Editing Peasant (section)

==Medieval European peasants==
The [[open field system]] of agriculture dominated most of Europe during medieval times and endured until the nineteenth century in many areas. Under this system, peasants lived on a [[Manorialism|manor]] presided over by a [[Lord of the manor|lord]] or a bishop of the [[Catholic church|church]]. Peasants paid rent or labor services to the lord in exchange for their right to cultivate the land. Fallowed land, pastures, forests, and wasteland were held in common. The open field system required cooperation among the peasants of the manor.<ref>Gies, Frances and Gies, Joseph (1989).  ''Life in a Medieval Village''  New York: Harper. pp. 12–18. {{ISBN|978-0060920463}}</ref> It was gradually replaced by individual ownership and management of land.

The relative position of peasants in Western Europe improved greatly after the [[Black Death]] had reduced the population of [[medieval Europe]] in the mid-14th century, resulting in more land for the survivors and making labor more scarce. In the wake of this disruption to the established order, it became more productive for many laborers to demand wages and other alternative forms of compensation, which ultimately led to the development of widespread [[literacy]] and the enormous social and intellectual changes of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]].

The evolution of ideas in an environment of relatively widespread literacy laid the groundwork for the [[Industrial Revolution]], which enabled mechanically and chemically augmented agricultural production while simultaneously increasing the demand for [[Industrial labour|factory workers]] in cities, who became what [[Karl Marx]] called the [[proletariat#Usage in Marxist theory|proletariat]]. The trend toward individual ownership of land, typified in England by [[Enclosure]], displaced many peasants from the land and compelled them, often unwillingly, to become urban factory-workers, who came to occupy the socio-economic stratum formerly the preserve of the medieval peasants.

This process happened in an especially pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries. [[Serfdom]] was abolished in Russia in 1861, and while many peasants would remain in areas where their family had farmed for generations, the changes did allow for the buying and selling of lands traditionally held by peasants, and for landless ex-peasants to move to the cities.<ref>Moon, David (2001) ''The abolition of serfdom in Russia, 1762–1907''. Routledge. pp. 98–114. {{ISBN|9780582294868}}</ref> Even before emancipation in 1861, serfdom was on the wane in Russia. The proportion of serfs within the empire had gradually decreased "from 45–50 percent at the end of the eighteenth century, to 37.7 percent in 1858."<ref>{{cite book|title=Russia Under the Old Regime: Second edition |page=163|author=Pipes, Richard|orig-year=1974|year=1995|publisher=Penguin Publishing |isbn=978-0140247688}}</ref>