Life on the English Manor
A Study of Peasant Conditions 1150–1400

An account of the daily and yearly round of the English peasant in the Middle Ages.

H. S. Bennett (Author)

9780521091053, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 January 1937

396 pages
20.6 x 12.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.49 kg

'This is not just another book on English life in the Middle Ages and the ways of our forefathers … It is written with such clarity and grace and it reconstructs so vividly and yet with such scholarly attention to the evidence the fortunes of the poor six or seven centuries ago that it should attract the attention of a far wider audience.' New York Herald Tribune

This book gives a picture of the daily and yearly round of the English peasant in the Middle Ages. H. S. Bennett explains the feudal system which linked the poor man to the soil and to the service of his lord and the church in a pattern of customary dues and rights, payments, labours and small privileges. The author gives lively details of the pattern of medieval country life: the influence of the seasons and the state of contemporary knowledge on the work of the fields; the place of religion in everyday life; the workings of feudal justice; popular attitudes to the social structure; the business of getting a living. Since all the inhabitants of England outside the few large towns were essentially countrymen, this is an introduction to life in medieval England as a whole.

Author's preface
Dedicatory letter
Prologue: a faire felde ful of folke
1. The church
2. The manor and its cultivation
3. The manorial population
4. The peasant's year
5. Rents and services
6. Servile burdens
7. Manorial administration
8. The manor court
9. Everyday life
10. 'Merrie England'
11. The road to freedom
12. The church
Glossary
Abbreviations and authorities
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB]