women wouldn't have weighed enough to be fertile.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51So you brought your thin little wife on a pilgrimage, asking permission.
0:33:51 > 0:33:57- What weight is...?- About seven and a quarter stone is the optimum weight for fertility, to begin menstruation.
0:34:02 > 0:34:07So Christina's nearly 30 now, seven or eight stone maybe.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10She's already had a hard life, and two babies are on the way.
0:34:13 > 0:34:20There's rarely a perfect time to have children, but 1314 was not one.
0:34:23 > 0:34:29At this point, the British Isles and Northern Europe slip into catastrophic climate change.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37A pattern of wet summers and frozen winters led to starvation
0:34:37 > 0:34:41and then to disease and pestilence in men and beasts.
0:34:41 > 0:34:43The Great Famine.
0:34:45 > 0:34:52Modern studies of tree rings and ice cores have found a long-term picture that they couldn't see.
0:34:52 > 0:34:53Two centuries of cooling.
0:34:53 > 0:34:56Europe's little Ice Age.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10It was a time, they said, so cold and unkind.
0:35:14 > 0:35:20To see what the famine was like for Christina and her neighbours, we can go to one Hertfordshire farm
0:35:20 > 0:35:24that was still a working farm with two huge medieval barns
0:35:24 > 0:35:29when these photos were taken in 1936.
0:35:34 > 0:35:38The 14th century barn is now an architects' office and here we've got
0:35:38 > 0:35:43the incredible survival of almost day-to-day records from that time.
0:35:45 > 0:35:50This is the entry for Kinsbourne on the 16th day of January,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54and the accounting official is William Attherne.
0:35:54 > 0:35:56Then it lists, initially,
0:35:56 > 0:35:59the different types of crops, starting with wheat, then peas,
0:35:59 > 0:36:06barley, then this damaged area says dredge, which is a mixture of barley and oats,
0:36:06 > 0:36:08and then finally, oats.
0:36:08 > 0:36:15At the bottom of the document there is a list of livestock, which includes 12 horses and five cows.
0:36:15 > 0:36:21Also, there's a young animal who is pregnant.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24And here at Kinsbourne, the farm diary can take us into
0:36:24 > 0:36:28the worst days of the famine.
0:36:28 > 0:36:33This is a copy of an entry from the winter of 1315,
0:36:33 > 0:36:36which is right at one of the peak crisis moments.
0:36:36 > 0:36:41This is part of the Grange Account dealing with peas and veg.
0:36:41 > 0:36:47It starts, "In porcis campestribus", which are for field pigs,
0:36:47 > 0:36:50who would normally be out rooting in the fields.
0:36:50 > 0:36:55They've been sustained in winter, "tempori nevis",
0:36:55 > 0:37:00so in the period of snowy weather, one quarter one bushel of peas has been expended.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04The natural food of the pigs has been covered up by deep snow,
0:37:04 > 0:37:08so the farm manager is having to feed them extra grain to support them.
0:37:08 > 0:37:14The chronicles for this period of the Great Famine talk about rains through
0:37:14 > 0:37:19July, August, into September, for two or three years running in the worst period of the famine.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22- Have you got evidence of that? - We've got evidence
0:37:22 > 0:37:28from Kinsbourne of those heavy rains, which struck in 1315 and 1316 especially.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33This is the section for the autumn expenses in the period of wet weather.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37The entry starts here with the purchase of ale for the reeve
0:37:37 > 0:37:41and the cowman and various other farm servants.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44More than usual because of the great rain.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46"Proctor magnum pluvium."
0:37:48 > 0:37:52Presumably this means that the harvest period has had to be extended
0:37:52 > 0:37:56and so they were paid extra and they're being paid in ale, which was a foodstuff.
0:37:56 > 0:38:02This is quite an interesting entry, because the auditor has been through disallowing some of the expenses.
0:38:02 > 0:38:09They didn't believe that so much ale had been consumed and they reduced the amount of ale that they allowed
0:38:09 > 0:38:13from ten shillings and sixpence down to seven shillings and eight pence.
0:38:13 > 0:38:20So the poor peasants of Kinsbourne, in the middle of the Great Famine, are ploughing
0:38:20 > 0:38:26fields late because of the pouring rain and the landlord is penny- pinching over their ale expenses?
0:38:26 > 0:38:30Fantastic detail, isn't it? Absolutely amazing.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34Is it always profit and loss and cutting your expenses
0:38:34 > 0:38:38or is there a sense of charity or sympathy in the documents?
0:38:38 > 0:38:42- Or do documents not tell you that kind of thing?!- Well, they do, actually.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46Many of these account rolls have been searched for this particular period
0:38:46 > 0:38:51and it seems that charity was rather lacking at the time.
0:38:51 > 0:38:57There are some examples of the lord relaxing certain services or dues or obligations,
0:38:57 > 0:39:02but also there are examples of them actually cutting food rations to their workers
0:39:02 > 0:39:05because of the price of corn.
0:39:06 > 0:39:12And believe it or not, the worst year for the people, 1316,
0:39:12 > 0:39:15was the best year for the landlord's profits.
0:39:24 > 0:39:30If you'd been able to take this bird's-eye view in the worst time of the Great Famine,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33through the summer of 1315 or 1316,
0:39:33 > 0:39:40you would have seen below you flooded valleys, flattened fields and ruined crops.
0:39:40 > 0:39:45And in places, the food distribution system simply broke down.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49Merchants from as far away as Yorkshire were travelling through the home counties
0:39:49 > 0:39:54desperately trying to buy up the last precious supplies of grain.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12"Sorowe spradde over all ure londe. An thusent winter there bifore
0:40:12 > 0:40:16"com nevere non so strong.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20"To binde all the mene men in mourning and in care.
0:40:20 > 0:40:27"And ure catel died al togedir, and maden the lond al bare so faste.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31"Com never wrecche into Engelond that made men more agaste."
0:40:35 > 0:40:40'Swathes of central England are under water tonight.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43'In the last few minutes, it's been confirmed that 150,000 homes
0:40:43 > 0:40:47'in Gloucestershire are now without...'
0:40:59 > 0:41:02What would it be like for a farmer in the 14th century?
0:41:02 > 0:41:06You've got two years of total destruction of the crops and everything.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10I mean, can you put yourself in their position?
0:41:10 > 0:41:14Well, almost certainly, we'd be tenant farmers,
0:41:14 > 0:41:17certainly wouldn't own the farm.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20Rents would have to be paid,
0:41:20 > 0:41:25so it's a desperate situation of finding enough money to pay the rent.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29Otherwise, landlord comes along and says you're out.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32So that's the first thing. Then of course feeding the family
0:41:32 > 0:41:36and keeping the farm running and trying to get the next crop in.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43Any cattle, he'd have to be forced to sell, because he couldn't feed.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47If you're forced to sell, you always get a lower price, so he'd suffer that way.
0:41:47 > 0:41:52He couldn't recoup the money by selling, and once the cattle are sold, he can't produce milk.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56That really sounds absolutely appalling.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05The landlords' repossessions
0:42:05 > 0:42:09from Christina's neighbours are entered in the Codicote Court Book.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14Up from an average of half a dozen to 38 surrendered tenancies in 1316.
0:42:17 > 0:42:25The Great Famine was accompanied by a virulent pestilence of cattle and by a human epidemic, maybe typhoid.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28About 10% of the population died.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31Over half a million people.
0:42:31 > 0:42:37Among the dead was Christina's brother John and her husband William also disappears.
0:42:37 > 0:42:41Probably dead in the epidemic of 1319.
0:42:44 > 0:42:49So Christina is left with her mother Agnes and two small children,
0:42:49 > 0:42:53John and Alice, in her little house, with its precious garden.
0:42:56 > 0:43:02Starvation was always a possibility and you would grow whatever you possibly could.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05This is where your edible weeds came in.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11If your crops failed, at least you'd have something to put in the pottage.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15Things like fat hen and borage and bitter cress.
0:43:17 > 0:43:22Even things like bristly ox tongue, which is like eating cardboard.
0:43:22 > 0:43:28You boil it and it goes into a horrible green wad, but at least it fills the belly.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37So when the Great Famine happened and so many people died,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40if you were, maybe like Christina, if you were good at doing this,
0:43:40 > 0:43:44- you could just about keep things together.- You may well be able to keep going.
0:43:50 > 0:43:57Christina survived and her children, perhaps due to her own ability to manage the resources
0:43:57 > 0:44:03at her disposal, herbs of the forest and the vegetables she grew in her plot.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06But other neighbours didn't.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10Her neighbour, Michael Gorman and his wife, through the three years
0:44:10 > 0:44:14of the famine, gradually sold off all the little plots of land.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16Their cottage and their strips.
0:44:16 > 0:44:22In the end, in the third year of the famine, Michael died and the note
0:44:22 > 0:44:27in the court register simply says his death duty was nothing.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29Because he had nothing.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40Even in hard times, there was always one man who did all right. The miller.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47"John the Miller Grinds, small, small,"
0:44:47 > 0:44:51said the rhyme, "but the king of heaven sees all, all".
0:44:56 > 0:44:58Always been the way in medieval times,
0:44:58 > 0:45:02you had to pay a tithe, which was often a tenth part of the grain.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06The miller was always fairly prosperous, I think, in the village.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11- Really?- Yes. And probably universally hated as a result of it.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14And the butt of 14th century jokes.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16"What's the boldest thing in the world?"
0:45:16 > 0:45:22"A miller's shirt, for every day it clasps a thief by the throat."
0:45:26 > 0:45:30The miller was seen by the peasants as just raising taxes for the landlord.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37And they were always looking for ways round having to go to him with their hard-won grain.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48Now this is a hand quern.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53Frequent cases in the court books
0:45:53 > 0:45:57of Christina's neighbours being done for using them.
0:46:02 > 0:46:03You could grind
0:46:03 > 0:46:06small quantities for domestic use.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10If the abbot caught you,
0:46:10 > 0:46:15you could get your grain confiscated, your horse confiscated,
0:46:15 > 0:46:21but in particular, you could lose the quern stones themselves.
0:46:21 > 0:46:27On one famous occasion, the abbot sent his bailiff and his men to the villages around,
0:46:27 > 0:46:32including Codicote, to confiscate the quern stones and take them back to St Albans,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35where he used them to pave his new patio.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47After the famine, better times returned.
0:46:47 > 0:46:51As they said, "A good year was a-come again".
0:46:51 > 0:46:56And the abbot sent his men to revalue the village and its people.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03Every single person living in it had to be written down,
0:47:03 > 0:47:07how much they paid, where they lived and how much they owned.
0:47:08 > 0:47:10Christina was in her forties now.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14Her mother dead, she's a single woman with teenage children.
0:47:16 > 0:47:21The rich, the poor, the wealthy tenants like the Salecoks
0:47:21 > 0:47:24and the Poleyns, and down here,
0:47:24 > 0:47:29"Christina - tennet unum mesuagum"
0:47:29 > 0:47:31- one housing plot,
0:47:31 > 0:47:35which had belonged to Hugh Cok, her father.
0:47:35 > 0:47:41She doesn't have any of the lands and fields and strips and allotments that her father had.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45So she pays one penny free rent on that, so...
0:47:45 > 0:47:49And, you know, every detail...
0:47:50 > 0:47:54"In order to make offence, one penny..."
0:47:57 > 0:48:00Not long after this, Christina decides to set up her daughter,
0:48:00 > 0:48:06Alice, with a house and a shop, to be economically independent, just as she'd been.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10So she now divides her holdings in the market and amazingly,
0:48:10 > 0:48:14from the Court Book, you can still trace them on the ground.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18Daughter's plot, Alice's house...
0:48:20 > 0:48:21..another 20 feet.
0:48:21 > 0:48:27Then their neighbour, Henry Skeel, and his wife, Sybil - 28 feet.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32And the final plot, the Synoth family, Juliana Synoth.
0:48:32 > 0:48:37So, fantastic bit of historical synchronicity here.
0:48:37 > 0:48:44We know that Christina had brewed ale all her life and her parents had as well. She was a brewster.
0:48:44 > 0:48:49And here, in the late 14th century, the George and Dragon was built
0:48:49 > 0:48:52as a pilgrim's hostel and a great ale house.
0:48:53 > 0:48:59It's a Chinese restaurant today, after 700 years as the oldest licensed premises in Hertfordshire.
0:49:01 > 0:49:06- And I suppose Christina's grandchildren might just have walked up these stairs.- Mind your head!
0:49:06 > 0:49:12On the site great granddad Hugh got from Lawrence the Vintner in 1279.
0:49:14 > 0:49:19This is the most unusual Chinese restaurant that I've ever seen!
0:49:19 > 0:49:22It's so different from the Chinese culture, isn't it?
0:49:22 > 0:49:24What made you buy this place?
0:49:24 > 0:49:26We just loved this village.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29We loved the people in here
0:49:29 > 0:49:31and the nice, quiet countryside life.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39I thought I'd got to know Christina by now.
0:49:39 > 0:49:45She'd survived famine, pestilence, and civil war and brought up two children.
0:49:45 > 0:49:50She did well - but then a last clue in the parchment trail.
0:49:52 > 0:49:58We're up to 1345 now, the Wednesday after St Mark the Evangelist,
0:49:58 > 0:50:00and here's the surprise.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06William Stacy, now dead,
0:50:06 > 0:50:12held from the landlord a messuage with a courtyard and a garden,
0:50:12 > 0:50:15and Christina Cok,
0:50:15 > 0:50:20who was his wife, now claims that they had joint tenure.
0:50:22 > 0:50:28Here, 1345, she's now in her sixties.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33A man who was her husband, William Stacy, has died,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37and Christina claims to the landlord that she has the rights
0:50:37 > 0:50:40to their jointly held property.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44So Christina had married for a second time.
0:50:44 > 0:50:50The day appointed for the case was the Saturday before Trinity Sunday, late May.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54And on that day, Christina the villein of Codicote
0:50:54 > 0:50:59came here to St Albans to meet the abbot's authorities.
0:51:05 > 0:51:11And she called for the court books to be brought forward to prove her case.
0:51:11 > 0:51:17And she showed that the record was indeed as she said it was.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20Could she read? We don't know.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24But she could certainly understand. She won the case.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27Maybe time had moved on in the 55 years since Alice le Bounde stood
0:51:27 > 0:51:32here and lost her case, because the man is the head of the woman.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35But maybe Christina was a feistier woman.
0:51:37 > 0:51:39Anachronistic?
0:51:39 > 0:51:43Well, here's the reality of a medieval woman's life.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47This woman's bones came from a village cemetery
0:51:47 > 0:51:51and she was 60, just like Christina.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54Particularly in the femur neck, and we do know that this individual
0:51:54 > 0:51:58did suffer form typical osteoporotic fractures.
0:51:58 > 0:52:00One of her vertebra here shows it very clearly.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04This is a normal vertebra, that's the weight-bearing part of the bone.
0:52:04 > 0:52:09And this one from the central part of her spine, you can see you've got severe crushing of the bone.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13That's typical of a bone weakened by osteoporosis.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16And she's lost all her teeth before death,
0:52:16 > 0:52:19and she's lost them a long time before death as well.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24You can see how resolved and thin that mandible is.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29What we find in the lower end of the leg bones is, in the female skeleton,
0:52:29 > 0:52:31it's quite common to find a little squatting facet.
0:52:31 > 0:52:36What I'm talking about is crescent-shaped extension to the joint surface there.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39The reason for that is when the person squats down
0:52:39 > 0:52:41and the foot bends up like that,
0:52:41 > 0:52:46it causes that joint surface just to extend forwards.
0:52:46 > 0:52:51This kind of thing is much more common in female skeletons than it is in males'.
0:52:55 > 0:53:01So, 60-ish, thin, arthritic, poor teeth, a bad back
0:53:01 > 0:53:06from years crouching in that little house on long cold dark nights,
0:53:06 > 0:53:11lit only by rush tapers. Is that her?
0:53:12 > 0:53:17Our last record of Christina comes form the spring of 1348.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21It's a landlord's summary of a medieval woman's life.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26"Christina Cok is dead.
0:53:26 > 0:53:32"She held a housing plot and a yard from her landlord.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36"And her death duty is her sow, worth four shillings".
0:53:41 > 0:53:43"In the name of God, Amen.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46"I mak myn wylle in this wyse.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48"First I comytte my sawle to God
0:53:48 > 0:53:54"and me body to be beryed in the chirchyerde of Seynte Giles.
0:53:54 > 0:53:59"And I beqwethe unto the lyghtes of the chirche fower busshellis of barley.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03"And I beqwethe unto Alyce Whyte, my coate.
0:54:03 > 0:54:10"And for the remnaunt of my goodis, I will that my childyr dispose it in comfort of my sawle."
0:54:20 > 0:54:27Only a month or so after Christina's death was registered came dark and amazing rumours.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36"It started in India", wrote the historian, Henry Knighton,
0:54:36 > 0:54:41"and it moved across the face of the earth, from Tartary through the land
0:54:41 > 0:54:45of Saracens, and then into the land of the Christians".
0:54:45 > 0:54:50"A universal plague upon mankind".
0:54:50 > 0:54:55And on 25 June 1348, it landed near Weymouth.
0:54:58 > 0:54:59The Black Death.
0:55:00 > 0:55:07Its genetic code has just been cracked here in the London School of Tropical Medicine.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11We think this is one of the tricks that a pestis uses.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13So it streamlines its genome
0:55:13 > 0:55:18and it makes it a stealthy organism to avoid the human immune system.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21Then these black lines here added DNA from other organisms
0:55:21 > 0:55:25and this contributes to the organism's virulence.
0:55:25 > 0:55:27So it can build up the numbers very quickly,
0:55:27 > 0:55:29so it'll just carry on multiplying
0:55:29 > 0:55:34within the blood and the lymph system until the immune system breaks down.
0:55:34 > 0:55:39Was there anything they could do about it? A 14th century doctor, I mean.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43There's nothing they could do about it. You just hoped that you survived.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46Some people survived and had the immunity, but most died.
0:55:49 > 0:55:52Though the autumn of 1348, the plague spread along
0:55:52 > 0:55:56the highways of England, moving at a kilometre a day.
0:55:58 > 0:56:04Tuesday, on the feast of St Dunstan, so it's late May, 1349.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07"Meeting of the court of Codicote".
0:56:11 > 0:56:14Pages and pages of deaths.
0:56:15 > 0:56:1959 of them in one entry.
0:56:19 > 0:56:21Hugo Allen,
0:56:21 > 0:56:27Jonet Pirry, John White, John Thickney, Ralph Thickney...
0:56:36 > 0:56:40"Pitiable, ferocious and violent.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44Only the dregs of the people are left to bear witness.
0:56:44 > 0:56:49"And in the end that year, a great wind blew across the world".
0:56:51 > 0:56:56I know of no other place where the immediacy,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59the numbing terror of the Black Death is better conveyed
0:56:59 > 0:57:04than these graffiti scrawled into the stone.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08And yet, from the pillar just there,
0:57:08 > 0:57:11there are other graffiti from the same time.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13"The Arch Deacon is an ass"
0:57:13 > 0:57:17and "That Barbara, she's a real vixen".
0:57:21 > 0:57:24Nearly half the people of Britain died in the Black Death,
0:57:24 > 0:57:27although Christina's children survived.
0:57:27 > 0:57:30In Hertfordshire alone, 60 villages would disappear from the map,
0:57:30 > 0:57:33but the plague changed everything.
0:57:33 > 0:57:38With an empty land and far fewer people, the premium now was on labour.
0:57:38 > 0:57:41The peasants at last had bargaining power.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44In 1381, they rose in the Peasants Revolt,
0:57:44 > 0:57:48and in St Albans the townspeople helped the peasants storm the abbey,
0:57:48 > 0:57:50demanding an end to serfdom.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55There were 2,000 of them, all of them trying to fight
0:57:55 > 0:57:59their way inside where there were 100 monks and the abbot.
0:57:59 > 0:58:04They must have been terrified by the fury that was unleashed,
0:58:04 > 0:58:07and the peasants out there not only wanted to get the monks inside,
0:58:07 > 0:58:10but they wanted to destroy the abbey archives -
0:58:10 > 0:58:14the court books, the record of their subjection.
0:58:14 > 0:58:18Their leader, William Grindcob, said, "All we want is a little
0:58:18 > 0:58:22liberty after so many centuries of oppression".
0:58:27 > 0:58:29And that's the end of our story.
0:58:29 > 0:58:34But of course, it's only the beginning of the tale of the British people's fight for their liberty.
0:58:34 > 0:58:39And especially the forgotten half of our ancestors -
0:58:39 > 0:58:41the women like Christina.
0:59:03 > 0:59:05Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:05 > 0:59:07E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk