To be clear work never ended and got really intense for part of the year, but productive labor was limited by raw materials, transportation issues etc.
That article ignores quite a lot of activity that needs to be done. It seems to count only some kind of field work or work for landlord as work and ignores everything else that needs to be done.
Or take this:
> t stretched from dawn to dusk (sixteen hours in summer and eight in winter), but, as the Bishop Pilkington has noted, work was intermittent - called to a halt for breakfast, lunch, the customary afternoon nap, and dinner. Depending on time and place, there were also midmorning and midafternoon refreshment breaks. These rest periods were the traditional rights of laborers, which they enjoyed even during peak harvest times.
This literally describes full day of work, but tries to make it sound like it is less then that. It is made to sound like it is somehow less, because there is time for lunch, dinner and a break once in two to three hours.
That 90+ minute break is a little more than a smoke break in the middle of a long shift. Similarly people didn’t have stop watches to time the other two breaks which lasted significant periods on top of the normal short breaks required for any significant physical labor.
Also in reference to “work that need to be done” we don’t include washing our clothes or shopping in labor statistics. If you define works as any productive activity then modern labor statistics also need no be dramatically increased.
Siesta is a thing in countries with hot summer sun - still today. If you are doing physical labor outside, in the summer on the sun that started soon in the morning, having such break does not turn the work into leisure. Especially not if you then work till dinner and dinner break and then continue working.
> Also in reference to “work that need to be done” we don’t include washing our clothes or shopping in labor statistics. If you define works as any productive activity then modern labor statistics also need no be dramatically increased.
Now, washing cloth was actually massive work in the medieval setup. Unlike now, it was not question of loading and unloading machine. It was done rarely for obvious reasons, but was absolutely work that counts. They were not shopping as much as we do, given transportation issues a lot more was created in house or within small area.
But go on, count both wood chopping as work and setting temperature in your house as work too. That would be fair.
Making those cloth, fabric and bedsheets and what not DOES count as labor now. Making soap does count as labor now. Caring about animals in the winter also does count as labor now.
What you’re missing here is how many new productive activities today like exercise or a multi hour commute basically didn’t exist back then. Doing laundry is nominally the push of a button, except you also need to buy laundry detergent and pay the electric bill etc.
The number of hours the average American spends working, traveling to or from productive locations, shopping, exercise, medical care, cleaning, doing bills/taxes/DMV etc and you quickly get 100+ hour weeks for the people working a nominal 40 hour week but often far more year round. We even sacrificed the traditional breaks by eating in our cars to be more efficient.
Meanwhile a peasant may be working long days in the summer subtracting ~4 hours of food, break, nap but they also cut back when days became shorter. Meanwhile today people just turn on the lights and keep working even chronically sacrificing sleep to work more.
PS: People are better off today in so many ways, but don’t forget not everyone was a peasant back then.
To be clear work never ended and got really intense for part of the year, but productive labor was limited by raw materials, transportation issues etc.