A history of mediæval and modern Europe for secondary schools (1920) (14577759538)

Identifier: historyofmediv00davi (find matches)
Title: A history of mediæval and modern Europe for secondary schools
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Davis, William Stearns, 1877-1930 McKendrick, Norman Shaw, 1876-
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, New York (etc.) Houghton Mifflin company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation



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obles and churchmen ahke taught that it was the duty of 1 While many of the statements in this chapter apply to the whole of westernEurope, especial reference is made to France, as the most typical of all feudalizedcountries. 2 In being thus bound to the soil, and having the real use if not actual owner-ship of a little farm, the medieval serfs, ditTercd from absolute slaves. Therewere a few genuine slaves in Europe in the Middle Ages, but not enough to makethem a real factor. 142 HISTORY OF EUROPE these villeins Ho submit cheerfully to their lot, to supportthe upper classes with their labors, to thank Heaven if theywere treated with a modicum of justice, and to endure patientlyif the feudal lord abused them (as too frequently) a httle worsethan his dogs and cattle. Truth to tell, the \illeins were prob-ably a brutish lot. Their days were consumed in grinding fieldlabor with spade and mattock; their homes were mere hovelsof wood, sun-dried brick and thatch; their clothing a few coarse
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PEASANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY (Adapted from a Bible of ijSo in the Brussels Library) rags; their food always scanty. Of their intelligence, manners,cleanHness, nothing need be said. In the average peasantshut, the dirty, half-naked children would struggle on the earthenfloor along with the little pigs and the poultry. How couldGod and the saints love such creatures? — Betwixt peasantand noble there was surely a great gulf fixed! 73. The slow rise of the agricultural classes. In the Middle ^ That is, dwellers in a villa or farm, whence later came the idea of a vil-lain as a clownish, rascally countryman. THE RISE OF THE NON-NOBLE CLASSES 143 Ages the towns were at first few and insignificant, and nearlyall peasants lived in miserable huts on the feudal estates. Agricultural methods were extremely primitive; a drought ora wet year meant a famine and misery for a wide district. Dur-ing times of great shortage there are grim tales told of feastson human flesh, and of the multiplica