A day in the life of a High Middle Ages’s peasant family: A collective mental diary

Abstract

In the historiography of the Carolingian Empire, the study of the daily life of the social majorities that were vulnerable because of the social gap and, in consequence, did not live through the cultural, artistic and intellectual renaissance of the time, has been left aside. It is proposed in this paper to investigate how a day could be constituted in the life of a peasant family of the ninth century, providing a historical framework around the political, historical, economic, religious and environmental conditions of the time. The stylistic resource of a mental diary is used, through fictional characters that narrate the daily life style of the rural population, taking into account their more immediate habitat conditions, their occupations, distinctions by gender and age, customs, beliefs, difficulties, perception of society, and so on.