Ch. 15 “The Experiences of Life in Early Modern Europe” Study Guide

By: Frank Krol

Emma Krass

  • Manorial rents- money paid by the peasantry to support the lifestyle of the nobility. It absorbed along with other taxes more than half of the wealth produced by the land.
  • Black bread- bread that most of the grain was made of; it was the main monotonous fare of the peasant’s diet.
  • Specialization of labor- the specialization of cooperative work in specific, circumscribed tasks and like roles. The official guild structure allowed for this specialization. Each trade could perform only specific tasks. The specialization allowed for increased wage earnings and a growth in total output.
  • Gdańsk- a Polish city on the Baltic Sea that became the most important agricultural seaport in the world In what time period?
  • Great Chain of Being- a hierarchic model of social organization common in the 15th and 16th centuries in which all parts of creation held a specific place in a divinely ordered universe
  • Esch- NOT IN BOOKOK, not all knowledge is contained in Kishlansky. If you go to Wikipedia, you’ll find that Esch (there are several but inquiring minds keep digging) in the Rhineland/Palatinate was to Germany what Salem was to Mass. – notorious for its 17th cent. witch trials. This might be a nice factoid to support an essay.
  • Sturdy beggars- men and women capable of working, but unable to find more than occasional labor. Significance?

Spencer Kiniry

  • Peasants' War-widespread revolt of German peasants during the sixteenth century which involved tens of thousands of peasants and combined a series of agrarian grievances (which included: forest rights, enclosure, the fact that peasants were still serfs and had none of the direct responsibility for government of a village, and as populations had increased and market production expanded, many of the traditional rights and obligations of lords and peasants became more oppressive) with an awareness of the new religious spirit preached by Martin Luther. It was directed against secular and ecclesiastical lords, and the rebels attacked both economic and religious abuses.Who were its leaders? What were the outcomes? Why?
  • Annual perambulation-a walk around the village fields that usually occurred before planting began in rural villages. It was led by the priest, who carried with him any particularly sacred objects that the parish possessed and who was followed by the village farmers. The priest would bless the fields and pray for a bountiful crop; the farmers surveyed their own strips and any damage that had been done to the fields during the winter; the community defined its geographical space in distinction with the space of others; and all individuals who took part reaffirmed their shared identity with others in the village
  • Rites of May-community event which celebrated the rebirth of spring, and were filled with sexual play among the young adults of the community. Youth groups went “a-Maying” by placing flowers at the homes of marriageable girls, electing a Queen of May, and dancing and reveling before the hard work of planting.
  • Seigneur-manor lord responsible for maintaining order, administering justice, and arbitrating disputes among tenants
  • Parish tithes-taxes collected by the local parish which would support the works of the Church
  • Robot-labor service that peasants owed to their lord; more typical in eastern Europe after the fifteenth century
  • Domestic service-critical source of household labor. Even families on the margins of subsistence employed servants to undertake the innumerable household tasks. Domestics were not apprentices, although they might aspire to become apprentices to the trade followed in the family in which they lived.In this period, what percentage of work force? Who could afford such servants?

Matt Tahey

  • Hierarchies – they were the dominant principle of social organization, and they existed everywhere, within the nobility, the guilds and even the home. It was determined by status, and was signified in titles, money had little to do with it. Images used to describe it were the Great Chain of Being and the Body Politic, both of which precluded the idea of social mobility.
  • Body Politic – a metaphor used to describe and explain social hierarchies along with the Great Chain of Being. The head ruled, the arms protected and the feet labored. The King was the head, the nobles the arms, the peasants the feet and so forth. It included each class or group and gave each its own function vital to the health of the body. It was taught to people of the time to both explain and reinforce the rigid social hierarchy.
  • Villein – a peasant who was legally tied to the land he worked on, a serf. Worked for the seigneur, and although the ties were gradually loosening, they were still in existence, especially in Eastern Europe.
  • Enclosure – a device used to separate one parcel of land from the other. This was also a process that destroyed traditional village agriculture, and a response to land ownership. It favored larger landholders, driving the smaller ones out and to the cities where they became either part of the working class or destitute.
  • Public Sphere – this was the man’s place, the fields in rural areas or the streets in towns. Men attended courts or paid labor dues, and if in towns, went to markets, were citizens and were involved in government. This emphasized the importance of family and especially marriage, as it was a blending of complementary skills and the two spheres.
  • Processions – an elaborate social custom to celebrate special occasions. The order people were in reflected social status with all the hierarchies represented, though the participation of women varied.
  • Skimmingtons – processions to shame individuals who in some way offended the values of the community, such as a husband who failed to enforce obedience from his wife. Not only punished offenders, but helped to reinforce social values of the village as a whole. (Ex. What the village did to Martin Guerre, ritual castration, humiliating him from the courtyard, etc.)

Carter Socha

  • Three-field system - method of agricultural organization introduced in Europe in the Middle Ages and representing a decisive advance in production techniques. In the old two-field system half the land was sown to crop and half left fallow each season; in the three-field system, however, only a third of the land lay fallow. In the autumn one third was planted to wheat, barley, or rye, and in the spring another third of the land was planted to oats, barley, and legumes to be harvested in late summer. The legumes (peas and beans) strengthened the soil by their nitrogen-fixing ability and at the same time improved the human diet. Because spring planting required summer rains, it was principally effective north of the Loire and the Alps. By providing two harvests a year it reduced the risk of crop failure and famine. It also made plowing more effective by two means. First, by doing slightly more plowing than under the two-field system, a community of peasants could roughly double their crop yield, though in practice the fallow was usually plowed twice to turn under the green manure. Secondly, the cultivation of a surplus of oats in the spring planting provided feed that made possible the substitution of the swifter gaited horse for ox power, after the introduction of the padded horse collar
  • Wooden chest - One of the few personal items peasants owned. It was able to hold what was left of their personal possessions.

Chen Qian

  • Guilds- an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society. They often depended on grants of letters patent by a monarch or other authority to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials.What was the significance of this association?
  • Price Revolution- the fall in real wages took place against a backdrop of inflation that has come to be called the Price Revolution. Between 1500 and 1650, cereal prices increased between five and six fold, manufactured goods between two and threefold. It was a result of both population growth and the import of precious metals from the New World. First happened in Spain. Gold and silver from America flooded the international economy, raising commodity prices. Not enough food.
  • Status- determined the social hierarchy. It conferred privileges and exacted responsibilities according to rank. Status was everywhere apparent. It was confirmed in social conventions such as bowing and hat doffing. In towns and cities the clothing that people were allowed to wear- even the foods that they were allowed to eat- reflected status. Status was signified in titles. The acceptance of status was an everyday, uncomplicated, unreflective act, similar to stopping at a red light.

Julia Janka

  • Book of Gold- contains a list of the local nobility in Venice; distinguished the elite from the ranks of ordinary citizens
  • Deserving poor- windows, orphans, and the handicapped, which would normally constitute more than half the poor in a village or town were seen as the worthy of the care of the community through the Church or through private almsgiving

Robert Rust

  • Ket's Rebellion- a revolt in Norfolk, England during the reign of Edward VI(mid-16th century) that arose from peasant opposition to enclosure. Led by Robert Ket, the rebels occupied Norwich, the second largest city in the realm, but their aspirations were for reform rather than revolution. They were crushed by well-trained forces loyal to the English crown.
  • Domestic Sphere- the household sphere of women during early modern Europe. Women were tasked with preparing food, caring for animals, educating children, and manufacturing and cleaning clothing. They were also responsible for supervising shops, selling goods, keeping accounts, and directing the work of domestics or apprentices.

Frank Krol

  • Carnival- Carnival is the time that immediately precedes Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) and starts after the Epiphany. It occurs during the first Ordinary Time season of the liturgical calendar. It is characterized by festivities, parading, characterize it and excessive reveling that took place throughout various cities and regions of Europe.
  • Witchcraft- Witchcraft blended Christian teaching and folk wisdom that focused on practitioners who delved into astrology, alchemy, natural biology, and other fields that weren’t always condoned by the Catholic Church. Witches were accused of disturbing the social peace of villages. Witches were often women since they were considered to have superior knowledge in the field of bodily functions and extensive belief in superstitions. The Catholic Church associated witchcraft with satanic rituals and other anti-Christian behavior, and accused many innocent women of witchcraft, which resulted in the deaths of many innocent people throughout Europe.

MAKING CONNECTIONS:

1.(Carter Socha)

The peasant household was based on the nuclear family in both the east and the west. The relationship between past and present generations was stressed. The peasant household was also an economic unit in which all members of the family participated and had different jobs. The nature of peasant agriculture was rough and everything they did was to survive. The revolution in the three-field system greatly increased production. In much of the west the peasants owned their own land while the east the peasants were tied to the land by their lords and were more like serfs. The peasantry depended on the soil to serve because it provided both their food and income. Without the soil they would quickly starve and most likely die.

2.How did town life differ from that of the agricultural village? How was the town linked to the village? (Chen Qian)You provide descriptive narrative but your details are not organized within an analytical framework dictated by the parameters of this question.

During that period in Europe, town and village had clear difference but also close connection. In the early modern era, as much as 90 percent of the European population lived on farms or in small towns in which farming was the principal occupation. Compared to the towns, villages were smaller and relatively. A surplus peasant population fed the insatiable appetite of towns for laborers and of crowns for soldiers. In the villages, people most job was on the farm. But in the town, most people worked in a store or a business, and some of the labors were skilled. Also, the village community had to be self-sufficient. In the town, there was an official guild structure that organized and regulated labor. They were required to be trained in order to work on the trade. In the village, more than half of the wealth produced by the land. Although the people in town worked as hard as in farm, they received a more varied and more comfortable life in return. From the remaining half, the peasants from the village had to make provisions for their present and their future. The village people had chance to meet hunger and starvation, so they saved the food after the harvest. Their life was depends on the harvest. Town people was depends on job. In the town, people did not worry about food. They had enough food. And they had big market to exchange things such as food, goods. Hunger and cold was the other problem. Village people built the home which could provide heat and light. The furniture was made by wood. Most domestic activities, of which cooking, eating, and sleeping were dominant, took place to the ground, and squatting, kneeling, and sitting were the usual postures of family members. So as the town people, they had warm house. The village people’s life was centered on agriculture. They had their own way to plant. Each family had horses and ox. The town life was centered on technology and technique. They had more modern staff than village people had. In the village, most land was owned, not by those who worked it. They paid money by coin, only sometimes by money. In the town, people had to find a job. They got paid each week with a constant rate. They worked on their skills in order to have a better life. They had a lot of pressure from the work. Everything in the town was made by hands. They paid by money. They worked for someone, not on their own land. The village and town had connection. The village people wanted the town people to buy their goods. The village was the support to the town on foods and agriculture. And the town people were village people’s benefit source. They were equal and fair. They also changed goods in the market which helped them had more communication between village and the town. The village helped the town become bigger and town helped the village become a small town. The economic was growing very good at that period. With the developing of the country, more and more goods could not made by village people. So towns become not only a business center but also a new produce center.

3.What were the two basic changes in the economy of sixteenth-century Europe? What were the causes of the Price Revolution? What was its effect on village and town? (Julia Janka)This answer provides descriptive narrative,which forces the reader to infer the question’s answers. However, neither the paragraph’s organization nor its content answers directly the questions.

The economy of sixteenth century Europe centered on agriculture in peasant life, while town labor became increasingly specialized. Agriculture remained largely the same as the technology varied little by region and they continued to use the three-field rotation system. The three-field rotation was useful for the different crop planting. One field consisted of winter crops, another of spring crops, and the last was left fallow. Mediterranean farmers even employed a two-crop rotation system with less water and strong sunlight restoring the nutrients each year. Furthermore, animal husbandry became a main occupation as well. Sheep, pigs, and cattle became the most common animals due to their resources of wool, meat, and milk. The division of land was still by manors with a seigneur, manor lord, responsible for order, justices, and arbitrating disputes. Western European peasants owned a between a third and a half of the land they worked, while Eastern European peasants still struggled to own any at all. However, beginning in the 16th Century, almost all peasants began to enjoy the security of tenure on the land they worked. In contrast, town life consisted of the guild structure which organized and regulated labor. The specialization was becoming important, making the competition more intense and wage earning essential. Traders dominated baking, brewing, and cloth manufacture, while the distribution was left to the family economy. The occupations were organized into areas of town; however, some lived by unskilled labor which led to a large supply of laborers and a lack of work. Women dominated the food trades in most market towns, trading, buying, and selling in the shop fronts that occupied the bottom of their houses. Their skills allowed them to obtain the best prices and best goods while their husbands worked in other occupations such as metal or glass working. Sixteenth Century governments understood little about the relationship between money supply and prices. So, a rapid increase of prices resulting from the continuing population growth and the importation of precious metals from the New World led to the Price Revolution. Gold and silver form America flooded the economies raising commodity prices, which in turn raised the deficits of states. The government believed that by devaluing their coins it would lower their debt; however, this led to even higher prices and greater debt. This created dislocation, as people became destitute, while others became rich beyond their dreams. The towns were hard hit as they exchanged manufactured goods for food leading to their suffering when grain prices rose faster than those commodities. Landholders in towns who derived their income from rents were squeezed as well. Peasants were protected from the high food prices as long as they consumed what they raised and did not obtain it by labor. Villagers became divided into those who held large amounts of land and sold their surplus as profit, while others hired themselves out as laborers to their fortunate neighbors. People who had left the land for the city now returned and became the landless poor and seasonal migrants. By the end of the seventeenth century Europe was faced with a crisis of subsistence with everyone hungry and many starving.