Life In A Medieval Village Summary
Life In A Medieval Village is about archaeological discoveries from
the Middle Ages. The author, Frances Gies, uses details and descriptions to
help her auidence visualize how people worked and lived seven hundred
years ago. The village is a very small town, or as we would say, a
metropolitan suburb. The population consisted of farmers rather than
merchants or craftsmen. Still, socially, economically, and politically, it
was a community. Together the people formed an integrated whole for
agricultural production. There they lived, labored, socialized, loved,
married, sinned, went to church, paid fines, and had children.
The medieval village represented a new stage of the world's ...
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resident lord was usually a petty knight. The old feudal theory of lordship
as a link in the legal chain of authority running from serf to monarch had
lost much of it's substance. However, as far as the village was concerned
such legal complications hardly mattered, anymore than whether the lord
was great or small. A village with two or more lords was comfortable.
Whatever the technicalities, the lord was the main consumer of the village,
meaning he was in control of the profits. The 13th century manor, of which
the village was a part, was not a political or military enterprise but an
economic one, with the lord its exploiter and beneficiary. Still, on a
daily basis the medieval villagers actually existed in a state of near
autonomy controlled by the agricultural cycle of plowing, planting, growing
and harvesting.
How the villagers interacted with one another was quite interesting.
Suposedly the peasant's relationship with his lord dominated scholarly
investigation. This ...
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status. Differences in wealth existed and land was the most
important kind of wealth. The land was to protect the family and to assure
the lord of his rents and services.
Within the village community, the basic social and economic unit
was the family household. The number of members was different through each
family. Generally it was the young couple, children, grandparents, an aunt
or uncle, and a widow or widower. Generally, scholars, believe there are
no more than five members in the average household, because size tended to
reflect economic status with rich households supporting more children,
other relatives, and a servant or two.
I do believe I forgot to mention how ...
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"Life In A Medieval Village Summary." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 16 Oct. 2004. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Life-In-A-Medieval-Village-Summary/15972>
"Life In A Medieval Village Summary." Essayworld.com. October 16, 2004. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Life-In-A-Medieval-Village-Summary/15972.
"Life In A Medieval Village Summary." Essayworld.com. October 16, 2004. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Life-In-A-Medieval-Village-Summary/15972.
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