My name is Alec Newland, and this project aims to recreate the Anglo-Saxon culture of southern Britain between 650 and 700 A.D., from domestic crafts to the weapons and regalia of the warrior class, and, eventually, the development of an Anglo-Saxon farmstead and estate.
Gesiþas Gewissa means ‘warriors of the Gewissæ’. Gesiþs were warrior companions to a king or chieftain, in exchange for gifts of gold and land. During the 7th century, Gesiþs became the landed aristocratic warrior class.
The Gewissæ were an Anglo-Saxon tribe, with their heartland situated in the Upper Thames Valley and the Vale of the White Horse. During the 7th century, the Gewissæ expanded their territories south-west into the British lands of Wiltshire and Somerset.
I was born and grew up in the same wooded valleys that the Gewissæ called home. Their legacy remains today, in the form of lonely burial mounds set upon hillsides, and ancient remnants of great border forests. This inspired the project and its name.
I've often wondered how these things were done and how long they took. It's incredible to me that a skill that would have originally taken days to learn can now be picked up in 10 Min... Shame I dont have access to the materials to go and get physical practice.
I feel this channel may be influenced by the Primitive Technology one. And I really like the idea, regardless of the inspiration. I think learning how things were done in history is very important for building a better future
Great work on the garden. It’s a challenging hobby to learn because you have to wait a year before you can change how you do things. I also appreciate your shoes - I’ve seen that style but never on a foot 😊
Thank you. That's very true, I'm already itching to try new things and see how I can do next year...but a good lesson in letting come to pass what will happen I suppose! They're lovely aren't they? These were made by Meister Knierem, though now I have the pattern I may show making the next pair in a video!
1) I think awls are fairly ancient and a square sided awl (nowadays called a birdcage awl?) would allow you to scribe lines and pilot holes. 2) when you lace the bed, you can use a peg on the opposite hole to maintain tension. The Greeks and Romans used this when winding catapults and ballistas.
I think I made a “rag rug” once using a similar weaving style except the straw was braided bits of fabric kind of all braided together to form a long strip and the bramble was thread. It had that same wrapping around and sewing into previous coil pattern except it ended up flat. Was it hard to hold all the pieces together at the very start of the project? It looked like that might have been tough trying to keep the straw and briar and coil all held together as the first few passes were woven. I’ve had crafting projects like that where I felt like I needed about four more hands. The end product looks just exquisite! I hope very productive bees make a good home in it. 🐝
That's cool, I've been thinking of making some straw mats with a similar technique. It is really fiddly at the beginning yes, but after two or three coils it starts to hold itself together. Thanks for sharing!
I started a garden in a container on the rooftop of my apartment building! I started it late though, so I’m not sure how well it’ll do. (Right now I’m resting because it’s my first Spring in the United States’ Pacific Northwest and the pollen has given me terrible allergies. I’m sure it’ll be much improved next year though, when my body’s used to the flora here. *coff coff*
My father was a Ozark hillbilly, and when he was a boy his father had him watering the vegetables that they would sell in town. He was to give three ladles full to each tomato plant. The water came from a spring about a quarter mile or more away down a steep slope. It is quite a walk, especially coming back loaded with water. Dad figured out that if he only gave them two ladles worth he could reduce his trips to the spring by one. Needless to say grandfather was perplexed as to why his tomatoes weren't doing as well as he expected. Grandfather was ahead of his time.
I'm using it as a mulch. Bare soil tends to lose fertility as its surface is often dry, mulch helps retain moisture and improve soil fertility and texture as it breaks down. It also keeps the weeds down, just keep adding more as they poke through. It emulates a more natural environment for plants such as a 'forest floor' and cuts down on watering and weeding. Although it also provides a good home for slugs! You can always check the video subtitles and description for more detail ☺
Very interesting. Have you kept bees before in a skep? If so, does it keep the bees dry in heavy rains and how do you anchor them for gale force winds?
I haven't no, but people in my local area do. The straw hackle keeps the skep dry in summer, and may build a bee bole (a little thatched hut) to place the skep into for winter. This can be stuffed with insulation and will provide warmth and shelter for the hive.
The experimental archeology (if I have the phrase right) is very interesting but the detailed videography and using subtitles for narration makes each video a work of art. Thank you for doing this ❤
I see you have Wrens. We have Carolina Wrens at my place. (Thryothorus ludovicianus) They will nest in almost ANYTHING that doesn’t move for 30 minutes 🤣🤣 Found a partial nest in my motorcycle helmet once
And a happy midsummer to you! But it's a replica bronze patera or saucepan, tinned on the inside, which have been found in 7th century Anglo-Saxon graves, based on Roman examples. Perhaps a bit fancy for a watering can haha!
If you have trouble with slugs, try putting down some split wood you’ve left in the river for a day, the slugs will flock to it and it makes for easy removal of them.
Oh, and add in wood ash. If you can make charcoal, and break it into small pieces, that will improve your soil a lot. Composted manure. Or throw fresh manure and bedding from your animals on top in the fall, and turn it in before spring planting.
Your videos make me happy. How I wish I were young again and could do something like this! Mulch will invite slugs to camp out in your plot and eat your plants.
It seems strange to see a veg patch with no potatoes, when they are one of the easiest things to grow and can make a meal with high calorific value, and last for months. Crazy to think it would be another 500 years after the Anglo Saxons before people could grow potatoes here in Britain.
@@gesithasgewissa I wouldn't make it. I can't stand parsnips. 😆After I posted this I read an article and it said that after potatoes were introduced in the 1500s famines greatly reduced in Europe, and people were less hungry overall so could work harder. Also, it said wheat was a bit dicey to store over winter, and potatoes were much more reliable for storage. Great effort, it's hard enough growing stuff in a modern allotment with all the tools etc. I like your straw mulch. I might try that. One thing I do on my allotment that would be well suited to your era is I make little paths with chopped twigs and branches I find or have pruned. They've been good when we've had so much mud and rain.
So you're not attempting to use their growing methods, right? Because I'm fairly sure they didn't use mulch or compost, nor knew about the importance of rotating crops (although they did something reminiscent of it). At least as far as I know when it comes to fields, small vegetable and herb garden might've been different, although I'm certain they really wouldn't waste hay on their garden beds when they could feed it to their livestock (which would've been wastly more important than their own nutrition).
There's very little documentary evidence to go on, especially with little kitchen gardens. I'm doing what I feel is best for the soil and the land first and foremost. People were definitely using manure, both human and animal, as compost to fertilise their fields in both the Roman and Medieval times. That is well documented in the collection of said manure from cities and transport to the hinterland. There's no reason why they wouldn't have applied this to smaller root vegetable plots as well. Given that, in Britain, settlements and their adjoining plots have stayed in the same place (as we know from Anglo-Saxon place names) soil improvement is almost certain in order to keep growing things. While they may not have known the science behind it, people must have had an intuitive knowledge of crop rotation and the effect of nitrogen fixers, as they used a rotating two-field system in Early Anglo-Saxon Britain which developed into the three-field system a little later - rotating grains with peas and beans. There is also documentary evidence that the Romans used green manures such as lupines. The hay I'm using here is spent hay which has been used as animal bedding, partially composted and no longer suitable for fodder. The hay I'm cutting will be used for animal feed and composted before it goes on the beds. People were farming 'biodynamically' before they knew what it meant.
Why are you sure of this? Got any references to back up your assertions? I learned in school that the Anglo-Saxons used a crop rotation system, not the "modern" four field rotation but an earlier version. I will look later to see if I can find a reference.
@@alexmckee4683 Sure. 'Manure Matters' by Richard Jones has sections on Medieval agriculture, where archaeological analysis and archaeobotany can identify 'manure signatures' based on seed and pollen analysis, along with the spread of domestic rubbish such as potsherds, indicating the spread of domestic waste (otherwise known as compost) on field systems. These signatures can even be used to differentiate between high and low status owned land based on the different types of things found. Roman writers such as Palladius between the fourth and fifth century CE make reference to manure fertilisation and green manure or cover crops in the form of lupines. Earlier ways of thinking about historical agriculture, tended to view Medieval and prehistoric agriculture as a 'slash, burn, farm to exhaustion, move on' process. But a lot of new archaeological techniques and bioarchaeology have since suggested otherwise; and that people were using soil improvement to continuously farm areas of land even as early as the Neolithic period. The two field-system of cropping one year and leaving a field to fallow the next year is well documented in field boundaries apparent in the archaeology. An 'organic' Medieval field would have high weed levels, consisting of native meadow flowers, many of which would be nitrogen fixers such as clover, birdsfoot trefoil, vetch and so on. During fallow years these would be nitrogen fixing inadvertently, or a cover crop sown of clover. Even if people didn't understand why, they would have understood that allowing fallow periods and the presence of these cover crops improved crop yields the following year. Otherwise the two field system would not have been created. The three-field system, again well attested in the archaeology of village and field boundaries incorporated a third year of specifically sown legumes such as beans or peas, because people recognised that grain crops did better when rotated with these. This coincided with the introduction of the heavy plow to England, traditionally thought to be around the 11th century. However remains of heavy plows are now being found dating to the 7th century, so this change may have begun much earlier than previously thought. The two and three-field systems are well researched and documented online, with lots of free resources to do your own research if you're interested.
@@gesithasgewissa thanks for your reply, my message was actually posted before your first reply on this thread had appeared and my original challenge about references was intended for YamiKisara!
@@alexmckee4683 Sorry Alex, in the confusion of a flood of comments, I confused your reply and YamiKisara's comment as the same person. I hope the flood of detail wasn't too hostile! Interesting information all the same 😄 Best wishes to you
Absolutely lovely!! I very much enjoyed this one as I'm sure I've made my passion for extreme gardening fairly clear at this point😆 I understand this is a long term project, which I truly applaud and appreciate, but I was curious to know as you've begun sowing and growing are your plans to stick with 'period' crops/herbs and what not or are you going to be growing what you actually like to eat and cook with as well? Are you intending on using only techniques of the region or do we have looser boundaries such as, 'A traveler brought knowledge of a far away technique that would work well to improve this plot' type thing? For example, were you to employ the half-moon garden bed tech (which goes back thousands of years globally) to one of those lovely slopes you could do some really amazing stuff with little input beyond the initial set up. However, I don't think this style was being used in your region at that time. I just love this project and look forward to seeing it develop alongside you and your skills. Huzzah to you, friend and may your belly always be full! edit: the song was ON POINT as well! double edit: As for slugs, lay a piece of flat board or wood down at night near the veggies. return in the morning and lift the board, it will be covered with them and yours to dispose of at your leisure. Not a cure all but helps LOADS. You may also want to look into companion planting flowers and herbs pests HATE with your crops or plant 'trap crops' to distract them from what you want to save for yourself.
Hi there, thanks for your comment, it's great to have the passion and advice! I probably will stick with roughly period crops for now. I much prefer parsnips to potatoes anyway haha! But I might use Charlemagne's monastic garden list as inspiration, which although a century later, has some lovely variety, even stretching to cucumbers! You can find it online as 'Charlemagne's plant list'. That will probably do quite nicely with lots of interesting things to cook and eat. Techniques-wise, I'm up for experimentation, as long as it can be done in a low technology way (by hand, without fossil-fuels). I recognise the importance of the many years of knowledge and experimentation that have passed between the Saxon period and now, and am keen to make use of that and try some permaculture techniques, companion planting, food forests and things, rather than trapping myself too much in 'historical accuracy'. I want to do what's best for the soil, the land, and myself! The half-moon garden sounds really interesting, I'm going to look into that. And I'm already there with laying planks down for the slugs - beats hunting around in the dark with slimy fingers 😄 Thank you as always, for the kind words and inspiration
No rabbits in Anglo-Saxon England, they're not native 😉 As for reality! We don't actually have many rabbits in my local area. We have hares but they tend to stay in the open grasslands and haven't been a problem so far.
@@alexmckee4683 we have a badger sett nearby which might well be putting them off ☺ I think badgers can be pretty terrifying for other little creatures 😆
