Grist to the mill: negotiating seigneurial monopolies (southern Low Countries, c. 1150–1550)

Abstract This article discusses how seigneurial milling and baking monopolies in the southern Low Countries were shaped by negotiations over a period of 400 years. Local legislation from the county of Hainaut reveals how seigneurial monopolies were a topic of interplay between peasants and lords, both before and after the demographic and social-economic turmoil caused by the Black Death from 1349 onwards. Historical literature usually focusses on the oppressive nature of seigneurial ovens and mills, which peasants were forced to use in exchange for payment of part of their produce. However, seigneurial subjects (or at least the most prosperous part of the population) were also active stakeholders, demanding and often obtaining favourable conditions for the use of resources which were necessary for the production of their daily bread. While levels of detail increased significantly, topics of negotiation remained remarkably constant throughout the period. After the mid-fourteenth century, neither the issues causing friction nor the nature of solutions shifted dramatically. Rather than centring on levels of seigneurial surplus extraction, conflicts focussed on day-to-day problems in the operation of ovens and mills, often resulting in mutual concessions. In the long run, seigneurial monopolies survived only as long as they benefitted both subjects and lords.