Peasant
A peasant is a member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms, especially in the Middle Ages under feudalism, or more generally, in any pre-industrial society. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their personal status: slave, serf, and freeman. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.
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Famous quotes containing the word peasant:
“The lord is the peasant that was,
The peasant is the lord that shall be.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)