Corvées: commons practices in ancient and modern France
Every culture has its traditions of mutual aid and financial support. Talk to older Caribbeans or Indians and they’ll tell you about pardner schemes or kitty parties, and there are Mwerya in Kenya. It’s a very natural thing for humans to do. It’s inherent in the human psyche. Capitalism is an unnatural blip in human history, that will soon be removed, either by humans or by nature (let’s hope it’s by humans). Here, Will Ruddick (who Lowimpact interviewed here) talks about the French tradition of Corvées.
As I travel through France with daughter and partner Aude Peronne we’ve had the privilege of speaking with Aude’s family in rural Normandy who can remember communal practices they called Corvées that sound just like the traditions we see around us in Kenya. What is amazing about Corvées in France is that the history is well documented (vs the purely oral traditions in Kenya)- so we’ve had the pleasure of bringing that out here in this article.
Imagine families, teenagers, and adults gathered together, laughing and working harmoniously. The joy of shared labor fills the air as they eat, drink, and sing, building bonds that transcend the task at hand. This scene captures the essence of communal Corvées, an ancient traditional practice in what is now called France, where neighbors assist each other reciprocally with farming tasks in a spirit of mutual aid. Corvées were not just about getting work done; they were about reinforcing community ties and ensuring collective well-being.
Latin Origins: The term “corvée” derives from the Medieval Latin word “corrogata”, meaning “a day’s work”. The root word “corrogare” combines “co-” (together) and “rogare” (to ask or request), literally translating to “to gather or request together”. This reflects the ancient concept of corvée as a communal activity where people were called to gather to perform labour for the common good.
Corvées originated before medieval France (we don’t know how far back they go!) as a voluntary system of communal labour where villagers would come together to support each other reciprocally with essential farming tasks and infrastructure projects. This ancient practice was rooted in mutual service, fostering social bonds and ensuring that no single family or individual was left to manage heavy labour alone. It played a vital role in maintaining the community’s agricultural productivity and social cohesion, creating a sense of unity and shared purpose among neighbours.
As feudalism took hold between the 10th and 17th centuries, the nature of Corvées shifted dramatically from a voluntary community practice to a compulsory tax imposed by feudal lords. This feudal corvée required peasants to perform unpaid labour on the lands of their lords under threat of punishment. This transformation represented a significant exploitation of the original communal spirit of Corvées, turning it into a tool for economic extraction and control by the ruling elite. The burdensome nature of forced corvée labour contributed to widespread resentment among the peasantry, fueling discontent that would later ignite revolutionary fervour.
The French Revolution marked a pivotal moment for forced Corvées, with the abolition of feudal dues and the corvée tax being among the key reforms enacted by the National Convention in the late 18th century. This abolition sought to dismantle the oppressive structures of the feudal system and address the grievances of the peasantry – yet brought only new forms of taxation, industrialization and isolation of ‘workers’.
Corvées were more than a means to manage farm labour; they were a core part of the social infrastructure. These gatherings built trust, facilitated the construction of essential community structures like churches, and strengthened bonds among neighbours. As mechanization and capitalism took over, communities became more efficient at producing goods for the market but at the cost of losing their communal spirit.
The consequences of this shift are evident today. The isolation of modern farming has contributed to a rise in farmer suicides and a decline in social cohesion. It raises the critical question: how many more suicides, how much more environmental degradation, must occur before we recognize that our lives should not solely revolve around economic production? We must recognize how our communal structures were destroyed (even how the concept of Corvées was corrupted, redefined and then outlawed) and revive our social infrastructures to address these crises, for they are symptoms of a deeper loss of community and support.
Today, there is a growing interest in reviving the communal essence of Corvées through modern frameworks like commitment pooling, aiming to restore the social infrastructure and community spirit that once thrived through these ancient practices.
Reviving Corvées in contemporary France requires a reintroduction of the social infrastructures we have lost, akin to reviving a lost language. This is where Commitment Pooling comes in—a modern interpretation that can reintegrate communal support systems into our lives. Commitment Pooling is a protocol developed to curate and value services we hold dear, enabling communities to express and exchange commitments in a structured manner. This system involves the following steps:
- Curation of Services: Identifying and organizing valuable community services.
- Relative Valuation: Establishing the relative value of different services.
- Commitment Expressions: Formalizing commitments to these services.
- Exchange Mechanism: Facilitating the exchange of these commitments with limits to ensure accountability.
By holding and exchanging commitments, communities can manage resources and support one another in a manner reminiscent of traditional communal Corvées. While the protocol covers the accounting and awareness of credit and debt, it also gives room for fun, skill-sharing, and trust-building that characterized communal Corvées.
The Vision for Modern Corvées
In this envisioned modern Corvées system, each business or individual expresses their commitment to their own services through formalized vouchers or subscriptions (like a bus ticket). These functions are legally similar to gift cards or loyalty points. Stewards (often called liquidity investors) curate portfolios of these vouchers, guaranteeing their quality. People could purchase these curated vouchers, use them for services, or exchange them for others of equal value within the curated pool.
This system, operational in its beta phase on platforms like Sarafu.Network, aims to facilitate a return to community-based resource management. User-facing native apps are in development to make this process more accessible, with releases planned for Android and iPhone in the coming year.
Corvées: A Universal Practice
It’s important to note that Corvées are not unique to France. Similar practices of communal labor and resource pooling can be found in cultures worldwide. These traditions are part of the living memories of our elders, and preserving them is as vital as protecting endangered species. The loss of these practices represents a profound loss of cultural heritage and social infrastructures, and their revival is essential for restoring the social fabric of communities.
As we stand at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, embracing the principles of Corvées through Commitment Pooling offers a pathway to rebuild our communities. This modern interpretation not only honours our heritage but also addresses contemporary challenges, fostering a resilient and interconnected society.
Join us in this mission to restore communal support systems and social infrastructure. Your engagement and support are crucial in bringing this vision to life, ensuring that we don’t just survive, but thrive together as a community.
This article draws inspiration from traditional practices and modern initiatives like the Commitment Pooling protocol by Grassroots Economics Foundation, which integrates ancestral wisdom with contemporary technology to foster community well-being.
The views expressed in our blog are those of the author and not necessarily lowimpact.org's
10 Comments
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1Chik July 12th, 2024
Great article.
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2Walter Haugen July 31st, 2024
You are totally wrong about corvee. It has always been unpaid forced labor. It was started under the Roman Empire and was not a happy communal affair before the feudal system. It is better understood as integral to first the manorial and then the feudal system after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.I made the point in my own books that feudalism was more efficient than chattel slavery because of lower costs when the lord didn't have to provide housing and food to the serfs. Corvee is still slavery. If you have an obligation and you don't fulfill it, you get punished. There is no happy mutual contract involved.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corv%C3%A9e
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e#:~:text=Corv%C3%A9e%20(French%3A%20%5Bk%C9%94%CA%81ve%5D,form%20of%20levy%20(taxation).
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3Dave Darby July 31st, 2024
Walter - very interesting. You take that point though, about the potential for a modern version of corvees as part of a commons economy (might need a name-change though!)
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4Dave Darby July 31st, 2024
Walter - also, the author's sources were old people in Normandy, who grew up in voluntary corvees.
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5Walter Haugen August 1st, 2024
Dave Darby - My experiences with communes and communities in the US in the 1970s were not all positive. There was quite a bit of police repression. We concluded that it was unworkable unless there was a unified religious base. I now live in the Occitanie in southern France and many of the villages still have the laveries (communal laundry basins with a water source) that were still being used into the 1960s. There is one 50 meters from our house. There is also a common practice of people allowing the local farmers to pasture their cows on their lawns and back yards during the winter months - usually a couple of days at a time. Electric fencing with small solar panels is the key here. Most of my neighbors had parents or grandparents who experienced Nazi repression during WWII so they have a knowledge base of hardship. The upshot is that shared work and community arises from shared hardship. Putting the focus on "touchy-feely good vibes" instead of solving problems on a day-to-day basis misses the mark. I try to grow as much food as I can and give it away to neighbors here and friends in other villages. The idea here is to promote a gift economy on a small scale, like the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss wrote about in The Gift. There are many things that can be done, but I much prefer to emphasize the structural approach. Claude Levi-Strauss is another French anthropologist with a pertinent approach.
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6Will Ruddick August 1st, 2024
As far as I can tell the term "corvée" has ancient roots and was not invented by the feudal lords of France. It derives from the Medieval Latin word "corrogata," meaning "a day's work and gathering," and originally referred to communal labor or gatherings for public projects according to my in laws. And regardless of the name user the practicess of communal labor existed in (it seems) all ancient societies. The feudal system co-opted this term as far as I can tell, turning it into compulsory, unpaid labor imposed on peasants by lords for their own benefit, often as a form of tax. This transformation of communal labor into an instrument of control by rulers is a common historical pattern where tyrants rebrand existing practices for exploitation. Perhaps it was coopted by the Romans before them etc.
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7Dave Darby August 1st, 2024
Walter - 'Putting the focus on "touchy-feely good vibes" instead of solving problems on a day-to-day basis misses the mark'.
Sorry, who's doing that? We favour the commons approach (as is pretty clear from the site I think): https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/commons-economy.
(although I don't think 'bad vibes' would help')
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8Walter Haugen August 2nd, 2024
From the article: "Imagine families, teenagers, and adults gathered together, laughing and working harmoniously. The joy of shared labor fills the air as they eat, drink, and sing, building bonds that transcend the task at hand."
There is plenty of laughing and singing at the repas after a hike with the local hiking club too. But it is not about forced obligation - corvee. If a person - like Will Ruddick the author of this piece - wants to actually propose corvee as a strategy for building community in the post-collapse future, a little more thinking is in order. Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent by John Reader (2009) has a very good exposition of a modern mandatory obligation of mit'a (the ancient Incan version) and transmuted into faena (the Spanish Empire version). The peasants who had to actually do the work didn't like it and regarded it as slavery.
I read the article on Resilience and then went back to the original to comment. The article is clearly meant to fit into the "fuzzy-wuzzy and touchy-feely" ambiance of Resilience, where articles are written and the "call to arms" is continually trumpeted BUT very little gets done. There are a tremendous number of these websites around nowadays and they serve to keep people pumped up and psyched up. Is it any wonder that the so-called "progressive" websites use the same tactics and strategies of the rightwing nutcases?
Keep in mind that the "teach the public" strategy only developed out of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement after we failed to stop the War through street actions, circa 1969-1970. Yes we continued to demonstrate and raise hell, but the most important strategy was to develop alternatives. Examples are worker cooperatives, food cooperatives, back-to-the-landers, starting farmers markets, etc. It actually takes work. Reportage on talking with people who remember working together in the past is fine, but the metacrisis/polycrisis that has been thrust upon us RIGHT NOW requires more than feel-good articles that seek to inspire creativity in some near or distant future.
The idea of corvee cannot be divorced from its medieval permutations. It has been forced obligation for a long, long time. Will Ruddick's article is an example of rebranding and it is not likely to work. He is correct in tyring to think medievally in solving problems, since we have examples all around us in France as to how it actually worked. BUT as fossil fuels wind down and renewable energy fails to provide the excessive energy consumption necessary for current US and European lifestyles, there will be a concommitant increase in slavery, both chattel slavery and corvee. It is not fun to be forced to participate. Pick a better word.
Bottom line. I didn't give up so much and spend so much of my youth working to stop the forced obligation of the US military draft so that someone can bring it up again in a kinder, gentler version. Extolling the supposed virtues of corvee in an attempt to rebrand it is a failed strategy.
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9Walter Haugen August 2nd, 2024
There is a wonderful piece of graffiti on an overpass of the N20 near Foix here in the Ariege which expresses the uber-paradigm.
LE VIRUS EST L'ÉTAT
The English translation would be "the virus is the state." This is an indication of the importance of recognizing state-level society as the real problem. [It should also be noted that the Ariege is one of the hotbeds of La France Insoumise so radical thinking is common here.] State-level society requires slavery to function. All civilizations had slavery, whether chattel or corvee, before fossil fuels allowed them to substitute energy slaves for human slaves. Now that the fossil fuels are harder to get and consequently going up in price, a return to slavery is in the future. It has been stated that there are more slaves in the world now than at any time in the past. Part of this increase is the increase of global population of course, but the daily newspapers are replete with stories of enslaved people in Africa, Asia, Europe and even the Americas. Forced obligation must be stamped on every time it rears its ugly head.
The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude by Andrew Nikiforuk (2012)
Why the West Rules - For Now by Ian Morris (2010)
The Laws of Physics Are On My Side by Walter Haugen (2014)
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10Dave Darby August 4th, 2024
Walter – I get the feeling from what you say that we would agree on fundamentals. Will is clearly not talking about forced obligation. ‘Corvee’ is a label – let’s use mutual aid / commons instead. And there’s nothing ‘fuzzy’ or wishy-washy about what he’s doing in Kenya – https://www.grassrootseconomics.org/, or what’s happening in the UK and elsewhere re the commons – https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/commons-economy. Criticise by all means, but understand first.
‘Bear ye one another’s burdens’: friendly societies for social welfare
Regenerative traditions in Africa: inspiration for the commons everywhere
How co-operation developed in nature and humans: implications for building the commons
How ‘chamas’ and mutual credit are changing Africa: Shaila Agha of the Sarafu Network
Ancient settlements show that commoning is ‘natural’ for humans, not selfishness and competition
Commoning
Commons economy
Community
Mutual credit
Small is beautiful
