Negotiation and resistance : peasant agency in high Medieval France

In Negotiation and Resistance , Constance Brittain Bouchard challenges familiar depictions of the peasantry as an undifferentiated mass of impoverished and powerless workers. Peasants in eleventh- and twelfth-century France had far more scope for action, self-determination, and resistance to oppressive treatment—that is, for agency—than they are usually credited with having. Through innovative readings of documents collected in medieval cartularies, Bouchard finds that while peasants lived hard, impoverished lives, they were able to negotiate, individually or collectively, to better their position, present cases in court, and make their own decisions about such fundamental issues as inheritance or choice of marriage partner. Negotiation and Resistance upends the received view of this period in French history as one in which lords dealt harshly and without opposition toward subservient peasants, offering numerous examples of peasants standing up for themselves. In Negotiation and Resistance, Constance Brittain Bouchard challenges familiar depictions of the peasantry as an undifferentiated mass of impoverished and powerless workers. Peasants in eleventh- and twelfth-century France had far more scope for action, self-determination, and resistance to oppressive treatment-that is, for agency-than they are usually credited with having.Through innovative readings of documents collected in medieval cartularies, Bouchard finds that while peasants lived hard and impoverished lives, they were neither silent nor helpless. This era in French history, she contends, was a time in which peasants were able to negotiate, individually or collectively, to better their position, present cases in court, and make their own decisions about such fundamental issues as inheritance or choice of marriage partner.Negotiation and Resistance upends the received view of this period in French history as one in which lords dealt harshly and without opposition toward subservient peasants, offering numerous examples of peasants standing up against those who would dominate them "This book is about how the peasants of northern France in the high Middle Ages, ca. 1000-1250, exercised agency, that is, self-determination and resistance to oppression, especially through collective negotiation with the powerful, including landlords, counts, and dukes, and bishops and abbots"-- Provided by publisher Peasant status and the meanings of serfdom -- Peasants, property, and payments -- Peasants, religion, and the church -- Peasants, new towns, and communes -- Peasant agency: initiative and resistance