Serfs Research Paper

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25 serfs per manor. More than a dozen manors. That’s more than 300 total serfs. A dozen manors, only one lady per manor. Serfs outnumbered ladies of the manor, 25 to one. Serfs and Ladies of the Manor. Two very different people, two very different lives. Serfs are not slaves, but they’re also not peasants. They’re something in-between. A stage between slavery and freedom. According to Lords and Ladies, they lived in windowless, one-room houses with a dirt floor and hay for beds. The houses were dark, drafty, sooty, and they had leaky roofs, due to the fact that they were poorly built. Medieval Living stated that serfs woke at first light to start their work. The serfs didn’t return from the fields until sundown, after ten or twelve hours of hard physical labor. Both males and females worked in the fields. However, the male serfs worked in the fields most of the time, while the females did laundry, baked, and watched the children. Serfs were also only allowed to work on the lord of the …show more content…

He could also make them work as hard as he wanted them to. Except, the risk of losing a serf was too high, especially since the Black Plague was going around. The Finer Times said that the health of a serf wasn’t anywhere near perfect. The water was polluted from the waste of the towns. Homes without bathrooms threw their waste into the gutter or in the streets and small businesses produced rotting garbage that attracted bacteria, rats, fleas, and flies. Medieval Times Info states that every four out of ten babies didn’t reach the age of five due to illness. The Black Plague spread to the manors and killed one-third of the population. Other than illness, hunger was a problem for the serfs. With everyone dropping like flies, there weren't that many serfs left to work in the fields, causing the crops to die out from not being able to get harvested or treated in time. The ladies of the manor had it easier, but not

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