The origins of peasant servitude in medieval Catalonia /

Freedman offers a fine study of the evolution of peasant rights and conditions in medieval Catalonia from the 11th through the 15th centuries. The time period and area involved are larger and more complex than those treated in some other similar investigations, and Freedman challenges effectively some theories dear to the heart of Marxist and other economic historians. He demarcates a position that balances juridical and economic theories, shored up by a fine sense of geography and time period. The first chapter provides a review of European peasant conditions and the major theoretical positions on this subject since the work of Marc Bloch. The loss of peasant freedoms in Catalonia, through the heavy remences obligations, is demonstrated here to be a product of the central Middle Ages, a contrast to the peasant situation in the remainder of Iberia. Freedman examines peasant conditions through the impact of the Black Death, concluding with the successful peasant revolts in the 15th century, which brought back freedoms long burdened under the earlier mals usos of seigneurial dominance. Includes maps, a documental appendix, and tables. Strongly recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above.-J. F. Powers, College of the Holy Cross