Life in the countryside
Countryside
The countryside of England would have looked very different from what we see today.
Thick forest would have covered a lot of it containing dangerous wild animals
such as wolves and boars.
In clearings throughout the forest would have been the villages. In each village the
largest buildings would have been the church and the manor house. Life in the village
was fairly stable unlike the turbulent lives of the King and Earls of the country who
always seemed to be at war with each other or other countries.
Domesday Book
The Domesday book gives us an excellent record of numbers of people and
amounts of land in England in 1085. William the Conqueror organised the book's creation
to find out how much his new domains in England were worth and how much they could produce. This
was useful information for raising taxes. It took several years
to collate and involved many inspectors travelling around the country to gather the information.
Each entry in the book gives the name of the manor and the owner.
It also includes the number of hides, number of ploughs, villeins, cottars, freemen and mills etc.
A hide was roughly an area of land of about 120 acres but this could vary quite a bit.
Another name for a hide is a caracute. To get an idea of the size of a hide, a modern
football pitch is about 2 acres in size. Each hide was sub-divided into 'hundreds'. A
'hundred' being the amount of land required to support a hundred homes. These were
then divided again into manors.
The village
A community in medieval times consisted of a village, church and manor house. Around the
village was the farm land that belonged to the manor.
Part of this land was called demense and was owned by the Lord
of the manor to use as he wished and was worked by the villeins. This land was
different to the land that was rented out to tenants. There was also common
land which was used for cattle grazing and wooded areas where pigs were feed.
The villagers lived in wooden huts
and later stone houses. Although the villagers all worked togther in the fields
they did not have the same status. Some were freemen who owned or rented a house and
were able to leave the village if they wished. Villeins were villagers who were owned
by the manor. Villeins did not own their own homes but were allowed some land where
they could grow their own food. Villeins had to work on the manor's farm several days a week and they could
not leave the village. Cottars were the poorest villagers and did not have any land on which
to grow their own food. Their food and lodgings were earned by doing work for the Lord of the manor.
Village Jobs
Each village would have had skilled craftsmen; carpenters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths.
Overseeing and representing the villagers was the reeve. This person was elected by the
villagers and helped defend the rights of the villagers at the manor. The hayward had to
make sure the animals in the village did not stray too far or start eating the crops.
Mills and Dovecotes
Watermills and windmills would have been a common sight in medieval villages
and were used to grind the corn. The mills were owned by the Lord of the manor.
Villeins were allowed to take their own corn to the mill for grinding but had
to give some corn in payment for the service. Windmills were built on rotating
bases so that they could be turned into the wind.
Dovecotes were buildings used to house and rear pigeons. In medieval times
young pigeon meat was eaten as a delicacy. The pigeons were also kept for
their eggs and their feathers. Most dovecotes are circular in shape and could
hold several hundred birds. The buildings were
designed to keep out rodents which could eat the eggs. The dovecotes may not
have been popular with the villeins as the birds would eat their corn.
Fish ponds
Fish was widely eaten during the Medieval era and to provide a fresh supply many
manors had a fish pond constructed.
Tithe Barn
Ten percent (a tenth) of what the villages produced was given to the church. The produce
was stored in a barn called a tithe barn.
Self Sufficient
Generally the village was self sufficient, meaning it could grow enough food
and supply all the needs for the villagers within it. The luxuries would have been
bought at the larger fairs. For more information on markets and fairs, see the
Markets and Fairs page.
Problems arose for the village when the weather
during the year was bad. If the crops failed it was likely to cause a famine.
There does not appear to have been a way of storing
surplus food from good years to be used in bad years.
Deforestation
Large amounts of forest were cut down in medieval times as wood was required for fuel,
building castles, churches, homes and ships. The reduction of woodland became so great
that conservation methods were required. Coppicing was
a method they used to preserve the trees while still taking what they needed from them. The
idea behind coppicing is to cut back young trees so that many smaller offshoots are produced.
These offshoots were then harvested every few years. With the reduction in wood other fuels
were needed. One of these was coal.
Mining
In medieval times coal was mined and used in the production of iron. Most of the coal was
mined in open-cast mines where the coal seams were easily found above or just below the
surface of the land. When the easily mined coal began to run out people turned to seacoal.
The name seacoal is thought to have been used because the coal was found washed up on beaches
but this seems unlikely. Lead iron ore and tin were also mined in medieval times.
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