I have not looked into any sources on what life was like for a feudal peasant. However, I’ve heard that peasants had more holidays and rest. I also believe the life of a peasant was more communal and satisfactory with religion being a central feature. This, to me, is a stark contrast to the life of the modern proletariat in the Global North who often lives for work, is more and more isolated, and maybe gets only a month off work. Yes, we have higher life expectancy now (quantity) but I cant help but think that peasants had a better quality of life. Please educate me on this topic and provide some sources to look at. Thank you! 🙏
Of note we have very limited recordings of what peasants actually thought at various times. Most records concerning peasants are about what nobles or the clergy thought about peasants/what they ought to be doing. Like handbooks on how priests should give sermons and shit, reference books on punishments for sin and so on.
We need to be cautious about what we infer from, these sources and we can’t project our values onto people living in radically different contexts.