Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 2

Working Life

By Dr Mark Hailwood, published 11th July 2024

In this episode, Dr Hailwood (University of Bristol) uses witness statements from court records to reconstruct a ‘typical’ working day for 17th century villagers. Contrary to our expectations that men toiled in the fields all day whilst women were occupied with work around the home, the evidence reveals that both women and men enjoyed quite varied working lives – though we are right to imagine that their hours of toil were long, and perhaps even longer than we usually think.

This four-part series explores a simple question: what would it have been like to live in an English village 400 years ago? 

The challenge here is that the ordinary women and men who lived in rural villages four centuries ago have left few written accounts of their own experiences. But there is one type of source that can reveal a great deal about their day-to-day lives: witness statements that they provided in court cases. When they were asked to give their version of events relating to a crime or offence they had seen, they often included a wealth of incidental detail about what they were doing at the time that sheds light on their everyday activities.

In these podcasts, Dr Hailwood draws on this material to examine living conditions, people’s working lives, the extent to which villages were isolated and insular, and what the relationship between neighbours was like. In the process, he suggests that many of our long-held ideas about ‘peasant life’ in the past need to be revised.

If you would like to comment on any of the episodes, or ask any follow-up questions, you can do so by visiting Dr Hailwood’s history blog, the many-headed monster.

1. Introduction.
2. What did men and women do?]
3. The Working Day: Morning
4. The Working Day: Afternoon and Evening
5. Conclusion.


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