The third order: peasants, free and unfree

Detail

Who the third order were

• Medieval European society was imagined as three orders: those who pray (clergy), those who fight (nobles/knights), and those who work — the peasants.
• The third order was the largest group. It fed the other two.
• Peasants were of two types: free peasants and serfs (the word comes from the Latin root meaning 'to serve').
• The estate they worked on was the manor — a landed estate that tried to produce almost everything it needed by itself. [2]

Free peasants — land and duties

• They held farms as tenants of the lord. The land was not their own property; they held it from the lord.
• Military service: a free peasant had to fight for the lord for a minimum of 40 days every year.
• Labour-rent: usually three days a week working on the lord's own estate. Whatever they grew on those days went to the lord.
• Unpaid extra work for the lord's family, on top of the three days:
• digging ditches
• gathering firewood
• building fences

• repairing roads

• Because these duties were fixed by custom, the typical service owed was agricultural — for example a set number of days of ploughing for the lord each year. [2]

Serfs — land and duties

• Serfs did not hold a tenancy. The plots they cultivated belonged to the lord.
• All or much of the produce of that plot went to the lord.
• They also had to work on land that belonged to the lord alone — and got no wages for it.
• No freedom of movement: a serf could not leave the estate without the lord's permission.
• In law, a serf was tied to a hereditary plot (passed from father to son) and to the lord's will; he needed permission to leave, to marry, to change work, or to dispose of property. [2]
• Serfdom was therefore different from slavery in form — the serf had a house, a plot and customary rights — but he was still unfree.

Taxes and the lord's monopolies

• Taille
• A direct tax that kings sometimes imposed.
• Its sting: it was levied on peasants only. Clergy and nobles were exempt.

• This is the clearest proof that the burden of the state fell on the order that worked.

• Lord's monopolies — the peasant had no choice but to use the lord's equipment, and pay for it:

• his mill for grinding flour
• his oven for baking bread

• his wine-press for pressing grapes

• Marriage control: a peasant needed the lord's consent to marry, or had to pay him a fee instead.

Note: 'Taille' should not be confused with the corvée. The corvée was unpaid labour owed to the government/state for public works, not the weekly labour-rent owed to a private lord. [2]

Women and children in the third order

• Peasant work was family work. Women and children were not spared.
• For the lord, they:
• spun thread
• wove cloth
• made candles

• pressed grapes to make wine

• So the lord got not only grain from the fields but also cloth, light and wine from peasant households.

England: Angles, Saxons and the Norman conquest

• In the sixth century, the Angles and Saxons moved from central Europe and settled in Britain.
• The name 'England' comes from 'Angle-land' — the land of the Angles.
• In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy (in France) defeated the Saxon king and became king of England.
• William then reorganised the land:
• he had the whole land surveyed and mapped
• he distributed it to 180 Norman nobles

• these nobles were his chief tenants — they held land directly from the king and in return owed him knights for war

• Private warfare was forbidden in England. Unlike France, nobles could not fight each other freely. This kept the English king stronger than most European kings of the time.

• The old Anglo-Saxon peasants did not disappear. They became tenants at various levels under the new Norman lords.
• The survey behind this redistribution produced the Domesday Book, compiled in 1086 by seven or eight panels of commissioners, each covering a separate group of counties. [3]
• It recorded the landholders of 1066 and of 1086, the size of estates, ploughing capacity, the number of agricultural workers, mills, fishponds and values. [3]
• Information was collected by sworn inquests in county towns — from sheriffs, barons, subtenants and village representatives. [3]
• Contemporaries called it 'the description of England'. The nickname 'Domesday' (doomsday — the record from which there is no appeal) was common by the mid-12th century. The survey was carried out against great popular resentment. [3]

Prelims Hooks

• The word 'serf' comes from a root meaning 'to serve'.
• A free peasant owed the lord military service of at least 40 days a year.
• Labour-rent for free peasants was usually three days a week on the lord's estate.
• Taille was a direct tax levied only on peasants; clergy and nobles were exempt.
• The lord held monopolies over the mill, the oven and the wine-press.
• A serf could not leave the estate without the lord's permission; marriage needed the lord's consent or a fee.
• 'England' derives from 'Angle-land'; the Angles and Saxons came from central Europe in the sixth century.
• In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, defeated the Saxon king and gave land to 180 Norman nobles.
• Private warfare was forbidden in England — unlike in France.
• The Domesday Book, the record of William's land survey, was compiled in 1086; the name 'Domesday' was in general use by the mid-12th century. [3]

Mains Points

• Feudalism rested on the unpaid labour of the third order. Both prayer and warfare were financed by peasant produce and peasant work-days. The taille — taxing peasants while exempting clergy and nobles — shows that legal privilege, not economic capacity, decided who paid.
• The free/serf line was one of degree, not kind. Free peasants also gave three days a week, unpaid extras and 40 days of military service. The real difference was mobility and title to land, not comfort. This is useful for comparing with Indian forms of bonded agrarian labour (e.g. begar).
• Lordship was economic as well as political. Monopolies over the mill, oven and wine-press turned everyday needs into a source of income, and the marriage fee turned family life into a taxable event. Control of daily life, not just of land, kept the system running.
• England after 1066 shows how a strong monarchy could grow inside feudalism. Mapping the land, granting it to only 180 chief tenants, and banning private warfare turned feudal ties into a tool of central royal power — the opposite of France, where lords fought each other. The Domesday survey of 1086 gave the crown a written record of who held what and how much it was worth. [3]