Building a village in the Middle Ages

In order to develop a good understanding of the medieval world, it is necessary to understand its structure. For the Middle Ages, this means in particular knowing the community of a village, because they are formative for this period. If you want to build a model of a medieval village, you should definitely pay attention to the following things.

In the Middle Ages: Fundamentals and the structure of society

• First of all, it is important to understand that the word Middle Ages is a construction. The people of the Middle Ages did not call their time the Middle Ages. The name and division of this time were given by research afterwards.

• The Middle Ages are the period from approx. 600 to 1500 AD and the Middle Ages are divided into early, high and late middle ages.

• Late antiquity preceded the Middle Ages from around 300 to 600 AD and from approx. The early modern period followed between 1500 and 1800.

• In the Middle Ages and also in the early modern period, over 90% of the population was engaged in agriculture. They lived on individual farms or in the community of a village. The establishment of an existence on a single farm was associated with a particularly large number of external dangers, since a community always offered more protection.


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• It had to be because the yields weren't particularly good. It took several farming families to feed even one more family that did not live off agriculture.

• In addition, most of the farmers were not free. This is especially true for those farmers who lived in the community of a village. They were mostly serfs who rarely owned the land they cultivated. Usually they ordered it for a noble gentleman or belonged to a monastery.

• Because of this dependency, the farmers often had to do forced labor, i. H. In addition to their own work, they had to do regular work on the estate or the court of the nobleman or the monastery.

• As a rule, the plaice binding also applied. This meant that the farmers were not revealing or were mobile. They were bound by the piece of land they tilled for their master and could not just leave it. If the land was sold, the farmer had a new master.

• With this background knowledge, nothing should stand in the way of building a model.

The community of the village

• The structure of a village in medieval times cannot be compared with today's villages. The size of a village alone is now a multiple of what it was then.

• The families of a medieval village lived in simple houses. These were mostly made of wood and clay with a thatched roof. Sometimes a small garden was part of it.

• A few houses are enough for your model of a medieval village. You don't put these house to house, as is customary today. However, the houses of the villagers weren't too far away, as a community offered better protection.

• When laying out the surroundings of the village, make sure that it mostly consisted of fields, meadows and forests. The forest was important to get construction and firewood, but also because it could be cleared and converted into new arable land.

• In addition, there had to be a source of water nearby.

• Around some villages people built stilts or a wooden palisade for protection. This was only created around the houses. When rebuilding, make sure that the fields are still outside.

• From the early 12th century, three-field farming was common. This meant that the arable land that was tilled was divided into three sections. Previously, the economy of doubt, which works on the same principle, was known.

• In turn, one of these fields is always fallow so that the soil can recover and deliver good yields again when the next development is carried out. On this part of the field you can put small figures of cattle or sheep, because it was used as pasture for any livestock, as their excretion acts like fertilizer.

• Summer and winter cereals are grown on the other two sections. Summer cereals include millet and spring barley, for example. Winter cereals include rye, wheat and barley.

If you keep these things in mind, you have before you the basic structure of a village in the Middle Ages.