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Re: Peasant Classes in the Flanaess (Score: 1)
by GVDammerung on Wed, February 16, 2005
(User Info | Send a Message | Journal) | Thank you. :) While I exempted consideration of specific feudal obligations as beyond the scope of the article, you are absolutely correct. I was attempting to convey that those with higher status enjoyed greater "protections" within the sytem than those of lower status, with the lowest of the low being the serf, just barely not a slave. My use of language could have been more precise on that point.
You can do the article on feudal obligations;) :D |
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Re: Peasant Classes in the Flanaess (Score: 1)
by Samwise (samwise1@msn.com) on Wed, February 16, 2005
(User Info | Send a Message) | But a high end villein is also more likely to have the cash to buy himself out of those obligations. Or to hire a replacement to fulfill them. And they tended to be able to buy them out long term a lot more easily. So depending on when you look at it, in terms of how far your society has evolved into and through feudalism and on to direct proprietorship, high end peasants might indeed owe a lot less obligations.
I would also note that a lot of those obligations were owed by lower level peasants, they were just routinely waived as cottars didn't have much of anything to be claimed as heriot. (That's the inheritance fee, right? I still don't have all those terms memorized.) |
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Re: Peasant Classes in the Flanaess (Score: 1)
by Kirt on Thu, February 17, 2005
(User Info | Send a Message) | As Samwise says, these things did evolve over time and those peasants with more access to a cash economy could buy themselves out of their obligations and occasionally even buy themselves out of peasant status.
Yes, heriot was the "inheritance tax" paid to the lord when a tenant assumed land for the first time. In the low cash economies (early on, more rural, north and east europe, etc) this was typically assessed as the best beast owned by the family - horse, ox, cow, etc. (and note that the beasts were owned by the family, while the land was not). If you tried to apply this to a cottar, the "best beast" might well have been a chicken, so no wonder many lords did not enforce this right. |
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