ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: POLITICAL PROTEST Volume 15 PEASANT UPRISINGS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE, RUSSIA AND CHINA PEASANT UPRISINGS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE, RUSSIA AND CHINA ROLAND MOUSNIER First published in Great Britain in 1971 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd This edition first published in 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1960 Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. 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Peasant Uprisings in Seventeenth-Century France Russia and China BY ROLAND MOUSNIER TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY BRIAN PEARCE LONDON • GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD Ruskin House Museum Street First published in Great Britain in 1971 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights are reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. © Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1960 ISBN o 04 909005 4 Cased o 04 909006 2 Paper This work was first published in French under the title Fureurs Paysannes: Les paysans dans Us Rtvoltes du XVII, Siicle (France, Russie, Chine) © Calmann-Levy, 1967 Printed in Great Britain by Compton Printing Ltd London and Aylesbury Contents Translator's Note ix Introduction: A Century of Revolts All Over the World xvii Part One FRANCE: PEASANT REVOLTS 1. The Social Structures of the Kingdom of France 3 2. The Role of the Peasants in French Revolts as a Whole between 1624 and 1648 32 3. The Croquants of Saintonge, Angoumois, and Poitou -1636 53 4. The Croquants of P6rigord—1637 77 5. The Nu-Pieds of Normandy—1639 87 6. The Torrtbens of Brittany—1675 114 Part Two RUSSIA: THE PEASANTS IN THE REVOLTS OF THE "TIME OF TROUBLES" AND IN THE ANABASIS OF STENKA RAZIN 7. The Social Structures of Russia at the End of the Sixteenth Century 153 v Vi ] CONTENTS 8. Peasant Revolts of the "Time of Troubles." The False Dmitris. Bolotnikov 179 9. Russian Society Before the Revolt of Stenka Razin 196 10. The Revolt of Stenka Razin 216 Part Three CHINA: THE PEASANTS IN SOME REVOLTS TOWARD THE END OF THE MING DYNASTY 11. The Social Structures of China in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century 233 12. Peasant Revolts Under the Last Mings 273 Conclusion 305 A COMPARISON OF THE PEASANT REVOLTS IN FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND CHINA Index 349 Maps France in the 1630s 44 Southwestern France 56 Normandy 90 Western Brittany 130 Russia 158 China 265 Chart Local Government in China Under the Ch'ing 256 Translators Note PROFESSOR MOUSNIER ASSUMES his French reader to possess a familiarity with the agrarian relationships and with the adminis- trative and fiscal structures of seventeenth-century France which is not to be expected in many of those who will read this English version of his book. He therefore uses, as a matter of course, a number of technical terms belonging to these fields. It would be as futile to try to translate some of these in the text as it might be, in a translation from English into some other language of a book in which cricket matches are described, to try to translate terms like "cover point/' "mid off," or "long stop." Instead, a note is here offered on some aspects of the French scene in the period covered by this book, composed so as to bring out the significance of those terms that have been left in the original language in the text. For the sake of brevity and clarity some generalizations and unqualified statements have been risked which readers who know the subject already may find rather daring: but this note is not meant for them. First, some points about agrarian relationships. Here confusion may arise from the use of the word domaine (Latin, dominium) to mean both "ownership" and the physical area of land subject to ownership in one form or another. A lord possessed domaine direct (or domaine eminent) over all his land; it meant that he had the right to homage or dues from all who occupied it. In practice, a IX x] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE lord often, if not usually, granted out most of his land to other people. Those to whom he granted it were said to possess the domaine utile of the land assigned to them: in other words, after rendering to their lord that which it was their duty to render, they could keef> for themselves whatever they could make out of the land they cultivated. The land thus granted out by the lord was called his directe seigneuriale. Some of this directe seigneuriale was granted out in the form of fiefs nobles, in return for noble services. (The person who received such a fief was normally himself a nobleman, though, as men- tioned in the text, a peasant or bourgeois could obtain one on condition of paying what was called franc-fief, "frank-fee.") One of the obligations incurred by the recipient was the rendering of aveu et denombrement—literally, "acknowledgment and enumera- tion"—a formal record and description of the holding and all the responsibilities connected with it. If such a fief was sold, the purchaser had to pay the lord quint et requint—literally, "a fifth, and a fifth of that"—which meant, e.g., that if the fief changed hands for 100,000 livres, the purchaser had to pay the lord 20,000 livres plus 4,000 livres, i.e., 24,000 livres. Should the fief be bequeathed to someone who was not a relative in the direct line of succession, he had to pay rachat (or relief) to the lord, usually amounting to one year's income from the fief. That part of the directe seigneuriale that was granted out in fiefs roturiers, or "commoners' fiefs," and was usually cultivated by peasants, owed the lord first and foremost the annual payment called cens. This might in itself be a very small quit-rent, fixed long before and bearing no relation to the present economic value of the land, but payment of it entailed obligation to pay lods et ventes in the event of the holding (censive) changing hands by sale. That meant a payment to the lord of around 10 percent of the purchase price, and lods et ventes have been described as "the most important and productive of seignorial rights." In addition, the peasants were often obliged to pay their lord a kind of tithe, called champart (or agrtere, or terrage), which was a definite proportion of their crops. On the average it was about 12 percent, but it could be much higher in some areas: if it amounted to one- third, the land thus heavily burdened was called a tiercerie. Translator's Note [ xi That part of his estate which the lord did not grant out in noble fiefs or to censitaires (cens-payers) was called the domaine proche, or reserve seigneur ide. Some of this he might exploit through his own steward as a "home farm/' but a large part of it he would probably lease out—to capitalist farmers, so to speak, in contrast to the feudal tenants, noble and non-noble, of his directe seigneu- riale. Whereas the obligations of the latter were supposed to be governed by custom and tradition, those of the former were frankly determined by economic considerations alone. These tenants were either fermiers—"farmers" in the strict sense—who paid an economic rent in money, or metayers, "sharecroppers," who paid a fixed proportion of the crops they raised, in kind—often as much as 50 percent. Other dues, services, and rents besides those mentioned are alluded to in the text, but do not involve the use of special French terms, so they are ignored here. The special system of domaine congeable which prevailed in part of Brittany is adequately ex- plained by the author. Second, an outline of the relevant parts of the administrative and fiscal regime should be offered. Here, it has to be realized that the king's hierarchy of officials was paralleled by a corresponding hierarchy, who often bore the same titles, within the feudal lord- ships: and also that the normal practice when a new institution was created was to leave nominally intact the one that it replaced, in whole or in part, so that a great deal of overlapping, duplication, rivalry, and conflict occurred.