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{{short description|Cultivation of land for a proprietor by one who receives a proportion of the produce}}
[[Image:Louvres-antiquites-egyptiennes-img 2713.jpg|thumb|260px|Contract for metayage, papyrus, 35th year of [[Amasis II]] (533 BC, [[Demotic (Egyptian)|26th Dynasty]])]]
The '''
==Origin and function==
Métayage was available under [[Roman law]], although it was not in widespread use.<ref>Cato, Marcus Porcius ''De Re Rustica'' Capitula CXXXVI - CXXXVII</ref><ref>Crook, J.A. (1967) ''Law and Life of Rome: 90 B.C. to A.D. 212'' Cornell Univ. Press: Ithaca, NY. p. 157</ref> It proved useful after the emancipation of Roman slaves as the newly freed peasants had no land or cash (the same phenomenon happened in Brazil and the
In what is now northern Italy and southeastern France, the post [[Black Death]] population explosion of the late Middle Ages, combined with the relative lack of free land, made métayage an attractive system for both landowner and farmer. Once institutionalized, it continued
Métayage was used early in the [[Middle Ages]] in northern France and the [[Rhineland]]s, where burgeoning prosperity encouraged large-scale vineyard planting, similar to what the ancient Romans had accomplished
In the eighteenth century c. 75% of leased lands in western, southern and central France were sharecropped. North of the [[Loire]] it was only common in [[Lorraine]].<ref>Sharecropping and Sharecroppers, T J Byres, page 18</ref>
In Italy and France, respectively, it was called ''mezzadria'' and ''métayage'', or halving - the halving, that is, of the produce of the soil between landowner and land-holder. Halving didn't imply equal amounts of the produce but rather division according to agreement. The produce was divisible in certain definite proportions, which obviously must have varied with the varying fertility of the soil and other circumstances and did in practice vary so much that the [[landlord]]'s share was sometimes as much as two-thirds, sometimes as little as one-third. Sometimes the landlord supplied all the stock, sometimes only part - the cattle and seed perhaps, while the farmer provided the implements; or perhaps only half the seed and half the cattle, the farmer finding the other halves. Thus the ''instrumentum fundi'' of [[Roman Law]] was combined within métayage.<ref>Crook, J.A. (1967) ''Law and Life of Rome: 90 B.C. to A.D. 212'' Cornell Univ. Press: Ithaca, NY. p. 158</ref> Taxes were also frequently divided, being paid wholly by one or the other, or jointly by both.
In the 18th Century, métayage agreements began to give way to agreements to share profits from the sale of the crops and to straight tenant farming, although the practice in its original form could still be found in isolated communities until the early 20th Century.<ref>Shaffer, John W. (1982) ''Family and Farm: Agrarian Change and Household Organization in the Loire Valley, 1500-1900'' State University of New York Press: Albany. {{ISBN
In France, there was also a system termed ''métayage par groupes'', which consisted of letting a sizeable farm not to one métayer but to an association of several who would work together for the general good under the supervision of either the landlord or his bailiff. This arrangement got past the difficulty of finding tenants having sufficient capital and labour to run the larger farms.
In France, since 1983, these métayage and similar farming contracts have been regulated by Livre IV of the Rural Code.<ref>[http://admi.net/code/index-CRURALNL.html French Rural Code Livre IV ''Baux ruraux'']</ref>
==Localities==
The system was once universal in certain provinces of [[Italy]] and [[France]], and survived there in places until the end of the nineteenth century. Similar systems formerly existed in [[Portugal]], [[Old Castile|Castile]],<ref>[http://libro.uca.edu/vassberg/land5.htm D. Vassberg "Land and Society in Golden Age Castile"]</ref> and in [[Greece]],<ref>Moreau-Christophe, Louis-Mathurin (1849) ''Du Droit a l'Oisiveté et de l'Organisation du Travail Servile Dans les Républiques Grecques et Romaine'' Chez Guillaumin et Ce, Libraires: Paris, pp. 258-261.</ref> and in the countries bordering on the [[Danube]]. It is tracked to this day in statistics of the [[European Commission]].<ref>[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:329:0001:0028:FR:PDF eur-lex.eu: "RÈGLEMENT (CE) No 1200/2009 DE LA COMMISSION" 30 Nov 2009]</ref><ref>[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2001:255:0001:0051:FR:PDF eur-lex.eu: "REGLEMENT (CE) No 1837/2001 DE LA COMMISSION" 10 Sep 2001]</ref><ref>[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2002:216:0001:0041:FR:PDF eur-lex.eu: "RÈGLEMENT (CE) No 1444/2002 DE LA COMMISSION" 24 Jul 2002]</ref> Métayage was used in French colonies, particularly after the demise of slavery. Also, because of its utility métayage spread to nearby British colonies such as Nevis, St. Lucia and Tobago.<ref>Richardson, Bonham C. (1992) ''The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492-1992: A Regional Geography'' Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, p. 74. {{ISBN
The term ''métayage'' is also applied to modern-day flexible cash leases at least in the nominally common law Canadian province of [[Ontario]],<ref>''Flexible Cash Lease Agreements/Contrats de métayage portant sur les cultures'', Factsheet 812 (2001) Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Ontario accessed at [http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/french/busdev/facts/01-068.htm][https://web.archive.org/web/20070802143042/http://omafra.gov.on.ca/french/busdev/facts/01-068.htm] with English version at [http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/busdev/facts/01-069.htm][https://web.archive.org/web/20090328025503/http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/busdev/facts/01-069.htm] June 20, 2006</ref> and in 2006 in all of Canada, 13,030 farms occupying 2,316,566ha were counted by Statistics Canada.<ref name=statscan>[http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/95-629-x/4/4124092-fra.htm statcan.gc.ca: "Mode d'occupation, 2006: Tableau 4.5-5 - Mode d'occupation déclaré des terres possédées, louées, en métayage ou utilisées sous d'autres arrangements - Superficie en métayage, année de recensement 2006"]</ref> The same study of metayage found 2,489 farms covering 130,873ha in Ontario.<ref name=statscan/> The system was useful in Quebec for most agricultural properties at least as far back as the year 1800,<ref>[http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/antrobus_john_5E.html biographi.ca: "DCB entry for ANTROBUS, JOHN"]</ref> and is still tracked statistically by value in Quebec as "
==Criticism==
British writers were unanimous in condemning the métayage system, until [[John Stuart Mill]] adopted a different tone. They judged it by its appearance in France, where under the ''[[ancien régime]]'' all direct [[tax]]es were paid by the métayer with the noble landowner being exempt. With the taxes being assessed according to the visible produce of the soil, they operated as penalties upon productiveness. Under this system, a métayer could fancy that his interest lay less in exerting himself to augment the total share to be divided between himself and his landlord and instead be encouraged to defraud the latter part of his rightful share. This was partly due to the métayer's relative state of destitution and with the fixed duration of his tenure - without which the metayage could not prosper. French metayers, in [[Arthur Young (writer)|Arthur Young]]'s time, were "removable at pleasure, and obliged to conform in all things to the will of their landlords," and so in general they so remained.<ref>Cruveilhier, J. (1894) ''Étude sur le métayage'' Paris.</ref>▼
▲British writers were unanimous in condemning the métayage system, until [[John Stuart Mill]] adopted a different tone. They judged it by its appearance in France, where under the ''[[ancien régime]]'' all direct [[tax]]es were paid by the métayer with the noble landowner being exempt. With the taxes being assessed according to the visible produce of the soil, they operated as penalties upon productiveness. Under this system, a métayer could fancy that his interest lay less in exerting himself to augment the total share to be divided between himself and his landlord and instead be encouraged to defraud the latter part of his rightful share. This was partly due to the métayer's relative state of destitution and with the fixed duration of his tenure - without which the metayage could not prosper. French metayers, in [[Arthur Young (writer)|Arthur Young]]'s time, were "removable at pleasure, and obliged to conform in all things to the will of their landlords," and so in general they so remained.<ref name="Cruveilhier, J. 1894">Cruveilhier, J. (1894) ''Étude sur le métayage'' Paris.</ref>
In 1600, the landlord [[Olivier de Serres]] wrote 'Le théâtre de l'agriculture' which recommends Métayage as cash tenants took all the risks so would demand lower rent while hired labour was expensive to manage.<ref>The Economic Theory of Sharecropping in Early Modern France, Philip Hoffman, The Journal of Economic History 1984, page 312</ref> [[Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi|Simonde de Sismondi]] expressed dissatisfaction in 1819 with the institution of métayage because it reinforced the poverty of the peasants and prevented any social or cultural development.<ref>[[Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi|de Sismondi, Simonde]] (1819) ''Nouveaux principes d'economie politique, ou de la Richesse dans ses rapports avec la population'' translated as ''New Principles of Political Economy of Wealth in Its Relation to Population '' by Richard Hyse, Transaction Publishers: London (1991). ISBN 0-88738-336-X</ref>▼
▲In 1600, the landlord [[Olivier de Serres]] wrote 'Le théâtre de l'agriculture' which recommends Métayage as cash tenants took all the risks so would demand lower rent while hired labour was expensive to manage.<ref>The Economic Theory of Sharecropping in Early Modern France, Philip Hoffman, The Journal of Economic History 1984, page 312</ref> [[Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi|Simonde de Sismondi]] expressed dissatisfaction in 1819 with the institution of métayage because it reinforced the poverty of the peasants and prevented any social or cultural development.<ref>[[Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi|de Sismondi, Simonde]] (1819) ''Nouveaux principes d'economie politique, ou de la Richesse dans ses rapports avec la population'' translated as ''New Principles of Political Economy of Wealth in Its Relation to Population '' by Richard Hyse, Transaction Publishers: London (1991). {{ISBN
Although métayage and extreme rural poverty usually coincided, there were provinces in France and Italy (especially on the plains of [[Lombardy]]) where the contrary was the case.<ref name="Cruveilhier, J. 1894"/>
==See also==
*[[Sharecropping]]
*[[Sharefarming]]
*[[Tenant farmer]]
==Notes==
==References and notes==▼
{{notelist}}
{{reflist}}
{{1911|wstitle=Métayage System|volume=18|page=257}}
[[Category:Agricultural labor]]
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