Lordship and labour
Stephen Baxter
Relations between lords and peasants underwent profound change throughout northwest Europe 900 1200, so one way to deepen our understanding of the nature pace that in England is consider how historians continental – especially those France have approached it. They developed a model which posits radical occurring around year 1000: rapid it has been labelled ‘feudal revolution’. Its salient elements are these. In process began mid- late tenth century accelerated during eleventh, formal apparatus Carolingian government disintegrated collapsed. An aggressive form seigneurial lordship filled resulting political judicial vacuum. Local magnates intercept monopolize payments such as taxation, toll fines formerly paid kings found new, arbitrary more exploitative ways extracting surpluses from peasants: malae consuetudines (bad customs) swingeing tallages, marriage taxes monopoly control markets mills. also preside over private courts, thereby exercising peasantry depriving them protection these forms ‘seigneurial piracy’. All this was sustained by violence. Magnates cultivated support an increasingly assertive stratum within lesser aristocracy milites, ‘knights’, ‘chevalerie’, ‘les valets du terrorisme seigneurial’ who derived their power influence through mastery new technologies warfare, above all castle, heavy cavalry crossbow.
Cambridge University Press eBooks