The Second Feudal Age

Abstract

Nearly all historians are agreed that an underlying phenomenon of the second feudal age was a substantial and continuing growth in population. But no historian can really measure it, and the reconstruction is based exclusively on indirect evidence, chiefly allusions in and inferences derived from reticent documents. The following records are examples of such documents; they are drawn from a chartulary of the abbey of St. Vaast in Arras in northwest France, written in 1175 by a monk named Guimann. The reader should be able to judge for himself what conclusions can, or cannot, be drawn from them. The source is Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Vaast, rédigé au XII siècle par Guimann, ed. E. Van Drival (Arras, 1875), pp. 239, 332. The translation is by D. Herlihy. The échevin was an elected official of the town; the cellerarius was a monastic official in charge of provisioning the monastery.