OBERSTUFE - The Middle Ages

Serfs (hörige Bauern) had no access to the means of their own reproduction (a plot of land, the commons, etc.)

Slaves (Sklaven) have no access to the means of production and no access to the means of their own reproduction (= ein Stück Land, Saatgut, Vieh, Pflüge, etc.)

Slaves (Sklaven) were working and living under the unconditional rule of the slave-owner: gang-labor, atrocious punishments like burnings, iron collars etc.

Serfs (Hörige Bauern) had no private family life. Serfs were not allowed to marry and have children.

Serfs (hörige Bauern) were able to support themselves with food, wood etc. (Subistenzwirtschaft)

The most important reason for the break-down of ancient slavery was growing resistance among slaves against their slave-holders.

Since the 7th century the Arabs' expansion was another incentive for slave-rebellions. The promising of freedom to the slaves is one explanation for the success of the Arabs. Around 700, in (nowadays) Spain, large numbers of slaves fled captivity at the time of Arab conquest.

The success of the Arabs' expansion was no motivation for Christian slave-holders to free the slaves.

Die Allmende hatte keine nennenswerte Bedeutung für das wirtschaftliche (Über-)leben der hörigen und leibeigenen Bauern im Mittelalter.

The "commons" (die Allmende, das Gemeindeland) were the meadows, wild pastures (Weideland), forests, woods, lakes and rivers, which the serfs considered a collective property (= it was owned in common)

"We can go to the woods and take what we want, take fish from the fish pond, and game (Wild) from the forests; we'll have our will in the woods, the waters and the meadows" (A mid 12th-century English chronicle expressing the views of the serfs).

The experience of self-reliance which the peasants gained from having access to land (= the commons) had a political and ideological potential. In time, the serfs began to look at the land they occupied as their own, and to view as intolerable the restrictions that the noblemen imposed on their freedom.

The commons provided crucial resources for the peasant economy (wood for fuel, timber for building and producing charcoal, fishponds, grazing grounds for animals) and fostered community cohesion and cooperation.

The commutation (= Umwandlung) of labor services (Frondienste) with money payments (money rents, money taxes) practically ended serfdom in many parts of Europe. The landlords no longer depended directly on their peasants' work but collected money payments instead.

The commutation (= Umwandlung) of labor services (Frondienste) with money payments (money rents, money taxes) had no effect on serfdom.

To the well-to-do peasants, commutation was a great step on the road to economic and personal independence. Possessing large tracts of land, they could earn enough money to pay the rent and to employ other laborers.

The lords didn't lessen their control over their tenants (= former serfs) when they no longer depended directly on their serfs' work.

The majority of poorer peasants - who possessed only a few acres of land barely sufficient for their survival - lost even the little they had. Compelled to pay their dues in money, they went into chronic debt, borrowing against future harvests, a process that eventually caused many to lose their land.

By the 13th century, when commutations spread throughout Western Europe, social divisions in the rural areas deepened, and part of the peasantry underwent a process of proletarianization. Thirteenth-century documents contain information about an increasing number of "gardeners," landless or almost landless peasants who earned their living by hiring out their services.

At the root of popular heresy (Häresie) was the belief that God no longer spoke through the clergy (priests, monks, nuns, bishops) because of its greed and corruption.

The heretics played a crucial role in the anti-feudal struggle. They exhorted (ermunterten) people not to pay the tithes (= den Zehnten, das heißt die Abgaben an die Kirche).

The heretics taught that Christ had no property, and that if the Church wanted to regain its spiritual power it should divest itself from its possessions. The Waldenses were owning, like the apostles, all things in common.

The heretic movements of the Cathars (= "Ketzer", from "Katharoi" = pure) and the Waldenses (= Waldenser) only reinterpreted the religious tradition.

in 1233, the Pope instituted a special tribunal with the function of eradicating heresy: the Holy Inquisition. The use of torture against heretics was authorized with the consensus of the main theologians of the time. Proven heretics and their protectors were to burned at the stake. The house where a heretic was discovered was to be destroyed, and the land upon which it was built confiscated. The aim was to undermine the "popularity of the heretic evil. There is not one commune, in which heresy does not have its supporters, its defenders and believers."

Heresy was the most important social movement of the Middle Ages. Heretics denounced social hierarchies, exploitation and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few.

The heretics taught that the exterior forms of worship - buildings, images, symbols - should be invested with more importance.

Women's dependence on men was limited by the fact that over the authority of their husbands and fathers prevailed that of the lords, who tried to control many aspects of their lives, from work to marriage. It was the lord who was - in some areas - even claiming the "ius primae noctis" - the right to sleep with a serf's wife on her wedding night.

Since work on the servile farm was organized on a subsistence (= Selbstversorgung) basis, all work contributed to the family's sustenance (= Lebensunterhalt). Women worked in the fields and milked the cows, in addition to raising children, cooking, washing, spinning, and keeping an herb garden.

Women's domestic activities were not devalued, as they were later, in a money-economy, when housework would cease to be viewed as "real work"

As most of the work that female serfs performed was done in cooperation with other women, the sexual division of labor, far from being a source of isolation, was the basis for an intense female sociality and solidarity. This enabled women to stand up to men, despite the fact that the Church preached women's submission to men.

By the 13th century, women were leading the movement away from the countryside to the towns. But the women in towns were only holding low-paid jobs as maids or retail traders. They had no access to "male professions".

By the 14th century, women were also becoming schoolteachers as well as doctors and surgeons. Sixteen female doctors - among them several Jewish women - were hired in the 14th century by the municipality (= Stadtverwaltung) of Frankfurt which, like other city administrations, offered its population a system of public health-care. Female doctors, as well as midwives (= Hebammen), were dominant in obstetrics (= Geburtshilfe).

The "Black Death" destroyed, on an average, between 30% and 40% of the European population. between 1347 and 1352. This unprecedented demographic collapse had no impact on Europe's social and political life though.

The decimation of the work-force made labor extremely scarce and critically increased its cost, thus shifting the power relation to the advantage of the lower classes. "Servants are now masters and masters are servants," a writer complained in 1378. For a broad section of the western European peasantry, and for urban workers, the late 14th and the 15th century was a period of unprecedented power.

A symptom of this new development was the growth of rent strikes. As the manorial records (Aufzeichnungen der Grundherren) registered, the peasants "refused to pay". They also declared that they "will not follow the customs any longer" and ignored the orders of the lords to work for them, to repair their houses, etc. By the end of the 14th century the refusal of rent and services had become a collective henomenon. Entire villages jointly organized to stop paying taxes and tallage and no longer recognized the commuted services (in Geldleistungen umgewandelte Frondienste).

When land had been scarce (knapp), the peasants could be controlled by the threat of expulsion. But after the population was decimated and land became abundant, the peasants could now freely move and find new land to cultivate. This stiffened the people's determination to break the shackles of feudal rule.

Studies of wages and living conditions in medieval England show that the level of wages and earnings didn't change in the late 14th century and the 15th century.

The scarcity of labor after the Black Death gave the workers the upper hand and strengthened their sense of self-value. Wages doubled and trebled in Italy, France and Germany. In the lands of the Rhine and Danube, the daily agricultural wage became equivalent in purchasing power to the price of a pig or a sheep, and these wage rates applied to women as well, for the differential between female and male earnings was drastically reduced in the wake of the Black Death. This also meant the demise (Niedergang, Ende) of serfdom. By the end of the 14th century, land bondage and serfdom had practically disappeared in many parts of Western Europe. Serfs were replaced by free farmers - lease holders (Zins- oder Pachtbauern) - who would accept work only for a substantial reward.

With the labour crisis following the Black Death came a new valorization of rural and urban work. The Lollards - leading a peasants' rising in 1381 in England - reminded their followers that "nobles have beautiful houses, we have only work and hardships. But it is from our work that everything comes."