RURAL SOCIETY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Research carried out over the past few decades no longer allows rural society in the thirteenth century to be described according to the simple supposition that general developments were the same everywhere. Of course, there were fundamental influences that were felt almost everywhere in western Europe by a rural population which represented approximately 90 per cent of the total population at the beginning of the century and 85 per cent towards 1300, figures which emphasise the relative numerical insignificance of city dwellers. One has only to look at the Florentine contado and at Flanders, where the urban population was only about 30 per cent of the total at the end of the thirteenth century, to see that even in heavily urbanised areas a very high proportion of the inhabitants were engaged in rural occupations. In fact, despite consistent features that characterised seigneurial societies at this period, the general factors inducing change sometimes came up against obstacles, and often took on different forms, depending on the region, the level of access to the more important markets, their age-old traditions and the strength of the influence of political institutions.


THE FUNDAMENTAL TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIETY

Population growth

The population continued to grow in the thirteenth century, but more unevenly and less strongly than in the past, measured both in time and in space. The growth rate of the population as a whole dropped from approximately 15 per cent to 10 per cent between 1200 and 1300, but rural depopulation reduced this percentage even more in the countryside, and it appears that there was a levelling off of growth in England, as well as in Picardy and in the Ile-de-France. There were also many periods when mortality rates were extremely high, and the years 1257–8 in western France and England were especially traumatic, with great floods causing many deaths. There was also an abundance of epidemics (seven in England, four in the former Low Countries) as well as famines, even though these were local (six in the Escaut and Meuse regions, seven in the Rhineland). In many areas, the era of land clearance came to an end in about 1250, but the extension of the polders along the North Sea continued, while eastern Europe was still attracting a great number of pioneers and offered the locatores, who were lively entrepreneurs organising the settlement of the east, immense landed opportunities. In addition, in the Iberian peninsula, handsome privileges were handed out in the lands conquered from Islam, and some areas such as Andalusia remained lightly populated in the late thirteenth century. The situation was very different in the well-populated regions of north-western Europe, where the optimum threshold of inhabitants is generally argued to have been exceeded.

The social consequences of the rural population explosion

Examination of the social consequences of the rural population explosion has led the previous generation of historians to engage in a wide variety of theoretical debates. For some historians, the increase in the rural population brought only misery to the villages, accompanied by a widespread decrease in landholding. On the other hand, population growth has been seen by some historians almost exclusively as a source of progress. In truth, the situation was rather more complex. On the one hand, on each estate, some of the larger peasant holdings resisted this trend. On the other hand, the proportion of small tenures was often much greater in north-western Europe than in England. Certainly, taking England overall, 46 per cent of tenures were between two and four hectares, but in the manors of the diocese of Winchester, 45 per cent of the tenant farmers worked four to six hectares, in other words, they had access to an amount of land that was adequate to sustain rural family life. In Havering, Essex, a quarter of the tenant farmers had holdings that consisted of twelve hectares or more. In the north-west such proportions were unknown. In Haltinne, in the region of Namur, only 15 per cent of villagers had holdings of 5.5 hectares or more, and in Herchies, in the Hainault region, the situation was even worse. In 1267, out of 255 tenures, 60 per cent of the total, i.e. 152, had less than 1.12 hectares, and 56 had between 1.12 and 4.48 hectares. In other words, 81 per cent of the villagers could not support their families by farming alone. On the other hand, only twenty-two tenures of ten hectares or more are recorded in the territory, and only 8.5 per cent of the tenant farmers owned a proper plough with at least two horses, had access to skilled labourers and could count on producing a surplus which they could sell on the open market. Once the clearing of land of the great neighbouring assart had been completed, the situation of the worst-off did not really improve, since the tenant farmers of the former estate actually received new land in proportion to the surface area of their previous holdings. How can this disparity be explained? In two ways, which both lead to the same conclusion: the influence exerted by the most well-off, and each individual’s opportunity to work, which depended on his tools and the importance of the work he did.

Chance, poverty and technological progress 

There are many examples of such micro-societies found in villages: in Havering, half of the tenant farmers may have had surplus goods to sell, but elsewhere, and most often, the great majority could not do so, which meant they could not benefit from technological advances, such as heavy ploughs, the opportunity to rotate crops (which was indispensable for cultivating the land), purchase of seeds, etc. On the other hand, the larger tenant farmers were able to take advantages of these possibilities, and the dependence of the smaller land-holders on these coqs de villages was highlighted in the scope of their work and illustrated by the fact that the leaders of the rural communities (mayors, magistrates, jurors, members of associations, consuls) were counted among the better-off tenant farmers. Technological progress, therefore, only served to amplify the divisions in prosperity.

Even in the villages which were well placed in relation to the urban markets, the small landowners had no surplus to sell; in fact, they barely had enough to survive. If disease struck or the father of the family died, and the head of the family could not find work as a manual labourer on a large nearby farm, or as a craftsman, for example in rural cloth making, the family would fall into the category of paupers, who were more and more often supported by the rural community. Previously, charitable institutions were mainly located in the cities, but in the thirteenth century, community coffers for the poor were established in a growing number of villages. However, this trend was not strong enough to prevent popular disturbances, such as the so-called Children’s Crusade of 1212, and the movement of the Pastoureaux in 1251, which saw the roads of France and the Low Countries filled with thousands of people in severe difficulty because of overpopulation and crises in grain production or in the cloth-making industries.

Religious and cultural aspects of rural society

It is worth asking whether the development of charitable funds to cope with emergencies in the villages is linked in some way to the increasing Christianisation of rural society. Rural societies were strongly aware of the need to defend their cohesive character, and this was something that had to be maintained at all costs, despite the tensions which already existed or were about to erupt in these village micro-societies. None the less, it is certain that the appearance and distribution of the Gospel in the vulgate and prayer books were a great help to the rural priests, who were often ill-suited to their duties, and that such literature contributed to a better understanding of Christianity and the duty to be charitable.

A small number of villagers could read and write. In the Cambrésis region, the Pater and the Credo were inscribed on large panels and placed in front of the cemeteries near churches, so that the faithful could learn them by reading them. Small rural schools were already forming in villages near to abbeys, but throughout the thirteenth century, others began to become established in villages which were further away from the monasteries and were generally situated in areas more favourable to stock farming. Nevertheless, even in regions which had the least involvement in commerce, a certain amount of culture was beginning to spread. After the official liquidation of the Cathar heresy in the Midi region of France around 1242, itinerant preachers taught reading and writing, as did the parish priests in other localities. There are further indications of a distinct improvement in the cultural level of the rural population. Rural charters from the thirteenth century are more detailed in their description of collective morality and insist more on precise details than do earlier charters. The act of confession by the laity, which was made obligatory by the Lateran Council of 1215, marks an important stage in the development of lay psychology. The construction of fine new churches to replace older ones, or the building of brand new churches in recently established villages as soon as they were densely enough populated to be granted parish status, offered the country people an everyday visual reminder of the role of the Church and of religion in society.

Without forgetting the silent communities which brought together in the same house brothers with their wives and children, and which were common in the southern regions, the family – the ultimate unit of rural society – became more and more monogamous. After the Lateran Council of 1215, there was stricter observance of the obligation to prevent marriages between close blood relations. This favoured exogamy and obliged landlords no longer to oppose marriages of their tenant farmers and their children outside the seigneurie.

The diverse fortunes of the country people were reflected in their houses. It was not the materials used (wood, strawandmud, stones, bricks), which mainly depended on the region, but rather the size and layout of the dwellings which reflected the various groups within society. The humble one-room abode of certain manual labourers stood in contrast to houses with several rooms, sometimes on more than one floor. Chimneys became more widespread, but were still not very commonplace outside the northern areas by 1300. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the use of heating, thanks to the herd of cows separated from the living room by a low partition, even in the manor houses of seigneurs of moderate social standing.

The use of a family name became more and more commonplace in the countryside. In the villages with a very high population, the Christian name and a simple indication of the parentage by using the father’s Christian name (John, son of Peter) was no longer sufficient. The addition of the father’s surname occurred as often in free families as in those that were not free.

The decline of serfdom

The decline of serfdom within this period is very noticeable in numerous areas in the west, but it can now be seen that the thirteenth century did not see the end of serfdom. In fact, sometimes the conditions of the country people deteriorated, notably in England where the revival of direct farming which was so successful on the open fields incited manorial lords to impose duties on free men, who found themselves becoming ‘villeins’, and no longer free. In northern Spain, Germany, the Mâcon region, Aquitaine, the Lyons area, Champagne and Brie, peasants were considered serfs as soon as they settled on dependent tenures. This ‘new serfdom’ was only linked to a tenure and did not extend to the children of the tenants, so it was very different from the real serfdom which was passed on from generation to generation through the father or mother and which was far more related to an accident of birth than to specific duties. But true serfdom increased in Poland and Catalonia and continued to exist elsewhere, for example on the isolated plateaux of Burgundy, in certain foothills in the Ardennes region, and in a certain number of English open-field manors. Even in regions reputed to be the most ‘liberal’, there were still sometimes little islands of resistance where serfdom continued. Around 1270, 20 per cent of the rural population was still bound by serfdom in the Paris region. In the Ponthieu and the Hainault regions, rare cases of inherited serfdom persisted. Perhaps there were families in these areas which did not wish to follow the common trend towards personal liberty. There is no doubt this was the case in central Hainault where families of serfs of the counts of Hainault were set apart from the other serfs by certain benefits, for example the stipends of the canons of the cathedral chapter of Tournai were distributed to their sons.

All of this must not overshadow a profound and intense movement of liberation from serfdom. This was accomplished in Flanders and most of Picardy around 1200, but it was still in full swing in Sweden, Hungary and Italy, and on the contado lands which were dominated by the cities even though the lay seigneurs were opposed. In England, the common practice in Kent recognised by the monarchy in 1293 confirmed that ‘all men of Kent should be free’; other free lands were Devon and Cornwall, which were still being colonised in the thirteenth century. How can this expansion of personal liberty be explained?

Despite the persistence of real slavery in a certain number of cities and rural farms confined to the southern portion of Christendom, the influence of Christianity was much more clearly felt in the early and total disappearance of slavery in many lands than in the struggle against serfdom, which, in fact, recognised certain fundamental rights of men and women, such as the right to marry and have legitimate children. On the other hand, the great increase in the population had an undeniable affect: the privileges accorded the original cultivators meant that the lords of those lands which had been cultivated for a long time were forced to grant personal freedom to their serfs in order to keep them in their seigneuries. In certain places, the granting of freedom was infectious, as was an extension of benefits awarded in these areas to the free men of former estates, such as the suppression of arbitrary taxation. Moreover, the intermingling of the populations helped create confusion in the statutes. In Bavaria there were peasants who enjoyed limited freedom. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century in Vermandois, the landlords could no longer tell whether certain families were serfs or free. While in preceding centuries the confusion worked against free men, who were often merged with the serfs, on the continent, the serfs were classed as free men.

With the loss of the majority of their grain reserves, many seigneurs only required that their serfs perform the labour required of free men (three or four days a year). Finally, the public authorities (kings, lords of the great feudal families, leaders of certain cities) withdrew from the lords of the manors and other influential seigneurs usurped royal privileges (criminal justice, mobilisation of men, unfair taxation), which reduced their power and diminished their influence. On the other hand, in England, where royal power was becoming weaker in the thirteenth century, the power of persuasion of a certain number of seigneurs who wanted to return to direct farming was increasing.

Charters granting freedom to individual serfs exist, but there are many more which apply to entire groups. The sale of rural products also allowed the villagers to buy their freedom. Nevertheless, liberation was not always easy: witness the bitter debates between the abbot of Saint-Pierre de Sens and his serfs on the subject of the price to be paid for their freedom. Sometimes these debates could even be described as true battles for freedom, for example in 1251 when the League of 2,000 free men and serfs fought the chapter of Notre-Dame de Paris in the Orly region. On this occasion, as on others, the French royal authority which had freed many of its own serfs supported the demands of the serfs belonging to other seigneurs because this meant gaining the support of the peasants and limiting seigneurial powers. In some areas, the distinction between the ‘mainmorte libre’ (the herlot: by which the seigneur inherited some of his serfs’ goods, the right of inheritance consisting only of one animal from the livestock, one object) and the ‘mainmorte servile’ (by which he had a right to all the serf ’s possessions) was an additional incentive for the serfs to wish to obtain their personal freedom.

Since the kings and masters of the great territorial domains preferred a wealthy peasant who could purchase armour and a war horse to an impoverished nobleman incapable of buying such costly items, the common people gradually managed to escape from their previous condition as peasants.

The effects of growing commercialisation

Social transformation was more profound and happened much faster in those rural regions rendered prosperous through the widespread sale of rural products. In areas which remained on the edge of subsistence, without active trade and lacking an incentive to produce a significant surplus, traditional features persisted. In regions which participated more in economic growth, in credit, in extensive sales to cities near and far of products such as wheat, wine or wool, social status based on socio-professional groups, or groups differentiated by their income was more rapidly, more profoundly and more obviously replacing classification by birth and by legal standing, both of which went into decline. Here is one example: the peasants who farmed sufficiently large lands and were motivated to produce more had enough money to buy themselves tools and various objects from craftsmen, who were becoming more numerous in the villages. The smiths who were constructing ploughs were working in more and more villages and their surrounding areas, and making tools – notably mould boards – which were indispensable in many areas for increasing production. Moreover, the number of water and wind mills was growing, and the miller became an important element in village life and culture.

The types of tenant farmers and farms also became more diversified more quickly in those areas which enjoyed vigorous economic expansion and had better-established commercial activities. However, development was uneven, and two principal areas can be distinguished. The first corresponds to the southern fringe of western Europe and, more generally, to the Mediterranean regions. Their ancient heritage and secular customs left the responsibility for supplying provisions to the cities and their leaders. The bishops, rich merchants and noblemen living in the city retained their ownership of the lands of the contado, in particular thanks to the mezzadria (or share-cropping) which in exchange for indispensable crops, livestock, tools and capital guaranteed them an important part of the harvest (often half ) and allowed them to control the price of provisions, especially grain, which normally only varied significantly in times of famine.

Certainly, share-cropping was found in other areas apart from Italy, for example in western France where financial weakness and the irregularity of the grain harvests provided favourable conditions for it. But it appeared only rarely in north-western Europe and surrounding areas. Here the situation was quite different. The urban authorities of both the new cities and those well-established cities which were experiencing a renaissance had to introduce changes. They limited themselves to setting maximum tariffs at times when increases in the prices of grain were too extreme, but they did not control the provision of food or raw materials. Instead, they left that responsibility to the merchants and rural producers, who adjusted supply and demand in the light of their constantly changing prices.

Thus at the end of the twelfth century in England, which exported much of its grain and wool, as well as in north-western Europe, a new type of economy emerged, a distinctive feature of which was the existence of cyclical phases of high prices. When price increases happened extremely quickly, a crisis resulted, which reversed the tendency and led to a decrease, harsh at first, but gradually lessening before a new period of growth. The consequences were considerable within the world of the producers, landlords and tenant farmers. In England, the lords of the manor returned to direct farming, but on the continent, many seigneurs had been aware since the twelfth century of the increase in grain prices, as well as how much easier it was to have work done using more expensive equipment to increase production. For these reasons, they kept their woods and prairies under the system of direct farming, but gave over a large part of their land for grain production.

Showing a distrust of cash payments (cens) which were rapidly decreasing in value, they preferred tenant farmers, who owed a part of their payments in goods, or even better, tenanciers à champart or à terrage (tenant farmers who paid in grain or other products), who would give them part of their harvest. These types of tenant farmers were rarely found in the polders or in areas where great forests had been cleared (rent-paying tenants were preferred in those areas), but they existed in great numbers in territories more favourable to the production of cereal grain, either on that part of the seigneurial land which had been cultivated for a long time, or in an area which had recently been cleared. Tenure à part de fruits (with payment in fruit) was rare in England, perhaps because there was less inflation.

Nevertheless, the most progressive form of rural farming was temporary tenant farming. The tenant farming of rather long duration known in England in the twelfth century was modified at the beginning of the next century in the southern Escaut basin and became a strictly temporary transfer of seigneurial reserves (most often limited to a period of nine years). Once the lease had expired, the seigneur had the option of returning to direct farming. However, this rarely happened and, in fact, a new social class emerged in the countryside: the farmer, a true entrepreneur who owned his own livestock, equipment and capital. He would farm the land for nine years, and when the lease expired, he would agree new terms and renew it, or move on; but in either case, he had to make a higher bid than the other farmers if he wanted to carry on farming. In addition, the decreasing – and sometimes total disappearance – of the villikatio (linking the land and the farmers through tied labour) led to the evolution of the wage earner, who eventually became the only means of direct farming in the wine-growing and pastoral sectors of the most fertile regions of Lombardy and in the great stock-farming areas of the count of Hainaut at the end of the thirteenth century, notably in the southern valley of the Sambre and in the area around the Mormal forest.

The urban demand for products related to stock farming was the motivation behind the development of companies or associations of butchers and rural stock farmers, which gave rise to the bail à cheptel vif (leasing of land for rearing livestock). In the regions rich in pasture and grazing lands, the unified single herd – which was often first seen in ecclesiastical seigneuries – brought with it clashes and alterations to the countryside and rural society. The villagers fought to keep their common land, sometimes ignoring the seigneurial boundaries, and discovering, in their turn, the advantages of the single herd. Differences then began to emerge. In the north of the Thiérache, the rural stock farmers resisted and soon imposed their own boundaries. In England, generally speaking, seigneurial stock farming won out, and the landlords began enforcing their boundaries, evicting a good number of small tenant farmers. Yet in a manor like Havering and often in those areas most favourable to stock farming (the south-west, Kent and its surrounding area) stock farming by the country people persisted.

In those areas where the financial situation was favourable, an economy based on money and credit developed. The lenders earmarked loans based on a particular piece of land, thus guaranteeing themselves a portion of the harvest. The village micro-societies in particular became very complex in these regions, thanks to the diversity of professional categories and the large variety of social groups. Positions were determined by the role each person assumed: the local seigneur, the parish priest (who often took the part of the tenant farmers in disagreements with the seigneur), country people who might be freeholders, share-croppers, farmers or tenant farmers (cottars, bordars, virgaters or semivirgaters, stockmen, tenant farmers who paid in rent or in produce, etc.). Very small tenant farmers could even live off their meagre holdings if they produced wine which could be sold at far-off markets, or if they developed market gardening near to the cities. The rural wage earners increased in numbers, and from among them permanent elements in the rural population emerged: the stewards, secretaries, carters, milkmaids, serving girls, herders of horses, cows, pigs, sheep, as well as seasonal workers at times when there was the most work to do. These seasonal workers sometimes formed teams of harvesters or reapers, often engaging in price wars. There also emerged the administrative assistants to the rural world (the sergeants of the landlords, clerks of the rural or parish communities), skilled craftsmen (smiths, masons, roofers, etc.), farmers producing basic provisions (millers, bakers), carters, inn keepers, merchants of livestock, grain, butter and cheese, who rarely specialised in a single product. In a certain number of villages there were also skilled fabric and cloth makers, and men paid to work in the quarries, brick works and tile works.

The basic distinction between lords and peasants was no longer determined by a rural society linked to a market economy. It was possible to be a peasant and rich, a nobleman and in debt. Various social groups emerged, determined by the resources they had to hand, or generated by sheer chance. Apart from the poor people whom it was considered necessary to help, there were the petits (manual workers, those on a low salary), then the aisés (workers or high men who might have been landowners, farmers, tenant farmers of large properties or even owners of some fiefdoms). This category of the comfortable also included curates, clerks, secretaries/scribes, sergeants and sometimes even less important seigneurs. The next social class included the wealthy: great stock breeders, farmers with large estates, important merchants and seigneurs of middling rank. The very great seigneurs who owned several seigneuries fell into a separate, distinct category, which was less and less an integral part of rural society.

Modifications and disruptions in the framework of the rural micro-societies

Rural communities existed before the seigneuries; others were born during the great period of land clearing. Moreover, in the thirteenth century, the number of areas under the jurisdiction of a single seigneurie became rare in the overpopulated regions. However, despite the presence in a village of several seigneurs (only one of whom owned the right of ‘ban’), the rural community remained unique, as did the parish community, with only a few exceptions. Moreover, the French royalty came to use the term ‘parish’ to indicate the inhabitants of an area under the jurisdiction of a single seigneurie, thus emphasising the decreasing power of the seigneurs.

The relationship between seigneurs and peasants could not be defined in the same way in all areas. On the plateaux of the river banks which sometimes existed since prehistoric times, the privileged areas of the Carolingian villae, the custom of obeying a master had facilitated the transition to the seigneurie of the feudal period. In the thirteenth century, on the continent, without being totally silent, the rural communities of the open fields favourable to grain production scarcely opposed their seigneurs, who appointed mayors and magistrates chosen from among the peasants and the more comfortably off. After the loss of parcels of land usurped by royal authorities, the seigneurs found ways of maintaining part of their power by controlling common goods (mills, ovens) and in the management of the obligatory crop rotation (which was intended to compel people to respect the fallow land and was necessary for obtaining good crops), and in the responsibility of reallocating the fields under rotation into quarters, or sometimes into three large portions (Cambrésis, Artois, south-west Hainault, etc.). These rural communities held fast to their customs and refused to set them down in writing for a long time.

On the other hand, the territories favourable to stock breeding located on polders and cleared lands were often characterised by freedom and great autonomy. The Frisians and the Flemings in the coastal areas were very strongly independent communities. In the fens, the ‘circles’ formed by the great rural communities comprised several villages and controlled the pasturelands. Violent incidents were recorded after the end of the thirteenth century in the villages of eastern England, where stock breeding held an important place. The servitude of the peasantry in Old Catalonia was in direct opposition to the rural freedom of New Catalonia, which had been repopulated after the Reconquista. In this area, the tradition of obedience to a master had been lost, but elsewhere it was completely unknown, and the descendants of the pioneers often violently opposed the seigneurs who wished to impose it. These rural communities only recognised the authority of the public powers (lords of the manor, counts and kings) who gave them charters of freedom and sometimes charters to establish free towns. Their privileges were, therefore, guaranteed in writing, and these communities did not have public ovens and only sometimes owned mills. The charters of Lorris, Prisches and Beaumont had many offshoots in the thirteenth century.

The rural communities also organised themselves into federations of communes; for example in 1290, in Nouvionen- Thiérache, four neighbouring villages adopted the charter of Prisches and were even accorded power over life and death.3 In the Laonnais region, there were also several federations of communes of villages and vineyards, and the federation of the Andorran villages, along with its customs, has survived into the twentieth century. The rural communities of the Alpine villages (in Briançonnais, for example) bought the seigneurial rights from the abbeys, which benefited the peasant stock farmers who could move into pasturelands on the higher altitudes and begin farming them.4 The differences between the outlook of the villagers of the open-field regions and those of the lands better adapted to stock farming are clear. But many of the villages cultivated a mixture of lands: open spaces which had long been under the plough, and newly cleared areas. The writing down of their customs and privileges after the thirteenth century (charters of freedom, reports of laws, records of customs) often prevented the abusive expansion of the rights of the seigneur, especially where land was concerned. In France, the revival of royal power which favoured the personal freedom of the peasantry was accompanied by an increase in the financial demands and abuses of the king’s agents in his domain, as is witnessed by the complaints revealed in the responses to enquiries ordered by Louis IX in 1247.

In the thirteenth century, the rural societies of the Byzantine empire and the Islamic countries apparently underwent less obvious transformations than those in the west. In these regions, there was no revival of royal powers by states which had always retained them, even in the concession of iqta in the Islamic countries, or in the socially stratified regions of the Byzantine empire. In the Islamic countries, the dual life of the nomad-oasis persisted without great changes, and the rural exodus towards the cities which allowed the departure of the surplus rural population was especially cause for concern in the cities.

By Gérard Silvéry in "The New Cambridge Medieval History" , Volume V c. 1198–c. 1300, edited by David Abulafia, Cambridge University Press, UK, 1999, excerpts part I, pp.38-49. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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