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Up to the Revolution |
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the people |
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You cannot talk about the land without mentioning the people who have worked on it, loved it and hated it throughout their life.
To understand them a bit better, you have to know that for a 19th-century peasant,
the most important thing was the notion of the "pays", which included the village and its surroundings.
It was in this unique living environment that the peasants lived for more than a century.
When they went into town for fairs or markets, they almost felt like they were in a foreign land.
Despite appearances, the peasant class was not a uniform class.
Apart from landowners, there were several other categories of peasants :
- farm domestics : most often, these were children from large families, placed in the household of wealthy families.
- day labourers : they hired out their muscles at harvest time or when the fields were being worked.
- sharecroppers : with the sharecropping system, the peasants gave part of their harvest as rent.
- farmers : these were tenant farmers, in other words they paid a sum of money as rent to the landowners. This rent was a fixed sum, irrespective of the size of the harvest. |
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Housing |
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The homes also reflected the level of wealth of their owners, although they were generally rudimentary.
There were essentially two types of house :
- cob houses with thatched roofs. This was the most archaic type and generally only had one room.
-«well-to-do» houses in stone (red sandstone in Saint-Cyprien or Vars-sur-Roseix, limestone in Perpezac-le-Blanc).
The roofs were made of tiles, slate or "lauze" stone. This type of house had several rooms, and a "cantou" (fireplace).
The farms were made up of several types of building: barn, stable, pigsty and/or sheepfold, kiln room, chestnut drying room.
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Farming equipment |
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Compared to other regions, the equipment used by the peasants was archaic; certain farming methods had not evolved since Gallo-Roman times.
Tools were made of iron and wood, most often manufactured by the peasants themselves.
As for ploughing instruments, the main ones were simple ploughs drawn by animals (oxen or cows or sometimes donkeys).
The industrial revolution in the mid 19th century only had a minor effect.
Technical progress and large farming machinery did not reach the area until 1914.
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