What was Life Like in a Norman Village? (AQA GCSE History)

Summary

The vast majority of people in Norman England lived in villages and their lives remained mostly unchanged by the Conquest. Life for most peasants was still hard and short regardless of where they were in the social hierarchy. Work was back-breaking and relentless - only interrupted by days off to attend church. Most lives would have been spent in repetitive manual labour without ever travelling more than a few miles from the village. For many peasants, they were not able to leave the village without their lord’s permission. Food, like the work, was dull and repetitive for the poor. This, combined with the dirty and overcrowding single-room homes led to a very low average life expectancy for peasants in Norman England

Who held the power in Norman villages?

• The hierarchy of power in villages remained the same after the Norman Conquest - but a Norman baron normally replaced the Anglo-Saxon thegn as the lord of the manor

• Around 97% of England’s population were peasants of different sorts:

  • Freemen

  • Villeins

  • Bordars and cottars

  • Slaves

Freeman

• Known as ceorls in Anglo-Saxon England these people:

  • paid rents to the local lord

  • farmed they rented

Villeins

• Semi-free peasants these people: 

  • could not leave a village 

  • marry without the lord’s permission

  • worked the lord’s land for free, usually for three days a week

  • had access to strips of land on which they could grow their own food to eat, sell or barter

Borders and cottars

• Lower status than villeins, they:

  • had to perform more menial tasks for the lord such as fixing roads or gathering wood

  • had access to plots of land but they were usually smaller than those of the villeins

Slaves

• These people were the legal property of the local lord, they were 

  • unpaid

  • could be bought and sold like cattle

• Slaves made up around 10% of England’s population in 1066 

• Their numbers declined to almost nothing under the Normans 

• This may be because: 

  • the church disapproved of slavery 

  • because working people as bordars and cottars was a cheaper and more effective way of making people work

Features of Norman villages

• The biggest stone building and centre of life in most villages was the church

  • Many churches were rebuilt by the Normans 

  • The parish priest was responsible for conducting marriages, baptisms, funerals and church services on Sundays and holy days

  • He was also responsible for the wills of villagers

• Often the only other stone building in a village was the manor house

  • The was the home of the local lord 

• Lords often built watermills that ground the grain grown by the whole village into flour

  • A miller was employed to operate the mill and peasants were charged to have their grain ground

Freedom in Norman villages

• Life in Norman villages was incredibly hard and there was very little freedom or free time for peasants - even for freemen

  • It was a constant struggle to produce enough food to survive and the possibility of starvation was always near

  • The working day began half an hour before sunrise (people were woken by the church bells) and continued until sunset

• Peasants worked every day apart from Sundays and holy days

  • Church services took place on Sundays and holy days

Housing in Norman villages

• Manor houses gradually developed from simple timber constructions to more sophisticated stone buildings

• They often had features such as: 

  • a large hall with a central hearth used for communal living and banquets

  • private living quarters for the lord’s family on the upper floor

  • a private chapel for the lord and his family

  • kitchen and servants’ quarters 

  • surrounded by barns and other outbuildings

• The manor house fulfilled several important roles: 

  • it reflected the status and importance of the lord

  • it provided secure storage for harvested crops and farming tools

  • it was the venue for court hearings, assemblies and feasts

• Peasants’ homes were windowless, single rooms in which the whole family and its animals slept

  • The walls were constructed from wattle and daub

  • The roof was made from thatch and contained a hole to let smoke escape

  • The floor was made from compacted earth and would be covered in straw that was changed once a year

  • They were usually surrounded by a small plot of land where animals, chickens and geese were kept

  • Villeins usually had slightly bigger homes and plots of land than bordars and cottars 

Jobs in Norman villages

• Most villagers were peasants who worked the land and their jobs changed with the seasons:

  • Spring: ploughing the earth, sowing seeds, pruning trees and lambing

  • Summer: Harvesting crops, picking fruit, preserving the fruit, shearing the sheep, gathering wood to burn

  • Autumn: Continuing the harvest, grinding grain into flour, ploughing the earth, sowing seeds

  • Winter: Slaughtering animals and preserving their meat, fixing homes, fences and tools

Hygiene in Norman villages

• Villages were dirty places with no bathroom or toilet facilities

  • However, hands were routinely washed before meals and bathing took place in rivers and streams when temperatures allowed

• Villages were often isolated places that rarely had outside visitors

  • The homes of peasants were also spread out in comparison to those in towns

  • Both factors meant that the spread of disease was a problem in the countryside

• Dirty, cramped, smokey living conditions combined with relentless physical labour and an unvaried diet led to a low average life expectancy

  • The average life expectancy was around 30 but the deaths of so many children in early childhood would impact that figure

  • Most villages would contain people in their sixties

Diet in Norman villages

• The diet of the poor was unvaried and remained unchanged by the Norman Conquest

  • Bread was eaten daily and made from rye flour so would have been brown in colour

  • The lord charged to both grind the flour in his mill and bake the bread in his oven

• The most common meal was a thick soup made from peas and beans and whatever ingredients were available called pottage

  • This was cooked in a big pot over a fire and was added to daily to create a kind of ‘never ending soup’

• Meat was rarely eaten as animals were expensive and meat was difficult to preserve

  • The animals that peasants kept were kept for pulling ploughs and providing milk, eggs and cheese rather than meat

• Water was often contaminated and dangerous to drink and so was avoided

  • Peasants would brew alcoholic drinks such as beer, cider and mead and would also drink milk

• Fruit was cooked into types of jam so that it would last throughout the winter

• The diet of the rich contained a lot more meat and a lot less vegetables and dairy products - which were seen as peasant food

  • After the Norman Conquest, wine featured far more commonly in the diets of the nobles

  • They are a variety of animals, including birds such as blackbirds and larks

  • Hunting was extremely popular amongst nobles and they often ate the dear and wild boar they had killed 

  • The rich ate bread made from wheat that would have been lighter in colour than rye bread but still brown