Precariae, life annuities, and feuda: Provision, maintenance, and the dichotomy of society north of the alps, 11th to 14th century

• Applicant: Dr. Marco Veronesi
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 262827770

Medievalists in Germany as in other countries have done a great deal of research on the different forms of charity in the Early and High Middle Ages, yet they did not consider any forms of individual 'provision', i. e. measures regarding the sustenance for one's old age or for cases of invalidity and poverty. Older approaches, which recognized the early-medieval precaria as a precursor of late-medieval life annuities (Leibding, Leibgeding), fell victim to the model of a bipartite, dichotomic society, established in the 19th century. This model separated a higher, vasallitic feudalism from a rural, mean system of land tenure (the 'Grundherrschaft') in which the precaria didn't fit anymore. In this regard the research field of individual provision leads directly to the debates about Susan Reynolds work Fiefs and Vasalls from 1994. In the wake of this study the precaria was recognized as not being a mere prefiguration of the later fiefs, but a contractual form on his own, being still in use during the High Middle Ages, with significant impact on economy and society. As recently a strong affinity between the precariae and many 'lesser' forms of fiefs is claimed, i. e. the so-called 'Rentenlehen', whose beneficiaries have been neither peasants nor any noblemen, these 'lesser' forms of fiefs will be equally object of the study. They will be considered under the perspective of feudal or lordly 'maintenance'. The aim of the study thus consists of a thoroughgoing investigation of the forms of 'provision' and 'maintenance' from the 11th to the 14th centuries and the social role they played in a recently disintegrating concept of feudalism. The project will primarily rely on sources from Bavaria, Franconia and the region of Rhine-Moselle. A first section will compile case studies for precariae as means of 'provision' out of the monastic charters of these regions. Secondly, by means of manorial records and fief registers, it will examine 'lesser' forms of fiefs and their function as lordly 'maintenance'. The transfer of the so-gained criteria to the overall corpus of sources, as well as an examination of monastic and urban accountability, will allow the evaluation of precariae and lesser forms of fiefs in a broader picture of social history. Finally, using a discourse-analytical methodology, a third level will look at narrative as well as juridical sources like customs (Weistümer) in order to detect the relevant discourses of 'provision', 'maintenance' or 'public welfare'.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants