Metayage: Difference between revisions

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 using slave labor. The hyperinflation that followed the influx of Incan-American gold made Métayage preferable to cash tenancy and wage labour for both parties. Called ''complant'', a laborer (in French ''[[prendeur]]'', in Italian ''mezzadro'') would offer to plant and tend to an uncultivated parcel of land belonging to a land owner (in French ''[[bailleur]]'', in Italian ''concedente''). The ''prendeur'' would have ownership of the vines and the ''bailleur'' would receive anywhere from a third to two-thirds of the vines' production in exchange for the use of his soil.<ref>Hugh Johnson, ''Vintage: The Story of Wine'' pg 116. Simon and Schuster 1989</ref> This system was used extensively in planting the [[Champagne region]].<ref>[http://www.maisons-champagne.com/traduction/english/bonal_gb/pages/01/01-02_gb.htm Excerpts from R. Dion’s “ Histoire de la Vigne et du Vin en France“] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927205512/http://www.maisons-champagne.com/traduction/english/bonal_gb/pages/01/01-02_gb.htm |date=2007-09-27 }}</ref> ''Bailleur'' was also used as the name for the proprietor under métayage. The contract still exists today in Switzerland.<ref>[http://www.agrivalais.ch/fr/agriculteurs/metayagevigne.pdf agrivalais.ch: "Contrat de métayage dans la vigne"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121224213505/http://www.agrivalais.ch/fr/agriculteurs/metayagevigne.pdf |date=2012-12-24 }}</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.