Comments by "Madam of the Cat House" (@MadamoftheCatHouse) on "What Was The Life Of A Medieval Peasant Like?" video.

So do we today. In our off work time we have to shop, cook, clean, do laundry, care for the kids/pets. On top of that a lot of people do their own car maintenance/home repairs. So our 'free' time is not so free either.
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@chaost4544 Yeah, tell it to those who have to do all those things after they worked hard at their job all day! Still a lot of work. Plus there is not machine invented yet that could was my bathtub or sink, wash my windows or a robot to brush and walk my dog. No personal robot who can do your shopping for you as of yet either. Also, medieval peasants DID outsource quite a bit of their work to specialicts, such as blacksmiths, thatchers, repairmen ets.
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@pietromicca44 They had wells. And they did not go for the animal feed somewhere in the bush every day. They had it stored ahead. There was a village butcher to butcher a large animal, there was the blacksmith to shoe a horse, there was the thatcher to mend the roof. There were always kids or hangaround adult to do an odd job such as water fetching or wood chopping for just a crust of bread.
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@pietromicca44 Not true, there were lots of them in the countryside. Plus the families were large back in the day so when everyone pitched in it was not nearly as much work.
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@DJRockford83 Not really. You had to work 3 days in the master's fields. Or, if you rented, you had a quota of the harvest to give to the master.
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@pietromicca44 They gathered hay in the haymaking season, stored it ahead. Plus I already mentioned there were a lot of helpers ready to do odd jobs like water fetching or wood chopping for pittance, sometimes a crust of bread. There were a lot of orphans, vagabonds and destitute widows hanging around waiting for the opportunities of those little jobs just to have bite to eat.
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It's a bit more poetic in Italy where the climate is nice. In the Northern parts it's a lot harsher and less poetic.
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@pietromicca44 I was raised by a great grandmother who was a russian peasant all her life. Was listening her peasant life stories my whole childhood.
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@pietromicca44 They did have free time.
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@unpopularopinion9831 Yeah, because the farm is isolated. Most peasants back then lived in villages with plenty of neighbours close by.
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@unpopularopinion9831 I didn't say they had it easy. U r a genius yourself too and stop putting words in my mouth.
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@guardiandevil3 Every village had one. And there weree a lot of fam. members to fetch waters. As well as people who would do a job like that for a crust of bread.
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@guardiandevil3 You don't understand how cheap the labour was back then. You didn't have to be wealthy to hire someone for an odd jobs. So many people were desperate they would work for a crust of bread. And not all the peasants were poor either. In Ukraine and Russia quite a few were very well off. The majority were 'middling peasants' and my ancestors were among those. According to the stories they told me, they enjoyed pretty decent living standards. Quite comparable to the middle class of that day.
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@guardiandevil3 Great Depression was a dire time. But peasants even in the Middle Ages did not always live in the time of strife and famine. There were also many years of great harvest and relative well being.
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@guardiandevil3 No, survival rates were higher than that, at least 60% So if they had 10, at least 6, or on av. 7-8 would survive. My great-grandmother (b19140) had 6 sibs. Only 2 died, but they were a pair of twins. Multiples back then had low odds of surviving. The rest lived old enough to have their own kids.
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When I was 11 I witnessed my drandfather and stepfather chop off chickens' heads. Didn't bother me. Ate one of those next day wiout any remorse.
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