Want to live like a Tudor? Historian Ruth Goodman did, and here are five crucial lessons she learned

“Fridges are a bit overrated.”

That’s one of the conclusions that Ruth Goodman came to after spending six months living the life of an ordinary Tudor. Living and working in a farmstead meticulously constructed to be Tudor-authentic, she immersed herself in the granular details of 16th-century Britain, eating Tudor food, sleeping in a Tudor bed, and doing Tudor work.

It’s a stark contrast to the popular focus on the Tudor-era that’s often seen through the prism of palaces and politics. Landmark moments in history such as Henry VIII’s marital troubles, the Reformation, and Elizabeth I presiding over an age of exploration take the limelight. But these headline events have never been the sole focus of Goodman’s interests.

Instead, she wanted to know about the ordinary people.

“I'm not posh, I'm not rich, I'm not a bloke, and I'm not one of the elite,” she said. “Why would I be interested in them?”

“I wanted to know about people like me in the past. I wanted to know about the ordinary details,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to try and get inside the skin of someone: to think those thoughts and to feel those feelings.

“It's time travel, but it's also anthropology and self-exploration too.”

But other than a disdain for fridges, what did Goodman really learn about ordinary Tudors and the rhythms of their lives? Goodman poured her knowledge and experience into a HistoryExtra Academy series on Tudor Life, and speaking about that series on the HistoryExtra podcast, she reflected on five key lessons learned.

Lesson one: Tudor childhood was an apprenticeship for adulthood

In 16th-century England, childhood was brief and productive. For most families, survival depended on the contributions of every member, and children entered the world of useful labour much earlier than we might expect.

“Tudor children needed to know how to do things such as milk a cow, or grow a crop of beans, or make a piece of clothing,” Goodman explained. Formal schooling existed but was limited; literacy levels were slowly rising, but for most families, practical competence was what mattered most.

• Read more | The most common accidental way to die in Tudor England reveals surprising truths about daily life

Daily life followed the agricultural calendar, and children had to play their part. “Kids generally were hauled in to do the ancillary jobs from quite young ages to learn by doing.”

For a Tudor family, this served two functions. Firstly, having an extra pair of hands was a genuine help. But secondly, it meant that children would learn the skills that would make them competent and useful members of their community in adulthood. In small, tightly knit communities, the knowledge shared among households sustained entire villages.

Lesson two: Tudor work centred on the land

The Tudor economy is sometimes imagined as a one of busy merchants, bustling inns, guild workshops and market towns. But in reality, England remained overwhelmingly rural.

“Almost everybody was making a living off the land,” Goodman said. “Even people with job titles like ‘carpenter’ would probably have had a patch of land as well.”

Work was physically demanding and shaped by daylight and weather. Agricultural tasks were relentless, and “men spent so many hours ploughing”, says Goodman.

• Read more | Tudor England had no standing army, but this humble hobby kept its people ready for war

As for women, “every stitch of clothing has to be made entirely by hand, and so that involved nearly the entire female population spinning yarn, then making that yarn into cloth, and then turning that into clothing.”

This was the essence of Tudor work, Goodman emphasises. Everything that a person needed to be able to sustain themselves had to be made. Today, she says, “our work tends to be very separate from survival, and it tends to be very self-contained. And that's not how Tudor work was. It was very clearly about staying alive, in a visceral way.”

Lesson three: Tudors had fun too

Despite such demanding lives, Tudor England was rich in a blossoming culture of entertainment. Feast days, fairs and Sunday games punctuated the year. Inns hosted musicians and travelling performers would ply their trade for entire towns.

“They’re going to the playhouse, they’re enjoying the bear baiting, they’re engaged in all sorts of sports, they’re dancing, they’re playing music, they’re writing poetry, they’re getting drunk,” Goodman says.

But the pinnacle of leisure and entertainment for an ordinary Tudor was the theatre.

• Read more | 5 facts about Shakespeare’s Globe theatre

“Theatre was a vibrant and lively world. There were lots of street theatres, school kids were being encouraged to do their own plays, and there were town plays going on too.”

In addition to the church, Goodman says this was something that could tie a community together and create deep communal bonds.

Lesson four: Tudor food was seasonal and varied

Tudor diets revolved around bread and grain, supplemented by dairy, vegetables and preserved foods. For most, meat was an occasional addition, while fish, particularly herring, was more common, especially on church fast days.

As for how it tasted, Goodman says, “they used a greater variety of herbs than we do nowadays,” which helped to add pops of flavour.

“It was a varied diet,” Goodman explains, largely dictated by availability. “It’s a very fresh diet. It’s a very seasonal diet. I like it, I’ll be honest.”

• Read more | Tudor dining: a guide to food and status in the 16th century

But what about when fresh food wasn’t as available? Households instead relied on salting, smoking, pickling and cool storage, and most food lasted longer than we might expect – even without a fridge.

Instead of using a fridge, which Goodman says were designed for the climates of the southern US rather than the cooler weather in Britain, Tudors used airy pantries and suspended cages to store their food.

“Bacteria don’t like the conditions of a traditional pantry with lots of air flowing through. These pantries don't need it to be as cool [as a fridge] to get the same amount of safety.” For anything that needed to be kept away from vermin on the floor, Goodman shares that an “open cage suspended from the ceiling with lots of air flowing through worked really well.”

Lesson five: Tudors were no smellier than people today

To modern eyes, perhaps the most counterintuitive aspect of Tudor domestic life is cleanliness.

While infrequent bathing is today often taken as proof of dirtiness, Goodman argues that the Tudor approach was just as effective, given what they had at their disposal.

“Having a bath is not the only way to keep clean,” she says.

• Read more | This unassuming accessory gave the poor of Tudor England a vital way to survive

Instead, Tudors depended on their linen underwear, which covered the whole body, to soak up daily grime. “Linen is exceedingly absorbent,” she notes. “When you take it off, you’re taking all that sweat and any grease and dirt with it.”

Regular changes of linen, combined with vigorous household laundering, kept bodies remarkably smell-free.

During her six months living as a Tudor, Goodman tested this in practice. “It was perfectly comfortable,” she said. “I remained in very good health.”

Could you live the life of an ordinary Tudor?

While ordinary Tudors lived close to the land, close to each other, and close to the limits of subsistence, their days were also filled with music, games, storytelling and tactile work. It was a world of hard work and community, and it was, as Goodman told the HistoryExtra podcast, “a very nature-centred world.”

It’s an easy lifestyle to romanticise, but there’s no denying the challenges. The crucial difference, Goodman concludes, was the culture.

“We’re all human beings. Our bodies are the same. Our brains are the same. But the culture that we live in is utterly different, and that's what makes the Tudor world so fascinating. Tudors were people like us, but living in a different world.”

Ruth Goodman was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.