Medieval life: village, town and church
History · Key Stage 3 · The School
Land held in return for service
Under the FEUDAL system land was held rather than owned outright: the king granted land to barons in return for military service, they granted it on to knights, and at the bottom peasants worked land in return for labour and dues. Most people were tied to the manor and could not leave without permission. It was an arrangement of obligation running in both directions, not simply oppression.
Village and town
Most people lived in villages, farming strips in large open fields and working the lord's land on set days. Towns were different: many held CHARTERS granting freedoms, and a serf who lived in one for a year and a day could become free. Towns had guilds controlling trades and training, and they grew wealthy on markets and wool.
The Church in everything
The Church shaped the year, the week and the day. It ran almost all education, most care of the sick and poor, and the only widespread system of record-keeping. It held vast land and collected a tithe — a tenth of produce. It also provided one of the few routes by which someone born poor could rise, through literacy and office.
A VILLEIN in 1300: works the lord's land two or three days a week, needs permission to marry or to leave, pays a fine when his daughter marries, and grinds his corn at the lord's mill for a fee. A TOWN CRAFTSMAN in the same year: belongs to a guild, sets prices with fellow members, elects town officials, and is legally free. The feudal diagram describes the first and not the second — and about a tenth of the population lived the second.