Submitted by AutoModerator t3_ymt9g3 in history
en43rs t1_ivacwt2 wrote
Reply to comment by Logan_mov in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator
Can you be clearer? What period are you referring to? What do you mean by "peasants or countrymen". Do you mean: do peasants understood their status as "non city folk"?
Logan_mov t1_ivaf25v wrote
do the know that they are labelled as ‘peasants’ or ‘countrymen’
en43rs t1_ivafm1w wrote
When and where? 1788 France is very different from 15 AD Rome.
But in general... yeah. Why wouldn't they? It's just a word. Help me here, I'm not really sure I understand your question. Do they know that they are called by a specific word? Is that it?
Logan_mov t1_ivaj5zq wrote
yeah, if they knew they were called a specific word, or term, or would they call themselves a specific word or term. Also, I was talking about Medieval Europe, sorry.
en43rs t1_ivakpb2 wrote
Okay. Yeah they know. Peasant is not an insult, it's a neutral descriptor. And they know it exist because they know that even if they represent the vast majority of the population, there are people that do not live like them. Even if rural community are relatively isolated (compared to a town) they're not completely cut off from the world (the stereotype of the village man who never saw anyone that wasn't from his village is nonsense). They pay taxes to their lord and/or the king, that means a tax collector (and the lord itself). Their priest is educated in a neighboring city and rarely from the village itself. They sell their products to a market town where they meet people from all other... they are in contact with the wider world.
So yes they use the term or local equivalent... when talking of themselves in relation to other groups. "We, peasants, are not like you city folk", that kind of things. Otherwise if they have to use a term they use the name of their village ("we are the people of St Johnston up Avon" or whatever). Just like if you live in a city nowadays you're more likely to say "I'm from Manchester" rather than "I'm a city dweller" unless you have to specify in context.
jezreelite t1_ivb7mxw wrote
A French or Anglo-Norman noble referring to peasants might call them villeins. Though villein tended to be specific to serfs (rather than free peasants), most peasants in France, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, northern Iberia, and post-1066 England were serfs.
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