What was life as a chimney-sweep like? It involved getting soot out of chimneys without any modern appliances. What do you think it was like?

He was put under great pressure to convert but refused. After some further political mistakes (e.g. favouring Catholics who'd been kicked out by William of Orange) he was shown the exit.

Just basic butter/cheese-making. Butter is a lump - it's not clear how you could add whey or have it dry out. Cheese on the other hand is made from the separation of curds and whey and is initially wet.

Are you sure the word you're reading as butter doesn't refer to cheese - so-called 'cream cheese' today? Then comments about adding whey or the cheese drying out would make sense. That seems the most likely explanation to me. Can I also ask where/when the text was written?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Medieval Lincoln was known for having a Jewish community. Sephardic Jews seem a more likely source for this DNA than North African Muslims.

The definition of a yeoman farmer was somewhat nebulous but they typically owned land, or tenanted it directly from a major landowner, and employed several men. Successful yeoman farmers could certainly rub shoulders with the gentry at events like fox-hunting. Villeins were not middle-class at all, they were lower than freemen.

Oops you're right I was mixing up Gildas with Nennius.

@sempaiscuba Well not a great paper to be honest. Yes, some villeins were clearly evicted particularly during Enclosure but it still seems to have been the exception rather than the rule. Some even won legal cases although could not enforce them.

Feudal society certainly was not fair but obligations did work both ways. A villein could not abandon the land and move elsewhere but at the same time he could not be evicted either. Even if the land were sold the villeins would come as sitting tenants.

Gildas is a good answer to those who claim Arthur is entirely fictional. Writing c. 540-50 Gildas wrote of Arthur winning a battle against the Saxons at Mons Badonicus. Although Gildas does not give an exact date it would have been c. 500 as T.E.D. states. Interestingly, Arthur is described as a Dux Bellorum (war-leader, general) not a king.

Fish were a major part of a typical Londoner's diet. There were two fish markets: one near Cheapside for freshwater fish floated down the Thames on barges and one in Eastcheap, near London Bridge, for fish caught at sea and sold wholesale at Billingsgate. Fish was salted or dried to keep for longer.

The statement that Charlotte was "touchy about her origins" based on the census entry is incorrect. I have an ancestor whose entry reads 'Place of Birth Scotland, British Subject'. Nationality was added for clarification by the enumerators when the person had not been born in England or Wales.

An obvious control would be to produce similar models for people alive now and see how well they match. Until this is done this should be regarded as highly speculative.

I've read (in a good source) that cows in Medieval England had 1/4 of the weight of modern cows and produced 1/6 of the milk. Can't remember where though :(