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graber law for pastoral-arable serfdom transition needed
Daniel A. Foss (DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU)
Fri, 17 Dec 1993 20:02:07 EST
constraint of landlord class interest from the variables in the model, in
the course of my usual mucking about in comparative exotica I ran across
a European society of over a thousand years ago which seemed startlingly
similar to a contemporary (or at least quite recent) one in Africa.
-- The African case is that of Burundi, where under the *ubuhake* system,
Hutu serfs served their Tutsi lords by caring for the latter's cattle herds.
Lord and serf split the usufruct of cattle products - milk, cheese, butter,
blood and meat (when appropriate) - and also the increase in the herds in
accordance with an agreed-upon and conventionalized formula.
-- Recently, I read a volume of articles on Irish history, each covering
a different period, put out by (my memory is fading out) Oxford University
Press, I think; and it's quite recent, available in a cheap paperback edition
for textbook use in college courses. In earlier, tribal, Ireland, that is,
prior to the period of the consolidation of large-scale kingdoms (the latter
still under way as of the time of the first English conquest in 1182), there
prevailed a remarkably similar system, except that a piece of land was thrown
in to facilitate pasturing the cattle.
Would Graber or anyone else please consider some of the variables possibly
involved in a transition from cattle labor-service to arable labor-service?
--- Late for train.
Daniel A. Foss
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