I’m Claire Ridgway, historian and author. On 29 September, the Tudors celebrated Michaelmas, the feast of St Michael the Archangel, heaven’s champion and defender of the Church. Beyond the bells and processions, Michaelmas was one of the four quarter days, the moment the Tudor year turned.

In this video:

• What Michaelmas meant in scripture & worship (Michael vs. the dragon)
• Quarter day basics: new agricultural year, rents & accounts due, hiring/statute fairs
• The menu: why Tudors roasted “stubble-goose” (and the saying that it kept you in money)
• Folklore: don’t pick blackberries after Michaelmas—the devil’s said to spoil them!
• Echoes today: why Oxford, Cambridge and the law courts still call it Michaelmas term

What would be on your table: goose, apples, or a bl ...