In
September, the old and infirm pigs were slaughtered and their
sides of bacon smoked in the rafters for about a month. Their
intestines provided skin for sausages. In the fall, cattle were
slaughtered and salted for food during the winter because there
was no more pasture for them. However, some cows and breed animals
were kept through the winter.
For their meals, people used wooden platters, sometimes
earthenware plates, drinking horns, drinking cups from ash or
alderwood turned on a foot-peddled pole lathe, and bottles made of
leather. Their bowls, pans, and pitchers were made by the potter's
wheel. Water could be boiled in pots made of iron, brass, lead, or
clay. Water could be carried in leather bags because leather
working preservative techniques improved so that tanning prevented
stretching or decaying. At the back of each hut was a hole in the
ground used as a latrine, which flies frequented. Moss was used
for toilet-paper. Parasitical worms in the stool were ubiquitous.
Most of the simple people lived in villages of about 20 homes
circling a village green or lining a single winding lane. There
were only first names, and these were usually passed down family
lines. To grind their grain, the villagers used hand mills with
crank and gear, or a communal mill, usually built of oak, driven
by power transmitted through a solid oak shaft, banded with iron
as reinforcement, to internal gear wheels of elm.
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