Could You Survive Life as a Medieval Peasant?

The harvest is in, but it was a poor one. Your lord's rent and the Church's tithe are still due in full. Winter is coming. What's the wise move?

• Pay nothing until you know you'll have enough to eat
• Pay your dues, since falling behind brings worse consequences than a lean winter
• Flee the manor before the reeve comes to collect
• Pay the lord but withhold the Church's tithe

It's spring and your family is hungry, having stretched the winter stores thin. You still have a sack of grain set aside. What must you absolutely not do with it?

• Grind it into flour for bread
• Eat it, because it's your seed corn for planting
• Trade some of it for salt
• Share a little with a starving neighbor

You cut your hand badly on a scythe during the harvest. It's throbbing and starting to redden. In your world, what's the real danger?

• Losing the use of the hand for a few days
• The wound festering into a deadly infection
• Being unable to finish your labor for the lord
• The pain keeping you from sleep

You hear that people are saying the average person in your village barely lives past thirty. What does that grim figure actually reflect?

• Nearly everyone dies young from overwork
• The dangers of warfare taking most adults
• Very high infant and child death rates pulling the average down
• A recent plague year skewing the numbers

Your infant is feverish and your neighbor swears by a folk remedy involving a poultice and a charm. The village has no physician. What's the sober truth about your options?

• The remedy will almost certainly cure the child
• A physician would definitely save the child if you could afford one
• Care and luck are your real hope, and some remedies may do harm
• Prayer alone is the most effective treatment available

A neighbor's harvest failed completely while yours scraped by. He asks for help through the winter. Beyond simple kindness, why might you agree?

• There's no practical reason, it's pure charity
• The village survives as a collective, and you may need the same help next year
• The lord requires peasants to share equally
• Refusing would be punished by the manor court

You have a chance to send your young son to learn a craft as an apprentice in the nearby town, though it means losing his help in the fields. Is it worth considering?

• No, you need every hand on the land
• No, leaving the manor is forbidden and dangerous
• Yes, a trade could lift him out of serfdom entirely
• No, town life was even deadlier than village life

Your one-room home has a fire burning in the center but no chimney, and it fills with smoke. Beyond the discomfort, what did peasants gain by living this way?

• Nothing, it was simply bad design
• The smoke was believed to ward off evil spirits
• The smoke helped preserve thatch and drive out pests and damp
• It was a tax dodge, since chimneys were taxed

Winter approaches and you're deciding how to get through it. Which of these was the peasant's most reliable defense against a lean season?

• Hunting game in the lord's forest
• Preserved food, salted, dried, and stored from the harvest
• Buying grain at the winter market
• Relying on the lord to feed his peasants

After surviving years of this, what truly separated the peasants who endured from those who didn't?

• Sheer physical strength and toughness
• The favor of a generous lord
• Careful management of grain, land, and village ties
• Avoiding the notice of the nobility