I originally wrote this post back in 2013 and it proved to be very popular. It was part of a series that resulted from the research that I did for the book, The War Wolf. As well as peasants the series covered the Theigns and the Eorldermen, the middle and upper class of Saxon society respectively.

One of the features of the Anglo-Saxon social structure was its’ obsession with class. There were three basic classes, the ceorls or peasants, the theigns or landowners, and the eoldermen or nobility. These classes were further subdivided again creating a ladder for the socially mobile to climb.

The ceorls were the most numerous and, therefore, the lowest class. They lived and worked almost exclusively on the land although some also lived in cities like York and London. The ceorls were divided into smaller sub-classes again beginning with the geneatas who were usually the richest of the peasants. They were ‘free-folk’ who gave service to the fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon army on a regular basis, and could speak at public meetings.

The geneatas paid a rent to their lord for the land that they occupied but they could also receive land as a gift if they gave good service. Lords might also demand other services from their geneatas, such as maintenance work, carrying messages, supply carts for general usage and even entertain their lord. The geneatas were also expected to pay church tithes. They may also have been required to give their theign a percentage of any crops that they farmed or even one of their animals such as a pig. However, any profit that they did make they could keep.

Kotsetlas formed the second subgroup. They paid for their land through supplying their lord with labour whenever it was needed so avoided any levy of rent. Like the geneatas they could profit from their own hard work but how often they got to spend any time on their own land depended on how frequently they were called to work their lord’s land instead, this seems to have varied from one to three days a week and would probably have been more during harvest. They also paid dues to the church although it was acceptable to pay in produce rather than coin.

Finally came the gebur. Of all the classes of free folk they clearly had the hardest bargain as they were entirely dependent upon their lord for food and protection. They paid for everything with their labour and would not have had much free time with which to improve their lot.

If you are interested in this subject then you can read the rest of the post here: The Social World of the Anglo-Saxons: The Peasants