Of coarse the time and place, and the attitudes of the local lords, and wartimes and such factored into things. But overall it seems like things weren't so shitty for the humble farmer as everyone likes to say.
At least until the industrial revolution and land enclosure acts and people stopped bathing because they thought is spread plague.
Am I right or wrong?
Other urls found in this thread:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
youtube.com
twitter.com
They had a shitload of feasts and festivals and such.
They typically worked pretty hard, but partied on their days off.
That or spent them in church.
So yeah, if there wasn't a plague, famine, or war going on, it was pretty comfy.
Ever had to till a field in the summer time? Knowing there's no such thing as air conditioning waiting for you when you finish?
more noble a proletariate dependant upon which castle its serving than today at least anyway
If the farmers had shitty conditions, why didn't they just stop giving the Lord crops and go on strike?
Eventually the Lords would humble down and convince the farmers to produce food by treating them better
Without farmers, the lords would starve anyway.
Has this ever happened in history?
Your a communist.
Pic related: well, yeah.
How about you give me some butter or I torture you to death, dumb peasant.
You show such a shallow and passing understanding of the organization of the manorial system that that question is not worth answering
I'd say not, torture me and you piss off all the farmers, and they shall migrate to another land(eventually you starve), or take up arms.
Harleaus you fat fuck
Your divinely ordained, god-blessed sovereign commands you not to.
If you disobey people who have trained their whole lives to engage in warfare with control of castles and stockpiles of equipment and food will kill you to death.
There's a reason there haven't been many succesful peasant rebellions.
And who would take your worthless donkies anyway
This.
I started to type a response, but stopped because it's pretty obvious this teenage communist has no idea of history or economics based on the nature of the question.
Like everything, it depends on where and when. Doesn't sound bad though at the best of times, though.
>Am I right or wrong?
Go attempt to cut hay with a scythe, or plow a field with a horse, or do any of the multitude of labor intensive tasks required to run a farm.
There is a reason slavery was a thing user.
They wont migrate to anywhere else, because nobody will take them in. They most likely wont want to leave at all, because they live in a barter economy and have no effective way to move their wealth with them. They need the land to live, and there is no land anywhere else for them to till.
If they rise up, they get ridden down, because the lords and the monarch have a monopoly on military force. It would be like you and your Intro to Philosophy class trying to fight me and a squad of US Marines. You would die.
>you know what ac is before its been invented
Plus summertime in N. Europe at least wouldn't have been that bad.
...
You're right. The edgy socialists in here don't know what they're talking about. People were mostly happy with their social status because they believed it was what God had ordained for them. Plus they drank and fucked plenty.
Honestly it was almost idyllic. Obviously they had it shittier than we do now, but that's mostly because the technology and medicine wasn't as advanced as it is now.
As far as I know, peasants had it the worst during the modern period between the renaissance and the industrial revolution. Ironically this coincides with the enlightement period.
The canonical Marxist view is that capitalism increased the rate of exploitation and destroyed the lives of rural people and artisans. Discussions of how the "feudal" systems got wrecked during the primitive accumulation phase of course take a very critical view of the transition. The idea that the life of medieval peasants was terrible and we should be glad that capitalism freed them from their shackles is a liberal viewpoint, not socialist.
See "the Invention of Capitalism" for a typical look.
>The canonical Marxist view is that capitalism increased the rate of exploitation and destroyed the lives of rural people and artisans.
And Marx was completely correct about that. He was just completely incorrect about his prediction that the conditions in capitalism will rapidly become shittier and shittier until the workers have enough and rise up, because the exact opposite happened.
It was probably better then early industrial times
Well, yeah. I've always figured the Marxist method is great at analyzing past events and horrible at predicting the future.
Post-Marxist thinkers like Dugin have the same problem.
I don't understand why anti-Marxist hold Marx up to an impossible standard no other writer is ever held to. Well, actually I do, it's because he's anti-capitalist, but most other writers, we build on their thoughts, take what seems to be right, and throw the rest of the garbage into the dustbin of history. Although inevitably, someone is going to say all of Marx belongs there.
They had mandated conditions that were part of the covenant with their lord. The lord had to let them administrate their own laws in most things, had to feast them on appropriate days, and so on. If the lord broke the covenant, they could complain to the church.
>I don't understand why Trinitarians hold Arius up to an impossible standard no other theologian is ever held to.
>I don't understand why anti-Marxist hold Marx up to an impossible standard
>most other writers, we build on their thoughts, take what seems to be right
>and throw the rest of the garbage into the dustbin of history.
>and throw the rest of the garbage into the dustbin of history.
>and throw the rest of the garbage into the dustbin of history.
>and throw the rest of the garbage into the dustbin of history.
>and throw the rest of the garbage into the dustbin of history.
I think you're onto something there...
>Although inevitably, someone is going to say all of Marx belongs there.
Fucking pre-cog.
>air conditioning
American detected. Vast majority of Europe doesn't require air conditioning even in summer time because people were actually meant to live there.
How about I shove a sword about your ass, King Hairloss!
>shitload of feasts and festivals
Fuck off. They were few and far between
The US is a lot warmer country than medieval Europe.
Here's a documentary about the life of peasants:
youtube.com
If you lived in western Europe as a freeholder you had it pretty good.
-they owned their own land, often hundreds of acres.
-they could produce enough food to have a surplus and they owned 100% of what they produced.
-Local lord's were the only level of government above them that could interfere with them in any way, and it generally was in the form of quite modest taxation. it was modest because the lord already had plenty of serfs working his land for him, so he had a healthy income.
-The freeholders could draw on the labour of cottagers (landless folk below even serfs) in exchange for a pittance, often just for food.
-Freeholders often worked together, such as sharing horses and ploughing and harvesting together with neighbours to maximize efficiency
Freeholders were probably amongst the freest people who ever existed. Yes the life was tough, but they were like little kings without having any of the responsibilities a king has.
have you ever heard of the medieval warming period?
there's a reason Europe's population exploded in the early part of the second millennium. and it was largely due to the warm weather in confluence with some technological and scientific developments (better ploughs and crop rotation) that improved agriculture
That's why knights existed. To take peasant lunch money and stuff in locker.
Ever heard of the little ice age motherfucker?
Also even the midwestern US is significantly warmer in summer than anywhere in Europe that's not Mediterranean. I moved here a few years ago and the difference is tangible.
Yep. I've used a grubbing hoe in 90°-100°, 100% humidity weather, all day long for weeks at a time. If you don't have AC in the first place it's really not a big deal, user. The dumb thing is, I kind of miss it.
How dare someone with no knowledge of a thing ask a question about it!
Look at any medieval book of hours. Notice the fuckton of saint names next to dates?
This. Average life expectancy was also considerably higher in most of the middle ages than in most of antiquity
People before the 1930s had no reference point. Hot weather sucked, period, but that was how it was. No one ever thought "wow, it could be a lot cooler in here."
In terms of what we'd call civil rights they had incredible leeway with horrific exceptions. You could do what they liked, but cross certain lines and you'd get hanged or shivved.
In terms of material possessions they had very little, but in most cases they knew what they owned. Peasants were extremely litigious when they were wronged in matters of property.
In terms of financial security, they actually kept most of what they made, they were better off than us in this regard. They typically didn't owe anything.
That could be the rural south in early 1960s
>People were mostly happy with their social status because they believed it was what God had ordained for them.
this is literally in line 100% with marxist view of religion
