[atombender]

Great show. If you liked it, Ruth Goodman and Peter Ginn has made several shows together along with another archeologist, Alex Langlands, which I think are even better.

Of these, I think my favourite is Victorian Farm (2009), where the gang has to bring a real Victorian-era farm back into working order and then live like the Victorian farmers did. Unlike the castle show, it benefits from the gang having to research and learn the old ways on their own, whereas the castle is a big project where they're being taught or directed by the crew who's already working there.

The other shows — Tudor Monastery Farm, Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm, Tales from the Green Valley, etc. — are all thoroughly excellent.

A minor point, but Goodman is not an archeologist or historian, but she's very good!

[jupiterelastica]

I watched the Tudor Monastery Farm show first by random chance and also liked it a lot. Thanks for all the recommendations!

[hinkley]

That was the show that pointed out to me that Henry VIII had much bigger problems than divorce to deal with. By his reign the Crown owned about a third of England. And so did the Catholic Church.

Now maybe the story about him breaking with the Church over their stance on divorce wasn’t completely bullshit, but he was dealing with an existential threat to both the Crown and his family line and they were both being authored by the Church.

[bryanrasmussen]

I had some questions about the history of land ownership of the crown and the church occasioned by this comment but I guess I found answers in an article after googling (wow, it's been a long time since that has happened, feels like 2006 all over again) so I made a post on the article I found

A Short, Angry History of Land in Britain, by Thom Forester

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44950244

[potato3732842]

>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44950244

It's actually alarming how many of the things they did to screw the peasants out of opportunity and freedom echo "landmark" legislative actions and key regulatory trends in the 20th century US.

[hinkley]

The Tudor show pointed out that the mills tended to be owned by the church and so you pretty much had to pay them in a fraction of the take. I knew being a peasant fucking sucked but I thought it was mostly the lords to blame. Not church too.

[potato3732842]

That show was great but I think they missed an opportunity to tie the events it dramatizes into the broader geopolitical context that would greatly shape our civil wars.

In forcing "King Boats'n'hoes" to take his country and go it alone when he did and under the circumstances he did the pope kicked over one of the key dominoes in the line that leads to our modern balance of power. It's one of those pivotal moments in world history that only really happened the way it did due to the inclinations and personalities of the people involved.

[bryanrasmussen]

I mean the tales of Robin Hood go a lot into robbing the Church, indeed Friar Tuck is first met and accused of being bad because a rich friar until he proves his mettle.

[username135]

I liked this show over the castle one they did.