I would be very interested to find accounts of what pre-modern farmers would do during the winter season. While the season from spring to fall would be likely highly occupied with planting, sowing and harvesting, the winter would have been much more quiet. What religious practices developed during that season? Did different cultures have different habits, or did everyone sort of do their own thing?
Keeping livestock fed, alive and healthy when the conditions would not have been suitable for foraging was probably just as hard as ploughing sowing or reaping. (It’s my understanding that ‘pre-modern’ farmers didn’t specialise so much between producing crops and livestock).
There was also a lot of sleeping, and making sure you kept warm and had enough food.
Winter was a good time for hunting. Easier to track prey in the snow.
Bet lots of their kids were born in the summer!
Sometimes they’d move into town. But taking care of livestock was, obviously, quite time-consuming. Especially in cold conditions. I also believe they spent time maintaining and repairing equipment, as well as making things they’d need for the upcoming planting and growing season.
the long, dark and cold winters were a perfect time to hone thier metalurgy skills. an unfortunate downside was the occasional case of lead poisioning, but it beats freezing to death. saw this on discovery or something, of course, not everyone did this…
The following article on The Medieval Agriculturer Year is a good place to start and has several links as well.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20010212/agriculture.shtml
Thanks for the article, funneefarmer. I’m looking for slightly older practices, particularly biblical, or at least from the other nations in the area of around that time. What led to my question is the fact that in the Bible, all of the main holidays occur from spring to fall, including the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. These holidays all had significant agricultural connections, and almost exclusively to the crop cycle. A lot of what the Bible commands is to contrast itself with the practices of the other peoples around - Canaanites, Egyptians, etc. So I was curious what they did, particulary religiously, in order to see what the Bible expected of the Jews instead.
If you saw Pioneer Quest on TV, you’d have an idea. Depending on how far back you go, people might have done some hobbies (quilting, making little things; including babies), fetching water, cutting more firewood (if they were too lazy to cut enough in the fall), and of course keeping the animals fed and cows milked. If they were well off in the sense of not having to scrounge up every meal and keep 10 kids in line, they might go for walks or visit other families. If they had a saw mill they could run it year-round, they’d clean grain and haul it into town too. They would also butcher animals because it was cold enough outside to freeze the meat and it would keep better; meaning they’d also can meat, cure hams, make bacon, cut up and freeze stuff like that. It was also a good time to fix or maintain any machinery or tools they had - sharpen the saws and axes, replace handles, remove rust and or polish metal things, and fix everything else. It was definatley a slower time of year, but depending on how big an operation they had and how many hands were available to work, they could still fill the days fairly well. Ah, just hit preview and seen this wasn’t quite what you were looking for. Getting into religious stuff depended on what their views were (lots of athiests back then too), and how much time they could afford to devote to things of this nature. Neither myself nor anyone in my family ever had anything to do with these things, so I can’t give any further details even though my mom’s family WERE old-fashioned farmers in rural Alberta.
Not stone-age, I know, but:
In the American colonies, you not only celebrated Thanksgiving (and yes, I know it didn’t become a natl. holiday ‘til much later…) after the harvest was in to give thanks for said harvest, but also because that was when you had a little free time for celebratin’. Most weddings took place in the fall, post-harvest (and still do in Amish communities), b/c that’s when people had time to do such things.
My dad is a farmer…
I was born Oct. 1
brother: oct. 15
sister: oct. 31
brother: nov. 2
9 months before this is Feb… Hmm…
What did pre-modern farmers do during the winter?
They celebrated Candlemas. 
My wife and her brother are in the same zone. Valentine’s Day babies, I would guess.
This doesn’t directly answer the question, but is interesting and topical anyway.
Here is a short list of artivles that may help.
This may be what you want: The Butser Ancient Farm.
Because mid-winter was a slack time this was one of the few occasions when farmworkers were allowed time off work. The break usually lasted over the twelve day’s of Christmas. The first Monday after Epiphany is still kmown as “Plough Monday” as this was the time for these farm-hands to get back to work .