Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 1 (2004), p. 110

The study of medieval peasants has been so active a field of medieval social history in recent decades that it is hardly surprising the topic repays an extensive and careful review. Phillipp Schofield’s book, designed to be read as an introductory text to the subject, will also be valuable for readers wanting an up-to-date survey of current research. He discusses succinctly, in three chapters, the large body of evidence relating to rural tenures, whose distinguished historiography goes back to the later nineteenth century, before going on to consider more recent areas of interest. Another three chapters are devoted to what is known about peasant families, in which age at marriage, household size, and the wider responsibilities associated with kinship are all explored. Three further chapters examine the relationship between peasant societies and commercial, political and religious institutions. These last three topics Schofield classifies as relationships between peasants and ‘worlds beyond’, so emphasizing the extent to which the medieval rural communities were open to both stimuli and pressures from outside.

Inevitably, given the large proportion of the English population under discussion, the book has to deal with a diversity of experience that defies easy generalizations. However, progress in this area of research has often history review involved undermining generalized fallacies about medieval peasants and their ways: to demonstrate the diversity to be found through the documents has in itself myth-breaking potential so that even negative conclusions can be informative. However, Schofield’s prevailing emphasis is a positive one, contrasting strongly with some pessimistic traditions of the past; he demonstrates the extent to which peasants understood their environment, adapted to change, and responded actively to the challenges and opportunities they encountered. The contribution of peasant farmers to thegrowth of output and trade in agricultural produce is a major case in point, supported by interesting and well-chosen examples. There are predictably helpful comments on rural credit, the peasant land market and litigation, topics with which Schofield’s name is particularly associated. The book has interesting comments on practical understanding of legal procedure within rural society, and on the extent to which ordinary country-men were aware of political events. Even in matters of religion, where there were severe institutional constraints on what lay people could and could not do, Schofield shows how the establishment of parishes encouraged peasant involvement, and he discusses the range of different ways through which peasant piety could be expressed both privately and collectively. In all these discussions he is well aware of the scope for rivalry and oppression internal to peasant society, given the considerable inequalities of wealth and status to be found there.

The condition of the peasantry did not remain unchanged through the three centuries under consideration, even if economic development was slow by modern standards. Underlying the analyses of peasant society, the book subsumes the familiar dynamic outlines of demographic, commercial, legal and political changes that affected the environment in which rural livelihoods could be gained. The need to incorporate change over time makes for complexity in Chapters 2 to 4 concerning the land, in which regional differences, legal distinctions and social categories also struggle for space. A student approaching peasant society for the first time will have to study these pages particularly closely to gain a firm grasp of the issues. Later chapters pose fewer complications, and can consequently be read more easily. Throughout the book, the analysis is invariably up-to-date. Where the offered interpretation is controversial, the facts in question are sufficiently unclear to justify whole research programmes. It is not as obvious as Schofield implies, for example, that the proportion of the population dependent upon wage labour increased through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The evidence of population, wages and tenures might rather be interpreted to imply that proletarianization in the countryside declined through this period. But arguments either way have yet to be posed effectively and properly tested.

Besides the interest of its text, a further advantage of the book is the assistance the author gives to those wanting to develop their knowledge of the subject. Each chapter is well annotated, with references to an extensive range of sources. In addition, there is an excellent eight-page annotated bibliography, clearly demarcated by subject area. The book is usefully indexed both by names and the subjects discussed.