The Medieval Manor
The "Manor" is all the land owned by the local lord. He lives in the Manor House (1) (nice, huh?) Pretty much every one else lives in the small village. The village is mostly self-sufficient - that is, they make everything they need to get by. Mostly they grow stuff. There's also a Church (VERY important to folks in the Middle Ages) a blacksmith to do their metal work a mill to grind the grain grown so it doesn't spoil a common field for grazing sheep and cattle a bakery with an oven (most houses wouldn't have one) The Glebe, by the way (and I confess I had to look this up), is the area of field farmed on behalf of the church. By the Middle Ages, farmers had realized that if you use the same land every year you use up its nutrients. For that reason, crops were rotated, and one third or fourth of the land would be left to rest, or be "fallow". |