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Manorialism
Manorialism was an economic system that was common in medieval Europe. It may also be called
"seigneurialism," a name that came from the French word for lord, seigneur. Sometimes equated with feudalism,
manorialism describes peasants' and serfs' relations to the manor that controlled the land on which they lived
and worked. (In general, feudalism describes the law, politics, and society of the whole of medieval Europe and
specifically, vassals' relations to their lords.) There was considerable variation in manorial practices across
Europe. In some cases, free peasants worked most of the land, while in others, serfs did. Some areas formed
manors late, and others never formed them at all.
Under manorialism, life was centered around a manor, a local jurisdiction or geographical area, owned by a
nobleman. The manor was located near a town or village inhabited by peasants. The lord of the manor was the
de facto ruler of all the peasants in his village; he held legal authority over them and was in charge of
administering the law and holding court. The peasants provided him tribute in return for his protection. In
addition, the lord might control a number of serfs, workers who were legally tied to the land. For most serfs and
peasants, the manor constituted their entire universe. They were born there, lived there, and died there without
ever leaving its boundaries.
The manorial system evolved out of the collapsed Roman Empire around the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.
Without the centralized government that the Romans had provided, people had to organize themselves in some
other way. For lack of anyplace better to go, former slaves settled on the land of their former owners. Gradually
their status changed: they were no longer owned by their masters but were now tied to the land; whoever
owned the land also owned their labor.
In addition, a number of agricultural advances appeared during the early Middle Ages that made the manorial
system a logical economic arrangement. The invention of the heavy plow helped to change the shape of fields
from square to long and rectangular, and villagers reorganized their land into long, open fields with no fences.
The heavier plow required more oxen to pull it; because few peasants owned more than one ox, they pooled
their animals to plow the fields together. Farmers also began using the three-field system for their crops, which
meant rotating their fields through grains, beans, and fallow periods. Each individual farmer worked a number of
different strips of land, often scattered all over the village's farmland. For all those reasons, it made sense for
villagers to work together and to plant the land collectively. Collective farming was a key component of
manorialism.
A manor could include several categories of land. The demesne was the portion inhabited by the lord and his
family, used personally by them for their own needs. It might include a manor house or fortified castle, a private
garden, stables, and other facilities. Surrounding the demesne would be the lord's dependent holdings, lands that
the lord owned but that were inhabited by peasants (who rented the land) or serfs (who were tied to the land).
Those lands were sometimes called villein lands, after the French word for serf. Most manors also included
common lands, which the peasants and serfs used to graze animals or hunt and fish. In addition, a manor could
have acres of forest land, which the lord could use for his own hunting or charge fees to others who wanted to
hunt on it.
Each type of land did not consist of a single contiguous plot but rather many isolated bits and pieces of land. For
example, the demesne could include strips of farmland located here and there, perhaps intermixed with the
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serfs' land and the land rented by peasants. A manor might also contain a mill, a bakery, a wine press, and
workshops for making tools, weapons, shoes, and clothes.
A small manor might house 12 families, while a large one might have as many as 60 households. A very
prosperous nobleman could control hundreds of manors, each with its own lord who paid him tribute. At any
size, however, a manor was an expensive undertaking. Usually, smaller manors did not have many serfs because
it was too expensive for a lord to take care of them; instead, the lord would rent his lands to peasants. Though
manorial lords could take in a good deal of money from rents, tributes, and other fees, they were constantly
under pressure to produce their own tributes to lords higher than them. A lord could earn additional money by
charging fees for court hearings, marriages, and other events.
The success of the manorial system depended on the majority of people accepting the authority of a few nobles.
The medieval Catholic Church taught that society was divided into three orders—those who pray (the clergy),
those who fight (lords and knights and their families), and those who work (serfs and peasants)—and people did
not question it. Moreover, the manorial system offered stability in an uncertain time; serfs and peasants had at
least a place to live and a promise of protection from attack.
Serfs were not exactly slaves because the lord could not sell them, but they were required to work for the lord by
providing specific services or crops and livestock. The status and relationship to the land were hereditary; when a
serf died, another member of his family would take over the payments to the lord and continue occupying the
land. Serfs could not abandon their land, and they could not sell it to a third party without their lord's permission.
Serfs had to work for the lord before they could work for themselves; as a result, their personal farming was
sometimes neglected and their families poorly fed. Serfs were also required to dig ditches, gather firewood, build
roads and fences, and do other jobs the lord deemed necessary. Some lords demanded taxes from the serfs in
addition to their labor.
Peasants generally had a higher status than serfs; they were usually free to move around if they wished. A manor
might include acres of land that the lord would rent to peasants, who would farm it and perhaps pay some
periodic tribute to the lord. Typically, the smaller the manor, the greater the proportion of free peasants living on
it.
Although the condition of serfs and peasants varied by region, both peasants and serfs had legal rights and could
usually bring their grievances before the manor court. While the king or other regional ruler usually retained
jurisdiction over grave crimes like murder, the manor court ruled on petty criminal offenses, tenancy issues, and
land and inheritance disputes.
Around the 11th century, the trade revival in Europe began to diminish the importance of manorialism. With
lords able to sell surplus crops to towns and able to pay their workers with money, and with some serfs even able
to buy their freedom with earned wages, the localized economy of the manor gave way to the larger,
decentralized regional economies of Europe. Moreover, lords found that peasants who earned wages and paid
rent for their land tended to work more efficiently than serfs. As manorialism died out in Western Europe,
however, it became increasingly common in Eastern Europe, where many people labored as serfs well into the
19th century.
"manorialism." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.
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