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Cambridge Iberian and Latin American Studies
The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia
This 1991 book describes the history of peasants in Catalonia, the wealthiest and politically dominant part of the medieval Kingdom of Aragon, between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. It focuses on the period from 1000 to 1300, when free peasants who had held property under favourable frontier conditions were progressively subjugated by their lords. Between 1462 and 1486 Catalan peasants mounted the most successful peasants' war of the Middle Ages, and achieved the formal abolition of servitude. Professor Freedman seeks to explain both the process by which servitude was strengthened over the centuries, and its eventual weakening before a direct moral and military challenge. He addresses both the causes of enserfment and the limitations on its effectiveness. The book integrates archival evidence with the theories of society elaborated by medieval jurists. Comparisons are drawn between Catalonia and other regions, and its experience is situated within a spectrum of different social and economic conditions.
- GenresHistory
284 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 1988
36 people want to read
About the author
Paul Freedman
39 books116 followersPaul H. Freedman is the Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University. He specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, the study of medieval peasantry, and medieval cuisine.
His 1999 book Images of the Medieval Peasant won the Medieval Academy's prestigious Haskins Medal.
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Professor Freedman specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, comparative studies of the peasantry, trade in luxury products, and history of cuisine.
Freedman earned his BA at the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MLS from the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He earned a Ph.D. in History at the same institution in 1978. His doctoral work focused on medieval Catalonia and how the bishop and canons interacted with the powerful and weak elements of lay society in Vic, north of Barcelona. This resulted in the publication of The Diocese of Vic: Tradition and Regeneration in Medieval Catalonia (1983).
Freedman taught for eighteen years at Vanderbilt University before joining the Yale faculty in 1997. At Vanderbilt, he focused on the history of Catalan peasantry, papal correspondence with Catalonia and a comparative history of European seigneurial regimes. He was awarded Vanderbilt’s Nordhaus Teaching Prize in 1989 and was the Robert Penn Warren Humanities Center Fellow there in 1991-1992. During that time he published his second book, Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (1991).
Since coming to Yale, Professor Freedman has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in History, Director of the Medieval Studies Program and Chair of the History Department. He has offered graduate seminars on the social history of the Middle Ages, church, society and politics, and agrarian studies (as part of a team-taught course).
Freedman was a visiting fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen in 2000 and was directeur d’Études Associé at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1995. He also published his third book, Images of the Medieval Peasant (1999) and two collections of essays: Church, Law and Society in Catalonia, 900-1500 and Assaigs d’historia de la pagesia catalana (writings on the history of the Catalan peasantry translated into Catalan).
More recently Freedman edited Food: The History of Taste, an illustrated collection of essays about food from prehistoric to contemporary times published by Thames & Hudson (London) and in the US by the University of California Press (2007). His book on the demand for spices in medieval Europe was published in 2008 by Yale University Press. It is entitled Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. Freedman also edited two other collections with Caroline Walker Bynum, Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (1999) and with Monique Bourin, Forms of Servitude in Northern and Central Europe (2005).
A Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, Freedman is also a corresponding fellow of the Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona and of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His honors include a 2008 cookbook award (reference and technical) from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (for Food: The History of Taste) and three awards for Images of the Medieval Peasant: the Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy (2002), the 2001 Otto Gründler prize given by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and the Eugene Kayden Award in the Humanities given by the University of Colorado. He won the American Historical Association’s Premio del Rey Prize in 1992 (for The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia) and shared the Medieval Academy’s Van Courtlandt Elliott prize for the best first article on a medieval topic in 1981.
His 1999 book Images of the Medieval Peasant won the Medieval Academy's prestigious Haskins Medal.
~~
Professor Freedman specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, comparative studies of the peasantry, trade in luxury products, and history of cuisine.
Freedman earned his BA at the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MLS from the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He earned a Ph.D. in History at the same institution in 1978. His doctoral work focused on medieval Catalonia and how the bishop and canons interacted with the powerful and weak elements of lay society in Vic, north of Barcelona. This resulted in the publication of The Diocese of Vic: Tradition and Regeneration in Medieval Catalonia (1983).
Freedman taught for eighteen years at Vanderbilt University before joining the Yale faculty in 1997. At Vanderbilt, he focused on the history of Catalan peasantry, papal correspondence with Catalonia and a comparative history of European seigneurial regimes. He was awarded Vanderbilt’s Nordhaus Teaching Prize in 1989 and was the Robert Penn Warren Humanities Center Fellow there in 1991-1992. During that time he published his second book, Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (1991).
Since coming to Yale, Professor Freedman has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in History, Director of the Medieval Studies Program and Chair of the History Department. He has offered graduate seminars on the social history of the Middle Ages, church, society and politics, and agrarian studies (as part of a team-taught course).
Freedman was a visiting fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen in 2000 and was directeur d’Études Associé at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1995. He also published his third book, Images of the Medieval Peasant (1999) and two collections of essays: Church, Law and Society in Catalonia, 900-1500 and Assaigs d’historia de la pagesia catalana (writings on the history of the Catalan peasantry translated into Catalan).
More recently Freedman edited Food: The History of Taste, an illustrated collection of essays about food from prehistoric to contemporary times published by Thames & Hudson (London) and in the US by the University of California Press (2007). His book on the demand for spices in medieval Europe was published in 2008 by Yale University Press. It is entitled Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. Freedman also edited two other collections with Caroline Walker Bynum, Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (1999) and with Monique Bourin, Forms of Servitude in Northern and Central Europe (2005).
A Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, Freedman is also a corresponding fellow of the Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona and of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His honors include a 2008 cookbook award (reference and technical) from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (for Food: The History of Taste) and three awards for Images of the Medieval Peasant: the Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy (2002), the 2001 Otto Gründler prize given by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and the Eugene Kayden Award in the Humanities given by the University of Colorado. He won the American Historical Association’s Premio del Rey Prize in 1992 (for The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia) and shared the Medieval Academy’s Van Courtlandt Elliott prize for the best first article on a medieval topic in 1981.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 27, 2022
Professor Freedman has produced an important (and in English rare) book on the topic of Medieval Catalan history drawing from the research of Catalan scholars (and some French and Spanish) along with ample use of, especially early Medieval, primary documents.
In many ways the history of Catalonia is unique in the period of Medieval history with regards to the origins and development of the feudal system. Though initially on the periphery of Europe, it quickly became part of the core or centre as the frontier moved southwards from the Spanish march. Catalan peasants were relatively free a combination of internal and external events cause the gradual and at times rapid enserfment of a large portion of the population, particularly in Old Catalonia.
Roughly speaking, Catalan peasants enjoyed a level of autonomy in the early Middle Ages which gradually gave way to noble control and repression. The mals usos and remances are indicative of gradual encroachments on the sovereignty of the peasants and their descent into serfdom. Though gradual, there were decisive moments which accelerated the noble control, much like punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary biology. Professor Freedman does a commendable (if sometimes dry) job of exploring the emerging legal framework drawing on the reintegration of Roman law into the legal system and matching the legal framework to the social situation as best is possible with the limited documentary evidence. Far from merely reflecting the legal situation, the history of law played a proscriptive role in the development of legal restrictions on the peasantry.
Professor Freedman is at his strongest when dealing with the primary documents and the early Middle Ages and the relative freedom enjoyed by the peasantry. He is at his driest when discussing the legal development through the 12th and 13th centuries and the incorporation of legal documents and codes, including Roman, into the Usatges. However, he is at his weakest in the final few chapters dealing with the Black death and the Brenner debate. His interpretation is heavily reliant on outdated information regarding the vibrancy of the 13th century Medieval economy, relying rather on Postan and Herlihy's more negative interpretation instead of Epstein's and Livi Bacci's more nuanced approach.
In many ways the history of Catalonia is unique in the period of Medieval history with regards to the origins and development of the feudal system. Though initially on the periphery of Europe, it quickly became part of the core or centre as the frontier moved southwards from the Spanish march. Catalan peasants were relatively free a combination of internal and external events cause the gradual and at times rapid enserfment of a large portion of the population, particularly in Old Catalonia.
Roughly speaking, Catalan peasants enjoyed a level of autonomy in the early Middle Ages which gradually gave way to noble control and repression. The mals usos and remances are indicative of gradual encroachments on the sovereignty of the peasants and their descent into serfdom. Though gradual, there were decisive moments which accelerated the noble control, much like punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary biology. Professor Freedman does a commendable (if sometimes dry) job of exploring the emerging legal framework drawing on the reintegration of Roman law into the legal system and matching the legal framework to the social situation as best is possible with the limited documentary evidence. Far from merely reflecting the legal situation, the history of law played a proscriptive role in the development of legal restrictions on the peasantry.
Professor Freedman is at his strongest when dealing with the primary documents and the early Middle Ages and the relative freedom enjoyed by the peasantry. He is at his driest when discussing the legal development through the 12th and 13th centuries and the incorporation of legal documents and codes, including Roman, into the Usatges. However, he is at his weakest in the final few chapters dealing with the Black death and the Brenner debate. His interpretation is heavily reliant on outdated information regarding the vibrancy of the 13th century Medieval economy, relying rather on Postan and Herlihy's more negative interpretation instead of Epstein's and Livi Bacci's more nuanced approach.
Displaying 1 of 1 review