Peasant Society
In 1450, most Europeans were
peasants
, farmworkers who lived in small villages surrounded by fields farmed cooperatively by different families. On manorial lands, farming rights were given in exchange for labor on the lord’s estate, an arrangement that turned peasants into serfs. Gradually, obligatory manorial services gave way to paying rent, or, as in France, landownership. Once freed from the obligation to labor for their farming rights, European farmers began to produce surpluses and created local market economies.
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