4.4 The Third Order — Peasants, Free and Unfree

We now turn to the vast majority of medieval people — those who actually fed the first two orders. NCERT divides medieval cultivators into two main kinds: free peasants^? and serfs^? (a word derived from the verb "to serve").

4.4.1 Free Peasants

Free peasants held their farms as tenants of the lord. The men had to render military service — at least forty days every year. Peasant families had to set aside certain days of the week, usually three but often more, when they had to go to the lord's estate and work there. The output of such labour, called labour-rent^?, went directly to the lord. In addition, peasants could be required to perform other unpaid services — digging ditches, gathering firewood, building fences, and repairing roads and buildings.

Besides helping in the fields, women and children had a long list of duties. They spun thread, wove cloth, made candles and pressed grapes to prepare wine for the lord's use. There was also a direct tax called taille^? that kings sometimes imposed on peasants — significantly, the clergy and the nobility were exempted from paying it.

4.4.2 Serfs

Serfs cultivated plots of land — but those plots belonged to the lord. Much of the produce had to be handed over to him. They were also required to work on the land that belonged exclusively to the lord. They received no wages and could not leave the estate without the lord's permission. The lord claimed a number of monopolies at the serfs' expense: serfs could use only their lord's mill to grind their flour, his oven to bake their bread, and his wine-presses to make wine and beer. The lord could decide whom a serf should marry, or might give his blessing to the serf's choice — but only on payment of a fee.

4.5 England in the Eleventh Century

Feudalism developed in England from the eleventh century onwards. The Angles and Saxons, originally from central Europe, had settled in England in the sixth century — the country's name, "England", is a variant of "Angle-land". In the eleventh century, William, Duke of Normandy^? (known to history as William I), crossed the English Channel with an army and defeated the Saxon king of England in 1066. From that time, France and England were often at war over disputes of territory and trade. (NCERT also notes that the present Queen of England is descended from William I.)

4.5.1 William I, the Domesday Book and the Norman Settlement

William I had the entire kingdom mapped and distributed in sections to 180 Norman nobles who had migrated with him from Normandy. The lords now became the chief tenants of the king and were expected to give him military help — they were obliged to supply a fixed number of knights to the royal army. They soon began to gift portions of their own lands to knights who would serve them, just as they themselves served the king. Crucially, however, they could not use their knights for private warfare — private war was forbidden in England, unlike in France. Anglo-Saxon peasants now became tenants of various levels of landholders.

4.6 Factors Affecting Social and Economic Relations

Though members of the first two orders saw the social system as stable and unchanging, several processes were quietly transforming it. Some changes — like environmental shifts — were gradual and almost imperceptible. Others — like changes in agricultural technology and land use — were more dramatic. These in turn shaped, and were shaped by, the social and economic ties between lords and vassals.

4.6.1 The Environment

From the fifth to the tenth centuries, most of Europe was covered with vast forests. The land available for agriculture was therefore limited. Peasants who were unhappy with their conditions could simply flee from oppression and take refuge in the forest. Europe was passing through an intensely cold climatic spell in this period, which produced severe and prolonged winters, a shortened growing season for crops, and reduced yields from agriculture.

From the eleventh century, however, Europe entered a warm phase. Average temperatures rose, profoundly affecting agriculture. Peasants now enjoyed a longer growing season, and the soil — no longer subjected to constant frost — became easier to plough. Environmental historians have noted that the forest line receded significantly in many parts of Europe. This made it possible to expand the area under cultivation.

4.6.2 Land Use — From Two-Field to Three-Field Rotation

Initially, agricultural technology was very primitive. The peasant's only mechanical aid was the wooden plough, drawn by a team of oxen. This plough could at best scratch the surface of the soil and was unable to fully draw out the natural productivity of the earth. Agriculture was therefore extremely labour-intensive: fields had to be dug by hand, often once every four years.

An ineffective method of crop rotation was also in use. The land was divided in half — one field was planted in autumn with winter wheat, while the other was left fallow. In the next year rye was planted on the fallow piece while the first half was left fallow. With this system the soil slowly deteriorated and famines were common. Chronic malnutrition alternated with devastating famines, and life was difficult for the poor. Despite these hardships the lords were anxious to maximise their incomes. Since output per acre could not easily be increased, peasants were forced to bring all the land of the manorial estate under cultivation, spending more time on it than they were legally bound to. Peasants did not bow quietly to oppression: since they could not protest openly, they resorted to passive resistance. They spent more time cultivating their own fields, kept much of that produce for themselves, and avoided performing extra unpaid services. They came into conflict with lords over pastures and forest lands — peasants saw these as community resources, while lords treated them as private property.

4.6.3 New Agricultural Technology

By the eleventh century, evidence accumulates of several technological changes:

• Heavy iron-tipped ploughs and mould-boards replaced the wooden plough. They dug much deeper, and the mould-board turned the topsoil properly so that nutrients were better used.
• Shoulder-harness replaced the older neck-harness, allowing animals to exert greater pulling power.
• Iron horseshoes protected horses from foot decay.
• Greater use of wind and water energy: more water-mills and wind-mills were built across Europe to grind corn and press grapes.
• The most revolutionary change in land use: the switch from a two-field to a three-field system. Peasants could now use a field two years out of three, planting it with one crop in autumn and a different crop in spring eighteen months later. Holdings were broken into three fields:
  • One field — wheat or rye, sown in autumn for human consumption.
  • Second field — peas, beans and lentils for humans, oats and barley for the horses, sown in spring.
  • Third field — left fallow.
  Each year, the use of the three fields was rotated.

The result was an almost immediate increase in food produced per unit of land. Food availability doubled. The greater use of plants like peas and beans meant more vegetable proteins in the diet of the average European and a better source of fodder for animals. For cultivators, it meant better opportunities. They could now produce more food from less land — the average size of a peasant's farm shrank from about 100 acres to 20–30 acres by the thirteenth century. Smaller holdings could be cultivated more efficiently and reduced the labour needed, giving peasants time for other activities.

Some of these changes cost a lot of money. Peasants did not have enough to set up watermills and windmills, so the initiative was generally taken by lords. But peasants took the lead in many other things — extending arable land, switching to three-field rotation, and setting up small forges and smithies in their villages, where iron-tipped ploughs and horseshoes were made and repaired cheaply.

From the eleventh century, the personal bonds that had been the basis of feudalism began to weaken. Economic transactions were becoming more and more money-based. Lords found it convenient to ask for rent in cash, not labour services; cultivators were selling their crops for money to traders, who carried the produce to towns. The growing use of money began to influence prices, which rose sharply in years of poor harvests. In England, for example, agricultural prices doubled between the 1270s and the 1320s.

4.7 A Fourth Order? — New Towns and Townspeople

Expansion in agriculture was accompanied by growth in three related areas: population, trade and towns. Better food meant longer life. By the thirteenth century an average European could expect to live 10 years longer than in the eighth century. (Women and girls had shorter lifespans than men because the latter ate better food.)

The towns of the Roman Empire had become deserted and ruined after the imperial collapse. From the eleventh century onwards, however, as agriculture revived and could feed larger populations, towns began to grow again. Peasants with surplus grain to sell needed places to set up selling centres and to buy tools and cloth. This led to the rise of periodic fairs and small marketing centres. These slowly developed town-like features — a town square, a church, roads where merchants built shops and homes, and an office where the town's governors could meet. In other places, towns grew up around large castles, bishops' estates, or great churches.

In the towns, instead of services, people paid a tax to the lords who owned the land on which the town stood. Towns offered something precious to a peasant son or daughter: the prospect of paid work and freedom from the lord's control. "Town air makes free" was a popular medieval saying. Many serfs craving liberty ran away and hid in towns; if a serf could stay in a town for one year and one day without his lord discovering him, he became a free man. Many town-dwellers were therefore free peasants or escaped serfs who provided unskilled labour. Shopkeepers and merchants were numerous. Later there was demand for individuals with specialised skills — bankers and lawyers. The bigger towns had populations of about 30,000. They could be said to have formed a "fourth order".

4.7.1 Guilds — The Basis of Town Economy

The basis of urban economic organisation was the guild^?. Each craft or industry was organised into a guild — an association which controlled the quality of the product, its price and its sale. The "guild-hall" was a feature of every town: a building for ceremonial functions, where the heads of all the guilds met formally. Guards patrolled the town walls; musicians played at feasts and civic processions; innkeepers looked after travellers.

By the eleventh century new trade routes with West Asia were developing. Scandinavian merchants sailed south from the North Sea to exchange furs and hunting hawks for cloth; English traders came to sell tin. In France from the twelfth century, commerce and crafts began to grow rapidly. Earlier, craftsmen had moved from manor to manor; now they found it easier to settle in one place where goods could be produced and traded for food. As the number of towns grew and trade continued to expand, town merchants became rich and powerful, and even rivalled the power of the nobility.

4.7.2 Cathedral Towns

One of the ways rich merchants spent their money was on donations to the Church. From the twelfth century, large churches called cathedrals^? began to be built in France. They belonged to monasteries, but different groups of people contributed labour, materials and money. Cathedrals were built of stone and took many years to complete. As they were being built, the surrounding area became more populated; once finished, they became centres of pilgrimage. Small cathedral towns developed around them.

Cathedrals were designed so that the priest's voice could be clearly heard within the great hall, the singing of monks could resound beautifully, and the chiming of bells could be heard over a great distance. Stained glass was used for windows: by day, sunlight made them radiant for those inside; after sunset, the light of candles made them visible from outside. The stained-glass windows narrated stories from the Bible through pictures, which illiterate people could "read".

4.8 The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century

By the early fourteenth century, Europe's economic expansion slowed sharply. NCERT identifies three factors behind the crisis.

4.8.1 Climate Reverses — The Little Ice Age Begins

In northern Europe by the end of the thirteenth century, the warm summers of the previous 300 years gave way to bitterly cold summers. Growing seasons for crops were reduced by a month, and it became difficult to grow crops on higher ground. Storms and oceanic flooding destroyed many farmsteads, which meant less income in taxes for governments. Earlier, favourable climate had allowed large-scale clearance of forests and pastures for agriculture; now, intensive ploughing had exhausted the soil despite the three-field rotation, because clearance had not been accompanied by proper soil conservation. The shortage of pasture reduced the number of cattle. Population growth had outstripped resources, and the immediate result was famine. Severe famines hit Europe between 1315 and 1317, followed in the 1320s by massive cattle deaths.

4.8.2 Shortage of Silver

Trade was also hit by a severe shortage of metal money, caused by a fall in output of silver mines in Austria and Serbia. This forced governments to reduce the silver content of the currency, mixing it with cheaper metals — what economists today call debasement. The resulting inflation further squeezed both peasants and lords.

4.8.3 The Black Death (1347–50)

"The worst was yet to come." As trade expanded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, ships carrying goods from distant countries had begun arriving in European ports. Along with the ships came rats — carrying the deadly bubonic plague, the Black Death^?. Western Europe, relatively isolated in earlier centuries, was hit by the epidemic between 1347 and 1350. Modern estimates put the mortality at 20 per cent of the entire European population, with some places losing as much as 40 per cent.

As trade centres, cities were hit hardest. In enclosed communities like monasteries and convents, when one individual contracted the plague, it was not long before everyone did — and in almost every case, none survived. The plague took its worst toll among infants, the young and the elderly. There were further, smaller outbreaks in the 1360s and 1370s. The population of Europe, 73 million in 1300, fell to 45 million by 1400.

4.8.4 Social Dislocation After the Plague

This catastrophe, combined with the economic crisis, caused immense social dislocation. Depopulation produced a major shortage of labour. Serious imbalances emerged between agriculture and manufacturing because there were not enough people to engage in both equally. Prices of agricultural goods dropped as there were fewer people to buy. Wage rates increased sharply because the demand for labour, especially agricultural labour, rose in England by as much as 250 per cent after the Black Death. The surviving labour force could now demand twice their earlier wages.

4.8.5 Social Unrest — Peasant Revolts of the Fourteenth Century

The income of lords was thus badly hit: agricultural prices fell while labour wages rose. In desperation, lords tried to abandon the money-contracts they had entered into and revive labour-services. This was violently opposed by peasants — particularly the better-educated and more prosperous ones. Peasant revolts erupted: in Flanders in 1323, in France in 1358 (the famous Jacquerie^?), and in England in 1381 (the Peasants' Revolt led by Wat Tyler).

Although these rebellions were ruthlessly crushed, NCERT notes a striking pattern: they erupted with the most violent intensity in those areas which had earlier experienced the prosperity of the economic expansion. This was a sign that peasants were trying to protect the gains they had made in previous centuries. Despite severe repression, the sheer intensity of peasant opposition ensured that the old feudal relations could not be re-imposed. The money economy was already too far advanced to be reversed. The lords succeeded in crushing the revolts — but the peasants ensured that the feudal privileges of earlier days could not be reinvented.