Hibernation

While sitting at work, I had a sudden fragmented memory of learning that Medieval life wasn't nearly so bad as everyone makes it out to be...well except for the plagues...and that in fact, all winter long, people would just eat, sleep, and laze about until it came time to get working (planting, invading) once again.

A bit of research led me to QI with Stephen Fry as the source of this information, and some further digging gave me this article, both of which discuss human "hibernation."  True, it doesn't sound as festive as Mr Fry implied - but then, what does? - loads of cattle indoors, corpses in the rafters, and crusts of bread for dinner is hardly the mead-drinking, story-telling, wood-carving free-for-all I was hoping for...but the essentials seem similar, and apparently, plausible.

However, I can't seem to find much about Middle Ages chillaxing that hasn't been written by Graham Robb...and I do see a fair amount that seems to imply people weren't just lying around.  So maybe this is just a crackpot theory.  Still, perhaps we ought to test it out...who wants to hang out for the next five months with me in the North End?  I've got cannoli, films, Bananagrams, and several shelves of books, there's a liquor store just around the corner.