Rise of Peasants Alan Payne February 2024
Carting in the Luttrell Psalter dated about 1330 (courtesy British Library)
Perhaps the most dramatic consequence of the Black Death was the decline of serfs (bondmen or unfree peasants) and the feudal obligations they owed to their lord. These obligations were not just to work on the lord’s personal land, they comprised a whole range of legal restrictions.[1] Serfs holding tied tenures were not permitted to leave the land without their lord’s agreement and were persecuted and re-captured if they did. The goods they held were legally owed to their lord on the tenant's death (blocking the inheritance of future generations). Serfs were excluded from justice in the king’s common law courts and the manorial court was unlikely to support them.
The definition of serfdom had become extremely complex by the mid-1300s. In theory, peasants could be deemed unfree either because they had servile status (their father was a serf) or because the land they held was servile by tenure (land at the will of the lord).[2]
Peasantry in Box
In practice, the status of peasants in Box was very complex. High mortality in the Black Death years brought frequent changes and sub-division in the ownership of strips of common land. Some freemen acquired tied strips of land in common fields (and risked their status being reduced to serfdom); some servile villeins acquired free land (which required them to perform fealty to their lord and risk the possibility of later re-granting by him at a high rent). Other serfs had mixed marriages with free peasants (causing uncertainty in the status of children).[3]
In times of depression, all peasants were obliged to sell surplus stock and equipment to pay rents, taxes and fines. Without reserves, years of floods, droughts, famine and plague put further pressure on them.[4] Some peasants took over vacant and smaller parcels of land at rock bottom prices after the Black Death. For many landlords it was better to accept any tenant, even unreliable ones, rather than leave the land vacant. This increase in peasant power terrified the nobility, who could see the status of serfs exercising greater control in the economy. Laws such as the Sumptuary Law of 1363 attempted to get order back into society by restricting the quality and colour of cloth that each level in society could wear, thereby categorising who was a serf.
Most small tenants lapsed back to subsistence levels of farming because the basic unit of labour was still the family, who could only produce enough in good years. But the decline was not uniform and a few people managed to rise above the norm in Box.[5] The Poll Tax List of 1377 identified 175 persons in Box over the age of 14, who were liable to pay tax of a groat (2p), a significant sum at the time.[6] There would have been even more residents because the clergy were assessed separately and beggars and vagrants omitted.[7] To put this number into context, the Tax List of 1322 recorded only 17 residents in Box. Of course, the circumstances of the two surveys reflected different economic conditions but the total number on the 1377 List is dramatically larger.
Causes of Rural Revolt
The second half of the 14th century was a period of unprecedented turmoil, which one historian described as having ‘a revolutionary quality’ and another ‘a disastrous period in English history’.[8] William Langland’s poem Piers Plowman was probably written about 1365. It is difficult to unravel because it tells an allegorical dream about a man called Will who imagines how the Christian world should be with repentance for sin, followed by penance in pilgrimage and pardon. But Langland makes it clear that the ecclesiastic world was totally failing and corruption widespread. The friar in the poem offered easy pardons because he was more concerned about getting donations rather than the morality of people.
Economic dissatisfaction was another theme which came to a head in the Peasant Revolt of 1381. The Revolt started in south east England, in opposition to high taxation and demanding the full abolition of serfdom. The lines of poetry When Adam delved (dug) and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? spoken by its leader John Ball, reflect the time before aristocracy emerged as landlords. The discontent spread to the west: 40 villages from Devon to Sussex; 8 manors of Shaftesbury Abbey in Wiltshire and Dorset; 2 manors of the Priory of Bath in Somerset; and a draft charter of freedom from the men of Somerset.[9] The hostility was particularly against mills appropriated to monastic control (as in Box), who were believed to keep back grain for personal use or speculation.[10] Rural discontent came from articulate craftsmen and artisans who were unfree as well as peasants and labourers.[11] These people were deeply opposed to serfdom, as shown in the 1430s by a serf of Malmesbury Abbey who on his deathbed borrowed £10 to obtain his freedom saying: it wold be more joifull to him than any worlelie goode.[12]
It was probably economic change, rather than the rise of the peasantry, which had a lasting effect. About the time of Domesday in 1086, the lord of Hazelbury Manor held 1 hide (120 acres) under his personal authority. The Bigods and Bohuns increased this landholding in the medieval boom years by taking tenanted land into demesne (farmed under the lord's direct control). The Moleyns appear to have continued this system for some time through their local officials.[13] But lower bread prices and higher labour costs in the period from 1350 until the early 1400s caused the price of corn to fall.[14] This had profound effects on Box’s economy where it is probable that the Moleyns’ steward reported an annual loss and the impossibility of forcing peasants to pay rent arrears or to do service on the home farm. By about 1395, the Moleyns took the decision to stop farming themselves and to lease out the corn demesne farmland.[15] It was a momentous change and, henceforth, the income of the lord of Box Manor came from tenant rents and changes in the tenancies, rather than directly from their own agricultural surpluses.
The economy also caused changes in the way land was held, as feudal tenure (by military or domestic service) gave way to customary or copy hold tenure (according to the customs of the village, or as written down with duplicate copies). A new level of person developed in Wiltshire based on holdings of land measured as a virgate (approximately 30 acres).[16] The division of virgates into rectangular blocks rather than separated field strips gave autonomy to those tenants to diversify their husbandry and to generate surpluses. The consequence was that the status of a villanus (villein) gradually fell away with some virgatus (virgate-holders) rising to a higher status.
Emergence of Farmers
It was these virgate-holders who became the dominant authority in Box, often becoming local gentry and knights.[17] Many had been serfs whose families had been in the area for 100 years and who already had local positions as reeves, rent collectors or assessors.[18] These people became farmers who paid a set fee to the landlord in advance (rent) and were entitled to sell any surplus from their holding at the developing markets. The name farmer replaced the old distinction between free and unfree peasants.[20] At first, they took short-term holdings for periods of 5 to 10 years on a fixed rent. Often under-capitalised, they needed to support each other with rent guarantees for up to £100 (in modern terms perhaps £80,000).[19] The Domesday Book listed 7 virgates and 19 cottars, so it is possible that the farmers in Box emerged from the cottar ranks of subsistence-level peasants as well as virgate holders.
Wealthier peasants bought out their servitude (manumission) and sub-divided their estates for their children's inheritance. Landlords lost some of their income from heriot (inheritance), merchet (daughter's marriage) and other fines, but they were guaranteed a regular rent from the land in advance. Poorer peasants on marginal land often gave up farming and sought employment (thereby breaking their servile status) and the land converted to pasture or was left uncultivated (frisc).[21] Cottars died out as a social class. In good years they had survived by grazing animals on common land and relied on wages, especially at harvest time. In the late 1300s they lived in wretched poverty, unable to pay their rent; obliged to sell their possessions and, ultimately, they died out.
Numerous different types of land tenure existed in Box at this time, such as socage (fixed payment), quit-rent (commutation of services), customary tenure, copyhold, freehold (fee simple), tenure requiring services to the lord including knight service and agricultural labour service and spiritual service. Some tenants were offered specific contractual leases (rental leases for a fixed term with limited service to the lord’s household). We see a contractual lease in Box in 1408 when John Westbury held land for the term of his life on payment of a rose yearly at SJB (the feast day of St John the Baptist on 24th June), a symbolic gesture of a past age.[22] The customs of the manor were recorded in the manorial court roll, agreed for a short period (frequently for up to three lives - for example, grandfather, father and son), rather than in perpetuity.
The precise terms of new copyhold tenures needed to be recorded for all parties to approve. There were usually three copies – one kept by the lord, one by the tenant, and one held in the manorial court records.[23] Wiltshire copyhold tenures usually specified a time period of three lives and the repair of buildings became the tenant's responsibility.[24] Some land went to individuals, some to groups of tenants. Scrubland, waste and woodland areas were often held as copyhold.[25] These new types of tenure gave tenants much more security than the bondmen had in the past.
The definition of serfdom had become extremely complex by the mid-1300s. In theory, peasants could be deemed unfree either because they had servile status (their father was a serf) or because the land they held was servile by tenure (land at the will of the lord).[2]
Peasantry in Box
In practice, the status of peasants in Box was very complex. High mortality in the Black Death years brought frequent changes and sub-division in the ownership of strips of common land. Some freemen acquired tied strips of land in common fields (and risked their status being reduced to serfdom); some servile villeins acquired free land (which required them to perform fealty to their lord and risk the possibility of later re-granting by him at a high rent). Other serfs had mixed marriages with free peasants (causing uncertainty in the status of children).[3]
In times of depression, all peasants were obliged to sell surplus stock and equipment to pay rents, taxes and fines. Without reserves, years of floods, droughts, famine and plague put further pressure on them.[4] Some peasants took over vacant and smaller parcels of land at rock bottom prices after the Black Death. For many landlords it was better to accept any tenant, even unreliable ones, rather than leave the land vacant. This increase in peasant power terrified the nobility, who could see the status of serfs exercising greater control in the economy. Laws such as the Sumptuary Law of 1363 attempted to get order back into society by restricting the quality and colour of cloth that each level in society could wear, thereby categorising who was a serf.
Most small tenants lapsed back to subsistence levels of farming because the basic unit of labour was still the family, who could only produce enough in good years. But the decline was not uniform and a few people managed to rise above the norm in Box.[5] The Poll Tax List of 1377 identified 175 persons in Box over the age of 14, who were liable to pay tax of a groat (2p), a significant sum at the time.[6] There would have been even more residents because the clergy were assessed separately and beggars and vagrants omitted.[7] To put this number into context, the Tax List of 1322 recorded only 17 residents in Box. Of course, the circumstances of the two surveys reflected different economic conditions but the total number on the 1377 List is dramatically larger.
Causes of Rural Revolt
The second half of the 14th century was a period of unprecedented turmoil, which one historian described as having ‘a revolutionary quality’ and another ‘a disastrous period in English history’.[8] William Langland’s poem Piers Plowman was probably written about 1365. It is difficult to unravel because it tells an allegorical dream about a man called Will who imagines how the Christian world should be with repentance for sin, followed by penance in pilgrimage and pardon. But Langland makes it clear that the ecclesiastic world was totally failing and corruption widespread. The friar in the poem offered easy pardons because he was more concerned about getting donations rather than the morality of people.
Economic dissatisfaction was another theme which came to a head in the Peasant Revolt of 1381. The Revolt started in south east England, in opposition to high taxation and demanding the full abolition of serfdom. The lines of poetry When Adam delved (dug) and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? spoken by its leader John Ball, reflect the time before aristocracy emerged as landlords. The discontent spread to the west: 40 villages from Devon to Sussex; 8 manors of Shaftesbury Abbey in Wiltshire and Dorset; 2 manors of the Priory of Bath in Somerset; and a draft charter of freedom from the men of Somerset.[9] The hostility was particularly against mills appropriated to monastic control (as in Box), who were believed to keep back grain for personal use or speculation.[10] Rural discontent came from articulate craftsmen and artisans who were unfree as well as peasants and labourers.[11] These people were deeply opposed to serfdom, as shown in the 1430s by a serf of Malmesbury Abbey who on his deathbed borrowed £10 to obtain his freedom saying: it wold be more joifull to him than any worlelie goode.[12]
It was probably economic change, rather than the rise of the peasantry, which had a lasting effect. About the time of Domesday in 1086, the lord of Hazelbury Manor held 1 hide (120 acres) under his personal authority. The Bigods and Bohuns increased this landholding in the medieval boom years by taking tenanted land into demesne (farmed under the lord's direct control). The Moleyns appear to have continued this system for some time through their local officials.[13] But lower bread prices and higher labour costs in the period from 1350 until the early 1400s caused the price of corn to fall.[14] This had profound effects on Box’s economy where it is probable that the Moleyns’ steward reported an annual loss and the impossibility of forcing peasants to pay rent arrears or to do service on the home farm. By about 1395, the Moleyns took the decision to stop farming themselves and to lease out the corn demesne farmland.[15] It was a momentous change and, henceforth, the income of the lord of Box Manor came from tenant rents and changes in the tenancies, rather than directly from their own agricultural surpluses.
The economy also caused changes in the way land was held, as feudal tenure (by military or domestic service) gave way to customary or copy hold tenure (according to the customs of the village, or as written down with duplicate copies). A new level of person developed in Wiltshire based on holdings of land measured as a virgate (approximately 30 acres).[16] The division of virgates into rectangular blocks rather than separated field strips gave autonomy to those tenants to diversify their husbandry and to generate surpluses. The consequence was that the status of a villanus (villein) gradually fell away with some virgatus (virgate-holders) rising to a higher status.
Emergence of Farmers
It was these virgate-holders who became the dominant authority in Box, often becoming local gentry and knights.[17] Many had been serfs whose families had been in the area for 100 years and who already had local positions as reeves, rent collectors or assessors.[18] These people became farmers who paid a set fee to the landlord in advance (rent) and were entitled to sell any surplus from their holding at the developing markets. The name farmer replaced the old distinction between free and unfree peasants.[20] At first, they took short-term holdings for periods of 5 to 10 years on a fixed rent. Often under-capitalised, they needed to support each other with rent guarantees for up to £100 (in modern terms perhaps £80,000).[19] The Domesday Book listed 7 virgates and 19 cottars, so it is possible that the farmers in Box emerged from the cottar ranks of subsistence-level peasants as well as virgate holders.
Wealthier peasants bought out their servitude (manumission) and sub-divided their estates for their children's inheritance. Landlords lost some of their income from heriot (inheritance), merchet (daughter's marriage) and other fines, but they were guaranteed a regular rent from the land in advance. Poorer peasants on marginal land often gave up farming and sought employment (thereby breaking their servile status) and the land converted to pasture or was left uncultivated (frisc).[21] Cottars died out as a social class. In good years they had survived by grazing animals on common land and relied on wages, especially at harvest time. In the late 1300s they lived in wretched poverty, unable to pay their rent; obliged to sell their possessions and, ultimately, they died out.
Numerous different types of land tenure existed in Box at this time, such as socage (fixed payment), quit-rent (commutation of services), customary tenure, copyhold, freehold (fee simple), tenure requiring services to the lord including knight service and agricultural labour service and spiritual service. Some tenants were offered specific contractual leases (rental leases for a fixed term with limited service to the lord’s household). We see a contractual lease in Box in 1408 when John Westbury held land for the term of his life on payment of a rose yearly at SJB (the feast day of St John the Baptist on 24th June), a symbolic gesture of a past age.[22] The customs of the manor were recorded in the manorial court roll, agreed for a short period (frequently for up to three lives - for example, grandfather, father and son), rather than in perpetuity.
The precise terms of new copyhold tenures needed to be recorded for all parties to approve. There were usually three copies – one kept by the lord, one by the tenant, and one held in the manorial court records.[23] Wiltshire copyhold tenures usually specified a time period of three lives and the repair of buildings became the tenant's responsibility.[24] Some land went to individuals, some to groups of tenants. Scrubland, waste and woodland areas were often held as copyhold.[25] These new types of tenure gave tenants much more security than the bondmen had in the past.
Conclusion
Everywhere in Box was going through change. Some peasants became wealthy farmers (later called yeomen farmers), others cut their ties to the land and took a new role with the lord (later called employees). We begin to see a new order arising throughout Box society.
Everywhere in Box was going through change. Some peasants became wealthy farmers (later called yeomen farmers), others cut their ties to the land and took a new role with the lord (later called employees). We begin to see a new order arising throughout Box society.
References
[1] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.5
[2] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.10
[3] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.18, 22
[4] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, 1973, Maurice, Temple, Smith, p.16
[5] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, 1973, p.34
[6] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.307
[7] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.162
[8] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.265
[9] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.6, 38-41 and Poll-Tax payers of 1377 | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)
[10] Poll-Tax payers of 1377 | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)
[11] Average figures from Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.171
[12] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.134
[13] John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the later Middle Ages, 2011, University of Hertfordshire Press, p.85
[14] Ronald Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England, p.64
[15] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.85
[16] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.117-18
[17] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.36
[18] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England,1962, Macmillan & Co, p.82
[19] NJ Williams, Tradesmen in early Stuart Wiltshire, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 15, 1960, p.90
[20] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.278, 358
[21] Christopher Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval England, p.30
[22] JL Kirby, Abstracts of feet of fines 1377-1509, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 41, 1986, p.62
[23] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.118
[24] Joseph Bettey, Wiltshire Farming in 17th Century, Wiltshire Record Society, Volume 57, 2005, p.xxxiv
[25] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.42
[1] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.5
[2] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.10
[3] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.18, 22
[4] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, 1973, Maurice, Temple, Smith, p.16
[5] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, 1973, p.34
[6] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.307
[7] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.162
[8] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.265
[9] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.6, 38-41 and Poll-Tax payers of 1377 | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)
[10] Poll-Tax payers of 1377 | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)
[11] Average figures from Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.171
[12] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.134
[13] John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the later Middle Ages, 2011, University of Hertfordshire Press, p.85
[14] Ronald Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England, p.64
[15] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.85
[16] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.117-18
[17] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.36
[18] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England,1962, Macmillan & Co, p.82
[19] NJ Williams, Tradesmen in early Stuart Wiltshire, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 15, 1960, p.90
[20] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.278, 358
[21] Christopher Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval England, p.30
[22] JL Kirby, Abstracts of feet of fines 1377-1509, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 41, 1986, p.62
[23] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.118
[24] Joseph Bettey, Wiltshire Farming in 17th Century, Wiltshire Record Society, Volume 57, 2005, p.xxxiv
[25] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.42