The composition of famuli labour on English demesnes, c.1300

This article explores the nature of agricultural labour in England c.1300. Using a national sample of over 400 manorial accounts containing detailed data for over 4000 individuals, the piece looks closely at famuli labour, the nucleus of the workforce on seigneurial demesnes (the farms directly cultivated by manorial lords as opposed to the land of their tenants) at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a period considered to be the pinnacle of medieval population and intensive land exploitation. By examining the rates of remuneration as well as the availability of work for the range of famuli labourers, we argue that famuli labour was divided into a bipartite system of first- and second-tier workers where core, or first-tier (and mostly male), labourers such as ploughmen, carters, and shepherds were paid higher wages and presented with more opportunities to work as compared to a group of more subsidiary 'second-tier' labourers largely comprised of women, the young and the elderly

Wages and labour relations in the Middle Ages: it's not (all) about the money

For long periods of history, a significant proportion of the labour force has received all or part of their wages in non-monetary in-kind payments. Despite its historical ubiquity, this form of labour remuneration remains poorly understood. This paper presents a framework which allows for the valuation and interpretation of in-kind wages. We apply our method to a new dataset of agricultural wages for labourers in medieval England (1270-1440), most of whom received a composite wage for which in-kind payment was the largest share. Assessing the market value of the wages these workers received, we find an increase in the relative importance of cash payments in the latter decades of the 14th century. We show that this was connected to a fundamental shift in labour relations, providing new empirical insights into the so-called ‘golden age of labour’ that followed the Black Death

Agricultural wage labour in fifteenth-century England

This dissertation is researching the employment of different types of agricultural labourer in the ending phase of the middle ages. The purpose is to question the method of using casual wage evidence to interpret changes in the labourer’s income in the current study of late medieval economic history. My criticism of the traditional method is that, since casual wage evidence is composed of the price of finishing a piece of work, it is inappropriate to use that evidence to interpret incomes without the information of how many pieces of work done by the labourer. The said information is, indeed, mostly unavailable. My proposition to solve this problem is to use the salaries paid to the permanent farm worker, who was hired by year. The approach of this research is, firstly, to demonstrate the limitations of the traditional method and, secondly, to demonstrate that the salary paid to the permanent worker is a useful tool for understanding the changes in the labourer’s income. In particular, the discussion is separated into five chapters. At first, I intend to illustrate that casual wage evidence illustrates only one aspect of the fifteenth-century agricultural labour market and that from the same source material more information apart from wage data is available and allows us to examine other aspects of wage labour. With the information, I shall argue that job opportunities in the casual sector were limited by farming seasons; and that, except for a few villagers, casual employment only accounted for a minor part of the yearly income. It shall be illustrated that apart from casual labourers, the manorial demesne employed the other two types of labourers, who were potentially more important than casual labourers in terms of the cost and the labour input. Between the two, labour services were persistently employed, but their important were dwindling, whilst the permanent workers were the main labour force purposely maintained on the demesne. This finding proves that the employment of casual labour was relatively insignificant. It also illustrates that the permanent posts were a more secure source of income than casual hire. In this context, casual hire was paid higher daily wages, but its availability was limited; the permanent contract was poorly paid, but it guaranteed a secure livelihood across the year. This explains why, when job opportunities were relatively expanded in the casual sector during labour shortage, labourers would turn down permanent contracts for casual hire, in the hope for a better income. Following this context, we would expect to see that during our period, when depopulation was continued, the employer of permanent workers was forced to improve the job offer to match the potential income a labourer could earn in the casual sector. The trend in the value of the permanent labourer’s salary, therefore, should reflect the changes in the agricultural labourer’s income in general. An index of the permanent labourer’s salary will be presented to illustrate this rising trend

The Commemoratio pro vivis of the Roman Canon: a textual witness to the evolution of Western Eucharistic theologies?

This text - an important element in the Western Latin Eucharistic Prayer - has not been studied in detail since the 1950s (Jungmann); and has never been studied using the methods of modern textual studies. Yet it bristles with problems - textual variations in the early witnesses; theological in that the argument is self-contradictory; and linguistic: the Latin syntax is not only 'difficult' but downright wrong - which, if noted at all, tend to be ignored. This paper proposes that we see this text as the product of layers of accretion which each layer can be identified and the manner in which its addition distorted the overall text explained by the concerns of specific groups and periods. Having identified the layers, one can then see the original text which has elements that can be paralleled in second-century CE texts. When this Urtext is compared with the later 'textus receptus' it becomes clear that the focus of the text has been completely transformed - and in this transformation of its intent (both as a ritual object and as a text carrying doctrinal weight) lies the source of many later controversies - some of which are still being pursued with vigor today

El Sacramentari de Sant Feliu de Girona (Girona, Museu Diocesà, ms. 46)

Malgrat el seu estat fragmentari, el Sacramentari de la Col·legiata de Sant Feliu de Girona segurament és el llibre d'altar gironí més important que s'ha conservat per a l'estudi de la litúrgia del seu context local i cronològic. Diversos indicis indueixen a creure que podria procedir primitivament no de la col·legiata, sinó de la mateixa catedral de Santa Maria. En qualsevol dels casos, l'extraordinari manuscrit dóna testimoni de la litúrgia gironina sobretot en el període comprès entre els segles XII i XIII, tot i que també compta amb algunes addicions que arriben fins entrat el segle XV.Despite of its fragmentary state, the Sacramentary of the Collegiate Church of St. Feliu of Girona is probably the most important preserved altar book for the study of the liturgy of the city in its context both local and chronological. Several indices leads to the belief that it could be originated not in the collegiate church, but in the cathedral of St Mary. In any case, the extraordinary manuscript is a witness of the liturgy in Girona specially in the period between 12th-13th centuries, and it includes as well several additions dated until the late 15th

Identités brouillées, une réflexion sur l'appartenance romaine au début du Ve siècle à partir d'un problème textuel (Rutilius Namatianus, Red. 1, 213-216 et Querolus 30)

The paper focuses on Rutil. 1, 213-216, a difficult text, including an interesting use of the notion of postliminium. This text can easily be compared to elements of the late-latin comedy Querolus which seem to describe a similar or even the same situation. We may also precise an hypothetical date and background for the comedy and understand how, at the beginning of the 5th century, Gauls changed their attitudes towards Roman identity, which now can be conceived outside the Roman Empire as political entity.A partir d'un passage difficile de Rutilius Namatianus, introduisant l'idée de postliminium, on peut comparer avec les données de la pièce Querolus qui semble décrire exactement ou partiellement le même phénomène. Outre une précision possible de la date et du milieu de la pièce, on peut alors comprendre comment s'opère dans la Gaule du début du 5e siècle une profonde modification de la notion d'identité romaine qui se conçoit de plus comme pouvant se réaliser sans la présence de l'empire

Las relaciones Papado-Imperio en el desarrollo de las Fuentes canónicas (ss. V-VIII)

Uno de los modos más ilustrativos para conocer cómo era concebido el poder es, sin duda, el modo en que se creaba el Derecho, binomio inseparable a lo largo de la historia del Derecho en general y especialmente esclarecedor en la paulatina configuración de la Iglesia en particular. Nuestro trabajo pretende mostrar la evolución experimentada por la conciencia jurídica pontificia en uno de los periodos más relevantes del primero milenio, desde la separación del Imperio oriental hasta el Renacimiento carolingio (ss. V-VIII), periodo en el que, con el trasfondo de la controvertida relación entre lo espiritual y lo terrenal, la Iglesia pasará prácticamente de la clandestinidad a la independencia no sólo espiritual sino también política, y todo ello en apenas cuatro siglos. A tal fin, expondremos la evolución histórica y las consecuencias jurídicas de las relaciones entre el Papado y el Imperio a través de algunas Fuentes canónicas, tanto mediante el estudio material de las más célebres – la epístola del Papa Gelasio “Famuli vestræ pietatis” o la “Donatio Constantini”, por ejemplo – como de la formajurídica que revistieron, al ser ésta el punto de encuentro donde confluyen circunstancias históricas tanto intra como extra eclesiales. One of the more illustrative ways to know how political power conceived is to see how Law is created. These two concepts, political power and Law creation, are an inseparable binomial along the history of Law in general and especially enlightening in the gradual configuration of the Church in particular. Our work is focused on the evolution experienced by the legal pontifical conscience in one of the most important periods of the first Millennium, from the definitive separation of the Eastern Empire to the Carolingian Renaissance (V-VIII). During this period, which had as its backdrop the controversial relationship between spiritual and earthly power, the Church passed, in just four centuries, from a state of clandestinity to one of independence, not only spiritual but also political. In order to reach this goal, the historical evolution and the legal consequences of some canonical sources will be shown, both through the material study of the most famous ones – the epistle of Pope Gelasius “Famuli vestræ pietatis” or the “Donatio Constantini”, for example – and of their legal form, being the meeting point where both intra and extra-ecclesial historical circumstances come together.Arte y HumanidadesCiencias ReligiosasDerech