This as a book I would recommend very highly to anyone looking both at the history of France in the period and at the life of medieval peasants in general.
This is very much a source based study, and Constance Bouchard, having edited several of them for publication, clearly knows the sources very well.
She makes a strong case for the peasants
hiding in plain sight in the cartularies that survive from the monastic houses, and that if we look at such records we will find them. I am sure that the lessons and insights she offers mutatis mutandis can be applied to other parts of France or Western Europe. Thus England had a different history in regard to serfdom in the same period, but what the book argues could still be used profitably as an insight when looking at English conditions as revealed in manorial court rolls and other records
Yes, peasant life was doubtless often hard, but what Bouchard shows are real peasants, not the archetypes created by historians and social theorists centuries later without reference to the archival evidence. These real peasants showed very considerable vitality in defending and negotiating their best interests. They emerge as lively and resilient, not downtrodden victims.
This readable, humane study which makes medieval people step out of the shadows for at least a few minutes as flesh and blood and not just theories or statistics, is of great value for the general reader, for students and for academics looking for pointers with their research. It is a book which in a relatively short format reveals a lot in an accessible, thoughtful, and informative way.
Posted on Amazon 25.3.2023
No comments:
Post a Comment