In general, the most serous problem posed by the presented scenario are the immediate and long-lasting health effects of the accidents, as the medicinal knowledge and practice was still somewhat lacking. But the social impact of the temporary injury would be minimal, if any.

Please note that in the general feudal relationships that would be applicable in basically any place in Europe around the high-to-late Middle Ages, work was not regulated on a day to day basis and in the case of free tenants it was almost completely not regulated. Using modern labour law terminology, a feudal contracts struck between the landowner and their tenants was much more similar to the contract of commission rather than the employment contract. In other word, tenant's obligation was not to 'go to work' and provide the services for a specified time each day or even week, but rather to provide a specific goods until given deadline. Initially, the goods were limited to the raw agricultural products, such as grain, but it soon could have included all comestibles, such as meat, eggs, wine honey, cheese or anything else produced in the vicinity, craft products (wheels, candles, nails, planks, arrowheads) or simply an agreed amount of money. In case of serfs, this was different, as people were obliged to perform any required work in their lord's domain and thus their work was more similar to that of an employee with the caveat that they were not free to leave.

In addition to the products, medieval peasants were often required to provide various services as demanded by the landowner and often stipulated in the individual contract. These could have included transport, food and accommodation for guests, wood cutting, stone hewing, building and road maintenance and any such works that would have been mandated by the circumstances. This could have also included military aid, although this form of service was relatively rare and most often than not limited to the defence of the immediate area rather than participation in the main campaign, as the latter was the chief obligation of the aforementioned landowners.

Now, we need to remember, that although the feudal contracts were being made between individuals, usually the landowner and the head of the tenant household, the execution of the mutual obligation was not limited to the involved parties personally, as both had families that not only could have but were expected to lend a hand whenever necessary. This means that even if a specific peasant suffered an accident rendering them unable to perform work, they always had partners, children, parents and in case of richer peasants, also farmhands who could have taken an additional burden until the afflicted person returned to health.

So, what would happen if a peasant suffered an accident rendering them unable to work for several weeks? Not much, really. First and foremost, it this could have impacted the agreement, said person or any member of the family could have simply go to the landowner and explain the problem, stating that the products or their part might be delivered later than agreed, with the provision that this usually applied to any hand-made items, as back in the day one could have not hastened or postponed agricultural work and sowing or harvest had to be done when it had to be done. And there was no reason why the landowner should have not agreed. The delay was usually not crucial, especially in case of people owning many villages, the drawback was temporary and even if it resulted in permanent injury making the output of a given homestead less efficient, this was perfectly aligned with the lack of predictability inherent to the esprit-du-temps. Please note that it was customary to relieve new peasants of most obligations for some time until they settled in a new place. If they had to prepare the land by clearing a dense forest, the relief period could have reach even 20 years. This corroborates the notion that the landowners were treating peasants not as anonymous workers but rather as a sort of distant family that needs to be cared for if necessary. The fact that in the period we are speaking about there was usually far more work than available people only helped to maintain such relations.

And the injuries seemed to be quite common. In one study examining 180 skeletons dated between late 10th and mid-12th century found near the rural Giecz (in Latin sources rendered as Gdech or Gdec) in Western Poland and 96 skeletons from the contemporaneous Old Town of Poznań located roughly 33 km from the aforementioned village shows very high prevalence of non-violent trauma in the former and very little in the latter. In general, almost 50% of the analyzed skeletons of the rural population bore signs of non-fatal skeletal injuries in comparison to only 4% of the urban one. Given that the prevalence of said injuries was much higher among adults and elderly in comparison to children it can be safely assumed that they were work-related, with the injuries classified as violent were excluded from the study. The most common injury was a vertebral deformation (spondylosis, vertebral compression) observed in 22% of cases, generally considered to be a chronic result of the hard menial work and rib fracture observed in 42% of cases. Other common injuries were fractures of ulna and wrist (6% and 3.6% respectively). Fracture of of other bones, e.g. clavicle, radial bone, fibula and foot bones usually amounted to 2-3% of cases. Of note is absence of damage to the humerus. Four fractures among the 96 skeletons from the urban cemeteries contribute included single cases of the damage to ulna, radial bone, rib and vertebra respectively. Similar examination of skeletons performed earlier on the skeletons from 11th-14th century in the village of Gruczno have shown that roughly 10% of them have shown healed skeletal injuries, primarily among male adults (total 59% for males over 30 years of age, with 17% of them being cranial injuries, although most if not all cranial injuries and small percent of postcranial ones were classified as of violent origin).

This strongly suggests that the serious injury resulting in bone fracture was maybe not a common occurrence in the life of peasants, but it happened nevertheless and anyone was quite likely to suffer one at least once in their life. And speaking of the injuries, it would be prudent to address a surprisingly common myth that in the Middle Ages a bone fracture was very dangerous and usually warranted amputation. This makes absolutely no sense given a relatively high prevalence of the rib fracture and cranial trauma where amputation would be counterproductive to say the least. Although the data differ noticeably between regions and time periods, it can be generally that in for Central Europe (Poland, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary) in high-to-late Middle Ages (10th-14th century) the percentage of unhealed fractures suggesting their perimortal origin is roughly 10% (in general population, not including cemeteries near the battlefields etc.) and is usually associated with violent causes. Proper healing of bone fractures is observed in 70-75% of cases, suggesting quite efficient methods of coping. Most common complications included limitation of mobility, periostitis or malunion (proper healing with improper configuration, resulting in misshapen bone) with severe complications, such as pseudoarthrosis (healing of the still disjointed bone fragments) happening in few percent of cases. Among all 107 analyzed skeletons from Gruczno only two bore signs of amputation, strongly suggesting that this method has been used only in the most severe cases, possibly with advanced gangrene. In most cases the affected part would have been immobilized and possibly also covered with fresh comfrey if it was available and used in the area. On one hand, high percentage of the properly healed bones suggest rather common knowledge of the basic bonesetting (what makes sense, given the prevalence of the injury), on the other, noticeable variance of that metric suggests that this knowledge could have been limited to specific people that were not always available or equally competent.

So, to sum it up, the temporary injury was not that much of the big deal. Even if it was permanent, the labour burden would have been simply divided among the other members of the family or even possibly friends or paid helpers (or other peasants in case of serfs). Thus the main problem with the injury serious enough to render one temporarily unable to perform work were the potential life-threatening complications.

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Agnew, A.M., Betsinger, T.K., Justus, H.M., Post-Cranial Traumatic Injury Patterns in Two Medieval Polish Populations: The Effects of Lifestyle Differences, PLoS ONE 10(6).

Judd, M.A., Roberts C.A., Fracture trauma in a medieval British farming village, in: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, no. 109, 1999, pp: 229–243.

Kozłowski, T., Charakterystyka urazów układu kostnego ludności pochowanej na cmentarzysku w Grucznie (XI-XIV w.) [Characteristics of the skeletal trauma in the remains of the people interred at Gruczno cemetery (11th-14th century)] in: Polish Anthropological Review, vol. 56, 1993, pp. 177-189.

Manchester, K., The Archaeology of Disease, University of Bradford, 1983.