I am a relatively new high school economics teacher with a graduate background in history. I am drawn to the idea of teaching economic principles through an extended historical simulation/narrative. Lately I've been sketching out the possibility of having all my students next semester participate in a simulated agricultural village in northern England (Lancashire, selected for a supposed personal ancestral connection). The sim would start somewhere in the 1400-1700 range; students would choose fictitious names, draw their farms on a map, and learn about household production. I might pick a few to be gentry, miller, and iron smelter. Later they would be introduced more complicated economics concepts through the growth of the wool and cloth industries and, of course, the Industrial Revolution.
I've got a handful of inspirations such as Tim Dye's Urban Game and Melanie Weser's Weserville. I've also a few books with relevant broad overviews, but I'm short on useful details specific to time and place, and a lot of the material focuses on towns rather than village settings. I am looking for answers to a constellation of related questions such as, how were villages socioeconomically organized in the late Middle Ages forward? How common were village markets, and was currency much employed there? How did subsistence households acquire currency with which to pay taxes prior to the rise of manufacturing? How did villages transform socially and economically during this time period? When and how did financial institutions start to penetrate the countryside?
I'd like to get recommendations for specific resources in book or article form as well as expert summaries, but I'm also happy to spread the net broadly for advice about the project and the history involved. I would imagine a microhistory, if any exists, would serve me well. I'm not sure how ambitious I can afford to be, but I'm still in the early stages of planning and open to any thoughts or concerns.
You've got 2 major problems here with you project: 1) your time period is too large over a time period of dramatic change. A village in Lincolnshire in 1400 would be radically different than one in 1650 (oh ho Cromwell, anyone??); and 2) using England as your example.
tl;dr: narrow your time focus from 1250-1500, or move it to the Continent. Three primary sources from that period: Patson Letters, Margaery Kempe's autobiography, and Memoirs of Gluekle of Hameln, all of which are published by Penguin Classics.
To point #1: The reason your time period is too large is that it encompasses the late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, and heading into what is arguably the beginning of the modern industrial age (Newcomen invented the first steam engine in 1712). Technology aside, you've also got the issue of the Reformation, which radically changed life, especially up in Lincolnshire, which had been very Catholic, then went very Protestant. Much village social life, before Henry VIII's split with Rome was centered around church-doings - feast days, holidays, going to church way too often, etc. But, that changed with the Reformation, and especially the introduction of Calvinism, which as you prolly know, took the most hold in Scotland, but filtered down into the northern areas. For primary sources for this period there's the Patson Letters and Margaery Kempe's autobiography, both are published by Penguin Classics. If I were you, I'd keep the time period from about 1250-1500. All told, it was a, more or less, stable period of history, at least compared to 1450-1700.
To point #2: England was very different than the Continent, especially during the Middle Ages. By the 1300s in England, feudalism was well on its way out the door; skilled craftsman and merchant classes were nascent, and was already well on its way to democracy and federalism. Over on the Continent, there was much less upheaval. Even well into the 1600s, feudalism was still very strong, insular city-states with minor princes and principalities still flourished, i.e., no federalism of any sort, and very little had changed in hundreds of years. When the average person thinks "Middle Ages" this is what they're thinking of, actually, not England. A great primary source, "Memoirs of Gluekel of Hameln", which is a contemporary memoir written in 1690, also published by Penguin Classics, would be a good place to start. But, keep in mind that Gluekel was Jewish, and therefore literate, which was very uncommon.
Lastly, and this ties into point #1, your questions about economics of village life is incredibly complex during your time period, which is why you'd best stop at 1500. By 1660, the concept of fiat currency and centralized banking had started to take hold. This also brings in the issue of trade, piracy and privateers, the Anglo-Dutch wars in the latter half of the 1600s, the Exchequer, full faith & credit of a nation, counterfeiting money, the colonies, and a lot more besides. To say nothing of Cromwell, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution. While you might think to the average person these great events wouldn't have much to do with Bob'sYourUncle in the tiny village of Smole-in-the-Hole, Lincoln, but it most certainly does when James II is calling for more munitions to fight the Dutch, and you're a miner, but how is Jimmy 2 gonna pay you when the English currency is diluted with counterfeits and you don't accept it, but it's treasonous to take Spanish pieces of eight, but rent is due on your tiny cottage, so you might have to sell your daughter to the local whorehouse, and my but the Protestants are much more strict and mean than the Catholics about that sort of thing, and you get the picture.