摘 要

英国作为世界上第一个资本主义国家，作为曾经的“日不落帝国”，其发展根源可追溯到中世纪的封建社会时期。而中世纪的英国以庄园经济为基础，《英国庄园生活》通过从描述庄园农民的日常生活，侧面反映出当时社会的政治制度、经济条件、宗教文化、法律规定等多个方面以及其对现当代的影响，清楚地解释了封建社会的成因，在无形中触及到了资本主义的起源问题。本文分为五个部分：第一部分介绍对英国庄园文化研究的目的和背景；第二部分介绍作者的生平成就和相关的历史研究；第三部分从中世纪时期的英国社会状况、不同的庄园管理方式和多种耕作制度详细阐述英国庄园文化的基本情况；第四部分通过历史事实来讲述英国庄园文化对近现代的影响；最后一部分是总结以及概括论文的观点，同时指出论文的局限性。该论文为后面的研究者研讨英国文化提供参考。

关键词：中世纪；英国；庄园文化；现当代影响

Abstract

Britain is the first capitalist country, also once as an empire on which the sun never sets, its development could date back to the feudal times in the Medieval Ages. The manorial economy was considered as the basis of the feudal economy. By describing the daily life of the manor peasants, Life on the English Manor reflects the political system, economic conditions, religious culture, laws and regulations at that time on the side as well as the modern influences, explaining the causes of feudal society and unconsciously touching on the origins of capitalism. This paper is divided into five parts: the first part is about the research purpose and research background; the second part is the introduction of the author with his achievements and the related study; the third part illustrates the conditions of English manor culture in detail from the angle of the social conditions in the Medieval Ages, different ways of manor management and farming system; the fourth part is the modern influences brought by English manor culture; and the last part is the summary and generalization of the author’s opinion and the limitation will be pointed out as well. This paper prompts later researchers to hold further discussion in English culture.

Key Words: Medieval Ages; Britain; manor culture; contemporary influences

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Purpose 1

1.2 Research Background 1

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 The Author 3

2.2 The Related Study 3

3 Contents of English Manor Culture 5

3.1 The Emergence 5

3.2 The Manor Management 6

3.3 The Farming System 7

4 Contemporary Influences of English Manor Culture 9

4.1 The Social Influence 9

4.2 The Economical Influence 10

4.3 The Political Influence 11

4.4 The Religious Influence 13

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

An Analysis of English Manor Culture in Medieval Ages and Its Contemporary Influences

——Based on Life on the English Manor

1 Introduction

1.1 Research Purpose

J. W. Thompson once said, “to comprehend the society of the Medieval Ages, the key is to comprehend the manorial system.” Agriculture is both the main and the only production sector, while manor is the main mode of agriculture production in the last few centuries. As the main and normal production unit, manor is a complicated organism formed by politics, economy, consciousness and other social elements. Its existence and development is inevitably the historical stage of the British society. The manorial system, popular in central and west Europe, is considered as a form of government, economic system and social structure. It is not only a widespread economic phenomena and but also the symbol of feudal society. Thus to correctly know the manor system as well as production forces and relations is the foundation of understanding economic phenomena in the Medieval Ages.

Even if this paper elaborates the living conditions of English farmers before 600-700 years, it reveals British farmers and rural development road. For the countries which are still in the pursuit of agricultural modernization and solving the issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers, taking China as an example, the significance seems instructive and remarkable: the improvement of farmers' life in England has gone through a long and effective process. It is the cornerstone that encouraged the emergence of the Industrial Revolution which has totally shocked the world and changed humans’ life.

1.2 Research Background

At the end of nineteenth century, there existed a controversy about the formation of the feudal system between Germanic school^[1] and Roman school^[2]. The debate gradually came into the sight of economic historians and institutional historians, while the manorial system and seigniorial system were placed in the spotlight. On the one hand, Frederick Seebohm asserted categorically in English Village Community: that many rural areas had never ever got freedom under the rules of the lords since the Roman manor were strong enough to exploit the free peasants in Germania. Later he proved that the open-field system stemmed from seigniorial system which originated from Roman manor by a series of argumentation. Thus Frederick became a spokesman of Roman school. On the other hand, Paul Vinogradoff and F. W. Maitland refuted Frederick’s opinion from the perspective of the law about slavery, asserting that the early communal society was free instead of being dominated by the Romans. The united manors did not exist before the Norman Conquest, so it was the war that altered the land ownership of those free peasants.

In fact, manor doesn’t refer to neither slavery nor jurisdiction. Instead, it is just a tax unit formulated by the government. Additionally, the rural area doesn’t equal to the manor, instead, it only means a group of free peasants without the lords’ rules. The focal point two schools have disputed before 140 years is namely the social and legal status of the peasants. To find the truth, Bennett began to research on medieval manor, making full use of the knowledge about bibliography to restitute the real living conditions of the manor peasants.

2 Literature Review

2.1 The Author

Henry Stanley Bennett was born in January 15, 1889. He was the eldest of four children in a small bookseller family in Sussex. Bennett cultivated reading habit when he was just 6 years old under the influence of his father, who was a distinguished expert in studying beetles, thus Bennett got a number of chances to go on an excursion like visiting the aristocratic garden, manor and castle. All of these experiences developed his interests in travelling around the countryside, along with making an on-the-spot investigation of the remaining relic of the Medieval Ages.

After graduating from high school, Bennett intended to be a high school teacher. To get the teacher’s certificate, he entered St. Mark’s College in Chelsea, where he began to come into touch with literature. After being retired from the army due to foot injury, he got the Bachelor of Arts in English literature in King's College, and then he studied in Emmanuel College where he met Bo Le, G. G. Coulton, who had a decisive influence upon Bennett’s academic career. In 1933, Bennett became a fellow in Emmanuel College, and later turned to be a life-long fellow. He did not retire as a curator until 70 years old. In 1956, he was chosen as a researcher of the academy. In 1958, he acted as the president of Bibliographical Society for 3 years. He had visited the University of Chicago several times, and awarded as an honorary doctorate.

Apart from studying history, Bennett spent most of the time researching literature and bibliography as his major work at Cambridge. Meanwhile, his lectures and lessons centered on medieval literature, Chaucer and Shakespeare. There are two representative books written by Bennett: one is Chaucer and Fifteenth Century, which once became a foundation work to research medieval literature; the other one is Books and Readers in Britain, considered as the best works in bibliography.

2.2 The Related Study

In England, manor economy holds the dominant position in the feudal economy, and therefore the living conditions of the farmers involve economic history, political history, social history and other fields, in which scholars have done numerous researches. There are lots of comprehensive books of economic history: Economic and Social History of the Medieval Ages written by Thompson, Feudal Society written by Marc Bloch, the Cambridge Economic History of Europe written by M. M. Postan, etc. Many works only describe the manor, such as English Seigniorial Agriculture, 1250-1450 and Land, Labor and Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity written by B. M. S. Campbell; Medieval Farming and Technology: the Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe written by G. Astier and J. Longton. What’s more, A. C. Lyttleton’s research in accounting history shows the existence of preliminarily quantitative supervision and management in the manorial system. The introduction of foreign special works and translated books has well paved the way for domestic research on manorial system.

Domestically, in order to help people know more about the manorial system, some scholars continuously go on with the translation and reorganization work while others prepare for the theoretical exploration and independent research. All in all, thanks for the experts and scholars who have made great contributions to the research on the manor, which has also provided enough materials and points to complete this paper.

3 Contents of English Manor Culture

3.1 The Emergence

In 1066, Duke William of Normandy led his army to invade London where House of Normandy was founded. The Norman Conquest accelerated the process of feudalization, causing that the feudal mode of production was established on the whole. After the war, William expropriated a large number of lands from Anglo-Saxon nobility and free peasants, finally taking over about one sixth of the arable land and one third of the forest area. The rest were distributed to his closest officials and trusted followers, granted according to the packet level. Then, the vassals of William I distributed their belongings again and again so that a set of strict feudal hierarchy was established. Meanwhile, the feudal manor appeared in the packet territory as the basic economic unit of the feudal society ruled by the lords.

In 1154, Henry II Curmantle, the grandson of Henry I, was crowned on the basis of succession agreement as the first King of House of Plantagenet. He carried out a series of reforms in England. A new court system, along with a Court of Record^[3] and the jury system, came into being to make sure the jurisdiction was highly centralized, which objectively promoted the formation of English Common Law. The justices, also called itinerant justices, were appointed to inspect throughout the kingdom followed by the jurors, chosen from the local free men. The jury of trial consisted of 12 people. In the beginning, they were only considered as the witnesses, irresponsible for evidence and verdict. As time went by, the evidence became so important that the jury nearly took the place of the court. As a result, the original trial mode was completely replaced by the jury system. Moreover, the circuit courts reached a verdict mainly on the basis of the custom and tradition of Anglo-Saxon, because they had no idea on how to deal with the cases without the written law. The verdict made by the justices was called precedent, which later formed the English Common Law step by step.