Peasant — Middle Ages

The story behind the answer

In medieval Europe, the bulk of the population were rural commoners who cultivated their own strips and worked the lord’s demesne, paying rents, taxes, and performing labor services. That broad social class is what the question points to. “Serf” names a specific unfree legal status within it, “tenant” describes a contractual relationship that didn’t cover everyone, and “farmer” is a later, more commercial term not typical of feudal society.

These villagers sustained the manorial economy through open-field agriculture, using heavy plows and, increasingly, the three-field system to boost yields. Their labor fed castles and cities alike. After the Black Death reduced Europe’s population, labor became scarce, allowing many of these workers to demand wages, mobility, or lighter dues—changes that gradually weakened the rigid feudal order.