Tudor Monastery Farm - Episode 5

The monastery and others took care of the poor, rather than the state.  Helping the poor was a social virtue.  It was the measure of how a Christian would be judged.  Hospitality was also high on Tudor’s radar.  The Monasteries helped the poor through the almshouses or providing shelter.  They accommodated everyone.

The monasteries served as a backpacker’s hostel, a nursing home, as well providing a place for the rich.  By hosting the rich, the monasteries could help generate donations.  The team focuses on Tudor Hospitality in this episode.  Their task is to help the Monastery host a rich patron, as well as restore a room for a retired monk.

The boys attend to the pea crop before they can help out with the renovation and hosting the party.  They build bird scarers to help frighten the birds.  In Tudor times, there were bounties placed on birds.  The boys use shells to scare the birds away from the pea crop.

Ruth makes butter in the dairy.  This butter will be used for Abbot’s feast.  She separates the cream from the milk and starts making butter.  Butter was good for the health in Tudor times.  Everyone had a cow because you could graze the cow on the common land.  After the lands became enclosed and the poor had to rent land.  However, they could not afford to rent the land and butter became the domain of the rich.  This would be an excellent clip to show in an agricultural classroom.  Butter making would be a good experiment to do in the classroom.

Tom and Peter make their way to the room they are restoring.  They tear up the floor as part of the renovation.  They plan to use lime putty to help with the renovation.  They gather limestone and wood to make a temporary kiln.  Limestone was a popular building material in the Tudor Times.  They set the limestone on fire and after the fire burns out they put the burned lime into the water and turn it into putty.  It is a volatile reaction.  The stones will turn to putty overnight.

Ruth cleans out her dairy equipment.  Cleaning was a vigorous affair in the Tudor Times.  They did not use soap.  One weapon in the cleaning arsenal was salt.  Salt killed bacteria.  Then everything was scalded with boiling water.  Finally, they laid their tools out in the sun to kill bacteria.  They knew that the sun worked in sterilizing tools.  She then harvests rushes for the room renovation.  The rushes will be made into mats.  Rushes were an important feature of the Tudor home.  They were used on the floor, baskets, mattresses, and hats.

After making the lime putty, the boys set to work on redoing the floor.  They make the floor out of sand, flint, and clay.  They add curdled milk to the mixture to bind the floor.  The sour milk smell will go away.  After mixing they then start laying the floor. 

To continue to learn more about the Tudor Monastery farm, continue to watch this fantastic series.

Tudor Monastery Farm is an excellent show for the classroom.  If you need a filler for a substitute teacher or just to share some living history with your students.  You can show certain episodes in an agricultural classroom as well.  Grab some clips and use this series in the classroom as part of a lecture.  You are only limited to your imagination when it comes to using YouTube in the classroom. 

You can access the YouTube Video here.  The worksheets for this series are available on my Teacher Pay Teachers page.