Final answer:
As a medieval peasant, your social status was largely unequal due to the entrenched feudal system. Opportunities arose post-Black Death for better living conditions and wages, but legislative efforts largely maintained the traditional hierarchy.
Step-by-step explanation:
As a peasant in the medieval period, your status in society was not equal to others, particularly the nobility, due to rigorous social hierarchies and economic dependencies. The feudal system organized society into various classes with peasants at the lower end. After the fall of the Roman Empire, a new social order based on Roman, Christian, and Germanic traditions formed. The Black Death and subsequent events like the Great Famine and Hundred Years' War disrupted these social structures, creating opportunities for some peasants to improve their lives. Despite these shifts, legislation was often enacted to maintain the traditional societal structure and the dominance of the nobility over the peasants.
Your life as a peasant would have been tied to your land and lord, with few opportunities for social mobility. Over generations, some free peasant families might rise into the aristocracy through military service, but this was not common. Even after the Plague, when conditions improved for surviving peasants and serfdom began to vanish in Western Europe, the overarching power dynamics did not favor a quick change towards equality.