How was life like in medieval villages?

Answer 1

Medieval villages consisted of a population comprised of mostly of farmers. Houses, barns sheds, and animal pens clustered around the center of the village, which was surrounded by plowed fields and pastures. Medieval society depended on the village for protection and a majority of people during these centuries called a village home. Most were born, toiled, married, had children and later died within the village, rarely venturing beyond its boundaries.

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A village had a church, and in fact this was the technical factor determining that it was a village. A settlement without a church was called a hamlet.

There were a number of things a village did not have, but the most important of these was a permanent market place. In order to have a market place, it would have to have a royal charter, and such a charter made it a town. It could also not have a cathedral, because that would have made it a city. The definitions were different in those days, and were not based on the population.

Answer 2

it helped change the medival society because through towns, instead of depending on agriculture people started to depend on trade (money) which got rid of the medival economy. towns also gave peasants a sense of independence which also made them break away from feudalism.

Answer 3

It was scary. frighting. evil. bad. no fun for you. You never knew who was around the corner. Maybe a murderer. maybe a bad guy. Who was knocking at Your door. You always had to be on your best behaivor. those who weren't would be punished. You had to work hard. You had to work very hard on a farm. some people even burned farms.

Answer 4

The towns today are more cleaner and more built up so to speak then the medieval towns. The medieval towns were dirty and disease ridden. For example, the butchers and the townspeople were told to just put their waste out onto the street-human waste and garbage were included in this "waste." Medieval towns did not have a garbage system or a sewer system, so that's the main way how we differ now..

Answer 5

They have about 20 small houses in them and were surrounded by fields.

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At least in England, the defining feature of a village was a church. Without a church, a cluster of houses and buildings was a hamlet. In a village, there would have been a churchyard, with a graveyard.

Villages did not have permanent markets, as these were the distinguishing feature of a town. But they might have certain kinds of shops where things were worked and sold, most likely being a blacksmith's shop. A mill was a common thing to have, and often there was a baker because few people could afford their own ovens. In some places, an alternate to the baker was a community oven people could rent to make their own bread.

There could be an inn or someone in village who sold food and beer. Cooking became more a problem when the density of the population increased, and people tended to cook for themselves less and less in larger villages and towns. So though it was very unlikely a person could buy prepared food in a small village, it was very likely a person could find it in a large village.

Every village needed a water source, and so they were built on streams, the sides of lakes, or places where there were wells. So a body of water or well was a feature of a village. Many of the larger villages had public baths where people could bathe in warm water.

There would have been a road, possibly more than one, and they would have been dirt. Villages tended to thrive best where people travelled through, so crossroads were good places for them, and fords or bridges were even better. In these places, the villages could grow into towns.

Answer 6

•Villages were structured by having some human settlements nearby but not a lot. There was a look out tower. The way people got in the village was level of command/importance first is the monarchs then the tenants next came the peasants and then was everyone else.

Answer 7

They changed very little over time. A villager that had died in 1500 would in many cases have little trouble finding his way or recognizing his village if he had resurrected in 1790. Some villages grew, sometimes even into small towns, others dwindled, others again stayed much the same.

Only in the 19th and 20th century the industrial revolution with many village people moving to the cities changed the face of villages, just as better roads being constructed, the arrival of modern Plumbing, modern farming techniques, and city people moving in.

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Population grew, especially in the 11th-13th centuries: sometimes new villages were created, but existing ones grew too. Plague in the 14th and 15th centuries reduced the population and resulted in the total abandonment of some villages, a few of which remain deserted to this day.

The power of local lords waned as the economy became more complex from roughly the 12th century and as the spread of money allowed peasants to free themselves of customary labour obligations by offering payment instead. This process accelerated after the plague, as local shortages of people created opportunities for geographical mobility and wage labour.