A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This is the fifth and final part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the structures of life for pre-modern peasant farmers and showing how historical modeling can help us explore the experiences of people who rarely leave much evidence of their day-to-day personal lives. I've been stressing … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part V: Life In Cycles
This is the fourth thread of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers, who make up a majority of all of the humans who have ever lived. We're thus probing here was has been, in effect, the modal human … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVd: Spinning Plates
This is the third piece of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers – a majority of all of the humans who have ever lived. Last time, we started looking at the subsistence of peasant agriculture by considering the … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVc: Rent and Extraction
This is the continuation - the first of several - of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers - a majority of all of the humans who have ever lived. Last time we discussed the survival requirements (in food … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVb: Working Days
This is the start of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) discussing the structures of life for pre-modern peasants, who made up the majority of all humans who have ever lived. In the last few sections, we've looked broadly at how mortality, marriage and childbearing patterns … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVa: Subsistence and a Little More
This is the first part of the third part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) discussing the patterns of life of the pre-modern peasants who made up the great majority of all humans who lived in our agrarian past and indeed a majority of all humans who have ever … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IIIa: Family Formation
This is the first post in a series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) discussing the basic contours of life - birth, marriage, labor, subsistence, death - of pre-modern peasants and their families. Prior to the industrial revolution, peasant farmers of varying types made up the overwhelming majority of people in settled … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part I: Households
This week we continue our four-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production. Last week we prospected our iron ore and extracted it from the ground and did some initial mechanical processing (washing, sorting, crushing). This week, we're going to make our way from just rocks to an actual … Continue reading Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part II, Trees for Blooms