Document 1: Image, Medieval Manor

Document 2: Primary Source, excerpt from Piers Plowman

The Peasant’s Life

The needy are our neighbours, if we note rightly;As prisoners in cells, or poor folk in hovels,Charged with children and overcharged by landlords.What they may spare in spinning they spend on rental,On milk, or on meal to make porridgeTo still the sobbing of the children at meal time.Also they themselves suffer much hunger.They have woe in winter time, and wake at midnightTo rise and to rock the cradle at the bedside,To card and to comb, to dam clouts and to wash them,To rub and to reel and to put rushes on the paving.The woe of these women who dwell in hovelsIs too sad to speak of or to say in rhyme.And many other men have much to sufferFrom hunger and from thirst; they turn the fair side outward, ,For they are abashed to beg, lest it should be acknowledgedAt their neighbours what they need at noon and even.I know all this well; for the world has taught meWhat befalls another who has many children,With no claim but his craft to clothe and feed them,When the mouths are many and the money scarce.They have bread and penny ale in place of a pittance,And cold flesh and cold fish for venison from the butcher.On Fridays and fast days a farthing worth of musselsWould be a feast for such folk, with a few cockles.It were an alms to help all with such burdens,And to comfort such cottagers and crooked men and blind folk.

Source: The Vision of Piers Plowman, translated H. W. Wells (New York, New York: Sheed and Ward, 1935), and published in The Portable Medieval Reader, edited by James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1977 edition), pages 137-138.

What was life like in Medieval Europe?

Details and initial inferences from the image (include at least 5 details and 3 inferences):

Additional information from notes/feudalism simulation:

Additional information from primary source, “Piers Piper” (include at least 2 quotes and explain the connection to the image)

Additional information from secondary source (Textbook, ch. 13, section 2; include at least 2 quotes and explain the connection to the image)