Hey Veeky Forums I've always wondered how the average peasant lived life in medieval europe...

Hey Veeky Forums I've always wondered how the average peasant lived life in medieval europe. Is it as dirty and harsh as the movies proclaim? What did they eat and was it often rotten?

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It was better than living during the industrial revolution.

>9GAG
gross

how so?

No. There are surviving records describing how towns required people to keep their properties clean and tidy with fines for failing to do so. There are also records of people washing regularly too (keep in mind that washing and bathing are not necessarily the same thing).

Diet would be varied. Bread was the mainstay food with a lot of vegetables and grains as well, with cheese and eggs with meat being more available the higher up the social scale you went. Noone would eat rotten food unless it was that or starvation, given that they weren't stupid and knew it made you ill.

youtube.com/watch?v=RmMpxwbYyhU

Let's just put it like this before the thread blows up.

When the harvest was bountiful, indeed life was good. There was plenty of food, rest, and relaxation to make up for the toil you suffered for.

When the harvest was bad, life sucked. You had to work hard for longer periods in the day for less product. Your lord still expected the same cut he always had if he is a dick. You'll probably go hungry a couple of times per month and life would be dreary.

If the harvest failed and you had a famine in your hands, it was hell on earth. Weakened by lack of nutrition, you and your family would spend their days languishing and becoming ill as your immune system fails to fight off infection. It was during these times you would turn to God and religion for salvation, praying that a miracle delivers rain upon the land. You will most likely not live very long, and your life will be harsh and brutal, as you would not be able to afford the small luxury of clean clothes, well built lodgings, and eventually your family would be left to perish to save the rest of the community more often than not.

Well, the myth that peasants laboured a crazy amount is absolutely ridiculous. The modern man works far more than any people in the history of mankind.

For one, medieval farmers essentially had the whole winter off. Unless you had animals, there was literally nothing to do all day. And if you had animals, there was almost nothing to do during the summer when they grazed. The stereotypical image of the sheep shepherd laying beneath a tree while his flock grazes is very accurate.

Humans were simply not built to work as much as we currently do. Look at any other animal: they spend almost all their time just laying around or sleeping.

Modern life does have one benefit, however. The medieval farmer, for all his spare time, was almost guaranteed to simply starve if there was a poor harvest. This won't happen in the modern world.

However, most of that work is not manual labour

A lot of modern work still is.

The cozy white collar office jobs aren't the overwhelming majority by any means. And even though might not be considered desirable by lots of people.

> Unless you had animals, there was literally nothing to do all day
Not really.
- House repairs, because timber, sticks and hay
- Crafting, DIY because no Walmart to buy tools
- Collecting fuel in the forest (in Alpine or North/East Europe, unless you enjoy freezing to death)
- Work on your feudal lord, that bridge or castle wall won't build itself
- Fishing all year round if shore settlement or major river
- Religious festivities were quite often, somebody besides local parish priest need to organize them
- Work for parish priest, local church won't repair, build or maintain itself
And the rest.

Still it was mostly working for yourself by your own means, and it was certainly much less repetitive, droning and (for our inherent bullshit detector) useless than modern factory or office work. If comparing quantity and quality of things and of diet, the medieval peasant was a total poorfag, yet had much more personal freedom and spare time of all things.
City craftsman was GOAT if no guild monopoly comes to ruin his day (that is if he's out of the guild, otherwise its like being legal mafia). Orthodox priest could (was actually expected to) marry and father many kids, adding to be supported by the Church and parish people, dedicating much free time to study or art or thought, perhaps becoming a monk later to rise in the Church.
Herders, though... Herders and shepherds were indeed mighty slackers, dedicating most of the day to music or other sedentary amusement. If no pack of wolves comes to bite them in the balls, of course, which happened much often than now.

>he doesn't know about off season public work

From ancient times to throughout the middle ages, there are countless examples of lords supplying peasants with emergency crops like grain in the case of a bad harvest. Hence why there weren't mass extinctions.

There are three types of peasant, the unfree slaves and serfs, and the freeman.

For a slave or serf quality of life was usually meagre indeed, but they might be able to depend on their liege in hard times.

Freemen might own land or significant wealth, but are ultimately responsible for their own fates, and could end up in debtor's prison by mercantile misadventure more easily than a serf who grows turnips all day.

Wealthy people ate mostly meat, poorer people ate mostly vegetables with meat for special occasions.

What's the difference between slaves and serfs?

>Hence why there weren't mass extinctions.

WE evolution

There was also slavery,Limited education for the only the wealthy

>Hey Veeky Forums I've always wondered how the average peasant lived life in medieval europe.

slaves get whippeed, serfs get thrown off land and starve

You want to buy 100 slaves? Go on the slave market and buy them.

Want to buy 100 serfs? Have yo buy the land they live on.

It really depended on situation. If the lord was in huge debt he surely didn't supply peasants with emergency crops.
If he had plenty of resources, money etc. to dispose - of course he did, the more peasants he had working for him, the richer he was so it made sense to keep them alive.

Even in the later Middle Ages, the medieval peasant's life was hard and the work back-breaking. It followed the seasons – ploughing in autumn, sowing in spring, harvesting in August. Work began at dawn, preparing the animals, and it finished at dusk, cleaning them down and putting them back into the stalls.

Inside the hut, a third of the area was penned off for the animals, which lived in the hut with the family. A fire burned in a hearth in the centre of the hut, so the air was permanently eye-wateringly smoky.

Peasant fun was rough – wrestling, shin-kicking and cock-fighting. The ball was almost unnecessary to a medieval ball game, which was basically a fight with the next village.

>Is it as dirty and harsh as the movies proclaim
No.
> What did they eat
Bread baked in communal ovens, veggies from a personal garden, various other local fruits and veggies. Wine, beer/ale, almond milk, no. regular milk. Meat on occasion and depending on the region. Lots of fish.
>often rotten
No

pic related
medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html

>t.Prof.Fucktard et al

Serfs were always human.
Slaves had to "fight" be recognized as human.

>the average peasant lived life in medieval europe
Filth, disease, mass ignorance, short life expectancy, starvation, servitude, and no cold beer. Then every once in a while someone comes along raping and pillaging, burns your village to the ground and hacks your head off. If you're lucky!

Slaves belong to the lord / master
Serfs belong to the land

>this meme

>tfw farm and am only busy 4 months of the year

Feelsgoodman

Litterally meme history