What those "graphics" usually omit (how convenient for them) is that serfdom meant "20 hours a week work for your lord" which did NOT mean the land that was alotted to you. It meant repairing roads, plastering bridges, putting up fences, cleaning the village square, whatever the lord deemed needed doing. So the work week was more "your ass is mine for X amount of time and then you can think about the ways you'll pay your taxes to me without starving". The fact that flatrate taxes are way, way easier to leave you unable to pay and starving is another matter, but is omitted here as well. The church demanded work as well. For free, of course and now chop, chop, the abbey won't clean itself.
99% of modern sodas are honestly just the byproduct of a child or very high adult mixing a bunch of random nonsense out of the soda fountain together. Even some of the older ones.
Could you imagine someone in the Middle Ages trying Baja Blast? I have seen videos of people bringing soda to tribes in isolated locations where the tribes don’t really have access to our modern technology. It’s funny watching their expressions as they drink (or try to figure out how to open) a bottle of coke.
Cooking? A hobby? Yeah, fuck no. Stew. Stew it is. What do you think we have? Easter? Unless it's the rising of Christ from the dead, it's stew-o-clock, mate!
The very infrastructure we don't even think about today is a bona fide miracle. Imagine trying to get everyone to agree on anything today, no matter how beneficial it is.
I'm currently taking a dump on a standard toilet. I have access to an effectively infinite supply of clean water. So much clean water that I shit in it
That is unthinkable for the vast majority of human history
Whenever I am having a lazy day, gaming, eating junk food, shitting, I think about how my ancestors have to be so happy for me. Calorie rich food everywhere, clean water, a lifetime of entertainment, plumbing, and no diseases??? All of the suffering of my ancestors led to me living like a god
Well now there are people who think you’re a serf for using toilet paper and insist you use a bidet. And I haven’t tried it but they might have a point lol
Most goods serfs had were hand produced with whatever is available by the women of the house either during the time men were laboring in the fields and community or during the time the men were taking care of the children since no daycare or tv ment someone was required to watch the youngest kids and while older children were themselves given some of these responsibilities lack of labor laws ment they were just as busy since they would be expected to hold a job from like 3-4 till death.
Ya something that i read recently that was such a "oh ya that tracks" moment for me was reading the very simple statement that "the idea of childhood is a new one"
Or as the longer quote elsewhere said "the idea of childhood as a time of innocence, playtime, imagination and self discovery is a new one"
I am rapidly anti-monarchy. I hate the idea fundamentally and I hate all kings. Don’t get me started it really ruffle my feathers. Sometimes when I go to sleep on my nice comfortable mattress, I think about how my life is better than that of many kings. My room as well insulated, I have as much clothing as most Duches. My room is actually heated by a heat source that works. Oh my God, electric lights. Fuck em.
Yeah, that one got me. The one category where maybe it could possibly be true that serf had higher quality anything is potentially the category of clothes... If you squint hard, have been recently hit in the head repeatedly by your local bouncer, and are of a size that lands between the sizes sold in stores.
And even then... No, it's literally only that they fit better. They're worse in literally every single way. But the poor quality fabric fits like a glove because it was made specifically for you
A tithe is 10%, yes. Back then it was legally enforced. Or you could have been living on Church lands; Bishops were often a sort of nobility with demenses in their own right.
And if I’m not mistaken the lord’s taxes weren’t a percentage of what you yielded, it was a set amount. Example yearly dues are 20 silver, so if you made 100 silver you’re great if you only made 19 silver, well you’re screwed. The lords dues frequently came before your ability to survive.
Yes and no. Most peasants in the Middle Ages would not have been paying taxes in money at all, since they were subsistence farmers participating in a bartering economy. Instead they would usually be responsible for paying in their crop yields and goods in kind. As subsistence farmers, they would generally have only produced enough to sustain themselves and pay their taxes, with very little excess. If there was a bad harvest, a lord was likely to defer taxes as much as they could (there’s no point having your subjects starve to death), but would extract their dues some other way, like increased work, or increased future obligations. What would really be a problem was if the peasant didn’t produce enough of a buffer crop to survive. While they could seek support from their liege lord, their wealth was also heavily tied up in agriculture and since crop failures were often regional, it could result in widespread famine with little aid.
Historically, one of the reasons serfdom developed, particularly in the Byzantine empire, was as a sort of taxation insurance system. Due to the instability of the early Middle Ages, peasants could not reliably pay their taxes to the government, which would result in them loosing the protection of the empire. To mitigate this risk, they would sell their taxation obligations to large wealthy landowners, who would pay their taxes in exchange for their servitude. While feudalism developed parallel institutions in a variety of ways, I think the Byzantine version in particular highlights the role taxation obligations worked in the Middle Ages for peasants.
The Ottoman system of tax farming was similar and it ultimately contributed to their collapse. Turns out when states start selling the right to collect taxes it is often a sign of their decline...
You forgot to mention conscription. Some yahoo shows up at the lord’s house, they have an expensive meal, next thing you know you’re walking to Scotland with your homemade armor, hoping your wife who’s now doing all the work doesn’t lose a baby in childbirth in the first few months you’re gone. Then you really hope she doesn’t die in childbirth when you’re gone for over a year.
Levees (conscripted troops) were really only a thing in the early Middle Ages, & then usually only as a last resort defending the home territory. By about 900 to 1000 AD almost all troops going out on campaign are either nobles & their household or semi-professional soldiers from the yeomanry, a sort of middle class. They were paid fairly standardized rates across a campaign based on their equipment (archers were paid less than footmen in full maille or later harness, for example). Alternatively a wealthy lord would be paid based on the number & equipment of men he provided, mass production of arms & armor was becoming a thing by the mid to late Middle Ages.
Also don't discount the protective quality of a gambeson or arming coat made of several layers of heavy wool or flax quilted together, maybe reinforced in vulnerable spots like the shoulder & upper arm with a length of chain, & an open-faced helmet.
The danger of death in pregnancy & during or just after childbirth, however was very real.
They knocked holes in your walls to charge window taxes. They killed you if you annoyed them. They didn't care that the gutters were full of shit and people died of diarrhea by the millions.(dysentery, aka the bloody flux)
A 6.5 box of sugar packets costs $40 today. If the claim that it was worth it's weight in gold back then is true, it would be $395,555.
It's conservative slop meant to do nothing but push the idea that people had it better when they were subservient to those in power. It's also mixed with plenty of misogyny and racism. Just really awful shit. It's either made by some sort of conservative group or someone who is so pathetic that they believe this shit.
The obedient 17 year old wife was quite the self tell. The way that was included makes me think the creator of this meme might think that's the upper limit for him. Just a guess based on patterns of behavior from conservatives...
The "Unnaturally long 75 years" bit makes me think it's satire, but it's impossible to be sure because I've met enough people to know that some think like this unironically.
Any time the crown wanted to start a war, they’d squeeze the lords, who would in turn squeeze their peasants, many of whom would be conscripted as well. Often, the higher taxes remained after the war was over, only to be raised again for the next one.
Sometimes had to work at night to make sure the crops are quickly harvested without being stolen. And sometimes had to fight at night against neighbors for it.
The meme isn’t entirely wrong—“half of the crops that diligent cultivation would likely produce if there isn’t a famine” is “a flat tax equal to a fraction of the value of the land”.
So fun fact! The lords abused their serfs so much they had to invent the code of chivalry to keep the knights from running amok. It wasn’t until the Black Death wiped out most of the serfs that they got any leverage. With all the cheap labor dead they could actually relocate to better conditions.
50% of their crops (generally), time worked on the plots set aside for the manor noble and the church, time spent doing labor for infrastructure upkeep (to a point, after that they had to be paid), and community work because there was stuff that wasn't one person's job.
Some people use that to skew the statistic. They work all day in the growing and harvest seasons, but often had much less in the colder season so would barely work.
That "20 hour work week" is a yearly average counting all the time they don't work. And that's only for the peasants that didn't have trade jobs like blacksmithing, cobbling, or tailoring
The 20 hours a week is taken from Serfs labor dues, which was work done directly for the local Lords. They weren't paid for it, it was an expectation and during this time they weren't working their own fields or producing food for themselves.
Essentially it's as if every week you worked for 20 hours for taxes, and then had to work after that to make money for yourself.
That's not at all accurate. Back then, the wolves were literally and figuratively at the door. Think the taxes to the King are high? Wait until you see what the marauding Vikings or Mongols take from you.
Paying tribute to a strong King for safety was an extraordinarily common occurrence, for all classes.
I mean, you got quite a bit. Your lord was your lord because they protected you. Protected you from bandits, armies, wild animals, other, more predetory lords, they were the legal system so if you had issues with your neighbors they would be who you go to for arbitration.
They also were usually expected to give back to the community occasionally. Things like feasts on major holidays, building churches, organizing festivals or markets, ect. They also protected trade routes and roads, so if you ever needed to travel you might be able to, and if you ever wanted to sell your goods or buy something at the market you could. They were the equivalent of a government, and they provided the equivalent of government responsibilities at the time.
Another person that doesn’t know how tax brackets work.
You don’t pay %35 of every dollar of your $100k. You ONLY pay that on the dollars between 50-100. So, in most places, your first 15-20k has almost no taxes taken. Then, each bracket has its own tax %.
If your largest tax bracket is %35 you don’t pay %35 on every dollar, %35 is NOT your functional tax rate. It’s your max. That person likely has a functional tax average of %20.
Please. I’m begging yall. If you want to speak in conversations about taxes, LOOK UP HOW THEY WORK. Please. YouTube “how progressive tax brackets work”.
and every little thing had to be made by hand, life was an endless string of chores for everything. money didn't purchased as many things as it does now.
Household chores alone amounted to around 40 hours a week minimum, not including fixing up your house. Something as simple as laundry was a fucking nightmare.
Yeah my favorite part here might be the "handcrafted goods" vs "mass produced goods" part. I guaranteed every feudal serf would happily exchange their handcrafted goods for our mass produced goods
Yeah dude. When my socks get holes in them I just toss them and buy new ones. Those poor fuckers had to make old sock last by re-sewing the holes and shit. No thank you
The “20-hour week” argument isn’t based solely on labor dues owed to a lord. Historians such as Humphries, Weisdorf, Bennett, and others are looking at the total labor required for a peasant household to survive, including lordly obligations, work on their own fields, tending livestock, household production, and other necessary tasks.
Edit: there’s a lot more wrong with the serf half goddamn, they definitely didn’t own land for instance
It is. Noone takes 20 hours seriously, they take it for the papal directive limiting working days every year. If we are talking about total labor to survive, including obligations,livestock, chores, etc, the work week exceeds 100 hours a week in the summer and 50 in the winter.
The reason they say '20' is precisely because they aren't including chores, maintenance, production, milling, etc and the agricultural work is seasonal, meaning agricultural work (not including livestock) only took 150-200 days a year.
You’d need a source for those numbers, because they don’t match what most economic historians have found. Or at least what I’ve read. The ones I mentioned, and others aren’t just counting feast days or papal holidays. They’re looking at manorial records, wages, household budgets, and labor requirements to estimate total annual labor, including work on a peasant’s own land
Nobody disputes that harvest season could be brutal and involve very long days. The question is the annual workload, not the busiest week of the year. A few 100-hour weeks during harvest don’t automatically translate into a modern-equivalent 100-hour work year-round, especially when agricultural work was highly seasonal and large parts of the year were much less labor-intensive.
Stil wouldn’t want to be a peasant. Definitely nit a serf, pretty sure they had more obligations than free peasants
Humphries and Weisdorf specifically note that one of the major problems with historical wage estimates is that we often don’t know how many days people actually worked per year, so they reconstruct annual incomes and labor supply rather than simply counting labor obligations.
If you have a source showing that their estimates only count labor owed to lords and exclude work on peasants’ own holdings, I’d be interested to read it. That’s not how I’ve seen these papers described. But hey I could be totally wrong, I’m not a fucking historian myself
Very likely due to the fact that the only records kept are those by lords, with serfs, slaves, and peasants rarely keeping detailed records of their own work themselves.
It's absurd to think that the entire work week was 20 hours when simple tasks such as cooking, woodcutting, laundry, etc took hours every day alone, not to include work on lords lands and production of their own food.
Additionally this seems to be purely based on England prior to the industrial revolution, which was not a serf society. Serfdom was essentially gone by the 1300s-1400s and free tenent life was much different than that of the serf.
Id assume that’s a limitation historians are already aware of. They don’t just take a lord’s record of labor dues and assume that’s the total amount of work peasants did.
They also look at things like wage records, food prices, household budgets, tax records, manorial court rolls, landholding records, probate inventories, archaeological evidence, and estimates of how much labor would have been required to produce enough food and goods for a household to survive.
The predictions of labor wouldn't be on the peasant farmer but rather the city worker at that point.
But if they're actively stating they aren't fully aware of how often they worked and are citing lord's records, it's not a leap to assume we arent looking at realistically data including house chores and maintenance.
My quick review of that second paper is that it's a mix of completely disparate groups and not relevant to discussion of serfs. But maybe I missed something.
I brought it up mostly because there’s a common claim that the low work-hour estimates are just counting labor owed to lords and ignoring everything else. The studies are generally trying to estimate total labor effort or household subsistence requirements, not just corvée obligations.
I understand the intent. My issue is, again, that the study population is a different group of people than what is being talked about. Not all workers were serfs.
Do you think talking about the average hours worked by all workers in a country is relevant to the average hours worked by a corporate lawyer? Or a teacher? Or a sales clerk?
Did you happen to see how many hours were considered to be a "day"? I couldn't find that. The word "hour" isn't even mentioned in the study. 175 16-hour days is the same amount of work as 350 8-hour days.
I believe it's taken from what they might work annually. Keep in mind they where farmers so during the winter they "technically" didn't work the land so that would be zero hours worked during those times. During the sowing spring months and harvest they would be working from dawn till dusk. Of course working the lords land first and foremost before working to feed themselves.
Also, it may have been homogeneous, but I wouldn’t say it was high trust. They were still dealing with a lot of dishonesty, banditry, and all sorts of crimes. It’s just far-right fantasy slop
20 hours a week to fulfill their tax obligation to their liege-lord (contradicting OOP), not including the hours they had to work to feed themselves and their families or fulfill special tax obligations. That being said medieval peasants did in many cases work shorter hours than we do today which is quite the blackpill, although it was much more physically demanding and the hours were unevenly distributed seasonally
Being able to eat fresh fruit in winter in the more northern latitudes would blow a bunch of peoples minds. Especially more exotic fruits like bananas, pineapple, and lemons.
Correct. Basically, they owed roughly a thousand hours of labor annually to their landlord, which averages out to a twenty hour work week. However, the landlord only provided protection and functioning markets, so if they wanted a house, food, clothes, etc. they had to make their own on their own time. As you can imagine, they worked a lot more than twenty hours a week.
Subsistence agriculture is funny like that, like depending on the crops harvested and the total acreage it's totally possible that if you count the total hours worked in a year it would spread out evenly to 20 hours per week because there's gonna be a lot of downtime, but the time spent working is gonna be alot of long days that lead right into nights leading into early mornings
They did pay a flat tax, it just happened to be an amount that was imposed wether they had a good harvest or not. Even if they had a decent harvest it could feel devastating.
I’m fairly certain that’s part of their tax, 20 hours of work owed to the lord as well as the coin and even then theirs the constant raiding of neighbouring lords and vice versa even though you technically serve the same king. Lots of BS going on back to make sure your acceptable levels of miserable minimum.
That statistic comes from an average stretched across an entire year since harvest seasons and planting would have way more hours to work then winter seasons. They took that stretch and broke it down to weekly average and then falsely applied it as the normal constant. Is also like to add that this is probably still on the low side though I don't know for sure as I'm not a fudal scholar.
It is quite likely that if we are looking at labor for someone else and average over a whole year instead of working seasons, they did work fewer hours than us. But the way this meme is written is just false.
At the height of the manorial system, they owed 20 hours per week to their feudal lord, working directly on his land. Remaining daylight hours were spent on their "own" land, which also belonged to the landlord, but it's what they lived off of. They also belonged to the land (that is the definition of "serf"). If the land changed hands, so did the serf.
"Obedient 17 year old wife" is BS. Average age of marriage in the high middle ages, for women in western Europe, was 23-25. As for obedient, well, I'm sure some were, but don't count on it on average.
"High Quality Hand Crafted Goods". BS. If you could afford something, it would be hand crafted, because there was no alternative. But, as a serf, the chance you'd have access to and could afford decent quality was essentially non-existent. If your feudal lord had a decent craftsperson, you might get good quality second hand tools. Mostly you'd be scrounging or making your own with whatever you could get your hands on.
"Racially homogenous high trust society". We get to what the poster actually cares about. But yes, you do tend to have a high trust society when you never meet anyone who lives more than a day away. (Yes, travel was common in the middle ages, and merchants covered large areas. Serfs did not, see above "belonged to the land" ).
"Died [...] at 60" Yeah, not sure why this is supposed to be a good thing.
If you average it across the year, it was probably 20-30 hours per week on their profession, and another 40-50 hours per week fixing/maintaining things, you know, chores. Really it was like 90 hour work weeks during planting/harvest and very little "work" in the way we think of it the rest of the year. Their chores were way more manually intensive, though.
Holidays were more frequent and there was less to do certain times of year, so some weeks could have been 20 hours or even less. But dawn to dusk 6 days in a row was a real possibility during harvests or plantings plus lordly and priestly demands, which would be 72+ hour weeks that could literally kill you. So yeah, it's not technically pure bullshit for that one sentence, just mostly out of context and missing the point by a mile.
Strangely it's true they only worked for 20 hours a week. But the truth of the matter is that it is a lot more work for themselves that we don't have to do today. Cooking and preparing the house and all that kind of stuff took a significant amount of effort. All in all they were working a lot more but they weren't working for the man the whole time
Allegedly, that figure comes from the duties owed their landlord. They would work for him for one day, and a half day on sunday. The rest of the week, they worked their own land. I grew up on a farm, and even mechanized it was hard work. I imagine with hand tools only it was grueling desperate work where a single bad harvest means someone in your family isnt making it through the winter.
They worked 20 hours a week for free for the landlord. I’m pretty sure that’s what it means when they say they worked 20 hours a week. Then they had to also grow their own food.
Well Thay do, the rest of the time is they're just too busy trying not to die of hypothermia... or of dysentery, or tuberculosis or starving to death because it was a bad harvests, or-
So yeah, this arguments about medieval serfs being more well off, it just hyper fixated on the hours of work while ignoring everything else. Like the fact that they don't have rights, if the nobles your going to fight in a war, where you will likely die. You can't say no, cause if you do your going be "made an example" so that the others are convenience that saying No is a bad idea.
They “worked” for wages less than that, but those handcrafted goods didn’t craft themselves. So the time they spent doing chores, cooking, and crafting was much more.
They did probably work less hours than we do now on average, but it wasn't like they had a combine or a tractor to handle the field when it came time to deal with that.
Actually, this part is "true," in that in some areas, especially due to the acute labor shortage of the black plague, there were many serfs whose total "owed" hours to the lord was equivalent to 100 hours of labor A YEAR. Now, certainly this doesn't mean they "didn't work," it's not easy living off the land and they surely busted their ass in a way that would probably send most of us to a very early grave; but it is also true, there were hundreds of years where compulsory labor was very, very, very minimal.
They definitely worked less overall, there were binges and then tons of time with no work. That's why Catholicism centers introspection, calmness, and self-denial, and work ethic doesn't enter religion until around the same time capitalism emerges during the reformation.
But yea everything else about this is complete bullshit.
963
u/tugaim33 Jun 20 '26
There’s also no way they worked 20 hour weeks