Why was the feudal life hard for the serfs?

Answer 1

A serf was a slave and worked all day until sundown. They didn't get paid and had very little free time.

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Serfs were not slaves. They were said to be bound to the soil, meaning that they could not move away from the estate on which they lived. They had certain very important rights, including a right to live on the estate, a right to work there, and a right to protection.

Most serfs were farmers, and, like all nearly farmers through history, they worked hard and long hours. In fact they worked so hard it was understood that they should be allowed to eat breakfast in order to fuel their day, unlike the nobility, who were criticized as gluttons if they ate breakfast. Serfs also took breaks for snacks to provide fuel for their labors.

Most serfs worked for their lords one or two days each week. They worked on common fields much of the remainder of the week, but had some time to work on the fields assigned to them for their own use. Since The Bible said people had to rest on the Sabbath, serfs did very little work on Sunday, only doing such chores as were required, such as milking cows. They also took Church feast days off as they were locally observed. One text I read said it was estimated there were 88 Sundays and other feast days in the usual serfs year, so they would have taken about one day in four off.

Serfs of the Middle Ages were taught to be clean, bathe often, and avoid bad air, such as things that smelled bad. I tried tracking down the source of the bad smelling straw covering to the floor, and found it possibly was first recorded in the Renaissance, and intended to be comic. They did suffer from the problem that no one knew anything about disease vectors, and so they failed to take precautions we would regard as very fundamental today. But in that way they were no worse off than people of the early 19th century.

The Infant Mortality Rate was high, often at 50%. People died in their own homes, and families were large. Unlike modern children, who are shielded from it, the children of the Middle Ages nearly all had first hand understanding of what death was. If they survived to the age of five years, their life expectancy was probably upwards of forty, and if they survived to forty, they were likely to live well past fifty. But they all understood death well enough to want to go to church.

The heating systems in the houses was not likely to be adequate by today's standards. In most serf cottages, the only source of heat was a fire built in the middle of the room, with the smoke vented through a hole in the roof or large openings under the roof peaks. This meant that they had little heat, the air was smoky, and the wind could blow through. They had few windows, no glazing in the windows, and floors of dirt or stone.

In some respects their food was very uninteresting and coarse. They ate bread that was made from oats, rye, and barley, with no wheat, because wheat was expensive. Their main food was often gruel or porridge, made from oats, barley, or peas, possibly flavored with onions, leeks, and the like. They depended on chickens, pigs, and fish for animal protein. Eggs were the least expensive source, and a lot of the poorer people depended on them.

We read about arranged weddings and girls marrying at tens of age, but this was for royalty and not the way serfs did things. They usually chose their own mates, though there was some cultural variation. Young men and women wanted to attract the best mates, so serf women worked to assemble the best dowry they could, and young men worked to prove they could provide for a family. The result was that marriage was often delayed until they were 25 or so. The marriage was not in church, because that was reserved for the wealthy or important. Serfs took vows privately, without necessarily any clergy or even witnesses. They were encouraged to register weddings at the local church, but not required to do so.

Answer 2

They were very poor, paid taxes, and lived in poor conditions. The men were expected to fight and die in wars the king or lord started. People died young and from disease.