The Luttrell Psalter - A Year in a Medieval English Village

Completed over 10 years ago and now remastered, the Luttrell Psalter film brings the famous 14th century illustrations to life and shows a year of working and living in a medieval village.

Guided by the detailed and often humorous images of everyday life from the Luttrell Psalter, the Luttrell Psalter Film gives a unique glimpse of a year in the life of a medieval English village. Filmed over four seasons, it shows the changing landscape with its fields and flowers, and the daily activities which dominated the lives of our forefathers. This 20-minute film draws on over 35 different images from the margins of the manuscript, allowing the people from the Psalter to walk out from its vellum pages.

[TheFoxFromSplashMountain]

It's a nice change to see a medieval film that doesn't focus on brutality and war. It wasn't all about knights and bloodshed, like in all the movies.

[sueyee]

First Medieval not only beautifully filmed, acted, edited, and costumes all done without blood, stabbings, or unbearable violence! Thank you!!!

[nyotauhura]

I found the illustrations of the boy stealing fruit, the ploughman, the lady spinning, the sheep pen and women with jars on their head, feeding acorns to the pigs, reaping and tying sheaves. Thank you for acting them out for us!

[michaeltres]

I recall from the original discussion of this film that the people involved chose to copy the clothing and other details exactly as they saw them in the Psalter. They were aware that the bright colors were not correct, especially the purple cloth, but they were committed to capturing the look of the original illustrations.

[dawnvickerstaff]

I said to my husband: When we retire, let's go live in a Medieval Village for a year! His answer: Sounds like a lot of work to me! Smart man.

[realmsunreal]

I wish people just randomly broke out into song like this still, my grandma still remembers so many songs from growing up, when families used to just sing together for entertainment

[PaynesPrairie]

just watched this film a second time, and I can't help commenting again. The visual artistry is stunning. The music is also worth notice. This was Chaucer's period. The words of the women's song seem somehow familiar yet alien at the same time. The closeup shots of nature are exquisite. We see how the villagers' lives are entwined with the natural cycle. This is history as I wish I'd learned it, the ordinary lives of regular people. Thanks to the unsung artist of the Luttrell Psalter and the makers of this film.

[vanessa]

I really like the song the two women were singing during the spinning wheel scene

[Nana-vird]

I would have loved to have done that. In a way I did, when I married my first husband at the age of 16, I went from living across the inter-coastal from Palm Beach Florida to living in a house with no inside plumbing or electricity. Learned to cook on a wood burning stove, learned to make candles and use a Kerosene lamps. I loved it, tended to pigs and chickens, milked one of our two cows, drew water from a hand pump out front of the house. Took a bath in the summer on the back porch in a wooden tub or in the winter in a galvanized tub in front of the wood burning stove. Now though, with my medical problems could not deal with much of the work that has to be and such. But would have loved it just the same.

[medmurton]

I saw my grandparents doing all these things just 20 years ago. My grandma's using a distaff and a spindle or milking the goats and cows... my grandpa's plowing the field with a pair of oxen or taking care of the horses... Those images are still vivid in my mind. Unfortunately they both passed away and we have no one to visit in my parents' hometown now, except for my uncle who has recently moved back to the village but he lives a modern life with his wife. So yeah the rural life in Kurdistan was pretty much similar just 20 years ago :)

[TheLostLemurian]

That one sheep that kicks the other sheep, lol.
Loved this video too - videos with voiceover are great but this was amazing, to just watch and observe the people without further information. Very peaceful.

[amieepattison]

I love the sense of time and humanity you managed to get into this - there were little elements that I think everyone can relate to somewhat in there in the gestures and actions of the people here, and I love how you managed that

[geegnosis]

Brilliant. So much history is based on battles and monarchy of the time. The real history is just as much in everyday lives. The Lutrell Psalter captures that last year of medieval village rural life at it's fullest natural growth from 1066 to then... the Black Death changing the balance forever.

[igorvoloshin]

I showed this video to my old mother... and she laughed: "Why they say it's medieval? That was everyday life of rural Ukrainians up to almost 1950s. Every detail is true, just but the clothes fashion".

Ah, she also said: "They're just pretending to be peasants. Too white hands, too clean clothes they have!"

[iaroslaus]

Although this might be an embellished version of how people lived in those days, I do believe their life was way more interesting and many-sided than that of a 19-century factory worker.

[squilly]

lovely to watch and also very calming. So peaceful. No planes, automobiles, mobile phones, earphone leakage, television, radio...just the sounds of nature

[emilyjewelle]

3:51 Yo, Jerry! Get a load of that guy playing music over there. He's playing *two* flutes, Jerry! Two flutes, at the *same! time!

[galland]

Beautifully done with a quiet peace, I don't suppose it was as peaceful as that rendered in the film, but nonetheless a nicer and more meaningful life than today's cities. Many years ago I bought the book the Lutteral village whilst on holiday and this video had a nodding acquaintance with it. Thankyou to all involved in it.

[mnossy]

Wow! What a beautiful film! I especially love the focus on nature with the spider’s webs and dew on the grass. So peaceful. The daily life portrayed, though hard, has a calm feeling with everyone doing their own work in its proper season.

[OnlyMusic]

The subtle combination of nature and humanity is beautiful, and oh so calming to watch