HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2024-07-23T14:22:35.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: How to go on a medieval pilgrimage
items: What were the games and pastimes enjoyed by Tudor children?
items: Tudor childhood: from dodging death to nursery rhymes
items: Cathedrals: from bishops' seats to tourist hotspots
items: The medieval church: your guide to religion and worship in the Middle Ages
items: The church in medieval England: everything you wanted to know
items: Everard Digby: the man who taught Tudors to swim

How to go on a medieval pilgrimage
type: item
date: 2024-07-23T14:22:35.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Are you a medieval worshipper looking to demonstrate the strength of your devotion? A pilgrimage could be the answer – and we have the ultimate guide to planning your trip
encoded: Where to go There are many reasons for going on pilgrimage. You may wish to undertake the journey to show your religious devotion. You may be doing penance for sins you’ve committed. You may wish to be cured of a serious medical condition or illness, or to gain a cure for someone else. You may wish to make a political protest: to visit the tombs of Simon de Montfort or King Henry VI, because you supported their causes. Or you may just be in need of a holiday and a little adventure. But pilgrimages cost time and money. Most people cannot spend long away from their work, their children or their farm animals. Going a great distance means either walking, which is wearying; travelling in a carrier’s cart for which you have to pay; or riding a horse, which you must own or hire. Then how are you to find food or a bed? You can beg, which is hazardous, or you may be able to stay in a monastery, but often the only alternatives will be inns or private houses charging money. This means that, for most people, pilgrimage is a local matter. You go out for the day, often with friends and neighbours, to visit a nearby abbey, church or chapel. You take a picnic and get home by nightfall. Long pilgrimages to the most famous shrines are chiefly made by the wealthy, who can afford to take time off and have money to spend, or by very devout poor people who support themselves as best they can along the way. Local pilgrimage places are innumerable. Many churches have images of Christ or the Virgin Mary, which are reckoned to be especially holy and where your prayer may be answered. Small chapels are also popular, usually on their festival day once a year, especially ones in romantic places such as hilltops, woods or caves. If you have the means to travel further, there is also a wide choice of places to go. Canterbury Cathedral, with the shrine of Thomas Becket, canonised in 1173, is the most famous and busiest shrine of all, attracting pilgrims from all over Britain and from the Continent…

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What were the games and pastimes enjoyed by Tudor children?
type: item
date: 2023-05-16T07:52:09.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Children
description: Dolls and dice, ball sports and blind man's bluff, hide-and-seek and “hot cockles”: childhood in Tudor England – one of the “seven ages of man” – was time for play as well as learning, duty and growing up. Nicholas Orme highlights some of the most popular children’s pastimes and explores their place in wider society
encoded: It was fashionable, about 60 years ago, to say that childhood was a recent invention. In the past, it was argued, children’s lives were nasty, brutish and, often, short, deprived of the loving care and self-expression of modern times. That theory ignored what people in previous centuries actually thought – and wrote – about children. Human life in Tudor England was seen as a series of stages – the “seven ages of man”, famously summed up by William Shakespeare in As You Like It. Each age had its own character, and that of childhood – the ages of seven to 14 – was playfulness. “I am called Childhood,” says a boy, in the words of Thomas More in the 1490s. “In play is all my mind, to cast a quoit, a throwing stick, and a ball… If only I could burn all my schoolbooks,” he continues, “then might I lead my life always in play.” Read more | Chess, gambling and cards: Tudor games and indoor pastimes Tudor parents and educators did not, of course, approve of unrestricted play. Children had to learn good behaviour, religious duties and the skills needed for adult life. Some critics wanted to direct children’s play, or even to prevent it, but play persisted nonetheless. Children invented their own playthings. Some toys were mass produced, to be sold in shops and at fairs. Spare time, on Sundays and the many holidays, was spent in social games. Every open space was used for activities such as running, chasing and ball games including tennis and football. Dolls and action figures: for both girls and boys Many parents bought toys for their children. Tudor family portraits depict babies with rattles, and dolls, known as “puppets” or “babies”, were common. These were easily made from scraps of fabric, or bought in the form of wooden truncheons with heads, which were then dressed. There are many references to girls playing with dolls, and mentions of boys doing so, too – some dolls were male figures. In 1599–1601, William Cavendish of Hardwick in Derbyshire bought dolls for his child…

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Tudor childhood: from dodging death to nursery rhymes
type: item
date: 2023-05-16T05:01:27.000Z
creator: Professor Nicholas Orme
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Children
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Elizabethans course
subject: Tudor life
description: Nicholas Orme uncovers what infancy and childhood were like in the 16th century
encoded: Look at a Tudor family portrait, and you’ll often find children depicted like miniature adults, standing confidently alongside their parents in their doublets and dresses. But how far is this an accurate portrayal of what childhood was like in the 16th century? Nicholas Orme, author of new book Tudor Children, joined Emily Briffett to talk about the lives of young people in the era, from nursery rhymes and moralistic bedtime stories, to playtime, punishment and more. Nicholas Orme is the author of Tudor Children (Yale University Press, 2023) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones Discover more learning from week two of the HistoryExtra Academy Elizabethans course Elizabethan daily life, with Professor Tracy Borman – watching time 15 mins What did the Tudors wear? – listening time 36 mins The dark side of Elizabethan England – reading time 9 mins Hold your noses: the smells, sounds and sights of Elizabethan England – reading time 14 mins 10 ways to die in Elizabethan England – reading time 6 mins The missing Tudors: black people in 16th-century England – reading time 5 mins Tudor dining: a guide to food and status in the 16th century – reading time 9 mins

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Cathedrals: from bishops' seats to tourist hotspots
type: item
date: 2022-05-16T11:23:46.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Nicholas Orme traces the story of English cathedrals, from their early medieval roots to their role in modern day communities
encoded: Nicholas Orme speaks to Emily Briffett about the long story of English cathedrals, tracing their role in society from their beginnings in the early Middle Ages to the modern day. Nicholas reveals how cathedrals have survived the turbulence of religious and social change, and explores what they can reveal to us about our history.

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The medieval church: your guide to religion and worship in the Middle Ages
type: item
date: 2022-04-06T12:51:22.000Z
creator: Professor Nicholas Orme
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy late-medieval England course
subject: Medieval life
subject: Medieval Life and Death
description: Professor Nicholas Orme answers key questions about religion and worship in the Middle Ages
encoded: Why was the Church so important in medieval England? The Church in the Middle Ages was more than just a way of connecting with God; it was a whole belief system. Christianity in medieval times didn’t just focus on people’s relationship with God. It also set out to explain history, science, ethics, how one should behave, and so on. Whole areas of study that we would now separate into science or sociology or politics, fell under religion in the medieval centuries. What’s more, the Church was responsible for many things which, nowadays, we would look to the government to care for, such as education, morality, and charity. The Church also had an important role in medieval life, which it has somewhat lost today. Nowadays, there are lots of different things you can be doing on a Sunday morning rather than attending church services. In a rural community of the Middle Ages, the local church would have been a major place to meet and socialise. Many churches developed social organisations of maidens (girls aged from 12 up to marriage), young men of similar ages, and married women or ‘wives’. So church was not just a place where people worshipped on a Sunday; it was a place where friendship groups could gather, too. Read more | What was life like for a medieval housewife? Where and how did the Church get its wealth? The Church was not a single body, so you cannot say that it was rich any more than you can say that British society today is rich. There were enormous variations of wealth within the Church and its various institutions. At one extreme, there were archbishops and bishops who received huge salaries, although they had to pay the costs of their administrations out of their own pockets. At the other end of the scale, poor chaplains and curates earned about £3–£5 a year, which wasn’t much different to the annual income of artisans and labourers. Monasteries, too, might be rich or barely able to survive. There were huge variations in wealth. Did you know? The Church was o…

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The church in medieval England: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2021-07-18T11:29:00.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: Professor Nicholas Orme answers listener questions about the church in medieval England
encoded: Did medieval people have sex in churches? What was a boy bishop? And why did women have to sit in the ‘safe side’ of a church in the Middle Ages? In the latest episode of our everything you want to know series, Professor Nicholas Orme responds to author questions and popular internet search queries about the church in medieval England. Nicholas Orme is the author of the upcoming book Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, due 27 July) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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Everard Digby: the man who taught Tudors to swim
type: item
date: 2009-08-03T06:16:16.000Z
creator: Professor Nicholas Orme
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
description: The first handbook on how to swim was the brainchild of an eccentric 'crypto-Catholic' with a liking for controversy. Nicholas Orme surveys an ambitious visual guide designed to tempt Tudor gents into the water...
encoded: It took an eccentric person to write the earliest book on how to swim. That was because he wrote it in 1587, when there were no swimming pools and nobody went to the seaside for holidays; when you could only swim in a river and then only in the summer, provided you did not mind slimy water weed, dead branches, swans and fish-traps. The writer was ambitious as well as eccentric. He aimed to turn swimming from a disregarded skill of bargees and boatmen into an accomplishment for gentlemen, to make them more like the Romans. In modern terms, that was the equivalent of turning swimming into an Olympic sport and getting it sponsorship from the richest people of the day. To do this he wrote in Latin, the civilised language of Europe, the language you used if you wished to be taken seriously. But he also realised that pictures were needed to show how the strokes should be done. And so not only did he produce the earliest book about swimming, but one of the first visual guides to any sport. On the podcast | Nicholas Orme uncovers what infancy and childhood were like in the 16th century Who was Everard Digby? Everard Digby came to notoriety only once in his lifetime, and then not for his interest in swimming. Born in 1548 into a poor gentry family from Leicestershire, he got a place at St John’s College, Cambridge, when he was 19. He worked his way up to a college fellowship and finally in 1584, to be the lecturer in charge of teaching the students. There were three strands in Digby’s character. Two of them helped him write his swimming book. He was an instinctive teacher (his first book was a basic guide to knowledge for students), and he was a rumbustious outdoor sports enthusiast who must have enjoyed the water. He was later accused of fishing when he should, in fact, have been in chapel, and of disturbing the college by shouting and blowing a horn. The third strand was more problematical. The Digbys had leanings towards Catholicism. One of them was in the Guy Fawkes plot…

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