What tools did medieval peasants use to beat wheat?

Answer 1

That depends on their particular status and role - a shepherd needed far different tools to those used by a rope-maker, chandler or parchmenter.

If you mean the normal manor-based farming peasant, some tools were kept centrally by the village reeve and only issued as required, such as large saws and spare parts for ploughs. The 12th century writer Alexander Neckham lists many of the items needed (but not necessarily kept) by a farming peasant in around 1180:

The list begins with baskets, beehives, a fishing fork, bolting cloth and strainer for sifting flour and clarifying ale; then a large, straight knife for trimming thatch, a spade, a seedlip, an axe or bill for hedging, a pruning knife, a hoe or mattock, weeding sticks, boxes, nets, ropes, a plough, a harrow, threshing flail, rake, sickle, scythe, winnowing basket and many other tools are detailed.

One particular item known to have been widely used has only recently been identified from archaeological finds and I have myself made a reconstruction of one - a shovel. This was not the same as a spade (despite the two terms today being used interchangeably), since a spade was specifically for digging and was fitted with a metal shoe to protect the wooden blade. A 12th century shovel had a shaped oak blade section fitted at an angle to a long ash handle and no metal parts; it was used for clearing ditches, cleaning out animal pens, mixing mortar or quicklime, shifting sand or any other soft or wet material.

Answer 2

Medieval peasants threshed wheat with a tool called a flail, which was two sticks joined at the ends with a loop of leather or string. One of the sticks was held and swung, and the other hit the wheat.

Flails were also used as weapons. There is a link below to an article on flails.