Medieval Haymaking; or, The Parable of Brother Innovatus and Abbot Sensatus

The Medieval Year: The Ides of June

Articles in The Medieval Year series give us an opportunity to appreciate calendrical artwork from the Middle Ages, reflect on the basic tasks and rhythms of medieval life, and follow the medieval year as we make our way through the modern year. You’ll find helpful background information in these posts:

• The first installment of The Medieval Year

• How to read a medieval calendar

• Understanding the signs of the zodiac and their importance in medieval life

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O sound to rout the brood of cares,
The sweep of scythe in morning dew
—Tennyson, “In Memoriam”

Most people nowadays don’t spend much time thinking about hay. And for the few who do—farmers account for less than 2% of the modern American populace—it’s usually a pragmatic and solitary task which, like plowing, sowing, and harvesting, requires a large tractor, expensive implements, and a lot of noise. It was not always so.

The labor of the month for June is haymaking. But to say it that way doesn’t capture the magnitude—agricultural, social, economic, spiritual—of an activity that is, for me at least, a central emblem of medieval Christendom.

Let’s dwell on a few details in the illustration above. First, making hay was a communal event. Mowers worked in orderly, synchronized groups, thus turning their work into a dance, with music provided by—as Tennyson observed—the singular sound of wood and steel sweeping grass into a windrow. It really is like sweeping. If the blade is sharp, the grass tender, and your technique good, there’s no hacking, and hardly any cutting; the grass seems to fall over almost of its own accord. The video below gives you an idea of what all this looked like—the scythe-dance, which in June crowned the hills and sculpted the valleys of Western Civilization. The link is cued up to 3:21, and if you keep watching to 3:42, you’ll see Peter Vido, whom I mentioned in a previous article that provides some background on my long romance with traditional haymaking.