070307 UE Guided Reading Economic and Social History - Peasants in the Middle Ages (2024S)

This Guided Reading examines the social, economic, cultural history of peasants in medieval Europe. Some 90% of the population of medieval Europe were "peasants" (farmers, pastoralists, and other workers of the land) in the broadest sense of the term. But peasant experiences often remain at the margins of our histories of the Middle Ages, dominated by kings and queens, clergy and aristocracy, cathedrals and castles. What does the Middle Ages look like from a peasant perspective? How were the lives of peasants different from time to time, region to region? What were the roles of status (free, unfree, half-free), gender, and ethnicity in shaping peasant agency? We will read some of the large, contentious, and exciting scholarly literature on peasants, debate big questions of feudalism, serfdom, capitalism, and demographic change, and explore firsthand the rich written, archaeological, and scientific evidence.

The course emphasizes the teaching of expository and analytical skills used by historians to articulate, defend, and disseminate scholarly findings. There will be short written assignments which lead up to the final paper.