For their meals, people used wooden platters, sometimes earthenware plates, drinking horns, drinking cups from ash or alderwood turned on a foot-peddled pole lathe, and bottles made of leather. Their bowls, pans, and pitchers were made by the potter's wheel. Water could be boiled in pots made of iron, brass, lead, or clay. Water could be carried in leather bags because leather working preservative techniques improved so that tanning prevented stretching or decaying. At the back of each hut was a hole in the ground used as a latrine, which flies frequented. Moss was used for toilet paper. Parasitical worms in the stool were ubiquitous.
Most of the simple people lived in villages of about 20 homes circling a village green or lining a single winding lane. There were only first names, and these were usually passed down family lines. To grind their grain, the villagers used hand mills with crank and gear, or a communal mill, usually built of oak, driven by power transmitted through a solid oak shaft, banded with iron as reinforcement, to internal gear wheels of elm. Almost every village had a watermill. It might be run by water shooting over or flowing under the wheel.
Clothing for men and women was made from coarse wool, silk, and linen and was usually brown in color. Only the wealthy could afford to wear linen or silk. Men also wore leather clothing, such as neckpieces, breeches, ankle leathers, shoes, and boots. Boots were worn when fighting. They carried knives or axes under metal belts. They could carry items by tying leather pouches onto their belts with their drawstrings. They wore leather gloves for warmth and for heavy working with their hands.
People were as tall, strong and healthy as in the late 1900s, not having yet endured the later malnourishment and overcrowding that was its worst in the 1700s and 1800s. Their teeth were very healthy. Most adults died in their 40s, after becoming arthritic from hard labor. People in their 50s were deemed venerable. Boys of twelve were considered old enough to swear an oath of allegiance to the king. Girls married in their early teens, often to men significantly older.
The lands of the large landholding lords were administered by freemen. They had wheat, barley, oats, and rye fields, orchards, vineyards for wine, and beekeeping areas for honey. On this land lived not only farm laborers, cattle herders, shepherds, goatherds, and pigherds, but craftsmen such as goldsmiths, hawkkeepers, dogkeepers, horsekeepers, huntsmen, foresters, builders, weaponsmiths, embroiders, bronze smiths, blacksmiths, watermill wrights, wheelwrights, wagon wrights, iron nail makers, potters, soap makers (made from wood ashes reacting chemically with fats or oils), tailors, shoemakers, salters (made salt at the "wyches", which later became towns ending with '-wich'), bakers, cooks, and gardeners. Most men did carpentry work. Master carpenters worked with ax, hammer, and saw to make houses, doors, bridges, milk buckets, washtubs, and trunks. Blacksmiths made gates, huge door hinges, locks, latches, bolts, and horseshoes. The lord loaned these people land on which to live for their life, called a "life estate", in return for their services. The loan could continue to their widows or children who took up the craft. Mills were usually powered by water. Candles were made from beeswax, which exuded a bright and steady light and pleasant smell, or from mutton fat, which had an unpleasant odor. The wheeled plough and iron-bladed plough made the furrows. One man held the plough and another walked with the oxen, coaxing them forward with a stick and shouts. Seeds were held in an apron for seeding. Farm implements included spades, shovels, rakes, hoes, buckets, barrels, flails, and sieves. Plants were pruned to direct their growth and to increase their yield. Everyone got together for feasts at key stages of the farming, such as the harvest. Easter was the biggest feast. When the lord was in the field, his lady held their estate. There were common lands of these estates as well as of communities. Any proposed new settler had to be admitted at the court of this estate.
The land of some lords included fishing villages along the coasts. From the sea were caught herrings, salmon, porpoises, sturgeon, oysters, crabs, mussels, cockles, winkles, plaice, flounder, and lobsters. Sometimes whales were driven into an inlet by many boats. River fish included eels, pike, minnows, burbot, trout, and lampreys. They were caught by brushwood weirs, net, bait, hooks, and baskets. Oysters were so numerous that they were eaten by the poor. The king's peace extended over the waterways. If mills, fisheries, weirs, or other structures were set up to block them, they were to be destroyed and a penalty paid to the king.
Other lords had land with iron mining industries. Ore was dug from the ground and combined with wood charcoal in a shaft furnace to be smelted into liquid form. Wood charcoal was derived from controlled charring of the wood at high temperatures without using oxygen. This burned impurities from it and left a purer carbon, which burned better than wood. The pure iron was extracted from this liquid and formed into bars. To keep the fire hot, the furnaces were frequently placed at windswept crossings of valleys or on the tops of hills.
Some lords had markets on their land, for which they charged a toll [like a sales tax] for participation. There were about fifty markets in the nation. Cattle and slaves (from the word "slav") were the usual medium of exchange. An ox still was worth about 30d. Shaking hands was symbolic of an agreement for a sale, which had to be carried out in front of witnesses at the market for any property worth over 20d. The higher the value of the property, the more witnesses were required. Witnesses were also required for the exchange of property and to vouch for cattle having being born on the property of a person claiming them. People traveled to markets on deep, sunken roads and narrow bridges kept in repair by certain men who did this work as their service to the King. The king's peace extended to a couple of high roads, i.e. highways, running the length of the country and a couple running its width.
Salt was used throughout the nation to preserve meat over the winter. Inland saltworks had an elaborate and specialized organization. The chief one used saltpans and furnaces to extract salt from natural brine springs. They formed little manufacturing enclaves in the midst of agricultural land, and they were considered to be neither large private estates headed by a lord nor appurtenant to such. They belonged jointly to the king and the local earl, who shared, at a proportion of two to one, the proceeds of the tolls upon the sale of salt and methods of carriage on the ancient salt ways according to cartload, horse load, or man load. Sometimes there were investors in a portion of the works who lived quite at distance away. The sales of salt were mostly retail, but some bought to resell. Peddlers carried salt to sell from village to village.
Some smiths traveled for their work, for instance, stonewrights building arches and windows in churches, and lead workers putting lead roofs on churches.