Hello!
I was always curious how free were the peasants in a feudal society.
Where did the peasants live? Did they live around towns? How big were the towns? Did only wealthy merchants live in towns together with the noble guy who was in charge of the area?
Who policed the peasants? What if someone stole something from someone else?
How often did the noble guys come for taxes? Were taxes gives as goods or money?
In case of an enemy attack, were the peasants protected or did they have to flee to the forests or something? Or were they maybe recruited as army?
How did a peasant get land assigned to work on? Was it the noble's land, or was the land private peasant property, but they had to give a certain amount of taxes?
Were fields near towns? Were there remote villages with farmers? How were those villages connected with the main towns? Through travelling merchants?
How were towns guarded, compared to castles? Were one or the other a better tactical target for an invading force? I suspect a castle filled with soldiers was dangerous to go around, but then again, just going around it, cutting off supplies and setting a trap also sounds good.
Were the peasants usually killed by an invading force or were they kept alive so they can work for the new king once they have conquered the country?
Was peasantry a caste. Like, were peasants like slaves, and that was their life, or could they throw away the hoe, and go be a succesful merchant in the town, and buy themselves to a noble position?
Was each individual required to pay x amount of taxes, or was it calculated by the village size, or family size?
Could the "fief" noble guy work the peasants to the bone and require super large taxes, and keep the extra profits to himself, after he payed the king his share?
Could the "fief" guy become super rich, and buy himself an army, and become a military force big enough to threathen even the king?
Were the shakespearean "dukedoms" this "vassal", "fief" type of territory where nobles could rule over peasants independantly, but with loyalty to the king?
What did the peasant kids do? Did they play, or did they have to search for firewood or something? Did they have to make baskets? Did the peasants also do that kind of merchant stuff in that time, or did they just farm the land? Did they have pigs for meat and stuff?
I am very interested in how this stuff actually worked, so please educate me :P
Tnx!
Hoo, this is a big one, and the answer will vary quite a lot depending on when and where we're looking at in particular, but I'll try and answer as best I can for early medieval England without (hopefully) rambling too much.
Non-noble society in early medieval England is just as heavily stratified as popular history would suggest about the nobility. The 6th century laws of Æthelberht of Kent already distinguish between freemen (ceorls), the 'semi-free' and slaves, but by the 11th Century, Domesday distinguishes between freemen, villagers and villeins, small-holders, cottagers and freedmen, and slaves. In an agrarian economy, the vast majority of the population lived in rural villages, although these could easily number as high as 50+ households. By the tenth and eleventh century, a proto-urbanisation movement built largely around the Anglo-Saxon burh network (fortified defensive hubs at significant transport loci, river crossings etc.), added another urban class to the meilleu, burghers. Burghers were more likely to be skilled craftspeople or merchants, perhaps potters, metalworkers etc, but could also have held smallholdings within the walls of a settlement for small-scale farming. Burghers paid a 'murage' grant, which contributed towards the construction and maintenance of town walls and other defences.
As seen in Domesday, taxes were generally levied from a certain proportion of an individual's land or produce. Rents in particular were often paid in kind, through the provision of food, goods or services. Royally owned settlements, or vils were often established as 'farms of one night', supposed to support the king and his retinue for a night as he travelled through the region as part of the duties of semi-itinerant early medieval kingship. Despite this, the Anglo-Saxon economy was surprisingly extensively monetised, and payment may well have been delivered in coin, in this case silver pennies. From the reign of Æthelstan onwards, peasants (or indeed anyone) seeking to trade their livestock above a certain value had to do so in a town and pay appropriate tax, although this threshold was later relaxed.
Lands granted through royal charters to the nobility or the Church were often exempted from any taxation beyond the trimoda necessitas: the provision of manpower for the maintenance of fortresses, the upkeep of bridges and roads, and the levy of garisson forces. It was these burdens in particular which could fall onto the peasants, or at least those enlisted into the fyrd. Either alongside or as part of this system, the 'burghal hidage' system allotted a set amount of land in each shire to provide for the garrisons of the burhs, who obviously would not be able to tend their own farms while on active service. In tenth century Mercia, there was a centralised network of military provision based around Stafford, which collected taxed cereal crops and livestock, and distributed meat and bread to dispersed garrisons in specially-made pottery.
In the English defensive system, there was a burh or garrison roughly every 40 miles, or rather there was theoretically a garrison no more than a day's march from anywhere in the country, at least around the borders. Interspersed between these sites were a wide variety of small scale fortifications. Many small villages would be undefended, and in the event of an attack, the villagers, alerted if possible by beacons, would attempt to flee to nearby burhs, hillforts or larger towns. Most smaller towns had at the very least a pallisade to defend them.
The provision of law and order was a communal affair. Courts were held at the Shire (modern county, the bureaucratic equivalent roughly of a US State) level, the Hundred level (roughly a US county) and at things inside a Hundred. It was often the duty of the community as a whole to apprehend fugitives, although the fyrd or household troops were often used. By the tenth century, the Frankenpledge, a bond within which the members pledged to police their group, also began to appear.
Agricultural life was highly ordered, and the Church kept accurate and detailed calendars to illustrate what might be necessary at any given time of year. At the very least, oxen were a common animal, kept to draw plough teams. Before the Forest Acts and the Norman Conquest, hunting game was a common element of food provision, but beef and sheep were the common livestock. Sheep were usually kept for wool, a particularly valuable commodity, and then slaughtered in old age to provide mutton.
At the start of the period, agriculture was often organised on an infield/outfield system where land was simply used as needed, but by the ninth and tenth centuries, a system of enclosures and field rotation was the prevailing norm. Depending where you were in the country, you were unlikely to be more than 20 miles (about a day's walk) from a market town, and likely much closer, and the surviving Roman road network played an important role in the economy. Certain ports, in particular Chester and Bristol on the West coast, Hamwic (Southampton) on the South, and Lundenwic (London) and Ipswich on the East, played important roles as hubs of maritime trade.