Medieval peasants worked on average (depending on the area and era you are looking at) 30-60% less hours per year than present-day wage-workers
Medieval peasants who worked on someone else’s land could elect not to go to work on any particular day and just not get paid for it (that’s how weekends were created)
Medieval bosses (i.e. land-owners) were responsible for feeding their workers for the day with breakfast and lunch.
Usually lunch during field work was followed by a customary 2-3 hours nap.
While its true that thru time peasant worked for their landlord quite a bit less than people work today, they also had to maintain themselves u know grow their own food, repair their homes, make or repair tools, make food, make clothes, make furniture all that kinda stuff; most historians would say peasants in europe generally worked more than we do today. They did have a lot of holidays tho.
Winter was dedicated to all the maintenance stuff mostly, and there was mostly no other field work during that time. They had way more holidays as you say, and they also had a lot more breaks during the day. Historians have done studies on this. An average 8-hour labourer today works about 1800 hours per year, accounting for breaks and holidays. An average medieval peasant would work significantly less so. English peasants had it worse at 1600 hours. French and Germans would fluctuate at 1300-1400 hours. Italian and French would also fluctuate at 1200-1300. Byzantine peasants (whose majority were not serfs and worked on their own land) would work much less at 1000-1200 hours per year!
there was mostly no other field work during that time
Field not, but there was there was absolute shitton of field-related work in winter too, threshing alone was so labour intensive that it could took months.
Also don’t forget:
Medieval peasants worked on average (depending on the area and era you are looking at) 30-60% less hours per year than present-day wage-workers
Medieval peasants who worked on someone else’s land could elect not to go to work on any particular day and just not get paid for it (that’s how weekends were created)
Medieval bosses (i.e. land-owners) were responsible for feeding their workers for the day with breakfast and lunch.
Usually lunch during field work was followed by a customary 2-3 hours nap.
While its true that thru time peasant worked for their landlord quite a bit less than people work today, they also had to maintain themselves u know grow their own food, repair their homes, make or repair tools, make food, make clothes, make furniture all that kinda stuff; most historians would say peasants in europe generally worked more than we do today. They did have a lot of holidays tho.
Winter was dedicated to all the maintenance stuff mostly, and there was mostly no other field work during that time. They had way more holidays as you say, and they also had a lot more breaks during the day. Historians have done studies on this. An average 8-hour labourer today works about 1800 hours per year, accounting for breaks and holidays. An average medieval peasant would work significantly less so. English peasants had it worse at 1600 hours. French and Germans would fluctuate at 1300-1400 hours. Italian and French would also fluctuate at 1200-1300. Byzantine peasants (whose majority were not serfs and worked on their own land) would work much less at 1000-1200 hours per year!
Field not, but there was there was absolute shitton of field-related work in winter too, threshing alone was so labour intensive that it could took months.