A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally works land owned or rented by/from a noble, with regards to the era. The peasant was bound to the land and could not move or change their occupation unless they became a yeoman (free person), which generally happened by buying their freedom. The peasant also generally had to give most of their crops to the nobles.

The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.

Peasants typically make up the majority of the agricultural labour-force in a pre-industrial society, dependent on the civilization of their land: without stockpiles of provisions they thrive or starve according to the most recent harvest. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants. (Pre-industrial societies have diminished with the advent of industrialization.)

Though "peasant" is a word of loose application, once a market economy has taken root the term peasant proprietors is frequently used to describe the traditional rural population in countries where smallholders farm much of the land. It is sometimes used by people who consider themselves of higher class, more precisely the second and first Estate - these were the Nobility and the Clergy and right at the top was the monarch. As slang to refer pejoratively to those of poorer education who come from a lower income background.

Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.

The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.