sized farms, and large holdings (monastic granges or the demesne land of large estates)
all came to be cultivated under métayage. Contracts for métayage were established for a
set term during which tenant farmers (métayers) cultivated land by sharecropping rather
than for fixed annual rents. Like those holding land for rents (under baux à cens), and
unlike the dependent peasants attached to the manses of traditional estates, métayers had
no hereditary rights to the land, although rental terms could be relatively long: twenty to
thirty years, a tenant’s lifetime, or even several lifetimes. Under métayage, the owner
generally provided a farm with farmstead, livestock, equipment, seed, and sometimes
even food for the start-up year; the tenant agreed to maintain the farm, equipment, and
buildings in good condition and to split both income and expenses of a holding in a set
proportion (often half and half, hence métayage) with the owner. Actual proportions due
to owner and métayer varied widely, depending on the quality of the land involved and
on the availability of land and labor locally; instances are recorded for southern France in
which no métayer would take up offers of even 19/20ths of the produce of extremely
poor land. The institution of métayage has often been heralded as indicative of the
transformation of lords into city-dwelling rentiers, but this interpretation is now being
questioned. In periods of improving yields, a division of output must have appeared
advantageous to owners, who were obviously anxious to profit from in-creased
production on their land. Owners must still have had to supervise their holdings closely to
assure themselves that they were actually getting their share of the produce. This may
explain why such sharecropping agreements were often eventually transformed into
leases for fixed rents, either in money or in kind. In addition to their use for land
cultivation, contracts of métayage were widely used for animal husbandry.
Constance H.Berman
[See also: AGRICULTURE]
Duby, Georges. Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, trans. Cynthia Postan.
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968.
——, and Armand Wallon, eds. Histoire de la France rurale des origines a 1340. Paris: Seuil,
1975.
Fourquin, Guy. Histoire économique de l’Occident médiévale. Paris: Colin, 1979.
Sicard, Germain. Le métayage dans le Midi toulousain à la fin du moyen âge. Toulouse: Subiron,
1956.
METZ
. An important center of Frankish power on the Moselle River, Metz (Moselle) was the
capital of Austrasia and the center of power of the Arnulfing-Pippinid ancestors of the
Carolingians. It also was the principal city of the kingdom of Lorraine and later of the
duchy of Upper Lorraine.
Divodurum, the capital of the Celtic tribe of the Mediomatrici, was a heavily
romanized and substantial city with temples, aqueduct, baths, and amphitheater, located
in the later Roman province of Belgica Prima. With its strong walls, it survived the
invasions of the 5th century and became renowned for its many churches and
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