Back to the Mainly The Normans calendar
While all this was going on, or to be more precise at the start of Cnut’s reign, a man, presumably called Julius, drew up a
calendar of work people should be doing for each month of the year. When I say work, I mean work in the fields, work for the farm labourers and small land owners.
The original of the calendar is now in the British Museum and it is a fascinating diary of life almost 1,000 years ago. Each sheet has a list of
jobs and, in the top left hand corner the sign of the zodiac showing which month it applies to. At the bottom of each page is a drawing showing the work being
done.
I have put some pictures below showing the pages from the calendar. Some are clearer than others. The first picture has the zodiac sign of Pisces
(fishes) and shows men breaking up stones, maybe getting a field ready for ploughing. The second picture has the crab sign and so relates to July. It shows men
scything in the fields, cutting down crops. The third picture is from August and has the workers now harvesting the corn.
On the second row of pictures things are not quite so clear. The first shows October and people out hunting. Then the picture shows some kind of
feast but I can’t see the month. Finally on that line we have November and everyone stacking wood ready for the long winter months.
On the last row we have the threshing of the corn in December from which people would then make flour and bread. The middle picture is for September
and shows men feeding pigs and, lastly, we have men chopping wood but I have no idea in which month.
There was a strong religious message in the calendar, encouraging people to work hard and to worship God. Cnut by then had become a Christian and
so, of course, were the people. The year was also full of feast days to various saints and, the most significant feast was the Christmas feast. This was a time
when communities would celebrate together and maybe the picture I couldn’t see the month of in the middle row was January as the Christmas feast would last a
week or two. After all in the middle of winter what else did they have to do.
The calendar, with its drawings, is a wonderful record of how life was. Now, what will people in 1000 years’ time make of our pictures. Will they
be asking whether we all lived alone as they check out selfie after selfie?
Forward to 1035AD
