TY - JOUR
T1 - Corporal Punishment at Work in the Early Middle Ages
T2 - The Frankish Kingdoms (Sixth through Tenth Centuries)
AU - Rio, Alice
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - This article deals with a paradox: evidence for the punishment of workers during the early Middle Ages is richer in the earlier period (sixth and seventh centuries), when rural workers are generally thought to have been the least oppressed, but discussion of it becomes much thinner at a time of renewed intensification of economic exploitation by both lay and religious lordships (eighth through tenth centuries). Despite interest in punishment in other, non-exploitative contexts (monastic rules, pastoral and judicial settings), it seems lords’ practices of punishment of their workers were no longer being taken by moralists and commentators as productive of meaning, whether positive or negative. The relationship of lords with their lowest-ranking dependents no longer defined nor illustrated their power in the way that it had for the earlier Roman and late antique paterfamilias. One reason for this was the increasing tension perceived between profit-seeking and the correct exercise of punishment.
AB - This article deals with a paradox: evidence for the punishment of workers during the early Middle Ages is richer in the earlier period (sixth and seventh centuries), when rural workers are generally thought to have been the least oppressed, but discussion of it becomes much thinner at a time of renewed intensification of economic exploitation by both lay and religious lordships (eighth through tenth centuries). Despite interest in punishment in other, non-exploitative contexts (monastic rules, pastoral and judicial settings), it seems lords’ practices of punishment of their workers were no longer being taken by moralists and commentators as productive of meaning, whether positive or negative. The relationship of lords with their lowest-ranking dependents no longer defined nor illustrated their power in the way that it had for the earlier Roman and late antique paterfamilias. One reason for this was the increasing tension perceived between profit-seeking and the correct exercise of punishment.
U2 - 10.1017/S0020859023000019
DO - 10.1017/S0020859023000019
M3 - Article
SN - 0020-8590
JO - INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL HISTORY
JF - INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL HISTORY
ER -