What secrets did a 9th-century peasant's daily life hold?

"Bodo was a early 9th-century Frankish farmer. He and his family hailed from a manor owned by the monastery of St.-Germain-des-Prés near Paris and worked as its tenants. He ploughed the farmlands while his wife, Ermentrude, took care of their household. Their lives give us a lively image of what daily life was like as peasants living in a manor in the Carolingian world of the early Middle Ages."

"The monastery of St.-Germain-des-Prés kept a detailed list of the names of the tenants and other people doing business with them of this period, called the Polyptych. To manage their large estate, the then abbot of the monastery, Irminon (c. 820s), compiled this list, and the text is now preserved in a 9th-century manuscript in Paris ( Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms Latin 12832). Along with Bodo were 10,000 other names located in 25 different villages."

Bodo lived in early ninth-century Frankish world as a tenant farmer on a monastery-owned manor near Paris. He ploughed fields while his wife Ermentrude managed the household and they raised three children. Manors served as economic, political, social, and cultural centres and formed the basic structure of early medieval European life. The monastery of St.-Germain-des-Prés maintained a detailed Polyptych compiled by Abbot Irminon, preserved in a ninth-century manuscript (BnF Ms Latin 12832). The Polyptych lists about 10,000 people from 25 villages and records occupations and rents, enabling reconstruction of peasant obligations. Peasant status ranged in degrees of freedom rather than a simple free/slave divide.

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