large number still remain H u m a n i t i e s

Reflection Paper One Prompt and Readings:

Reflection Paper One: Next week we will study the rulers, writers, and aristocrats of Europe during the 17th and early 18th centuries. These people all had money and power, but most people were basically peasants. Peasants usually could not read or write to leave diaries, and we have few clues about their lives. Look at the examples of estate records below. How much can we find out about ordinary lives from these? Should historians use percentages to describe these lives of the everyday laborers and talk about them as a group, should they use statistics and imagination, or should they just figure these are unknowable stories?

**Remember your paper should be 300 words or so, and it should contain an introduction, body, and conclusion!

Sources for Reflection Paper #1:

From Report of the Estates of Normandy (1651)

Saint-Quentin. Of the 450 sick persons whom the inhabitants were unable to relieve, 200 were turned out, and these we saw die one by one as they lay on the roadside. A large number still remain, and to each of them it is only possible to dole out the least scrap of bread. We only give bread to those who would otherwise die. The staple dish here consists of mice, which the inhabitants hunt, so desperate are they from hunger. They devour roots which the animals cannot eat; one can, in fact, not put into words the things one sees…. This narrative, far from exaggerating, rather understates the horror of the case, for it does not record the hundredth part of the misery in this district. Those who have not witnessed it with their own eyes cannot imagine how great it is. Not a day passes but at least 200 people die of famine in the two provinces. We certify to having ourselves seen herds, not of cattle, but of men and women, wandering about the fields between Rheims and Rhétel, turning up the earth like pigs to find a few roots; and as they can only find rotten ones, and not half enough of them, they become so weak that they have not strength left to seek food. The parish priest at Boult, whose letter we enclose, tells us he has buried three of his parishioners who died of hunger. The rest subsisted on chopped straw mixed with earth, of which they composed a food which cannot be called bread. Other persons in the same place lived on the bodies of animals which had died of disease, and which the curé, otherwise unable to help his people, allowed them to roast at the presbytery fire.

From Letters of the Abbess of Port-Royal

(1649) This poor country is a horrible sight; it is stripped of everything. The soldiers take possession of the farms and have the corn threshed, but will not give a single grain to the owners who beg it as an alms. It is impossible to plough. There are no more horses all have been carried off. The peasants are reduced to sleeping in the woods and are thankful to have them as a refuge from murderers. And if they only had enough bread to half satisfy their hunger, they would indeed count themselves happy.

(1652) People massacre each other daily with every sort of cruelty…. The soldiers steal from one another when they have denuded every one else, and as they spoil more property than they carry off, they are themselves often reduced to starvation, and can find no more to annex. All the armies are equally undisciplined and vie with one another in lawlessness. The authorities in Paris are trying to send back the peasants to gather in the corn; but as soon as it is reaped the marauders come to slay and steal, and disperse all in a general rout.

No textbook readings required for this particular paper, but we’ll use it next week!