Manorial estate
Also called: Manor, Manorialism · Topic: Medieval Europe: Feudalism and the Three Orders · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 3 "Changing Traditions"; Class 11, Ch 4 "The Three Orders"
Meaning
A manorial estate was a lord's land in medieval Europe. The lord's house was called the manor. The estate had his private fields, pastures, woods for hunting, a church, a castle for defence and villages of peasants who farmed for him. It made almost everything its people needed, but it could not make everything.
Example
A small estate had about a dozen families, and a large one had fifty or sixty. Blacksmiths, carpenters and stonemasons worked there. Women spun and wove cloth, and children worked the wine-presses. Still, salt, millstones (heavy stones for grinding grain) and metal goods had to come from outside.
Don't confuse with
- Fief: land that a lord gave to a knight in return for a fee and military service. The manorial estate was the lord's own home estate.