Could medieval people, particularly those born into serfdom or the broader peasantry, do anything to improve their lot? That’s a question I asked Professor Chris Dyer, an expert on medieval social history, during a podcast interview on daily life in the Middle Ages.
“I think people have a conception, which is partly true, of a rather rigid, compartmentalised society in which people had defined roles and very strong formal commitments, and where their actions were very limited,” says Professor Dyer.
“About 40 per cent of the English population in the middle of the Middle Ages (in the 13th century) were serfs. So they were unfree, and it is easy to represent them as being a very oppressed, very limited, very controlled group who had to work for their lord and had limitations on their freedom of marriage, for example. At the same time, the people at the top of society, the aristocracy, were also defined by law.
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