There are four levels of farmers: franklins, freeholders, peasants and serfs.
Franklin (Status 0, rarely 1) ("bonde")
This kind of farmer is of free birth and owns his own land. Rural craftsmen such as millers, blacksmiths, tavernkeeps and deacons almost invariably come from this class. A franklin is also known as a churl.
Franklins often have several labourers (Status -2) working their farms, along with any of their own children who have not yet married and started their own household. Some franklins become landlords in their own right, through shrewd purchases and/or marriage, these may farm out land like lords, having tenant freeholders of their own. A franklin may not, however, be the lord of peasants (in lands that permit serfage).
A farmer of free birth who does not own the farmland he works, rather he rents both farmland and housing from a landlord, but often owns his own tools and chattel.
A freeholder tenancy is usually negotiated for a seven-years period, and is a verbal agreement. A freeholder may be prosecuted and his property seized by his lord over an alleged failure to pay the rent or otherwise meet the terms of the tenure.
An unfree farmer who is bound to his lord's land. A peasant rents his cottage, his farmland and work animals from his lord, and pays in shares of his own produce, and in work at his lord's demesne. A peasant has legally defined rights in his bondage and is free to do many things, if he pays his lord for the privilege.
Some very poor peasants (known as cottars) are so lowly as to be Status -3 rather than -2.
A peasant may become a freeholder by paying manumission (a negotiable sum, typically around $1000), or by spending a year and a day away from the manor, typically within a township ("stadluft macht frei")
An unfree farmer, property of his lord. Serfhood is a heriditary slave class, a serf belongs to his lord, body and soul, and he is a piece of chattel without rights. A lord may order his serfs to marry and to divorce, among other things.
A serf is an unfree farmer, bound to the land he tends but does not own.
A lord may release a serf for payment, but is not in any way obliged to do so.
In general, farmers' lives are the most continuous, without very distinct periods.
Children are born to families roughly every couple of years, so families tend to be large, though a third of the children die in the first year of life, and less than half survive to the age of twenty. Children start helping out around the farm as soon as they can walk steadily. One of the first tasks given is looking after younger siblings.
Children help out more on the farm (and at the demesne) as they grow older, and by the age of 14 they are expected to take on an adult's workload. There is no system of apprenticeship as there is with the artisan's. Formal education is non-existent for freeholders, peasants and serfs, though some franklin's may see to it that their male children learn basic letters, usually from a literate person in the local village, but sometimes they are sent to a guild school in a nearby town.Some franklins even apprentice one or more of their younger sons to a guild at seven, giving them hopes of social elevation, and keeping the farm undivided. In a few areas, prosperous franklins have set up their own village schools, where their children can learn letters and numbers.
Though farmer children are considered economic adults at fourteen, they generally do not reach puberty until their late teens, due to poor nutrition and tough lives. A farmer will usually not marry until some time in his twenties, as it is hard to support a family until one has one's own farm (whether by ownership or tenure).
Children are expected to help around the house, farm or workshop as soon as they can talk. There is no formal education, everybody at a farm works the land.
Whether from boredom at staring along furrows all year or out of desperation at having no future without a farm to inherit, farmers’ children frequently pack up and leave home sometime in their teens. Some leave with their parents’ blessing, others without. These children may become warriors (or bandits, if there is a difference) sailor or artisans’ apprentices, but the most common fate is to become day labourers or servants. Girls rarely succeed at becoming apprentices, and usually wind up as servants (including serving wenches) or (a bit more rarely) labourers. Either sex may quickly wind up as beggars.
Unlike nobles, who are obsessive and stringent about it, farmers do not consider female virginity to be of much importance. In many areas, a woman may find it hard to marry before her first pregnancy, as a man wants to be sure that she can bear him children to help out with the labour.
Farmers universally share the custom of handfasting, which is similar to an engagement, but often involves cohabitation. Many farmer couples never bother to get married. Marriage is little more than a priest's blessing of an existing handfasting.
The local noble has the droit de seigneur over all farmers living on his land (though not with franklins living under his jurisdiction), the right to coit the bride on the night of marriage. Not all noblemen exercise this right. The degree of formality and the roughness of the thing varies wildly from fief to fief. Bastard offspring of noblemen tend to be somewhat disliked by other farmers, but are often physically stronger, due to their paternal genes. Some noblemen look out for peasant children resembling themselves, and may grant them manumission for free and even a plot of land.
A childless marriage or handfasting can be dissolved without much formality (though doubtlessly with a lot of gossip). As women often die in childbirth, and the overall mortality is high, it is common for both men and women to remarry.
Though women are formally subservient to men, it means little to farmers. Both sexes work on the same farm, under the same manor, and share labour, leisure, and taxes.