pecia 565The conditions for these peasants varied according to a
number of factors, including the topography of land on
which they had to work, the labor market, the produc-
tion for the demands of towns and urban populations,
the solidarity of their own community, the needs and
powers of lords, the type of farming, and the crops and
animals involved in production.
In the late antique world and the early Middle Ages,
peasants’ holdings were not closely tied to particular
pieces of land, lords, or institutions. In the 10th century,
fixed villages came into being and family houses
replaced more collective dwellings. From those evolved
much more precise sets of relationships with lords. The
legal status of peasants then became more or less free or
obligated to certain services and taxes. True slavery had
become very rare for production from the land in
Europe. The lord had responsibilities to his peasantry,
but these were limited. There were also small landhold-
ers or tenant farmers, independent of any lord except in
certain legal ties to the manorial court system. True serfs,
who were not technically slaves but were essentially
owned by their master, constituted another element of
the peasantry. Their proportion of the rural population
varied from region to region, sometimes as high as 35
percent, though in many regions they were completely
absent.
THE BYZANTINE PEASANTRYByzantine peasants played an important role in the
empire. They were for several centuries one of the princi-
pal supports of the realm. In the early days of BYZANTIUM,
the plight of the peasants improved because of a chronic
shortage of labor, though the number of agricultural
slaves was always low. Small proprietors always existed,
with monopolies in a significant number of villages, usu-
ally reinforced by the presence of hereditary leaseholders.
The fiscal administration had to abandon taxing cities
and found taxpayers in rural areas. Peasants also consti-
tuted a portion of the support for the Byzantine military
districts or themes, which they helped to finance for
defense against foreign invasions, especially those of the
ARABS.
See alsoAGRICULTURE; BAN; FOOD, DRINK, AND NUTRI-
TION; MANORS AND MANORIAL LORDSHIP; PEASANT REBEL-
LIONS; SERFS AND SERFDOM; VILLEINS, AND VILLEINAGE.
Further reading:Robert Fossier, Peasant Life in the
Medieval West,trans. Juliet Vale (Oxford: B. Blackwell,
1988); Paul H. Freedman, Images of the Medieval Peasant
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999); Ange-
liki E. Laiou, Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire:
A Social and Demographic Study(Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 1977); Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,
The Peasants of Languedoc,trans. John Day (1966; reprint,
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974); Werner
Rösener, The Peasantry of Europe, trans. Thomas M.
Barker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
Pec ́ (Péc, Pecˇu ̄y) Péc was one of two monastic sites
that alternated as residences of the archbishop of the
Serbs, who became a patriarch in 1346. At the heart of
the town were three churches built and decorated within
a century of one another. The oldest of this group was
the church of the Holy Apostles; its date is not fixed with
certainty, perhaps the 1230s. It has FRESCOESfrom the
1260s. Two 14th-century churches surround the Holy
Apostles. To the north is Saint Demetrius (1316–24), and
to the south is the Theotokos Hodeghetria, built about- Both are decorated with frescoes from the 14th
century.
See alsoSERBIA ANDSERBS;STEPHENDUSˇAN.
Further reading: Suzy Dufrenne, “Pec ́,” EMA
2.1,107; John V. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans: A
Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the
Ottoman Conquest(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1994); Radivoje Ljubinkovic, The Church of the
Apostles in the Patriarchate of Pec,trans. Veselin Kostic
(Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1964).
pecia The Latin word peciadesignated “a piece.” In the
book production industry and trade, it designated a par-
tial stage in the copying procedure of a manuscript text
that permitted a more rapid circulation and publication
of works for scholars. Students and teachers needed
manuscript copies of works, producing which was not a
simple or cheap process. To avoid the necessity of repro-
ducing a whole manuscript, at once which could tie up
the best model text for a long time and yet only obtain a
single copy, a scribe was lent an exemplarcompiled in
numbered sections. These were called peciein the plural.
The scribe used the “pieces” one after the other, so the
other sections might be available for other copies. Several
copyists worked on the same text at the same time, so a
greater number of full copies of a single work to be
rapidly produced. The model text made up of all of the
pieces was called an exemplar.This was done by book-
sellers called stationers.
This system arose toward the end of the 12th century
at BOLOGNAand spread in the 13th century to PARISand
elsewhere, becoming a commercial enterprise. The uni-
versity authorities regulated this business strictly. The
price for producing each piece was taxed, and each exem-
plarwas subjected to checks, and proofreading, even by
the authors involved. All this aimed toward ensuring the
integrity of the texts. The quality of the texts, nonethe-
less, transmitted by exemplars was variable. It could be
excellent when the stationer had a clear autograph, some-
times even checked by the author, or a very good model.
But it could be mediocre. There are numerous examples
of corrupted texts. Any modern or scientific editing of
these complex philosophical, theological, and legal texts
had to confront issues of fragmentation, accuracy, and
problematic descent.