| 释义 |
‖ mezzadria|mɛdzəˈdriːə|
Also mezzeria.
[It.]
A system of land tenure in Italy whereby the farmer pays a proportion (orig. half) of the produce to the landowner as rent, the landowner usually supplying the stock, seeds, etc. Also attrib., as mezzadria district, mezzadria system, etc. So ˈmezzadro (pl. -i), the tenant farmer of this system.
1875Encycl. Brit. I. 415/1 A system..in certain provinces of Italy..called mezzeria..the halving, that is, of the produce of the soil between landowner and landholder. 1909King & Okey Italy Today (new ed.) viii. 171 In the mezzadria districts there are comparatively few agricultural labourers and therefore less pauperism. Ibid., Occasionally,..the rent is proportioned to the crop, and thus the system slides imperceptibly into mezzadria. 1928L. B. Register tr. Calisse's Hist. Italian Law iii. xx. 727 In the years following..the Germanic invasions land was not as yet capable of returning an adequate compensation for the labor required for cultivation... It was preferable to fix the return as a proportion of the profits,..sometimes it was a proportion of the harvest, a half for example, as in the ‘mezzeria’. 1949L. Olschki Genius of Italy (1950) i. 10 Mezzadria imposes hard penalties on the peasant. 1962Listener 30 Aug. 309/2 He has always worked on the share-cropping system known as the mezzadria. 1964Economist 4 July 55/2 The mezzadri strike, vote communist.., or leave for the cities. 1967C. Seton-Watson Italy from Liberalism to Fascism viii. 303 The bracciante resented the mezzadro's reliance upon his own family and his reluctance to employ paid labour. 1970I. Origo Images & Shadows ix. 212 Our land was worked on the system which had been almost universal in Tuscany for nearly six centuries, the mezzadria,..the tenant—called mezzadro,..contributed the..labour. 1973Daily Tel. 23 Jan. 17/3 Mrs Doxat has plans for her vineyards, which are run under the mezzadria system, whereby the Italian tenant works them and takes 52 per cent. of the profits, while all capital investment is the owner's responsibility. |