Medieval Western Europe – manors and towns
HistoryAncient & Medieval WorldAges 12–13
Use it with your class: students open it from a link or a QR code, with no account needed.
Next in Ancient & Medieval World
An interactive map of Western Europe with a timeline you can drag from 476 to the mid-16th century. Drag the marker to see Germanic kingdoms replace the Western Roman Empire, feudal manors spread across the countryside, and then medieval towns appear and grow, with a running count of manors and towns shown. Click a town or a milestone on the timeline to read a short description of town life, universities, the Renaissance and the Reformation. Two more screens: a manor model, where an open-field village with villeins, cottars and freemen turns the harvest, labour services and rents into food, income and a Domesday-style entry; and a map of medieval Britain with Domesday settlement density, towns, monasteries and castles on the same timeline.
Lesson: Feudalism in Western Europe; the Renaissance and the Reformation
What it shows
After the Western Roman Empire fell in 476, land and power in Western Europe passed to lords and the Church. The manor was the basic unit: the lord kept a demesne, and tenants held strips in open fields farmed in a three-field rotation. Villeins owed week work on the demesne, cottars held a few acres and worked for wages, and freemen paid money rent, while everyone paid a tithe to the Church. From the 11th century trade revived and towns grew, spreading a money economy that loosened labour services, especially after the Black Death made workers scarce. Domesday Book (1086) recorded this rural world in England.
How to use
On Europe map, set Starting year and press Play to watch manors and towns spread; click towns and timeline milestones. In Manor model, play a farming year, change Harvest, Tenant households and Week work, press Plague year, and compare food, labour and the lord's income in the table and the Domesday-style entry. In Medieval Britain, drag the timeline and switch the layers to see towns, monasteries and castles appear.
Parameters you can change
- Starting year on the timeline 400–1550 year
- Layer shown on the map Manors and towns, Feudal manors only, Medieval towns only
- Show Renaissance and Reformation centres
- Timeline speed 0.2–3 ×
- Screen Europe map (manors and towns), Manor model, Medieval Britain
- Harvest yield in the manor model 2–6 bushels per bushel sown
- Tenant households in the manor model 10–40 households
- Week work per villein in the manor model 0–3 days a week
Questions to explore
- How did the economy of a feudal manor differ from that of a medieval town?
- Why might a lord turn labour services into money rents when workers became scarce after the Black Death?
- Why did the Renaissance begin in Italian towns such as Florence?
