HIS109Y1 Lecture : The Manorial Economy
Document Summary
Eating meat was an element of status but gave stomach ailment. Peasants couldn"t hunt on their territory, but landlord could. Peasants/tenants lived in villages, not on farms - villagers worked together to farm. Manor was an estate, fortified house of a landlord. If landlords had several manors he would have agents in each one. Both villagers and serfs were bound to soil and had to stay there; they were property. Manor was to be exactly the size it would take to support one knight. Manor shouldn"t be so large that peasants couldn"t walk to its borders easily. Each manor was a separate unit, governed by own traditions, structure, practice. All that mattered to the people on the manor was the people on the manor, nothing/no one outside of it. Money was extremely scarce, after romans collapsed there was no one to mint it. Powerful people were rich in land, not cash.
