Georges Duby and the Medieval Peasantry

The late Georges Duby contributed to many fields of medieval history, from his explorations of social ideology to the experience of women. This article looks at his work on peasants in the Middle Ages, emphasising in particular his thesis on the Mâconnais (published in 1953), L'économie rurale (1962), and Guerriers et paysans (1973). Duby was increasingly interested in tracing the emergence of aristocratic power, its ethos and family patterns. He came to see peasants as the rather passive base on which the brilliant chivalric culture of the medieval period was erected. His earlier studies, however, depicted agrarian society in its own right and with exemplary vividness and detail. The article discusses changes and continuities in Duby's understanding of the peasantry and the enduring influence of this historian.