Earning Dignity: Labour Conditions and Relations during the Century of the Black Death in Marseille

Description

'Earning Dignity: Labour Conditions and Relations during the Century of the Black Death' sheds a direct light on the changing labour market and working relations of medieval Marseille before and after the Black Death. The author's close analysis of hundreds of notarized contracts and legal suits provides an unparalleled comprehensive study of the prime actors in work relations - masters and employees; men, women, and children- integral to the Massilian port economy through its most turbulent period of pestilence, warfare, and tense labour relations after 1348. By establishing the longer trends of pre-plague conditions, the author reveals the predicaments masters found themselves in the new labour shortages after the Black Death, the intensified used of money in work relations, and the broader place of unskilled workers (not least among them, women) in urban, household, agricultural, and maritime trades. The study ends as the calamitous century drew to a close, when changing relations, long-term debt, and demanded dignity of labourers undoubtedly created the basis for longer term trends in work relations in the century to follow. List of Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgements xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: 'The Acquisition of a Trade, God Willing': Training in Changing Times 25 1. Youth, apprenticeship, and professional expectations 26 1.1 Apprentices 28 1.2 Training 37 1.3 Age and duration 45 2. Learning and living conditions 49 2.1 Fees 49 2.2 Wages 54 2.3 The necessaries of life 56 3. Protection and authority 61 Chapter 2: Craftsmen and their Masters 71 1. Professional destinies in critical times 72 1.1 Juvenile artisans at work 73 1.2 Mobility and trajectories 77 2. Artisans’ identities: origins and opportunities 80 3. Changing labour conditions 86 3.1 'Time is money' 87 3.2 What’s in the salary? The lure of hard cash and other earnings 88 3.3 The yoke of credit 89 Chapter 3: Women, Work, and the Arts 101 1. Female artisans in the workforce 103 2. Apprenticeship, employment, and authority 111 2.1 The art of the needle 111 2.2 Food production 115 2.3 Other feminine trades 118 2.4 Beyond conventional streams 119 3. Women’s work and the Black Death: from social to domestic sphere 124 Chapter 4: The Opportunities and Vicissitudes of Servanthood 131 1. Defining servanthood 134 2. The service 'industry' in Marseille 140 3. Work, money, and power 146 4. Evolving conditions 149 4.1. Duration 149 4.2 Wages 154 4.3 In lieu of cash: room, board, clothing – and commodity 160 5. The balance of power 164 Chapter 5: Authority and Dependency: Masters’ Right, Servants’ Plight 173 1. Reality check: seeking justice when the conventions go wrong 174 2. The game changer: plague, money, and dignity 184 Conclusion 203 Bibliography 207 Indexes 225