Some medieval peasants had extra sick depart than trendy UK employees

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Your assist makes all of the distinction. Learn extra In medieval England, peasants on some estates had been entitled to a variety of sick, annual and bereavement depart that would rival these of many employees within the UK at this time.

British employees are among the many least seemingly in Europe to take sick depart, and lose an estimated 44 days’ price productiveness yearly by working whereas sick. And though most employees are entitled to no less than 28 days of annual depart, there's presently no statutory proper for workers to take bereavement depart besides after the loss of a kid underneath the age of 18.

By comparability – as our new paper exhibits – peasants on the property of Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire, England, had been entitled to as much as a 12 months and a day of depart from engaged on the lord’s lands in the event that they had been sick.

In the meantime widows had been granted depart upon the loss of life of their husbands and employees loved loads of non secular feast days and festivals yearly.

Not all peasants loved the identical stage of advantages. Go away entitlements had been negotiated between lords and their tenants. Practices, due to this fact, assorted between manors throughout medieval England.

Elsewhere, preparations had been much less beneficiant than on the Ramsey property, and tenants had been extra usually entitled to a fortnight or month of sick depart.

<img src="https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/10/12/19/iStock-953772308.jpg" srcset="https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/10/12/19/iStock-953772308.jpg?quality=75&width=320&auto=webp 320w, https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/10/12/19/iStock-953772308.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp 640w" loading="lazy" alt="British workers are among the least likely in Europe to take sick leave" class="sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn"/> open picture in gallery

British employees are among the many least seemingly in Europe to take sick depart (Getty Pictures/iStockphoto) On the different finish of the spectrum, some peasants acquired no depart in the event that they had been sick, such because the tenants of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, who had been instructed that if “he's sick nonetheless, he'll do the labour companies he owes”.

Customary tenants – often called villeins – had been required to carry out unpaid work on the lord’s lands in lieu of lease. These obligations had been often called labour companies or “works”.

Relying on the scale of a tenant’s landholding, they is perhaps required to work for between a day and three days per week.

The above entitlements didn't represent paid depart within the trendy sense however, as a result of tenants weren't required to work on the lord’s lands whereas they had been sick, they had been successfully excused from a lot of their rental obligations.

When had been peasants sick?

A excessive variety of absences had been recorded through the harvest on the Ramsey property. This will likely have been for quite a lot of causes, together with that peasants had been overworked and succumbed to exhaustion through the busy harvest season.

In regards to the authors Alex Brown is an Affiliate Professor of Medieval Historical past at Durham College.

Grace Owen is a Postdoctoral Analysis Affiliate (Late Medieval Historical past) at Durham College.

This text was first printed by The Dialog and is republished underneath a Inventive Commons licence. Learn the unique article.

With tiredness, office accidents that resulted in infirmity had been additionally extra seemingly. Lords might even have been extra diligent in monitoring absences through the essential harvest interval as a result of substitute labour was so costly. Lastly, tenants themselves might have exaggerated their very own diseases in examples of sick-leave fraud.

Though tenants had been entitled to a 12 months and a day of sick depart on the Ramsey property, most absences didn't run for practically so lengthy in follow. Some sicknesses had been very quick, equivalent to that of Richard Berenger who was sick for simply two days after the harvest in 1343. He missed half a “work” on the lord’s lands.

In distinction, others suffered persistent and debilitating infirmities, equivalent to Richard Colleson of Warboys in Cambridgeshire, who was absent for a whole 12 months in 1347/48, lacking 156 “works”.

Such sick depart may price the lord in the event that they had been compelled to discover a substitute employee. For instance, within the absence of the ploughman who was sick for 84 days in 1420/21, the accounts of Battle Abbey in Sussex report a fee of 14 shillings to a person employed in his stead.

Alongside sick depart, tenants had been additionally entitled to a variety of different absences. Widows had been granted 30 days of depart from performing their labour companies upon the loss of life of their husbands.

<img src="https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/11/21/10/15/Medieval_ploughing.jpeg" srcset="https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/11/21/10/15/Medieval_ploughing.jpeg?quality=75&width=320&crop=3%3A2%2Csmart&trim=79%2C0%2C40%2C0&auto=webp 320w, https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/11/21/10/15/Medieval_ploughing.jpeg?quality=75&width=640&crop=3%3A2%2Csmart&trim=79%2C0%2C40%2C0&auto=webp 640w" loading="lazy" alt="Peasants plough a field in the Middle Ages" class="sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn"/> open picture in gallery

Peasants plough a area within the Center Ages (Wikimedia Commons) In an uncommon instance of compassionate depart one Agnes le Reve of Upwood in Huntingdonshire was excused from a single work on two events within the winter of 1342/43 due to two deaths in her family.

Peasants additionally loved a variety of feast days and non secular festivals. In concept, medieval folks weren't imagined to work on such days, although in follow some had been fined within the church courts for working, typically on their very own lands or incomes extra wages on another person’s lands.

The variety of feast days noticed assorted broadly, even between neighbouring manors. On the Ramsey property, this ranged from only a handful of spiritual festivals a 12 months to an higher variety of round 30.

We should always not eulogise the lives of medieval peasants. They had been topic to many restrictions which had been drastically resented and resulted in punishments equivalent to leyrwite – a tremendous on villein girls for fornication.

But, given the tough and repressive realities of life for a lot of medieval peasants, it's all the extra shocking that no less than a few of them had been entitled to such a variety of sick, annual and bereavement depart.