Background to History / Open Field Farming Songs


Eric Idle: The Background to History, Part Four.

Graham Chapman: Good evening. One of the main elements in any assessment of the medieval open field farming system is the availability of oxen for the winter plowing. Professor Tofts of the University of Manchester puts it like this:

Professor Tofts: (Sung with the backing of Reggae type music)
To plough once in the Winter
sowing and again in lent
Sowing with as many oxen
Sowing with as many oxen
As he shall have yoked in the plough
Oh yeah, oh yeah
As he shall have yoked in the plough
oh yeah yeah
oh yeah
oh yeah

Graham Chapman: But of course, there is considerable evidence of open field villages as far back as the 10th century. Professor Moorehead.

Professor Moorehead: (Professor Moorehead sings to a heavy rock beat with a lot of drumming)
There's E-vi-dence!
There's E-vi-dence!
There's Evidence!(evidence!)
Evidence!(evidence!)
Evidence!(evidence!)
There's Evidence!(evidence!)
Evidence of settlements with one long village street,
Farmsteads, hamlets, little towns - the framework was complete,
By the time...
Of the Norman conquest!
The rural framework was complete!
Rural!
Framework!
Was!
Complete!

Graham Chapman: This is not to say of course that the system was as sophisticated as it later came to be. I asked the Professor of Medieval Studies at Cambridge why this was.

Professor Tofts: Well...it may not have been a, uh ...a statutary obligation but, uh...I mean...uh, a guy who's a freeman would, uh, was obliged in the medieval system, to, uh...

Graham Chapman:...to do boonwork?

Professor Tofts: yeah, that's right, yeah, there's an example from the village rolls, uh, in 1313...

Graham Chapman: And I believe you are going to do it for us now?

Professor Tofts: That's right, yeah....(sings with the backing of a band, music sounds almost gospel like)
Oh it's written in the Village rolls
that if one plough team wants an oxen
and that oxen is lent
Then the villeins and the ploughman
have got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughman
have got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughman
have got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughman
have got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughman
have got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughman
have got to have the lord's consent

(music from the song finishes off with with the sound of a plane and a guitar rift)

Eric Idle: That was a talk on the open field farming system by Professor Angus Jones. Some of the main points covered in this talk are now available on a long playing record 'The Ronettes Sing Medieval Agrarian History'.