PEASANTS IN MIDDLE AGES (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of PEASANTS IN MIDDLE AGES Friday, October 9 2009.

• Setting out to redress the balance of history in favour of the peasants, this book argues that the lives of peasants - the vast majority of the population in medieval Europe - were just as complex and interesting as those of the nobility. Rosener first considers the social, economic and political foundations of peasant life, particularly how the occupational and land divisions determined the relative freedom of the rural population. He continues by illustrating how at the height of the Middle Ages, the peasant condition improved as tenant farming was introduced and progress in agricultural technology increased productivity. The study tells of the successful peasants who owned land and begun to form "peasant republics" independent of the nobility. As the peasant population swelled, economic and ecological concerns increased in importance for all such groups, living as communities deriving their living from the soil.

Shelfari edited the contributors of PEASANTS IN MIDDLE AGES Friday, October 9 2009.

• Added a contributor: Werner Rosener: (Primary Author)