The 11th century in Europe is often depicted as dark, tormented age – and certainly for good reason. Yet it also set the stage for the emergence of modern Europe despite the near-constant adversity faced by those alive at the time. This guide dives deep into what day-to-day existence was like in the 1100s, as well as the legacy left behind.
Daily Existence: Brutal for Peasants, Comfortable for Nobles
Life for the average peasant during this historical period was, in a word, brutal. Peasants comprised around 90% of the population and lived under a feudal system tying them in servitude to land-owning nobles. In return for toiling away on manors and supplying most of what they produced as food or goods to their lord, they received a small plot of land along with – in theory – physical protection.
But any sense of security ended there. Peasants dwelled in cramped one or two room huts crafted from mud, dung, thatch or planks. These modest homes lacked windows with animals living close by. Inside, whole families were crowded around a central fire pit with a roof opening as the sole ventilation source. straw pallets on dirt floors served for bedding. Some peasants did not even enjoy a permanent shelter, instead sleeping where they worked. Castle-dwelling nobles in contrast relaxed in multiple room stone fortresses with garderobes providing primitive drainage and sewage control.
Clothing and diet for peasants consisted of simple, crude homemade items with no fabric variety or tailoring. Daily sustenance depended on what staples they were permitted to retain like pottage, cereals, breads, vegetables and occasional milk. Meat was a rare luxury. Villagers could go through whole winters surviving on stored turnips or cabbage when grains ran scarce.
Commoners also enjoyed virtually no social mobility or personal autonomy. Strict societal ranks dictated occupations and mates. Lords arranged marriages for daughters to build family alliances and sons inherited leadership titles. Outside monks, priests and skilled tradesmen, few options existed apart from tilling soil endlessly like forebears. Period life expectancy averaged just 35 years with many children dying before adulthood from disease, injury or malnutrition.
Economy and Innovation: Growing Yet Stagnant
The countryside focus of life in the 1100s signaled beginnings of a population and economic recovery in Europe. Agricultural yields benefitted from favorable climate phases plus techniques like mounted plows, watermill mechanization and three crop rotations. Manor farms concentrated mainly on self-sufficiency given transportation hurdles and costs that hindered bulk product movement. Still crop output and caloric availability per person markedly improved, permitting marginal population growth.
Tools and commercial processes remained primitive however. Blacksmiths relied on hammer, anvil and fire for the few metal goods produced like plow blades, horse shoes, crude door hinges, shears and weapons. Weavers spun wool or flax by hand then woven manually into textiles. Wood workers crafted carts, barrels, furniture and even buildings with hand axes, adzes, chisels and bow lathes. Glass making adopted some chemical progress but output stayed modest given huge energies required to smelt raw quartz. Market trading did spread from villags to towns then cities. But country tolls, raids on travel routes and petty nobility exploiting merchants curtailed the extent.
Signs of innovation showed in agriculture with horse collars boosting plow animal strength efficiency, padded harnesses reducing equine injury and damage, horseshoes protecting hooves, plus the aforementioned crop system rotations improving yields. But life still reflected generations-old patterns focused on extreme basic functionality rather than progress.
The Unending Scourge of Conflict
One near constant plague across the decades was conflict. As the vestiges of Roman imperial rule faded, Western Europe fractured more into areas controlled by nobility, bishops and monasteries. Local feudal lords held sway over life in their fiefdom but often sought to expand scope through battles against rivals nearby then extended towards regional land grabs. War focused mainly on sieges towards rival power castles and fortified cities. Invading armies tried starving defenders via blockade or ultimately overrunning outer walls and gates.
Casualties could be enormous proportionate to total area populations. For example, the Norman conquest of England under William The Conqueror from 1066 saw deaths from combat, disease, massacre and scorched earth tactics combine to kill 75% of Yorkshire inhabitants alone. Fields and villages were torched leaving tens of thousands to starve even around harvest seasons. Extended wars killed vast percentages of provincial inhabitants and even when completed, the enmity between nobles continued for generations.
The other far reaching military effort was the Crusades to try and claim Jerusalem and the Holy lands from Muslim control. Starting in 1095, repeated crusades mustered enormous European armies involving nobility, knights, mercenaries and devoted religious followers. Over three centuries, at least nine major crusades saw favor shift between Muslim and Christian forces until the Holy Land gradually fell back under Islamic rule. Thousands perished in battles while perhaps hundreds of thousands of crusaders died from combat, accidents, malnutrition or infectious diseases picked up abroad.
Death from violence – whether against warring militia, mounted knights or bandits preying on travelers – always remained an ominous threat lurking across the entire 11th century backdrop.
The Strong Influence of Spirituality and Superstition
Religion and superstition maintained an iron grip over 11th century Europe. The Catholic church integrated deeply into public and private life with local parish priests providing moral oversight, collecting tithes, documenting weddings, baptisms and burials, performing mass and offering education. Fear of sin and divine retribution ran strong. Holy days and saints feast days punctuated the calendar requiring observance. Punishments upon damned souls were envisioned as especially horrific extending beyond earthly existence.
The intensity extended deeper with supernatural mysticism and superstitions considered mainstream. Belief in witchcraft and magic permeated all levels of society. Spells, potions, and incantations promised to serve the righteous or righteous while punish enemies and rivals. Chants, herbs and amulets supposedly healed maladies when crude medicine failed. One estimate suggests some 300 women were executed on suspicion of witchcraft by secular courts during the first two centuries of second millennium.
While hardly as systematic or organized as later infamy, accusations often focused on herbalists and midwives. Use of common flowering plants like thistles, dandelions and daffodils in poultices or teas marked victims as consorting with the Devil according to prevailing zeitgeist. Whether genuine paranormal belief, convenient blame during turmoil or jealous rivals exploiting hysteria, execution of accused witches proved a fixture. The strange phenomena never faced scientific skepticism or inquiry with faith in occultish influences running unchecked.
Between divine canon law influence and a parallel justice system rooted in folklore, the Church and cultural supernaturalism exercised profound influence over 11th century life.
Legacy Shaping Modern Europe
For all its warfare, deprivation and turbulence, the 11th century began redefining Europe in ways shaping geography, language, technology, economy and social structure reverberating still today. As populations slowly rebounded, consolidated fiefdoms evolved into kingdoms that eventually transformed into the national borders we now recognize as familiar. The Norman conquest of England infused French language into Old English setting the roots of modern vocabulary. Anglo-Saxon and Frankish vernaculars slowly spread becoming middle English and old French. Surnames passed down through generations also emerged originally signaling occupation like Smith, Cooper or Chapman.
Aristocratic elite classes entrenched through feudal loyalty networks later transmuted into titled nobility. The sword nobility accountable to no government and only the king spawned countless cascading class privilege hierarchies. Concepts of chivalry including gallantry towards women and courtly manners also first developed. Early guild systems training apprentices in specialized crafts evolved into regulated trade academies and unions. Banks originating as noble family treasure vault custodians later revolutionized into financial industry foundations. While peasants theoretically traded loyalty and labor for physical protection, sheltered economies and modest innovation laid seeds for inexorable economic expansion ahead.
Therefore despite epidemic strife and landless serfdom as the default commoner experience, critical elements seminal to eventual societal progress traced back to 11th century Europe.
In Summary
The period encapsulating the 11th century began a gradual crawl away from truly dark ages towards enough stability for population growth, trade evolution, agricultural surpluses and consolidation of land into proto-nations. But daily existence remained bounded by backbreaking labor just to secure adequacy of food, shelter and clothing. Old age reached just one generation back. Regional wars recurrently devastated villages, land and lives. Supernatural influenced maintained an unrelenting stranglehold on beliefs and society lacking an empirical counterweight.
Yet the structures and assumptions keeping peasants trapped were also beginning erosion towards greater future social mobility. Accelerating timelines saw subsequent centuries witness further extending lifespans, economic diversification, growing urbanization and rising living standards. The political units formed went on to become powerful modern states. Innovations hastened the pace of knowledge growth and technology advancement. By experiencing the nadir hardships around basic subsistence and security, the period granted perspective allowing ensuing generations to begin lifting higher both the floor and ceiling of life potential though progress arose gradually.
So while themes of pervasive misery and exploitation characterized the 11th century, the foundations cementing these building blocks allowed successors to begin dismantling barriers. The legacy contrasts serve to demonstrate just how far European societies have managed to progress across a millennium through economic liberalization, spreading democracy and education access. The past hardships shine a light on the freedoms, choice abundance and knowledge people often now take for granted relative to predecessors just a few hundred years ago who lived and died under feudal systems as nameless, landless, powerless servants. The long view lens helps cast modern comforts into stark relief for appreciation.