| Week 2
|
LECTURE
PEASANT SOCIETY |
How do we know?
Sources: manor court records [particularly good for England],
seigniorial [landlords'] accounts, tax records [eg Tuscan catasto, 1427]
These offer particular information about particular places
at specific moments in time
eg we know a lot about Midland English manors in period
c 1270-1400; we know a lot about the households and possessions of Tuscan
peasants in the early C15; we know something of peasant beliefs and social
relations in Southern France in the early C14 [Montaillou / Inquisition
evidence]
BUT
In general we know all too little about the daily lives,
beliefs and social practices of the peasantry
What was a peasant [derives from French, paysan, an inhabitant of the pays, ie a country dweller]? Medieval terminology - villani, nativi, serf, bondsman etc.
Reflects diversity of peasant society:
Legal / tenurial
Free peasantry - pay rent in cash or in kind (also associated
with colonisation of new lands)
Servile peasantry [villein, bondman etc.] - render labour
services, merchet [marriage fine], heriot [(usually) death duty] etc.
Economic
Substantial landholders - may employ labour other than
family labour, production of surpluses for market
Lesser landholders - essentially self sufficient
Small holders [cottars etc.] and landless [dependent
on common land] - sell labour to others
No simple relationship between legal and economic status
The lord
Distinguish between regional magnates and lesser lords
- include urban elites [the patriciate]
The Manor
Considerable variety
comprises the demesne [pronounce
de-main], ie the lord's home farm worked by servile peasantry or hired
labour
peasant holdings - may be free ie rent only payable or
customary, ie render labour services
Peasant holdings often scattered across large open fields - by later Middle Ages three field system common - hence need for peasants to cooperate in working land, pasturing livestock etc.
The Village
Manor house, church, cemetery as three foci of village
Tends to have more recognisable nucleus in areas traditionally
associated with arable
Evidence for degree of peasant self-government, village
bye laws, courts etc.
The parish
Tithes
Guilds etc. as vehicle for peasant solidarity / self-government
(eg fines for breaking village bye laws may go to church)
Churchyard - community of living and dead
Lord / Peasant relations
Marxist perspective - two class society (lords and peasants)
with conflicting interests
Diversity of peasant society - do they have shared identities
and interests?
Role of custom as limit
on seigniorial authority
Degree of peasant participation in administration of
peasant communities
Erosion of importance of servility with growing population
-
shift to increased
preference for money payments (and use of hired labour)
development
of sharecropping arrangements (eg N. Italy)
Consequently greater incentive for peasants to produce
surpluses for sale / cash crops
more commercialised
society - accelarated by Black Death
makes serfdom even more anachronistic [peasant revolts]
makes peasants more liable to taxation
next lecture will talk about peasant families, work and gender
