0:00:02 > 0:00:04In a village in the heart of England, we're tracing
0:00:04 > 0:00:08the tale of one community through the whole of our history.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10We've got something which is possibly prehistoric!
0:00:10 > 0:00:13- Yeah?- Oh, we've lost it.
0:00:13 > 0:00:14Oh...! No, don't say that!
0:00:15 > 0:00:18The village is Kibworth in Leicestershire.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22When we get into the post-Norman period, look how it changes.
0:00:22 > 0:00:23Huge explosion of growth...
0:00:23 > 0:00:25With science, history and archaeology,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28we're seeing how the story of the village
0:00:28 > 0:00:30is also the story of the nation.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34This area of South Leicestershire is very radicalised politically.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37"You're fighting for England", he says.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41They were killed in the Abbey.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43The high altar itself was splashed with blood.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46To help us, we've got wonderful village archives.
0:00:49 > 0:00:50This is what you've really come to see.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54From the 13th century, we can tell
0:00:54 > 0:00:58the stories of individual peasant families over the generations.
0:00:59 > 0:01:00Suddenly, with this,
0:01:00 > 0:01:03this village and its people come to life.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08In the documents, everyday tales of medieval lives.
0:01:08 > 0:01:09Emma Gilbert, villein.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12Robert, the doctor.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16- Alice Star...- Matilda Star...
0:01:16 > 0:01:18BOTH: Sisters.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23So how will the villagers cope with the horrors that lie ahead
0:01:23 > 0:01:27in the 14th century - the most catastrophic in our history?
0:01:27 > 0:01:29That's the next chapter of the story.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26In the next stage of our search,
0:02:26 > 0:02:30I've come to ask the help of the children at Kibworth High School.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38Imagine that...is the A6.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40Yeah?
0:02:40 > 0:02:44Now, the A6 is an ancient road, but it takes a modern little turn
0:02:44 > 0:02:46through Kibworth Harcourt,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and the original village street goes something like this. Yeah?
0:02:50 > 0:02:53'I'm asking the children to dig archaeological test pits
0:02:53 > 0:02:57'to find out more about the village in the early 14th century.'
0:02:57 > 0:03:01We're going to put our pits in the memorial garden,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03and...
0:03:03 > 0:03:04along there.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11We've already dug 55 pits across the village, but we need to know more.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16First of all we're going to take out all the plants and that...
0:03:16 > 0:03:20So now we've targeted the area behind the medieval marketplace,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23and in the gardens behind two of the old farmhouses.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28Like England as a whole, the village had a boom time up to 1300.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30Hooray!
0:03:32 > 0:03:37In 1300, Kibworth parish consisted of the hamlet of Smeeton Westerby,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41and the two main manors of Kibworth Beauchamp and Kibworth Harcourt.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46Maybe 1,000 people in all - free men and women, serfs, and villeins.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50But the length of them is very impressive.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54There's quite a lot of land in that back area there,
0:03:54 > 0:03:56which is obviously agricultural.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00And maybe one housing plot here, possibly?
0:04:00 > 0:04:03- Mm.- Or two? What do you make of the house -
0:04:03 > 0:04:05any instant impressions there?
0:04:05 > 0:04:07The way you analyse a building like this
0:04:07 > 0:04:11is to count the bays - the distance between the upright timbers.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16So you've got one, two, three, four bays.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19And each bay is roughly 15 feet long.
0:04:19 > 0:04:23So by sort of 1600, it's a jolly nice farmer's house.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26But back in 1300...
0:04:26 > 0:04:28maybe more than one family of villeins.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32What would a villein have had on this plot?
0:04:32 > 0:04:37Well, villeins are not very privileged people - they're unfree -
0:04:37 > 0:04:39so they have to go to the lord's court,
0:04:39 > 0:04:43and it's the lord's court which rules over their lives.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48And in Kibworth Harcourt, they had 12 acres of land each, a holding of
0:04:48 > 0:04:5312 acres of land. Beyond the village boundary, in the open field.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59Both the Kibworths and Smeeton were open-field villages.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04Each of the great fields was divided into many small strips, which were
0:05:04 > 0:05:09shared out and farmed communally by the peasants and their families.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16To keep the fields fertile, the peasants carted out all the manure
0:05:16 > 0:05:21from their barns and yards, with whatever debris was mixed up in it.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25So today we're searching for medieval rubbish.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41Most of it gets here, because they have a midden, they have a muck heap
0:05:41 > 0:05:43in the yard behind the house.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45They put every bit of rubbish onto it,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48and they'd all get shuffled onto a cart called a tumbril.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55And then in the field you pull a lever and the stuff gets dumped
0:05:55 > 0:05:59onto the field, and along with half a tonne of manure
0:05:59 > 0:06:02you're spreading pieces of broken pottery.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Which we go to so much trouble picking it up again.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09It was back-breaking work, but it was the way of life
0:06:09 > 0:06:13for our ancestors - men and women - for 800 years.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18When you plot this stuff, you can see the scatters of Stamford Ware
0:06:18 > 0:06:19from the late Saxon period
0:06:19 > 0:06:22when these field systems are first laid out.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25You can see the early medieval, the late medieval, and quite often the
0:06:25 > 0:06:28early post-med, the late post-med, depending on when it's enclosed.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33What would you have seen, standing here in 1300?
0:06:33 > 0:06:36100% cultivation, really.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38A very boring landscape, really,
0:06:38 > 0:06:42because, you know, it's all brown in the autumn,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45it's all yellow in the summer...
0:06:45 > 0:06:49It's very, very heavily cultivated.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52How does Nicholas Pooley know that his strip
0:06:52 > 0:06:56is different from Walter Peaks', and...?
0:06:56 > 0:06:58Well, at the end of the strip -
0:06:58 > 0:07:01imagining this hedge, which of course wasn't there then,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03there's a headland at the end of the strip -
0:07:03 > 0:07:06you would have some sort of marker,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10and it could be a wooden post, it could be a stone.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13Later on the stone might even have an initial on it, you know -
0:07:13 > 0:07:14P for Pooley or whatever.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19I've recently discovered that in Yorkshire they had holes.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22They were so mean in Yorkshire that they didn't have a post or a stone,
0:07:22 > 0:07:26they just dug a little hole. And THAT marked the boundary.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34And this way of life, hand-ploughing with animals,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37continued all over England well into the 20th century.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44The open-field system was not only labour intensive -
0:07:44 > 0:07:46it took a huge amount of mental effort
0:07:46 > 0:07:50to memorise all the intimate detail of the fields and strips.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57Most of that knowledge is lost now - but not at Kibworth.
0:07:57 > 0:08:02Because back in 1300, the farmers of Kibworth Harcourt gave every detail
0:08:02 > 0:08:08of their land and lives to the new landlords - Merton College, Oxford.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13The field itself is East Field, it gives us in English Easte Feilde.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18This is strip by strip, with the furlongs being named!
0:08:18 > 0:08:21And the local jury writing this down as they see it.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30I've got the later names of the field strips here in the East Field.
0:08:30 > 0:08:36The Long Coombs furlong, Blackland furlong, Stonehill furlong...
0:08:36 > 0:08:41Yes, and we have Stonehill here, "Stonehull"...
0:08:41 > 0:08:43- Two strips.- Two strips on Stonehill.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45And of course, perfect name -
0:08:45 > 0:08:49it would remind you, it's the stony bit of land up the top of the field.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54Long Hoe and Short Hoe,
0:08:54 > 0:08:57and Hearn Seek furlong.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Berridge Home furlong.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02Sladewall...?
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Sladewall.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08Names and customs -
0:09:08 > 0:09:12the pattern of the landscape in the minds of the people,
0:09:12 > 0:09:14handed down for 1,000 years.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19Broad Wan...
0:09:19 > 0:09:22Down here, five strips.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26That is just so fantastic. Now, these strips of parchment
0:09:26 > 0:09:32have "Ex parte umbra" and "Ex parte solis" -
0:09:32 > 0:09:37"On the shady side" and "on the sunny side".
0:09:37 > 0:09:40That's the way the jury remember the strips.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Yeah.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46By memorising the fields as the sun goes round like that...
0:09:46 > 0:09:49- So it is orientation. - So it's orientation.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56Horse Hill.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01That top part appears to be...
0:10:01 > 0:10:06Research being done on camera, you see, this is the real thing!
0:10:06 > 0:10:08Nobody's faking this.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18In an agricultural community like medieval Kibworth, the most
0:10:18 > 0:10:20important man was the ploughman,
0:10:20 > 0:10:24and the most important animals were the oxen.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30They bred them, cared for them, lived with them.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32Walk on...
0:10:32 > 0:10:34And in Weald and Downland Open Air Museum,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38they're doing a fascinating piece of experimental archaeology -
0:10:38 > 0:10:41training young oxen ready to take the plough.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45For the small, poor family, you couldn't have
0:10:45 > 0:10:47what you'd term as an oxen, a castrated male,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50standing round all year doing nothing.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53So they worked the cows, the females.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57You can have a calf, and you can milk it.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00So it's a multi-purpose animal.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03And if you only had one cow, your neighbour had a cow,
0:11:03 > 0:11:06you'd put the two together.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09If another neighbour had a pony, then you could put the pony
0:11:09 > 0:11:14on the front, and have a three-team. So they used everything they could.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16Come on...
0:11:19 > 0:11:22So do they know when they're being talked to, the individual...
0:11:22 > 0:11:25They do. Yes.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29Each pair has the same letter.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31So these two are Rose and Ruby,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34and the ones behind us are Gwen and Graceful.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38It's a single-syllable name near side, this side,
0:11:38 > 0:11:41and double-syllable off side.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46I mean, the most we know recorded put together was 86.
0:11:46 > 0:11:51- 86?!- 86, yeah. And that was to
0:11:51 > 0:11:53move a windmill.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56They moved a windmill from the centre of Brighton - I think
0:11:56 > 0:12:00it was Regency Square - and they moved it up onto the South Downs.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04In the Middle Ages, the ploughmen are quite charismatic figures -
0:12:04 > 0:12:07famous ploughmen in their patchwork coats -
0:12:07 > 0:12:12and the fictional Piers Ploughman becomes a kind of English everyman,
0:12:12 > 0:12:18subject of a tide of popular song and social protest poetry through
0:12:18 > 0:12:22the 14th century, because - as the ballad-makers said -
0:12:22 > 0:12:26"on his shoulders rested the mirth of all the land".
0:12:26 > 0:12:29And "Godspeed well the plough"
0:12:29 > 0:12:34was not just a proverb, it was a heartfelt prayer.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36- I'll let you get on with it. - Thank you.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Rose! Come on, walk on.
0:12:39 > 0:12:40Rose...
0:12:41 > 0:12:44Rose, come on.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Now, if you were a freeman or woman, you ploughed your own fields,
0:12:49 > 0:12:52paid rent and sold your surplus after tax.
0:12:53 > 0:12:59But if you were an unfree peasant - a villein, a cottar or a serf -
0:12:59 > 0:13:05you also owed your lord service, and that could be a real burden.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07Whoa...
0:13:07 > 0:13:13Survey of the Manor of Kibworth, its dues and services and customs.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16So this is Merton recording the community
0:13:16 > 0:13:18pretty soon after they've got hold of it?
0:13:18 > 0:13:23That's right. Obviously the college wants to know what its dues are,
0:13:23 > 0:13:29and to some extent what its liabilities are to the tenants.
0:13:29 > 0:13:31"And here the dues..."
0:13:31 > 0:13:34This is what peasants owed here.
0:13:34 > 0:13:39And not just in money, but in services.
0:13:39 > 0:13:44Two days ploughing each year without food, bringing your own plough!
0:13:49 > 0:13:51Gathering straw together for roofing
0:13:51 > 0:13:54the buildings of the manor court, whenever needed.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57Carrying the lord's corn to Leicester market
0:13:57 > 0:14:00on your own horse, but no further.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03Unless it be within the county.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08Carrying coal within the county - using your own cart!
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Two days mowing the lord's meadow, with one man.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17Two days harrowing and hoeing. with food provided.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19Reaping, four days.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25The men of the village to mow the lord's meadow,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28with a gift of one shilling and sixpence in beer!
0:14:30 > 0:14:34And on 1300 prices, that was enough to get you very drunk!
0:14:38 > 0:14:41So from the 1270s, the Merton archive gives us
0:14:41 > 0:14:44the most incredible detail on Kibworth Harcourt.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46We can trace everybody in the village
0:14:46 > 0:14:48from then until now, virtually,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and do family trees of peasants for 15 generations.
0:14:51 > 0:14:55But what about Kibworth Beauchamp and Smeeton Westerby?
0:14:55 > 0:14:57Well, the missing gap is here
0:14:57 > 0:15:00in A Parish And County History Of Leicestershire
0:15:00 > 0:15:03Of The Antiquarian William Burton.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08It's one of the earliest of the county histories and it contains
0:15:08 > 0:15:13our first historical accounts of the Kibworths and Smeeton.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18Published in 1622, the same year, the same publisher
0:15:18 > 0:15:23and the same printer as Shakespeare's folio.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26Of course, it's obsessed, as you'd expect, with manorial history,
0:15:26 > 0:15:31but what's really interesting about this is that Burton's notes survive
0:15:31 > 0:15:35and they're an altogether different matter.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37Here they are.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40They were written down in 1615,
0:15:40 > 0:15:46"copied from the ancient original membranes by me, W Burton,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49"15th July, 1615".
0:15:49 > 0:15:54He excerpted the great rolls of the survey of 1279,
0:15:54 > 0:15:58the most detailed survey of England ever done before modern times.
0:15:58 > 0:16:03They're lost now, but here, largely unpublished in his notebooks,
0:16:03 > 0:16:10are the first detailed accounts not only of Kibworth Harcourt,
0:16:10 > 0:16:13but Kibworth Beauchamp and Smeeton Westerby.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17Starting with Smeeton, here, for the first time,
0:16:17 > 0:16:19are the names of families in the village,
0:16:19 > 0:16:23and some of them very long-lasting families in the village story.
0:16:23 > 0:16:28The Allens and the Astins - very long-lasting names
0:16:28 > 0:16:32in that part of Leicestershire and indeed in Kibworth.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35When you turn to Beauchamp, though, nearly everybody unfree.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40There's about 45 families of villeins and serfs.
0:16:43 > 0:16:451315, and it had two mills,
0:16:45 > 0:16:46one water and one wind.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49- Oh, did it?!- Yes, how about that?!
0:16:49 > 0:16:54But attached to it, 200 acres of land. So that must have been...
0:16:54 > 0:16:56Yes, that piece down there, straight down.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00- All the way across to...- To Smeeton.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03Yes, it's always called the old house in the middle of the village.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06And you had... You had, I'm sorry.
0:17:06 > 0:17:08You had a communal bread oven
0:17:08 > 0:17:11out in the village street.
0:17:11 > 0:17:15So, again, the villagers brought their corn to make bread.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17A little cut of that went to the manor house.
0:17:17 > 0:17:23Four free tenants, 24 villeins, each one with a cottage and 15 acres,
0:17:23 > 0:17:29- and 80 serfs, who were the lowest level, kind of peasantry.- Well.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33So the Beauchamp half of Kibworth was still unfree,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36as it had been back in 1066.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45That's how things stood in Kibworth at the height of the feudal system.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49The population of the parish at well over 1,000
0:17:49 > 0:17:52now as high as it would get until Victorian times.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54This is contents two, yeah?
0:17:54 > 0:17:57- Yes, and this is the... Out of our... - Out of our pit.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00On Main Street, the kids have not yet got down
0:18:00 > 0:18:03to the level of the medieval marketplace.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07There are long bones and the ribs. And, yeah...different things.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09But for the field walkers,
0:18:09 > 0:18:13there were easy pickings from the once teeming medieval fields.
0:18:13 > 0:18:18There's certainly stuff from the 13th, 14th century.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22And in Cambridge, Carenza Lewis is collating the evidence
0:18:22 > 0:18:26from our earlier test pits, showing the growth of the village
0:18:26 > 0:18:29up to the boom time before 1300.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33Here, the villages we can see today, seem to be taking off.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37This is the point where we can see the villages we know today
0:18:37 > 0:18:39starting to have their direct origins.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42Smeeton Westerby, again, the longest occupied village
0:18:42 > 0:18:44is clearly continuing to prosper.
0:18:44 > 0:18:48The other significant place we've got is up here in Kibworth Harcourt.
0:18:48 > 0:18:49You can see the village growing.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53That is Kibworth Harcourt extending along the street there
0:18:53 > 0:18:55and pottery coming out of virtually every test pit.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57Yes, and not much in Kibworth Beauchamp.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00You know, there's an old village legend
0:19:00 > 0:19:03that, kind of, Harcourt is the posh, rather well to do end
0:19:03 > 0:19:05and Beauchamp is always the poor end.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10But you wouldn't ever find that hinted at in the pottery, would you?
0:19:10 > 0:19:13Well, that's what's so fascinating about this period.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15You've got these two strands of evidence
0:19:15 > 0:19:19that we can use to sort of reflect off each other.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22It is interesting, isn't it, that in the light of that knowledge,
0:19:22 > 0:19:26you can look at this map and think there's very much less here?
0:19:30 > 0:19:33It's funny, isn't it, how history can leave its mark?
0:19:33 > 0:19:35In Victorian times, the villagers even argued
0:19:35 > 0:19:37about separate sewage systems.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Harcourt and Beauchamp had different doors in the church
0:19:41 > 0:19:44and even separate parts of the graveyard.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50This is the surviving windmill at Kibworth Harcourt.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53They had two here and two over in Kibworth Beauchamp.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57It's a post mill. You turned it on its central post
0:19:57 > 0:20:00using this wooden tail to face the wind.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03This was new technology that had spread over
0:20:03 > 0:20:07England in the 13th century to feed the booming population.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10There's more than 1,500 people.
0:20:14 > 0:20:19But here in Kibworth, as across England, the boom time was over.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22There were too many mouths to feed, not enough jobs,
0:20:22 > 0:20:26too many poor people desperately struggling
0:20:26 > 0:20:28to survive on marginal land.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33And around 1300, you get the first signs of recession -
0:20:33 > 0:20:39price rises, social unrest and even disturbing patterns in the weather.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41But even in their worst imaginings,
0:20:41 > 0:20:44they couldn't have foreseen what lay ahead.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54From the 1290s, the English summer went wrong.
0:20:54 > 0:20:59And in a credulous age, omens and prophecies started to stack up.
0:21:01 > 0:21:041302.
0:21:04 > 0:21:09It is foretold that great misfortunes lie ahead.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11Earthquakes and wars,
0:21:11 > 0:21:17division of realms and peoples and a great and unheard of famine.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28As climate change set in, the village braced itself.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38The key person at village level was the reeve.
0:21:38 > 0:21:44The reeve's job was to supervise the agricultural year in the village -
0:21:44 > 0:21:46the ploughing, the reaping and the sowing.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48He chaired the village court,
0:21:48 > 0:21:52adjudicated on disputes and he submitted the accounts
0:21:52 > 0:21:55to the landlords, the Fellows of Merton College.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00And the reeve in 1314 was a man called John Poli.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03He was married with four kids, Agnes, Hugh, Will and Rob.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05He wasn't a rich man.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09His father only held 7.5 acres, but he was a freeman, not a villein.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13And it's in John's accounts that the first signs
0:22:13 > 0:22:16can be seen of the coming catastrophe.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23In the Kibworth court rolls and in many others across England,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26we can watch as disaster strikes.
0:22:28 > 0:22:331314, January. There was severe cold.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35One frost lasted more than two weeks.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41Extra milk was needed for the lambs and oats for the horses.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44Spring. April very cold.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47A high mortality of doves.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53Summer was cold with continual rain.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55The roses were late this year.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02Autumn, very wet followed by a sharp frost.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Ploughing was late. More oats were needed for the horses.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11Winter. Snow cover for much of the time.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14We fed the peas to the pigs.
0:23:16 > 0:23:181315.
0:23:18 > 0:23:20A late winter this year.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23It was wet and cold into the spring.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25Extra hoeing.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29The peas were flooded.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32Summer was very wet.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Very low yields for barley and wheat.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37Autumn, very wet.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Ploughing prolonged. Sheep rot.
0:23:41 > 0:23:431316.
0:23:43 > 0:23:45Late spring.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47Weather was wet.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49More sheep rot.
0:23:49 > 0:23:51Summer was exceptionally dry.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53Ground rock-hard.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58We had to purchase 12 measures of steel
0:23:58 > 0:24:02and 40 pieces of iron for the repair of ploughs.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06Much more this year because of the dryness of the summer
0:24:06 > 0:24:08and the hardness of the fallow.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15By 1315, the people found themselves in the worst famine
0:24:15 > 0:24:18in British and European history.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25The harvest of 1315 was a disaster.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Poor tenants were forced to give up their holdings
0:24:28 > 0:24:30and sell off their gear.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32People were dying everywhere.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36Grain yields slumped and prices shot up.
0:24:36 > 0:24:41While rich merchants bought up the surplus to make a profit,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44the peasants were thrown back on their knowledge of the countryside.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47Your main meal would have been your pottage, your porray,
0:24:47 > 0:24:51whatever happened to be in season, even edible weeds.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55Things like fat hen and borage and bitter cress.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01We know about the medieval cottage garden from a minute excavation
0:25:01 > 0:25:05done of one peasant house - the kind lived in by Matilda and Alice Star.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10Plot of vegetables and herbs would go right up to your cottage front?
0:25:10 > 0:25:15Absolutely. You would cultivate as much as you possibly could, really.
0:25:15 > 0:25:20Starvation was always a possibility
0:25:20 > 0:25:22and you would grow whatever you possibly could.
0:25:22 > 0:25:28This is where your edible weeds came in - mallows, hyssop, mugwort,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32the artemisia vulgaris, the wild wormwood.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36If your crops failed, at least you'd have something to put in the pottage.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38If you were good at doing this,
0:25:38 > 0:25:40you could just about keep things together.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42You may well be able to keep going.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46You learn what's around in your local area.
0:25:46 > 0:25:48So you know what's growing in your hedgerows
0:25:48 > 0:25:54and you know from past experience what's good to pick and what isn't.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57You've got beer in there and, of course,
0:25:57 > 0:25:59you get lots of calories from that.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02You've got all these greens,
0:26:02 > 0:26:03herbs from the hedgerows.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08You've got things like Alexanders and fivers, flat-leaf parsley.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12And, depending what year we're in, we'll get changes of those as well.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16So they really knew how to exploit what was around them?
0:26:16 > 0:26:17I think so. Yes.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21It's very much a community effort, as well.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24It's not just the family. It's everybody living in that rural area,
0:26:24 > 0:26:29you know, with the field strips, farming those strips, their animals.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32People are living with their animals cos they're that precious.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36You've got to make sure they're going to get through the winter.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46The next year, 1316, things only got worse.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50Across England, hundreds of thousands were now dying.
0:26:53 > 0:26:58Northern Europe froze under a blanket of snow and ice.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03What they didn't know was that they were in the middle
0:27:03 > 0:27:05of a little ice age.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12And then came a new and disturbing development -
0:27:12 > 0:27:16the first signs of a virulent pestilence among animals,
0:27:16 > 0:27:20recorded by the Leicester chronicler, Henry Knighton.
0:27:20 > 0:27:27In 1318 and 1319, there was an horrific mortality of humans
0:27:27 > 0:27:31and a pestilence of animals throughout the kingdom of England.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35Conditions were so bad that the surviving people
0:27:35 > 0:27:39didn't have the wherewithal to cultivate or sow their lands.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42Every day, they were burying as many as they could
0:27:42 > 0:27:45in improvised cemeteries everywhere.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49And so a great ruin seized the English people.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55There's a tiny detail from that time at the manor house
0:27:55 > 0:27:58in Kibworth Beauchamp, where the absentee landlord
0:27:58 > 0:28:01had let things fall to rack and ruin.
0:28:01 > 0:28:07The jury say that the manor house itself is a total ruin
0:28:07 > 0:28:10and has been divided up into cottages worth
0:28:10 > 0:28:13five shillings a year, it says - they note it all these things
0:28:13 > 0:28:15in the Middle Ages - and let out to farm.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19So it's a little, kind of, snapshot of that terrible winter coming on
0:28:19 > 0:28:24when they lost all their harvest with the rain in that autumn.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27We nearly had a winter like that up here now.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32It's been a horrible winter with a terrible lot of rain.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36You imagine what that must have been like in a community where
0:28:36 > 0:28:39everybody in the village devoted their labour to making food.
0:28:39 > 0:28:41Absolutely.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48Grain prices in Leicester market during the famine
0:28:48 > 0:28:51had now shot up seven times to 44 shillings a quarter
0:28:51 > 0:28:55when you needed eight quarters to sow an acre.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58As the famine got worse,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01the Merton court books are full of little details.
0:29:01 > 0:29:04In the winter of 1314-15, Nick Sybil died
0:29:04 > 0:29:08and the college took over the administration of his strips
0:29:08 > 0:29:09as his son was under-age.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Then, in 1315-16, the court book says,
0:29:13 > 0:29:17"John Sybil, aged 14, inherited his father's lands
0:29:17 > 0:29:21"and he sowed them with seven pence worth of oats,
0:29:21 > 0:29:26"18 pence worth of wheat and four shillings worth of peas."
0:29:26 > 0:29:28He was the breadwinner now.
0:29:29 > 0:29:32So, with a widowed mother and younger siblings,
0:29:32 > 0:29:34young John was in trouble.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39Harvest 1316 was another disaster, and to make things worse,
0:29:39 > 0:29:42there were signs of sickness in his most precious possession -
0:29:42 > 0:29:45his plough oxen.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49Almost four million animals have been killed since...
0:29:49 > 0:29:53Like the modern foot-and-mouth epidemic in Britain, the virus
0:29:53 > 0:29:57raged out of control, only this more virulent and more agonising.
0:29:57 > 0:30:03There was also an unheard-of mortality among the cattle, the oxen,
0:30:03 > 0:30:05the cows and the calves.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08It continued unabated for several years
0:30:08 > 0:30:13and everywhere the poor cattle seemed to be crying out to the people,
0:30:13 > 0:30:16looking at them and roaring as if they were in tears
0:30:16 > 0:30:19because of the terrible pain that gnawed at their insides.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24And then suddenly they would fall down and die.
0:30:28 > 0:30:32The news of such terrible suffering in the countryside
0:30:32 > 0:30:35caused great consternation here in Merton.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39They saw immediately that it would be impossible
0:30:39 > 0:30:44to push the receipt of rents as it had been before the famine.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54The Great Famine was remembered with bitterness.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58The merchants still had profited.
0:30:58 > 0:31:03The supplies had been there, which, had a supine government
0:31:03 > 0:31:07been motivated to move them with more alacrity,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10could perhaps have staved off disaster.
0:31:10 > 0:31:15As the popular songs of the time said, there was one law for the rich
0:31:15 > 0:31:23and one for the poor, "For might is right and the land is lawless".
0:31:25 > 0:31:30More than half a million people in England died in the Great Famine,
0:31:30 > 0:31:3110% of the population.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36But peasant societies like medieval Kibworth are resilient.
0:31:36 > 0:31:41For centuries, they'd lived with famine and disease.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44And in the 1320s, they began to recover.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50So much so that in 1327, the king raised a poll tax
0:31:50 > 0:31:51on all freeholders.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58And in the National Archive, the returns survive for Kibworth.
0:32:00 > 0:32:04But what do they call it in 1327, David?
0:32:04 > 0:32:07Just K-Y-B-B-E-W-O-R-T-H, Kybberworth.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10This is for the 20th of 1327,
0:32:10 > 0:32:15so it's a twentieth of the value of everybody's chattels,
0:32:15 > 0:32:19which is basically your corn and your animals.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22You had to have corn and animals worth ten shillings,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25which is in modern terms half a pound.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29The minimum you would pay for the tax if you had ten shillings
0:32:29 > 0:32:32would be sixpence. So that's six of these.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37- Let's have a look.- Here is - wait for it - medieval money.
0:32:37 > 0:32:43- Oh, great.- And these are all silver pennies from the mid-13th century.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45This is the only currency.
0:32:45 > 0:32:49So everything had to be paid in silver pennies.
0:32:49 > 0:32:55Anything which is just pence - 18p, 14p, 12p -
0:32:55 > 0:32:57you're a peasant.
0:32:57 > 0:33:01Whereas the top person, William Swan,
0:33:01 > 0:33:07has got four and six, that's 54 pennies, as against 12 pennies here.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10He would be a major sort of freeholder.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14So there are big class divisions and wealth divisions
0:33:14 > 0:33:16- within Kibworth?- Yeah.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19Clearly here, even within what is a peasant society,
0:33:19 > 0:33:21there are big class divisions.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23The really poor people aren't there.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26So we don't know what the size of Kibworth was.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29If you had a whole list of the names of the villagers, it might go on
0:33:29 > 0:33:33for ages with people below the line needed for taxation.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53During this time, Leicester, nearby,
0:33:53 > 0:33:58began to draw many Kibworth people as craftsmen, drapers, ironmongers,
0:33:58 > 0:34:01joining guilds and bettering themselves.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05Leicester was growing.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09And of course, it was growing because people were coming in
0:34:09 > 0:34:11because they could make a better living.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18This is actually a tax roll of people who were identified
0:34:18 > 0:34:20by their trade or where they come from.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23You've got William of Kibworth, Geoffrey of Osbiston
0:34:23 > 0:34:24or William of Lutterworth.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28There are local places but also people from further afield.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31There's someone from Carlisle, I noticed earlier.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34But they're not all men either. There is Alissia de Kiborth here.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37- These are people who are living in Leicester?- Yes.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39- Who were taxed in Leicester.- Yes.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42- Could even be guild members in Leicester, perhaps.- Yes.
0:34:42 > 0:34:47But keeping their village name but working in trades here.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50I suppose that's how they know.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52"I'm talking about William". "Which William?"
0:34:52 > 0:34:55"Well, the William from Kibworth, that William".
0:34:56 > 0:35:00There's only a limited number of Christian names,
0:35:00 > 0:35:03so you're beginning to see surnames coming in.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05But cities can be dangerous places,
0:35:05 > 0:35:08especially for inexperienced country boys.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12From the time of the famine, there's a cautionary tale
0:35:12 > 0:35:14involving a man from Kibworth.
0:35:14 > 0:35:20- "Contensio motar erat." Yeah, punch-up.- A punch-up.
0:35:20 > 0:35:25This is a fight between Ivo, cleric of Great Stretton,
0:35:25 > 0:35:29and Henry Pollings,
0:35:29 > 0:35:34who's described as, "Groom of Alice of Stretton".
0:35:34 > 0:35:37But she's Alice of Stretton of Leicester.
0:35:37 > 0:35:39She's one of those newcomers who come to the city
0:35:39 > 0:35:42- but keep the name of their village as well.- That's right.
0:35:42 > 0:35:46So, a dispute broke out between Ivo the clerk...
0:35:46 > 0:35:49So, he's a lettered person, this guy.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52..and Henry Pollings, Alice Streatham's groom,
0:35:52 > 0:35:56- in a place called Parchmen Lane. - Parchmen Lane.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00Yes. It was a little sort of lane that ran just inside the town walls.
0:36:03 > 0:36:08In November of around the hour of Vespers, sort of 4, 6 o'clock,
0:36:08 > 0:36:10evening, anyway, it would be dusk.
0:36:10 > 0:36:1325th November, darkness coming on?
0:36:13 > 0:36:18- Yes.- Narrow lane. - Yes, just the place to have your...
0:36:18 > 0:36:21Rumpus, isn't it, really? I don't know what they were doing.
0:36:21 > 0:36:26Now enters the Good Samaritan, Philip the Young of Kibworth,
0:36:26 > 0:36:28son of one of Merton's free tenants.
0:36:28 > 0:36:33And he's about to pay a heavy price for being a have-a-go hero.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36- It's almost like a citizen's arrest, isn't it?- Yeah.
0:36:36 > 0:36:38Gets hold of this chap
0:36:38 > 0:36:44and takes him towards the house of the aforesaid Alice.
0:36:44 > 0:36:51Then, "Venit quia Johannes filius Alani"... the mustard maker.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54John, the son of Alan, the mustard maker.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57The notorious mustard maker.
0:36:57 > 0:36:59- Yes. That's right.- Great.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02Out he comes. All roads lead to Alice's house.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05With a certain bow and shot the aforesaid Philip
0:37:05 > 0:37:08with a certain small arrow in the head between the eye
0:37:08 > 0:37:11and the nose, right up to the brain.
0:37:11 > 0:37:16- Very unpleasant, yes.- Philip lived until the following Monday
0:37:16 > 0:37:18and then he died.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21The coroner's language is almost like today, isn't it?
0:37:21 > 0:37:25"The aforesaid John did the aforesaid in a westerly direction."
0:37:25 > 0:37:27"A sword worth five shillings."
0:37:27 > 0:37:32- That's right. That's it.- Before the bailiff, the inquiry was held.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36Which said that no-one was suspected,
0:37:36 > 0:37:38except the aforesaid John,
0:37:38 > 0:37:42- who had fled the scene after the deed.- That's right.
0:37:42 > 0:37:44And got away, presumably.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46And John, the son of Alan the mustard maker,
0:37:46 > 0:37:50sounds a slightly nefarious character, do you think, Robin?
0:37:50 > 0:37:53Well... He's a wanted man now. He's a fugitive, an outlaw.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00As for Philip's family, they must have wished he'd stayed
0:38:00 > 0:38:02on the family strips in the East Field,
0:38:02 > 0:38:04or that he'd come home early for Christmas.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28Now, in the 14th century, Christmas was the great holiday.
0:38:28 > 0:38:33You got three weeks off from work in the fields from mid-December,
0:38:33 > 0:38:38to Plough Monday, after Twelfth Night.
0:38:44 > 0:38:48That was the time when the ploughman and their boys carried
0:38:48 > 0:38:50the ploughshare around the houses of the village,
0:38:50 > 0:38:55with songs and dancing and received cakes and ale.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59It's a tradition that survived till the 1930s in Kibworth.
0:38:59 > 0:39:02It was a festive time for medieval villagers,
0:39:02 > 0:39:05when work was put aside and neighbours got together.
0:39:15 > 0:39:16But at Christmas 1348,
0:39:16 > 0:39:19terrible rumours came down the road from London.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28Nearby in Leicester, Henry Knighton tells the tale.
0:39:32 > 0:39:33"It started in India
0:39:33 > 0:39:36"and then it moved across the face of the Earth,
0:39:36 > 0:39:39"from Tartary, through the land of the Saracens,
0:39:39 > 0:39:41"and into the lands of the Christians,
0:39:41 > 0:39:45"a universal plague upon mankind.
0:39:45 > 0:39:51"And on 25th June 1348, it landed at Weymouth."
0:39:51 > 0:39:53Rats came from the ships...
0:39:53 > 0:39:57and they came from Weymouth, and spread their way north.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59What caused it in particular?
0:39:59 > 0:40:02What was it about the rats? Andrew.
0:40:02 > 0:40:04The fleas on the rats had like a disease that
0:40:04 > 0:40:08- was contagious. - That's very good. How did it begin?
0:40:10 > 0:40:12Boils on your arm.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16- Boils.- That's very good. It's the bubonic plague that we're
0:40:16 > 0:40:20particularly looking at, and the pneumonic plague, as well.
0:40:23 > 0:40:27Ever since, the Black Death has seized the European imagination.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31The ultimate symbol of the powerlessness of humanity
0:40:31 > 0:40:33in the face of King Death.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05In the winter of 1348, the plague reached London.
0:41:10 > 0:41:15Just outside London Wall, close to the Barbican, tradition says
0:41:15 > 0:41:17that a huge death pit was opened here,
0:41:17 > 0:41:19under Charterhouse Square.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26Under the grass are said to be 10,000 burials.
0:41:37 > 0:41:40Recently, in London, the first Black Death cemetery
0:41:40 > 0:41:47to be scientifically excavated, has revealed close-up detail from 1348.
0:41:50 > 0:41:56The gravediggers, too scared to take coins from the purses of the dead.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01In Kibworth, they knew it was coming.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04A two-pronged attack up the Bristol Channel and through
0:42:04 > 0:42:09the rivers of East Anglia, like malevolent monsters.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12And at the point of their jaws, Kibworth.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20That Christmas, young Robert Church had gone down to Oxford
0:42:20 > 0:42:24to apply in person to the Fellows of Merton for a holding in the village.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26Perhaps he brought the plague back.
0:42:29 > 0:42:31The first known death in the parish
0:42:31 > 0:42:33was in Kibworth Beecham early that spring.
0:42:36 > 0:42:42Then, in the Merton court rolls, the full horror begins to unfold.
0:42:47 > 0:42:50Right. It should be a fairly...
0:42:50 > 0:42:51Striking....
0:42:54 > 0:42:56Written on both sides as well.
0:42:59 > 0:43:0322, 1348.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11So, the college, even in the catastrophe of the Black Death,
0:43:11 > 0:43:15they tried to keep the administration going.
0:43:15 > 0:43:19The rhythm of life just continues and it's a way of coping, I suppose.
0:43:19 > 0:43:25It's an incredibly human response in catastrophe, isn't it,
0:43:25 > 0:43:28to keep things ordered, I suppose.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33Right, I think it... Yes, we have it.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36Post conquestum and 23.
0:43:36 > 0:43:3923rd year of the reign of King Edward.
0:43:39 > 0:43:41Edward III.
0:43:41 > 0:43:43So, 1349.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45- Yes.- The year of the Black Death.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48And we know what time of year this was, do we?
0:43:48 > 0:43:51It should even give us a day.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54- 14th May.- Cor!
0:43:54 > 0:44:00These are the swearing in of new officers, a beadle...
0:44:00 > 0:44:03the new reeve.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06Yes, names that we recognise. Polle.
0:44:06 > 0:44:07William Polle.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10- John Haine.- Yeah.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12Administration was so immediate,
0:44:12 > 0:44:15it wasn't a bureaucracy that was delegated to a local authority
0:44:15 > 0:44:16as we have today.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18You were the local authority.
0:44:18 > 0:44:20If you weren't elected this year, you could be next year
0:44:20 > 0:44:25to be the constable or the, you know, looking after the pound, or whatever.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34Meeting of the village court, Kibworth Harcourt,
0:44:34 > 0:44:37St George's Day, 1349.
0:44:41 > 0:44:43John Church, reeve.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47The following tenants died of the pestilence. Emma Cook,
0:44:47 > 0:44:49Alice Arron,
0:44:49 > 0:44:51John Church Senior,
0:44:51 > 0:44:55Agnes Poli, Robert Poli,
0:44:55 > 0:45:00Mr Haines, Mr Goodwin,
0:45:00 > 0:45:01John and Constance Cybil.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06Margaret Meister,
0:45:06 > 0:45:08Richard Sylvester,
0:45:08 > 0:45:10Nick Clarke,
0:45:10 > 0:45:14Henry Harcourt and Matilda Harcourt.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16Will Smith.
0:45:16 > 0:45:22Alice Carter, Adam Kibworth, Thomas Harcourt,
0:45:22 > 0:45:29Rob Meister, Nick Poli, Emma Wade, Agnes Allit.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33John Hain, Will Milner.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35And 1349 wasn't the end of it.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40King Death came again to the village in 1361.
0:45:40 > 0:45:45In 1375, 78, 89, and 95.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49And a last cruel spasm in 1412.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53The Poli family alone had seven male members dead.
0:45:55 > 0:45:57The equivalent is the First World War,
0:45:57 > 0:46:01with a whole generation signing up and going off together
0:46:01 > 0:46:02and not coming back.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07What have we got here?
0:46:07 > 0:46:09The black ink is replacements?
0:46:09 > 0:46:14Yes. And the browner writing has been crossed out and almost carated in
0:46:14 > 0:46:16is the new tenant.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18Gosh, is that...
0:46:18 > 0:46:20is that a Poli up there as well?
0:46:20 > 0:46:23Can you see?
0:46:23 > 0:46:27In his notes, the reeve keeps up the impression of normality.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30One of the customary tenants is one of the women.
0:46:30 > 0:46:32Yes, this is Isabella Poli.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35She's died. You'll see her name has been crossed through.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38And somebody completely different, in fact,
0:46:38 > 0:46:41I think it's Robert Smith.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43it's not a member of her family, unless by marriage,
0:46:43 > 0:46:47but it's a completely, you know, it's an alien.
0:46:47 > 0:46:49It's not passed from mother to son.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53And the family couldn't take it over presumably because of their losses.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Possibly weren't enough sons to take over.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59You dug out this sort of space here, about this area, isn't it?
0:46:59 > 0:47:02You can still see bones coming through there.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04There's lots of tiny, tiny little bones.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07And I found a few tiny bits of pottery popping up as well.
0:47:07 > 0:47:11Across Kibworth, many properties were abandoned at this time.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15But the evidence around the medieval marketplace for what happened
0:47:15 > 0:47:18after the Black Death was thin to say the least.
0:47:18 > 0:47:20I think it's plastic.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26It's a bit disappointing, in terms of medieval activity.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28But having this sort of negative evidence
0:47:28 > 0:47:30for the medieval period is good as well.
0:47:32 > 0:47:35When you take this forward to the next period...
0:47:37 > 0:47:38Wow.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41Smeaton, which has been with us for so long
0:47:41 > 0:47:44seems to be absolutely devastated by it.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47There's just two or three sites
0:47:47 > 0:47:49that have produced single sherds of pottery.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51That is so amazing.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55In one area that carries on in occupation seems to be up here.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57Even if these other areas are occupied,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00what it's really showing is this huge dislocation
0:48:00 > 0:48:03where these pits were producing pottery for the high medieval period,
0:48:03 > 0:48:06those are not being occupied nearly as intensively.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08The people who lived there are somewhere else.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11And you're talking, I suppose, about a population
0:48:11 > 0:48:13that's gone from maybe 2 million in 1086,
0:48:13 > 0:48:16to something like 6, possibly, in 1300.
0:48:16 > 0:48:19There's a lot of argument about this, isn't there? But...
0:48:19 > 0:48:21Perhaps collapses back down to two or three.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23Massive contraction.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40After the ravages of the plague,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43many English villages were deserted forever.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45But not here.
0:48:45 > 0:48:50Even Smeaton survived with the old families we met in the 1270s.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53The Allans. The Swans.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58But in Harcourt, the Merton court rolls
0:48:58 > 0:49:01show the loss of two thirds of the tenants.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05The highest losses from the Black Death known anywhere in Britain.
0:49:06 > 0:49:10And a hint of the villagers reactions to the catastrophe
0:49:10 > 0:49:13comes in a box of documents which has recently turned up,
0:49:13 > 0:49:17recording grants made of property and land in the 1350s
0:49:17 > 0:49:21that later came into the hands of the village grammar school.
0:49:21 > 0:49:25They still provide a charitable income for Kibworth high school.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29So, an astonishing treasure trove, the school box.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33These are the earliest documents from the 1350s,
0:49:33 > 0:49:36the immediate aftermath of the Black Death.
0:49:36 > 0:49:41It's very rare that you can home-in on what the ordinary people,
0:49:41 > 0:49:46the peasant farmers, are thinking at this time.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49But it's revealed here.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52This is a little land document, like a mortgage.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55HE READS IN LATIN
0:49:55 > 0:50:00Know people now and people in the future that I, John Deer...
0:50:00 > 0:50:02HE READS LATIN
0:50:02 > 0:50:05..this grant of land
0:50:05 > 0:50:11confirmed with Robert Chapman of Kibworth.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15- And it's the gift of one house... - HE READS LATIN
0:50:15 > 0:50:19..which belonged to Nick Poli in Church Lane.
0:50:19 > 0:50:21Poli died in the Black Death.
0:50:21 > 0:50:23Recently dead.
0:50:23 > 0:50:28Along with a rood - that's a quarter of an acre in middle furlong -
0:50:28 > 0:50:29and a rood of meadow.
0:50:29 > 0:50:32What these men are doing is they're putting together
0:50:32 > 0:50:36a little parcel of property and land whose revenues,
0:50:36 > 0:50:40supervised by a group of local trustees, farmers,
0:50:40 > 0:50:44will give enough money to fund a chantry priest,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47separate from the parish church.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50Now, this priest may in time have even taught the kids in the village
0:50:50 > 0:50:53to read and write but his chief job
0:50:53 > 0:51:00is to do masses, dirges and requiems forever for the souls of the dead.
0:51:00 > 0:51:04For the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters,
0:51:04 > 0:51:08and the children of the village who died in the Black Death.
0:51:08 > 0:51:10The greatest catastrophe in its history.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18That document from 1353
0:51:18 > 0:51:22is the start of a whole series of gifts for commemoration and charity.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26In Kibworth, it's a continuous thread
0:51:26 > 0:51:28from the bequests of Tudor farmers in their wills,
0:51:28 > 0:51:33to Victorian villagers who left trusts to provide for the poor.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38Our English ancestors believed that if a community is to thrive,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41it cannot leave the sick and the starving behind.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47In fact, they saw charity as one of the foundations of community.
0:51:49 > 0:51:51And you can still see it in action.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55This is Kibworth's 24-hour relay to raise money for Cancer Research.
0:51:57 > 0:52:03Of course, there's a huge gap between the 14th century and us.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13Sometimes, it's hard to believe that we're the same people.
0:52:15 > 0:52:20Or that our medieval ancestors would recognise us as their descendants.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25But I think they still would.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30It's the spirit of Britain, partly crazy, very kind,
0:52:30 > 0:52:32very generous, very giving. Really good.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36A good friend of ours, Gordon, we kind of did it for him.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39And for everybody else that was in need, I suppose.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44So, perhaps the values of the medieval world
0:52:44 > 0:52:48are not so far from us as we might think.
0:52:48 > 0:52:53They're still there, running just under the surface of our lives,
0:52:53 > 0:52:56keeping the connection with the generations of the past,
0:52:56 > 0:52:58far and near.
0:52:58 > 0:53:03Everyone who enters the teams
0:53:03 > 0:53:05are given one of these bags and a candle.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11They decorate the candles and make a dedication
0:53:11 > 0:53:16to people who have either lost the fight,
0:53:16 > 0:53:21or are still in the fight, or they just love and are poorly.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24Or have survived. There are lots of survivors, too.
0:53:29 > 0:53:31TRANSLATION:
0:53:33 > 0:53:37Now Y knowe of parti, but thanne Y schal knowe,
0:53:37 > 0:53:40as Y am knowun.
0:54:18 > 0:54:20But catastrophe also changes us.
0:54:20 > 0:54:25After the Black Death, deep social unrest led in 1381
0:54:25 > 0:54:29to mass revolt by peasants across England.
0:54:29 > 0:54:31But not in Kibworth.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34The later outbreaks of plague had brought village society
0:54:34 > 0:54:36almost to its knees.
0:54:36 > 0:54:41The early 15th century was one of the worst times in village history.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44But change was in the air.
0:54:44 > 0:54:46And driven by the community itself.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50In the face of such economic hardship and distress,
0:54:50 > 0:54:53many people at the time saw that change must come
0:54:53 > 0:54:56in the relationship between the rulers and the ruled in England.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00But the change came in Kibworth not through violent revolution,
0:55:00 > 0:55:01but through negotiation.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05And in 1427, the College took the key step
0:55:05 > 0:55:09of abolishing all 18 customary tenancies,
0:55:09 > 0:55:13that's the land holdings which were held by villeins,
0:55:13 > 0:55:17semi-free peasants who owed work services to their lord.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20So, from that moment, if you were an ordinary Kibworthian,
0:55:20 > 0:55:25you no longer held your land "in bondagio", in bondage,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28but "ad voluntatem", at will.
0:55:28 > 0:55:32In other words, negotiated with your landlord for a cash rent.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35And, at the same time, the College reduced the rents
0:55:35 > 0:55:37right across the board.
0:55:37 > 0:55:42And, then, finally in 1439, a special court was held in Kibworth
0:55:42 > 0:55:45to cement this relationship.
0:55:45 > 0:55:47HE READS IN LATIN
0:55:50 > 0:55:53Between the customary tenants of Kibworth,
0:55:53 > 0:55:57and the scholars of Merton College, Oxford.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00It's a document to finalise and record
0:56:00 > 0:56:05the mutual consent of both parties to the new deal.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07It draws the line under the feudal age
0:56:07 > 0:56:12which has ruled in England since 1066. And even before.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16Now, labour services and villeinage are abolished.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20You can have your son or daughter inherit your land.
0:56:20 > 0:56:22You can take out a leasehold.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25You can transfer lands, build up your holdings,
0:56:25 > 0:56:27amalgamate your tenancies.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30You can decide whether you want to be an arable farmer,
0:56:30 > 0:56:33or whether you want to breed stock.
0:56:33 > 0:56:35You can view English history at this time
0:56:35 > 0:56:38through the lives of kings or queen's, if you like,
0:56:38 > 0:56:42through the Hundred Years War, and the Wars of the Roses.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46But, here is a glimpse at grassroots level of changes
0:56:46 > 0:56:50that were no less significant in the national story.
0:56:50 > 0:56:54By the 1440s, the people of Kibworth,
0:56:54 > 0:56:57like many villagers throughout England,
0:56:57 > 0:57:00are on the way to becoming modern people.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07So, that's the story of how the medieval villagers of Kibworth
0:57:07 > 0:57:11survived famine, pestilence, and the Black Death.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13Robin Rabble.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16£11,033!
0:57:16 > 0:57:19That's how the villagers got through England's age of disaster.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22And, in the end, came out stronger.
0:57:22 > 0:57:26Yummy Mummies...£1,300.
0:57:26 > 0:57:30600 years ago, Kibworth was already a deep-rooted community.
0:57:30 > 0:57:35The old families, the Polis, the Astins, the Swans,
0:57:35 > 0:57:38had already lived and worked here for centuries.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42But this story is also about a living English community today.
0:57:42 > 0:57:47We've been raising funds for six months. And a tough six months.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49There's been a recession.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51History is not just something that happened back then,
0:57:51 > 0:57:53in the past.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56History, in the end, is now.
0:57:56 > 0:57:58And us.
0:57:58 > 0:57:59Relay For Life, Kibworth,
0:57:59 > 0:58:072010, raised £65,737!
0:58:09 > 0:58:11And it continues.
0:58:11 > 0:58:15In the next chapter in the story of England, battle of conscience.
0:58:15 > 0:58:19The rise of the English home. And a new world of Tudor England.
0:58:39 > 0:58:42Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:42 > 0:58:45E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk