Do you have this occupation in your tree?

[Peter Evans]

I have just received a birth certificate for 1853 in Kent, and the father's occupation was given as "peasant". Over the years I have amassed literally hundreds of certificates, many of them for rural workers, variously described as "ag labs", "husbandmen" and even "farmers" but never before have I seen this designation of "peasant". Nor have I ever noted it in C18 parish records. Was this the idiosyncrasy of one registrar or was it more common?

Peter

[Sunny Rosy]

The registrar new he wasn't from the landed gentry or know his occupation so afforded him the title of peasant.

sunny

[Guest]

seems a peasant was a farmer

From googling

Peasants were farmers. They normally worked small farms which they rented from the lord of the manor. Rent was paid in the form of labour on the lord's own farm (demesne), though as time went on this tended to be replaced by cash rents, which were more convenient for both lord and peasant.

Much of a peasant's labours would be seasonal: ploughing would start early in the year, to be followed by sowing of crops, then would come the mowing of grass (very important, as it was used to make hay for winter food for the animals), then would come the harvesting of crops, and then the threshing of grain. Winter was a quiet season as far as field work went, but the animals would still need taking care of, and there were jobs like mending tools, repairing fences etc. A peasant woman's life would be very busy too. In 'Life in a Medieval Village' Frances and Joseph Gies write:

"for most of the time, in most peasant households, the tasks of men and women were differentiated along the traditional lines of "outside" and "inside" work. The woman's "inside" jobs were by no means always performed indoorss. Besides spinning, weaving, sewing, cheese-making, cooking and cleaning, women did foraging, gardening, weeding, haymaking, carrying, and animal-tending. They joined in the lord's harvest boon unless excused, and helped bring in the family's own harvest. often women served as paid labor, receiving at least some of the time wages equal to men's.

For many village women one of the most important parts of the daily labour was the care of livestock. Poultry was virtually the woman's domain, but feeding, milking, washing and shearing the larger livestock often fell to her also.'

The status of a peasant varied in the village depending on how much land he owned. The better off peasants might own quite large farms, and they would sometimes employ the poorest peasants, who owned little land, as labourers or servants. Some peasants were free and some were serfs (villeins as they were known in england), that is they were tied to the land they worked and could not leave without the lord's permission.

[JudithM]

Yes peasant farmers tended land rented from the lord of the manor but I should say that it was quite an old fashioned term, even in the 1850s. Although 3/4 of my lot come from that sort of stock I've never found one described as such in registers or censuses.

[keldon]

I think Val's description is rather more of the medieval system of land ownership and society. However, having said that, in the 1881 census there are 18 individuals whose occupation is listed as Peasant. 'Peasant farmer 6 acres' and 'Peasant farmer'. A few of them are Swedish immigrants.

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=0&gsfn=&gsln=&sx=&f1=&f2=&f3=&f18=&f12__n=&rg_81004011__date=&rs_81004011__date=0&f29=peasant&_82004011=&_82004013=&_82004014=&_8000C002=&_80008002=&_80018002=&f7=&f8=&f9=&gskw=&prox=1&db=uki1881&ti=5538&ti.si=0&gss=angs-d&gl=&gst=&hc=10&fh=0&bsk=CIAAHZQBCOfO

[Peter Evans]

My surprise is that in the time of civil registration a registrar should be using such an archaic term. Peasant had no contemporary relevance in Victorian England and had ceased to be meaningful in an English context in the centuries since the Black Death. We might apply it to such feudal or semi-feudal societies as C19 Russia or France but surely not Kent.

I will be interested to see if others have come across the term on their certificates.

Peter

[Olde Crone Holden]

"And what is your occupation Mr Bloggs?"

"I am a peasant"

"Come come, Mr Bloggs, you must mean you are an agricultural labourer, surely?"

"No I do not, Sir - my forebears were peasants, working their own land. They did not labour for others. My ancestors have always been peasant farmers."

OC

[Guest]

that works for me OC

[Peter Evans]

OC,

That exchange would require an illiterate C19 mother (the informant) to have a sophisticated understanding of the niceties of medieval land-ownership. In any case he was living in a different village in 1853 from that in 1841 so he was hardly working his ancestral plot. Furthermore he is described in the 1841 as a labourer and an ag lab in the 1851. If he, or his wife, was so proud of peasant status it might have appeared in the records elsewhere but it doesn't. Surely the registrar is responsible.

Peter

Peter

[Olde Crone Holden]

Peter

You do your ancestors a mis service if you think they did not understand the niceties of mediaeval land usage. My ancestors were very aware of the fine distinctions and 500 years was as nothing to them - they held the same land for 800 years before the line finally died out.

I tend to think that a Registrar wrote what he was told to write. I have an ancestor who describes himself as an ag lb on three successive census. In fact he was a Yeoman farmer who owned about 900 acres of prime Cheshire farmland, as had his ancestors for centuries. Not everything written down is the absolute truth or an accurate reflection - it is usually what someone SAID to an official. I doubt in this case if a Registrar would take it into his head to describe one poor woman as a peasant unless she had suggested it first - what would be his point? Peasant didn't have the negative connotations back then, so it wasn't his sarcastic comment.

However - there's always the possibility that it's an error of some sort and has lost/gained in the transcription from the original.

OC

[Sunny Rosy]

The registrar new he wasn't from the landed gentry or know his occupation so afforded him the title of peasant.

sunny

Oops sorry I'm wrong , apologies to Peter's ancestors.

sunny

[angelina]

Perhaps a word was missed off the census ie peasant farmer/plucker/keeper?????:D