![]() Historians, archeologists, and sociologists have had trouble separating it satisfactorily from hamlet or settlement. True, the village has not proved easy to define. The closest Latin equivalent to “village” is vicus, used to designate a rural district or area. The English words “vill” and “village” derive from the Roman villa, the estate that was often the center of settlement in early medieval Europe. Their sense of common enterprise was expressed in their records by special terms: communitas villae, the community of the vill or village, or tota villata, the body of all the villagers. Together they formed an integrated whole, a permanent community organized for agricultural production. There they lived, there they labored, there they socialized, loved, married, brewed and drank ale, sinned, went to church, paid fines, had children in and out of wedlock, borrowed and lent money, tools, and grain, quarreled and fought, and got sick and died. ![]() The medieval village, in contrast, was the primary community to which its people belonged for all life’s purposes. ![]() The modern village is a place where its inhabitants live, but not necessarily or even probably where they work. In medieval Europe, as in most Third World countries today, the village sheltered the over-whelming majority of people. In modern Europe and America the village is home to only a fraction of the population. ![]()
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