A Peasant’s Life

Every year, Li’s family struggled to survive with the limited amount of food that was accessible. Poverty surrounded them. They couldn’t get away from it. Li remarked, “There was never enough food to feed the people, let alone the pigs.” They may have owned pigs and chickens but they could never provide them with enough food to fatten them up to eat or for them to produce eggs. Eggs were a rarity. Meats in their diets were uncommon. They mainly “ate a lot of dried yams. They were the easiest things to grow.” They lived off yams. They relied on yams as their food source. Everything they could “grow and earn from the land depended on the weather and luck.” Every family received basic foods that the government controlled. They were “allocated a very small quantity of meat, seafood and eggs, along with oil, soy sauce, sugar, salt, wheat, and cornflour, rice and also coal each month.” The Li family tried their best to preserve as

Peasants lived in small cottages or huts with their families, and they laid claim to small strips of land and also a share of the meadow. (ok just add some more info)

Peasants were members of the lowest class, those who work. They were the most common class. They were the millers, blacksmiths, butchers, carpenters, farmers, and other trades people. Peasant women in particular, spent much of their time taking care of children, making clothes, and cooking meals. They also tended gardens, took care of animals by tending chicken, shearing sheep, and milking cows (Cels 16). Within peasants, there were two main groups of people, the serfs and the freemen. Both were employed by the lords. And serfs were people that paid more fees, and had less rights. Freemen on the other hand paid less fees and had more rights than serfs (Noiret). While freemen could leave the manor when at whim, serfs were not allowed to leave

The theme of inequality starts to develop in the first chapter where the peasants are depicted to be living in conditions, which are regarded to be wretched. These peasants only have scant clothing and the children are required by law to walk bare without any garments. Furthermore, the peasants live in filthy spaces, and they eat poor food. Iron collars are put on the peasant as an indication of slavery which is rampant among the common population (Hasty 22). The deplorable condition of the peasants sharply contradicts the life of the knights and the inhabitants of the royal court. In the royal court, there is a parade of knights residing in the

Life in the high middle ages, between 1000 and 1300 A.D., had two kinds of communities, manorial villages and towns. The major difference in these two distinct types of communities was the freedom and rights of the people. In the manorial villages you had lords who owned large portions of land. The vassals who entered into a military obligation with the lords, in exchange for land and protection. Finally, serfs who were a class of people that worked their lord’s land as half slave and half freeman. Vassals were more of an employee and the serfs were little more than a slave because they were bound to the lord’s land. The serfs could not leave or do anything without the lord’s permission and most of the time they had to pay fees to be granted the permissions they requested. In contrast the townspeople elected their officials, had freedom to choose a careers, they move about where they liked, and could acquire training and schooling. Townspeople were in fact free and not absolutely controlled by a lord. As for the manorial villages, the lords had all the power and had absolute control over all the actions and work of the vassals and serfs.

Almost all day was spent outside working in the fields, fishing, hunting, and socializing. The women would tend the crops and collect berries and greens as well as catching some smaller game. The men would also work in the fields but most of their time was probably spent on short hunting and fishing trips to nearby lakes and forests. At the end of the day, families and friends would gather together for their evening meal. Much time was spent around the cook-fires telling stories, mending nets, sharpening tools, and working wood (Pauketat

The Middle Ages, or Dark Ages, of the 15th century, established a policy regarding the practice of agriculture that later became known as feudalism. The monarchy bestowed vast tracts of land and an ennobling title to individuals who were tasked with keeping a functioning economy in their lands and maintaining a private militia for the protection of the realm and fiefdom they owned. These aristocrats allocated parcels of land to the serfs, or peasants, in exchange for complete rustic servitude and the privilege being allowed to live on that lord's land. Any crops or animals that were cultivated belonged to the realm and peasants were only permitted to keep a meager portion of their efforts. This archaic practice, established during the era

All serfs were farmers. Serfs had poor shelter and lacked a diet. Most serfs lived in small homes made of stones, with roofs made of clay tiles or shingles. They had hard dirt floors and slept on straw mattresses that were on the floor. They had some furniture such as stools benches and a table (Cels 9). Peasants often ate bread and had pottage which was like a soup. Pottage was flavored with various types of vegetables. Since peasants weren't that wealthy, they rarely ate meat because it was expensive to buy and keep animals. Small amounts of chicken, pork and beef were considered treats (Cels 9). Serfs children often helped the parents around the house. Young children that were peasants normally played with toys such as dolls, carts, horses,whistles,

Gentry and rich folks ate “brown meats” like: beef, venison, mutton, and pork. Poor also ate a lot more vegetables than the rich they could make it just fine without fancy dishes eaten by their richer social class. Nutritionists today would appreciate the peasant’s simple diet.

During the Middle Ages a peasant’s life was, indeed, very rough, there were anywhere from ten to sixty families living in a single village; they lived in rough huts on dirt floors, with no chimneys, or windows. Usually one end of the hut was given over to storing livestock. Furnishings were quite sparse; three legged stools, a trestle table, beds softened with straw or leaves and placed on the floor; the peasant diet was mainly porridge, cheese, black bread, and a few homegrown vegetables. Peasants had a hard life, yet they did not work on Sundays, and they could travel to nearby fairs and markets. The basic diet of a lord consisted of meat, fish, pastries, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, beans, and peas, as well as fresh bread, cheese, and fruit. This is by no means equivalent to the meals the peasants ate, a lord might even feast on boar, swan, or peacock as well.

Poor people were known as squatters, their jobs were to build dwellings on waste land. When farming the land, they would be divided into threes. For this reason, it was for each field to contain one strip of land for wheat (bread), another for barley,

Life as a serf or peasant was not easy. Serfs were bound to their lord's land and required to do services for him. Although they could not be sold like slaves, they had no freedom (Ellis and Esler 219-244). Peasants farmed for the goods that the lord and his manor needed. They went through difficult hardship because of this. Peasants were heavily taxed and had to provide for themselves the goods that they needed (“The Middle Ages”). According to the medieval law, the peasants were not considered to 'belong to' themselves (“The Middle Ages”). Although serfs were peasants and had relatively the same duties and similar rights, what differentiated a peasant from a serf was that a peasant was not bound to the land (“The Middle Ages”). Peasants had no schooling and no knowledge of the outside world (Ellis and Esler 219-244). They rarely traveled more than a couple miles outside of their villages. All members of a peasant family, including children, tended crops, farmed, and did some sort of work to help out (Ellis and Esler 224). Very few peasants lived past the age of 35 because of hunger in the winter and the easy development and transmission of disease (Ellis and Esler 224).

The Peasant’s Revolt happened during the medieval era. A period that was noted as one of the most exciting times in the history of England and Europe. The peasants who survived the Black Death believed that there was something very special about them and God had protected them.

From The Road to Serfdom, how and why does F.A. Hayek denounce all forms of planning or collectivism? What is so superior to laissez faire or capitalism and why?

Predictably, the most advanced farming was found in the North. In the South, the deforestation of the last century had all but drained the soil of its fertility, and share-croppers living below the Rome level had difficulty providing themselves with even the bare necessities. Most of all, the system was not conducive to change: the mass of people were too poor to invest in their own lands and landlords had no incentive to provide it. The further South one looked, the bleaker the picture became: there, landless labourers were at the mercy of the whims of landowners without scruples. Most of these peasants lived in mud huts with their own animals, and ate a diet consisting mainly of poor bread and polenta.