How Villages Changed Under the Normans Flashcards
What percent of the population lived in Villages?
95%
How many villages were there in Norman England?
The Domesday Book, in 1086, recorded nearly 13,500 villages in England.
How did the sizes of village differ?
Villages varied in size, but many would only have a handful of families. A village of 67 families was large, while some only had five or six households.
What is a prominent example of destruction of villages in Norman England?
However, the Normans had destroyed large parts of the north of England in the Harrying of the North of 1069/70. One third of Yorkshire was described in 1086 as ‘waste’.
What percent of Yorkshire was described in 1086 as ‘waste’, 16/17 years after the Harrying?
1/3 or 33%
What were the different types of peasants in Norman villages?
- Freemen
- Villeins
- Bordars and cottars
- Slaves
What did freemen do?
Freemen paid the lord rent for their land. Often they also carried out ‘boon work’ - unpaid extra work on the lord’s demesne
What did villeins do?
Villeins were unfree peasants, who worked on the lord’s land for no pay. They had a little land to farm for themselves. They could not leave the land without the lord’s permission.
What did Bordars and cottars do?
Bordars and cottars were poorer villeins, who rarely had enough land of their own to live on.
What percent of the population were enslaved, how did this change during the Norman conquest?
Around 10% of the population were slaves, who had no freedom and no land. The Normans gradually got rid of slavery, but it took time.
Bordars and cottars
Where did peasant farm?
Each village was surrounded by large fields, which were divided into strips. Each peasant had a few strips of land to farm.
What did villagers do during summer?
The villagers agreed which crops to grow in each field. Much of the year was spent ploughing, sowing seeds and growing crops, and harvesting them at the end of the summer.
Did the Villagers have gardens?
Villagers also had their own gardens, which they used to grow fruit and vegetables. They also kept chickens and other animals.
Did villagers share land?
Villages also had common land, where all the villagers grazed their animals - such as the oxen they used for ploughing.
What did Villagers do in the Woodlands?
Collected firewood
What machines did they use to farm?
None
All work was done by hand, apart from ploughing, which was done by ox-drawn ploughs - these were owned in common by the whole village.
What did Peasants eat?
Peasants ate what they could grow. Their diet basically consisted of bread, oat porridge and vegetables. They got dairy products from the animals they kept. Eating meat was a luxury.
What did Norman lords eat?
By contrast, the Norman lords had much more variety. They also ate bread, but it was better quality than the peasants’ bread. They ate much more meat, and fewer vegetables and dairy products. Overall, the Norman lords’ diet was much worse than the peasants’.
Where did Peasants live?
Peasants lived in single-room houses, which were dark, damp and smoky. They usually did not have windows, a fire in the middle of the room was used for warmth and cooking. The peasants brought their animals into the house at night.
Where did Norman lords live?
The Norman lord lived in a much grander manor house. The manor house was usually built of stone. Although most business took place in the large hall, the lord had a separate sleeping chamber, and usually a separate kitchen building. The manor house had windows, although it still relied on a central hearth for heat.
Who was the bailiff in a Norman village?
The bailiff was the man in charge of making sure that the villagers did their work, especially on the lord’s land. He was usually chosen from amongst the villagers.
How did villages change under the Normans for lords?
Almost all the old Saxon lords were replaced by Norman lords, who aimed to make more money from their new lands.
The lords also built large manor houses from stone. Again, any wooden Saxon manor houses were rebuilt.
How did villages change under the Normans religiously?
Almost every village had a church, which was built of stone. Wooden Saxon churches were pulled down and rebuilt.
