As Problems surrounding the servile condition (12th-13th centuries):

changes in labor exploitation in France

Abstract

Abstract: the conceptual and empirical difficulties surrounding serfdom have already animated the most diverse historiographical nuances, and still polarize analytical tendencies. The historiographical field, especially highlighted in French medievalism, was confined for long decades to the jurisdictional debate: an attempt was made, in general terms, to legally define serfdom; he immersed himself, therefore, in the medieval juridical vastness that intended the historiographical understanding, sometimes capitulation, sometimes the production of a mosaic of particularism that did not clarify the conjunctural trends of the period that allow characterizing the servile issue. Capturing, in this sense, a complex and, fundamentally, customary social relationship, full of historical-regional oscillations, strictly requires a theoretical-methodological effort that inclines to the analysis of the objective and pragmatic conditions of the levels of peasant exploitation. The purpose of this article is to explore, especially in light of the documentary records of the period, the dynamics that characterized the objective conditions of serfdom in the kingdom of France and the conjunctural inflections set around the beginning of the 13th century.