"In ebdomada operatur, quicquit precipitur ei." : Arbitrarily Ordered Work or Week-work? : A Study on Labour Service of the Early Middle Ages

Abstract

Starting from an analysis of the ambiguous passage quoted in the title, we have examined two major polyptyca of the 9th century, those of the Abbeies of Prum and Saint-Germain-des-Pres. It appears that the work arbitrarily ordered by the lord and week-work mentioned in these documents were similar in actual content. The former was realised as the labour of several weekdays. The latter, formally defined as the obligation to serve three days a week, depended on the lord's will. In the historiography of labour service since 1945, begun by a French scholar, Ch.-Ed. Perrin, and critically continued by German, Italian and English younger medievalists, such as L. Kuchenbuch etc., the affinity of its two major forms has been well recognised. Thus one can undoutedly find the most developed form of early medieval labour service in the combination of these two formulae: arbitrarily ordered work with a strong tendency .to become week-work, or week-work depending largely on the lord's will. Furthermore this knowledge provides material on some important issues, such as the most developed form of the feudal rent in labour, the relative importance of slavery in the working force on the lord's demesne and the chronological sequence of different modes of labour service on the early medieval estates.