A peasant way to learn History

Year 7 had an action packed, hard-working and enjoyable time at Murton Park, on 14 and 15 November.

We lived as peasants for the whole day and carried out back breaking jobs in the medieval village. We dressed up in rags and head-dresses and then had to collect firewood, sweep houses, grind corn into flour, work on the farm, make candles and learn how to fight as guards. If the peasants did not work thoroughly hard they would have to face the consequences.  The cottars, who are beneath the peasants, had it very tough.  Mr Monaghan was a cottar and wasn’t working hard enough so he had to spend some of his time in the stocks while the peasants threw straw at his face!

During lunch the peasants had to entertain the Lord of the Manor by telling jokes and singing. The peasants also had to attend the Manor Court, where they spoke up about people who had not been working or who had been making trouble. There were lots of complaints!   All the peasants were given money for their hard work and then had it all taken back for tax! Whilst we were working, we came face to face with a ‘leper’, (the name given to a person who had caught the disease Leprosy).  He had a bag over his face to hide his missing nose and ear.  We had to feed the leper with corn and oats to make him go away.  Lepers were common in medieval times but most of us didn’t like the look of them.

We enjoyed playing the part of peasants, but at the end of the day we decided we would not have liked to have been a peasant during medieval times. It was a very hard life and they had to work until dark and got paid very little money.  It was not pleasant! The day itself, however,  was great fun and very informative.

By Gabriella Zanetti, Year 7