Life in a Medieval Village (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

• John Myrc: Add a description of this character.
• Ramsey
• Robert Manning
• Luttrell Psalter
• Walter
• Henry Smith
• Alexander
• Ripton
• William
• Alice
• Ralph
• Stephen
• Geoffrey
• Richard Reeve
• Reginald
• Gilbert
• Thomas
• Michael
• Andrew
• Emma
• Nicholas
• Adam
• Mary
• Hugh
• Georges Duby
• Roger
• John Page

Quotes edit see section history

• “The nexus of a working agricultural system, the village was a place of bustle, clutter, smells, disrepair, and dust, or in much of the year mud. It was far from silent. Sermons mention many village sounds: the squeal of cartwheels, the crying of babies, the bawling of hogs being butchered, the shouts of peddler and tinker, the ringing of church bells, the hissing of geese, the thwack of the flail in threshing time. To these one might add the voices of the villagers, the rooster's crow, the dog's bark, and other animal sounds, the clop of cart horses, the ring of the smith's hammer, and the splash of the miller's great waterwheel.”

• “Yet despite all his collections, enforcements, and impingements, perhaps the most arresting aspect of the lord's relations with the villagers is the extent to which he left them alone. The once popular picture of the lord as 'an omnipotent village tyrant' was, in George Homan's words, 'an unrealistic assumption.' The medieval village actually lived and worked in a state of near autonomy. The open field system exacted a concert of the community at every point of the agricultural cycle....It is now virtually certain that the village achieved this concert by itself, with little help or leadership from outside. To <the> observation that there was never any 'necessary opposition' between the lord's manor and the peasant's village, Homans added that 'the manor could be strong only where the village was strong.'”

• “The thirteenth-century villager was a cultivator rather than a herdsman because his basic need was subsistence, which meant food and drink produced from grain. His aid was not exactly self-sufficiency, but self-supply of the main necessities of life. These were bread, pottage or porridge, and ale. Because his wheat went almost exclusively to the market, his food and drink crops were barley and oats.”

• “Fundamental to the system of justice was the inequality between lord and villager. If the villager missed an autumn boon-work, neglected his demesne plowing, or defaulted on any of his other obligations, he was certain of being fined. The system was onerous and exploitative, yet it apparently felt less oppressive to those who lived under it than appears to modern eyes. The villager knew the rules and could rely on them. If they were not equal for everybody, they were the same for all villeins, a fact which doubtless contributed to the success with which they were applied — 'neighbors' who turned out for the harvest boon would feel little sympathy for one who did not.”

• “...the open field village of the Middle Ages was a distinctive community, something new under the sun and not repeated since. Its intricate combination of social, economic, and legal arrangements, invented over a long period of time to meet a succession of pressing needs, imparted to its completed form an image, a personality, and a character. The traces of its open fields that aerial photographs reveal, with their faded parallel furrows clustered in plots oddly angled to each other, contain elements of both discipline and freedom.”

• “Village life for men and women alike was busy, strenuous, unrelenting, much of it lived outdoors, with an element of danger that especially threatened children. Diet was poor, dress simple, housing primitive, sanitary arrangements derisory. Yet there were love, sex, courtship, and marriage, holidays, games and sports, and plenty of ale. Neighbors quarreled and fought, sued and countersued, suspected and slandered, but also knew each other thoroughly and depended on each other, to help with the plowing and harvesting, to act as pledges, to bear witness, to respond when danger threatened.”

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• era of prosperity for all, but especially for the lords, who saw their incomes, especially their cash incomes, rise rapidly.

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• officials, in fact, constituted the lord’s material presence in the village. Three of them, the steward, the bailiff, and the reeve, were the key executives of the manorial system.

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• “hamlets were often simply pioneering settlements established in the course of agricultural expansion,”

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• Typically the steward of a great lay lord was a knight, that of a great ecclesiastical lord was a cleric.

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• Kitchen and bakehouse were in separate buildings nearby, and a granary was built up against the hall.

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• now virtually certain that the village achieved this concert by itself, with little help or leadership from outside.

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• In addition to dues exacted from his tenants on a variety of occasions—death, inheritance, marriage—the lord enjoyed the “ban,” a monopoly on certain activities, most notoriously on grinding everybody’s grain and baking everybody’s bread.

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• Roofs were thatched, as from ancient times, with straw, broom or heather, or in marsh country reeds or rushes (as at Elton).

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• Elton in the late thirteenth century was a large village, capable of summoning 327 residents to a harvest in 1287.

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• Where the demesne was small, most of the tenants were likely to be free, or if unfree, paying a money rent rather than rendering work services.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Elton: A historical eastern English village in Huntingdonshire, and a dependent of Ramsey Abbey. Formerly called Aethelintone, Aethelington, or Aylington.
• England
• Europe
• Middle Ages
• Huntingdonshire
• France
• Britain
• Warboys
• Broughton
• Peterborough
• Angulo
• Norfolk
• Holywell

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Manorial system: The system whereby villagers pay a portion of their crops to the lord of the local manor. Not to be confused with the Feudal system, which was the system whereby vassals served a lord in exchange for land.
• Villein: The English term for a serf, a peasant burdened with all sorts of obligations, usually in the form of labor or money. A non-free (in name, at least) peasant.
• Virgate: A unit of land theoretically sufficient to support a peasant family, varying between 18 and 32 acres.
• Hamsoken: An assault committed within the victim's own house; considered a graver crime than assault committed on neutral ground.
• Hallmote: The lord's manorial court, held twice or more a year, presided over by the lord's steward, judged by twelve jurors from among the village peasants. Concerned with exacting the lord's fees and dues, as well as prosecuting crimes and settling disputes.
• Bailiff: The lord's chief official on the manner.
• Beadle: Manorial official, usually an assistant to the reeve.
• Boon-work: The obligations of tenants for special work services, notably bringing in the lord's harvest.
• Corrody: An old age pension, usually purchased from a monastery, consisting of lodging, food and incidentals.
• Cotter: A tenant of a cottage, usually holding little or no land.
• Hue-and-cry: The criminal apprehension system by which all within earshot were required to give chase to the malefactor.
• Manor: The estate consisting of a lord's demesne and his tenants' holdings.
• Reeve: The principle manorial official under the bailiff, always a villein.
• Demesne: A lord's estate; extensive landed property retained by the owner for his own use, not necessarily used as a dwelling.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Frances Gies (Author)
2. Joseph Gies (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 306.094265

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Anthropology › Cultural
• Books › History › Europe › England
• Books › History › World › Medieval