Town and country life in the Middle Ages
The Domesday Book
The Domesday Book is
one of Medieval England's
greatest treasures. The
Domesday Book is closely
linked with William the
Conqueror's attempt to
dominate Medieval England. Along with a string of castles throughout
England, the Domesday Book was to give William huge authority in
England.
To further extend his grip on England, William I ordered that a book be
made containing information on who owned what throughout the country.
This book would also tell him who owed him what in tax and because the
information was on record, nobody could dispute or argue against a tax
demand. This is why the book brought doom and gloom to the people of
England - hence "Domesday Book". The decision of what someone owed
was final - rather like Judgement Day when your soul was judged for
Heaven or Hell.
William ordered the survey of England to take place about twenty years
after the Battle of Hastings. The Saxon Chronicle states that it took place
in 1085, while other sources state that it was done in 1086. The whole
survey took less than a year to complete and the books can be found in
the Public Records Office.
The Domesday Book forms a remarkable record of the state of England in
the mid-1080's.
Look at this website on the Domesday Book and write an account of life at
the time. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-ofdomesday/default.htm
Can you find references to your own town/village/city?
This extract, translated from the original Latin text, is from Great
Domesday. It gives details about Preston Hundred in Sussex.
In PRESTON Hundred
William holds PATCHAM himself, in lordship. Earl Harold held it
before 1066. Then it answered for 60 hides; now for 40.
Land for 80 ploughs. In lordship 8 ploughs;
163 villagers and 45 smallholders with 82 ploughs;
A church; 6 slaves; 10 shepherds; meadow, 84 acres;
woodland, 100 pigs; 26 sites in Lewes at 13s.
Richard holds 7 hides of this land; and a man-at-arms of his 1/2 hides.
In lordship they have 2 ploughs, with
2 smallholders.
Total value before 1066 £100; later £50; now £80.
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1. Who holds Patcham after 1066? How did the change in ownership of
land help William increase his control over the country?
2. What is a "hide"?
3. a type of peasant
4. a shelter
5. a measurement of land
6. a place where you cannot be seen?
7. How many oxen are there in the village? Remember each plough is
pulled by a team of eight oxen.
8. How many people live in this village?
9. Make a list of all the people in the village, starting with those who
hold the most land and ending with the poorest members of the
village.
10.Name TWO jobs, apart from ploughing, which this source reveals.
11.Work out the number of acres of land in the village. Remember one
hide = 120 acres; an acre is roughly the size of a football pitch.
12.What do you think the woodland was used for?
13.What was the value of the land when William the Conqueror
became king in 1066? What had happened to its value by 1086?
14.Think about your answers for question 9. Why do you think King
William was interested in knowing the value of the land?
Life in the country in medieval England
The lifestyle of peasants in
Medieval England was extremely
harsh. Many worked as farmers in
fields owned by the lords and their
lives were controlled by the
farming year. Certain jobs had to
be done at certain times of the
year.
The peasants were at the bottom of the Feudal System and had to obey
their local lord to whom they had sworn an oath of obedience on the Bible.
Because they had sworn an oath to their lord, it was taken for granted
that they had sworn a similar oath to the duke, earl or baron who owned
that lord’s property.
The one thing the peasant had to do in Medieval England was to pay out
money in taxes or rent. He had to pay rent for his land to his lord; he had
to pay a tax to the church called a tithe. This was a tax on all of the farm
produce he had produced in that year. A tithe was 10% of the value of
what he had farmed. This may not seem a lot but it could make or break a
peasant’s family. A peasant could pay in cash or in kind – seeds,
equipment etc. Either ways, tithes were a deeply unpopular tax. The
church collected so much produce from this tax that it had to be stored in
huge tithe barns.
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Peasants also had to work for free on church land. This was highly
inconvenient as this time could have been used by the peasant to work on
their own land. However, the power of the church was such that no-one
dared break this rule as they had been taught from a very early age that
God would see their sins and punish them.
After you had paid your taxes, you could keep what was left – which
would not be a great deal. If you had to give away seeds for the next
growing season, this could be especially hard as you might end up with
not having enough to grow let alone to feed yourself.
The Black Death from 1348 onwards killed 30 – 40% of the population. It
is impossible to overstate the terrible effects of the Black Death on
England. With the population so low, there were not enough workers to
work the land. As a result, wages and prices rose. The Ordinances of
Labourers (1349) tried to legislate a return to pre-plague wage levels, but
the overwhelming shortage of labourers meant that wages continued to
rise. Landowners offered extras such as food, drink, and extra benefits to
lure labourers. The standard of living for labourers rose accordingly.
After you have read the information above, think about the reasons for
the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.
Homes
Peasants lived in cruck houses. These had
a wooden frame onto which was plastered
wattle and daub. This was a mixture of
mud, straw and manure. The straw added
insulation to the wall while the manure
was considered good for binding the whole
mixture together and giving it strength.
The mixture was left to dry in the sun and
formed what was a strong building
material.
Cruck houses were not big but repairs were quite cheap and easy to do.
The roofs were thatched. There would be little furniture within the cruck
houses and straw would be used for lining the floor. The houses are likely
to have been very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.
Windows were just holes in the walls as glass was very expensive. Doors
might be covered with a curtain rather than having a door as good wood
could be expensive
The houses would have had none of the things we accept
as normal today – no running water, no toilets, no baths
and washing basins. Soap was unheard of and as was
shampoo. People would have been covered with dirt, fleas
and lice. Beds were simply straw stuffed mattresses and these would have
attracted lice, fleas and all types of bugs. Your toilet would have been a
bucket which would have been emptied into the nearest river at the start
of the day. At night, any animal you owned would be brought inside for
safety. There were two main reasons for this. First, wild animals roamed
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the countryside. Secondly, if left outside at night they could also have
been stolen or simply have wandered off.
Water had a number of purposes for peasants – cooking, washing etc.
Unfortunately, the water usually came from the same source. A local river,
stream or well provided a village with water but this water source was
also used as a way of getting rid of your waste at the start of the day. It
was usually the job of a wife to collect water first thing in the morning.
Water was collected in wooden buckets. Villages that had access to a well
could simply wind up their water from the well itself.
Life in towns
There were few towns in Medieval England and those
that existed were very small by our standards. Most
people in Medieval England were village peasants but
religious centres did attract people and many developed
into towns or cities.
Outside of London, the largest towns in England were the cathedral cities
of Lincoln, Canterbury, Chichester, York, Bath, Hereford etc. That these
cities were big can be explained simply because they were cathedral
cities. These cities attracted all manner of people but especially traders
and pilgrims. After the death of Thomas Becket in 1170, Canterbury
Cathedral became a very special place of pilgrimage visited by thousands
of people each year.
The big market fairs would have seen an increase in population and it may
well have fallen after one had finished. Tax registers - such as the one
that helped to spark off the Peasants Revolt of 1381 - were inaccurate as
those who could get away with not registering did! If you were not on a
tax list, you did not have to pay tax.
Medieval towns tended to grow around areas where
people could easily meet, such as crossroads or rivers.
Towns needed more water than villages, so a nearby
water supply was vital. Rivers would provide the water
used for washing and drinking and they were used for
the disposal of sewage (if it had not been simply thrown
into the streets).
Village people came to towns to trade therefore those
who were in charge of a town had to do what was needed to ensure that
their town was safe. Many towns had large fences built around them and
the gates of these fences were locked at night to keep out undesirables.
Cities such as York and Canterbury had city walls that served the same
purpose - but a town would not have had enough wealth to build such an
expensive protection.
A successful town attracted many merchants to it. Many towns were
owned by a lord and it was in his interest to ensure that his town was
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popular with merchants as they paid tax. The more merchants in a town,
the more tax a lord could collect. Taxes were collected by a sheriff. As
many people could not read or write, the system was open to abuse and
corruption. This is why many people in towns wanted to get a charter.
A charter gave people in a town certain rights that were clearly stated in
the charter that town had. Many charters gave towns the right to collect
their own taxes thus removing corrupt sheriffs from doing so. It was also
common for a town to ask for its own law court so that legal problems
could be settled quickly.
Towns were dirty places to live in. There was no sewage system as we
would know it today. Many people threw toilet waste into the street along
with other rubbish. Rats were very common in towns and cities and lead
to the Black Death of 1348 to 1349. Towns might use pigs to eat what
rubbish there was. Water was far from clean as a local river would have
been polluted with toilet waste thrown into it from villages both upstream
and downstream. Therefore, as people would have used this as a source
of water (they had no other choice) and because people knew little about
health and hygiene, disease was common. Life expectancy could be short.
Life for a poor person in a town or city was described as "nasty, brutal and
short".
As homes were made of wood, fire was another danger
in a town or city. Walking in a town at night could also
be dangerous. Though towns had a curfew (a time
when everyone had to be in their homes) no town had
a police force to deal with those who broke the law. No
town had street lights - the only choice was candles
but in a wooden city or town, these ‘street lights’ could prove disastrous.
Building in a Medieval town was expensive as land cost a great deal. That
is why many Medieval houses that exist today appear odd in that they
have a small ground floor, a larger second floor and an even larger top
floor as builders built up and out. This kept the cost down.
Shops attracted people to a town. The shops also doubled as a home for
the craftsman that worked in it. A sign outside of the shop showed people
what that person did for a living. Signs had to be used as so few people
could read or write.
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"Simple Simon"
In the days before fast food and
convenience stores were invented food
was sold from street sellers from trays
of food. A fair was an extremely popular
place to sell 'your ware' The tradition
and history of fairs dates back to
Medieval England. The term 'Adieu'
meaning 'Goodbye' is no longer used in
the English language but will never be
lost forever due to rhymes such as
Simple Simon! The modern day version
of Simple Simon can be found in the
song and a game where children have to
do exactly what "Simple Simon" says!
Picture of Southwark Fair, in London
Simple Simon poem
Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair;
Said Simple Simon to the pieman "Let me taste your ware"
Said the pieman to Simple Simon "Show me first your penny"
Said Simple Simon to the pieman "Sir, I have not any!"
Simple Simon went a-fishing for to catch a whale;
All the water he had got was in his mother's pail.
Simple Simon went to look if plums grew on a thistle;
He pricked his fingers very much which made poor Simon whistle.
He went for water in a sieve but soon it all fell through;
And now poor Simple Simon bids you all "Adieu"
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Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer immortalised Medieval England in
the ‘Canterbury Tales’ – the stories of various people
gravitating to Canterbury Cathedral at the end of a
pilgrimage. Geoffrey Chaucer is one of Britain’s finest
writers.
No one knows the exact date of Chaucer’s birth but he
was probably born sometime between 1340 and 1345.
Chaucer’s mother is thought to have been Agnes de
Copton and his father was called John. The family lived in Thames Street
near the Tower of London. John Chaucer was a vintner and he was a
reasonably prosperous middle class man whose family had been in the
wine trade for a number of generations.
John Chaucer’s trade relied on foreign exports and imports. There is little
doubt that he was literate and Geoffrey was also brought up to be able to
read and write. There is a belief that Chaucer could read and write before
he went to school – taught by one of his father’s clerks who supplemented
his income by teaching such skills to the young Geoffrey. It is thought
that Geoffrey attended St. Paul’s Almonry Grammar School – the nearest
to his home. Here his education would have been primarily in Latin. At
home he would have picked up French – therefore, his upbringing was
based around having a good education.
In 1357, Geoffrey Chaucer was sent off to be a page in the household of
the Duchess of Ulster. She was the wife of Prince Lionel, the third son of
Edward III. Chaucer remained at this post for a
number of years – possibly as long as 1368, the year
of Lionel’s death. In his position as page, Chaucer
would have come into contact with many important
people. He rose to be a squire – possibly in 1362. It is
not known when Chaucer started to write poetry but ‘The Book of the
Duchess’ was written in 1369 and the poems in this reflect Chaucer’s time
while a page under the Duchess. It was very common for squires to pen
poetry so this would not have been unusual.
In 1359, he was sent to fight in the Hundred Year’s War. In the same year
he was taken prisoner near Rheims. In 1360, he was ransomed for £16
and released. It is known that Edward III paid part of the ransom for
Chaucer – so he must have held the squire in some high regard.
In 1366 Chaucer married Philippa de Roet, lady-in-waiting to the Queen
and sister of John of Gaunt’s third wife. However, none of Chaucer’s
poetry is addressed to his wife so it is assumed that this was essentially
an arranged marriage. Very little of what Chaucer wrote was
complimentary towards marriage.
In 1373, Chaucer went to Italy on royal business. It is not known what
this business was but it was probably wrapped around trade. We do know
that Italy had a huge impact on him. He returned to London in 1374
where he was made Controller of Customs on wools, skins and hides in
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the Port of London. Chaucer held this position until 1386. The position
was not too exerting and it allowed Chaucer time to write. He wrote
‘Troilus and Criseyde’ which many believe is the first true
English novel. He also wrote ‘The Parliament of Fowls’, ‘The
House of Fame’ and ‘The Legend of Good Women’. Chaucer
was now a famous writer and in 1386 he was made a
Justice of the Peace and was elected to Parliament as
Knight of the Shire of Kent. However, in the same year his
patron John of Gaunt, was sent to Spain. He was replaced
at court by the Duke of Gloucester who put his own men in
positions that Chaucer held. Chaucer lost all of his offices. However, the
time he now had gave him the opportunity to write his greatest glory –
‘The Canterbury Tales’.
In 1389 John of Gaunt returned to England and Chaucer regained his old
positions. He was given the task of maintaining the king’s residences –
Windsor Castle, the Tower of London etc – and it seems that Chaucer may
not have been up to the task as he was replaced as Clerk of Works in
1391.
Geoffrey Chaucer died on October 25th 1400 at his
leased home by Westminster Abbey.
Chaucer’s tomb
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Reading these contemporary accounts will help you build up a picture of
medieval life.
Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales
The Paston letters
The book of Margery Kempe
Langland Vision of Piers Plowman
Some questions for you to consider:
1. What does the Domesday Book tell us about life in town and
country?
2. Was life always hard for medieval peasants? How can we find
out?
3. Was life any better in a medieval town?
4. Why was the Black Death so terrifying?
5. Why was there a Peasants' Revolt in 1381?
6. How hard was life for medieval people in town and country?
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