DURING these summer months many of us turn our thoughts towards a summer holiday or at least stepping off the treadmill of work for a few days.
The cost-of-living crisis may have made us think twice about the affordability of one or two weeks on the Spanish coast or even about the prospect of taking the family away to a scenic part of the British Isles.
For some, a ‘staycation’ beckons with days out to the beach or the countryside. However we think of holidays, it’s undeniable that present generations enjoy a degree of leisure and vacation that many of our forebears couldn’t even dream about.
Many people in medieval York and its surroundings were self-employed artisans or craftsmen, especially tanners and metalworkers, who worked hard to earn a meagre living.
Outside the city, most people were employed on the land and many of these were ‘owned’ by lords-of-the-manor in a distinctly feudal social system. The manual work of ploughing and harvesting was hard and unremitting, and there was no way for peasant farmers to absent themselves from the city or surrounding village unless it was to serve in military campaigns.
The River King pleasure boat at York around early 1900s. Photo from City of York Council’s Explore York Libraries and Archives
Working the lord’s demesne was only part of the labour that had to be done and this work was a kind of rent for entitling them to work their own land. In the Middle Ages, most villeins and churls had at least one animal to care for and animals are high maintenance. Besides all this, there was household work to be done. Yarn had to be spun and cloth weaved. Firewood had to be collected and bread baked. The only people who travelled long distances were royalty and explorers.
Nevertheless, there were times of the year when ordinary folk managed to enjoy some leisure time. Chief of these was in the depths of winter, when work on the land was limited. Celebrations of Christmas and the New Year generally extended until the first week of January, and work resumed on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night. Feasting, singing, dancing, and playing football regularly took place during this period and the whole community celebrated together.
Throughout the year, Sundays were generally free, though attendance at church was obligatory. People went to church in the morning but enjoyed their leisure time in the afternoon by playing sport and spending time with family and friends. There were also saints’ days and some of these provided an opportunity for feasting and carousing. Weddings, christenings and wakes following a death might mean some downtime. And when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant farmer would have expected some time off work to enjoy them.
Wealthier citizens could travel and visit a market or fair (of which there were many), go stay with relatives, or go on pilgrimage to various shrines scattered around the country. Local shrines that York people might have visited were those of St John of Howden or St Robert of Knaresborough. Pilgrimages in England ended, however, when Henry VIII destroyed most of the shrines. The 16th-century Reformation drastically cut the number of saints’ days, removed opportunities for people to go on pilgrimage, and ushered in stricter Sunday observance. All these cultural changes reduced the possibilities for ordinary people to enjoy their leisure time.
And so it continued for much of the following two centuries. ‘Going away on holiday’ just wasn’t part of the culture as we understand it today.
It wasn’t until the second half of the 18th century and early 19th century that things began to change. Wealthy people had started to visit the new spa towns such as Harrogate on what might be described as health holidays in order ‘take the waters’. Young men from upper-class families began to travel in Europe, principally to Italy, Greece, Germany and Switzerland on what was known as the Grand Tour.
The Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century heralded the possibility of better transport and made travel easier for a wider population.
The introduction of the bank holiday in 1871 and the expansion of steam train travel and the rail network allowed an increasing number of ordinary York folk to spend a weekend or even a three-day break at the seaside, notably at Scarborough and Whitby.
Enlightened employers such as Joseph Rowntree enabled York people to be especially ahead of much of the rest of the country when, in 1918, he introduced a week’s holiday on full pay for his employees.
From around the 1920s, more people began to enjoy higher wages which allowed them to ‘go away on holiday’. But it was only in the 20th century that the summer holiday took shape as we know it today. The right to holiday leave became a legal right for workers only in 1939. After the war, the introduction of a two-week paid holiday enabled commercial ventures such as the Butlin’s holiday camp to thrive. Cheaper air travel enabled a growing number of people to holiday abroad.
By 1979 an increasing number of York folk would begun to think about the possibility of a package holiday to Majorca. You could then spend a week in Majorca in a hotel with an en-suite room and a balcony for £50. The prices have, of course, skyrocketed since then, but foreign travel is no longer the preserve of royalty and the super-rich. And a foreign holiday is no longer an impossible dream.
David Wilson is a community writer with The Press
