Like the rest of the West, the Duchy of Normandy experienced a period of demographic and economic expansion during the ducal period. Abbeys and families carried out extensive land clearings, and new hamlets and villages were created. The Norman lords dismembered the part of the land from which they reserved the entire production as a "reserve", conceding these lands to future commoner fiefs under the title of "perpetual farm". In agriculture, the three-year crop rotation and the use of the horse, equipped with a shoulder collar, as a draught animal improves yields. From the eleventh century, all Normans paid a direct tax in cash "la graverie". Land rents emerged at the end of the twelfth century. River trade developed, and Rouen merchants had franchises in London. Drapery brought prosperity to several towns.
The Norman barons had several fiefs that they held directly from the duke and paid homage to him. Then came the lords who owned land, had their homes built in a castle motte and encouraged the creation of towns and suburbs. Dependent on these lords, the vavasseurs were masters of a fraction of a fief. Some of the peasants, "the villains", emerge as part of a group of well-to-do labourers who own at least one plough and draught animals. The rural proletariat is made up of cottagers or bordiers, there are practically no serfs in Normandy |
