Seeing how hard our ancestors worked, just to survive, is fascinating! As corny as this sounds, it gives me a sense of gratitude for what they experienced- life was grueling and dangerous.

I still cannot fathom how all of this wonderful footage is free to watch. Love it.

I absolutely love Ruth, Peter and Tom. What a wonderful adventure to go along with them back through time. They are fun, lively and truly make history come alive! I'd love to see them do another one for 2024.

I love this series so much, i think it's one of the best representation of the medieval times as a "living thing", giving a great idea of how lively the times where, which is only logical: people are humans, always where and always will be.

I still have relatives who live on ancestral land in an old village. It's a hard life, but so simple and pure. They have a strong community and everyone in the village are basically related. When they want to settle down, they have to find a partner from other villages. And it's the best way to start and raise a family because you have everything you need. Housing, land, nature, freedom. Kids are free to play from dusk till dawn.

I absolutely love this series! Its always so fascinating how ingenious people are and the simple things we take for granted today were so labour intesive in the past.

After watching this, I just don't understand how everyone says we have more stress these days than people in the past. All I could think of while watching was how much work there was to do. We have it so easy these days

13 years ago, as a high schooler, I found Ruth’s book “How to Be Victorian”. Ever since I’m so excited to find anything she’s in. Brilliant woman.

Awesome series! Hard to believe it's 10 years old! The footage still looks great and holds up even today. Thanks for posting I'll have to watch your other series as well!

This was incredibly interesting, educative and fun to watch. THANK YOU so much for doing this video and making it available for free! 😊

I have read hundreds of medieval village court rolls. What amazed me was how many serfs, who were supposedly tied to the land, were wandering around buying and selling land.

The labor, ingenuity and dedication evident in this way of life is astounding! Thank you to all of the historians that have helped us better appreciate this time period. In a way I'm sad that I will never have that level of connectivity to my environment. With each part of life or skill that was demonstrated, I couldn't help but think how much more grateful they were after accomplishing, making or acquiring something.

I love this team! I have watched them so many times. Is incredible how they deliver every video with such an ease and make it engaging. Also: every time this videos gives me the FEELING of despair of HOW MUCH WORK was needed for everything. All the time. You just spend hours for something we do in minutes or seconds. Amazing!

I love these kinds of shows. I wish I was a part of these experiences.

So cool to see the stained glass. I learned how to do it from my mother and still do it today. Not much has changed actually. Its still quite crude, but the tools are a little smoother. Mainly, better cutters, grinders and soldering irons, and use of copper foil instead of just lead came for some techniques, but still as prone to breakage until you get a feel for how running a score and snapping effectively. Otherwise, the technique remains the same.

The guest presenter at 41:40 is Ruth's husband Mark Goodman. Kind of odd they don't mention it, but do mention when her daughters have assisted in segments in the other shows, or when her father made appearances during the WW2 series. It's nice that she's found ways to incorporate her family into the shows.

I've heard that the reason average life expectancy was so young isn't because the average person died in their prime, but rather because the rate of infant mortality was so high that it dropped the average life expectancy very low. For example, if half the population dies before their first birthday and the other half dies of old age around 70, the average life expectancy would be 35. The math for the two groups is group one with 0 years plus group 2 with 70 years equals 70 years divided by the number of total groups 2 gives the average of 35 years. Obviously that's a simplified example, but the general idea makes sense.

What a wonderful video production! Fantastic. I learned more in 2 hours 48 minutes than I did in all of my 8th grade year.

Awesome documentary, had seen the castle Guedelon build in France you guys done before and glad to have found this one.

the painting part was super cool i always thought they just painted by see and draw but tracing is pretty friggin awesome :) i wonder if theres places where you can live like this for a day or so

I really enjoy these but learnt quite a lot here today. Not least I was shown how the camera obscura worked. I've read descriptions of it but just couldn't visualise it (no pun intended). It's not as magic as some writers have made it seem, but I now understand why its use was viewed as shameful, and so was secretive. Thank you for the upload, I've broken a toe so I have a good excuse for binging. Having them all linked together is great, too.

Something what I was looking for a long time. Just a cameraman sent back in time. More real than big studios historic movies about middle ages! I love medieval classics but I never could felt the every-day medieval life vibe.

its amazing how hard these people worked SO HARD for what we now take for granted!!

These docu-series prove - THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE. Love the entire cast. Ruth reminds me so much of my grandmother.

can't believe you're casually posting ruth and peter content like it's any other tuesday when I just finished full steam ahead three days ago and still am in full mourning(tm). ... (ok but seriously i love monastery farm. It's what got me into these kinda series in the first place

This was an incredible watch and I had such a good time. So much I learned and its all for free, thank you so much for this opportunity!

I'm off work for the whole week between Christmas and New Year's. This program is the best way to pass the time. I envy the Team for having this wonderful experience. Wow!

Great series of videos. I absolutely loved watching. Thank you!!

I would expect to see more cats, both farm cats and house cats! Cats may have been horribly persecuted in the earlier Middle Ages, but cat ownership would've been almost compulsory by the end of the 14th century. People learned that they were invaluable due to their pest control capabilities, especially when it came to the rats that hosted the fleas that carried the bubonic plague virus!

Delightful and informative! Three cheers for the intrepid volunteers and the keepers of the historic arts, crafts, and trades techniques that preserve and illustrate our collective early modern civilization's roots.

This is a bloody awesome series so stoked I stumbled across this

Absolutely a gem of a series!

What a nice educative video about the rich history and general life of centuries ago. I strongly admire all the craftsmen/workers in this series considering none of it is relevant or really necessary nowadays, as there are more efficient and less time consuming and physically less tiring methods to get the job done. But to preserve the old techniques of crafting, extracting and manufacturing from basic necessities to highly demanded goods for some higher social status punks from the olden days and societies. I wish that every part of the world and varying culture had the means and time to also present their now long gone mystified variant techniques of extracting, crafting and survival methods. Unfortunately, some (quite many) cultures and countries have more important things to deal with such as famine, civil unrest, civil war and even invading foreign armies on their back. Good luck struggling peoples of the world. Bless y'all worldwide and Bless the English commonfolk.

I've done Tudor re-creation and I'm still learning from this show.

This video must be mandatory viewing by law in every middle school, high school, and university in Europe, U.S. and other English speaking nation!!!

"The average life expectancy was 35 years" While this is technically true, it's mainly due to infant mortality rates. If you survived early childhood, average life expectancy was probably closer to 60+

Ruth is my favorite presenter. She's so magical!

I am glad she lets those weeds grow in the vegetable patch. Gardeners are discovering old techniques again. They have developed for thousands of years and our "industrial " approach to farming is killing the planet.

I Too felt sad at goodbye i even teared up AWW you guys worked so hard & good. I learned so much how to survive. What A GREAT DOC GOD BLESS YOU GUYS!

The ingenuity of humans is amazing! I wonder who originated the process of some of the things like, refining lead from a rock or making glass and then stained glass as art?

I watch this video over and over at least 20 times to date. It is extremely informative!!!

Despite all of our modern advances and its advantages I feel like we lost something along with it.

The monastery bits were very interesting. Grandmothers maiden name on my fathers side is a word in another language that translates to abbot, so I guess minus the English accents, her family would’ve been above peasantry to an extent and were probably respected. That’s interesting to find out, as I knew almost nothing of monastic life or hierarchy.

What an extremely well done program! Bravo!

I thought it was funny how older women were allow to work in monasteries There wouldn't be an attractiveness toward the by the Monks? I think Ruth thought is was a hoot as well. Once again another wonderful monet in time brought alive by Ruth and The Boys, crews and directors. Great job People! Thank you!

such a great reanactment i wish we had more like those. Lucky if you are in Britain.

Love you all. Any more castle building videos from France. I really enjoyed those videos . All your videos you 3 do are awsome.

This is by far one of my favorite series ever, and I'll always give a thumbs up vote to that! But... this is a very recycled series?

spectacular work by all involved, including the Tudors

If modern society ever were to collapse, the people from all the historic farm shows are the people id like to surround myself with. You just know they would have the skills and knowledge to survive, if not thrive.

This documentary is the best I've seen ever. Just a question? How did those musicians at the bamquet in the monastry survive?

Ruth is an amazing woman who can do anything!

Ruth is my hero, what she knows, and what she knows how to do is amazing. And I'm in love with one of her side kicks, not saying who. Great show

I'd love to spend hours chatting with Ruth & learning from her :)

I join the other commentators in praising this production, no matter how "succeeded" every exploit comes across compared to the likely truer picture of medieval live which must have been characterised by plenty of chance, and above all, bodily impairments. In this regard, I would have loved to learn about medieval "insurance schemes": how fared all those members of society who got ill, or, likely, suffered permanent bodily damage as a consequence of work accidents? Also, as a scientist, I'd like to alert the other members of the audience to the fact, that today, such a barley field is harvested in a minimum of time by the help of a diesel combustion engine. If you take the energy contained in the volume of diesel burnt for harvesting this field into account, it shaves off a whopping amount of the net energy obtained from growing that barley. The point I'm trying to make is: our current standard of living is largely based on the (unsustainable) combustion of fossil fuels, over the past 150 years, containing the energy of many millions of years of captured sunlight. All hail from "Europe" (from France in fact), by a hun.

When Ruth served up the brewet, i had a good chuckle. It looked so grey & unappealing that it reminded me of something i once cooked. Note the word -once. Back in the 70s, when i began following a vegetarian diet, i did the research & read all the books to make sure i would be getting complete proteins. I scientifically concocted a veggie stew with just the right combo of beans & seeds for protein & a variety of veg for a balance of minerals & vitamins. I was very proud. Unfortunately, being from Trinidad, i decided to flavour it with tumeric, among other things. Taste-wise, it was marvelous, the unfortunate part was that i also threw in, at the last minute, a handful of red cabbage. The grey colour it turned into was more than off-putting. 😭 And of course, i had made a huge stock pot of it so i could freeze it. 😂 It did get eaten, it really was quite yummy, i just served it with the rice or bulgar covering it.

The effects of lead on local behavior back then? Some places in the US used to call them "dog holes", due to the small hand dug entrance. Colorado had lead and uranium small hole mines. Some towns have unshored coal holes below. Permanent fires and sink holes. The exposure effects looked on as being crabby.

😂💚lovely docu full of laughs and beautiful landscapes great history brave people greetings from Costa Rica

this is just GREAT thank you very much for DOING and documenting it 😘

I have watched everything you three have done. This is my favorite.

I wonder how dangerous these mines were and still are today?

Those wicker eel traps are pure genius.

You know you watch too many BBC documentaries when you get extra excited for the "guest star" experts to appear.

This is like Tasles from the Green Valley but in Full HD. Amazing. I really like this channel.

I never get tired of Peter and Tom ribbing each other! :'D

The guy making the eel trap spoke exactly how I imagine medieval villagers speak

I do wonder, im sure non land owners did still fish for eel and sneak fishing despite not having fishing rights. Humans have always broken rules when told not to

Ruth is absolutely wonderful

Fantastic documentary!

This seems like a really good way to disconnect from modern life, I'd probably enjoy it for a few days but the alcohol would be an issue for me. My medications don't allow me to drink alcohol so I'd probably have to boil water

I've always been fascinated with midevil times

I never understood seeing farmers seemingly pushing their pigs around like moving furniture.

Enjoyed the show. Was enjoyable to watch.

Takes some real balls to do this for a year

Literally one of my favorite videos I've ever watched

This was so interesting, I watched it twice.

im skeptical the rooms of the house were really that barron at the time. I imagine some people packing their places with useless junk, much like today. Winter is a long season with nothing to do but eat and drink:)

Lead was even known to affect health and mind back in Roman times.

The size of of the churches and techniques used to build them is incredible.

Is this narrated by Robyn Addison? I could just listen for hours! 😊

amazing focus dedication and expertise is now a phenomenon. in the old days people harnessed their potential and maintained productivity on a daily individual basis. slacking off would be fatal

Every cell in my body wants this life.

wow, this was astonishing!!! 10/10, my adhd approves thank y’all!!

Great video, I loved it so much that I subscribed.

Kudos to the guy who stayed true to his hairstyle until the very last strand

I can't imagine the amount of paperwork they had to sign to work with all that lead.

All b/c a King wanted to get divorced, which Roman Catholic Church doesn't believe in. He didn't only change the church to the Church of England, which doesn't follow Roman Catholic, he changed a whole society. I've never thought about how that change affected the ppl. I just thought some decided to change their religious beliefs & the ones who didn't went elsewhere, which is why the society broke down. Abandoned fields & such. Just amazing. 🐱🐱

YESSSSS I ABSOLUTELY LIVE FOR THESE 😭😭😭😭 pls keep posting

This is unquestionably your best video!!!

I love this series

Amazing documentary

Of course this video is composed of previous ones. My question which I may have posted previously is how the hell does she prevent the butter from melting without no refrigeration during Tudor times?!

Amazing amazing amazing work by these wonderful historians

Very educational 😊...

Oh my word that dog in the boat was the cutest thing. Does anyone know what kind of dog that was?

camera obscura seems like advanced tech for that time. never knew such a technique existed :O

Lol the way she giggled after the eel guy said they're good at finding holes.

Tom: These are going to bring the house down Alchemist (Jack): I hope not 😂😂

They made a slight error. King Henry did NOT publish Bibles for common use. In fact, he envisioned the Church of England as a ruthlessly CATHOLIC institution. The first Englishman to TRANSLATE and PRINT the Holy Bible for the masses was burnt at the stake.....by the Church of England. His name was William Tyndale. The other was John Wycliffe. Both suffered horribly at the hands of the State Church.

1:45:09 - The distiller´s costume is really wonderful.