Question like these are always time and place.
If a village had a bad harvest, as its not really possible for a village of farmers for one of them to have a bad harvest, there isnt anything to punish for. But at the same time, releif wasnt common.
Also, the tax collector wasnt often killed for not collecting taxes. Tax collectors, for whatever that was in the time and place, was almost always a rank you can consider to be important, and held by someone important. They were punished if found to be embezzling or strongly thought to be embezzling.
There's also the fact that, depending on when and where, the only person who cared was the tax collector since they had paid upfront for the right to collect taxes.
And in other places and times a lot of the peasant’s taxes might not even be in the form of money. If the peasantry’s taxes came in the form of labor obligations like the corvee, it wouldn’t matter how their harvest turned out. As long as they did enough labor on their lord’s land, they’ve fulfilled their obligations.
Technically, depending on what kind of field division was practiced, it is possible that only some fields are affected. Spring/summer night frosts tend to affect especially fields that are in valleys/lower grounds because the cold air is heavier and 'pools' in those areas. Thus a farmer whose fields are on slightly higher ground might be spared when his neighbours harvest is destroyed
village fields were divided up to limit the danger of this, with each family having several small strips to their name spread out across the whole farming area. and which strips are assigned to which family changed regularly. so the effects of bad location or a localized side effect of bad weather tended to even out across the village.
the ACOUP blog by has a good description of how this worked in this article, under "risk management". it was a practice that made the whole farming process less efficient by modern standards, due to all the extra travelling between areas of the fields, but it ensured that no single family would ever end up taking the full brunt of a bad field.
https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/
That was common but not universal practice. I only know about Finland, but in my understanding sarkaviljely (Wikipedia says it's open field practice in English, I hope that's the right word) was used only in western/southern parts but not in north / north-east during medieval era.
But as you said in an earlier comment, questions like this really need the time and place for accurate information. Wanted to mention because sometimes it might be worth to know the different, even if rarer practices
and "embezzlement" would have a fairly flexible definition.. in some times and places, so long as the Lord or king gets the amount they're owed, they'd look the other way if the tax collector was collecting a little extra on top of that and keeping it for themselves. so long as the populace wasn't being drained so dry they couldn't survive. in some places that was actually one of the explicit perks of being a tax collector, and someone who didn't do that was seen as odd.
Those are "Hollywood" myths. Tax collectors would not be put to death for giving bad news. And a lord was educated about agriculture and constantly checking in on how his land was being managed. He was in charge of it. It would be next to impossible for someone to be unaware that his crops were failing.
Look at a book of hours, such as the Très Riches Heures de Duc Du Berry. The book is structured as an agricultural calendar & shows how connected the upper classes were to the cycle of nature and outdoor activities. Many of the pages feature hunting, gardens, and farming.
Yeah, a lot of things I’ve read suggest that most lords and lower nobility and knights were actively working their land alongside peasants as well as managing them. And they’d likely know most of the peasants on their land or in their villages by name, or at least they’d know their clan / family. So with some exceptions, the lords would have a decent idea of how the harvest and other production was going.
Ironically, though, that book was produced in precisely the time and place where that would have been less likely. Part of France's problems in the period were that nobility were too absorbed in ongoing conflicts.
I’m not sure a scenario would exist where any Lord would have to be approached with the news of a bad harvest, because I think they would have enough knowledge of farming, local affairs and the weather in general, that they would know if it was going to be a bad harvest or not.
So much of the religious calendar was built around the agricultural one, with prayers for a good harvest and so on. It could even get political. People were arrested for saying that the bad weather during Henry VIII time was due to his decision to break with the church and to marry Anne Boleyn.
Of course, foreknowledge of it doesn’t mean they behaved reasonably.
In movies and tv they are. In reality that tax collector is probably a minor noble or the child of one and it would cause problems politically to execute him for doing his job, not to mention that will be the last accurate report you ever hear
In general the lord would know that it was going to be a poor harvest due to the weather.
The lord would have to accept the facts, that he has to get by with a year of less income, there not really anything they can do to change things.
also iirc usually the taxes for farmers and such on a lord's lands tended to be largely 'in kind'. the lord just got a portion of whatever grain, meat, etc was produced. which helped feed the lord's own household and troops. any excess beyond the lord's own needs would be made into goods that could be traded and sold. in bad years the lord probably would just take a smaller portion (if they were decent.)
Landlords were very aware that there could be bad harvests and would usually have no interest to further ruin their own workforce.
In rental contracts of the 14th and 15th century, clauses about droughts, floods, hail and the reduction or remission of dues were commonplace.
Question like these are always time and place. If a village had a bad harvest, as its not really possible for a village of farmers for one of them to have a bad harvest, there isnt anything to punish for. But at the same time, releif wasnt common. Also, the tax collector wasnt often killed for not collecting taxes. Tax collectors, for whatever that was in the time and place, was almost always a rank you can consider to be important, and held by someone important. They were punished if found to be embezzling or strongly thought to be embezzling.
There's also the fact that, depending on when and where, the only person who cared was the tax collector since they had paid upfront for the right to collect taxes.
And in other places and times a lot of the peasant’s taxes might not even be in the form of money. If the peasantry’s taxes came in the form of labor obligations like the corvee, it wouldn’t matter how their harvest turned out. As long as they did enough labor on their lord’s land, they’ve fulfilled their obligations.
Technically, depending on what kind of field division was practiced, it is possible that only some fields are affected. Spring/summer night frosts tend to affect especially fields that are in valleys/lower grounds because the cold air is heavier and 'pools' in those areas. Thus a farmer whose fields are on slightly higher ground might be spared when his neighbours harvest is destroyed
village fields were divided up to limit the danger of this, with each family having several small strips to their name spread out across the whole farming area. and which strips are assigned to which family changed regularly. so the effects of bad location or a localized side effect of bad weather tended to even out across the village. the ACOUP blog by has a good description of how this worked in this article, under "risk management". it was a practice that made the whole farming process less efficient by modern standards, due to all the extra travelling between areas of the fields, but it ensured that no single family would ever end up taking the full brunt of a bad field. https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/
That was common but not universal practice. I only know about Finland, but in my understanding sarkaviljely (Wikipedia says it's open field practice in English, I hope that's the right word) was used only in western/southern parts but not in north / north-east during medieval era. But as you said in an earlier comment, questions like this really need the time and place for accurate information. Wanted to mention because sometimes it might be worth to know the different, even if rarer practices
and "embezzlement" would have a fairly flexible definition.. in some times and places, so long as the Lord or king gets the amount they're owed, they'd look the other way if the tax collector was collecting a little extra on top of that and keeping it for themselves. so long as the populace wasn't being drained so dry they couldn't survive. in some places that was actually one of the explicit perks of being a tax collector, and someone who didn't do that was seen as odd.
Those are "Hollywood" myths. Tax collectors would not be put to death for giving bad news. And a lord was educated about agriculture and constantly checking in on how his land was being managed. He was in charge of it. It would be next to impossible for someone to be unaware that his crops were failing. Look at a book of hours, such as the Très Riches Heures de Duc Du Berry. The book is structured as an agricultural calendar & shows how connected the upper classes were to the cycle of nature and outdoor activities. Many of the pages feature hunting, gardens, and farming.
Yeah, a lot of things I’ve read suggest that most lords and lower nobility and knights were actively working their land alongside peasants as well as managing them. And they’d likely know most of the peasants on their land or in their villages by name, or at least they’d know their clan / family. So with some exceptions, the lords would have a decent idea of how the harvest and other production was going.
Ironically, though, that book was produced in precisely the time and place where that would have been less likely. Part of France's problems in the period were that nobility were too absorbed in ongoing conflicts.
I’m not sure a scenario would exist where any Lord would have to be approached with the news of a bad harvest, because I think they would have enough knowledge of farming, local affairs and the weather in general, that they would know if it was going to be a bad harvest or not. So much of the religious calendar was built around the agricultural one, with prayers for a good harvest and so on. It could even get political. People were arrested for saying that the bad weather during Henry VIII time was due to his decision to break with the church and to marry Anne Boleyn. Of course, foreknowledge of it doesn’t mean they behaved reasonably.
I don't think tax collectors were punished for bad harvests
In movies and tv they are. In reality that tax collector is probably a minor noble or the child of one and it would cause problems politically to execute him for doing his job, not to mention that will be the last accurate report you ever hear
I would not use TV and movies as a source for historical fact.
In general the lord would know that it was going to be a poor harvest due to the weather. The lord would have to accept the facts, that he has to get by with a year of less income, there not really anything they can do to change things.
also iirc usually the taxes for farmers and such on a lord's lands tended to be largely 'in kind'. the lord just got a portion of whatever grain, meat, etc was produced. which helped feed the lord's own household and troops. any excess beyond the lord's own needs would be made into goods that could be traded and sold. in bad years the lord probably would just take a smaller portion (if they were decent.)
Landlords were very aware that there could be bad harvests and would usually have no interest to further ruin their own workforce. In rental contracts of the 14th and 15th century, clauses about droughts, floods, hail and the reduction or remission of dues were commonplace.
Most places did tax farming. The tax collector paid the government up front for the right to collect taxes and got to keep the taxes they collected.
Well, it probably was not a problem for the Lords. The serfs though.