0:00:06 > 0:00:09For the people of a small island,
0:00:09 > 0:00:13the story of the British is one of the most astonishing
0:00:13 > 0:00:14tales in history.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18But it's also a tale of constant struggle.
0:00:20 > 0:00:25Over the centuries, the British people have faced many tests,
0:00:25 > 0:00:26endured many hardships,
0:00:29 > 0:00:34and the rich pattern of our history was made by the people themselves.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37It was the people who built our society.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42They fought for and won our rights and freedoms.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49And on their road to the modern world
0:00:49 > 0:00:52they faced triumph and disaster,
0:00:52 > 0:00:56with courage, tenacity and humour.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02And never more so than in the catastrophic 14th century.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06The next chapter of the Great British Story.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27Around Midsummer's Day in June 1348,
0:01:27 > 0:01:32a merchant ship from Gascony in France sailed into the little port
0:01:32 > 0:01:34of Melcombe Regis in Weymouth Bay in Dorset.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42On board, one sailor was desperately sick, spitting blood,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46with agonizing swellings in his armpits and groin.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53And as they put him ashore and unloaded their cargo,
0:01:53 > 0:01:57rats scampered into the town, bearing a deadly pathogen.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01The Black Death.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09The story of the arrival of the Black Death is the stuff of dreams.
0:02:09 > 0:02:12Tranquil summer's day on the south coast
0:02:12 > 0:02:16initiates the greatest catastrophe in our history.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19The Black Death will change everything for the peoples of Britain.
0:02:19 > 0:02:24In society and economies, in religion and mentalities.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27It will be the beginning of the end for the old feudal system,
0:02:27 > 0:02:31which had been clamped on the people since the Norman conquest of 1066.
0:02:31 > 0:02:38But at that moment, no-one could have foreseen how it would happen.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41The horror was just about to begin.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50That summer, the plague moved up the roads of southern England.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59Remorseless yet unseen, carried by soldiers,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02peddlers and pilgrims, it travelled about a mile a day
0:03:02 > 0:03:05and by winter, had infected the whole of the south.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10The village of Little Cornard in the Suffolk countryside
0:03:10 > 0:03:14is the first place for which we have a detailed record.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27A farming community whose surnames
0:03:27 > 0:03:30still recall the medieval country tasks.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34Smith, Mower, Hayward.
0:03:37 > 0:03:3914th century court rolls.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45Jonathan Belsey is a doctor and in a local solicitor's office,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48handed down in the papers of the Lord of the Manor,
0:03:48 > 0:03:50he's traced the lost court roll of the village.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56Can you take us through what actually happened in 1349?
0:03:56 > 0:03:59Do the parish minutes give us a picture?
0:03:59 > 0:04:03March 31st 1349.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05There are nine deaths recorded...
0:04:05 > 0:04:08which is our first inkling that there's a problem.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10Presumably this has come up the Stour
0:04:10 > 0:04:12and the traders have picked this up.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14Then there's another one, 1st of May.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20We have 14 people die and this is not population, this is householders
0:04:20 > 0:04:23so we can assume that wives and children are dying as well.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25And after that there's a gap
0:04:25 > 0:04:29and I think what happened there is everybody was running scared.
0:04:31 > 0:04:361st of November, we have this appalling list
0:04:36 > 0:04:38of everybody that's died.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41And it brings the total up to 49 householders
0:04:41 > 0:04:45and in some cases there's single households where
0:04:45 > 0:04:48a succession of four different people have died.
0:04:48 > 0:04:49Someone's died, left it to their son,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52who's died, left it to their sister, who's died, left it to their...
0:04:52 > 0:04:55It's... this is a picture of devastation.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00If you look at serious infectious illness,
0:05:00 > 0:05:04if you get a death rate of three or four percent, which is about
0:05:04 > 0:05:08the death rate we had in the flu pandemic in 1919.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10You think, "God, that was dreadful."
0:05:10 > 0:05:17Now, with the Great Pestilence, with Black Death, what happened was about
0:05:17 > 0:05:21three quarters of people caught it and about half of those died of it.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25This would have ripped the heart out of a community.
0:05:27 > 0:05:34"Lately died Letice Harvy, Felice Osbern, John le Fuller,
0:05:34 > 0:05:36"Adam Dyl Stour."
0:05:37 > 0:05:40By then, the plague was raging in the cities.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46In London, people spoke of 50,000 deaths,
0:05:46 > 0:05:49of 10,000 buried here under Charterhouse Square.
0:05:52 > 0:05:56The recant excavation of plague pits on Tower Hill showed that those who
0:05:56 > 0:06:00buried the dead were too scared even to take the purses from the bodies.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09Across the wide lands of open field England,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12villages like Codicote on the Great North Road were almost wiped out.
0:06:13 > 0:06:211349. Meeting of the court of Codicote, pages and pages of deaths.
0:06:22 > 0:06:2559 of them in one entry.
0:06:26 > 0:06:34Hugo Allen, Jonat Pirrey, John White, John Thickney.
0:06:34 > 0:06:41Ralph Thickney, Simon Walter, John Martin, Robert Blood.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48Out on the Welsh borders, the plague made its way up
0:06:48 > 0:06:52lonely country lanes to the farms around Abergavenny.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55And now in the lords' rent books, we can see it's effect
0:06:55 > 0:06:59on the feudal system itself where the whole structure of labour dues,
0:06:59 > 0:07:04which bound the peasants' lives, was on the point of collapse.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10At Cwm Morgan we had a watermill worth £14.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14It's now worth only three because of the mortality.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17There is no income from rent as the tenants are dead.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25And with the tenants dead, who would plough the lord's land?
0:07:25 > 0:07:32At Bryngwyn we have 196 acres of arable, which are now worth nothing,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35on account of the weakness of the land and the plague.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40As incomes fell, who would give the lord his dues?
0:07:44 > 0:07:47At Hentlys Manor, we have a house of no value.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52A fishpond without fish and 16 acres of large wood now worthless.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00The rich fared better than the poor, as they always do.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03But in Scotland, the monks
0:08:03 > 0:08:06of the Royal Monastery of St Andrews were decimated.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17So severe was the affliction, said the chronicler Henry Knighton,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21that a third of the whole human race
0:08:21 > 0:08:23was obliged to pay the debt of nature.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27The sea was no barrier.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31By 1350, the plague had reached the Orkneys and the Shetlands.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39Boats from Bristol brought the plague to Ireland.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43The first deaths in Dublin came even before the plague reached London.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56And here in Trinity College, there's an extraordinary eyewitness account
0:08:56 > 0:09:00of the plague by a friar called John Clyn.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Well, in Dublin, he says 14,000 died.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08He tells us that it arrived in Dublin
0:09:08 > 0:09:12and it swept through the whole of the city and then he tells us
0:09:12 > 0:09:18very specifically that 25 friars died, Franciscans, in Drogheda.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22Now that's a full house of friars, so, I mean, it is a devastation,
0:09:22 > 0:09:24and 23 Franciscans died in Dublin.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26And does he describe the symptoms, Bernadette?
0:09:26 > 0:09:30Yes, he does. He describes three distinct symptoms.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33"For many died from carbuncles and from ulcers
0:09:33 > 0:09:37"and pustules that could be seen on the shins and under the armpits.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41"Some died as if in a frenzy from the pain in the head,
0:09:41 > 0:09:42"others from spitting blood."
0:09:44 > 0:09:49In a Christian universe, the plague brought visions of the end of time.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51Despairing of the future, Clyn left a moving message
0:09:51 > 0:09:54for the generations to come.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00"Now I, Friar John Clyn, have brought together in writing just as I have
0:10:00 > 0:10:04"truthfully heard and examined and lest the writing should
0:10:04 > 0:10:08"perish with the writer and the work fail together with the worker,
0:10:08 > 0:10:10"I am leaving parchment for the work to continue,
0:10:10 > 0:10:15"if by chance, in the future, a man should remain surviving,
0:10:15 > 0:10:19"and anyone of the race of Adam should be able to escape this plague
0:10:19 > 0:10:21"and live to continue this work I commenced."
0:10:22 > 0:10:25He's left it in case anyone be left alive of the race of Adam
0:10:25 > 0:10:28that will read it and will be able to continue.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31For the people of the future, for us to read.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33Because he thinks that everybody's going to die.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54And with those millions of deaths, what did that terrible time
0:10:54 > 0:10:56actually feel like?
0:11:00 > 0:11:04In the church at Ashwell in Hertfordshire,
0:11:04 > 0:11:0714th century graffiti scratched on the walls by the vicar
0:11:07 > 0:11:10and still readable, give us a glimpse.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18"And the year when the great plague first came
0:11:18 > 0:11:25"was 1,350 minus one.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30"Miseranda, ferox et violenta."
0:11:30 > 0:11:34Pitiable, ferocious and violent.
0:11:35 > 0:11:37"The plague departed
0:11:37 > 0:11:41"and left only the dregs of the people to bear witness.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47"And that year, a mighty wind blew across the world."
0:11:52 > 0:11:58And so, over 500 days, the Black Death ran its course.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01At least half the population of Britain died.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05And the first impact of the plague was on work.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15Most of the British people worked the fields,
0:12:15 > 0:12:17villeins and serfs who owed labour to their lords.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Before the plague, England was densely populated,
0:12:27 > 0:12:28maybe six million people.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32Labour was plentiful, wages were low.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35But now, labour had a new worth.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42This gives you an idea what you would have seen in the Middle Ages.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45You know, ploughing time in the 13th century,
0:12:45 > 0:12:49maybe 15 or 20 ploughing teams moving slowly
0:12:49 > 0:12:51across one of the great fields.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53Some of them would have been women.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58If you set your plough right, it'll follow,
0:12:58 > 0:13:01if you haven't got it set right, you'll sweat all day.
0:13:06 > 0:13:11The Black Death having killed so large a portion of the population,
0:13:11 > 0:13:13it sort of makes things better for those who remain.
0:13:13 > 0:13:14Go on, Go on!
0:13:16 > 0:13:18That's it, keep a bit of pressure down on that hand.
0:13:18 > 0:13:19On the right hand?
0:13:19 > 0:13:21You want to be driving that wheel into the side.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23Into the side, OK.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25That's better.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28That's how you'll keep it straight, keep in that furrow.
0:13:28 > 0:13:29So you've got to watch that edge?
0:13:29 > 0:13:32Yeah. And watch your horses are walking in the furrow as well.
0:13:32 > 0:13:35Right. It take some physical strength to do it as well?
0:13:35 > 0:13:37A little bit, yeah.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41The peasants, who were so tied to their land, are now in great demand
0:13:41 > 0:13:43because there aren't enough of them
0:13:43 > 0:13:48and they can go off in search of higher wages.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52Eventually, legislation is brought in to keep them from doing that,
0:13:52 > 0:13:57but it's indicative of the sort of new age of ambition.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05Though most British people were still unfree,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08there was a rising class of free men and women
0:14:08 > 0:14:12able to move about to seek better work, more money.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19And the boom industry was in cloth.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23The demand for cheap and cheerful clothing was on the rise
0:14:23 > 0:14:27as far away as Scotland in Edinburgh and Dundee,
0:14:27 > 0:14:28and in Wales in Carmarthenshire.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35The key product was wool.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40Though after the Black Death, the ancient craft of flax making,
0:14:40 > 0:14:45to make linen, also starts to be more than a cottage industry.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52That is ready as after it came from the crimpers, now it comes to
0:14:52 > 0:14:58this cutters here so we have our crimping, sticking, scotching,
0:14:58 > 0:15:05then it's put up in the box here then up to the flax store and retied.
0:15:07 > 0:15:11But the centre of the cloth trade was England.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15Course, Manchester's famous as a textile town
0:15:15 > 0:15:18in the industrial revolution, the centre of Lancashire cotton.
0:15:18 > 0:15:22But its roots as a textile town lie in the Middle Ages,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25and after the Black Death, from the 1360s, it grew
0:15:25 > 0:15:29with the migration of Flemish weavers from East Anglia,
0:15:29 > 0:15:33who settled here, and all along the banks of River Irwell
0:15:33 > 0:15:35and the Irk were fulling mills.
0:15:35 > 0:15:40And the workers here were typical of the kind of people of that time
0:15:40 > 0:15:43with a bit of freedom, a bit of ready cash,
0:15:43 > 0:15:44who were anxious to take advantage
0:15:44 > 0:15:48of the new job opportunities after the great plague.
0:15:52 > 0:15:58The people below the big landlord, like the monks
0:15:58 > 0:16:02and the barons and the other great aristocrats, the people below them
0:16:02 > 0:16:08have a good deal of freedom of activity, shall we say.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12They can take initiatives, they're not cowed,
0:16:12 > 0:16:19dominated, lacking in skill or the ability to change their own lives.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25And the new entrepreneurs were not only men.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28Across Britain, women had always been a major part of the work force,
0:16:28 > 0:16:33at home, in the field and in the marketplace.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36I think you get your own little systems, don't you?
0:16:36 > 0:16:40And one industry where women led and made money was brewing.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43I have a feeling this is going to be thirsty work!
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Ale was a key part of the British diet
0:16:46 > 0:16:51and in every town and village, women did that job.
0:16:51 > 0:16:56Only now being reclaimed by today's female brewsters.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58Probably averaging four barrel brews at the moment.
0:16:58 > 0:17:02I've literally just taken on a graduate from Heriot Watt.
0:17:02 > 0:17:09This is a manorial court roll for Brigstock. A lot of women did help
0:17:09 > 0:17:11support their households by brewing for sale,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14by making ale and selling it to their neighbours.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19And then this is a list of the brewsters, all women in this case.
0:17:19 > 0:17:20Most of them wives.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24So this is the wife of Richard Tubb and Matilda Tubb
0:17:24 > 0:17:27and a woman who's only known by her first name, Maryant.
0:17:27 > 0:17:33The wife of Richard Aukey and Joan Cocass, Isabella Cocass.
0:17:39 > 0:17:40Medieval court rolls give us
0:17:40 > 0:17:44a huge amount of social detail on women's work.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48One woman entrepreneur called Cecilia Pennefader
0:17:48 > 0:17:50stood up for herself in a male world
0:17:50 > 0:17:54and earned a rude cartoon from the landlord's scribe.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58What kind of freedoms did a woman like Cecilia have?
0:17:58 > 0:17:59I mean, for example,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02she didn't marry, but how did she make her living?
0:18:02 > 0:18:07She was a landholder, she held about 70 acres.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10She would have worked the land, she might well have hired people.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14She would have bought a lot of things at market that she needed.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17These people are very imbedded in commercial markets.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19They're not subsistence farmers.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21They're not producing everything they consume.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24It's a terribly touching that you can resurrect the life
0:18:24 > 0:18:28of such an ordinary person, from the documents.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30Almost an act of piety by the scholar.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33It shouldn't be necessary to write the history of half of humanity,
0:18:33 > 0:18:35but it is necessary, isn't it?
0:18:35 > 0:18:38Well, yes. I wouldn't say it was an act of piety,
0:18:38 > 0:18:43but it comes from my belief that the history of ordinary people matter
0:18:43 > 0:18:48and that women are among those ordinary people.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52And I think what surprises people about someone like Cecilia,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55which really is not surprising at all,
0:18:55 > 0:19:02is that is she was much more active than I think a lot of people expect.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05She did hold land, she did go to court, she argued with neighbours,
0:19:05 > 0:19:07she had a rich and full life.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10It was limited in certain ways, but she's not in an abyss,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14which is what my students think the lives of medieval women were -
0:19:14 > 0:19:17just terrible. And in fact, it's not the case at all.
0:19:17 > 0:19:21- She's not a passive observer of history.- That's right.
0:19:21 > 0:19:27She makes history, and she makes it in modest ways.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41So Britain after the Black Death
0:19:41 > 0:19:43is beginning to look like a different place.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47And in our community dig in the town of Long Melford in Suffolk,
0:19:47 > 0:19:49the townspeople found archaeological evidence
0:19:49 > 0:19:52of these hidden changes in people's lives.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55That's good evidence of a very posh building.
0:19:55 > 0:20:01In our 50 test pits, an unexpected pattern started to emerge.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03You've broken through the floor?
0:20:03 > 0:20:05- Yeah, we got through it. You can see.- Fantastic!
0:20:07 > 0:20:12Before the Black Death, Melford had been a largely rural place.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16Its 60 tax-paying families were mostly farmers,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20with one cloth dyer and a handful of artisans.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Right. That is proper medieval.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26This is a late medieval jug handle.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30I mean, that's very typical of the stuff they were making in Essex
0:20:30 > 0:20:32from about 1400 onwards, or thereabouts.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37But the quantity of finds suggested life in the town
0:20:37 > 0:20:40was beginning to change.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44The dig turned up startling evidence for the time after the plague.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48Previous results from 40 rural village digs
0:20:48 > 0:20:50showed massive contraction,
0:20:50 > 0:20:53but Long Melford had now become a magnet.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57Nearly all of the other villages we've looked at across the region
0:20:57 > 0:20:59show a dramatic, catastrophic in most cases,
0:20:59 > 0:21:03drop in the amount of activity, the size of the population,
0:21:03 > 0:21:05post Black Death.
0:21:05 > 0:21:06Not Long Melford.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09You can see that in the maps here. Here's high medieval Long Melford.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13Remember this scatter of separate nodes of activity,
0:21:13 > 0:21:15- with perhaps fields in-between.- Yes.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18When we take that forward to the late medieval period,
0:21:18 > 0:21:20where in nearly all of our other medieval villages
0:21:20 > 0:21:23there's a massive contraction in what's going on,
0:21:23 > 0:21:24- we see growth.- Wow!
0:21:24 > 0:21:27Look at that! And I think for the first time
0:21:27 > 0:21:31we've got something that really looks like a town there.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34Nearly all of these test pits producing pottery
0:21:34 > 0:21:35of late medieval date.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39People in a period when the population has declined,
0:21:39 > 0:21:41many settlements are decimated,
0:21:41 > 0:21:43Long Melford was probably hit as bad as everyone else
0:21:43 > 0:21:45but people are moving into it.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49People are picking up those empty places. Those empty households.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52They're moving into them and the village is just steaming ahead.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00Sharing in that boom was Hadleigh, a prosperous wool town.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05And it's here that, for the first time, a document has turned up
0:22:05 > 0:22:09with one of the most famous names in British history.
0:22:10 > 0:22:11Wat Tyler.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17His name tells you his profession.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20He came from a Hadleigh family of tile and brick makers.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24A perfect example of the trades that were doing well
0:22:24 > 0:22:25after the Black Death.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31Tyler and his wife, Imogen, lived on the outskirts of town,
0:22:31 > 0:22:33here on Coram street.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39And he would have worked in a place like this.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44There have been kilns on this site since the 14th century.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50Here we have Hadleigh. An ideal situation for brick and tile making.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53They have all that's necessary.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55You have a river valley, you have all the ingredients here,
0:22:55 > 0:22:57you will have clay, and sand and water.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00All the things a tile or brick maker would want.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02If Wat Tyler and his wife Imogen were living on Coram Road,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05they're quite close to the source of the materials,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08the raw materials that are right on their doorstep.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15You would have probably had a family group,
0:23:15 > 0:23:19because the children were occupied and they were cheap labour.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21So the tendency was for the man, or the woman,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24because women made tiles as well, and bricks,
0:23:24 > 0:23:26would be actually making the product.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29And the family would be moving it away.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34The method of making bricks by hand hasn't changed since Tyler's day.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37We're using a system very, very similar to those
0:23:37 > 0:23:39that would have been used in the 13th and 14th century.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41Very little has really changed.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44The principle is identical to that which would have been used
0:23:44 > 0:23:47by Wat Tyler and his wife.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53Tiles were in demand, not just for domestic housing
0:23:53 > 0:23:57but we're not going into a period where grain barns were being built.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Huge barns which needed roofs to keep the grain dry.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04In the late 14th century,
0:24:04 > 0:24:05tilers and plasterers
0:24:05 > 0:24:08were apprenticed to a master to learn their trade.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11A bit like today.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14How did you get into this job and what training did you have to do?
0:24:14 > 0:24:16I got a job doing kiln stacking.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20Then I slowly made my way up here and just got on the bench.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23I started learning, that's pretty much it.
0:24:26 > 0:24:28But what turned a skilled craftsman like him
0:24:28 > 0:24:32into the most famous rebel in British history?
0:24:32 > 0:24:36- Do you know what the job is, Matt? - Not off the top of my head.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44There's a group, very independent, self sufficient in every way,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48and proud of what they did, because they were a proud people.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53I'm sure they'd be very bitter about any controls brought in on them,
0:24:53 > 0:24:56because they were used to working at their own speed
0:24:56 > 0:24:58and making their own progress.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02But as East Anglians, they were also very jealous of their independence.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04And they weren't the only ones.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08In every English community, there were peasants who were literate,
0:25:08 > 0:25:10who knew the law and were politically aware.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14In medieval court rolls,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18an incredible range of material is now coming to light,
0:25:18 > 0:25:21recording a century of almost constant conflict
0:25:21 > 0:25:24between the peasants and their feudal lords.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28These sorts of things are the training ground for the later Peasants' Revolt.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33So a long history of dare we call it "class struggle"?
0:25:33 > 0:25:36Class struggle, absolutely! I certainly count that.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39If you actually took a sort of map of England
0:25:39 > 0:25:43and mapped out all the villages where there was violent protest,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45litigation against their lord,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48it would be a chequerboard of lots of parts of England.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51What's true is that it never was coordinated.
0:25:51 > 0:25:53It was just there wasn't the spark.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57And the spark came in the late 1370s
0:25:57 > 0:26:00with a series of national poll taxes,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04which hit everyone, rich and poor, men and women.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07So this is one of the great documents of English history,
0:26:07 > 0:26:09this is the poll tax of 1381.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13The tax that caused the Peasants' Revolt.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19"An unheard-of tax," it was said at the time,
0:26:19 > 0:26:24"...imposed by a corrupt, incompetent, insolvent government,"
0:26:24 > 0:26:27Who were fighting a very costly foreign war.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32We've heard that before, haven't we?
0:26:43 > 0:26:46The revolt began in Essex in a village on the Thames estuary
0:26:46 > 0:26:50where the King's poll tax gatherers were driven out by force.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56The place was Fobbing.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59The date, 13th May 1381.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05In the next few days, resistance spread like wildfire.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11East Anglia, the richest part of England, was a centre of the revolt.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17You're suggesting that a lot more planning lay behind these events,
0:27:17 > 0:27:22not just a spontaneous combustion like the English riots in 2011.
0:27:22 > 0:27:24I think it's totally unlike that, Michael.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27I'd rather choose the Arab Spring.
0:27:27 > 0:27:28The communication is the thing.
0:27:28 > 0:27:33What was the equivalent in 1381 of the BlackBerry?
0:27:33 > 0:27:36Answer is a string of good fast horses.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40They got the information out and signalled to start the revolt.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45As far as we know, the Peasants' Revolt
0:27:45 > 0:27:47was an English phenomenon.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51It didn't spread into Wales or into the Kingdom of Scotland.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Beginning in the southeast, it spread as far north as Yorkshire,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56and as far west as Somerset.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05Leaders immediately emerged at a local level.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08Many using pseudonyms - Jack Straw or Jack Truman.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10Even Piers Ploughman.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14They communicated by letters in English,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17the texts of seven of these have survived.
0:28:35 > 0:28:36In the rich county of Kent,
0:28:36 > 0:28:40the rebels took over market towns like Faversham,
0:28:40 > 0:28:43supported by the better off peasant landowners.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46# Crippled by levies and taxes and tithes
0:28:46 > 0:28:51# The crying of children And the sorrow of wives... #
0:28:51 > 0:28:54A lot of people were very disgruntled
0:28:54 > 0:28:58because this tax of one to three groats went across everybody.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00Everyone thinks it's just the peasants, but no.
0:29:00 > 0:29:02- Everyone was there. - The people of England?
0:29:02 > 0:29:03The people of England. That's it, yeah.
0:29:04 > 0:29:09It was here in Kent that the radical priest John Ball
0:29:09 > 0:29:12spoke his famous sermon that all human beings are born equal.
0:29:12 > 0:29:17So when Adam delved and Eve span. Who was then the gentleman?
0:29:21 > 0:29:26One of the most interesting new discoveries about the revolt is the role of women in the leadership.
0:29:27 > 0:29:31- There were women leaders as well, weren't there? - Certainly, Margery Starre for one.
0:29:31 > 0:29:3563 women rebels were indicted in Suffolk alone.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38Women were sometimes going against the men -
0:29:38 > 0:29:42"I'm sorry, I'm a free woman."
0:29:42 > 0:29:43That old English idea of "it's not fair".
0:29:43 > 0:29:47Well, yeah, you've got to be fair play and all that. It's justice.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50The people take so much and then after a while they say,
0:29:50 > 0:29:52"Nah, we've had enough of this," and just rise up.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58The government now faced a mass uprising.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02Among the peasants' first targets was the ancient Abbey of St Albans,
0:30:02 > 0:30:06which owned estates with thousands of tied peasants,
0:30:06 > 0:30:08and also controlled the market.
0:30:10 > 0:30:15This is where the mob attacked St Albans Abbey that summer of 1381.
0:30:15 > 0:30:16The Great North Gate.
0:30:16 > 0:30:18It's like a fortress, isn't it?
0:30:18 > 0:30:21A visible symbol of their subjection.
0:30:21 > 0:30:25There were 2,000 rebels, all of them trying to fight their way inside
0:30:25 > 0:30:29where there were 100 monks and the Abbot and their few hundred staff.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33They must have been terrified by the turn of events,
0:30:33 > 0:30:35by the fury that was unleashed.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40And the peasants out there not only wanted to get the monks inside
0:30:40 > 0:30:42but they wanted to destroy the Abbey archives.
0:30:42 > 0:30:47The court books, the record of their subjection.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50Their leader William Grindcob said,
0:30:50 > 0:30:54"All we want is a little liberty after so many centuries of oppression."
0:30:56 > 0:30:58By now, and we don't know how,
0:30:58 > 0:31:01Wat Tyler was acknowledged as the chief leader.
0:31:02 > 0:31:07From south and east, the rebels converged on London.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11# Crippled by levies and taxes and tithes
0:31:11 > 0:31:15# The crying of children and the sorrow of wives
0:31:15 > 0:31:19# Smouldering anger in Essex and Kent
0:31:19 > 0:31:24# Has burst into flame Now on London we're bent... #
0:31:25 > 0:31:30The city's gates were opened and the people poured in.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34# In the garden of England We'll delve and we'll spin
0:31:34 > 0:31:40# Till the fruits of our labours In Eden we'll win. #
0:31:40 > 0:31:44They celebrated with bonfires of feudal documents in the streets.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49As the Savoy Palace went up in flames,
0:31:49 > 0:31:51the whole order of things was shaken.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56Among the chief targets of the people's anger
0:31:56 > 0:31:58was the Archbishop Of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Sudbury was Lord Chancellor too
0:32:02 > 0:32:06and the rebel leader Jack Straw said he was public enemy number one.
0:32:08 > 0:32:10As Chancellor, he was responsible
0:32:10 > 0:32:13for bringing in the poll tax at three groats a head.
0:32:13 > 0:32:15Rich pay the same as poor.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19But most of all, I think, it's said to be that he was one of a coterie
0:32:19 > 0:32:24who influenced Richard against doing a deal with Wat Tyler.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28Tyler is reported as saying that if they could have done a deal with the King,
0:32:28 > 0:32:29we can all go home.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34And the person who stopped it was Simon of Sudbury
0:32:34 > 0:32:39and that was probably the real reason, as well as the poll tax,
0:32:39 > 0:32:42why they finished him off.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46To the rebels, Sudbury was an enemy of the people.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49but back in his hometown, where he founded a college,
0:32:49 > 0:32:51he's still a bit of a local hero.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54And they pulled him out, together with some others
0:32:54 > 0:32:56and they made him kneel down.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59On June 14th, Sudbury was beheaded on Tower Hill...
0:32:59 > 0:33:02Whack!
0:33:02 > 0:33:06..by rebels, led by a woman, Johanna Ferrour.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10And Simon's head was gone.
0:33:10 > 0:33:13Recovered from its spike on London Bridge,
0:33:13 > 0:33:16his head was later returned to Sudbury.
0:33:16 > 0:33:17And it's still here.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19Draw round so that you can all see...
0:33:19 > 0:33:23and I will introduce you to Simon.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28Eww!
0:33:29 > 0:33:31- Say hello, everybody. CHILDREN:- Hello.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34- What do you think of that?- Gross.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39The peasants had now killed the Lord Chief Justice
0:33:39 > 0:33:41and the Chancellor.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44They were on the verge of full-scale revolution.
0:33:47 > 0:33:48As Sudbury was executed,
0:33:48 > 0:33:51eyewitnesses remembered the sound of the crowd.
0:33:52 > 0:33:57Rising over the city, a visceral roar like a monstrous beast.
0:34:02 > 0:34:08Within a few days, the rebels had taken over the capital.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10But what would they do now?
0:34:10 > 0:34:14At this point, the letters of the peasant leaders betray a growing anxiety.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18"Lady Mary, help us.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21"Know your friend from your foe,
0:34:21 > 0:34:24"beware of treachery in the city."
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Early next day came the reckoning.
0:34:31 > 0:34:36The peasants believed that the King would listen if only they could speak to him directly.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Their key demand was the abolition of serfdom
0:34:44 > 0:34:50and the next morning, they met the 14-year-old Richard II face-to-face here at Smithfield.
0:34:52 > 0:34:58Saturday June 15th 1381, it's a turning point in British history.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02Crystalline blue day, just like today.
0:35:02 > 0:35:04And the city crackling with tension.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10During the night, the peasant army has moved round from the East End
0:35:10 > 0:35:12and is pouring into Smithfield.
0:35:12 > 0:35:14And the King and his henchmen with his armed guards
0:35:14 > 0:35:18have come out of the city and are down there below us,
0:35:18 > 0:35:20facing the peasant army.
0:35:22 > 0:35:24And at this point, with incredible bravado,
0:35:24 > 0:35:29the peasant leader, Wat Tyler, rides out to meet the King.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32Now remember, our sources for what happened next
0:35:32 > 0:35:35only come from the King's side.
0:35:35 > 0:35:36But according to them,
0:35:36 > 0:35:39Tyler was insulting in his manner towards the King.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Called him "my brother". At one point reined his horse in
0:35:42 > 0:35:47so its bottom thrusted to the very nostrils of the King's horse.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50Then the Mayor of London, William Walworth,
0:35:50 > 0:35:51seized Tyler's reins
0:35:51 > 0:35:56and called him "a scurvy villain and a traitor" and stabbed him.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05The rebels were stunned and enraged.
0:36:05 > 0:36:10But the King himself pacified them and agreed to meet their demands.
0:36:16 > 0:36:22That day, the King and his councillors signed charters promising to abolish serfdom.
0:36:24 > 0:36:28But once the rebel army had dispersed, the Government reneged on the deal,
0:36:28 > 0:36:30saying they'd only signed it under duress.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38The ringleaders were hunted down, tried and executed.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43Whether Imogen Tyler carried on her husband's business, history does not say.
0:36:54 > 0:37:01So, brief and savage, the summer of blood was over by late June 1381.
0:37:01 > 0:37:06Sporadic rioting, looting and house breaking still flickered
0:37:06 > 0:37:11across the country, but serious organized disorder was over.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15Here in Sudbury, the Earl Of Suffolk was brought in on a mandate from the Government
0:37:15 > 0:37:20to mop up the resistance and to punish insurgents.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24And in the 14th century, that was a very unpleasant business.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31So the great rising had failed.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33But the forces that had propelled it,
0:37:33 > 0:37:37which after all were the forces of history, couldn't be stopped.
0:37:38 > 0:37:43Over the next few decades, a million mutinies are recorded in the court rolls.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47Legal cases in which the people themselves slowly, patiently
0:37:47 > 0:37:51negotiated away the bonds of the old order.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58One story from Suffolk is typical of the changing times.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02It's the tale of a man who was born a bonded serf
0:38:02 > 0:38:0520 years after the revolt but gained his freedom and rose in the world,
0:38:05 > 0:38:09to become a member of a new group in English society.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17I was interested in finding out more about farmers because they're a mystery.
0:38:17 > 0:38:19Often all you know about them is their name
0:38:19 > 0:38:21and the amount of rent they pay.
0:38:21 > 0:38:25- We're using this word "farmer"? - Yes, I mean, for them it's quite a technical term,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29it meant someone who paid a particular type of rent, the farm.
0:38:29 > 0:38:35So they're renting rather than paying labour dues as their ancestors did.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37Yes, they're not paying labour dues,
0:38:37 > 0:38:40the usual arrangement is they paid a sum of cash
0:38:40 > 0:38:44and that's typical of the records contained in a roll like this,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47which is a financial account.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50This is the account of Robert Parman, farmer.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52It says that he pays £11
0:38:52 > 0:38:57for the farm of the agricultural production of the Abbot's demesne.
0:38:58 > 0:39:02And it says here, "Thus let to the said Robert."
0:39:03 > 0:39:05Was he a free man?
0:39:05 > 0:39:09No, he's a serf. His father was a serf so he was born into serfdom.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13But being a serf didn't prevent you making your way in the world.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17Sounds like the rise of a new class in English society.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21Yes, yes, there were no farmers in... You know, 20 years earlier.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25It's a new group of people, a very significant group of people,
0:39:25 > 0:39:28who are making waves in the 15th century
0:39:28 > 0:39:32and of course, continuing to make waves until the present day.
0:39:32 > 0:39:38So in the 1450s, Robert was a man of some standing in the village.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42Do you get a sense of a personality coming out in the documents, Chris?
0:39:42 > 0:39:44I don't think he's a very attractive man, myself.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48He's a dominant, bullying sort of figure, I suspect.
0:39:48 > 0:39:50Clever, manipulative.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52He's a successful businessman.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56Can I just point out how he bossed the village about?
0:39:56 > 0:40:00You find that his sons are not just landholders in the village,
0:40:00 > 0:40:05they also occupy official positions in the Government.
0:40:05 > 0:40:11The Abbot's Bailiff chooses the people who are going to occupy office.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16Of course, for a long time, the Abbot's Bailiff was one Robert Parman
0:40:16 > 0:40:19and then you look down the list and who do you see?
0:40:19 > 0:40:22Simon Parman.
0:40:22 > 0:40:28Sometimes you get three or four of his sons are also in this group of influential pledges.
0:40:28 > 0:40:29Chosen by himself.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34Wonderful tale of advancement, isn't it?
0:40:40 > 0:40:43Unlikeable and grasping as he may have been,
0:40:43 > 0:40:47Robert had set out to better himself and his children.
0:40:52 > 0:40:53It's very pretty, isn't it?
0:40:53 > 0:40:57'The ex-serf had become a pillar of the local community.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00'He even beautified his parish church.'
0:41:00 > 0:41:03Robert Parman's window from the inside.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06Yes, his great contribution to
0:41:06 > 0:41:12the whole communal effort, really, in building the church.
0:41:17 > 0:41:22So Robert dies, 1475, commemorated in the church,
0:41:22 > 0:41:26what happens to the family story in the village after that?
0:41:26 > 0:41:29Quite extraordinarily, his son,
0:41:29 > 0:41:34Robert Jr, had actually become a rector of the parish,
0:41:34 > 0:41:39so as well as his father ruling the secular side of parish life,
0:41:39 > 0:41:46his son was the leader of the religion of the parish as well.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50So his son had got a much better education that his father then.
0:41:50 > 0:41:51- Oh, indeed.- Do we know?
0:41:51 > 0:41:55Well, we know the father had a basic education of some kind,
0:41:55 > 0:41:57which made him able to keep his accounts and so on.
0:41:57 > 0:42:03But the son, presumably again, went to Bury School, the monks' school at Bury.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05- Then went onto Cambridge... - Cambridge?!
0:42:05 > 0:42:07..got an MA at Cambridge
0:42:07 > 0:42:11and then there was promoted to become Rector of Chevington.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14Everyday story of medieval country folk, isn't it?
0:42:14 > 0:42:20What a journey in a few decades from a serf to a Cambridge MA.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35So the aspirations of the Peasants' Revolt
0:42:35 > 0:42:38would eventually be achieved by new economic freedoms.
0:42:41 > 0:42:43And also, crucially, by education,
0:42:43 > 0:42:50which provided opportunities across the barriers of medieval class and gender.
0:42:50 > 0:42:56# And if you're a friend of Jesus you're a friend of mine. #
0:42:56 > 0:43:01And don't think that our rural ancestors were strangers to education.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06By the 14th century, schools had sprung up all over the medieval countryside.
0:43:06 > 0:43:10Ewelme School was founded in the 1430s,
0:43:10 > 0:43:12before the Wars of the Roses.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16We're at Ewelme Primary School in South Oxfordshire,
0:43:16 > 0:43:18the oldest primary school in the country.
0:43:18 > 0:43:22Founded in 1437 by Alice Chaucer,
0:43:22 > 0:43:26who was granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29The children would have been taught to read and write,
0:43:29 > 0:43:31very unusual in those days.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35And so this was, in effect, a grammar school
0:43:35 > 0:43:38and the children would have learned Latin.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42See whether you can work out what any of these words might mean.
0:43:42 > 0:43:44Feminam might mean feminine.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47So it's reading and writing and being able to use Latin
0:43:47 > 0:43:49and to compute figures,
0:43:49 > 0:43:53so that they were equipped to go
0:43:53 > 0:43:55and help on the estates and keep records,
0:43:55 > 0:43:58possibly even to go into the church.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02I'm going to show you some of the equipment
0:44:02 > 0:44:04that they would have been using in this school
0:44:04 > 0:44:11back in the 15th century. They would have been using things like wax tablets.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14Can anyone see anything around this classroom that you don't think
0:44:14 > 0:44:17they would have had in 1437?
0:44:17 > 0:44:21Well, they wouldn't have had whiteboard pens.
0:44:21 > 0:44:26Well, maybe they just didn't know how to make a whiteboard pen work.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29Back in the 15th century, the spread of education
0:44:29 > 0:44:32was helped by a very simple and practical innovation.
0:44:32 > 0:44:33Paper.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36When you get to about 1400,
0:44:36 > 0:44:42paper is becoming common and cheap in England
0:44:42 > 0:44:45and it's always seemed to me that the paper revolution
0:44:45 > 0:44:48is even more important than the printing revolution,
0:44:48 > 0:44:50because, in fact, you cannot have a printing revolution
0:44:50 > 0:44:53until you've got paper.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57And once you've got cheap paper, it's much easier for schools to function
0:44:57 > 0:45:01because you don't merely keep temporary exercises,
0:45:01 > 0:45:04which you have to then get rid of.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07You can actually keep permanent notes,
0:45:07 > 0:45:11so by 1400, you're already in the world of school exercise books.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14CHILDREN ALL TALK AT ONCE
0:45:14 > 0:45:19And we've been talking about boys. What about girls and women?
0:45:19 > 0:45:23Most female education is done in the households,
0:45:23 > 0:45:25but it won't involve Latin.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28They don't go to grammar schools,
0:45:28 > 0:45:34but they may well be taught by a parent or a literate person,
0:45:34 > 0:45:36a cleric or somebody like that,
0:45:36 > 0:45:39they may be taught their alphabet and be able to read
0:45:39 > 0:45:44and we certainly know at gentry level that women were reading romances,
0:45:44 > 0:45:46they were reading religious books,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49because these works get mentioned in wills.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53Right, we're going to be singing the Tudor song Hey Ho, Nobody's At Home.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56OK, so one, two, three, four...
0:45:56 > 0:46:01# Hey ho, nobody at home
0:46:01 > 0:46:05# Meat nor drink nor money I have none... #
0:46:07 > 0:46:10So in the 15th century, hundreds of villages up and down the land
0:46:10 > 0:46:15had their own tiny schools and schoolmasters.
0:46:15 > 0:46:17It was the beginning of a social revolution
0:46:17 > 0:46:20percolating silently from below.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24By the time we reach the Tudors,
0:46:24 > 0:46:27England will be the most literate society
0:46:27 > 0:46:29that had yet existed in history.
0:46:35 > 0:46:40So the people rose through education. Take the Paston family
0:46:40 > 0:46:44from the tiny Norfolk village which still bears their name today.
0:46:46 > 0:46:50Back in the 1400s, the Pastons were just 100-acre farmers,
0:46:50 > 0:46:52but they rose in the world.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56And we know about them through letters they wrote to each other
0:46:56 > 0:46:58during the Wars of the Roses.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07The Pastons' letters are so vividly expressed
0:47:07 > 0:47:10that they can almost seem people like us.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14And it's the letters written by the women that are most revealing.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19It's not bad, actually. That's not a bad fit...
0:47:19 > 0:47:21Oh, not too... You can't see now!
0:47:21 > 0:47:23For the first time in our history,
0:47:23 > 0:47:27we can eavesdrop on the thoughts of ordinary women.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33They tell of blackmail and bullying by the local lords and their cronies
0:47:33 > 0:47:36but they also speak of women's hopes and dreams
0:47:36 > 0:47:38and even their love lives.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43I'm sorry that you shall not be home for Christmas.
0:47:43 > 0:47:46I pray that you'll come as soon as you may.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50I shall think myself half a widow because you shall not be home.
0:47:50 > 0:47:52God have you in his keeping.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55Written on Christmas Eve by your Margaret.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02They read so immediate.
0:48:02 > 0:48:03They just are real people.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07And that's very uncommon in 15th-century letters.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12So as the news filtered back to this corner of Norfolk
0:48:12 > 0:48:17of battles in France in the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses,
0:48:17 > 0:48:19life went on.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24To my right worshipful husband, John Paston.
0:48:24 > 0:48:29I pray you heartily that you'll send me a pot of treacle.
0:48:29 > 0:48:30In haste, Margaret.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35In one of the Paston letters
0:48:35 > 0:48:38is what might just be our earliest Valentine.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41Nearly, it has sealed it. You've got the pattern. Just skidded a bit.
0:48:43 > 0:48:48Cousin, Friday is Valentine's Day.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50And every bird choose himself a mate.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54If you'd like to come on Thursday night and stay till Monday,
0:48:54 > 0:48:57I trust to God that you may speak to my husband
0:48:57 > 0:49:00and that we may bring the matter to a conclusion.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08"I pray you that you will wear the ring
0:49:08 > 0:49:10"with the image of St Margaret..."
0:49:10 > 0:49:12..That I sent you for remembrance till you come home.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15You have left me such a remembrance
0:49:15 > 0:49:19that makes me think upon you both night and day when I would sleep.
0:49:19 > 0:49:20"Yours, Margery."
0:49:23 > 0:49:27We've talked about the quill that was taken from goose feathers.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30You just, like, take all the feathers off
0:49:30 > 0:49:32then you just, like, make a slit in the bottom
0:49:32 > 0:49:34and then you just dip it in the ink.
0:49:34 > 0:49:38Yes, so if you look at the angle there...
0:49:38 > 0:49:41'The younger John Paston is begging for a new hawk from his brother'
0:49:41 > 0:49:45and there's this plea, "Could I have a new hawk, please?
0:49:45 > 0:49:46"My last hawk was useless
0:49:46 > 0:49:49"and all the other knights have got better hawks than me."
0:49:49 > 0:49:54Then he gets one, and he says, "But she is but a hedge sparrow."
0:49:54 > 0:49:57Because she arrived with broken wings
0:49:57 > 0:50:01so it's so sad, this younger brother, but, I mean, he triumphed in the end
0:50:01 > 0:50:05because he's the one all the rest of the Pastons are descended from.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16If you were an ordinary person,
0:50:16 > 0:50:18the 15th century wasn't a great time to live,
0:50:18 > 0:50:22but out of catastrophe had come the beginnings of real changes
0:50:22 > 0:50:26in our ancestors' lives. By the 1470s and '80s,
0:50:26 > 0:50:30Britain was slowly rising out of its long depression.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35And the woolmen now did what the British have always been good at -
0:50:35 > 0:50:37they reinvented their business model.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43And it was the wool towns of Suffolk
0:50:43 > 0:50:46which scored the most spectacular successes.
0:50:46 > 0:50:50They tapped into the export market with Germany, France and the Baltic
0:50:50 > 0:50:54and you can still see their new money in Lavenham.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03Wonderful spectacle of medieval wealth
0:51:03 > 0:51:05as you come up the street, isn't it?
0:51:05 > 0:51:06It's an incredible place.
0:51:06 > 0:51:08In 1524, we were recorded as
0:51:08 > 0:51:11the 14th richest town in England.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13We paid more tax in that year than York, Lincoln, Norwich,
0:51:13 > 0:51:17many of the big cities. It's quite incredible to think
0:51:17 > 0:51:20- of a population not much bigger than it is today, about 1,800.- Amazing.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24- I love the way you refer to... You talk of "we", Jane.- We, we.
0:51:24 > 0:51:29Well, you know, I'm not exactly a local, but Suffolk born and bred.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31How did they make their money, Jane?
0:51:31 > 0:51:34We're called the wool towns, but in actual fact,
0:51:34 > 0:51:37we made our money from cloth. Our cloth in Lavenham,
0:51:37 > 0:51:41which was a very thick, coarse, broad cloth, known as Lavenham Blues,
0:51:41 > 0:51:45dyed with woad, which was a pretty horrible substance anyway.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48But it was being exported as far away as northern Russia.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52- Wow.- Yeah.- In the 15th century? - Or before that, yeah.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56And these people, who started life as little artisans,
0:51:56 > 0:51:57spinning, weaving and dyeing,
0:51:57 > 0:52:01gradually became sort of under the umbrella, if you like,
0:52:01 > 0:52:04of a cloth merchant or clothier, who took control of the whole process
0:52:04 > 0:52:07and made a great deal of money in the process.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09But of course, all those wealthy cloth merchants
0:52:09 > 0:52:13try to show off their wealth through their buildings,
0:52:13 > 0:52:15so Lavenham is comprehensively rebuilt during that period
0:52:15 > 0:52:19with all these close-studded buildings, jettied buildings,
0:52:19 > 0:52:21to show off the amount of timber they could afford.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30Lavenham is an extraordinarily well-preserved medieval townscape.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32Really can get a sense of what it must have been like
0:52:32 > 0:52:35to walk down a medieval street here.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39And here we're stepping onto Water Street in Lavenham,
0:52:39 > 0:52:42which was originally, as the name suggests,
0:52:42 > 0:52:45a wet, wide street that flooded regularly.
0:52:45 > 0:52:50Today, the water flows underneath the front rooms, the sitting rooms
0:52:50 > 0:52:53of the people living on one side of this street.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56Michael, you're wearing wellingtons because you're about to explore it.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00'Here in Lavenham, the early Tudor middle class
0:53:00 > 0:53:02'built grand townhouses
0:53:02 > 0:53:06'showing off all the arts of the plasterers and the tilers
0:53:06 > 0:53:09'but they also put their money into infrastructure,
0:53:09 > 0:53:13'even a common sewerage system for the town.'
0:53:13 > 0:53:16The manhole cover that is looming open in front of us, Michael,
0:53:16 > 0:53:19would have been the middle of our medieval street.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22Gosh!
0:53:24 > 0:53:27It's quite narrow, isn't it?
0:53:27 > 0:53:29Look at this!
0:53:31 > 0:53:32So...
0:53:37 > 0:53:39So, can you hear me, Leigh?
0:53:39 > 0:53:42Yup, I can hear you. What can you see, Michael?
0:53:42 > 0:53:49I've got a fantastic sweep of brick vaults down here, Leigh.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52I don't think anything lives down there, Michael,
0:53:52 > 0:53:53but I can't guarantee it.
0:53:53 > 0:53:55MICHAEL LAUGHS
0:53:55 > 0:53:59Might be a few escaped pets of the reptilian variety.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06Oh, gosh, spiders around here, look at this!
0:54:08 > 0:54:10SPLASHING
0:54:13 > 0:54:15Great, look at this,
0:54:15 > 0:54:20a sewage outlet there, running underneath the street.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24It's a wonderful insight, isn't it,
0:54:24 > 0:54:26to the way things worked in the medieval world.
0:54:26 > 0:54:31The community was the driving force
0:54:31 > 0:54:34behind all the things that make society work.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39Charity, law and order, education,
0:54:39 > 0:54:43entertainment, and even sanitation.
0:54:43 > 0:54:48In a medieval microcosm, it's the big society.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52Right!
0:54:57 > 0:55:00Oh, gosh! Blimey...
0:55:03 > 0:55:05Hamish!
0:55:09 > 0:55:11Well, hello.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13It's very nice to see you.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16I was expecting to come out in the loo.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23'Back in Long Melford, in our big communal dig,
0:55:23 > 0:55:26'we found more evidence of this early Tudor boom time.'
0:55:26 > 0:55:29That's going back quite a long way.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31Sort of Tudor period, Queen Elizabeth onwards, really.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35'A medieval guildhall was rebuilt as an inn for commercial travellers.'
0:55:35 > 0:55:39I don't know what that is, it's certainly not a typical modern tile.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42'And, just behind the Swan Inn, the test pit revealed
0:55:42 > 0:55:44'the modern spirit of those Tudor developers.'
0:55:44 > 0:55:47Well, you have your grey-brown layer at the bottom,
0:55:47 > 0:55:51which presumably was the soil behind the original building here,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54which is producing the sort of 14th, 15th-century pottery.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58Then someone's dug a trench through that to put a brick wall in,
0:55:58 > 0:56:00presumably as part of a nice Tudor brick building.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02Building goes up, it's knocked down,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05the whole thing's levelled, the builders tarmac over it.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08- At some point, someone put a sewer pipe in as well!- I love it.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12Historians talk about the great rebuilding of the 16th century, don't they?
0:56:12 > 0:56:15And we think about all these lovely half-timbered houses
0:56:15 > 0:56:18and actually, that's kind of builders going at it
0:56:18 > 0:56:21- and developers going at it as hard as they are today.- Yeah.
0:56:21 > 0:56:23Great. Terrific.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26It's a real insight, isn't it,
0:56:26 > 0:56:29to the changing world of Tudor England.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33I mean, you have to remember that that time - 15th, 16th century -
0:56:33 > 0:56:37this part of East Anglia is a mainstay of the wealth of England,
0:56:37 > 0:56:40with the wool trade, these towns like Lavenham and Kersey
0:56:40 > 0:56:42and Long Melford here.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46So in 1522, around the time that the Swan Inn was built,
0:56:46 > 0:56:50there were 160 taxable households here in Long Melford
0:56:50 > 0:56:52and a third of them worked in the cloth industry.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55There were ten great, rich clothiers -
0:56:55 > 0:57:00there were weavers and dyers and fullers and tailors.
0:57:00 > 0:57:04And an inn like this, built to service their industry,
0:57:04 > 0:57:07with people coming in from as far away as London.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11And it's a story that you could repeat right across Britain -
0:57:11 > 0:57:15from Totnes in Devon to the towns of northeast Scotland,
0:57:15 > 0:57:20for the people of Britain, the world of work was changing.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23BELLS PEAL
0:57:26 > 0:57:30So, through work, education and ambition,
0:57:30 > 0:57:33the British people came through the horrors of the Black Death
0:57:33 > 0:57:35and its violent fallout.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39For the ordinary person, it must have been a terrible time to live.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43But out of it, they forged new ways of working and living
0:57:43 > 0:57:46that still shape us today.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52At this point, the lives of the people of Britain
0:57:52 > 0:57:57were still ruled by the twin pillars of medieval power -
0:57:57 > 0:58:00monarchy and the Catholic Church.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03And the next challenge the British people will face
0:58:03 > 0:58:06will come from their own rulers -
0:58:06 > 0:58:08a chain of events that will change them forever
0:58:08 > 0:58:11in their religious beliefs and customs,
0:58:11 > 0:58:14in their attitudes to life and death.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17Events that, in the end,
0:58:17 > 0:58:21will overthrow the power of both God and king.
0:58:22 > 0:58:24THEY ALL SING A HYMN
0:58:26 > 0:58:28And how that happened,
0:58:28 > 0:58:31we'll see in the next chapter of The Great British Story.
0:58:50 > 0:58:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd