Hungarians work more today than peasants did in the Middle Ages

It is a widespread misconception that peasants were doing forced labour from dusk till dawn throughout their whole life and that modern man has more free time. On top of all this, Hungarians work way above average in hours.

History magazine Múlt-Kor writes that people today work much more than peasants did centuries ago, both in the United States and in Europe.

Based on data published by the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans worked an average of 1780 hours in 2017, while Hungarians worked barely less, namely 1740 hours on average. Let us put this into perspective: an English peasant’s yearly average was 1620 hours.

Just like today, work on the lands depended very much on the seasons in the Middle Ages as well. Thanks to this, an average peasant had somewhere between 8 weeks and 6 months of free time each year.

Today, a Hungarian worker gets 20 days per year, to which some more are added that depend on their age, how many children they have and others.

On top of the days off that were dictated by the weather, the Church introduced rest days too, as they believed that rest makes people content and calm, thus more productive when they get back to work. A relaxed attitude can be seen in their approach towards lunchtime, and in many places, people took afternoon naps – the latter is still a custom in the Mediterranean countries, Múlt-Kor writes.