The structure of a village

Villages came in many sizes and shapes, and often had a church, an alehouse, a forge and a brick oven for baking bread. Each village had a lord who owned the mill, the oven and other facilities and charged for the use of these. As well as working on the land they rented, the villeins (where the word villager comes from) had to work on the lord's land (the demesne) on specified days during the year.

A wealthy lord would own several manors, which usually consisted of a village and the surrounding land. A reeve would be chosen from among the local peasants as the person who looked after the lord's manor and who made sure that the villagers worked for the lord on the correct number of days.

Much of the lord's land was let out to the villagers for which they paid rent, usually in the form of produce. In many places the land was not separated by fences or hedges, but was joined into two or three large fields. Each field was split into narrow bands and each family was allowed a certain number of strips. These bands were scattered all over the fields, so that all had a share of good and not so good land. This system of farming is called open field or strip farming.

The rest of the land was divided into meadows for hay making, common pasture for the livestock, and woodland which provided timber for building, firewood, berries and nuts, game and forage for pigs. There might also have been a fish pond.

[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2002]