FAMILY LIVING

Living in a Medieval family wasną't all that it seemed to be. Everyone that was considered a part of the family worked. The "man" of the house rose at dawn or daybreak along with his wife and children. In the Early Middle Ages, 476 A.D. to 1000 A.D., the children did not go to school. The boys, if they wished and were smart enough, were able to go to school if their parents were wealthy. Boys who didnąt go to school worked the land with their father. Girls stayed in the cottage and helped their mother wih chores, cooking, and caring for the animals. The mother of the family was in charge of feeding and caring for the animals. She also was in charge of feeding the family, making clothes, and tidying the cottage. She rarley went to market , but rather, she generally waited for a pedelar to come by. Her husband worked the land with his sons and brought the food and money into the house. If a husband was lucky enough to be a knight, of course he would usually be off at war or busy protecting the village. This was a very prestigious job and because he was nobility, he would not have to hunt or work the land with the commoners. Only commoners did the everyday work on the manor while the nobility reaped the benefits of it.

An evening in a noblemans home.

Medieval Techonology

The economy during the Middle Ages was mainly agriculture. Most of the hard work was done by slave labour, but even people back then would use technology if it was available. During the Medieval times the main sources of technology consisted of the water mill, the windmill, and the mechanical clock.

Wind and Water Power:

The Romans, before Medieval times had used water and wind power. These same water mills and wind mills were carried over and used extensively in Medieval Times. Mills could grind flour, crush olives, make cloth, tan leather and pound pulp for paper. These were all requirements necessary to daily life in the Middle Ages. The mill usually stood on a river bank. As the shaft of a water mill turned, the cams raised levers which operated hammers, enabling all kinds of pounding jobs to be done. This was the age of water and wind in several senses of the phrase.Sailing ships linked the world together with only Antarctica and a few isolated island unvisited by 1734.Water power has a surprisingly long history. Water mills appeared throughout the remans empire during the third and fourth centuries, but the fall of the Roman empire ended procrastinated for wives plead use. (Scan pg. 16 castle - Picture 2A)
Iron:

Most medieval machine parts were made of wood because iron was so expensive. Mills crushed the iron ore to make the iron machine parts and as well, tools. The first European blast furnace recorded was working in 1380. Water power improved metal-working techniques and made iron cheaper. One main iron invention that helped improve farming in the Middle Ages was the iron horse shoe. This iron shoe for the horses protected their feet so they could work better and longer. The plow for plowing the fields was also invented during the Middle Ages.

Clocks

For thousands of years people regulated their lives by the sun, with sundials being the oldest clocks. In the early Medieval Times people would use the monastery bell as their measure of time. Soon though, the first mechanical clock was made in China in the 8th Century A.D. Below are illustrations of the many clock inventions from the eighth century to the fourteenth century.

FOODS

Medieval foods were fairly plain. There were only two meals a day, and these meals were the same day in and day out as there was no variety to their food. In the morning before going out to work on the fields, the farmers had only a bit of bread and ale too start the day. At around 10 in the morning, the farmers came trooping back from the fields for dinner. For dinner they would have had fresh mutton, beef, chicken, or fish. They also had bread, cheese, and fresley churned butter. After dinner the farmers went back to the fields to work until 4 p.m. At 4 oąclock they would go back to the cottage for supper . For supper they had bacon, cheese, ale, and bread.

In a noble manąs home they had almost exactly the same foods. The exceptions were that they ate pigeon and had extravagant pastries. Sometimes as a suprise the chef filled a pie shell full of small little birds (live) that would flutter out when the crust was cut. It is believed that this is where the nursery rhyme where the blackbirds fly out of the pie came from.

Noblemans Recipe

EDUCATION

Most children never went to school in the Middle Ages and few, if any could read or write. Boys who dattid end school usually went to song school, monastery school, or grammar school. If a boy was clever and wanted to become a doctor or lawyer, he could, in the later Middle Ages, have the option of going university. There were hardly any schools for girls, but If they did attend school, it wouldhave been run by nuns. Girls learned how to sew, to read a little, to sing, and perhaps to play a musical instrument. Some rich families had a private tutor for their sons and sometimes their daughters. Song schools were like Sunday schools in our time. The students learned to sing hymns and to read and write. Most medieval school boys went to grammar school where their teachers were mostly men and the schools were run by churches or monasteries. Monastery schools were run by monks, and were very religious schools. Boys who were going to be priests or monks went to these schools, where there was only one teacher, an older monk, for every 3 or 4 boys. Only one child was taught at a time, while the other children read. The books read in the schools, were mostly hand written by monks. The language at the time was of course, Latin.

Bibliography

Caselli, Giovanni. The Middle Ages. New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1988.

Davies , Penelope. Country Life in The Middle Ages, Wayland Publishers, 1972.

Morgan , Gweneth. Life in a Medieval Village. Minneapolis: Lerner Pu blications, 1982.

Ormrod, Mark. Life In The Middle Ages SEngland: Wayland Publishers, 1991.

Hartman, Gertrude. Medieval Days and Ways. Great Britian:Macmillian Publishing Company New York,1965.

Shaun , Jerilee, Tracie