I think that it would be easier to visualize life in Medieval England if you imagined the population transported to Jamestowne, VA which was founded in 1607, after all, by members of the same population indigenous to Merrie Olde England. The Jamestowne Company included tradesmen (perfumers, glassmakers, etc.) and "gentlemen" who didn't seem to know much about anything. They brought body armor and other implements of war which quickly found themselves cast to the bottom of cisterns and wells because this equipment was impossible to use and not needed in frontier Virginia.
But, these Englishmen, although nearly perishing the first winter, were resourceful and within a few years had built a thriving colony from scratch. Women joined them (I forget now whether it was the 2nd or the 3rd crossing) and soon the huts were transformed into real homes. They built churches and factories, held the first Thanksgiving long before the Mass. Pilgrims had left Holland, and bore sons and daughters who became our Founders. They were wealthy beyond compare to anything stodgy old Europe and England produced.
It is important to point out that they nearly starved to death when they operated on a communal basis -- sharing everything. It was not until they divided the land and granted the means of production to INDIVIDUAL families that the colony prospered. This seems to be a lesson that some Congresscritters, as well as the White House, have forgotten, or never learned in school.
The Jamestown settlers nearly starved because they landed during a period of prolonged and severe drought. This drought lasted for seven years from 1606 to 1612 and was the worst in 8 centuries. The settlers landed in 1607, and the Indians were already lacking food to the point they were not very interested in trading with the English. Communal living had nothing to do with it.
The worst period in Jamestown history was not the first couple of years. It was actually the winter of 1609-10. John Smith had returned to England in October of that year, allegedly to receive medical treatment as a result of a hunting accident suffered some weeks earlier. But it is more likely that he returned for his own safety and that the accident was arranged. He was not at all popular with some of the leading gentlemen in the colony who had been forced to engage in manual labor as a condition for sharing the limited provisions of the colony the two previous years. Several of the leading gentlemen wanted to hang Smith for his autocratic style and failure to appreciate their high station, sort of like our modern Libtards who want to silence Fox News.
Long story short, when Smith left, these gentlemen took what they considered their rightful places as rulers of the colony and decided that the provisions should be allocated according to needs, as they perceived them, rather than according to the sweat equity rules which John Smith had established. As the winter progressed, the Jamestown Colonists began eating their cats, brought in to control the rodent populations which got into their granaries. And, when the cats were gone, they resorted to eating the rats. Finally, as the supply of rats dwindled, they dug up the corpses of those who had starved and ate human flesh.
When spring arrived, there were fewer than 100 colonists remaining of the 500 or so who had been their that fall when Smith departed from England.
Of that number, only 60 were well enough to work. It was decided to abandon the colony. The survivors were rescued by two small ships which arrived from Bermuda on May 23. On June 7, they loaded all survivors on board and set sail for England. They were met at the mouth of the James River just two days later by a resupply ships from England with the new governor on board who forced them to abandon their abandonment of the settlement.
Of course, by this time, the electoral dynamics of the colony had changed, the "gentlemen" were no longer in charge because they were mostly among the 80% or so of the colony which perished. The new governor, Thomas West, saw fit to revert to the John Smith model of governance, a decision which was overwhelmingly supported by the surviving colonists.