The medieval clergy, aristocracy, and commercial classes tended to
regard peasants as objects of contempt and derision. In religious
writings, satires, sermons, chronicles, and artistic
representations peasants often appeared as dirty, foolish,
dishonest, even as subhuman or bestial. Their lowliness was
commonly regarded as a natural corollary of the drudgery of their
agricultural toil.
Yet, at the same time, the peasantry was not viewed as "other" in
the manner of other condemned groups, such as Jews, lepers,
Muslims, or the imagined "monstrous races" of the East. Several
crucial characteristics of the peasantry rendered it less clearly
alien from the elite perspective: peasants were not a minority,
their work in the fields nourished all other social orders, and,
most important, they were Christians. In other respects, peasants
could be regarded as meritorious by virtue of their simple life,
productive work, and unjust suffering at the hands of their
exploitive social superiors. Their unrewarded sacrifice and piety
were also sometimes thought to place them closest to God and more
likely to win salvation.
This book examines these conflicting images of peasants from the
post-Carolingian period to the German Peasants' War. It relates the
representation of peasants to debates about how society should be
organized (specifically, to how human equality at Creation led to
subordination), how slavery and serfdom could be assailed or
defended, and how peasants themselves structured and justified
their demands.
Though it was argued that peasants were legitimately subjugated by
reason of nature or some primordial curse (such as that of Noah
against his son Ham), there was also considerable unease about how
the exploitation of those who were not completely alien--who were,
after all, Christians--could be explained. Laments over peasant
suffering as expressed in the literature might have a stylized
quality, but this book shows how they were appropriated and shaped
by peasants themselves, especially in the large-scale rebellions
that characterized the late Middle Ages.
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