[Diggers350] Historians Explain: Medieval Peasants Took More Leisure Time Than Today’s ‘Wage Slave’ Workers

[Tony Gosling]

Historians Explain: Medieval Peasants Took More Leisure Time Than 
Today's 'Wage Slave' Workers

https://tlio.org.uk/medieval-workers-short-days-long-holidays/

<https://tlio.org.uk/medieval-workers-short-days-long-holidays/>18 
January 2025 - <https://tlio.org.uk/author/tony/>Tony Gosling - 
<https://tlio.org.uk/medieval-workers-short-days-long-holidays/#respond>Leave 
a comment


The average US/European worker has less vacation time than a medieval 
peasant, and they had security of tenure

"The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work 
relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an 
abundance of leisure."

<https://archive.is/o/JhDTg/https://www.businessinsider.com/author/lynn-parramore>Lynn<https://www.businessinsider.com/author/lynn-parramore> 
Parramore | 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us/column-why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you-idUSBRE97S0KV/>Reuters 
| <https://archive.is/JhDTg#selection-1401.0-1401.0>Business Insider 
| 29 August, 2013

Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was 
shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet 
and personal hygiene left much to be desired.

But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him 
one thing: his vacations.

Emacs!


Ploughing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant 
enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off.

The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, 
enforced <https://history-world.org/peasant.htm>frequent mandatory 
holidays. Weddings, wakes, and births might mean a week off quaffing 
ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came 
to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were 
labour-free Sundays, and when the ploughing and harvesting seasons 
were over, the peasant got time to rest, too.

In fact, 
<https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html>economist 
Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, 
such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 
days a year. As for the modern American worker? After a year on the 
job, she gets an average of 
<https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm>eight vacation days annually.


A history of dwindling vacation days

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of 
the founders of modern economics, made a famous 
<https://money.howstuffworks.com/five-day-weekend2.htm>prediction 
that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure 
time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So 
far, that forecast is not looking good.

What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 
40-hour working week over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century 
worker spent toiling as proof that we're moving in the right direction.

But Americans have long since 
<https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-40-hour-work-week-not-enough-2011-6>kissed 
the 40-hour working week goodbye, and Shor's examination of work 
patterns reveals that the 19th century was an aberration in the 
history of human labour. When workers fought for the eight-hour 
working day, they weren't trying to get something radical and new, 
but rather to restore what their ancestors had enjoyed before 
industrial capitalists and the electric light bulb came on the scene.

Emacs!


Go back 200, 300, or 400 years and you find that most people did not 
work very long hours at all. In addition to relaxing during long 
holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and 
the day often included time for an afternoon snooze.

"The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work 
relaxed," notes Shor. "Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they 
had an abundance of leisure."

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and the US is the only advanced 
country with 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-only-advanced-country-without-a-national-vacation-policy-its-the-us/259317/>no 
national vacation policy whatsoever.

Many American workers must keep on working through public holidays, 
and vacation days often go unused. Even when we finally carve out a 
holiday, many of us answer emails and "check in" whether we're 
camping with the kids or trying to kick back on the beach.

Some 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/no-vacation-nation-why-dont-americans-know-how-to-take-a-break/260759/>blame 
the American worker for not taking what is her due. But in a period 
of consistently high unemployment, job insecurity and weak labour 
unions, employees may feel no choice but to accept the conditions set 
by the culture and the individual employer.

In a world of "at will" employment, where the work contract can be 
terminated at any time, it's not easy to raise objections.

It's true that the New Deal brought back some of the conditions that 
farm workers and artisans from the Middle Ages took for granted, but 
since the 1980s things have gone steadily downhill. With secure 
long-term employment slipping away, people jump from job to job, so 
seniority no longer offers the benefits of additional days off. The 
rising trend of hourly and part-time work, stoked by the Great 
Recession, means that for many, the idea of a guaranteed vacation is 
a dim memory.


The consequences of constantly working

Ironically, this cult of endless toil doesn't really help the bottom line.

Emacs!



<https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies>Study 
after 
<https://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-presentation.html>study 
shows that overworking reduces productivity. On the other hand, 
performance increases after a vacation, and workers come back with 
restored energy and focus. The longer the vacation, the more relaxed 
and energised people feel upon returning to the office.

Economic crises give austerity-minded politicians excuses to talk of 
decreasing time off, increasing the retirement age and cutting into 
social insurance programs and safety nets that were supposed to allow 
us a fate better than working until we drop. In Europe, where workers 
average 25 to 30 days off per year, politicians like French President 
Francois Hollande and former Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras 
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-25/hollande-bids-adieu-to-eu-vacation-culture-as-crisis-lingers.html>have 
sent signals that the culture of longer vacations is coming to an end.

But the belief that shorter vacations bring economic gains doesn't 
appear to add up.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and 
Development (OECD) the Greeks, who face a horrible economy, work more 
hours than any other Europeans. In Germany, an economic powerhouse, 
workers rank second to last in number of hours worked. Despite more 
time off, German workers are the eighth most productive in Europe, 
while the long-toiling Greeks rank 24 out of 25 in productivity.

Beyond burnout, vanishing vacations make our relationships with 
families and friends suffer. Our health is deteriorating: 
<https://archive.is/o/JhDTg/https://www.alternet.org/story/106830/overworked,_vacation-starved_america_ranks_%25231_in_depression,_mental_health_problems>depression 
and <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11020089>higher risk of 
death are among the outcomes for our no-vacation nation. Some 
forward-thinking people have tried to reverse this trend, like 
progressive economist Robert Reich, who has 
<https://archive.is/o/JhDTg/https://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/commentary/mandatory-extended-vacation-good-economy>argued 
in favour of a mandatory three weeks off for all American workers. 
Congressman Alan Grayson proposed the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, but 
alas, the bill didn't even make it to the floor of Congress.

Speaking of Congress, its members seem to be the only people in 
America getting as much down time as the medieval peasant. In recent 
years, they've gotten upward of 
<https://thinkprogress.org/congress-got-239-days-off-this-year-workers-are-guaranteed-zero-15700910dac5>239 
days in vacation time.

Read the original article on 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us/column-why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you-idUSBRE97S0KV/>Reuters.
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