Most peasants didn’t own the fields they were working to feed their own household. Instead, they leased them from the local lord, who owned most of the land.
(This seems to be the core difference between “peasants” and " freemen" - the latter owned their own land.)
I’m exchange, they were called in to work the lord’s fields as well as their leased “home plot”.
As far as I know, this statistic only refers to the “holidays” where the lord was not allowed to call in their land-tenants to work. They still had to work to maintain their own household as needed.
This doesn’t mean that people had to work on the lord’s fields all day on all non-holidays, it was just an upper limit. The exact amount was probably codified in local laws / the lease agreement.
It also doesn’t mean that people had to work all the time even on holidays - just enough to get their shit done. Some days were even explicit “no work at all” holidays or half-days, were peeps where expected to show up at church instead.
And the amount of work needed generally varied wildly with the seasons - harvest season was crunch time, winter was slow season. It also varied depending on the exact location (agriculture in the Mediterranean was different than in Scotland) and on the available technology.
Take care of gramps, while listening to stories about the good old days, when the soil was so soft the fields virtually plowed themselves, lords properly honored the labor of their surfs, and knights actually helped their ladies mount a horse, and could even buy a whole suit of armor for less than five times their annual earnings.
What did they do the rest of the time?
Mostly work at home.
Most peasants didn’t own the fields they were working to feed their own household. Instead, they leased them from the local lord, who owned most of the land.
(This seems to be the core difference between “peasants” and " freemen" - the latter owned their own land.)
I’m exchange, they were called in to work the lord’s fields as well as their leased “home plot”.
As far as I know, this statistic only refers to the “holidays” where the lord was not allowed to call in their land-tenants to work. They still had to work to maintain their own household as needed.
This doesn’t mean that people had to work on the lord’s fields all day on all non-holidays, it was just an upper limit. The exact amount was probably codified in local laws / the lease agreement.
It also doesn’t mean that people had to work all the time even on holidays - just enough to get their shit done. Some days were even explicit “no work at all” holidays or half-days, were peeps where expected to show up at church instead.
And the amount of work needed generally varied wildly with the seasons - harvest season was crunch time, winter was slow season. It also varied depending on the exact location (agriculture in the Mediterranean was different than in Scotland) and on the available technology.
Play games. Sing and dance.
Imbibe.
Ogle the strapping lads and buxom maidens.
Take care of gramps, while listening to stories about the good old days, when the soil was so soft the fields virtually plowed themselves, lords properly honored the labor of their surfs, and knights actually helped their ladies mount a horse, and could even buy a whole suit of armor for less than five times their annual earnings.
What would you do?