Heirs to Merlin Chapter Three: The Peasants
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- The Heirs to Merlin product page on this wiki
Chapter 3: The Peasants
Daily Life
Classes of Peasants
There are four broad economic classes of peasants, which cut across the distinction between free and villein (unfree) discussed below (see page 30). The top rank, about 20% of the population, are those who farm a yardland (30 acres) or more. The next 20% farm about half that much land, and are secure unless there is a serious famine. The third group, comprising about 40%, have 10 acres or less, and need to find paid employment as they cannot live off their land. The final group, the bottom 20%, have no land and may own no more than the clothes they wear. The discussions below will start by setting out what the richest peasants own, and then indicate what the poorer ones lack.
Villages varied in size from a couple of families, with an average of five people each, up to around a hundred. They took a wide variety of forms, and did not always include a church, as a parish might cover several villages. As a rule of thumb, a village has one street for every two hundred inhabitants. The various classes of peasant would be found in most villages, although the smaller ones tended to be found on poorer land, and thus contain poorer peasants.
Diet & Property
Cereals supply about 90% of the calories in the peasant diet, mostly in the form of bread (made from wheat, barley, or maslin) and ale (brewed from malted barley). This is supplemented with a small amount of dairy produce (often cheese, because it keeps), eggs, fish (especially herring), pulses such as peas and beans, which are made into porridge or baked into breads, and some meat, mostly bacon, with beef from cattle too old to work and mutton from sheep too old to give wool. Vegetables (onions, leeks, garlic, and cabbage) are supplied by the cottage gardens, as are apples and pears. Poorer peasants tend not to have wheaten bread, and have less meat and dairy produce. In bad years, or if particularly poor, they might have to drink water, since barley loses some of its nutritional value if brewed.
Most peasants do not brew their own ale, as the equipment needed to do so is quite expensive. Instead, it is brewed by ale-wives in each village — this occupation is almost exclusively filled by women, usually the wives of the more prosperous peasants. Bread is usually baked in the household, either at their own hearth or in a communal oven, but it is sometimes bought from bakers.
A good peasant house is built on a low stone wall, which supports large wooden beams. Walls of wattle and daub (interwoven sticks covered with mud and straw) or cob (earth) are topped with a thatched roof, or, for the richest, slates. The houses are about twice as long as they are wide, between twenty and thirty feet wide and forty to sixty feet long. A separate barn, of similar size, is often built at right angles to the house, forming an open yard. Both buildings are single story, with doors in the long sides and two or three small, unglazed windows. Poorer peasants have smaller houses, twelve to fifteen feet wide, and half is given over to the accommodation of animals. The stone course is omitted, which means that the wooden posts rot and have to be replaced.
Virtually all peasant possessions are utilitarian. They own one set of undyed clothes, which comprises an undergarment, shoes, and a tunic, possibly with an additional overtunic and woolen hose. Tunics often reached the ankles for men as well as women. This set needs replacing every year, although the richest might have as many as a dozen sets. Farmers own a cart, with iron tires if they were prosperous, a plough, spades, and suchlike. Poorer peasants would not own a cart, and probably not their own plough, but spades are owned at all levels but the lowest. Cast bronze cooking pots are the most valuable household items, with poorer folk making do with pans of riveted copper. Ceramic plates, jugs, cups, and bowls are starting to replace wooden ones. Wooden furniture usually includes a table, one chair for the head of the household, benches, and a chest or two for storage. Beds rarely have wooden frames, consisting simply of mattresses with pillows, linen sheets, and blankets.
Farming
Most peasants make their main living from farming, and the main source of waged income for the poorer classes is helping other farmers, especially the lord of the manor and the rector of the parish. Few areas in England rely entirely on raising animals in farming, although families often do. South and east of the line joining the Bristol Channel to the Wash the emphasis is on growing crops, while to the north and west crops and livestock are of similar importance.
Since most peasants eat what they grow, the notes on diet above also indicate the trends in farming. Cows are kept mainly for milk, and oxen are the main draft animals, although the use of horses is increasing. Sheep are kept mainly for their wool, although also for their milk in some areas, such as Wales, and poultry for their eggs. The only animals kept primarily for meat are pigs. The richer peasants might own half a dozen cows and a couple of dozen sheep, along with half a dozen pigs, while the poorest have no animals at all.
Agricola of Tytalus
Agricola was of peasant stock, and was taken for apprenticeship late, when he had already begun helping on the farm. Throughout his apprenticeship he said that the struggles were as nothing compared to the struggles involved in getting food from unwilling soil. He successfully completed his gauntlet at the first attempt, and joined the covenant of Castrum Antiquum, in the far north of the tribunal.
There, he immediately turned his attention to the farmland around the covenant. It was poor, with weak soils and a bad climate, but Agricola was determined to take great amounts of food from it. At first, he spent as much effort on improving the mundane techniques and equipment used as on magical assistance, but it was always clear that he would not be able to achieve his main ends without resort to magic.
He studied Herbam and Auram magic, and delved into the mysteries of Animál. He devised rituals to increase the yield of land, spells which created breeds of wheat which bore six ears on each stalk, and items which brought the right weather for all stages of the year. Not content with growing wheat in the north, he researched greater magics and planted vineyards and olive groves, which thrived under his direction.
In his last years he was rumored to be researching magic to grow gold from the earth, and plants that bore rubies as flowers. Alas, he and all his works disappeared when his covenant vanished.
Most of the field work is done by men, although everyone helps at harvest time. The women are responsible for looking after the house, preparing meals, washing clothes, and caring for children and the elderly. Every cottage has its own garden, and the right to use a certain amount of land in the shared fields. These are generally cropped on a two-field rotation: half the land is sown while the other half is left to lie fallow, to recover its fertility. Animals are pastured on the fallow land, to manure it. There are also woods, from which firewood and building materials can be gathered, and in which pigs feed.
Rural Crafts
Most rural crafts are practiced as supplements to farming. This is particularly true of spinning, which is a standard occupation for women — it is possible to spin with a distaff and spindle while doing other things. The distaff is a stick with a cleft end which holds the unspun wool or flax, while the spindle is a weighted rod which is spun to draw the thread out, winding it around the spindle. Weaving is also done by rural workers, who are paid for every cloth that they complete, and the rest of the textile industry (fulling and dyeing) can also be found in the villages. Baking and brewing have already been mentioned above, and shoemakers are also found in rural areas. Millers are essential everywhere, and the mills are generally owned by the lord, who receives a share (about a twenty fourth), and thus requires his tenants to grind their grain there. Peasants are usually forbidden to own querns (hand mills), and this rule is a particular source of friction. Many rural crafts are devoted to the maintenance of farming equipment. The blacksmith is common, as are carpenters and thatchers. Potters tended to be concentrated near clay deposits, and miners near the minerals. Tin mining was particularly important in Cornwall.
The Market
All peasants live within seven miles of a market, to which they can go and return in a single day. There they can sell the surplus of their harvest, and buy meat, household utensils, and anything else they cannot make. Meat is often bought because you must slaughter a whole animal, but the meat will not last as long as it would take to eat it all. While many transactions within the village take place by barter, and most likely many at market as well, all peasants use cash, since many manorial dues have to be paid that way. Some even build up substantial reserves: as much as £3.
Law & Governance
The Manor
The two most immediate instruments of authority in the life of the medieval peasant are the manor and the parish. The parish is described in the Church chapter, on page 56. The manor is responsible for minor civil jurisdiction. Serious crimes, such as murder, rape, wounding, and breach of the king's peace, can only be dealt with by the king's courts (see page 105), but minor offenses are dealt with within the manor. Further, the lord of the manor is owed rent and services by the peasants who dwell within it. Lords often have more than one manor, and if so a peasant, often a villein (see page 30), is appointed bailiff to administer the manor on the lord's behalf.
Typical annual rent on a yardland can be anywhere from a mark to a pound, with smaller amounts for smaller areas of land. Further, those who hold by villein tenure (see page 30) also owe two or three days per week labor on the lord's land. Free tenants generally have lower rents, and owe no labor, but often cannot find as much land, as lords were keen to hold on to villeins.
Tenants are also amerced (fined) for various offenses against the lord of the manor, or their neighbors. These include trespassing on his fields at night, failing to perform services due, encroaching on someone else's land, polluting the village water supply, brawling without weapons, theft, calling a free man a villein or a woman a whore, and so on. Although the court is technically the lord's, it is, to a great extent, run by the community of the village. They bring offenses before it, and the accused can only be convicted if a significant number of villagers thought he did it. The lord could abuse his court, but freemen can appeal to the king's justice, and do. Serfs cannot do this, but they can try to get their status changed.
The role of the villagers is enhanced by the fact that the manorial courts are governed by "the custom of the manor." Often, the villagers in a group are the best authority on what this is, and it sets limits on what the lord can claim even from his villeins. Disputes over customs often find their way into the royal courts, where the lords often, but not always, win.
Manors, parishes, and villages do not necessarily, or even often, have the same boundaries. It is very common for manors and parishes to contain more than one village, especially if there were very small settlements in the area, and not unusual for a village to be divided between two manors or parishes.
Medieval English Money
The only coin in medieval England is the silver penny, minted by the king and only by the king. This coin is about 92% silver, and is the most stable currency in Europe. The coins are very thin: it is common to vow a particular penny to a saint by bending it in half between the thumb and fingers. The hapenny (half a penny) and farthing (quarter of a penny) are made by cutting pennies up. Larger units also exist, but only as "money of account." Twelve pennies (12d) make a shilling, and twenty shillings (20s) make a pound (£1), which consists of a pound of silver, 240d. 13s 4d make a mark, two thirds of a pound. The half mark (6s 8d) and the mark are common amounts for fines or taxation. Pounds and marks are not minted, but money offered to pay a large fine would be weighed, rather than being counted.
The English penny is worth between a half and one Mythic Penny (see Ordo Nobilis, to be released in 2000).
Peasant Incomes
It costs roughly £2 per year to support an average peasant family, unless you grow the food yourself. If you do have to buy food, the cost fluctuates wildly with the harvest. Only the top 20% are likely to have much in the way of a cash surplus for other expenses, and then only around £1 per year. Laborers live hand to mouth, and the middle strata of peasants can only make a surplus in the best years.
Peasant Prices
These prices should be used as guidelines only. The price of grain can vary by a factor of five depending on the harvest, and England has just seen a period of relatively rapid inflation (see "The Peripheral Code," page 116). | | |------------------------| | 1 bushel* of wheat 6d | | 1 bushel* of barley 4d | | 1 ox 7s | | 1 sheep 1s | | An average house £1 | | Cart 1s | | with iron tires 3s | | Plough 2s | | Axe 1d | | Spinning wheel 2d | | Brass pot 1s | | Copper pan 4d | | Pottery utensil 1/4d | | Wooden utensil 1/8d | | Chest 1d | | Bedding 1s | | Table 1d | | Linen undergarment 4d | | Shoes 3d | | Woolen Tunic 1s 6d | | Cheap sword 2d |
* A bushel of wheat is enough to provide bread for one person for one month; a bushel of barley would, malted, provide ale for one person for the same period.
Villein and Free
One of the most important distinctions in medieval England is between villein (or serf) and free. Very roughly, three quarters of peasants are villeins, one quarter free. The legal definition of a villein has a number of components: if all of them apply to you, you are definitely a villein, otherwise a royal court will have to decide. The children of villeins are villeins by birth; villeins owe labor services, generally without a clearly fixed limit; and they cannot marry without paying the tax known as merchet. Villein women caught in fornication (generally when they became pregnant) have to pay the fine of leyrwite. It is estimated that about a tenth of the rural population engages in sex before marriage, generally because they cannot afford to wed. Villeins can be sold by their lord to other free men. Anything they own is considered their lord's property, and they hold their land only at his will: he can throw them off without warning.
It is possible to free a villein, and it is also possible for a free man to hold land by villein tenure. Free men marry villein women, and vice versa, and while lords want as many villeins as possible, the villeins generally want to be free. This leads to large numbers of lawsuits, which do not always go the lord's way, as they have to be fought in the royal courts.
Men and Women
The legal differences between men and women at the level of the peasantry are slight. Men tend to be the named tenants, but about a sixth of these tenants are women, often, but not always, widows. Widows are entitled to a third of their husband's land until their death, and hold it on the same terms he had. Sometimes land is held jointly by both partners, and when one dies the other holds the whole. Women can bring charges in court, and have to defend themselves. They do not hold offices, such as bailiff, but there does not seem to be any legal bar to their doing so.
Pastimes
Peasants do not work all the time. Between harvest and planting there is little to do, and this season is filled with the church holidays ("holy days"), on which Christians are not supposed to work. Most villages possess a tavern, where the residents can gather to drink and play games, although inns, which also provide accommodation for guests, are very rare in 1220. Dicing is popular, as are several boardgames, including chess, tables (similar to backgammon), and merrills (little like anything around today). Dancing is also popular, especially rounddances called "carols". Clergy often condemn these as leading to lewd behavior, which may be why they are popular.
A very popular outdoor sport is campball. This is played with a leather ball about the size of a cricket ball or baseball. There are two teams, and two goals. Points are scored for getting the ball into the opponents' goal, and for trapping them with the ball, so that they cannot take it anywhere, even if you cannot get it off them. The teams can be of any size, and the goals could be miles apart for example, one in each of two villages, the teams then consisting of the inhabitants of each village. The game is often violent, and deaths sometimes ensue.
A "Friendly" Match
The covenant grogs become involved in a number of camp-ball games with the local village. If they have won recently, they are cheerful; if they have lost, depressed. Grogs may be wounded, or even killed. Killings could be revenge for some slight, under cover of the game, and perpetrated by either side. In any case, the magi will probably have to smooth things over. If the grogs win too consistently, the villagers may start to mutter about sorcerous assistance, and the magi will have to convince the grogs to lose a few games on purpose which might not be easy.
Villein Magus
One of the magi (or an important companion) was villein born. (Any magus with a peasant background may well have been.) His lord finds out about his whereabouts, and since English law does not recognize the Order of Hermes as canceling villeinage, the magus is still the lord's villein. The lord is not stupid, and sends a message to the magus promising not to pursue him if he will do one small favor. If the magus refuses, he will be dragged before the royal courts, and will have to prove his freedom, without breaking the Code. If he accepts, he will have to break the Code. His best bet is to try to get a charter of manumission (written evidence that he is free) from the lord, without doing anything too noticeable. The lord can issue such charters at will, but it is very hard to force him to do so.
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