Europe in the Middle Ages - Episode 3

Good morning, we are continuing our way through the people of the Middle Ages.  This time we will be exploring the life of the peasants and the nobles.  The run time for this episode is 51:56.

Books give us a glimpse into how the nobles and kings lived.  However, little is found about peasants.  They are the voiceless masses of the Middle Ages.  The peasants could not read or write.  Their lives were uninteresting.  Prayer books show how the peasants live.  This episode follows the life of a peasant.  He is a traveling showman.  He is an orphan, who did not know his father or his mother.  He has been on the move earning a few pence.  The peasants look down on him because he travels so much.  He has a unique insight into the life of a peasant. 

Peasants could marry each other but had to have the permission of the Feudal Lord to marry.  They would have had to pay off the Lord to get married.  The peasants were tied to the land and were protected by a lord.  They did not have the freedom that the traveling entertainer did.  He would have moved on after the celebrations.  He even went into town to provide medical services like pulling teeth.

Anthropologists in Austria are trying to discover more about peasants.  What diseases did they suffer from?  What did they eat?  What caused their death?  There have been over 200 skeletons examined.  These skeletons come from a 10th Century cemetery.  In the graves, there were a few simple objects.  The average age was 21, however, there was a high rate of infant mortality.  Many of the people lived over 40 years old with a handful living past 60 years old.  Anthropologists carefully examine the bones of the dead and discovered that there were insufficient levels of Vitamin C.  There have been holes in the bones, hinting at a disease.  Tuberculosis was common in the village and spread through the village.

A nobleman’s prayerbook depicts a peasant’s life very differently.  They depict a flattering picture of the peasants.  Images show the peasants working in their Sunday best.  They exposed themselves in shameless ways to the noblemen.  However, a peasant’s life was not an easy one.  They grew oats and rye, and if these harvests failed famines followed.  They rotated their crops, giving the land time to rest.  A village has been reconstructed to show the life of a peasant.  An agricultural revolution helped increase food yields which helped increase the population.

Agriculture became a science during the Middle Ages.  One of the first books on agriculture was written at this time.  This book provided guides on how to grow crops, what to grow, when to grow, and other areas of agriculture. 

The church and the lords demanded a tithe.  The peasants had to surrender as much as half of their produce.  The lords always received the best from the peasants.  The traveling entertainer watches as a lord reacts angrily to a presentation.  The entertainer stepped in and helped the poor peasant.  This is when the documentary turns to the archives in Aragon to discover information about the tax laws.  The archives document the taxes and the complaints about the taxes.  Aragon introduced the income tax because the king’s income was no longer sufficient enough to pay for the armies.  The people had to document what money was made over the year.  Then there is a long discussion on taxes in the Middle Ages.

So what was the lot of the peasant?  Where does the traveling entertainer go?  What was life like in a castle?  Why was it really called the Dark Ages?  What were the rules of polite behavior?  What else was introduced during the Middle Ages?  Continue to watch this episode to find out more about the peasant and the nobles.

I am a little bit mixed when it comes to this documentary.  Maybe there could have been a different character selected, but I understand that this traveling entertainer had a unique perspective on the peasant’s lot.  It started out slow and then it started picking up with the information on the clothing laws.  At the start I would recommend you skip this episode for the classroom, however, it got better in the middle of the documentary.  So now I would recommend this episode for the classroom.