Hello, and thank you for joining me for another Oak Academy history lesson.

My name is Mrs. Knox, and I'm here today guiding you through the resources you need to be successful in the lesson.

So, let's get started.

The lesson today is part of a unit of work on Norman England.

We're looking at the ways in which the lives of ordinary people were changed after the Norman Conquest.

Today's lesson we'll focus on work and diet in Norman England.

And by the end of the lesson, you'll be able to describe work and diets in Norman England and judge the degree to which these changed.

Now, the lesson today, we'll use a keyword, which is the word, "Livestock." Livestock are farm animals such as sheep, goats, oxen, and pigs that are reared for food or used for farming work.

Now today's lesson will be in three sections, so we'll start now with part one, which will focus on work in Norman England.

Agricultural work in Norman England followed the seasons.

As soon as the main harvest was completed in late summer, the fields were ploughed, and spring crops were sewn.

After a dark winter of collecting wood, clearing ditches and tending to animals, the spring crops could be harvested and other fields ploughed and sewn for the next summer harvest.

Because the strips of land which each peasant family farmed were mixed together with everyone else's in the large fields surrounding the village, everyone grew the same crops and did the same work in the fields at the same time.

In the autumn, when the crops had been harvested, all of the villages livestock were pastured together in the stubble left in the fields.

Village children often had the job of watching over the animals to stop them from wandering off.

Peasants had days off for saints days or holy days.

At Christmas, Easter, and after the harvest was completed, work for the lord of the manor stopped and the lord put on a feast and festivities.

At Christmas, peasants often had two weeks away from their work for the manor.

Alright, let's have a go now at this true or false question to check your understanding so far.

The people of Norman England had a number of days off a year.

Is that true or false? Press pause and then press play, when you're ready for the answer.

You should have said, "The correct answer is true." But why is the answer true? Is it because A, people celebrated holy days, saints days, Christmas and Easter, or B, people celebrated Thanksgiving, bonfire night, and boxing day? Press pause and then press play when you're ready to hear the answer.

That's right.

You should have said, "The correct answer was A, people celebrated holy days, saint days, and Christmas and Easter." Almost everyone in Norman England farm for a living and 90% of people were peasants.

Freemen were peasants who paid money rent, and only worked occasionally for the lord of the manor.

They had enough land up to a hundred acres to produce a surplus of crops to sell, and they could also afford to hire peasants, borders, and cottars or buy enslaved people to work the land for them.

Though, the Normans reduced the number of enslaved people for religious and economic reasons.

Villeins held smaller areas of land, up to 30 acres from the lord of the manor in return for which they worked the lord's domain, the lord's farmland for three or four days every week and more at harvest time and other busy points in the farming year.

The bordars and cottars, which made up 30% of the rural population, had the lease land.

They had about five acres at most.

This was not enough to feed themselves and their families, so they worked as farm labourers for other peasants.

It was also often borders and cottars who were the manor's specialist workers.

They worked as ploughman, shepherds, blacksmiths, millers, wheelwrights, carters, and other rural trades.

Finally, children in Norman England generally did the same work as their parents.

Peasant children had no education and started working in the fields and carrying out household tasks while they were still very young.

Here's another check of your understanding.

I'd like you to attempt this question.

What percentage of the population of Norman England were peasants? Was it A, 70%, B, 80%, or C, 90%? Press pause and then when you're ready for the answer, press play.

Well done if you said, "The correct answer was C, 90% of the population of Norman England were peasants." Here's another check now of your understanding.

I'd like you to match the correct type of peasant to the correct description.

Press pause to complete this task and then press play to see the correct answers.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at the correct matches now.

For the border or cottar, you should have said that they only held around five acres of land, so had to work as labourers, plough men, shepherds, and other rural trades.

For freemen, you should have said that a freeman rented land up to a hundred acres and only worked occasionally for the lord of the manor.

And finally, villein held up to 30 acres of land and in return worked the lord's farmland for three or four days a week.

A minority of people worked in what we would call industry.

There were miners who mined for tin and lead in Cornwall and Darbyshire.

Iron ore was mined in many places across England and Iron Works were found in places such as the Forest of Dean and Northamptonshire producing iron that was made into products such as horseshoes and cooking pots.

Although, few peasants would've owned an iron pot.

Saltworks were another important industry in Norman England.

In coastal areas, salt water was left to evaporate in shallow pools leaving salt behind.

Finally, I'd like you to write a description of some of the jobs undertaken in Norman England.

You'll be able to use the sentence starters to help with your answer.

Press pause and then, when you're ready to see what you could have written, press play.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at what you could have said.

The majority of work undertaken in Norman England was carried out on the land.

Around 90% of the population were peasants who farm strips of land on the manor.

The whole family, including the children, were involved in this year round occupation.

However, there were different categories of peasants ranging from freemen who could afford to hire others to work the land to the borders or cottars who worked as farm labourers.

They also undertook many other roles such as ploughing and shepherding livestock.

However, Norman England also had a limited amount of what we would call industry.

A small number of workers were miners who mined for tin and lead in places such as Cornwall and Darbyshire.

Some also mined for iron ore, which was then into products such as horseshoes and cooking pots.

A final important industry in England was salt production, often found in coastal areas.

The job involved the extraction of salt from water pools.

However, it is worth remembering that this type of work was much less common than farming.

We're now ready to move on to the second part of the lesson today.

In this section, we'll focus on the diets for the rich and the poor.

Peasants did not have a varied diet.

Most meals involve bread and broth or pottage.

Pottage was made up of mashed up vegetables mixed with oaks and flavoured with salt and herbs.

Peasants got up just before it got light and worked all day until the sun went down, at which point they had their supper.

Food in the day would be bread, possibly with cheese made from sheep milk or an apple, or an onion.

Peasants drank weak ale, which was made from barley.

The fermentation process made ale safe to drink, unlike water.

Making ale was traditionally done by women known as alewives or brewsters.

Most peasant families kept at least one peg.

A household would slaughter a pig in the autumn and preserve its meat with salt or by curing it with smoke.

That way peasant families could have pork, especially bacon, through the winter.

Peasants also hunted and trapped animals like rabbits for food.

If harvests were bad, families would make broth from whatever food they could find, including scrapings from the barn floor.

Time for another check of your understanding.

Let's have a go at this question.

What did pottage consist of? Was it A, meat, herbs, and cheese, B, mashed vegetables and oats with seasoning, or C, bread with bacon and herbs? Press pause and then press play for the correct answer.

You should have said, "The correct answer was B." Pottage consisted of mashed vegetables and oats with seasoning.

In the manor houses and the townhouses of the Norman elites, meals were generally served twice a day, mid-morning for dinner, and supper in the late afternoon.

Meat and fish were commonly eaten.

We know from the Bayeux Tapestry that this was often cooked on sticks like shish kebabs.

These rich people ate wheat bread, which was more expensive than the coarse rye bread eaten by the peasants.

Stale bread was often used as a sort of plate.

And once the nobles had eaten their food, these stale bread trenchers were then given to their servants to eat for their dinner or supper.

Meat was not eaten on certain days for religious reasons.

The nobles would eat fish on those days.

And during lent, the period before Easter, the rich ate no meat.

Fish from local rivers and ponds were eaten instead, along with lots of herring and shellfish, especially oysters from the coast that were packed in salt to preserve them and then transported by cart or boat inland in barrels.

As well as ale, they drank wine imported from the south of France and mead, which was an alcoholic drink made from honey.

And on a screen now, you can see an illustration of pork being prepared in a household.

Time now for a check of your understanding, what was commonly eaten by the rich in Norman England? What was too expensive for many peasants? Was it A, grain and dairy, B, fruit and vegetables, or C, meat and fish? Press pause and then press play to hear the correct answer.

Well done if you said, "The correct answer is C, meat and fish was commonly eaten by the rich, but it was too expensive for many peasants." Finally, in this section, I'd like you to complete this task.

I'd like you to provide three comparisons to support Laura's statement.

Laura's statement is, "The rich and poor in Norman England had very different diets." Press pause to see if you can come up with your three comparisons and then press play to see what you could have said.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at a few of the comparisons you might have mentioned.

You could have said, "The poor drank ale, but the rich also drank wine and mead." You also could have said, "The poor had an unvaried diet of mainly bread and pottage, but the rich commonly ate meat and fish." Finally, you could have said, "The rich ate white bread, but the poor ate coarse rye bread." Let's go on now to the final section of the lesson.

In this section, we'll focus on changes in work and diet.

In the countryside, work carried on without many changes.

The Normans did not introduce any new forming methods.

There were social changes, however.

The Anglo-Saxons traded and used enslaved people for farm work as domestic servants and in some specialised craft work.

The Normans, however, disapproved of slavery, and the numbers of enslaved people fell under Norman rule.

Although they still made up about 10% of the population in 1086, by the 12th century, slavery had almost completely disappeared.

However, the Normans also disapproved of the freemen, and many of these were forced into becoming villeins, who had to do work for their lord and lost their freedom to go and work for anyone else.

It's time now for another check of your understanding.

I'd like you to answer this question.

What change did the Normans make to the countryside? Was it A, they changed the methods of farming used? B, they decreased the number of enslaved people, or C, they increased the number of freemen.

Press pause and then press play when you're ready for the answer.

You should have said the correct answer was B, they decreased the number of enslaved people.

While most people would not have seen any change in their diet from Anglo-Saxon to Norman England, the richer elites did enjoy more feasts with a wider variety of meat, fish, and wine.

Most rich Normans were obsessed with hunting and deer meat, known as venison, was eaten often.

The Normans introduced a new species of deer to England, the fallow deer and developed hunting park stocked with deer.

Rich Normans also had access to spices from the Middle East, such as cloves, ginger, and nutmeg, which they used to flavour their foods.

We can see the change in diet reflected in the words we use for food in English today.

We have old English words for the animals, swine, meaning pigs, cow and sheep, and we have Norman French words for the food, pork, beef, mutton.

This suggests that English looked after the animals, how the Norman elite got to eat them.

Here's another check now of your understanding.

I'd like you to answer this true or false question.

There was little change to the diet of the rich under the Normans.

Is that true or false? Press pause and then press play to hear the correct answer.

You should have said the correct answer is false, but why is the answer false? Is it because A, they now had less variety and had to rely on venison as their main source of food, or B, they now had more variety, which included more venison and new exotic spices such as cloves and ginger? Press pause and then press play to hear the correct answer.

Well done if you said, "The correct answer was B, the Norman diet now had more variety and this included more venison and new exotic spices such as cloves and ginger." We're now ready to go on to the final task of today's lesson.

I'd like you to attempt this question.

How far do you agree that life in England improved, thanks to the changes the Normans made to work and diet? To help with your response, you can use this sentence starters to help structure your answer.

Press pause now, and when you've completed your work, press play.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at what you might have said in your answer.

"On the one hand, I agree life in England did improve for some people, in particular the rich Normans in society.

Feasts were held more often and would've featured meats such as pork, beef and mutton as their centrepieces.

Rich Normans also had access to spices from the Middle East such as cloves, ginger and nutmeg, which they used to flavour their foods.

This would've made meals tastier and more varied than before.

Life would also have improved for enslaved people as the Normans gave them their freedom because the Normans disapproved of slavery.

However, life either stayed the same or got worse for other people.

There were few changes to farming methods, so farmwork was still labour intensive for those who had to work the land.

Peasant diets remains similar to how they were under the Anglo-Saxons with little variety outside of pottage, bread and ale.

There was also a decline in the number of freemen under the Normans, resulting in many losing the freedom to work for the lord of their choice and instead they were under tighter control as a villein.

Therefore, I only agree with the statement to a limited extent as the majority of people in Norman England were not the elite Norman lords, but instead poor peasants who found their lives relatively unchanged from the ones they had lived under the rule of the Anglo-Saxons.

The Normans approved lives for themselves, but did little to improve the lives of their English subjects, perhaps with the exception of enslaved people." We've reached the end now of today's lesson so we're going to have a quick summary of what you should have learned today.

Work in Norman England usually meant farm work, though there was a small amount of industry, such as iron works.

Although peasants all did the same sort of work, there were differences between peasants in terms of how much work they had to do for the lord of the manor.

There was little change to the work people did in Norman England compared to under the Anglo-Saxons.

There was, however, a big difference between the diet of the rich and the poor and this difference increased under Norman rule.

Many thanks for all of your work in our lesson today.

I hope that you feel confident that you've mastered this topic, and I look forward to you joining me in a future lesson.