Medieval peasants: Any lessons?

Abstract

The study of the medieval peasantry should be made in terms of its role in European feudal society. This was a distinct social formation, so that comparisons with peasantries in capitalist society or under economic and political pressures from world imperialism, should be made with the utmost care. The internal constitution of the medieval peasantry is discussed in terms of the composition of the household and the social stratification of the peasant community. It is suggested that the village hierarchy was economic rather than age‐ or sex‐determined. The relation of peasants to the rest of medieval society was mainly determined by the fact that the surplus to subsistence needs of the peasant product was appropriated by landowners, directly or through the medium of church and state. In other respects, too, peasants did not form an autonomous world, being linked with the towns through marketing arrangements and with upper class culture through the resident clergy and through contacts with peripatetic noble households. During the whole of the medieval period there was conflict between peasants and ruling groups over the disposal of the surplus (disputes about rents and services) and over the sanctions used to enforce its appropriation (serfdom, private jurisdiction). The forms and intensity of conflict varied greatly. But its nature was determined by the fact that leading elements in the peasantry were on their way to becoming constituent parts of the emerging capitalist class. This differentiates the medieval peasant struggle from that of peasants in other social formations, and in particular in the contemporary world.

Notes

Professor of Medieval Social History, University of Birmingham.