A Tuscan Monastic Lordship in the Later Middle Ages: Camaldoli

Abstract

The rural economy of late medieval Italy displays many features and obeys many tendencies common to western Europe at the time. In the age of fully developed communes and nascent despotism it is customary to emphasise that peasant unfreedom and dependent tenure had as good as disappeared, demesne farming and labour services were forgotten, and seigneurial rights diminished or suppressed; where these things have been discovered to persist they are noticed as curious survivals from a different society. Income from land consisted of rents, which on the older estates of church and nobility were commonly fixed rents in money or kind, paid in perpetuity or to an increasing extent for a term of years or at pleasure. New landlords however were displacing the old, men of the urban oligarchies and middle class, who were harsher than their feudal predecessors and pursued an active agriculture by way of grants in mezzadria (sharecropping), protected in their interest by municipal statute. Among ecclesiastical lordships many monasteries succumbed to debt or moral decay, and ecclesiastical property fell victim to a fresh wave of lay encroachment, proceeding from the towns. In Lombardy and the north all classes of society sought their advantage in taking church land at nugatory rents to sublet for high profits or even in time to possess outright. A new cupidity was in the air.

Labor Use and Landlord Control: Sharecropping and Household Structure in Fifteenth‐Century Tuscany

“…Although these loans undoubtedly tied the tenants to the landlords and increased personal dependence, tenants no doubt welcomed the cash advances and capital improvements (Jones 1956(Jones :195, 1968Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber 1985:118-120;Kotel'nikova 1974). There were numerous arrangements for providing livestock (Emigh 1996;Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber 1985:118;Imberciadori 1958;Jones 1954Jones :177, 1956Jones :195, 1968Kotel'nikova 1974:20,23,25;Mirri 1959:555;Niccolini di Camugliano 1925:12;Pinto 1980:300-306).…”

“…Some land went uncultivated for the lack of tenants (Herlihy 1968:272;Jones 1956:196;Niccolini di Camugliano 1925:16). Flight was common, and some tenants never repayed their loans and abandoned their tenancies in response to the combined burden of rent and debt (Fiumi 1958(Fiumi :494, 1961Giorgetti 1974:37;Herlihy 1965Herlihy :243, 1968Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber 1985:119;Imberciadori 1957;Jones 1954Jones :176, 1956Jones :195, 1968Mazzi and Raveggi 1983:28, 291-299;Niccolini di Camugliano 1925:16;Pinto 1982:252-329, 423-24).…”

“…Both type of lease often had detailed conditions governing tenancy and farm-work that cultivators had to observe (Jones 1954(Jones :176-177, 1968. Tenants had to reside on the land.…”

“…These loans, made by both small and large landowners, were virtually an inseparable condition of share-tenancy (Jones 1968:225;Pinto 1980:307). Loans included cash, cattle, seed, grain, farm implements, clothes, shoes, and food (Jones 1954(Jones :177, 1968Kotel'nikova 1974:20,22;Mazzi and Raveggi 1983:28, 291-299;Piccinni 1982:56-59). Although these loans undoubtedly tied the tenants to the landlords and increased personal dependence, tenants no doubt welcomed the cash advances and capital improvements (Jones 1956(Jones :195, 1968Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber 1985:118-120;Kotel'nikova 1974).…”

“…Both share-term and fixed-term lessees often had to provide, in addition to the regular rent, additional rents of wood, eggs, and other produce (Jones 1954:176). Other leases stipulated the obligation to "work the land well" (bene lavorare), which was elaborated in statutes and leases and included specific rotations, ploughings, dates of sowing and harvest, intensive cultivation by digging and manuring, digging ditches, pruning, and cultivating vines and olives (Jones 1954(Jones :176, 1956Kotel'nikova 1974:20-21; see also Piccinni 1985:152;Pinto 1980:300-306). Tenants were not allowed to cut vines or trees, or to remove hay, straw, or manure (Jones 1968:223).…”