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Mediation and the Discourse of Property Transfer in Early Modern Europe.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

David J. Siddle
David J. Siddle
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
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Extract

On the 25th June 1789, Jean Louis Varey, of the village of St Ferreole near Faverges in Haute Savoie, met Jean Burdet in the local inn to discuss the future of a field the latter had rented from Varey's father. After the conclusion of this business they took a glass of wine specifically with four others: Jean Baptiste Prevost, the son of the notary, and three local peasant householders Jean Roderigue, Pierre Raucaz and Aime Guignon. Many others were also in attendance. Varey had recently returned to his home after a period of time trading in France, and he clearly fancied himself as something of an enterpreneur. The others thought him a bit above himself.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , April 1995 , pp. 11 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

1. Renconstructed from the court depositions of witnesses in the case of ‘insult, injury and menaces’ brought by Jean Louis Varey against Jean Rodrigue on 11th August 1790 before the Justices of the Marquisat de Faverges, Haute Savoie. (Archives Départmentales de La Haute Savoie: Séries B. 244. Actes de la Judicature du Marqiuisat de Faverges 1770–1791).

2. Yver, J., Essai de Geographie Coutumière (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar; Ladurie, E. Le Roy, ‘Système de la coutume: structures familiales et coutumes d'heritage en France au XVI siécle’, Annales E.S.C xxvii, (1972)Google Scholar. Goody, J., Thirsk, J. and Thompson, E.P. (eds), Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe 1200–1800 (Cambridge, 1976)Google Scholar; Augustin, G., ‘Esquisse d'une comparaison des systèmes de perpetuation des groupes domestiques dans les sociétés paysannes européennes’, Archives Européennes de Sociologie XXIII, (1982), 39–69Google Scholar; Lamaison, P., ‘La diversité des modes de transmission: une géographie tenance’ Etudes Rurales 110, 111, 112 (1988), 119–75Google Scholar; Goy, J., ‘Pour une cartographie des modes de transmission successorale deux siècles après le Code Civil’, Mélanges de l’Ecole Francois de Rome 100, (1988) 1, 28–44.Google Scholar The apparently neat bi-polar structural relationships between nuclear households and partible inheritance; complex households and impartible inheritance have even led Emmanuel Todd to take this argument a stage further, using these simple rules of conduct to trace the development of the social and political systems of Europe. In the East and South, Todd argues, a deeply entrenched feudal authoritarianism based on primogeniture produced the patriarchal extended household at one end of the scale of sociopolitical response and totalitarian autocracy at the other. In the West, on the other hand, Todd suggests that the individualism of the nuclear family and its association with partible inheritance was responsible for free enterprise, the Protestant ethic and open democracy. See Todd, E., The Explanation of Ideology: Family Structures and Social Systems (Oxford, 1985).Google Scholar

3. Woolf, S. (ed), Domestic Strategies: Work and Family in France and Italy 1600–1800 (Cambridge, 1990).Google Scholar Due debt is also acknowledged to Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Nice, R. (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar for his deep insights into the nature of the hidden processes of social discourse.

4. In the Kingdom of Savoy the notariat was established by statute in the thirteenth century. Very soon it became an irreplaceable part of social and economic life. Notaries served even the remotest villages of the kingdom and drew up agreements for all but the most trivial contracts. (Archives Départmentales de Savoie, Séries 2 E ). The more important contracts necessitated as many as six witnesses. See Devos, R. et al. , Guide des Archives de la Haute Savoie: la Pratique des Documents Anciens, Archive Départmentale de la Haute Savoie (hereinafter ADHS), Annecy, 1980)Google Scholar. See also Mariotte, J. Y. et Gabion, R., Guide des Archives de la Haute Savoie (Annecy, 1976), 166–8.Google Scholar After 1696 all these contracts were transcribed and registered by the office of registration (Tabellion) under the control of the Department of Finance. These registration books have survived as 2114 volumes (ADHS Séries 6 C) which form a unique record of the contractual life of ordinary people throughout the last century of the Ancien Régime. There is no equivalent in the archives of France. See Chetail, J., ‘Insinuation et tabellion dans ancienne Savoie’, Actes des Sociétés Savantes Annecy-Chambery 1960 (1961), 491–516Google Scholar and Mariotte, J.Y. and Gabion, R., Guide des Archives, 209–14.Google Scholar In this paper, attention is focussed on the 115 volumes of the Tabellion de Faverges (1697–1793). Faverges is in the pre-Alps east of Lake Annecy.

5. This problem is most recently and effectively discussed in Strauss, G. ‘The dilemma of popular history’, Past and Present 132, 08 1991, 130–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Medick, H. and Sabean, D.W., Interest and Emotion: Essays on the Study of Family & Kinship (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar, ‘ Introduction’ pp. 13–14. Other essays in this volume develop this theme.

7. Goody, J., Thirsk, J., Thompson, E.P., Family and Inheritance.Google Scholar

8. Bautier, R.H. and Sornay, J., Les Sources d'Histoire Economique et Sociale du Moyen Age: Provence. Comtat Venaissin, Dauphine, Etats de la Maison de Savoie. Editions de C.N.R.S (Paris, 1971)Google Scholar; Semelle, H., Notariat Savoyard XIII-XVI siècles (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar; Perouse, G., ‘Etude sur les usages et le droit privé en Savoie’, Academie Savoie, 5 Series (1914)t. 11 pp. 505–627Google Scholar; Poisson, J.P., ‘De quelques nouvelles utilisations des sources notariales en histoire économique XVII-XIX siècles’, Revue Historique 505 (1973) Jan Mars, 5–22.Google Scholar

9. Siddle, D.J., ‘Inheritance strategies and lineage development in peasant society’, Continuity and Change’ 1,3 (1986), 333–61Google Scholar; ‘Articulating the grid of inheritance: the accumulation and transmission of wealth in peasant Savoy 1561–1792’ in Matmuller, M. (ed), Wirtschaft und Gesellchaft In Berggebieten (Basle, 1986), 123–81.Google Scholar

10. Goody, J., The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1984).Google Scholar

11. In the annual Tabellion volumes of the ADHS Séries 6.C for the mandement of Faverges, the same witnesses occur with surprising regularity over what appear to be appropriate periods of their lifetime. Some were specifically identified in the record as expèrts. In court appearances (see footnote 15 below) these individuals were referred to as ‘expert jurors’ e.g. ADHS:JMF (1781–1793) Sér.9.85; Sér B 244 1790–1791:7.8.90; December 1790.

12. European witchcraft activity was most manifest in periods when accusations led to prosecutions, as in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Its local anthropological origins are clear enough. See Macfarlane, A., Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971).Google Scholar It is not the function of this paper to deal with other religious and political causes of persecution. For a full recent discussion of European witchcraft see Ankarloo, B. and Hennington, G., Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar

13. Ladurie, E. LeRoy, Montaillou: Village Occitan de 1294 à 1324 (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar English translation, Bray, B., Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Ginsberg, C., Il Formaggio e i Vermi:Il Cosmo di Mugnaio del 500 (Milan, 1976)Google Scholar English translation, Tedeschi, A., The Cheese and the Worms: the Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller (Baltimore, 1980)Google Scholar. Zemon-Davis, N., The Return of Martin Guerre (Harvard, 1983)Google Scholar; Fiction in the Archives (Stanford, 1987). Sabean, D. W., Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1984).Google Scholar

14. Guichonnet, P., Histoire de Savoie (Toulouse, 1984)Google Scholar; Nicholas, J., La Savoie au 18ième Siècle: Noblesse et Bourgeoisie (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar; Devos, R. and Grosperrin, B., La Savoie de la Reforme à la Révolution Française, (Rennes, Ouest-France, 1985), 500–25Google Scholar; Poitrineau, A., Remues d'Hommes: les Migrations Montagnardes en France. 17ième et 18ième Siècles (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar; M., and Maistre, C., L'Emigration Marchande Savoyarde aux XVIe-XIII siècles: l'Exemple de Nancy-sur-Cluses (Mémoires et Documents Publiés par l'Académie Salesienne Tm. XCIV, Annecy, 1986).Google Scholar

15. One of the most telling indications of this increase in court activity in the region of Haute Savoie in the last decades of the Ancien Règime is to be found scribbled as a phonetic quotation from an unspecified source on the cover of a court register Ordres et Actes de Judicature de Ugine ADHS:Sér.B 125 (1788) ‘Les coucheoneries aessont partout issus’ (‘Evil tales are everywhere’).

16. I will be drawing on the late eighteenth-century court records of jurisdictions in the pre-alpine region of southern Haute Savoie: Archives Départmentales de Haute Savoie (herein after ADHS) Actes de la Judicature de Marquisat de Faverges (hereinafter AJMF) Séries B:103 (1781–6); 243 (1787–9); 244; (1790–1); 245 (1778–84); 374 (1784–90). Actes de la Judicature de Hery Ugine ADHS:AJHJ Sér.B: 125 (1760–9); 248 (1788–92). Actes de la Judicature de Talloires ADHS:AJTa Sér. B 121 (1770–89); 122 (1790)Actes de Ca Judicature de Thones ADHS:AJTh Sèr.B 122 (1789); 123(1790). Most transcriptions are not paginated and have therefore been indicated by date. Some are given folio numbers and the discrepancy is retained when references is made in the text.

17. ‘bougre’, ‘foutu’, ‘Jean foutu’ and ‘cocquin’ ‘foutu chiconneur qu'il trompier le tier et quart’ were common usages. ADHS: AJTa Sér.B. 121/1 (1770) AJMF Sér B 243 20.3.89; 20.3.89: AJT Sér. B 121 f.11 AJMF Ser: B 244 20.3.89

18. ADHS:AJMF Sér 8: 244, 11.8.1790; AJMF Sér 8:374, 2.10.85: AJMF Sér 8.374, 19.11.85.

19. ADHS: AJTh Sér 8 121 19.11.1785; ADHS: Sér 8:374, 1784, f.6: 18.3.75

20. ADHS:AJMF Sér. 8.244 24.8.1790 refers to the case of Jean Baptiste Patty, accused of not fulfilling dowry agreements because he was ‘always at markets’ (‘a courir les marchés’), frequenting bars, often duped when drunk, someone who ‘bought dear, sold cheap’. Here the contribution of alcohol to the case is quite specific, but most of the cases recorded here involved or assumed explicit levels of previous or concurrent conviviality.

21. ADHS: AJMF Sér. B:103, 2.10.85 – 7.11.86.

22. ADHS: AJMF Ser. B:103/2, 18.3.1785.

23. ADHS: AJMF Sér B:244, 7.5.1791.

24. ADHS:AJMF Sér. B:243 f.89; 244 24.8.1791; ADHS: AJT 123/6, 1779, AJMF Sél11.244, 11.8; 1790, 374, 19.11.85; 13.12.85.

25. For a view of the emotional content of transactional behaviour when it was deprived of the sanction of mediation it is sometimes more profitable to turn to other sources. In his carefully researched factional novel La Terre (Paris, 1886), Emile Zola presents us with a caricature of inheritance behaviour subjected to the circumstances of social economic and political upheaval in the Beauce during the last two decades of the nineteeenth century. Zola traced the fortunes of a relatively well-off peasant family as it passed through the stages of a disastrous partible inheritance. Here life-track reconstruction stands as a backdrop against which the personalities of members of the family were exposed to the emotional traumas produced by an unwise decision to perform a pre-mortem partition of the inheritance. In circumstances in which the checks of mediation (and the wise counsel of a notary) were discarded, this decision released the forces of avarice, jealousy and greed. What makes this factional reconstruction of special value for our purpose here is Zola's insight into the crucial nature of the relationship between interest and emotion and the disintegrative effects of the imbalance in these forces which were brought about by political, social and economic change. These changes were taking place too swiftly to be accommodated within the structure of the peasant society.

Zola's masterpiece charts the progress of a family in which all the constraints of collective interest and emotion are peeled away to reveal unfettered greed, lust, dissipation and despair, as children turn against parents, and then against each other in the scramble to possess the land. His brilliant invention was to envisage the removal of all the three legs of the triad of mediation (formal, semi-formal, informal) proposed in this paper. Formal mediation is not only abandoned but made to appear ridiculous as both priest and notary are ignored and abused. Here social and political and eventually economic forces had invaded the decisional space of the peasant community with consequences which are clearly seen as disastrous. Interest and emotion are left to reverberate without constraints. Clearly, literary licence takes us well beyond the point identified by family historians as ‘the natural tendency of families to fission at an advanced stage in the life-cycle’. But there are several critical features in this historical novel which illuminate the process of modernisation. Here the crucial forces of mediation are overtaken by social and economic change, leaving all the old actors in the process of mediation (family elders, bystanders, kinsmen, worthies, priests and notaries) without respect.

The forces at work in the French countryside in the last third of the nineteenth century left peasant families responding to the new opportunities emerging in the towns. There were also the social and economic reforms (especially of inheritance law) which followed the Revolution. Perhaps even more significant was the challenge of the opening grain market, as large scale cheap American production sought export markets. The most significant aspect of this whole process, insofar as it concerns the purpose of this essay, was the abandonment of the means for making that transition from traditional to modern social and economic worlds – the structure of mediation between interest and emotion. This happened because the perception of what constituted true interest became blurred. In La Terre each family member was put in a position where redefinition of roles became a real possibility as new values, new rules and new norms invaded the structure of peasant life. Zola's point is clear. These internally coherent mechanisms of mediation were created by societies for the maintenance of some stability in the face of stress. They had survived centuries of famine and plenty, plague and population, expansion, war, peace and the change in economic relations. Now they were broken. The twin pressures of land fragmentation and social and economic differentiation led inexorably towards reconsolidation of holdings into the large farming units of the modern northern French landscape. These changed the face of rural France in ways which were already very familiar in lowland Britain and were to be common throughout Western Europe.