What was life like in the 1100's?

I am aware of the lower life expectancy, and of the uncertainties of life on the land, people living year to year and falling prey to famine and disease. However I am wondering how lawless was the society? I have been reading Pillars Of The Earth, and although I appreciate that this is a fiction and that a lot of the events in the book are there to add drama and to keep attention, it made me wonder how much more (or less) likely was it then that people would be murdered or raped or for villages to be burned down, and in reality what were the chances of seeing some form of justice. I know that land owners were very powerful, could they really do as they liked without any consequences? If so did they?What was life like in the 1100's?
It would depend where you where in the 1100s, some areas were more settled than others. Also what part of the 1100s.



In England, the custom was for the peasants to live grouped together in villages, and farm the land in strips, each peasant owning his own strip of land, while animals would graze on the common land. The villages were mainly self-governing, run by the manor court, which was made up of officals chosen from among the villagers themselves, and on the whole landlords tended to leave the peasants to get on with it. Traditionally, they did not interfere much in village life.



There were some periods of the 1100s in England that were more peaceful than others. For instance, the early 1100s was the reign of Henry I, and seems to have been quite a peaceful era. The merchant gilds were established in the towns to regulate trade, flemish farmers and traders settled in south Pembrokeshire (Wales), and in London St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield, began to be built as part of a priory and the first London hospital founded by Rahere, courtier of Henry I.



However, in 1131, Henry I died, and england was thrown into turmoil. Henry had named his daughter Matilda as his heir (his son having been drowned in the White ship some years earlier), but his nephew Stephen refused to accept her as queen and put himself forward as King of england. For the next 24 years Stephen and Matilda fought each other continuously, and life for the common people was probably pretty bad in areas where fighting was going on. Probably their lands were likely to be raided by rival armies, food taken, crops burned etc, the usual sort of things done by invading armies.



The accesion of Matilda's son as Henry II in 1156 ushered in another period of relative peace in England, and probably the common people would be able to get on with leading their lives in relative peace again, farming their lands without too much worry about invasions, crop burnings etc.
AAAAAA that was a long Q! A Short answer then. I'm guessing you like books - fiction. Read "The World is Not Enough" by Zoe Oldenbourg. It's set in the 1190's = good flavour of the period plus the backdrop of the Crusades.What was life like in the 1100's?
It depends on where on earth you lived.
As with any other century in history, there were times of peace and times of war. In England during the 1100s, there was a 19-year civil war known as "the Anarchy", a civil war between the forces of king Stephen and his cousin the Empress Matilda; this was fought across the whole country and caused extreme devastation to ordinary people who were caught up in it.



The barons and earls would change sides depending on who was more successful at any one time and thought nothing of burning towns, nunneries and monasteries. Lawless times breed lawless men, so the prevalence of outlaws of all social classes was very high - men not fighting for either side in the war, but out to further their own profits. It was said of these times that "Christ and his Saints slept", since the suffering of ordinary folk was unbearable.



But in the long periods of peace, kings such as Henry II established a very firm grip on law and order, with any poaching, murder, outlawry, injustices or banditry being severely punished. Even the minters who produced coins under royal licence were firmly regulated - Henry I heard that some of them were producing sub-standard coins with lead substituted for the silver, so had every one of them castrated and their right hands cut off.



Towards the end of the 12th century the beginnings of modern legal processes were established, with royal justices touring the country in place of the local manorial courts. Every freeman could expect to be protected by the king's justice - the same was not true for unfree serfs, who had virtually no legal rights of any kind.What was life like in the 1100's?
Where I am at the moment on holidays the church (the older part of it) dates from that time. I can't support my impressions with documents, but I would think that the way people lived in those days was very centered around the community and that the land lord was more supposed to fight for the people if needed than raise tax and kill them at will (there was no strong feodal link to a centralised power). Invasions would have been most terryfing, but again it was the job of the lord to fend them off and give shelter to the people within the walls of the castle.It is surprising to see how small in number the community was on a rather large territory (compared to the huge numbers of people nowadays). So perhaps, their life was not all so bad back then with a lot of freedom and control more than we may have today with our dayjobs ;-)



Also, regarding criminality which would not be an act of war but from inside the area, bear in mind that in small closed villages criminality is very low if not inexistant.
Like everything else in the human experience, this depended on the Lord as an individual. Some were gracious and respectful of their people, or there would never have evolved the Magna Charta. Some were not - or it would never have been needed. Power tends to corrupt absolutely.



I have documents in my possession where entire towns - including the people, animals, buildings, land and lakes in Northern Europe, were sold for a handful of Berlin pennies. Sometimes this indicates "low value", and sometimes it indicates compassion. In the case of my ancestors who sold the village and all its inhabitants/contents - it was sold to the church - I like to think this was done to grant compassionate freedoms. Someday we'll all know.



From outside it was quite common for marauders to rape and pillage others' foodstuffs, horses and make inhabitants adopted family (less common) or slaves (more common). The Vikings and virtually all other tribal peoples practiced this as a way of life, particularly the nomadic peoples of Europe, Eurasia, and Asia (Teutonic peoples, Huns, Goths, Turks, Mongols, Tatars, Cossacks, etc., etc., etc.)



As people needed protection, they empowered kings and lords through knights to protect them, or those kings empowered themselves to make that transaction on their behalf. In return they paid a price of servitude in the vassal system. It was uncommon to have standing armies during this period.



As people developed crafts and began centering their lives more around larger villages and cities to ply their trades, a middle class and upper middle class developed, and standing armies began coming into favor as power centered around the royals - kings, princes, dukes - while knights and extended nobles became less and less relevant. Once nations began developing, overnight raids were not gone, but became far less frequent as these were now seen as acts of war of one nation upon another. Knights began losing their estates/status, as the lords who granted them no longer could afford paying knights for protection, and that protection was now coming from the king through a standing army. Many of the lesser lords and most knights effectively lost their noble status during the 13th through 15th centuries in Europe for that reason. Those who remain are ceremonial. In Europe families still maintain intricate records on former noble families that are still in existence, and on the more obvious families still maintaining active nobility. This is particularly prevalent in Germany and their are huge volumes on the topic.



Hope this helps.