(referring to feudalism in the middle ages) how did serfs ensure that their land would be plentiful?
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They couldn't. It took many years of improvements in agricultural technology before that could happen. \n\nThe most useful thing to the serfs was the invention of metal plows. Before that they used a wooden scratch plow. This was designed for tilling soil in the Mediterranean region but was horrible for tilling the hard soil further north. When they were able to make deeper furrows they were able to plant their crops deeper which protected them from the elements resulting in a greater crop yield. \n\nAnother important invention was the creation of a new kind of harness that allowed them to work the land with horses instead of oxen. The old design cut off too much of the horse's windpipe. Naturally, a suffocating horse isn't a good worker. So they used oxen which didn't suffocate but were slow and difficult to work with. With the new harness they could use faster horses and work more of the land.
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The farmers of Rome were plebeians, the poorer people. When the slave market became popular, the farmers were out of jobs.
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Simple survival.  The peasants were near death from starvation.  They were abused and ignored.  They had no legal recourse.  I think the collective unconscious kicked in and they rose up and fought.\nThey had nothing to lose, everything to gain.
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the peasants grew the food, the lords ate it.  \n\nthe lords used their soldiers  and defended the peasants from other, even more obnoxious lords.
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In the Middle Ages, believe it or not, "Poor" was not a clearly defined concept. The fuedal system meant that [by and large] everyone had a useful role in society. It is not until people were redundent that poverty became an issue.\n\nSome answers seem to think the Middle Ages and The Middle of the second Millenium are the same thing. They are not. The Middle Ages is the period in Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire about 750ad to about 1500ad The Middle Ages had finished by 1600
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It would be different from country to country, but I think you have the basics as to what they would probably do. The geography and the social structure of the area would play a big part as to what would be grown in the soil and what livestock they would raise. Here are some links for you to check out:
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In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, agricultural growth in the region was slow compared to the rates achieved in the past thirty years. Agricultural development in the recent past has been characterized by an extraordinary diversity both within and between countries. Many largely traditional farming systems that were sustainable with a low density of population are becoming increasingly strained by, and vulnerable to, the pressure of rising population. Spectacular environmental damage exemplifies the consequences of this pressure as land-hungry cultivators push into the tropical forests and up the hillsides. A growing prosperity among some groups contrasts with the deepening poverty among others less fortunate.
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mainly to "help" with the cash crops the colonist were growing, such as tobacco, sugar, cotton and any other crop they were into.  eventually this also would include trade work (carpentry, smithing etc), as well as house work.
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I don't know.  How about if I make something up?\n\n0.  You can consider wealth to be goods circulating within a country.  Having colonies meant goods being shipped from the colonies back to the mother countries, thus enriching them.\n\n1.  Some monetary systems were based on gold.  Spain had "conquered" the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas, and had taken lots of gold and emeralds from them and shipped these back to Europe.\n\n2.  Raw materials and "valuable" spices were shipped from the colonies to Europe.  These were traded among the European nations.  Finished goods could be shipped back to the colonies.\n\n3.  Slaves... oh my, these provided a cheaper source of labor, which meant that making finished goods or harvesting raw materials cost less.
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before there was money, people would barter or trade things. So if you didn't have any money, you would just be able to trade just about anything to get food. so if there were no money, people would just find things to make or trade labor for food.
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Agriculture\n\nAbout two-thirds of all Indians derive their livelihood directly from agriculture, a proportion that is not much smaller than it was at the beginning of the 20th century. The area cultivated, however, has risen steadily and is now considerablymore than half of the nation's total area, a proportion matchedby few countries in the world. Inthe more fertile regions, such as the Indo-Gangetic Plain or the deltas of the eastern coast, the proportion of cultivated to total land often exceeds 90 percent.\n\n\nAlthough the average farm size is only about five acres (two hectares) and is declining, that figure masks the markedly skewed distribution of landholdings. More than half of all farms are less than three acres in size, while much of the remainder is controlled by a small number of relatively affluent peasants and landlords. Most cultivators own farms that provide little more than a bare subsistence for their families. Further, nearly one-third of all agricultural households own no land at all and, along with many submarginal landowners, must work for the larger landholders or must supplement their earnings from some subsidiary occupation, often the one traditionally associated with their caste.\n\nAgricultural technology has been undergoing rapid change inIndia. Government-sponsored, large-scale canal irrigation projects, begun by the British in the mid-19th century, were greatly extended after independence, but there has been a shift in emphasis toward deep wells (called tube wells in India), often privately owned, from which water is raised either by electric or diesel pumps. Important in several parts of India, especially the southeast, is “tank” irrigation, in which water is drawn from small reservoirs created along the coursesof minor streams.\n\nThe demand for chemical fertilizers also has been steadily increasing, although since the late 1960s the introduction of new hybrid, high-yielding varieties of seeds (HYVs), mainly for wheat and secondarily for  rice, has brought about the most dramatic increases in production, especially in Punjab (where their adoption is virtually universal), Haryāna, western Uttar Pradesh, and Gujarāt. So great has been the success of the so-called Green Revolution that India was able to build up buffer  grain stocks sufficient for the country to weather several years of disastrously bad monsoons with virtually no imports or starvation and even managed to become, in some years, a modest net food exporter. During the same period, the production of coarse grains and pulses, which were less in demand than rice and wheat, either did not increase significantly or decreased. Hence, the total per capita grain production has been notably less than that suggested by many protagonists of the Green Revolution, and the threat of major food scarcity has not been eliminated.\n\nMost Indian farms grow little besides food crops, especially cereal grains, and these account for more than three-fifths of the area under cultivation. Foremost among the grains, in terms of both area sown and total yield, is rice, the crop of choice in almost all areas with more than 40 inches (1,000 millimetres) of average annual precipitation, as well as in someirrigated areas. Wheat ranks second in both area sown and total yield, and, because of the use of HYVs, leads all grains in yield per acre. Wheat is grown mainly on the fertile soils of northern and northwestern India in areas with 15 to 40 inchesof average annual precipitation, often with supplementary irrigation. Unlike rice, which is mainly grown during the kharif (summer) season, wheat is primarily a rabi (cool-season) crop. Other important cereals, in descending order of sown acreage, are sorghum (called jowar in India), pearl millet (or bajra), corn (maize), and finger millet (or ragi). All of these typically are grown on relatively infertile soils unsuitable for rice or wheat, while corn cultivation is also favoured in hilly and mountainous reg
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Feudal Japanese Nobles lived in the era of the Samurai. Check out that website below, that should help.
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It depends to some extent on the status, and the period you are talking about (the entire Anglo-Saxon period was from around 380CE to 1066CE)\n\nThe poorest families would dig a deep pit, build a wooden frame over the top and cover that with reeds/straw etc as thatch. The more usual homes were single storey with walls of wooden planks and again covered with a roof of thatch. Chiefs and richer villagers did the same sort of thing, on a larger scale.\n\nIf you'd like to see what they looked like try the site below.
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they built windmills because they had many many rivers and they wanted to use the water energy for things like grinding grains etc. it was also a method to limit the water flow and thus prevent flooding, as 70% of the country is at or below sea level
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Check the below web sites for a lot more information than can be written on here!\nThe first web site in particular has a huge section on Yeoman farmers and lots of facts and figures (section 2)
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Most were farmers...others were merchants and traders some simply worked on the farms or in the houses of others...only a very small percentage of Norsemen became the raiders known as Vikings
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Landowners? Vassals? Knights? Kings? Clergy?\n\nThis is the full hierarchy, generally, for Europe.\n\nPope -> King -> Noblemen -> Cardinals, Bishops, etc. -> Petty Nobles (Vassals), Tradesmen -> Serfs and Peasants -> Slaves and Servants.\n\nIn India (the caste system), Brahmins (scholars and priests) held the top tier, (although warriors held the top at first), followed by warriors, tradesmen and merchants, sudras (laborers) and finally the Untouchables (people like gravediggers)