Peasant

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord.^[1]^[2] In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves, semi-free serfs, and free tenants. Peasants might hold title to land outright (fee simple), or by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.^[3]

In some contexts, "peasant" has a pejorative meaning, even when referring to farm laborers.^[4] As early as in 13th-century Germany, the concept of "peasant" could imply "rustic" as well as "robber", as the English term villain^[5]/villein.^[6]^[7] In 21st-century English, the word "peasant" can mean "an ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person".^[8] The word rose to renewed popularity in the 1940s–1960s^[9] as a collective term, often referring to rural populations of developing countries in general, as the "semantic successor to 'native', incorporating all its condescending and racial overtones".^[4]

The word peasantry is commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and developing countries of the world.^{[citation needed]} Via Campesina, an organization claiming to represent the rights of about 200 million farm-workers around the world, self-defines as an "International Peasant's Movement" as of 2019^[update].^[10] The United Nations and its Human Rights Council prominently uses the term "peasant" in a non-pejorative sense, as in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas adopted in 2018. In general English-language literature, the use of the word "peasant" has steadily declined since about 1970.^[11]

^ "peasant". Wiktionary. 20 February 2024.
^ "peasant". Merriam-Webster online. 28 March 2024.
^ Webster, Hutton (2004). Early European History. Kessinger Publishing. p. 440. ISBN 978-1-4191-1711-4. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
^ ^a ^b Hill, Polly (1982). Dry Grain Farming Families: Hausaland (Nigeria) and Karnataka (India) Compared. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521271028.
^ "villain". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
^ "villein". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
^ Edelman, Marc (2013). "What is a peasant? What are peasantries? A briefing paper on issues of definition" (PDF). United Nations Human Rights. Retrieved 11 September 2019. Very early on, both the English 'peasant,' the French 'paysan' and similar terms sometimes connoted 'rustic,' 'ignorant,' 'stupid,' 'crass' and 'rude,' among many other pejorative terms. [...] The word could also imply criminality, as in thirteenth-century Germany where '"peasant"' meant 'villain, rustic, devil, robber, brigand and looter.'
^ "peasant | Definition of peasant in English by Lexico Dictionaries". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on 12 July 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2019. 1 A poor farmer of low social status who owns or rents a small piece of land for cultivation (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries)
1.1 informal, derogatory An ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person; a person of low social status.
^ "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
^ "Via Campesina – Globalizing hope, globalizing the struggle !". Via Campesina English. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
^ "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Retrieved 12 July 2019.

[1] "peasant". Wiktionary. 20 February 2024.

[2] "peasant". Merriam-Webster online. 28 March 2024.

[Webster2004-3] Webster, Hutton (2004). Early European History. Kessinger Publishing. p. 440. ISBN 978-1-4191-1711-4. Retrieved 3 June 2012.

[Hill-4] Hill, Polly (1982). Dry Grain Farming Families: Hausaland (Nigeria) and Karnataka (India) Compared. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521271028.

[5] "villain". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

[6] "villein". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

[7] Edelman, Marc (2013). "What is a peasant? What are peasantries? A briefing paper on issues of definition" (PDF). United Nations Human Rights. Retrieved 11 September 2019. Very early on, both the English 'peasant,' the French 'paysan' and similar terms sometimes connoted 'rustic,' 'ignorant,' 'stupid,' 'crass' and 'rude,' among many other pejorative terms. [...] The word could also imply criminality, as in thirteenth-century Germany where '"peasant"' meant 'villain, rustic, devil, robber, brigand and looter.'

[8] "peasant | Definition of peasant in English by Lexico Dictionaries". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on 12 July 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2019. 1 A poor farmer of low social status who owns or rents a small piece of land for cultivation (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries)
1.1 informal, derogatory An ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person; a person of low social status.

[9] "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Retrieved 12 July 2019.

[10] "Via Campesina – Globalizing hope, globalizing the struggle !". Via Campesina English. Retrieved 12 July 2019.

[11] "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Retrieved 12 July 2019.

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