太田述正コラム#15334（2025.11.25）
＜Morris, Marc『The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England』を読む（その25）＞（2026.2.19公開）

　「・・・The causes of these social and economic transformations were multiple, and are therefore hard to pinpoint. Peace, as mentioned above, was an obvious precondition.・・・
　Another factor, allied to the return of peace, was a rising population. In earlier centuries farming in England had been predominantly about the rearing of pigs, sheep and cattle, and only a small amount of land was used for the more arduous task of growing crops.

⇒16世紀の囲い込み
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%B2%E3%81%84%E8%BE%BC%E3%81%BF
というのは、要するに11世紀までのイギリスの牧畜中心の農業に戻したってことだったんですね。（太田）

　But in places where villages had started to nucleate, more and more of the surrounding commons began to be converted to agriculture, a development that would eventually form the famous ‘open fields’ of the later Middle Ages. Whenever cereal production has risen in pre-industrial societies, it was because the population was increasing. More mouths to feed meant that the land had to be worked more intensively.

⇒牧地の畑地への転換は、増大する人口を支えるためだったというわけです。（太田）

　A final, more specific spur to the economy during Edgar’s reign was a sharp increase in the amount of coin in circulation, possibly as a result of new silver mines being opened up in Germany in the 960s. Although not as large as the massive spike that had triggered the boom of the late seventh century, its effects must have been broadly similar, and it implies that international trade was once again flourishing, with German silver being exchanged for exported English goods. Both periods had seen the rapid expansion of monasticism, and with it the development of more efficient and intelligent estate management.・・・

⇒その背景には、イギリスの経済高度成長があった、と。（太田）

　Of course, even in an age of prosperity, there were plenty of people who remained poor. Slaves had been an integral part of Anglo-Saxon society from the very beginning, and may have accounted for as much as thirty per cent of the entire population.

⇒奴隷が最大30%はいた、という数字は珍しいですね。
　例えば、’The amount of slaves during the Early Medieval period in England was considerable. By the time of the Norman conquest and the Domeday Book was compilied, around 10% of the population were slaves. However, the Viking occupation perhaps increased that number over what it had been in Anglo-Saxon times, but we can’t say for sure.’
https://lasmithwriter.com/society-news-slavery-in-anglo-saxon-england/
という説もあります。（太田）

　In contrast to the free farmers who kept them, such people had no rights at all, and could be punished by their masters with branding and castration.・・・　A ploughman, from an early eleventh-century English calendar. By the tenth century, there was also a growing class whose freedom was being steadily eroded.
　Gebur＜（注）＞s, as they were known, were originally the people who worked the intensively farmed estates of major landowners.

　（注） His services varied in different places-to work for his lord two or more days a week; to pay gafols in money, barley, etc.; to pay hearth money, etc. He was a tenant with a house and a yard land or virgate or two oxen
https://blacks_law.en-academic.com/30105/gebur
　When first taking the land, the gebur would have had his land already sown, and would also have been given stock, implements, and even utensils for the house. However, everything returned to the lord on the gebur’s death.
https://medieval_terms.en-academic.com/1459/Gebur

　Notionally free, they were nonetheless required to labour for their lord on several days each week, as well as supplying him with renders of food. Essentially they were the equivalent of later medieval serfs, performing services that we still tend to describe as ‘feudal’ – a fact that may surprise those who are accustomed to thinking of serfs and feudalism as bad things introduced only as a result of the Norman Conquest. The truth is they were present in late Anglo-Saxon England, and their incidence was growing, as ambitious new landlords sought to increase the profits from their estates. The number of geburs varied from place to place, with more in central parts of Wessex and Mercia, and no trace in East Anglia, but the overall trend was upwards.・・・

⇒農奴的な小作人がアングロサクソン時代にもいたというのは初耳です。（太田）

　・・・from 980 onwards the Chronicle reports ＜viking＞ attacks on various towns and monasteries around the south coast. The ones that struck the West Country and Cheshire most probably emanated from Ireland, but the vikings who targeted Kent and Hampshire are likely to have come directly from Scandinavia – something that had not been heard of for almost a century. As in the earlier era, this was perhaps because of increasing political competition within Scandinavia itself, but a more compelling reason was probably the renewed prosperity of England. Ambitious opportunists were once again being drawn across the North Sea by the prospect of rich and easy pickings.・・・」（324～327）

（続く）