What was the role of the peasants in medieval times?

Answer 1

The most numerous, and living the hardest live of all the Medieval peasants, were the villeins. The land they were living on belonged to the feudal lord, they had to pay taxes both to their master and to the Church, and they could not move freely from one domain to another.

Answer 2

About nine tenths of the people were peasants, farmers or village laborers. Only a few of these were freemen--peasants who were not bound to a lord and who paid only a fixed rent for their land. The vast majority were serfs and villeins. Theoretically, the villeins had wider legal rights than the serfs and fewer duties to the lords. There was little real difference, however.

A peasant village housed perhaps ten to 60 families. Each family lived in a dark, dank hut made of wood or wicker daubed with mud and thatched with straw or rushes. Layers of straw or reeds covered the floor, fouled by the pigs, chickens, and other animals housed with the family. The one bed was a pile of dried leaves or straw. All slept in their rough garb, with skins of animals for cover. A cooking fire of peat or wood burned drearily day and night in a clearing on the dirt floor. The smoke seeped out through a hole in the roof or the open half of a two-piece door. The only furniture was a plank table on trestles, a few stools, perhaps a chest, and probably a loom for the women to make their own cloth. Every hut had a vegetable patch.

All the peasants worked to support their lord. They gave about half their time to work in his fields, cut timber, haul water, spin and weave, repair his buildings, and wait upon his household. In war, the men had to fight at his side. Besides labor, peasants had to pay taxes to their lord in money or produce. They had to give a tithe to the church--every tenth egg, sheaf of wheat, lamb, chicken, and all other animals

Answer 3

Peasants in medieval times were primarily farmers who worked the land owned by the nobility or the church. They had to pay taxes and provide labor services in exchange for protection and the right to cultivate the land. Peasants also formed the majority of the population and played a crucial role in supporting the feudal system.