The History of Peasant Women

The History of Peasant Women Anderson pp. 87-118 The Life The Year’s Activities Children and Nutrition Threats to Survival Anderson pp. 119-150 The Family and Marriage Access to the Land Impossible choices Survival Outside the Family Giving Value

Pre-Industrial Rural Economics Book of Hours: 15th century-October • The Life • The Year’s Activities • Children and Nutrition • Threats to Survival

How do you re-create peasant life when there are few records by peasants? One way: Household accounts Manor rolls Court and parish records These records demonstrate: Obligations to landlord Fines they owned Births and deaths Pre-Industrial Rural Economics

Other sources include: 14th and 15th c. illuminators and 16th – 19th c. artists Peasants at seasonal tasks 19th and 20th c. folklorists and anthropologists Stories, songs, photographs These sources “testify to peasant women’s strength”: Veneration of the land Acceptance of responsibility for the survival of the family Willingness to work Comfort from beliefs Pre-Industrial Rural Economics

Pre-Industrial Rural Economics • Book of Hours (July) • Piers the Ploughman 14th century poem (on woman’s work): • “rock the cradle cramped in a corner” rise “before dawn to card and comb the wool, to wash and scrub and mend…and peel the rushes for their rushlights” • Differed little from a Bretonian man’s recollection of his mother’s life except for state-supported education for children Book of Hours-July

What role does religion play in this examination of economics? • The countryside was a world of spirits • This melded into Christianity where “the shrines of Christian saints were built over older places of worship” (90) Shrine – Finero, Italy

What role does the land play? • This is a map of the world’s original forests • Note Europe – virtually covered • By the 1500s, about 15% of the forests had been demolished

What role does the land play? • Today, about 70% of Europe’s forests have been cut down • Almost no “frontier forests” remain in Europe (those that do, are mainly in Russia) • The major impact to the land occurred in the 19th century, with Germany experiencing industrialization at the most rapid pace

“The Common” • Around the seigneur’s desmesne was “the common” and forested land • The common was shared grazing land for animals • The forest supplied lumber, but also firewood, gathered in a process called “gleaning” (like with left-over what - women’s work) • Both “the common” and “gleaning” would be severely curtailed in the late 18th through 19th centuries in Europe

Housing • Not too different from homesteading sod houses, in fact • This picture is “faux medieval”; tarted up to appear as it might have – it’s a bit more elaborate than really existed except for the better off paysan

The Year’s Activities • Lammas-Michelmas (Aug 1–Sept 29) • Michelmas–Christmas (Sept 30-Dec 25) • Christmas to Easter (Dec 25-whenever the hell Easter is) • Easter-Michelmas (and back to Aug 1) Sept. harvest-most important time of the year

Lammas to Michelmas - Harvest • Harvesting • Celebrations of the harvest • Flax for linen Millet – “Bruising flax” 1850

Hemp – it’s natural, dude • Hemp for making rope and sacks • French women in Baugeois spun hemp as an offering to the Virgin Mary on their wedding day

Michelmas-Christmas February in two Books of Hours

Easter-Lammas June in two Books of Hours

Spring Rituals-Christian/pagan Trying to recapture MayDay or Beltrane • “The Christian Church absorbed many of the ancient rituals” (103) • MayDay, on the other hand, was banned by Charlemagne and the Church – far too pagan, rebellious and anti-hierarchical • Celebrated pagans include: Diana, Herne (who transform into Queen of the May and the Green Man or Robin Goodfellow) • Also known as the night of witches and translated to Irish “mummery” (still practiced in Newfoundland today)

Constants for peasant women-life cycle stuff and war • “The rhythm of the seasons structured peasant women’s lives as it had those of women before them and remained a constant throughout the centuries. Another constant was their reproductive life.” (105)

Children and Nurturing • Women’s childbearing years remained relatively constant – about twenty years • Demographers estimate that a woman might have five to seven successful pregnancies at 2 ½ year intervals • Celebrate pregnancy even in older women, as seen here in icons Elizabeth with John and Mary with Jesus – Andrea del Sarto 1519

Just because you want to know • Childbirth “ease” • Physical condition of the mother • Size of her pelvis relative to the size of the baby’s head • Position of the baby in the uterus • Other “aids” came from the “wisewomen” and their herbs Still available after all these years – the birthing stool

And even more graphic • Midwives brought their own experience, knowledge of herbal medicine, intuitive sense of measures • Prior to the modern equipment pictured at left, midwives often used the “podalic” version of maneuvering the fetus into the best position By the 18th c. forceps were used if the baby was in transverse or breech

Care of the infant • "And this will be a sign for you:you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Luke 2,12) • How common was this? What was it? • Greek, Hebrew, Germanic and Roman custom – only Celts left “nature alone” to determine the baby’s shape • Breast-fed • Peasant mothers took all responsibility for children until about age five

Nursing Not really Christ, but a good example of shroud • Healing was a special knowledge • Centuries of experience, flashes of intuition, acts of faith, accumulated lore of herbal medicine • Still, infant mortality was about 25% (ask me about Montreal in the 19th century, though • As in birth, death was women’s special province, including making the shroud, wrapping the body, praying over the body; into the twelfth century women tended their gravesites

Threats to Survival • Extreme cold and extreme heat • Pestilence • Pneumonia, pleurisy, tonsillitis • Black Death (1348-1380s) wiped out 40% of Europe’s population

More on the Black Death

War…what is it good for? • Thirty Years War (1618-1648) significant on women’s lives for the occupation of the land by so many • Other wars included this gem: “The war has begun and the peasant have been pillaged…our armies are still intact” (Joseph II, 1778) Painting of Thirty Years War

On the one hand: Customary laws of German and Celtic peoples (1300-1600) show that women’s bodies and their lives were to be protected Frankish law included wergild (blood money) for killing women Appenine gang rape of priest’s sister in 1400 led to four men being executed On the other hand: Equally ancient traditions that protected men from false accusations: Burden of proof on accuser Assumption that conception meant enjoyment on part of woman Class system that gave little recourse to a woman of a lower class who had been raped What about threats specific to women?

Family and Marriage Breugel - 1568 • Why get married? • Status as adults, freedom from serfdom

Custom and Marriage • Like Roman times, the father transferred ownership of woman to new husband • Also like pre-Christian ceremonies, these marriages signaled obligation of groom and his family and bride and hers. Charivari - 1310

Women and the land • “The new couple needed access to fields, pasture and to forest” (124) and they had a right to the land • What about women on their own? Some examples of female landholders in England in 12th and 13th century records • “From the earliest European centuries a peasant woman had access to the land in her own right, or as a wife.” (125) • She had no rights as a “bonds-woman”: no family, no protection, no liberties

The beginnings of feudalism • Although the church was against slavery, it survived until the 9th and 10th centuries • With marauding Arabs, Magyars and Vikings, it became impractical to keep them • These former slaves and former free women and men became serfs, vassals of the lord. Free or slave? Somewhere in the middle • Now tied to the land, not desiring to have a piece of it

Creeping capitalism • As the relationship between lord and vassal became more monetary rather than reciprocal, it coincided with a break between groups of peasants – the “wealthy” who owned more than five times the land as the poor • This left poor women with the responsibility to make up the difference by selling surplus: wheat, wine, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, wool, vegetables and “piecework”

Weaving and spinning for money Tapestry from 12th century • Weaving became an important way for women to supplement income – this was piece work that helped the merchant a great deal • In the 18th century it gave way to spinning

Impossible Choices • One of the most important discoveries by demographers was that: • Most families were “nuclear” • Most families were between four and six people • This could include intergenerational families • This meant that couples were limiting their births – “From the 800s to the 1900s peasants allowed their families to grow only when conditions improved.” (135)

Survival Outside the Family • “As soon as there are records in England, in France, in Spain, from the 16th to 20th centuries, they show that peasant women remarried much less often than their male counterparts….Local custom might guarantee her care in return for giving over her rights to the family fields.” (142)

Survival Outside the Family • “Peasant women without family, without access to enough land, perhaps too old for extra labour, had few alternatives to choose from in order to survive….On the whole, by the end of the 1500s local and royal governments had taken over what charity there was from individuals and religious orders.” (143) • They could become prostitutes or thieves

The History of Peasant Women