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Digitized documents contributed by AARHMS members
Documents in translation
Lords and Peasants in 12th and 13th Century Catalonia The three charters described below show relations between lords and peasants in twelfth and thirteenth-century Catalonia. They are from the cathedral archives of Vic which lies about 30 miles north of Barcelona. Until the late eleventh century, most peasants were tenants, that is they held their land from a lord, but the rent they paid was usually not burdensome, and they were not subject to that lord by any personal bond. This began to change in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries as lords imposed more harsh forms of control and tenants became serfs, that is, unfree peasants bound to their lord by more than the simple payment of rent. In ACV calaix 6, 2213, a free peasant, Arbert, is willing to dispute the seigneurial rights claimed by the powerful local baron, Ramon Bermund of Taradell by undergoing the ordeal of boiling water. Ramon Bermund and his supporters refuse to accept the result even before the ordeal is to take place and a "compromise" is worked out whereby Arbert is compelled to acknowledge the unwanted lordship of Ramon Bermund. The two thirteenth-century charters show a more routine form of seigneurial control over peasants. Pere de Comalada recognizes that his body and property belong to the canon-provost of the cathedral chapter of Vic. In many doc uments of this type, the tenant bound not only himself but his posterity to the lord. ACV, calaix 7, 223 is an example of the freeing of a dependent tenant in return for money. Ermessenda is redeemed from the lordship of Berenguer along with her offspring.
Other charters dealing with servile status
Paul Freedman Vanderbilt University |