Life in a Medieval town

Every single day living in the medieval period would be a question of survival. From uncurable diseases to overzealous criminal magistrates to the possibility that a large group of people with swords could come through at any moment and kill everyone. Life during this time would have been tough, but it would also vary greatly depending on the person in question. Here we are going to look at how people survived and what life in a medieval town would have been like.

(Normally what people think when they hear the term medieval period, but general life was much slower and boring)

What exactly was the medieval period?

Medieval periods vary in date from country to country, but for Britain, it began in 1066 with the arrival of William the Conqueror. He invaded in September of 1066 and quickly took over the country, being crowned king on Christmas day the same year. He then introduced many new laws and the feudal system, which created a hierarchy of power that changed the way the entire country functioned. The extreme change in the lives of everyone in England was so great, that this was recognized as being a new time era and was named the medieval period, which ended in 1485 with the start of the Tudor dynasty.

What was life like in a medieval town?

Living within the walls of a town would offer the most protection from bandits and hostile forces, and would provide the greatest potential for trade and the highest amount of jobs, but would also be very different depending on what you actually did there. Here are some of the most common positions within a medieval town and what life would have been like for them.

The Baker

The loud ring of the town bell wakes you up at sunrise and you put on your linen clothing and head into the kitchen to light the fire. It only takes a few minutes for the brass cooking pot to heat up some water and you fill it with oats and a few leftover vegetables from the night before to make pottage. Being a baker there is always a little extra flour around but there is no time to bake some for breakfast, and after putting on your leather boots you make your way along the muddy dirt track to the bakery. The lord of the town owns all of the grain fields in the area, and in turn, also owns the bakery you work at. He has dozens of troops to feed and also expects an ample supply of bread to be sold within the town, so it’s time to start baking.

(Small dirt roads like this would have been normal, and would have been a nightmare during the winter)

The entire day consists of opening sacks of flour and kneading dough, before putting loaf after loaf into the oven. Sometimes a customer would come in with flour and use some of it to pay for the rest to be baked, but most of the bread goes straight to the lord and his men. When a vendor sells bread at their own store or market stand, they will often pay for 12 loaves but get 13, which is called a baker’s dozen. The Lord has set a number of rules and one of them specifies the correct weight of a loaf of bread, anyone providing less than what is paid for can expect a harsh punishment, so an extra loaf is included just in case. Every day is the same except Saturday when you’re allowed to bake for private customers, and Sunday when no one is allowed to work for religious reasons.

The Guard

The barracks are small and you don’t get any privacy, but they are well-maintained and much cleaner than the average serf’s house. A regular supply of food is also provided and you usually don’t even have to cook your own meals, but the pay isn’t exactly great for the work. It pays more than a serf’s job but can be extremely dangerous and involves doing horrible things to people because we don’t waste time with prison cells here. When you catch a thief or find people fighting in the street, it’s usually a fine or some kind of public punishment, like a day in the stocks or 20 lashes, but sometimes that just won’t do.

Thieves usually have fingers or hands cut off, and anyone refusing this duty would find themselves in a similarly bad position. Daily life can be a little boring, walking non-stop around the walls or having to sit in a guard tower all day watching people walk past, but it’s very important not to fall asleep or miss something coming in that’s banned because then it’ll be your fault and your punishment to receive. Regular soldiers are usually seen as being halfway between a serf and a knight in terms of importance, but a lord still wouldn’t think twice about disposing of you to prove a point or for a minor infraction.

The Merchant

With the shop downstairs under your bedroom, it doesn’t take long to open up in the morning. The general trading shop you run is small but stocks everything from weapons to food, and is quite popular with locals and people passing through the area. Daily life is slow but comfortable, sitting around waiting for people to come in and having the option to go upstairs at any time, but without guaranteed wages, there is always the fear of not being able to pay taxes that week, and the local lord isn’t known for being kind.

The shop assistant is another resident of the town, arriving early in the morning and taking over every now and then. Their wage is just slightly above what you’d get from working on a farm, but it’s much better work and there’s the occasional bonus on good days. Anyone who can afford to open and run a shop will be doing much better than the average person, and so food and clothing quality would be higher, but still a long way off from being classed as wealthy.

The Priest

One of the most comfortable positions in medieval society due to the laws of the church. People would be able to pay for their sins with physical goods, such as gold and silver, which the priests had the discretion to spend in the name of running the church. If there was a wage, it would be equal to someone like a knight, but if there was no wage then the priest would be compensated with the wealth people gave them.

The ultimate law was seen as God’s word and the priests were the spreaders of these teachings. This meant they out-ranked the common guard or soldier and were often just left to their own devices because an attack on a priest was seen as an attack on the church itself, and therefore way too risky for a common soldier to try and make an arrest.

The Knight

This position would be either really good or really bad, depending on the current situation of war in the area. As a knight, you would have to work for whichever lord owned the land you lived on, but as someone of standing in society, you would be able to manage and profit from that land. When there isn’t fighting to be done, daily life would consist of sitting in your large timber-frame home or small stone keep and enjoying the bounties grown on your land.

(The wealthier knights would have lived in small keeps like this, but would still be a long way from owning a castle)

During times of conflict, this casual and slow way of life would drastically change for the worse. Days or even weeks of riding and walking around the country, or other people’s countries, living in tents pitched on muddy fields and eating little more than dried peas, beans, and grain. Sometimes the hunters would come back with a deer or wild boar, and as someone higher up in the army than a regular soldier, there was always the chance of getting a piece. Battles were fierce and insanely dangerous, but if you didn’t lose there would be the chance of ransoming off the captured knights for a nice profit.

Other aspects of Life in a medieval town

Many walled towns in border regions and during times of danger would have a curfew, and if you were outside the gates at the time of closing, you’d have to wait until morning before you could get back inside.

Serf was the common name during the medieval period for what we recognize today as peasants. If you fell into this class you were pretty much completely worthless in society and the local lord or a priest wouldn’t think twice about getting rid of you if you angered them.

As a serf you wouldn’t have enough money to pay taxes, so instead you can pay with labor. This form of labor was as close to slavery as you can get without actually calling it that because the serfs were essentially trapped there. They would have to work full time in exchange for what they would pay as taxes but didn’t receive any money from it, instead having to feed themselves by working another job or tending their gardens during the evening. They could barely afford to feed themselves so saving up money was out of the question, and as a serf, you would only have the exact same problem again if you moved somewhere else.

Towns and cities were the most dangerous places to be during an outbreak because more people meant more spread of disease. They did not have anything that could be classed as actual medicine, and illnesses we can cure today with a simple pill or injection would be a death sentence to someone back then.

Meat for most people would usually be fish, with the occasional serving of pork. Beef was far too expensive for the average person and the flocks of goats and sheep normally belonged to the lord and were sold elsewhere for profit.

The whole place would be filthy, with unpaved muddy roads constantly being walked on and animals dumping waste in the middle of the street. One common misconception often seen in movies and books is people emptying the contents of their chamber pots into the middle of the street, but this was often illegal in towns. It didn’t take long for people to realize that if hundreds of people created piles of crap directly outside their houses, everyone would die of disease within weeks. Instead, official dumping sites were created and serfs were employed as gong farmers, the term for the lucky guy with a wheelbarrow and shovel, who had to walk the streets all day cleaning up piles of waste.