Post #1902

NO PRIVATE OWNERSHIP IN MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN EUROPE Under feudal land tenure, which persisted through the medieval era, no one owned land as private property (except, perhaps, the owners of freehold land, which was available only in a few places). Neither peasants nor lords could fully alienate land or keep the other from it. Rather, peasants and lords had differing use rights to land. In return for the payment of rent, fees, or (less often) labor service, peasants could grow crops and graze livestock on land held collectively by the village. Upon payment of fees, peas-ants could bequeath these rights and use the land as collateral for loans. Lords not only owned the demesne, which they worked with peasants [...] They could not, however, evict peasants and hire wage laborers to work their holdings. — Kulikoff, Allan From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (2000) p.11