It did suck though. Remember that serfdom (or mandatory military service) in Europe was formally abolished only at the break of the XVIII/XIX century. But even

It did suck though. Remember that serfdom (or mandatory military service) in Europe was formally abolished only at the break of the XVIII/XIX century. But even without it, we are talking about generational periods of a moderate poverty (by prices going occasionally down, not by better pays or surplus economy) or just the regular poverty where 90% of time/energy is spent on earning on food only (sometimes, rarely, clothing). You are right about "no walls everywhere". At the time there were also no concept of a country border as it's today. If only a free peasant, you could walk from France to Russia, start settling some land there and no one was any wiser. It would be a local administration problem at best (if any was present), but not an international one like today.