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Monty Python
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[PROF. JONES:] Good evening.
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One of the main elements in any assessment of the medieval open-field farming system is the availability of plough teams for the winter plowing.
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Professor Tofts of the University of Manchester puts it like this:
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(A rocking beat starts and a 60s-style folk rock song with some heavy Caribbean influence begins.)
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To plough once in the winter Sowing, and again in Lent,
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Sowing with as many oxen
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Sowing with as many oxen
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As he shall have yoked in the plough
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Oh yes
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Oh yes
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As he shall have yoked in the plough.
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Oh yes
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Oh yes
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[PROF. JONES:] But of course there is considerable evidence of open-field villages as far back as the tenth century. Professor Moorhead:
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(Dramatic metal chords, reminiscent of British punk or perhaps groups like Black Sabbath.)
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Theeeeeere's ev-i-de-ence
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Theeeeeere's ev-i-de-ence
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There's evidence (evidence)
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Evidence (evidence)
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Evidence (evidence?)
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There's evidence (evidence!)
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Evidence of settlements with one long village street,
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Farmsteads, hamlets, little towns - the framework was complete
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By the tiiiiime ... (OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST!) The rural framework was complete
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Rur-al
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frame-work
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wa-as
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com-plete.
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[PROF. JONES:] 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.
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[PROF. HEGERMAN:] (stuttering) Well, i-it may not have been a - a statutory obligation, but, uh, I mean, uh, a guy who was a freeman whuh - was obliged in the medieval system to...
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[PROF. JONES:] To do boonwork?
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[PROF. HEGERMANN:] That's right. There's an example, ah, from the village rolls, ah, in 1313.
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[PROF. JONES:] And I believe you're going to do it for us.
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[PROF. HEGERMAN:] That's right, yeah...
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(Pop beat sets in, reminiscent of the Beatles in their later period but with some of the spastic quality of a Joe Cocker.)
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Oh it's written in the village rolls
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That if one plough-team wants an oxen
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And that oxen is lent
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the loooord's consent.
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Yeah, yeah,
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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(na na na na)
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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(na na na na)
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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(na na na na)
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
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Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent.
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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 entitled "The Ronettes Sing Medieval Agrarian History."
Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright...
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