The Normans in Southern Italy: the rural world

In early Middle Ages, and then in the Norman period, agriculture was the most important economic activity in southern Italy. The living conditions of the peasants were no different from the rest of Europe: although they were fairly satisfactory in the early Middle Ages, they tended to worsen with the growth in population from the year 1000 onwards. The main crops in southern Italy were cereals. During the Norman period the area of cultivated land was expanded and the boundaries between the lands belonging to each village and between estates were determined more precisely.

The Normans’ main building schemes consisted essentially of the fortification of pre-existing villages and the creation of new fortified settlements (in addition to the castles on the edges of built-up areas). A typical feature was the development of the casale (hamlet), which was in competition with the towns, also as far as its defensive potential was concerned

Agriculture

The vast majority of the inhabitants of the lands conquered by the Normans worked on the land. This fact helps to explains why southern Italy was only marginally involved in the new activities of an industrial type that developed in a large part of central and northern Italy. The countryside, on the other hand, enjoyed notable economic growth.

After the very difficult period from the 6^th to the 8^th centuries, with the abandonment of the cities and a notable fall in population, in the Norman period there was a considerable increase in the population once again especially in the low-lying areas, where vast tracts of marshland were reclaimed, allowing a revival of agriculture. Despite this, manpower continued to be in short supply in the rural areas. It was only in the 13^th century that there was a problem of overpopulation, as a result of which agricultural produce was insufficient to meet the needs of the inhabitants.

The condition of the peasantry

As is well known, slavery had already disappeared from Western Europe in the 8^th and 9^th centuries. In Norman Italy, both in Apulia and Campania, there were both small landowners and livellari (tenants). The latter lived on the land they cultivated and were obliged to provide the owner with corvées (unpaid agricultural labour) and supply him with produce (usually wine). In Sicily, the normal status of the Muslim peasants was that of villani (villeins) - that is, cultivators subject to a lord, with limited freedom. Generally speaking, in the island the corvées were always more burdensome than on the mainland (by contrast, in central Apulia and Calabria only a few peasants were villani). A special case was that of the affidati: these were freemen who, with their descendants, were voluntarily in the employment of a lord (however, little is known about this practice). Their liberty must certainly have been somewhat restricted, and they must have had to do numerous days of corvée.

During the 11^th and 12^th centuries the system of the corvées developed, together with the evolution of the banal lordship and the growth in the population and the economy, which meant that manpower was now more abundant. It appears that work on the seignorial lands became increasingly demanding in the areas where the cultivation of cereals was dominant, totalling twelve or even twenty-four days of corvée every year.

Agricultural produce

Although the region is extremely varied from a geographical and climatic point of view, in southern Italy during the Norman period the most important crops were cereals, especially grain and barley, although millet and oats were also grown. The need to rotate the crops, with the fields left fallow every two or three years, allowed the cultivation of pulses, an invaluable source of nutrition. The second major crop was the vine, which was grown all over the area. A third feature common to the whole region was the cultivation of vegetables; by contrast, arboriculture varied from the area bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea (chestnuts) to that facing the Ionian (olives). In Sicily exotic crops, such as cotton and citrus fruit, were grown; in a number of cases they had been imported by the Arabs. As far as stockbreeding was concerned, there were few changes. It involved, above all, saddle, draught and pack horses, oxen, donkeys, pigs, sheep, goats and poultry. The only innovation was the buffalo, which made its appearance in Campania in the 12^th century.

The rural landscape

During the Norman period one of the changes involving agriculture in southern Italy was the expansion of cultivated land at the expense of the untilled land, which did not disappear, but simply became one of the elements of the landscape. Thus there was a rational organisation of space according to the potential of the land and human geography.

Rational organisation led to a more precise definition of the boundaries of village lands, which were marked by such physical elements as trees and mounds of stones. Generally speaking, mixed crops were grown within these areas, which meant the landscape was relatively homogeneous because many types of crops coexisted on the same holding. However, there were also specialized crops, such as chestnuts, hazels and olives.

The basic unit of the rural landscape was the holding, which was described in a very precise manner in numerous notarial contracts of the period. The shape of the holdings was sometimes a regular quadrilateral, while at other times it was more complex. Their surface area tended to shrink as the population increased. The uncultivated areas were not entirely uninhabited thanks to the presence of forestarii (foresters) and shepherds, with their livestock, as well as game reserves and so on.

The rural settlements

The network of lands belonging to the village centred on the built-up area, which controlled their organisation. At the end of the 12^th century, the majority of the inhabitants lived in permanent settlements, although this was a fairly recent phenomenon. In the early Middle Ages, in the Lombard lands, castra or castella, modest fortified villages, were built by the lords on low hills; in the Byzantine regions, the settlements were generally not fortified.

The Normans fortified pre-existing villages and created new fortified settlements, in addition to the castles on the edges of the built-up areas. Thus, in many uninhabited areas, for instance, in the Abruzzi, northern Calabria, southern Lucania and the Capitanata, they created a new type of settlement known as the casale. This was a small group of houses protected by nothing more than a moat. After they had been surrounded by walls, many of these were subsequently transformed into castra (this was the case with Foggia).

Aspects of Chartism: The Final Phase 1

R.G. Gammage may have been a little premature when travelling around the country in the 1850s lecturing on the movement’s failure. Chartism persisted for a further decade, displaying vigour in some areas like Halifax but it had effectively ceased to be a mass movement. In 1852, Marx observed that the Chartists were[1] “…so completely disorganised and scattered, and at the same time so short of useful people, that they must either fall completely to pieces and degenerate into cliques....or they must be reconstituted.”

Nevertheless, its journals still flourished and Ernest Jones[2] and his Charter Socialism achieved some support, especially in London among craftsmen resentful at the growing influence of trade unionism. Chartists continued to be active in local politics but by 1860, organised Chartism was dead. The last convention gathered in 1858 and two years later the NCA was formally wound up. This view of Chartism in the 1850s is reflected in the writings of historians. For J. T. Ward it was a ‘finale’[3], for A. R. Schoyen, a ‘retreat’[4] and for David Jones the ‘last days’[5]. This material considers three questions. In what ways was the radicalism of the 1850s a continuation of the 1840s? What happened to Chartism in the late 1840s and 1850s? Why did it fail to achieve its objectives?

Why did Chartism decline?

Historians are broadly in agreement that the Chartists did not threaten the authorities after 1848 though the events of that year represented a greater challenge than use to be thought and that some king of organisation was maintained for another decade. However, the fact of sharp overall decline in uncontested. Why this decline occurred is a subject of considerable debate. Eric Evans[6] identifies six arguments that have received particular attention among historians.

Argument

Counter-argument

1
The end of the severe economic depressions that had brought the masses out on to the streets
Certainly severe depressions such as those experienced in 1839 and 1842 did disappear. However, it is difficult to prove that living standards among working people as a whole increased significantly until the 1870s and 1880s

2
Governments wee more conscious of the ‘social question’ than before and there was a ‘softening of the state’ with the passage of legislation designed to reduce social tension and class hostility. The state became increasingly self-confident during a period of economic boom and this helped to further fragment Chartism
The amount of legislation designed to improve conditions was limited and the legislation often had little practical effect until the 1860s and especially the 1870s. The new Poor Law remained a symbol of degradation and disgrace that humiliated those who needed to use it. State confidence was easily over-exaggerated, as the great soul-searching that took place over Britain’s early failures in the Crimean War (1853-56) showed

3
O’Connor’s credibility was shattered by his climb-down in 1848 and this led to further disputes among Chartist leaders

O’Connor’s powers may have been in decline but there were other leaders, especially Ernest James and Bronterre O’Brien who remained vigorous and committed. They also had a clear agenda.

4
Chartism had failed in each of its three phases despite considerable effort by working people. After these reverses, there was no stomach for further mass agitation or revolutionary preparation
Some Chartists, such as the supporters of O’Brien remained committed to the cause and were as revolutionary in their attitudes as any people in the 1830s and 1840s. They joined socialist and extreme radical groups in Europe with the aim of creating a genuinely proletarian international revolution

5
Economically depressed skilled workers, especially hand-loom weavers had always been at the centre of the Chartist agitation. As their numbers declines, with them went the motive force of Chartism
The importance of one working group should not be over-exaggerated as has the speed of its decline. Other skilled workers remained and could have revived Chartism as a mass threat is other conditions had been right

6
Chartism was betrayed by the ‘aristocracy of labour’. Those who had supported Chartism in the 1830s and 1840s were frustrated by the lack of success and looked to other organisations such as trade unions, co-operatives and friendly societies, other self-help groups and even mainstream political parties to advance their interests. Without their active involvement, Chartism was bound to wither.
This exaggerates the importance of one, fairly small group of workers. In any case, many members of this group had not been among the strongest supporters of Chartism in the 1840s. Their defection was, therefore, of limited importance to a working-class organisation

Historians, despite having different political views, nonetheless stress similar factors. Those sympathetic to working-class political organisations stress the power of the state as an important reason why the Chartists did not achieve more. Those who resist class-based analyses also point to a more self-confident government’s adoption of laissez faire policies as the key to long-term economic growth and therefore the decline of protest movements. Similarly, those who want to rehabilitate O’Connor from 1840 onwards recognise that both his own powers and his political authority took a fatal turn in 1848.

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[1] New York Daily Tribune, 25^th August 1852.

[2] John Saville Ernest Jones: Chartist, London, 1952 is a useful collection of his writings with an incisive introduction. Miles Taylor Ernest Jones, Oxford University Press, 2003 should be regarded as the best study. Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 263-268 is a useful, brief biography.

[3] J.T. Ward Chartism, London, 1973, pages 220-234.

[4] A.R. Schoyen The Chartist Challenge: a Portrait of George Julian Harney, London, 1958.

[5] David Jones Chartism and the Chartists, London, 1975, pages 171-180.

[6] Eric Evans Chartism Longmans, 2000, pages 116-118.