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Tudor life, with Ruth Goodman

Tudor life, with Ruth Goodman

In this seven-part video series for the HistoryExtra Academy, social historian Ruth Goodman takes viewers on a tour of the Tudor period

Published: October 8, 2025 at 4:16 PM

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Welcome to our Academy course – Tudor life with Ruth Goodman

What was life in the 16th century like for ordinary people? In this seven-part video series, social historian Ruth Goodman takes viewers on a tour of the Tudor period, exploring what people ate and drank, how they worked, what they wore, and even how they thought about love and marriage.

Episodes 1-3 available from 6 October. Episodes 4-7 available from 20 October.

You’ll have an opportunity to join Ruth for a live Q&A on the topics discussed in the series on 19 November at 7pm GMT. Register here

Showing 1 to 7 of 7 results

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Episode 1What did Tudor people do for fun?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In episode one of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman explores exactly how people let their hair down in Tudor England
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Episode 2Tudor religion: what did people believe?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In episode two of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman explores how religion influenced people’s lives in the 16th century
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Episode 3Tudor work: what jobs did people do?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the third episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman explores what people in the 16th century did for work
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Episode 4Tudor childhood: what were children's lives like in the 16th century?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the fourth episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman explains what would have been expected of children in the 16th century, and how they were viewed by their elders
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Episode 5What did ordinary Tudors eat?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the fifth episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman takes us inside the kitchens of ordinary Tudors, sharing what would have been served up on the average table
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Episode 6Keeping clean in the 16th-century: how often did ordinary Tudors wash?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the sixth episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman dives into how much we know about the hygiene habits of ordinary Tudors. How clean were they, and did it matter? She also looks at the clothes people wore in the period – from commoners all the way to Henry VIII
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Episode 7Tudor love and sex: inside the 16th-century bedroom. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the final episode of her Tudor Life series, Ruth Goodman explores love, sex and marriage in Tudor England

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