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Thread: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

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    Default The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    So a much delayed reply to Heathen Hammer. This is a composite reply to different threads that originated in the Ethos, Mores et Monastica. Taken together they really belong in the VV (which could use some activity outside of name that threads and given the age of the original this a bit on history itself but it has come up in the Mud Pit so not Necro - I think). The details are the great life of medieval peasants, what is monarchy and few odds and ends - only really one of I going to deal with in this post.

    [Note I really want to reiterate that I have not completely re edited the composite nature of this. I started and stopped over time on this and so my numbered notes are for example out of order My references are not all clearly formally all say Chicago Format nor are they consistently in text vs footnoted and there is an odd just asterisk tossed in as well. But I see no pressing need to act like this is a dissertation and less so something that will ever earn even the pence of a Peasant's man- day of labor cutting hay finishing it gets me nothing But more because “Well, not really.
    Modern-day wagie is de-facto worse-off then medieval peasant." - this amounts to “I was using well-sourced articles” (77 lucky dragon gambling anyone – below) by my opposite in this debate]


    Original thread here:
    https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...oyal-education

    Pertinent next point post #13 and than per post #16 to some related and varied topics here in
    https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...phical-article).

    So starting in no particular order at #16 first and with the reference to second thread where we get the vague look,look peasants under monarchy were better off than modern wage earners (in western liberal democracies - implied)

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    The elephant in the room is that it is silly to present modern-day-liberal-democratic-global-freedom-market-central-banking thing to be "normal", since it existed for barely above a century, laughable time period by historical scale, but in that time period atrocities committed in the name of various materialistic ideologies caused more death then history has seen on any scale before.
    But I understand the typical modern liberal progressive mindset here. Maybe those hundreds of millions that were killed for things like equality and democracy were a necessary sacrifice to bring the modern-day utopia so that people can live better lives?
    Well, not really.
    Modern-day wagie is de-facto worse-off then medieval peasant. So all of those sacrifices were... for nothing.
    So there, we have it - our time, for all intents and purposes, is the Dark Age, objectively worse then the times back when we were ruled by absolute monarchies from every point of view imaginable. Which is why the ongoing pinko flu pandemic proves that there is very little point in preserving modern governments and economic institutions. There is simply no real value in either them or elites that use them to stay in power.
    Now this is breathtaking in its shear chutzpah of unreality and thus I have rather been at some difficultly for over a year in how to reply. Seriously or assume HH was just making stuff up for a laugh. So let's unpack as if this is suppose it to be serious.

    The first supposed strike against the modern liberal democratic world is two links that 'medieval ' 'peasants' worked less... err OK lets see what we have. A link from businessinsider.com and one from History101.com.

    I going am go with the second link first since it is a fluff piece without links and just the shared vague reference to the The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, by Juliet B. Schor.

    https://www.history101.com/americans...eval-peasants/

    Best part this:

    “Unfortunately, yep. According to the OECD data bank, the average worker in the USA annually put in 1,786 hours of work in 2018. Medieval peasants, on the other hand, put in a measly 1,620 hours a year back in the 15th century.

    Considering the level of fluff in this piece. I think the easy retort here given HH's quote" “Maybe those hundreds of millions that were killed for things like equality and democracy were a necessary sacrifice to bring the modern-day utopia so that people can live better lives?”

    … should be both serious and a bit sarcastically fluffy. [Note not sure what the hundreds of millions of lives killed are to connect 13th century peasants under monarchs/aristocracy or make those losses all modern democracies fault or whatever, how etc] That the 1620 hours is actually misplaced in this link only adds to it inaccuracy since the calculation is rather for the 13th century and importantly one before the the black death and from a time of 'peasants' living under the manorial system in England. None of that is clear in the first link but it can gleaned from the second one (below). For now just suffice to say it makes the hours worked comparison beyond silly. But let's take it at face value. So a few fun facts to put out first and to be referenced now and later:

    1 year = 8760 hours.
    1 year of adult 8 hours of sleep a day = 2920 hours

    That means we are talking about with healthy sleep 5840 'free' hours a year. And by the link's assertion somehow my modern life is cheating me out of 166 hours of them a year. Gosh Heathen Hammer must be right right I am suffering - where are my kings and manorial overlords. But you know there is something I can't quite put my figure on let me think. I know lets see what is the life expectancy at birth of 13th century English peasant?

    Start with the BBC here
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/241864.stm

    That would be 31.3 years and some nebulous addendum to the effect of “However, by the time the 13th-Century boy had reached 20 he could hope to live to 45, and if he made it to 30 he had a good chance of making it into his fifties.”

    Without the probability at birth of reaching 20 or 30 we don't have much to work with. The next source seems to make the BBC a bit generous for peasants or the general population thus contra

    Longevity of popes and artists between the 13th and the 19th century
    Maria Patrizia Carrieri

    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/34/6/1435/707557

    Specifically referencing the elite gets about the same figures so the BCC would appear to be fudging. “In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood.2 Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years. Such estimates reflected the life expectancy of adult males from the higher ranks of English society in the Middle Ages,3 and were similar to that computed for monks of the Christ Church in Canterbury during the 15th century.4

    By way of comparison I will use myself born in 1970 as the wage slave that is supposedly living a life of work drudgery. Thanks to the US social security administration my life expectancy at birth was/is 76.8 years (if I make it to 65 years its 78.7 years).

    https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2011/lr5a4.html

    For fun looking a bit more deeply and checking some actuarial tables to mirror the estimates for the elites in Carrieri. Here - admittedly I can only go back to 2004 for but since the life expectancy at birth is only about year off seems reasonable.

    https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table...04_TR2008.html

    Thus at 10 my expectation was 75.55 years (seems a bit better than the 13th century elite – no?)
    Survive to 25 and I can expect 76.25 (that is 51.25 years vs our medieval elite of 23.3 more years)
    I do believe I am seeing a pattern...
    … But lets also add the BBC hopeful final point if my medieval friend makes it 30 he can hope for his 50s. Again they offer no probability on this. By comparison I can expect late seventies by the same point.

    In any case lets go back to basics. You can cry fair or foul but I am going to bet at 14 our medieval 'peasant' was doing an adult males work or he was not eating (and that could be generous on my part) .. By comparison I faced not at all that challenge till 18. Thus we are left with for the fellow of the the 13th century being nice and going with 32.2 years doing 17.2 years of adult work till death on average.

    Ah me the modern liberal democratic wage slave – what live longer? Gods be good. So starting at 18 till 65 (well within my expected life span at birth) I have 47 working adult years expected.

    Therefore according to Schor it seems I face (but not see really - below when we delve into the actual peasant data) at the age of 32.2 when my peasant comparison of the 13th century will be shuffling off this mortal coil (while I was in fact just enjoying the first 2 years of being married) now know quite unrealized and frightfully have a supposed accumulated leisure debt/gap of some 2357.2 hours. Of course then I was elated by realizing I can expect 191,552 hours of non working hours to be had before 65 while my friend of the 13th century was/will be diligently being compost for 32.8 years in comparison (is that work or time off?). But than there is my expected post 65 year life to consider. Which seems fair since I am comparing to the elite of the 13th century not the lowest of the low. That is another 13.7 retirement years. Can't know what might get you at that age/or financial disruption that puts you back to work - so I'm going to be fair and cut that in half or so to 7 years of no work well that's a bonus ~40,000 plus hours my long since soil friend does not have back in the day.

    Anyways do keep reading the serious source bits start below – but so who is getting more leisure in this equation again so far?

    Well let us take the Business insider link since it does in fact reference some actual data - the link here

    https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

    [I will call this the MIT link for short – if I remember but for now I will try to differentiate between its cited sources and the Schor table notes]

    Although one of its (BI that is) others collapses to 77 Dragon progressive jackpot online gambling...

    Well we still have 5 cited sources, and 10 data points (with sources) and Schor's book [6.]. Well that's something. I am sure Heathen Hammer has at least read the book? But I doubt he has followed up on the source data since significant problems present fairly easy. Note the 10 data points are all just from Schor pg 45. If you look up the book as a google books that page should be available

    https://books.google.com/books?id=E1...q=1620&f=false

    Thing is from the get go we run into a problem that the most often cited number in third hand sources such as provided by HH's links it is the first entry on Schor's chart. The one for the data point labeled Adult Male Peasant 13th century England. “Calculated from Gregory Clark's estimate of 150 days per family, assumes 12 hours per day, 135 days per year for adult male ("Impatience, Poverty, and Open Field Agriculture", mimeo, 1986)” A mimeographed edition and thus a work virtually beyond easy if any potential reference. In fact Google Scholar quickly shows the only references I can find to the paper are in fact references to Schor's table. What is odd you might think the Gregory Clark in question would be this PhD at UC Davis

    http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/facu...-long-2015.pdf

    But seemingly not since the paper does not appear in his CV which covers back to his dissertation and he certainly is interested in the area. The other G Clarks Google Scholar finds are not clearly not in the right field... oh well. But good luck if anyone else can turn it up. Usefully other sources cited in the secondary link (MIT) cited by business insider (and still more I found) suggest that the citation is either willfully misleading or misunderstands the material or is misunderstood by Schor. I suspect the number applies to only a very narrow definition of farm labor and or the traditional amount of time a surf or villein owed in direct labor to a lord (quite possible based on very scant data or data only from a certain kind of estate or deeply incomplete data, etc– none of of which would amount to what an adult male peasants actually likely worked per year).(*)

    Update serendipitously doing one more search on this last week. To be clear the above text was written when I first started working on this reply. To refine this a bit I returned to a pointless quest for this source to flesh out and finish and did have some luck. It turns out I was correct the G Clark in question is the one at UC Davis. And Schor has committed on of the great jerk moves of academic scholarship citing a unpublished/incomplete work (similar to the private communication with – insert noted expert) citation. As much as I was certain of this - the right Clark and the fact his CV back to dissertation omits the work which makes using it questionable to say the least [w/o formal approval of the author and some attempt to provide the data and calculations that are otherwise absolutely unavailable]... I was not going to bother the guy for confirmation for my umm err Master's paper, err no just a reply to some dude using Heathen Hammer on a web site based on a war game... But it turns out Amanda Mull writing for the Atlantic (and thus getting a pay check) did – Thanks Amanda.[7.]. Yep same Clark. And she quotes him – the Schor cited number is not his estimate now (nor given the unpublished nature of the original was never in any case). His current one is rather the one I cite below for example in “Growth or Stagnation?”. That is not some 120 day layabout work year.

    Aside: I see no reason to address data points 5-8 (from Schor's book). They are immaterial to the debate here (they I'm sure have some value in looking at the fact US days/hours worked has not declined from the gilded age as much wealthy OECD European nations, but again different argument) The nascent gilded age in the UK or US was not a time of liberal nor modern democracy and has nothing to do with modern mythologizing about peasant life in the medieval era. Thus I will only be considering points 1-4 and how they contrast to the modern points of 9-10 (and more recent data with respect to US, western Europe etc) and the OECD number tossed out by the first link. That last recollect was the US Average Worker 1987 (1949 hours), UK Manufacturing Workers 1988 (1856 hours) and offered by HH's first link OECD number US of 1791. Oh that link is here

    https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm

    It useful to note the US is at the high end. The average of all nations considered is 1716 hours and say the UK number is only 1497 hours

    Ahh where were we oh yes the 13th century - data point one. It turns out “[1] (as cited by MIT) H.S. Bennett, Life on the English Manor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 104-6.” Is useful reading particularity if you read around the narrow cited pages in the link above with its happy little segment picked out with context on pages 104-106 “One day's work was considered half a day, and if a serf worked an entire day, this was counted as two "days-works."(**) This particular bit of cherry picking does say something about how the labor a serf owed the lord might be counted (or reading a bit wider might note those half days as full were a luxury and not for time sensitive work when the lord's really came first). In any case the real point it says nothing of the labor the same serf (or free peasant etc.) owed himself to get money and produce out of the land he was a tenant on.

    **This cuts to one of the core problems of figuring out a comparison of days worked with modern hourly work days for peasants free or otherwise or hired labor. The reality is they were most recorded as doing a piece job or a task orientated one. and sometimes but always we get a translation to a 'work day' or a week work' A good discussion can be found in Stone "The Productivity of Hired and Customary Labour" [4.]. Here I cite a passage starting at page 646 ff. “hay barn. At Wisbech the major part of this process was carried out by customary tenants performing labour services and by casual hired labour.24 The labour inputs of the customary tenants, in terms of man-days, can be calculated from the labour services account which, from the 1 320s onwards, contained separate paragraphs for mowing and haymaking. Mowing works did not specify the length of day worked, but rather the acreage of meadow to be mown, but evidence of the money allowed for food indicates that the mowing of one acre was expected to take one whole day.25 The number of man-days per customary work for haymaking is specified in the accounts, the tenants from Wisbech working a full day, those living in nearby Leverington half a day.26 Labour inputs for hired workers can be assessed from payments made for mowing and haymaking listed in the expenditure section of the account rolls. Direct calculation of the number of man-days worked requires a daily wage to be listed along with the total payment, but this is rarely the case. Mowing, for instance, was only ever paid by the acre. The Statute of Labourers, however, states that payment by the acre was equivalent to payment by the day, that is, it took one day to mow an acre of meadow, an estimation which accords with that for customary labourers.27 In the case of haymak- ing, a daily wage is given in 1377 and 1378 as 2d. per day. On the reasonable assumption that wages in the 1370s were twice what they had been before 1349, it is estimated that haymakers would receive only 1d. per day in the 1340s, which was the rate of pay given in the Statute of Labourers for this task.28”

    The problem is of course we have a two different type of workers and again the real problem of using the Statue of Laboureres to adjust wages is problematic (see below). More important is note an acres of mowing was considered a days work and that it likely was was even with its breaks and a nap. That is it given stature and diet and caloric intake was not going to leave a tenant or day paid labor time to say go knock of and go a day doing their own mowing.

    Anyway back to a good source Bennett that is. If you take the time to read the whole thing [see 1.] its useful in any number of ways. For example not being very careful about even say using 'Peasant'. On the one hand do you mean essentially any tenant (because even 'free peasants' were overwhelming still tenants - well everyone was except the King [2.]) but than what. Free peasant or Villein. A villein who held a Virgator of 30 acres? The elite of the peasants who might hold double that or the large often ignored lot of 'undermanni' or 'cottars', 'crofters' or 'pytels' (because they don't produce well recorded records or histories in the manor accounts). All various peasants who fell bellow say the 10 acre holding but remains peasants and had their dues still before scrambling to earn a money wage ( Bennett 63ff).

    But here is a careful ground up attempt at man days worked by a sample peasant pre plague in England.

    Kitsikopoulos, Harry. “Standards of Living and Capital Formation in Pre-Plague England: A Peasant Budget Model.” The Economic History Review 53, no. 2 (2000): 237–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2598697.
    [A free JSTOR sign up will get access.]

    From Appendix 1 (pg 255 – 257 and Table A1.1 and notes 1-19)

    For a 18 acre tenant farm and assuming 3 adults (husband, wife, adult child and 2 minors – sub 14/15yrs). Assumed is also some use of common acreage (2 or more acres) and the ability to pay for wood gathering for example from the manor lord. The author seems to be assuming a free peasant given small labor committed communal and the assumption of taxes and just fees payed to the local larger manor holder paid in cash.

    Kitsikopoulos uses a bit of a complex system of man days per year based on a multiple of 3 (he is as noted assumes 3 working adults) but also leaves a range around assumed tasks since the 13th century manor was not Henry Ford's assembly line. Kitsikopoulos is a more credulous with respect to holidays than Bennett, and assumes 90-100 days that were 'largely observed ' (p 256 n18. contra Bennett p ff )

    But backbreaking down the system for 1 adult:
    A:~147/8 man-days' to run the farm and and not you know die.
    B:This produces ~121 man-days for other work.
    C:Now add the ~90 -100 man-days of official holidays and you get about a year.

    Thing is category B was not some kick back an get pissed at the local pub time or go play Roving with your mates. B had to accommodate the in kind rents and expected communal work even free peasants faced so deduct ~28 man days for those.

    Now B is 93 man-days and A up to 169 man-days. But those residual days do not devolve to leisure they very much are days spent looking for labor/work for pay or as Bennett likes to note possibly spent looking to say fishing or hunting either by poaching or hiking off to woods of nebulous ownership to gather non taxable wood or small game (p 93 ff) In any case a work year of probably 262 days and likely more in a bad year (holidays don't put food on the table). Reality is you man day is likely as much light as is available using the average from London short and longest its I think to allocate a work day not at least than 11 hours (for an average) it tilting the scale. But even allowing a lower bound 10-11 hour day average you are still looking at 2620 - 2882 hours a year.

    Essentially the same conclusion is reached (a bit more terse by) Gregory Clark in “Growth or Stagnation? Farming in England 1200-1800” [3] (page 15 in the manuscript form link follows). “For these reasons the output estimates in this paper are calculated with either a 250 and 300 day work year before 1600, rising to 300 by 1800.” (for farming labor be it paid or free peasant or villeinage or some combination)

    Manuscript version is online here [3. for the published link]
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/ehr.12528

    Well now that seems a solid enough rebuttal to data point one. Why not shuffle on to the really substantial BS in Schor's next points. (edit as amended above to a data points the author essentially never espoused and has formal rejected to just willfully abused by Schor)

    Aside 3: We are now moving to the post black death period. It import to note at this point we will be disusing the death of the peasant and the growth of wage labor and brief period in England were real wages grew . But let it absolutely clear this was no endogenous development the old Oligarchy/Aristocracy/Monarchy. Not by 1300 that system was grinding to collapse, The great famines and decline of stature demonstrate that even if the cause is heavily debated still. Nope just the completely unexpected exogenous events of famines of the early 1300's and the black death killing off a ton of people. But don't worry the Aristocratic elite got their feet back under them soon enough and made sure they controlled the land and got those wages back down down.

    Key point life was not getting great under the Monarchy/Aristocracy and dreamy happy peasant way of life till a lot of them just up and died. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-04-18-highs-and-lows-englishman%E2%80%99s-average-height-over-2000-years-0

    Full read: http://oro.open.ac.uk/53774/3/53774.pdf

    Also a bit more let's see on see on HH has a rant against modern elite in the links above. Let's see modern US elite I grant top 10% holds ~69% of the wealth. OK I would also prefer a more equitable arrangement. Medieval peasant world in England let's see top 5% of the seigniorial households held 47% of the landed wealth. Things seems to be the same “The agrarian problem in the early fourteenth century” B Campbell (pg11ff) [10.]. Spare me the argument quibble of comparing the top 10% to 5% isure the number ends sort identical if I invest more time.

    So back again to where the wheels fall off Schor's work (and the BI link that works)

    14th century - Casual laborer, U.K.: 1440 hours
    Calculated from Nora Ritchie's estimate of 120 days per year. Assumes 12-hour day. ("Labour conditions in Essex in the reign of Richard II", in E.M. Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History, vol. II, London: Edward Arnold, 1962).”

    OK this one is just bad maybe not as bad the unpublished source it terms of something an editor should have waved and serious not survive a peer review but it does provide at least a really low number for Schor so I can she why she jumped on it.

    Link is Kenyon, Nora. “Labour Conditions in Essex in the Reign of Richard II.” The Economic History Review 4, no. 4 (1934): 429–51. https://doi.org/10.2307/2589850. (solid JSTOR reference just do the work and sign up for free).

    Too bad you can read the paper unlike the the snipe hunt for Clark's disavowed not published work.
    We have a problem that looms large because once again Schor has plucked not even a single data point from an incomplete list (that is the next one below) but a byzantine calculation form a singualr point source and ascribed to all England as a norm.

    [Note name change on the paper author- Schor uses the paper in a later collection I am citing the original publication]

    Did I mention the black death? Did I mention mention this is a one off cherry pick of data. Did I mention the conclusion is a contorted effort to try to use wage control law to try and generate a work year out of demanded wage based on the mostly failing attempt to enforce traditional wages?

    I don't need to because Ms. (? Her father and sister were prominent archaeologists/historians can't figure out if she was as well) Nora Ritchie nee Kenyon does that for you.

    In the hundred of Barstable ten common labourers from East Tilbury, Mucking, Rams- den, Horndon, and Laindon " refused to serve except by the day, taking each of them from diverse men at Orsett and elsewhere in the hundred 2d. and dinner in the years Io to I3 Richard II. [I386-89] "; and of the above ten men it was further stated that in i2 Richard IIL 'm.24. 2m.7 3m. I2. 4m.i8. 5m.30. .. )

    (page break and excuse the odd bits from the cut an paste source text)

    ...[I388-89] one of them received "20S. and dinner-i.e., ios. by extortion" and another of them "i6s. and dinner-i.e., 6s. by ex- tortion."' If id. a day was the statutory maximum it would appear that I2o days was considered a normal amount of work for a casual labourer, giving a maximum limit of ios. for the year. I2o days, however, seems a very small proportion of the year for a man to work, but the jurors must have been calculating on the conditions of casual employment of a normal manorial organization in which the majority of the work was still done by customary tenants. At Thaxted2 a virgater had worked I37 days in winter and summer and 38 during the harvest, on a basis of a 5-day week, four weeks' holiday at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun, and 6i saints' days in winter and summer, and 4 in the harvest season. It is obvious, therefore, that when all cultivation was increasingly dependent on daily labourers their oppor- tunities for employment might be much greater than I2o days in the year, more especially since a shortage of labour supply would enable them to obtain as much work as they felt inclined; and should they feel inclined to earn a large total during the year it may be surmised that they would be the less insistent on the observation of the former holidays on saints' days. By the time of Walter of Henley3 it may be remarked that 308 days was the normal annual total for an agricul- tural labourer” (p432-433)

    See [9.] Walter of Henley is online

    Thus the ideal that 120 days was the working years is shown to be a fiction of Jurists trying to fit the demanded and received daily wage and computed work year into the wage controls of the not very successful Statue of Labourers Act of 1351 by looking at what traditional manorial wage rates had been (the one written into law)

    This is not even a real thing let alone something typical of England. But the icing is that Kenyon proceeds to demolish the ideal as such and somehow is entirely ignored by Schor. Since Kenyon clearly points out and notes concurrently a tenet with a work year of 175 (not including his own work), and a period source that states a year for a wage laborers on a farm setting was 308 days (note this matches Clark cited above).

    Oddly enough the 120 day thing can be found in another paper (Penn and Dyer “Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws.” “[11.] that looks at the odd calculations (or not given division of a shilling into 12 pence) the resulted from prosecutions of people avoiding the Statue of Labourers Act. On page 268 one meets Walter Wright identified as a common carpenter (important so he is deemed closer to a laborer than say a master craftsmen) is fined for what is held to be 20s in excessive pay for 240 days work over 2 years. The court records however are spartan thus Penn and Dyer guess the court may have decided the excess was 1d for the 240 days. The math is simple than and by the logic Schor would use get hah see 120 work day over 2 years... except of course know absolutely nothing about what other work or land Walter held (and never will) Nor can we say what food or board the man might have got over his pay and conversely not also not if even got his pay but was holding some portion of IOU.

    Also to be pointed out in Penn and Dyer is the categories a person might be named in the courts while violating the statute not just X a Y... but per (p 360)

    The first conclusion that can be drawn from the records of the enforcement of the labour laws is that in many parts of the country people pursued a great variety of occupations. This is a well-known feature of the published poll tax records of the eastern and northern counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Yorkshire.'6 It was also true of the west, for example in Somerset in I358, where the jurors of the five towns of Axbridge, Bath, Bridgwater, Langport, and Wells named 47 offenders, who were said to follow eight occupations, including the vague descriptions 'common labourer' and 'common workman' which presumably covered people involved in a number of trades”

    (p 361)the I370s individuals could be called 'dauber, mower, and thatcher' (in Norfolk), or 'labourer, ploughman, and carter' (in Essex).2' In the case of groups of workers this might have resulted from the hard-pressed clerks' attempts to describe as many people as quickly as possible, but in view of the references to two or three occupations for individuals, they seem also to have been recording the jobs which a worker could do in the course of a year, compatible with one another because they could be pursued at different times”

    The last note is that it is important what else might Walter have been doing. As Hassell Smith shows in this careful set of papers “Labourers in late sixteenth-century England: a case study from north Norfolk parts I and II” [12.]While the black death opened the door to a sharp increase in the wage labor and the end/alteration of the old manorial system – that system did not die easy. As the Statute on Labourer and various related statues on restricting movement and those on vagrants – even the most ambitious villein or free holder of the least land could only follow the best wage so far and not without risk of penalty and thus was likely to always be spending time gleaning what could be had in his village from tenet lands. And even the smallest of the small cotters seem to have had an acres or two, and likely between commons and leases or just small other holdings and or livestock as well. Page 267 part II. Thus even nine men recorded as landless on the rolls (~1 acre or less around a cottage) were renting meadow and grazing land from 1 to 5 acres.

    Also contra Schor's rather weak attempt to wave away women (chapter 3) they figure quite prominently in Penn and Dyer getting their knuckles tapped for wage violations (both married and girls unwed) pg 373 for example

    Next

    1400-1600 - Farmer-miner, adult male, U.K.: 1980 hours
    Calculated from Ian Blanchard's estimate of 180 days per year. Assumes 11-hour day ("Labour productivity and work psychology in the English mining industry, 1400-1600", Economic History Review 31, 23 (1978).”

    [5.] JSTOR reference with solid link

    I said the last one was silly (might have might have edited that out), this is willfully selective (but than again I said that above the one above - I am finding another pattern and its not one sustaining the proposed thesis. Its worth noting in any case at 1980 hours it already kinda killing the overworked American thing. That is it fails vs the OECD data for the US. In fact out of 46 countries in the OECD survey it fails against all but 2 (Taking Schor's citation at face value which will proceed below to not do). That means outside of Mexico and Costa Rica the the modern world has not failed us vs this 'peasant' statistic.

    But you say what of Schor's data points from the 80s and US and UK Manufacturing workers ( 1949 and 1856 hours). Oh no I am defeated... err wait no I'm not. Thing is I am not just winning it helps to read the cited source and the loosing side for Schor looks rather far worse.

    1400-1600 - Farmer-miner, adult male, U.K”

    That was farmer and worker. So assuming you read the somewhat odd paper by Blanchard which with very little in the way of 'interviews of the locals on record' presumes at meany cases to assert worker psychology based on recorded traditional wages.,,, that does not matter anyway. What matters is Schor cites one – one data point for this claim. That is from Table B2-1 (pg23) days worked. A Table that has 10 different year entries from 1433 to 1600 but only one filled number from 1600 . That would the again is 'farmer miner' (although it also includes cotter miners but not professionals who do nothing but mining and are a different set of data in the paper) from one location only in all of England at Mendip (and a small sample at that) . I no ideal where the 11 hours is derived from. It makes sense I suppose in that that this was piece work and given the walking to the work camp or min you can assume a full day is invested.

    So on page 3 we can find the data that Schor ignores the 'farmer' part of farmer miner. That man is assumed to have 265 man-days available for work all year (the author of the paper thus implicitly accepts around 100 holidays a year). Of that it is further assumed some 130 of those man-days could be available for mining.

    It is useful to note this in fact matches well with the conclusions of Kitsikopoulos on non (own) farm potential work available man-days. Blanchard's sample/average farmer land for this paper leans toward 5.5 acres farmed (n1 p2) thus note even less than a quarter vergator. An earlier work [8.] notes some farmer miners were substantial men holding 40 or 50 acres in a web of free holding, villeinage, leases and sub leases. In either case the quite large holding elite peasant or the 5.5 acres man - both would likely have more available wage time than Kitsikopoulos' 20+ acres free holder.

    Schor also manages to ignore table B2-2 which while incomplete again has at least 3 numbers out of 8 possible entries for days worked by 'Professional miners' - they average to 234 days. At the assumed 11 hours that is 2581 hours a year.

    Last and least Schor's own addition to the data set. At this point given the misuse of sources so far note sure I need to bother since her calculation already says I not overworked.

    Middle ages - English worker: 2309 hours
    Juliet Schor's estime of average medieval laborer working two-thirds of the year at 9.5 hours per day

    I got nothing for the justification for this. At face value it seems to entertain more holidays than is credible and seemingly tries to also minimize the working day to an arbitrary 9.5 hours.
    In chapter 3 this would seem to be based on reading hard into the vague somewhat rose colored assertions in James E. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages (London: Allen and Unwin, 1949), 542-43. that both Schor in Chapter 3 and the MIT source hang their hat on – an asserted Elizabethan regulation of a 12 hour work day but with some formally enforced 2 and half hours of break thus getting 9.5 hours. I can't find it outside of Roger's statement. Schor also advocates for accepting all holidays and making up more (around p47)

    Thus its worth while to reflect again on holidays. Clark certainly does not buy Schor getting on to sufficient holidays to imagine only a 243 day low hour work day. Kenyon above implies holiday in the breech of less than even the 90-ish Kitsikopoulos allows for.

    Interesting that Schor and MIT ignore their own source Bennett again as they gush about 'the ales' as holidays. Except as Bennett notes (pg 265ff). This holiday was not in most cases 'free' but enforced and one with a fee paid to the “the lord or his bailiff or the forester who held them” Not enforced means not a day you get to decided your own work.

    Also let's see. Schor and MIT both use Knoop and Jones “The Medieval Mason...” but use a version that I simply do not have access to. I used the first print Manchester University Press print 1933 [13.]. Suffice to say the page 105 carefully cited is err not the right one in theversion I can read and cite. But reading further I reasonably confident there is no page that is the right one. But feel free to find one. Schor and MIT do seem to have managed to glaze over (in my version) page 90-94 the impressment of masons.

    Using my link I would imagine the real point is what you can make out of Chapter V (p 109ff). I certainly can't achieve the absolute certainty of the MIT folks

    Knoop and jones' figures for the fourteenth century work out to a yearly average of 9 hours (exclusive of meals and breaktimes) “

    Sorry as Knoop and Jones cover the topic there is no certainty at all. There is a mass of some wage serious almost all for a minority of large projects that range from day to t week to month to the very few year contracts. Those with additional non money money benefits, those that have provisos for overtime those that include night work,. Those that differentiated class of mason, those that all of them desperate. Those that saw mason fined under statute for over pay or over work. Those involving impressed masons.

    Take simply page 117 and notes. A whole diverging set of daily hours are offered up the only calculated implies 8.75 hours in winter and 12.25 in summer. But this implies guessing how strict or not references to light till dark are understood.

    In any case we mass of disparate data of the people working as wage contractors of varied time who in many cases were not also only masons and working in a rage of contracts. No data can realistically be deduced as to what a work week or year or hours was.

    Well not saying this might not have more typos still. Need more polish or might not add more but for now I am reasonably confident I have shown you probably are not working longer than a medieval English peasant (certainly not one from before the black death). And you can be reasonably sure the evidence says you are both healthier and will live very much longer on average.

    Edit there is a huge gap I have not directly addressed is does not work = leisure or time off or just a more neutral not work or all the work I could do sans physical exhaustion. I will post some on that because that really is also important and it umm does not help the peasant case.



    [1.] LIFE ON THE ENGLISH MANOR (A STUDY OF PEASANT CONDITIONS 1150-1400)
    by H.S.BENNETT

    Original 1937/38. Not the reprint (as far as I know the 1960 is simply a reissue no update or change in numbering of pages etc.).

    https://archive.org/details/lifeontheenglish020976mbp

    [2.]For a long read on the nature of legal questions around the feudalism we are talking about see also
    Senn, Mark A. “ENGLISH LIFE AND LAW IN THE TIME OF THE BLACK DEATH.” Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal 38, no. 3 (2003): 507–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20785740.

    [3.]Clark, G. (2018), Growth or stagnation? Farming in England, 1200–1800. The Economic History Review, 71: 55-81. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12528

    [4.]Stone, David. “The Productivity of Hired and Customary Labour: Evidence from Wisbech Barton in the Fourteenth Century.” The Economic History Review 50, no. 4 (1997): 640–56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2599880.

    [5.]Blanchard, Ian. “Labour Productivity and Work Psychology in the English Mining Industry, 1400-1600.” The Economic History Review 31, no. 1 (1978): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/2595798.

    [6.]As I note in the text the MIT link translates Schor's pg 45 graph the source of the overworked worked American/leisure peasant figure all about the internet (Overworked...) to text. I found the page via google book and the link is in my text. But with more searching some months later I found chapter 3 of the book available as well.

    https://sites.middlebury.edu/greattr...can-Chpt-3.pdf

    Who knows maybe lucky dragon 77 helped me find more this source of this silly argument and confirm I am glad I never even tried it at used book store price.

    [7.]What Did Medieval Peasants Know? - The Atlantic

    [8.]Blanchard, Ian. “The Miner and the Agricultural Community in Late Medieval England.” The Agricultural History Review 20, no. 2 (1972): 93–106. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40273487.

    [9.]Walter of Henley's Husbandry, together with an anonymous Husbandry, Seneschaucie, and Robert Grosseteste's Rules : Henley, Walter de, 13th cent : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

    [10.]Bruce M. S. Campbell. “The Agrarian Problem in the Early Fourteenth Century.” Past & Present, no. 188 (2005): 3–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600831.

    [11.]Simon A. C. Penn, and Christopher Dyer. “Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws.” The Economic History Review 43, no. 3 (1990): 356–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/2596938.

    [12.]Smith, A. (1989). Labourers in late sixteenth-century England: A case study from north Norfolk [Part I]. Continuity and Change, 4(1), 11-52. doi:10.1017/S0268416000003581

    Smith, A. (1989). Labourers in late sixteenth-century England: A case study from north Norfolk [Part II]. Continuity and Change, 4(3), 367-394. doi:10.1017/S0268416000003775

    [13.]https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/knoop/MediaevalMason.pdf
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; August 31, 2022 at 06:24 AM. Reason: Personal.
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  2. #2

    Default Re: Sorry Heathen Hammer the medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies) - a much delayed reply.

    An impertinent inquiry but what's wrong with pigs?
    Last edited by skh1; August 30, 2022 at 05:35 PM.

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    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: Sorry Heathen Hammer the medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies) - a much delayed reply.

    Quote Originally Posted by skh1 View Post
    An impertinent inquiry but what's wrong with pigs?
    They are (or can be) really really destructive to your infrastructure. The barn you see behind me (in the horse photo) was a 100+ plus years old had had big gaps in shall we say expected maintenance. Over its live the barn was something of a crazy quilt of usage. It had one solid stall with a paved floor fit for holding a pig and so I decided to get one from neighbor and thus my kids and I could raise it for the fair... well turns out my locality had both a fair number of 4H or FFA kids and ones where things were not so good so one way or the other they lost the ability or the means to house their fair pigs. So being generous I agreed to try and house them (nominally temporarily). But try as might ended up with too many pigs and not enough really solid stalls or dedicated pasture to let them hang about in. Also once big they had a tenancy to easily overrun temporary low voltage cross tape fence and my mustang really really hated them and was kinda always close to kicking them to death if I did not get them back locked up quick enough. Just worked out better with horses, chickens and a goat (it really liked the 9 or so acres of wooded over grown cliff side and the horses chickens and cats all liked it. (goat not in the text)
    Last edited by conon394; August 30, 2022 at 07:55 PM.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

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    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  4. #4

    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Soooo... your whole argument rests on two main premises:
    1) Medieval people living shorter on average (due to infant mortality which was an unfortunate reality until more or less recent medical/technological discoveries which can't really be attributed to shortcomings or benefits of the "system" in either case of Middle Ages or Modernity);
    2) Period sources being "wrong" - which, again, can be applied to modern sources fluffing over the benefits of modernity as well.

    With that in mind, I don't really see where Schor is so "wrong", since both of your counter-arguments rely on a faulty premise that ignores swaths of context, be it odd way of estimating average lifespan by including infant mortality or giving benefit of the doubt to modern sources as opposed to period ones.
    Last edited by Heathen Hammer; August 31, 2022 at 12:32 PM.

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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    1. Medieval people did not live shorter on average. That's just a dumb myth that goes hand in hand with the equally retarded "life was grimdark and brutish" and the always popular "medieval peasants only bathed once a month or less". The average life-span was much shorter because out of 10 kids you had maybe 3 or 4 survive past their 10th birthday due to a variety of factors, however you did manage to survive childhood you had every chance of living what we would call a normal lifespan.

    2. Comparing the life of a medieval peasant with the life a modern worker is stupid for two big fat reasons:

    I. Medieval peasants faced issues we cannot even understand and subsequently we face issues (particularly health issues) that did not even exist during the medieval period.

    b. The post industrial revolution life is so much more regimented than at any other point in the history of humanity that it is simply impossible to compare.


    I do have to note that Heathen Hammer is using the phrase wage slaves completely erroneously. He's referring to the modern day worker, but wage salve refers to people to depend on their wage to survive the week/month and are locked in place in an exploitative job by the intentionally low pay they get. That type of people are the social equivalent of medieval slaves (yes slavery was a thing, especially in Russia) not medieval peasants and tend to be encountered in greater numbers in countries like modern day Russia, China, etc and in much lesser numbers in the west.
    Last edited by Sir Adrian; August 31, 2022 at 12:15 PM.
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  6. #6

    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    I used the term "wagie", not "slave" for a reason. Slaves were usually people that were captured or otherwise placed into such position, their modern equivalent could be prisoners that are forced to work in penal system, or people that are otherwise coerced to labor in one situation or the other.

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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    You've just described wage slaves. People who work for little pay in bad conditions but cannot find another job because they can't afford to quit.
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  8. #8

    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Like I said, that equivalent would be better applied to people who are actual slaves, like inmates in US private prisons or any other individual that is legally coerced to do labor against his will.

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    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Meh, to be honest I thought the interesting part about HH's post quoted in the OP is not so much whether the life of a medieval peasant was preferable over that of a modern worker. It seems we work longer, but for a higher standard of living, so it's not that simple to make the comparison. The interesting part is whether this has anything to do with a system of government.

    It should be noted that feudalism is not actually a system of government. It's a framework devised post-hoc to describe the result of evolving, mostly inter-personal, dependency. It started with the victorious warlord and his retainers whom he had to keep loyal with the fruits of conquest. When no new plunder was available, the warlord had to share his domain with them. Over time, those retainers begot their own dependents and the system cascaded down further. This didn't much impact the peasantry, until landless knights decided to carve out their own share without any backing or consent from a Lord. Castles popped up all over the place and their occupants imposed entirely arbitrary customs on the peasantry. Whatever prosperity they had, whatever rights they were given by their distant lords vanished under threat of violence from the castles overlooking their valley. Complaints to lords multiplied, but despite repeated attempts at repression and exacting repentance, the lords were unable suppress the proliferation of baronies and eventually they too had to be recognized as part of the hierarchy.

    The lesson for us today is that a weak 'official power' invites unofficial power. Anarchy is utopian. Unless we can (temporarily) escape beyond the limits of civilization, we will be subjected to a certain level of power, and the only thing we can influence is who gets to wield it.
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  10. #10

    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    The higher standard of living part seems to be something of a mythological variety, given the ongoing situation with collapse of purchasing power, recession and inflation. It appears that wagies work more, but for less. Hence why there is organic rational for population to disrupt status quo which would ultimately benefit it.

    Above attempt to explain feudalism seems to fail to address the point of debate at all.
    If we go into comparing aristocratic forms of government with modern oligarchies, we clearly see that the reason why masses are worse off under the latter is due to absence of accountability for the ruling class: bankers, CEOs and other oligarchs rule by proxy, without taking any blame for anything negative that comes form their rule be it wars, economic crisis or environmental catastrophes.

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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    The higher standard of living part seems to be something of a mythological variety, given the ongoing situation with collapse of purchasing power, recession and inflation. It appears that wagies work more, but for less. Hence why there is organic rational for population to disrupt status quo which would ultimately benefit it.
    True, that what happens when capitalism has no strong government as a counterweight. I suppose we agree on that now. An improvement over your past libertarian leanings for sure. Anyway the question is then what form of government could provide a counterweight in ways that benefits ordinary folk.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    Above attempt to explain feudalism seems to fail to address the point of debate at all.
    If we go into comparing aristocratic forms of government with modern oligarchies, we clearly see that the reason why masses are worse off under the latter is due to absence of accountability for the ruling class: bankers, CEOs and other oligarchs rule by proxy, without taking any blame for anything negative that comes form their rule be it wars, economic crisis or environmental catastrophes.
    What I tried to explain is that feudal hierarchy, while nominally being about personal accountability to a lord, was in fact the result of a net failure of lords to hold their dependents to account. For peasants, what mattered in their experience was the reality of this constant failure, where retainers, agents of kings and dukes and landless knights, basically went rogue and violently carved out their own little domains, confiscating property, claiming privileges and imposing 'bad customs'. The net balance was one where Lords were unable to deal with it and ended up accepting fealty in a ritual that actually meant the post-hoc legitimization of these transgressions. Such formal accountability was of little use to those appealing to lords and kings for protection.

    Basically it's one form of filling a power vacuum. Oligarchs using their wealth to subvert democratic government is another. But it can only happen when that government allows that power vacuum to come into existence. In a democracy, that's a political choice.
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

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    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    @Muizer

    I not really seeing your explination make sense.

    OK If you want I say a Feudalism and in and Aristocratic Oligarchy.

    But I can't see how you have peasants de novo where Feudalism or Aristocracy just sort happens to them. They are part and parcel of the feudal/aristocratic system from day one. You don't have peasants tenets w/o all the other bits of the feudal aristocracy

    ------------

    It seems we work longer, but for a higher standard of living, so it's not that simple to make the comparison
    Err just no the data is clear you are living longer and better and working less. The comparison is actually quite simple.
    Last edited by conon394; September 02, 2022 at 02:33 PM.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  13. #13

    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Quote Originally Posted by Muizer View Post
    True, that what happens when capitalism has no strong government as a counterweight. I suppose we agree on that now. An improvement over your past libertarian leanings for sure. Anyway the question is then what form of government could provide a counterweight in ways that benefits ordinary folk.
    Well, at least you see a problem in this system, where finance oligarchy rules by proxy via "elected representatives", which is a certain improvement on your past neoliberal leanings. And I agree, the question should be on how this elite can be removed from power and to permanently inhibit its ability to influence society.
    What I tried to explain is that feudal hierarchy, while nominally being about personal accountability to a lord, was in fact the result of a net failure of lords to hold their dependents to account. For peasants, what mattered in their experience was the reality of this constant failure, where retainers, agents of kings and dukes and landless knights, basically went rogue and violently carved out their own little domains, confiscating property, claiming privileges and imposing 'bad customs'. The net balance was one where Lords were unable to deal with it and ended up accepting fealty in a ritual that actually meant the post-hoc legitimization of these transgressions. Such formal accountability was of little use to those appealing to lords and kings for protection.

    Basically it's one form of filling a power vacuum. Oligarchs using their wealth to subvert democratic government is another. But it can only happen when that government allows that power vacuum to come into existence. In a democracy, that's a political choice.
    Umm, you kinda tried to lump up very different periods of history that spanned in centuries into two paragraphs. Talk about oversimplifying the issue.
    Again, the issue is that in modern oligarchies (aka "democracies"), finance class has 0 accountability, while "democratic process" comes down to choice between who will represent the oligarchy.
    Just look at modern USA, Americans can vote all day long, but they can't vote away Vanguard or Blackrock, who are the state for all that matters.
    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    Err just no the data is clear you are living longer and better and working less. The comparison is actually quite simple.
    So far we have that people live longer due to technology, they work more, and... worse, due to inflation and overall loss of purchasing power. People that could buy a house in 1970s with minimal wage objectively were better off then modern people that cannot, no matter how many neoliberal think tanks produce "analysis" that would suggest otherwise.
    Last edited by Heathen Hammer; September 02, 2022 at 03:24 PM.

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    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    So far we have that people live longer due to technology, they work more, and... worse, due to inflation and overall loss of purchasing power. People that could buy a house in 1970s with minimal wage objectively were better off then modern people that cannot, no matter how many neoliberal think tanks produce "analysis" that would suggest otherwise.
    You are randomly moving the goal posts. Now you are just comparing the current moment (where) to 1970 (where)?

    "They work more" compared to when certainly not medieval peasants.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

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    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    They are part and parcel of the feudal/aristocratic system from day one. You don't have peasants tenets w/o all the other bits of the feudal aristocracy
    From what I've been reading about the early and mid middle ages, this was most definitely not the case. The starting point of the feudal 'system' was a victorious warlord and his retainers doing a circuit of the territory they claimed as theirs. Hosting the traveling court was the main obligation imposed on local communities, who otherwise continued to run their affairs fairly autonomously. What I tried to explain is how from that starting point you ended up with a hierarchy of aristocrats, each with their own territorial slice of the kingdom, with the king on top and the peasantry in servitude. It took half a millennium or more to get there and was the product of a 'two pronged attack". On the one hand, from the top, the king gradually having to cede power to his retainers to keep them loyal (especially in times of troubled succession and war). On the other hand, from the bottom up, the rapacious officials and landless knights seizing power without much a priory legitimization from above, by violent extortion, which more often than not ended up being 'legalized' post hoc by lords unable to protect their people from these depredations. On paper, this results in a hierarchy with bottom up accountability, but the reality is that was never by design. It's the formalized outcome of continuous and often violent struggle. And that violence determined the experience of the commoners.
    Last edited by Muizer; September 03, 2022 at 06:46 AM.
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    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    From what I've been reading about the early and mid middle ages
    Can you define that in time and place. You seem to be rolling with a fairly theoretical model.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  17. #17
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
    Patrician Artifex Magistrate

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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    Can you define that in time and place. You seem to be rolling with a fairly theoretical model.
    I based myself mainly on what I recall from Chris Wickham's "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000" and Thomas Bisson's "The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government". Personally I'm more interested in the transition from Empire to medieval kingdoms (Heather, Halsell, Goffart, to name a few). Those early kingdoms were not feudal and I've seen no indications that at any point after feudalism was conceived of and implemented as a "system of government". The parceling up of the King's domain, especially at the smallest level (barons) was not a part of a deliberate policy. Exactly the opposite. It came about through violations of the King's peace that were left partly or wholly unremedied. It seems paradoxical to qualify the violation of extant law and erosion of rights as a system of government.
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

  18. #18
    Sir Adrian's Avatar the Imperishable
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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post



    Err just no the data is clear you are living longer and better and working less. The comparison is actually quite simple.
    Compared to the industrial age, yes. Compared to the middle ages, nope.
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  19. #19
    Praeses
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    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    "I must spread some reputation around ..."

    Great OP. No argument from me, IMHO there's very few people in my country who'd last a year back then. I know I wouldn't.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

  20. #20

    Default Re: The medevial peasent was not living the Life of Riley (compared to modern 'wage slaves' in liberal democracies).

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    You are randomly moving the goal posts. Now you are just comparing the current moment (where) to 1970 (where)?

    "They work more" compared to when certainly not medieval peasants.
    Err just no the data is clear you are living longer and better and working less. The comparison is actually quite simple.
    LOL you are the one that made broad but verifiably false claim that we "live better now", like there is some linear progress in quality of life, which isn't true.

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