What kind of jobs did you have to do in a medieval manor?

Answer 1

A manor was a fairly large area of farmland with one or more villages and their churches, a manor house and perhaps woodland, a mill and a river or stream.

The manor house was not only the residence of a knight and his family, it also functioned as an estate office for the running of the farmland, a tax centre for the collection of local taxes, a judicial court and a place of refuge in time of war.

There were many tasks, mainly connected with farming; when not working on the demesne land (the land held directly by the knight to produce income and food for himself), peasants worked on their own land - which might be many field strips scattered around the manor. At harvest time everyone (men, women and children) helped to gather the crops.

There was much movement of produce, mainly by pack-horse, pack-donkey or cart: taking crops to the mill to be turned into flour, gathering the cut hay, straw and cereal crops from the fields for storage in barns, taking tools and equipment from one area to another and so on. Farm-work included harrowing, sowing, weeding, reaping, stacking the crop into stooks, threshing and almost constant ploughing.

Children would be tasked with keeping birds away from newly-sown fields so they could not eat the seed until it had taken root.

People had to collect water and firewood; in summer they would also collect berries growing wild in the hedgerows.

Hedging and ditching were constant tasks for the men, who were also required to maintain paths and roads.

Men did the threshing inside a barn during the winter months, while women used winnowing-fans of basket-work to separate the cereal from the chaff - this had to be done outdoors.

Women would spin wool into yarn, a task that could be done while at the same time feeding animals or chatting to neighbours.

The bailiff or steward would manage the estate on behalf of the knight and ensure that rents, fines and taxes were paid.

There were many more jobs to be done, but this will give you some idea.