C. EXTRACTS FROM MODERN BOOKS.
(1) Hume, Essay XI, Of the populousness of antient nations.
We must now consider what disadvantages the antients lay under with regard to populousness, and what checks they received from their political maxims and institutions. There are commonly compensations in every human condition; and tho’ these compensations be not always perfectly equal, yet they serve, at least, to restrain the prevailing principle. To compare them and estimate their influence, is indeed very difficult, even where they take place in the same age, and in neighbouring countries: But where several ages have intervened, and only scattered lights are afforded us by antient authors; what can we do but amuse ourselves by talking, pro and con, on an interesting subject, and thereby correcting all hasty and violent determinations?
Modern Italian Conditions.
(2) Bolton King and Thomas Okey, Italy today.
In Italy today, Messrs Bolton King and Thomas Okey furnish a most interesting collection of facts relative to Italian rural conditions. The extent to which the phenomena of antiquity reappear in the details of this careful treatise is most striking. Italy being the central land of my inquiry, and convinced as I am that the great variety of local conditions is even now not sufficiently recognized in Roman Histories, this excellent book is of peculiar value. In the course of (say) fifteen centuries Italy and her people have passed through strange vicissitudes, not merely political: a great change has taken place in the range of agricultural products: yet old phenomena of rural life meet the inquirer at every turn. Surely this cannot be dismissed lightly as a casual coincidence. I cannot find room to set out the resemblances in detail, so I append a short table of reference to passages in the book that have impressed me most. Supplementary to this, as a vivid illustration of conditions in a mountain district, the first three chapters of In the Abruzzi, by Anne Macdonell, are decidedly helpful. For instance, it appears that the old migratory pasturage still existed in full force down to quite recent times, but the late conversion of much Apulian lowland from pasture to tillage has seriously affected the position of the highland shepherds by reducing the area available for winter grazing. The chapter on brigandage has also some instructive passages.
References to Italy today.
Peasant contrasted with wage-earner, pp 64-6, 72, 74, 126, 166-8, 171-2, 175-6, 200, 312, and Index under mezzaiuoli and peasants. Agricultural classes, pp 164-6. Partiaries, pp 168, 173. Emphyteusis, p 173. Improvements, p 173. Farming through steward, pp 174-5. Tenancies, pp 168-74, and Index under peasants. Rents in kind, p 171. Debt of various classes, pp 182-4, 366, 376. Taxes, p 140. Gangs of labourers, pp 166, 376. Wages, pp 126, 128, 168, 174, 366, 369-71. Food in wage, p 370. Emigration, pp 371, 396. Self-help in rural districts, pp 184-6, 376. Charities, pp 220 foll, 379 foll. Socialists and Peasantry, pp 64-6, 170, 172, cf 71-2.
(3) R E Prothero, The pleasant land of France. London 1908.
Chapters (essays) II and III, French farming and Tenant-right and agrarian outrage in France, contain much of interest.
pp 91-2 Social advantages of the system of peasant proprietors. A training[1829] to the rural population. Element of stability. The answer to agitators ‘Cela est bien, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.’ Difficulties which beset its artificial creation. Métayage (under present conditions) has proved the best shelter for tenant-farmers against the agricultural storm. Need of implicit confidence between landlord and working partner.
pp 98-9 Tenant-right in Santerre (Picardy). Tenant considers himself a co-proprietor of the land. Former payment of rent in kind taken to be a sign of joint ownership. Now in money, but calculated upon market price of corn. Landlord’s loss of control. High money value of droit de marché.
p 104 Traces of Roman occupation. Roman soldier followed by farmer. ‘Under the empire the colonus was not a slave, but the owner of slaves: he held his land in perpetuity; he could not leave it. He paid a fixed rent in kind, which could not be raised. Tenant-right therefore is explained as the recognition by the Frankish conquerors of this hereditary claim to the perpetual occupation of the soil.’ [One of the various explanations offered.]
p 119 Severe legislation failed to get rid of tenant-right, but since 1791 it has been recognized, and so its importance decreased. Under the ancien régime leases were short—9 years—and precarious. They were governed by the Roman law maxim emptori fundi necesse non est stare colonum. That is, if property changed hands during the continuance of the lease, the new owner might evict the tenant. The Code Civil confirms law of 1791—dispossession only if provision has been made (in lease) for it.
In general, land-tenures vary very greatly in the various provinces.
(4) G G Coulton, Social life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation. Cambridge 1918.
In Section VI Manor and Cottage are a number of extracts throwing light on the rustic conditions of their times.
1. A model Manor pp 301-6, describing the organization of an estate, with the duties of the several officials and departmental servants. Watchful diligence and economy, strict accountability and honesty are insisted on, that the rights of the Lord may not be impaired.
2. The Manorial court, pp 306-8.
3. The peasant’s fare, p 308.
4. Incidents of the countryside, p 309.
7. Decay of yeomanry, pp 310-12. (Latimer.)
8. Decay of husbandry, pp 312-14. (Sir T More.)
All these passages are of great interest as shewing how a number of phenomena observable in the case of ancient estates are repeated under medieval conditions. The typical Manor with its elaborate hierarchy and rules, the struggles of the small yeoman, the encroachments of big landlords, the special difficulties of small-scale tillage caused by growth of large-scale pasturage, the increase of wastrels and sturdy beggars, are all notable points, worthy the attention of a student of ancient farm life and labour.
The Big Man and the Small Farmer.
(5) Clifton Johnson, From the St Lawrence to Virginia. New York 1913, p 21. Chapter on the Adirondack winter.
(Conversation in an up-country store.)
‘I worked for Rockefeller most of that season. You know he has a big estate down below here a ways. There used to be farmhouses—yes and villages on it, but he bought the owners all out, or froze ’em out. One feller was determined not to sell, and as a sample of how things was made uncomfortable for him I heard tell that two men came to his house once and made him a present of some venison. They had hardly gone when the game warden dropped in and arrested him for havin’ venison in his house. All such tricks was worked on him, and he spent every cent he was worth fighting lawsuits. People wa’n’t allowed to fish on the property, and the women wa’n’t allowed to pick berries on it. A good deal of hard feeling was stirred up, and Rockefeller would scoot from the train to his house, and pull the curtains down, ’fraid they’d shoot him. Oh! he was awful scairt.’
Eastern Europe.
(6) Marion L Newbigin DSc, Geographical aspects of Balkan problems. London 1915.
Turks—‘not all their virtues, not all their military strength, have saved them from the slow sapping of vitality due to their divorce alike from the actual tilling of the land and from trade and commerce.... He has been within the (Balkan) peninsula a parasite, chiefly upon the ploughing peasant, and the effect has been to implant in the mind of that peasant a passion for agriculture, for the undisturbed possession of a patch of freehold, which is probably as strong here as it has ever been in the world.’ p 137.
Thessaly—‘the landowners are almost always absentees, appearing only at the time of harvest’ (originally Turks, now mostly Greeks) ‘who have taken little personal interest in the land’ (no great improvement in condition of cultivator). (So in Bosnia—better in Serbia and Bulgaria) ‘lands mostly worked by the peasants on the half-shares system.’ p 175.
Albania—(poverty extreme—temporary emigration of the males, frequent in poor regions) ‘young Albˢ often leave their country during the winter, going to work in Greece or elsewhere as field labourers, and returning to their mountains in the spring.’ pp 183-4.
Generally—small holdings mostly in the Balkan states.