August

Labors and Agricultural Tasks

Be blithe to see sweet Ceres store,

Fayre cut, fast bonnd, and home conuayde,

Let scattered corne be glean’d by poore,

And Haruest creatures, dewly paide. (Gray 1604, A6)

Harvesting the corn—wheat, rye, barley, oats—is the standard labor for August, sometimes in combination with threshing (also a labor for September). The primary harvesting tool is the short-handled sickle, prominent in the labor from the 1555 primer in Figure 3.2.16. Usually the field laborers include women as well as men, as in the couple harvesting in a misericord from St. Mary’s, Ripple (Figure 3.3.17).

August indeed was the primary month for the enormously important and all-consuming work of the harvest, though in some areas that enterprise began in July. The calendar poetry repeatedly cheers on the laborers,

Figure 3.3.16 August, Catholic Church, Hereafter Followeth the Primer (1555, STC 16071), Blv. Photograph by Phebe Jensen, from the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 16071.

Figure 3.3.17 August, Misericord, St. Mary’s, Ripple, fifteenth century, ©www. misericords.co.uk 2017

reminding them of the importance of the harvest to prepare for the coming Winter. Tusser provides extensive advice on both the harvest itself, and the proper treatment of work crews. It is wise to pay the “harvest-lord more, by a peny or two” (98) as he must motivate the field hands; it’s a good idea to provide reapers with gloves and keep them happy with evening feasting: “In harvest time harvest folke, servants and all / should make altogether, good cheere in the hall: / And fill out the black bol, of bleith to their song, / and let them be mery all harvest time long” (100). Tusser’s poem for August also stresses the importance of timing the harvest, completing the job quickly, and tithing the corn (no matter what one thinks of the local priest). As the calendar poetry also often suggests, it is important to allow the poor to “go and gleane” what’s left in the field after the harvest; then, farmers might release their cattle onto the fields, “to mouth it up cleane” (Tusser, 100).

Although harvesting is the main agricultural task for the month, there is other work to be done in August, some of it falling to maids and housewives: paring saffron, or perhaps shifting the saffron to a new field, gathering and drying mustard seed, harvesting or covering peas so the doves and magpies don’t get them, manuring and smoothing fields that have lain fallow over the Summer, gathering and stacking wood for the Winter, and harvesting hops. It is apparently never too early to get on one’s horse and procure the “Ling, Salt-fish and Herring” for Lent (101).

Zodiac, Astronomy, and Astrology

The Sun enters the sign of Virgo, the Virgin, on August 14th, “being of the South, feminine, earthy, and melancholique,” governing “the belly, guttes, and midrife with Leo” (Alleyn 1606, Civ). Virgo is often seen holding a strand of wheat, as in Figure 3.3.16, and the embroidered valence of the twelve months from Hatfield House (Plate 15.1). Though the Dog Days begin in July, the full fury of Sirius is felt in August: “at the rising of this starre all living creatures bee troubled; and ... it is scarce possible that drynesse and sicknesse should not be” (Hopton Concordancy, 107). According to Stadius (via Hopton), “many more enormities” occur in August as a result of the influence of Sirius, “as troubling of Wine in Cellars, dogges going mad, fluxes of the Seas & waters, death of fishes, with the extremitie of heat” (Concordancy, 107-108).

The ages of Man

The goodes of the erthe is ga[th]red evermore.

In august so at xlviii yeres

Man oughth to gather some goodes in store

To softeyne aege that than draweth nere. (This Prymer 1556,

STC 16076, Blr)

This month the calendar poetry concerning the ages of man metaphorically equates the annual gathering of the harvest with the time of life, from forty-eight to fifty-six, when a man should gather goods in store for his old age, “when he may nother gette nor wyn” (Kalender, A7v). The central figure is usually depicted in rich robes, surrounded by the bounty of the harvest.

Physic

Dog daies being come the burning heate, Mens bodies out of frame doth bring:

The helpe of medicines is not greate,

Therefore take heed in everie thing. (Johnson 1613, A6v)

August, the last month of Summer, concludes the three-month period of the year in which all medical interventions should be avoided, along with wine, meat, and sexual activity. The calendar poetry looks forward with a sense of relief to the end of the Summer season—“The roaring Lion, and the mad Dogges rage, / This moneth doth terminate and their heate asswage”—but in the meantime men would do well to shun “Aesculapius, Bacchus, [and] Venus,” and instead, “Embrace thou cooling drinkes, vse slender diet, / If long on earth thou mean’st to liue in quiet” (Booker 1631, A6v). Excessive sleep should still be avoided, especially after the midday meal, as well as all baths—even in the cool rivers recommended in July. There is great danger in August of “taking coIde after heats” (Alleyn 1606, C2r), which can cause “pleiorisies most hard to cure” (Johnson 1612, A6v). Generally, the illnesses associated with the Sun in Virgo are digestive: “Illiaca” or obstruction in the small intestine, “Collica passio” or disturbance in the colon, “oppilations” or obstructions of the spleen, and “black Jaundies,” or obstruction in the bile duct. Sleeping in the afternoon heat also causes “head-ach, Catharres, and makes one very unlustie” (Alleyn 1606, C2r).