Peasants were the main and most numerous class of Russia. It was on them that the entire economic life of the state rested, since the peasants were not only the guarantor of the country’s survival (supplying it with everything necessary), but were also the main taxable, that is, taxable class. On a peasant farm, all responsibilities were clearly distributed. Men were engaged in field work, crafts, hunting, and fishing. Women ran the household, looked after livestock, gardens, and did handicrafts. In the summer, peasant women also helped in the fields. Children were also taught to work from childhood. From about the age of 9, the boy began to be taught to ride a horse, drive cattle into the yard, guard horses at night, and at the age of 13 he was taught to harrow a field, plow, and was taken to haymaking. Gradually they were also taught to wield a scythe, an ax, and a plow. By the age of 16, the boy was already becoming a worker. He knew crafts and could weave good bast shoes. The girl began doing needlework at the age of 7. At the age of 11 she already knew how to spin, at 13 she could embroider, at 14 she could sew shirts, and at 16 she could weave. Those who did not master the skill at a certain age were ridiculed. Boys who did not know how to weave bast shoes were teased as “shoeless”, and girls. Those who have not learned to spin are “non-spinners.” Peasants also made all their clothes at home, hence its name – homespun. Sometimes, when a peasant was working, parts of his clothing were drawn into the loom, e.g. screw up - a machine for twisting ropes. The man found himself in an awkward position. Hence the saying “get into trouble” – i.e. in an awkward position. Russian shirts were wide and long. Almost to the knees. To make it comfortable to work in a shirt, they cut out under the arms gussets – special replaceable parts that do not interfere with the movements of the arms in the sleeves, collect sweat and can be replaced. The shirts were sewn on the shoulders, chest and back the background - a lining that could also be replaced. The main type of outerwear was a cloth caftan. They made it lined and fastened at the front with hooks or copper buttons. In addition to caftans, peasants wore jackets, zipuns, and in winter - sheepskin sheepskin coats up to the toes and felted hats.
Peasant women dressed in shirts and sundresses , ponevs - skirts made of cloth, which were tied at the waist. The girls wore a bandage on their heads in the form of a wide ribbon. Married women carefully combed hair under kitties And kokoshniks : “to make a fool of yourself” meant to disgrace yourself. They threw it over their shoulders Soul Greys – wide and short sleeveless sweaters, similar to a flared skirt. All peasant women's clothes were decorated with embroidery.
In the peasant house, everything was thought out to the smallest detail. The peasant's home was adapted to his lifestyle. It consisted of cold rooms - cages And entryway and warm – huts . The canopy connected the cold cage and the warm hut, the farm yard and the house. The peasants kept their goods in them. And in the warm season they slept. The house necessarily had a basement or underground - a cold room for storing food supplies. The central place in the house was occupied by the stove. Most often the stove was heated “black”, i.e. there were no ceilings, and the smoke came out of the window right under the roof. Such peasant huts were called smoking . A stove with a chimney and a hut with a ceiling are an attribute of boyars, nobles and generally wealthy people. However, this also had its advantages. In the smoking hut, all the walls were smoked, such walls do not rot longer, the hut could last a hundred years, and a stove without a chimney “ate” much less wood. Everyone loved the stove in the peasant hut: it provided delicious, steamed, incomparable food. The stove heated the house, and the old people slept on the stove. But the mistress of the house spent most of her time near the stove. The corner near the mouth of the furnace was called - woman's cut - women's corner. Here the housewife prepared food, there was a cabinet for storing kitchen utensils - dishware . The other corner opposite the window and near the door was masculine. There was a bench where the owner worked and sometimes slept. Peasant property was stored under the bench. Between the stove and the side wall under the ceiling they laid pay – a place where children slept, dried onions and peas. A special iron ring was inserted into the central beam of the hut ceiling, and a baby cradle was attached to it. A peasant woman, sitting on a bench at work, inserted her foot into the loop of the cradle and rocked it. To prevent a fire, where the torch burned, they had to place a box of earth on the floor where the sparks would fly.
The main corner of the peasant house was the red corner: here hung a special shelf with icons - goddess , there was a dining table under it. This place of honor in a peasant hut was always located diagonally from the stove. When a person entered the hut, he always directed his gaze to this corner, took off his hat, crossed himself and bowed to the icons. And only then did he say hello.
In general, peasants were deeply religious people, however, like all other classes in the Russian state. The word “peasant” itself is modified from “Christian.” Great importance Peasant families devoted church life to prayers: morning, evening, before and after meals, before and after any task. The peasants attended church regularly, especially diligently in winter and autumn, when they were free from economic burdens. Fasting was strictly observed in families. They showed special love for icons: they were carefully preserved and passed on from generation to generation. The goddess was decorated with embroidered towels - towels . Russian peasants who sincerely believed in God could not work poorly on the land, which they considered God’s creation. In the Russian hut, almost everything was made by the hands of the peasants themselves. The furniture was homemade, wooden, of a simple design: a table in the red corner according to the number of eaters, benches nailed to the walls, portable benches, chests in which goods were stored. For this reason, they were often lined with iron strips and locked with locks. The more chests there were in the house, the richer the peasant family was considered. The peasant hut was distinguished by its cleanliness: cleaning was done thoroughly and regularly, curtains and towels were changed frequently. Next to the stove in the hut there was always a washstand - a clay jug with two spouts: water was poured on one side, and poured out on the other. Dirty water collected in tub – a special wooden bucket. All the dishes in the peasant house were wooden, and only the pots and some bowls were clay. Clay dishes were covered with simple glaze, wooden ones were decorated with paintings and carvings. Many of the ladles, cups, bowls, and spoons are today in Russian museums.
Russian peasants were sensitive to the misfortune of others. Living in community - peace , they knew very well what mutual assistance and mutual assistance were. Russian peasants were merciful: they tried to help the weak and beggar who suffered. Not giving a crust of bread and not allowing a suffering person to spend the night was considered a great sin. Often the world sent people to light stoves, cook food, and care for livestock in families where everyone was sick. If a family's house burned down, the world helped them cut down the trees, remove the logs and build a house. Helping out and not leaving in trouble was in the order of things.
The peasants believed that labor was blessed by God. In everyday life, this was manifested in wishes to the employee: “God help!”, “God help!”. The peasants valued hard workers very much. And, on the contrary, laziness was condemned in the peasant value system, because work was often the meaning of their whole life. They used to say about lazy people that they were “throwing their money away.” At that time, backwoods were called wooden blocks from which spoons and other wooden utensils were made. Preparing baklush was considered a simple, easy, frivolous matter. That is, laziness in modern understanding as a form of complete idleness could not even be imagined at that time. The universal, centuries-honed form of peasant life, finally formed precisely in this cultural era, became the most stable in Russian culture, survived various periods and finally disappeared (was destroyed) only in the twenties and thirties of the last century.
Just a century ago, the peasantry made up the absolute majority of the population of Russia and could rightfully be considered the foundation of the country. The life of peasants in pre-revolutionary Russia has long been the subject of political speculation. Some argue that it was unbearable, the peasants languished in poverty and almost died of hunger, and were the most destitute in Europe.
Other, no less tendentious authors, on the contrary, describe the life of the pre-revolutionary peasantry as almost a patriarchal paradise. How did Russian peasants live? Were they really the poorest compared to the peasantry of other European countries or is this a lie?
Let's start with the fact that the myth about the centuries-old poverty and backwardness of the Russian people was happily reproduced and replicated over the centuries by haters Russian state of different political persuasions. We find different interpretations of this myth in articles by pre-revolutionary liberals and socialists, in Nazi propaganda, in the writings of Western historians and “Sovietologists,” in the conclusions of modern liberals and, finally, in tendentious Ukrainian propaganda. Of course, all of the listed groups of authors and disseminators of this myth had or have their own, often non-overlapping interests. It was important for some to overthrow the monarchy with its help, for others it was important to emphasize the supposedly original “savagery” of the Russian people, and for others they used it to establish a certain ideal model for the development of the Russian state. In any case, this myth often relied on all sorts of unverified claims and inferences.
The huge territory and colossal climatic, geographical, economic differences between Russian regions throughout Russian history determined completely different level agricultural development, different material security and everyday comfort of Russian peasants. To begin with, by the way, you need to decide what is meant by the peasantry as a whole - an estate in the pre-revolutionary sense or, from the point of view of a more modern approach, groups of people engaged in agriculture - farming, animal husbandry, fishing, etc. In the latter case, the differences between the peasants of pre-revolutionary Russia are even greater. Pskov region and Kuban, Pomorie and the Don, the Urals and Siberia - Russian peasants lived everywhere, as well as farmers, cattle breeders, hunters and fishermen of other peoples of Russia. And their position differed, among other things, in proportion to geographical features. In the Pskov region and Kuban, agriculture has different opportunities for its development, as in other regions of Russia. This must be understood when considering the life and well-being of the Russian peasantry.
But let's delve into history and begin to consider the life of the Russian peasantry back in pre-Petrine Russia. In those distant centuries, peasants everywhere lived a joyless life. In the countries of Western Europe, their situation was not nearly as successful as the “Westerners” are now trying to imagine it to be. Of course, the unconditional progress of a number of European countries compared to Russia was the gradual destruction of feudal relations in the countryside with the subsequent liberation of the peasantry from feudal duties. In England, Holland, and a number of other European countries, the manufacturing industry developed rapidly, which required more and more workers. On the other hand, agrarian transformations contributed to the outflow of population from villages to cities. It was not because of a good life that English peasants from their native villages rushed in search of food to the cities, where, at best, hard work in factories awaited them, and at worst, they found themselves in the position of an unemployed and homeless outcast with all the ensuing consequences, including the death penalty under the then British laws. With the intensification of the development of overseas territories in the New World, Africa, Asia, thousands of European peasants rushed there in search of better life, without fear of possible death during long sea voyages, proximity to dangerous tribes, death from disease in an unusual climate. Not all of the settlers were born adventurers; it was just that life in Europe was such that it “pushed” those who had no prospects in their homeland, overseas, in search of a better life.
The situation of the peasantry in Southern and Northern Europe was most difficult. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the feudal order remained unshakable, the peasants continued to be exploited and often became victims of the arbitrariness of the landowners. In Scandinavia, due to climatic conditions, peasants lived very poorly. Life was no less difficult for Irish peasants. What happened in Russia at that time? No one can say it better than his contemporaries.
In 1659, 42-year-old Catholic missionary Yuri Krizhanich arrived in Russia. Croatian by origin, he was educated first in Zagreb, then in Austria and Italy, and traveled a lot. Ultimately, Krizanich came to ecumenical views and argued for the need for a single Church of Christ for Catholics and Orthodox. But such views were negatively perceived by the Russian authorities and in 1661 the arrested Krizhanich was exiled to Tobolsk. There he spent fifteen long years, during which time he wrote several very interesting works. Having traveled through almost all of Russia at that time, Krizhanich managed to become very closely acquainted with the life of the Russian people - both the nobles and clergy, and the peasantry. At the same time, it is difficult to accuse Krizanich of pro-Russian bias, having suffered from the Russian authorities - he wrote what he considered necessary to write and set out his own vision of life in Russia.
For example, Krizhanich was very outraged by the ostentatious luxury of Russian people who did not belong to the upper classes. He noted that “even people of the lower class line entire hats and entire fur coats with sables... and what can be more absurd than the fact that even black people and peasants wear shirts embroidered with gold and pearls?..”. At the same time, comparing Rus' with Europe, Krizhanich indignantly emphasized that in European countries there is nowhere “such disgrace.” He associated this with the high productivity of Russian lands compared to Poland, Lithuania and Sweden and in general with better conditions life.
However, it is difficult to blame Krizhanich for excessive idealization of Russian life, since in general he was quite critical of the Russian and other Slavic peoples and always tried to emphasize their differences for the worse from the Europeans. Krizhanich attributed these differences to the extravagance, simplicity, and sincerity of the Slavs in comparison with the rationalism and prudence, resourcefulness and intelligence of the Europeans. Krizanich also drew attention to the greater inclination of Europeans towards industrial activity, which was greatly facilitated by their Puritan rationalism. According to Krizanich, the Russian, Slavic world and the West are two completely different civilizational communities. In the twentieth century, the outstanding Russian philosopher and sociologist Alexander Zinoviev spoke about “Westernism” as a special type of development of society. Centuries later, he often noticed the same differences between Western and Russian mentalities that Krizanich wrote about in his time.
Krizhanich, by the way, was far from the only foreign traveler who described the prosperous and well-fed life of the Russian people in comparison with residents of other countries. For example, the German Adam Olearius, who visited Russia as secretary of the embassy of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein in 1633-1636, also noted in his travel notes the cheapness of food in Rus'. The memories left by Olearius indicate quite have a prosperous life ordinary Russian peasants, at least judging by the everyday scenes he witnessed along the way. At the same time, Olearius noted the simplicity and cheapness of the everyday life of Russian people. Although there is plenty of food in Russia, most ordinary people few household utensils.
Of course, Peter’s reforms and the numerous wars waged Russian empire throughout the 18th century, affected the position of the Russian common people. By the end of the 18th century, the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers were already beginning to spread in Russia, which contributed to the formation of a negative attitude among part of the Russian elite towards existing social and political order. Serfdom becomes the main object of criticism. However, at that time serfdom was criticized, first of all, for humanistic reasons, not as an outdated form of socio-economic organization, but as an inhuman “slavery” of the peasants.
Charles-Gilbert Romm lived in Russia for seven years, from 1779 to 1786, working as a teacher and educator for Count Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov. In one of his letters, an educated Frenchman, by the way, who later took an active part in the Great French Revolution, wrote to his comrade that in Russia “a peasant is considered a slave, since the master can sell him.” But at the same time, Romm noted, the position of Russian peasants - “slaves” is generally better than the position of French “free” peasants, since in Russia each peasant has more land than he can physically cultivate. Therefore, normal, hardworking and savvy peasants live in relative prosperity.
The fact that the life of Russian peasants differed favorably from the life of their European “colleagues” was noted by many Western travelers in the 19th century. For example, the English traveler Robert Bremner wrote that in some areas of Scotland peasants live in premises that in Russia would be considered unsuitable even for livestock. Another British traveler, John Cochrane, who visited Russia in 1824, also wrote about the poverty of Irish peasants against the background of the Russian peasantry. Their notes can be trusted, since in most European countries even in the 19th century the peasant population lived in deep poverty. The mass exodus of the British, and then representatives of other European nations, to North America is a typical confirmation of this.
Of course, the life of the Russian peasant was hard, in lean years and hungry, but at that time this did not surprise anyone.
The situation of the peasantry began to rapidly deteriorate in the second half of the 19th century and especially at the beginning of the 20th century, which was associated with the progressive social stratification of the Russian village, high birth rates and lack of land in Central Russia. In order to improve the situation of peasants and provide them with land, programs were conceived for the development of vast territories of Siberia and the Far East, where it was planned to resettle a large number of peasants from the provinces of Central Russia (and this program began to be implemented under Pyotr Stolypin, no matter how he was treated subsequently).
Those peasants who moved to the cities in search of a better life found themselves in the most difficult situation. Vladimir Gilyarovsky, Maxim Gorky, Alexey Svirsky and many other prominent representatives of Russian literature tell about the joyless life of slum dwellers. The “bottom” of the city was formed as a result of the destruction of the usual way of life of the peasant community. Although representatives of the most different classes, formed their peasantry, or rather its poorest part, from which at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. moved en masse to cities.
Given the huge size of the peasant population, the majority of whom were illiterate and had no working qualifications, low prices for unskilled labor remained in Russia. Life was poor for unskilled workers, while craftsmen received a living wage. For example, turners, mechanics, and foremen received an average of 50 to 80 rubles per month at the beginning of the twentieth century. For comparison, a kilogram of beef cost 45 kopecks, and a good suit cost 8 rubles. Workers without qualifications and with low qualifications could count on much less money - they received approximately 15-30 rubles a month, while domestic servants worked for 5-10 rubles a month, although cooks and nannies “eating” at their place of work and there and, more often than not, they lived. In the United States and a number of Western European countries, workers received, in comparative terms, a lot of money, but it was no less easy to get, and the unemployment rate was very high. Let us remember that the intensity of the workers’ struggle for their rights in Europe and North America in late XIX- early 20th century was no less than in the Russian Empire.
Life in Russia has never been easy, but it cannot be said to be particularly horrific or poor compared to other countries. Moreover, Russia has had to endure such a number of trials that no European country, not to mention the USA or Canada, has endured. Suffice it to remember that in one twentieth century the country experienced two world wars that claimed millions of lives, a civil war, three revolutions, a war with Japan, and large-scale economic transformations (collectivization, industrialization, virgin land development). All this could not but affect the level and quality of life of the population, which, nevertheless, increased at a rapid pace during Soviet times.
Ilya Polonsky
Pre-revolutionary life in grandmother's stories
I, a young Soviet schoolgirl, asked my grandmother this question in 1975. It was school assignment: ask your relatives about their difficult life under the king and write a story. In those years, many still had living grandfathers and grandmothers who remembered pre-revolutionary life. My grandparents, born in 1903 and 1905, were simple Old Believers peasants from a Siberian village, guided by the attitude “All power comes from God” and did not get involved in politics. Therefore, I prepared to write down a vivid story-illustration for a school textbook from first-hand experience. What they told me was surprising and new to me then, that’s why I remembered that conversation so vividly, almost word for word, here it is:
“We lived, you know, in a village near Novosibirsk (Novonikolaevsk),” the grandmother began the memoirs, “our father, the breadwinner, died early from an accident: a log fell on him when he was helping to build a hut for his brother. So our mother, your great-grandmother, remained a young widow at 28 years old. And with her there are 7 children, smaller or smaller. The youngest was still lying in the cradle, and the eldest was barely 11 years old.
Therefore, our orphaned family was the poorest in the village. And we had 3 horses and 7 cows on our farm, but we never counted chickens and geese. But there was no one in the family to work behind the plow; how much land could one woman plow? This means that the family did not have enough bread and could not survive until spring. But bread was everything for us. I remember that at Easter my mother would cook us fatty cabbage soup, bake a whole goose in the oven, boil potatoes with mushrooms in sour cream in a large cast iron, paint eggs, cream and cottage cheese were on the table, and we little ones were crying. and we ask: “Mommy, we would like some bread, we would like some pancake.” That's how it was.
It was only later, when three years later the older brothers grew up and were able to plow well - that’s when we began to live like everyone else again. At the age of 10, I was a driver in the plowing - my duty was to drive horse flies and gadflies away from the horse so that they would not interfere with its work. I remember my mother getting us ready for plowing in the morning, baking fresh rolls of bread, and one huge roll of bread telling me like a yoke around my neck. And in the field I drive away the gadflies from the horse with a branch, and eat the roll on my neck. Moreover, I don’t have time to drive the gadflies away from me, oh, and they bite me within a day! In the evening they went straight from the field to the bathhouse. We steamed, we steamed, and immediately we seemed to regain our strength and run out into the street - dance in circles, sing songs, it was fun, good.
“Wait, granny, they write everywhere that the peasants lived very poorly, they were starving.” But you tell something else.
“For a peasant, my dear, the earth is a breadwinner.” Where there was little land, there was starvation. And in Siberia, we had plenty of land for arable land, so why starve? Here, perhaps only some lazy people or drunkards could go hungry. But in our village, you understand that there were no drunkards at all. (Of course I understand, their village was Old Believer. The people are all devout believers. What kind of drunkenness is there. - Marita).
There are flooded meadows with waist-deep grass, which means there is enough feed for cows and horses. In late autumn, when the cattle were slaughtered, the whole family prepared dumplings for the winter. We mold them, freeze them, put them in large self-woven bags, and lower them onto the glacier. (Granny called a glacier a deep cellar with ice, in which the temperature was always below zero - Marita). In the meantime, we’re making them, let’s cook them and we’ll really overeat! We eat them until the last dumpling is in our throat. Then we kids hit the floor in the hut and roll around on the floor and play. The dumplings will shrink, so we’ll eat more.
They collected berries and nuts in the forest. And you didn’t even have to go into the forest to pick mushrooms. Here, as soon as you go beyond the edge of the garden, you’ll pick a bucket of mushrooms without leaving your spot. The river is again full of fish. You go at night in the summer, and the little squirrels sleep with their noses directly buried in the shore; you could pull them a lot with a loop. I remember once my sister Varvara accidentally “caught” a pike in the winter - she went to the ice hole to rinse her clothes, and the pike grabbed her hand. Well, Varvara screams, and she grabs her hand, along with the pike clutching her arm, and runs, calling her mother. The soup was then greasy.
Granny smiles at me with her quiet, affectionate smile. Oh, grandma, I would give a lot just to see that smile again and talk to you. I carefully keep in my memory your leisurely, simple stories. And I also keep the memory of the love that you bestowed on your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
(in the photo is a real peasant hut in the village of Martyanovo, captured 100 years ago by photographer Prokudin-Gorsky)
And this is a photograph of a rural hayfield from the same photographer. 1909 Please note: haymaking in the pre-revolutionary rural community was a common, community affair.
From the life of a Siberian village before and during the revolution
Episode one.
“We lived and worked as always, and the whites and the reds fought with each other, sometimes far from our village, sometimes near it, and once in the evening there was a battle between them right behind our village. From the shots, from fear, we all fled for gardens, lay behind the bushes and wait for one of them to finally win, and then the battle will stop and we can return to our houses. But the forces were apparently equal, neither one nor the other entered into direct battle, did not enter the village. , but only exchanged fire.
Next to me in the grass lay our neighbor, who was very worried about her cow. Her cow was young, a first-calf, and had just finally milked normally. And then, as luck would have it, there was such an opportunity: it was time for the evening milking, and we were lying in the bushes. The cows moo, suffer, their udders are full. The neighbor could not resist - crawling, crawling, crawling through the gardens, she made her way into her hut, there she grabbed a pitchfork, put a pillowcase on it and put it over her roof like a flag. And since her pillowcases were red, it turned out that the Reds supposedly had already occupied the village and hung out their flag. At least the whites apparently thought so and moved away. And that time the Reds occupied the village. Well, we returned to our business, satisfied in our homes."
Episode two.
“In winter, the whites retreated through our region, through our village. Apparently they had already been beaten badly, since the retreat was very large. There were many wounded, sick, and frostbitten among them. To ensure the retreat, they demanded from every yard in our village a cart, a horse and The charioteer. And try to disobey! It fell to me to drive from our yard. The women howled for us, as if they were dead, they understood that it was unlikely that we would be able to return home alive. does not love! We are seven children, and she chose me out of all of them!”
In fact, mom did the right thing. It was a pity to send the older children, because the farm depended on them (our father died early), and the younger ones would not have been able to cope. But I was middle-aged, I was 14-15 years old then. So we went. The frost then hit was already good, although winter had only just begun. It’s a long way to go to another village, and about halfway I suggested to them: “There’s a forester’s hut off to the side. The hut is serviceable, there’s always firewood in it, you can warm yourself up, drink some tea, and then move on.” They were happy. We got to this forest hut. They quickly headed there, and I pretended to be tying the horse and adjusting the harness. Only the last one disappeared at the door, I jumped into the sleigh and, well, I ran away from them. I was the only one who returned from the whole village. herself alive and well, but also with the horse. The rest of the charioteers drove their horses with those retreating until the horses died, and some returned home on foot, and some were completely lost forever.”
P.S. It’s a pity that we didn’t talk much with our grandparents - living witnesses of history. So I only have some fragmentary episodes preserved. The more valuable is each such passage, even a short one. I invite other KONT members not to be shy and not to put it on the back burner, but to write everything that they remember. At least collect the story bit by bit from its eyewitnesses.
Modern people have the vaguest idea of how peasants lived in the Middle Ages. This is not surprising, because life and customs in the villages have changed a lot over these centuries.
The emergence of feudal dependence
The term “Middle Ages” is most applicable to because it was here that all those phenomena that are strongly associated with ideas about the Middle Ages took place. These are castles, knights and much more. The peasants had their own place in this society, which remained virtually unchanged for several centuries.
At the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries. in the Frankish state (it united France, Germany and most of Italy) there was a revolution in relations around land ownership. A feudal system emerged, which was the basis of medieval society.
Kings (holders of supreme power) relied on the support of the army. For their service, those close to the monarch received large amounts of land. Over time, a whole class of wealthy feudal lords appeared who had vast territories within the state. The peasants who lived on these lands became their property.
The meaning of the church
Another major owner of the land was the church. Monastic plots could cover many square kilometers. How did peasants live in the Middle Ages on such lands? They received a small personal allotment, and in exchange for this they had to work for a certain number of days on the owner’s territory. It was economic coercion. It affected almost all European countries except Scandinavia.
The church played a big role in the enslavement and dispossession of village residents. The life of peasants was easily regulated by spiritual authorities. Commoners were instilled with the idea that resigned work for the church or the transfer of land to it would later affect what would happen to a person after death in heaven.
Impoverishment of the peasants
The existing feudal land tenure ruined the peasants, almost all of them lived in noticeable poverty. This was due to several phenomena. Due to regular military service and work for the feudal lord, the peasants were cut off from their own land and had practically no time to work on it. In addition, a variety of taxes from the state fell on their shoulders. Medieval society was based on unfair prejudices. For example, peasants were subject to the highest court fines for misdemeanors and violations of laws.
The villagers were deprived of their own land, but were never driven from it. Exactly natural economy was then the only way to survive and earn money. Therefore, the feudal lords offered landless peasants to take land from them in exchange for numerous obligations, which are described above.
precarious
The main mechanism of the emergence of the European was precarity. This was the name of the agreement that was concluded between the feudal lord and the poor landless peasant. In exchange for owning an allotment, the plowman was obliged to either pay quitrents or perform regular corvée work. and its inhabitants were often entirely bound to the feudal lord by a contract of precaria (literally "transferred by request"). Use could be given for several years or even for life.
If at first the peasant found himself only in land dependence on the feudal lord or the church, then over time, due to impoverishment, he also lost his personal freedom. This process of enslavement was a consequence of the difficult economic situation experienced by the medieval village and its inhabitants.
The power of large landowners
A poor man who was unable to pay the entire debt to the feudal lord fell into bondage to the creditor and actually turned into a slave. In general, this led to large land holdings absorbing small ones. This process was also facilitated by the growing political influence of the feudal lords. Thanks to the large concentration of resources, they became independent from the king and could do whatever they wanted on their land, regardless of the laws. The more the middle peasants became dependent on the feudal lords, the more the power of the latter grew.
The way peasants lived in the Middle Ages often also depended on justice. This type of power also ended up in the hands of feudal lords (on their land). The king could declare the immunity of a particularly influential duke, so as not to enter into conflict with him. Privileged feudal lords could judge their peasants (in other words, their property) without regard to the central government.
Immunity also gave the right to a major owner to personally collect all monetary receipts going to the crown treasury (court fines, taxes and other levies). The feudal lord also became the leader of the militia of peasants and soldiers, which gathered during the war.
The immunity granted by the king was only a formalization of the system of which feudal land tenure was a part. Large property owners held their privileges long before receiving permission from the king. Immunity only gave legitimacy to the order under which the peasants lived.
Patrimony
Before the revolution in land relations took place, the main economic unit Western Europe there was a rural community. They were also called stamps. The communities lived freely, but at the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries they became a thing of the past. In their place came the estates of large feudal lords, to whom serf communities were subordinate.
They could be very different in their structure, depending on the region. For example, in the north of France large fiefdoms were common, which included several villages. In the southern provinces of the common Frankish state, medieval society in the village lived in small fiefdoms, which could be limited to a dozen households. This division into European regions was preserved and lasted until the abandonment of the feudal system.
Patrimony structure
The classic estate was divided into two parts. The first of these was the master's domain, where peasants worked on strictly defined days, serving their service. The second part included the households of rural residents, because of which they became dependent on the feudal lord.
The labor of peasants was also necessarily used in the manor's estate, which, as a rule, was the center of the estate and the master's allotment. It included a house and a yard, on which there were various outbuildings, vegetable gardens, orchards, and vineyards (if the climate permitted). The master's artisans also worked here, without whom the landowner also could not do. The estate also often had mills and a church. All this was considered the property of the feudal lord. What peasants owned in the Middle Ages was located on their plots, which could be located interspersed with the landowner's plots.
Dependent rural workers had to work on the feudal lord's plots using their own equipment, and also bring their livestock here. Real slaves were used less often (this social stratum was much smaller in number).
The arable plots of the peasants were adjacent to each other. They had to use a common area for grazing livestock (this tradition remained with the time of the free community). The life of such a collective was regulated with the help of a village gathering. It was presided over by the headman, who was elected by the feudal lord.
Features of subsistence farming
This was due to the low development of production forces in the village. In addition, in the village there was no division of labor between artisans and peasants, which could have increased its productivity. That is, craft and household work appeared as a by-product of agriculture.
Dependent peasants and artisans provided the feudal lord with various clothes, shoes, and necessary equipment. What was produced on the estate was mostly used at the owner's court and rarely became the personal property of the serfs.
Peasant trade
The lack of circulation of goods slowed down trade. Nevertheless, it is incorrect to say that it did not exist at all, and the peasants did not participate in it. There were markets, fairs, and money turnover. However, all this did not in any way affect the life of the village and estate. The peasants had no means of independent subsistence, and feeble trade could not help them pay off the feudal lords.
With the proceeds from trade, the villagers bought what they could not produce on their own. The feudal lords acquired salt, weapons, and also rare luxury items that merchants from overseas countries could bring. Villagers did not participate in such transactions. That is, trade satisfied only the interests and needs of the narrow elite of society who had extra money.
Peasant protest
The way peasants lived in the Middle Ages depended on the size of the quitrent that was paid to the feudal lord. Most often it was given in kind. It could be grain, flour, beer, wine, poultry, eggs or crafts.
The deprivation of the remaining property caused protest from the peasantry. It could be expressed in various forms. For example, villagers fled from their oppressors or even staged mass riots. Peasant uprisings suffered defeats each time due to spontaneity, fragmentation and disorganization. At the same time, even they led to the fact that the feudal lords tried to fix the size of duties in order to stop their growth, as well as increase discontent among the serfs.
Refusal of feudal relations
The history of peasants in the Middle Ages is a constant confrontation with large landowners with varying success. These relations appeared in Europe on the ruins of ancient society, where classical slavery generally reigned, especially pronounced in the Roman Empire.
The abandonment of the feudal system and the enslavement of peasants occurred in modern times. It was facilitated by the development of the economy (primarily light industry), the industrial revolution and the outflow of population to the cities. Also, at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, humanistic sentiments prevailed in Europe, which put individual freedom at the forefront of everything else.
Why were peasant sailors not susceptible to seasickness? When was the word “kvashnya” more of a praise than an insult? How did a grip for pulling pots out of the oven help the militia in 1812, and a rocker help one strong woman who met the Tatar-Mongols on Pochaina? The answers to all these difficult questions can be found in our entertaining dictionary of peasant household items that have gone out of use.
Outrigger- not the holiday of February 14, but a massive, upward-curved wooden block with a short handle. Served for threshing flax and for beating out linen during washing. Rolls were made from linden or birch and decorated with carvings and paintings. The roller was considered a wonderful gift from the groom to the bride - the guys seemed to encourage the girls to further labor feats by turning the rollers in the shape of a female figure, or with holes where pebbles and peas were placed. When working, they made murmuring sounds, delighting the ears of workers.
“Rinseers”, F.V. Sychkov (1910)
Endova– a wooden or metal bowl in the shape of a boat with a spout for draining. Used to serve drinks at feasts. Some valleys could easily accommodate a bucket of mash, because mash was a low-alcohol drink at that time!
“Bread, salt and brother”, V.F. Stozharov (1964)
Millstone. You might think that millstones were located only in mills. In fact, this bulky object was in every hut. Why not go to the mill for a bag of flour? This subject was not so simple. Its surface is divided by grooves to ensure gradual pouring of the finished flour from under the millstones. In addition, historians claim that millstones were invented before the wheel and, to some extent, served as their prototype.
Zybka- intended for. The small box was suspended directly from the ceiling, to the central matrix beam, using a flexible pole-ochep. It is likely that the unsteady structure, and even the traditional peasant pastime – the swing – “educated” the child’s excellent vestibular apparatus. It was noted that the peasant sailors were not susceptible to seasickness and were not afraid of heights.
S. Lobovikov (early 20th century)
Stalls. In fact, the entire furnishings of a peasant hut consisted of benches stretching along the walls. In the red corner, under the shrines, there was a “red” bench - only especially honored guests, priests, for example, or those getting married on their wedding day sat on it. The owner worked and rested on the bench at the entrance; the bench opposite the stove was intended for spinners. At night the benches served: old people on the stove, children on the floors.
“The Red Corner in the Hut”, M.V. Maximov (1869)
Splint. Peasant life, in which everything was strictly practical, also needed decoration. You can't live without! And aesthetics came to the village in its most accessible embodiment. Luboks, printed sheets of edifying, historical or humorous content, could be bought at a fair or from a peddler. Simple, bright pictures were accompanied by text, sometimes in verse. They were essentially comic books.
Kvashnya– wooden tub for kneading dough. It was recognized by ancestors not just as a household item, but as a living being of the highest order. The most expensive and best kneading bowls were made from an oak trunk. The dough that came up in an oak knead was especially airy - the secret was the low thermal conductivity of the walls. And over time, a white coating formed on the walls of the tub - mold fungi, which had the ability to heal wounds.
Rocker- a thick, arched wooden stick with hooks or notches at the ends. Intended for carrying buckets of water. It lay comfortably on the shoulders, and the buckets did not spill when walking. The rocker arms were decorated with carvings and paintings. It is believed that it was the rocker that developed a smooth gait and good posture. In addition, the yoke could give a good blow to someone unsympathetic. According to historians, during the siege of Novgorod by hordes of Tatar-Mongols, one strong girl on the Pochayna River pushed back the Tatars with such a yoke that they became cowardly and lifted the siege.
Krosno(krosny) - a wooden weaving mill that took up a lot of space in the hut. Women weaved cloth on it. It was customary to decorate it with solar symbols, because woven clothes warmed the whole family. Now mills are the lot of rare craftswomen who charge monstrous prices for their work.
With. Verkhne-Usinsk, Usinsk border district, 1916
Body- what the bear in the fairy tale carried Masha in, an impressive box woven from bast and birch bark. They were worn on the shoulders like tourist backpacks. It looks very similar, and there is also a bucket dangling from the side.
Polati – shelf under the ceiling, coming from the stove and above. Usually children lived there, of whom there were many in the huts of their ancestors. This was the warmest place in the hut. All sorts of objects intended for drying were also dried there. “There is no feather bed, no bed, but warmth in the hut,” wrote the poet Nekrasov.
“In the hut”, N.L. Ellert (1890s)
Pomelo- a bunch of grass intended for cleaning the hearth and hearth of the oven before cooking. Nowadays, a broom is confused with a broom and a broom. But in the old days, a housewife who swept the floor with a broom, or, on the contrary, the stove with a broom, was subject to social ostracism. It was like using a mop to clean the dining table. In addition, it was believed that the house spirit could be very offended by this and punish the slob with all sorts of domestic troubles. The pomelo was knitted from wormwood, which is abundant everywhere, and once a year, on Thursday of Holy Week, housewives made a pomelo from juniper or spruce branches. The Thursday broom, according to legend, could scare away the devil if the evil spirit decided to stick his head into the chimney.
“Peasant hut”, V.M. Maximov (1869)
Supplier- a table, which is also a buffet. Unlike the dining table, it was not in the red corner, but next to the stove, and was higher - so that it would be more convenient for the woman to cook. The ancestors also understood something about! A variety of utensils were placed inside the container.
Mortar- utensils hollowed out from a birch or aspen trunk for making and grinding flax and hemp seeds. When crushed in a mortar, the grain is freed from the shell and partially crushed. The stupa was taken very seriously; it was considered an infernal object and close to the other world. Baba Yaga flew in a mortar - the Slavs remembered that they once buried their ancestors in hollowed-out oval coffins, exactly like a mortar...
Box. Who doesn’t know what a chest is? But this convenient ancient piece of furniture has completely fallen into disuse. What a pity! You could store a lot of things there, you could store a lot of things on the chest, a musical mechanism was built into the locks of the chest... You’d get a good night’s sleep, listen to enough music, and have your household belongings hidden away. And how another rural painter paints it with instructive scenes - you won’t be able to take your eyes off it!
Laying- has nothing to do with hairstyle or hairstyle. Styling is almost the same as a chest, and many people confuse them. My dears, you need to understand the difference! What's in the chest? Five scarlet sundresses, and one blue one, a dozen shirts, the grandmothers of the late Panev, a caftan, and thin boots. Rags, that is, there is no need to cover them - who would be flattered by this goodness? But styling is another matter. The stowage is a secret chest with a cunning lock, money is kept there. In general, it’s a safe, but a primitive one.
Grip- a steel spear on a long stick. Intended for pulling pots out of the oven. There could be several grips on the farm, depending on the diameter of the pots. In addition, the grip, according to L. Tolstoy, played an important role in the people's war of 1812, being adopted by the militia. And this is not a joke - by the way, the combat grip has been known since ancient times. And a household grip is no different from a combat one. Now the grip has been replaced by mittens and potholders. Well, how about the Frenchman trampling on us again - will we wave them off with oven mitts?
Bread shovel- when bread and pies were baked in every house, a wide wooden shovel with a long handle was needed for the oven. A bread shovel was made from a whole piece of wood, more precisely, a linden, aspen or alder trunk. Even Baba Yaga had one - she almost baked Lutonyushka with it, but she herself ended up in a fool.
Puppy- a pot for cabbage soup. It differed from kashnik (pot for porridge) only in name.
The life of the Russian peasant was not rich, even meager. And yet people lived, rejoiced at something, weddings were played, and what songs they sang, what fairy tales they told. This means that happiness is indeed better than wealth.
Alisa Orlova