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Wake up in the Middle Ages—where your alarm is a rooster, your ceiling leaks straw, and your to-do list is written by the weather, the priest, and your landlord. In this fast, punchy episode of History on the Run, we dive into the raw reality of a medieval peasant’s day: smoky cottages, endless fieldwork, weird fees (hi, merchet and heriot), thin meals, risky childbirth, and the tiny joys that kept people going.
If you like history told straight with a little sarcasm, hit 👍 Like and 🔔 Subscribe—and drop a comment telling us where you’re listening from (city, country, bus line, treadmill). Let’s fill the map!
What’s inside
- Open-field farming: why your land came in skinny strips
- Serfs vs. free tenants (spoiler: everyone pays)
- Tithes, mills, ovens… and the fee parade
- Bread, pottage, ale: what people really ate
- Women’s unseen workload keeping the village alive
- Manorial courts & everyday fines
- Black Death and how it shook labor and wages
- Myths busted: baths, “no fun ever,” and more
Why watch
Short, gritty, historically accurate storytelling you can finish on a commute—no fluff, just life.
#HistoryOnTheRun #Medieval #PeasantLife #MiddleAges #HistoryExplained
If you like history told straight with a little sarcasm, hit 👍 Like and 🔔 Subscribe—and drop a comment telling us where you’re listening from (city, country, bus line, treadmill). Let’s fill the map!
What’s inside
- Open-field farming: why your land came in skinny strips
- Serfs vs. free tenants (spoiler: everyone pays)
- Tithes, mills, ovens… and the fee parade
- Bread, pottage, ale: what people really ate
- Women’s unseen workload keeping the village alive
- Manorial courts & everyday fines
- Black Death and how it shook labor and wages
- Myths busted: baths, “no fun ever,” and more
Why watch
Short, gritty, historically accurate storytelling you can finish on a commute—no fluff, just life.
#HistoryOnTheRun #Medieval #PeasantLife #MiddleAges #HistoryExplained
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00:00Imagine waking up to a room that smells like smoke and damp straw.
00:07The roof above you is a layer of thatch that leaks when it rains and crackles when mice have a party in it.
00:14Your bed is a sack of reeds or straw that squeaks every time you roll over.
00:20The fire is just embers because wood is precious and the night was long.
00:25Outside, a rooster is either doing its job or auditioning for a war horn.
00:31You open your eyes, cough once, cough again, and remember that today is like yesterday.
00:37You are a medieval peasant. Congratulations.
00:39You own a wooden spoon, three turnips, maybe half a cow if you are sharing with a neighbor, and an unlimited plan for back pain.
00:47You are watching History on the Run. Fast history. Sharp edges, no fluff.
00:52If you like your stories quick, gritty, and honest, hit like, subscribe, and drop a comment telling us where you are listening from.
01:00Tell me your city, your farm, your gym, your bus line, your kitchen table.
01:05I want to see the map fill up. Now lace up. We are going to the fields.
01:10We are setting the scene in a small village somewhere in England or northern France during the 13th or 14th century.
01:17Not everyone is a serf, but serfdom exists.
01:20The local lord controls most of the land that matters, and the church sets the calendar with feast days and fast days.
01:27Villages use an open field system, which means each household has long, narrow strips scattered across the village fields.
01:35You farm your own strips to feed your family, and you owe labor on the lord's domain.
01:40You also owe a tithe of your produce to the parish church.
01:44It is a neat system if you are the lord or the parish.
01:47You are neither. Morning starts with smoke in your eyes and bread in your teeth.
01:53Your house is waddle and daub.
01:55The walls are made from woven sticks covered in mud and straw.
02:00The roof is thatch.
02:02A hearth sits in the center of the room with no chimney.
02:06The smoke finds its own way out.
02:08It also finds your lungs.
02:10You and your family share space with a few animals when it is cold.
02:13Chickens wander in and out like they pay rent.
02:17Breakfast is simple.
02:18If yesterday was decent, you have bread.
02:20If not, there is pottage, a thick stew of grains and vegetables that always tastes like necessity.
02:27Ale is weak and safe to drink.
02:30Water can be risky.
02:31So yes, you start the day with a little ale.
02:34It is not a party.
02:35It is plumbing.
02:36Your job description is one word.
02:38Yes.
02:39You are a farmer in spring.
02:41A haymaker in summer.
02:42A reaper in harvest.
02:44A ditcher when the drains clog.
02:46A hedger when the fences fail.
02:48A repairer of tools when the iron bends and the handle cracks.
02:52You are also a taxpayer in all seasons, which is not a job you applied for.
02:57The agricultural year drives your life.
02:59In spring, you plow, harrow, and sow.
03:02In summer, you weed and fix what winter broke.
03:06At harvest, you reap, bind, stack, haul, and try not to slice your own legs with a sickle.
03:12In autumn, you sow again and mend fences and roofs.
03:16In winter, you survive.
03:18That is not sarcasm.
03:19That is the job.
03:21If you are a villain, an unfree tenant, you owe labor dues.
03:24The Lord demands weak work on his land and extra days during the busy season.
03:29There are rents in kind, like eggs or grain, and cash rents when cash is demanded.
03:33Even free tenants pay rents in fees.
03:36Everyone pays the tithe to the church.
03:39You are also required to use the Lord's mill to grind your grain.
03:42That will be a fee.
03:43You must use the Lord's oven to bake your bread.
03:46That will be a fee.
03:47When you get in trouble, you answer in the Lord's court.
03:50That will be a fee with a bonus lecture.
03:53There are fines that feel like a comedy sketch until they are not funny.
03:56If your daughter marries, you may owe a payment called mershut.
04:00If you die, your best animal might go to the Lord as Harriet.
04:04Death and taxes are not separate categories here.
04:07Tailage is a tax on unfree peasants levied when the Lord wishes.
04:10That is as fun as it sounds.
04:12Every obligation is a threat.
04:14Together they make a net.
04:16Your tools are simple and heavy.
04:18The great plow bites deep into heavy soil.
04:21Oxen pull the plow because they are sturdy and cheaper to feed,
04:26though some villages use horses with proper collars and shoes.
04:30You cut hay with a scythe.
04:32You cut grain with a sickle.
04:34You weed with a hoe.
04:35You drive a wooden cart with iron rims.
04:39Iron is expensive.
04:41Steel is precious.
04:42Your hands are the real tools, and they do not get a day off.
04:46Your shoes are leather if you can afford them.
04:48Your clothes are wool.
04:50In winter they are still wool, just more of it.
04:53Linen is used for undergarments if you are lucky.
04:56Dyes cost money, so the village looks like a sea of browns and grays
05:00with a few faded reds or blues when someone has done well
05:03or has a cousin in town.
05:05Laws also exist to keep people dressing within their station.
05:09Heaven forbid you look rich.
05:11Do not worry.
05:13You will not.
05:14Food is the place where hope meets weather.
05:16In a good year you have rye or barley bread,
05:20pottage, peas and beans, onions and leeks,
05:23a bit of cheese, and sometimes bacon.
05:26There might be rabbit or fish when luck smiles.
05:30Fruit comes and goes with the seasons.
05:33Nuts arrive if you beat the squirrels.
05:36Salt is precious.
05:37Spices are for people who live in castles and tell other people what to do.
05:42In a bad year your diet turns into creative pottage.
05:45You learn new ways to cook old cabbage.
05:48You thin the pottage with water and pretend it is soup.
05:52Preservation is work.
05:53You dry fish and meat, smoke what you can, and salt what you must.
05:57The constant question is not what you want.
06:00It is what you have left.
06:02Cleanliness is better than the stereotype.
06:04People wash in streams and tubs.
06:07Soap exists, though it is basic and rough.
06:10Laundry happens, especially as the weather warms and the river rises.
06:14Full baths are rare, but not mythical.
06:17Are you perfumed and polished?
06:19No.
06:20Are you a walking disaster?
06:22Also no.
06:23You are smoky, muddy, and tired, which is not the same as filthy.
06:27The law lives in the manorial court.
06:30It sits under the eye of the Lord's steward, and your neighbors serve as jurors.
06:34Break the rules, and you pay.
06:36Let your pig wander into a neighbor's beans, and you pay.
06:40Brew ale too weak or too strong without permission, and you pay.
06:44Take wood from the Lord's forest, and you pay.
06:47Jail is uncommon because fines are profitable.
06:50Justice is local, personal, and constantly stressing your wallet.
06:54The church is the clock and the calendar.
06:57The parish priest marks your life with baptism, marriage, and burial.
07:01You pay your tithe.
07:03You confess your sins.
07:04You hear sermons.
07:06Some are in Latin.
07:07Many homilies are in your language.
07:10The church sets feast days that give you breaks from work,
07:13except during emergencies like hay that is about to get rained on.
07:17God understands that hay and rain are a bad marriage.
07:20Literacy is rare among peasants, but they are not ignorant.
07:24Knowledge is oral and practical.
07:26You know the sky, the soil, the gossip, and the price of grain within a day's walk.
07:32Women keep the village running.
07:34They sow and weed.
07:36They glean in the fields after harvest.
07:39They milk cows and goats.
07:41They churn butter and make cheese.
07:44They brew ale and bake bread.
07:46They spin and weave and mend and wash and tend animals and children and elders.
07:52During harvest, every hand is in the field.
07:56Widows sometimes manage holdings and deal with the court directly.
07:59The law does not treat women as equal.
08:02The economy depends on them anyway.
08:04Childbirth is dangerous.
08:06Midwives are skilled, but medicine is limited.
08:09Families are large because mortality is high.
08:13Not every child survives.
08:15Grief is not rare or distant.
08:17It sits at the table.
08:18Medicine is a roll of the dice.
08:21People get fevers.
08:22People break bones.
08:23People get infections that today would be simple, but then were not.
08:28Remedies include herbs, honey, vinegar, poultices, and sometimes bleeding according to the theory of the four humors.
08:36Barber surgeons pull teeth and stitch wounds with bravery that exceeds anesthesia.
08:41The best cure is youth, strength, and luck.
08:44The second best cure is time.
08:47There is leisure and it matters.
08:48The year has saints' days and fairs.
08:52Villagers play games, tell stories, sing, dance, and wrestle.
08:57People carve bone flutes and play simple fiddles.
09:00The alehouse is the comment section with fewer insults and better bread.
09:05After harvest, when the last cart rolls in and the stacks of sheaves stand like trophies,
09:10there is a moment that feels almost like wealth.
09:13It is not money.
09:14It is relief.
09:15There are enemies that show up without an invitation.
09:19Weather can turn a good year into a bad memory.
09:22Lords can raise dues and taxes.
09:25Other people's wars can eat your grain, your animals, and your sons.
09:30Bandits haunt roads.
09:32The math of medieval poverty is brutal.
09:35A failed harvest plus taxes equals trouble.
09:38When the Black Death sweeps through in the late 14th century,
09:42the shock is beyond numbers.
09:44Villages lose whole families.
09:47Fields go and tilled.
09:49Churches conduct burials at a pace that wears out the priest.
09:53For survivors, the labor shortage changes the balance of power.
09:57Wages rise where they can.
09:59Some lords try to freeze wages and keep labor bound.
10:02People notice.
10:04In England, a long stew of frustration and poll taxes boils over in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
10:10It fails, but the long train continues.
10:14Over generations, labor services decline and cash rents spread.
10:18The village changes slowly, but it changes.
10:21There are common myths that deserve retirement.
10:23People say peasants never bathed.
10:26They washed when they could.
10:27They were not allergic to water.
10:29People say every peasant was a serf.
10:32Some were unfree, some were free tenants, and many lived on a wide spectrum in between.
10:36People say they worked every single day without pause.
10:41The year is relentless in harvest and haymaking, but feast days and deep winter create different rhythms.
10:47People say peasants never had fun.
10:50They did.
10:50It was not a festival every week, but music, games, and stories existed, because human beings create joy even when life is hard.
10:59Walk through a summer day and you will recognize the shape.
11:03At dawn, you get up, say a quick prayer, and eat bread with a sip of ale.
11:07You head to the strips of land you farm.
11:09If you have oxen, you guide the plow.
11:12If not, you weed and mend boundary banks.
11:15Children and elders stay near the houses.
11:18Everyone keeps one eye on the weather.
11:19At midday, you rest and eat bread and cheese if you have it, or onions if you do not.
11:25You drink and tell a joke that has been told for generations.
11:28In the afternoon, you go back to work.
11:30You calculate how many sheaves will go to rent and how many might feed your household.
11:35As the sun lowers, you bring in animals and prepare tools by the hearth light.
11:40Smoke stings your eyes.
11:42Someone sings.
11:43Children fall asleep without being told.
11:45You and your partner share a few soft words that do not sound like poetry but feel like love.
11:51At night, you dream about rain, sun, and debts that do not sleep.
11:55The sky will be there in the morning.
11:57So will the field.
11:58Why did it often feel like it sucked?
12:01Precarity is the first answer.
12:02One bad year puts you at the mercy of debt, hunger, and your neighbor's charity.
12:07Obligations are the second answer.
12:10Dues, rents, and fines make your labor flow uphill.
12:13Health is the third answer.
12:15A cut can end a hand.
12:17Childbirth can end a life.
12:19Plague can end villages.
12:20Agency is the fourth answer.
12:22You do not choose your station and you cannot easily change it.
12:26But the village also works because people make it work.
12:29Community is a survival technology.
12:32When the hay is down, the whole village cuts hay.
12:34Knowledge is practical and precise.
12:37Nothing wasted, everything patched.
12:40The year has rhythm.
12:42Sowing, growing, reaping, and resting give shape to time.
12:47Faith and festivity color the calendar.
12:49A saint's day in the middle of summer can feel like a lifeline.
12:53A wedding is a bright flag in a sea of brown wool.
12:57Even in hardship, people find and make reasons to smile.
13:01The fines and fees deserve a quick tour because they reveal the edges of daily life.
13:07Make bread in your own oven when the Lord insists you use his and you pay.
13:12Take dead wood from the forest because it was only lying there and you pay.
13:16Let your pig wander into a forbidden field and you pay.
13:20And you also apologize to your neighbor for the pig's opinions about beans.
13:24Brew ale without permission and you pay.
13:27Move to another manor without the Lord's consent if you are unfree and you do more than pay.
13:33The survival strategies are simple.
13:35Learn the rules better than the beetle.
13:38Keep the neighbors on your side.
13:40One saves money.
13:41The other saves everything else.
13:43You might wonder what anyone liked about this life.
13:46There are things.
13:47The sky at harvest glows gold on gold.
13:51The air smells like cut straw and sweat and satisfaction.
13:54Fresh bread on the day of the oven earns its keep tastes like victory.
13:59A baby sleeping through a storm sounds like peace.
14:02The annual fair brings music, knives, bright cloth, and a hundred bad decisions that make good stories.
14:09The moment when the last sheaf is stacked and the last cart is inside the yard
14:14and the first mug is raised is not wealth, but it feels close.
14:19If you zoom out, you can see the slow turn across the later Middle Ages.
14:24Cash rents replace labor services in many places.
14:27Markets and towns pull youth away from the village.
14:31Lords sell rights they once held tight.
14:33After the plague, wages rise where workers can bargain.
14:37Governments try to freeze the world in place.
14:39They fail over time because history does not like to sit still.
14:42If a peasant from 1300 woke up in 1500, they would still recognize the fields and the plow.
14:49They would not recognize all the rules.
14:51So did it suck to be a medieval peasant.
14:54Often, yes.
14:55Hunger stood at the door.
14:56Hierarchy sat in the best chair.
14:59Choices were narrow.
15:00But people built lives inside those limits.
15:03They married, joked, sang, argued, worked, and loved.
15:07They were not extras in someone else's story.
15:09They were the main cast of European history by the numbers and by the labor.
15:14Without them, there is no lord, no monastery, no castle, no city.
15:19There is only empty land and a few confused pigeons.
15:23If you made it this far, you just survived a day in the fields and a thousand years of opinions.
15:29This is history on the run.
15:31Quick hits.
15:32Sharp edges.
15:33No lace.
15:34Tap like.
15:35Hit subscribe.
15:36Tell us in the comments where you are listening from.
15:39City or country.
15:41Desk or treadmill.
15:43I want to see how far this village reaches.
15:45If you want a part two that walks the peasant year from spring plowing to winter hunger,
15:50say the word.
15:51I will be back with muddy boots and better jokes.
15:53I will be back with you.
16:08Two in the south.
16:10Get Relaxed.
16:10One had a pass.
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