Lords, Peasants and a Changing Europe
1After the Western Roman Empire fell, many parts of Europe had no strong central government. Kings granted land to nobles, who became their vassals and promised to fight for them. Nobles in turn granted land to knights. Historians later called this system of land in return for loyalty and service feudalism, though it worked differently from place to place.
2Most people were peasants living on manors, farming estates that belonged to a lord. Many were serfs. They could not leave the manor without the lord's permission, worked several days a week on his fields and paid him fees, such as a fee when a daughter married. The lord's manor court enforced the customs of the manor. A manor grew most of its own food, and its people bought little from outside.
3From 1095 to 1291, popes called for Crusades to win and hold Jerusalem and nearby lands. Muslims saw the crusaders as invaders, and Muslim armies took back the last crusader cities by 1291. Crusaders and pilgrims came home with a taste for sugar and spices, and the Italian merchants who shipped these goods grew rich.
4In 1348 the Black Death reached England. Within about two years it killed perhaps a third to half of the people. Whole families died, and some villages were left almost empty. With so few people left to farm, surviving workers asked for higher wages, and lords who needed workers often paid them.
5In 1349 and 1351, the king and his government made laws to hold wages at the levels from before the plague. Many peasants resented these laws. In 1381, angered by them and by a new tax, thousands of peasants rose in the Peasants' Revolt and marched on London. The revolt was crushed, but over the next century serfdom slowly faded in England, as more peasants paid rent in money instead of working on the lord's land.