Kmflett's Blog

January 12^th is Plough Monday: the start of a year of revolt

In the traditional calendar the first Monday after Epiphany is Plough Monday.

This is the ritual start of the agricultural year when land is ploughed ready for the sowing of crops.

Poorer land holders didn’t usually own a plough and a communal one was held by the local church( the source of authority in pre-industrial times).

As often with such rituals rebellion was never far away.

George Ewart Evans in The Pattern Under the Plough (1965) noted:

The ploughman dragged a gaily decorated plough from door to door asking for money to buy drink…if any householder refused to contribute to this foolery,the mummers put their shoulders to the plough, and ploughed up the greensward in front of his door. There was also a lot of dancing and high stepping antics performed by the mummers

Jo Draper on Plough Monday in Dorchester

In Dorchester, Freddie James, Agricultural Trades Union worker and Mayor of the town from 1934 to 1936, had decided that this was a festival worth reviving because it marked the beginning of the farming year. He said, ‘When we cease to recognise the importance of the plough, it will be a bad day for this country. This Festival will help agriculture, for the more people think about its real meaning, the more honourable will they find the profession. There is a greater skill required in handling a plough than in some of the leading crafts of the day.’ He managed to coincide Plough Monday with a visit by the Minister of Agriculture, who addressed a large meeting of Conservatives at Weymouth and then came up to Dorchester to ‘toast the plough’.

But the great event of the day was when they came before some house which bore signs that the owner was well-to-do in the world, and nothing was given to them. Bossy rattled his box and the ploughmen danced, while the country lads blew their bullocks’ horns, or shouted with all their might; but if there was still no sign, no coming forth of either bread-and-cheese or ale, then the word was given, the ploughshare driven into the ground before the door or window, the whole twenty men yoked pulling like one, and in a minute or two the ground before the house was as brown, barren, and ridgy as a newly-ploughed field. But this was rarely done, for everybody gave something, and were it but little the men never murmured, though they might talk about the stinginess of the giver afterwards amongst themselves, more especially if the party was what they called ” well off in the world.” We are not aware that the ploughmen were ever summoned to answer for such a breach of the law, for they believe, to use their own expressive language, ” they can stand by it, and no law in the world can touch ’em,’ cause it’s an old charter;” and we are sure it would spoil their ” folly to be wise.”

Chambers Book of Days (11th Jan 1864)