Reddit reviews Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520

(Sorry for the delay in responding, I have been pretty sick lately)

I would say that there is quite a lot of effort, but then again I am really enmeshed in the literature so my view of it is totally skewed. Still, as far as medieval research goes, peasant studies is one of the more vibrant and active areas of research.

That being said, the leftist viewpoint that I apply to it is not necessarily the default for the field. For example, my advisor (who is an incredible scholar), is definitely an economic Liberal in the traditional vein of things. He writes about the expansion of markets and how family economic units interacted with them to better their own lifestyle.

While I don't find fault in either his research or his conclusions (there was definitely a rapid expansion of monetary circulation in the 11th century onward which had a direct and noticeable impact on the wellbeing of England's peasants), I disagree with him on the way he frames the debate.

For example, during my oral exams (a test where I was grilled by a panel of scholars about my field; it was a machine gun fire of really in-depth questions), I got into a really heated, yet friendly, debate with my advisor over whether we could call the king's courts "public" or not.

He kept calling Charlemagne's court system "public," as opposed to the "private" jurisdiction of lords. I vehemently opposed him on this point, because to me just because Charlemagne said he had public legitimacy for his court system did not give him claim to it. This argument was rooted in the fact that we have different definitions of what constitutes public and private, and whether public institutions can be imposed via fiat.

Obviously, I (and I'm guessing those in this sub-reddit) would argue that it is impossible. He disagreed.

So, while he has a very real interest in peasants and peasant history, he approaches it from a dramatically different lens than I do.

His own advisor (Ambrose Raftis), for example, revolutionized our field by introducing liberal economics into the discussion. This counter-acted the Marxist scholarship that had dominated the field following the works of Rodney Hilton.

Subsequent to Raftis' work, which was truly breathtaking in its scope, the more Leftist and Marxist wing had to readjust their own arguments. Although he remained a steadfast Marxist Hilton himself published articles that were clearly influenced by Raftis' works in his waning years.

Hilton's most influential student, Chris Dyer, took Hilton's work and Raftis' work and synthesized them into a truly Peasant-centered, Marxist-informed, yet not-Marxist constricted, view of history. If you want to learn more I HIGHLY recommend checking out Making a Living in the Middle Ages. It is a scholarly book, but I think it is amazing.

In addition to my advisor and Dyer, there are a slew of other people working on peasants. Some of it approaches the question from a decidedly liberal viewpoint, while some of it is still influenced by the Marxist tradition left behind by Hilton. At present, there is a push (by myself and others) to synthesize these viewpoints and bring the viewpoints of the peasants to the forefront of the discussion. Basically - what did they think and how did those thoughts influence their decisions?

It's a REALLY hard question to answer, but I think it's worth asking.

tl;dr:

Yes, but it's complicated.

Christopher Dyer's Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520

Christopher Dyer is almost always a great source for social life in medieval England, I use him extensively, check out this and this.