The late Georges Duby contributed to many fields of medieval history, from his
explorations of social ideology to the experience of women. This article looks at his work
on peasants in the Middle Ages, emphasising in particular his thesis on the Mâconnais
(published in 1953), L'économie rurale (1962), and Guerriers et paysans (1973). Duby
was increasingly interested in tracing the emergence of aristocratic power, its ethos and
family patterns. He came to see peasants as the rather passive base on which the
brilliant chivalric culture of the medieval period was erected. His earlier studies,
however, depicted agrarian society in its own right and with exemplary vividness and
detail. The article discusses changes and continuities in Duby's understanding of the
peasantry and the enduring influence of this historian.
