Farmstead in a medieval town: how it worked

History Life on the land

Nine out of ten people in medieval Europe lived in the countryside, and most were farmers. Many were serfs, or villeins, who were tied to the lord's land: they farmed their own strips but also had to work on the lord's fields for part of the week.

Ridge and furrow at Cold Newton, England: waves in a field left by plowing long ago. Photo: Matt Neale from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

History Open fields

Around many villages lay two or three huge open fields without hedges. Each field was divided into long, narrow strips, and each family farmed strips scattered across the fields, so everyone shared good and poor land.

Fields took turns. In the three-field system, one field grew wheat or rye, the second grew peas, beans, oats or barley, and the third rested, so the soil could recover. Plowing the strips year after year left a pattern of ridges you can still see in some English fields today, called ridge and furrow.

A beautiful English prayer book, the Luttrell Psalter, from around 1330, shows farm life in its margins: plowing with oxen, sowing, harvesting and carting.

The West Field at Laxton, England, one of the last open fields still farmed in strips. Photo: Jonathan Thacker , CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

History The Black Death

From 1347 to 1351, a terrible plague, the Black Death, swept across Europe and killed perhaps a third or more of the people. With so few workers left, the survivors could ask for better pay, and the old ties of serfdom began to break down.

Art In this artwork

This cozy cottage with a chicken coop and cart stands for a family farm. Real farmhouses usually stood together in the village, with the fields outside.