• Cheesus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The church wasnt why peasants worked less. They worked less because there wasn’t that much work to be done. During the slow season, there just isn’t enough work to justify paying a peasant to work.

    • TheChurn@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      paying a peasant to work

      Peasants (serfs) were not paid. They were bound to the land they worked, and were given a fraction of the harvest they produced. The rest was property of the Lord who’s title controlled the land.

      There was a (very small) artisan class where the concept of payment existed, though often it was payment-in-kind - smith the plow for my oxen and I’ll give you some food after the harvest. Money was rarely encountered for the vast majority of people.

      • Cheesus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re right they were not paid money, but they arguably were provided more goods for their services starting in the 15th century. In western Europe.

        Eastern and Western Europe behaved very differently when it came to serfdom. Serfdom, as you described it, began to decline starting in western Europe in the 15th century and was pretty much gone by the 17th century. Meanwhile Eastern Europe started a rise in serfdom as you described it in the 16th century.

        Serfs started to get better conditions thanks to the bubonic plague and increasing workers power over lords. In western Europe they were paid a higher share of the crop as a result. They still had a bad life overall, but it got ever so slightly better.

        The whole notion that they had 150 days off isn’t even necessarily accurate either because record keeping is so bad from those eras on time worked. It’s not enough data to provide an accurate assessment of working hours.

        • jaybone@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Lol is this the tankie take on the above story? You think that sounds like some kind of paradise?

            • jaybone@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              He brings up capitalism out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, in response to a post about serfdom. With a sarcastic “what a surprise.” Is he implying serfdom is preferable to capitalism?

              • Historical_General@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Well, everybody knows capitalism rose out of feudalism in Europe. @ Cheesus briefly mentions it too.

                The sarcasm is a response to the universal assumption that money and wages were always had universally. But @ TheChurn says very few were paid and those were rare.

                Reminder: the soviets ran a state-capitalist system. That’s not very feudalist.

                I think you’ve misunderstood her quite a bit. Happens a lot on here lol.

            • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              How else are you going to rile up discontent toward left ideology unless you’re constantly accusing people of being an extremist?

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yep. Farming is a bunch of “hurry up and wait”. Not that there wasn’t plenty of other work, but it only takes so long to feed the animals.