Keep in mind that the medieval (worktime) figures given include a goodly portion of time spent working for the lord of the manor, i.e. turning the product over to the lord. How much time/product? I don’t know. 20%? 50%? Anyone?

Think about that for a second. Not just the Middle Ages, but all agrarian societies, had about 90% of the population involved in some form of serfdom. If they were all supporting themselves on 50% of their labor, and sending the other 50% to their lord, then you would have half the food in the realm eaten by 90% of the people, and half of it eaten by 10%. Now, there was a lot of wealth disparity, to be sure, but simply physiologically, the human body can’t handle that much food.

In actual point of fact, most agrarian societies had something along the lines of a 10% tithe. The other 90% they kept to live off of. So it was generally about 10% of their labor time that went to the elites.

But more importantly, we’re talking as if this is a mundane detail, as if agriculture could work just fine without the elites sucking off of it. Those elites are the only thing that keeps agriculture going. Without them, it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Without their laws and imprisonment, it will always be cheaper and easier (to say nothing of more fun) to slip into more permaculture, do a little fishing, do a little hunter, and what you end up with eventually is a bunch of foragers. Agriculture is the most energy inefficient mode of subsistence we’ve ever used, by far, and it’s only justifiable when you have to produce food for a non-producing elite.

Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today’s

This is true, but don’t take it too far. They only had the Sabbath off, and before the rise of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not even that. It was a medieval proverb that G-d had put 24 hours into a day: 8 for work, 8 for play, and 8 for rest. Even with all the breaks Bishop Pilkington describes, you’re still talking about eight hours of hard work out in the fields every day. That’s still liesurely compared to the 60-70 hour weeks so many people work today, but it’s still agonizing compared to a forager’s 6-hour work week.

“All told, holiday leisure time in medieval England took up probably about one-third of the year. And the English were apparently working harder than their neighbors. The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.[5] “

The U.S. is one of the most stingy industrialized countries in terms of time off, but you still get weekends and about two weeks of vacation a year, on average, or about 118 days, or about a third of the year.

One other thing: the level of agri/horticultural sophistication of medieval times was not high, to put it mildly. I have read (and could document this, given time) of grain yields as low as 15 bushels per cultivated acre — extremely low.

That had more to do with exhausted soils than technological sophistication. Notice that when the same techniques were applied in the New World, you had visible differences in height between colonists and their European contemporaries.

Hence, if the medieval peasant actually did work as much as 40 hours per week (and it appears that it could have been half that or less; cannot tell),

It’s pretty clear that it was about 48 hours a week.

ntensive permacultural technic is considerably more labor-intensive, I have no doubt, than medieval farming, acre for acre. But even adjusting for that, there is a large favorable margin.

Sure, but so much of that owes to the greater productivity of ecological edge, and that can’t simply be multiplied by acreage. It doesn’t scale up. Permaculture is the same as what anthropologists call horticulture, and that does require far less effort. It’s more work than foraging, but calorie-for-calorie, it is the most efficient means of subsistence humans have ever used, in stark contrast to agriculture, which is the least efficient by far. Neither do horticulturalists need to work for some lord. But, because it doesn’t scale, you’re not talking about an agrarian lifestyle with cities and the rest–you’re talking about village life, and the community garden, which your average European wouldn’t be able to distinguish from the forest.

The medieval interval gave us an APPROXIMATE model (with warts, granted) of a sustainable and convivial society.

As I wrote in “The Hyperbole of St. Jerome” and “The Middle Ages & Roman Collapse: Similarities & Differences,” the collapse of the Roman Empire did improve quality of life in Europe, but that’s a far cry from suggesting that it made it anything like sustainable. See also, “The Age of Exuberance.” Medieval Europe quickly scaled back up to the expansiveness of the Roman Empire, and quickly ran into the limits of expansion, such that plague and famine became necessary ecological checks on population. It was that situation that made Columbus’ discovery so much more important than Lief Eriksson’s.

Charleton’s essay is actually something of a favorite around here, though.

Great links and articles. I’ve seen the one about medieval workdays before, but not medieval values. I still think that foraging is the most sensible for us, and the relative leisure compared to 19th and 20th-century life doesn’t make up for the destructiveness of agriculture and the frequency of famine, but it does illustrate just how far off we’ve come in this era from the lesiure and cooperative-ness of our birthright.

And the idea that life has no meaning- I wondered to myself a few months back how we ever got to that point, and this animism brief speaks to that. Can you email me the full text of it?

Thanks much!

For anyone interested in animism…

(I can post the full text of this article if anyone would like; send request with this page’s url to aelewis AT provide DOT net)

http://www.sciencedirect.com

Medical Hypotheses

Volume 68, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 727-

doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2006.11.004
Copyright © 2006 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Editorial

Alienation, recovered animism and altered states of consciousness

Bruce G. Charlton , Editor-in-Chief – Medical Hypotheses

Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, UK

Available online 4 December 2006.

Summary

Alienation is the feeling that life is ‘meaningless’, that we do not belong in the world. But alienation is not an inevitable part of the human condition: some people do feel at one with the world as a consequence of the animistic way of thinking which is shared by children and hunter–gatherers. Animism considers all significant entities to have ‘minds’, to be ‘alive’, to be sentient agents. The animistic thinker inhabits a world populated by personal powers including not just other human beings, but also important animals and plants, and significant aspects of physical landscape. Humans belong in this world because it is a web of social relationships. Animism is therefore spontaneous, the ‘natural’ way of thinking for humans: all humans began as animistic children and for most of human evolutionary history would have grown into animistic adults. It requires sustained, prolonged and pervasive formal education to ‘overwrite’ animistic thinking with the rationalistic objectivity typical of the modern world. It is this learned abstraction that creates alienation – humans are no longer embedded in a world of social relations but become estranged, adrift in a world of indifferent things. Methods used to cure alienation and recover animistic modes of thinking involve detachment from the social systems that tend to maintain objectivity and rationality: for example, solitude, leisure, unstructured time and direct contact with nature. Many people also achieve similar results by deliberately inducing altered states of consciousness. Animistic thinking may emerge in meditation or contemplation, lucid dreaming, from self-hypnosis, when drowsy, in ‘trance states’ induced by repetitious rhythm or light, or when delirious due to illness, brain injury, psychoses, or intoxication with ‘entheogenic’ drugs – which is probably one reason for the perennial popularity of inducing intoxicated states. However, intoxication will typically damage memory processes making it harder to learn from any spiritual experiences; and even mild states of cognitive impairment may be dangerous in situations where skilled or responsible behaviour is required. Despite these constraints and limitations, recovering animism through seeking altered states of consciousness could already be considered a major world spiritual practice.

Article Outline

Animism
At home in the world
Recovering animism through altered states of consciousness
The ‘entheogenic’ rationale for intoxication
References

[…snip…]

http://www.idler.co.uk/books/how-to-be-free/

How to be Free

BACK IN 1983, in an inter view with broadcaster Brian Walden, Mrs Thatcher caught the public imagination with her promotion of “Victorian values”:

Walden: You’ve really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian values. The sort of values, if you like, that helped to build the country throughout the 19th century. Now is that right?

Thatcher: Exactly. Very much so. Those were the values when our country became great, but not only did our country become great internationally, also so much advance was made in this country.

Now what did the Victorians value, exactly? Well, the 19th century was the era of hard work, exploitation, greed, chimney sweeps, 16-hour days, tall black hats, money-worship and strict discipline in the home. It was the era when the dark Satanic mills destroyed the cottage industry and lives began to be lived around the clock rather than by the seasons. It was the era of steam, coal and gas. It was the era that introduced the notion of the earth as a resource to be mined. It was the era of competitive living. It was the era of soul-deadening machinery. Anyone who doubts this has only to read Dickens.

These values motivated the Eighties and they are still the dominant ones today. Well, I for one am thoroughly fed up with Victorian values which is why in my new book, called How To Be Free, I propose instead a return to medieval values.

On first sight, this idea seems bonkers. Surely the medieval age was a time of bad diets, corrupt priests and abject serfdom? Well, no. This view is actually a calumnious caricature. When I started to write How To Be Free, I decided to read Mutual Aid by the great 19th- century anarchist Prince Petr Kropotkin, described by Oscar Wilde as one of the most cheerful men he had ever met. In Mutual Aid, published at the same time as Darwin’s Origin of Species, Kropotkin argues that cooperation is an essential part of animal and human life and development. He also reminds us that it was in the medieval age when the great free city-states such as Florence were created. The medievals, he says, valued craftsmanship, cooperation and justice. Mutual Aid led me to read other books on medieval customs and culture, and what I found was a society that made a sustained and conscious attempt to live fairly and justly.

The two great influences on the development of medieval ethics were Christ’s sermon on the mount and Aristotle’s Ethics, which had come to Europe via Arab translations. From this material they developed an approach to life which was eco-friendly, neighbourly and based on cooperating rather than competing. So here, briefly, is an introduction to 10 important medieval values, all of which seem radical to us:

ANTI-CAPITALIST: Lending at interest, or usury, is at the basis of the capitalist system. And usury was quite specifically proscribed by medieval ethics. It was sinful, they said, to sell something that does not belong to you, which is time. It was also sinful to take advantage of someone else’s misfortune by lending them money. Usurers were sometimes known to return all the money they had made on their deathbed, in an effort to ensure their salvation. Money was for spending, not for saving or lending.

ANTI-WORK: According to historian Jacques Le Goff, the medievals were opposed to hard work, because, he says, to put in long hours displayed a lack of faith in Providence. Theologically, medieval Catholicism was closer to an almost Taoist Oriental fatalism than today’s Protestant culture. And hard work might give you an unfair advantage over your brothers.

ANTI-COMPETITIVE: Craftsmen organised themselves into a system of Guilds. Guild members mutually agreed to keep quality high and prices uncompetitive. They instituted the notion of a “just and fixed price” for their wares. Goods were produced in small groups. This practice guarded against today’s problem which is giant companies producing a load of rubbish.

ECO-FRIENDLY: In the era before electricity, coal, gas or nuclear power, the medievals heated themselves from sustainable sources: ie, wood. They used water and wind power to grind corn. The UK was covered in eco-friendly windmills. All vegetable production was necessarily organic, and everyone “shopped local”. There were no supermarkets or call centres or lorries or cars. No logos, either. And crucially, no plastic. Therefore there was no waste as everything was returned to to the earth.

SELF-SUFFICIENT: Even the meanest medieval peasant grew vegetables and herbs and kept pigs and chickens. And the giant yeoman class became very prosperous. Chaucer wrote of his Franklin: “It snowed in his house of mete and drynke.”

HOSPITABLE: Just as indigenous people today would share their last crust with you, so the medievals emphasised the importance of good hospitality. The monasteries would take in wandering men and give them beer, bread and bacon, and indeed, the (later) problem of homeless, in the Elizabethan age, was a direct result of the destruction of the monasteries.

CHARITABLE: In the days before charity had become just another institutional mega-business, it really did begin at home. The importance of charity was constantly insisted upon and there were plenty of wandering beggars and other mendicants who were ready to receive your alms. There was no disgrace attached to poverty: in fact, it was a state to be celebrated, because the apostles were poor. We had the example of St Francis of Assisi who became voluntarily poor.

PARTY-LOVING: The medieval calendar was absolutely studded with feast days and festivals. Of course, we all celebrate Christmas now, but Christmas then was celebrated for 12 days, during which no one was allowed to work. Every three or four weeks there was some excuse for a party. May Day was for having sex and every three of four weeks there was a long break.

CHIVALROUS: It was the medieval knights and specifically the great Troubadours of Southern France who invented the custom of courtly love. Chivalry, respect and courtesy towards women was constantly insisted upon, and there were great female patrons of these poets, such as, for example, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Good manners were important.

NEIGHBOURLY: Christ had conceived of the world as a “brotherhood of man” and civility to your neighbour was paramount. This is because the medievals had a sense of collective responsibility: we are all in this together, so your well-being and my well-being are one and the same thing.

Medieval values were radical values. They were good values. And they were enjoyable values. We should embrace them.

The Freedom Manifesto

BAKE BREAD
MUCK ABOUT
QUIT MOANING
STOP CONSUMING
START PRODUCING
BACK TO THE LAND
SMASH USURY
EMBRACE BEAUTY
IGNORE THE STATE
REFORM IS FUTILE
HAIL THE SPADE
HAIL THE QUILL
LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR
BE CREATIVE
DIG THE EARTH
MAKE COMPOST
DOWN WITH HEALTH
DOWN WITH SAFETY
DOWN WITH WORK
DOWN WITH PENSIONS
BE ALIVE
BE MERRY

Be Free!

“An important piece of evidence on the working day is that it was very unusual for servile laborers to be required to work a whole day for a lord. One day’s work was considered half a day, and if a serf worked an entire day, this was counted as two “days-works.”[2] Detailed accounts of artisans’ workdays are available. Knoop and jones’ figures for the fourteenth century work out to a yearly average of 9 hours (exclusive of meals and breaktimes)[3]. Brown, Colwin and Taylor’s figures for masons suggest an average workday of 8.6 hours[4]. ”

……… well, hard to say. “Exclusive of meals and breaktimes” — breaktimes like holidays, feast days, etc.? In other words, was the real daily average, all things accounted for, 9 hours, or (say) 5? One cannot tell from this without looking up the references.

One other thing: the level of agri/horticultural sophistication of medieval times was not high, to put it mildly. I have read (and could document this, given time) of grain yields as low as 15 bushels per cultivated acre — extremely low. In terms of caloric count that is in the rough neighborhood of 1/10th to 1/40th of what is possible with modern permacultural techniques. Hence, if the medieval peasant actually did work as much as 40 hours per week (and it appears that it could have been half that or less; cannot tell), the same labor, given more sophisticated techniques, could possibly yield vastly more product. OR, much preferably, VASTLY LESS LABOR could yield the same product, hence vastly more time for drinking, carousing, goofing-off, Bacchic revelry, trouble-making, etc.

Time goes on and things change… including potential yields from agri/horticulture.

“All told, holiday leisure time in medieval England took up probably about one-third of the year. And the English were apparently working harder than their neighbors. The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.[5] ”

….. and that’s still assuming that the serf is
working for some lord, and turning over
some (whatever) fraction of his/her product
to the lord. In other words, if said fraction
could be retained instead of turned over,
then the goldbricking time could be
extended to perhaps 6 or 7 months per
year, or even longer.

Doesn’t sound too bad.

Plenty of time for feasting, drinking,
merry-making, resting…