Metatron | What Was The Life Of A Medieval Peasant Like? @metatronyt | Uploaded October 2024 | Updated October 2024, 9 hours ago.
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The figure of the Early Middle Ages peasant began to take shape already in the Late Roman era, with the birth of the practice of Colonatus. An exponential growth in the maintenance costs of the military and bureaucratic structure, together with an ever-decreasing influx of slaves caused by an exponential decrease in conquest campaigns, had already put the imperial economy in crisis during the 3rd century AD. Along with these factors, barbarian incursions and slave revolts had produced a depopulation and impoverishment of the countryside, bringing the empire dangerously close to economic collapse.
To remedy the production crisis, which evidently, especially in agriculture, could no longer be based primarily on slave labor, landowners found themselves reforming rural work, which began to rely more and more on labor provided by free men, the coloni. The landowner would enter into a contract with the coloni, allowing them to keep a portion of the agricultural production of the estate for their own sustenance and that of their family, in exchange for the rest of the cultivated products and various services, which in the future would be defined as corvée.
To prevent the scarcity of labor from allowing the coloni to start a race to the bottom among landowners, putting them in competition with each other, by law, once the coloni had entered into a contract with the landowner, they could no longer withdraw and abandon the estate, ending up being bound to it.
With the definitive collapse of the Roman world, society took several steps backward, and many figures, particularly those related to commerce, tended to disappear or become liminal, while the simple tripartition that had already formed in the Bronze Age re-emerged. It would be Bishop Adalberon of Laon who, in the 11th century AD, in his "Carmen ad Robertum regem" explicitly cited the three orders into which feudal society was organized: the Oratores, those who pray (the priests); the Bellatores, those who fight, belonging to the nobility; and the Laboratores, those who work.
The importance of the peasant class is recognized in Adalberon's Carmen itself, which in fact states that "wealth and clothing are provided to all by the work of peasants, and no free man could live without them." The tripartite society according to Adalberon should be understood as a system of interdependence among the three groups: the Bellatores defend the Oratores and the Laboratores, the Oratores pray for the souls of the Bellatores and the Laboratores, and the Laboratores finally maintain the other two groups with their work.
The Curtis
The Laboratores found themselves operating within the Curtis, a productive structure inherited from the ancient Roman Villa, owned by this or that noble, a representative of the Oratores or the Bellatores.
The Curtis was divided into two distinct sections, the Pars Dominica and Pars Massaricia. The Pars Dominica, usually consisting of a third of the Curtis' lands, was directly under the control of the Lord. Formed by the best lands, it was cultivated through corvée, a form of payment that the laboratores had to guarantee to the landowner in exchange for partial usufruct of the Pars Massaricia.
The Pars Massaricia was divided into lots rented by the lord to the laborers, who, in addition to paying rent through corvée labor in the Pars Dominica, had to give the owner a portion of their own harvest.
The corvée didn't exclusively involve working a few days a week in the Pars Dominica, but also included all extraordinary maintenance operations on the territory.
It was only in the Late Middle Ages, with the emergence and proliferation of specialized workers, that specific manual labor activities gradually decreased in type and intensity. However, in the Early Middle Ages, these activities were frequent and ranged from hydraulic work (maintenance of wells, canals, embankments, etc.) to tasks related to roads (roads, bridges) and the center to which the Curtis referred, usually an abbey or fortress.
These structures were initially made of wood, then increasingly incorporated masonry elements, and peasants could take refuge inside them in case of external raids. Initially, military operations were carried out, particularly in the early part of the Early Middle Ages, by the Bellatores, which included not only high-ranking nobles but also their entire retinue, consisting of modest and small landowners.
#middleages #medieval #peasants
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The figure of the Early Middle Ages peasant began to take shape already in the Late Roman era, with the birth of the practice of Colonatus. An exponential growth in the maintenance costs of the military and bureaucratic structure, together with an ever-decreasing influx of slaves caused by an exponential decrease in conquest campaigns, had already put the imperial economy in crisis during the 3rd century AD. Along with these factors, barbarian incursions and slave revolts had produced a depopulation and impoverishment of the countryside, bringing the empire dangerously close to economic collapse.
To remedy the production crisis, which evidently, especially in agriculture, could no longer be based primarily on slave labor, landowners found themselves reforming rural work, which began to rely more and more on labor provided by free men, the coloni. The landowner would enter into a contract with the coloni, allowing them to keep a portion of the agricultural production of the estate for their own sustenance and that of their family, in exchange for the rest of the cultivated products and various services, which in the future would be defined as corvée.
To prevent the scarcity of labor from allowing the coloni to start a race to the bottom among landowners, putting them in competition with each other, by law, once the coloni had entered into a contract with the landowner, they could no longer withdraw and abandon the estate, ending up being bound to it.
With the definitive collapse of the Roman world, society took several steps backward, and many figures, particularly those related to commerce, tended to disappear or become liminal, while the simple tripartition that had already formed in the Bronze Age re-emerged. It would be Bishop Adalberon of Laon who, in the 11th century AD, in his "Carmen ad Robertum regem" explicitly cited the three orders into which feudal society was organized: the Oratores, those who pray (the priests); the Bellatores, those who fight, belonging to the nobility; and the Laboratores, those who work.
The importance of the peasant class is recognized in Adalberon's Carmen itself, which in fact states that "wealth and clothing are provided to all by the work of peasants, and no free man could live without them." The tripartite society according to Adalberon should be understood as a system of interdependence among the three groups: the Bellatores defend the Oratores and the Laboratores, the Oratores pray for the souls of the Bellatores and the Laboratores, and the Laboratores finally maintain the other two groups with their work.
The Curtis
The Laboratores found themselves operating within the Curtis, a productive structure inherited from the ancient Roman Villa, owned by this or that noble, a representative of the Oratores or the Bellatores.
The Curtis was divided into two distinct sections, the Pars Dominica and Pars Massaricia. The Pars Dominica, usually consisting of a third of the Curtis' lands, was directly under the control of the Lord. Formed by the best lands, it was cultivated through corvée, a form of payment that the laboratores had to guarantee to the landowner in exchange for partial usufruct of the Pars Massaricia.
The Pars Massaricia was divided into lots rented by the lord to the laborers, who, in addition to paying rent through corvée labor in the Pars Dominica, had to give the owner a portion of their own harvest.
The corvée didn't exclusively involve working a few days a week in the Pars Dominica, but also included all extraordinary maintenance operations on the territory.
It was only in the Late Middle Ages, with the emergence and proliferation of specialized workers, that specific manual labor activities gradually decreased in type and intensity. However, in the Early Middle Ages, these activities were frequent and ranged from hydraulic work (maintenance of wells, canals, embankments, etc.) to tasks related to roads (roads, bridges) and the center to which the Curtis referred, usually an abbey or fortress.
These structures were initially made of wood, then increasingly incorporated masonry elements, and peasants could take refuge inside them in case of external raids. Initially, military operations were carried out, particularly in the early part of the Early Middle Ages, by the Bellatores, which included not only high-ranking nobles but also their entire retinue, consisting of modest and small landowners.
#middleages #medieval #peasants
