2 - Production: Classes and Class Relations

Summary

Abstract

This chapter sets out the structure and the dynamics of production in eighth-century Northumbria. It starts by defining the concept of ‘social class’ that will be used throughout the book. The chapter also aims to establish what the main social classes are in this context, and their relation, as well as presenting the importance of the forces of production for such an objective. The discussion of relations of production will be mainly historiographical. In order to highlight the importance of the forces of production and to contextualize them in eighth-century Northumbria, a case study will be presented: this will be the site of Sherburn, North Yorkshire.

Keywords: social theory; relations of production; forces of production; peasantry; aristocracy; slavery

Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the unwitting slaves of some defunct theorist

John Maynard Keynes

Introduction

Some aspects of society can be transformed in a few decades, while some changes require centuries. The temporal context of the current book is the ‘long eighth century’, which overflows one hundred years. The current chapter will address aspects of the eighth-century economy, a dimension that is better observed in the long term. Archaeological evidence requires a broader span of time. The long-term approach does not erase the contingency and short-term changes or cycles. In fact, the social history approach requires a dialectical approach to all kinds of durations (short, medium and long), in which each of them contains, affects and shapes the others.

The first chapter of this book presented the evidence for the Northumbrian aristocracy, and discussed the available evidence with which we perceive it. From this chapter onwards, the book will start to ‘deconstruct’ the aristocracy. The decision to start with ‘production’ is based on the theoretical approach of this research. According to Marx, production is a fundamental condition, essential to History. Human life requires, ‘before anything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things’. The first historical act is actually the production of the means to satisfy these needs, which are essential to sustain human life. Production can also be a powerful analytical tool. In his recent works, Wickham uses production as a starting point from which it is possible to unfold a holistic interpretation of the transition of the Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.