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The peasants of Languedoc

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Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, the author of "The Peasants of Languedoc," is a French historian whose works have had considerable exposure in English. The fascinating "Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error" (and alternate titles; 1975, translation 1978) may be the best-known of his works, as well as the most controversial among historians, based as it is on village gossip recorded by Inquisitors. Perhaps more representative are detailed studies of a popular demonstration / riot in "Carnival in Romans" ("Le Carnaval de Romans," 1979), and of folktale themes as transmitted in popular and literary versions from the south of France, in "Love, Death and Money in the Pays D'Oc" ("L'argent, l'amour et la mort en pays d'Oc," 1980), in which social stresses and personal anxieties come together.

Underlying much of this production, however, and perhaps giving Ladurie the confidence to interpret the notoriously difficult inquisitorial records, is this less-inspiring sounding early work, "Les Paysans de Languedoc" of 1966, here translated under an equally plain and literal title, which appeared in English only three years after the original French edition. In any case, it clearly underlies his later investigations of provincial culture and society.

This is a sophisticated analysis of primarily economic records from one of the traditional provinces of southern France, covering mainly the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It deals with the basics of ordinary life -- production, consumption, property, and taxes, and how they interacted. There are interesting confirmations of what can go wrong when people act without much guidance from economic theory in determining self-interest. For example, wide-spread cutting of wages in a time of rising prices reduced income and purchases, ultimately putting meat beyond the reach of most consumers. This was a catastrophe for some of the same employers, who were cattle-raisers (or owners of grazing land) with a diminishing market. (If I understand Ladurie's tables and charts correctly -- and this involves some interpretation on the part of a non-professional -- the typical response to their falling profits was to cut wages again, again reducing the cash in circulation, and reinforcing the cycle in a time when markets for most goods, especially perishable ones, were strictly local.)

It is definitely not light reading, but Ladurie is not above adding characterizations (such as "tight-fisted fellows") to otherwise anonymous groups of property-owners and employers, sacrificing a little of the appearance of objectivity for the sake of human interest. Generally speaking, Ladurie draws such positions from the hard data, and the attentive reader may well reach the same conclusion; I remain happier about the practice from a literary point of view than an historical one.

"Peasants of Languedoc" represents a major move toward understanding the history of people left out of official histories, although the original description as "total history" is rather misleading. Taken together with Ladurie's later cultural studies, however, it does mark a considerable advance.

In Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's The Peasants of Languedoc the message and the [historical] method are inseparable. The sources used to explore rural life in the French province of Languedoc (today Languedoc-Roussillon), at times, take a more prominent role in the narrative than the peasant workers and tenant farmers. Its central theme examines the "Malthusian dilemma of a traditional agrarian society incapable, over the long run, of preserving a balance between population and food production." (x) Le Roy Ladurie employs a mélange of economic, demographic, social, meteorological, political, religious, psychological analysis to present in a histoire totale that the fluctuations within the agrarian cycle cannot be explained by only focusing on economic determinants. Societal and weather-related factors influenced economic choices, and the economy shaped demographic and religious arrangements.

Though Le Roy Ladurie primarily focuses his study on the agrarian cycle of Languedoc's economy stretching from 1500 to 1750, he, nevertheless, presents a load of comparative evidence from the fifteenth and prior centuries, and he is not shy about interpreting early modern decisions through twentieth century psychological principles. He divides the cycle into four phases: liftoff, rise, maturity, and decline. During the late medieval period, Languedoc's population suffered from famine and dearth, poor harvests, undernourishment, all of which made the onset of the Black Death of 1348 even more devastating. The late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries experienced expansion. Harvests rebounded, proper nutrition increased population, precious metal boosted monetary circulation, and urban areas grew. Sixteenth-century agricultural production, however, did not keep pace with population growth. The conditions set in motion, what Le Roy Ladurie termed, pauperization, which entailed reduced real wages and confining more people to smaller plots of land. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, an increase in land rents, higher taxes to the state, and a reinvigorated Catholic Church effort to collect the tithe "ate into the agricultural producer's income." (p. 215) The gross product also rose during this period, just not enough to keep pace with population and rent increases. A long period of recession marked the latter part of the century. Aggregate agriculture declined, taxation continued upward, and the population, for the first time in two centuries, began to decline because of joblessness, undernourishment, epidemics, and emigration. The beginning of the eighteenth century witnessed an economic resurgence in Languedoc, featuring increased wine production, diversified crops, a stable population growth, and declining mortality rates. In this environment, despite the continuance of land subdivision, pauperization vanished. The rise in earnings per hectare increased farmers' income and spread the earnings among more tenants.

The eighteenth-century economic revival owed as much to changes in personal and social behavior as it did to economic determinants. To Le Roy Ladurie's understanding, "the economy stagnated, society remained intractable, and population...retreated, because society, population, and the economy lacked the progressive technology of true growth." (p. 302) Languedoc's inability to adjust to economic downturns "was the fruit of a whole series of cultural stumbling blocks." (p. 298) To this end, Le Roy Ladurie identified the first cultural culprit as religious "fanaticism." To him it seemed that "the salvation of souls was more important than the improvement of techniques." (p. 298) The author disdains such dogmatism. However, he also acknowledges the late sixteenth-century violence between Huguenots and Catholic advanced two important social demands--redistribution of church land and reform of the tithe. He also credits religious tensions with aiding the abatement of the second cultural stumbling block to true economic growth: illiteracy. Early on in the French Reformation, with the Calvinists' emphasis on reading the Bible, a Languedocian's [in]ability to read helped determine his/her religious affiliation. As the conflicts persisted, literacy became a priority for both religious camps. Le Roy Ladurie presents the case of the rural parish Aniane, whose rate of illiteracy among its political council members (measured in the number members capable of signing their names) reduced from circa 50 percent (1570-1625) to "practically zero" by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Similar results in the province were due to the Protestant schools and perseverance of the Catholic clergy.

One of the more brilliant aspects, therefore, of The Peasants of Languedoc is its capacity to fault societal pressures for impeding economic recovery and to credit societal changes for aiding upturns. Le Roy Ladurie argues that the transformations in wine growing, manufacturing, and competent farm management--leading forces in the economic surge--followed the educational and religious modifications in the province. As religious fanaticism tempered and basic education became more widespread (at least in more urban areas), behaviors changed. "The progress of elementary instruction was inseparable...from a certain psychological transfiguration and a general improvement in behavior." (p. 307) He points to the decrease in violent incidents and the rise in cultural appreciation. Urban indifference effected some changes in the surrounding neighborhoods. Not only does Le Roy Ladurie present an agrarian cycle from 1500 to 1750, but also a societal and psychological evolution of the Languedocians during the same period. The economic turnabout of the eighteenth century resulted from "the educated and competent, practical-minded, composed individuals" taking responsibility for economic growth. (p. 309)

Le Roy Ladurie's analysis contains an evident bias for secularism. To the spiritual belief systems of the examined period, he takes a hostile view. One reason for the eighteenth-century turnabout was that Languedocian Protestants "were cured of their fanaticism" and focused on "conformity with their ancient and profitable vocation of secular asceticism." (p. 310) The Church's land holdings and tithe collection siphoned off needed capital. To satanic beliefs he attaches pejorative labels such as "superstitions," "epidemics," "forms of the disease," "irrational," and "primitive," as opposed to the "light of reason and the modern conception of man."

To affirm his biases Le Roy Ladurie brings an Annales-inspired interdisciplinary arsenal of primary sources and analysis to support claims. His sources consists of land tax registers, tithe accounts, hearth lists, and records of weather patterns, wages, prices, land grants, interest rates, and profits. To the source materials, Le Roy Ladurie applies critical economic, social, psychological, and anthropological analysis. The employment of these intellectual instruments provides him many solid (and some less solid) foundations for his assumptions. The book as a whole advocates for further attempts to present histoires totales. In addition, Le Roy Ladurie's use of such a broad array of knowledge bases gives way to a twentieth century reading of centuries-old events. Throughout the book he freely dispenses suggestions concerning what the landowners, state officials, clergymen, and peasants should have done.

The Peasants of Languedoc provides an inspiring model for the use of interdisciplinary sources and analysis in the construction of historical narrative. The methodology widens the historian's lens and provides several approaches to corroborate argumentation. It can also, however, furnish one with a false sense of proficiency in areas beyond one's intellectual capacity. The temptation to "overreach" with one's knowledge base must be kept in check. After reading Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's book, the thought of writing a history without considering evidence from other intellectual disciplines seems untenable and unappealing.

For students of French or European history this book by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is a must read! This author is truly the most brilliant French historian. I recommend anything by Ladurie without reservation.

While I got this book at a great price, I dislike the fact that it has large sections highlighted in blue. These may have been important passages for the previous reader, but I find them a distraction. I'd like to know in future if the book has sections highlighted to this extent and in bright colours. I don't mind notes in the margins...