Module 2: "Serfs and Peasants," Texts 1–3

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. peasant
    one of a class of agricultural laborers
    About nine-tenths of the people were peasants—farmers or village laborers.
  2. daub
    apply to a surface
    Each family lived in a simple hut made of wood or wicker daubed with mud and thatched with straw or rushes.
  3. thatch
    cover with roofing material made of plant stalks
    Each family lived in a simple hut made of wood or wicker daubed with mud and thatched with straw or rushes.
  4. trestle
    sawhorses used in pairs to support a horizontal tabletop
    The only furniture was a plank table on trestles, a few stools, perhaps a chest, and probably a loom for the women to make their own cloth.
  5. serf
    (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord
    The vast majority were serfs, who lived in a condition of dependent servitude.
  6. servitude
    the state of being required to labor for someone else
    The vast majority were serfs, who lived in a condition of dependent servitude.
  7. descendant
    a person considered as coming from some ancestor or race
    A serf and his descendants were legally bound to work on a specific plot of land and were subject to the will of the lord who owned that land.
  8. tithe
    an offering of a tenth part of some personal income
    They also had to give a tithe to the church—every 10th egg, sheaf of wheat, lamb, chicken, and all other animals.
  9. famine
    a severe shortage of food resulting in starvation and death
    Peasants suffered from famines.
  10. scarce
    deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand
    Money was scarce, so the peasants usually paid in wheat, oats, eggs, or poultry from their own land.
  11. crude
    belonging to an early stage of technical development
    Peasants lived in crude huts and slept on bags filled with straw.
  12. furrow
    hollow out in the form of a groove
    Stepping outside, you help your father harness the oxen to furrow the earth on your family farm with an iron wheel.
  13. gruel
    a thin porridge
    Leading the oxen, you and dad plow, and plow, and plow some more until your mom calls you both in for a dinner of vegetable gruel and hard bread.
  14. rank
    very offensive in smell or taste
    In the summer, the rank odor of sheep, cow, and horse dung dominated the home.
  15. pillage
    steal goods; take as spoils
    And though wild animals and outlaws lurked in the forest, the villagers hid there from pillaging Vikings.
Created on Tue Sep 29 16:23:03 EDT 2020 (updated Thu Oct 01 15:46:36 EDT 2020)

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