The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Rural Life

Miriam Müller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000450736
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Rural Life brings together the latest research on peasantry in medieval Europe.

The aim is to place peasants – as small-scale agricultural producers – firmly at the centre of this volume, as people with agency, immense skill and resilience to shape their environments, cultures and societies. This volume examines the changes and evolutions within village societies across the medieval period, over a broad chronology and across a wide geography. Rural structures, families and hierarchies are examined alongside tool use and trade, as well as the impact of external factors such as famine and the Black Death. The contributions offer insights into multidisciplinary research, incorporating archaeological as well as landscape studies alongside traditional historical documentary approaches across widely differing local and regional contexts across medieval Europe.

This book will be an essential reference for scholars and students of medieval history, as well those interested in rural, cultural and social history.

PART 1 Social relationships, communities and hierarchies

1 RURAL ELITES IN MEDIEVAL VALENCIA

Frederic Aparisi

DOI: 10.4324/9781003194866-3

On 17 September 1479, Salvador Despous, cabanyer e laurador – a stockbreeder and farmer – and an inhabitant of the village of Algemesí, appeared before the aldermanic bench and judge of the town Alzira, on which his village depended jurisdictionally.¹ He had been selected by the aldermen to be the curator or guardian of a widow named Damiata, a relative of his who had been deemed ‘insane’. Despous refused the charge, however, arguing that Damiata had closer kin than himself who could care for her and that he was a ‘very busy man because of his own duties and leasing both the king’s third and bishop’s tithes’ (in medieval Valencia the king or local lord received one third of the tithe and the bishop two thirds). He also stated that, since he was a citizen of the city of Valencia, the aldermen of Alzira could not legally force him to take on such a responsibility.

In the end, Despous avoided the appointment. However, his case throws light on some important themes that affected the top level of rural society in medieval Valencia, such as the diversity of income beyond agrarian activities (including the lease of rents from manors and ecclesiastical institutions, and taxes from the municipal or royal administrations)²; the attempts of neighbours or local authorities to enforce social duties such as caring for incompetent relatives; the high mobility related to business; and, finally, the attraction of the city of Valencia, the capital of the kingdom.

The story of Salvador Despous was not so different from other wealthier rural families in late medieval Europe, such as the Guerre and Rols from Artigat (France); Robert Parman and John Heritage from Chevington and Burton Dasset (England); Henrick Coppens from Rijkevorsel (Belgium); and Giovanni di Dietisalvi from San Jacobo a Frascole (Italy).³ In this chapter I reflect on the concept of ‘rural elites’, before examining the key features of this social group in the medieval kingdom of Valencia.

***

Research on socioeconomic stratification in the medieval European countryside is now well established.⁴ As far back as 1928, Marc Bloch reflected on the role of ministers in the rural societies of France and Germany during the high middle ages.⁵ Later, Phillippe Dollinger insisted on the differentiation of rural communities and talked about ‘classes rurales’ in the central middle ages.⁶ However, the conceptualisation of this object of study – the leading families of the rural community – has been much more recent. In this context, the XXVIIes Journées Internationales d’Histoire de l’Abbaye de Flaran in 2005 and the subsequent publication of the proceedings with the title Les Élites rurales dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne two years later was the turning point that marked the consolidation of this research topic.⁷ During the last fifteen years, the study of the well-to-do families of peasant communities has emerged as one of the central issues of rural history.

The term ‘rural elite’ identifies neither social nor professional group and, hence, it is not as objective as others terms such as ‘yeoman’, ‘carpenter’ or ‘smith’. On the contrary, it is an analytic category created by historians and, therefore, it has not been exempt from controversy. Regarding this, some years ago, Alain Guerreau alerted us to the ambiguity of the term ‘elite’. In his opinion, it is an incoherent concept that cannot be used as a qualifying category since any individual belongs to an elite depending only on the perspective with which it is observed.⁸ More recently, Pau Viciano has been reluctant to use the expression altogether, arguing that ‘rural elites’ seems to be a concept more innocuous than others like ‘kulaks’, but at the same time it is not exempt from ideological connotations and imprecisions.⁹ Nevertheless, from a historiographical perspective, no term is free of complexity and nuances. So, members of the lesser nobility had nothing or little in common with the higher nobility but families from both are defined as nobles. Both lesser and higher nobility possessed manors, but their sizes were different and, consequently the amount of rent received. However, they had in common the right to judge their vassals and to ask them to pay rent and because of that both lesser and higher nobility sat at the same bench in the Parliament of the kingdom.

The concept of a rural elite does not negate the institutional structure that implied the Feudal system. From the richest to the poorest, all members of the rural community were submitted to the lord’s authority. Despite all of them being considered part of the nonprivileged group, most of the European languages had a specific term or expression to define the upper sectors of the rural society such as prohoms or pagès gras in Catalan, fermiers-laboureurs or coqs de village in French, farmers and yeomen in English or caballeros villanos in Spanish.

Undoubtedly, regional socioinstitutional structures implied peculiarities and nuances in the features of local village elites. Also, historical processes such as the level of urbanisation of a region, the grade of basic literacy knowledge or the market integration, to mention some of them, had their impact on the formation and evolution of rural elites in each territory. However, precisely due to these particular circumstances we do need a concept to overarch these variations in order to makes debates about these structures possible.

The term also entails the acceptance of the diversity in medieval rural communities represented not only by peasants but also by different artisans related or not to the agrarian labours, such as the blacksmith, the miller, the barber-surgeon, the tailor or the innkeeper. Although they possessed some plots of land, this did not make them solely peasants, but neither should their main profession lead us to exclude them from the peasant community. Given that the rural community was heterogeneous from a professional perspective, it should be accepted that rural elites were also diverse.

These members of the village elite were not always rich peasants with larger farms than those of their neighbours. Indeed, better-off peasants were not rare in Mediterranean cities, although they did not belong to the local government and did not play any intermediary role between the peasantry and rulership.¹⁰ Being part of the rural elites meant something other than material wealth. It usually implied a level of above-average richness and also control of the reins of local power, the role of intermediaries between the community and the external elements and an influence over neighbours.

In sum, with the term ‘rural elites’, historians point to the heterogeneity that defined the leading families of the rural society in medieval Europe. There was not a specific model of rural elites. The concept, in plural, as Antoni Furió insists, encompasses the socioprofessional diversity of the better-off families of the rural society but also their peculiarities across the different European regions.¹¹ All in all, the concept of a rural elite is an operational category for individualizing a group of families that stood out from the rest of the rural community and encourages historiographical debate among colleagues.

***

The conquest of the Muslim Valencia in 1238 by the feudal troops of James I implied the creation of the Christian kingdom of Valencia and the introduction of the feudalism in this territory. The colonisation signified the expulsion of the Muslim people from many parts of the kingdom, particularly from the North and the irrigated areas of the coastal region, and at the same time settling Christians who arrived from Aragon and Catalonia. Most of the expelled Muslim population was relocated either in other manors in the kingdom or in specific quarters surrounding the towns, called moreria, to work as labourers of the lands in Christian settlers’ hands.¹² In this context, new – Christian – rural communities were created, some of them as new foundations – like the village of la Font d’en Carròs – and others occupying the area of previous Muslim villages, like the village of Ador. Until the 80s of the last century, the new communities derived from the colonisation were considered as egalitarian assemblies of settlers given that, in the process of distribution of land, the colons received a land holding of the same size. However, study of the repartiment process – the distribution of land among the settlers – has shown that the allocation of land was not as egalitarian as it was originally thought to be.¹³ Alongside the donation of holdings with different size, a lively land market existed from the moment of the conquest, while similarly manorial lords played an essential role in promoting some families as seignorial officers or servicemen to the detriment of others. Consequently, a top-layer of villagers existed in the Christian rural communities from the very beginning. Although all the members of the community were members of the local council, those with larger holdings occupied the local government offices or were appointed as bailiffs.¹⁴

The Muslim population, particularly in the southern half of the kingdom, from the towns of Alzira to Biar, could not be expelled because the process of colonisation was not as effective in terms of the number of settlers and their permanence in the territory. Therefore, the need for labour power for tilling and for paying rents, along with the scarcity of vassals, prevented manorial lords from expelling Muslim peasantry. For example, the manor of the monastery of Santa Maria de Valldigna was populated basically by Muslim peasants. Throughout the middle ages, the Cistercian abbey allowed its vassals the free practice of the Muslim religious precepts.¹⁵ However, both here in Valldigna as in any given manor in medieval Valencia with Muslim populations, the Muslim peasantry, due to their double condition of vanquished and infidel (not Christian) vassals, suffered intense manorial pressure in the form of higher rents than the Christian peasantry as well as circumscribed freedom of movement.

Despite these challenging circumstances, traditional solidarity among the members of the Muslim community survived until the definitive expulsion in 1609. However, the continuity of the Muslim rural elites that existed before the feudal colonisation can not be inferred from the endurance of the traditional bonds nor from the survival in the settlement – in those areas where the Muslim population was not expelled. The leading families of the Muslim rural communities that came up after the conquest of the thirteenth century were a result of the new context. In relation to this, the interference of the dominant Christian society gradually exacerbated the process of stratification of these rural communities.¹⁶ Therefore, it is also possible to identify a top layer among the Muslim peasantry, although always from the perspective of Christian sources.¹⁷ These leading families shared some features and patterns with their Christian colleagues such as the diversification of their sources of income, the exercise of local administration offices and influence over the community. However, differences also existed. The most evident one may be the role played by the city. Whereas for Christian rural elites moving to the city meant the visualisation of their social promotion and their enrichment, for Muslim rural elites the town did not play this attracting role. Muslim people both in the countryside and in the city were vanquished and infidel (not Christian) so they had to suffer exclusion and separation. Indeed, in towns and in the capital of the kingdom, they lived in a specific quarter called the moreria.

So, both Christian and Muslim rural elites can be detected from the right moment of the conquest of the kingdom of Valencia. Nevertheless, it is obvious that from the last quarter of the fourteenth century rural elites appeared more clearly due to not only the survival of more written sources but also because they generated more evidence. These sources included registries of the court of justice, notarial records but also municipal records such as books of settles, registries of wealth and books of the council agreements and regulations, to mention some typologies of documentation. But if they generated more evidence it had to do with a more integrated economy, in which, for instance, merchants from the capital looked for local agents in the countryside to provide them with products.¹⁸

When it comes to depicting the features of the rural elites, one is tempted to start with an analysis of the economic aspects, investments and businesses in which these families were involved. However, as was stated previously, rich peasants were not exclusively from the countryside in medieval Valencia. They also existed in the cities Xàtiva and Oriola and in the capital of the kingdom. Nevertheless, what de...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• Part 1 Social relationships, communities and hierarchies
• Part 2 Dealing with conflicts and adversity
• Part 3 Work and making a living
• Part 4 Environment, landscapes and material culture
• Index