english society

• the vast majority of english people lived and worked on the land in the middle ages
• ordinary people faced a constant struggle to provide for their families
• famine and plague were never too far away and life tended to be short as most people did not live long past 40 years and, for those at the bottom of society, life was often much shorter
• the 2 main types of peasant were villeins and freemen
• a villein was the property of the lord and the lord could do as he pleased with him, except kill or injure him, for example a lord could sell a villein or fine him
• freedom was greatly prized and a lord could give a villein his freedom by issuing a charter
• a freeman was free to move as he pleased and could not be controlled by a lord like a villein
• most peasants lived and worked on a manorial estate, which were made up of 1 or several villages surrounding a manor house in which the lord of the manor or his bailiff lived
• the lord kept some land on the estate for himself and the rest was divided up amongst the peasants, for them to farm
• the work on the land was supervised by a reeve, who divided out the work, and kept accounts of the sales of produce and the collection of rents
• as part of their feudal service the villeins regularly worked 2 or 3 days a week on their lord's land, whereas freemen occasionally worked on the lord's land because they paid a rent instead
• by the end of the 12th century, the definition of a villein was changing as more villeins were paying rent instead of working for their lord
• bailiff


  an official who took care of a lord's land. medieval lords held land in different parts of the country so many estates were managed by bailiffs
• reeve


  an official chosen from the villeins to supervise the farm work. today we would call a similar person a foreman
• the type of farming undertaken by the peasants depended on the quality of the land
• most peasants were involved in growing crops, and the bulk of these crops provided food to feed their families
• land was usually farmed by dividing land into 2 or 3 large open fields, one field being left fallow (unfarmed) to allow the soil to recover while the others were farmed
• during farming, the fields were divided into strips where peasants, including the freemen, had strips in different fields so they would have a share of the best and worst soils
• during farming, the fields were ploughed, sown and harvested by villeins, with cottars often helping at harvest time
• during farming, every villein had to grow the same crop in the field, the type of crop varying according to the soil type
• barley, wheat, rye and oats were all grown in england in the middle ages
• after farming, villeins would take their crops to the village mill, where they would pay a fee, charged by their feudal lord, to get their crops grounded
• the crop yields were not high compared to those achieved by modern farming methods and a poor harvest led to food shortages and sometimes famine
• by the 13th century, the most profitable agricultural product was wool and a lot of england's wealth was built upon the wool trade
• some areas of england, especially the north and west, were ideally suited to sheep farming, where their local industries developed in processing the fleeces before they were taken for sale in the markets and fairs
• peasants kept animals, such as 1 or 2 cows for milking and some sheep, which could graze on common land and would be put on the freshly harvested fields to eat the roots of the crops
• pigs were driven into the woods to eat acorns and bark, being a right for a freeman, but villeins had to pay to do this
• at night, animals were either brought into the house or put into stalls to keep them safe from wild animals
• keeping animals well fed during winter was difficult and the amount of milk produced by the cows declined significantly during these months
• peasants lived in small houses with thatched roofs known as cruck houses, with the walls being made of wooden strips woven together and then plastered with manure, known as wattle and daub
• peasants would have just one room to live in and very little furniture, with the floors being covered in straw that could be changed when it became too dirty
• peasants would have been very likes cold in the winter and hot in the summer
• life was hard for a medieval peasant as work began at dawn and lasted till disk, and was carried out depending on the season
• in the spring the fields were sown with crops, in the summer the crops were harvested and in the autumn the fields were ploughed in preparation for the next crop
• the tools used for farming were basic, which made the work physically demanding
• the lives of most medieval women were controlled by men, firstly by their father and then by their husband
• when a woman married she became the property of her husband and her life revolved around caring for his needs
• for a medieval peasant woman, her main role was carrying out domestic duties, including caring for the children, cooking, and spinning and weaving
• medieval peasant women grew food in a vegetable garden and looked after small animals like chickens and geese
• medieval peasant women were expected to provide basic nursing for her family, so many women developed an understanding of the use of herbs in making simple medicines