In the Middle Ages agriculture underwent many changes. The nobles and the clergy were considered the most important members of feudal society. However, they were never the majority:in the Middle Ages, almost all people were peasants.
Not all peasants had the same category and social status. Many of them were free men . Among these, some were small landowners who lived on their own land, while others, the settlers, leased a small plot of land called manso from the feudal lord. .
Other peasants, on the other hand, were considered almost like slaves:the servos . The serfs were the only ones who worked to support the clergy and the nobility and who paid taxes.
Thanks to an improved climate and a series of technological advances, agriculture prospered towards the end of the 11th century. So the population grew and the villages multiplied.
An agrarian economy
Since the early Middle Ages, commercial and urban life had stagnated considerably. Therefore, the land became almost the only source of wealth:more than 90 percent of the feudal population based, above all, on the cultivation of cereals. However, agriculture was very little developed, since the nobility, owners of the land, were adverse to novelties and spent their money on weapons and luxurious objects instead of devoting it to the introduction of new agricultural techniques or the improvement of the that already existed. This situation began to change at the end of the 11th century.
The serfs
Many peasants in the Middle Ages were serfs. Serfs were mostly descended from former slaves.
Serfdom was hereditary:a serf belonged by birth to the patrimony of his lord and could never leave his fiefdom. He treated them as one thing and his master disposed of his body, his work and his property.
Therefore, the lord who had serfs could sell them or give them away and, if he considered it necessary, punish them. These punishments were cruel:they were flogged, branded with a hot iron, or had their ears cut off, among other tortures.
Some serfs performed domestic work:the ministerial servants . These were generally kept in their master's home or on one of his farms.
Other serfs, on the other hand, cultivated the lands of the lord:the serfs of the gleba . These lands were called meek servile . The serfs of the gleba had their own house, they subsisted with the product of their own work and, if necessary, they could sell what was left over from their harvest. Therefore, its maintenance did not depend directly on its master.
The free peasants
Free men or Franks they were classified into settlers and villains. The settlers leased a plot of land to the lord:the naive meek . These meek were inherited from generation to generation, through a contract.
The villains Instead, they were small owners who lived in villages of the fruit of their own lands, apart from any lord. The lands they worked were called alodios . In many places in Europe, for example in Italy and in some places in France, the villains were the majority.
Obligations of the serfs
Feudal lords had an obligation to defend the people who lived on their land and give them shelter in times of war.
In exchange, they received from them an annual income in money, in agricultural or animal products, the census; a contribution if they married, and part of their inheritance. These obligations also included the following:
– Work for a certain number of days on the private lands of the lord:the corvée .
– Pay a fee called banality for using the monopolies of the castle:the mill, the wine press, the oven and the bridges, among other things.
– Contribute an indeterminate sum of money, whenever the Lord required it:the size .
Taxes
The size
Of all the obligations contracted with the feudal lord, the most hated was carving. The carving began as a duty of every subordinate to help his master. At first, it was an exceptional gift that the lord used only in an emergency. Over time, the carving was claimed by feudal lords with increasing frequency. The problem with this tax was that the amount of money to be delivered was not set by any law. This made the carving become a totally unfair burden, it depended on the will of the lord. For this reason, many members of the Church opposed it and the carving was the cause of bloody peasant revolts.
The banalities and the ban
The authority of the feudal lord was reinforced because he possessed the power or ban which had previously belonged to the king. Thanks to the ban, the power of the lord in his domain was almost total. Among the burdens imposed on the peasants, the most characteristic were those that derived from this power:the banalities.
The banalities were monopolies that the feudal lords attributed to themselves to the detriment of the cultivators. Sometimes, the sale of wine or beer was reserved; others assumed the exclusive right to provide the necessary bull for the reproduction of the herds. More often, they forced peasants to grind grain in their mill, bake bread in their oven, and press grapes in their press.
The living conditions
The living conditions of the peasants were very diverse. During feudalism, the ratio of serfs to freemen varied greatly across centuries and religions. In addition, within these discategories there were many differences both in the laws that governed them and in the degree of prosperity.
Despite these differences, the majority of the peasants lived in a situation of poverty, exploitation and dependency . The longing on the part of many serfs to achieve their freedom and the repeated efforts of the free peasantry to obtain some benefit were the cause of frequent revolts .
A very simple life
The life of the peasants was very rustic. Almost all the things they needed they made themselves:their houses, their clothes, their cutlery and their furniture, among other things.
The hut of a peasant family generally consisted of a single room with a table, some benches and some straw mattresses. the windows. The windows were closed with wood or cloth, since glass was scarce and expensive. In the huts, animals also slept, separated from the men by a wooden partition.
The peasant family
The extended peasant family to which a peasant belonged consisted of his male and female line relatives and their spouses. All of them were linked by their relations with the head of the group:the father (or, failing that, the mother) of the oldest branch of the family. This kinship group was often recognized as holding a peasant lease, which could not be terminated as long as the group existed. Such a family, sharing the same "cauldron, fire and bed", working the same and indistinct fields, rooted in the same stretch of land for generations, constituted a highly cohesive social unit.
Man and disease
Hunger was the great enemy of medieval peasants. This was due, on the one hand, to the fact that a large part of their harvest would fall into the hands of the feudal lord, and on the other, to the fact that the harvests were not abundant and the inability to store them.
For this reason, the peasants used to be very poorly fed :the peasant diet was based on bread, vegetables, wine and beer. Meat was reserved only for big parties and fish was rarely eaten.
Due to poor nutrition, peasants were easy prey for epidemics such as smallpox and measles. As at that time there were not many doctors or medicines, the sick died easily and people died very young.
Leisure and parties
The only times when the peasants forgot their hardships were during the festival seasons. The main festivals were religious, and among them Christmas stood out. and the Easter , dates on which beautiful processions were held.
Carnivals were also very important. . On that date, people dressed up, sang and danced. In addition, parties were held to celebrate the harvest and the killing of the cattle.
Sometimes traveling artists came to the village who recited poems and played games, juggling and performing with animals.
The agricultural expansion
Towards the end of the 11th century, agricultural production began to rise. This phenomenon was largely due to a climate warming , and lower humidity that favored agricultural activities.
In addition, there were a number of important technological advances in field work, which contributed to an increase in yields. In the 13th century, the process of agricultural expansion reached its peak.
New techniques
Technical advances sought to increase harvests in regions that lacked virgin land. There were three main innovations made at that time:
- The use of the wheel plow instead of the Roman plow, which did not. The fundamental difference between both instruments resided in the share, which allowed the wheeled plow not only to open furrows but also to move the earth. This operation was made easier with the use of the mouldboard or earmuff, which aerated the land better.
- The substitution of the ox for the horse to plow the fields. Although the horse was more expensive and sometimes unable to work in difficult terrain such as mountainous regions, this animal plowed faster and earned the soil better.
- The introduction of the triennial rotation , which consisted of alternating different crops in each of the three plots into which a crop field was divided:the first year wheat was sown; the second year, another cereal or legume and the third year, the field was left to rest.
By alternating crops, the soils were not depleted. This system replaced the biennial rotation, which consisted of the intercalation of the rest of a field between two harvest years.
Blacksmiths and tools
A very special innovation at the end of the 11th century was the spread of smithies in the villages:this allowed the villagers to forge their own instruments without depending on the workshops of the feudal lord. However, its impact on agricultural techniques was very limited. Iron instruments remained very expensive. For this reason, only the richest were able to acquire them and, in general, they continued to work with wooden tools. Behind the plow, for example, the men broke up the clods with wooden mallets.
More people and new lands
With the increase in agricultural production, food improved and famine and disease decreased. Then, the population increased .
The increase in population forced the search for new agricultural land. Then, the great breaking movements began. . Many trees were cut down and, in this way, the forested territories were used for agriculture.
In addition, land was gained by drying up swamps or areas near the sea and building networks of drainage canals, the maintenance of which required constant attention. The clearings changed the landscapes of Western Europe.
As a consequence of the development of agriculture, there were also surpluses in the countryside. In this way, commerce was revitalized .
Likewise, the plowing caused the foundation of new villages to which peasants from distant lands attended.
Cultivating new terrain
When the population increased, it was necessary to cultivate new land. From the 11th to the 13th century, the conquest of new lands was one of the most important phenomena in European history. Fire, felling and plowing pushed back the forests until they were reduced, at times, to scattered patches that had to be defended from growers, as there was a risk of running out of wood. Land was also gained from swamps and coastal areas. Many of these conquests were the work of isolated peasants. To these peasant companies were added the plowing directed by the feudal lords, both lay and religious, who established lumberjacks and ploughmen in their domains.