Medieval Society

Daily Life in the Village

not finished!

The Cycle of the Day

This was in general pretty simple. Get up, work, go to bed. But there were differences by age and gender in the kind of work done.

The Cycle of the Year

The peasant's year was dictated by the cycle of the crops, and this varied somewhat by region. For example, a peasant engaged mainly in viticulture had a different rhythm to his year than one engaged in livestock or olives or wheat. Even those engaged mainly in the cereal crops, as most were, did more than grow a single crop.

Even so, there was usually one crop that was the most important one, the one the formed the backbone and foundation of the village's economic life, and whose success or failure generally made the difference between good times and hard times.

History of Western Civilization

E.L. Skip Knox
Boise State University

Comments and questions