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 known as manors. In each manor the largest buildings would have been the church and the manor house. Life in the manor was fairly stable unlike the turbulent conditions 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 Manor

A community in medieval times consisted of a manor. This was usually arranged along a single street with the houses on each side. Behind the houses were fields, pasture and meadows that belonged to the manor. The manor was commonly situated by a stream used as a source of water and a source of power to drive a watermill. Woods provided a habitat for pigs and for hunting. The largest buildings in the manor were the church and manor house where the lord lived. Both the church and manor house were set back from the main street.

Part of the 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.

The ordinary people lived in wooden huts and later stone houses. The houses were small and had thatched rooves. As well as a home for a family the house could also be used as a shelter for animals and poultry. A cellar or pit was used to store grain. Although the people 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 manor if they wished. Some were villeins who were owned by the lord of 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 manor. Cottars were the poorest people 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 or the villians.

Jobs

Each manor would have had skilled craftsmen; carpenters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Overseeing and representing the villagers was the reeve. This person was elected by the people of the manor and helped defend their rights. 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.

Diet

The people ate a simple diet during the medieval period. Pork from pigs was common as well as fish. To provide a fresh supply of fish many manors had a fish pond constructed. Vegetables were eaten only when they were in season due to limitations in their ability to store food without it going off. Some simple dairy products would have been available if the manor had cattle or sheep. A bakery would supply freshly baked bread.

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. The church would use some of this food to distribute to the poor and to feed the sick.

Generally Self Sufficient

Generally the manor was self sufficient, meaning it could grow enough food and supply all the needs for the people within it. Any luxuries would have been bought at the larger fairs located in nearby towns or from travelling traders. For more information on markets and fairs, see the Markets and Fairs page.

Some manors specialised in certain products. A mining community would have concentrated on producing iron ore, for example, and may not have been able to grow all the food they needed so they would have traded their iron for the supplies they were short of.

If the manor was too isolated problems arose when the weather was bad throughout the year. 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.