Chapter 3 - Standing on the Shoulders of Peasants

Summary

Chapter 3 argues that agricultural books should be understood as a tool to appropriate the practical art of husbandry by learned culture, enabling a ‘bottom-up’ transfer of knowledge as much as a ‘top-down’ diffusion of knowledge from expert to practitioner. It argues that there was a shift around mid-seventeenth century England as the gentry became more directly engaged in farm management. It shows how the customary art of husbandry was re-imagined for gentlemen, by elevating it to science of agriculture and undermining the authority of common husbandmen and housewives. It discusses how educated men collected into writing the knowledge of husbandry stored in customary practice and oral tradition. In particular, it highlights a hidden gendered dimension, in which women’s knowledge was transferred to male authors, contributing to the increased marginalisation of women’s farm work. Finally, it draws attention to how common farmworkers resisted the extraction of their knowledge by their social superiors.