L' agrarium: La charge paysanne avant le régime domanial, VIe–VIIIe siècles

Abstract

A study of the term agrarium offers rare evidence of the lives and legal status of the peasantry in the pre-Carolingian era. An enormous amount of raw data on this subject can be found in the late seventh-century manuscripts from the Abbey of Saint-Martin of Tours. Analysis of every reference to agrarium between the sixth and the eighth centuries in combination with the Saint-Martin documents leads to the conclusion that agrarium can be defined as the obligation to render to the seigneur a tenth of the crops produced. This found its origin in the land tax of the late Roman Empire imposed on free tenants ( coloni), whose descendants formed the majority of the free peasantry of the Merovingian period. These were also exempt from heavy labour services such as the weekly corvée. The independent and free peasants of the Merovingian period enjoyed far lighter burdens than those who fell into servitude from the second half of the eight century onwards.