Peasant Life
This is an extract from the book 'The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England' by Barbara A. Hanawalt. It describes peasant life and land owning in Kempsey between 1450 and 1500.
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"Land was another capital investment that a peasant might consider. Often the fluctuations in land holdings coincided with phases in a man's life cycle. A young man did not need extra lands until his children were teenagers. He would then have sufficient work force to help him provide for his family. After the children left home, a man might divest himself of the extra rented acres and retire. Two generations of this life cycle may be seen at Kempsey. Thomas Bate, at his prime in 1450s, had a variety of holdings that amounted to eighteen acres, but by 1456 he was not working part of that land and twelve acres were declared forfeit. When he died eight years later he had only six acres to leave to his widow. Walter Bate, his son, was eighteen in 1456 when he took over the twelve acres his father had forfeited. In 1470 he took the six acres that had supported his widowed mother. He added other pieces from demesne leases when he was between the ages of thirty-two and thirty- nine, as his family grew and he needed more land. As his children left home he too divested himself of the extra land, and when he died in 1500 at the age of sixty-two he had only six acres for his immediate support."
Demesne: A lord`s chief manor place, with that part of the lands belonging thereto which has not been granted out in tenancy; a house, and the land adjoining, kept for the proprietor`s own use.
Related page: Medieval Kempsey.
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© 2003 - Andy Morrall
Last updated 4th December 2003.
E-mail: andymorrall@oocities.com
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