Peasant Welfare in England
1290-1348
Determine Welfare
• Means different things in different historical
periods
• Basic to all time periods
Access to Land
Income
Shelter/Rents
Clothing
Food
Taxes
Why Care About Peasants in 12th
and 13th Century
• Because factors of peasant welfare is the
same today for contemporary peasants
• Contemporary peasants faced with same
problems of increased expenditures and
limited income
• Strategies for increasing income are the
same
• Contemporary peasants involved in
consumer economy
50 years before Black Death
• Very high increase in population
• High levels of commercial activity
• Wealthy peasants selling on national and
international markets
• Rest of Peasants selling on local markets
• Landholding size decreases
• Real wages decrease
Peasant households
• Peasant household expenses increased
• Size and composition of household varied
• Cost of feeding and clothing the average
person more than doubled between first
decade and last decade of 13th century
• Rents rose at least as much as the cost of
living in the course of 13th century
Income
• Mean household income had to increase
by the same extent if standards of living
were to remain constant
• If mean household income appears to
have remained constant or fallen, then
levels of peasant welfare must have
declined
How to assess income levels?
• Broad changes in household income are
much more difficult to asses than in broad
changes to expenditure because sources
of income are both obscure and eclectic
• Income derived from multiple sources
• Cultivation, rights to common, farm
animals and fishing, firewood, employment
Two Assumptions
• First, household income normally included both
monetary and non-monetary contributions and that the
majority of peasants derived household income from
three sources: a landholding, common rights, and
employment.
• Second , if household income is derived from a
combination of landholding, employment, and common
rights, then any changes in their availability ought to
have impact on household income.
Landholding Size
• Many landholdings
already small at
beginning of 13th century
• Decrease in landholding
size
• Two-thirds of English
households depended for
their livelihood upon
small or even miniscule
holdings
Another Way to Think About It
• Failure of mean holding size to increase in
the context of a general rise in household
expenditure
• Increased population=increase size of
family
• Increase size of family=increase
expenditures
Strategies
• Used to protect or even raise household
income
• Increase the amount of family or hired
labor a peasant might expect to raise land
productivity
• Development anthropologist affirm the
efficiency of small farms run by family
labor in India where yields compare
favorably with those on larger farms
Strategy 2
• Reduce land in Fallow
thus putting more in
cultivation
Did peasants have a better chance at
increasing production than manor?
• Three reason for supposing that peasant
productivity levels could be higher
• Manor employed servile labor, and the
work intensity of hired labor on manor
could well be lower than peasant family
• Labor to land ratio probably higher on
peasant farms
• Peasants enjoyed a higher ratio of draught
animals to land on their farms
Second Strategy
• Peasants can compensate for declining holding
size by sowing on their land higher yield crops
• Barley
• More marketable and valuable crops such as
wheat or industrial crops
• By growing and selling high value crops and
buying cheaper grains for their own consumption
peasants might increase income from
landholding
Third Strategy
• Landholding carried rights to graze
animals on common fields and pastures,
to glean corn and to extract timber from
woodland or peat and fish from marshland
• Livestock contributed greatly to peasant
income
• Acquisition of a few sheep could provide
welcome income from wool a high value
commodity with an international market
Common Rights
• Where common rights
were varied and
extensive, they could
have contributed a
relatively large share
of household income
by the early 14th
century
Fourth Strategy
• Increase sources of household income through
employment off the farm
• Range of occupational opportunities and the
availability of waged employment increased
during 13th century
• Towns and Urban Centers
• Countryside ranged from brewing and milling to
craft and industrial work
Importance of Markets
• Peasants needed to sell products to get
cash
• Cash needed for rents, fines and taxes
• It is certain that the number of households
which depended on waged employment,
and by extension depended on the market
for basic foodstuffs grew during 13th
century
Fifth Strategy
• Reduce the size of the Household to tailor
expenditures to income
• Reduce size of household through
celibacy, later marriage, sexual restraint
within marriage or migration of older
children to towns
Fate of Small Landholders
• Overall need to increase land productivity
particularly difficult for small landholder
• Small holding already insufficient for
income
• Had to use a combination of strategies
• Particular high reliance on use of common
land to grow crops
Potential Liabilities
• Because small landholders were unable to
produce sufficient food to meet their own
subsistence requirements, they were
adversely affected by rising cost of living
• Unable to grow enough grain to generate
much income from sales
• Forced to enter the market to purchase
food for their own consumption
Additional Liabilities
• Small landholders overhead costs were
higher because they were charged higher
rents per acre
• Nature of their operations restricted the
benefits of increasing gross output or
applying more labor
Alternative Labor an Answer?
• The ability to increase labor is greatest on
family farm with surplus labor force
• Availability of alternative employment
presented peasants with a dilemma
• Decide whether the potential benefits of
employing their spare labor on the farm
were greater than those of obtaining work
elsewhere and whether the search costs
of employment were sustainable
Before Black Death 1348
•
•
•
•
Population Growth outstripped production
High Demand For Food=High Prices
Landlords Advantage Over Peasants
Made it easy to apply oppressive social
relations that tied the peasants to the land
• Famines of 1316/7 and 1321/2 due to
scarcity of available food and high prices
• No relief for the poor
Black Plague
• So destructive that the population of Europe in
1370 was between half and two thirds of its
former size
• For most of the next century the population of
England stayed at only 2 or 3 million
• Dramatic impact on the balance of medieval
classes with peasantry and gentry gaining much
more of an upper hand
Black Death
• Death was painful but
quick
• Some did recover
• Highly contagious
• No medical
knowledge
• Treated with herbs
and herbal brews
After the Plague
• Low population
• Sudden surplus of all
items and food drove
prices down
• Rents fell giving more
opportunity for
peasant accumulation
• Take over of land
very common
Shortages of Labor
• Increased peasant wealth and shortages
of labor in rural areas
• Wealthy rural landholders found it
increasingly expensive to hire rural labor
• Increasingly difficult to impose oppressive
social tenure institutions of rural bondage
• Serfs and Serfdom fizzles out.
Rise of Servants
• Both rural and Urban landlords
increasingly come to employ resident
servants.
• It is cheaper to house and feed servants
than to pay labor’s wage in time of
shortage
• Both men and women worked as servants
for a period of 10 years before they saved
enough to set-up their own holding
Changes in Marriage Patterns
• Poor married later and had fewer children
per family
• This also contributes to the fall in
population first brought out by famines and
Black death
• Poor worked as household servants
Change For Landlord
• Landlords came to see that their best chance of
continuing to profit from the land would be to
lease it.
• This created a social place for the landless
knight and gave rise to the gentry.
• Also closed off the “commons”—known as
enclosure and the land was leased or use by
lord as pasture because wool was an important
commodity
Political Changes
• Embolden now powerful poorer classes
• Peasant Revolts flex their political muscle
disrupting the traditional stability of feudal
relations
• Ruling class (Lords and Religious) gave
way to increasing demands for popular
participation
• Long period of political stability until early
modern times
Wat Tyler and His Revolting
Peasants!
• In 1381, 35 years after the Black Death,
dramatically reduced number of peasants
re-evaluated their worth
• Demanded higher wages and better
working conditions—the end of serfdom
• Political Leaders (Bishops and Lords)
passed a law to limit any such wage
increase
New Taxes
• Poll tax introduces to support War in France
• 3rd time in 4years that such a tax was applied
• Everyone over the age 15 had to pay one
shilling—a significant amount to a the average
farm laborer
• Could not pay in cash, they could pay in kind
such as seeds, tools etc. all of which were vital
to survival of farmer and his family
Incident at Fobbing
• May 1381, a tax collector arrives in Essex
village of Fobbing to find out why the
people there had not paid their poll tax
• Villagers throw tax collector out of village
• June 1381, 15 year old King Richard II
sent his soldiers to Essex and Fobbing to
re-establish law and order
• Villagers throw out the King’s soldiers
March to London To See The King
• 60,000 Peasants from all over England
march to London to see their king
• Well organized and coordinated popular
uprising
• Destroyed tax records and registers and
removed heads from several tax officials
• Wat Tyler to meet the King on 14 June in
order to prevent further trouble in City of
London
Wat Tyler and The King
• Richard II gave into all the peasant
demands and asked that they go home
• Promised end to serfdom and feudalism
may did start to leave for home
• While meeting taking place, a few of
Tyler’s rebels murder the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Treasurer of England
• Richard and Wat Tyler to meet the next
Day
Wat Tyler Murdered
• Richard II and Wat Tyler meet at Smithfield just
outside the city walls of London
• Mayor of London wants Tyler and her rebels out
of his city.
• Also angered at Tyler for arrogant behavior
toward the king and Tyler’s demands
• Lord Mayor of London Sir William Walworth
wounds Tyler
• Tyler’s head is removed
King’s Promises
• Did not keep promises
• Promises made under threat therefore not valid
under law
• Landlord and Bishops still controlled peasants—
somewhat
• Black Death had caused such a shortage of
labor that over the next 100 years many
peasants found that when they asked for more
money the lords had to give in