Medieval Society

Village Roles

We like to think in terms of hierarchies, so often a discussion of village roles will be put in terms of the more powerful and the less powerful, and there's some value in that. It's certainly true that there were wealthy peasants and poor peasants, people with more or less status, and people whose fortunes were in flux at any given moment. But as with medieval society in general, the hierarchical view is only one view.

Village upper classes

Peasants could and did gain a modest amount of wealth. Many people today think that medieval peasants were serfs—farmers who were little more than slaves and who did not own their own land. The conditions of land ownership in medieval Europe varied greatly both with time and place, and our records in the earlier Middle Ages are very sketchy, but in general it can be said that nearly everywhere and at nearly every time there was at least some private ownership of property. Moreover and perhaps more importantly, there was a constant shifting of obligations and rights, so that a good deal of land was treated by peasants as if it were their own, at least in terms of inheritance.

In short, every village had one or more families that were better off. These families might have a better home. They usually had a better harvest, which was more important, and many found themselves in a position to lend money or seed or equipment or livestock to their poorer neighbors. Village finance was strictly small-time, but it was exceedingly important to the locals. The most important effect locally was that a loan could default, and an already well-off family could extend its holdings by repossessing assets.

The village also had its village elders. They went by many different titles, many of which emphasized their role; for example alderman (elder man) and seniores (elders). Membership in this group might be formalized by outside authority such as a king. For example, in England royal law decreed certain functions and responsibilities within every village, including the responsibility to rouse the community in case of crime or danger (to raise the "hue and cry"). The elders might also be responsible for selecting jury members, helping with taxes or the raising of troops, and in general with answering for the village to the outside authority.

Internally, the village elders typically served as a kind of court to arbitrate petty disputes and to render judgment in minor accusations. They invariably were turned to in times of crisis.

Membership was rarely formal. It was a combination of wealth, status, age and tradition. Certain families had "always" been considered as being naturally among the elders. Members were usually older rather than younger, richer rather than poorer. In most places and times, no outside authority gave formal identity to the group, so membership was fluid, more like belonging to a clique in high school than belonging to a city council.

The clergy

The village priest always held a special position. The priest himself might be respected or despised, depending on his character and behavior and background, but he was still the priest, which automatically gave him the privileges and responsibilities recounted elsewhere in this essay.

It was not uncommon during much of the Middle Ages for the village priest to be a local boy, if not from the village then from nearby, who was sent off to monastery school at seven or ten, and returned a few years later. A small village might have only the one priest. A larger one might have a priest plus an acolyte.

The village priest nearly always was counted among the "better sort" of the village, even though he rarely was among the aldermen. His opinion was consulted. At the same time, if he were a drunkard or a fool, he might well be disregarded in all except matters of ritual.

Some villages belonged to monasteries. In such cases, the monastery and its abbot stood in about the same relationship to the village as an estate and its baron. That is, they represented outside authority and were not part of the village. Other clergymen might pass through—itinerant preachers, wandering holy men, a friar or two, but these likewise were outsiders to be treated with peasant wariness.

Skilled Craftsmen

A large village of several hundred might well have one or two specialist crafstmen. The village blacksmith is probably the most stereotypical role, but it could also be a shoemaker or any number of other trades. In fact, some villages cultivated a particular craft and had a number of shops running. This was especially the case in the Low Countries, in southern Germany, in northern Italy, or anywhere there was a sufficient urban market to support a rural craft.

This is aside from the common practice of a given peasant household engaging in some sort of craft activity on the side, doing work to earn a few coins or even doing work for barter.

The Fringes of Peasant Society

Even a village had its poor. These were people who were in the village but not of it; people who were never considered full members of the community but rather who were viewed as dependents in some fashion. They were, of course, the first to be rejected or hounded out in bad times.

Inevitably there were peasants who lost their lands, or who came to the village landless in the first place. These made their way as hired hands, moving from one village to another. They are often called day laborers, but this term means someone who was paid by the day and very often these workers would stay longer, helping with harvest or planting. They might also serve as laborers on a construction project. They were typically very poor and were never far from a run of bad luck and starvation.

In slightly better circumstances were cottagers. These were people who owned no land but who at least had a residence. They were essentially the employees of wealthier peasants, of families who had more land than they could work by themselves. A building would be found and adapted, sometimes hardly more than a shed, and a cottager family would move in there

Literally on the fringe of village society were the shepherds and woodcutters. True, peasants went into the woods and gathered branches, and peasant boys and girls tended flocks. But a shepherd was someone who tended flocks for a living, watching sheep for a rich landowner or for some consortium. The shepherd might have a shack in or near the village, but he also had one or more pitiful dwellings in the hills, sometimes hardly more than a cave. Similarly, woodcutters spent most of their time in the forest, felling trees for a lord and especially burning them in ovens to make charcoal.

These groups had the double disadvantage of living out in the wild and of being poor. Anyone who lived in the wild—that is to say, beyond the boundaries of village and town and castle—was deeply suspect. In folk tales, the shepherd and the woodcutter were the very symbols not only of poverty but also of a dangerous association with the wild.

Outcasts and Bandits

And finally, there were those who were beyond the borders of society; those who had either been cast out by the law or by social pressure, or who had withdrawn of their own accord. We know little of these people except that they existed and that they encountered the village from time to time.

They were fair game for any sort of indignity or outrage. The largest group were the itinerant poor—the wandering beggar. This person might be poor from financial disaster, but it also included those who were physically impaired or mentally unstable. In times of famine, their numbers swelled suddenly and hundreds or even thousands might be seen on the roads. Normally, though, they moved as individuals or small groups, and this did include families. If their numbers were few enough, a villager might give them a bit of food and a place to sleep.

Outlaws, on the other hand, were another matter. They rarely came around to a village, except to loot it, for an outlaw could be captured and even killed by anyone.