Chapter Vi

CHAPTER VI

The Rise of Dependent Cultivation and Seignorial

Institutions

l. The problemOur object being to inquire into the origins of the rural seigneurie in Western and Central

Europe, our first task must necessarilybe to form as clear an idea as possible of what it was like when fully developed. Y ou cannot study embryology if you do not understand the grown animal.

The seignorial system, or to use the name under which it is knownin England, the manorial system, was not based on slavery in the true sense of that word. Whatever their legal status may have been, even if it went by the name of serfdom, the peasants who composed a seigneurie were in no sense human livestock, fed by their master and owing the whole of their labour to him. They lived on the produce of fields that they cultivated on their own account, which were usually handed down from father to son; and if the opportunity occurred they could sell or exchange the produce in order to procure other necessariesof life. They usually formed little rural communities with a strong esprit de corps; exercising common rights over waste land where their flocks could graze and they could gather food; able to regulate the arable land itself in the common interest with ajealous insistence. But they did not work only for themselves, or for Church and ruler: a great part of their toil went towards the maintenance of one who stood immediately above them.

To this lord, as they called him, the cultivators of the soil owed, first,a more or less important part of their time; days of agricultura! labourdevoted to the cultivation of the fields, meadows, or vineyards of his demesne; carting and carrying services; and sometimes service as builders or craftsmen. Further, they were obliged to divert to his use a considerablepart of their own harvests, sometimes in the form of rents in kind and sometimes by means of taxes in money, the preliminary exchange of produce for money being in this case their affair. The very fields that they cultivated were not held to be theirs in full ownership, nor was their community-at least in most cases-the full owner of those lands over which common rights were exercised. Both were said to be 'held' of the lord, which meant that as landowner he had a superior right over them, recognized by dues owed to him, and capable

236 THE AGRARIAN LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

in certain circwnstances of overriding the concurrent rights of the individualcultivators and of the community.

Finally, the lord did not merely draw from his peasants valuable revenues and an equally valuable labour force. Not only was he a rentier of the soil and a beneficiary of the services; he was also a judge, often-ifhe did his duty-a protector, and always a chief, whom, apart from any more binding and more personal tie, those who 'held' their land from him or lived on his land were bound, by a very general but very real obligation, to help and to obey. Thus the seigneurie was not simply an economic enterprise by which profas accumulated in a strong man' s hands. lt was also a unit of authority, in the widest sense of the word; for the powers of the chief were not confined, as in principie they are in our capitalist enterpriscs, to work done on his 'business prenúses ', but affected a man' s whole life and acted concurrently with, or even in place of, the power of the state and the fanúly. Like a1l highly organized social cells the seigneurie had its own law, as a rule customary, which determined the relations of the subject with the lord and defined precisely the Iimits of the little group on which these tradicional rules were binding.

For more than a thousand years the seigneurie as thus defined was one

of the dominant institutions of W estem civilization. Firmly established already in many lands at the dawn of the Middle Ages, its reign over the European countryside carne to an end only in times which historians, accustomed to reckon in centurics, would describe without hesitation as recent. Although it was overthrown, while still in full working order, by the French Revolution in 1789 and 1792, it finally carne to an end in Central Europe only as a result of the democratic movement of 1848. England, with still greater respect for the past, waited until 1January1926 before removing the last 'manorial incidents' from her law; though it is true that for very many years they had been little more than empty legal survivals. In the course of such a long existence the institution of the seigneurie, which had always differed in character from place to place, inevitably underwent many and often very profound transformations. One feature might disappear while another became more accentuated. From the clase of the Middle Ages, for example, services may be seen giving way almost completely to dues in money or in kind throughout Western Europe and Italy; while in Eastem Germany thedemesne swallows up most of the dependent peasant holdings, and their tenants are brutally deprcssed to the level of a wretched rural proletariat. In England the govemmental aspect of the manor gradually loses a great part of its legal force, henceforth being only enshrined in social habits or merged in the political donúnation of a class; the squire- archy, in short, emerges slowly out of manorial lordship. But in what

THE RISE OF DEPENDENT CULTIVATION 237

science has the presence of variations or varieties ever interfered with the recognition of a genus ? The fundamental features here recalled define accurately a clear and distinct type of social structure, which had great resisting force and by which through the centuries man' s destiny has been so powerfully influenced that even today, in every country on which it left its mark, the divisions of property, the distribution of rural dwellings, the countryman' s habits of mind, can only be explained by reference to its ancient and now abolished authority.

It must be admitted that the genesis of this institution which has held so great a place in European history remains singularly obscure, because the documents are few and for the most part late, also because they are terribly scattered, in time and still more in place. In Gaul, Italy, the Rhineland, they scarcely allow us to forro any distinct picture of the seigneurie earlier than the ninth century-and then it was unquestionably very old. For England we must come down almost to the Norrnan Conquest. Before the great descriptions to be found in the Carolingian surveys or in that ofWilliam the Conqueror, we must do as best we can with a few most fragmentary scraps of evidence, or the indirect witness of archaeology, place-name study, or the study of the meanings of words. lt is needlessto say how little we know of German society before the great invasions. Perhaps we are not always fully aware of our desperate ignorance of the fundamental structure of whole sections of the Roman world, and in particular of Bastero Europe, in imperial times. No doubt we have the fine inscriptions from African estates; and further east, preserved by the fortunate drought of a desert climate, the invaluable archives of so many great Egyptian estates, from the time of the Ptolemies downwards. But is it possible to believe thata few centuries of a common political domination can have sufficedto obliterate the diversitiesbetween societiesso different in their conditions of life and historical traditions as those of the Nile Valley, Berber Africa, and Gaul? And the picture that might be composed by lines taken in turn from a village of the Fayyum under the Lagides, from an imperial saltus on the high plateaux of Algeria, and lastly from a monasticfisc of Charlemagne' s Íle de France-would there be any real chance that this would express a genuine continuity? No doubt Egyptian and African evidence can throw precious light on the origins of the Westero seigneurie. But only if we ask of them what they can legitimately supply. That is information, not about the actual thing that we are studying, but about analogous things. In short, we must treat them as documents of comparative history.

And it is on comparative methods that we must mainly rely. On comparisons of the European development with parallel developments that may be studied outside Europe? No doubt. But also, and perhaps

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mainly, on systematically conducted comparisons of the various regional developments within European civilization itself. For the establishment of the seignorial system was not carried through in all of them at the same date nor with the same rhythm; nor was it everywhere equally complete. These divergences and these imperfections are of the nature of experiments, to which special attention should be given in causal analysis. Unhappily, inquiry in this direction has not hitherto been so persistent as could be wished. Confined to their special pro vinces, scholars have not as a rule posed their questions widely enough to bring the diversities clearly into the light. So true is this that, in this capital matter, we are dealing not with settled conclusions but with an inquiry that is still proceeding.

These considerations determine at once the limits to our ambitionsand the method of the inquiry. To state the main problems with all possible precision; to suggest cautiously sorne working hypotheses modest as these achievements may seem, the historian of seignorial origins today should not aim at anything more striking. Moreover he cannot follow strict chronological order. He might as well try to follow a track by night. He must start from what is least imperfectly known, collecting one by one various indications which may help him to understand a more remote and more obscure past. Such a method of exposition must necessarily be rather slow, and very unlike that appropriate to questions that have been more completely answered. At least it will follow faithfully the actual lines of research; and perhaps, after all, one may interest a reader best by describing to him how one groped for truth in the laboratory.

11. Seignorial types of the early Middle AgesWe are still far from the possibility of constructing a map of the

'seignorialization' of Europe; but we may at least try to distinguishroughly the principal areas which such a map, could it be completed, would mark out with a precision that today is out of the question. First, we discern a vast area throughout which the seigneurie was firmly established in the ninth century, and no doubt had been long before that; where for many centuries it infl.uenced the whole of social life profoundlymost of Italy; NorthEastern and SouthEastern Gaul, with its Catalan and Rhenish promontories; and even beyond the Rhine great regions ofSouthern and Central Germany. Secondly, a region of late but marked 'seignorialization'. England is its chief constituent area, but probably we ought to add, though with a still later start and a much less vigorous growth, Denmark. Then come the regions ofincomplete 'seignorialization 'SouthW est Gaul, the Saxon plain.



Last, the lands that have no seigneurie-Friesland, Dithmarschen, Norway, perhaps Sweden. It will be simplest to begin our search in the first area and, more particularly in Gaul, because of the greater abundance of sources. And naturally we shall go back as far as we can with any confidence, that is, as we have already said, to early Caro lingian times.

It must not be forgotten that even for Carolingian Gaul our know ledge is very fragmentary. We know much about only one class of seigneuries. They are found in the region of big villages north of the Loire, and are themselves unusually big. Those that can most easily be

described belonged to monasteries. But we know enough of the royal estates to be able to say that, in their main lines, they hardly differed from the ecclesiastical;andas these last had come to the Church by gifts,sometimes made only a few years before the documents provide us witha detailed account of what had been given, we are entitled to hold that the general lines of the picture apply equally to the estates of the great lay aristocracy at that time and place. This is the type from which our inquiry must necessarily start: later we may extend it to other types.

Seigneuries of this type were distinguished by the union, and that extremely close, of a very great area cultivated directly by the lord the demesne, or as it was usually called, the mansus indominicatus-with little dependent peasant holdings which, following a rather later usage, we shall call the 'tenancies' (tenures).

The management of the demesne radiates from a group of buildingsdwellings, barns, cattle sheds, workshopssometimes fortified, and known as the court, curtis, that isthe enclosure. Around it lie gardens, ploughlands, vineyards, meadows. As a rule the mansus indominicatus also includes forest land, often very extensive, and grazing lands. But since they are generally subject to rights of user by the community,these stretchesof woodland and waste are not so completely at the lord' sdisposal as the other parts of the demesne; for the moment let us leave them on one side. Even when limited to its cultivated fields and meadows, the manse domanial remains very great. Its area will regularly be onethird, onehalf, or sometimes almost even the equivalent, of that of the similar lands held by the body of peasants. So two very grave problems faced the lord. A 'marketing' problem: how to make the best use of the produce of this extensive agricultura! enterprise. A 'labour' problem: how to find hands enough to keep it going. Turn for the moment to the second.

Wage labour proper was not of much account, It was not unknown; but it was only called in now and then, for those great seasonal opera tions in which men volunteered to work for hire. On the other hand, on most demesnes there still lived sorne slaves who, being fed by their


240 THE AGRARIAN LIFE OF THE MIDDLB AGES

master, worked always under his orders; they were called his proven diers, because they got their provende (praebenda) from him. The surveys (censíers), whose main object was to determine the relation of the lord with his tenants, as a rule pay very little attention to this servile personnel of the court; the description of the estates of Saint Germain desPrés mentions them only once and then quite incidentally.1 But we have nevertheless enough textual references to justify us in counting the slaves as a normal element of nearly every seígneurie. What we should most like to know would be their numbers. Unfortunately we seldom can. But everything suggests that they were small, at least in relation to the size of the huge fields of the demesne. There were excep tions no doubt. But the exceptions were not due so much to a great abundance of slavesas to the existencehere and there of small demesnes. Thus in A.D. 862,

on the 'royal manor' of Ingolstadt, the 22 slaves of both sexes attached to the court might themselves have done nearly all the work needed to cultivate fields then limited to about no acres.2The caseit has no parallel in Gaulis worth quotation, because it illustrates excellently the extreme variety of seignorial types, due in great part to the survival of ancient arrangements. It was without doubt an exceedingly rare case, especiallyamong royal estates. On the majority of seigneuríes in Carolingian Gaul the situation must have been much more like that on those Italian seígneuries which happen to have left to us rather more precise information, and where we see, for example, in the ninth century, on a Farfa estate, a group of only 93 fed slavesagainst one of more than 1400 tenants. Early in the tenth century, on the immense estates of Santa Giulia ofBrescia, we find, it is true, an appreciably higher proportion; but still only 741 against nearly 4000. And the reckoning includes the relatively large group of strictly domes tic slaves.The very modest gangs of agricultura! workers which slavery thus

provided, though useful because they were always at hand on their master' s farm, were obviously incapable of meeting the needs of those great employers, the aristocracy, the king and the Church. These had to look in a very different direction for their principal labour supply.

The 'tenancies' furnished it, in the form of the compulsory services of their holders. Each tenant, as a rule, had assigned to him sorne of his master's fields, to be tilled for the master. But this ingenious form of piecework could be applied only to a relatively small fraction of thedemesne. The rest was cultivated by means of labour services, applied either to carting or to the numerous and varied daily jobs of any agri cultura! undertaking. Periodically the peasants were called together,

r xxv. 8: fimina de fisco dominico.2 Mon. Cerm. Díplornata regum e stirpe Katolinotum, vol. 1, Ludowici Gerrnanící Dipl.

no. 30.



often bringing their teams, by the directors of the seigneurie, and des patched to do whatever was required at the moment, These services, usually occupying several days in the week, were immensely burden some to the peasant, much more so, as things then were, than the various dues supplementary to them; but without them the central undertaking could not have fl.ourished,nor even carried on. Had the little peasant holdings been vacated, the lord' s baros would have emptied and bis fields lain fallow.

The first striking fact about the organization of these tenures is its regularity. The greater part of the soil held from the lord was split up into units, in theory indivisible, called manses. These in turn are arranged into groups, and each member of each group bears approxi mately the same burden. Postponing the problem of the manse, let us consider the principies which determined the classification of thesemastercells of the seignorial organism.

There were two main groups of manses, those called servile and those called free. They were not necessarily found side by side on every seigneurie. But most seigneuries, especially the greater ones, contained both sorts. Three marked characteristics distinguished the two groups. Usually less numerous on any given seigneurie than the free manses, all told the servile manses were certainly much fewer; on the lands of Saint GermaindesPrés, as known to us from the early ninthcentury survey,there were only 191 servile against 1430 free; on those of the Bishop of Augsburg, at about the same date, there were 421 against 1004. The servile manses are also regularly smaller than the free manses of the same seigneurie. Lastly, they have different burdens, heavier andwhen servicesmore indefinite. More subject to the master's arbitrary power, in this and many other features such as exemption from military requisitionsthat honourable obligation of free mensthey recall the lowly status of slavery. So do the names of the two groups. In the beginning, the servile manse had been the holding of a slavebut of a slave settled on the soil, turned into a farmer, and consequently far removed in bis daily way of life from bis colleague the fed slave (pro vendier); the free manse had been the holding of a free man.

However, by the ninth century, this antithesis no longer agreed strictly with the facts. No doubt the burdens originally laid on the soil remained. Besides, the doctrine, if not always very precisely the prac tice, of personal law still distinguishedaccording to the old standardsthe slavelandholder from the free, who was generally called a colonus. But it did not follow that the soil and the man were always in the same class. Plenty of coloni held servile manses. Still more peculiarfor these free holders of land once stigmatized as servile may well be freedmen, or their descendantsfree manses might be held by slaves.This anomaly

16 PCBBB



struck and worried contemporaries just as it does us. That is why sorne surveys, while still keeping the two tradicional categories apart, chose terms to describe them which, neglecting ali legal standards, were based simply on differences of obligations. By a significant vacillation, the compiler of the 'polyptyque' of Saint Maur-des-Fosséssometimes wrote'servile manses' and 'free manses', sometimes-and eve~ when referring to the very same holdings-'manses which owe manual services' and'manses which owe team services'. Later, the distinction was to dis-appear altogether from the vocabulary of surveys.

It is then perfectly clear that the antithesis of these two sorts of tenureoriginated at an appreciably earlier stage of social evolution, although for lack of sources we can only trace it in an era of decline. lt opposedto one another two elements in the seigniorial structure, which in factwere being steadily welded together-two sedimentary strata of which no one could state a priori that they had been laid down at the same stage of development, or under the influence of similar conditions. Here is a formidable problem for research; but before tackling it it will be well to complete our bird' s eye view of the field of early 'seig- niorialization'.

Although a legal entity and, as such, incapable of division, the manse-in regions of nucleated villages-was only very seldom in fact a single undivided stretch ofland. lt was usually made up of many strips scattered over a much divided soil. The demesne itself was made up as arule of various fragments, usually bigger than those of the peasants,but more or less mixed up with them. The tenants' houses were in the village, round about the court; so that the rural scene itself reflected theinterdependence of the constituent parts of the seigneurie, and greatly facilitated the working of the system, by placing the man who owed servicesnear the place where they were needed. But we must make no mistake: there was no exact correspondence between village territory and seigneurie, though sometimes they did correspond. Even neglecting for the moment any completely independent peasant holdings that might survive among those that were dependent on sorne lord, many a village had several lords; and even in regions where settlement was highly concentrated a seigneurie might include manses scattered over the fields of several villages, sometimes relatively remote from the centre; so much so that, as is seen in the Montierender survey, sorne of the lord' s men made a longish journey before reaching the demesne on which they had to work. Elsewhere, it became necessary to abandon the services due from tenures which were too remote.

And there existed already, in the Gaul of those days as in contemporary France, vast regions where men lived not in villagesbut scattered in smaller groups. There the manse was a single block ofland, or nearly



that. About the house of the masoyer (mansuaríus) were grouped his lands, generally very extensive, for-since we are here dealing with regions of poor soil-they were only tilled intermittently, harvests altemating rather capriciously with fallow on the same plot. So con- stituted, and inhabited as a rule by one or two good-sized families of the patriarchal type, the manse lay sometimes quite by itself. Elsewhere, with a few others, it formed a tiny hamlet. Obviously such a scattering of the rural population was inimical to collaboration between demesne and tenancies. It presented awkward practica! problems, of which various sections of the survey of Saint Germain-des-Prés relating to the woodlands of the W est give usa clear notion. There being no big village to serve as the unit of administration, each 'estate' included a large area covered with a loose network of dependent manses. Although it existed, the demesne strikes us as uncommonly small when compared with other geographical regions: only

10 per cent of the cultivated area at Boissy-en-Drouais; II"5 per cent at Villemeult; whereas about París it touched more than 32 per cent at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and more than 3 5 per cent at Palaiseau. If a mansus índomínícatus in the woodland country was given to monks, they might be obliged to tum it into tenancies, because they could not conveniently make direct use of it.

But it must be clearly borne in mind that these difficultieswere mainly those of the great seígneuríes, themselves integral parts of landed properties both huge and widespread. Always difficult for the administration, because ít was necessary to divide the produce into two parts-- one to be disposedof on the spot without too much loss, the other to be dispatched to a single and often rather distant point of consumption, the monastery-properties of this class became still more awkward to manage, when to the distance between the various units of administration was added, within those units, too great distances between each tenancy or each field of the demesne. These conditions were much less unfavourable to little lords who lived on the spot. Consider the seígneurie of Ebbon and Eremberge, right in the woodlands of the Corbonnais, which they gave to the monks of Saint Germain-des-Prés, to receive it back from them, by the way, perceptibly increased, as a precaríum, that is, in retum for a rent in money. It is of no great size- about 120 acres of arable and 48 of meadow; whereas monastic seig neuries usually reckoned severalhundreds, even thousands, of acres. But it is made up of a mansus índomínícatus and nine tenancies, so divided that th.e demesne covered rather mote than 34 per cent of the arable and about 57 per cent of the meadowland, which naturally meant heavy services for the tenants, services which in this case were at the lord' s discretion. So it reproduces at every point, only on a much smaller scale,the structure of that classicalseigneuríe of which a.fisc of the Church



or of the king provides the giant type. People so modest as Ebbon and Eremberge were not able to compile fine surveys. That is why our sources do not tell us much about these little rustic lordships. But they emerge here and there, through some lucky documentary reference, made up, according to the nature oflocal settlement, now of a fraction

F1G. 5. Enclosed fields about a hamlet in Central France: St Sauvier, Allier.



of a village, now of a hamlet or even of sorne scattered manses. Perhaps, all things considered, they were the most nwnerous kind of seigneurie to be found on western soil. Their interna! constitution does not seem to have differed much from that of their bigger sisters; and they could adjust themselves easily enough to any type of settlentent.

In its essentialfeatures, which are all that matter here, the picture of the seigneurie just sketched for Carolingian Gaul would be correct,almost line by line, for Southern and Central Germany and for Italy, about the same date. But for Italy there is a weighty reservation.

North of the Alps, contractual relations between individuals played an insignificant part in the inner life of a seigneurie. In spite of theirlooseness, which itself indicates a legal habit of mind very different from ours, the texts give a very clear impression that the relations between the master and the little cultivators were determined more often than not by custom alone, a custom the same for all the group, or at least for all manses of the same class. Exceptions there doubtless were. The agreements for

protection, of which we shall speak later, usually went with a grant ofland. Often enough the generosity of the lord was, in truth, only apparent; he was merely giving back sorne property which his client had previously surrendered to him, now burdened with fresh obligations; and the game of surrender and regrant simply transformed a holding formerly autonomous into one under authority. But the question whether the grant was real or nominal did not change its profound significance; in either event it ended by creating a tenure which we may say was rooted in contract-with this limitation however, that although it was the product of two acts of will, the agreement had no sensesave as part of a vast system of custom. Agreements of this type are as a rule singularly vague; they do not determine exactly either the liabilitiesof the land or, what is still more curious, for how long the recipient is to hold it. That is because they tacitly asswne the local custom; and the customary rule as to the second point was almost invariably that ofheredity. There can really be no doubt that, whether by tradition or by sufferance,tenancy normally went from father to son. True, sorne manses-regularly described as censiles-were actually let for terms of years. But they are very rarely found.

As for the precarium contract, also a kind of letting for a limited period, its range under the Carolingians was confined almost exclusively to persons in rather high places and to estates very far removed from those of peasants; though atan earlier date it may have been wider. It was in regular use between the religious houses and the lay aristocracy, whose members found in this legal procedure an easy way of snatching seigneuries or parts of seigneuries from the Church, while nominally only renting them. It is very rarely met with in the relations between the



lords and their men. Custom, on which they were based, gave its own perpetuity to the rights over land of the majority of these dependent folk.

Now Italian conditions contrast with these in two marked ways. Not only did a great number of Italian peasants hold lands burdened with dues and services to a lord by a regular contract (the livello). This contraer, further, gave them a tenure limited in time, either to one or more lives, or-and more usually-to 29 years, so as to avoid the prescriptive rights which went with a 30-year tenure. It is in fact highly probable that more often than not the lease was renewed at the expiry of the fixed period. Sorne deeds even anticipate this renewal and fix the price that is to be paid for it. The practica! reasons which everywhere favoured heredity were at work in Italy as in other countries: labour was so rare that what a lord most feared was its loss. Y et such a tenure was none the less by definition temporary, and rested on a contract explicitly formulated at each renewal. The contrast so revealed between the societies north and south of the Alps is a structural dif ference which must always be borne in mind.

111. The decline of slaveryIn the description just attempted, one fact above all claims attention. It is not enough to say

of the ninth-century seigneurie that it contained only a few slaveshoused and fed on the demesne. The institution itself, its fundamental principies, assumed a society in which really servile labour played only an unimportant part. If there had been plenty of slaves for sale, and their work had covered their cost, why exact so many services from your tenants? And as the burden of dues was necessarily in inverse relation to that of services, would not good sense suggest taking from the manses more of the crops and fewer days' work? But that is not all. Itself the antithesis of a slave system, the seigneurie had grown up precisely when such a system was on the decline. On this falling curve of slavery the ninth century marks only a point, but a point in fact very near the end.

No doubt we must not exaggerate, even for the Roman world, the position held by vast latifundia, tilled by gangs of slaves, sometimes in irons. The existence of a numerous free peasantry-who might all the same be under the domination of magnates or chieftains-is proved

by indisputable records; and, as we shall see, it was on this basis that the seigneurie itself was in great measure built up. Yet it is nevertheless true that round about A.D. I slavery was very widespread in the Empire; that the rich in particular had at their disposal great troops of slave labourers whom they employed, not only in domestic work and handi-



crafts but also in agricultura! work; that especially on great estates, apart from some paid labourers hired in times of pressure or for specializedtasks, the work was done almost exclusively by slaves. Even in Germany, slaves, though no doubt many fewer, were found in all comfortable homes; at the time of the invasions the chieftains brought slaves of their own race into Romanía; in raiding there they got plenty more. At the start of the Merovingian era, Gregory ofTours and the contemporary lives of the Saints, with the letters of Gregory the Great for Italy, give us a quite clear impression of a society in which the slave is still a very familiar type; in which you sell in the m.arkets of the Frankish Kingdom captives from Italy; at Naples captives got by raids from Gaul; in which women slaves grind at the mill in the lord' s court and slave shepherds tend the B.ocks. Two or three centuries after the age of the great Carolingian surveys, in which already the importance of slavery had dwindled so much, it played only an insignificant role in the greater part of the West, and a role exclusively domestic.

The decline of slavery is incontestably one of the most notable facts in our western history. Like all great facts, it is hard to explain. Broadly one may say that three groups of causes,converging, brought it about-the military, the religious, and the economic.

Servile labour, as the men of the ancient world were well aware, almost always gives a wretched retum; many hands to finish off few jobs, that is apparently its motto. The slave is a form of capital with modest yield, the more modest because you must deduct from his output the cost ofhis keep. He is, besides, a fragile form. Ifhe is sick he has no output, but the costs of his keep run on. If he dies-and his life was often short, especiallyif he were enrolled in the great teams of the latifandia, where living conditions were necessarily very harsh-or ifhe runs away, so does the capital invested in him. Was it not Varro who, for this reason, advised employers to prefer, in unhealthy posts, free wage-eamers whose death would cost them nothing ? All this has little importance so long as the slave can be replaced cheaply. If he cannot, losses ~y swallow up profits. Now the birthrate on a slave estate is hardly ever high enough for the regular maintenance of a herd of slaves. Experience has proved it: of all forms of breeding, that of human cattle is one of the hardest. If slavery is to pay when applied to large-scale enterprises, there must be plenty of cheap human B.esh on the market. You can only get it by war or slave-raiding. So a society can hardly base much of its economy on domesticated human beings unlessit has at hand feebler societies to defeat or to raid. That was the position of the white men of the West Indies towards black Africa from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century; of Abyssinia yesterday, surrounded by primitive and ill-armed tribes; of old Rome in her days of



conquest. The legions had supplied huge labour battalions, who toiled in the field or on the public works under the lash or the threat of the ergastulum. The relative peace of the fust two centuries of our era appears to have made their recruitment appreciably harder. New methods then began to appear in the administration of the latifandia; to which we shall refer shortly. Evidently the return to an almost chronic state of war, with the repeated attacks of Persians and bar barians, produced subsequently sorne reviva! of the slave trade, in spite of Rome' s military decadence. The great invasions at the end of the

fourth and the begínning of the fifth century led to a further revival, And it was not only the invaders who made money by slave dealing:anyone rich enough could seize the opportunity. The records show ¡

that when the Germans had ravaged a country they sold their prisoners readily in Romania itself. But all this meant only a temporary rise in the general downward movement of the curve of slavery.

At fust sight it may seem astonishíng that the very warlike Middle Ages had so few slaves. Here religious considerations intervened. Not that Christianity proscribed slavery as such. At least the prevalent form of Christian doctrine that soon became official did not. As between those e:xtremistswho were not afraid to teach the slave to despise his master and even run away from him and the Council of Gangra which excommunicated them in A.D. 324, the future lay with the Fathers of the Council. Like thegreat philosophies of antiquity, Christian ethics as ordinarily received made it the master' s duty to treat his slaves well, because they were his brothers in Christ; but according to St Paul it was also the slave's duty to obey his master. A deliberate supporter of the established order of society, the Church was profoundly indifferent to all plans for reformíng this world below, so negligible in its eyes compared with the City of God: 'Christ', Primasius of Hadrumetum writes, 'carne to change men' s hearts, not their conditions of life.' A structure of ideas, in which it is not difficult to recognize the use of sorne devised by pagan wisdom, helped to support the conclusion. Slavery was no doubt opposed to the Law of God (t~e philosophers had said, to the Law of Nature). So, for that matter, was property. But both ínstitutions sprang from the Law of Nations, to which, ever since the Fall, mankínd ought to submit as to a necessary evil and a welldeserved punishment. No doubt the freeing of slaves was an actof piety; and it is not impossible that the desire to win salvation mayhave had something to do with the numerous manumissions duríngthe fust centuries of the Middle Ages. But we shall see that other, andmuch more earthly, causescontributed at least as effectivelyto the great momentum of ernancipation. lt was never a sin to have slaves,even to have Christian slaves. When a slave bom in paganism was baptízed the



Church rejoiced. She never required the new convert to be set free; rather she hoped that, by faithful service, much better than that of his comrades who remained in sin, he would show to his master the loveliness of true religion.

On the other hand, the Church refused resolutely to sanction the enslavement of Christians, true Christians, that is, Catholics. By so doing she merely extended, but so widely as to alter its whole character, a rule that had come down from the most remote past of pre-Christian civilizations. The slave had always been, before all else, a captive: beyond the little territory of the tribe or the city stretched a vast region peopled with men who had no rights at all. You could seizethem as and when you wished. Now the new religion had replaced the tiny pagan city by the immense city of the spirit, to which all Christians belonged.Outside this societas christiana you might still treat men as cattle and, ifyou took them prisoners, keep them as slaves. But if a Christian cap-tured another Christian he was obliged to respect his free status. Perhaps one of the finest triumphs of Christian ethics was the enforcement of respect for this maxim, slowly to be sure, for it is still being recalled in England early in the eleventh century, but in the long run most effectively. So it carne about that the perpetua! wars among Catholics left numberless dead; prisoners who sometimes sighed their lives out in dungeons-it was William the Conqueror' s principie that they should; but, after the age of the great invasions, hardly any slaves. Yet you could hunt for slavesin the countries round about; Celtic Christians of the far West, generally treated as heretics; Islam; Slavonic, Baltic or

¡l

'

Finnish 'paganries'; and even, from the eleventh century, GreekChristians who by that time were all but cut off from the Catholic world. But these were all distant lands, or lands difficult of approach. They could supply warriors or traders with a few slaves; they could not maintain a great servile economy.

Still that does not explain everything. In the Roman world itself, the division of latifandia into small farms can be clearly traced from the second and third centuries; eras, no doubt, in which human merchandise was becoming more rare, but in which the supply was far from exhaus- ted. Later, during the early Middle Ages, the tenurial system managed to establish itself, although in fact the existing servile population, if it had been employed in the old fashion, might have been exceedingly useful, and although the slave trade itself was far from extinct in the West. Setting out from the frontiers of the Slavs, or from Britain, slave caravans guided by slave-traders still traversed Germany and France in the tenth and eleventh centuries; but it was to reach ports from which the goods could be shipped to Byzantium or, more often, to Moham- medan Spain. The captives kidnapped beyond the Elbe, when they were

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008250 THE AGRARIAN LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 1not in this way disposed of outside Westem Christendom, were used even in Germany-much oftener as tenants for the waste spaces of a seigneurie than as domestic slavesin the lord' s court. Even the reviva! of seabome trade, from the twelfth century, which put on to the Mediterranean markets a much greater supply of wretched creatures, kidnapped Jin North Africa, the Levant, or on the shores of the Black Sea, though it -~ filled rich establishments with domestics and concubines, and added a

1 few slave farm hands, did

little moreexcept perhaps in the BalearicIslands and in Sicily. Obviously the working of great estates by slave labour was no longer considered possible or desirable. The grouping about a central establishment of

dependent holdings, saddled with dues and services, was preferred. That was because the control of a great rural establishment based on slavery raises very delicate problems of

administration, which can only be solved with success in a particular economic and mental environment. The maintenance of great massesof human beings must be provided

for without using up all the produce of the soil on their keepor any of the most profitable produce. With part of the incomebut never at any time the wholemen must be bought continuously to maintain the stock of labour. In short, an economy must be kept goingon a large scale and with intelligence based on exchange and profit, an

economy which the conditions of life and the growing scarcity of ready money ever since the later years of the Empire made it a less and less simple matter to organize. It is easy to

follow, in the letters of Gregory the Great, the parallel progress of a sort of economic debilityrevealed at one time by grave difficultiesin the commissariat, at another by the abandonment of great cattle breeding enterprisesand of the replacement of troops of

slaves by tenants. Slave labour requires close oversight: long ago Columella had recommended the system of small farms on parts of the estate too remote for frequent

visits by the paterfamilias. Now an aristocracy of men who were primarily soldierswas singularly illfitted for that kind of oversight. And its retainers, fighting men and little else,

could not give much help. As for the monks, they ought to be spared every kind of work which would distract them from prayer, liturgy, and the practice of asceticism.

Lastly, estate management requires careful account keeping; a thing which became more and more difficult for average administrators, in the ignorance and disorder which the great distress of the opening Middle Ages brought with it. The repeated, and almost

puerile, instructions which abound in the estate ordinances of the ninth centuryin Charlemagne's Capitulare de Villis or the statutes of Abbot Alard of Corbieshow us how

hard it was for the great men to make their subordinates apply the most elementary rules of bookkeeping. To adopt tenancy as a solution was the line of least resistance. Labour



kept itself; the families, each settled on its scrap of land, grew in the natural way. It was merely necessary to take care that the days of work on the demesne were duly given-and that was mostly done for you by custom. As soon as slaves, at the places of sale, were no longer a com- modity attractive because abundant, and therefore cheap, the new tone of social life and the new habits of mind were all against any effort to maintain the old, and far too complicated, methods.

The evolution which had affected the slaves in this way would be reproduced, rather later, almost feature by feature, under the operation of the same causes,in the case of the vassals.They had originally been a fighting comítatus and they had fed in their chieftain's hall. Gradually it was thought more convenient to give each of them an estate on which he and his family could live. It was assumed that he would still perform his old duty, just as the slave-now liable to render services-went on working on the demesne. But the vassals' duties were of quite a different sort-instead of humble agricultura! labour, military service, attendance at the lord' s court, 'counsel '. Moreover the fief which owed them was not a peasant holding; it was as a rule itself a seigneurie, large or small. There are weighty differences; they led to absolutely opposite socialclassifi.cationsB. ut viewed from the economic angle, the positions of the two classes are fundamentally similar. Under the early Norman kings, many an English abbey, after having tried to keep armed knights about the place and feed them at its own expense, had to make up its mind to assign fiefs to them, cut out of the monastic lands. Whether you liked it or not, the social environment, from top to bottom of the social scale, was against the 'prebend ', the system of maintenance on the premises. ·

In fact, the troops of slaves who had once lived on the great estates dwindled away from year to year mainly because their masters were always turning them into tenants, 'hutting' them, as the phrase was: giving each his own hut (casa), of course with the necessary fi.elds. Evidently this reduced the land which the lord had formerly cultivated himself. Huge as they seem to us, the mansi indominicati of the ninth century must have been appreciably smaller than the latifundia which had preceded them. Sometimes the slave, now turned into a farmer, was freed at the same time. But often he remained legally in slavery. There had always been sorne grants of land to slaves. But in the time ofVarro, Cicero's contemporary, they were not usually given regular holdings-just scrapsofland big enough to carry a few cattle, as rewards for good service. In the fust century Tacitus found, or thought he found, slaves with their own penates in Germany; and he marked the contrast with Roman usage. (Perhaps what he really found were not true slaves, but that superior grade of dependants, conquered folk or



freed men, whom the Germans called laet: lidi.) Clearly, the practice spread shortly after his time. Jurists writing about A.D. 200 treat it as normal. It went on spreading in the following period. Imperial policy helped to strengthen it. As we shall see, the govemment, anxious both to keep up the yield of the land and to facilitate tax-collecting, had decided under Constantine that the freebom farmers, the coloni, ought to remain on their farms from generation to generation: the lessorsmight not evict them. Ifits plan was not to miscarry, govemment could not overlook the now important group of serví casati. Already in 367-75 a law, which refers expressly to the policy previously adopted towards the coloni, absolutely forbade the sale of'rural slaves,whose names were on the tax-rolls ', without their land. That, it is true, only prevented the master from making easy money out of his slavesby selling them apart from the soil to which they were henceforward bound. Inside the servile group, thus tied to a given area, he could do as he liked. But apparently he was deprived later of a right which, it might

have been thought, was of the essenceof property in slaves-that of diverting the personnel of the 'tenancies' to other tasks. We have lost the relevant evidence: we do not even know whether this principie was established by imperial law or simply applied by the lawyers. But its existence is beyond doubt; because after the fall of the Western Empire Theodoric abolished it in Italy by his edict. Once a farmer always a farmer: the rule applied alike to freeman and slave. In other words, whether the latifandia had been cut up to make holdings for slaves or for humble freebom men, it was legally impossible to go back to the system of slave-gang tillage. True, we do not know how far this legislation was applied. Issued near the end of the Empire, its life was in any caseshort, and no doubt economic forces worked more powerfully than any law. For there is every reason to think that the transformation of slavesinto tenants went on after the invasions during the first centuries of the barbarian kingdoms.

Let us make the best picture we can of the position of the 'hutted'slave. In strict law he remains a slave, unless formally freed; as a slave subject to his master's arbitrary authority; generally speaking excluded from the courts of law; unable-in a barbarian state-to sit in an assembly of freemen; unfit for Holy Orders. Originally, the land that he tilled was in no sense his: it was only a detached bit of his master's, and his master could take it back at will. Carolingian surveys still go on saying of these men 'that they must serve whenever they are told to do so'. Their holdings, according to. the primitive classifications servile manses, had their defined duties, often very humble indeed; even should they by chance hold free manses, their wives might owe weaving labour, owe it perhaps in the lord's workshops, a thing that



could not be demanded of any free woman. But, in practice, the master has 'hutted' men whom he· used to keep because it pays him to do so. There is no reason why he should not let the arrangement become hereditary. And as the whole object was to mak.e a man responsible for his own maintenance, and as he paid rent both in dues and services,he must be left time enough to till his land; failing that, he can neither live nor pay. So he and his fellows will only be employed within limits on the demesne. As he has the status of a cultivator he must be allowed sorne initiative. The Lombard law, which forbids him to sell land without permission, allows him to sell cattle, if it will be good for his 'hut'-and that is a dangerously elasticprovision. Finally, since he has his own hearth, is head of a little household, perhaps even has sorne other slaves as farro labourers, he is inevitably freed from the more direct pressure ofhis master's power. In short, at once slave and tenant, in the end he is likely to become much more tenant than slave. His obligations tend to be regulated more and more by customary rules which, though not quite the same as those affecting freemen, form a sort of appendix to them. And as ali medieval society was dominated by the idea that what was customary was also right, breach of these customs-which are set out in the surveys-soon becomes a wicked thing; and after that, a crime. Speak.ing of the royal slaves, clearly distinguished from the coloni, the free tenants, the bishops assembled in 858 at the synod of Quierzy address Louis the German thus: 'Let your officersbe careful not to require of them more than they rendered in your father's day.' In 905 a royal missus forbade the Abbot of St Ambrose at Milan to impose on his slaves at Limonta heavier burdens than they had owed when they belonged to the king. From the ninth and early tenth centuries the various grades of dependent cultivators are in process of assimilation into a single class, although originally they and their holdings had been in classes far apart. The process was far from completed. Most of the surveys still refused to mix up free and servile manses. Officialterminology, legal rules, with their strict lawyerly style, maintain as best they can the line between the free and the servile tenant. Habit and common speech had already nearly erased it,

It is curious that this fusion-accomplished in that great creative epoch of the tenth and eleventh centuries, an age whose terrible shortage of documents has hidden from us the details-did not lead to the disappearance of the word servus (become serf in Romance speech) nor yet to the wiping out of the idea of servitude. We are not here concemed with the actual history of medieval serfdom. But the survival for almost a millennium of words which seem to recall slavery may bring-has in fact often brought-such errors in its train, that a sketch of the main



lines of evolution is called for. Among the members of seigneuries, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, many-far more than the Caro- lingian slaves, 'hutted' or not-are held to lack that legal quality called freedom. Y et neither the French or Italian ser.fa, nor the German Eigene, nor the English bondmen are slaves; not even as a rule descendants of slaves. Not slaves in the legal sense, because they do not belong in body and goods to a master; their relations with their lords are fixed by custom; they have their own possessions; and no one regards them as human beings devoid of rights. Still less slaves in the economic sense: they do not live on the demesne; they have their fields for which they pay dues and services; in short, they are tenants. Even the 'every day' serfs in Germany (Tageschalken; serví cotidiani), unknown elsewhere in the W est except in Sardinia, though they owe daily services as their name implies, are much more like labourers than slaves: they have their own cottages and scraps of land. What really has changed is the very content of the notions of 'free' and 'unfree'. Henceforward the'free' man is the man who can choose his own lord-as a vassal does, whose homage must be renewed as lord succeeds lord, under pain of losing his fief no doubt, but in theory ofhis own free wil1; as the peasant also does who is only bound to his lord by holding sorne tenure, or living on sorne particular spot. That is the position of the French libre vilain, the German Landsasse, the English socman. The 'unfree' man, on the other hand, is the man bound to a lord by a tie that is personal and hereditary, a tie which in sorne fashion attaches to his body from birth,and is in consequence rather degrading and socially incapacitating. These new forms of very ancient juridical conceptions, appearing- as it strikes us--rather late in time, had occurred inside seigneuries already formed, seigneuries with no slaves. We may even say that they assume the absence of slaves. For such changes of meaning were only possible because the notion of slavery had lost its ancient content, almost spontaneously.

Instructive as these facts are, it must not be forgotten that they bear only on one aspect of the seigneurie, and that perhaps not the most important aspect. Using the terminology of the Caroliongian surveys, the rise of servile manses is perfectly explained by the decline of slavery and slave gangs. This decline may therefore suffice to account for the formation of that very rare type of seigneurie which contained servile manses only, like Drancy, held in the ninth century by Saint Maur-des-Fossés. But it wil1 not explain the formation of any other type. Nodoubt sorne free manses had a similar origin: there must have beenamong them a fair number of farms of ex-slaves who had been freed at the same time that they got their land. The freedman almost always remained bound to his old master, now his patron, and because his



tenant, ifhe was not that already. We could not understand the multi plication of manumissions, during the fust centuries of the Midclle Ages, if these relations of tenurial and personal subordination had not persisted. Manumission did not imply the loss of all rights over a

man; it only modified the nature ofhis subordination. In a word, the move ment towards 'freedom' was at that time, in many ways, merely an episode in the decay of the latifandíum, which was being gradually replaced by a regime of dependent tenure. It is also likely that the great proprietors when splitting up their demesnes were sometimes led to'hut' a few lanclless or evicted freemen on sorne of the newmadeholdings. That would lead to the creation of more free manses. But can we really suppose that all, or even the majority, of the little holdings which, although dependent, were labelled 'free', can have arisen in either of these two ways? Apart from the fact that our texts, in sorne cases, clearly tell a different story, mere probability is against any such hypothesis. Can we picture, across the ages, these societies of ours as built up exclusively from crowds of slaves, here and there a few day labourers, with above them all a handful of masters ? We have then to explain how innumerable peasants, by ancestral status freein the primitive sense; not slaveshad got entangled in the meshes of the seigneuríe. That is really the crucial problem.

IV. Government and the rise of the 'seigneurie':from the colonate to the immunity

Only a few centuries were needed for the transformation of most of the slaves into tenants. A much longer time elapsedbefore the peasantry as a class was so transformed. Even in those areas earliest 'seignorial ized', the existence of completed seígneuries of the classic type from Carolingian times by no means excludes other kinds of rural organiza tion. The best comparison available for the condition of the Italian or Frankish countryside during the early MidclleAges is undoubtedly to be found in Latin America of the nineteenth century. The haciendas of Mexico or Chile, with their villages of peons in strict subjection, never formed a network so close as to leave no room for small independent landowners. In sorne French provinces, such as Burgundy, for which the documentary evidence is particularly abundant, we can clearly watch a long drawn out conquest by the seígneuríe, resulting in un certain and shifting relations with the conquered soil, right down to the thirteenth century. This is even clearer in England; and over wide areas conquest would never be complete. This very slow motion gives the historian opportunities for ascertaining and measuring the flow at many



points. But it greatly complicated the movement, which passed across a series of very different social systems; so that care must be taken not to transpose automatically into a remote and misty past facts established for a later, and better documented, age. The simplest method will be to examine in turn the various agents whose working we can discem.

Older historians paid special attention to the action of the state, no doubt because the relative abundance of surviving govemmental regulations made that action more easily traceable. But in this matter two great periods must be kept carefully apart-the last centuries of the Roman Empire; the age of the barbarían kingdoms, of the Caro- lingian Empire, and of its decline.

From our present point of view, the fundamental institution of the Later Empire is obviously the colonate. But the term must be used precisely; scholarship has suffered too much already from its vague use. The word colonus originally meant simply a cultivator. lt was used early to describe, more particularly, one who cultivated for someone else, a farmer, a tenant. We m.ay therefore, quite properly, describe as a movement towards the colonate that increase of small independentholdings so characteristic of the Roman world from about the second fcentury. But it is probably wise to give the term that stricter legal 1

meaning to be found in the legislation of the fourth and fifth centuries. '

Since Constantine' s day, or perhaps rather earlier, there had been a great change in the situation of those cultivators who were not also proprietors: the law bound them from father to son to the land that they held-at least when they had held it for a certain period, wlúch came · gradually to be fixed at tlúrty years. So the colonus is no longer just a man who tills the land of another man. That he always is; but as this fact henceforward entails serious legal consequences, he is something more-a man who cannot quit his land and whom no one can detach from it. Personally, he remains free, in the sense that he is no one's slave, and so escapes the open brand of slavery. Imperial law never confused him altogether with the 'hutted' slave. But a sturdy fiction made him slave of a thing-his own fields, the clods to wlúch he sticks,as they say, so closely that he cannot be pulled from them 'even for an instant '. In short, in the colonate so understood we are not dealing with an economic practice, in itself almost universal, but varying in extent from time to time. W e are dealing with a legal institution, well defined and lúghly significant of a particular phase of lústory. Its possibly Hellenistic precedents do not here concem us. Its being and strength came not from the past but from the environment. lt was introduced, like one of the wheels of a well-designed mechanism, into a vast scheme of social order conceived by a government on the defen-sive. In this Empire that resembled a besieged city safety seemed to


THB RISB OF DBPBNDBNT CULTIVATION 257

lie in strict discipline, methodically organized food supplies, a regular yield of the taxes. To gain these ends, the emperors or their staff saw no better way than that of attaching almost every man, by hereditary and unbreakable ties, both to bis mobilization centre and to bis tax quota; the decurion to bis municipal office (here the laws themselves draw the parallel with the colonate in so many words); the soldier to the army; the artisan to bis trade collegium; lastly, the farmer to bis fields.

These compulsions had not been devised in the interest of the great landowners. They bore on them also, and for that matter galled them. It was no longer possible, without breaking the law, to recover a bit of land in order to increase the demesne; to replace a tenant by a better man; to make provision in vacant parts of the villa for peasants who had run away from another lord. However, the new legislation cannot have seemed altogether unfavourable to the great landlords; for they had in sorne sort anticipated it by the simple exercise of the pressure of the strong upon the weak-so much so that one might perhaps even call the laws class legislation. A constitution of 244 shows us, in effect, that at this early date proprietors were trying, quite illegally, to retain tenants or their heirs after the expiry of their leases; and even that it had'often' been necessary already to declare this practice illegal. It was because the labour problem had become acute in an empire where population was declining and influx of slaves slackening. If you had a man you did not lightly let him go. Imagine a system of control todayunder which an employer might not dismiss bis men, nor the menleave the factory. No doubt it would be incompatible with economicliberalism, inimical to business expansion except by the buying up of rival concems-yet it would most certainly transform each business into a disciplined group, exceedingly stable, in which the employer' s authority over men who could only get a living on bis premises would be greatly increased. Especiallyif the law made no mention of wage- rates. Now the imperial rescripts about the colonate never breathed a word about the tenants' burdens, except to refer to the custom; andas we shall see custom could be changed without too great difficulty. The comparison does not run quite on all fours, because it neglects differencesof social environment. Yet it may help to suggest the way in which the binding of the colonus to the soil reinforced most effectively the dependence of small landholders on their lord. The institution so created ended in making perpetual relationships which apparently had ofi:en been thought of

as temporary or revocable: it changed obligations of private contract into rules of public law, to the enforcement of which the state directed its still considerable powers.

More than that. Working along another line, policy towards thecolonate ended by making the yoke of the aristocracy on the peasant

17 PCBHB



heavier. Not that emperors ever adopted the principle of governing through a caste oflords with quasi-legal powers. On the contrary, they always showed themselves properly suspicious

of any interference between the sovereign and his subjects by local patrons or chiefs. But officials were too few, the administrative machinery too difficult to handle, for direct and

permanent access to the masses; whether they would or not, emperors had often to make use of the higher ranks. lt is very characteristic that-apart from sorne rules peculiar to the

Hellenistic East, and based on its special traditions-not all peasants, which would have been logical, but only farmers were attached by the law to the soil. That was because the matter could

be left to an existing authority and, if the law was not obeyed, a conspicuous individual, the great proprietor, could be called to account. Men were raised for the army from among the

coloni by this same individual. More serious still, if we bear in mind how tragic the tax burden was for taxpayers and the financia! problem for the government, was the fact that this dominus

fundí was responsible for collecting the taxes of his tenants. After all, only inscription on the tax rolls made the system work; a rescript of 399, the more interesting for us because it applies to the West-it is addressed to the Pretorian Prefect of the Gauls-states that the coloni are 'the plebeians assigned by inscription to an estate'. And as the old word colonus might be considered ambiguous, because as we have seen it meant simply a man who cultivates the land of another, technical language referring to these :fiscal arrangements tended more and more to describe the farmer bound to land that he had held for 30 years by the more exact term of colonus adscriptitius, even just adscriptitius. This recourse to the collaboration of the great roen involved such dangers for the central power and was so closely associated with all the principies of the colonate that when, at a later date and in the East, emperors from the time of the Heraclian dynasty were trying to improve the machinery of the state, they believed that they could only do it by an entirely different agracian policy which should foster communities of self-governing peasants. In the West, the Empire never had time to reverse the engine.

No doubt the law of the colonate had certain advantages for the cultivator. If he was not absolutely sure of keeping the same farro for ever-for being attached to the whole fandus, not to any particular part of it, he could always be moved legally from one to another-at least he was safefrom actual eviction. He no longer ran the risk ofbecoming that most wretched of beings, a landless man. But his inability to move as he liked was so suggestive of servility, his dependence on a great man had such humiliating aspects, that these characteristicsofhis tenure soon brought with them a string of other restrictions; and the whole body of


them became che criteria of a new social classplaced at che very bottom of che ladder, in spite of its th.eoretical 'freedom'. By a significant change oflanguage, where th.e old lawbooks talked about th.e patronus of the coloni-a classicalname for a man who could give orders to a still free dependant-the later just used th.e word master (dominus), as you would for a slave. Already, in one of th.e earliest documents dealing with. che institution, Constantine threatened with chains coloni sus- pected of planning desertion. That was the regular punishment of runaway slaves. Two and a half centuries later Justinian could write that it is not certain which is the worse, the condition of th.e slave or that of the adscriptitius.

Such were th.e laws. One would lik.e to know how far th.ey were carried out; especially those regulating that attachment to th.e soil which, to be effective, needed such elaborate pollee supervision. No doubt th.erewere soon abusesenough, and more as cheEmpire declined. Society was not adapted to the strait-waistcoat that it was told to wear. In che fifch century Majorian complained of 'the dodges of those who will not stay in that state of life to which they were bom'; and one chancebit ofevidence tellsus thatcoloni managed to slip from their native soil even into che imperial bureaucracy.1 Yet this legislation of social defencemust have contributed greatly to strengthen the tenurial system.

But quite evidently it did not createit. The laws never said th.at littleindependent peasants should submit to the authority of stronger men. They merely laid.it down that a man who holds his land from another may not quit; and so will remain, with his descendants, perpetually bound to a subjection towards this patron, or this lord, which assuredly goes far beyond the ordinary economic relation of tenant and landlord. There would be no sensein such a policy unless it affected a numerous class,and it could hardly have worked-probably che very notion of it could not have arisen-unless it had been based on social customs which had long favoured che dependence of che weak. Even heredity and continuity of tenure were well known in practice long before they were prescribed by law, and before labour shortage forced che great landowners to adopt them. The Antonines were ruling over an empire that had no need to contemplate laws of Constantine' s sort when the farmers on an African domain described chemselves as 'children bom and brought up on chesoil of che estate'.2 The system of the colonate is only intelligible if we suppose that there existed before it a sort of embryo seigneurie.

Although an imperial law had proposed, in so many words, to fix thecolonus to the soil 'for eternity', the legislation whose principies were

1 Nov. Valentin. m, XXVII, 1.2 C.]. G. VIII, 10570, ll. 28, 29.


26ó THE AGRARIAN LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

laid down by Constantine was really only influential for a very short time, at least in the West-just as long as the Empire survived, or as long as it retained its vigour; no longer. This alone warns us not to exaggerate the influence ofimperial policy. No doubt, in the barbarian kingdoms, coloni remained bound to their old masters, and the more securely as the personal nature of the tie became stronger, in a society which understood much more easily the notion of subjection to a person than the subtle fiction of 'servitude' to a piece ofland. But the rule of bondage to the soil was not applicable if the state was not strong enough to track down runaways and, if necessary,impose its wil1 on those who gained by welcoming them. The principie is of universal application. You cannot have a peasantry effectively bound to the soil without a strong central police authority; as in the Roman Empire; in TsaristRussia; to sorne extent in Plantagenet England, in contrast to twelfth- .or early thirteenth-century France. What police authority had the Merovingians ? Or the Lombard kings ? In fact, neither the barbarian laws nor the Carolingian capitularies contain a line that forbids tenants to desert their land, or the master to tear them from it. lt is the lord' s business to keep his tenants, legally or illegally. As the hallmark of a class, the legal principie of adscription fell into neglect. A new public law was to intervene in another way.

The difficulty which the later Empire, strong as it was, had found indirect govemment could not fail to be more acutely felt in the states which sprang up among the debris of Romanía. The barbarian kingdoms could not handle the mechanism of administration that they had in- herited. As for the old Germanic system of freemen' s assemblies, it functioned with difficulty amid grave social transformations, and was ill suited to huge kingdoms, whose needs and whose size were utterly different from those of the little tribes and tribal leagues of yesterday. Finally, the decline of trade and the growing scarcity of money made

the extension, or even the maintenance, of a large salaried officialdommore and more difficult; whilst every kind of obstacle to communi- cations hindered the action of the central power. It seems that the Visi-gothic monarchy had already appreciated the possible means of making good this lack of direct control. The point was recognized quite clearly when the Carolingian dynasry, under Pepin and Charlemagne, made its ambitious-and in the long run vain-attempt to utilize the relation of dependence, which already held men together, for the maintenance of public order. 'Let every lord put pressure on his dependants, that they may better and better obey and accept imperial orders and instruction': that phrase from a capitulary of 8ro summarizes with trenchant brevity a thoroughly deliberate policy.1 But already almost

1 Capitul. 1, no. 64, c. 17.



everywhere practices had grown up, through sheer necessity, which the Carolingians, for their part, could do no more than systematize, though they tried to do this with characteristic energy.

Quite in harmony with Roman tradition, the barbarian kingdoms had as a rule trusted the lords to bring their free followers to the host;to levy from them, and subsequently transmit, supplies in kind for the army; and to handle the taxes in the same fashion, so far as any taxes survived. The sacrifice of the tax revenue itself ordinarily found in Frankish 'immunities', to which reference will be made shortly, together with that of all the public services made in special-but very

-rare-grants, marked however a step forward and a most decisive one.But the innovation, in principle at least, affected primarily the judicialfield.

The judicial history of the barbarian states presents many verycomplex and often obscure problems. "What makes them especially troublesome is the difficulty of drawing the essential yet infinitely delicate distinction between what the law prescribed and what really happened. A foil discussionis out of the question here. Y et the broadest lines can easily be made clear. By a series of privileges, in the Frankish state called immunities, which have parallels under other names almost everywhere and especially in Anglo-Saxon Britain, the kings grant to certain lords rights of jurisdiction over their lands and the men who lived on them, even when free. As a matter of fact, the Frankish immuniry, in its strict sense, seems to have been granted almost exclusively to churches. Whether it was ever extended to laymen is disputed; if it ever was, the thing happened very rarely; for the formularies ignore it. But a similar result was reached by the working of the donations which were so freely made by the king to his followerssometimes in the form of benefi.ces, sometimes as out and out gifts. The royal domains too, controlled by their own administrators, were largely withdrawn from the authority of the king' s regular agents; and their position was in fact that on which the immunities for religious houses had originally been modelled. Now when a royal domain was granted to a private person it was regularly given 'the whole immunity' which it had previously enjoyed, as the texts put it. Probably the larger part of great men' s estates carne to them in this way from princely generosity; and no doubt they had early been able to extend the advantages enjoyed on that part to their hereditary lands, either by express grant or by simple usurpation. The princes were influenced in making the grants, or tolerating the usurpations, by various motives- piety or, if that is preferred, anxiety about their own salvation, in the case of ecclesiasticalseigneuries; the pressure of the aristocracy, eager toincrease its own authority and, above all, to keep the detested officials


262 THE AGRARIAN LIFE OF THB MIDDLE AGES

of the crown from intruding on its lands (their exclusion was the essenceof the Frankish immunity); finally, the fact already noted, that no prince was able to act effectivelyin such matters, either in person or through trustworthy agents. The royal concessions,it should be added, were not absolutely comprehensive. In certain cases and for certain crimes they reserved the rights of the king' s courts, the sole businessof the grantee, in such circumstances, being to insure the appearance in court of his subordinates; and no doubt the kings, when acting in this way, thought that they were sacrificing what they were very likely to lose in any event in order to keep what might be saved. Only, as it happened, since the state got weaker and weaker-on the Continent, after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire; in England at the time of the Danish invasions-the lords kept those judicial powers that had been given them and usurped all or part of the rest, though the extent of these usurpations varied greatly from country to country.

Now in this way the seigneurie acquired a powerful instrument of consolidation and expansion-not merely through the bare right of judicial decision, but also and perhaps

mainly through the confusion of this right with the right to issue orders and punish those who disobeyed; in Frankish terminology, the ban. This valuable right had originally been

reserved to the king and his representatives. Evenso, it had been in danger of falling into private hands. For the highofficials, exercising it as agents of the king, often monopolized it for their own advantage. The capitularies reveal clearly the way in which counts, or their subordinates, were apt to treat as their own dependantsthose whom the state had entrusted to them, They went so far as toforce the unhappy and almost defenceless freemen to work like'corvéable' dependants in their fields and vineyards and meadows. Many a group of men was annexed to a seigneurie in this lawlessfashion, there can be no doubt. But the working of the immunities had far wider and far more durable results than this. Among those who lived on immune land, or those who though living outside it had com-mended themselves to its lord, a great many had at the outset been very loosely bound to the lord and owed but little to him. The ban allowed him to stiffen up both the relationship and its practica! burdens. It is significant that, on the Continent, many of the largely novel rights which lords are claiming from the tenth century onwards-especially the monopoly of mili, oven, and winepress-are ordinarily called banal rights. lt is not less significant that in England, where in many ways the course of events was so different, the typical tenure of a free man came to be called socage, from soke, the exercise of judicial power.

But, here again, we evidently have to do with a development which, though capital, is still secondary. Let there be no mistake: immunities


and the like gave legal force to an existing movement, and canalized it; strictly speaking, they created nothing. Indeed it was not hefore Justinian's day that the law, for the fust time, did expressly permit the dominus fandi, in one particular case, to chastise his coloni 'moderately'; and of Western countries, only Italy obeyed Justinian. However, there had always been one exception: ever since coloni were fust bound to the soil, the law had made it a lord' s duty to keep them there by force. But for the state to require great proprietors to hand over malefactors found on their lands, as it did, was already a parcial delegation of public authority. Moreover is not every huge enterprise almost necessarily led to provide its own intemal policing, indeed its own courts ? In our case, this necessity was the more strongly felt because the enterprise formed a close group, isolated in the country, and often a very long way from any centre of govemment. The sort of thing that we can see, almost under our eyes, on a Latin American hacienda can help us to imagine the play of forces on an average Roman fundus. In fact, our sources show clearly that, from the end of the Empire in the West and in the fust centuries of the barbarian kingdoms, the 'power ful ', who naturally exercised the tradicionalright ofpunishing even their'hutted' slaves,and maintained disciplinewhen slavesquarrelled among

themselves,stretched these powers so as to include all their dependants. So much so that the emperors felt obliged to prohibit private prisons in 388for freemen of course; the slaves' ergastulum had always been there. Rather more than a century later the biographer of St Cesarius of Arles, boasting ofhis clemency, tells us how very few strokes of the rod the good bishop inflicted on his 'free' dependants or on his slaves. On the legal side, this private justice, in so far as it was not considered simply as an abuse, was not easily distinguished from ordinary domestic discipline or settling of disputes. In fact it was already a rudimentary seignorial justice; for the 'immunity' could not have worked with success if its recipient had not long been used to play the part assigned to him in his grant.

Beyond doubt the story of seignorial origins is closely bound up with that of the states. These, as a matter of fact, made history less through their legislation than by their sheer debility. The seigneurie grew at their expense. In this connexion nothing is more significant than the history of one single word: the word written angaria in the Latin sources. lt came from the term which, in Achaemenian Persia, was applied to the messengers of the Great King. Borrowed, by way of Hellenistic civilization, from that old Iranian monarchy which served as a model of empire for the Mediterranean world, the Romans used it, fust of all, to describelevies made for the postal service; then to any servicesowed to the state. The Middle Ages applied it to services(corvées) owed to the


264 THE AGRARIAN LIFB OF THE MIDDLE AGES

seigneur: there were in fact harclly any compulsory servicesbut those. It would appear that requisitions for the king's army, still often referred to in Carolingian surveys, were subsequently swallowed up into the dues demanded from the tenant by his master. Each line of inquiry leads to the same conclusion; these effectsof vicissitudesin the strength of the state; the particular character of its decadence; perhaps in some degree that decadence itself; none of these things could be explained without the underlying system of a dependent peasantry, on which the forces from above played. It is the nature of that substratum that we must now try to examine.

V. Protection and commendationIt is well known that the later years of the Roman Empire witnessed, not the birth of a system

of personal patronage, for the institution had remote precedents in all constituent parts of Romanía, but at least · its immense expansion. The best, because the simplest and most compre hensive, formula describing what the weak man expected ofhis strong protectorthe client of his patronis that of St Augustine. 'To any · one who threatens him a great man' s client replies: So long as my lord here is safeand sound you can do nothing against me.' We must remem ber that the adversary so addressed need not be a prívate enemy or a rich oppressor. He may just as well be a recruiting sergeant, a judge, ormost likely of alla taxgatherer. The state, which expected a great deal from weak men and did not quite know how to protect them against the worrying of its own servants, had difficulty in bending the strong to its will. To avoid its pressure, thére was no surer means than to hide in the shadow of sorne highplaced or rich individual. It was not always willingly that a man acquired a master in this way. To increase his authority, his prestige, his fortune, every fairly highplaced person age wanted to surround himself with as many dependants as he could: they owed him help, service and sometimes actual dues. The great man could thus exert every kind of pressureand no doubt his seizure of control, whether abmpt or gradual, was at least as common as the spontaneous search for his protection.

Many of these clients were peasants: clientela rusticorum is a con temporary and semi-official term. Among the many kinds of agree ments for protection, one of the most stringent, but probably not least common, was that by which the small cultivator transferred

~·

his land to his patron. He was not as a rule actually dispossessed. He gave it to get it back again; but henceforward as a colonus. So the great fundí, with their massed dependent tenores, extended their nets further and further. And individual acts of submission were not the only sort.



'Wh.ole rural communities sometimes accepted a protector. Thus arose that patrodnla vicorum so often denounced in the laws. For the establish ment of these 'oneman' villages, villages from which that man could so easily exclude royal judges or taxgatherers, rightly appeared a very grave evil. The emperors fought against it, bue without much success. Forbidding it for the future in 415, they were obliged to condone all the past. It is true that this collective subjection seems to have been mostly found in the East. But it is hard to believe that the West was quite free of it. It did not create seigneuries in the medieval sense. The protector of a village, there can be little doubt, received presents or dues from his clients, by way of recompense; but being a stranger and having usually no demesne there, he did not claim services; and the land was not at law 'held' from him. Even when the villagers were coloni, they sometimes chose a patron whom they thought would be a better protector than their dominus fundí. He was usually a soldier. In this case patron and landlord were not blended. But, as we leam from a discourseofLibanius, the patron tended to supplant the lord. It was not yet strictly a seignorial system. That assumes the union of power over roen with power over land. But it was clearing the way for it. Already the shadow of the soldierlord is being thrown across the countryside.

After the invasions this drift towards order and obedience was naturally accentuated. It spread to Germanic societies whichapart always from Scandinaviafound themselves for the :first time closely associated with the Roman world in the same political organizations and, as time went on, in a common civilization. The movement drew fresh strength from the collapse of state authority combined with the last attempts made by rulers to exercise powers which, weak as they were, they had not resigned themselves to lose. We have several records of peasants who surrendered themselves and their lands to a master in order to avoid military service. There was another motive force at work: the weakening of the principie of consanguinityin clans, tribes, or similar groups; groups which, in Germany and perhaps even in Romanía, had long been thought of as a man' s adequate shelter

•· against the arrogance of the strong. Friesland furnishes a most illumin

' ating instance: a land where there was neither lord nor vassal,it was alsoone of the lands in which the bonds of blood proved most durable. Relations between lord and dependant naturally borrowed some fresh colouring from the influence of Germanic tradition; chivage, which became a characteristic test of complete subjection, is no doubt con nected with the poll taxes of freedmen (lites or Lazzen) in Germanic law. The habits of the German comitatus left their mark on the relation ship of lord and vassal. At length, as all know, there blossomed out what we generally call the feudal system-defining it by criteria drawn



both from the rules which bound the higher ranks and from the scheme of political organizations. No doubt it would be more exact to call it the system of vassalage and of the fief. A very simple and striking test proves that there was sorne relationship between feudal institutions and the essentials of the seignorial system. Most societies which had no seigneuries-such as Friesland, Dithmarschen, Norway-also had no vassalage and no fiefs,

No doubt there is at least one exception: Sardinia, with no vassalage and no feudal tenures, nevertheless had rural seigneuries. Still, there remains this general coincidence. And there is a fact perhaps more significant still: regions imperfectly'seignorialized' were also imperfectly feudalized. Here the test is thc number of allodial holdings. An alleu (allod) was a holding absolutely free, over which no superior had rights, which owed dues or servicesto no one, the possessionof which involved no loyalty or obedience to any individual. The little rustic holding that had remained outside the seignorial net was an alleu. So might a seigneurie be in spite of its basic stratum of dependent tenants, provided the lord owed homage for it to no one. Now, wherever we find a comparatively large number of allodial seigneuries, we note that far more peasant alleux than are to be found elsewhere have also survived, for a long time, or even permanently: in Saxony, for example, or in South-W estero France. Again, England before the Conquest, where relations of vassalage were most imperfect, had also a very loose system of dependent peasant tenures. These coincidences cannot be the result of chance; and in fact the relation between these two sides of the social structure are tolerably clear. Both reflected the same needs, though at different stages of the social hierarchy; and in both theneeds expressed themselvesin customs which were in many ways similar.

In the upper social classes, the bond of protection and subjection wasembodied in two legal acts, often simultaneous. The personal act: homage, with its symbolic rite and usually its oath. The real act: the owner of an alleu, in this case normally a seigneurie, yields it to his lord, to receive it back from him henceforward as a fief involving military and other services, and the obligation of fidelity. Turning to what we may call the peasant classes-using the term to cover actual cultivators of very varied grades-we notice a most striking parallel between the base and the summit of the social hierarchy: we find that these humble folk also deliver up to the lord both man and land.

Defective as our sources are, from Carolingian times to the twelfthcentury two sorts of characters or references exist in really impressive numbers. At one time we see the peasant, just like the humble folk of the later Empire, yielding his land to a lord, then resuming it, but burdened with dues and services. "There are here ', the survey of Santa



Giulia of Brescia records from about the year 900, 'fourteen free men who have handed over their property to the hall (curtís), the condition being that each shall do one day' s work a week.' At another time it is the man himself who seeks the protection, the mundium of a lord,'commends himself' to him in the phrase which is specially common in England. Few things are more instructive than this word commandise: it was also applied for a long time to the homage of a vassal,and by this double use shows clearly the original relationship of these two degrees of personal subordination. But there was a capital difference between them. The high-bom man submits himself and his life alone: the little man almost always gives away his posterity; and that was why obligations of this sort, which robbed the descendantsof any power of choice,seemed opposed to freedom and carne in the long run, as we have seen, to be described as servile, in that new sense which the word gradually acquired.

Perhaps because the personal bond was in this way so strict, the twosorts of submission were less necessarily associated among the lower than among the upper classes. The high-placed owner of an alleu who accepts it as a fief must take his vassal's oath. The peasant owner can quite easilychange his coat for that of a tenant without changing in any way his personal status. In tenth- and eleventh-century Burgundy tenures of this kind were often expressly called.franchises: even the dues which they owed were also often called.franchises. The tenant was in this way labelled a freeman. But we must take care in our interpretation: the .franc tenancier-the Landsasse of German surveys-it is true was attached to his lord by bonds far less galling than those of serfdom: they did not rob him of the social privileges of

'freedom'; and, above all, they did not bind the 'bodies' of his descendants. Ali the same, he became one of a disciplined group: he owed help and obedience to the lord ofhis land, and might expect fromhim sorne measure ofprotection. It can never be too often repeated: in the Middle Ages to be free was not to be masterless; it was to be attached to one' s master in what was felt to be an honourable, and was not an hereditary, fashion. The protection offered by the lord in case of danger was moreover-as our sources show-the already discounted payment for the new burdens accepted by his small holders.

'When we turn to the acts of personal surrender, which are apparently at least the more numerous, we note with some surprise that as a rule they make no reference to the land. The only dues usually stipulated for are those laid on the man himself or his descendants: most often they take the form of a poll-tax. But who would suppose that the protecting lord expected to get only these very modest sums ? Every- thing indicates that-except in the obviously rare cases in which he was



dealing with indigent landless roen-he used the disciplinary powers which were recognized as his to bring the property of his client under control and burden it with dues and services-either by tacit agreement, or even by a breach of the original contract. So that when by chance the land already owed a quit-rent to someone else, there was risk of such a dispute as that which broke out at the opening of the tenth century between the Abbey of St Gall and the church of Constance, between the old lord of the soil and the new lord of the man. From the eleventh century, the mundiales of the monasteries of Lorraine, whose name dearly refers to the protection, the mundium, of these humble folk, owed quite heavy agricultura! services.

We must not be misled by the mere form of these contracts. Wemust deal with them as cautiously as with the "patronates' of the later empire. The medieval contracts of subjection regularly purport to be inspired by the free wil1 of the new subject and especially, when the lord is a church, by piety. But in social life is there any more elusive notion than the free wil1 of a small man ? Competition between large and small farming found in other ages, which made the small man' s position difficult, is not in question here. Apart from its demesne, the seigneurie was nothing but an agglomeration of small dependent holdings: a peasant alleu, once handed over, simply took its place in the mosaic without any change in its cultivation. But there were many other forces at work to make the small man pliable; from hunger-sometimes a declared cause, but generally in the case ofland- less labourers-to the wish to share in those common rights which a lord reserved for his dependants; up to that sheer oppression, about which the written contracts are of course chastely silent, but which many other sources disclose.

Consider, for instance, the charter of the monastery of St Mihiel which records the tribulations of a widow in a village ofLorraine. Shewas a well-born woman-the document says 'noble' -and her land,classed asan alleu, was by tradition exempt from all burdens. Never- theless the officials of a neighbouring lord claimed a quit-rent from thislittle estate. All that the lady could do to escape their persecution was to accept the protection of the monks. But for this way of escape, can we doubt that the alleu would soon have become a tenure of the village tyrant ?1 Elsewhere, if violence did not create ties, it strengthened them remarkably. The chronicle of the Swiss monastery of Muri has made famous the adventures of the peasants of Wolen, about the middle of the eleventh century. Free allodial holders, they had seen fit to seek as protector a powerful man called Guntramm; theysurrendered their lands and got them back for quit-rents. This was all that they had agreed to.

1 A. Lesort, Chronique et chartes ••• de Saint-Mihiel, no. 33.



Their position was thus more favourable than that of the older tenants who owed heavy services. But Guntramm soon tried to bring them down to the same level. He demanded plenty of work on his demesne. He claimed payment for their tradicional use of the forest. Relying on their rights, the peasants decided to malee a protest. They went to Solothurn where the king was staying. But among all the great barons this handful of rustí.es, with their coarse patois, could not get a hearing. When their village passed subsequently to the monastery, the services had been sanctioned by long usage: the monks continued to exact them. In this troubled sociery, whose central authority could not get into effectivetouch with the masses,violence helped to transform social conditions the more effectivelybecause, through the play of custom, an abuse might always by mutation become a precedent, a precedent a right.

It cannot be doubted that many new seigneuries were created in this way-probably far more than we shall ever know. For our sources have the grave defect of telling us almost exclusively about the great seigneuries, which also were usually the oldest. The seignorial system was far from losing its powers of growth by the end of the fust feudal age. Any possessor of a fair-sized rural estate-a peasant grown rich, a manorial offi.cial grown important in his master's service, a lucky man-at-arms-had only to stop tilling it all himself, cut two or three holdings out of it, or attach some other peasant's holdings to it; and soon this parvenu would become a lord in a small way. For in those days it was hard to think that one man could hold land of another, especiallyif it was held from father to son, without being, by that very fact, in sorne way under his landlord' s authority. Feudal society did not understand purely economic relationships. Justice itself was so close to the businessof carrying out judicial decisions,that the right to levy dues on land carried with it, almost automatically, the right of deciding cases that arose out of the levy: we actually know of a vilain in the lle de France, as late as the twelfth century, who although a tenant had a sub-tenant below him, and who managed to establish his claim tojudge his sub-tenant if he did not pay his quit-rent. 1 The distinction between a lord and a mere lessor, between a subject and mere lessee,would only be established very slowly, and by the action of a juris-prudence more refined than that of the early feudal centuries.

But we must admit that most cases clearly known to us reveal notso much the absolute beginnings of seignorial power as the extensionof powers already existing. Here and there-in Germany particularly down to a rather late date-we see whole villages submitting themselves to sorne great man who, however, owns other villages. Elsewhere,

1 Cartulaire du prieuré de N.D. de Longpont, no. 35.


270 THE AGRARlAN LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

fairly important groups submit by conunon consent. But usually, like the fourteen freemen ofBrescia or the villagers ofWolen, they submit, whether they like it or not, to sorne ancient seigneurie. And most of the acts of submission are those of single families. As only a master already strong could protect a man effectually; as only a prominent personage of this kind could put decisive pressure on a man (we must always consider heads and tails !)-the protector of lands or body was generally an individual, or religious institution, already protecting other dependants in the same fashion. So a seigneurie, once only a modest nucleus, threw out long tentacles on every side. This dispersion through growth raised serious problems of administration. It certainly did mak.e the working of the system of labour services and the upkeep of vast demesnes appreciably more difficult. But no essentialchange had been made in the nature of the institution. Even when the lord was a new man in every sense of the word, his relations with his tenants were likely to be modelled on a tradicional plan. The very silence

of so many documents as to the precise meaning of the tenant' s burdens, a silence which can only be explained by an implied custom, is in itself exceedingly instructive.

But one country provides us with a still more signifi.cantexperiment.Consider the structure of English society during the century before the Norman Conquest. The great men have vast demesnes cultivated largely by slaves-for slaves remained much more numerous at thistime in England than on the Continent-but also with the help oftenants' services. Other slavesare established on the land. Side by side with these servile tenores are quantities of little dependent holdings, whose holders are still counted freemen. They are for the most part regularly protected by someone. Anglo-Saxon society is exceedingly disturbed, like the continental societies, and the independence of the weak is gravely endangered. Like the Carolingian state, the Anglo- Saxon state wishes humble men to have superiors who can vouch for them; it is extremely suspiciousoflordless folk. (It also mak.es use at the same time of methods of collective responsibility unknown in Frankish Gaul.) Yet there still survives a very dense network of peasants whose land is held from no lord-held allodially, as they would say elsewhere. Everything has its parallel across the Channel. And yet it is hard to speak of an English seignorial system. At most there is only the fust sketch of such a system. All the institutions are so loose, so shifting, so ill adjusted, that they cannot produce well articulated and disciplined groups fit to conduct economic enterprises that will function properly. The holdings are often scattered far and wide, not conveniently arranged about a central demesne. Sorne of the dependants seem only to have conunended their persons. But many have 'come to the lord with their



land '. Among these, some can break their ti.e with him at will: 'they can go with their land to whatever other lord they wish.' Sometimes jurisdiction is with one lord while service is owed to another; or juris diction over a man is with a lord to whom he is not commended. And as the role of judicial assembliesof free men, on the German model, remains considerable, it complicates matters; for the king may have handed over one of these 'hundred courts' to some great man, his perpetua! delegate, who will thus become one more personage on the list of those upon whom the peasant is, in some sense, dependent.

It is not our business to try to explain how, out of all these diverse elements, the conquering aristocracy, with bmtal vigour, managed to build up the manor. But the value of one significant word should be stressedthe classicword 'manor' itself. ·In the Norman French of the conquerors, it had nothing to do with jurisdiction. lt meant a good substantial house, such as a Norman lord usually occupied. But when they had to :find a label for the complex whole of dependent farms and subject people which henceforward was grouped about the fields of the demesne, one name came naturally to their lipsthe name of the head quarters from which orders were issued, and to which were brought both the lord' s harvests and the pennies or the produce that tenants owed. In just the same way in Eastem France cour; in Italy corte; in Germany Hojthat is, in each case,the lord' s own dwelling enclosure often served to describe the whole seigneurie, including the tenures. In England, in the early days, hall was readily used as the equivalent of the foreign word. The house of the local magnate was the necessary centre of every genuine seigneurie.

The lesson to be drawn from England is clear. Castile enforces it, if anything with greater emphasis; because in Castile no conquest, imposing by violence arrangements favourable to the interests of the conquerors and agreeable to their habits, had come to disturb the natural course of evolution. Castile too had known a system of peasant commendations which, under the name of behetrías, often embraced whole villages;1 but it only led very late and very rarely to the establishment of seigneuries properly so called, on the French, German or Italian model. Relationships of commendation, of the sort that we find in the feudal era and that immediately preceding it, were able to give to an existing seignorial system

immense expansive force; but by themselves were powerless to create such a system, and to make of it a clearly de:fined social type, juridically and economically dominant. In those countries that were 'seignorialized' profoundly and spontaneously, seignorial origins go back to social arrangements oider and unhappily much more obscure than feudalism or the patronate of the later Empire.

1 Cf. p. 435, below.


272 THE AGRARIAN LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGBS

VI. Chiefs and villagesThe surest index that we have of the existence of rural chiefdoms in primitive Europe comes

from the study of place names. Everywhere, masses of the most ancient villages bear the names of men, generally followed by a proprietary suffix which varies with the language. In Romanía, Germanic personal names in combinations of this kind usually indicate that the place was only named after the invasions, and so do not take us very far back. But the map swarms with Roman names. In France for example there can be no doubt that the vast majority of the Antonii of Antony or Antoigné, or the Flavii of Flaviac or Flavy{to quote a couple of examples from among thousands) lived under the emperors. Here and there older ages of Gaul are revealed: Brennus, of the legendary capture of Rome by the Gauls, survives in the Brenats and the Bemys. Roman or Romanized Italy has its Comeglianos and Savignanos. Germanic countries show native personal names with various suffixes, of which the oldest are in -ing and in -heim. (The old view that the -ing suffix implied tribes or clans has given way to the view that it merely implies any sort of dependence; the Heuchlingen may be Huchil's men or his relatives, perhaps both.) But it is not enough to establish that names of this sort exist almost everywhere; we ought to be able to measure their density, which obviously varies from region to region. Unfortunately place-names study has not yet reached the statistical stage. It does, however, seem that the density is particularly high in Gaul.

Naturally, names of this sort had no guarantee of immortality. Arevolution in village life might always lead to a change of name. But for that, names with a Celtic element would obviously be far commoner

in France than they are; moreover we know about medieval rebaptis- ings of villages. Yet such changes occurred only sporadically and at long intervals. {We shall see shortly why

they were probably most frequent at the opening of the Roman era.) As a rule, the settlement and its territory retained, through the ages, the name of sorne long forgotten

person; as if a half religious reverence clung to the memory of the ancestor whose aura still floated over the soil. What precisely had this eponymous hero been when alive? A great

proprietor who assigned land to his slaves? All that we know of old Celtic, Italiot or German society-in which slaveswere beyond a doubt infinitely fewer than free men-or, indeed of the

society of the Roman era, in which there was never anytlúng ~ a complete system of rural slavery, absolutely excludes this as a general explanation. Was he a lord? In the

medieval sense of the word it would be an anachronism so to



describe him. Yet whatever juridical word would fit him best-and in this connexion we must recall, with Antoine Meillet, the extraordinary mobility in Indo-European languages, of substantive expressive of the authoriry to command-how can we fail to suppose that this

man whose name the village took was some sort of a chief or, in the phrase that French documents of the ancien régime still applied to the seigneur,'le premier habitant' ?

Scanty as narrative sources are for these remote times, they still yield a little valuable information. Caesar pictures Gaulish society before the Roman conquest as dominated by an aristocracy of 'knights' who owe their strength to their 'clients '. This latter Roman term could give only an approximately accurate notion of the Celtic reality. To Caesar's mind it implied men free but dependent. Themselves probably of very varied rank and condition, they would be attached to the chief by all kinds of ties of subordination and interest, including-as so often, under our eyes, with the Chilean peon and his haciendado-that of debtor and creditor. Although some may have lived in the master's house, therewere certainly far too many of them for that to be the rule: how couldhe have fed them? And as they cannot have been concentrated in the towns, which were few and unimportant, they must have been, for the most part, countrymen. Besides, the great men who were surrounded by these vast clientéles were also rich men. Most of their wealth must have come from the land. But how? Likely enough slaves cultivated some land for them directly-some modest embryonic mansi dominicati. We cannot imagine that they had vast slave gangs working on latifandia. There is no suggestion that crowds of slaves surrounded them. Can we doubt that they drew largely on requisitions or gifts from peasant clients? And that there were whole dependent villages is not merely a matter of conjecture. Caesar tells us that Lucterius the Cadurcian had the fortified 'town' of Uxellodunum dependent on him. lt is highly probable that this was not an exceptional arrangement.

Turn to a related society at a parallel stage of evolution, fust-centuryGermany. Tacitus calls the hereditary chiefs of little local groupspríncipes. In the same language, familiar to Latin writers, Livy had pictured the 'princes' of the eagles' nests among the mountaineers ofNorthem Italy: príncipes castellorum. And this is how Tacitus describes the revenues of these odd little potentates, or at least that part of their resources which did not come simply from their own land cultivated by a few slaves or freedmen whom they sometimes set up as farmers.'It is the custom •, he says, 'that each tribesman shall give the chief presents either of cattle or of part of his harvest. These free gifts are marks of respect, but they also supply the needs of those who receive them.' This description is most instructive. The gift, Tacitus insists, is

18 PCEHE



free. But it is also customary. In a society ruled by respect for the past, a tradicional gift is very near indeed to an obligation. After all-gift and custorn-we may say without exaggeration that these linked notions dominated the beginnings of seignorial dues and services. In the Midclle Ages dues were usually called simply 'customs'; as if, when you thought of any due, you had in mind immediately its solejuridical basis. And page after page could be filled with the deliveries in kind, in rnoney, or in service which-throughout the whole evolution of theseigneurie-were described as gifts, prayers, demandes, bede (that is, in modem German, bitte), boon-work, bienfait (beneficium, in the polyptyque ofMontierender), requlte, eulogies. Simple terms of courtesy, forthe most part, no doubt, or even hypocritical disguises of harsh compulsions; when a man was angry or perfectly frank he might talk about exactions'. Y et the terms had often sorne correspondence with ancientfact. First you made a request, doubtless accompanied by gentle butfum pressure; later you made a demand, arguing from precedent. Those'oblations' of capons, of pigs, of loaves and even of rnoney which, as late as the twelfth century, sorne Lotharingian tenants had to bring to their lord in person, when they paid him solemn visits on certain great occasions, differed very little frorn the gifts reported by Tacitus. Like them they were marks of respect; like them they symbolized submis-

sion in its most concrete form; like them, in the end, they were madeobligatory by an iron tradition.

There is no great difficulty in :6.ndingother relevant evidence. Themost useful comes from societies which were absorbed into western civilization rather later than those referred to so far. The machtierns- that is to say chie& who stood surety for their men-referred to in sorne Arrnorican sources of the ninth to the eleventh century, have been much discussed.There can however be no great doubt about the main features of the institution. Some Latin ecclesiasticalwriters who relish both the pun and the hit at a lay power call these machtierns the parish tyrants: they 'own' the parish (plebs: Breton, plou): they 'reign' over it by hereditary title. They witness grants of land in the parish. Perhaps they sometimes levy a fine when land changes hands by sale, as the medieval seigneur did later. In fact we know that they became vassalsatan early date. Sorne of them are even found among the vassals of the Frankish Empire; sorne founded knightly families.1 We can harclly fail to recognize them as ancestors, part ancestors at least, of that Breton seignorial class which later documents reveal. In a kindred society, that of Wales, though ata still later date and no doubt under the influence of neighbouring English institutions, the 'kings' of the cantrefi or hundreds became lords of the ordinary sort. This last instance

1 A. de Courson, Cartulaire de l' abbaye de Redan, nos. cxcvr, CCCLX.



shows us clearly how an embryo manor, and under favourable circum stances a real one, could develop itself around the nucleus of a small demesne the cultivation of which had been mainly entrusted to slaves, by subjecting different categories of dependants to foodrents, to the duties of forced hospitality, and to sorne services. In this case the dependants would include taeogs, probably for the most part men of a conquered race, and free tribesmen who had to obey the chief in spite of their hereditary ' liberty'.

Analogies can be drawn, hints can be taken, from more remote civilizations.The history of the Comans, establishedon Hungarian landin 1243, starts indeed quite differently from anything Western. They were in fact pastoral nomads who had taken abruptly to a sedentary life. Western peasantries had only passed from a collecting and hunting to an agricultura! civilization very slowly, and in remote ages. But much can be learnt from the way in which, among these former shepherds, a nomad chief was gradually transformed into a landed proprietor. In the Maghreb today a great manoften a maraboutmay succeed, by an equally significant transformation, in securing control over a rural community and m.aking it tributary to him. Even among the Thai of IndoChina there are distinct traces of a similar process. The chiefdoms ofblack Africa, when we get to know them better, wi11 no doubt also furnish examples.

Coming back to the European seigneurie we can unearth in it various survivals from a very remote past. W e have all heard of those practices which old French feudal lawyers called droits ridicules, a term which shows how much the practices surprised them. They are such things as games, dances, various rites (a compulsory bath for example) which the inhabitants of certain villages, or sorne of them, and particularly the yonng folk, had to perform before their lord. Belated attempts were made to find rational explanations of these things; but really they had none. Take the famous duty of fl.ogging the moats of the chatean on certain nights, in order, so they said, to prevent frogs from disturbing the lord' s rest. Would the sound of beaten water be really more con ducive to sleep than the sound of croaking frogs? Why only on certain nights? Was the lord to lie awake the rest of the year? Let the folk lorist explain these customs if he can. What concerns us is that in them the seigneur acts the probably very ancient part of a kind of president over ritual practices which have come down, there can hardly be any doubt, from an immense antiquity. And if the jus primae noctis sometimes did exist (and there are a few ugly suggestions to that effect, especially in documents from the Pyrenees) we most

certainly have not to interpret it as the product of a petty tyrant' s lust. We must look rather to sorne very old rite by which the chief



deflowered virgins; and for this parallels could be found for us by anthropologists.But the inquiry must not be conducted solely from the side of the lord. W e can get just as

important evidence from the study of peasant society itself. The master of a slave gang has no organized group with wbich to deal. The authority of a cbief, on the contrary, is super imposed on such a group but does not abolish it. It is therefore of the utmost importance to observe that in the countries with which we areconcemed the seigneurie had by no means killed the village community. As far back as we can go, we :find the two institutions living side by side. However dependent the rustic might be on his master, he was still always under the authority of the village group of which he was a part. That group never lost its own collective life, often very intense. No doubt its cohesive force varied with regional traditions and forms of settlement. But let us consider, for example in France, the districts where it was most fully developed. W e shall find them unquestionably north of the Loire and on the Burgundian plain. In this land of big villages, open fi.elds and long strips, regularly grouped in 'furlongs ', the face of the country with its .distinctive design suggests irresistibly that the original occupation of the soil was planned. Collective grazing rights over the stubble, and the compulsory rotation wbich forbade the cultivator to choose bis own crops, were binding on all, often even on the seigneur and bis demesne lands. Now this was also the classical area of the seigneurie, the one in wbich it was oldest and most solidly estab lished. So it would be a grave error to assume any necessary opposition between the bonds of the village community and those of the seigneurie. Although custom was mainly responsible for the maintenance of the collective rights over the fi.elds and the grazing arrangements, there was necessarily occasional intervention by sorne regulating authority with the sanction of sorne court in reserve. Under medieval conditions the lord' s was the only courtand its members were often peasants. At law, the lord alone could issue orders, through his right of han. In practice however he often left a fairly wide fi.eld for the action of the community itself, especiallyin the election or nomination of the village officials who saw that the rules were kept. Methods varied indefi.nitely, not only from region to region, but also from place to place in the same province. Yet it is never to be forgotten that even when the lord had the most complete monopoly of the issue of agrarian orders, he was always supposed to act in the interests of the community and as the interpreter of its tradition.

But two chief classes of evidence above all enable us to establish the survival of very ancient village institutions underlying the seigneurie. They also make clear the fluctuations in the progress of seignorial


THB RISB OF DBPBNDENT CULTIVATION 277

power. They come from the history of peasant agriculture and from that of common rights.The manse we have already met. There is no more mysterious in stitution in all agrarian

history. Nor is there any whose interpretation, if ever we can be quite certain about it, will throw more light on the remote pages of that history. A complete and certain interpretation is not yet possible; but sorne facts about the manse are already sure.1

First, that it is found almost all over Europe, under all sorts of names;mansus most often in Romance lands, but in Western Gaul under that offactus, a desperately obscure old word; Hufe in Germany; hide in Eng land; bol in Denmark; possibly tan in Armorica. Contemporaries already recognized that these words all meant much the same thing; and the facts behind them were markedly similar. Because of the nature of our

sources, the functions of manse, or hide, or Hufe (omit for a moment the bol) appear most clearly to us as part of the seignorial organization. It would obviously be a mistake to assume a priori that this aspect of the institution was primitive. But, as it is the aspect most easily examined, we may well begin with it.

In the medieval seigneurie a manse-for convenience we will keep to that wordwas the customary unit of tenure. But all holdings werenot manses. The manse often had as its neighbours, and on the sameseigneurie, dependent holdings otherwise described. Their names varied: in Gaul the commonest was hótises (hospicia); also apendariae, laisines, later bordes or chevannes; in Germany Schupposen. Just like the manse, the hótise served as a unit for surveying purposes. In this period, we never hear of renders in money or kind or servicesas due from separate pieces of land. Apart from the strictly personal obligations, it was the entire holding, whatever it might be, that owed. Whether one tenant held it all or not was of no great importance. Although scattered all over the fi.elds, its parts, from the seignorial point of view, made upa singletaxable unit. But often the liabilitiesvaried, in an oddly capricious way, from one hótise to another. The manses, on the contrary, as we already know, were divided into welldefi.nedjuridical classes:serviles, ingénuiles, occasionally lidiles (from the Germanic laet, latinized as lidus, a freedman or sometimes the member of a conquered population). Within each category, and on the same seigneurie, the obligations werein theory uniform; so much so, that if you knew what was owed by the fi.rst on the list, you knew about all the rest. It is true that, now andthen, there were subsections with different obligations within the same category. These anomalies, which in fact did not make things much more complicated, were found almost exclusively on the great

1 Cf. p. 41 and p. 202 above.


278 THB AGRARIAN LIFB OF THB MIDDLB AGBS

seigneuries. Probably they reflect their history, each subsection corres ponding to a fresh accessionto their vast complexes of lands and rights, which had been built up stage by stage. Thus the rules for a h8tise were the result of the circumstances of each individual case; the rules for a manse were a matter of group custom. If we bear in mind further that there were always far fewer hétises than manses; that they were on the average considerably smaller; and that, finally, among their very miscellaneous occupants are often found men expressly described as newcomers (advenae), we can hardly fail to see in them little holdings created late, on land hitherto unoccupied, by squatters, sorne of whom came from a distance while some were perhaps just younger sons of needy local families. The very words borde, chevanne, Schuppose which literally mean 'cabin' are significant. This practice of extending the description of the dwelling to the land dependent on it was common enough: the word manse (meix in Middle French, mas in Provencal] also, strictly speaking, meant the cultivator' s dwelling. But the man who hada manse hada real house; he who held a h8tise seems to have had nothing but such a hovel as the custom of many villagesand not so long agoallowed paupers and immigrants to build for themselves on the fringes of the commons, provided the materials were shabby enough. Documents later than the Carolingian surveys suggest that holders of manses were the only people who hada foil share in the rights of common. In fact a h8tise was frequently a tenure in posse; when it had reached a certain sizeprobably by bringing fresh land under cultivationthe lord might decide to assimilate it henceforward to a manse or ha1f manse; as if a well managed seigneurie ought, in contem porary language, to be a1l amansée. In short, the manse was the repre sentative, and certainly the primitive, cell of the 'seignorialized' village.

But a still more important feature differentiated it from the h8tise: its permanence. No doubt during the era in which we can fust clearly grasp the methods of seignorial

administration, that is the ninth century, its indivisibility seems no longer absolute. Often two or more tenant householders live side by side on the same manse; a thingalmost unknown on the h8tises, because as these had no standard size, if one of them was cut up, you simply said that there were now two or more. But the manse remained a fiscal and administrative unit, even if split among several holders. The surveys very seldom show the least interest in the way in which the land and its burdens were divided up among the heads of the holding families. The burdens, the only thing that mattered, were those of the manse as a whole; the coparceners owed them in common and, no doubt, jointly and severally. But it can hardly be supposed that the subdivision of the manse was a primitive



thing. lt would appear to be only the first stage in that disintegration, which was to lead-at amazingly different dates in different regions- to the disappearance of the manse itself. A unit of survey which, once it no longer coincided with the working facts, appeared only as a fictitious entry in the books of seignorial administration, could only be preserved by a great effort, an effort that was almost bound to fail in the long run. We notice that the survey of Saint German-des-Prés is already forced, whether it likes it or not, to find room in its statistics, indeed sometimes in connexion with the levying of dues, for the hearth as a unit. Other documents of the same date prefer to reckon by households, or by coulonges (coloniae), each containing a single ménage of tenants, rather than by manses. The way in which the documents havesurvived enables us only to observe the system, which was no doubt very old, at a time when-at least in the big villages of northem Gaul-it was already in a state of decay. Everything suggests that the original rule had been everywhere: one manse, one family. It was Bede who translated the English word hide by tetra unius familiae.

The energy which the seignorial authorities expended in trying to maintain the system is sufficient proof that, by its regularity and stability, it greatly helped the levying and guaranteed the yield of the dues. But there is more direct evidence to the same effect. In 864 Charles theBald is trying to check the threatening break-up of the manse. His expressed aim is to preserve the seigneuries from 'confusion', indeed from 'destruction'. In fact when, ata later date, the break-up was complete it became necessary to assess the dues on each parcel of land or on every house; and to require services from each head of a household in person. This was a greatand troublesome complication which helped to hasten the remodelling of the seigneurie itself. Following the matter further, we can be sure that sorne of these manses, so useful to the lord financially, had been made by him in his own interest and all of a piece. These were the servile manses, cut out of the demesne for the useof the 'hutted' slaves. So too, no doubt, were those formed here and there, in conditions probably parallel, to establish freedmen (manses lidiles). But can we believe that the whole system was made by the lords? That the manses ingénuiles in particular, or most of them, were so made? This would imply that they functioned only inside seigneuries. But there were manses or Hufen in the Frankish state, and in England hides, in the hands of freemen who were subject to no one, either in person or for their lands, and who themselves cultivated holdings so described, as the Carolingian military capitularies, among other documents, testify. As for the Danish bol, it was to be found all over a country which at that time was in no way 'seignorialized '.

The history of public fmance provides further valuable evidence.



Taxing authorities in great statesmade use of the manse or its equivalent; perhaps from as far back as the Roman Empire, if it is true-as it may well be-that the taxable units originally corresponded with agrarian cells of this type. The unit was officially called a caput or iugum, but in the provinces we know that there were a great variety of equivalents for these terms. We know too that Franks and Anglo-Saxons used the manse or the hide as the unit, when they made their levies to huy off or to fight Scandinavian pirates. This fiscal use reacted in the end on terminology: in Frankland the demesne which the lord himself cultivated was also called mansus or Hufe (but with a distinctive prefix: indominicatus, Salhufe). Ifin England, on the contrary, the demesne was never called a hide, the reason seems to be that this was because it was not taxed, whereas among the Franks it was. However, no one would fancy that peasant manses, whether tenures or alleux, were sini.ply invented and put on the map by bureaucrats who lacked a proper survey. Apart from anything else, their date and their regional distribution are all against such a notion. We hear of manse and Hufe and hide well before the Scandinavian invasions; and the tax system of the later Empire, which one might perhaps be tempted to accept as the creator of the Roman mansus, could obviously not have created the Hufe beyond the Rhine, or the hide; still less the Danish bol. Evidently, governments or their experts did no more than utilize a system of land division already existing and widespread in ancient European rural society, and the lords did the same, for their own ends.

Tetra unius familiae: Bede's words give us in all probability the key to the institution in its primitive form. But we are not to think of thelittle matrimonial family of our later ages. m informed as we are aboutthe history of blood relationships in the dawn of our civilization, thereis every reason to think that the group, whose original shell was the manse, was a patriarchal

family of severa! generations and severa! collateral households living around a common hearth. Subsequently, the progressive distintegration of these large groups of blood relations, accompanied no doubt by a growth of population, led to the break-up of the manse itself; and the indivisibility that the lords were striving to maintain, from the ninth century onwards, was perhaps only a survival of old communal rules of inheritance which they had adjusted to their own interests. In the same way the Turks, as supreme landlords in Yugoslavia, preserved

the integrity of the peasant zadruga until very recent times. It is certain that subdivision among many heirs, entailing a perpetua! rearrangement of the tenancies, could not be viewed

favourably by authorities anxious to maintain a regular levy of rents and services. Infact, they only acquiescedin it under pressure of changes in the surrounding legal atmosphere; or when the

fines that they could



exact at the deaths of tenants yielded.more than the annual dues, and so mad.e an increase in the number of occasions on which a fine could be secured. advantageous to them. This only began to happen when the seignorial system was nearing its decline.

So we have every reason to suppose that the primitive occupation ofthe soil was carried out by patriarchal groups. Sometimes they lived apart from one another; in that case, protected by their isolation in regions of scattered. settlement, they usually manifested remarkable power of resisting subdivision. Elsewhere they formed parts oflarger, nucleated, village communities. Their shares were not equal. Tacitushad. observed this inequality in the German villages long ago. And in the ninth-century surveys, although their descriptions are not so detailed as might be wished, nothing is more striking than the immense differences in area among manses of the same class within the same seigneurie. The exceptions to this that we find are probably to be explained by a secondary settlement in which the plan was made artificially regular. Thís lack of uniformity in the size of the typical tenure is, at fust sight, the more surprising as it conttasts with the almost absolute uniformity ofburdens.

At Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, for instance, the smallest free manse has exactly the same burd.ensas the largest which, besides having40 per cent more meadow and. 60 per cent more vines, contains rather more than fifteen times as much arable land.; and. each was worked. by a single household.. It is perfectly clear that these ancient peasant societies had nothing democratic about them, quite apart from any lord' s power. On the other hand.,it is of the greatest interest to observe, in connexion with the origins of that power, how the burdens laid on a whole category of different-sized manses-sometimes up to nearly a hundred in great seigneuries and. big villages-were strictly equalized. The patriarchal family being the primitive cell of rural society, each owed the chief the same weight of dues-or, if you like, of presents-and the same amount of work.

No complete account of the lord' s relations with the village community can be d.erived. from study of the cultivated land alone. For however great its contribution to livelihood, agriculture had by no means altogether displaced the very ancient practices of pastoral life, hunting, and food collecting. By his field.s alone the peasant literally could. not have lived. All about the area more or less permanently cultivated and, when under crops, held. in strict individual or family possession,he required access to immense stretches of common waste left in its natural condition. These moors and. marshes and. forests did. not merely fumish necessary food for his cattle. His own nourishment depended. on them; for wild. vegetables and fruits were even moreimportant in his dietary than wild game. Nearly all his implements



were of wood. His fue was of wood or turf. His beasts were littered on heather or dry leaves. Even his arable needed the waste; for generally it got no fertilizer except sods of turf or piles of reeds spread on the land before the seed was sown. In villages where there was no lord, or where the lord' s power was a late growth, the village com munity sometimes retained absolute control of these common lands; it owned them, in feudal phrase, en alleux. It is noticeable moreover that where common rights were specially important to the peasantasin the largely pastoral life of the Alps and Pyreneesthere the lord' s hand always lay less heavy than on the neighbouring plains. So too on the shores of the North Sea, in Friesland or Dithmarschen, the need for collective effort to drain marshes or keep out the tides probably acted asan obstacle to the progress of the lord's power. For anything that made a community more coherent favoured its independence. But throughout the greater part of Europe, where common was essential but still only a sort of annexe to the arable, the lord almost always extended his power over commons as well as over fields.

If we were to trust formal language, we might even think that this power had wiped out that of the peasants at a very early date. The ninthcentury surveys generally treat forests and grazing land as part of the demesne. But that was the result of a simplificationheavy with consequences, as it proved. A turn of phrase common in the Frankish documents describes the realities better. When a charter of sale or gift enumerates the elements that make up a seigneurie, it usually inserts, side by side with the fields, meadows or vines of the demesne, and its profits from the tenures, the communia; thus indicating that the land subject to collective use was also placed under the master, and yet that he remained compulsorily obedient to 'common' usages over it. Such overlapping rights are repugnant to the relative precision of our more developed juridical thought. But we must not boast of our clarity:how would our immediate ancestors, trained on the strict Roman law,have described the socalled property of the humblest shareholder of a great company in its goods? In any case these entanglements were inno way strange to men who saw a whole hierarchy of rights, one above another, resting on nearly every scrap of land. It is no doubt vain to lookforthetruemedieval 'owner' ofthecommons. Butwho 'owned' the tenure? The cultivator? His lord? Or, with the

establishment of the feudal system, one of the various personages of whom the lord held in fief, or in subfief? The truth is that the peasants' rights of user over the commons, and the lords' superior rights, were regarded as equally worthy of respect. The latter were recognizedas in the case of the tenures-at one time by certain levies from the individual peasants; at another, and apparently a later, time by a quitrent on the common


THE RISE OF DEPENDBNT CULTIVATION 283

land, paid by the village community as a whole. And of course the demesne had its share of all common rights.

That this system, with its many dangerous uncertainties, led to frequent disputes and abuses of power the documents give eloquent witness. The earliest struggles between lord and community about woods or wastes-or at least the earliest certainly known-date from the ninth century. They became speciallybitter after the great clearances of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries had considerably reduced the area of surplus land; ata time when the reviva! ofRoman Law had given the lord a formidable new weapon. Too often it was acase of earthenware pot versus iron pot. But there was no weakening about the principie of divided rights. 'Flowing water and springs, meadows, grazing grounds, forests,garrigues and rocks', the Customs of Barcelona record, about 1070, 'belong to barons not to be held en alleu' (that is, in disregard of any rights but their own) 'or as part of their demesne, but in order that their people may enjoy them at all times.' The lord was not merely the chief of individual roen, and as such endowed with authority over what property each man held; he was also the chief of a group, and consequently the supreme master of lands subject to group use. So that the seigneurie, so far from being in opposition to the village community, was dependent on its existence for a particularly important aspect of its own powers and revenues.

VII. A general sketch of the evolutionAfter this search down converging roads, we must now try to describe that whole

evolution which ended in the appearance of the classical seignorial system; or rather, those evolutions. For we are bound to take regional peculiarities into account. These we have stressedfrom the fust. Inthe various curves, many sections must show the dotted lines of hypothesis-and others must remain blank.

In the beginning, we catch glimpses of peasant cobunities under their chiefs, to whom the various families (in the wide sense) that madeup the group owed ritual gifts, and no doubt also assistancein a general way, which would be sure to take the forro of certain services. The existence of these village chiefdoms is clearly attested in Gaul before Caesar and in Germany before the invasions; it may be traced in the society of Armorica; it appears more distinctly in that of Wales. We may assume something of the sort in ancient Europe more or less everywhere. Evidently we are here in touch with one of the oldest lines of cleavage in our civilization. Medieval and modem nobilities grew up much later and in a very different environment. The medieval nobility, as defined by the custom and law of the twelfth and thirteenth



centuries, was distinguished by its hereditary calling to knighthood. The noble man was normally also a military vassal; and it was from the customs of vassalagethat the noble class,once it had been consolidated, borrowed its way of life, its class cohesion, and the fundamental rules of its law. These are all relatively late institutions. But, viewed on his economic side, the noble man is also a man who lives by the land with out working on it. He is at once master and

exploiter of those who do the work. In short, the typical noble fortune is a seignorial fortune; so that we can hardly fail to recognize in the distinction between nobles and common folk the direct outcome of that ancient cleavage which had occurred in the dawn of history between "client" peasants and the local chief who was fed in part by what they gave him; between the people of Brennacum and that Brennos who gave his name to the village. And it is hard not to believe that, in spite of repeated re modellings, of social rise and fall and the luck of all sorts of adventurers, the old core of the noble class was formed by the descendants of these rustic chieftains, among whom were recruitedfor they had to be recruited somewheremost of the vassalsand most of the knights. The stories already told of that Breton machtiern who became an emperor' s vassal, and of that other one who founded a knightly family, are no doubt symptomatic.

But the word 'chief' is beyond dispute much too vague. From whatsources did these people draw their power or prestige? It is particularly tempting to link primitive village organization with that of the clan or the tribe, and to imagine behind the figure of the lordtobe the old man of a group of kindred, or someone who claimed his place; the group, of course, being bigger even than that of a patriarchal family. This may sometimes have been the actual course of events. A Bavarian formula of the Carolingian era seems to identify vicus and genealogía. We know from our sources and from place names that the Lombards and Burgundians, and from place names that the Franks, sometimes settled on the lan~ of Romanía infarae, groups bound by blood relation ship. But a point already noted, to which reference must again be made, suggests that the facts were rarely so simple.

As early as we can study the seigneurie we find that it by no means always corresponds with the village territory. On the contrary, the territory is frequently divided among several seignorial allegiances. Many scholars, in many countries, have noticed this, almost always with the same surprise; for the notion that there must be an exact correspondence seems innate. In fact, as comparison of special studies proves, what each historian inclines to treat as an exception in his region was really, if not exactly normal, at least exceedingly wide spread. No doubt in many instances we are dealing with a secondary



subdivision. In particular, as the habit developed of 'housing' vassals who had previously fed at their master' s board, great lay lords and ecclesiasticalcommunities were obliged to cut fiefs out of their lands, on which these armed followers might live. These grants were often made up of fragments cut from much greater seigneuries, indeed even out of manses taken here and there from different seigneuries. The vassal would be more faithful if his scattered fee made autonomy on his part difficult. In this way the break-up of villages between many masters increasedperceptibly. The working of donations, and indeed of sales,to the Church had similar effects: if you had a whole village you did not always give or sell the whole of it. Add to these divisions those due to inheritance. And yet it is evident that we cannot always, or even ordinarily, explain the presence of several seignorial authorities, side by side on the same ground, by a supervening disintegration. Often enough we can see a directly opposite evolution-towards integration. Look at the hamlet of Mons Acbodi, in the wooded land of western Gaul, early in the ninth century. Besides the little seigneurie of Ebbon and Eremberge already described, there were four manses. One after another they were given to Saint Germain-des-Prés, by individuals whom we are fully entitled to regard not as cultivators but as overlords of the soil drawing dues from it. The monks joined them to the seig neurie of the married couple; and the whole, by an agreement with Eremberge who was probably by that time a widow, became a single seignorial estate, held from the Abbey as a precarium. It would not be difficult to point out traces of a similar concentration elsewhere, in Domesday Book for instance.

If we are to form ajust notion of the odd juridical medley that might exist on sorne estates, we must take into account, besides the holdings dependent on different lords, those that had no lord at all. The survival of these independent islands,their fields mixed up with those of adjacent tenancies, was apparently in no way opposed to the existence of a very ancient system of rural chiefdoms as attested by place names. It was certainly not without good reason that, at sorne point in Gallo-Roman history, the inhabitants or the neighbours of the village of Florac in the Bordelais had got into the habit of calling it the village, the land, the estate of Florus. Yet at the very end of the Middle Ages peasant alleux were still to be found there. And this instance is quoted at random from among a crowd of others.

In order to try to understand what may have happened in such cases, the best way without doubt is to examine one of the rare countries in Europe where we can watch, at a date which makes it visible, the birth of a central village authority. Friesland, we know, was for centuries a land without lords. However, from the fourteenth century, we can



see rising above free communities the authority of chiefs, Há'uptlinge. They were strong enough, especially in the east of the country, to force peasants, who were called their subjects (Undersaten) and whom in return they undertook to protect, to work for them, to fight for them, and to obey the rulings of their courts. But these new dynasties did not, in general, manage to create true seigneuries; at most, as their latest historian puts it, only 'amorphous' ones. Neither the economic nor the political conditions · were favourable to the strengthening of such local authorities from that time forward. But we have here evidently, at least in embryo, an institution which, under more favourable con ditions, might have grown from chiefdom into seigneurie proper. Now two points deserve to be especially borne in mind. Most of these potencial seigneurs appear to have been simply peasants richer than the rest, andmore important stillmen who had managed to surround themselves with armed followers, living with them in fortified manor houses. Secondly, their most appropriate name, and that which in fact contemporaries usually gave them, was not so much chief of a village as chief in a village. For in many places severa! families of their type had sprung up, and it was only in course of time that occasionallybut not alwaysthe most powerful stock m.anaged to get rid of its rivals. We may well suppose that m.any genuine seigneuries, far back in time, had no other source than sorne such differentiation of wealth and strength, in short a lordship de Jacto which by gradual mutation became a lordship de jure. And as it was simply a member of a group who, rising above the crowd, received fust one man's submission and then that of another, you might have in a single community severa! such chiefs, with independent families surviving beside them. No doubt that was not the story of all seignorial villages. There were mass sub missions too; but neither were they the only sort. When we read in the Fors de Bigorre, about II 10, that the right to control the use of the village boar should belong to the 'best knight' of the placethat is the one whose family was strongest, richest, or most respectedwe can hardly fail to recall Friesland with its little communities divided by tradition among their severa! rustic potentates.

Whatever their origins, and the more we knew about them, themore varied we should probably find them, these village chiefdoms of early days were still far enough from the genuine seigneurie. It is in Romance countries that they can most clearly be seen acquiring the true seignorial character, but only very gradually.

Roman dominati.on, in its early years, would seem to have workedin two ways. The abundance of servile labour that conquest supplied, and the confiscations of land, helped rich men to build up directly culti.vated demesnes on a much larger scale than before. The slaves



formed a much greater part of the rural population, and great latifandia were sprinkled among the peasant holdings. As for the groups depen dent on village chiefsin their case it seems we must distinguish rather sharply between the position in Italy and that in the rest ofRomanía. In spite of the vast areas cultivated by slave gangs, there was no lack of farmer or tenant groups on Italian soil. But everything suggests that they were less widespread there than elsewhere. The slow and harsh conquests, the Social W ars, the work of colonization, the rearrange ments of property, must have destroyed the power of many a little local Italian dynasty. However that may be, it is certain, in any case, that the numerous small independent cultivators, whose existence in Italy imperial sources prove, appear still more clearly in early medieval recordsthe records of that very general practice of the temporary lease ofland, the livello, which, as has been seen, was essentiallydifferent from the hereditary tenure which prevailed beyond the Alps. In the Provinces, on the other hand, the establishment of a scientific tax systema thing Italy, as is well known, had long lackedhelped to stiffenrelationships hitherto no doubt rather lax. Subordinate tenancies were not entered in the tax books under headings: they were all included under one fandus, the complex estate of the local magnate. It was probably at this time that so many old Gaulish villages, entered under the Roman or Romanized name of the magnate of the day, were rebaptized for ever. Every system of land taxation aims at simplicity, and in almost every civilization, when a new authority has introduced such a system, the effect has been to make more rigorous any half developed relationships of peasant subjection that may have existed already; in British India, for example, early in the nineteenth century, and in Iraq in our own day. Later, the colonate tightened the peasants' bonds again: the simple dependant, whose land, far from being a fragment detached from a greater estate, had been known within the memory of man to belong to the patrimony ofhis family, was easily confused with the farmer who held his by a recent grant .. The magnates who appear in the funeral basreliefsofigelou or Neumagen receiving offerings and dues from their tenants had already the air of seigneurs.

But the great fact that, from about the second century, would give the seigneurie very nearly its final form was the decline of slavery. Its action would be felt beyond the Roman era; and then it would be operative even outside the Romanized world. The decline would not have been so important had there not previously been formed the great demesnes cultivated directly by their owners. We have seen how these latifundia were partially cut up into servile holdings; but only partially. Even if complete cutting up had been desired, there would not have been slaves enough to occupy the whole of such vast areas. Unless the land


288 THB AGRARIAN LIFB OF THB MIDDLE AGES

was to tumble down into waste, new sources oflabour supply had to be found. They were found in the servicesof dependent peasants. Services had not been unknown in the old colonate. But they had been a much less serious borden than the dues in money or in kind. As the inscrip tions of the African saltus show, they were hardly used except at the peak points of the agricultura! year-ploughing, weeding, harvest- and, being thus cut down to a few days a year, their main use was to limit that ofhired labour at these critica! moments, although sorne such labour was occasionally needed. It is significant that dassical juristswhen discussing the letting ofland never mention services. ltis probablethat under the later Empire many more began to be demanded, some-times quite illegally. Inone ofhis homilies, StJohn Chrysostom appears to refer to such demands;1 and one cannot but suspect-the sources do not justify any certainty-that they may have been in part responsible for the terrible jacqueries of this period. The lord' s demands certainly continued and became more urgent after the invasions. The laws of the Alemanni and the Bavarians have preserved for us the main part of a law from the fust half of the seventh

century which regulated the obligations of ecdesiastical coloni, Comparing this law with the information that we get from the Carolingian surveys of two centuries later, we see dearly a heavy increase in the labour services demanded from free manses. Near Paris, the polyptyque of Saint Maur-des-Fossés, compiled in the ninth century, seems to contain a memory of the intro- duction into one of its villages of services previously unknown there.2

Such an increase of burdens was, beyond question, incompatible with the custom which, since the Roman era, regulated strictly-as bothcodes and inscriptions prove-the relation of landlord and tenant, within each fandus, praedium or Krijµa. These customs were certainly maintained and respected by the courts of the barbarian kings. But there were many ways of getting round them. Sometimes the public powers interpreted them very loosely: in spite of the protests of royal and ecclesiasticalcoloni, a capitulary of Charles the Bald did not hesitate to include sorne entirely new tasks--one of them at least, marling, clearly presented as a recent technical innovation-under the heading of legitimate obligations. Simple abuses of power, leading to the establishment of precedents, were probably even more important. And pressure on the weak was freely disguised, as usual, under pious phrases about 'prayer '. The lord' s corvée itself, in Romance countries, gets its name from this disguise (corrogata: the service 'collectively craved'). That did not make it less harsh; and no doubt when kings denounced the oppression of the poor, as they so often did, they had in mind,

1 Hom. in Math., 6r, 3 (Migne, P.G. vol. LVID, col. 5911).2 Guérard, Polyptyqye, n, 287, c. 16.



among other things, these burdens that were being imposed without any kind of justification in ancient custom.

Y et from that time forward new factors in the situation favoured the imposition of still more burdens. As a natural consequence of thatwidespread insecurity which replaced the Pax Romana, in many places a concentration of homesteads can be noticed during the early medieval centuries. This obviously encouraged seignorial control and the use of labour services. Above all, the general establishment of personal commendation and the usurpation of public rights-mainly those of justice and of ban-strengthened the lord' s grip, and enabled him to extend it to holdings which had hitherto escaped him.

Thus behind the classic seigneurie our inquiry reveals long and obscure beginnings. A very ancient structure ofrural chiefdoms was the essential nucleus, and about it the centuries deposited their successive layers one by one. Then the economic conditions of the early Roman era created the great demesnes facing the family holdings of dependants. The conditions of the late Roman era and of the early Middle Ages led to the coexistence, and subsequently the fusion, of manses cultivated by'free' tenants with the new servile holdings, and, above ·all, linked the demesne to the holdings, of whatever type, by heavy bonds of service. Finally, the institutions of the feudal age gave the seigneurie, always aggressive, its finishing touches as a disciplined group whose members were harshly exploited. And yet the rural community had alwaysretained a great measure of collective action under its chiefs. To thesystem thus slowly built up by one deposit after another Western and Central Europe owed sorne of the most significant aspectsofits civilization, especially during the Middle Ages. In societieswhere there were hardly any slaves, and in which the only property that really mattered was property in land, nothing but this system of dependent agriculture could have kept alive the military and clerical aristocracies, or evenmonasticism itself. The Blessed Raimon Lüll, in his Book oJ the Order ofChivalry, once expressed with brutal frankness what appeared in his dayto be a necessary part of the divine plan: 'it is seemly that the men

should plough and dig and work hard in order that the earth may yield the fruits from which the knight and his horse will live; and that the knight, who rides and does a lord' s work, should get his wealth from the things on which his men are to spend much toil and fatigue.' 1

1 Raimon Lüll, Libro de la orden de Caballería, ed. J. R. de Luanco, 1, 9.


TRADUCCION :

CAPÍTULO VILa Subir de Dependiente Cultivo y Señorial Instituciones

l. La pro b lemNuestro objeto ser a preguntar en la orígenes de la rural seigneurie en el

oeste y Central Europa, nuestro primero tarea necesario necessaril y haber a forma como claro unaidea como posible de qué ella fue como cuándo completamente desarrollado. Y ou no puede estudio embriología si usted hacer no entender la animales crecido.

La sistema señorial, o a uso la nombre bajo que ella es conocidoen Inglaterra, la señorial sistema, fue no basado en esclavitud en la verdadero sentido de que palabra. Lo Que Sea su legal estado mayo tener sido, incluso si fue por la nombrede la condición de siervo, la campesinos quien compuesto un señorío eran en no sentido humano ganado, fed por su maestro y owing el conjunto de su trabajo a él. Ellos vividoen la produce de campos que cultivado en su propio cuenta, que eran en general handed desde padre a hijo; y si la oportunidad ocurrido ellos podría vender o intercambio laproduce en orden para procurar otro necessarie s de vida. Por lo general, formado poco rural comunidades con un fuerte espíritu de cuerpos; ejercicio común derechos encimaresiduos tierra donde su rebaños podrían pastar y ellos podría reunir alimentos; capaz a regular la cultivable tierra sí mismo en el común interés con un celoso insistencia. Peroellos hizo no trabajar sólo para sí mismos, o para Iglesia y gobernante: un gran parte de su trabajo fue hacia la mantenimiento de uno quien destacado inmediatamente por encima de ellos.

A este señor, como ellos llamado él, la cultivadores de la suelo adeudado, primero,un más o menos importante parte de su tiempo; día de agricultura! trabajodevoto a la cultivo de la campos, prados, o viñedos de su heredad; karting y que lleva servicios; y a veces servicio como constructores o artesanos. Además, ellos eran obligadoa desviar a su utilizar una considerabl e parte de su propio cosechas, a veces en la forma de rentas en clase y a veces por medio de impuestos en dinero, la intercambio preliminar de produce para dinero ser en este caso su asunto. La mismos campos que ellos cultivado eran no retenida a ser suyo en completo propiedad, ni fue su en la comunidad en menos en más casos-la completo dueño de las tierras encima que común derechos fueron ejercidos. Ambos se decía a ser Celebrada

' de la señor, quesignificaba que como terrateniente él tenido un superior derecho encima ellos, conocido por cuotas adeudado a él, y capaz236 LA AGRARIA VIDA DE ORIENTE EDADES

en cierto circwnstances de primordial la concurrente derechos de los individualcultivators y de la comunidad.

Finalmente, la señor hizo no meramente dibujar desde su campesinos ingresos valiosos y una igualmente valioso mano de obra. No sólo fue él un rentista de la suelo yun beneficiario de la servicios; él fue también un juez, a menudo IFHE hizo su deber-A protector, y siempre un jefe, los cuales, aparte de cualquier más encuadernación ymás personal lazo, aquellos quien Celebrada ' su tierra desde él o vivido en su tierra eran atado, por un muy general pero muy real obligación, a ayuda y a obedecer. Así laseigneurie fue no simplemente una económico empresa por que Profas acumulado en un hombre fuerte ' s manos. lt fue también un unidad de autoridad, en la más ampliasentido de la palabra; para la potestades de la jefe eran no confinado, como en principie que son en nuestro capitalista enterpriscs, a trabajo hecho en su 'prenÃºses negocios ', pero afectado un hombre ' s todo vida y actuado concurrentemente con, o incluso en lugar de, la poder de la estado y la fanÃºly. Como A1L altamenteorganizado social células la s e igneurie tenido su propio ley, como un norma consuetudinaria, que determinado la relaciones de la sujeto con la señor y definidoprecisamente la Iimits de la poco grupo en que éstos tradicional reglas eran vinculante.

Para más de un mil año la seigneurie como así definida fue unode la dominante las instituciones de W estem civilización. Firmemente ya establecida en muchos tierras en la amanecer de la Medio Edad, su reinar sobre el Europeocampo carne a una fin sólo en veces que historiadores, acostumbrados a tener en cuenta en centurics, haría describir sin vacilación tan reciente. Aunque ella fuederrocado, mientras todavía en completo laboral orden, por la Francés Revolución en 1789 y 1792, ella finalmente carne a una fin en el centro Europa sólo como unresultado de la democrático movimiento de 1848. Inglaterra, con todavía mayor el respeto de los la pasado, esperado hasta 01 de enero1926 antes eliminación el último 'Señorial incidentes " desde su la ley; aunque ella es verdadero que para muy muchos año ellos tenido estado poco más que vacío legalsobrevida. En la curso de tal un largo existencia la institución de la s e igneurie, que tenido siempre difería en el carácter desde colocar a lugar, inevitablemente, Underw ent muchos y a menudo muy profundo transformaciones. Uno característica fuerza desaparecer mientras otro se convirtió en más acentuado. Desde la clase de la MedioEdad, para ejemplo, Los servicios pueden ser visto dando camino casi completamente a cuotas en dinero o en tipo largo Occidental Europa y Italia; mientras en Mitad esteAlemania laheredad golondrinas arriba la mayor parte de la campesino dependiente explotaciones, y su inquilinos son brutalmente deprcssed a la nivel de un miserable rural Proletariun t. En Inglaterra la gubemamental aspecto de la señorío pierde gradualmente un gran parte de su legal la fuerza, de aquí en adelante ser sólo consagrado en la vida social hábitos o fusionado en el político donÃºnation de un clase; la archy squire-, en corto, emerge lentamente fuera de señorial señorío. Pero en qué

LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 237ciencia tiene la presencia de variaciones o variedades siempre interferido con el reconocimiento de un género ? La fundamental características aquí Recordó definirexactamente un claro y distinto tipo de social estructura, que tenía

gran resistiendo fuerza y por que a través de la siglos hombre ' s el destino tiene estado así poderosamenteinfluenciado que incluso hoy en día, en cada país en la que ella izquierda su marca, la divisiones de propiedad, la distribución de viviendas rurales, la paisano ' s hábitos demente, lata sólo ser explicado por referencia a su antiguo y ahora abolido la autoridad.

Ella necesario ser aceptado que la génesis de este institución que tiene celebrado hasta gran un colocar en Europeo historia restos particularmente oscuro, porque ladocumentos son pocos y para la más parte tarde, también porque son terriblemente dispersos, en tiempo y todavía más en lugar. En Galia, Italia, la Renania, ellos apenaspermitir nosotros a forró cualquier distinto foto de la seigneurie más temprano de la noveno siglo y entonces ella fue incuestionablemente muy viejo. Para Inglaterra nosotrosnecesario venir abajo casi al Norrnan Conquista. Antes la grandes descripciones a ser fundar en el carolingio encuestas o en que ofWilliam la Conquistador, nosotros necesariohacer como mejor nosotros lata con un pocos más fragmentario residuos de pruebas, o el indirecto testigo de arqueología, topónimo estudio, o la estudio de los significados depalabras. lt es agujas s a decir cómo poco nosotros saber de Sociedad alemana antes la gran invasiones. Quizás nosotros son no siempre plenamente consciente de nuestrodesesperado ignorancia de la fundamental estructura de secciones enteras de la Romano mundo, y en particular de Bastero Europa, en imperial veces. No duda nosotros tenerla inscripciones finas desde África est un tes; y adicional al este, en conserva por la afortunado sequía de un clima desértico, la inestimable archivo de así muchos gran Egipciofincas, desde tiempo de la Ptolomeos hacia abajo. Pero es ella posible a creer queun pocos siglos de un común político dominación puede tener Baste d obliterar la diversitie s entre societie es tan diferente en su condiciones de vida y histórico tradicionescomo aquellos de la Valle del Nilo, Bereber África, y Galia? Y la imagen que fuerza ser compuesto por líneas tomadas en vez desde un pueblo de la Fayum bajo la Lagides,desde un imperial Saltus en la alto mesetas de Argelia, y por último, desde un monasti c fisc de Carlomagno ' s Ã le de France-haría ya está ser cualquier oportunidad real queesto haría expresar un genuino continuidad? No duda egipcio y Africano evidencia puede lanzar precioso luz en la orígenes de el W estero señorío. Pero sólo si nosotrospreguntar de ellos qué ellos puede legítimamente de suministro. Eso es información, no acerca de la real cosa que nosotros son estudiar, pero acerca de análogo cosas. Encorto, nosotros debe tratar ellos como documentos de comparativo historia.

Y ella está en comparativo métodos que nosotros necesario principalmente confiar. En las comparaciones de la Europeo desarrollo con paralelo desarrollos que mayo serestudiado fuera Europa? No duda. Pero También, y quizás

Cambridge Historias Online Â © Cambridge Universidad Prensa, 2008

238 LA AGRARIA VIDA DE ORIENTE EDADES

principalmente, en llevado a cabo de forma sistemática comparaciones de la varios regional desarrollos dentro Europeo civilización sí mismo. Para el establecimiento de laseñorial sistema fue no realizado a través de en todos de ellas en la mismo fecha ni con la mismo ritmo; ni fue ella en todas partes por igual completa. Estos divergencias yestos imperfecciones son de la naturaleza de experimentos, a que especial atención debería ser dado en causal análisis. Desgraciadamente, investigación en este direccióntiene no hasta ahora sido así persistente como podría ser deseado. Confinado a su especial vinces Proa, eruditos tener no como un regla planteada su preguntas extensamentesuficiente para

llevar la diversidades claramente en la luz. Así verdadero es este que, en esta capital materia, nosotros son tratar no con colocado conclusiones pero con una investigación que es todavía procedimiento.

Estos Consideraciones determinar en una vez la límites a nuestro ambicionesy la método de la investigación. A estado la principal problemas con posible de precisión; a sugerir cautelosamente sorne laboral hypothesesÂ modesta como estos logros mayoparecer, la historiador de orígenes señoriales hoy debería no objetivo en cualquier cosa más llamativo. Por otra parte él no puede seguir estricto cronológico orden. Él fuerzacomo bien intentar seguir un pista por noche. Él necesario comienzo desde qué es menos imperfectamente conocido, recogiendo uno por uno vario indicaciones que mayo ayudaél entender un más remoto y más oscuro pasado. Tal un método de exposición necesario necesariamente ser más bien lento, y muy desemejante que proceda a preguntas quetener estado más completamente contestadas. En menos ella voluntad seguir fielmente la real líneas de la investigación; y tal vez, después de todo, uno mayo interés un lectormejor por describiendo a él cómo uno a tientas para verdad en la de laboratorio.

11. Señorial tipos de la temprano Medio SiglosNosotros son todavía lejos desde la posibilidad de construcción un mapa de la

'Seignorialization' de Europa; pero nosotros mayo en menos intentar a distinguiraproximadamente la principal áreas que tal un mapa, podría ella ser completado, se marca fuera con un precisión que hoy es fuera de la cuestión. En primer lugar, discernimosun vasto zona a lo largo de que la seigneurie fue firmemente establecido en la noveno siglo, y no duda tenido estado largo antes de que; donde para muchos siglos ellainfl.uenced la todo de social vida profoundlyÂmost de Italia; NorthÂEastern y SouthÂEastern Galia, con su Catalán y Renano promontorios; y incluso más allá la Renania del gran regiones ofSouthern y Central Alemania. En segundo lugar, un región últimamente pero marcado 'Seignorialization'. Inglaterra es su jefe área constituyente, peroprobablemente nosotros debería a añadir, aunque con un todavía más tarde comienzo y una mucho menos vigoroso crecimiento, Dinamarca. Entonces venir la regiones deincompleto 'Seignorialization 'ÂSouthÂW est Galia, la Sajón llano.


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 239Por último, la tierras que tener no seigneurie-Friesland, Dithmarschen, Noruega, quizás Suecia. Ella voluntad ser más simple a comenzar nuestro búsqueda en el primerozona y, más particularmente en Galia, a causa de la mayor abundancia de fuentes. Y naturalmente nosotros deberá ir espalda como lejos como nosotros puede con cualquierconfianza, que es decir, como hemos tener ya Dicho esto, a temprano CAROA lingian veces.

Ella no debe ser olvidado que incluso para Carolingia Galia nuestra knowÂ cornisa es muy fragmentaria. Nosotros saber mucho acerca de sólo uno clase de señoríos. Ellosson fundar en la región de grande pueblos norte de Loira, y son ellos mismos extraordinariamente grande. Aquellos que lata más fácilmente se describirá pertenecido amonasterios. Pero nosotros saber suficiente de la haciendas reales a ser capaz a decir que, en su principal líneas, ellos apenas difería de la eclesiásticas; andas estos último tenidovenir al Iglesia por regalos,a veces hecho sólo una pocos año antes la documentos proporcionar nosotros conun detallado cuenta de qué tenido estado dado, nosotros son intitulado a mantener que la general líneas de la imagen aplicar igualmente a la fincas de la gran

laico aristocraciaen que tiempo y lugar. Este es la tipo desde que nuestra investigación necesario necesariamente empezar: más tarde nosotros mayo ampliar ella a otro tipos.

Señoríos de este tipo eran distinguido por la unión, y que muy cerca, de un muy gran zona cultivado directamente por la Lorda la heredad, o como ella fue en general llamada,la mansus indominicatus-con poco dependiente campesino participaciones que, siguiente un más bien más tarde uso, nos deberá llamada la 'arrendamiento' (tenencias).

La administración de la heredad irradia desde un grupo de edificiosÂdwellings, graneros, ganado cobertizos, workshopsÂsometimes fortificada, y conocida como la corte, curtis, que isÂthe recinto. Alrededor ella mentira jardines, Ploughlands, viñedos, prados. Como un regla la mansus indominicatus también incluye bosque tierra, a menudo muy extensa, y pasto tierras. Pero desde ellos son en generalsujeto a derechos de usuario por la comunidad,estos stretche s de bosque y residuos son no así completamente en la señor ' sdisposición como la otro regiones de la heredad; para la momento dejar nosotros dejarlos en un lado. Incluso cuándo limitado a su cultivado campos y prados, la casa del pastordominical restos muy genial. Su zona voluntad ser regularmente oneÂthird, oneÂhalf, o a veces casi incluso la equivalente, de ese de la tierras similares retenida por lacuerpo de campesinos. Así dos muy grave problemas enfrentados la señor. La «Comercialización» problema: cómo a hacer que el mejor uso de la produce de este extensoagricultura! empresa. La "Trabajo" problema: cómo a encontrar manos suficiente a mantenerlo ir. Gire para la momento a la segundos.

Salario trabajo apropiado fue no de mucho cuenta, Ella fue no desconocido; pero ella fue sólo llamado en ahora y entonces, para aquellos gran estacional las operaÂ en quehombres ofrecido a trabajo para contratar. En la otro parte, en más demesnes ya está todavía vivido sorne esclavos quien, ser fed por su


240 LA AGRARIA VIDA DE LA MIDDLB EDADES

maestro, trabajado siempre bajo su órdenes; ellos eran llamado su Diers PROVENA, porque ellos conseguido su provende (Praebenda) desde él. La Encuestas (censÃers),cuyo principal objeto fue a determinar la relación de la señor con su inquilinos, como un regla pagar muy poco atención a este personal serviles de la tribunal; la Descripción dela est un tes de Santo GermainÂ desÂPrÃ © s menciones ellos sólo una vez y entonces bastante dicho sea de paso. 1 Pero nosotros tener sin embargo suficiente textualreferencias a justificar nosotros en contar el esclavos como un normal elemento de casi cada seÃgneurie. Qué deberíamos más como a saber haría ser su números.Desafortunadamente rara vez puede. Pero todo sugiere que ellos eran pequeña, en menos en relación a la tamaño de la enorme campos de la heredad. Ya Está eran las excepÂno duda. Pero la excepciones eran no debido así mucho a un gran abundancia de esclavo es tan a la existenc e aquí y allí de pequeño demesnes. Así en AD 862, en la 'Real Manor ' de Ingolstadt, la 22 esclavos de ambos sexos adjunto a la corte fuerza ellos mismos tener hecho casi toda la trabajo necesario a Cultiva t e campos entonces limitado a acerca de no acres. 2La caseÂit tiene no paralelo en GaulÂis valor cita, porque ilustra excelentemente la extremo variedad de señorial tipos, debido en gran parte a la supervivencia de antiguoarreglos. Ella fue indudablemente una excesivamente raro caso, especiall y entre real fincas. En la mayoría de seigneurÃes en Carolingia Galia la situación necesario tenersido

mucho más como que en aquellos Italiano seÃgneuries que suceder a han dejado a nosotros más bien más preciso información, y donde nosotros ver, por ejemplo, en lanoveno siglo, en un Farfa raíces, un grupo de sólo el 93 alimentado esclavo s contra uno de más de 1400 inquilinos. Temprano en el décimo siglo, en la inmenso fincas de PapáGiulia ofBrescia, nosotros encontrar, ella es verdad, una apreciable superior proporción; pero todavía sólo 741 contra casi 4000. Y la ajuste de cuentas incluye la relativamentegrande grupo de estrictamente Domesa tic esclavos. La muy modesto pandillas de agricultura! trabajadores que la esclavitud de este modo proporcionado, aunque útil Bec auso ellos eran siempre en mano en su amo ' s granja, eran obviamente incapaz de reunión la necesidades de esos grandes empleadores, la aristocracia, la rey y la Iglesia. Estostenido mirar en un muy diferente dirección para su principal trabajo de suministro.

La 'arrendamiento' amueblado que, en la forma de la obligatorio servicios de su los titulares. Cada inquilino, como un regla, tenido asignado a él sorne de de su amo campos,a ser labrada para la maestro. Pero este ingenioso forma de pieceÂwork podría ser aplicado sólo a un relativamente pequeño fracción de laheredad. La resto fue cultivado por medio de trabajo servicios, aplicado ya sea a karting o a la numeroso y variado diario empleos de cualquier Agria cultura! empresa.Periódicamente la campesinos eran llamado juntos,

r xxv. 8: fimina de FISCO dominico.2 Lun C e rm. DÃplornata regum e Stirpe Katolinotum, vol. 1, Ludowici GerrnanÃcÃ Dipl.

no. 30.


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 241

a menudo trayendo su equipos, por la directores de la señorío, y Desa parcheado a hacer lo que sea fue necesario en la momento, Estos servicios, por lo general ocupandovarios día en la semanas, eran inmensamente burdenÂ algunos a la campesino, mucho más así, como cosas entonces eran, de la diversas cuotas suplementario a ellos; pero sinellos la empresa central podría no tener fl.ourished, ni incluso realizado en. Had la poco propiedades campesinas estado desocupado, la señor ' s baros haría tener vaciado ycampos bis lain barbecho.

La primero llamativo hecho acerca de la organización de estos tenencia es su regularidad. La mayor parte de la suelo retenida desde la señor fue división arriba en unidades,en teoría indivisible, llamado mansiones. Estos, a su vez están dispuestos en grupos, y cada miembro de cada grupo osos approxiÂ madamente la mismo carga. Posponer laproblema de la mansión, dejar Consideremos la principies que determinado la clasificación de estosmasterÂcells de la señorial organismo.

Ya Está eran dos principal grupos de mansiones, aquellos llamado servil y los llamados libre. Ellos eran no necesariamente fundar lado por lado en cada s e igneurie. Peromás señoríos, especialmente la mayor queridos, contenida tanto tipo. Tres marcado características distinguido la dos grupos. En general menos numeroso en cualquier dadoseigneurie de la libre mansiones, todo dicho la servil mansiones eran ciertamente mucho menos; en la tierras de San GermainÂdesÂPrÃ © s, como conocido a nosotros desdela temprano ninthÂcentury encuesta,había sólo 191 servil contra 1430 libre; en aquellos de la Obispo de Augsburgo, en acerca de la mismo fecha, ya está eran 421 contra 1004. El servil mansiones son tambiénregularmente menor de la libre mansiones de la mismo señorío. Por último, ellos tener diferente cargas, más pesado andÂwhen servicesÂmore indefinido. Más sujeto a lamaestro 's poder arbitrario, en este y muchos otro características tal como exención desde requisitionsÂthat

militar honorable obligación de libre menÂsÂthey retirada los humildes estado de esclavitud. Así hacer la nombres de la dos grupos. En el principio, la servil casa del pastor tenido estado la tenencia de un slaveÂbut de una esclavocolocado en la suelo, se volvió en un agricultor, y consecuentemente lejos en bis forma diaria de vida desde bis colega la fed esclavo (PROA vendier); la libre casa del pastortenido estado la tenencia de un libre hombre.

Sin embargo, por la noveno siglo, esta antítesis no más acordado estrictamente con la hechos. No duda la cargas originalmente establecido en la permaneció suelo. Además,la doctrina, si no siempre muy precisamente la Tice Praça, de personal ley todavía distinguishedÂaccording a la viejo normasAEl eslavo e terrateniente desde la libre, quien fue en general llamado un Colono. Pero ella hizo no seguir que la suelo y la hombre eran siempre en la misma clase. Mucho decoloni retenida servil mansiones. Todavía más peculiarÂfor éstos gratuita titulares de tierra una vez estigmatizado como servil mayo bien ser libertos, o su descendantsÂfreemansiones fuerza ser retenida por esclavos. Esta anomalía

16 PCBBB


242 LA AGRARIA VIDA DE LA ORIENTE EDADES

golpeado y preocupado contemporáneos sólo como ella hace nosotros. Que es por qué encuestas SORNE, mientras todavía custodia la dos tradicional categorías Aparte,términos elegir a describir ellos que, descuido ali legal normas, eran basada simplemente en diferencias de obligaciones. Por un significativo vacilaciones, el compilador de la'Polyptyque' de Santo Maur-des-fosa © s veces escribió'Servil mansiones ' y 'Libre mansiones ", a veces-y víspera ~ cuándo refiriéndose a la muy mismo explotaciones'manses que deber manual servicios ' y'mansiones que deber equipo servicios ». Más tarde, la distinción fue a dis-aparecer en conjunto desde la vocabulario de encuestas.

Ella es entonces perfectamente claro que la antítesis de estos dos clase de tenenciaoriginado en una apreciablemente anterior etapa de social evolución, aunque para falta de fuentes nosotros lata sólo rastro ella en una era de declinar. lt opuestoa uno otro dos elementos en la señorial estructura, que en hechoeran ser sostenidamente soldada juntos de dos sedimentario estratos de que no uno podría estado un priori que ellos tenido estado puesto abajo en la misma etapa de desarrollo,o bajo la influencia de similar condiciones. Aquí es un formidable problema para la investigación; pero antes abordaje it it será bien a completo nuestro pájaro ' s vista de lacampo de temprano 'Niorialization seig-'.

Aunque un legal entidad y, como tal, incapaz de la división, la mansión-in regiones de nucleado pueblos-era sólo muy raramente en de hecho, una solo indiviso tramo ofland.lt fue en general hecho arriba de muchos tiras dispersos encima un mucho dividido del suelo. La heredad sí mismo fue hecho arriba como unregla de vario fragmentos, generalmente más grande de aquellos de la campesinos,pero más o menos mixto arriba con ellos. La inquilinos ' casas eran en el pueblo, ronda acerca de la corte; así que el rural escena sí mismo reflejada lainterdependencia de la constituyente regiones de el señorío, y enormemente facilitado la laboral de la sistema, por colocación la hombre quien servicio adeudado zona el lugardonde ellos eran sea necesario. Pero nosotros necesario hacer No nos equivoquemos: ya está fue no exacto correspondencia entre pueblo territorio y señorío, aunque a vecesellos hizo corresponden. Incluso descuidar para el momento cualquier completamente independiente campesino participaciones que el

poder sobrevivir a entre aquellos queeran dependiente en sorne señor, muchos un pueblo tenido varios señores; y incluso en regiones donde asentamiento fue altamente concentrado un seigneurie fuerza incluirmans e s disperso encima los campos de varios pueblos, a veces relativamente remoto desde la centro; así mucho así que, como es visto en la Montierender encuesta, sorne deel señor ' s hombres hecho un bastante largo viaje antes alcanzar la heredad en la que ellos tenido a trabajo. Por otra parte, ella se convirtió en necesario a abandonar elservicios debido desde tenencia que eran demasiado remoto.

Y ya está existido ya, en la Galia de aquellos día como en contemporánea Francia, vasto regiones donde hombres vivido no en pueblo s pero dispersos en menor grupos. Ya Está la casa del pastor fue un solo bloque ofland, o casi


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 243eso. Acerca de la casa de la masoyer (MansuarÃus) eran agrupados sus tierras, en general muy extensa, para-desde nosotros son aquí tratar con las regiones de pobre suelo seeran sólo labrada intermitentemente, cosechas altemating más bien caprichosamente con barbecho en la mismo parcela. Así con- sustituido, y poblado como un regla por uno odos de buen tamaño familias de los patriarcal tipo, la casa del pastor poner a veces bastante por sí mismo. Por otra parte, con un pocos otros, ella formado un diminuto aldea.Obviamente tal un dispersión de la rural población fue hostil a colaboración entre demesne y arrendamientos. Ella presentado torpe practica! problemas, de que variossecciones de la estudio de Santo Germain-des-Prés © s relativo a los bosques de la W est dar EE.UU. claro noción. Ya Está ser no grande pueblo a servir como la unidad deadministración, cada 'Raíces' incluido un grande área cubierta con un suelto red de dependiente mansiones. Aunque que existía, la heredad huelgas nosotros comoextraordinariamente pequeño cuándo en comparación con otro geográfico regiones: sólo 10 por centavo de la cultivado área en Boissy-en-Drouais; II "5 por centavo enVillemeult; mientras acerca de Paras que tocado más de 32 por ciento en Villeneuve-Saint-Georges y más que 3 5 por centavo en Palaiseau. Si un mansus ÃndomÃnÃcatus enla bosque de país fue dado a monjes, ellos fuerza ser obligado a tum ella en los arrendamientos, porque ellos podría no convenientemente hacer directo uso de ella.

Pero ella necesario ser claramente Borne en mente que estos s difficultie eran principalmente las de la gran seÃgneurÃes, ellos mismos integral regiones de aterrizado propiedades ambos enorme y generalizada. Siempre difícil para la administración, porque En fue necesario a dividir el produce en dos uno parts-- a ser disponer d de en la lugarsin demasiado mucho pérdida, la otro a ser enviados a un solo y a menudo más bien distante punto de el consumo, la monasterio-propiedades de este clase se convirtió entodavía más torpe para gestionar, cuándo a la distancia entre la vario unidades de administración fue añadido, dentro aquellos unidades, demasiado gran distancias entre cada tenencia o cada campo de la heredad. Estos condiciones eran mucho menos desfavorable a poco señores quien vivido en la spot. Considerar la seÃgneurie de Ebbon yEremberge, derecho en la bosques de la Corbonnais, que ellos dio a la monjes de Santo Germain-des-Prés © s, a recibir ella espalda desde ellos, por la manera,perceptiblemente aumentado, como un precarÃum, que es decir, en retomo para un renta en dinero. Ella es de no gran tamaño- sobre 120 acres de cultivable y 48 de prado;mientras monástico neuries Seiga en

general contado Severa l cientos, incluso miles, de acres. Pero es hecho arriba de un mansus ÃndomÃnÃcatus y nueve arrendamientos,así dividida que th.e heredad cubierto más bien mota de 34 por centavo de la cultivable y unos 57 por centavo de la prados, que naturalmente significaba servicios pesados parala inquilinos, servicios que en este caso eran en la señor ' s discreción. Así ella reproduce en cada punto, sólo en un mucho menor escala, la estructura de que classica lseigneurÃe de que a.fisc de la Iglesia



o de la rey proporciona la gigante escriba. La gente por lo modesto como Ebbon y Eremberge eran no capaz a compilar multa encuestas. Que es por eso nuestras fuentes hacerno decir nosotros mucho acerca de estos poco rústico señoríos. Pero emergen aquí y ya está, a través de algunos afortunado documental referencia, hecha arriba, de acuerdo ala naturaleza oflocal asentamiento, ahora de un fracciónF1G. 5. Adjunto campos acerca de un aldea en Central Francia: St Sauvier, Allier.


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 245de un pueblo, ahora de un aldea o incluso de sorne disperso mansiones. Tal vez, todo cosas considerado, ellos eran la más nwnerous clase de seigneurie a ser fundar enoccidental del suelo. Su interna! constitución hace no parecen tener difería mucho desde que de su más grande hermanas; y ellos podría ajustar ellos mismos fácilmentesuficiente a cualquier tipo de settlentent.

En su Essentia l características, que son todos que materia aquí, la imagen de los seigneurie sólo bosquejado para Carolingia Galia haría ser correcta,casi línea por línea, para Meridional y Central Alemania y para Italia, acerca la mismo fecha. Pero para Italia ya está es una pesado reserva.

Norte de la Alpes, contractual relaciones entre personas jugado un insignificante parte en la interior vida de un señorío. En despecho de suflojedad, que sí mismo indica un legal hábito de importaría diferente de nuestro, la textos dar un muy claro impresión que la las relaciones entre la maestro y la pococultivadores eran determinado con mayor frecuencia de no por costumbre solo, un costumbre la mismo para todos la grupo, o por lo menos para todos mansiones de la mismoclase. Excepciones ya está indudable eran. La acuerdos para protección, de que nosotros deberá hablar más tarde, por lo general se fue con un conceder ofland. A menudosuficiente la generosidad de la señor era, en verdad, sólo aparente; él fue meramente retribuir sorne propiedad que su cliente tenido previamente rendido a él, ahora cargado con nuevas obligaciones; y la juego de rendición y Regrant simplemente transformado un tenencia anteriormente autónomo en uno bajo la autoridad. Pero la pregunta si laconceder fue real o nominal no lo hizo cambiar su profundo importancia; en cualquiera de los dos evento ella terminado por la creación de un tenencia que nosotros mayo decirfue arraigado en contrato-con este limitación Sin embargo, que aunque ella fue la producto de dos hechos de voluntad, la acuerdo tenía no sens correo ahorrar como parte de unvasto sistema de personalizado. Acuerdos de este tipo son como un regla particularmente vaga; ellos hacer no determinar exactamente o bien el liabilitie s de la tierra o, qué estodavía más curioso, de cómo largo el destinatario es a mantener ella. Eso es porque ellos tácitamente asswne la costumbre local; y la acostumbrado regla como al segundopunto fue casi invariablemente que ofheredity. Ya Está lata realmente ser no duda que, ya sea

por tradición o por sufrimiento, tenencia normalmente fue desde padre a hijo. Es cierto, sorne mansiones-regularmente descrito como censiles-eran en realidad dejar para los términos de año. Pero ellos son muy raramente encontrado.

Como para la precarium contrato, también un clase de dejando para un período limitado, su alcance bajo la Carolingios fue confinado casi exclusivamente a personas en más bien alto lugares y a fincas muy lejos eliminado de aquellos de campesinos; aunque atan más temprano fecha ella mayo tener estado más amplio. Ella fue en regular uso entre lareligioso casas y la poner aristocracia, cuya miembros fundar en este legal procedimiento una fácil camino de arrebatando señoríos o regiones de señoríos desde la Iglesia,mientras nominalmente sólo el alquiler ellos. Ella es muy raramente conocido con en la relaciones entre la



señores y su hombres. Personalizada, en que ellos eran basado, dio su propia perpetuidad a la derechos encima tierra de la mayoría de esta gente dependiente.

Ahora Italiano condiciones contrastar con estos en dos marcado maneras. No sólo hizo un gran número de Italiano campesinos mantener tierras cargado con cuotas yservicios a una señor por un regular contrato (La livello). Este Contraer, Además, dio ellos un tenencia limitado en tiempo, cualquiera de los dos a uno o más vidas, o más ypor lo general a 29 años, así como a evitar la preceptiva derechos que fue con un 30 años tenencia. Ella es en hecho altamente probable que más a menudo de no laarrendamiento fue renovado en la expiración de la fijo período. Sorne obras incluso anticiparse este renovación y fijar el precio que es a ser pagado para ella. La practica!razones que en todas partes favorecido herencia eran en trabajo en Italia en otro países: la mano de obra fue así raro que qué un señor más temido fue su pérdida. Y et tal una tenencia fue ninguno la menos por definición temporal, y descansado en un contrato explícitamente formulado en cada renovación. La contrastar así revelado entre lasociedades norte y sur de la Alpes es un estructural DIFA Conferencia que necesario siempre ser Borne en mente.

111. La disminución de esclavitudEn la descripción sólo intentado, uno hecho arriba todos reclamaciones atención. Ella es no sufi

ciente a decir de la del siglo IX seigneurie que ella contenida sólo un pocosesclavo s albergó y fed en la heredad. La institución en sí misma, su fundamental principies, asumido un la sociedad en que realmente trabajo servil jugado sólo una parte poco importante. Si ya está tenido estado mucho de los esclavos para la venta, y su trabajo tenido cubierto su costo, por qué exacto tantos servicios desde su los inquilinos? Y comola carga de cuotas era necesariamente en inverso relación a que de los servicios, haría no bueno sentido sugieren toma desde la mansiones más de la cultivos y menos días de trabajo? Pero que es no todos. Sí mismo la antítesis de un esclavo sistema, el señorío había crecido arriba precisamente cuándo tal un sistema fue en el descenso. En este que cae curva de esclavitud la noveno siglo marcas sólo un punto, pero un punto en hecho muy cerca la fin.

No duda nosotros necesario no exagerar, incluso para la Romano mundo, la posición retenida por vasto latifundios, labrada por pandillas de esclavos, a veces en plancha. Laexistencia de un numeroso libre campesinado que fuerza todos lo mismo ser bajo la dominación de magnates o caciques-IS demostrado por indiscutible registros; y, comonosotros deberá ver, ella fue en este base que el señorío sí mismo fue en gran medir construido hacia arriba. Y et ella es sin embargo cierto que ronda acerca

de AD YO la esclavitud era muy extendido en la Imperio; que la rico en particular tenido en su disposición gran tropas de trabajadores esclavos quién ellos empleado, no sólo en domésticotrabajo y minusváli-


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 247artesanías pero también en agricultura! trabajar; que especialmente en gran fincas, apart desde algunos pagado trabajadores alquilado en tiempos de presión o para especializarse tareas d, la trabajo fue hecho casi exclusivamente por esclavos. Incluso en Alemania, esclavos, aunque no duda muchos menos, eran fundar en todos cómodoscasas; en la tiempo de la invasiones la jefes esclavos traídos de su propio raza en RomanÃa; en allanamiento ya está ellos conseguido mucho más. En la comienzo de laMerovingio era, Gregory ofTours y lo contemporáneo vidas de la Santos, con la cartas de Gregory la Genial para Italia, dar nosotros un bastante claro impresión de un sociedaden que la esclavo es todavía un muy familiar escriba; en que usted vender en la m.arkets de los francos Reino cautivos desde Italia; en Nápoles cautivos conseguido porincursiones de Galia; en que mujeres esclavos rutina en la molino en la señor ' s corte y esclavo pastores tender la B.ocks. Dos o tres siglos después la edad de la granCarolingia encuestas, en que ya la importancia de esclavitud tenido disminuido así mucho, ella jugado sólo una insignificante papel en la mayor parte de el W est, y un papelexclusivamente doméstica.

La disminución de esclavitud es incontestablemente uno de la más notable hechos en nuestra occidental historia. Como todos gran hechos, ella es difícil a explicar. En general uno mayo decir que tres grupos de causas, convergentes, traído que sobre-la militar, la religioso, y la económica.

Servil la mano de obra, como la hombres de la antiguo mundo eran bien conscientes, casi siempre da un miserable retomo; muchos manos a acabado apagado pocos puestos de trabajo, que es aparentemente su lema. La esclavo es un forma de capital con modesta rendimiento, la más modesto porque usted necesario deducir de su producción lacosto ofhis mantener. Él es decir, además, un frágil formulario. IFHE es enfermo, tiene no de salida, pero la costos de su mantener carrera en. Si él muere-y su vida fue a menudo corto, especiall y si él eran inscrito en la gran equipos de los latifandia, donde vida condiciones eran necesariamente muy duras o IFHE carreras de distancia, así hacela capital invertido en él. Era ella no Varrón quien, para este razón, aconsejado empleadores a prefieren, en insalubre mensajes, gratis asalariados eamers cuyo muerte haríacosto ellos nada ? Todos este tiene poco importancia así largo como la esclavo lata ser reemplazado barata. Si él no puede, pérdidas ~ Y tragar arriba ganancias. A hora lanatalidad en un raíces esclavo es apenas siempre alto suficiente para la regular mantenimiento de un manada de esclavos. Experiencia tiene demostrado ella: de todos formasde cría, que de humano ganado es uno de la más difícil. Si esclavitud es a pagar cuándo aplicado a gran escala empresas, ya está necesario ser mucho de barato humano B.eshen el mercado. Y ou lata sólo llegar ella por guerra o esclavo-bandas. Así un La sociedad puede apenas base mucho de su economía en domesticado humano seres unles s ittiene en mano más débil sociedades a derrota o a raid. Que fue la posición de la blanco hombres de la Oeste Indias hacia negro África desde decimosexto a la diecinueve siglo;de Abisinia ayer, superficie redondeada por primitivo y armado mal tribus; de viejo Roma en su día de



conquista. La legiones tenido suministrada enorme trabajo batallones, quien trabajado en la campo o en la público obras bajo la azotar o la amenaza de la ergastulum. Larelativo paz de la Fust dos siglos de aparece nuestra era a tener hecho su reclutamiento apreciablemente más fuerte. Nuevos métodos entonces comenzó a aparecer en laadministración de la latifandia; a la que nosotros deberá remitir en breve. Evidentemente la retorno a una casi crónica estado de guerra, con la repetido ataques de Persas ybarians Bara, producido después sorne reviva! de la esclavo comercio, en a pesar de Roma ' s militar decadencia. La gran invasiones en la fin de el cuarto y la begÃnning deel siglo V led a un adicional renacimiento, Y ella fue no sólo la invasores quien hecho dinero por esclavo tratar:nadie rico suficiente podría aprovechar la oportunidad. La archivos show Â¡

que cuándo la Alemanes tenido devastado un país ellos vendido su prisioneros fácilmente en Rumania sí mismo. Pero todo esto significaba sólo un temporal subir en generalhacia abajo movimiento de la curva de esclavitud.

En Fust vista ella mayo parecer astonishÃng que la muy belicoso Edad Media tenido así pocos esclavos. Aquí religioso Consideraciones intervenido. No es queCristianismo proscrito esclavitud como tales. En menos la frecuente forma de Cristiano doctrina que pronto se convirtió en oficial hizo no. Como entre las e: Xtremist la OMS eran no miedo a enseñar la esclavo a despreciar su amo y incluso carrera lejos desde él y la Consejo de Gangra que excomulgados ellos en AD 324, la futuro poner conla Padres de el Consejo. Como thegreat filosofías de antigüedad, Cristiano ética como de ordinario recibido hecho ella la maestro ' s deber a tratar su esclavos bien, porqueellos eran su hermanos en Cristo; pero conforme a St Paul era también la el esclavo de deber a obedecer su maestro. La deliberado partidario de los establecido orden de la sociedad, la Iglesia fue profundamente indiferente a todos planes para reformÃng este mundo a continuación, así despreciable en su ojos compararon con la Ciudad de Dios:'Chris t', Primasio de Hadrumetum escribe, 'Carne al cambio hombres ' s corazones, no su condiciones de vida. " La estructura de ideas, en que ella es no difícil a reconocerla uso de sorne ideado por pagano sabiduría, ayudado de apoyo la conclusión. Esclavitud fue no duda opuesto a la Ley de Dios (T ~ e filósofos tenían Dicho esto, a la Ley deNaturaleza). Por lo tanto, para que materia, fue propiedad. Pero ambos Ãnstitutions Sprang desde la Ley de Naciones, a que, desde entonces la Otoño, mankÃnd debería apresentar en cuanto a un necesario mal y un wellÂdeserved castigo. No duda la liberación de esclavos fue una actode la piedad; y ella es no imposible que la deseo a victoria salvación mayotener tenido algo a hacer con la numeroso manumisiones Durangla Fust siglos de los Medio Edad. Pero nosotros deberá ver que otra, ymucho más terrenal, causa s contribuyó en menos como effectivel y al la gran impulso de ernancipation. lt fue nunca un pecado a tener esclavos, incluso tener Esclavos cristianos. Cuándo un esclavo bom en paganismo fue baptÃzed la


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 249Iglesia regocijado. Ella nunca necesario la nuevo convertir a ser conjunto libre; más bien ella esperado que, por fiel servicio, mucho mejor de que de sus camaradas quienpermanecido en el pecado, él haría show a su maestro la hermosura de verdadero la religión.

En la otro mano, la Iglesia negado resueltamente a sanción la esclavitud de Cristianos, los verdaderos cristianos, que es decir, Católicos. Por Al hacerlo ella meramenteextendido, pero así extensamente como a alterar su todo carácter, una regla que tenido venir abajo desde el más remoto pasado de civilizaciones precristianas. La esclavotenido siempre sido, antes todos otra cosa, un cautivo: más allá la pequeño territorio de la tribu o la ciudad estirado un vasto región poblada con hombres quien tenido noderechos en todos. U sted podría SEIZ ellos E como y cuando usted deseado. Ahora la nuevo religión tenido reemplazado la diminuto ciudad pagana por la inmenso ciudad dela espíritu, a que todos Cristianos pertenecido.Fuera este societas christiana usted fuerza todavía tratar hombres como ganado y, siusted tomó ellos presos, mantener ellos como esclavos. Pero si un Cap- cristianarado otro Cristiano él fue obligado a respeto su libre de estado. Quizás uno de la mejor triunfos de Cristiano ética fue la aplicación de respeto para este máxima, despacio a serSeguro, para ella es todavía ser recordó en Inglaterra temprano en la undécimo siglo, pero en la largo carrera más eficazmente. Así ella carne acerca de que la perpetua!guerras entre Católicos innumerables izquierda muertos; presos que a veces -suspiró su vidas fuera en las mazmorras-it fue William la Conquistador ' s principie que ellosdebe; pero, después la edad de la gran invasiones, apenas cualquier esclavos. Y et tú podrías caza para esclavo s en la países ronda acerca; Celta Cristianos de los lejos West,en general tratada como herejes; Islam; Eslavo, Báltico oFinlandés 'paganries'; y incluso, desde la undécimo siglo, GriegoLos cristianos que por que tiempo eran todos pero cortada apagado desde la Mundo católico. Pero estos eran todos distante tierras, o tierras difícil de enfoque. Ellos podríasuministro guerreros o comerciantes con un pocos esclavos; ellos no podía mantener un gran servil economía.

Todavía que hace no explicar todo. En la Romano mundo sí, la división de latifandia en pequeño granjas lata ser claramente trazada desde la segunda y tercera siglos; eras,no duda, en que humano mercancía era devenir más raro, pero en que la suministro fue lejos desde agotamiento ted. Más tarde, durante la temprano Medio Edad, la tenenciasistema logrado establecer en sí, aunque en hecho la existente servil población, si tenía estado empleado en la viejo moda, fuerza tener estado sumamente útil, y aunque laesclavo comercio sí mismo fue lejos desde extinto en el W est. Ajuste fuera desde la fronteras de la Eslavos, o desde Gran Bretaña, caravanas de esclavos guiado por negrerostodavía atravesado Alemania y Francia en el décimo y undécimo siglos; pero ella fue a llegar puertos desde que la bienes podría ser transportado a Bizancio o, más a menudo, aMoham- Medan España. La cautivos secuestrado más allá la Elba, cuándo ellos eran


250 LA AGRARIA VIDA DE LA ORIENTE EDADES 1

no en este camino dispuesto de fuera W estem Cristiandad, eran useda incluso en GermanyÂmuch oftener como inquilinos para la residuos espacios de un señorío decomo doméstico esclavo s en la señor ' s la corte. A unque la reviva! de seabome comercio, desde la duodécimo siglo, que poner en a la MediterÂ

Medite- mercados un mucho mayor suministro de miserable criaturas, secuestrado J

en Norte África, la Levante, o en la costas de la Negro Mar, aunque - ~ Lleno de ricos establecimientos con domésticos y concubinas, y adicional un 1 pocos esclavo granjamanos, hizo poco moreÂexcept quizás en la Balear

Islas y en Sicilia. Obviamente la laboral de gran fincas por trabajo esclavo fue no más considerado posible o deseable. La agrupación

sobre un central establecimiento dedependiente explotaciones, ensillado con cuotas

y servicios, fue preferido. Que fue porque la control de un gran rural establecimiento basado en esclavitud aumentosmuy delicado problemas de

administración, que lata sólo ser resuelto con éxito en un especialmente económica y mental medio ambiente. La mantenimiento de gran s de masa humana seres necesario ser previsto para sin uso arriba todos la productos

de la suelo en su keepÂor cualquier de la más rentable produce. Con parte de laincomeÂÂbut nunca en cualquier tiempo la wholeÂmen necesario comprar conti

nuamente para mantener la valores de la mano de obra. En corto, una economíanecesario mantenerse goingÂon un grande escala y con basado

intelligenceÂ en intercambio y beneficio, una economía que la condiciones de vida y la crecienteescasez de listo dinero siempre desde la más tarde año de

los Imperio hecho ella una menos y menos simple materia a organizar. Ella es fácil seguir, en las

letras deGregory la Grande, el paralelo progreso de una especie de económico debilityÂrevealed en uno tiempo por grave difficultie s en

el comisariado, en otro por la abandonode gran cría cattleÂ enterprisesÂand de la reemplazo de tropas de esclavos por los

inquilinos. Esclavo trabajo requiere cerca supervisión: largo hace Columela había recomendado la sistema de pequeño granjas en regiones de la inmuebles demasiado remoto para frecuente visitas por la paté Familias r. Ahora una aristocracia de los

hombres quien eran ante todo soldado s era particularmente il l equipado para que clase de supervisión. Y su retenedores, lucha hombres y poco otra cosa, podría no dar

mucho ayuda. Como para la monjes, ellos debería a ser escatimado cada clase de trabajo que haría distraer ellos desde la oración, liturgia, y la la práctica de ascetismo.Por

último, inmuebles administración requiere cuidadoso mantenimiento de la cuenta; un cosa que se convirtió en más y más difícil para los administradores de la

media, en la ignorancia y trastorno que la gran la angustia de la apertura Medio Siglos traído con ella. La repetido, y casi

pueril, instrucciones que abundar en lainmuebles ordenanzas de los noveno centuryÂin Carlomagno Capitulare de Villis o la estatutos de Abad

Alard de CorbieÂÂshow nosotros cómo duro ella fue para lagran hombres a hacer su subordinados aplicar la más elemental reglas de bookÂkeeping. Para adoptar tenencia c

omo una solución fue la línea de menos resistencia.TrabajoCambridge Historias Online Â © Cambridge Universidad Prensa, 2008


mantenido en sí; la familias, cada colocado en su chatarra de tierra, creció en lo natural manera. Ella fue meramente necesario a tomar cuidado que la día de trabajar en laheredad eran debidamente entregada y que fue en su mayoría hecho para usted por la costumbre. Como pronto como esclavos, en la lugares de la venta, eran no más unproductos básicos atractivo porque abundante, y por lo tanto barato, la nuevo tono de social vida y la nuevo hábitos de mente eran todos contra cualquier esfuerzo para mantener la viejo, y lejos demasiado complicado, métodos.

La evolución que tenido afectado la esclavos en este camino haría ser reproducida, más bien más tarde, casi característica por función, bajo la funcionamiento de la mismocausas, en la caso de la vasallos. Ellos tenido originalmente estado una lucha comÃtatus y ellos tenido fed en su cacique 's pasillo. Poco a poco se fue pensamiento másconveniente a dar cada de ellos una inmuebles en que él y su familia podría vivir. Ella fue asumido que él haría todavía realizar su viejo deber, sólo como la esclavos ahorasujeto a hacer servicios fueron en el trabajo en la heredad. Pero la vasallos ' deberes eran de bastante una

diferente especie-lugar de humilde agricultura! la mano de obra,militar servicio, asistencia en la señor ' s corte, 'Consejo '. Por otra parte la feudo que se les debe fue no un campesino celebración; ella fue como un regla sí mismo un señorío,grande o pequeña. Ya Está son pesado diferencias; ellos led a absolutamente opuesto socia l classifi.cation s B. Utah visto desde la económico ángulo, la posiciones de la dosclases son fundamentalmente similar. Bajo la temprano Reyes normandos, muchos una Inglés abadía, después tener probado a mantener armado caballeros sobre la lugar yalimentación ellos en su propio gasto, tenido a hacer arriba su mente a asignar feudos a ellos, cortada fuera de la monástico tierras. Tanto si gustado ella o no, la social medio ambiente, desde superior a fondo de lo social escala, fue contra la 'Prebenda ', la sistema de mantenimiento en el locales. Â ·

En De hecho, la tropas de esclavos quien tenido una vez vivido en la gran fincas menguaron lejos desde año a año principalmente porque su maestros fueron siempretorneado ellos en inquilinos, 'Hutting' ellos, como la frase fue: dar cada su propio choza (Casa), de curso con la necesario fi.elds. Evidentemente este reducido la tierra que laseñor tenido anteriormente cultivada a sí mismo. Enorme como ellos parecer a nosotros, la mansi indominicati de la siglo IX necesario tener estado apreciablemente menor dela latifundios que tenía precedido ellos. A veces la esclavo, ahora convertido en un granjero, era liberado en la mismo tiempo. Pero a menudo él permanecido legalmente enesclavitud. Ya Está tenido siempre estado sorne subvenciones de tierra a esclavos. Pero en la tiempo ofVarro, Cicerón contemporáneo, ellos eran no en general dado regulares explotaciones sólo ofland chatarra s grande suficiente para llevar un pocos ganado, como recompensas por bueno servicio. En la Fust siglo Tácito encontrado, o el pensamiento que encontró, esclavos con su propio penates en Alemania; y él marcado el contraste con Romano uso. (Tal vez qué él realmente fundar eran no es ciertoesclavos, pero que superior grado de dependientes, conquistada folk o



liberado hombres, quién la Alemanes llamado laet: Lidi.) Claramente, la práctica propagación dentro de poco después su tiempo. Juristas escritura acerca de AD. 200 tratar ellacomo normal. Ella fue en esparcimiento en la siguiente período. Imperial política ayudó a fortalecer ella. Como nosotros deberá ver, la gobiemo, ansioso tanto a mantenerarriba la rendimiento de la tierra y a facilitar -recaudación de impuestos, había decidido bajo Constantino que la agricultores freebom, la coloni, debería a permanecer en sugranjas desde generación a generación: la arrendador s no pueden desahuciar ellos. Ifits plan fue no a aborto espontáneo, gobiemo podría No pase por alto la ahora importantegrupo de Serva Casati. Ya en 367-75 una ley, que se refiere expresamente a la política previamente adoptado hacia el coloni, absolutamente prohibió la venta of'rural esclavos,cuyos nombres estaban en la rollos de impuestos ', sin su tierra. Eso, ella es verdad, sólo impedido el maestro desde elaboración fácil dinero fuera de su esclavo s por de ventaellos aparte de la suelo a que ellos eran de hoy en adelante atado. Dentro los serviles grupo, así atado a un dado área, él podría hacer como él gustado. Pero al parecer, él fueprivado más tarde de un derecho que, ella fuerza han pensado, fue de la essenc e de propiedad en esclavos-que de divertido el personal de la 'arrendamiento' a otro tareas.Nosotros tener perdido la pruebas pertinentes: nosotros hacer no incluso saber si este principie fue establecido por imperial ley o simplemente aplicado por la abogados. Pero suexistencia está más allá de la duda; porque después la caer de la Occidental Imperio Teodorico

abolió ella en Italia por su edicto. Una vez un agricultor siempre un agricultor:la regla aplicado igual a hombre libre y esclavo. En otro palabras, si los latifandia tenido estado cortada arriba a hacer participaciones para esclavos o para humilde freebomhombres, ella fue legalmente imposible a ir espalda a la sistema de esclavo-gang labranza. Es cierto, nosotros hacer no saber cómo lejos este legislación se aplicó. Emitidocerca la fin de la Imperio, su vida fue en cualquier cas e corta, y no duda económico fuerzas trabajado más poderosamente de cualquier ley. Para ya está es cada razón apensar que la transformación de esclavo s en inquilinos fue en después la invasiones durante la primero siglos de el bárbaro reinos.

Dejar nosotros hacer la mejor imagen nosotros lata de la posición de la 'Hutted'esclavo. En la estricta ley él restos un esclavo, a menos que formalmente liberado; como un esclavo sujeto a su maestría arbitrario la autoridad; en general hablando excluidos de la tribunales de la ley; incapaces-in un bárbaro estado a sentarse en un conjunto de hombres libres; no apto para Santo Órdenes. Originalmente, la tierra que él labrada fueen no sentido su: ella fue sólo un separado bit de su maestro 's, y su maestro podría tomar ella espalda en lo hará. carolingia encuestas todavía continuar decir de estoshombres 'Que ellos necesario servir siempre ellos son dijo que hacer así '. Su explotaciones, conforme a. la primitivo clasificaciones serviles mansiones, tenido su definidadeberes, a menudo muy humilde en efecto; incluso debería ellos por oportunidad mantener libre mansiones, su esposas fuerza debo tejer la mano de obra, deber ella quizás enla señor de talleres, un cosa que


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 253podría no ser exigido de cualquier libre mujer. Pero, en la práctica, el maestro tiene 'Hutted' hombres quién él Â · usado a mantener porque ella paga él que hacer de modo. Ya Está es no razón por qué él debería no dejar la disposición de convertirse en hereditaria. Y como la todo objeto fue a mak.e un hombre responsable para supropio mantenimiento, y como él pagado renta ambos en cuotas y servicios, él necesario ser izquierda tiempo suficiente a hasta su la tierra; defecto que, que puede nivivir ni pagar. Así él y su becarios voluntad sólo ser empleado dentro límites en la heredad. Como él tiene la estado de un cultivador él debe ser permitido sorneiniciativa. La Lombard ley, que prohíbe él vender tierra sin permiso, permite él vender ganado, si ella voluntad estar bien para su 'Hut'-y que es un peligrosamenteprovisión c elasti. Finalmente, puesto que tiene su propio hogar, es cabeza de un poco hogar, quizás incluso tiene sorne otro esclavos como farro obreros, él esinevitablemente liberado desde más directo presión ofhis el poder del maestro. En corto, en una vez esclavo y el inquilino, en la fin él es probable a convertirse en muchomás inquilino de esclavo. Su obligaciones tender a ser regulado más y más por normas consuetudinarias que, aunque no bastante la mismo como aquellos afectandohombres libres, forma un clase de apéndice a ellos. Y como ali medieval sociedad fue dominado por la idea que qué fue acostumbrado fue también derecho,incumplimiento de estos costumbres que son conjunto fuera en la encuestas-Soon se convierte en un malvado cosa; y después que, un crimen. Speak.ing de la realesclavos, claramente distinguido desde la coloni, la libre inquilinos, la obispos reunidos en 858 en la sínodo de Quierzy dirección Louis la Alemán así: 'Let su oficial de sser cuidadoso no a exigir de ellos más de rendían en su El padre de día. En 905 un real señora prohibió el abad

de St Ambrose en Milán a imponer en su esclavos enLimonta cargas más pesadas de ellos tenido adeudado cuándo ellos pertenecido a la rey. Desde noveno y temprano décimo siglos la vario grados de cultivadores dependientes son en proceso de asimilación en un solo clase, aunque originalmente ellos y su participaciones tenido estado en clases lejos aparte. La proceso fue lejosdesde completado. Más de la encuestas todavía negado a mezclar hasta gratis y servil mansiones. Officia l terminología, legal reglas, con su estricta lawyerly estilo,mantener como mejor que lata la línea entre la libre y la servil inquilino. Hábito y común discurso tenido ya casi borrado que,

Ella Es curioso que este fusión logrado en que gran época creativa de la décimo y undécimo siglos, una edad cuyo terrible escasez de documentos tiene oculto desdenosotros la detalles-hizo no conducir a la desaparición de los palabra servus (Siervo convertido en Discurso Romance) ni aún la limpieza fuera de la idea de servidumbre.Nosotros no son aquí re fi ere con la real historia de medieval la servidumbre. Pero la supervivencia para casi un milenio de las palabras que parecer a retirada esclavitudmayo bring-tiene de hecho a menudo traído tales errores en su tren, que un bosquejo de la principal



líneas de evolución es llamado para. Entre la miembros de señoríos, en el duodécimo y decimotercero siglos, mucho-mucho más de la Lingian Caro- esclavos, 'Hutted' o no-son retenida afalta que legal calidad llamada libertad. Y et ni la Francés o Italiano ser.fa, ni el Alemán Eigene, ni la Inglés siervos son esclavos; no incluso como un regla descendientes de los esclavos.No esclavos en la legal sentido, porque ellos hacer no pertenecer en cuerpo y bienes a un maestro; sus relaciones con su señores son fijo por tom Customs; ellos tener su propio posesiones; yno uno saludos ellos como humana seres vacío de los derechos. Todavía menos esclavos en la económico sentido: hacer no vivir en la heredad; ellos tener su campos para que que pagancuotas y servicios; en corto, ellos son inquilinos. Incluso la 'Cada siervos día ' en Alemania (Tageschalken; Serva cotidiani), desconocido en otra parte en el W est excepto en Cerdeña,aunque ellos deber diario servicios como su nombre implica, son mucho más como trabajadores de esclavos: ellos tener su propio cabañas y residuos de tierra. Qué realmente tiene cambiadoes la muy contenido de la nociones de "Libre" y 'No libre'. De hoy en adelante la"Libre" hombre es la hombre quien lata elegir su propio lord-como un vasallo hace, cuya homenaje imprescindible ser renovado como señor tiene éxito señor, bajo dolor de perder su feudono duda, pero en teoría ofhis propio libre wil1; como la campesino también hace quien es sólo encuadernado a su señor por tenencia sorne tenencia, o que viven en sorne particular spot.Que es la posición de la Francés libre Vilain, la Alemán Landsasse, el Inglés socman. La Hombre 'no libre', en el otro mano, es la hombre encuadernado a un señor por un atar que espersonal y hereditaria, un empate que en sorne moda agregados a su cuerpo desde nacimiento,y es en consecuencia más bien degradante y socialmente incapacitante. Estos nuevo formas de muy antiguo jurídico concepciones, appearing- como ella huelgas nosotros - en lugar tarde entiempo, tenido ocurrido dentro señoríos ya formada, señoríos con no hay esclavos. Nosotros mayo incluso decir que asumen la ausencia de esclavos. Para tal cambios de significado eransólo es posible porque la noción de esclavitud tenido perdido su antiguo contenido, casi espontáneamente.

Instructivo como estos hechos son, ella necesario no ser olvidado que ellos tener sólo en uno aspecto de los señorío, y que quizás no la más importante de aspecto. Uso la terminología dela Caroliongian encuestas, la subir de servil mansiones es perfectamente explicado por la disminución de la esclavitud y la esclavo pandillas. Este disminución mayo por lo tanto suficientea cuenta para la

formación de que muy raro tipo de seigneurie que mansiones serviles contenidos solamente, como Drancy, retenida en la noveno siglo por San Maur-des-Fosa © s. Pero ella wil1 no explicar la formación de cualquier otro escriba. Noduda sorne libre mansiones tenido un similar origen: ya está necesario tener estadoentre ellos un feria número de granjas de ex esclavos quien tenido estado liberado al mismo tiempo que ellos conseguido su tierra. La liberto casi siempre se mantuvo encuadernado a suviejo maestro, ahora su patrón, y porque su


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 255inquilino, IFHE fue no que ya. Nosotros podría no entender la Multia plicatura de manumisión, durante la Fust siglos de la Edad Midclle, si estos relaciones de tenencia ypersonal subordinación tenido no son persistentes. Manumisión hizo no implicar la pérdida de todos derechos encima un hombre; ella sólo modificado la naturaleza ofhissubordinación. En un palabra, la Movea ción hacia "Libertad" fue en que tiempo, en ma n y maneras, meramente un episodio en la decaimiento de la latifandÃum, que fue serreemplazado gradualmente por un régimen de dependiente tenencia. Ella es también probable que los grandes propietarios cuándo división arriba su demesnes eran a veces leda'Choza' un pocos lanclless o desalojado hombres libres en sorne de la newÂmadeexplotaciones. Que haría conducir a la creación de más libre mansiones. Pero podemos nosotros realmente suponer que todo, o incluso la mayoría, de la poco explotaciones que, aunque dependiente, eran etiquetado «Libre», lata tener surgido en cualquiera de estos dos maneras? Aparte desde la hecho que nuestro textos, en casos SORNE,claramente decir un diferente historia, mero probabilidad es contra cualquier tales hipótesis. Lata nosotros imagen, a través de la edades, estos sociedades de la nuestra según lo construido arriba exclusivamente desde multitudes de esclavos, aquí y ya está un pocos jornaleros, con arriba ellos todos un puñado de maestros ? W e tener entonces para explicar cómo innumerables campesinos, por ancestral estado freeÂin la primitiva sentido; no slavesÂhad enredó en la mallas de la seigneurÃe. Que es realmente la crucialproblema.

IV. Gobierno y la subir de la 'Señorío':desde la colonato a la inmunidad

Sólo un pocos siglos eran necesario para la transformación de más de los esclavos en inquilinos. La mucho más tiempo d transcurrir antes la campesinado como un clase fueasí transformado. Incluso en aquellos áreas más temprano 'SeignorialÂ téc- nico', la existencia de terminado seÃgneuries de la clásico tipo desde carolingia veces por nomedio excluye otro tipos de las zonas rurales ción organizaÂ. La mejor comparación disponible para la condición de la Italiano o los francos campo durante la tempranoMidcll correos Edad es indudablemente a se encuentra en Latín América de la diecinueve siglo. Las haciendas de México o Chile, con su pueblos de peones en estrictosujeción, Nunca formado una red así cerca como a dejar no habitación para pequeño propietarios independientes. En sorne Francés provincias, tal como Borgoña, para que lapruebas documentales es particularmente abundante, nosotros lata claramente ver un largo estirado fuera conquista por la seÃgneurÃe, resultante en Uña cierta ydesplazamiento relaciones con el suelo conquistado, derecho abajo a la decimotercera siglo. Este es incluso más claro en Inglaterra; y encima ancho áreas conquista haríanunca ser completa. Este muy lento movimiento da el historiador oportunidades para averiguación y medición la fluir en muchos



puntos. Pero ella muy complicado la movimiento, que pasado a través de una serie de muy diferente social sistemas; así que cuidado necesario ser tomado no transponerautomáticamente en un remoto y brumoso pasado hechos establecido para un más tarde, y mejor documentado, la edad. La más simple método voluntad ser examinar envez la vario agentes cuyo laboral nosotros lata discem.

Más viejo historiadores pagado especial atención a la acción de la estado, no hay duda porque la abundancia relativa de sobreviviente regulaciones gubemamentales hicieron que acción más fácilmente trazable. Pero en este cuestión de dos gran períodos necesario ser mantenido cuidadosamente apart-la último siglos de el RomanoImperio; la edad de la barbarÃan reinos, de la Lingian Caro- Imperio, y de su declinar.

Desde nuestro presente punto de vista, la fundamental institución de la tarde Imperio es, obviamente, la colonato. Pero la plazo necesario ser utilizado con precisión; becatiene sufrido demasiado mucho ya desde su vago usar. La palabra colono originalmente significaba simplemente un cultivador. lt fue se usan al comienzo a describir, másparticularmente, uno quien cultivado para otra persona, un agricultor, un inquilino. Nosotros m.ay por lo tanto, bastante adecuadamente, describir como un movimiento haciala colonato que aumentar de pequeño independienteparticipaciones así característica de la Romano mundo desde acerca de la segundo

F

siglo. Pero ella es probablemente sabio a dar la plazo que más estricta legal 1

significado a se encuentra en la legislación de la cuarta y quinto siglos. 'Desde Constantino ' s día, o quizás más bien antes, ya está tenido estado un gran cambio en la situación de aquellos cultivadores quien eran no También proprietors: la leyencuadernado ellos desde padre a hijo a la tierra que sostuvieron-en menos cuándo ellos tenido retenida ella para un cierto período, wlÃºch vino Â · gradualmente a ser fijo entlÃºrty año. Así la Colono es no más sólo un hombre quien cajas la tierra de otro hombre. Que él siempre es; pero como este hecho de hoy en adelante conlleva grave legalconsecuencias, él es algo más-una hombre quien no puede dejar su tierra y quién no uno lata separar de ella. Personalmente, él restos libre, en la sentido que él es no uno de esclavo, y así escapes la abierto marca de esclavitud. Imperial ley nunca confundido él en conjunto con la 'Hutted' esclavo. Pero un robusto ficción hecha él esclavo de unacosa-su propio campos, los terrones a wlÃºch él palos,como ellos decir, así cercanamente que él no puede ser sacado de ellos 'Incluso para un instante '. En corto, en la colonato así entendido nosotros son no tratar con unaeconómico la práctica, en sí mismo casi universal, pero diverso en extensión desde tiempo a tiempo. W e son tratar con un legal institución, bien definido y lÃºghly significativa de un particular fase de lÃºstory. Su posiblemente Helenística precedentes hacer no aquí preocupacion nosotros. Su ser y la fuerza vino no desde la pasadopero desde la medio ambiente. lt se introdujo, como uno de la ruedas de un bien diseñado mecanismo, en una vasto esquema de lo social orden concebido por un gobierno enla defensivasive. En este Imperio que asemejado un sitiado ciudad seguridad parecido a


THB RISB DE DBPBNDBNT CULTIVO 257

mentira en estricto disciplina, metódicamente organizado comida suministros, un rendimiento normal de la impuestos. A ganancia estos termina, la emperadores o su personalsierra no es mejor camino de que de adjuntando casi cada hombre, por hereditario e irrompible corbatas, ambos a bis movilización centro y a bis impuesto cuota; la decurión abis municipal oficina (Aquí la leyes ellos mismos dibujar el paralelo con la colonato en así muchos palabras); la soldado a la ejército; la artesano a bis comercio Collegium;Por último, la agricultor a bis campos.

Estos compulsiones tenido no estado ideado en la interés de la grandes terratenientes. Ellos taladro en ellos También, y para que materia agallas ellos. Ella fue no másposible, sin ruptura la ley, a recuperar un bit de la tierra en orden a aumentar la heredad; a reemplazar un inquilino por un mejor hombre; a hacer provisión en vacante regionesde la villa para campesinos quien tuvo carrera lejos desde otro señor. Sin embargo, la nuevo legislación no puede tener parecido en conjunto desfavorable a la granterratenientes; para tenían en sorne clase anticipado ella por la simple ejercicio de la presión de los fuerte a la débil-tan mucho así que uno fuerza quizás incluso llamar las leyes clase legislación. La constitución de 244 espectáculos nosotros, en efecto, que en este temprano fecha propietarios eran tratando, bastante ilegalmente, a retener inquilinos o su herederos después la expiración de su arrendamientos; y incluso que tenía"A menudo" estado necesario ya a declarar este práctica ilegal. Ella fue porque la trabajo problema tenido convertirse en agudo en una imperio donde la población fuedeclinante y afluencia de esclavos aflojamiento. Si usted tenido un hombre usted hizo no ligeramente dejar él ir. Imaginar un sistema de control hoybajo que una empleador fuerza no despedir bis hombres, ni la hombresdejar la fábrica. No duda ella haría ser incompatible con económicoliberalismo, hostil a negocios expansión excepto por la compra arriba de su rival preocupaciones y sin embargo ella haría más ciertamente transformar cada negocio en undisciplinado grupo, sumamente estable, en que la empleador " autoridad s encima hombres quien podría sólo llegar un vida en bis local sería muy aumentado. Especiall y si laley hecho no mencionar de tasas de asalariados. Ahora la imperial rescriptos acerca de la colonato nunca respirado una palabra acerca de la inquilinos ' cargas, excepto aremitir a la costumbre; andas nosotros deberá ver costumbre podría ser cambiado sin demasiado gran dificultad. La comparación hace no carrera bastante en todos cuatro patas,porque ella descuida diferencia s de lo social medio ambiente. Y et ella mayo ayuda a sugerir la forma en que la encuadernación de la Colono a la suelo reforzado más efecto- ively la dependencia de pequeño terratenientes en su señor. La institución para creado terminado en elaboración perpetuo relaciones que al parecer tenía ofi: es estadopensamiento de como temporal o revocable: ella obligaciones modificados del privado contrato en reglas de público ley, a la La fiscalización de que la estado dirigido sutodavía considerable poderes.

Más de eso. Trabajo a lo largo de otro línea, política hacia lacolonato terminó por elaboración la yugo de la aristocracia en la campesino

17 PCBHB



más pesado. No que emperadores siempre adoptado la principio de que rige a través de un casta oflords con cuasi legal poderes. En la contrario, siempre mostró ellos

mismoscorrectamente suspicaz de cualquier interferencia entre la soberano y su temas por local clientes o jefes. Pero los funcionarios eran muy

pocos, la administrativo maquinariademasiado difícil de manejar, para directo y permanente acceso a la masas; si lo harían o no, emperadores tenido a

menudo a hacer uso de la superior filas. lt es muycaracterística que -aparte desde sorne reglas peculiar a helenístico Este, y basado en su especial tradiciones

no todos campesinos, que haría tener estado lógica, pero sóloagricultores eran adjunto por la ley a el suelo. Que fue porque la materia podría dejarse a una autoridad existente y, si la

ley fue no obedecido, un conspicuo individual, la granpropietario, podría ser llamado a cuenta. Hombres eran elevado para el

ejército desde entre la coloni por este mismo individual. Más grave aún así, si nosotros soportar enmente cómo trágico la carga fiscal fue para contribuyentes y la

Financia! problema para la gobierno, fue la hecho que este dominusFunda fue responsable para recogiendo la impuestos de su inquilinos. Después de todo, sólo inscripción en la impuesto rollos hecho la sistema trabajar; un rescripto de 399, lamás interesante para nosotros porque se aplica a la West-it se dirige a la Pretoriano Prefecto de la Galos-estado que la coloni son 'Los plebeyos asignados por inscripción a unaraíces '. Y como la viejo palabra colono fuerza ser considerado ambigua, porque como nosotros tener visto que significaba simplemente un hombre quien cultiva la tierra deotra, lenguaje técnico referente a estos : Fiscal arreglos tendido más y más de describir la agricultor encuadernado a tierra que él tenido retenida para 30 año por la más exactoplazo de Colono adscriptitius, incluso sólo adscriptitius. Este recurso a la colaboración de la gran roen implicado tal peligros para la central energía y fue así cercanamenteasociado con todos la cipies cipios de la colonato que cuándo, en un más tarde fecha y en la Este, emperadores de la tiempo de la Heracliana dinastía eran tratando a mejorar la maquinaria de la estado, ellos creído que ellos podría sólo hacer ella por enteramente diferente agracian política que debería fomentar comunidades de autogobiernocampesinos. En la West, la Imperio nunca tenido tiempo para revertir la del motor.

No duda la ley de la colonato tenido cierto ventajas para el cultivador. Si él fue no absolutamente seguro de custodia la mismo farro para siempre-para ser adjunto a el conjunto fandus, no a cualquier particular parte de que, él podría siempre ser movido legalmente desde uno a otra-at menos él fue saf e de real desalojo. Él no más corrió lariesgo ofbecoming que más miserable de seres, un sin tierras hombre. Pero su incapacidad a mover como él gustado fue así sugestivo de servilismo, su dependencia en un granhombre tenía tal humillante aspectos, que estos s característicos ofhis tenencia pronto traído con ellos un cadena de otro restricciones; y la todo cuerpo de

LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 259ellos se convirtió en che criterios de un nuevo social classplaced en che muy parte inferior de che escalera, en despecho de su th.eoretical "Libertad". Por un cambio significativo oflanguage, donde th.e viejo libros de leyes hablado acerca de th.e patronus de la coloni-a classica l nombre para un hombre quien podría dar pedidos a unsiendo gratis dependiente de la más tarde sólo usado th.e palabra maestro (Dominus), como lo haría para un esclavo. Ya, en uno de th.e más temprano documentostratando. che institución, Constantino amenazado con cadenas coloni sospeche de la planificación de la deserción. Que fue la regular castigo del fugitivo esclavos. Dos yun mitad siglos más tarde Justiniano podría escribir que ella es no cierto que es la peor, la condición de th.e esclavo o la de la adscriptitius.

Tales fueron th.e leyes. Uno haría como a saber cómo lejos ellos se llevaron a cabo; especialmente aquellos regulación que accesorio a th.e suelo que, a ser efectiva,necesario tal elaborar pollee supervisión. No hay duda th.er e eran pronto suficiente abuso s, y más como

ch e Imperio disminuido. Sociedad fue no adaptado a la camisa de fuerza que ella fue contado a llevar. En che fifch siglo Majorien quejado de 'La esquiva de aquellos ¿quién lo hará no permanecer que estado de vida a que ellos eranbom '; y uno chanc e bit f pruebas o s decir nosotros thatcoloni gestionado a resbalón desde su tierra natal incluso en che imperial burocracia. 1 Todavía este la legislación de defenc sociales e imprescindible tener contribuido muy a fortalecer la tenencia de la tierra sistema.

Pero bastante evidentemente ella hizo no createit. La leyes nunca dicho th.at pocoindependiente campesinos debería presentar a la autoridad de más fuerte hombres. Ellos meramente establecido. que abajo que un hombre quien ejerce su tierra desde Otro puede no dejar; y así voluntad siendo, con su descendientes, perpetuamente unida a un sujeción hacia este patrón, o este señor, que va con seguridad lejos más allá lo ordinario económico relación de inquilino y arrendador. Ya Está haría haber sens electrónico en tal un política a menos que ella afectado un clase numerosa, y ella podríaapenas tener trabajado -probablemente che muy noción de que pudo no tener surgido a menos ella tenido estado basado en social aduana que tenía largo favorecido chedependencia de che débil. Incluso herencia y la continuidad de tenencia eran bien conocido en práctica largo antes ellos fueron prescritos por ley, y antes trabajo escasezforzado che gran terratenientes a adoptar ellos. La Antoninos eran gobierno encima una imperio que tenido no necesitar a contemplar leyes de Constantino ' s clase cuándolos agricultores en un africano dominio descrito chemselves como 'niños bom y traído arriba en e suelo ch de che raíces ". 2 La sistema de la colonato es sólo inteligible sinosotros suponer que ya está existido antes ella un clase del embrión señorío.

Aunque una imperial ley tenido propuesto, en así muchos palabras, a arreglar laColono a la suelo 'Para la eternidad ', la legislación cuyo principies eran

1 Noviembre Valentin. m, XXVII, 1.

2 C.]. G. VIII, 10570, ll. 28, 29.


26Ã³ LA AGRARIA VIDA DE LA ORIENTE EDADES

puesto abajo por Constantino fue realmente sólo influyente para un muy corto período de tiempo, en menos en la W est-sólo como largo como la Imperio sobrevivido, o siemprecomo se retenido su vigor; no más tiempo. Este solo advierte nosotros no exagerar la influencia ofimperial política. No duda, en la reinos bárbaros, coloni permanecidoencuadernado a su viejo maestros, y la de forma más segura como la personal naturaleza de la empate se convirtió en más fuerte, en una sociedad que entendido mucho másfácilmente la noción de sujeción a un persona que la sutil ficción de 'Servidumbre' a un pieza ofland. Pero la regla de servidumbre a la suelo fue no aplicable si la estado fue nofuerte suficiente para pista abajo fugitivos y, si necesario, imponer su wil1 en aquellos quien ganó por acogedor ellos. La principie es de universal aplicación. Y ou no puedetener un campesinado eficazmente encuadernado a la suelo sin una fuerte central policía la autoridad; como en la Romano Imperio; en ZaristaRusia; a sorne grado en Plantagenet Inglaterra, en contrastar a XII .o temprano del siglo XIII Francia. Qué policía autoridad tenido los merovingios ? O la Lombard reyes ? En De hecho, ni la leyes bárbaras ni la Carolingia capitulares contenerun línea que prohíbe inquilinos a desierto su tierra, o la maestro a rasgar ellos desde ella. lt es la señor ' s de negocios a mantener su inquilinos, legalmente o ilegalmente.Como la contraste de una

clase, la legal principie de adscripción talar en negligencia. La nuevo derecho público fue a intervenir en otro manera.

La dificultad que la más tarde Imperio, fuerte como ella era, tenido fundar endirecto gobiemo podría no fallar a ser más extremadamente sentido en la estados que Sprang arriba entre la escombros de RomanÃa. La bárbaro reinos pudo no manejar lamecanismo de administración que ellos tenido ción heredada. Como para la viejo Germánico sistema de hombres libres ' s asambleas, funcionó con dificultad en medio degrave social transformaciones, y estaba enfermo adecuado a enorme reinos, cuyo necesidades y cuyo tamaño eran completamente diferente desde aquellos de la poco tribus ytribal ligas de ayer. Finalmente, la disminución de comercio y la creciente escasez de dinero hechola extensión, o incluso la mantenimiento, de un grande asalariado burocraciamás y más difícil; mientras que cada clase de obstáculo a comunicaciones obstaculizado la acción de el centro de energía. Ella parece que la VisitadorGótico monarquía tenido ya apreciado la posible medio de haciendo buena este falta de directo control. La punto fue conocido bastante claramente cuando la Carolingiadynasry, bajo Pepin y Carlomagno, hecho su ambicioso y en el largo carrera vano intento a utilizar la relación de dependencia, que ya retenida hombres juntos, para lamantenimiento de público orden. 'Let cada señor poner presión en su dependientes, que mayo mejor y mejor obedecer y aceptar imperial órdenes e instrucciones ": que frase a partir de una capitular de 8RO resume con mordaz brevedad un a fondo deliberado política. 1 Pero ya casi

1 Capitul. 1, no. 64, c. 17.



en todas partes prácticas tenido adulto arriba, a través de puro necesidad, que la Carolingios, para su parte, podría hacer no más que sistematizar, aunque ellos probado ahacer este con característica energía.

Bastante en armonía con Romano tradición, la bárbaro reinos tenían como una regla de confianza los señores a traer su libre seguidores a la el anfitrión;a impuesto desde ellos, y después transmitir, suministros en clase para el ejército; y a manejar la impuestos en la mismo moda, así lejos como cualquier impuestos sobrevivieron. La sacrificio de la impuesto ingresos sí mismo ordinariamente fundar en franco 'Inmunidades', a que Se hará referencia ser hecho en breve, junto con que detodos la público servicios hecho en especial, pero muy

- raros-subvenciones, marcado sin embargo un paso adelante y una más decisivo uno.Pero la la innovación, en principio en menos, afectado ante todo la judicialcampo.

La judicial historia de la bárbaro estados regalos muchos muycomplejo y a menudo oscuro problemas. "Qué marcas ellos especialmente problemático es la dificultad de dibujo la esencial todavía infinitamente delicado distinción entre quéla ley prescrito y qué que realmente sucedió. La papel de aluminio discussio n es fuera de la cuestión aquí. Y et la broadest lines lata fácilmente ser hecho claro. Por una serie of privileges, en la Frankish state llamado immunities, que tener parallels bajo otro nombres almost everywhere y especialmente en Anglo-Saxon Britain, la reyesconceder to certain lords rights de jurisdicción encima su tierras y la hombres who lived en ellos, incluso cuándo free. Como un materia de De hecho, la Frankish immuniry,en su estricto sentido, parece a tener estado concedido almost exclusively a churches. Si ella fue siempre extended a laymen is disputed; si ella siempre was, la c

osa sucedidomuy rarely; para the formularies ignore ella. Pero un similar resultado fue alcanzado por la working of the donations que eran así freely hecho por la king a su seguidoresa veces en the form of benefi.ces, a veces como fuera y fuera gifts. The royal dominios too, controlada por su propio administrators, were largely withdrawn desde laautoridad of the king' s regular agentes; y su position fue en hecho que en que la immunities para religious houses tenido originally estado modelado. Ahora cuándo un royaldominio was granted a un priv a te persona ella fue regularmente given 'La todo immunity' which ella tenido previamente enjoyed, como the texts poner ella. Probablementela larger part de gran men' s est a tes carne a ellos en este camino desde princely generosity; y no doubt ellos tenido temprano estado capaz a ampliar the advantagesdisfrutado en que parte a su hereditary lands, either by express conceder o por simple usurpation. La princes were influenciado in making la grants, o tolerating lausurpations, por vario motives- piety o, si que es preferred, ansiedad acerca de su propio salvation, in el caso de ecclesiastica l seigneuries; la presión de la aristocracy,eager aaumentar su propio autoridad y, arriba todo, a keep la detested officials

Cambridge Histories Online Â © Cambridge Universidad Press, 2008

262 LA AGRARIAN VIDA OF THB MIDDLE AGES

de la corona from intruding en su tierras (their exclusión fue the essenc e of la Franco immunity); finalmente, la hecho ya noted, that no prince was capaz a acto effectivel y intal matters, either en persona or through trustworthy agentes. La royal concessions , it debería ser added, were no absolutely integral. En cierto casos y para certain crimesellos reservado la rights de the king' s courts, the único busines s of the grantee, en tal circumstances, ser a asegurar la apariencia in court de su subordinates; y no doubt lakings, cuándo acción en this way, thought que ellos eran sacrificando qué ellos eran muy likely to lose in cualquier evento en orden a keep qué fuerza ser guardado. Only, comoit happened, desde la estado conseguido weaker y weaker-on la Continent, after la colapso de la Carolingian Empire; en Inglaterra en la tiempo de los Danés invasions-thelords kept aquellos judicial potestades que había sido given ellos y usurped todos o parte de la resto, aunque la extent of estos usurpations varied muy desde país a país.

Ahora en este camino la seigneurie adquirido un potente instrument of consolidation y expansion-not merely a través de la bare derecho of

judicial decision, pero también yquizás principalmente through the confusion of este derecho con la derecho a problema pedidos y castigar aquellos who disobeyed; en Franco terminology, la prohibir. Estevalioso derecho had

originally estado reservado a la king y su representatives. Inclusoasí, ella tenido estado en peligro de que cae en privado manos. Para la altoofficials, ejercicio ella como agentes de la king, a menudo monopolized ella para su propio ventaja. La capitularies reveal claramente la camino en which counts, o susubordinates, eran apto a tratar como su propio dependantsaquellos whom la estado tenido entrusted a ellos, Ellos went así lejos en cuanto afuerza la unhappy y casi defenceless freemen a trabajo como'corvÃ©able' dependants in their campos y vineyards y meadows. Muchos un grupo de hombres fue anexo a un seigneurie en e

ste lawles s fashion, there lata ser no duda. Perola laboral de la immunities tenido far wider y lejos más durable resultados de esto. Entre aquellos quien lived on immune tierra, o aquellos quien aunque vida fuera ella tenidocom-remendado ellos mismos a su lord, un gran muchos tenido en the outset estado very loosely bound a la lord y owed pero poco a él. La ban allowed him a stiffen arriba ambos larelationship y su practica! burdens. Ella is significant que, en la Continent, muchos de la largely novel rights which lords son alegando desde la tenth siglo onwards-especially the monopoly de mili, oven, y winepress-are ordinarily llamado banal rights. lt es no menos significativo que en Inglaterra, donde en muchos ways the curso de eventos fue asídifferent, la típico tenencia de un libre man came a ser llamado socage, desde soke, la ejercicio de judicial de energía.

Pero, here again, nosotros evidently tener a hacer con un desarrollo which, though capital, es todavía secondary. Dejar ya está ser no mistake: immunities

THE RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 263y la como dio legal fuerza a una existente movement, y canalized it; strictly speaking, ellos created nothing. En Efecto ella fue no hefore Justinian's día que la law, para la fusttiempo, hizo expresamente permit the dominus fandi, en uno particular caso, a chastise su coloni 'moderately'; y de Occidental countries, sólo Italia obeyed Justinian. Sin embargo, there had siempre estado uno exception: siempre desde coloni eran fust bound al suelo, la ley tenido hecho ella un lord' s deber a keep ellos ya está por la fuerza.Pero para la state to exigir gran proprietors a mano encima malefactors found on su lands, como ella did, fue ya un parcial delegation of public la autoridad. Por otra parte no es cada enorme empresa almost necessarily led a proporcionar su propio intemal policing, indeed su own courts ? En nuestro caso, este necessity fue la más strongly sentidobecause the empresa formado un cerca grupo, aislado en la country, y a menudo una muy largo camino desde cualquier centro de govemment. La clase de cosa que nos lataver, casi bajo nuestro eyes, en un Latín Americano hacienda can help nosotros a imagine la jugar de fuerzas en una promedio Romano fundus. In fact, nuestro fuentes showclaramente que, desde la fin de la Imperio en the West y en la fust siglos de la barbarian kingdoms, la 'powerÂ ful ', quien naturalmente ejercido la tradiciona l right o fpunishing incluso su'hutted' slaves , and mantenido disciplin e when slave s quarrelled entrethemselves , stretched estos potestades así como a incluir todos su dependants. Así mucho así que la emperors sentido obliged a prohibir privado prisons in 388Âfor freemende course; la slaves' ergastulum tenido siempre been there . Rather más than un century later la biographer de St Cesarius of Arles, boasting ofhis clemency, tells us howmuy few strokes de the rod la bueno obispo inflicted en su 'free' dependants o en su slaves. En la legal side, este privado justice, en so far como ella fue no considered simplycomo una abuse, fue no easily distinguished desde ordinary domestic discipline o settling de disputes. En hecho ella fue ya un rudimentary seignorial justice; para la'immunity' podría no tener trabajado with success si su recipient tenido no largo estado usado a jugar la parte assigned to él en his grant.

Más allá doubt la historia de seignorial orígenes es cercanamente bound arriba with that de la estados. These , como un materia de De hecho, hecho historia menos through their legislation de por su sheer debility. La seigneurie grew en their expense. En este connexion nada es más significativo de la history

of uno solo word: la word escritoangaria en la Latín fuentes. lt came desde la plazo que, en Achaemenian Persia, fue aplicado a the messengers of la Gran King. Borrowed, por camino de Hellenistic civilization, desde que viejo Iranian monarchy que servido como un modelo of empire para la Mediterráneo mundo, la Romans usado que, fust de all, to describ e levies hechopara la postal service; entonces a cualquier service s owed to la estado. La Medio Siglos aplicado ella a service s (corvÃ©es) owed a la


264 THE AGRARIAN LIFB DE THE MIDDLE AGES

seigneur: there were in fact harclly cualquier compulsory service s but those. Sería aparecer que requisitions para la king's army, todavía a menudo se refiere en Carolingiansurveys, were después swallowed arriba en the dues demanded desde la tenant por su master. Each line de inquiry leads a la mismo conclusion; estos effect s of vicissitude sin la strength of la Estado; la particular personaje de su decadence; perhaps in some degree que decadence itself; ninguno de estos cosas podría ser explained without lasubyacente sistema de un dependiente peasantry, en que the forces desde arriba jugado. Ella es el naturaleza de que substratum que we must ahora intentar a examinar.

V. Protección y commendationElla es bien conocido que la más tarde año de la Romano Imperio witnessed,

not la nacimiento de un sistema de personal patronage, para la institución had remote precedentsen todos constituyente regiones de RomanÃa, pero en menos Â· its immense expansion. La best, because la simplest y most compreÂ hensive, formula describing qué la weakhombre expected ofhis strong protectorÂthe client de su patronÂis que de St Augustine. 'To cualquier Â· one quien threatens él un gran man' s cliente replies: Así largo comomi lord here es saf e and sonar usted lata hacer nada against me.' Nosotros necesario rememÂ ber que la adversary así addressed necesitar no ser un prÃvate enemy o a richoppressor. Él mayo sólo como bien ser un recruiting sergeant, un judge, orÂmost likely de allÂa taxÂgatherer. La state, que esperado un great deal from weak hombres y hizono bastante saber cómo a proteger them against la worrying of su propio servants, tenido dificultad en bending the strong a su lo hará. A evitar su presión, th Ã© re fue nosurer medio de to hide en la sombra de sorne highÂplaced o rico individual. Ella fue not always willingly que un hombre adquirido un maestro en este way. A increase hisautoridad, su prestige, su fortune, cada fairly highÂplaced personÂ age wanted a surround himself con como muchos dependants como él could: they owed él help, servicio ya veces real dues. La gran man could así exert cada clase de pressureÂand no doubt su incautación of control, si abmpt o gradual, fue en menos como común como the spontaneous búsqueda para his protection.

Muchos de estos clientela eran peasants: clientela rusticorum es un conÂ temporary y semiÂofficial plazo. Entre la muchos tipos de agreeÂ ments para protection, uno dela más stringent, pero probablemente no least common, fue que por que la pequeño cultivator transferido su land to su patron. Él fue no como un regla en realidaddispossessed. Él dio ella llegar ella espalda again; pero henceforward como un colonus.

Así la gran fundÃ, with su massed dependiente tenores, extended su nets adicionaland further. Y individual hechos de sumisión eran no la sólo sort.


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 265'Wh.ole rural comunidades a veces accep t ed a protector. Así arose that patrodnla vicorum así a menudo denounced en la laws. Para la establishÂ ment de estos'oneÂman' villages, villages desde que que hombre could so fácilmente excluir royal judges o taxÂgatherers, rightly aparecido un very grave el mal. La emperorsluchado against que, bue sin mucho el éxito. Forbidding ella para la futuro en 415, ellos eran obliged a condone toda la pasado. Ella es verdadero que este colectivosubjection parece a tener been mostly fundar en la East. Pero ella es hard a creer que the W est was quite libre de la misma. Ella hizo no crear seigneuries en lamedieval sentido. The protector de un village, ya está lata ser poco doubt, received regalos or dues desde su clients, por camino de recompense; pero ser a stranger and having en general no demesne there, él hizo no claim services; y la land was no en ley 'held' desde él. Incluso cuándo la villagers eran coloni, they a veces eligió a patron whom ellos thought haría ser un better protector de su dominus fundÃ. Él fue en general un soldier. En this case patron y landlord eran no mezclado. Pero, como hemos leam desde a discours e ofLibanius, la patron tendido a supplant la lord. Ella fue todavía no strictly a seignorial sistema. Que assumes la unión de energía over roen con energía encima tierra. Pero ella fue clearing la camino para ella. Already the sombra de la soldierÂlord es ser lanzado a través de la countryside.

After the invasions este deriva hacia orden y obedience was naturally accentuated. Ella propagación to Germanic sociedades whichÂapart always desdeScandinaviaÂfound ellos mismos para la :first tiempo closely associated con la Romano world en la mismo político organizations and, como tiempo went on, en un comúncivilization . La movimiento drew fresh fuerza desde la colapso de estado autoridad conjunto con el último intentos hecho por rulers a ejercicio potestades que, weakcomo they were, ellos tenido no resigned ellos mismos a lose. Nosotros tener varios records of peasants quien surrendered ellos mismos y su tierras a un master in ordena evitar militar servicio. Ya Está fue otro motivo fuerza at work: la weakening de la principie of consanguinityÂin clans, tribes, o similar groups; grupos que, enAlemania y quizás even in RomanÃa, tenido largo estado thought de como un man' s adecuado shelter

â€¢ Â· against the arrogance de the strong. Friesland furnishes un más illuminÂ' ating instance: un tierra donde ya está fue ni lord nor vassal , it fue también

uno de la lands in que la bonos de blood demostrado más durable. Relaciones entre lord y dependant naturalmente borrowed algunos fresh colouring from the influenciade Germanic tradition; chivage, which became un característica prueba de completo subjection, es no doubt conÂ nected con la encuesta taxes of freedmen (lites oLazzen) en Germanic law. La habits de los Alemán comitatus izquierda su marca en the relationÂ ship de lord y vassal. En length, as all know, ya está blossomed out what nosotros en general llamada the feudal systemÂdefining ella por criterios estirado


266 LA AGRARIAN VIDA OF THE MIDDLE AGES

ambos desde la reglas que bound la superior ranks y desde la scheme of político organizaciones. No doubt ella haría ser más exacto a llamada it the sistema of vassalage y dela fief. La muy simple y llamativo test proves que ya está fue sorne relationship entre feudal institutions y la esenciales de la seignorial sistema. Más sociedades que tenido noseigneuries-such como Friesland, Dithmarschen, Norway-also tenido no vassalage y no fiefs, No doubt ya está es en menos uno exception: Sardinia, con no vassalage y nofeudal tenures, sin embargo had rural seigneuries. Aún así, ya está restos este general coincidence. And there es un hecho quizás más significativo still: regionesimperfectly'seignorialized' eran también imperfectly feudalized. Aquí la prueba es thc number de allodial holdings. Una alleu (allod) fue a holding absolutely free, encima que nosuperior tenido derechos, que owed cuotas or service s to no uno, la possessio n of que implicado no loyalty or obedience a cualquier individuo. La little rustic tenencia quehad remained fuera the seignorial neto fue an alleu. Así fuerza un seigneurie estar en despecho de su basic stratum de dependiente tenants, previsto la lord owed homagepara it to no uno. Ahora, donde nosotros encontrar un comparatively large number of allodial seigneuries, nosotros note que lejos más campesino alleux de son a be foundelsewhere tener también survived, for a largo tiempo, o incluso permanently: en Saxony, para ejemplo, o en South-W estero Francia. Again, England antes la Conquest,donde relaciones de vassalage eran most imperfect, tenido también un muy loose system of dependiente campesino tenures. Estos coincidences no puede ser la resultado dechance; y en hecho the relation entre estos dos lados de la social estructura son tolerably claro. Ambos reflejada la mismo necesidades, aunque en diferente etapas de lasocial hierarchy; y en ambos theneeds expresada themselve s in aduana which were en muchos formas similar.

En the upper social classes, the bond de protección y subjection fueembodied en dos legal acts, often simultaneous. La personal act: homage, con su symbolic rite y en general su oath. La real act: el propietario of an alleu, en este casonormalmente un seigneurie, rendimientos ella a su lord, to recibir ella espalda desde él henceforward como un fief involucrando militar y otro services, y la obligación defidelity. Turning a qué we may llamada la campesino classes-using la plazo a cubierta real cultivators of muy varied grades-we aviso un más llamativo paralelo entre the basey la summit de los social hierarchy: nosotros encontrar que estos humble folk también entregar arriba a la lord ambos hombre y tierra.

Defectuoso como nuestro fuentes are, desde Carolingian veces a la twelfthsiglo dos sorts de personajes o referencias existir en realmente impressive numbers. En uno tiempo nosotros ver la peasant, sólo como la humble folk of the más tarde Empire,flexible su land to un lord, entonces resuming que, but burdened con cuotas y services . "Ya Está son aquí ', la estudio de Papá


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 267Giulia de Brescia archivos desde acerca de la año 900, 'fourteen libre men who tener handed encima su propiedad a la sala (curtÃs), la condition being que cada deberá haceruno day' s trabajo un week.' En otro tiempo ella is the hombre himself quien busca la protection, la mundium de un lord,

'commends himself' a él en la frase que es especialmente común in England. Pocos cosas son más instructive de este word commandise: it fue también aplicado para un largotiempo a la homage de un vassal , and por this double uso espectáculos claramente la original relationship de estos dos degrees of personal subordination. Pero ya está fue uncapital diferencia entre ellos. La high-bom hombre somete himself y su vida alone: la little man casi siempre da lejos su posterity; y que fue por qué obligations de esteespecie, que robbed the descendant s of cualquier energía de choice,seemed opposed a libertad y carne en the long run, como nosotros tener visto, ser descrito como servile, en que nuevo sentido que la word gradually acquired.

Quizás porque the personal enlace fue en este camino así strict, la dossorts de sumisión eran menos necessarily asociado entre la lower than entre la superior clases. La high-placed propietario de una alleu who accepts ella como un fiefnecesario tomar su vassal ' s oath. La campesino propietario can quite easil y change su abrigo para que de un tenant sin cambio en any way su personal de estado. En tenth-and eleventh-century Burgundy tenures de este clase eran a menudo expresamente calle d .franchises: even la dues which ellos owed eran also often calle d .franchises. Latenant fue in this camino labelled a freeman. Pero nosotros necesario tomar cuidado en nuestro interpretation: la .franc tenancier-the Landsasse de Alemán surveys-it es true was adjunto a su lord por bonos lejos menos galling de aquellos de serfdom: they hizo no rob él de la social privilegios de 'freedom'; y, above all, ellos hizo no lazo la 'bodies'de su descendants. Ali la mismo, he became uno of a disciplined grupo: él owed ayuda y obedience a the lord ofhis land, y fuerza esperar fromhim sorne medir o f protection.Ella lata nunca ser demasiado a menudo repeated: en la Medio Siglos a ser libre no era a ser masterless; ella fue a ser adjunto a one' s maestro en qué was felt a ser an honourable, y fue no una hereditary, la moda. La protection ofrecido por la lord en case of peligro fue moreover-as our sources show-the ya descuento payment para la nuevoburdens accepted por su pequeño los titulares.

'When nosotros vez a la hechos de personal surrender, que son apparently at menos la más numerous, nosotros note con algunos sorpresa que como un rule they hacer noreferencia a la tierra. La sólo cuotas en general stipulated for son aquellos laid en la hombre himself o su descendants: most often they tomar la form of un poll-tax. Peroquien haría suponer que the protecting lord esperado a llegar sólo estos muy modest sumas ? Every- thing indicates that-except en the obviously raro casos en que estaba


268 THE AGRARIAN VIDA DE THE MIDDLE AGES

dealing con indigent landless roen-he usado la disciplinario powers which eran conocido como his to traer la propiedad de su cliente bajo control y carga ella con cuotas yservices-either por tacit agreement, or incluso por un incumplimiento de la original contrato. Así que cuándo por oportunidad la tierra ya owed un quit-rent a alguien else, ya está fue riesgo de tal a dispute as that que rompió fuera en la apertura de la tenth century between la Abadía de St Gall y la iglesia de Constance, between the viejo lord de lasuelo y la nuevo lord de la hombre. Desde la eleventh century, the mundiales de la monasteries de Lorraine, cuyo name dearly se

refiere a la protection, la mundium, de estoshumble folk, owed bastante pesado agricultura! servicios.

Nosotros necesario no ser misled por la mere forma de estos contratos. Nosotrosnecesario acuerdo con ellos como cautiously como con la "patronates' de la later empire. La medieval contratos de subjection regularmente pretender a be inspired por la librewil1 de la nuevo sujeto y especially, cuándo the lord es un church, por piety. Pero en social vida es ya está cualquier más elusive notion de la libre wil1 de un pequeño hombre? Competencia entre large and pequeño farming fundar en otro ages, que hecho la pequeño man' s position difficult, es no en pregunta aquí. Aparte desde su demesne, theseigneurie fue nada pero una agglomeration de pequeño dependent holdings: un campesino alleu, una vez handed sobre, simplemente tomó su place in the mosaic sin cualquiercambio en su el cultivo. Pero ya está were many otro fuerzas en trabajo a hacer la pequeño hombre pliable; from hunger-sometimes un declarado cause, pero en general en lacaso ofland- less labourers-to la desear a cuota en aquellos común rights que a lord reservado para su dependants; arriba a que sheer oppression, about which la escritocontratos son de curso chastely silent, pero which many otro fuentes disclose.

Consider, para ejemplo, la charter of la monastery de St Mihiel which archivos la tribulations de un widow en un pueblo ofLorraine. Ellafue un well-born woman-the documento dice 'noble' -and su tierra,classed asan alleu, fue por tradition exento desde todos burdens. Never- theless la funcionarios de un neighbouring lord reclamado un quit-rent desde estepoco inmuebles. Todos que la lady podría hacer a escape su persecution era aceptar la protección de la monks. Pero para este camino de escape, can we doubt que la alleuharía pronto have become un tenure de la village tyrant ? 1 Elsewhere, si violence hizo no crear corbatas, ella strengthened them remarkably. La chronicle de la Swissmonastery de Muri tiene made famous la adventures de la peasants de Wolen, acerca de la medio de los eleventh siglo. Libre allodial titulares, ellos tenido visto encajar aseek as protector un potente hombre llamado Guntramm; theysurrendered su lands and conseguido ellos espalda para quit-rents. Este fue todos que ellos tenido convenido a.

1 A. Lesort, Chronique et chartes â€¢â€¢â€¢ de Saint-Mihiel, no. 33.


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 269Su position fue así más favourable de que de la older tenants who owed pesado servicios. Pero Guntramm soon tried a traer them down a lo mismo nivel. Él demanded plentyde trabajo en su demesne. Él reclamado payment para su tradicional uso de la forest. Relying en su derechos, la peasants decided to malee a protest. Ellos went to Solothurndonde el rey fue staying. Pero entre todos la gran barons this handful of rustÃ.es, con su coarse patois, podría no get a hearing. Cuándo su pueblo pasado después a lamonastery, la services had estado sanctioned por largo usage: la monks continued to exact them. En este troubled sociery, cuyo central autoridad podría no get into effectiv etouch con la masses , violence ayudado a transformar social conditions la más effectivel y because, a través de la jugar de custom, an abuse might siempre por mutationconvertirse en un precedent, un precedent a right.

Ella no puede ser doubted que muchos nuevo seigneuries eran created in this way-probably lejos más de nosotros shall ever saber. Para nuestro sources have la gravedefecto de diciendo nosotros casi exclusivamente acerca

de la great seigneuries, que también eran en general la oldest. La seignorial system was lejos desde perder supotestades de crecimiento por la fin de la fust feudal age. Cualquier possessor de un fair-sized rural estate-a campesino adulto rich, a manorial offi.cial adulto importante ensu master ' s service, un lucky man-at-arms-had sólo a deténgase tilling ella todos sí mismo, cortada dos o three holdings out de que, o adjuntar algunos otro peasant'sholdings a it ; and soon este parvenu haría convertirse en un lord en un pequeño way. Para en those days ella fue hard a think que uno hombre podría mantener tierra deanother, especiall y if ella fue retenida desde padre a hijo, sin being, por que very fact, en sorne camino bajo su landlord' s la autoridad. Feudal sociedad hizo not understandpurely económico relaciones. Justicia sí mismo fue así cerca al busines s of carrying fuera judicial decisions , that la derecho a levy dues on tierra realizado con que, casi de forma automática, la derecho de deciding cases that arose fuera de la levy : nosotros en realidad saber de un vilain en la lle de France, como tarde como la twelfth siglo, quienaunque un tenant tenido a sub-tenant abajo him, y quien gestionado a establecer su claim ajudge su sub-tenant si él hizo no pagar su quit-rent. 1 La distinction between un lord y un mere lessor, entre un sujeto y mere lessee,haría sólo ser establecido muy slowly, y por la acción de un juris-prudence more refined de que de la temprano feudal siglos.

Pero nosotros necesario admitir que más casos claramente conocido a nosotros revelar noasí mucho la absoluto beginnings de seignorial energía como la extensiónof powers ya existing. Aquí y there-in Alemania particularly down a un más bien tarde date-we ver todo villages presentación themselves to sorne gran hombre quien, sin embargo, posee otro aldeas. Elsewhere,

1 Cartulaire du prieurÃ© de ND de Longpont, no. 35.


270 THE AGRARlAN VIDA DE THE MIDDLE AGES

fairly importante grupos presentar por conunon consentimiento. Pero por lo general, como el fourteen freemen ofBrescia o la villagers ofWolen, ellos submit, whether elloscomo ella o not, a sorne antiguo seigneurie. Y más de los hechos de sumisión son aquellos de solo familias. Como sólo un master already fuerte podría proteger un hombreeffectually; as only un prominent personage de este clase podría poner decisivo presión en un hombre (we must always considerar cabezas y tails !)-the protector de tierras ocuerpo was generally una individual, o religioso institution, ya protector other dependants en la same fashion. Así un seigneurie, una vez sólo un modest nucleus, lanzó fueralargo tentacles en cada lado. Este dispersion through growth elevado grave problems of la administración. Ella ciertamente hizo mak.e the laboral de la sistema de trabajoservicios y la upkeep de vast demesnes appreciably more difícil. Pero no essentia l change tenido ha hecho en la naturaleza de la institución. Incluso cuándo la lord fue a new man en cada sentido de la palabra, su relaciones con su inquilinos were likely a ser modelled en un tradicional plan. La muy silence de así many documents como a la precisosignificado de la tenant' s burdens, un silence which lata sólo ser explicado por una implícito custom, es en itself exceedingly instructive.

Pero uno país proporciona nosotros con un todavía más signifi.can t experiment.

Considerar la estructura de Inglés sociedad durante la siglo antes de la Normando Conquest. La gran hombres tener vasto demesnes cultivated largely por slaves-for slavesremained mucho más numerous en estetiempo en Inglaterra de en la Continent-but también con la ayuda detenants' servicios. Otro slave s are establecido en la tierra. Lado por side with these servile tenores son cantidades de poco dependiente holdings, whose titulares son still counted freemen. Ellos son para la más part regularly protegido por alguien. Anglo-Saxon sociedad es exceedingly disturbed, como la continental societies, y la independenciade the weak is gravely endangered. Como la Carolingian state, la Anglo- Saxon estado wishes humble hombres a tener superiors quien lata vouch for them; ella esextremadamente suspiciou s oflordless folk. (Se también mak.es use en lo mismo tiempo de métodos de colectivo responsibility desconocido en Frankish Gaul.) Y et ya estátodavía survives un muy denso red de peasants whose land es retenida desde no lord-held allodially, como ellos haría decir en otros lugares. Todo tiene su paralelo a través dela Channel. Y todavía ella es hard to speak of una Inglés seignorial sistema. En más ya está es sólo la fust sketch de tal un sistema. Todo el institutions son así loose, asíshifting, so ill adjusted, that ellos no puede produce bien articulated and disciplined groups encajar a conducta económico empresas que voluntad función correctamente. Laholdings son a menudo scattered lejos y wide, no convenientemente arranged about un central demesne. Sorne de la dependants seem sólo a have conunended su persons. Peromuchos have 'come a la lord con su



tierra '. Entre estos, algunos lata break su ti.e con él en will: 'they can go con su tierra a lo que sea otro lord ellos wish.' Sometimes jurisdiction es con uno lord mientrasservicio es owed a another; o jurisÂ diction encima un hombre es con un lord a whom él es no commended. And as la papel de judicial assemblie s of libre men, en la Alemánmodel, remains considerable, ella complicates asuntos; para la king mayo have handed encima uno de these 'hundred courts' a algunos gran hombre, his perpetua! delegate,quien voluntad así convertirse en uno más personage en the list de aquellos a whom la campesino es decir, en algunos sentido, dependiente.

Ella es no nuestro negocios a intentar a explicar how, fuera de todos estos diverse elements, la conquering aristocracy, con bmtal vigour, gestionado to build arriba la manor.Pero la valor de uno significativo word debería be stressedÂthe classi c word 'manor' sí mismo. Â· In la Normando Francés de the conquerors, ella tenido nada a hacer with jurisdiction. lt significaba un good substantial house, tal como un Normando lord en general occupied. Pero when they tenido a :find un etiqueta para la complex todo dedependiente farms y sujeto gente que henceforward fue agrupados acerca de la campos de the demesne, uno nombre vino naturalmente a su lipsÂthe nombre de la headÂ quarters desde que pedidos eran issued, y a que eran brought both la lord' s harvests y la pennies o la produce que tenants owed. En sólo la same way en Eastem Francia cour;en Italia corte; in Germany HojÂthat es decir, en cada case , the lord' s propio dwelling enclosureÂ often servido a describir la todo seigneurie, Incluyendo la tenures. InEngland, en el temprano days, sala fue readily usado como la equivalente de the foreign palabra. La casa de la local magnate fue la necesario centre of cada genuineseigneurie.

La lesson a ser estirado from England es claro. Castilla enforces it, if cualquier cosa con mayor emphasis; porque en Castilla no conquest, imposing por violence arreglosfavourable a la intereses de the conquerors y agradable to their hábitos, tenido venir to disturb la natural course de la evolución. Castilla demasiado tenido conocido unsistema de campesino comÂmendations que, bajo la nombre de behetrÃas, a menudo embraced whole villages; 1 pero ella sólo led muy tarde y muy raramente a la establishment of seigneuriescorrectamente así called, en la French, Alemán o Italiano modelo. Relaciones de commendation, de la clase que nosotros encontrar en la feudal era y que inmediatamentepreceding it, eran capaz a give a una existing seignorial sistema immense expansive fuerza; pero por ellos mismos were powerless a crear tal un system, and a hacer de ellaun claramente de:fined social type, juridically y economically dominant. En aquellos countries that eran 'seignorialized' profoundly and spontaneously, seignorial origins irespalda a social arreglos oider y infelizmente mucho more obscure de feudalism o la patronate de la más tarde Empire.

1 Cf. p. 435, a continuación.


272 THE AGRARIAN VIDA DE THE MIDDLE AGBS

VI. Chiefs y villagesLa surest índice que nosotros tener de la existencia de rural chiefdoms in

primitive Europa comes desde la estudio de lugar nombres. Everywhere, masses de la más antiguovillages soportar la nombres de men, generally followed por un proprietary sufijo que varía con la idioma. In RomanÃa, Germanic personal nombres in combinations de estekind usually indicate que la place was sólo nombre después la invasions, and así no tomar nosotros muy lejos espalda. Pero la mapa swarms con Romano names. In Franciapara ejemplo ya está puede ser no doubt que la vasto mayoría de los Antonii de Antony o AntoignÃ©, o la Flavii de Flaviac o Flavy{to cita un pareja de ejemplos desde entre thousands) vivido bajo the emperors. Aquí y ya está older siglos de Gaul son revealed: Brennus, de los legendario captura de Romapor la Gauls, survives en la Brenats and la Bemys. Romano o Romanizada Italia tiene su Comeglianos and Savignanos. Germanic países show native personal nombres with various suffixes, de que la más antiguo son en -ing y en -heim. (El old view que la -ing sufijo implícito tribes o clans tiene given camino a la vista que ella merely implies anyclase de dependence; la Heuchlingen may ser Huchil's men or su relatives, quizás both.) Pero ella es not enough a establecer que nombres de este clase existir casieverywhere; nosotros debería a ser capaz a medir su densidad, que obviamente varies from región a región. Desafortunadamente place-names estudio tiene no yet reached lastatistical etapa. Ella does, sin embargo, parecer que la densidad is particularly alto en Gaul.

Naturalmente, nombres de este clase tenido no garantía de immortality. Larevolución en village life fuerza siempre conducir a un cambio de nombre. But for que, nombres con un Celta elemento haría obviamente ser lejos commoner

en Francia de ellos are; por otra parte nosotros saber acerca de medieval rebaptis- ings de villages. Y et tal cambios ocurrido sólo esporádicamente y at

long intervalos. {Wedeberá ver shortly por qué ellos eran probablemente most frequent en la apertura de la Romano era.) Como un regla, la settlement

and su territorio retained, a través de laages, la nombre de sorne long forgotten persona; como si un mitad religioso reverence clung a la memory

of la ancestor cuyo aura todavía floated encima la del suelo. Quéprecisely had este eponymous hero estado cuándo alive? La gran proprietor who assigned tierra a his

slaves? Todos que nosotros saber de viejo Celtic, Italiot or Germansociety-in que slave s were más allá un doubt infinitely fewer than libre men-

or, indeed de la sociedad de la Romano era, en which there fue nunca anytlÃºng ~ un completosistema de rural slavery,

absolutely excludes este como un general explicación. Was él un lord? En el medieval sentido de la word ella haría ser una anachronism así a


THB RISB DE DBPBNDBNT CULTIVO 273describir él. Y et lo que sea juridical word haría encajar él best-and en este connexion nosotros necesario recall, con Antoine Meillet, la extraordinary mobility en Indo-European languages, de substantive expressive de the authoriry to command-how lata nosotros fallar to suppose que este man whose nombre the village tomó fue algunosclase de a chief o, en la phrase that Francés documentos de la ancien rÃ©gime todavía aplicado a la seigneur,'le premier habitant' ?

Scanty como narrative fuentes son para estos remoto veces, ellos todavía yield a poco valioso información. Caesar pictures Gaulish sociedad antes de la Romano conquistacomo dominado por una aristocracy de 'knights' who owe su fuerza a su 'clients '. Este último Romano plazo podría give only una aproximadamente exacto notion de la Celtarealidad. A Caesar ' s mind ella implícito hombres libre pero dependiente. Ellos mismos probablemente de very varied rango y condition, ellos haría ser adjunto a la jefe por allkinds de lazos de subordination y interés, including-as así often, under our eyes, con la Chilean peon y su haciendado-that de debtor and creditor. Aunque algunos mayo tenervivido en la master's house, ya estáeran ciertamente lejos demasiado muchos de ellos para que a ser la rule: cómo podríaél tener fed ellos? Y como ellos no puede tener estado concentrado en the towns, que eran pocos y unimportant, ellos necesario tener been, para el más parte, countrymen .Además, la great men who eran surrounded by these vast clientÃ©les eran also rico men. Más de su wealth must have come desde la tierra. Pero how? Likely enough slavescultivated some land para ellos directly-some modest embryonic mansi dominicati. We cannot imagine que they had vast slave gangs laboral en latifandia. There es nosuggestion que crowds of slaves surrounded ellos. Can we doubt that they drew largely en requisitions o gifts desde peasant clients? Y que ya está eran whole dependentvillages es no merely a materia de conjecture. César tells nosotros que Lucterius la Cadurcian tenido la fortified 'town' de Uxellodunum dependiente en él. lt is highly probableque este fue no una exceptional arrangement.

Turn a un conexo sociedad en un paralelo etapa of evolution, fust-centuryAlemania. Tácito llamadas la hereditary chiefs de poco local gruposprÃncipes. In la mismo language, familiar a Latín writers, Livy had pictured la ' princes' de la eagles' nests entre la mountaineers deNorthem Italy: prÃncipes castellorum. Y este es cómo Tácito describe la revenues de estos odd poco potentates, o en menos que parte de their resources que hizo no venirsimplemente desde su propio tierra cultivated by un pocos slaves o freedmen whom ellos a veces conjunto arriba como agricultores.'It es la costumbre â€¢, él says, 'that cada tribesman deberá give la chief presents either de ganado o de parte de su cosecha. Estos libre gifts are

marks de respect, pero ellostambién suministro la necesidades de aquellos quien receive them.' Este descripción es más instructive. La gift, Tácito insists, es

18 P C EH E


274 LA AGRARIAN VIDA DE THE MIDDLE AGES

free. Pero ella es también consuetudinario. En un sociedad ruled por respeto para la past, a tradicional regalo es muy cerca indeed a una obligación. After all-gift and custorn-we mayo decir sin exaggeration que estos linked notions dominated la beginnings of seignorial cuotas y servicios. En the Midclle Siglos cuotas eran en general llamadosimplemente 'customs'; como if, when you thought de cualquier due, usted tenido en mente inmediatamente su sol e juridical basis. Y página después página podría ser filledcon la deliveries en kind, in rnoney, o en servicio which-throughout la todo evolución de laseigneurie-were descrito como gifts, prayers, demandes, bede (Que es decir, in modem German, bitte), boon-work, bienfait (beneficium, en la polyp- tyqueofMontierender), requlte, eulogies. Simple condiciones de courtesy, parala más parte, no duda, o incluso hypocritical disguises de áspero compulsions; cuándo un hombre fue enojado o perfectamente franco él fuerza hablar about exaction s '. Yet la condiciones tenido a menudo sorne correspondence con antiguohecho. Primero usted hecho un request, doubtless acompañado por gentle perofum presión; más tarde usted hecho un demand, arguing desde precedente. Those'oblations' de capons, de cerdos, de panes y incluso de rnoney que, as late como la twelfth siglo, sorne Lotharingian inquilinos tenido a traer to their lord en persona, cuándoellos pagado él solemn visits en certain great occasions, difería muy poco frorn la gifts reportado por Tacitus. Like them ellos eran marcas de respect; como ellos ellossymbolized submis-sión en su más hormigón form; como ellos, en la end, ellos eran hechoobligatorio por una hierro tradición.

Ya Está es no gran dificultad en :6.ndin g other pertinente evidencia. Lamás useful viene from societies que eran absorbido en western civilization más bien más tarde de aquellos referido a así lejos. La machtierns- that es a decir chie& quiendestacado surety para su men-referred a in sorne Arrnorican fuentes de la ninth a la eleventh siglo, han sido mucho discussed . There can however ser no gran doubt acerca dethe main características de la institution . Algunos Latín ecclesiastica l writers who relish ambos la pun y la hit en un poner energía llamada estos machtierns the parishtyrants: ellos 'own' la parroquia (plebs: Breton, plou): ellos 'reign' over ella por hereditary título. Ellos testigo subvenciones de tierra en la parish. Quizás ellos a veces levy unmulta cuándo tierra cambios hands por sale, as la medieval seigneur hizo más tarde. En fact we saber que ellos became vassal s atan temprano fecha. Sorne de ellos sonincluso fundar entre la vassals of la Franco Empire; sorne founded knightly families . 1 Nosotros can harclly fallar a reconocer ellos como ancestors, parte ancestors en menos,de that Breton seignorial clase que más tarde documentos reveal. En un kindred society, que de Wales, aunque ata todavía más tarde fecha y no doubt bajo la influencia deneighbouring Inglés institutions, la 'kings' de the cantrefi o cientos se convirtió en lords de la ordinario especie. Este último instance

1 A. de Courson, Cartulaire de l ' abbaye de Redan , nos. c x cvr, CCCLX .



espectáculos nosotros claramente cómo una embryo manor, y bajo favourable circumÂ stances un real uno, podría desarrollar sí mismo around la núcleo de un small demesnela cultivation de los cuales tenido estado principalmente entrusted a slaves, by subjecting diferente categorías de dependants a foodÂrents, a the duties de forzado hospitality,y a sorne servicios. En este caso the dependants haría incluir taeogs, probablemente para la más parte hombres de una conquered race, y libre tribesmen quien tenido aobedecer la jefe in spite de su hereditary ' liberty'.

Analogías lata ser drawn, hints lata ser taken, desde más remote civilizations . The history of the Comans, establishe d on Húngaro tierraen 1243, starts indeed bastante diferentemente desde cualquier cosa Western. Ellos eran en hecho pastoral nomads quien tenido taken abruptly a a sedentary vida. Occidentalpeasantries tenido sólo pasado desde un recogiendo y caza to an agricultura! civilization muy slowly, y en remoto ages. Pero much can ser learnt desde la camino en que, entreestos former shepherds, a nomad jefe fue gradualmente transformed en a landed proprietor. En el Maghreb hoy un gran manÂoften a maraboutÂmay succeed, by anigualmente significativo transformation, en securing control encima un rural community y m.aking ella tributary a él. Incluso entre la Tailandés of IndoÂChina ya está sondistinto rastros de una similar proceso. La chiefdoms ofblack África, cuándo nosotros llegar a saber ellos mejor, wi11 no doubt also furnish ejemplos.

Coming espalda a la Europeo seigneurie nosotros lata unearth en ella various survivals desde un muy remoto pasado. W e tener todos heard de aquellos practices whichviejo Francés feudal lawyers llamado droits ridicules, a plazo which shows cómo mucho the practices sorprendido ellos. Ellos are such cosas as games, dances, vario rites(A compulsory baño para example) que the inhabitants de cierto villages, o sorne de ellos, y particularmente the yonng folk, tenido a perform antes su lord. Belated attemptswere made a encontrar rational explicaciones de estos las cosas; pero realmente ellos had none. Tomar la famous deber de fl.ogging la moats de la chatean on certain nights,en order, así ellos said, a prevent frogs desde disturbing the lord' s rest. W ould la sonar de beaten agua ser realmente más conÂ ducive a sleep de the sound de croakingfrogs? ¿Por qué sólo en certain nights? Was la lord a lie awake la resto de la year? Dejar la folkÂ lorist explicar estos aduana si él puede. Qué concerns nosotros es que enthem the seigneur hechos la probablemente muy antiguo parte de un clase de president over ritual prácticas que tener venir down, ya está lata apenas be any duda, desde unaimmense antiquity. Y si la jus primae noctis sometimes hizo existir (Y ya está are a few feo sugerencias a that effect, especialmente en documentos desde la Pyrenees) wemás certainly have no a interpretar ella como la producto de un petty tyrant' s lust. Nosotros necesario mirar más bien a sorne muy viejo rite por que la jefe


276 LA AGRARIAN VIDA DE LA MIDDLE AGES

deflowered virgins; y para este parallels podría ser fundar para nosotros by anthropologists.Pero la investigación necesario no ser conducted únicamente desde la lado de the lord. W e

can llegar sólo como importante evidencia desde la estudio of peasant society sí mismo. La maestro de a slave pandilla tiene no organizado grupo with wbich to deal. The authority de un cbief, en la contrario, es superÂ

imposed en tal un grupo pero haceno abolish ella. Ella es por lo tanto of the utmost importancia a observar que en la países con que nosotros sonconcemed la seigneurie tenido por no medio muertos la pueblo comunidad. Como lejos espalda como hemos lata go, nosotros :find la dos institutions vida lado por lado. Sin embargo dependiente la rústico fuerza ser en su maestro, él was still siempre bajo la autoridad de la pueblo grupo de los cuales él fue a part. Que grupo nunca perdido su propiocolectivo vida, a menudo muy intenso. No doubt su cohesive fuerza varied con regional traditions y forms of settlement. Pero dejar nosotros consider, para ejemplo en Francia,la districts where ella fue más completamente desarrollado. W e deberá find them unquestionably north de la Loire y en la Burgundian plain. En este tierra de big villages,abierto fi.elds y largo strips, regularmente agrupados en 'furlongs ', the cara de la país con su . distinctive diseño sugiere irresistibly that the original ocupación de the soil fueplaneado. Colectivo grazing rights encima la stubble, y the compulsory rotación wbich prohibió the cultivator a elegir bis propio crops, eran encuadernación en todo, a menudoincluso en el seigneur y bis demesne tierras. N ow este fue también the classical área de la seigneurie, la uno en wbich ella fue más antiguo y más solidly estabÂ lished. Asíit would ser un grave error a assume cualquier necesario opposition between la bonds of la pueblo comunidad y aquellos de la seigneurie. Although costumbre fueprincipalmente responsable para la mantenimiento de the collective rights encima la fi.elds y the grazing arrangements, ya está was necessarily ocasional intervention porsorne regulación autoridad con el sanction de sorne court en reserva. Bajo medieval condiciones the lord' s fue la sólo courtÂand su miembros eran a menudo peasants. At law, la lord solo podría problema orders, a través de su derecho de han. In practice sin embargo él a menudo izquierda un fairly ancho fi.eld para la acción de the communityen sí, especiallyin la election or nomination de la village officials quien sierra que las reglas eran kept. Métodos varied indefi.nitely, not sólo desde región a region, perotambién desde lugar a lugar en la same province. Y et ella es nunca a ser olvidado que incluso cuándo la lord tenido la más completo monopoly de la problema de agrarianorders, él was always supuesto a acto en la intereses de la comunidad y como the interpreter de su tradición.

Pero dos jefe clases de evidencia arriba todos permitir nosotros a establecer the survival de muy antiguo village institutions subyacente la seigneurie. They también hacerclaro la fluctuations en la progreso de seignorial


THB RISB OF DBPBNDENT CULTIVO 277

de energía. Ellos venir desde la historia de campesino agriculture y a partir de ese de común los derechos.

La manse we tener ya cumplido. Ya Está es no más mysterious inÂ stitution in todos agrarian history. N or es ya está cualquier cuyo interpretation, if siempre nosotroslata ser bastante cierto acerca de que, voluntad lanzar más luz en el mando a distancia páginas de que historia. La completo y cierto interpretation is not todavía posible; perosorne facts acerca de la manse son already sure. 1

En primer lugar, que ella es fundar casi todos encima Europe, bajo todos sorts de nombres;mansus más a menudo en Romance lands, pero en Occidental Gaul bajo que defactus, un desperately obscure viejo word; Hufe en Alemania; hide en EngÂ land; bol en Denmark; possibly bronceado in Armorica. Contemporaries

already conocido queestos palabras todos significaba mucho la mismo thing; and the facts behind ellos eran markedly similar. Porque of the nature of our sources, la funciones of manse, o hide, oHufe (omit para un moment the bol) aparecer más claramente a nosotros como parte de the seignorial organización. Ella haría obviously be un error a assume un priori queeste aspecto de the institution fue primitive. Pero, como ella es la aspecto más fácilmente examined, we mayo bien comenzar con ella.

En la medieval seigneurie un manse-for conveniencia nosotros voluntad keep a ese wordÂwas la customary unidad de tenure. Pero todos holdings eranno manses. La manse a menudo tenido as its neighbours, y en la mismoseigneurie, dependiente holdings otherwise descrito. Su nombres varied: in Gaul la commonest fue hÃ³tises (hospicia); also apendariae, laisines, later bordes o chevannes;en Alemania Schupposen. Just como la manse, the hÃ³tise servido como un unidad para surveying propósitos. En este período, we never escuchar de renders en dinero oclase o service s as debido desde separate pieces of land. Aparte desde la strictly personal obligations, ella fue la totalidad holding, lo que sea ella fuerza ser, que owed.Whether one tenant held ella todos o no fue de no gran importancia. Aunque scattered por todas partes the fi.elds, su parts, desde la seignorial punto de Ver, hecho upa singl etaxable unidad. Pero a menudo la liabilitie s varied, en una oddly capricious way, desde uno hÃ³tise a otra. La manses, en la contrario, as we already know, eran dividido enwellÂdefi.ne d juridical classes : serviles, ingÃ©nuiles, de vez en cuando lidiles (De la Germanic laet, latinized como lidus, a freedman o a veces la miembro de unconquered población). Dentro cada category, y en la mismo seigneurie, la obligaciones eranen teoría uniforme; así mucho así, que si usted knew qué fue owed por the fi.rst en la lista, usted knew acerca de todos la resto. Ella es verdadero que, ahora yentonces, there were subsections con diferente obligaciones dentro lo mismo categoría. Estos anomalies, que en hecho hizo no hacer things much más complicado, eranfundar casi exclusivamente en la gran

1 Cf. p. 41 y p. 202 anteriormente.


278 THB AGRARIAN LIFB DE THB MIDDLB AGBS

seigneuries. Probablemente ellos reflexionar su historia, cada subsection corresÂ ponding a un fresco accessio n to su vasto complexes de tierras y rights, which tenido estadoconstruido arriba etapa por etapa. Así las reglas para un h8tise were the resultado de la circunstancias de cada individual caso; la reglas para a manse eran un materia de grupocustom. Si nosotros bear in mente adicional that there eran siempre lejos menos hÃ©tises de manses; que ellos eran en el promedio considerablemente smaller; y que,finalmente, entre su very miscellaneous occupants son a menudo fundar hombres expresamente descrito as newcomers (advenae), nosotros lata apenas fail to ver en ellospoco holdings created late, en tierra hitherto unoccupied, por squatters, sorne of whom came desde un distancia mientras algunos eran quizás sólo younger sons of needy localfamilias. La muy palabras borde, chevanne, SchupposeÂ which literally significar 'cabin' Âare significativo. Este práctica of extending the descripción de the dwelling a latierra dependiente en ella fue common enough: la word manse (meix en Medio French, mas en Provencal] also, strictly speaking, significaba la cultivator' s dwelling. Pero laman who hada manse hada real

casa; él quien retenida un h8tise parece a han tenido nada pero tal un hovel como la costumbre de muchos villagesÂand not so largoagoÂallowed paupers y immigrants a construir para themselves on la fringes de la commons, previsto la materials eran shabby enough. Documentos más tarde de laCarolingian surveys sugerir that holders de manses eran the only gente quien hada papel de aluminio cuota en la rights of común. En hecho un h8tise fue frecuentemente untenencia en posse; cuándo it had alcanzado un cierto sizeÂprobably por trayendo fresco tierra under cultivationÂthe lord fuerza decide a assimilate ella henceforward a amanse o ha1f manse; como si un bien gestionado seigneurie ought, en contemÂ porary language, a ser a1l amansÃ©e. En corto, la manse fue la repreÂ sentative, yciertamente la primitive, célula of the 'seignorialized' village.

Pero un todavía más importante característica differentiated ella desde la h8tise: its permanencia. No doubt durante la era en que nosotros lata fust clearly grasp la métodosde seignorial administration, que is the ninth century, its indivisibility parece no longer absoluta. A menudo dos o más tenant householders vivir lado por lado en la mismomanse; un cosacasi desconocido en la h8tises, porque como estos tenido no estándar size, if one de ellas fue cortada arriba, usted simplemente dicho que ya está eran ahora dos or more. Perola manse remained un fiscal y administrative unidad, incluso if split entre varios los titulares. La surveys muy raramente show la least interest en la camino en que la tierra y its burdens eran dividido up among la cabezas de la tenencia familias. La burdens, la sólo thing that mattered, were aquellos de la manse como un whole; la coparceners owedellos en común y, no duda, jointly y severally. Pero it can apenas ser supuesto que la subdivision de the manse fue un primitive


THE RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 279cosa. lt haría aparecer a ser sólo la primero etapa en que disintegration, which fue a lead-at asombrosamente diferente fechas en diferente regions- to la desaparición de la manse sí mismo. Launidad de estudio que, once it no más coincidido con la laboral hechos, aparecido sólo como a fictitious entrada en la libros de seignorial administration, podría sólo be preserved por ungran effort, una esfuerzo que fue casi encuadernado a fallar en el largo correr. Nosotros aviso que la estudio de Santo German-des-PrÃ©s is already forced, si ella gustos ella o no, a encontrarhabitación en su statistics, indeed a veces en conexión con la levying de dues, para la hearth as un unidad. Otro documentos de la mismo fecha preferir a contar por households, o porcoulonges (coloniae), cada que contiene un solo mÃ©nage of tenants, más bien de por manses. La camino en que la documentos tenersobrevivido permite nosotros sólo a observar la sistema, que fue no doubt very viejo, en un tiempo when-at menos en la grande pueblos de northem Gaul-ella fue ya en un estado de decay. Todo sugiere que la original rule tenido estado everywhere: uno manse, uno familia. Ella was Bede who translated la Inglés palabra ocultar por tetraunius familiae.

La energía que la seignorial autoridades expended en trying to maintain la sistema es suficiente prueba que, por su regularidad y stability, it greatly helped la levying y garantizado larendimiento de la cuotas. But there es más directo evidencia a la mismo efecto. En 864 Charles laCalvo es tratando a comprobar la amenazante ruptura de la manse. His expressed objetivo es a preservar la seigneuries desde 'confusion', indeed from 'destruction'. En hecho cuándo, atamás tarde fecha, la ruptura was complete ella se convirtió en necesario a evaluar la cuotas en cada parcela de land or en cada casa; and

to exigir servicios desde cada cabeza de un house- holden persona. Este fue un greatand molesto complicación which helped a acelerar la remodelling de la seigneurie sí mismo. Siguiente the matter Además, nosotros lata ser seguro que sorne deestos manses, así útil a el señor financially, tenido estado made by él en su propio interés y todos de a piece. Estos eran la servil manses, cortada fuera de la demesne para la usode la 'hutted' esclavos. Así too, no doubt , eran aquellos formado aquí and there, en condiciones probablemente parallel, a establecer freedmen (manses lidiles). Pero lata nosotros creer quela todo sistema fue hecho por the lords? Que la manses ingÃ©nuiles en particular, or más de ellos, eran so made? Este haría implicar que ellos functioned sólo inside seigneuries. But ya está eran manses o Hufen en la Franco state, y en England hides, en la hands de freemen quien eran sujeto a no uno, either in person o para su lands, y quien ellos mismos cultivadoholdings so described, como la Carolingian militar capitularies, entre otro documents, testify. Como para la Danés bol, ella fue a ser fundar todos encima un país que en que tiempo fue enno camino 'seignorialized '.

La historia de público fmance proporciona adicional valioso evidencia.



Agotador autoridades en gran state s made uso de la manse o su equivalent; quizás desde como lejos espalda como la Romano Empire, si ella es true-as ella may well be-thatla taxable units originally correspondido con agrarian cells de este escriba. La unidad fue oficialmente llamado un caput o iugum, pero en el provinces nosotros saber que ya está eran un gran variedad de equivalents for estos términos. Nosotros saber demasiado que Francos y Anglo-Saxons usado the manse o la ocultar como la unidad, cuándoellos hecho su levies a huy off or a lucha Escandinavo pirates. Este fiscal uso reacted en la fin on terminology: en Frankland la demesne que la lord sí mismo cultivated fuetambién llamado mansus o Hufe (Pero con un distinctive prefix: indominicatus, Salhufe). Ifin Inglaterra, en the contrary, la demesne was never llamado a hide, la razónparece a ser que este fue porque ella no era taxed, whereas entre la Francos ella fue. Sin embargo, no uno would fancy que campesino manses, si tenures o alleux, eransini.ply invented y poner en la mapa por bureaucrats quien lacked un proper survey. Aparte desde cualquier cosa else, their fecha y su regional distribution son todos againsttal un notion. W e escuchar de manse y Hufe and hide bien antes la Escandinavo invasions; y la impuesto sistema de the later Empire, que uno fuerza quizás ser tempted aaceptar como the creator de la Romano mansus, podría obviamente no tener creado la Hufe beyond la Rhine, o la hide; todavía menos la Danés bol. Evidently, governmentso su expertos hizo no más de utilize un sistema de land division ya existente y extendido in ancient Europeo rural society, y la lords hizo la mismo, para su propio termina.

Tetra unius familiae: Bede's palabras give nosotros en todos probabilidad la clave para la institución en its primitive formulario. Pero nosotros son no a think de lalittle matrimonial familia de nuestro más tarde ages. m informado como nosotros son acerca de

la historia de blood relaciones en la dawn de nuestro civilization, ya estáes cada razón a think que la grupo, cuyo original cáscara fue the manse, fue un patriarchal famili

a de severa! generations y severa!

collateral households vida alrededor uncomún hearth. Subsequently, the progresivo distintegration de estos grande grupos of blood relations,

accompanied no doubt por a growth de población, led a the break-up ofla manse itself; y la indivisibility que la lords eran striving to

maintain, desde la ninth siglo onwards, fue quizás sólo un survival of viejo communal reglas of inheritance queellos tenido ajustado a their

own intereses. En la mismo camino la Turks, como supreme propietarios in Yugoslavia, preserved la integrity de la campesino zadruga hastavery

recent veces. Ella es cierto que subdivision entre muchos herederos, entailing un perpetua! rearrangement de la tenancies, podría no ser viewed

favourably porautoridades ansioso a mantener un regular levy de rents and servicios. I n fact, ellos sólo acquiesce d in ella bajo presión de changes

in la circundante legal atmosphere; ocuándo the fines que ellos podríaCambridge Histories Online Â © Cambridge Universidad Press, 2008

THB RISB OF DBPBNDBNT CULTIVO 281

exacto en la muertes of tenants yielded . more de la anual dues, y so mad.e an increase en la número de occasions en que un multa podría be secured. advantageous to ellos.Este sólo comenzó a suceder when the seignorial sistema fue nearing su declinar.

Así nosotros tener cada razón a suponer que la primitive ocupación dela suelo fue realizado fuera por patriarchal groups . Sometimes they lived apart desde uno otra; en que case, protegido por su isolation in regions de scattered. settlement, theyusually manifested remarkable power de resisting subdivision. En otra parte they formed regiones oflarger, nucleated, village communities. Their shares eran no equal.Tacitushad. observado este desigualdad en la Alemán villages largo Hace. Y en el ninth-century surveys, aunque su descripciones son no así detailed as might ser wished, nada esmás llamativo de la immense differences en zona entre manses de la mismo clase dentro la mismo seigneuri e . The excepciones a este que nosotros encontrar are probably aser explicado por a secondary settlement en que la plan fue hecho artificialmente regular. ThÃs falta de uniformity en la tamaño de la típico tenure es decir, en fust sight, themás surprising como ella conttasts con la casi absoluto uniformity ofburdens. En Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, para ejemplo, the smallest free manse tiene exactamente lo mismo burd.en s as the largest que, besides tener40 por centavo más meadow and. 60 por centavo más vines, contiene rather more de fifteen veces como mucho arable land.; and. cada fue trabajado. por a single household..Ella es perfectamente claro que estos antiguo campesino societies had nada democrático acerca de ellos, bastante aparte desde cualquier lord' s de energía. En la otro hand. , ites de los greatest interés a observar, en connexion with la orígenes de que poder, cómo la burdens laid en un whole category de different-sized manses-sometimes arriba acasi un hundred in gran seigneuries and. big villages-were strictly igualado. The patriarchal familia ser la primitive cell of rural society, each owed the chief lo mismo pesode dues-or, si usted like, de presents-and lo mismo cantidad de trabajo.

No completo cuenta de la lord' s relaciones con la pueblo community puede ser d.erived. desde estudio de la cultivado tierra solo. For however gran su contribution tolivelihood, agriculture tenido por no means altogether desplazado la muy antiguo prácticas de pastoral life, hunting, y comida collecting. Por su field.s solo la campesinoliterally could. no tener lived. Todos acerca de la zona more or menos permanently cultivated y, cuándo bajo crops, held. en strict individual o family

possession , henecesario acceso a immense stretches de común waste left en its natural condición. Estos moors and. marshes and. bosques hizo. no merely fumish necesario comida para sucattle . Su propio nourishment depended. en them; para wild. vegetables y frutas eran incluso másimportante en su dietético de wild juego. Casi todos su implementos


282 THE AGRARIAN VIDA DE LA MIDDLE AGES

eran de wood. His fue fue de wood o césped. Su beasts eran littered on heather o seco deja. Even his arable necesario la waste; for generally ella conseguido no fertilizer except sods de turf o piles de reeds spread on la tierra antes la semilla fue sown. En villages donde ya está fue no lord, o donde la lord' s energía fue un tarde crecimiento, lapueblo comÂ munity a veces retenido absoluto control de estos común lands; ella owned ellos, en feudal phrase, en alleux. Ella es noticeable moreover that donde comúnrights eran especialmente importante a la peasantÂasen la largely pastoral vida de la Alps y PyreneesÂthere la lord' s hand siempre poner menos pesado de en la neighbouring plains. Así demasiado en el shores de la Norte Sea,en Friesland o Dithmarschen, la need for collective esfuerzo a drenar marshes o keep fuera la tides probablemente acted asan obstacle to la progreso de la lord's de energía.Para cualquier cosa that made un comunidad más coherent favoured su la independencia. But throughout la mayor parte de Europe, donde común fue essential but still only unclase de annexe a la arable, la lord casi always extended su energía encima commons como bien como encima campos.

Si nosotros eran a trust formal language, nosotros fuerza incluso think que this power tenido wiped fuera que de la peasants at un muy temprano fecha. The ninthÂcenturysurveys en general tratar bosques y grazing tierra como parte de los demesne. Pero que fue la resultado de un simplificationÂheavy with consequences, como ella demostrado.La vez de frase común en la Frankish documents describe la realities mejor. Cuándo un charter de venta o gift enumerates la elementos que hacer arriba un seigneurie, ella en general inserts, side por lado con la campos, meadows o vines de la demesne, and its profits from the tenures, la communia; así indicating que la land subject a colectivo usofue también placed under la maestro, y todavía that he remained compulsorily obediente a 'common' usages encima ella. Such overlapping rights son repugnant a la relativoprecisión de nuestro more developed juridical pensado. Pero nosotros necesario no boast de nuestro clarity:cómo haría nuestro inmediato ancestors, entrenado en la strict Roman law,tener descrito la soÂcalled propiedad de la humblest shareholder de a great empresa en su goods? En cualquier caso estos enredos eran enno camino extraño a hombres quien sierra un todo hierarchy de derechos, uno above another, resting en casi cada scrap of tierra. Ella hay doubt vain to lookforthetruemedieval'owner' ofthecommons. Butwho 'owned' the tenure? La cultivator? Su lord? O, con la establecimiento de los feudal sistema, uno de la vario personages de whom la lord held in fief, o en subÂfief? La verdad es que la peasants' rights de usuario over the commons, y la lords' superior derechos, eran considerado como equally worthy de respeto. Laúltimo eran recognizedÂas en la caso de the tenures-at uno tiempo por cierto levies desde la individual peasants; en another, y aparentemente un later, tiempo por un quitÂrenten la común


LA RISE DE DEPENDBNT CULTIVO 283tierra, pagado por la pueblo comunidad como un conjunto. Y de curso the demesne tenido su cuota de todos común los derechos.

Que este sistema, con su muchos dangerous uncertainties, led to frequent disputes y abuses de energía la documentos give eloquent witness. La earliest struggles entrelord y comunidad about woods o wastes-or en menos la earliest ciertamente known-date desde ninth siglo. Ellos se convirtió en speciall y bitter después la gran clearances ofla eleventh, twelfth, y thirteenth siglos tenido considerably reduced la zona of surplus la tierra; ata tiempo cuándo la reviva! ofRoman Law tenido given la lord a formidablenuevo weapon. Demasiado a menudo ella fue uncaso de earthenware olla versus hierro pot. Pero ya está fue no weakening about la principie de dividido los derechos. 'Flowing agua y springs, meadows, grazing grounds,forests , garrigues y rocks', the Customs of Barcelona record, acerca de 1070, 'belong a barons no a ser retenida en alleu' (that es decir, en disregard de cualquier rights pero suown) 'O como parte de their demesne, pero en orden que su gente mayo disfrutar ellos en todos times.' La lord fue no merely la jefe de individual roen, y como such endowedcon autoridad encima qué propiedad cada hombre held; él was also la jefe de una grupo, y consecuentemente la supreme maestro de lands subject a grupo usar. Así que laseigneurie, así lejos desde ser in opposition a la pueblo community, fue dependiente en su existence for a particularly importante aspecto de su propio potestades y los ingresos.

VII. La general bosquejo de la evoluciónDespués este búsqueda abajo converging roads, nosotros must now intentar to

describe que todo evolución que ended en la apariencia de the classical seignorial sistema; orather, aquellos evolutions. Para we are bound a tomar regional peculiarities en cuenta. Estos nosotros have stresse d from la fust. I n the vario curves, muchos seccionesnecesario show the dotted líneas de hypothesis-and otros necesario permanecer blank.

En la beginning, nosotros captura glimpses de campesino cobunities under their chiefs, a whom la vario familias (En la ancho sense) que hechoarriba la grupo owed ritual gifts, y no doubt también assistanc e in un general way, que haría ser seguro a tomar la forro de cierto servicios. The existence de estos pueblochiefdoms is claramente attested en Gaul before Caesar y en Alemania antes la invasions; ella mayo ser traced en the society de Armorica; ella aparece más distinctly enque de W ales. We may assume algo de la clase in ancient Europa más o less everywhere. Evidently nosotros son aquí en tocar con uno de la oldest lines de escisión ennuestro civilización. Medieval y módem nobilities grew arriba mucho más tarde y en un muy diferente medio ambiente. La medieval nobility, como definida por la costumbre yley de the twelfth y thirteenth


284 THB AGRARIAN LIFB DE THB MIDDLB AGBS

centuries, fue distinguido por su hereditary llamando a knighthood. La noble hombre fue normalmente también un militar vassal; y era desde the customs de vassalag e that lanoble class , once ella tenido estado consolidated, borrowed su camino de vida, su clase cohesion, y la fundamental rules of su ley. Estos are all relativamente tardeinstitutions. Pero, visto en his

economic lado, la noble hombre es también un hombre quien vidas por la tierra withÂ out laboral en ella. Él es en una vez maestro y exploiter de aquellos quien do the work. En corto, the typical noble fortune es un seignorial fortune; de modo que nosotros lata apenas fail to reconocer en la distinction entre nobles andcomún folk la directo resultado de que antiguo escisión which had ocurrido en la dawn de historia entre "client" peasants y lo local jefe quien fue fed en parte por qué ellos diohim; entre pueblo de Brennacum and que Brennos quien dio su nombre a the village. Y ella es hard not to creer que, en despecho de repetido reÂ modellings, de social subir ycaer y la suerte de todos sorts de adventurers, the viejo núcleo de la noble clase fue formado por la descendants de these rustic chieftains, entre whom were recruitedÂforellos tenido a be recruited somewhereÂmost de the vassal s and más de los knights. The stories ya contado de que Breton machtiern quien se convirtió en una emperor' s vassal, y de que otro uno quien founded un knightly familia, son no doubt symptomatic.

Pero the word 'chief' es más allá dispute mucho demasiado vague. Desde quéfuentes hizo estos gente dibujar su energía o prestige? Ella es particularly tempting a enlace primitive pueblo organización con que de la clan or la tribe, y a imagine detrás lafigure of the lordÂtoÂbe la old man de un group of kindred, o alguien quien reclamado su place; the group, de course, being bigger incluso de que de un patriarchal familia.Este mayo a veces tener estado la real curso de eventos. La Bavarian formula de la Carolingian era parece a identificar vicus y genealogÃa. We saber desde nuestro fuentes ydesde lugar nombres que la Lombards and Burgundians, y desde place names que la Franks, sometimes settled en la lan~ de RomanÃa i n farae, grupos bound por bloodrelationÂ ship. But a punto ya señalado, a que referencia necesario again be made, sugiere que la hechos eran raramente así simple.

Como temprano como nosotros lata estudio la seigneurie nosotros encontrar que ella por no means always corresponds con la pueblo territory. On the contrario, the territoryes frecuentemente dividido among several seignorial allegiances. Muchos scholars, en muchos countries, tener notado esto, casi always with the mismo surprise; para lanotion that ya está necesario ser una exact correspondence parece innate. En De hecho, como comparación de especial studies proves, qué cada historian inclines to treatcomo una excepción en his region fue really, si no exactamente normal, at menos exceedingly wideÂ spread. No doubt en muchos instances nosotros son dealing con unsecundario


LA RISE DE DEPENDIENTE CULTIVO 285subdivision. En en particular, como la habit desarrollado de 'housing' vassals who tenido previamente fed en su master' s board, great poner lords and ecclesiastica lcommunities eran obliged a cortada fiefs fuera de su lands, on que estos armed seguidores fuerza vivir. Estos subvenciones eran often made arriba de fragmentos cortada desdemucho mayor seigneuries, indeed even out de manses taken aquí y ya está desde diferente seigneuries. La vassal would ser más faithful if his scattered cuota hecho autonomyen su part difficult. En este camino la break-up de villages entre muchos masters increase d perceptibly. La laboral de donations, y indeed de sales , to the Iglesia tenidosimilar efectos: si usted tenido a whole pueblo usted hizo no siempre give o vender la todo de ella. Añadir a estos divisiones aquellos debido a inheritance. Y todavía ella esevidente que nosotros no puede siempre, o even

ordinarily, explicar la presencia de varios seignorial autoridades, side by lado en la mismo suelo, por un superveningdisintegration. Often enough nosotros lata ver a directly opuesto evolution-towards integration. ¡Mire en la aldea de Mons Acbodi, en la wooded tierra de western Gaul, earlyen la ninth siglo. Besides la poco seigneurie de Ebbon and Eremberge ya descrito, ya está eran cuatro manses. Uno tras otro ellos eran given a Saint Germain-des-PrÃ©s, porindividuals whom nosotros son completamente intitulado a respecto no as cultivators pero como overlords of la suelo dibujo cuotas desde ella. La monks unido ellos a la seigÂ neurie de la casado couple; y la whole, por una acuerdo with Eremberge quien fue probablemente por que tiempo un widow, se convirtió en un single seignorial raíces, retenidadesde la Abadía como un precarium. Ella haría no be difficult a point out traces de un similar concentración elsewhere, in Domesday Libro para instancia.

Si nosotros son a form a just notion de the odd juridical popurrí que might exist en sorne estates, nosotros necesario tomar en account, besides la holdings dependent endiferente lords, aquellos que tenido no lord en todos. La survival of estos independiente islands , their campos mixto arriba con aquellos de adjacent tenancies, fueaparentemente en no camino opposed a la existencia de un very ancient system of rural chiefdoms as attested por lugar nombres. Ella was certainly no sin bueno razón que, ensorne punto en Gallo-Roman history, la inhabitants o la neighbours of the village of Florac en the Bordelais tenido conseguido en la habit de llamando ella la village, la tierra,the estate de Florus. Y et en la muy fin de la Medio Siglos campesino alleux were todavía a ser fundar ya está. Y este instance es quoted en aleatorio from among un crowd deotros.

En orden a intentar a entender qué mayo tener sucedido en tal cases, the mejor camino sin doubt es a examine uno de la raro countries in Europe donde nosotros lata watch,en un fecha que makes ella visible, la birth of a central pueblo la autoridad. Friesland, nosotros know, fue para siglos a land sin lords. Sin embargo, desde la fourteenth siglo,nosotros lata


286 THE AGRARIAN VIDA DE LA MIDDLE AGES

ver creciente arriba libre comunidades la autoridad de chiefs, HÃ¡'uptlinge. They eran fuerte enough, especialmente en la east de la country, to force peasants, quien eranllamado su temas (Undersaten) y whom in return ellos comprometían a protect, a trabajo para ellos, a lucha for them, and a obedecer la rulings de su courts. Pero estos nuevodynasties did not, en en general, gestionar a crear verdadero seigneuries; en más, como su latest historian puts que, sólo 'amorphous' queridos. Ni la económico nor thepolítico condiciones Â· eran favourable a la strengthening de such local authorities desde que tiempo forward. Pero we tener here evidently, at least en embryo, unainstitution which, under más favourable conÂ ditions, fuerza have grown desde chiefdom into seigneurie proper. Now two puntos deserve a ser especially borne en mind.Most of these potencial seigneurs appear a tener been simply peasants richer than the rest, andÂmore important stillÂmen who had managed a surround themselves conarmed followers, living con ellos en fortified manor houses. Secondly, su más appropriate name, y que which en fact contemporaries usually dio them, fue no así mucho jefede un village as chief en un village. Para en many places severa! families de su tipo had sprung arriba, y ella fue only en curso de tiempo que occasionallyÂbut not alwaysÂthe most powerful stock m.anaged a llegar rid de su rivals. Nosotros mayo well suppose que m.any genuine seigneuries, far back in time, had no otro source thansorne tal differentiation de wealth and

strength, en corto un lordship de Jacto which por gradual mutation became a lordship de jure. Y como ella fue simply un miembro de ungrupo who, rising above la crowd, received Fust uno man's submission y then that de another, you fuerza tener en un single comunidad severa! such chiefs, with independentfamilies surviving beside ellos. No doubt that fue no la story de todos seignorial villages. There eran mass subÂ missions too; pero neither eran they la only sort. When weleer en the Fors de Bigorre, about II 10, que la derecho a control la uso de the village boar debería pertenecer a la 'Mejor knight' de la placeÂthat es the one cuyo familia fuestrongest, richest, or más respectedÂwe can hardly fallar a recall Friesland with su poco comunidades dividido by tradition entre su severa! rústico potentates.

Lo Que Sea su origins, y la more we knew acerca de ellos, lamás varied nosotros debería probablemente encontrar them, these pueblo chiefdoms of temprano día eran todavía lejos suficiente desde la genuine seigneurie. Ella está enRomance países que ellos lata más claramente ser visto adquisición the true seignorial character, pero sólo muy gradualmente.

Romano dominati.on, en su temprano años, haría parecer a tener trabajadoen dos maneras. La abundance de servile trabajo que conquista supplied, and la confiscations de tierra, ayudado rico men to construir arriba directly culti.vated demesnes enun mucho mayor escala de antes. The slaves


LA RISE OF DEPENDENT CULTIVO 287formed a mucho mayor parte de the rural población, y gran latifandia were sprinkled entre la campesino holdings. Como para la grupos depenÂ dent en pueblo chiefsÂin sucaso ella parece nosotros necesario distinguir rather sharply entre la position en Italia y que en el resto o f RomanÃa. In spite de la vasto áreas cultivado por esclavo gangs, ya está fue no falta of farmer o tenant grupos en Italiano del suelo. Pero todo sugiere that they eran menos extendido ya está de en otros lugares. La lento y harsh conquests, laSocial W ars, la trabajo de colonización, la rearrangeÂ ments de propiedad, necesario tener destruido la energía de muchos un poco local Italian dynasty. Sin embargo quemayo ser, it is certain, en cualquier caso, que the numerous pequeño independiente cultivators, whose existencia en Italy imperial fuentes prove, aparecer todavía másclaramente in early medieval recordsÂthe archivos de que muy general práctica de la temporary lease ofland, the livello, que, como tiene estado seen, fue essentiall ydifferent from la hereditary tenencia que prevailed más allá la Alps. En the Provinces, en the other hand, the establishment de un scientific tax systemÂa cosa Italia, as is bienconocido, tenido largo lackedÂhelped to stiffe n relationships hasta ahora no doubt más bien lax. Subordinado tenancies were no entrado en la impuesto books under headings:ellos eran all included bajo uno fandus, la complex inmuebles de la local magnate. Era probablemente en este tiempo que así muchos viejo Gaulish villages, entered under laRomano o Romanizada nombre of the magnate de los día, were rebaptized para ever. Cada sistema de tierra taxation aims en simplicity, and en casi cada civilization, cuándoun nuevo autoridad tiene introduced such un sistema, la effect tiene estado a hacer más riguroso cualquier halfÂ developed relationships of campesino subjection que mayotener existed already; en Británico India, para ejemplo, temprano en la nineteenth century, and en Irak en nuestro propio día. Later, la colonate tightened the peasants' bondsagain:

the simple dependant, cuyo tierra, lejos desde ser a fragment separado desde un mayor raíces, tenido estado conocido dentro the memory de hombre a pertenecer a lapatrimony ofhis familia, was easily confused con la agricultor quien retenida su por un reciente conceder .. La magnates who aparecer en la funeral basÂrelief s ofigelou oNeumagen receiving offerings y cuotas desde su inquilinos tenido ya la aire de seigneurs.

Pero la gran hecho que, desde acerca de la segundo siglo, haría give the seigneurie muy casi su final forma fue the decline de slavery. Su action would be felt más allá laRomano era; y entonces ella haría ser operative even fuera la Romanizada mundo. La disminución haría no tener estado so important tenido ya está no previously beenformado la gran demesnes cultivated directamente por su owners. W e tener visto cómo estos latifundia were parcialmente cortada arriba en servile holdings; pero sólopartially. Incluso if complete corte arriba tenido estado desired, ya está would not tener been slaves suficiente a ocupar la todo de tal vasto áreas. A menos que la tierra


288 THB AGRARIAN LIFB OF THB MIDDLE AGES

fue a tumble abajo en waste, nuevo fuentes oflabour suministro tenido a be found. Ellos eran fundar en la service s of dependiente peasants. Services had no estadodesconocido en la viejo colonate. Pero ellos tenido estado un much less grave borden de la cuotas en dinero o en tipo. Como la inscripÂ tions de la Africano saltus show, elloseran apenas usado excepto en el pico puntos de la agricultura! year-ploughing, weeding, harvest- and, ser así cortada abajo a un pocos día un año, su principal uso fue para limitar que ofhired trabajo en estos critica! moments, aunque sorne such labour fue de vez en cuando sea necesario. Ella es significativo que dassical juristscuándo discutir la letting ofland nunca mencionar servicios. ltis probable

que bajo la más tarde Imperio muchos más comenzó a ser demanded, some-veces bastante illegally. I n one ofhis homilies, S t John Chrysostom parece refer a tal demands; 1 y uno no puede pero suspect-the fuentes no justificar cualquier certainty-thatellos mayo tener estado en parte responsable de la terrible jacqueries de este period . La lord' s demands certainly continued y se convirtió en más urgent después lainvasions. La leyes de the Alemanni y la Bavarians tener preserved para nosotros la principal parte de una ley desde la fust half of la seventh siglo que regulado the obligations de ecdesiastical coloni, Comparando este ley con la information que nosotros llegar desde la Carolingian surveys de dos centuries later, nosotros ver dearly unpesado aumentar en la trabajo servicios demanded from libre manses. Cerca París, la polyptyque de Saint Maur-des-FossÃ©s, compiled en la ninth siglo, parece a contenerun memoria de la intro- duction en uno de su villages de servicios previamente desconocido there . 2

Tal aumentar de burdens was, más allá cuestión, incompatible con el costumbre que, desde la Romano era, regulado strictly-as amboscódigos y inscriptions prove-the relación de propietario y tenant, within cada fandus, praedium o KrijÂµa. Estos aduana eran certainly maintained y respected por la courts dela barbarian kings. But there eran muchos formas de conseguir ronda ellos. A veces la public powers interpretado ellos muy loosely: en despecho de la protests de royal

andecclesiastica l coloni, un capitulary of Charles the Bald hizo no hesitate to incluir sorne enteramente nuevo tasks--one de ellos en menos, marling, clearly presentado como unreciente técnico innovation-under la heading of legitimate obligaciones. Simple abuses de poder, líder a the establishment de precedents, eran probablemente incluso másimportante. And pressure en la débil fue freely disguised, como usual, bajo pious phrases about 'prayer '. La lord' s corvÃ©e en sí, en Romance countries , gets its namedesde este disguise (corrogata : la servicio 'collectively craved'). Que hizo no hacer ella menos harsh; y no doubt cuándo reyes denounced the oppression de la poor, comoellos así a menudo did, ellos tenido en mind,

1 Hom . en Math., 6r, 3 (Migne, PG vol. LVID , coronel 5911).2 GuÃ©rard , Polyptyqye, n, 287 , c. 16.


290 LA AGRARIAN VIDA OF THE MIDDLE AGES

entre otro things, estos burdens que eran ser impuesto sin clase de justification en antiguo custom.

Y et desde que tiempo adelante nuevo factores en la situación favoured the imposition de todavía more burdens. Como un natural consecuencia de queextendido insecurity que reemplazado la Pax Romana, en muchos places a concentración de homesteads lata ser notado durante la temprano medieval centuries. Esteobviamente encouraged seignorial control y la use of trabajo servicios. Above todo, la general establishment of personal commendation y la usurpation de público rights-mainly those of justice y de ban-strengthened the lord' s grip, y habilitado él to extend ella a holdings que tenido hasta ahora escaped él.

Así detrás la classic seigneurie nuestro investigación revela largo and obscure beginnings. La muy antiguo estructura o f rural chiefdoms fue the essential nucleus, y acerca de ella la siglos depositado su successive layers uno por uno. Entonces la económico condiciones de la temprano Época romana creado la gran demesnes frente a la familiaholdings de dependants. La condiciones of the late Romano era y de los temprano Medio Siglos led to la coexistence, y después la fusion, of manses cultivado por'free' inquilinos con la nuevo servile explotaciones, y, arriba Â·all, vinculado the demesne a la explotaciones, of whatever tipo, por pesado bonos of service. Por último, lainstitutions de la feudal edad dio la seigneurie, always aggressive, su finishing touches como un disciplined grupo cuyo members were harshly explotados. Y todavía la ruralcomunidad tenido siempreretenido un gran medir de colectivo acción bajo su chiefs. A lasistema así despacio construido arriba por uno deposit after otro Occidental and Central Europa owed sorne de la más significativo aspect s ofits civilization, especialmentedurante la Medio Edad. En societie s where ya está were hardly cualquier slaves, y en que la sólo propiedad que realmente mattered was propiedad en tierra, nada pero estesistema de dependiente agriculture could tener kept vivo la militar y clerical aristocracies, o inclusomonasticism sí mismo. La Bendito Raimon LÃ¼ll, en su Libro

oJ la Orden de

Chivalry, una vez expresada con brutal frankness qué aparecido en su díaa ser un necesario parte de la divine plan: 'it es seemly que la hombresdebería plough y dig y trabajo hard en orden que la tierra mayo yield the frutas desde que la caballero y su horse will live; y que the knight, quien rides y hace un lord' strabajo, debería llegar su riqueza desde cosas en que su hombres son a pasar mucho toil y fatigue.' 1

1 Raimon LÃ¼ll, Libro de la orden de CaballerÃa, ed. J. R. de Luanco, 1, 9.


Chapter Vi

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Transcript of Chapter Vi