Comment by thinkingemote
4 hours ago
People in medieval times had more time off not working than today. Feast days were actual feast days, they often didn't work during them. Feast days were not something written on a calendar that only a few people could consult and say "hmm, oh look today is the feast day of such and such... meh, what's for supper?" :-)
They had to a greater or lesser extent, fairs, games, dances - they were literally festivals. People looked forward to and prepared in advance for feast days. There are at least 2 things that I think are relevant: firstly feast days punctuated and delimited the calendar and people's lives and secondly feast days were very memorable shared whole-community events.
This doesn't necessarily make the story more believable but it can make it more memorable. Think of a story where it says "it happened at Halloween and again at Christmas" and it could just help fix that story in a specific time making it more memorable in our brains.
Sorry, you think early-modern indentured sharecropping subsidence farmers without dishwashers, laundry machines, sewing machines, or industrialized clothing production worked less than 2080 hours a year?
Subsidence farming is a brutally demanding, painful way to scrape a living. Even with modern technology, it can't be overstated the sheer amount of labor it takes to grow enough food just to feed yourself, and that's without owing an obscene portion of your product to your "landlord" (who's also your employer and your local government, and can forbid you freedom of movement and dictate your personal life).
Laundry was an immense amount of labor. Keeping the home intact took labor. Maintaining your clothes took labor.
Look up the the BBC historic farm series if you want an idea of the amount of work it takes to actually run a farm, without any of the extra problems actually living in that period would bring, such as not understanding germ theory and sanitation, unreliable access to clean water, no real medical care, no real birth control, and no defense against a bad season just breaking your back.
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