<論説>一三世紀ウィルトシアの世俗領荘園

Abstract

封建領主の農民に対する支配権力はどのように発生し、維持されるのか。所与の暴力を領主権の起源とみなす系譜論的説明を別とすれば、この間には現在までのところ二つの有力な解答が与えられていると思われる。一つはゲルマン共同体の階級分化にともなう、共同体規制の領主権力への転化という説明であり、他の一つは、中世特有の軍事的階層序列制度という背後からの支持による個々の領主権力の維持という説明である。このいずれもが領主権の成立・維持を、領主・農民間の生産・収奪の関係という面から説明する方法を採らない点が特徴的である。本稿ではこれら両説の成果を踏まえて、南西英の一荘園を例として生産関係における領主の農民収奪と、その際の領主権力の機能について若干の考察を行い、封建社会の中で領主支配権が再生産されるメカニズムを解明するための一つのアプローチを示すことに努めた。

Adam de Stratton, one of the attorneys of Isabel de Fortibus, was granted the manor of Sevenhampton, Wiltshire, in 1273 and held it until 1289 when he forfeited his office at Exchequer. At the manor on behalf of him some bailiffs and reeves did the duty of exploiting forty-seven villeins and eight cotters in the demesne farming, the payment of rents and the render of various rents in kind. The bailiffs also supervised the manorial court a few times a year, where other tenants of Adam, such as freeholders and tenants-at-will, had to do suit of court, too. Either in the account rolls or in the court rolls of the manor, we can find few or no entries which implies the direct exploitation of peasants by the lord or his officials. How could the lord keep exploiting the peasants only with his clerical career instead of military power? A few entries in the court rolls imply the remittal of cases into the hundred court of Highworth. Dr. R. B. Pugh, the compiler of the rolls, explained that some tenants of Adam did a suit of court not at the manor court, but at the hundred court. If that was the case, it seems that Adam's lordship over those peasants was not self-sustained, but was upheld by the regional network of lordship in that hundred. Influenced by such a notion an approach to make an image of feudal lordship will be shown in this article.