Peasant Life in the Middle Ages

Imagine a world where people were forced to work the land for very little food and had to pay high taxes. This is what life was like for the peasants, or serfs, in Europe during the Middle Ages. From 500 to 1500 AD, life in Europe was organized into a categorized system. The Middle Ages lasted from 476 CE to the 14th Century(OI)

Peasants were members of the lowest class, those who work. They were the most common class. They were the millers, blacksmiths, butchers, carpenters, farmers, and other trades people. Peasant women in particular, spent much of their time taking care of children, making clothes, and cooking meals. They also tended gardens, took care of animals by tending chicken, shearing sheep, and milking cows (Cels 16). Within peasants, there were two main groups of people, the serfs and the freemen. Both were employed by the lords. And serfs were people that paid more fees, and had less rights. Freemen on the other hand paid less fees and had more rights than serfs (Noiret). While freemen could leave the manor when at whim, serfs were not allowed to leave

This was influenced by the manor system, “ The manor was the economic side of feudalism” (Doc 2). This meaning that your ranking in the feudalism was your job in the manor system. If you were a serf you worked, and farmed for the King, Knights,and Nobles and you had one day a week to farm to feed yourself and your family. If that isn't hard enough they also had to pay high rents to the lords for using his land to farm. The Knights and Nobles had to fight and serve the King for exchange of land,and they had to pay taxes. This showing that life in the Middle Ages was hard for many

During the Middle Ages social class much different than modern day. In a feudal society “nobles were granted the use of land that legally belonged to the king,” (Doc. 1). The nobles, in return, would give the lord loyalty and military services (Doc. 1). As peasants or serfs worked for nobles and knights they received protection and a portion of the harvest to feed their families (Doc. 1).

The peasants seemed very poor and their children were ragged. The peasants were being crushed and couldn't do anything about it. The only thing they could try to do was revolt and hope for change. (Document 1)

Peasants were quite poor before the plague since they were not paid as much until the plague happened. Peasants usually got raises since most of them kept dying and it was starting to be really hard to find a peasant that would not die of the plague. This lead more peasants to have more money. A quote from Matteo Villani, a historian from Florence, Italy. The quote is about how the price doubled or more for everything that you bought during and after the plague. This definitely affected the the people since business flourished while the wealthy lords and nobles lost money. A law that King Edward III made in 1351 after the black plague, was that peasants could not make anymore than they did before the outbreak. This lead peasants to become much more poor and start uprise later on, and this made the lords and nobles happy because they did not have to spend that much money on the staff. King Edward made this law because he realised the peasants were making money and the wealthy were losing money which he did not like. A 14th century record of the Savarnak House in England shows peasant wages before and after the black death. The records show from the year 1300 where they got paid 1.5d to 1361 when they got paid 3d. Their price doubled in the just of span of 60

During the Middle Ages a peasant’s life was, indeed, very rough, there were anywhere from ten to sixty families living in a single village; they lived in rough huts on dirt floors, with no chimneys, or windows. Usually one end of the hut was given over to storing livestock. Furnishings were quite sparse; three legged stools, a trestle table, beds softened with straw or leaves and placed on the floor; the peasant diet was mainly porridge, cheese, black bread, and a few homegrown vegetables. Peasants had a hard life, yet they did not work on Sundays, and they could travel to nearby fairs and markets. The basic diet of a lord consisted of meat, fish, pastries, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, beans, and peas, as well as fresh bread, cheese, and fruit. This is by no means equivalent to the meals the peasants ate, a lord might even feast on boar, swan, or peacock as well.

Politically, the plague affected manorial systems where serfs left the manor in search of better wages. There were also peasant revolts because the nobles resisted peasant demands for higher wages. Because of a depopulation of rural areas, labor in both town and countryside

The Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague had huge effects and implications on the social, political and economic lives of people living in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. Beginning in Asia, the plague quickly spread throughout Europe, following trade routes, devastating all who came in it's path. Symptoms of the Black Death included a fever, large swollen glands called buboes and general weakness [Brittanica, 2016] . Animals such as rats and fleas spread the disease through the streets of Europe, killing an estimated 25 million people. The Black Death caused an economic breakdown, disrupting trade and manufacturing, resulting in a massive increase in wages for workers or peasants. The construct of medieval

6. Peasants: Farmworkers who lived in small villages encompassed by fields farmed by different families working together. In 1550, most Europeans were peasants. Peasants turned into serfs in an exchange between the labor on the lord’s estate and farming rights.

Peasant Society (pg 18): In 1450, most European were peasant, farmworkers who lived in small villages. There working rights were taken in for labor workers. They also created local markets to help their economy.

The shortage of labor was one, workers now got payed more than just the minimum amount to live on. Decameron Web states that, "The lords had to make changes in order to make the situation more profitable for the peasants and so keep them on their land. In general, wages outpaced prices and the standard of living was subsequently raised" (Courie). They could spend more on things that they enjoyed rather than just food and shelter. This is one of the factors that led to the Renaissance because people could now focus on things like arts and learning instead of just survival. Serfs who had been tied to land for generations before the Plague could now leave and do almost anything they wanted because of the labor shortage. According to John Kelly, "In the second half of the fourteenth century, a man could simply up and leave a manor, secure in the knowledge that wherever he settled, someone would hire him; alternatively, the peasant could use his new leverage to extract rent reductions or obtain relief from hated feudal obligations such as the heriot- or death tax- from a hard-pressed lord" (285). This led to the disappearance of the feudal system and an increase in a middle, working class along with an increase in standard of living for them. Now that peasants and serfs could choose what they want to do as a job, they could also move up on the social scale. They

Life as a serf or peasant was not easy. Serfs were bound to their lord's land and required to do services for him. Although they could not be sold like slaves, they had no freedom (Ellis and Esler 219-244). Peasants farmed for the goods that the lord and his manor needed. They went through difficult hardship because of this. Peasants were heavily taxed and had to provide for themselves the goods that they needed (“The Middle Ages”). According to the medieval law, the peasants were not considered to 'belong to' themselves (“The Middle Ages”). Although serfs were peasants and had relatively the same duties and similar rights, what differentiated a peasant from a serf was that a peasant was not bound to the land (“The Middle Ages”). Peasants had no schooling and no knowledge of the outside world (Ellis and Esler 219-244). They rarely traveled more than a couple miles outside of their villages. All members of a peasant family, including children, tended crops, farmed, and did some sort of work to help out (Ellis and Esler 224). Very few peasants lived past the age of 35 because of hunger in the winter and the easy development and transmission of disease (Ellis and Esler 224).

The peasant has always been looked upon as an object of pity, an underclass citizen who worked to provide for the higher classes. A passage from Pierce the Ploughman’s Creed gives the perfect description of a day in the life of a peasant: As I went by the way, weeping for sorrow, I saw a poor man hanging on to the plough. His coat was of a coarse stuff which was called cary; his hood was full of holes and his hair stuck out of it. As he trod the soil his toes stuck out of his worn shoes with their thick soles; his hocks on all sides and he was all bedaubed with muck as he followed the plough. He had two mittens, scantily made of rough stuff, with worn-out fingers and thick with muck. This man bemired himself in mud

The time before the Revolution was hard for peasants as they were taxed heavily, “The peasant, the farmer, the townsman, from their scanty purses were drawn the large sums required.” The King and all the nobles “used their power badly”. Peasants paid their taxes “in coin, in kind, and in labour”, therefore they paid lots of money “to cover the value of the holding”, then had to send food such as “corn”, “butter”, etc. to the “big house”, and then he had to act as a workman for the noble (his master) doing things such as mending “the roads of his master”, “cart