irrigation practices from Arab-controlled parts of Spain in this later period, and except in
the vicinity of the great cities whose markets encouraged new forms of cropping,
medieval agricultural practice remained more or less unchanged from the 13th through
the early-modern centuries.
Constance H.Berman
[See also: ANIMALS (DOMESTIC); BAN/BANALITÉ; CLIMATE;
DÉFRICHEMENT; GRANGE; MÉTAYER/MÉTAYAGE; POPULATION AND
DEMOGRAPHY; RURAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE; TRANSHUMANCE;
VILLENEUVE]
Berman, Constance H. Medieval Agriculture, the Southern French Countryside, and the Early
Cistercians. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1986.
Bloch, Marc. French Rural History: An Essay in Its Basic Characteristics, trans. Janet Sondheimer.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.
Duby, Georges. Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, trans. Cynthia Postan.
London: Arnold, 1968.
——. The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the
Twelfth Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979.
——, and Armand Wallon, eds. Histoire de la France rurale des origines à 1340. Paris: Seuil,
1975.
Faucher, Daniel. Géographie agraire: types de culture. Paris: Librairie de Medicis, 1949.
Fourquin, Guy. Histoire économique de l’Occident médiévale. Paris: Colin, 1979.
Higounet, Charles. Paysages et villages neufs du moyen âge. Bordeaux: Fédération Historique du
Sud-Ouest, 1975.
Slicher van Bath, Bernard H. The Agrarian History of Western Europe: A.D. 500–1850, trans.
Olive Ordish. London: Arnold, 1963.
Villages désertés et histoire économique, XIe–XVIIIe siècles. Paris: SEVPEN, 1965.
White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford: Clarendon, 1962.
AIDES
. The feudal obligation of a vassal to render “aid and counsel” to his lord gave rise not
only to the specific “feudal aids” payable on designated occasions but also to military
service and pecuniary assistance demanded at other times. Aside from feudal aides
generalized to include subjects who were not royal vassals, we find, as early as Philip II,
aides de l’ost, payments in lieu of military obligations. Occasional levies called aides
gave way to more frequent and controversial ones after 1294, when France was
frequently at war and the king’s finances badly stretched.
Among the terms used for tax in the early 14th century, “war subsidy” was most
common, but aide was also used in this sense. The word gradually began to refer mainly
to indirect taxes on the sale of merchandise, supplanting maltôte, which also applied to
indirect taxes but carried with it a sense of unjust exaction. Up to 1360, however, aides
had no very specific meaning when not referring to one of the customary feudal aids. In
December of that year, the need to raise a substantial sum for the ransom of King John II
led the crown to establish three regular indirect taxes. One of these, which applied
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 24