life in the Country: during the Middle Ages, most people lived in the country and worked as farmers. Usually, a local lord lived in a large house called a manor. local peasants worked the land for the lord.
yes, they worked hard all year long, growing crops such as barley, wheat, and oats. it was a busy life.
people had animals such as pigs, chickens for eggs and cows for milk. note: usually family animals, such as a cow, may also live inside the home (since the cow would provide a source of heat during the winter). (this is a controversial topic nowadays).
the mark definitely extends to food. yes, food is design! CHEESE!
life in the city: city life was very different from country life, but it wasn't much more accessible. cities were crowded and dirty. lots of people worked as craftsmen and were members of a guild. young boys would serve as apprentices for seven years learning a craft. other jobs in the city included servants, merchants, bakers, doctors, and lawyers.
one last mark is excrement: this is a distinct mark of middle ages in Europe.
In any medieval city with a population of 10,000, people typically produced 900,000 liters of excrement and nearly three million liters of urine annually. This was before such cities had underground sewage systems. They were ankle-deep in a putrid mix of wet mud, rotten fish, garbage, entrails, and animal dung. People dumped their own buckets of faeces and urine into the street or simply sloshed them out the window. Dung (or excrement) was not the only filth that piled up in medieval cities. The waste products of various trades were equally pervasive. Tanneries and textile production were messy businesses. Worst were the slaughterhouses.
Intestines and heads had to be thrown somewhere. The intestines were cleaned of dung. Blood and water with fur or hair had to be rinsed away. Complaints about butchers are found in older written sources from England. Pollution in the middle ages? Indeed.
In 1371 the city council in York forbade butchers from discarding waste products in the river near a monastery. So, the butchers started throwing intestinal and bloody waste near their walls and gates and at another spot in the River Ouse. The friars complained again that the people of the city and country who used to attend their church «are withdrawing themselves because of the stench and the horrible sights.» The monks also feared that «sickness and manifold other harm» would result from this pollution.
life in the home: most people lived in tiny one or two-room homes. these homes were very crowded and usually, everyone slept in the same room. the home was usually dark, smoky from the fire, and uncomfortable.
clothing:
the wealthy wore clothes made from fine wool, velvet, and even silk. men generally wore a tunic, woolen stockings, breeches, and a cloak.
since they didn't have a way to keep their meat cold, they would eat it fresh. leftover meat was smoked or salted to preserve it. the nobles ate a wider variety of food including meats and sweet puddings.
schooling: very few people attended school in the Middle Ages. most peasants learned their job and how to survive from their parents. some children learned a craft through apprenticeship and the guild system.
wealthy children often learned through tutors. they would go to live in the castle of another lord where they would work for the lord, learning about how a large manor was run. there were some schools run by the church. here students would learn to read and write latin (the lingua franca in Europe).
universities began during the Middle Ages. they started as cathedral schools. university students would study a wide range of subjects including reading, writing, logic, math, music, astronomy, and public speaking.
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