This handout went with a class on land tenure in England, c.1300. This time may be thought of as “before things fell apart”. England was more crowded than it would be for centuries, and land was being cleared that wasn’t really fit for agriculture. In the early 1300s, being expelled from a village was nearly a death sentence; in the late 1300s, after famines and plagues had reduced populations, laws were being passed to keep tenants from leaving.
Peasants did not live well - but many of them lived relatively well, contrary to many modern tropes. (When this stops being true, which happens occasionally, you get peasant rebellions and other unpleasantness.) More than half of peasant families had substantial holdings (15-40 acres). Such a holding would be fenced, and the door would have a lock. Peasants at the bottom of this heap lived in cottages with small gardens, worked as day laborers, and had short life expectancies.
Members of the higher classes were few and wealthier. Unlike their peers on the mainland, they did not tend to own coherent swaths of land. The count of X didn’t own the County of X. They were more likely to own scattered pieces of land with scattered franchises.
‘Own’ is a misnomer. One didn’t own land; one rented it. At the highest levels, tenants in chief held land from the King in exchange for stated services - and rented most of it out.