Peasants Making History: Living in an English Region 1200-1540 is a social history of medieval English peasantry written by Christopher Dyer, an emeritus professor of local history from the University of Leicester. The book stands out because of the breadth of topics it covers and the depth with which it explores them. Dyer focuses on a specific region in England, the West Midlands, and looks at it holistically using sources such as tax records, maps, and ridge and furrow analysis. From these sources, Dyer seeks no only to reveal the realities that peasants faced, but also the choices they made and the reasons why they may have made them. In the process, Dyer hopes to reveal the variety of ways in which peasants shaped the society they lived in, and to do so from their own perspective. (1)
The first chapter after the introduction (chapter two) deals with the relationship between peasants and the landscape they inhabited and is a good example of the approach of the book. In it, Dyer highlights the various ways in which the landscape affected peasant lives. For instance, the fertility of the soil affected the degree to which peasants farmed rather than engage in industry or animal husbandry. But Dyer emphasizes that peasants were not passively affected by the land — they actively shaped it. For example, in areas subject to sea flooding, Dyer describes the complex systems of seawalls and ditches that peasants built to allow access to fertile meadows and arable land. (19)
Dyer acknowledges, however, that peasants were not the only ones shaping the land. Lords frequently controlled the changing landscapes as they encouraged the clearing of forests to make fields and enclosed fields to pasture sheep. But peasants also made changes to the land of their own initiative and Dyer argues that lords often only recognized them after the fact. (24) Sometimes peasants even opposed the lords directly in order to preserve their preferred landscapes as when Dyer gives an example of peasants tearing down newly built fences and filling newly dug ditches. (22) Dyer is nuanced in his description of the actions of peasants and lords and emphasizes peasant agency without minimizing lordly power.
While Dyer gives frequent examples, one strength of his work is the degree to which he looks at patterns and specific details. In this chapter, some of the details he examines include cottage locations, numbers of households, land allocation, and number of assarts (land clearances). These details help to paint a picture not just of what was happening (e.g. expanding settlements into the forest) but also who specifically was involved, what they gained and risked, and how their actions related to their circumstances.
Dyer’s theme of peasant agency and his detailed approach continue in the subsequent chapters throughout this work. In chapter three he covers peasant landholding including leasing and subleasing approaches. He emphasizes the control that peasants had over who received their properties(both by official and unofficial channels). In chapter four, Dyer covers the agency of peasants to move, both geographically and socially as they migrated and advanced their social class. Chapter five covers the various ways that peasants organized their households. Chapter six emphasizes the agency of peasants in planning their crops and adopting or rejecting agricultural innovations. Chapter seven goes into detail about how peasants used each of the animals they kept. Here Dyer emphasizes the synergistic nature of animal husbandry and agriculture and shows how peasants, through raising animals, raised their standards of living. In Chapter eight, Dyer pushes back at the view that towns were the result of central planning by elites, and argues that they often organically grew from communities built by peasants. In chapter nine, Dyer complicates the distinction between preindustrial and industrial. He argues that peasants spent a great deal of time doing activities that could be described as industry. Finally chapter ten examines the peasant worldview and compares it to the idealistic vision expressed in Piers Plowman of a society in which each class plays their role harmoniously. Dyer pushes back at this vision, but does so with nuance, emphasizing the ways in which peasants supported their secular and religious authorities, but also took initiative at the local level and were willing to stand up for their rights.
Dyer’s book is occasionally dry. This is a weakness that might have been improved at times by changes to the prose, although he generally does an excellent job. It is, at times, a difficult read because of the time he spends on details such as the percentages of peasants who owned halfyardlands and the measurements of farm animals. However, these details are also what makes the book so fascinating. Dyers goes beyond describing the generalities of peasant existence and instead describes a working model of their lives. Through the details he includes, the reader is able to visualize peasant society and to begin to understand it. One might question some of his conclusions about the peasant worldview. For example, I felt he overstated his point in his description of peasant families as cold units of order and discipline. (144) Nevertheless, even if one disagrees with aspects of Dyer’s analysis, the details he provides make an excellent base for alternative interpretation.
Dyer argues at the beginning of his book that he didn’t set out to write a book about peasants because they have been neglected by historians; he acknowledges that they haven’t.(1) Rather, Dyer seeks to showcase how peasants were impactful in history. Throughout his book, he shows how peasants transformed their landscape, built up villages and towns, and engaged in industry. Rather than viewing peasant actions through the lens of contestation with manorial power, Dyer describes a heterogenous class of people in which individuals had their own disparate concerns, disputes, ventures, and opportunities. He presents peasants, not as the servants of the lords, but as the body of the society itself. Rather than a class that was pushed aside to make way for modernity, Dyer argues that peasants played their part in its creation. (345)