Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia

Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo LOCAL SOCIETIES AND PEASANTRY AGENCIES IN MEDIEVAL IBERIA LOCAL SOCIETIES AND PEASANTRY AGENCIES IN MEDIEVAL IBERIA edited by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo Reti Medievali E-Book ISSN 2704-6362 (PRINT) │ ISSN 2704-6079 (ONLINE) 50 Reti Medievali Editor-in-Chief Maria Elena Cortese, University of Bologna, Italy Roberto Delle Donne, University of Naples Federico II, Italy Thomas Frank, University of Pavia, Italy Paola Guglielmotti, University of Genoa, Italy Vito Loré, Roma Tre University, Italy Iñaki Martín Viso, University of Salamanca, Spain Riccardo Rao, University of Bergamo, Italy Paolo Rosso, University of Turin, Italy Gian Maria Varanini, University of Verona, Italy Andrea Zorzi, University of Florence, Italy Scientific Board member Enrico Artifoni, University of Turin, Italy María Asenjo González, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain William J. Connell, Seton Hall University, United States Pietro Corrao, University of Palermo, Italy Élisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Sorbonne Paris IV University, France Christoph Dartmann, University of Hamburg, Germany Stefano Gasparri, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy Patrick Geary, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, United States Jean-Philippe Genet, Panthéon-Sorbonne Paris 1 University, France Knut Görich, University of Munich Ludwig Maximilian, Germany Julius Kirshner, University of Chicago, United States Maria Cristina La Rocca, University of Padua, Italy Michel Lauwers, Côte d’Azur University, France Isabella Lazzarini, University of Turin, Italy Annliese Nef, Panthéon-Sorbonne Paris 1 University, France Beatrice Pasciuta, University of Palermo, Italy Annick Peters Custot, University of Nantes, France Giuseppe Petralia, University of Pisa, Italy Walter Pohl, Universität Wien, Austria Flocel Sabaté, University of Lleida, Spain Roser Salicru i Lluch, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Barcelona, Spain Alessandro Silvestri, University of Salerno, Italy Francesco Vincenzo Stella, University of Siena, Italy Giuliano Volpe, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy Chris Wickham, All Souls College, Oxford, United Kingdom Peer-review All published e-books are double-blind peer reviewed at least by two referees. Their list is regularly updated at URL: http://www.serena.unina.it/index.php/rm/referee. Their reviews are archived. Firenze University Press 2024 Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia ed. by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo i be r i a n l o c a l s o c i e t i e s i n t h e e a r ly m e d i e va l e u r op e a n c o n t e x t Settings, practices and territorialities (5th-12th centuries) 2 Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia / edited by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo. - Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2024. (Reti Medievali E-Book ; 50) https://books.fupress.com/isbn/9791221505627 ISSN 2704-6362 (print) ISSN 2704-6079 (online) ISBN 979-12-215-0561-0 (Print) ISBN 979-12-215-0562-7 (PDF) ISBN 979-12-215-0563-4 (ePUB) ISBN 979-12-215-0564-1 (XML) DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7 The volume has been published thanks to the contributions of the Projects “Peasant agency and social complexity in north-western Iberia in the medieval period” (AEI/FEDER UE HAR2016-76094-C4-2R), and “Archaeology of the local societies in Southern Europe: identities, collectives, and territorialities (5th- 11th centuries)” (PID2020-112506GB-C41) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Front cover image: Small gateway / Access gate to the Saldropo wetland (Bizkaia, Spain). Photography of Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo. Peer Review Policy Peer-review is the cornerstone of the scientific evaluation of a book. 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Content license: except where otherwise noted, the present work is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license allows you to share any part of the work by any means and format, modify it for any purpose, including commercial, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author, any changes made to the work are indicated and a URL link is provided to the license. Metadata license: all the metadata are released under the Public Domain Dedication license (CC0 1.0 Universal: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode). © 2024 Author(s) Published by Firenze University Press Firenze University Press Università degli Studi di Firenze via Cittadella, 7, 50144 Firenze, Italy www.fupress.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Italy Iberian local societies in the early medieval European context: settings, practices and territorialities (5th-12th centuries) 1. Political landscapes in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages: the Iberian Northwest in the Context of Southern Europe, ed. by Iñaki Martín Viso, 2024 2. Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, ed. by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, forthcoming 3. Archaeology and History of the Commons from Middle Ages to Early Modern, ed. by Margarita Fernández Mier, forthcoming 4. Landmarks, Footprints, and Divisions of Space: the Making of Early Medieval Landscapes, ed. by Julio Escalona, and Álvaro Carvajal Castro VII Contents Local Societies and Relational Agency in Medieval Iberia. Two Avenues for the Study of Subaltern Groups, by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo 1 1. Introduction 1 2. The context: peasant studies 3 3. The content of the book 6 3.1. Theoretical aspects for studying the peasantry 6 3.2. Powers and peasants. How is it possible to study peasantry agency? 7 3.3. Inhabited landscapes and peasantry agency capacity 9 4. Coda 12 Works cited 15 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies: an approach from NW Iberia, by Álvaro Carvajal Castro 19 1. Introduction: from Punjab to Delhi 19 2. Peasant agency? A collective conundrum 22 3. Property, commons, and gender in early medieval localities 29 4. Conclusion 34 Works cited 35 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe, by Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata 41 1. Introduction 41 2. Understanding peasants: A research framework in East Central Europe 43 FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (edited by), Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0562-7, DOI 10.36253/979- 12-215-0562-7 VIII 3. Assessing selected themes from an agency perspective 49 4. Spatial reorganisation of settlement, changes in the layout of the ploughland, and the formation of the village 49 5. Formation of the three-compartment residential house and the peasant household 55 6. Production, livelihood, and nutrition of peasants 60 7. Integration of the rural economy into the market (trade relations) 62 8. Material culture and living standards of peasants 63 9. Impacts of human agency on the natural environment (human ecosystem) 64 10. Late medieval settlement desertion 66 11. Conclusion and discussion: A rethinking of rural communities’ characterization from the peasant agency perspective 68 Works cited 71 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia), by Teresa Campos-Lopez 77 1. Introduction 77 2. A case study: the early medieval village of Gorliz 81 2.1. The preventive project 81 2.2. The sequence of Gorliz 83 3. Main topics for analysis and discussion: Gorliz’s contribution 87 3.1. The village formation process 87 3.2. The appearance of the necropolis 92 4. Contributions to a (open) debate 94 Works Cited 97 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages. A diachronic analysis of the archaeological record in Central Portugal, by Catarina Tente, Sara Prata 101 1. Introduction 102 2. A diachronic analysis of the peasant record 104 3. Discussion 108 3.1. Settlements and households 109 3.2. Gravesites 111 3.3. Material culture and consumption patterns 114 3.4. Farming activities 116 4. Conclusion 117 Works Cited 119 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin (5th-7th centuries), by Eduardo Cardoso Daflon 123 1. Hidden Subject 124 2. Iberian Early Middle Ages: two versions of the same reality 124 3. The emergence of a new reality in the 5th century 127 4. Panorama of peasant villages and farms in the 6th and 7th centuries 131 5 Local Societies and Relational Agency in Medieval Iberia In the French-speaking sphere, the studies of the paysannerie médiévale are undergoing a certain development, although with conceptual and methodological parameters very different to those of the British.17 Among many other initiatives, the magazine Histoire et Sociétés Rurales,18 published by the Association d’histoire des sociétés rurales, is the meeting point for a broad scientific community. In Italy, particular mention should be made of the works of Luigi Provero.19 They add to the solid tradition of rural history studies, despite the centrality the study of towns has had and continues to have in transalpine historiography. In the case of Spain, the resilience of social history gestated in the context of the end of Francoism has determined that the study of the peasantry has been one of the cherished topics, particularly among early medievalists. Also on this occasion, the journal Historia Agraria (Agrarian History) has played, and continues to play, a notable role in the revitalisation of this field of study.20 However, one of the most interesting innovations has been the growing importance of archaeology of the peasantry.21 Features that characterise these works are their cross-sectional nature in chronological terms and the theoretical and methodological broadening of the study topics.22 Taking into account this reference context and the conceptual framework presented in the first section, the main questions addressed in this volume are: a) To what extent does the proposed conceptual and methodological framework allow the history of groups lacking in history and demarcated by the great narratives to be related from an innovative perspective? b) How can the capacity for agency and sociopolitical action of dominated groups be defined in conceptual terms? What are their limits and capacity to influence and participate in social life based on the analysis of the peasantry? c) How can this capacity for agency be investigated, recognised and analysed, taking into account the numerous documentary and/or conceptual filters that have been have accepted by the humanities when defining, representing and analysing subaltern groups? d) To what extent is an approach of this nature capable of promoting transversal readings that go beyond the traditional academic taxonomies that 17 Dierkens, Schroeder, y Wilkin, Penser la paysannerie médiévale. 18 https://www.cairn.info/revue-histoire-et-societes-rurales.htm 19 Provero, Contadini e potere nel Medioevo; Provero, Le parole dei sudditi. 20 https://www.historiaagraria.com/en/ 21 View the critical balances of Portass, “The archaeology of peasant protagonism;” Escalona, “The early Castilian peasantry.” 22 Among other works, see Bermejo Tirado y Grau Mira, The Archaeology of Peasantry; Quirós Castillo, Archaeology and History 1; Quirós Castillo, Archaeology and History 2; Vigil-Es- calera Guirado, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas. 6 Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo divide historical from archaeological studies, the study of Islamic and Christian societies, medieval history from the modern age, etc? The most recent studies have shown that it is precisely the more transversal works that provide the most interesting results when it comes to analysing the social practices of both the dominant and the dominated groups. 3. The content of the book To address these challenges, the collection of papers included in this book look into case studies from the Iberian Peninsula, although a study devoted to Central Europe has also been included. The papers cover a wide range of local Christian and Muslim societies and are authored by American and European scholars working from different archaeological and historical traditions. Most of the contributions analyse early medieval societies. These are considered an ideal laboratory for analysing the agency of subaltern groups, although other chronologies have also been explored and, furthermore, attention was paid to long durations. Given the nature and range of the papers, it is not easy to divide them into different groups, although it is possible to distinguish three main topics: the theoretical aspects, the methodological challenges, and the analytical contexts through which it is possible to define this agency capacity. 3.1. Theoretical aspects for studying the peasantry In a more or less rhetorical manner, some of the studies included in this book ask to what extent the peasantry had agency capacity or was it precisely their subaltern nature that prevented this possibility. Some of the main underlying problems, however, reside in knowing how collective and individual agency was articulated, how it was deployed in terms of horizontal and vertical relationships, what limits peasantry agency was subjected to, and how tensions between the structuring frameworks and agents’ actions were resolved. These theoretical aspects are analysed in two of the contributions included in this book. Álvaro Carvajal Castro approaches these questions in light of the textual documentation from the northwestern Iberian Peninsula, taking as his starting point the difficulty in defining and delimiting collective action and individual agency in the case of subaltern groups. To do this, he proposes resorting to a relational approach to agency by which social relationships are continuously produced, reproduced and transformed through different practices. Using this approach, it is possible to assess to what extent peasants’ initiatives were able to influence and transform the conditions of subordination and overcome the basic, classic lords-peasantries contraposition. To develop his argument, he considers three main themes: the notion of property in early 7 Local Societies and Relational Agency in Medieval Iberia medieval times, the management of common resources, and gender relationships. The resulting picture is highly evocative when it is based on a relational approach, which should not be confused with the theoretical apparatus developed by the new materialisms.23 This relational agency is organised around specific social practices that become, from this approach, the focus of historical and archaeological analysis. In this way, normative concepts are dissolved in favour of a denser analysis in social terms. However, one of the main risks of excessively emphasising the agency of the peasantry and subaltern groups is that of building segmented, partial and distorted narratives of social life. Carlos Tejerizo points out in his contribution that some of the risks of this overoptimistic understanding include misinterpreting records, forgetting or undervaluing the importance of local identities and localities, and losing the meaningful context of the material culture. To reassess this challenge, the author resorts to the notion of areas of struggle, understood as a formula for spatialising the practices around which social life is organised. He also makes use of the concept of relational agency as an instrument to relocate the tension between elites and peasants in dialectical and conflict terms (larval or open). To test this analytical proposal, he uses two case studies from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula based on the study of population patterns and an analysis of funerary areas. He argues that the systemic collapse of the Western Roman Empire favoured the agency capacity of subaltern groups, the most tangible result of which was the creation of the medieval peasantry. And although they are not always expressive in monumental terms, the material records show how the local communities of the Duero basin were subjected to sociopolitical stress that determined both the development of important internal inequalities and the progressive insertion of the elites into these local realities. 3.2. Powers and peasants. How is it possible to study peasantry agency? The medievalist Luigi Provero has argued that the main challenge of studying the peasantry is not to admit their capacity for sociopolitical action, but rather to identify these actions from partial and biased sources, conditioned by numerous filters and silences24. And this is the main concern that characterises the second of the blocks that make up this book. Jesús Bermejo’s study introduces some critical concepts and reflections for the study of the peasantry between the end of the Roman era and the beginning of the Middle Ages. This is a particularly important work given the recent increase in the number of known subaltern groups in the Roman 23 In particular, these studies emphasise the agency of acting and non-acting actors, deconstructing anthropocentric interpretations in ontological terms, Witmore, “Archaeology and the New Materialisms.” 24 Provero, Le parole dei sudditi. 8 Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo period. Beginning with the concept of subaltern debris, described by James C. Scott as a material manifestation of everyday peasant resistance, the significance of the end of the Roman villae is reviewed. This subject has been considered as an end point for classical archaeologists and a starting point for specialists in the medieval period. As a consequence, the faint evidence of non-monumental material elements dated between the 5th and the 8th centuries has often been considered as marginal or the result of anomalous uses by squatters and occupiers. Based on a renewed conceptual and methodological apparatus, the agency of the peasant communities is explored by revisiting this evidence, which has rarely been reviewed in depth. The late antiquity occupation of Fuente Álamo (Puente Genil, Spain), taking into account the material culture and other evidence, provides the opportunity to shed light on a series of individual peasant households, offering a fresh perspective on the analysis of the peasantry. The work of the Brazilian researcher Eduardo Cardoso Dafln is particularly indicative, as he goes right to the heart of the question when he points out the difficulty in combining the written and material sources referring to the early medieval peasantry on the Iberian Peninsula, and specifically the Duero basin between the 5th and 7th centuries. The texts mainly deal with large landowners and territorially well-established powers, while the archaeological evidence is much sparser when it comes to showing social hierarchies, forms of domination and social asymmetries. The amount of evidence is still limited in both cases, but this contraposition has given rise to a more or less formalised debate between the different specialists. To unravel this skein, the author undertakes a detailed geographical and chronological analysis. He evidences both the micro-stratifications generated within local communities as a result of internal tensions and the mechanisms through which religious and secular elites affirmed themselves in the local sphere. These were long processes spread over 250 years after the peasantry had enjoyed a period of relative autonomy following the fall of the Western Empire. Of particular interest is the relationship established between the abandonment of first-gen- eration castles, the affirmation of urban bishoprics, and the creation of a new social model. In this way, a highly articulated proposal is formulated on the agency capacity of the early medieval peasantry. Undoubtedly, such a study is faced with precariousness and the meagre number of preserved sources. Having said that, is it easier to study peasantry agency in more recent centuries, when the volume of information is much greater? This is the challenge faced by Josu Narbarte and Mattin Aiestaran in their study of the transformations of agricultural practices in the modern period. More specifically, the authors question the role played by the peasantry in the agrarian revolution that introduced American crops, the new methods of forest resource management, the different forms of communal land appropriation, and the mutation of the rural communities in the 17th-18th centuries. For this purpose, they take into consideration a well-recognisable practice through both texts and agrarian archaeology: the use of lime to fer- 9 Local Societies and Relational Agency in Medieval Iberia tilise crop fields and maintain highly intensive agricultural methods that has been documented in the eastern Cantabrian area since at least the 18th century. Particularly interesting results were provided by the multiproxy research combining the study of written sources, toponymy, field surveys, excavations in currently inhabited domestic spaces and geoarchaeology in Aizarna (Gipuzkoa) and Amaiur (Navarra). The authors conclude that the agronomy improvement narrative fails to adequately explain the way in which this practice has been used, the implementation of which has far-reaching social consequences that transcend the dominant economic and functionalist logic. The chaîne opératoire of lime production, the forms of use or absence of lime, and the methods of crop rotation configured dense social landscapes shaped by peasantry agency. Despite its chronological proximity, this case study shows that mere recourse to written memory does not allow us to adequately focus these dynamics. The last chapter in this block was written by Ladislav Čapek and Lukáš Holata and deals with the eastern part of Central Europe. This densely packed chapter makes it possible to compare the Iberian experience with other underrepresented or absent academic trajectories in the debate on the peasantry of Western Europe. The paper has three main objectives: to present in historiographical terms the theoretical and conceptual framework with which the peasantry in central Europe has been studied; to carry out a survey of some of the main themes studied by the archaeology of the peasantry in the area of the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary; to present a research programme for the future, identifying some of the most promising topics, as well as the methodological and conceptual instruments to address their study. The starting point is that the agency of the medieval peasantry, or even the peasantry itself, has not yet received the attention it deserves from historians and archaeologists in Central Europe. The proposal presented is based on different study traditions, and more specifically on those from the United Kingdom, Germany and the Central European nations, and is organised around eleven main themes: village formation and settlement patterns; domestic records; agrarian and craft production; food; markets; environments and landscapes; rural elites; churches and parishes; living standards; social identities and village desertion. It is true that the results provided are still provisional, but they are of particular importance to contextualise peasant studies in a broad geographical area. In fact, the contribution introduces a large number of case studies published in languages that are not very accessible to our academy. 3.3. Inhabited landscapes and peasantry agency capacity However, if there is consensus among specialists when it comes to analysing the agency of the peasantry, it is that inhabited spaces and social landscapes are the ideal scenario for the analysis of dependent rural groups. The third block of contributions considers this aspect. Teresa Campos examines 10 Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo the agency capacity of the peasantry in one of the main processes analysed by European medieval archaeology: village formation. This is a subject that has been the object of study by traditions such as those of the French or the British, since it has been assumed that the “crystallisation”, formalisation or creation of medieval villages would have been the material translation of the establishment of lordly power relations25. The issue has been widely debated and has often been resolved in terms of opposition between those who give centrality to secular and religious powers, versus those who emphasise the role of the peasantry. And although nowadays more nuanced and multivariate narratives have been proposed, it is interesting to analyse this process in early medieval Bizkaia, an area characterised by a certain weakness of the local powers. An analysis of the occupational sequence, the archaeological materials and other indicators suggests that in the case of Gorliz the peasantry was the protagonist of the founding of this locality, although it is an internally diversified and hierarchical subject. Gorliz, like other examples investigated in the Basque area, sheds light on the process of creating marked social differences from within the neighbouring communities themselves. In addition, and in contrast to more traditional approaches, this example shows the profound functional, morphological and social transformations to which medieval rural spaces were subjected. The analysis of settlement and agricultural production is also the argumentative axis of the work presented by Catarina Tente and Sara Prata dedicated to two Portuguese territories, Alto Alentejo and Beira Alta. They are, without doubt, two of the best researched early medieval zones in Portugal in recent years and allow a comparative analysis of two multi-year projects. The trends observed in settlement patterns or burial areas reveal notable differences, as well as in the economic patterns that characterise the wide valleys of Alentejo with respect to the Beira mountains. However, there are also some traits the analyses have in common. Firstly, the analysis of agricultural production and everyday artifacts reveals how these peasant societies participated in active sociopolitical systems on various scales, as well as the existence of regional elites that did not always resort to forms of monumentalisation and flaunting of their positions. Secondly, the existence of microstratifications within the local communities defined by the neighbourhood and the construction of shared social memories is intuited. However, perhaps the most important contribution of this study resides in the fact that the authors suggest that the reading of the archaeological records of peasant societies can be contradictory if a solid theoretical apparatus is not used. In other words, the contrast between lords and peasants, or even the more elaborate contrast 25 There is an abundant bibliography. Among other studies see Chapelot y Fossier, Le village et la maison au Moyen Âge; Zadora Rio, “Le village des historiens;” Rippon, Beyond the medieval village; Hamerow, Rural Settlements and Society; Klapste y Nissen Jaubert, “Rural settlement.” 11 Local Societies and Relational Agency in Medieval Iberia between powers and local communities, is inoperative and limiting for conceptualising the dynamics observed in local societies. The study carried out by Karen Álvaro and Esther Trave once again considers how to study the agency of the peasantry through the forms of settlement and transformations that took place during the Early Middle Ages. For this, they consider the example of present-day Catalonia, which is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and best researched regions in which to study the agency capacity of the peasantry. In fact, important contributions have been made over the last three decades from the perspective of both rescue and preventive archaeology, as well as by academic research projects. This region also has the most abundant documentary records of the entire Iberian Early Middle Ages. It is currently therefore one of the best known regions in the Western Mediterranean.26 However, as in other places, the exponential increase in archaeological interventions and the complex processes involved in their publication make it difficult to count on up-to-date syntheses and suitable interpretative theses. In this paper the authors argue that by analysing the transformations of the inhabited landscapes it is possible to detect the strategies deployed by the peasantry during the Early Middle Ages. To do this, they divide their survey into two main stages: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. The thesis defended is that the agency of the peasantry contributed to the transformation of rural settlement and the emergence of medieval society. The end of the late-Roman villae is related to the establishment of a new kind of settlement following patterns that accentuated the geographical and chronological diversity between the coast and the interior. The eighth century represented a turning point in the territorial organisation, marked both by a transformation of rural economies and the creation of new inhabited landscapes. Of particular importance in this context is the process in which the number of churches in the towns multiplied, since they reorganised the rural occupations based on new logicalities. In short, the study shows the importance of peasant initiatives and how the forms of domination by the elites were changing. The final study included in this section of the book is that of Alberto García Porras. Its purpose is to explore the agency capacity of the peasantry in societies characterised by strong tax-based states, such as the Nasrid Kingdom. To do this, it argues that the farmhouse towers constitute the appropriate setting for understand how the relationship between the state, the peasantry and the local powers was organised. Previous studies have identified this type of construction as shelters for local communities, as watchtowers, or as the residences of aristocracies and/or representatives of the state. One of the best studied 26 The bibliography is very extensive. Among other works, worthy of mention are those of Roig Bux, “Prácticas funerarias de época visigoda;” Roig Bux, “Asentamientos rurales y poblados tardoantiguos;” Folch Iglesias, “Territorios y poblamiento en el noreste;” Martí Castelló y Negre Pérez, “Assentaments i espais agraris;” Pratdesaba i Sala, El procés de fortificació i reocupació del territori. 12 Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo examples in recent years is the Agicampe tower27 in Loja. The site has been the subject of an intensive study that has included territorial surveys, geoarchaeological studies of cultivated fields (micromorphology, phytoliths), the study of the architecture, and the excavation of the construction. All these records have made it possible to analyse the long-term transformations of the site, from recent prehistory to the present. The main conclusion proposed is that the tower was built by the peasantry in the context of the agrarian intensification that characterised the Almohad period. Moreover, these towers would have had a notable importance in the reproduction of peasant communities and the maintenance of the tax-based state domination. And although it is not formalised as such, in this study we see the re-emergence of the notion of relationship agencies that are one of the main focuses of the studies included in the volume. 4. Coda To conclude these brief notes, we wish to focus on three of the main contributions made by the studies that make up this volume. Firstly, both the chapters included in the book and the other studies28 cited reveal that, although the notion of peasantry has been defined mainly on the basis of economic criteria (direct producers, submission to the payment of rents and/or taxes29), their capacity for agency goes far beyond the economic sphere. In fact, assuming this perspective, it is possible to question the organisation of the social life of subaltern groups from new perspectives. The 20th-century research agendas of peasant studies had insisted, above all, on peasant revolts and resistance, the progressive degradation of the socioeconomic conditions of the peasantry, and the narrative of a progressive and inevitable affirmation of the elites over the rural groups. And without ceasing to be central themes in the analysis of medieval societies, there is no doubt that the use of more sophisticated theoretical frameworks based on relational approaches allows us to significantly widen the analytical scenario. Just to give one example, it is of particular interest to point out how I. Martín proposed approaching the study of sernas, community cultivation spaces that are frequently mentioned among the assets of the monarchy and early medieval aristocracies. This author proposes differentiating a double level of action in the sernas. On the one hand, peasant families would have built, farmed and used these cultivation spaces on a daily basis, and on the other, there was a higher level of safeguarding that guaranteed the correct use and defence of those rights. This second level defined the agency of the elites in the local 27 A more analytical and detailed presentation of the archaeological record is available at García Porras, Pluskowski, y Banerjea, “Gestión de los recursos agrícolas.” 28 See notes 17-22. In addition, Alfonso Antón, “Iglesias rurales en el norte de Castilla.” 29 Wolf, Los campesinos; Ploeg, Peasants and the art of farming; Shanin, Peasants and peasant societies; Redfield, The little community, and Peasant society and culture. 13 Local Societies and Relational Agency in Medieval Iberia sphere and constituted an instrument of eminent domination30. Likewise, the implementation of perspectives such as that of the “resistance of the weak”31 contributes decisively to articulating richer and more organised narratives. Secondly, the elusive and tenuous nature that characterises the testimonies and preserved evidence related to subaltern groups causes evident difficulties in terms of social characterisation. The three main resources used by the authors of these studies were a high level of theoretical conceptualisation, the selection of records of high chronological and social resolution, and the use of microhistory approaches. It is not a mere methodological deployment or a strategic approach, as much as the verification that the studies oriented around the “small worlds” provides the opportunity for a more intensive understanding of the relational agencies interwoven in local medieval societies32. It can be affirmed that there is an inverse correspondence between the degree of theorisation of subaltern groups and the possibility of understanding the capacity and limits of agency, not only of the peasantry, but also of the elites. Several of the studies included in this collection are very eloquent when it comes to showing how “microstratifications” are formed within local communities; the processes of mobility and social promotion that take place in them; and the mechanisms used by the ecclesiastical and secular elites or the state when it came to reconfiguring the relations of domination. Finally, another line that emerges strongly in the works included in this volume is the importance of localities, understood not as mere “landscapes” or “scenarios” of social life, but rather as active components, as well as social and cultural constructions configured by their production, reproduction and continuous transformation. In particular, I believe to be of particular interest the concept of production of localities proposed by the second generation of Italian microhistorians, who have developed their proposals through the study of local societies in the modern period33. The peasant societies of the ancien régime provide a perfect setting for carrying out this type of study as, on the one hand, they offer enough testimonies and evidence to carry out a detailed case analysis. On the other hand, they were “traditional” societies in which interpersonal relationships were negotiated in spatialised terms, building relationships, meanings, perceptions and practices that configured localities. Although these perspectives are more complex to use in older chronologies, I believe they provide a rich framework for studying local societies. In short, this book aims to offer a series of analytical concepts, examples and situations that can be applied to other chronological and geographical contexts. 30 Martín Viso, Pastos, iglesias y tierras. 53 31 Scott, Weapons of the weak. 32 The reference work is of course Davies, Small Worlds. See also Quirós Castillo, “An archaeology of ‘small worlds’;” Portass, “Rethinking the ‘small worlds’;” West, “Visions in a Ninth-Centu- ry Village;” Wickham, Community and clientele; Wickham, The mountains and the city. 33 Torre, “La produzione storica dei luoghi.” 14 Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo Figure 1. Map of the main sites and regions cited in this volume. Paola Guglielmotti and Gian Maria Varanini have been more than mere editors. Their hard work and suggestions have enhanced the book. The authors are very grateful for their help. 21 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies action in early medieval societies.5 It will argue that this can provide a more nuanced understanding of both collective action and individual agency at the local level, thus complementing current approaches to peasant agency in the early Middle Ages.6 In particular, it will focus on commons and property, that is, on the institutions that regulated the individual and collective appropriation and use of land and other natural resources. The area studied is the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, which is particularly well suited for such a purpose (Map 1). The written sources are abundant and provide ample evidence for the study of local societies, which has gained momentum in recent years.7 Local groups and instances of collective action – most notably, but not only in the form of local communities engaging in land disputes– are relatively well documented in many different forms and from an early date, in comparison to other European regions.8 Furthermore, the exponential development of archaeological research over the last twenty years has significantly enhanced our knowledge of early medieval settlements and has radically altered our understanding of local societies.9 Commons, collective action, and the institutions for collective action may not be as visible in the archaeological record, but this does not mean that archaeology cannot play a significant role in their study and contribute to better illuminate the socioeconomic and political organisation of early medieval localities.10 Thus, while the approach in this contribution is based on the written sources, following Marcia-Anne Dobres and James E. Robb, I depart from the idea that “different forms of agency likely operated in the past, that they involved context-specific mechanisms of materiality and sociality, and that empirical evidence of them occurs at many different scales”. I take this to mean that a history of agency cannot be built upon one single type of empirical record and “can have no ‘one size fits all’ methodology”.11 On these grounds, I acknowledge the partiality of the view on peasant agency that this paper offers, but nonetheless hope that it will be useful as a contribution to interdisciplinary dialogue, and with it, to the development broader theoretical considerations about peasant agency in early medieval societies. 5 For the critical-institutional approach, see Cleaver and de Koning, “Furthering critical institutionalism;” Cleaver, Development through bricolage. 6 Quirós Castillo and Tejerizo-García, “Filling the gap.” 7 Martín Viso, “Unequal small worlds.” In studies about NW Iberia the concept of “local society” now prevails over the attention once paid to peasants and local communities, in tune with historiographical developments elsewhere in Europe but contrary to other historiographical approaches elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula. See Kirchner, “La arqueología del campesinado.” See also García-Porras in this volume. 8 Carvajal Castro, “Collective Action.” For the observation that the phenomenon becomes apparent earlier than in other European areas, see Wickham, “Space and society;” Wickham, “La cristalización.” 9 Escalona, “The early Castilian peasantry.” 10 Fernández Mier and Quirós Castillo, “El aprovechamiento;” Oosthuizen, “Beyond hierarchy;” Quirós Castillo, “An archaeology of ‘small worlds’.” See also the remarks by Teresa Campos in her contribution to this volume. 11 Dobres and Robb, “‘Doing’ Agency,” 162. 22 Álvaro Carvajal Castro Figure 1. Places in NW Iberia mentioned in the text. 2. Peasant agency? A collective conundrum Over the last forty years, analyses of the written sources sparked by seminal works by authors like Wendy Davies and Chris Wickham, combined with extensive archaeological research on early medieval settlements throughout Europe, have contributed to illuminating the variety of social positions and trajectories, relationships and practice, that characterised early medieval localities.12 This has brought two significant theoretical advancements. First, it has made it possible to consider the capacity that individuals acting at the local scale had to develop their own, self-motivated strategies. This has been mainly realised for local elites, whose patrimonial strategies and materiality are more visible in the records,13 but it has also been developed for the lower social strata, based on the realisation – advanced theoretically long ago –, that lordly domination did not absolutely determine peasant initiatives.14 Rather, peasants had some autonomy to organise certain aspects of their so- 12 Two classic studies are Davies, Small worlds; Wickham, The mountains. For results derived from archaeological research see Hamerow, Early medieval settlements; The archaeology, edited by Quirós Castillo; Yante and Bultot-Verleysen, Autour du “village”. For a comprehensive analysis of local societies in early medieval Europe, see Zeller et al., Neighbours and strangers. 13 On local elites and social promotion, see, among others, Bullimore, “Folcwin;” Feller et al., La fortune. On materiality and “life-styles”, see Loveluck, Northwest Europe. 14 Wickham, “Le forme.” 23 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies cial life, both individually and collectively.15 Second, it has done away with the idea that the local community was the sole horizon structuring collective organisation at the local level, which has dominated much of the historiography on the issue, and has allowed for the recognition and analysis of other types of groups and forms of collective action, as has already been explored for later periods.16 It could be argued that this does not represent such a radical departure from previous historiographical models. Nineteenth-century ideals of community may have conveyed a homogenizing picture of early medieval local societies, and dominant accounts of early medieval societies in the 1960s and 1970s may have been structured around the dichotomy lords vs. peasants.17 However, since the 1980s historians have been careful to stress that local societies and the peasantry were far from uniform, and consequently that local communities were not homogeneous.18 Also, and more importantly from an epistemological perspective, many current approaches continue to portray groups – whether local communities or other – as the result of the aggregation of individuals and individual households, as previous historiographical models did, and thus continue to depart from a methodological individualistic position.19 The latter is in accordance with the anthropological characterisation of the household as the basic social unit of production and reproduction of the peasantry, as discussed in some recent work on early medieval societies.20 This notion is methodologically sound and is based on solid empirical grounds. If we take the case of NW Iberia, the written sources predominantly record social practice at the level of the individual household – namely transactions made by individuals or members of a nuclear family, and more rarely of extended kin groups. Moreover, the sources show that rights to shared natural resources such as grazing areas, woods, and waters were attached to households individually.21 It is clear from this that households had a significant weight in the appropriation of land, the distribution of other natural resources, and the organisation of production, and also that household members built on this to develop key aspects of social practice such as land trans- 15 Kohl, “La agencia campesina;” Portass, “Peasants;” Schroeder, “Iniciativa campesina.” 16 Carvajal Castro et al., “Collective action;” Provero, Contadini e potere. 17 For the 19th century, see, for example: Joyce, Social history; Maine, Village communities; Marx and Engels, Pre-capitalist economic formations; von Maurer, Geschichte; Vinogradoff, Villainage. For the dichotomy of lords and peasants, see, paradigmatically, Duby, Guerriers et paysans. 18 See the works collected in Les communautés, edited by Higounet. See also Genicot, Rural communities; Hilton, “Reasons for inequality.” 19 Sánchez León, “El poder.” 20 For the anthropological approaches, see Chayanov, The theory of peasant economy; Shanin, Naturaleza y lógica; Van der Ploeg, Peasants and the art of farming; Wolf, Peasants. For recent discussions in the historiography, see Wickham, Framing, 536-7; Quirós Castillo and Tejerizo-García, “Filling the gap.” See also the contribution by Carlos Tejerizo-García in this volume. 21 Larrea, “De la invisibilidad,” 186-8. 24 Álvaro Carvajal Castro actions. On top of that, archaeologically, houses are among the most visible structures in the extant material record, and analyses at the level of individual households, as well as intra and inter-site comparison have a significant potential for the assessment of production and social reproduction, of social inequalities, and, more broadly, of social relationships and practice in early medieval localities.22 However, this methodological approach relegates the collective dimension of social life to the position of a secondary phenomenon, both in theoretical and historical terms. Theoretically, in a Lockean manner, it presents collective action and institutions as the result of interactions and negotiations between individuals or individual households. In pure theoretical terms, though, we should also contemplate the idea that shared expectations, values, and norms may have developed and have been built –whether they were negotiated, agreed on, imposed upon, or contested – from the very first engagements and have a bearing on how continued interactions and long-term relationships were established, thus moulding the process of group formation rather than being merely a consequence of it.23 On the other hand, historically, it characterises collective action and institutions as the outcome of long processes of social aggregation – whether around the year 1000, or before, or after.24 Indeed, recent archaeological research has shown that during specific periods of time – the fifth and the sixth centuries in some areas of NW Iberia, for example – individual households had a very significant weight as frameworks for productive and ideological relationships.25 However, this does not necessarily exclude the possibility that certain forms of collective action and institutions had already developed or would soon do so. The fact that we do not see them recurrently in the early medieval sources does not mean that they did not exist, as they may have been reproduced or transformed through daily practice without being continuously open to negotiation or contested – though neither should we take their existence for granted.26 Ultimately, while we should not reproduce the assumptions of primitive communalism, neither should we wait to see fully fledged, formalised local communities as they appear later in the Middle Ages to accept that such collective arrangements could exist.27 What I want to argue here, though, is not only that the focus on individual actors and on the interactions between them hinders the assessment of groups and collective action in early medieval societies, but also that it precludes an adequate characterisation of individual agency. Much recent writing on peas- 22 Quirós Castillo and Tejerizo-García, “Filling the gap,” 10. See also Quirós Castillo, “La compleja interpretación;” Social inequality, edited by Quirós Castillo; Lewis, “Elitismo y estatus.” 23 Axelrod, The evolution of cooperation; Ostrom, Understanding institutional diversity. 24 Cf. Chapelot and Fossier, Le village; Schreg, “El campesino eterno;” Wickham, “La cristalización.” 25 Tejerizo-García, Arqueología; Tejerizo García. “The archaeology.” 26 See Escalona, “Vínculos comunitarios.” 27 Reynolds, Kingdoms and communities, 1; Wickham, Comunità e clientele, 15-6. 25 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies ant agency in the early Middle Ages has Giddensian overtones in that agency is conceived of as the individual capacity to do things and act strategically on the basis of given resources and in accordance to a reflexive assessment of ongoing social situations.28 Such a characterisation of agency offers a limited perspective of power relations. It acknowledges that subordinate actors can influence the activities of their superiors, but risks failing to question the very nature of domination and the actors’ potential not just to mutually influence each other, but also to transform the very relationship that bounds them together.29 Also, it assumes horizontal cooperation between peasants without considering how cooperation itself – in actuality or potentially – may have shaped individual agency. In this regard, Juan Antonio Quirós and Carlos Tejerizo-García’s call to adopt a relational approach to agency is much welcomed.30 From this perspective, social relationships are not merely seen as constraining or enabling individual initiatives, but rather as being themselves constitutive of individual agency and as being continuously produced, reproduced and transformed through practice.31 This can provide us with a clearer understanding of how peasant’ initiatives could transform the socioeconomic conditions of their subordination, and how this in turn could influence their agency. For example, and to mention but one recent contribution to the current debate, Nicolas Schroeder has shown how peasant initiatives in tenthcentury monastic estates in Lotharingia could lead to the transformation of demesne land into tenure – and note also Isabel Alfonso’s earlier studies on the weight of peasant initiatives in the formalisation of local bylaws and the configuration of rents and obligations.32 Furthermore, this approach also compels us to move beyond individual relationships and interactions between individual actors, and assess the changing networks of relationships in which the actors were embedded. Thus, it can be applied to consider not just the relationships between lords and peasants, but also the panoply of relationships in which peasants were enmeshed at the local level, including family relationships, as well as those tying them to their neighbours. They provided the immediate context for collective action and the articulation, reproduction, and transformation of groups at the local scale. This does not mean that we should adopt an idealized view of local sociability and group building. Such relationships could be based on cooperation for specific purposes, though cooperation could be imposed from above rather than result from mutual accord, and group building could be based on unequal relationships such as patronage and clientship. Collective 28 Giddens, The constitution of society, 2-16. 29 Giddens, 16. 30 Quirós Castillo and Tejerizo-García, “Filling the gap.” 31 Burkitt, “Relational agency;” Long. Development sociology. 32 Schroeder, “Iniciativa campesina,” 86-9. Cf. Alfonso, “Campesinado y derecho;” Alfonso, “La contestation paysanne.” 26 Álvaro Carvajal Castro institutions could be aligned with individual interests and be beneficial for all but restrains to individual initiatives through social sanctioning must also be contemplated. That is, after all, what stories about the demons active in Kempten and in the villages visited by Theodore of Sykeōn tell us about.33 Importantly, interpersonal interactions would have been structured not only by personal relationships but also by institutions. The definition of this latter term is problematic. Approaches vary, most significantly for our purpose here – there are other definitions but their applicability to the analysis of early medieval societies is more limited – between those who regard them as rules and prescriptions, and those who see them as regularities in social behaviour, with the efforts to reconcile them meeting little success.34 I will here resort to Frances Cleaver’s critical approach to institutions as “arrangements between people which are reproduced and regularized across time and space and which are subject to constant processes of evolution and change”.35 I find this approach useful for three main reasons – others could be adduced but go beyond the purpose of this paper. First, a critical institutional approach allows us to contemplate not only the formal rules that may have regulated social behaviour in early medieval localities in NW Iberia in the abstract – such as the prescriptions of the Visigothic law that are sometimes mentioned in the charters and invoked in dispute processes36 – but also any informal arrangements and the social embeddedness of institutions in terms of their constitution, reproduction, and transformation over time, considering the impact of social inequality and power relations on how they were shaped and, at the same time, the role of institutions in the reproduction of social inequality and power relations. In this, it is compatible with a relational approach to institutions, understood as a condensation of specific social relations that are reproduced and transformed through practice; as well as with a strategic approach, that is, one contemplating that institutions may offer different opportunities for different actors and affect them differently.37 It also seems better suited to address the social complexity of early medieval localities, as well as what processual approaches to justice have shown about the operationalisation of rules in conflicts and dispute settlement in early medieval societies.38 33 Costambeys, Innes, and MacLean, The Carolingian world, 231-2; Wickham, Framing, 408- 10. 34 For institutions as norms and prescriptions, see North, Institutions; Ostrom, Understanding institutional diversity; as regularities in social behaviour, see Greif, Institutions; Aoki, “Endogenizing institutions;” and for the effort to reconcile them, see Hindriks and Guala, “Institutions.” 35 Cleaver, Development, 8. 36 Collins, “Sicut lex Gothorum continet;” Collins, “Visigothic law;” Isla Frez, “La pervivencia.” 37 Jessop, “Institutional re(turns);” Jessop, State power, 21-53. 38 See the works collected in The settlement of disputes, edited by Davies and Fouracre; Conflict, edited by Brown and Górecki. 27 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies Second, it explicitly aims to link the social to the material. More specifically, it is concerned with the ways in which institutions shape access to natural resources. From this, it is easy to build a dialogue on economic terms with current definitions of the peasantry, some of which could be reconciled with such a critical institutional approach. For example, Jan Douwe Van der Ploeg’s reappraisal of Chayanov’s theory of balances contemplates the role of institutions in surplus exaction.39 The same could be said with regards to the balances between people and living nature and between production and reproduction.40 As he notes in relation to the resources of the peasant farm, “the available social and material resources represent an organic unity… The rules governing the interrelations between the actors and defining their relations with the resources are typically derived from, and embedded in, local cultural repertoires, including gender relations”.41 Van der Ploeg talks about rules in the abstract, but it does not take such a leap to assume that in some, historically situated contexts, such rules may have been part and parcel of commons, understood as “institutions for the collective use and management of land and other natural resources”;42 and also to consider the social – and not only the cultural – embeddedness of such institutions, in as much as they were grounded on specific assemblages of social practice and relationships that could define clear boundaries with regards to membership – this being a key factor in the reproduction of the commons overtime.43 Ultimately, then, access to certain social and material resources that were integral to the individual households’ productive and reproductive processes could be mediated by institutions, and thus conditioned by the households’ belonging to the groups so defined – whether local communities or other. Third, Cleaver’s approach contemplates the multifunctional, multi-scalar nature of institutions. This is in accordance to what we know about the forms of collective organisation in early medieval localities, which could serve as fora in which land transactions were formalised, conflicts settled, and justice exercised; as well as arenas of sociability for festive and ceremonial purposes, among others.44 At the same time, it forces us to consider the different institutional arrangements in which people may be enmeshed at different scales, both within and across the different groups to which they belong. From this perspective, agency should be assessed at the scale of the individual household as a collective actor – as in current definitions of the peasantry –, as well as at the level of their members, whose agency could be defined both by relationships internal to the household and on the basis of their belonging to 39 Van der Ploeg, Peasants and the art of farming, 60-2. 40 Van der Ploeg, 48-54. 41 Van der Ploeg, Peasants and the art of farming, 72. 42 De Moor, The dilemma. 24; see also Ostrom, Governing the commons. 30-3. 43 Lana Berasain and Iriarte Goñi, “The social embeddedness;” De Keyzer, Inclusive commons. 44 See Barnwell, “The early Frankish mallus;” Assembly places, edited by Pantos and Semple; and more specifically for NW Iberia, Carvajal Castro, “Local meetings;” Escalona, “Community Meetings.” 28 Álvaro Carvajal Castro different sets of social relationships and groups beyond the household – and ultimately even, to different institutional realms. This is most evident with regards to gender relations. Households, like communities, were not ungendered units, neither were the articulation and reproduction (or transformation) of gender relationships solely restricted to the arena of individual households or communities.45 The household was indeed one of the social arenas in which they were articulated, but they were also shaped by norms that cut across households and affected larger groups, as in the case of inheritance rules.46 Gender relations could also affect other aspects of local life such as the construction and reproduction of local territorialities, in as much as this was built on memory, and memory itself could be gendered.47 In order to ground this on the analysis early medieval societies and to engage with the definition of the household as the basic unit of production and reproduction in both its material and social dimension, the remaining part of this paper will focus on the appropriation and use of natural resources in early medieval NW Iberia, considering both its individual and collective dimension. It will combine a twofold approach, departing first from some remarks on the labour processes associated to farming practice and commons; and then discussing “property” as an institution from the point of view of social practice and the social relationships that made the appropriation and use of natural resources effective in each historically situated context.48 The notion of property adopted here derives from the ‘bundle-of-rights’ approach, as classically defined by Henri Sumner Maine, while also attending to the different capacities that individuals can have with regards to a particular resource.49 For example, some people may be allowed to collect wood in a forest, but may not be permitted to clear land. The differentiation between proprietas, as ownership, and possessio, as the capacity to make effective use of the land, which has been frequently contemplated in the historiography on the early Middle Ages, would also fall within this conceptual framework – as in the case of peasants who were allowed to cultivate a plot of land but could not sell it or donate it freely, this being a prerogative of the lord.50 From this perspective, Elinor Ostrom and Edella Schlager distinguished between five types of rights – access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation –, which they characterised as rights to which different actors can be differentially entitled.51 For example, an actor could have access and withdrawal rights but not management rights, as in the example of the forest. I will here adopt such a five-tier bundle but characterise its constituent elements as “ca- 45 Agarwal, “Environmental action.” 46 Casari and Lisciandra, “Gender discrimination.” 47 McDonagh, “Feminist historical geographies;” Whyte, “Custodians of Memory.” 48 Congost, “Property Rights.” 49 Maine, Ancient Law, 178-9. 50 E.g.: Sánchez-Albornoz, “Repoblación,” 635-9. 51 Schlager and Ostrom, “Property-rights regimes.” 29 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies pacities” rather than “rights”, in order contemplate not just their normative dimension but also the web of resources and social relationships that enabled any given actor to make any such claim over a resource effective.52 The aim is to bridge the concepts of “property” and “agency”, contemplating how individual and collective capacities to appropriate and make use of land and other natural resources may have been shaped by relationships between actors with a shared interest in a given resource, and between these and other actors. 3. Property, commons, and gender in early medieval localities Agrarian production in the early Middle Ages in NW Iberia largely depended on mixed farming, though a certain degree of productive specialisation can be observed even at relatively low scales of social complexity – as recently argued for networks of settlements in the modern day districts of Álava (Spain) and Guarda (Portugal).53 Farming practice included individual appropriation and use of arable plots and meadows; and could have also included semi-collective arrangements in fields in which cultivation was carried out individually in stripes of land held in severalty and cattle was grazed collectively after the crops had been harvested.54 Access to natural resources that were also central for household economies, such as grazing areas, woods, and waters was shared. As noted above, it is clear from the sources that it was conferred upon individual households. That resources were shared does not entail that work was undertaken collectively, though it cannot be discarded that this was so on specific occasions or for specific tasks.55 For example, the inhabitants of Villambrosa (Castile), at the instance of Bishop Diego, cleared a serna (see below) on behalf of the local church.56 Moreover, even if shared resources were used individually, we should probably expect that their use was regulated by institutions that were collectively upheld – i.e. by commons. Commons could regulate aspects such as exclusion or inclusion of members, the times in which resources could be exploited, the intensity of exploitation, and even the transformation of the resources, as with regards to the conditions under which new land could be brought under cultivation. This means that group membership – being a member of a common, and analogously of a community, in as much as this was a condition to be granted access to natural resources within the territory of a given locality – could shape the capacities of individual households with 52 Galik and Jagger, “Bundles, duties, and rights;” Ribot and Peluso, “A theory of access.” 53 Quirós Castillo, “Archaeology of early medieval peasantry;” Tente, “Social complexity.” See also C. Tente and S. Prata’s contribution to this volume. 54 Fernández Mier, “Campos de cultivo,” 44. 55 Bonales Cortés, “Individualismo agrícola.” 56 See Larrea, “Construir iglesias,” 333; see also Corbera Millán and Ingelmo Casado, “Aportación a la historia.” 30 Álvaro Carvajal Castro regards to the exploitation of resources that were integral to their production and reproduction processes. While the emphasis has usually been on the appropriation on individual holdings as the road to the imposition of seigneurial domination, relations between lords and peasants, or rather between lords and groups of peasants,57 could also be articulated through commons, both at the level of whole communities and of individual households.58 Commons facilitated horizontal forms of collective action but could also sustain lordly exactions, while claiming the prerogative to grant membership and access, or to impose rules and monitor compliance, were some of the blocks with which lords could build their authority.59 So much is apparent in the case of sernas. From what we can gather from the sources, these were fields that were regarded as a single unit, but were presumably divided into plots that were exploited individually. The use of the term varies greatly across NW Iberia, but in certain regions, most notably in León and in some instances in Castile, it seemingly identifies fields controlled by kings and lords, who would probably derive some benefits from this, and who could also rely on them to imbricate their authority within the localities.60 Furthermore, judicial records show that disputes over commons did not only revolve around the ownership of the resources – as shown in landmark studies on peasant resistance.61 Some concern use, as in the case of conflicts relating to access and withdrawal restrictions. Others concern management, as in the case of disputes over the capacity to clear land, or over how shared infrastructures, such as watermills and canals, were to be maintained and by whom.62 How labour processes were organised at the level of the household is rarely evident in the sources but the information concerning property is relatively abundant, more so with regards to the differential capacity that individuals had to alienate land – after all, that is essentially what the majority of the extant written sources talk about. To begin with, it is perfectly clear that land could be owned individually but also that kinship could condition individual capacities in at least two different manners. First, the notion that kin could contest an individual’s capacity to alienate land is omnipresent in the record and affects all kinds of transactions. The sanction clauses included in the charters frequently contemplate the possibility that close relatives and kin contest the transaction, establishing sanctions to prevent it.63 Some even resort to Visigothic law to reaffirm the donors’ capacity to dispose of the land freely, either because they expect trouble or in response to it. That is the case 57 Escalona, “De señores y campesinos;” Pastor, “Sobre la articulación.” 58 Cf. Justo Sánchez and Martín Viso, “Territories and kingdom;” Estepa Díez, “Propiedad agraria.” 59 Bhaduri, “Economic power;” Sikor and Lund, “Access and property.” 60 Carvajal Castro, “Prácticas colectivas;” Gómez Gómez and Martín Viso, “Rationes y decimas;” Escalona, “De señores y campesinos;” Martín Viso, “Commons.” 61 Most notably, Pastor, Resistencias. 62 Carvajal Castro et al., “Collective action.” 63 Carvajal Castro, “Secular sanctions;” Mattoso, “Sanctio.” 37 Peasant agency, collective action, and institutions in early medieval societies Escalona, Julio. “The early Castilian peasantry: an archaeological turn?” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 1, no. 2 (2009): 119-45. Escalona, Julio. “Vínculos comunitarios y estrategias de distinción (Castilla, siglos X-XII).” In El contrato político en la Corona de Castilla. Cultura y sociedad políticas entre los siglos X al XVI, coord. François Foronda, y Ana Isabel Carrasco Manchado, 17-42. Madrid: Dykinson, 2008. 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Álvaro Carvajal Castro Universidad de Salamanca (Spain) [email protected] orcid: 0000-0003-3216-503X 41 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe* by Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata Despite an exceptionally long tradition of research on medieval rural milieu, peasant agency represents a new theoretical approach that has not yet been coherently reflected in East Central Europe. Issues within social archaeology remain on the fringes of the archaeological interpretations. The view of the peasantry was heavily influenced by economic history and Marxist historiography, portraying peasants as a passive, conservative, homogeneous, socially unequal, and subaltern group vis-à-vis the upper class/elites. This text represents the very first effort to assess the rich evidence obtained by large-scale excavations of deserted medieval villages by adopting a peasant agency perspective. To achieve this, we introduce seven prospective themes in which the diversity and complexity of rural communities that have taken an active role in historical processes making collective and individual decisions can be illustrated. Our ambition is to offer a new insight into late medieval peasants in East Central Europe, enhance their comprehensive understanding, and stimulate future research directions. Late Middle Age, East Central Europe, Deserted medieval village, rural archaeology, historiography, peasantry, agency. 1. Introduction Medieval archaeology in the eastern part of Central Europe has a rich and long-standing tradition of systematic investigations into the rural milieu, with a particular emphasis on large-scale programme-oriented excava- * This research and chapter have been supported by the Czech Science Foundation – the project No. 22-23889S (Vulnerable or Resilient? Understanding the Responses of Medieval Rural Communities to Environmental Stress). Ladislav Čapek, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic, [email protected], 0000-0001- 7929-6921 Lukáš Holata, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Czech Republic, [email protected], 0000-0003-1157-1960 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata, Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7.03, in Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (edited by), Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, pp. 41-76, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0562-7, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7 42 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata tions of deserted medieval villages (DMVs), which are unique in the broader pan-European context. These extensive research campaigns have led to the collection of comprehensive evidence and the making of numerous conclusions and insights on a range of rural and peasant-related topics for the Late Middle Ages (in Central Europe in 1250-1550 AD); particularly, these topic include individual settlement structures such as farmsteads, peasant houses, manor houses, material culture and everyday life, agrarian and non-agrarian production, environmental context and topography, settlement patterns, village origin, and abandonment.1 Nevertheless, the current state of the art, formulated interpretations, as well as the quality of published outcomes are inconsistent. Much of it has been shaped by historical paradigms and an interest in economic rather than social history. Although many regional and site-specific studies of rural archaeology have been undertaken, there is a lack of broader analytical and comparative assessments of the rural milieu and peasantry that address new theoretical discourse. The contextual approach reflecting the social practice of peasants as social agents is still neglected. Previous research on this subject has only reflected on differences in the social stratification of peasants through the study of architecture or material culture.2 Therefore, we aim to bridge this significant research gap with this pilot study; it represents the first comprehensive effort to assess existing outcomes from the perspective of peasant agency. Our objectives are: 1) to revise the existing social interpretations in the literature that implicitly reflect or are close to the concept of the agency, 2) to offer a new perspective on subaltern societies in East Central Europe, and contribute to a holistic, nuanced understanding of them, 3) to stimulate new research avenues and interpretive frameworks for several perspective topics. A separate objective 4) is also to present a different environment to the research community in Spain regarding settlement development and research tradition. The paper does not encompass the extensive European discourse on the social history and geography of the early modern peasantry.3 Instead, we intend to draw attention to possible manifestations of peasant agency in archaeological evidence which is particularly rich for the late medieval period in East Central Europe. In contrast, the evidence of written sources for this period is sparse, limited to only a few spatially defined regions.4 In any case, we will avoid relating interpretations based on early modern written sources back to the Middle Ages. In the following sections: 1) we briefly outline how peasants have been characterised, understood, and perceived in East Central Europe, then in 1 Nekuda, “Das hoch- und spätmittelalterliche;” Klápště. The Archaeology of Prague, 15- 40; Čapek, Holata, “General Overview;” Scholkmann, Kenzler, Schreg, Archäologie des Mittelalters, 151-63. 2 Nekuda, “Sociální skladba;” Goßler, “Gedanken zur sozialen;” Kypta, “Das Lebensmilieu.” 3 Sreenivasan, “Beyond the Village.” 4 Klír, Rolnictvo na pozdně. 43 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe the main part, 2) we offer an overview of seven themes, providing: a) a short context for the research, followed by b) peasant agency perspectives. For this purpose, well-published evidence from the large-scale excavations of DMVs will be used. Due to the limited scope of the paper, we will refer only to the most relevant synthesizing publications. In conclusion, 3) a pilot characterization of rural communities from peasant agency perspective will be attempted, which we consider as a stimulus for thorough re-evaluations of existing research interpretations or newly designed research. 2. Understanding peasants: A research framework in East Central Europe The eastern part of Central Europe is geographically defined by the areas east of the rivers Elbe and Saale (the Germanica Slavica area) and north of the Alps. This territory includes countries such as East Germany (former GDR), Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary. These countries are generally characterized by a similar settlement-historical development with specific regional variations and socio-economic and demographic divergences. The beginnings of systematic interest in the medieval rural settlement are associated with historical discourse on the Late Medieval Crisis and village desertion.5 Historical geography and settlement archaeology (Siedlungsarchäologie)6 have had an exceptional tradition. These approaches inspired extensive surface surveys of DMVs.7 A characteristic feature of medieval archaeology in the second half of the 20th century was systematic open-area excavations of settlements. However, they have been prompted primarily by the need for heritage-oriented archaeology rather than academic interest. Research on DMVs has been more descriptive and empirical but lacked theoretical depth. The outcomes of excavations were more oriented towards contextualizing the material evidence in culture and economic (agrarian) history. Medieval archaeology has long been under the umbrella of cultural history, heavily influenced by economic history and Marxist historiography.8 A significant impact, albeit on a limited group of scholars, was also made by the French Annales school of history with its concept of ‘total history’ and its interest in structural processes and changes viewed from longue durée perspective.9 A significant change in existing approaches occurred after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which resulted in 1) the gradual termination of systematic, 5 Schreg, “Die Krisen des späten Mittelalters.” 6 Denecke. “Die historisch-geographische Landesaufnahme;” Jankuhn, Einführung. 7 Čapek and Holata, “General Overview;” Michl, Wüstungforchung in Deutschland. 8 E.g., Klápště, Archaeology of Prague, 15, 20. 9 Schöttler, “Zur Geschichte;” Klápště, “Studies of structural changes;” Klápště, “Změna – středověká transformace;” Schreg, “Dorfgenese und histoire totale.” 44 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata state-subsidized open-area excavations, 2) an increase in rescue archaeology alongsite a gradual decline of interest in rural settlements, and 3) the development of landscape archaeology with the integration of new non-invasive methods and other disciplines. The response of processual archaeology found little resonance in general, often being considered ‘anti-historical’.10 Only questions concerning the adaptation of rural communities to the natural environment were discussed. Rather than theory, the approaches of processual archaeology were integrated into the methods of archaeological survey. Post-processual archaeology, with its emphasis on the interpretation of context and social practice, had virtually no influence on medieval archaeology in Central Europe. The study of peasants and peasantry (peasantology) and their social stratification differs between Western and Central Europe.11 According to economic historians, the Central European peasantry can be generally defined as a group of primarily agricultural producers living in a subsistence model of production. They utilized their own family labour and cultivated the land they held in hereditary tenure based on a contract with the landlords; they aimed to optimize the use of land, capital, and labour within local economic and ecological conditions, allowing them to generate a ‘surplus’ for fiscal income within the market economy system.12 The status of peasants was legally anchored by the purchase right or declaration of customs (empytheutical law), which remained almost unchanged throughout the Late Middle Ages.13 Peasants generally emerged in older literature as a homogeneous, passive group whose life destinies were determined by historical events such as wars, epidemics, and crop failures, as well as by structural and environmental processes, including climatic factors. The conservatism, stability, and immutability of the rural communities were highlighted. Peasants were depicted as ‘locked in time’, bound to the seasonal cycles of agriculture between sowing and harvesting, without the ability to influence their irreversible fate in life. Due to the scarcity of written sources, medieval peasantry was considered as ‘timeless’ or ‘historyless’.14 Marxist historiography considers peasants a subaltern group (low classes, serfs) dependent on the elites. The relationship between the peasants and the elites (the socially upper class) was seen confrontationally regarding power, subordination, and the principles of ‘class struggle’. Peasants were studied hierarchically in terms of dominance and subordination from a top-down perspective. The peasants’ voices were ‘muffled’ or ‘obscured’ by the ruling classes of society, and peasants had minimal 10 Fehring, Die Archäologie des Mittelalters, 194. 11 Several synthetic works have been published: Graus, Dějiny venkovského lidu; Abel, Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft; Rösener, Bauern im Mittelalter; Rösener, The peasantry of Europe; Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách.” 12 Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku, 36-7; cf. Cerman, “Social structure.” 13 Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách;” Rösener, Grundherrschaft im Wandel. 14 Cf. critically Aparisi, “Fractures in the Community;” Van Oyen, “Rural time;” Schreg, “The Eternal Peasant.” 45 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe opportunities to resist or develop alternatives to the dominant structures. There was no recognition that peasants, as active social agents, also had the potential to influence historical processes.15 However, such a view overlooked several essential aspects, as demonstrated in new studies that have emerged in recent decades.16 (1) The internal hierarchy was not reflected; in fact. a large group consisted of hierarchically lower sub-peasant groups referred to as ‘sub-villagers’, which included ‘smallholders’ (gardeners, cottagers) and landless people that were not exclusively agricultural producers.17 (2) Not all inhabitants of villages can be described as ‘farmers’, as some had other sources of income (craft, mining, etc.). (3) Although peasants were personally unfree, they were granted a certain degree of autonomy.18 From the 14th century onwards, the status of peasants improved, and their land rights were strengthened. (4) The life of the late medieval peasantry is characterized by significant horizontal and vertical social mobility, manifested in considerable property flexibility, which allowed peasants to acquire possession of the land as well as to leave it. The right of hereditary tenants to buy and sell their land (i.e., to effect property transfers between peasants) brought considerable mobility in land ownership.19 (5) During the 15th century, peasants became more involved in the market economy. They may have been actively participated in the real estate and land market in some regions of Central Europe, as recorded in land registers.20 Although archaeology has offered great opportunities for the study of medieval peasantry from the mid-20th century onwards, the research framework (and interpretations of archaeological data) has been predominantly influenced by historical discourse and economic history; the topics such as agriculture, craft production, rural architecture, and material culture have been prioritized, highlighting the disparities in living standards between rural and noble ‘classes’.21 Archaeology has been primarily supposed to prove historical interpretations, even though the evidence obtained contradicted traditional ideas of continuity, stability, conservatism, or even rigidity. These are demonstrated in the transformation of settlement and field patterns, various village layouts or peasants’ house architecture, and striking differences in material culture indicating internal social differentiation. Despite this evidence, however, the active role of peasant communities has not yet been given much consideration. The influence of the Annales in Central European archaeology meant that collective agents and structured human behaviour were more like- 15 Schreg, “Eternal Peasant,” 66-7; Quirós-Castillo, Tejerizo García, “Filling the gap.” 16 E.g. Carocci, “Social Mobility;” Van Oyen, “Rural time;” Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku. 17 Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách;” Mitterauer, “Formen ländlicher;” Cerman,v “Mittelalterlichte Ursprünge;” Ghosh, “Rural Economies.” 18 Čechura. “Rolnictvo v Čechách;” Rösener, Grundherrschaft im Wandel. 19 Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku. 20 Cerman, “Social structure,” 57-67. 21 Nekuda, “Zemědělská výroba v období feudalismu;” Nekuda, “Sociální skladba;” Jannsen, “Gewerbliche Produktion.” 46 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata Figure 1. The location of deserted villages explored by extensive excavations in central Europe, which are the subject of detailed assessment. 53 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe Figure 5. General typology of ploughlands’ layouts (according to E. Černý): types mentioned in the text: 4: sectional ploughland; 6 – 10: long strip plots / backyard ploughland. 54 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata Figure 6. Illustrations in a Saxon Law Book (Sachsenspiege) show peasants’ diverse actions, rights, and obligations: 1. Landlords hands over the foundation charter to the locator of the village that is being established, 2.-3 Peasants promise the landlord to pay the rent and other obligations, 2. Peasants pay the rent in spring after ploughing and 3. In autumn, after crop harvesting, 4. The watermill, heavy plough and church are part of the village’s facilities, 5. Peasants are obliged to build dykes as flood protection, 6. Peasants are obliged to build fences around their farmsteads, and running water from the roof must not fall onto the neighbouring plot, 7. Neighbour’s trees overhanging the fence of the farmstead may be cut down. 55 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe values.48 Peasants shared a common idea of the village and its surroundings, which was essential for its functioning. Without the cohesion of the rural community, the village could not operate (the disintegration of neighbourly relations is regarded as a factor in abandonment,49 see below). 5. Formation of the three-compartment residential house and the peasant household Alongside the transformations ongoing in villages and the countryside, a three-compartment house was formed and became the predominant peasant dwelling in East Central Europe. This house type existed in various regional forms, constructions, and layouts (longitudinal or hooked), but the concept was analogous throughout the whole area. It typically consists of a smoke or semi-smoke living room with a heating device in the corner (in German: Rauchstube, in Czech: jizba), an entrance hall, and a storage-room/granary (in Bohemia, and Moravia) or byre (in Germany).50 Traditionally it has been assumed (particularly in the works of ethnographers and building historians) that the three-compartment house was imported from Western Europe.51 However, archaeological excavations of DMVs in Czech lands (notably Bystřec, Mstěnice, and partly also Pfaffenschlag), have revealed its complex origin; the formation of three-compartment house was rather a gradual process, resulting from the merging of originally separate residential dwellings and farm outbuildings.52 The appearance of the farmsteads and the architectural and functional differentiation of spaces within peasant houses, even within the same village, provide insight into everyday life and social practises. These practices encompass various activities and routines related to housing, storage, housework, and household maintenance, revealing potential for peasant agency as well.53 Agency is manifested in ideas about household functioning and overall appearance, particularly concerning the sharing of space with other household members. Rural households represent social assemblages formed by social relations based on blood kinship as well as a common way of life and hospitality. Under one roof, not only the nuclear biological family lived, but also 48 Górecki, “Medieval Peasants,” 277. 49 Dyer, “Villages in crisis,” 30. 50 However, one- and two-parts houses of archaic building tradition still existed in some areas, Vařeka, “The Formation of the Three-compartment Rural House,” 145. 51 Frolec, “K interpretaci.” 52 Smetánka, “K problematice trojdílného domu;” Nekuda, “Vývoj trojdílného;” Pálóczi-Hor- váth, “Development of the Late-Medieval house;” Vařeka, Archeologie středověkého, 256-7; Vařeka, “Formation of rural house;” Schreg, “Farmsteads in Early Medieval Germany.” 53 Schreg, “Interaktion und Kommunikation,” 485; Gilchrist, Medieval, 114-9. 56 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata other members such as tenants, lodgers, or servants.54 Estimates of peasant family size in Central Europe suggest an average of 6 to 9 members.55 They had to coexist in some manner; the competence of the household and its individual decisions shaped the living space. Archaeological excavations (Pfaffenschlag and Hard) have revealed that the basic layout of the house was further subdivided internally, resulting in five or even seven distinct spaces. The prevailing interpretation, supported by ethnography, suggest that these additional spaces served as private areas for other household members.56 Additionally, numerous discrete zones of activity can be identified, including those related to social and gender distribution. Peasant houses could be utilized, experienced, and perceived in various ways and should not be viewed statically – they had a degree of social ‘flexibility’ and ‘fluidity’. Space, conceptualized in terms of social relation, was ‘inherently dynamic’, and peasants as social actors, attributed them different meanings at different times.57 Although houses were primarily built for habitation, their form, internal layout, and furnishings were subject to change. The physical and material furnishings of the house can be reconstructed through archaeology or analysis of written sources such as household inventories, property transfers, and wills.58 Archaeology reveals objects typically omitted from inventories, such as pottery, agricultural and craft tools, while rural household inventories document more valuable items like metal vessels, textiles, leathers, blankets, pillows and specific types of wooden furnishing, such as tables, beds, chairs, benches, and wooden chests.59 A typical space, whose function could socially change, was two-storey storage room/granary, which may have served various purposes beyond the primary storage of agricultural products and handicraft tools.60 As a domestic, physically framed space, the peasant house was not a simple binary entity generating and articulating social differences through its spatial and social organization (inside/outside; public/private; male/female). In the traditional view, the peasant household was considered a space for exercising patriarchal authority. However, it also provided opportunities for women’s agency.61 The gendered division of labour within space, as perceived in the past, with men primarily engaged in productive work outside (mainly 54 Laslett, “Family and household,” 528; Rösener, “Die bäuerliche Familie des Spätmittelalters,” 139; Jervis, “Examining Temporality.” 55 Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku, 275-6. 56 Dyer, “Living in Peasant Houses.” 57 Flather, “Space, Place, and Gender,” 345. 58 Goldberg, “The fashioning of bourgeois domesticity;” Gilchrist, Medieval Life, 115; Jervis, “Examining Temporality;” Petráňová, Vařeka, “Vybavení venkovské.” 59 Dyer, “Living in peasant houses,” 21-2; Briggs, Forward, Jervis, Tomkpins, “People, possessions and domestic space.” 60 Vařeka, “Formation of rural house,” 148. 61 Müller, “Peasant women;” Jervis, “Examining Temporality.” 57 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe Figure 7. Comparison of two excavated farmsteads with the interpretation of individual objects / functional units: A) farmstead in DMV of Svídna: J – smoke living room, P – stone oven, S – entrance hall, K – storage room, Sk – granary, Ch – bread oven, D – courtyard, Ds – courtyard’s building of indeterminate function, HX – assumed farm building, Z – garden (according to Z. Smetánka); B) farmstead in DMV of Mstěnice: a – smoke living room with stone oven (grey), a1 – a second living space (probably an outhouse – life tenancy, rent-charge house) with stove and a fireplace (grey), b – entrance hall, c – storage room, c1 – probable storage room, s – granary, ch – barn (according to R. Nekuda and V. Nekuda). 58 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata Figure 8. Genesis of a three-part house according to the evidence obtained by archaeological excavation in Mstěnice (according to V. Nekuda): 1: The oldest phase of the house in farmstead II; a – freestanding smoke living room of post-and-beam constructions (oz – oven), c – freestanding stone-built semi-sunken storage room (S1 entrance, entrance from the courtyard), l – cellar (‘loch’); 2: the latest phase of the house in farmstead II; a – smoke living-room with oven (oz), b – entrance hall, c – semi-sunken storage room with entrance from the courtyard, l – cellar (‘loch’); 3: Farmstead III; a – smoke living-house of post-and-beam constructions (oz – oven), b – attached entrance hall of combined construction with fireplace (oh), c – freestanding stone-build semi-sunken storage room (according to R. Nekuda and V. Nekuda). 59 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe Figure 9. Comparison of a selected three-part house in (A) Svídna (according to Z. Smetánka) and (B) Pfaffenschlag (according to V. Nekuda). 60 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata agriculture) and women in small-scale production within the domestic space, is highly simplistic. Women were engaged in a wide range of activities,62 and they could play leading roles in organization household management or even take control of economic activities in some cases.63 6. Production, livelihood, and nutrition of peasants The original idea that East Central European peasant communities were engaged in agricultural production still prevails. They grew grain for subsistence and generated surplus for subsequent commercial market exchange. The accompanying activity was the domestic animals breeding.64 The proportion between arable farming and livestock breeding varied depending on the type of landscape – in mountainous, less agroclimatic favourable areas, the amount of arable land was significantly lower in favour of pastures and more livestock production.65 The creation of the regulated field system and the transition to the three-field crop farming system during the 13th century represented a significant structural change involving new land management and economic decision-making.66 It led to a more significant intensification of agriculture, which was carried out on a smaller scale but with high inputs, resulting in greater diversification of the crops grown compared to the previous period. A negative consequence of extensive arable farming was the reduction of the area for pastures, which were an integral part of the village ecosystem. Animal housing in byres (cowsheds), which has been well-documented in excavated DMVs, positively affected the production of manure used to fertilize the fields. This is indicated by scattered pottery shards or geochemical analysis of soils.67 Innovations in farming tools were also emerged during this period (especially a heavy mouldboard plough allowing deep tillage and better cultivation of fields).68 In less favourable conditions, such as mountainous and foothills areas with limited availability of arable land the medieval village economy relied more on non-agricultural production. Village communities engaged in craft and proto-industrial production to diversify their economics. Between the ‘lowlands’ oriented on commercial grain production and ‘mountainous’ areas, there were extensive mixed zones – agriculture had a subsistence character accompanied by other sources depending on the local conditions. These dif- 62 Flather, “Space, Place, and Gender;” Dyer, “Living in peasant houses,” 23. 63 Rösener, “Die bäuerliche Familie,” 139; Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách,” 479. 64 Rösener, Peasantry of Europe, 122-43; Cerman, “Social structure.” 65 Schreg, “Feeding the village;” Schreg, “Ecological Approaches,” 96-7. 66 Schreg, “Ecological Approaches,” 102. 67 Klápště, Proměna Českých zemí, 284; Horák, Klír, “Pedogenesis, Pedochemistry and the Functional Structure;” Janovský, Horák, “Large Scale Geochemical Signatures.” 68 Klápště, “Změna – středověká transformace,” 22-4; Gringmuth-Dallmer. “Der Wandel der Argrarwirtschaft.” 61 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe ferences in production regions are reflected, for example, in the size and arrangement of farmsteads. Large courtyard-type farmsteads situated in compact village were mainly in lowland areas, while small, dispersed farmsteads predominated in mountainous areas.69 The peasants had to manage work organisation in different local conditions, with considerable autonomy in decision-making. Within individual households, they had a great deal of latitude to decide which activities to undertake, choose the crops to be sown or animals to breed, or determine the amount of expenditure to be allocated to the farmstead equipment.70 The rich archaeological, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological evidence demonstrates considerable variation and diversity not only between regions and villages but also between farmsteads within a single village.71 This is manifested particularly by the different spectrum and proportions of cereals and livestock, as well as by the presence of horticulture, gardening, winemaking and hunting72 on some farmsteads. Knowledge of the consumption, nutrition, and diet of rural communities is still very limited. However, there are indications of different dietary preferences in the selection and consumption of plant and animal food, which also vary among village communities.73 Archaeology has contributed significantly to the evidence of non-agrar- ian production, especially in mountain and foothill areas, associated with surface exploitation of iron ores and their primary metallurgical processing (sorting, roasting), as well as forest crafts such as charcoal burning and tar production.74 There is an absence of references in written sources for such activities as they took place outside of the empytheutical relationship between the serfs and the landlords.75 Craft industries commonly associated with the urban sphere were abundant in villages, such as blacksmithing (Bystřec, Sarvaly, Hard, Pagram) and pottery workshops (Mstěnice). Almost all excavated villages provided evidence of wood and leather processing and textile production. The question arises whether this evidence of small-scale production represents domestic consumption or could generate alternative economic income.76 Overall, the traditional deterministic ideas of a one-sided orientation of rural communities towards agriculture and their insistence on growing grain 69 Klír, “Die ländliche Besiedlung Böhmens;” Klír, “Zaniklé středověké,” 24-5. 70 Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách,” 482; Stone, Decision-Making. 71 Klápště, Archaeology of Prague, 34-5. 72 This contradicts often-reported hunting prohibitions, which was the prerogative of the nobility: Goßler, “Gedanken zur sozialen Schichtung,” 149. 73 Klápště, Archaeology of Prague, 35. 74 Denecke. “Siedlungsentwicklung und wirtschaftliche;” Kenzler, “The Medieval Settlement;” Černá, Klír, “Osídlení Krušných;” Klír, “Die ländliche Besiedlung,” 147-60; Klír, “Zaniklé středověké vsi,” 24-5. 75 Nováček, “Nerostné suroviny,” 294. 76 Svensson. “Before a world-system?.” 62 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata everywhere can thus be challenged.77 On the contrary, we encounter different strategies (and adaptability; cf. resilience theory below), which may have varied flexibly according to external circumstances and local conditions. Economic decision-making – what is or is not profitable to grow and whether it makes sense to focus activities on complementary production – is part of the essential ‘cognitive equipment’ of peasant communities and their capacity for agency. 7. Integration of the rural economy into the market (trade relations) Peasant farmsteads were the ‘micro-economy’ units with their own farming practice aimed at securing the subsistence of all members (see above).78 Additionally, they were obligated to pay a serf’s rent to local authorities (landlords, church). A fifth or a quarter of the harvest had to be set aside for the next sowing season. Any eventual surplus was then used for market exchange to acquire goods and services they lacked or were unavailable in the village, and to obtain cash. It is estimated that around 30% of total production was allocated for market sale in the 15th century. Alternative sources of income included the sale of livestock, poultry, or other domestic products (cheese, honey, etc.).79 The local market played an increasingly important role in the life of peasant communities. In the Late Middle Ages, the demand for market exchange grew alongside the preference for cash as a serf’s rent.80 The share of commercial grain trade significantly increased during this period. Many peasants became involved in the market economy and trade relations with towns and the countryside, which gradually ensured their relative economic prosperity.81 In these circumstances, peasant might invest in purchasing or renting additional land or expanding their herds of livestock.82 Commercial trade required the storage of agricultural products and food, which was also organised at the level of individual farmsteads, becoming an essential part of the socio-economic system.83 In the Late Middle Ages, storage capacity for accumulating of large stocks exceptionally increased, as evidenced by archaeological excavations. Above-ground multi-storey granaries (in Mstěnice and Hard) were integrated into the house or situated separately within the farmstead. Additionally, various walled cellars were probably used for storage purposes (as uncovered in Pfaffenschlag and Sarvaly). 77 Houfková, Horák, Pokorná, Bešta, Pravcová, Novák, Klír, “The dynamics of a non-forested.” 78 Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách,” 477. 79 Guzowski, “A Changing Economy,” 14; Míka, Poddaný lid, 31-2. 80 Cerman, “Social structure.” 81 Čechura, “Rolnictvo v Čechách,” 468-9; Cerman, Maur, “Proměny vesnických;” Klír, “Die ländliche Besiedlung,” 152; Schofield, Peasant and community, 6. 82 Cf. Guzowski, “Changing economy,” 18; Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku. 83 Schreg, “Feeding the village,” 305. 69 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe However, social status was not fixed, as there were many gradations in land possession, welfare, and frequent vertical and horizontal mobility from one social category to another. The medieval (not only Central European) peasantry was not homogeneous but very diverse and fractured, and not sharply stratified into distinctive social classes, as has been proclaimed in the past.120 Rural communities developed as distinct social groups maintaining complex social relations among their members. In the Late Middle Ages, village municipalities were established with their competencies and institutions to ensure adherence to the norms of coexistence.121 The peasants participated not only in agricultural production but also supported each other when needed. These collective practices strengthened neighbourly relations. The rural community represented an essential domain of social, economic, and demographic interaction. Community members can be seen as ‘neighbours’, born and raised into the same external conditions, gaining similar life experiences, and engaging with each other in a wide range of activities. In such a community, there was no place for anonymity and a strong awareness of interdependence prevailed.122 They appear very cohesive and often united in their resistance to the local authorities, manifested often in Central Europe.123 Peasant communities should be seen as distinctive social groups with internal stratification and social identity manifested by variations in living standards, diverse internal and external ties and interactions, and the ability to withstand stressful situations and effectively shape their life destinies. There is increasing evidence from various places in Europe that peasants were strategic and knowledgeable agents.124 Archaeology has an extraordinary potential to reconsider the stereotypical ideas about medieval peasantry imposed by the diction of written sources. However, individual or collective peasant agency is complicated to interpret from archaeological records, which are often fragmentary, ambiguous, and influenced by formative and post-depositional processes. While archaeology can document structured deposits, specific contexts, or forms of ‘materialised record’,125 it is very difficult to interpret whether this materiality reflects social practice, behaviour, or evidence of deliberate peasant agency. Interpreting these structures against the backdrop of historical processes through the lens of peasant agency represents a non-trivial task. One direction for future research may be a detailed contextual analysis of material records. This approach may point to some evidence of motivations for social action, decision-making processes, or even peasant agency, 120 Cf. Schofield, Peasant and Community; Aparisi and Royo, “Fractures in the Community;” Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku. 121 E.g., Rösener, “Leben auf dem Lande,” 71-2. 122 Schofield, Peasant and Community, 5-6; Klír, Rolnictvo na Chebsku, 38. 123 E.g., Blickle, “Peasant Revolts;” Freedman, “Peasant Resistance.” 124 E.g., Dyer, “Villages in crisis;” Svensson, Pettersson, Nilsson, Boss, Johansson, “Resilience and Medieval Crises.” 125 Cf. Stevenson, “Toward an understanding.” 70 Ladislav Čapek, Lukáš Holata manifesting in the abovementioned variations. Some motivations that led to changes to ‘existing orders’ were undoubtedly individual. Yet archaeology more often encounters objects and contexts that are more likely to be evidence of community agency. 71 Reflecting Peasant Agency in Medieval Rural Milieu Research of East Central Europe Works cited Abel, Wilhelm. Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft vom frühen Mittelalter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Band II. Stuttgart: Verlag Eugen Ulmer, 1962. 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Ladislav Čapek University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (Czech Republic) [email protected] orcid: 0000-0001-7929-6921 Lukáš Holata University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (Czech Republic) [email protected] orcid: 0000-0003-1157-1960 77 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia)* by Teresa Campos-Lopez The study of medieval village formation has generated an intense debate throughout Europe regarding the construction of agricultural landscapes, the initiative of the elites, the weight of the lordships or the importance of the peasantry. To evaluate this task, we will become the analysis of the Early Medieval archaeological contexts documented in the town of Gorliz (Biscay, Spain), where early medieval villages appear as true elements gestated from the peasantry in dialogue with different central and local powers. Also we focus on the need to carry out archaeological and historical analysis with a multifocal perspective, so we can overcome the limitations of unilateral approaches, due to a global and holistic strategy. Early Middle Ages, 7th-10th centuries, Gorliz, Community, Peasant Agency, Habitat. 1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to carry out an approach to the emergence of villages during High Middle Ages in parameters of organization of space, forms of socialization, as well as the organization of agricultural landscapes. In this sense, the formation of villages during the high medieval period is one of the most worked on topics in Western Europe in the last 40 years.1 Actually, the * This research was supported by the project “Archaeology of the local societies in Southern Europe: identities, collectives and territorialities (5th-11th centuries) (PID2020-112506GB-C41) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and the Research Group in Heritage and Cultural Landscapes (Government of the Basque Country, IT1442-22). 1 Quirós, “Village formation, Social Memories and Archaeology,” 301. Teresa Campos-Lopez, University of the Basque Country, Spain, [email protected], 0000-0003- 3137-6492 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Teresa Campos-Lopez, Village formation and peasantry agency.The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia), © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7.04, in Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (edited by), Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, pp. 77-99, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0562-7, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7 78 Teresa Campos-Lopez dense historiographical base created, allows us to approach this issue from archaeological and historical perspectives. In the post-war period, at the same time as the mechanization of agricultural tasks and the use of plows capable of carrying out deeper work is standardized, non-visible deposits until that date began to emerge. The increase in the number of interventions in this type of archaeological settlements since the 70s, not only helped to carry out the first syntheses and general studies, but also served to lay down general bases of the question, and to address an historical model approach with a theoretical perspective of archaeological documents. Therefore, on the one hand, the study of uninhabited areas and agricultural spaces, and, on the other, the necessary new focus of the studies associated with this type of sites from new perspectives such as the naissance du village and the incastellamento2 have allowed analysing the archaeology of the peasantry and the formation of feudalism from new approaches.3 A basic reference work is the volume by Robert Fossier and Jean Chapelot (1980),4 in which textual and material sources come integrated to address the phenomenon of the birth of the village through the notion of encellulement. This concept assesses how the implementation of feudal society would have determined a spatial, social and political framework of peasantry under the lord domination. Working on examples and reports from different sites in France, but also including others from Scandinavia, the United Kingdom and Central Europe, these authors established that the emergence of the village as a unit of habitat, as an element of the socioeconomic framework and as an architectural fact, in the European geographical area, occurs around the 10th and 11th centuries within the context of the consolidation of feudalism. During the last decade of the 20th century, thanks to the rising of development-led Archaeology and the development of the archaeology of the villages due to the increase of the number of documented sites, a reformulation and reinterpretation of this model took place under new historiographical traditions.5 In this context, contradictions between the archaeological records, that were being generated and the hypotheses and models derived from the study of written sources, appeared. This disagreement led Elisabeth Zadora-Rio,6 for example, to speak of “historians’ villages” versus “archaeologists’ villages”. Later on, the first syntheses based on archaeological data appeared, processing the results of the numerous projects carried out in previous years. Among the main works, those written by Riccardo Francovich and Richard Hodges, in 2003,7 or the synthesis carried out by Edith Peytremann8 (2003) 2 Toubert, Les structures du Latium medieval; Augenti and Galetti, L’incastellamento. 3 Quirós, Arqueología del campesinado medieval. 4 Fossier and Chapelot, La village et la maison au Moyen Âge. 5 Quirós, “Village formation, Social Memories and Archaeology,” 301; Campos-Lopez, Las Aldeas Altomedievales en Bizkaia. 6 Zadora-Rio, “Early medieval villages and estate centers in France.” 7 Villa to village. The transformation of the Roman Countryside in Italy, c. 400-1000. 8 Archéologie de l’habitat rural dans le nord de la France du IVe au XIIe siècle. 85 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia) Figure 2. Plan of the structures documented in 2nd period (8th and 9th centuries). Along with these two domestic units, there is a third one with the same east-west orientation, but with a very different floor plan, since it is a rectangular one. The constructive elements documented are mostly holes or postholes, although, at a certain moment, a small fissure is made in the rock to mark an interior compartmentalization. Structures of this type have also been documented in some settlements in Alava, e.g. Aistra, Zaballa and Zornoztegi,27 and there is another structure of this type documented in the investigation carried out in the Cathedral of Vitoria-Gasteiz.28 In Bizcay, in Argiñeta’s interventions, the remains of an internally compartmentalized rectangular structure also appeared.29 Associated with this second phase of the domestic space; we must focus on the reuse of a posthole as a perinatal burial. Actually, this is the only burial registered associated with the early medieval habitat of the site.30 In this regard, the existence of infant burials linked with dwelling structures is an archaeologically widespread fact, both temporally and geographically, being, apparently, an Indo-European tradition extended throughout the entire Mediterranean basin.31 In relation to the arrangement 27 Quirós, “La arqueología de las aldeas en el noroeste peninsular,” 225-56. 28 Azkarate and Solaun, Arqueología e Historia de una ciudad. 29 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta,” 173-7; Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta,” 210-5; García Camino, “Argiñeta: Un lugar donde,” 140-9. 30 Mendizabal, Las sociedades medievales del País Vasco. 31 Fernández-Crespo, “Los enterramientos infantiles,” 199-217. 86 Teresa Campos-Lopez of the bodies, they are usually buried individually, flexed postures predominate – as is our case – and grave goods are very rare. Other documented examples would be some such as the individual from the depopulated early medieval of Aistra,32 or Zornoztegi, where the partial remains of a fetus or young child associated with a posthole were documented,33 although with a chronology between the 4th and 5th centuries. This type of burials in domestic contexts is associated with children who died naturally and were deposited with intention and care near the domestic spaces, responding to certain spiritual beliefs.34 Also, could be linked to the believing of preserving the bond between children and adults, between the community of the living and that of their ancestors’.35 Therefore, in this second period, a more clustered spatial pattern is documented: thus, a domestic morphology based on a unicellular model and structures with a more complex plant. Also, a great densification and compaction can be observed, as well as a space organization. Lastly, in the third of the documented periods, first half of 10th century, once again we recorded important changes both in the arrangement of the structures, in their morphology and typology. In the first place, just one single structure has been documented in the excavated area, with a southeast-north- west orientation; that is, marking a difference with the previous structures. It would be a rectangular or longitudinal space – partially excavated – made at ground level and raised with large wooden posts and a central supporting element. Attached to this structure, there are two other elements with a smaller size, two spaces with a square plan, which are accommodated by grains in the rock. These elements would not be dedicated to be used as domestic space, but could be linked to different activities – possibly agricultural ones – that were carried out in the village, or even for storage, such as high barns. In this space, homes and canals made in the rock have been also documented. Concerning the survivals or elements that we can still documented and evaluate from the previous period, it is clearly seen that the central open space is maintained, since the registered structures are arranged around it. However, it will be in this period when there is a clear use of this element as a circulation space, since a conditioning of the central part is carried out, placing a kind of paving. The centrality and symbolism of this space will be highlighted during this period, but, even more, when, from the central years of the 10th century, and placed directly on it, a necropolis, a series of burials linked to this community appear. This moment coincides with the abandonment of the inhabited structures, such as we will analyse below. 32 Fernández-Crespo, 199-217. 33 Quirós, “La arqueología de las aldeas en el noroeste peninsular,” 225-56; Quirós, .Arqueología de una comunidad campesina medieval. 34 Fernández-Crespo, “Los enterramientos infantiles,” 199-217. 35 Sofield, “Living with the Dead,” 351-88. 87 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia) Figure 3. Plan of the structures documented in the 3rd period (10th century). 3. Main topics for analysis and discussion: Gorliz’s contribution Once the documented sequence has been examined, we will carry out the evaluation of a series of topics to analyse if we can elucidate the role played by the peasant community in the process of village formation, as well as in the space management, always based on the contributions and data offered by this settlement. 3.1. The village formation process Taking all this data into account, we can establish that the levels of early medieval habitat, according to the records kept in the Basque Country, can be located on areas in where previous low imperial occupation is documented, although with a different functionality and social organization from the one documented at the time – examples of such are of Santa María de Zarautz36 or other settlements in Alava like Laguardia or Aistra –.37 Likewise, there are 36 Ibañez-Extebarria and Sarasola, “El yacimiento arqueológico de Santa María de Zarautz,” 12-85. 37 Quirós, The archaeology of Early Medieval Villages. 88 Teresa Campos-Lopez also examples in which there is no evidence of that previous occupation, such as the case of Vitoria-Gasteiz or Gorliz itself.38 That is, these occupation sites, far from being the consequence of a single implantation pattern, are originated from heterogeneous starting contexts.39 Thus, in the area of the Basque Country, during the 6th and 7th centuries, the occupation of the territory responds to a reality of small groups of houses (single-family farms) that may be in use for one or two generations and, in which, there is no clear evidence of active elites at local scale. Therefore, we can see a notable difference with some of the contexts documented in other areas, such as the Iberian Plateau.40 All this shows differences both in social geography and in the different power structures that are articulated in each territory,41 as we can see in La Erilla (La Puebla de Arganzón, Burgos), the first levels documented in Zaballa (Iruña de Oca, Alava) or in the Zornoztegi site (Salvatierra, Alava), where an occupation of little entity formed by a single house with some annexed construction that has lasted during this period. For that reason, we could define the first occupation periods as a farm or maybe a group of them, whose structures present a similarity in their typologies and with the beginning of a central space in an embryonic stage. As it happens in the village of Gasteiz when at the end of the 7th century they decide to occupy the hill where the village will be located – occupation that continues until the present time –,42 in Gorliz, the upper area is conditioned creating an artificial plateau in which the different registered domestic structures will be located. In other settlements such as Argiñeta (Elorrio, Biscay) during the 8th century,43 or Lendoño de Arriba (Orduña, Biscay),44 preparation prior to the settlement is also recorded. In fact, in the specific case of Argiñeta, created a flat surface to install three wooden constructions, of which their postholes remain, and slightly separated from each other. In addition, for the 8th and 10th centuries, another series of structures with posts set directly on the ground and one of them with a stone plinth are identified in the northern area. It is interesting to note that the specificity of one of them: one protected a silo45 and another one, an oven.46 Associated with one of these enclosures, the researchers define an open space, perhaps a patio (due to fewer postholes). The existence of two agricultural exploitation units formed by different structures 38 Azkarate and Solaun, Arqueología e Historia de una ciudad. 39 Quirós, “Village formation, Social Memories and the Archaeology,” 11-32; Quirós and Santos Salazar. “Territorios sin ciudades,” 139-74. 40 Quirós, “La arquitectura doméstica en los yacimientos rurales,” 65-84. 41 Quirós, “La arqueología de las aldeas en el noroeste peninsular,” 225-56; Castillo and Santos Salazar, “Territorios sin ciudades,” 139-74; Quirós and Vigil-Escalera, “Networks of peasant villages,” 79-128. 42 Azkarate and Solaun, Arqueología e Historia de una ciudad. 43 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta” Arkeoikuska 14, 204-9. 44 Solaun Bustinza, “Zedelika y Lendoño de Arriba,”187-210. 45 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta” Arkeoikuska 12, 173-7. 46 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta” Arkeoikuska 13, 210-5. 89 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia) – which underwent repairs over time –, and separated by a palisade, is hypothesized.47 In the absence of a more definitive study, it cannot be ensured that the cemetery is contemporary with these structures, some post holes seem to indicate that also here the graves were opened on an area previously occupied as a place of habitation.48 However, throughout the 8th century there is a moment of transformation, with a different nature and meaning depending on the territory to which we approach. These changes appear in different archaeological records such as the structures of power centres or the transformation of production and exchange systems, something that will have to be related to deep changes of social nature.49 Thus, the most profound transformations are registered in the geographical area that we are studying: being a territory characterized by the absence and weakness of local powers, the 8th century supposes the verification of a new balance that will define this area as a structured territory with a political articulation, where the role of rural communities is more than notorious and decisive. In this sense, taking into account the specific case of Gorliz, we refer to what Agustín Azkarate and José Luis Solaun stated when referring to the productions of “coarse wears” documented in Gorliz. They high levels of specialization achieved by these productions have called into question the current paradigms among other aspects because “they denounce that these productions were also part of distribution circuits at the regional level”.50 Also, at this moment, a restructuring of the site is defined: the type of documented structures, their orientation and morphology are completely different from those of the previous period. This aspect is not only characteristic of this settlement, in other examples such as Zornoztegi, Zaballa,51 San Andrés (Salinas de Añana) or San Martín de Dulantzi, all of them in Alava; this fact is linked to a process of population densification.52 All these transformations cannot and should not be understood on an exclusively urban or typological aspect, not even on a local scale, since all these changes recorded in different archaeological records must be put in relation to deep social changes. In other words, there is a direct relationship between the transformations of this rural landscape – which began around the year 700 A.C. – and the maturation of an active elite at local scale and also with a centralization process in which Gorliz is taking part. 47 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta” Arkeoikuska 14, 204-9. 48 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta” Arkeoikuska 14, 208. 49 Quirós, “La arqueología de las aldeas en el noroeste peninsular,” 225-56. 50 Azkarate and Solaun, “La cerámica de la Alta Edad Media en el cuadrante noroeste,” 193-228. 51 Alfaro, “La arquitectura de Zaballa,” 496-527. 52 Quirós, Loza and Niso, “Identidades y ajuares de las necrópolis altomedievales,” 215-32. 90 Teresa Campos-Lopez In the last period documented, period 3, dated to the first half of the 10th century, once again we record important changes, both in the arrangement of the structures and in their morphology and typology, as we have already seen. However, despite these documented discontinuities in this settlement, there are elements that will remain, although with variations throughout the entire sequence. The most important finding, without a doubt, has been the central space. This element is documented in an embryonic stage in the initial period of the occupation (7th century) and whose evolution has been documented throughout the different subsequent periods. The transformation of the meaning and function of this space in the middle of the 10th century, after being occupied by a necropolis, therefore, will lead to the abandonment of the habitat site documented in this intervention until that moment.53 This area inherited from the first documented period, is in the second much more defined, since we find it framed by a series of structures that have it as a reference, appear also perfectly aligned, which shows us an incipient planning of the settlement area, in addition to greater compaction and density. Figure 4. Evolution of the central open space documented in the different periods. 53 Azkarate and Solaun, “La cerámica de la Alta Edad Media,” 193-228; Campos-Lopez, “Las Aldeas Altomedievales en Bizkaia.” 91 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia) This pattern is repeated in contemporary European settlements;54 as well as in Visigothic villages55 and others closer geographically such as Zaballa (Iruña de Oca, Alava)56 or in the Cathedral of Santa María de Gasteiz (Vitoria, Alava) where the structures are organized around two open areas.57 Likewise, the fossilization of this ‘central space’ is not exclusively documented in Gorliz. In the case of Gózquez (Madrid), it has been found that, during the 225 years of occupation of the site, the housing units and attached structures change and are relocated, giving rise to three different phases of occupation. However, the boundaries between these constructions remained stable, as well as these empty spaces between them, identified as cultivation spaces.58 During the last moment of occupation, in the 10th century, in addition to documenting an important restructuration of the urban plan, in this central space the surface is conditioning by placing a pavement in different points. However, when defining its uses, we see that it is undoubtedly an element that is difficult to characterize. Even so, the change in its functionality is clearly observed in the different documented periods: while during the periods 1 and 2 we could speak of a possible use of cultivation or circulation; but, in period 3, the use as a circulation space or with an external use of a construction is definitely clear. This would indicate that, on the one hand, there is a clear intention in the definition of this space, and, on the other hand, of the existence of an organization in the arrangement of the community’s habitat structures in a clear way. Domestic units and some other minor ones will be placed having this space as the axis or central element. In our opinion, it is, consequently, a circulation space in which a community use would have to be taken into account, since the original nucleus of the necropolis will be installed in this space in the central years of the 10th century. 54 Hamerow, Early Medieval Settlements. 55 Vigil-Escalera, “Primeros pasos hacia el análisis,” 367-76; Vigil-Escalera, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales. 56 Quirós, Arqueología del campesinado medieval. 57 Azkarate and Solaun, Arqueología e Historia de una ciudad. 58 Vigil-Escalera, “Primeros pasos hacia el análisis,” 367-76. 92 Teresa Campos-Lopez Figure 5. Geographical location of the different archaeological sites. 3.2. The appearance of the necropolis In the case of the settlement of Gorliz, one of the most interesting documented moments takes place, as we have commented previously, in the mid years of the 10th century when, directly above that central open space, a series of burials associated with this community appear. The appearance of the necropolis implies the abandonment of other documented structures, so that is, located occupying an area for community use, as we have referred. This change of use in a given space is verified: from a habitat area to a necropolis area. Nevertheless, this new function must be understood as the original nucleus of different necropolises and later cemeteries, which will continue until the 18th century. This first documented necropolis is not associated with any religious structure, being one of the few places of this characteristic documented in the Basque Country till the date. However, a small hermitage associated with a 93 Village formation and peasantry agency. The case study of Gorliz (Bizkaia) second period of burials with an 11th century chronology has been documented. The tradition of building different temples one on top of the other has already been abundantly collected in the bibliography (San Salvador de Getaria, San Miguel de Irura, San Pedro de Iromendi all of them in Gipuzkoa, or San Jorge in Santurtzi and Santa Lucia de Gerrika in Bizkaia ...),59 so we would be inclined to think that, if there was an older temple, the remains of it should have been documented (as well as it happens with the hermitage from the 11th century and others from later cult structures). Therefore, all this would indicate us a “management and care of the memory of the tombs” and that it always “demonstrates the respect of a minimum distance between the most peripheral graves of the community necropolis and the nearest structures of use”.60 In addition to this, the documented graves – of varied typology, organized in rows and without reuse – aligned and no intersections among each other, will suggest that the living community kept the physical memory of the place of deposition or that perhaps they were marked, such as it happens in the necropolis of San Martin de Dulantzi in Alava. In fact, in this case, although for chronologies of the 8th century, the new location of the necropolis located outside the basilica building causes the amortization of some of the habitat structures, that is, they are moved to some other place, which is indicative of a strong functional division between the funeral area or sector and the residential sector.61 From this moment, 10th and 11th centuries, a much more complex and articulated context is going to take place. During this period, the existence of a village network is verified, since these differentiation processes will develop into the appearance of clearly differentiated elites groups. Other elements that have a relevant influence in this reorganization, elements that will be consider like ‘most visible’ ones will be churches, seen as a effective record of the Christianization of the territory. For instance, in the specific case of Zaballa (Iruña de Oca, Alava), it is at this moment when the church of San Julian is built in the nuclear area of the village, so that the houses are moved down to the valley.62 Also in Argiñeta (Elorrio, Bizkaia, at the end of the 10th century, the populated area was abandoned, it is probable that the inhabitants moved to another space, since the cemetery is still active –until the 12th century – and even expanded, occupying the old habitat area.63 These are not isolated examples, since in Santa María de Zarautz (Guipuzcoa), an old church and an associated necropolis are documented as early as the 9th century, reusing old Roman structures.64 59 Ibañez-Extebarria and Sarasola, “El yacimiento arqueológico de Santa María de Zarautz.” 60 Vigil-Escalera, “Comunidad política aldeana y exclusión,” 12-3. 61 Quirós, Loza and Niso, “Identidades y ajuares de las necrópolis altomedievales,” 215-32. 62 Quirós, Arqueología del campesinado. 63 Anibarro and García Camino, “Argiñeta.” Arkeoikuska 2014, 208. 64 Ibañez-Extebarria and Sarasola, “El yacimiento arqueológico de Santa María de Zaratuz.” 94 Teresa Campos-Lopez 4. Contributions to a (open) debate Once the sequence has been examined, and several analysis issues have been developed, we propose different points on which we would like to build an open debate around the role of the peasant agency and the relevance of its study and analysis: 1) The study of medieval village formation has generated an intense debate throughout Europe. It is – indeed – a very complex issue regarding the construction of agricultural landscapes, the initiative of the elites, the weight of lordships or the centrality (or not) of the peasantry. Regarding to the Basque Country, the first approach to this problem took place through other territorial markers, such as necropolises or churches. However, it is a subject in which, little by little, progress is being made, but we still lack a synthesis of the whole set.65 For this reason, cases like the one that concerns us here, together with other ones such as Argiñeta, become fundamental. In them, one can glimpse the presence of the peasant agency, of groups not defined as elites. 2) In the area of the Basque Country, for chronologies of the 6th and 7th centuries, the existence of farm-type settlements is documented. But, on the contrary, there is no clear evidence of active elites at a local scale,66 something that makes a notable difference with the contexts documented in the Iberian Plateau, for example. For instance, during the first of the periods investigated in our intervention, no spatial organization or elements documented may indicate the presence of elites groups. Nevertheless, the data about villages during the 8th-9th centuries reinforce this idea of social change and the emergence of elites on a local scale, although it will be in the 10th century when the existence and presence of these village elites is clearly recognized and hierarchies will be defined in settlements. A circumstance that we see again in Gorliz, through a new spatial reorganization and the urban plan, and the use of more complex types of room units. In fact, there is a reuse of the space, which is significant when it comes to understand domestic structures as the main units of production and reproduction and their importance in the construction and transformation of these villages.67 3) Gorliz, understood as an early medieval village, is part of a type of rural occupation whose general characteristic could be total invisibility on the surface due to the nature of its constructive forms and the type of its structures, that is, the domestic architecture that characterizes them.68 These settlements, usually, occupy very wide areas, in which the exist- 65 Quirós, “Village formation, Social Memories and Archaeology,” 304. 66 Quirós, “La arqueología de las aldeas en el noroeste peninsular,” 225-56. 67 Quirós and Tejerizo-García, “Filling the gap,” 1-19. 68 Quirós Castillo, “La arqueología de las aldeas en el noroeste peninsular,” 225-56. 101 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages. A diachronic analysis of the archaeological record in Central Portugal* by Catarina Tente, Sara Prata This paper analyses archaeological data on early medieval rural communities through the lens of peasant agency. Over the last 15 years systematic research has been carried out in different territories of the Portuguese inland, mainly in the centre-north of the country. Here we will be focusing on the areas for which we currently have more detailed evidence, Alto Alentejo and Beira Alta, and consider a broad chronological frame, between the 5th and the 11th centuries. However, the information available for the two territories is uneven, and it is not yet possible to offer a continuous chronological sequence in either of these areas. For this reason, we will analyse the available data collectively and from a comparative perspective. In both cases we will start by considering the new rural settlement networks that emerged from the 5th century onwards. Evidence of peasant communities in Alto Alentejo is clearer for the 6th-7th centuries, and in Beira Alta for the 10th-11th. Both are critical moments in the political sphere, coinciding with the emergence and affirmation of new administrative structures, but also necessary power vacuums where local powers emerge. By comparing the material record of peasant groups, we will reassess agricultural production, management of natural resources, artefact production, trade networks, and funerary areas, as arenas to discuss the notion of peasant agency. Early Middle Ages, Alto Alentejo, Beira Alta, social peasant agency, archaeology, conflict, rural communities. * This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia through the Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus 3rd edition (2020.01697.CEECIND). Catarina Tente, Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal, [email protected], 0000-0002-7944-1583 Sara Prata, Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal, [email protected], 0000-0002-5205-7522 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Catarina Tente, Sara Prata, Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages. A diachronic analysis of the archaeological record in Central Portugal, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7.05, in Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (edited by), Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, pp. 101-121, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0562-7, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215- 0562-7 102 Catarina Tente, Sara Prata 1. Introduction In the last 15 years a group of archaeologists from Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM – NOVA FCSH) has been carrying out research focused on the early medieval period. We have mainly worked on the inland regions of central-northern Portugal, a territory that spans from the northeast of the Trás-os-Montes region to the Alto Alentejo in the south, carrying out research projects, MA and PhD thesis. Through a combined approach which takes into consideration data from surface field surveys, excavations, material culture analysis, radiocarbon dating and comparative approaches, we have documented evidence of the progressive transformations that took place between the second half of the 5th century and the formation of the Portuguese kingdom (12th century), in both rural and urban settings. The gathered data are diverse, and each micro-territory presents its own chronological sequence and specificities. Nevertheless, the images defined for specific moments of these intervals expand our understanding of early medieval societies, which remain one of the least known periods in Portuguese research.1 In this paper, we consider the available evidence through the lens of peasant agency. Agency, understood as the capacity of agents to act within a social structure,2 is an established subject in social sciences, with significance for archaeology and past societies.3 However, agency has not yet been fully explored in regards to peasant communities, particularly in the early medieval period. There are several reasons for this, top-down approaches to peasant societies have promoted their view as passive social agents,4 and for early medieval times this is perhaps a result of historical narratives exceedingly focused on the role of aristocracies in social processes, combined with lasting primitivistic views of peasant communities.5 It has recently been argued that by focusing on archaeological evidence, agency can work as a common field in which different disciplines can analyse the dynamics of peasant societies in greater detail,6 while also promoting a specific conceptual framework for peasant archaeology. We agree that we must work towards the understanding of peasant groups as active voices in the configuration of past societies, but we also need to recognize the limits of the archaeological record in this regard. Written sources which concern early medieval peasant communities are scarce, and there is a whole range of characteristics specific to the day-to-day of this social category that can only be grasped through archaeology. But we need to avoid oversimplifications, and as we will see, interpreting the material evidence of peasant 1 Tente, “Os últimos 30 anos da Arqueologia.” 2 Giddens, The Constitution of Society. 3 Dobres and Robb, Agency in archaeology. 4 Van der Ploeg, The new peasantries, 6. 5 Quirós, “Inequality and social complexity.” 6 Quirós and Tejerizo, “Filling the gap,” 8. 103 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages communities through this lens is not always a linear process. In this paper, we will be focusing on which aspects of peasant agency might be seen through the material record, and the problems that can arise from this analysis. We will be doing so by presenting archaeological data from inland Portugal inland through a global approach, analysing rural transformations from a diachronic perspective, comparing settlement patterns, local economic strategies, and political frameworks. Burial grounds, as privileged areas for building and representing identities, will also be considered. For this, we will focus on the territories and specific timeframes for which the available evidence is clearer due to our ongoing research projects: Alto Alentejo during the 6th and the 7th centuries and Beira Alta during the 10th and 11th. These represent two critical moments. In Central Portugal, the first interval encompasses the transition between the Suevic and the Visigoth kingdoms, and the growing impact of the ecclesiastical structure in terms of territorial reconfiguration. The second timeframe sees Beira Alta as a frontier land between the north controlled by Asturians and the south by Muslims. These shifts also meant at times the existence of power vacuums, which might have promoted on the one hand the emergence of local powers, and on the other, some degree of isolation, and perhaps autonomy, for peasant communities. In the context of this paper, we will use the term “peasants” to refer to families and communities who lived in rural areas and for whom farming was the main economic activity and a focal point in their social organization and interaction with their environment. Our analysis covers different geographies and an extended timeframe, a sequence of rural landscapes built by different peasant families and communities that must not be taken as an undifferentiated whole. Our goal is to compare the available evidence while recognizing the specificities of each territory. In this context, it is important to stress that Alto Alentejo and Beira Alta are distinct geomorphologically. Beira Alta is located in the highlands of central-northern Portugal, between the Douro and the Mondego River basins. This results in a vast plateau, bordered by several mountain ranges: the Estrela to the east (the highest summit at 1,993 metres a.s.l.), and the Montemuro and Caramulo mountain chains to west, separating the region from the Atlantic seaboard. Due to anthropic deforestation (documented since the Neolithic period), fertile lands are located mainly in the lowest areas, in the foothills and in the river valleys. Alto Alentejo is separated from Beira Baixa to the North by the Tagus River and bordered by Spanish Extremadura to the East. It can be considered a transition landscape between the southern plains and the mountain ranges of the Beira region. Here we have worked mainly on the norther territories, around São Mamede Mountain range which separates the drainage basin of the Tagus River to the north from the basin of the Guadiana to the south. In its highest point, São Mamede reaches 1,025 metres a.s.l., but agricultural areas are mainly situated in the lower peneplains, crossed by seasonal streams. 104 Catarina Tente, Sara Prata Naturally, in both territories the geographic characteristics have played a role in the evolution of human settlement networks through time, and when comparing both sets of data, we must be aware of the differences between regions (Fig. 1). Figure 1. Map of the main places mentioned in the text. 2. A diachronic analysis of the peasant record To adequately frame early medieval rural settlements, we must start by recognizing, even if briefly, the pre-existing Roman occupation models documented in both territories and the ways in which they were transformed during post-Roman times. In Alto Alentejo there is evidence of medium and large villa estates, which seem to have been built around the 3rd century.7 Most of these villas were closely linked to this territory’s single urban centre: Ammaia (S. Salvador de Aramenha, Marvão), a small-size town, probably funded during the Augustan age, and granted civitas status under Emperor Claudius, becoming a municipium during the 2nd century AD.8 While there is evidence of post-Roman phases in Ammaia, the abrupt reduction in imported fine wares suggests that it became isolated from long-distance trade early on (mid-5th century).9 The 7 Carneiro, Lugares, tempos e pessoas. 8 Corsi et al., “The Roman town of Ammaia (Portugal).” 9 Quaresma, “The fine wares.” 105 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages fact that there is no further mention of this town in written sources from the Suevic-Visigothic period also indicates that it likely lost its position as an inland urban enclave, unlike other cities that developed into ecclesiastic centres.10 The villas that have been excavated in this area also present evidence of transformations at an early stage. In some villas we see the abandonment and reuse of former opulent reception rooms, in others, the emergence of religious buildings and associated privileged burial11 areas,12 suggesting different types of processes that might be occurring simultaneously. We have recently started to explore the possibility that some of the former Roman estates, in places like Mascarro (Castelo de Vide), might have maintained a local importance during the early medieval period. While these profound changes are documented in the villas, during a still imprecise moment between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th centuries, there is ample evidence of a new dispersed settlement pattern, characterized by a large number of small farmsteads which were built ex novo, but spatially associated with Roman infrastructures (previous estates and road system).13 New peasant settlements such as Tapada das Guaritas I (Castelo de Vide) contain simple rectangular houses built in stone and covered by rooftiles, which preserve the remains of pottery produced locally, a small number of iron tools, spindle whorls for spinning animal or vegetable fibres, and manual stone mills for grain and/or cereal grinding.14 Evidence for cattle farming can be perceived by the presence of large stone pens and the location of most settlements in shallow, well irrigated small valleys where pasture would be permanently available. Settlement layout indicates that the funerary areas (usually marked by one to three rock-cut graves) were created in close connection to the areas of the living and would possibly function as part of a land claiming discourse within the peasant sphere, as it has been suggested for other territories.15 Amid this peasant landscape we have press buildings and rock-cut facilities for olive oil and wine production. Large built complexes such as Junçal and Tapada das Guaritas II (Castelo de Vide), reflect a considerable investment in these facilities and a capacity for surplus production, and are perhaps the clearest indicator that these early medieval farmsteads were integrated in regional trade dynamics and possibly broader scales of power that transcend their mere local sphere.16 Simultaneously, the known settlements show rather horizontal material records, with an almost complete absence of prestige goods or prominent buildings. One of the ques- 10 Cordero, “La organización de la diócesis.” 11 Carneiro, “O final das villae.” 12 Maloney and Hale, “The villa of Torre de Palma.” Cuesta-Gómez et al., “Una nueva lectura.” 13 Prata, “Post-Roman land-use.” 14 Prata, “Objectos arqueológicos;” Prata and Cuesta-Gómez, “Farming and local economy.” 15 Martín Viso, “Enterramientos, memoria social.” 16 Prata and Cuesta-Gómez, “Oil and wine.” 106 Catarina Tente, Sara Prata tions we should consider is whether these farmsteads would somehow be able to function together as a self-recognized group, or if each household would be managed individually. For now, detailed evidence of these types of peasant settlements is mostly circumscribed to the territory of the municipality of Castelo de Vide. But at least some of the territories neighbouring of Alto Alentejo, such as the municipalities of Nisa and Marvão, exhibit coherent surface finds (rock-cut graves, remains of double-walled structures, press facilities…) suggesting a similar pattern. A critical review of these data is among our current research priorities. We should also mention that there is currently little evidence to indicate that the excavated farmsteads were in use after the first half of the 8th century. The excavated buildings, six so far, show no structural reforms, overlapping use sequences or accumulations of discarded pottery that might suggest otherwise. On the contrary, they exhibit what can be described as a single short-lived level of use, no evidence for destructive or violent episodes and processes of structural decay that appears to have been rather slow. Careful consideration is necessary to adequately frame this abandonment process, but our current hypothesis is that this settlement network stopped functioning in Alto Alentejo due to the progressive administrative changes brought about by the Islamic conquest. Likewise, we still lack a satisfactory explanation for where the former inhabitants of these farmsteads might have relocated. The next well documented phase is represented by the High Medieval castles and villages; a centralized settlement process that in the territories south of the Tagus River is dated from the 12th century onwards and closely related to the direct actions of the Portuguese monarchs and the military orders. While a widespread migration to distant regions seems unlikely, for the moment there is still no conclusive evidence for the Islamic period in this territory. To understand what might have been happening in Portuguese inland rural areas directly before the formation of the Portuguese kingdom we must now turn to the archaeological data from Beira Alta. As will be explained, the documented chronological sequence for this region is different from what we have seen in Alto Alentejo. Several aspects might help to understand these disparities, from the obvious geographic and morphological characteristics of each territory to separate research backgrounds and approaches. Although we are aware that the key to understand the separate evolution of each territory might stem further back, we will once again start from the Roman settlement model. Roman rural settlements documented in Beira Alta were smaller estates, mainly farmsteads. Places that were classified as villas seem scarce and small when compared with the southern territories. Viseu (Vissaium) was the larger city of Beira Alta. There were other capitals of civitas, but probably most of them were civitas sine urbe, like the capital of Interminienses, presumably 107 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages located in Guarda,17 civitas Cobelcorum18 or Bobadela (Oliveira do Hospital). These were places where the main urban functions (religious, fiscal, commercial, and administrative) were guaranteed, but where no significant population resided. Apparently, most of the Roman residents lived in small rural units, dispersed in the mountainous territory. Although the archaeological data is scarce (mainly surface surveys and test-pits), the available information shows that rural farmsteads in Beira Alta were systematically abandoned between the 3rd century and the beginning of the 5th. Examples of these can be seen in the small villa of Monte Aljão (Gouveia) where the latest use sequence was dated between the end of the 4th century, and the beginning of the 5th century;19 in the small agricultural settlement of Torre (Fornos de Algodres), where the last use phase was placed in the 3th-4th centuries;20 and in the farmstead of São Gens (Celorico da Beira), where the occupation sequence is framed between the 1st century and the beginning of the 4th century.21 This apparently early decline of the Roman rural system likely resulted in the emergence of a new settlement pattern that has not yet been documented. Information about the 5th century onwards is rather limited, mainly data from the episcopal city of Viseu and from ancient civitas capitals that continued to mint tremisses during the Visigothic period. We also witness the return to hillfort occupation, a process that has been linked to emergence of local elites who used those places to manifest power in the territories dominated by them,22 as illustrated by Castro do Tintinolho (Guarda)23 or perhaps in Castro de Santo André (Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo) and Caliabria.24 If the elites (local or episcopal) can be seen in the archaeological record and written record, the same cannot be said of the peasants. Rural settlements from the 6th to 8th centuries have not yet been documented in Beira Alta. It is possible that some of the sites identified in field surveys as late Roman farmsteads could in fact be early medieval, particularly in those cases where rock-cut graves are also present. But excavations are needed to validate this hypothesis. Nerveless, an important change occurred in Beira Alta between the 7th and the 9th centuries and then again in the end of the 10th century/ beginning of the 11th century. Conclusive remains for the 8th century have not been identified so far, but we know that somewhere between the second half of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th, new peasant settlements were estab- 17 Pereira and Ramos, “Sequência estratigráfica.” 18 Frade and Caetano, “Os Cultos na Civitas Cobelcorum;” Tente at al., “As placas de xisto numéricas.” 19 Tente and Pereira, “Monte Aljão.” 20 Antunes, “Figueiró da Granja.” 21 Marques, A ocupação romana; Marques et alii. S. Gens ao longo do Tempo. 22 Martín Viso, “La ordenación del territorio.” 23 Tente and Martín Viso, “O Castro do Tintinolho;” Tente, Martín Viso. “El castro de Tintinolho.” 24 Tente et al., “As placas de xisto numéricas.” 108 Catarina Tente, Sara Prata lished. Some of them, like São Gens (Celorico da Beira), were built near the ruins of a previous Roman farm, whereas others, chose instead new locations with no previous occupations, cases such as at Senhora do Barrocal (Sátão), Soida (Celorico da Beira) and Penedo dos Mouros (Gouveia). These new settlements occupy subtle positions in the landscape, aiming in most cases to obtain visual control over the territory whilst remaining unseen. Some of these settlements were surrounded by palisades, less frequently combined with stone walls. Inside the enclosures the domestic units where simple huts made of wood and branches. Usually, each hut had a central hearth around which the domestic space was organized. All the excavated sites revealed homogeneous pottery assemblages, and was also evidence for iron tools produced locally. Archaeological evidence suggests these were pluri-familiar settlements, but small in area; the number of families should be between three and six.25 This would be consistent with a more centralised occupation pattern, especially when compared with the late Roman period. All the excavated peasant settlements were destroyed by fires dated via radiocarbon between the second half of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century. Due to these fires, the dense combustion layers promoted the preservation of organic matter (animal bones and plant remains) which testified to the diverse economic activities of these rural communities. Most of the sites were abandoned after these destructive events26 and we do not know where the population from the burned settlements would have been re-located. Some of them probably went displaced to establish the medieval villages, where castles would be built during the second half of the 11th century. These fires and subsequent changes in settlement can be interpreted as a consequence of local struggles to control territories, in which peasant communities seem to have played a relevant part. 3. Discussion As made clear in the above overview, for Portuguese inland territories, even those such as Beira Alta and Alto Alentejo for which comprehensive data is currently available, it is still not possible to trace a continuous use sequence from the end of the Roman Era to the formation of the Kingdom of Portugal. Likewise, each territory presents its own knowledge gaps. In both cases, early medieval rural landscapes stem from transformations resulting from the dismantlement of the previous Roman land-use model (estates, infrastructures, road network…), but only in Alto Alentejo do we see a new kind of rural settlement pattern that emerges and thrives between the 5th and 7th centuries, based on single family farmsteads. In Beira Alta, we have evidence of 5th 25 Tente, “Social Complexity.” 26 Tente, “No smoke without fire.” 109 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages to 7th centuries hillfort occupations, places that would be controlled by local elites and used in power dynamics, which for now appear to be absent in Alto Alentejo. In both territories, conclusive evidence for the 8th century is still lacking, a complex issue that will need to be fully addressed elsewhere. The first well documented evidence for the early medieval countryside in Beira Alta is related to concentrated multi-family settlements which appear in the 9th-10th centuries, all of which were destroyed by violent fires dated between the end of 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century. This was probably the result of an emerging political control system, and these settlements would have been destroyed as part of a local struggle to control territories and communities. It seems reasonable to assume that the population displaced from the burned villages would eventually incorporate newly established settlements, locations where castles would be built after the second half of the 11th century. Finally, in Alto Alentejo, further south, medieval villages and castes are quite late, founded only from the late 12th century onwards, and it is still not clear if they reflect the incorporation of outside population, a rearrangement of current inhabitants, or perhaps a combination of both. Here, evidence for what might have happened in rural areas between the end of the early medieval settlement network and the development of the first High Medieval castles and villages is very limited. Before continuing, we wish to emphasize that the takeaway from this comparative overview should be the presence of significant territorial reconfiguration processes which took place throughout the early medieval centuries. Both territories in which we have carried out our research lack a comprehensive diachronic sequence, however, in each case we have enough evidence to determine in which key moments the countryside was clearly restructured. In doing so the natural tendency is to frame these processes in light of larger historical events and interpret local changes as direct or indirect consequence of broader political changes. But how can we shift the focus in order to consider peasant agency in this context? It seems apparent that at least some of these events express the direct action of outside powers with strategic interests in rural areas. But peasant communities surely played their own role in these dynamics. Considering the evidence available so far, it might be difficult to visualize the ways in which these tensions and negotiations between peasant communities and other social groups took place. However, for now, we are interested in focusing directly on the material record of these peasant communities, and will analyse which pieces of evidence can be interpreted in order to consider peasant agency. 3.1. Settlements and households Archaeologically, the first aspect we will be exploring is settlement layout and landscape use, and perhaps the first question we should keep in mind is whether or not early medieval peasants were able to decide where and how to 110 Catarina Tente, Sara Prata build their houses, and the investment they entailed. As we have seen, the early medieval settlements excavated in Castelo de Vide consist of small farmsteads managed by single family units (Fig. 2). From surface field data, it is clear that at least a part of these settlements was built near previous Roman estates. The reasons for this may vary, but among the frequent arguments is the well-documented reuse of Roman construction materials in early medieval buildings.27 However, as recently suggested, the reuse of Roman olive groves might have also played an important role.28 Another important aspect of this spatial relation to previous infrastructures is the likelihood that the Roman road system was still in use, even if only partially and at a regional or even local scale. Concerning architectural features, it is important to note that these farmsteads were built entirely out of locally available granite stones and covered with roof tiles. Some of these buildings are quite large, particularly the press facilities and associated storage buildings, so their construction was certainly a considerable investment. Regarding the relationship established between different farmsteads, we have described this type of settlement network as a dispersed but connected pattern,29 in the sense that even if they consist of individual peasant households, they were visibly built in close proximity to one another which must imply close social and economic contacts. One of the concepts that deserves to be further explored to understand the different ways in which these peasants were conceptualizing their environment and particularly social relations, is the degree of autonomy each farmstead would enjoy, or if there was some sense of community shared among different families. This would be particularly relevant when considering their interactions with outside social groups. The early medieval settlements in Beira Alta from the 9th-10th century were, instead, small enclosures where several families lived. From the settlement the community had restrict visual control, mainly covering the adjoining agricultural areas. This might suggest some degree of peasant autonomy in selecting the areas where settlements where built. All sites were surrounded by a wall/palisade that defined very clearly the interior and exterior of the living areas. Inside we find the domestic structures and some labour spaces such as the one identified at São Gens for tanning animal hides.30 Different huts with hearths suggest individual domestic units, but some activities and spaces were certainly communal. Additionally, we can assume that other processes such as the construction of the settlement outer walls was carried out by several members of the community. As previously stated, buildings were made mostly of readily available materials, mainly wood and branches, but also local granite stone. Remains of 27 Prata, “Articulação da paisagem.” 28 Prata and Cuesta-Gómez, “Oil and wine.” 29 Cuesta-Gómez and Prata, “Se hace camino al andar.” 30 Tente et al., “Povoamento e modos de vida.” Figure 2. Remains of the early medieval farmstead of Tapada das Guaritas (Castelo de Vide). 117 Considering peasant agency in the Early Middle Ages members but, at the same time, they engaged in more specialized activities allowing them to integrate in complex networks external to the community.44 Although at first glance these communities might seem to be similar in terms of economy and social standing, the archaeological evidence from Senhora do Barrocal showed the presence of local rural elites that were operating on differentiated social levels, distinct from the remaining local communities.45 4. Conclusion Despite being much more abundant than 15 years ago and having revealed previously unknown realities, the available archaeological record for Portuguese inland territories is still limited when it comes to finds that might help us determine the scope of peasant agency during the early medieval period. As a theoretical framework, we agree that this can be a fruitful approach to grasp the complexity of past societies, particularly since it invites us to articulate our discourse around peasant groups and to consider material evidence in a more eloquent manner. But the approach to peasant agency through the archaeological record is not unambiguous; in fact, the same set of material evidence can be interpreted in contrasting ways. 1) Peasant communities are autonomous and capable of choosing how they adapt to both socio-political and environmental circumstances. These communities would have gained autonomy in certain regions after the disappearance of the Roman administrative system and the subsequent inexistence of an equally comprehensive system, leaving room for peasants in certain regions farther from the new centres of power to effectively possess the autonomy to design their own socio-political agenda. At a later moment, in the case of Beira Alta, from the 10th century onwards, these communities would not have been able to resist more encompassing powers and succumbed to pressure through force.46 Or 2) the changes detected in the archaeological record of rural communities result from the intervention of more centralizing powers, eventually operating at different scales and times in the territories discussed here, but that influenced the way peasant families occupied the territory, used local resources, and socially interacted. This could be seen, for example, in the regular settlement layout in Alto Alentejo from the 6th century onwards and the need for these peasant families to produce surpluses of certain products. It appears that this land-use system and associated settlement network were abandoned in the beginning of the 8th century, and latter evidence has not yet been recorded. For now, we are still 44 Quirós, “Inequality and social complexity;” Tente, “Social inequality.” 45 Tente et al., “O sítio da Senhora do Barrocal;” Souza et al., “The islamic pottery.” 46 Tente, “No smoke without fire;” Tente, “Social Complexity.” 118 Catarina Tente, Sara Prata unable to determine if this was due to an external imposition, or if on the contrary it would reflect peasant agency in deciding a new course of action. It is our opinion that some aspects of the peasant sphere are particularly valuable areas to inquire for agency. This is the case of material culture production, especially when concerning local and domestic manufactures; the layout and configuration of living areas; the selection of plant and animal species; and the burial grounds, as privileged areas for the expression of social dynamics. However, we must be careful to avoid overly predisposed approaches as almost any set of evidence can be used to suggest peasant agency to a certain extent. Peasants with capacity to control their destiny and determine the essential issues in their lives could coexist with families subjected to more encompassing powers, while retaining some control over daily activities. Early medieval social dynamics were certainly much more tangled, a combination of agency and inaction, submission, and negotiation. 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Viseu e o território entre os séculos IV a XII ed. Catarina Tente, 197-228. Viseu: C.M. Viseu, 2018. Tente, Catarina, Hugo Baptista, João Pedro Tereso, Margarida Cércio, João Veloso, Cláudia Oliveira, Luís Seabra, Catarina Meira, Gabriel Souza, Tomás Cordero Ruiz, e Manuel Luís Real. “O sítio da Senhora do Barrocal (Sátão) na viragem do milénio.” In Do Império ao Reino. Viseu e o território entre os séculos IV a XII, ed. Catarina Tente, 263-95. Viseu: C. M. Viseu, 2018. Tente, Catarina, Nádia Figueira, e Pedro Carvalho. “As placas de xisto numéricas de época visigoda de Torre de Almofala e do Castro de Santo André (Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo) e o povoamento rural em seu torno.” Beira Alta 81 (2022): 135-73. Van der Ploeg, Jan Douwe. The new peasantries. Struggles for Autonomy and Sustainability in an Era of Empire and Globalization. London: Earthscan publications, 2018. Vigil-Escalera, Alfonso, y Juan Antonio Quirós. “Un ensayo de interpretación del registro arqueológico.” In El poblamiento rural de época visigoda en Hispania. Arqueología del campesinado en el interior peninsular, ed. Juan Antonio Quirós, 357-400. Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2013. Catarina Tente Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) [email protected] orcid: 0000-0002-7944-1583 Sara Prata Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) [email protected] orcid: 0000-0002-5205-7522 123 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin (5th-7th centuries)* by Eduardo Cardoso Daflon The peasantry formed the most numerous group in the vast course of history in its dialectical diversity and specificity. However, the peasants’ importance was not matched by an equal research effort from historians. Something especially true during any pre-capitalist context in which the absolute relevance of this social class is shaded by the historiographical fascination about the ruling classes of yore. Hence, the present paper aims to contribute for understanding the protagonism of the “hidden subject” that was the early medieval Iberian peasantry between the 5th and 7th centuries. This class is frequently seem as static or – at most – passive. To frame a clearer picture of such an elusive social group this text presents a regional analysis with the articulation of written and archaeological sources in order to capture the peasant agency in the process of struggle with the aristocratic powers. The main hypothesis is that the process of aristocratic weakening in the Douro river basin during the 5th century ensured greater autonomy for this region peasants and that between the 6th and 7th centuries there is a new onslaught of a renewed aristocracy articulated with the Visigoth state. There was, without a doubt, a partially successful aristocratic advance, however, I would like to emphasize precisely the resistance imposed by the peasantry in a long-lasting effort to preserve their living conditions. Early Middle Ages, Iberian Peninsula, Peasantry, Class struggle. * I would like to thank the comments and suggestions I received from my colleagues during the Seminar on Peasant Agency. A special thanks to Dr Carlos Tejerizo García, who drew the map of the settlements referred in this work. I would also like to thank Dr Mário Jorge da Motta Bastos and Dr Thiago Pereira da Silva Magela for debating with me the ideas presented here. I am also grateful to Kristine Conroy for the grammatical revision of the text. Eduardo Cardoso Daflon, Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil, [email protected], 0000-0002- 2445-0044 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Eduardo Cardoso Daflon, Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin (5th-7th centuries), © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7.06, in Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (edited by), Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, pp. 123-150, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0562-7, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7 124 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon 1. Hidden Subject Although there are classic works and manuals that pointed to the centrality of rural areas in Middle Ages societies, the historiography in general disregards its importance.1 The medievalists focus regularly falls on aristocratic, ecclesiastical, or monarchical elements. This is often justified by the lack of sources about the peasantry.2 Even when there are sources, they are mobilized to express the peasant’s domination by the aristocracy. More than eighty years ago, Marc Bloch synthesized: “fields without lords are fields without a history.”3 In this sense, the historical discipline was since its birth – and even after the Annales renewal – very dependent on the texts. As a result, we have a double erasure of the peasantry from History. First, in the past for not leaving their own written traces and because aristocratic documentation register (if at all) their exploitation. The second erasure takes place in the present and is the result of the medievalists relative disinterest towards the medieval peasant.4 This continues to perpetuate yesterday’s inequalities today. This becomes even more dramatic when we specifically consider the early medieval centuries. Fortunately, the last few decades have offered a real renewal of the possibilities of studying the agrarian space and the European Early Middle Ages peasantry. Movement made possible through archaeology, being referred to as an archaeological turn.5 Something we can see as well for the Iberian, a context on which I will focus on this paper.6 This discipline has been revealing a series of direct records of material peasant life that are indispensable to understand these hidden subjects. However, another problem is posed even with this remarkable development. 2. Iberian Early Middle Ages: two versions of the same reality Before proceeding, it is worth to establish the main narratives built about the Iberian peasantry during the so-called Visigothic Period. The initial point 1 Baschet, A Civilização Feudal, 96; Bloch, Historia Rural Francesa; Le Goff, Civilização do Ocidente Medieval, 35. 2 Daflon and Magela, “Porquês de uma História,” 42-62. The concept of peasantry is quite controversial and it is not the main objective of this text. For a balance see Sevilla Gusmán and González De Molina, Sobre a evolução. I would also like to point out that recently I made a theoretical effort to apply the concept of peasant to understand the Early Medieval period Daflon, “Considerações sobre o conceito.” 3 Bloch, Feudal society, 242. 4 Cardoso, “Camponês, campesinato,” 24-9. 5 Hamerow, Early Medieval Settlements, 156-94; Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 383-588; Escalona, “Early Castilian peasantry,” 119-45. 6 Quirós Castillo, “Early Medieval Villages,” 13-26; Tejerizo García, “Unearthing Peasant Societies,” 75-108. 125 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin I would like to make is that these social agents are apprehended differently when studied by historians and archaeologists. Thus, it is necessary to know the interpretation advanced by each of these disciplines. Apart from some specific studies, among historians, the peasantry is rarely the central focus of analysis.7 In general, peasants are mobilized as part of broader discussions. For example, one could highlight the debates on Visigothic (proto)feudalism, in which peasants appear as dependents on the aristocracy.8 Or this can even be seen the discussions about the prevalence of slavery during the Early Middle Ages.9 The historiography approaches these topics basically through textual documentation and historians tend to look at the whole peninsula in order to incorporate as many sources as possible. This would be methodologically justified by the relatively precarious peasant records. Consequently, it also blurs regional and chronological specificities, mainly because some of the main sources used are normative.10 In other words, sources that lack a precise geographic insertion and sometimes uncertain dating. This blurred image of the history of the Early Medieval Iberian peasantry is evidently problematic and it does not allow a more complete understanding of that society. In addition, it ends up reinforcing a current view of the peasantry as an ahistorical being. In other words, a group that tends to be miserable and practically does not experience changes over time and space.11 Besides that, little importance was given to material culture during most of the 20th century. That is related to the nature of the archaeological knowledge available about Visigothic society. Until then, archaeology was largely influenced by Francoism and focused on artistic or architectural aspects.12 That is, until the rural archaeology boom of the 2000s, the available research had little potential to contribute to the understanding of the peasantry. During the first decades of the 21st century, there was an increase in university research and especially in commercial archaeology, which accompanied the major infrastructure works in Spain and Portugal. This led to an undeniable increase in the number of published data.13 In archaeology, peasants have been studied based on specific excavations. This is done by avoiding drawing generalizations from a clear-cut archaeological context. Even so, a crucial result of this “archaeological turn” was the recent publication of re- 7 Thompson, “Peasant Revolts,” 11-23; García Moreno, “Campesino hispanovisigodo,” 171-87. 8 Barbero, and Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 155-200; García Moreno, História de España Visigoda, 247-54; Manzano Moreno, Historia de España, vol. 2, 83. 9 Bonnassie, “Supervivencia y Extinción,” 13-75. 10 Bastos, “Escravo, servo ou camponês?,” 79-82. 11 Handy, “‘Almost idiotic wretchedness’,” 335-42. 12 Olmo Enciso, “Ideología y Arqueología,” 157-60; Tejerizo García, “Arqueología y nacionalismo,” 150-6; Diarte-Blasco, Late Antique, XII-XV. 13 Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Últimos 30 años,” 271-94; Tente, “Últimos 30 anos,” 49-94; Quirós Castillo, “Early Medieval Villages,” 13-26. 126 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon gional syntheses on the Iberian rural world that tend to point to a spread of villages and farms in the Iberian Early Middle Ages.14 These syntheses have sparked an important debate among archaeologists dedicated to this period. On one hand, some argue that the archaeological data reinforces what is shown by the texts and attributes this new landscape marked by village contexts as a product of aristocratic action.15 On the other hand, several authors point out that there was a rupture of aristocratic power in vast parts of the Iberian Peninsula leading to a reality of greater peasant autonomy.16 These two frames tend not to converge on the role that peasants played between the 6th and 7th centuries. Symptomatic of the current status of our understanding is the section entitled “The peasantry and the subjugated” in Santiago Castellanos’ recent manual on Visigoths.17 Castellanos had to write two different sections to discuss the peasantry: one derived from written sources and the other from archaeology. Therefore, there is a difficulty in combining textual and archaeological references to understand past peasant societies.18 However, the peasantry and their villages in the Visigothic past “existed regardless of today’s research, and it would be a costly failure if both perspectives should not converge on their shared object”.19 Thus, the present text consists of an effort to combine these sources that have different approaches for the construction of a more complete picture of the peasants and their agency in the historical transformations of the Iberian Peninsula during the Early Middle Ages. To carry out this proposition, it will be necessary to adjust the scale of the analysis, which marks another difference between the works of historians and archaeologists. In general, the former start from a broad spatial-tempo- ral perspective while the latter focus on the specific details of each context. So, to try to integrate texts and material culture, I will work from the point of view of an intermediate region. My focus will be a case study that has well 14 For example, we have synthesis works on the rural world for the Guadalquivir basin García Vargas et al. “El bajo Guadalquivir”; peninsular northwest Sánchez Prado, “Power and rural landscapes,” 140-68; López Quiroga, “Hábitat, poblamiento y territorio,” 163-79; Ebro basin Laliena Corbera, “Acerca de la Articulación Social,” 149-63, some areas of Portugal Tente, “Arqueologia Medieval Cristã;” Carvalho, “O final do mundo romano,” 397-435; and the surroundings of Mérida Cordero Ruiz, Territorio emeritense durante. In addition, we have works of a more regional scope with a peasant archaeology perspective, that is, that treat peasants as fundamental agents of landscape organization. This is the case for the Douro basin Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades; for the Catalonia region Roig Buxó, “Asentamientos rurales y poblados,” 207-52; the Madrid region Vigil-Escalera Guirado, “Granjas y Aldeas Altomedievales,” 239-84; and the Basque Country Quirós Castillo, “Arqueología del campesinado altomedieval,” 385-403. 15 Diarte-Blasco, Late Antique and Early, 62; Olmo Enciso, “Materiality of Complex Landscapes,” 15-42; Ariño, “Habitat rural en Península,” 104-6. 16 Martínez Jiménez, Sastre De Diego and Tejerizo García, Iberian Peninsula, 193; Vigil-Es- calera Guirado and Quirós Castillo, “Ensayo de interpretación,” 388-98. 17 Castellanos, Los Visigodos, 169-77. More recently the same author has made a similar volume, with some differences, in English, see Castellanos, Visigothic Kingdom. 18 Martín Viso, Asentamientos y paisajes rurales, 12. 19 Escalona, “Early Castilian peasantry,” 138. 133 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin In addition to the constructive solutions of these villages and farms being quite adapted to a local reality, the productive strategies also indicate the type of life that these communities experienced during the 6th and 7th centuries. Until recently, we only relied on data collected from written sources to imagine what rural production would be. More recently, bioarchaeological data applied to peasant communities has brought new perspectives for analysis.54 What can be said with some certainty, according to the current state of research, is that the predominant animals in the Douro basin are cattle, goats and (to a lesser extent) pigs. The cattle, due to the marks of intense work, was used during heavy tasks as well as a source of milk. Goats were used mainly for wool, being sacrificed at a later age, and the pigs would have a more direct relationship with food, considering that they were sacrificed in general quite young. But bone records are found in apparently variable proportions in each location according to what we know. In view of material culture on peasant production, it is necessary to contrast the information obtained with that which we can obtain from the written sources available to us. Contrast that more than just giving solidity to what we know from that past, it also allows us to have a better understanding. For example, in the life of Saint Fructuosus, written at the end of the 7th century, we have the reference that during childhood the saint went with his father – a dux exercitus Spaniae – to a region bordering the Douro basin, the mountainous territory of Bierzo. At that time, Fructuosus’ father was going to list his flocks and hear from his shepherds, reinforcing the importance of animal husbandry in the region.55 Most likely, this area corresponded to the region where he later founded his first monastery in Compludo, a few kilometers west from Astorga. There are other cases in Fructuosus life that speak of the saint’s relationship with a goat that followed him everywhere after being saved from a hunt and that is later killed by a young man, generating great anger in the saint’s heart.56 These cases highlight the importance of this animal in the territory considered here. In turn, Valerio of Bierzo’s Autobiography talks about the retribution that the religious man receives in the form of a goatskin blanket.57 The woman who sewed this blanket made a pilgrimage to the Saint Felix Church58 and on the way she came across a group of men leading several oxen together. An ox accidentally ended up burying its horn in her without anyone being able to extract it, leaving her almost dead. Finally, a man – called by the title dominus – leaves the opposite side of Saint Felix Church and miraculous- 54 Peña-Chocarro, “La arqueobotánica,” 83-98. 55 Nock, Vita Sancti Fructuosi, 88-9. 56 Nock, 100-5. 57 Aherne, Valerio of Bierzo, 118-26. 58 The exact location of this church is unknown, but it would not be unlikely that it was close to the Compludo monastery – founded by Fructuosus – and therefore just a few kilometers from Astorga. 134 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon ly restores her health. Here we have the reinforcement of the idea of animal husbandry as a central point of peasant activities and the primordial use of cattle as draft animals in this context. Still, in Valerio’s autobiography, we have the report that the religious received two horses from a “most illustrious man” to help in the activities of the religious man.59 It is an animal that also appears sometimes in the fauna record of the settlements with marks of intense work. It was a gift that aroused such envy in the other monks with whom he lived that the prior of the monastery even ordered people to steal them.60 Thieves were unsuccessful and return empty-handed to find divine punishment with their lands destroyed and their oxen stolen.61 Thus, horses seem to have been highly valued animals to the point of arousing such revolt on the part of the other monks.62 Perhaps it is even an animal linked to elite elements since the one who gives the horses to Valerio is a man from the aristocracy. Pigs appear in just two pizarras and their use is not mentioned in any of the other written documents in the Douro basin.63 This reaffirms what is apparent in the material record, which has a minimal swine presence. Thus, the pig was not a central element in the peasant resource management strategies, nonetheless, they were raised in order to diversify production and minimize risks. This animal’s secondary role in peasant production is possibly linked to the fact that only its meat was used, while the others brought other benefits, such as wool, milk or enhanced the capacity for human effort in agricultural and transport work. Regarding the crops, it is difficult to compare the written sources and materials since we are very much in need of studies on the seeds found in the excavated settlements in the North Plateau. But, through the texts of the pizarras we know about cereal crops – such as wheat and barley – as well as specific references to olives and mention of olive oil production and even the cultivation of vineyards.64 Perhaps at least some of these cultivated vineyards supplied the monasteries linked to Saint Fructuosus’ monastic rule.65 Finally, the agricultural production of these villages and farms was supplemented with the consumption of vegetables and, to a lesser extent, chickens, and seafood, which had a minimal bone register in the settlements.66 These peasant villages and farms were far from being autonomous. Considering some elements of material culture as indicators – such as metal ob- 59 Aherne, Valerio of Bierzo, 101-3. 60 Aherne, 103. 61 Aherne, 103. 62 Such appreciation is also suggested by the slate number 42. All references to the pizarras are found in Velázquez Soriano, Pizarras Visigodas. 63 PizVis 54, 92. 64 Wheat (PizVis 34, 54, 93, 95); barley (PizVis 31, 78, 79, 96); olive (PizVis 103); olive oil (Piz- Vis 95); and wine (PizVis 116, 124, 149). 65 Campos Ruiz and Roca Melia, Santos Padres Espanholes, 142-3. 66 Campos Ruiz and Roca Melia, 142-3; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 171. 135 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin jects, ceramics, glass, and toreutics – it is possible to observe the complexity of these settlements in the Douro basin, as they demonstrate various forms of circulation and integration.67 The types of ceramics consumed indicate production and distribution at local and regional scales. On the other hand, we can perceive heterarchical forms between different settlements, with a micro-regional exchange of specialist artisans and, to a certain extent, an inter-village division of tasks. In turn, findings in bronze, glass or more refined metals express the relationship of Douro villages with productive and technological chains through vertical circulation and signal inequalities within the village contexts. In other words, the material record points in the opposite direction to a very traditional view of rural communities basically focused on self-supply. It must therefore be understood that there is a complex network of production and distribution of many objects in the Douro basin, which met the daily needs of peasant life.68 Having established this panorama of villages and farms, it really seems that we have a fractured reading. The spatial location of the villages near to water sources, the construction techniques, the organization of production and the forms of storage are material elements that suggest communities with high degrees of autonomy. On the other hand, in the written sources they register the presence of noblemen – dux, dominus and uir illustrissimus – with the capacity to subject dependents and some level of concentration of wealth. However, I would like to reinforce here that we must be careful about regionalization and chronology of the historical processes. The sources that most clearly establish levels of hierarchy and social domination are late and concentrated in the western portions of the Northern Plateau. In other words, it was precisely those that since the 5th century had preserved an aristocratic class that ended up much more powerful than in the other parts of this zone. So, we need to understand this development process and how the peasantry is related to it. 5. Transformations in villages and farms in the 6th and 7th centuries Due to the limits in the establishment of clear chronological sequences in the villages and farms in the Douro basin, it is often difficult to understand the details of the historical transformations that these spaces went through. However, some clues are noticeable through careful analysis of two elements: silos and cemeteries. 67 Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 159-68; Vigil-Escalera Guirado and Quirós Castillo, “Ensayo de interpretación del registro arqueológico,” 376-81. 68 Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 167-8. 136 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon About silos, these changes can be seen through their dimensions. About 75% of the silos in the North Plateau can be classified as small, that is, with a capacity between 500 and 1,500 liters. Around 20% would be average, with a volume ranging between 1,500 and 3,000 liters. In other words, around 95% of the silos would correspond to small or medium structures linked to the immediate consumption needs of the peasant families who managed the surplus. Only about 5% of the silos could be classified as large, that is, with a capacity greater than 3,000 liters and an insignificant number of these silos would have had a capacity greater than 5,000 liters. It is interesting to note that these higher capacity silos are associated with late settlement phases, dated between the end of the VII and the beginning of the VIII, as in the case of El Ventorro, Ladera de los Prados, Santovenia or Canto Blanco. This allows us to raise the proposition that in these later moments there was an increase in the storage capacity in the silos.69 This could perhaps be read both as a possible concentration of wealth on the part of some domestic units in late periods or the need to produce a larger surplus in order to meet external demands. In turn, changes in burials follow a chronology like that of silos. Let us start with those that are undoubtedly the predominant funerary disposition in the Douro basin: the community necropolises.70 As already mentioned, there is in general a prolonged use of these spaces and the data available to us allows us to perceive that there is a change in the logic of appropriation of space that takes place between the 6th and 7th centuries.71 Thus, it represents a second moment of rupture with the transformation that took place in the 5th century. These burials in necropolises were for a long time seen as products of ethnic, Visigoth or Hispanic-Roman identities depending on the elements found in the graves. An interpretation that, despite not being totally outdated, finds much less support in historiography than a few decades ago.72 One of the most relevant findings in these cemeteries for this “ethnic” attribution by archaeologists were elements of dress, such as brooches. However, these objects had a technological and specialized production chain linked to aristocratic production centers. Therefore, they refer less to an ethnic element and more to elements of social distinction within the com- 69 Quirós Castillo, “Silos y sistemas,” 171-92; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 156; 70 Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 184. 71 Tejerizo García, 186-7. 72 This is a very problematic position since the number of these brooches are found in just a few tombs and even less frequent when considering the total number of burials. Quantification that is nuclear, since the tombs were reused. Furthermore, in addition to burials, the findings linked to specific “ethnicities” are practically null in other spaces – such as the Toledo or Reccopolis region – where we know that the Visigoth aristocracy was concentrated. The ethnic explanation generates more problems than it solves. Thus, it may be more productive to think that through these burials we can find a difference in status due to the presence of this type of object. Diarte Blasco, Late Antique and Early, 131-2; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 184. 137 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin munity. In this way, we could interpret these findings as signs of the different scales of power within the community, as well as their internal tensions. After all, there were concrete characters within rural areas capable of accessing these luxury goods, even when importing medium and long-range goods – such as ceramics or glass – was quite restricted or null.73 Thus, both the changes in personal objects at burials and the appearance of brooches from the 7th century onwards are part of this dispute process in the communities. In turn, the brooches perhaps represented the use of strategies for domination of the individual or articulated aristocracy in the state for peasant domination.74 After all, these objects had production processes that made them very restrictive. They enabled paths of social control carried out through the creation, consolidation or subsumption of local leaders through the granting of gifts.75 We also have the appearance of isolated burials within the villages. In them, we also have objects deposited with the dead (such as knives, sickles, and ceramics), which are often similar and contemporary to those of the community necropolises. This is something that could indicate that this funerary typology was a type of prestige, translating to a greater competitiveness among the various domestic units during the 7th century. Thus, these types of isolated burials could indicate a greater autonomy of the domestic unit in relation to the community when it comes to disposing of the dead. This could indicate an internal dispute for memory and even for property, which would explain the proximity of these burials to housing.76 The combination of information from silos and funerary spaces is a window for us to glimpse the changes that were taking place in the peasant communities of the Douro between 6th and 7th centuries. That is, they indicate new relations and internal tensions in the communities that were absent in previous periods. So, through the archaeological data, there is almost no evidence for asymmetric social relations of any kind among peasants in the villages. Even when we can verify some material differentiation, we cannot speak of inequality in the strict sense. In other words, it is not possible to find any capacity for significant wealth concentration by some village members. However, a careful analysis allows us to glimpse the social “micro-stratification” that is reflected in differences in status and class. However, even though these inequalities exist between social groups in the peasant communities of the Douro, they are 73 Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 190-1. 74 A detailed discussion on the historiography produced regarding the Visigothic state would escape the objectives of this text. For a valuable critical balance see Pachá, “Estado e Relações,” specially the first chapter. Here I understand the state as a social relationship. Some general reflections on this idea can be found in Bastos, “Os ‘Reinos Bárbaros’,” 1-11. I applied this conceptualization on another paper: Daflon, “Tumultos e Clamores,” 132-67. 75 Carvajal Castro and Tejerizo García, “Teorizar el estado”; Godelier, O enigma do dom. 76 Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades 181-4. 138 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon quite opaque. Despite this opacity, we can say that these differences and inequalities become more and more evident as we move through the 7th century. 6. Fronts under aristocratic pressure Having established the villages’ and farms’ social structure in the Douro basin and their historical transformations, we still need to consider the processes that interfered with them and how they affected the class struggle and the condition of peasant existence. As argued in the previous sections, these transformations begin in the region of the Douro basin with the final disarticulation of the Roman Empire, which resulted in an adaptation of the elites. These elites started to occupy different spaces from the old Roman uillae with the construction of fortifications. The cities also showed signs of weakening aristocratic powers in much of the Douro basin. The exception seems to have been the western parts of the Douro, close to cities like León and Astorga where the ceramic distribution and the presence of rural churches dated between the 4th and 5th centuries would indicate a certain continuity of the aristocratic powers. In this item, I want to try to understand how the aristocracy rearticulation process took place in the North Plateau and its consequent greater capacity to exploit the peasantry. Thus, the first important point concerns the broader processes of aristocratic rearticulations in the Iberian Peninsula, which were already happening in some form by the end of the 5th and beginnings of the 6th centuries. As stated before, it is especially true for the regions of the peninsular north. This is something that could be related with the process of consolidating the Suebi state. However, it also showed its first signs in the areas of the Ebro valley, Catalonia, the Tagus valley, and Mérida with the formation of the Visigoth state in Hispania.77 The state formation only gained well-defined contours after the reigns of Leovigild and Reccared.78 Not because these were two “strong” monarchs, but because during the period they occupied the throne they were able to bring the aristocracy together through negotiation and violence. It is with these two kings that a more structured control over the peninsular territory is established, which translates into the materialization of constructive projects. These constructions were expressed on a smaller scale in rural churches and Christianization of the urban environment and within the scope of royal power with the foundation of Reccopolis and the monumentalization of Vega Baja de Toledo between mid-6th and mid-7th centuries. These were projects that 77 Daflon, “Desvelando um Sujeito Oculto,” 293. 78 There is abundant bibliography that points out these reigns as turning points in the process of state formation and consolidation. For an overview, see Castellanos, Los Godos y la Cruz. 139 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin voraciously demanded peasant expropriation on a much larger scale than during the 5th or the first half of the 6th century. Thus, even though there was a shaking in Roman forms of domination, it was relatively brief in several parts of the peninsula and each of them had a particular development. Thus, we must consider the evolution of the aristocratic articulation in the North Plateau with the state powers that began to integrate the entire peninsula during the 6th century. That is essential for us to have a better idea of the degree of peasant autonomy and of the historical transformations underway. It will also help us to have a better understanding of the peasantry’s relative resilience and of the aristocracy’s ability to extract surplus. In order to do so, let us return to the previously mentioned letters of Bishop Montano of Toledo attached to the minutes of the Second Council of Toledo of 531.79 These are references from the end of the first third of the 6th century that can shed light on the configuration of social relations in the North Plateau. The first letter is addressed “to you, dearest brothers and sons of the Palentine territory”. The second is addressed to a figure called Toribio that we should not confuse with the one that corresponded with Bishop Leo of Rome in the 5th century.80 The center of the dispute recorded in these texts is the fact that there was a disregard for the authority of Toledo’s metropolitan bishop. That is because the clergy of Palencia called a bishop from another region to consecrate churches in the city. The other region to which they refer probably corresponded to the Suebi Kingdom because Montano said that this action was against the interests of the Visigoth monarch.81 After admonishing the Palentine clergy for their attitudes, we have the text addressed to Toribio. It is not clear who this individual would be, this being a heated debate that goes back decades in the past.82 A first possibility that we can quickly exclude is that he was the bishop of Palencia since this was a vacant seat for a long time at the time of writing these correspondences. Much of the difficulty we face concerns the terms that Montano uses to refer to Toribio, calling him “domino et filio” first and then “sacerdotis”.83 The term “son” is generally used to refer to a layperson or member of the lowest rank in the clergy. As we know from the letter that Toribio is no longer in secular life, we could assume that he was someone of relevance as an abbot. However, the complicating element comes next when Montano calls him “co-bish- op”.84 Thus, there is a direct mention of an episcopal dignity related to the 79 Isla Frez, “Desde el Reino,” 41-52; Martin, “Las cartas de Montano,” 403-426; Martin, “Montanus et les schismatiques,” 9-20. 80 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 46. 81 Vives et al., 49. 82 Thompson, Los Godos en España, 406; Castellanos, and Martín Viso, “Local articulation,” 12-3. 83 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 50-1. 84 Vives et al., 51. 140 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon figure of Toribio, reinforced by some other terms such as celsituto uestra and caritas uestra, which in the period could also be used to refer to bishops.85 In this sense, an interesting hypothesis is that Toribio could have been a bishop who served in the Suebi Kingdom, perhaps even in Astorga. In fact, it is possible that his name would indicate a potential kinship or the desire to claim the memory of the former bishop of the same name from the 5th century famous for having fought priscilianism. This kinship would not be impossible given the history of episcopal families in the Iberian Early Middle Ages.86 Thus, these letters were meant to warn (threaten?) the alleged bishop of Astorga that the solution of the crisis in Palencia was in his interest. After all, it would avoid a Visigoth-Suebi conflict that had its main stage in the dispute for the North Plateau. This interpretation seems adequate and in accordance with the picture offered by the dispersion of ceramics from Astorga. In other words, the western region of the Douro basin was linked to aristocratic dynamics, perhaps linked to the Suebi state, and it was making efforts to project its influence and capacity for domination towards the North Plateau. It was in a western portion in which the maintenance of aristocratic powers was much more vigorous than in other parts of the area considered here. When Toledo began to assert itself as a central articulation pole for the Visigoth state from the Southern Meseta, in the beginning of the 6th century, the dispute grew between the Suebic and Visigothic aristocratic factions for the central zones of the Douro Basin. If we accept that Toribio was bishop of Astorga, it makes more sense to mention a certain privilege mentioned by the co-bishop of Astorga and agreed with Montano’s predecessor at the Toledo see. According to the letters, the territories of Segovia, Buitrago and Coca were granted, this being done not by right, but in view of the dignity of the episcopal office and to curb “vile” interests. And, adds Montano, “(...) bear in mind it was granted to him only as long as it could help him. We wanted to take these measures so that in no way you omit the old customs[.]”87 Within this line of interpretation, the reference to an agreement between the potential co-bishop of the Astroga See and the former Toledan prelate would expose distinct phases of the tensions between the Visigoth and Suebi powers throughout the North Plateau. The idea is that these letters reveal intense disputes to the point that there is the cession of the ecclesiastical territory of three municipalities to break and stabilize tension. The relations became unbalanced again when the representatives from the bishopric of Astorga went to consecrate basilicas in Palencia, a city that would be officially outside the established pact and, therefore, under the authority of Toledo. 85 Isla Frez, “Desde el Reino,” 46. 86 Orlandis, Historia del Reino Visigodo, 31-2. 87 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 51. 141 Unveiling a hidden subject: peasant agency in the Douro river basin These letters allow us to talk about the beginnings of Christianization in the Douro basin region since the first half of the 6th century, with the construction of basilicas in Palentine territory. The churches appear in the archaeological record of rural areas just in more advanced periods. This is what makes us think that these documents signal the construction of churches within cities and their suburbs. However, this is something that the archaeological reality at the moment still eludes us. Anyway, we can read these church buildings – the consecration of which generated so much tension – within a process of rearticulation of the aristocracy that is now able to build places of worship where there were none before. Thus, the written sources testify to a process of revitalization of the old urban environments. Somewhat like what archaeology informs us from the middle of the 6th century and that is consistent with the peninsular process of resuming the development of cities in the period between the years 550 and 650.88 This period was marked by an aristocratic articulation through of the Visigoth state and potentially by expanding the peasantry’s submission capacity.89 However, despite this urban renewal, the absence of Mediterranean ceramics in the Douro basin from the 5th century onwards demonstrates its isolation from long-distance circuits.90 Thus, the autonomy achieved by the North Plateau peasantry with the end of the Roman Empire started to change in the beginning of the 6th century. On the one hand, we have the rearticulation of the local aristocracy and the incorporation of this region within the broader logic that began to be formed from two nodal points, the Suebi and Visigoth states. Evidently, after the conquest of the Suebi Kingdom in 585, the fundamental link was Toledo, but without discarding the importance of local aristocracies and Gallaecia. Perhaps it is even possible to map the progressive advances being made by the aristocracy through the creation of the few bishoprics in the Douro basin region. For example, we know that there was an episcopal see active in Palencia when the signature of Murila, prelate of that city, was registered at the Council of Toledo III in 589.91 He is one of the bishops who abhors Arianism during the conversion of King Reccared to Nicene Christianity.92 It is a significant fact that the person responsible for the Palentine see had until then been an Arian, given the closer ties that would link him to the Visigothic monarchy. This reinforces the thesis that control over a disputed region must have been the keynote throughout the middle of the 6th century. It is known that the tradition of the order of signature of the conciliar minutes is based on 88 Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades, 233. 89 Martínez Jiménez, Sastre De Diego and Tejerizo García, Iberian Peninsula, 154-78; Martínez Jiménez, “Crisis or Crises?,” 81-5. 90 Diarte Blasco, Late Antique and Early, 76, 79. 91 Here we have a transmission error in the documents, Murila having been registered for the city of Valencia. Certainly, Murila is from the Palencia see, being mentioned in other documents linked to that city, see García Moreno, Prosopografia del Reino Visigodo, 139-40. 92 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 122. 142 Eduardo Cardoso Daflon the antiquity of cathedra. So, we can safely assume that Murila was already the bishop of Palencia around 579. By this same logic, Proculos of Segovia must have started his episcopate around 580.93 With regard to the Salamanca bishopric, we could establish its ordination between 585 and 586 due to its position in relation to the signatures of other bishops whose dates are clearer in the minutes of the Third Council of Toledo.94 Another bishopric that points us towards the consolidation of aristocratic powers is Osma. This last one must have been founded in the last years of the 6th century.95 The see of Ávila is mentioned for the first time in 610, with Bishop Justinian signing the decree of King Gundemaro and, finally, we have the diocese of Caliabria that was probably consecrated around 625.96 Thus, we see that the oldest bishopric in the Douro basin after Astorga is the Palencia. It may have emerged precisely from this dispute previously narrated as a kind of projection of the Toledan aristocracy. Then we would have a movement of aristocratic inflection starting from the southeastern sectors of the Douro basin with the creation of the bishoprics of Segovia and Osma. This was perhaps related to an expansion of episcopal powers in the western zone of the high Ebro valley, with the development of see-like places as Auca within a similar chronology.97 Only at the beginning of the 7th century did we have any inflection of the aristocratic powers through the bishoprics in the southwest area of North Plateau, through the creation of the dioceses of Ávila and Caliabria. A notable sign of the consolidation of these episcopal powers that form in the Douro can be seen through a reference registered in the eighth canon of the Council of Mérida celebrated in 666. In it, we see that Bishop Sclua from Idanha complains before the episcopal assembly against Justo who was the prelate of Salamanca. The reason for this action was because the Salmantine bishopric had come to exercise control over a territory that would belong to the see of Idanha.98 Even though the conciliar assembly fulfilled the function of exercising collective control over the individual voracity of the Salmantine bishop, this does not change the fact of the tension that existed. So, the fundamental thing I wanted to highlight is that throughout the 7th century the North Plateau ecclesiastical powers were no longer timid. On the contrary, they were able to 93 Vives et al., 137. 94 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 137; García Moreno, “Campesino hispanovisigodo entre bajos,” 185. 95 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 157. 96 Vives et al., 137. Its exact location is uncertain, but apparently it was close to Ciudad Rodrigo as proposed by García Moreno, Prosopografia del Reino Visigodo, 174. 97 Castellanos and Martín Viso, “Local articulation,” 12-4. 98 Vives et al., Concílios Visigóticos, 330-2. These conflicts possibly date back to the end of the 6th century with the redrawing of ecclesiastical borders after the conquest of the Suebi Kingdom in 585. 245 Peasant agency and peopling processes in Early Medieval Catalonia of a villa were still in use in the 6th century AD, and suffered an increase in production during this period. In addition, the structures and internal distribution of the abovementioned Vilauba were entirely transformed between the 6th and 7th centuries AD.42 This phenomenon of reoccupation and increase in production in those sites with precedents in the Roman villae was related to the consolidation of a social structure based on peasantry. Organized and more mature peasant communities were now living in villages or farms, together with other settlements located next to a Roman site but built in a nearby area, without occupying or modifying the precedent Roman buildings. The concomitance of these two phenomena –the increase in production in ancient villae and the appearance of new peasant settlements– was probably a result of the very same dynamic of landscape occupation and social organization, in a new context where the Roman political structures were almost extinct, and the new early medieval peasantry was a fact. 4.1. The increase in production: evidence and examples One of the most evident facts to prove the break between the classic Roman villa model and the new forms of peasant settlement in the Early Middle Age is the reuse of structures for productive and funerary purposes at some sites, usually after a shorter or longer period of abandonment. This process affects a significant number of rural establishments –particularly medium and small in size– that were restructured with the aim of expanding the production areas rather than the habitat structures, which usually disappeared.43 A considerable number of rural settlements with small habitat areas intensely developed productive activities from this period onwards. The villae of Vilauba (Camòs), Els Ametllers (Tossa de Mar), Can Sans (Sant Andreu de Llavaneres), Pacs (Pacs del Penedés), Vinya del Crispí (Guissona), Sant Amanç (Rajadell), L’Espelt (Òdena), Can Terrés (La Garriga), L’Aiguacuit (Terrassa), Torre Llauder (Mataró), among others, are good examples of this transformation (Fig. 10.3). A new layout was identified at these sites, where sunken featured buildings had to be interpreted in the archaeological record from a series of postholes and carvings designing a new distribution of structures, only visible and properly identifiable by means of an extensive excavation. The remains of ancient buildings inherited from the Roman period, with lime mortar partially reused in the earliest transformation of these sites, were finally substituted by simpler structures with an optional stone-made underpinning structure and wooden walls and covers. The presence of productive facilities among these structures changed the physiognomy of the sites. Settlements from this 42 Gurt and Navarro, “Les transformacions en els assentaments,” 88. 43 Chavarría, “Reflexiones sobre el final de las villas,” 27. 246 Karen Álvaro Rueda, Esther Travé Allepuz Figure 3. Settlement pattern during the 6th and 7th centuries AD, when some abandoned villae were reoccupied. The presence of Early Christian churches scattered throughout the landscape proved the increasing role of the Church. period might recall those of the Pre-roman landscape; and the archaeological approach requires similar methods. Some sites developed an increasing activity. The production of wine became an intensive and specialized industry at the sites of La Font del Vilar (Avinyonet de Puigventós), Can Sans (Sant Andreu de Llevaneres), Can Sent- Romà (Tiana), Santa Maria de Sales (Viladecans), La Salut (Sabadell), Mas del Catxorro (Benifallet), among others. The site of Vilauba (Camós, Girona) is, again, an example of endurance and transformation of the earlier structures to intensify the production of wine and oil. Two ovens were built in the village of Puig Rodon (Corçà, Girona) in the same period; and some deposits were installed in Torre Llauder (Mataró, Barcelona), together with a cellar with dolia for wine storage. 247 Peasant agency and peopling processes in Early Medieval Catalonia 4.2. Necropolises and new settlements: towards new ways of life and death The funerary evidence is another element to consider in the analysis of rural settlement, and it is not exempt of knowledge gaps and methodological limits. The references to necropolises associated to early medieval villages are not very precise, and considerations regarding their connection with habitat structures are poor. Funerary elements have rarely been the object of an extensive excavation, and archaeological works have traditionally addressed typological aspects in search of a precise chronology, rather than the general layout of cemeteries and their role within the village. There are some examples of villae with an associated necropolis such as Pla de l’Horta (Sarrià de Ter, Girona), Torre Llauder (Mataró, Barcelona) or Els Munts (Altafulla, Tarragona). Pla de l’Horta had several burial phases, one of them attributed to the Visigoths according to the burial goods found in some of the tombs. In this phase, burials combined different typologies (single pits or pits with stone slabs, among others) but they were not related to any particular inhabited area.44 Funerary complexes in Torre Llauder (Mataró, Barcelona) and Els Munts (Altafulla, Tarragona) were placed 400 metres and 100 metres away from the habitat buildings respectively. The necropolis of Els Munts occupied an area that had previously been a storage space with silos that were abandoned in the second half of the 3rd century AD. This necropolis included 170 graves cut into the rock or soil and covered with slabs, all of them arranged in a radial distribution. At this site, children were usually buried inside tegulae and amphorae. Different types of burial coexisted in the period between the 5th and 8th centuries, which makes the chronological attribution of types to specific phases very adventurous. Certainly, the presence of one type of burial or another might have been the result of socio-economic criteria rather than the chronological evolution of burial structures. Cemeteries are present in those settlements without Roman precedents. The new settlements born in this period are frequently located next to Roman areas which had been abandoned. New settlers did not reoccupy any Roman structure, but they could occasionally preserve and adapt some of the production areas. The plunder of Roman building materials from abandoned sites –when available– and its use for building these new settlements was a frequent practice. The best-known example of this phenomenon in Catalonia is the site of Plaça Major de Castellar del Vallès (Castellar del Vallès, Barcelona) (Fig. 10.4a). The site excavated in this town is dated between the 6th and the 8th centuries. There were remains of a small village built ex novo with sunken featured domestic structures once there was no further activity in the Roman villa close to the site. The main elements at this site were a wine production area with presses, an annexe with bread-baking ovens, a wide storage 44 Llinàs, et al., “Pla de l’Horta.” 248 Karen Álvaro Rueda, Esther Travé Allepuz Figure 4. Examples of reoccupied villae in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Layouts of the site in Plaça Major de Castellar del Vallès after Roig, “Vilatges i assentaments pagesos,” 231 (a); and L’Aiguacuit in Roig and Coll, “Los palatia altomedievales del Vallès,” 241 (b). area with plenty of silos corresponding to different phases, and a funerary area with twenty graves, arranged in a well-delimited space.45 A similar case was found in L’Aiguacuit (Terrassa, Barcelona) (Fig. 10.4b), where the site was reoccupied in the 6th and the 7th centuries AD and the materials from the Visigoth phase resemble those from Merovingian and Germanic necropolises.46 A particular topic to be explored with regard to funerary practices is the presence of deviant burials of people and animals thrown in silos, which are not an isolated phenomenon. They usually are interpreted as anomalous practices related to excluded or marginalised groups.47 These practices in early medieval Catalonia might point towards the endurance of slavery, according to some interpretations.48 In this section we discussed the elements of permanence and change visible in this period. Enduring villae from the Roman period were transformed into production complexes, those which were abandoned were occasionally reoccupied with the same purpose, and other villages without earlier precedents appear at this moment. The fact is that the settlement forms inherited 45 Roig, “Asentamientos rurales.” 46 Roig, “Formas de poblamiento rural,” 128. 47 Holloway, “Charcoal Burial: A Minority Burial Rite in Early Medieval Europe,” 131. 48 Ripoll and Molist, “Cura mortuorum,” 25. 249 Peasant agency and peopling processes in Early Medieval Catalonia from the Roman Empire seemed to disappear completely in the 8th century when new forms of peasantry existed in most parts of the Western Mediterranean.49 Consequently, the progressive abandonment and disarticulation of rural settlements after the end of the Roman Empire, and the beginning of new forms of peasant agency and people-landscape entanglement, arising from new social organization and needs, should be understood as coexisting processes without a clear rupture between them. 4.3. The transformation of the ceramic record: early medieval greyware production The change in ceramic artefacts in these later contexts is also remarkable. The latest remains of Roman pottery had almost disappeared, and a lack of materials is clearly ascribed to a well-determined timespan. The material record at these sites no longer corresponds to the well-known imported pottery from the previous period, which was mostly substituted by common and cooking coarse wares usually fired under reducing atmosphere. Their morphology adopted simpler and more functional shapes which remained unchanged for long periods. This new ceramic panorama demands new methodological approaches in order to develop systematic programs of archaeometric characterization, particularly for pottery from those sites with better stratigraphic records and contextual ascription. The increasing absence of amphorae and other standardized containers for food transport across the Western Mediterranean led to the spread of more local and regional productions. The earliest excavation of some of these sites, during the early 1980s and before, evidenced the unspecified character of early medieval greywares at that time within a scientific context in which the consolidation of medieval archaeology as a discipline was still under way. The ceramic material recovered from excavations by P. de Palol at the site of El Bovalar (Serós, Lleida) was a well-studied dataset that, unfortunately, was never published. However, the study of the ceramic series dating from the Late Roman period to the Middle Age were very complex. More recent excavation on these sites has provided new information about this pottery, updating previous studies. The analytical characterization of pottery from La Bastida site (Rubí, Barcelona) revealed the existence of eighteen different fabrics of local or regional origin.50 The abovementioned case of L’Aiguacuit (Terrassa, Barcelona) revealed the existence of common wares and cooking greyware coexisting with some imported fabrics and oxidizing pottery from the Visigoth period.51 49 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 383-8. 50 Gurt and Navarro, “Les transformacions en els assentaments,” 89. 51 Roig, “Formas de poblamiento rural.” 250 Karen Álvaro Rueda, Esther Travé Allepuz 5. New forms of peasant agency: Hillforts and sites on the plains During the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 8th century AD, an important development of villages and fortified settlements in medium-high places took place. These new 8th-century sites were devoted to farming and herding activities in some areas that had been considered barren or peripheral in earlier periods (fig. 10.5). New habitat structures, usually with a sunken featured base and delimited with stone plinths or short walls supporting adobe or wooden walls and perishable covers, occupied a heterogeneous assemblage of natural environments and started a long-lasting occupation that will be at the basis of landscape articulation from the 9th century onwards. Simultaneously, other settlements appeared ex novo on the plains. Figure 5. Catalonia in the 8th and 9th Centuries AD, with hillforts and settlements created ex novo within the increasing influence of Frankish domain. Pre-romanesque temples in this period are indicated after Roig Buxó, “Asientamentos rurales,” 240. 251 Peasant agency and peopling processes in Early Medieval Catalonia These sites prove the existence of an economic change and a new phase in peasant agency, when new farming strategies defined agrarian exploitations with clearly planned inner structures and layout. In this section we will discuss some examples of both type of settlements consolidated during the 8th century AD. Recent work in the regions of Bages, Solsonès, Berguedà and Andorra have provided information about an assemblage of ex novo sites located between 400 and 800 metres of altitude. These sites occupied some extensions of irregular terrain in rocky or mountain environments which were not suitable for cereal growth and, consequently, had not been exploited in the Roman period. This new research outcome offers a good and contrasted reference for comparison in some other sites excavated in the earliest years of medieval archaeology that should be reviewed now, in a renewed epistemological context. These sites are formed by different units of disperse settlement, assembling a few small family households depending on the area. Domestic structures were made with dry stone walls, occasionally covered with mud at the joints, and wooden roofs. Storage structures at these sites were very rare, which reinforces the interpretation of the secondary role played by agricultural practices in high places. The economic activity widely documented at these sites is a subsistence wine-making industry, attested by the presence of presses and cellars, probably for communitarian use. Combined with herding activities, the exploitation of vineyards was a common practice in the Catalan Pyrenees. Written vestiges provide valuable information about the existence of vineyards for self-consumption in rough and hard-to-reach areas in the County of Pallars. Some examples of these high or medium-high places were found in the northern part of the province of Barcelona, dating from the 6th to the 8th centuries AD, usually devoted to wine production as their main activity. Ten silos were found at the site of Vilaclara (Castellfollit del Boix, Barcelona). This area presented some structures and deposits of dry stone and perishable building material. An oven and a winemaking press were found at this site,52 in which farming seems to have been a secondary activity. The hillfort of Serrat dels Tres Hereus (Casserres, Barcelona), was located on a hill previously occupied by an ancient Iberian town and abandoned during the Roman and post-Ro- man periods.53 Amongst the various structures identified in this site, no storage elements were recorded, although a complete study of the settlement has not been published yet. A similar case was found in the small village of Collet dels Clapers de Seguers (Pinós, Lleida), with a similar chronology to that of the sites in Barcelona. A small building consisting of four different spaces included a press and did not have any silo.54 52 Enrich, Enrich and Pedraza, Vilaclara. 53 Folch, et al., “L’ocupació de l’alta Edat Mitjana.” 54 Guàrdia, “El Collet dels Clapers del Segués.” 252 Karen Álvaro Rueda, Esther Travé Allepuz Archaeological remains of settlements on the plain for this period are unevenly scattered throughout the Catalan territory, and they are mostly concentrated in the Barcelonese metropolitan area, with some areas being more densely populated than others are. Probably this distribution is the result of the current state-of-the-art, which is partial and will be modified as soon as more sites are extensively excavated and published. The sites we already know, usually without defensive walls or protective structures, were dedicated almost exclusively to intensive agricultural tasks. Together with the circular or elliptical sunken featured buildings, present in rural settlements since the 6th century AD, buildings with a rectangular or square base were found at these sites in a more recent period. The largest buildings were frequently divided into several rooms with underpinning stone structures and clay walls. These seemed to be storage buildings including granaries, ovens or silos. The presence of manual rotation mills in some sites proved the processing of wheat for obtaining flour to be one of the usual domestic activities. These sorts of production and storage areas were found in the nearby areas attached to the main buildings as well. Small necropolises, not usually related to a church, were also part of these sites.55 The amount and features of storage systems in these settlements on the plain are significant enough to stand for a clear and deliberate agricultural purpose. The storage capacity exceeds the need for self-consumption and points towards the production of surpluses for regional trade, which is attested in the territory of Barcino and the former bishopric of Egara, where a high concentration of settlements was documented.56 The specific territory of Vallès forms a corridor between the Coastal and Pre-coastal mountain ranges, where several sites illustrate this specific form of peasant agency. Analytical studies carried out in some of these deposits are still scarce, but the existing analyses reveal the growth of cereals –mainly wheat and barley– and the exploitation of vineyards and olive trees.57 The intensification of agriculture and the diversity of products and supplies are also documented in other settlements with similar features found in other areas at the north and centre of the Iberian Peninsula.58 Can Gambús-1 (Sabadell, Barcelona) and Els Mallols (Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona), with 232 and 139 silos respectively, are eloquent examples of these kinds of sites (fig. 10.6a). The extension of Can Gambús-1 has been completely excavated. The total area occupied by this site is estimated in 2 hectares. The stratigraphic sequence of silos, production structures, a wine-pressing area, and several ovens determines the existence of three different phases of settlement.59 A little beyond the village, there was a small 55 Roig, “Asentamientos rurales” and Folch, et al., “L’ocupació de l’alta Edat Mitjana.” 56 Roig, “Formas de poblamiento rural,” 128. 57 Fortó et al., “Los yacimientos del Pla del Serrador,” 267-8. 58 Quirós Castillo, “La arquitectura doméstica.” 59 Roig, “Asentamientos rurales,” 225-6. 253 Peasant agency and peopling processes in Early Medieval Catalonia Figure 6. Examples of early medieval settlements with silo fields. Layouts of Can Gambús-1 in Roig, “Vilatges i assentaments pagesos,” 233 (a) and the sacraria phase of Santa Margarida, in Travé et al. “De l’església paleocristiana a la sagrera medieval,” 185 (b).. 254 Karen Álvaro Rueda, Esther Travé Allepuz necropolis of 35 graves. The anomalous burial of 15 people without any ritual of funerary tribute and several animals thrown inside silos were found. The abandonment of silos by filling them with pottery, bone remains or garbage in general was a common practice documented in many other contemporary sites with similar features. Also in the territory of Barcino, Els Mallols60 was a similar but smaller settlement. It occupied a bit more than one hectare on the plain as well. The general layout of the site when compared to Can Gambús-1 shows a similar arrangement of sunken featured structures and production or storage areas. A small necropolis is located near the village and anomalous human burials were found inside some silos. The very same pattern is also found in other sites such as La Solana or La Bastida, both in Barcino, until the 8th century AD. 6. Reinterpreting peasant agency at reference sites Among the gaps and uncertainties of the archaeological record at the moment, there are two emblematic settlements which represent the transformation of peasant agency along the early medieval period. The sites of El Bovalar61 and Puig Rom62 have been known for a very long time and have been considered as reference examples in archaeological literature. Ongoing research in both sites might still provide updated information as part of current research projects. Despite of the fact that the information available is partial, both of them have some particularities deserving special attention. The archaeological complex of El Bovalar (Serós, Lleida) was discovered in the first half of the past century, when a basilica and a small part of the surrounding habitat structures were excavated; it was not until later when archaeological excavation focused on the necropolis and the village. The site, located at the right shore of river Segre, is an interesting example of the period between the 5th and the 8th centuries AD. The church, dating from the 5th century, contains a tripartite apse, and was in use until the abandonment of the settlement. A baptistery and a necropolis were associated to the main building. According to the relation existing between the religious complex and the habitat buildings, the monastic function has been suggested at least in some phases of the site.63 The settlement was inhabited until an unknown moment between 711 and 723 AD, when it was destroyed by a fire as a result of the Muslim invasion. A coin from Visigoth king Achila II determines the chronology for the abandonment of the site. 60 Francès, Els Mallols. 61 Palol, El Bovalar. 62 Palol, El castrum del Puig; Subias, et al., “Nuevos datos.” 63 Gurt, “Complejos eclesiásticos.” 261 Peasant agency and peopling processes in Early Medieval Catalonia Gardiner, Mark. “An Early Medieval tradition of building in Britain.” Arqueología de la Arquitectura 9 (2012): 231-46. Guàrdia i Felip, Jordi. “El Collet dels Clapers del Segués: un habitat alt-medieval al Solsonès.” In Actes del I Congrés d’Arqueologia Medieval i Moderna a Catalunya. 13-15 de novembre de 1998, 234-41. Igualada: ACRAM, 2000. Gurt Esparraguera, Josep Maria. “Complejos eclesiásticos no episcopales. Función y gestión.” In Monasteria et Territoria. Elites, edilicia y territorio en el Mediterráneo medieval (siglos V-XI)”, Actas del III Encuentro Internacional e Interdisciplinar sobre la Alta Edad Media en la Península Ibérica, ed. por Jorge López Quiroga, Artemio M. 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Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2016. Wickham, Chris. “Sobre la mutación socioeconómica de larga duración en occidente durante los siglos V-VIII.” Studia Historica, Historia Medieval 22 (2004): 17-32. Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages, Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Wickham, Chris. El legado de Roma: una historia de Europa de 400 a 1000. Barcelona: Pasado y Presente, 2013. Karen Álvaro Rueda Universitat de Barcelona (Spain) kalva[email protected] orcid: 0000-0003-1321-7260 Esther Travé Allepuz Universitat de Barcelona (Spain) esther.t[email protected] orcid: 0000-0002-6769-4487 265 The reoccupation of the late Roman villae of the Iberian Peninsula and the record of the subaltern debris. The case of Fuente Álamo (Puente Genil, Córdoba) by Jesús Bermejo Tirado Recent studies on the peasantry in the ancient world and early Middle Ages on the Iberian Peninsula have experienced a revitalization due to new archaeological records and the application of landscape archaeology. Alternative historiographical perspectives that focus on concepts such as collective action, peasant agency, and small politics have led to a rethinking of peasant communities in rural areas. However, the historiography of the ancient peasantry on the Iberian Peninsula still struggles with historical explanations for the transition between antiquity and the Middle Ages. This paper proposes an alternative historiographic perspective that analyses the archaeological record of the final phases of occupation in Roman villae using concepts from peasant and subaltern studies. The focus of our approach is on understanding the everyday practices and agency of subaltern rural communities during Late Antiquity, rather than viewing the archaeological record solely from an architectural perspective. We illustrate our proposal using a case study: the late antique reoccupation of the Roman villae of Fuente Álamo (Puente Genil, Córdoba). Late Antiquity, Iberian Peninsula, Roman villae, Peasantry, Subaltern agency, Everyday practices. 1. Introduction In recent years we have witnessed a revitalisation in studies of the peasantry in the ancient world and during the early Middle Ages on the Iberian Jesús Bermejo Tirado, University of Madrid Carlos III, Spain, [email protected], 0000-0002-1797-8545 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Jesús Bermejo Tirado, The reoccupation of the late Roman villae of the Iberian Peninsula and the record of the subaltern debris. The case of Fuente Álamo (Puente Genil, Córdoba), © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7.11, in Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (edited by), Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia, pp. 265-289, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215- 0562-7, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7 266 Jesús Bermejo Tirado Peninsula.1 To a large extent, this revival has been based on the evaluation of new archaeological records resulting from preventive archaeology and the generalisation of spatial studies that we can group under the denomination of landscape archaeology.2 The development of these new methodological perspectives has led to an exponential increase in the volume of empirical evidence available for the analysis of these peasant communities. In parallel to this increase in evidence, the introduction of alternative historiographical perspectives based on the application of concepts such as collective action,3 peasant agency4 or small politics,5 has led us to rethink the making of peasant communities in various rural areas. Despite all these undeniable advances, the archaeology of the peasantry on the Iberian Peninsula is still marked by the search for historical explanations regarding the transition between antiquity and the Middle Ages.6 In other words, the study of late antique peasant communities is still conceived mainly as a transition between the slave7 and peasant modes of production.8 Perhaps one of the best examples of the application of this historiographical framework is the question of the purported “end” of the Roman villae.9 This historiographical trope is repeatedly cited as a precedent in the first chapters of the most recent syntheses on the late antique and early medieval 1 Vigil-Escalera, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas; Bermejo Tirado, “Roman peasant habitats;” Quirós Castillo, Archaeology and History of Peasantries 1, Archaeology and History of Peasantries 2; Quirós Castillo e Tejerizo García, “Filling the gap;” Bermejo Tirado, and Grau Mira, The Archaeology of Peasantry; Kirchner, “La arqueología del campesinado en época alto-medieval;” Nesbitt, “New Book Chronicle.” 2 Mayoral, Grau and Bellón, Arqueología y sociedad de los espacios agrarios; Fernández Mier et al. “La formación de los paisajes;” Kirchner, “Arqueología del paisaje y arqueología de los espacios de cultivo;” Ballesteros Arias, et al. “Por una arqueología agraria.” 3 Carballo, Roscoe and Feinman, “Cooperation and Collective Action;” Feinman, “Multiple pathways to large-scale;” Carballo, “Cultural and evolutionary dynamics;” DeMarrais and Earle, “Collective Action Theory;” Blanton, “Collective Action and Adaptative;” Blanton and Fargher, Collective Action in the Formation. For the Iberian case, Carvajal Castro, “Collective Action and Local Leaderships.” 4 Bouchard, Negotiation and Resistance, 128-53. 5 Davies, Small Worlds: The Village Community; Grey, Constructing Communities in the Late Roman, 91-121. For the Iberian case Martín Viso, “Unequal Small Worlds.” 6 Francovich and Hodges, Villa to Village. For a nuanced review of these historiographic approaches, Quirós Castillo, “From Villa to Village?.” 7 Carandini, Settefinestre. Una villa schiavistica; Leveau, ““villa, romanisation, développement économique.” 8 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages; Tejerizo García, “The Archaeology of the Peasant Mode of Production.” 9 To frame this general discussion Brogiolo, La fine delle ville romane; Francovich and Hodges, Villa to Village; Metráux, “Late Antique Villas;” Castrorao Barba, La fine delle ville romane in Italia; Munro, “Recycling, demand for materials;” Brogiolo, Chavarría and Valenti, Dopo la fine delle ville; Cavaleri and Sacchi, La villa dopo la villa; Cavaleri and Sfameni, La villa dopo la villa 2. For the Iberian case, Chavarría Arnau, “Considerazioni sulla fine delle ville;” Chavarrìa Arnau, El final de las ‘villae’ en ‘Hispania’; Ripoll and Arce, “The Transformation and End of Roman;” Chavarría Arnau and Brogiolo, “El final de las villas y las transformaciones.” [Document text truncated for crawler view.]