Life in the Dark Ages – Surviving as a Peasant

The Dark Ages are also sometimes referred to as the Middle Ages but are generally the gap between the departure of the Romans and the start of the Viking era. This would have been one of the most dangerous times to be alive in the British Isles and saw non-stop wars between the dozens of minor kingdoms that popped up in the power vacuum left by the Romans. Life during this time would have been extremely hard, and no one had it harder than the average peasant.

When were the dark ages?

The Romans had complete control of England and Wales but due to troubles in their homeland, were ordered to retreat from the territory in the year 388 AD. This order was largely completed by the year 400 but some pockets of Roman troops stayed to continue running mines and looking after other important sites until 410 AD. After this, the entire countries of England and Wales went from being ruled by a single force so powerful that nothing could be questioned, to everyone fending for themselves and doing what they wanted. This would be the equivalent of the government, police, and army all disappearing at the same time, just in an age when it’s impossible to call for help or drive somewhere safer.

Why was it called the Dark Ages?

The phrase didn’t come into use until a scholar during the Renaissance called Petrarch invented it, supposedly due to the decline in science and culture during the period. There was also a distinct lack of record keeping during the time and dozens, possibly hundreds of minor kingdoms and factions popped up and disappeared again just as quickly. The lack of written records and decline in culture and science was probably due to a series of non-stop wars and a lack of stability in the country caused by the power vacuum the Romans left.

What happened during the Dark Ages?

Before the era known as the Dark Ages began, the country’s population consisted of Romano-Britsh, a people made up of the original Celtic people of Britain with the addition of the Roman influence into their genes, which lasted for almost 400 years. During this time the native people of Britain weren’t allowed to train as soldiers or make up their own rules for how they lived, and everything had to be done according to Roman law.

This level of authority and governance ended quite quickly and the Roman emperor at the time even wrote the people of Britain a message saying “Fight bravely and defend your lives…you are on your own now”.

The elders or village governors now saw themselves as the people in charge of a small group of fighters and could make up whatever rules they liked for the land they controlled. This led to many settlements going to war with one another, with battles often consisting of no more than a few dozen on each side. The people involved in these wars would quickly get swallowed up by stronger factions who in turn rose and fell into nothing again, with no one knowing their names.

This went on for a few decades until the arrival of two major tribes from mainland Europe, the Angles and the Saxons. These tribes came mainly from modern-day northern Germany and southern Denmark and settled in southeast England. Over the next few decades, they expanded surprisingly peacefully across all of England but had little presence and influence in the Cornish peninsula in the southwest. They also left Wales and Scotland untouched and concentrated on integrating with the native Romano British population, which over the years led to the people of England becoming known as Anglo-Saxons.

As for when the period known as the Dark Ages ended is debated, with some sources claiming it lasted for 900 years and only ended during the late medieval period, while others consider it to have ended at either the start of the Viking era in 793 or the start of the medieval period in 1066.

Food, homes, and jobs in the Dark Age

Arguably, this would have been one of the hardest eras to stay alive in the British Isles due to the constant wars that happened before everything stabilized. In this age, people would have been very much left on their own and each village would have to be completely self-sufficient. Farming was now able to be done using steel plows, something the Romans were nice enough to show the people of Britain how to make, as well as introducing many new crops, plants, and animals to help with food production.

Farming would be mostly grain-based, but the Romans brought many useful crops that were now spread around the whole country, like, onions, leeks, and cabbage, the last two of which were the most commonly grown crops in Wales for several hundred years. People who lived in Wales and Scotland were left alone to develop in their own way, as the Anglo-Saxon people didn’t manage to conquer the two countries until well into the medieval period which began in 1066.

Homes during the Dark Ages were still made in the classic Celtic roundhouse design but now had influences of Roman straight houses, leading to the early versions of a longhouse. The people who lived in them would often share a part of their home with animals like a couple of cows or a few pigs, with half their homes acting as a barn, usually seperated by nothing more than a small fence.

Jobs would be the same as before, with farming being the most common job followed by all the usual standard professions like blacksmith and tailor, but unlike during the medieval period, people weren’t locked into a version of slavery. After the reforms brought in by William the Conqueror at the start of the medieval period in 1066, people would have to pay to live on a lord’s land with labor, since no one had any money. This forced people to do nothing more than work just to be able to survive at the most basic level, but this wasn’t in force during the dark ages.

The land was divided into many smaller kingdoms and each one would have a leader that set their own rules. There was more freedom for the average person to move elsewhere during this age, but it would be a complete gamble on whether you’d be better off or not.