Peasants would also work cooperatively with other families when it came to tasks such as ploughing and haying.

Typical crops included rye, oats, peas and barley which were harvested with a sickle, scythe or reaper. Peasants spent most of their time farming their strip of land assigned to their family. 1306.ĭaily medieval life revolved around an agrarian calendar (centred around the sun), meaning in the summer, the workday would start as early as 3 am and finish at dusk. Most peasants were farmersĪgricultural calendar from a manuscript of Pietro Crescenzi, written c. It was said that peasants bathed only twice in their lives: once when they were born, and for a second time after they had died. Disease was rife, with unsanitary conditions leading to the outbreak of deadly plagues like the Black Death. Animals roamed the street and human waste and waste meat were commonly thrown into the street. Towns and villages in the medieval period were unhygienic due to a lack of sanitation. Life was hard: if crops failed, peasants faced starvation. In return for being allowed to farm the land, villeins had to give some of the food they grew each year to him. If they wanted to move or get married, they had to ask the lord first. Villeins were peasants who had legally sworn an oath of obedience on the bible to their local lord. There were different categories of peasants within the feudal society.

Villages were comprised of houses, barns, sheds and animal pens clustered in the middle. Medieval society was largely made up of villages built upon a lord’s land. If you did put a toe out of line, then you could expect to be punished punitively due to the strict legal system.ĭo you think you’d have survived as a peasant in Medieval Europe? Peasants lived in villages If you managed to dodge the high rate of infant mortality and the endless deadly diseases in circulation, your life was likely a repetitive slog of farming the land of your local lord, regularly attending church and enjoying little in the way of rest or entertainment. Around 85% of medieval people were peasants, which consisted of anyone from serfs who were legally tied to the land they worked, to freemen, who, as enterprising smallholders untethered to a lord, could travel more freely and accrue more wealth. For the average person in Medieval Europe, life was nasty, brutish and short.

Life expectancy in middle ages