Welcome to the HistoBistro Podcast, a collaboration of the
Historical and Archaeological Society of Limburg, the Historisch Centrum Limburg, the Limburgs Museum
and Maastricht University Library.
In this podcast we tell you about all the beauty that our collections have to offer,
with the theme of historical food processing, preparation and consumption.
Food from the land to your table!
My name is Odin Essers and I am curator of the Special Collections at Maastricht University.
Food does not appear on the table like that.
I has to be produced first.
And that happened in the past, as is still the case today, on the land.
In episode 1 of the HistoBistro Podcast we take a closer look at the lives of the farmers
from the past, and we will learn more about how they grew food, where they worked,
and on what sources they based their actions on the land.
The word farmer was actually only used from the 16th century.
This was usually referred to as a farmer or a farmer.
Those who worked in the countryside were called that by the townspeople.
In addition, the word farmer often had a negative connotation before the 16th century, because certain
merchants were also called peasants, such as the peat farmer or coal farmer, the greengrocer and the
fish seller.
We actually only use the word farm from 1800.
This word is probably a derivation of the verb to belch, which literally means
that you run a farm and practice agriculture.
For example, the bakery got its name in the same way.
This word was derived from the verb to bake.
The 'farming business' happened from the moment that farms arose
independently or from a farm or court.
These farms were then leased to the farmers by the local gentlemen.
In a contract between the lessor, the lord, and the tenant, the farmer, all were mutual
agreements made.
A standard lease was for three to six years, with the option of extension.
However, some tenants continued to work on the same farm all their lives.
The tenant had to hand over half of his yield to the owner, thus allowing these farmers
also called half win or halfers.
In South Limburg, a dividing line could be drawn between the larger tenant farmers
the farms worked, and small small farmers who were independent.
From the second half of the thirteenth century onwards, lease contracts were introduced, which in certain
meaning arose from the existing leasehold or cijns law.
With these agreements, the aforementioned was possible against payment of an annual amount
tax, full disposal of real estate.
The new leaseholder no longer had to hand over any products to the leaseholder.
However, he had to maintain the land well and adhere to certain rules, if he did
wanted to sell the land, for example.
He could maintain the land by hiring farmers who worked on his land.
In addition to the possible taxes and rent payments, everyone was tithing.
This meant that the owners of a given piece of land, that is, a tenth of the harvest
a tithe, of crops and of the born animals had to give up to the clergy
or to the local gentlemen.
These gentlemen raised the tithe to pay for the construction and maintenance of the church,
and a third to pay for the pastor.
Sometimes the pastor himself raised that third part.
The tithe originated in the fifth century and was introduced by the Church for worship
to provide for the livelihood of the ministers and to support the poor.
According to the Decretum Gratiani from 1140, a quarter of the tithe was intended for the bishop,
a quarter for the parish cleric, a quarter for the poor and a quarter for the church.
There were different types of tithe.
The big tithe was levied on produce, which is the basic income for the parish church
forms, namely grain and wine.
The small or narrow tithe was levied on ancillary yields, such as from vegetables
and horticultural products.
In addition, there was the tithe on freshly reclaimed land, called the novale tithe and the tithe
of newborn lambs or calves, the screeching tithe.
It is a wonder that the peasants still kept up to date with all those different laws and tithes
what they had to give to whom.
In practice, the tithe, the one who came to collect the tithes, went after the ringing of
the tith clock the fields along where the harvest was placed in sheaves.
There the tithes were collected and loaded onto the tithe cart to go to the tithe barn or
to be brought into the attic of the ten-tenant.
The ten-gardeners got wages for that.
Sometimes tithes were also paid in cash.
In the latter case, for example, the ten-farmer sold the grain on the market and gave
that money to the gentlemen.
They preferred to wait for spring or summer for that, because then the prices were of it
grain highest.
When tithes had to be paid differed considerably from one area or chapter to another.
The same was true for leases and taxes.
In the St. Servatius chapter, for example, payments were mainly made on names and holidays,
like for example St.
Andreas on November 30, St.
Jan on June 24, and Epiphany on January 6.
Agriculture developed steadily over the centuries.
The idea that farmers lived up to the industrial revolution for hundreds of years in the same way
to have toiled without any change is therefore incorrect.
After the year 1,000, the activity slowly expanded; monasteries, nobles and wealthy
townspeople often took a dominant role in reclaiming the land, thus
new agricultural land was created.
The Southern Netherlands were at the forefront of this.
At the same time, the productivity of the land declined.
In the 12th century, for example, a lot more seed was used than crops
could be harvested.
In the early Middle Ages, attempts were made to counteract these declines in productivity
to go.
That was done with the three-stroke system.
Farmers split their land into three parts, and took turns using another piece of land.
In addition, the farmer grew winter grain, such as wheat and rye, and it in the first year
year after summer cereal, such as barley and oats.
The following year, the farmer left the relevant piece of land fallow.
The farmer applied this system to three pieces of land, so that his land is always 66%
was built.
There were several harvests per year, and there was always a piece of land that was possible
to strengthen.
But what should one do about the declining productivity in the 12th century?
The solutions devised for this caused a true revolution.
Farmers were now looking for ways to make the existing land more productive.
This developed rapidly, especially in Brabant and Flanders.
These areas were highly urbanized and offered ample sales opportunities.
Farmers started experimenting with new techniques, such as different cultivation methods, more intensive fertilization methods
and mutual knowledge transfer.
This resulted in, among other things, more production, simple and cheap tools, cultivation
rows and on beds, and better drainage systems.
The most important development was the new fertilization methods.
The greatly increased application of fertilizers probably occurred for the first time in
flax cultivation and horticulture in the Southern Netherlands.
A closed-loop system of fertilizers was created: the city was liberated from  night soil and garbage
and thus remained clean, and on the land this waste could be used as a fertilizer.
And yes, the waste from the people was used to fertilize the land.
What they ate came back in the same way.
In Limburg, marl was also used as a fertilizer, a slightly less dirty idea.
After all this progress, this boom in agriculture had a pause in the 16th and 17th centuries
because of an increase in hostilities in the Southern Netherlands.
The interaction between city and countryside did lead to an increase in agriculture
production, however this interaction was not always positive.
Ultimately, the townsman benefited more from the farmers than the other way around.
Often agricultural land, the right to lease and tithes were in the hands of larger ones
ecclesiastical institutions or the lords in the cities.
In the course of the Middle Ages there was therefore more and more involvement from the townspeople
with agricultural production.
Maastricht, for example, had the guild of oofmixers; citizens who cultivate vegetables, fruit and viticulture
practiced.
They owned land in and outside the city.
The agricultural production was mainly focused on the cities, making it the farmer
most to lose.
In their daily life, farmers were troubled by all kinds of things; epidemics, wolves, crop failures
And so on.
They therefore invented all kinds of tools that helped them keep the farming business in good order
to lead jobs.
In the late 18th century, for example, farmers from Helden watched their herds helplessly
were attacked by wolves.
In 1744 they decided to act together as guarantor for the costs, should a wolf be someone's
attacking or killing livestock.
We also know such collaborations from other Limburg villages.
Those collaborations therefore ensured that there was not just any part of the production
could fall away.
Superstition and magic also played a major role for the farmers in the past.
For example, the church bell was used to dissipate thunderstorms and the worship of the saints served
ensuring a rich harvest, good weather and healthy livestock.
Trees also served their purpose; a branch of an elderberry could be used to make a werewolf
and a willow tree helped fight a fever.
Certain wells or wells, attributed to saints, provided healing waters and places of miracles
were visited to attract good luck.
Although we have previously found that the development in farming usually
arose from experiments and not from book knowledge, there is an exception to this;
the almanac.
An almanac is an annual publication with recurring information about certain
areas and partly ordered according to the calendar.
Some almanacs have been published since the seventeenth century, with a peak in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where they were sold on the street and at the door.
The almanac was a very useful tool to quickly find out when certain holidays
happened when there was a market nearby, and sometimes included clues
about planting crops.
In the Nieuwen Ruremontschen Almanach from 1735, the Hoveniers-Almanach covers 1 page.
It indicates per month and per day which crop had to be planted and how that went
and when was the best harvest time.
Gardener did not mean a landscaping agent, as we use the word today,
but a grower of small crops such as fruit and potatoes.
The then owner has in an almanac from the collection of the Historisch Centrum Limburg
also noted all kinds of income and expenditure on the blank pages.
For example, it says that on April 2, 1737, a man from Bergen, for example, two and a half schillings
paid for rye, and someone else owed him 15pence.
The Historisch Centrum Limburg is also in the possession of the Nieuwe Precise Hovenier, another one
much more comprehensive overview of all crops.
Ten columns contain information about all kinds of crops, ways of
cultivation, planting and sowing times, suitable soil types and locations, methods of cultivation and general
tips.
This almanac was called the plaque almanac, as it is 1 sheet that could be hung.
The edition held by the Historisch Centrum Limburg is a third edition of this one
plaque almanac and comes from the seventeenth century.
The edition was printed in Maastricht and according to the printer was an enlarged and improved one
version as opposed to the earlier versions of the book.
A final and more recent example that we do not want to keep from you is an almanac
which is part of the Special Collections of Maastricht University, the Almanac
der Natuur from 1830.
In the Opregte Haarlemsche Courant of June 16, 1832 the following can be read about this
almanac: - 'in this work
'the farmer and gardener will find a pleasant and necessary instruction
'as well as a register of all that it is necessary to do
'in every month of the year.'
Now that we have heard what the farmer's life was like in the past, what this profession was like
developed over the centuries what burdens and duties the farmer bore, and which ones
resources he had at his disposal, we can ask ourselves the following: in which
form did people eat and drink all these products?
The next episode will therefore be about historical cookbooks, and which recipes
could be found there.
Thanks for listening to Episode 1 of the HistoBistro Podcast.
This episode was a collaboration of the Historical and Archaeological Society of Limburg,
the Historisch Centrum Limburg, the Limburg Museum and the Maastricht University Library.
This episode was written by Tim Sijbers, Odin Essers, Kelly Krijntjes and Justine Camps,
and voiced by Odin Essers and Job Nijssen.
Production was in the hands of Justine Camps.
All the sources used in the writing of this episode and pictures of what
what was discussed can be found on the Facebook page of the HistoBistro.
Don't forget to follow us there.
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