Could a medieval peasant become wealthy or try to improve his lot in life?

When? Where? A peasant in early 15th century England is going to have different opportunities to a peasant in 19th century Russia.

In their reapective countries

Yes.

So you want a breakdown of the opportunities for social and economic advancement in every country in Europe and many beyond it, over the course of more than 1000 years?

Yes, of course he could. Some did before him and other will do after.

How did such a thing occur?

No he could not. If he was born a peasant he died a peasant.

People were divided into classes from birth as I understand, and could not really change them. So a peasant will always be a peasant, no matter how rich the peasant is.

pop-history at its finest.

>b-but an italian anthropologist proposed it thirty years ago, it must be right!

Work, luck, war, proximity to influential figures, translating to another place, a conbination of those.

1 yr and 1 day

We now live in a era where "Beer" is very strong beer at 5% or more, and "Light Bear" is 0% for some stupid reason.

Image permanently drinking 0.5% beer. It would be completely different.

Pretty much what everyone else said. Class was ordained by divine provenance. That's why people tried to be good religious adherents in ritual and works in order to go to heaven or get a better reincarnation. Maybe mercantilism freed things up a bit. There was a surging merchant class of newly rich at the end of the Vedic era in India.

I always imagined a freeman lived better than any serf

The liters consumed is not from him, but actual proper deductive analysis. 670 is the high end estimate, the real number was probably more like a liter per day.
There were also quite some back alley taverns selling illegal beers mixed with poisonous narcotics like thorn apple.
Tobacco was smoked in extreme quantities since its introduction.
The Low Countries had a big hemp production and they actually sometimes smoked the leafs since it was much cheeper. It wasn't weed, but afaik hemp still has some minor quantities of thc or other things.

>not giving a counter-argument on a Netherlandish tapestry weaving website

Yup, although they did have 'double' and 'triple', which probably referred to the grain ratio, thus making it somewhat stronger.
Wine was drunk a lot as well, watered down and spiced. Mostly white, made young and consumed within a year since temperature fluctuation would fuck with the acidity quickly.

The seventeenth C. saw a surge in distilled alcohol, in the UK due to increasing wine prices, but also because the techniques of distilling improved a lot. 1670 was estimated in NL to be 40-70 liters of gin per person if i recall correctly.

I guess they used it to purify water, or is that not a thing?

You have been deceived

even the nobles and royalty had it shitty back then. people always say "by modern living standards we all live like kings!" which may have been true a hundred years ago. today we live far better than the kings of old. most the nobility from feudal europe lived after the manner of the biggest farmer in the biggest farm house.

So rich merchants wedding destitute nobles were a lie?

Did he even want to "improve" anyway? I understand late-medieval peasants becoming mercenaries or whatever to life a rich and short life, but those are renassaince people with a renassaince mindset and worldview. Turning from peasant to "dude whose sole purpose in society is train to fight in wars and then go on said wars and probably die some gruesome medieval death" was probably not seen as that much of an achievement by medieval people, specially because before we bought our food on supermarkets you kind of had to grow your own so "peasant" was not eactly one of many layers of society, they were the norm, what you'd call a peasant would be seen as "regular person"

I thought freemen were supposed to be higher than a serf?

I don't really agree.
In one way, we live better because of medicine.
In other? We don't have huge families or a army of manservants.

>Needing servants when you can do most things easily thanks to modern technology

>Needing to do things on your own
How does it feel to be poor?

Technology has made bulk of the work those servants did obsolete. In case of transportation it's far more convenient to just own a car or have access to decent public transport instead of needing bunch of stablehands and a horse.

Was being a peasant in England better than mainland

This might be shocking for people inclined towards simplicity but not every noble was rich. Some were poor.

How poor are we talking about?

Poverty level poorness. Not being able to afford shoes.

This.

Also consider simple things like cooking, a fridge, running water and electric and gas stoves have made the majority of leg work related to preparing food unnecessary.

Cleaning is easier with detergents and a vacuum, washing your clothes is as easy at putting them in a machine with some cleaning agent and pressing a switch.

Its easy to forget that these were tasks that could take hours to perform without modern tech.

>DUDE EVERYONE IN HISTORY WAS HIGH LMAO
This is the lowest form of pop-history revisionism. Well, maybe not as bad as psychohistorians claiming all of human history can be explained by child abuse, but pretty close.

Was it not harder to rise through the ranks after the middle ages? When the nobility was really established and didnt really accept new members like it did previously but then again the middle class was alot more wealthy so when was it easier?

>a army of manservants.
I can't help you about huge families but we might get robot sex slaves and servants pretty soon. If all goes well every household could own a robot servant or two to perform all tasks And you don't have to pay them or give them breaks or feed them either.

I'm gonna throw out there the life of an early to mid 14th century northern English peasant

POSITIVES

>Grow crops (and pay taxes)
>enjoy some degree of entrepreneurship
>marry another peasant of your choosing, you typically have full control unlike the nobility

NEGATIVES

>Scottish AND English forces both terrorize your town once every 6 months to 1 year. Most armies don't believe in non-combatants so you'll probably lose your father at some point
>Bad harvest means your fucked (This was fairly regularly in this period)
>mortality rate high during this period due to disease and lack of medical treatment

I'd say it was probably a pretty okay life. You got a hell of a lot more freedom than the nobility but you're also very vulnurable

>>Bad harvest means your fucked
The funny thing is, having too many good harvest is bad for farmers as well because the value of their crops goes down. Famines were legitimately bad and if they happened multiple years in a row you'd be screwed but the occasional bad and mediocre harvest isn't the end the world. You would have had enough provisions from previous years to be okay.

Definitely! I think it also depends on *why* you had a bad harvest too. If it was because of poor weather, then it would definitely pan out the way you described it. But then again, if it was because of disease, your soil could be tainted and you could lose your livestock which = loss of production for years to come. I'd say it's still a worthwhile risk though.

Too ma
To many cobs

What usually happen to a nobleman's Bastard?

Any examples

>If he was born a peasant he died a peasant.
...or he went to war and used the resulting loot to start a profitable enterprise or buy is way into a guild as an apprentice on retuning home, or just flat out took to war as a career.

Or he moved to a new city if was German and made his own way free of any lords, likely working for a capable businessman for years until he was skilled enough to strike out alone.

Some people had no chance at deterring their lot. Some did. Some took those chances, and some of them succeeded.

You understand incorrectly.

Not really a thing. Shitting/bathing water and drinking water would come form different sources.

...The average person today is a wage slave who at most can afford a few hours a day to better them self or spend in leisure. In America at least, they get very little time off.

Kings had it better. Don't fucking kid yourself. A man who can devote as much time as they like to leisure or the pursuit of hobbies and skills they enjoy with zero risk of starvation is better off than most of us.

"nobility" wasn't going to accept "new members" except through marriage regardless. You could be a fully armored man at arms with massive wealth in the medieval era and still be a commoner your entire life.

On the other hand, you might be forced to join the nobility by law-and against your will- because you're fucking rich and the crown wants you to take up the attendant responsibilities.

Everything depends on where, when, and how important you are.

Most people were subsistence farmers producing a relatively small surplus. Crop failure invariably meant somebody starved.

You simply couldn't farm enough land to happily ignore a bad harvest with the available methods and technology.

Exhibit A

>Property wasn't freely alienable
I hate when ancaps say property is the fruit of your labor, but then you can freely transfer ownership and trade it away so someone else can now own the fruits of your labor.

Since I'm using the example of a early 14th century English peasant, then the cattle and crop diseases of 1318 - 22

>poor son on a farm
>Run away
>join a mercenary company
>Don't die in your first battle
>loot some cool shit when you sack a town
>Leave the company as soon as you've made enough

That's probably the #1 way to move your family up generationally as long as you keep that wealth secured and invest it and not swill it away or gamble. You won't make it, but you should have a better wife and a better life for your son who could train to be an artisan.

So this is way looting was important in wars

It's about 80% of why people joined mercenary companies which were highly prolific in Western Europe before professional armies. Although the company was paid wages for their service, those were essentially just basic survival fees. Big ticket is looting something good that you can hide. Catch a noble out, loot his shit while hes unconscious and wait for one of the other boys from the company to find him and then ransom him.

If you are a lowly foot soldier in the company you won't make big money for battle prowess early on. Do what you have to do to survive, and save up some valuables. Being a professional soldier, if you were good at it, while rewarding is also hard on the soul. Since you would be making some tough decisions that will be putting people to death for your greed.

Looting some gold from a noble? Not so bad an act. He might go MUH HERITAGE but he will live and get ransomed. Forcing peasants to give over their stores of grains, potentially torturing them to find out where they have stashed their valuables? Now that's soul crushing work.

Better to get rich and get out.

Yes. Now do my homework pls, I need an answer by tomorrow morning.

No. Do it yourself

I doubt the average serf can just join a group like that

Labor adds value to capital though.

>Kings had it better. Don't fucking kid yourself. A man who can devote as much time as they like to leisure or the pursuit of hobbies and skills they enjoy with zero risk of starvation is better off than most of us.
ever heard of the sword of damocles? You're talking about some nobody rich nobleman, a king has shit to do

Peasants aren't serfs.

why would you doubt that?

marxism is a cancer upon humanity

No, because you had to live in England

What's wrong with that

>subsidized by nobility
Elaborate? I'm curious.
Also, herders lived much better than peasants who grew crops. At least among Slavs. Tho i suppose there's a logic to it in Western Europe. They can just get their animals and move, they're harder to keep track of, and their work is arguably easier (dogs help out).
I read that they paid lower taxes and that farmer girls had to have permission from their lord to marry a shepherd.

Sex slaves is basically the only reason I would want to be a noble. I'd much rather do most things on my own.

In Europe, no. In the islands of Indonesia & Malaysia during the same period, somewhat possible. The villages who harvested forest products, spices, aromatics, and other goods that could be replenished with growing could share the profits from the wholesalers and merchants that they collected it for. They're the only example I can think of peasants being able to acquire money and better their lot. The regional kings took their cut of the trade, but they generally left them with autonomy so long as they acknowledged royal authority and paid taxes.

pre-norman england, no

post-norman england, yes
>less abuse of peasants by local barons
>first full property survey, as to have a full copy of what everyone ones to clear up property law
>william emphasized hard on adhering to the law, and used fiscal incentive to produce functioning courts of law
>travelling courts meant less bias on local affairs
>much more stable, less civil unrest

*norman england, not post-norman england

You could become Emperor in Byzantium by fucking the right person.

Theoretically yes in some countries, but it wasn't a standard thing. Hidalgos in Iberia, for example, were peasants and merchants that became nobles through military service to the Crown. The whole of Iberian colonization practices hedged upon conquistadors becoming hidalgos. Land and labor (natives) in the Americas was the reward for their service.

I thought Nobles hated Peasants rising through the ranks