A MEDIEVAL YEAR IN ENGLAND:
FEBRUARY

February fill the dyke             [ditch]
Either with black or white.     [rain or snow]
If it be white, it’s the better to like.

And:

All the months of the year
Curse a fair Februeer.

The verses acknowledge the month’s uncertain weather, often more wet than cold, with chances for flooding and the fens and marshes full.  But cold is generally preferred to wet, since this is the month when work in the fields must begin. 

Work starts at daybreak this time of year.  The harrowing and plowing of the second fields (those not plowed last autumn) begin early in the month, around Candlemas, while spring corn is sown in the autumn-plowed fields in the first dry spell.  At the same time, the fields must be re-fenced against the cattle that have grazed them, and after plowing comes the sowing of oats, barley, peas, beans, and vetches (going on into March).

Much of the work from January also continues: Equipment repaired, hedges mended, pastures fertilized so the grass will be growing strongly for the ewes when lambing time comes. Now is also the time to keep the land in good heart with manuring, either with animals’ dung and their soiled bedding from the barns, or by plowing under green-grown crops, or by spreading chalk, marl, lime, seaweed, and the like – whatever is available to the area.

Now is the time for digging ditches and planting hedges and tending to gardens and orchards.  Willows can be well planted now, rooting as they do in wet ground, to give summer shade and for later weaving of baskets, chairs, hampers, and other things.  If the chancy weather is too wet or cold for field work, then there is still threshing of last harvest’s grain to be done, warm work in barns.  Along with all else, there is also week work due to the lord of the manor by his customary tenants from now to Easter.

In hunting, the fox, wolf, and hare are in season from last month, but hind and roe deer (in season since September 14) and boar go out of season at Candlemas.

February 2:  Purification of the Virgin. Candlemas. Candles are blessed in church, then given out to the people to be carried in solemn procession and kept as a strong protection against evil in the following months.  This is the end of the Christmas season for the church, with all Christmas decoration down by now, lest a goblin or devil get power in the place.  Box branches can replace greenery until Easter if you wish, while the remains of the Yule log are to be burned until sunset, then extinguished and stored away until next Christmas.        

When the wind’s in the East on Candlemas Day,
There it will be till the second of May.

February 3:  St. Blaize Day.  Boys and men light fires to him on hilltops.  For women it is a holiday when they are not supposed to spin, an otherwise almost-constant occupation when no other work is in hand.

February 14:  St. Valentine’s Day.  Tradition says this is the day that the birds choose their mates.  On its eve, men and women in equal numbers each write their name on lots, the men then drawing the women’s names, the women the men’s.  The person whose name each draws becomes their “valentine” for this day.  So each person is someone’s “valentine” and has a “valentine” of their own.  Each valentine is supposed to give a gift or treat to their “lord” or “lady” and wear their name on sleeve or breast for several days in light-hearted sport.

Sometime, usually in this month but on any date between Candlemas and March 8, comes Shrovetide and the beginning of Lent, named from the Saxon word lengten-tide, indicating the lengthening of the days now in the Spring.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent begins.  It is a day for confessing sins and being shrived – shrove -- by a priest.  When that duty is finished, the rest of the day is holiday for most people, with cock-fighting, bull- and bear-baiting, riotous noise-making, football in the streets for boys and girls, and children going door-to-door for treats.  In the city of York, at least, apprentices dance in the cathedral’s nave.  Everywhere pancakes are eaten today, coupled with a contest to see who can toss them in the pan most expertly.  Customarily the first pancake is offered to the greatest slut or lie-a-bed in the party, but since usually no one admits to this honor, the first cake usually goes to the dogs or waste.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the forty days of fasting before Easter.  There are complicated rules governing what can and cannot be eaten on which days during this time.  In churches today priests bless ashes made from the palms consecrated on last year’s Palm Sunday, then sprinkle them with holy water and use them to mark a cross on each worshiper’s forehead, to remind them that they are of ashes and will return to dust.  It is intended to be a solemn day of fasting, with people dressed in mourning black and sackcloth, but there are also Jack o’Lents – figures supposed to be Judas Iscariot, dressed in rags and carried through the streets, then left out through Lent to be thrown at and mocked and finally burned.

February 1447

- Margaret