7 - Rosendo, Celanova and the village world, 936–1031

Summary

An understanding of the social dynamics of the village world from 936 to 1031, the subject of this chapter, is founded upon a rich corpus of peasant sales. Typical of these sales was that which took place on 7 February 962, when Ermegoto and his sons sold their share of a vineyard in the village of Rabal to Rosendo and the monks of Celanova, receiving in turn four modios in grain and unspecified goods. On this occasion Ermegoto and his sons dealt with one of the most important political fixers of the region, as well as what was effectively the house monastery of one of the kingdom's most powerful families. Their decision to sell, all the same, likely reflected careful deliberation – a weighing up of the benefits and drawbacks occasioned by the deal in land, food and social capital. A range of considerations must have informed all such transactions, and peasants had to be strategic insofar as circumstances allowed: after all, such benefits and drawbacks could have variable short-, medium- and long-term consequences, many of which were hard to foresee and difficult to predict. Yet these were the conditions of quotidian human interaction in tenthcentury Galicia: every transaction brought with it an element of risk and none would have been undertaken lightly, for there was simply too much at stake. Remarkable, then, that buying and selling continued to pervade all corners of society before, throughout, and beyond the tenth century, a conclusion rendered unassailable by the surviving documentation.

Be that as it may, once Celanova's agents began in the 960s to take a more proactive and persistent approach towards the acquisition of land in Rabal, the tectonic plates on which this particular ‘small world’ rested underwent realignment. Every sale thereafter further altered the balance of risk for the transacting parties: the more Rabal's peasants sold to the monastery, the more difficult it became for their neighbours to resist the offers of Celanova's agents. This was not simply the result of the coercive or bargaining power that Celanova enjoyed thanks to its superior resources, which dwarfed those of all members of village society. Geographical and (increasing) psychological proximity to the village also worked to the monastery's advantage, its agents establishing a frequent presence in the vicinity by dint of their regular and welldocumented visits to the community.