Under the nobles, the clergy, the gentry, and the yeoman, the peasants consisted of free tenants, free villains tied to a particular manor and lord, and servile villains with more service obligations and similar ties to a manor and lord. Many kingdoms continued the practice of enslaving people, especially captured or purchased people.
A typical family might number from three to six members. Infant, toddler, and childbearing mother mortality was high, fatal accidents were not uncommon, and children older than fifteen often entered into marriages, household service, trade apprenticeships, clerical orders, or service in military campaigns, garrisons, retinues, or other units. So the average family probably number somewhere around three or four members per house (i.e., per nuclear family). Widows and widowers often faced pressure to marry again, but sometimes they lived alone or with a few servants.
Basic Subsistence: A family of five (husband, wife, three children) would need about 11,000 calories in food and drink per day to stay reasonably healthy, about 5,000 calories for the two adults and about 6,000 calories for the three kids. Three pounds of bread provides about about 3,000 to 3,100 calories. So one family could easily consume about six pounds to ten pounds of bread per day. Poorer families would be consuming grain as porridge or pottage for one or both main meals, so depending on the composition of the porridge, the family might be getting fewer calories from it than from bread. [These numbers scale in insane ways. An active soldier might need 3,000 to 4,000 calories per day, so according to some calculations, an army of 60,000 soldiers would need about 110 pounds of grain per day.]
Dowry: daughter’s dowry negotiated before ceremony, usually a quantity of coin, jewelry, and goods, but also including a land grant and about a third of movable property upon husband’s death.
Family Rights to Land: Strong legal and social precedents favored keeping a family’s holdings within the same family in situations in which the head of household needed to change.
Bidreap: mandatory days of service when all but housewives and any shepherds had to help reap the lord’s grain. Other mandatory services such as plowing the lord’s fields, transporting the lord’s goods, or gathering dead wood often received some compensation in food or ale.
Widow’s Rights. Widows could inherit control of a land holding if they followed through on all public ceremonies (funeral, reading of the will in the manor court or hallmote, payment of entry fee to lord and church). Upon the widow’s death, the land reverted to next heir or to the lord.
Social Status: A manor peasant who lives a year and a day away from the lord’s holding was free to settle elsewhere and form new arrangements. Close family members typically were not employed in the household due to the perceived loss of status. Being an independent head of household was a desirable status, so extended families living in one residence were not the norm in most societies.
Clothing: In most places, peasants faced some legal restrictions on what they were allowed to wear, and the restrictions were enforced by confiscations and fines. Wealthier commoners experienced the negative effects of elite disapproval and mockery if they overdressed or violated social norms. Nobles and gentry kept the tailors and dyers busy; they typically wore silk or woolen stockings or hose; long and short wide pants or chausses; silk, linen, or woolen shirts; tunics; mantles and cloaks. The cloaks, mantles, and tunics featured the livery colors; sometimes, the pants of chausses, also.
Housing: A lot of families lived in one-room huts, cottages, or houses. Many others lived in two-room huts, with either a room for large livestock (cows) or a bedroom.
Number of Children: Due to high rates of mother, infant, and toddler mortality, families typically had two or three living children. But about 20 percent of families would be large five or more children).
