4
Thirteenth century: response.
§
Feudal obligations
transformed into money
rents in many places by 11
th
century.
§
Money rents seen as fixed:
origin of the word “farm.”
§
A farmer (
fermier
) held a right
to rents that were fixed or
firm (
ferme
).
§
Why
return to feudal
obligations?
Refeudalization: return to direct cultivation of the demesne.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder,
The Harvesters
(1565 )
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
