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Rewrote several sentences for clarity. Removed this specific sentence, as it appeared to be nonsensical: "An explanation of the contrasts presented by métayage in different regions is not far to seek." |
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[[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 '''Metayage''' system ({{lang-fr|métayage}}, {{lang-es|[[:es:aparcería|aparcería]]}}, {{lang-it|[[:it:mezzadria|mezzadria]]}}) is the cultivation of land for a proprietor by one who receives a proportion of the produce, as a kind of [[sharecropping]].
==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 USA when slavery was banned).
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 utilizing 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>
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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|0-87395-562-5}}</ref> By 1929, there were still 200,000 Métayers, farming 11% of French cultivated land (same % in 1892). It was most common in [[Landes forest|Landes]] and [[Allier]] (72% and 49% respectively).<ref>Land Tenure and Political Tendency in Rural France: The Case of Sharecropping, S Sokoloff, European Studies Review, 1980, page 361</ref> As the métayage practice changed, the term ''colonat partiaire'' began to be applied to the old practice of sharing-out the actual crop, while métayage was used for the sharing-out of the proceeds from the sale of the crops. ''Colonat partiaire'' was still practised in the French overseas departments, notably [[Réunion]],<ref>[http://www.jir.fr/article.php3?id_article=129806 "Le colonat partiaire" ''Clicanoo, Journal de l'Ile de la Réunion'' 15 May 2006] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008061920/http://www.jir.fr/article.php3?id_article=129806 |date=8 October 2007 }};</ref> until 2006 when it was abolished.<ref>[http://www.admi.net/jo/20060106/AGRX0500091L.html Art. L. 462-28, French National Assembly, Law No 2006-11 of January 5 2006 ''Journal officiel de la République Française'' of January 6, 2006];</ref>
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>
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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>{{pageneeded|date=December 2017}}
Yet even in France, although métayage and extreme rural poverty usually coincided, there were provinces where the contrary was the case, as it also was in Italy, especially on the plains of [[Lombardy]]
<ref>Cruveilhier, J. (1894) ''Étude sur le métayage'' Paris.</ref>
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