Missing Links: Taxable Wealth, Markets, and Stratification among Medieval English Peasants

Abstract

Missing Links: Taxable Wealth, Markets, and Stratification among Medieval English Peasants Evidence for economic and social stratification among English medieval peasants confronts historians at every turn. By the end of the thirteenth century between one third and one half of English villagers worked less than three acres of land. Some thirteenthcentury households lived in larger houses equipped with barns; others lived in one room cottages. Social stratification, moreover, accompanied economic stratification in English villages. Wealthy peasants developed informal patron-client relations with poorer villagers and dominated formal positions in village administration. Stratification among English peasants sprang from roots as old as the eleventh century and flourished after the Black Death, which ameliorated population pressure in the countryside in the later fourteenth century.1