What did medieval people own?

Answer 1

In medieval times European peasants owned very little. Indeed the land that they worked on farming was normally not their own. They would only have owned small personal items that they could create themselves or were passed down in their family and in most cases did not even own their home. In this time period peasants were little better than slaves who worked for the benefit of the manor owner who owned the land they worked and lived on. It could even be said that a peasant truly owned nothing as they would have no rights to their own personal items if their lord chose to take them away from them. They really didn't even own themselves, as they were seen as property of their lord.

Answer 2

Peasants were small farmers, but there were many types of peasants, and they were different in terms of the things they could own.

At the highest level of peasants were people variously known as franklins or yeomen. They owned land, but not enough to qualify them as members of the landed aristocracy. The amount of land was 30 to 120 acres, or about 12 to 50 hectares, enough to provide for a family. They owned their own cottages, barns, and outbuildings. They often had a number of servants or farm hands working for them, but would not usually have tenants of their own.

At a lower level were freemen who were tenants of some lord. These people rented their land and buildings, but might or might not have owned the equipment they used, depending on the terms of their rent. They also might or might not have owned the furniture in their homes, though if they bought or made furniture, they would have owned it. They owned their crops, their animals, and certainly their personal items such as clothes.

The peasants who were in greatest number at some times of the Middle Ages were serfs, who included villeins and bordars. These people were tied to the land and were legally obliged to remain there, providing work and part of the crop to the lord, who provided them with a place to live, fields to farm, and protection in return. These people really only owned their personal goods such as clothing, and some animals such as pigs and chickens they kept on land assigned to them for their own use. There was no restriction on owning other things, but they had little money to buy things with. These serfs were not slaves, could not be bought or sold, and had a number of important rights. They could not be evicted from the land by the lord, even though he owned it, without cause. Serfs of this level pretty much disappeared from England and many other places by the end of the Middle Ages, and there were places where serfdom was never established.

At the very lowest level were slaves. They could be bought and sold and owned very little. They could be bought and sold. Slavery was considered an abomination by the Church through much of the Middle Ages, and did not last. In England, the slave trade was prohibited by William the Conqueror, and his son Henry I outlawed it altogether.

Answer 3

It depends really on what job they do and what year you are talking about because after some time peasants could come to higher levels and become moire important so they could have more money which means they could buy more. But before peasants were over worked and under paid if you get what I mean so they couldn't buy much! Hope I didn't offend anyone by this but if I didn't thx for reading this,Hope it helped

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Answer 4

The two main types of domestic animals were pigs (which could be fed very cheaply or for free and which could be sold at a profit) and "productive long-term" animals such as geese and cows. Geese would be kept for their eggs, cattle for their milk - both would be eaten when they stopped producing, but by then they would be very old and chewy.

Pigs were traditionally put out loose in woodland for several months, where they ate acorns, beech mast and roots.

Some people kept a very poor quality horse for pulling light farm equipment such as the harrow, which was a giant rake for tilling the soil prior to planting. Oxen were the main draft animals used for all heavy work such as ploughing and pulling carts; a full plough team consisted of 8 oxen, including young ones and breeding cows to ensure a constant supply of animals.

Some shepherds kept small dogs to help guard the flocks; other peasants might have goats or chickens to provide milk and eggs, instead of cattle and geese.

Apart from the pigs, all these creatures needed to have food supplied, so they were an additional burden on poor people.