2. • Royalty
• Clergy
– 1% of population
• Nobility
– 1 % of population
– rural
• Everyone else
– Bourgeoisie
• ~10-15% of population
(but growing)
• urban
– Peasants
• ~85-90% of population
• rural

3. • urban class traders,
merchants, bankers,
artisans: name
comes from “town
dweller” (like Burger)
• Product of guild
system of middle
ages
• Have money
• Increasing
urbanization means
their place in society
continues to rise

4. • Peasantry ~85-90% of
the population
• Sustenance farmers
but have own land
• Can also lease lands
from rural nobility
• Can have servants

5.  Household is basic
unit, with Male at
head
 Usually live in a small
stone/wood house
with thatched roof
 Close physical
contact with animals
 Superstitious
 Primogeniture

6.  Amount of land
 Amount of
animals
 Size of Dung heap
 Trade skill

7. • Male: Outside
– Sowing crops
– Maintaining crops
– Maintaining animals
– Harvesting crops
• Female: Inside
– Children
– Cooking
– Cleaning
– Animal maintenance
that deals with
cooking

8. • Marriage key to success –
start later in W. Europe
than East
– Usually in early twenties
– Accrue enough to support
family
– Why widows headed
households frequently the
poorest
– Common wedding first, then
Church Wedding
• Children
– Only 6-7 babies, usually only 2-4
live to adulthood
– 6-7% chance of women die in
childbirth
– Average life expectancy 30-32.
– Brought down by 40-50%
mortality rate in children

9. • Village is the center of
Rural life
• Larger villages may have a
tradesman – blacksmith
especially
• Church
• Village assembly
– In many ways ran day to
day business of the
village
– In E. Europe, have even
more control.
• Life with lord
– Usually rent land from lord
– tenet farmers – but can
bequeath their rights to
anyone, and can grow
anything – rent

10. • Increased trade and
urbanization leads to
increase in price of grain
• Those that have decent
amount of land to begin
with, have more
opportunities, more
successful
• Those with less continue to
get less and less
– buy grain, sell labor when
price of grain goes up and
price of labor goes down
– increased poverty,
malnutrition, etc
– Interestingly, this happens
less in E. Europe!

11.  1550-1750 age of
global cooling
 Very cold winters
 “We are terrified of the
glaciers”
 This happens as
peasants living more
and more off of grain
 Peasant life West/East
 Plague – sweeps
Europe again, killing
5% of France’s
population between
1628-1632

12.  Vernacular bible
 Increased focus
on education
 Increased poor
relief

13.  Marriage – have to
be married in the
church
 Married couple is to
be model of order
and respectability –
microcosm of the
church
› Women can seek
divorce
› But much more
ordered role in life