Free Peasants and Large Landowners in the West

Abstract

Comparison of Brittany and northern Iberia shows that there was little of the classical bi-partite estate in either. In both regions the systems of exploitation were mixed, with free peasant proprietors, large and small estates, tenants and some tied labour. In both the estate was usually an accumulation of separate units, worked and managed by peasant households paying rent. Despite many strong similarities, there were differences between the regions for northern Iberia had many mills, and some element of labour service, while Brittany seems to have had neither at the end of the first millennium.