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It is indeed back to glorious summer today and, as this is Archaeology Weekend, and I've come to sketch members of the Yorkshire Yeomanry, who re-enact various aspects of Medieval life as accurately as possible. While preparations for a skirmish got underway in the tented camp outside the earthworks, I sketch the massive stonework of the gatehouse. For any attacker who succeeded in storming the gate, the real problems were just about to start. There was then a Barbican; a narrow passage where defenders could rain down arrows, boiling oil and so forth, on the attackers. The castle was never taken by force. The Battle of Wakefield, 1460, was the most decisive action fought here. Richard of York, who was making an attempt on the crown, was, according to some accounts, tricked into charging out of the castle to rescue his son's foraging party, only to be cut off by the main force of the opposing Lancastrians, who had been lying in wait, hidden behind Milnthorpe Woods.
Medieval Voices
'The pike was one of the main weapons,' a man-at-arms explains 'imagine a wall of hundreds of these facing you. The idea was to keep the enemy at a distance. The twisting and thrusting action of the pike man was intended to open up chinks in armour.'
Please don't try this at home
I mentioned Tansy's twin uses as a flavouring and a cure for worms. 'The best cure for worms,' said the man who was organising the fire, 'is to take powdered charcoal from the fire, when it's cooled down of course, and to take a handful, followed by a tisane of bracken and mint. It goes through you so quickly, taking the worms with it, that you'd have to take your tisane away from the camp fire and into the bushes before you drink it. I tried the tisane once, not because I had worms but just to try it out, and I made sure I was safely in the bathroom before I drank it. It was VERY quick.' (so definitely DO NOT try this. You have been warned!).
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TWO KESTRELS hover over a newly harvested field of Oilseed Rape by Sandal Castle, near Wakefield. A Tern flies over Pugneys Lake at the foot of the slope, which, on this windy but warm morning, also attracts Canada Geese, Mute Swans, wind-surfers of varying ability and a hundred or more other visitors.
'Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this Sun of York', says Richard III at the start of the play. His father had been killed at Sandal. He himself ordered building work when he became King, but never lived to see it, because he was slain by Henry Tudor himself at Bosworth Field.
I asked an archer how a garrison of, what, 5,000, could ever be accommodated in such a small castle; 'They must have been camped outside,' he suggested. A band of archers, using more powerful longbows than those used today, could deliver hundreds of arrows every minute. In battles such as Crecy and Agincourt the cavalry, the flower of French chivalry, was cut down by the English and Welsh archers almost before the battle got underway.
I heard one of the women telling a visitor about the sheep they were just starting to roast. It was going to take about four hours. They had stuffed it with a mixture of herbs, garlic and red wine. I've just had an e-mail from a student at Illinois State University asking if I know any recipes that use Garlic Mustard, otherwise known as Jack-by-the-hedge, so I took the opportunity to I ask her if she'd ever used this wild herb. She explained that she was a comparative newcomer to medieval cookery but she did intend to experiment and look around the sites they visit to see what she could use.
Back in our part of the valley, they've bailed the hay in the rushy field. The girl who once told me 'I've decided that from now on I'm not going to draw anything else but horses - unless I really have to.' was there, running in the field. She checked her speed and paced herself to a bail and jumped smartly over. I realised that, even without her horse, she was practicing show jumping.