Placebo, BBC3THE Medieval season which has been running on BBC4 for a few weeks now is fascinating, but understandably it has sometimes got a bit bogged down in the scale of its subject. All those centuries, all those changes – i
t's quite a lot to cover. So it was good to see Michael Wood get very specific in Christina: A Medieval Life by focusing as closely as he could on just one person's story.
And it was a surprise, to me anyway, to realise how much could be known about someone from so long ago who wasn't a king, baron or archbishop. Christina Cok was a peasant, from a long line of peasants who were born and died in serfdom. But some interesting historical detective work found enough documentary evidence – the "parchment trail" as Wood dubbed it – to present the story of her life, beginning with accounts of her father's gradual accumulation of tiny strips of land around the village of Codicote, in Hertfordshire. An acre here, an acre there, spread around the area under the complicated system where the landlord controlled the best land and demanded tribute from their peasant "property".
Christina gained a certain amount of independence by being left some land and a shop by her father, where she traded in the market and was fined for illegally brewing beer. She married a younger man and managed to survive the famine caused by climate change which hit Britain in her thirties. It was a grim time, the start of the Little Ice Age that spread across Europe and left peasants scrabbling to live off weeds when their crops failed. Wood tried a pottage made with some dodgy-looking roots and, while he tried to pretend with his usual animated enthusiasm that it wasn't too bad, it wasn't a very convincing performance.
The documentary evidence, of course, couldn't really tell us what Christina's personality was like, but, as Wood put it in context with careful background, the picture began to emerge of a canny person, a survivor. This was what was most valuable about the programme, because generally history is written by and about the rich and the nobles, leaving the impression that peasants just suffered hopelessly. Christina's story – which ended with her demise shortly before the Black Death took many of her neighbours, with her remaining land left to her own daughter – showed that they could be as enterprising as us, struggling to make something of their lives within the constraints of their time.
And the graffiti left in a nearby church showed the contrasts: "Only the dregs of the people are left to bear witness," said one part, carved painfully by a survivor of the plague. But on the opposite wall, very recognisable sentiments were written: "The archdeacon is an ass" and "That Barbara is a real vixen".
The medieval lads who wrote that were probably the ancestors of those found in Placebo, a pilot for a new medical sitcom which was like a throwback to Only When I Laugh – but without the laughs. Set amid a ward of six young men who have volunteered for a month-long medical trial, it wasted a potentially interesting premise with some feeble writing and rather lacklustre performances. When in doubt, the writers clearly believed, throw in a mention of penises or poo and hilarity automatically ensues.
This show was only notable for an icily sinister turn by Maxine Peake as the doctor, reminiscent of a younger Miranda Richardson. She managed to make something out of the dross, but otherwise the prescription for this one is "do not resuscitate".
The full article contains 613 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
