After seeing a matinee play full of farts, peasants would revel in the opulent bounty of the countryside, hunting, fishing, and swimming. Many of them also took advantage of seasonal gifts, such as gardening in the spring and eating fruits in the summer.
Drama, Dance, and Tournaments
People would entertain themselves with song, dance, music and stories. Wandering entertainers, called minstrels or troubadours, would travel from village to village providing such entertainment – particularly music – for the local people. They were paid in food and sometimes coins.
A serf had leisure time on Sundays and on holidays when the most popular pastimes were drinking beer, singing, and group dancing to music from pipes, flutes and drums.
In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze. “The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed,” notes Shor. “Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure.”
Ever wondered what peasants did for entertainment in the Middle Ages? Most villages at the time had a gathering place in the center of town. People often came here to play games like skittles which is like modern bowling, drink, work on chores, or tell stories.
After seeing a matinee play full of farts, peasants would revel in the opulent bounty of the countryside, hunting, fishing, and swimming. Many of them also took advantage of seasonal gifts, such as gardening in the spring and eating fruits in the summer.
Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too.
Most peasants were farmers
Daily 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. Peasants spent most of their time farming their strip of land assigned to their family.
Peasants worked hard every day except Sundays and holy days in blazing sun, rain, or snow. Most peasants lived in tiny one- or two-room thatched cottages with walls made of wattle and daub (woven strips of wood covered with a mixture of dung, straw, and clay). They owned nothing themselves.
Peasants typically worked one small area of land that had been assigned to their family. On this land, they would grow a variety of crops, including barley, oats, and peas. What's more, peasants would work with other families in their community when tackling bigger projects like ploughing and haying.
151. to the religious calendar. For peasants, Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, although harvest or other jobs could encroach on this time. In the same way other holy days or market days could also be holidays.
Peasants worked the land to yield food, fuel, wool and other resources. The countryside was divided into estates, run by a lord or an institution, such as a monastery or college. A social hierarchy divided the peasantry: at the bottom of the structure were the serfs, who were legally tied to the land they worked.
A thirteenth-century estime finds that whole peasant families did not put in more than 150 days per year on their land. Manorial records from fourteenth-century England indicate an extremely short working year -- 175 days -- for servile laborers.
Popular diversions for aristocratic women included religious activities, hunting, dancing and playing games.
People of the Middle Ages enjoyed a variety of games. One popular game among the nobility was chess. Chess came to Europe from Persia in the 9th century. Other games included gambling with dice, blind man's bluff, checkers, horse races, and playing cards.
A day in the life of a medieval woman could include working alongside men in the fields, teaching their children how to read, or even influencing politics at court, all while enduring fashion trends and health and hygiene practices that we might find questionable today.
Most medieval peasants worked in the fields. They did farm-related jobs, such as plowing, sowing, reaping, or threshing. Some peasants worked in the lord's manor. They would have done household tasks such as cleaning, cooking, and laundry.
The responsibility of peasants was to farm the land and provide food supplies to the whole kingdom. In return of land they were either required to serve the knight or pay rent for the land. They had no rights and they were also not allowed to marry without the permission of their Lords.
Peasants would start the day with a small breakfast and proceed to work in the fields or land by sunrise. Breakfast was likely a bowl of thick stew with ingredients like peas, carrots, onions, oats, and herbs, called pottage.
For peasants, daily medieval life revolved around an agrarian calendar, with the majority of time spent working the land and trying to grow enough food to survive another year. Church feasts marked sowing and reaping days and occasions when peasant and lord could rest from their labors.
Peasants tended to keep cows, so their diets consisted largely of dairy produce such as buttermilk, cheese, or curds and whey. Rich and poor alike ate a dish called pottage, a thick soup containing meat, vegetables, or bran.
Fines, shaming (being placed in stocks), mutilation (cutting off a part of the body), or death were the most common forms of medieval punishment. There was no police force in the medieval period so law-enforcement was in the hands of the community. Listen to the full “History Unplugged” podcast here!
Most peasants at this time only had an income of about one groat per week. As everybody over the age of fifteen had to pay the tax, large families found it especially difficult to raise the money. For many, the only way they could pay the tax was by selling their possessions.
While monastic schools certainly provided opportunities for a few, most peasant children received no formal education there. Those who stayed at their parents' home were expected to work on the farm, gradually learning the skills they would need as adults in just such a setting.
The average peasant's diet in Medieval times consisted largely of barley. They used barley to make a variety of different dishes, from coarse, dark breads to pancakes, porridge and soups. After a poor harvest, when grain was in short supply, people were forced to include beans, peas and even acorns in their bread.