Fun fact: Where I live (Devon, England), every common person once had to spent two days a month working for their local Lord for free, maintaining the roads. That's as well as paying rent to them, of course. Plus, they had to provide tithes to the Church as well as grow or raise enough food for their family. And if they had any strong sons that might be particularly useful in working their meagre strip of land, they'd be conscripted for the Crown's armies.
They worked 7 days a week. Incredibly hard and long days by our standards. The only half day they got off was to go to church, which wasn't really optional. (You weren't forced, but the whole community turned against you if you didn't)
I tried it a few years ago and gave up after an hour of not knowing what to do. But I had this week off and tried it again, it I'm really enjoying it this time. It's not like anything else, and once that initial bump is passed its learning curve is really quite good.