“The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely the pace of work relaxed,” notes Shor. In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze. Go back 200, 300 or 400 years and you find that most people did not work very long hours at all. When workers fought for the eight-hour workday, they weren’t trying to get something radical and new, but rather to restore what their ancestors had enjoyed before industrial capitalists and the electric lightbulb came on the scene. But Americans have long since kissed the 40-hour workweek goodbye, and Shor’s examination of work patterns reveals that the 19th century was an aberration in the history of human labor. What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 40-hour workweek over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century worker spent toiling as proof that we’re moving in the right direction. So far, that forecast is not looking good. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.Īs for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations. ![]() His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. ![]() ![]() His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic.
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