Where exactly people worked 150 days a year? Why would religious authorities even have power over secular authorities, this sounds like complete nonsense or extreme cherry picking.
Update:
In 1986 economist Gregory Clark wrote a working paper that (according to citers) contained this estimate. It doesn’t appear he published it, but it got cited. He actually did for real publish a new paper in 2018 raising that number up to an estimate of 250-300 days.
Where exactly people worked 150 days a year?
Probably nowhere. They had eventually 80 days off per year (holidays) – including Sundays. Additionally craftsmen and farmers (but probably not peasants) worked also on the ‘free’ days.
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/arbeitszeit-frueher-und-heute-die-hohe-anzahl-von-100.html (in German)
Yeah, I’ve looked it up, thank you.
Why would religious authorities even have power over secular authorities
Because secular authorities didn’t exist in medieval Europe? (/¯ ಠ_ಠ)/¯
Well apart from kings or nobility or landowners or city authorities, town authorities…
Were you thinking of in terms of a king acting by the grace of God or something? Because there definitely were secular authorities in the typical sense.
All of those needed to play ball with the church. Let me remind you of all that pope and counterpope business, all the religious wars in Europe, the Crusades, excommunications as power moves, the church as landouners, etc.
Secular means separation of church and state. That didn’t exist in medieval Europe. Otherwise, the enlightenment wouldn’t have been necessary.
Church was a limit to secular athority, not the authority itself, in most places.
I think you’re confusing “secular” with “worldly”. Secular means that the church and the state are separated. Or that the state is neutral regarding religion. That definetly wasn’t the case in medieval Europe. That’s part of why the US/French revolution happened.
Secular means worldly, sorry.
From Wikipedia:
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin saeculum, ‘worldly’ or ‘of a generation’), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion.
So, while you might be technically correct as it comes to what the literal translation is: that’s not how it’s used in political discourse.
R-r-right, and monarchs were part of the clergy or head of church (except eastern roman empire ofc)?
Also why would church need to play by laws set up by local authorities if they were all under the rule of the church?
Secular means that the state is neutral to the church. How was that possible when the church was the official justification of the state?
You’re confusing “secular” with “worldy”.
Does the name “Henry VIII” ring any bells?
Secular means that the state is neutral to the church
It does not. dictionary, and yes Henry VIII is a great example of what I’m talking about, when he didn’t get what he wanted he just changed the rules. Also he doesn’t belong to middle ages in any way or form, lol.
Why would religious authorities even have power over secular authorities?
Because they didn’t want to go to hell. It’s easy to think in modern times that every person in power was as cynical about religion as they are now, but back then even the lords were true believers. A lot of them were illiterate and the ones that were weren’t well versed enough in Latin and the Bible to question anything the church said, so if the church said you’re going to hell if you work your peasants on Saint Michael’s feast day then your going to believe them.
Along with this is the church’s role as a sort of mediator between the lords and the peasants. The church gave legitimacy to the rulers and consecrated the peasants labor and suffering as part of God’s plan. If the lord ignored the church then the Sunday mass would change from “get back to the fields and work for your glorious lord” to “your lord has given himself to the devil” and now you have a bunch of angry rebellious subjects.
Religion can be the opiate of the masses, but it can also be the meth of the masses if you cross the church
You really misunderstand who was at the top (it’s not clergy), this doesn’t exclude faith from equation, it’s just they were in most places under secular authority, not vice versa.
Not saying the clergy are on the top, more that they shared power with secular authorities. Saying the secular authorities are on the top is like saying the president is. Yes, they have executive power and control of the military, but they need congress to legitimate the laws they enforce. If the president ignores congress and starts enforcing their own laws contrary to congress, then they’ll lose legetamacy and risk a rebellion. Either by the people or by their underlings who can use it as a reason to not follow orders.
Same thing with the church state relations in the middle ages, the church provided legitimacy to the secular authorities. Without that legitimacy, the people you rule are less likely to respect your authority and more likely to rebel against it, especially if you’re told your rebellious action could get you into heaven.
Agreed on most of the points. True, church provided some legitimacy not all of it and not even majority, secular rulers had a lot of power over local clergy due to many factors and by the 10th century rulers tried to usurp church completely (e.g. emperor named new pope after old one dies). Bishops literally sworn fealty to HR emperor, and in some places monarch chose or at least had ability to choose who will become abbot or bishop or whatever.
You really misunderstand who was at the top (it’s not clergy)
About half of medieval history was dedicated to this question and you try to brush it off in a 3.5 word parenthesis? Lol.
Emperors were crowned by the pope.
From late antiquity to high middle ages popes were chosen by the closest ruler more often then not. Them crowning emperors weren’t a sign of authority but subservience, lol. When popes chose to oppose secular rulers, they either changed their minds or there were new pope.
250 days would be 5 days a week 50 weeks a year, so seems similar to modern schedules.
Fewer
Hardly know er
They must of done it on accident
Your right
I did low effort gpt 😉
The claim that medieval peasants worked only 150 days a year and had many holidays off is partially true but oversimplified. The reality is more complex and depends on time period, location, and economic conditions. Here’s a breakdown of the historical evidence:
- Medieval Work Schedules & Holidays
Church Holidays: The Catholic Church mandated numerous feast days (e.g., Christmas, Easter, saints’ days) when labor was restricted. Estimates suggest 80–100 holidays per year in some places, but enforcement varied.
Sunday Rest: Work was generally prohibited on Sundays, adding about 52 non-working days.
Seasonal Workload: Agricultural work was highly seasonal. Planting and harvest times were extremely labor-intensive, while winter months involved less fieldwork but still required tasks like repairing tools, feeding animals, and processing food.
- The 150-Day Work Year Claim
Some economic historians estimate that medieval peasants worked fewer days annually than modern industrial workers. However, 150 days seems too low, as it assumes every feast day and Sunday was fully work-free, which was not always the case.
Many peasants supplemented their farming with additional work (e.g., weaving, milling, carpentry) during “off” periods.
- Hardships & Work Conditions
While feast days provided breaks, peasant life was physically demanding. Workdays could be long (often from sunrise to sunset).
Hunger, disease, and social obligations (such as corvée labor—unpaid work for the lord) made life challenging.
Despite rest periods, subsistence farming meant that food shortages and unpredictable weather could quickly lead to hardship.
Conclusion
The idea that medieval peasants had an easy work schedule with extensive holidays is partly true in the sense that they had more frequent breaks than modern 9-to-5 workers. However, their work was far more physically demanding, they faced food insecurity, and their “off days” didn’t always mean leisure. The claim of a 150-day work year is likely exaggerated but does reflect the fact that medieval societies structured work differently from modern capitalism.
Historia Civilis did a very good and very concise (~25 minute) breakdown of work/free time of labour through the ages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo
One of capitalism’s most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil…
TLDW: we used to be paid by the day, not by the hour, and we would do a little more in summer and lot less in winter and still be paid the same. Moreover, employers used to incentivise employees to work by providing free food and sometimes free lodging.
He’s got some issues with his sources on this video (one is a secondary source from the 1840s for example). I want his claims to be true but take the info with a grain of salt.
One thing that tends to get left out is that peasants had a lot of work to do at home. Washing and repairing clothes, maintaining tools, cooking and preserving food, etc all had to be done by hand.
Moreover, employers used to incentivise employees to work by providing free food and sometimes free lodging. [In exchange for labor]
Yes, the historical name for providing free food and shelter in exchange for a person’s coerced labor is slavery, though sometimes the ruling class dresses it up in laws and calls it serfdom or indentured servitude.
In the example he provides, they were compensated for their work and had homes they could go back to.
You have to remember that the plague successively wiped out a third of Europe. Employers were practically begging people to come to work
If “providing free food and shelter in exchange for a person’s coerced labor is slavery”, then isn’t providing currency in exchange for a person’s coerced labor slavery?
Yes, wage slavery. /j
That’s only 150 of working days for your lord on top of 365 days you had to work your own patch of land not to starve to a fucking death and to pay taxes to your lord. People who believe that life 100+ years ago was easier are ultra delusional and, most likely, still live in their mom’s basement and never had work in their life.
I know this post is bullshit but I still want to kill the rich.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo
It seems that it isn’t. Medieval peasants had between 41% to 51% of the year off work. This was the norm for societies going back to the stone age. Clocks, mechanical lights, and authoritarian capitalists fucked that up in the last 4 centuries, and 2 centuries respectively.
I think its important to want to eat them for the correct reasons, and not out of misinformed/misguided anger.
Lol, funny because true. We are all so angry about the exploitation.
Don’t kill them, tax them.
Of course there wasn’t really much to do outside of the farming season though, so I bet those 150 work days were something like 20h long during lambing, ploughing, sewing and harvest seasons
Better have some off-season income though. Couldn’t store enough food and you can’t afford to feed your family otherwise, fuck you. Bad winter? fuck you. Crops blighted? fuck you. Unable to work due to injury? fuck you.
Don’t forget to pay your tribute, peasant, and don’t you dare go hunting or foraging on the king’s land.
Things were far from perfect, but there were solidarity inside the family (which was bigger than out nuclear families) and class solidarity in the community.
And peasants did legally hunt, they couldn’t everywhere, but it was a common practice.
As someone that lived and worked in a rural agrarian village in West Africa, that’s very likely just counting planting to harvest, so part of the picture only.
Still, that’s 150 days of often backbreaking physical labor starting before sunup. No weekends, no sick days, no annual leave. Weather dictates your schedule without care, and the margins for underperforming can literally mean starving. You can still so a great job and too much or too little rain means you’re fucked.
It doesn’t account for all the cottage industry and daily hustle to simply make ends meet. All the days spent trying to trade what you grew for a diverse diet.
It’s not an idyllic life. It’s a hard life that many people try to escape at the first chance they get.
Is this self-parody or do some people seriously believe that their jobs are harder than it was to be a medieval peasant?
Motherfuckers in these comments couldn’t keep a houseplant alive, let alone farm enough to feed a family.
Thatch leaking? Nah! It’s St. FuckOff Day!
Rats in the grain? Party! It’s a holiday!
Gotta get the grain in before it storms? Fuck that ole’ grain! We party!
I could go on forever. Those “holidays” were for peasants to take care of their own shit. Working days were paying obligations to their landlord, noble, kind, etc.
They literally just laid there half a year, doing nothing. /s
Also they needed to pay rent, taxes, tithe, weren’t able to freely move or change profession, and were just step above slaves. Truly a life of leisure.
It is obvious that right now absolute majority lives better then ever before.
Yet there is a belief among people that everything was green and natural, and sweet before evil industrialization that stole our souls. Pure propaganda from rich assholes that salivate at the thoughts of neo-feudal system.
I bet the church feels so stupid now
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