Corvée
Corvée, or
corvée labor, is an administrative practice primarily found in
feudal societies: it is a type of annual
tax that is payable as labor by the
serf or
villein for the
monarch,
vassal,
overlord or
lord of the manor. It was used to complete royal projects, to maintain roads and other public facilities, and to provide labour to maintain the feudal estate.
Imperial China also had a system of conscripting labour from the public, equated to the western corvée by many historians.
Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, imposed it for public works like the
Great Wall and his
mausoleum. However, as the imposition was exorbitant and punishment for failure draconian, Qin Shi Huang was criticised by many historians of China. Corvée-style labor was also found in pre-modern Japan.
The corvée was abolished in France on
August 4 1789, shortly after the beginning of the
French Revolution, along with a number of other feudal privileges accorded to French landlords. It had been a hated feature of the
ancien régime. The corvée continued to exist, however, under the
Seigneurial system in what had been
New France, in
British North America.
After the
American Civil War, some
Southern states taxed their inhabitants in the form of labor for public works. The system proved unsuccessful because of the poor quality of work; in the
1910s Alabama became the last state to abolish it.
Today the term is also used for other forms of unpaid mandatory labour, such as that reportedly imposed by the government of
Myanmar on its citizens. Today most countries have restricted corvée labour to military
conscription (or
prison labor).
From the
Egyptian Old Kingdom (ca
2613 BC) onward, (the
4th Dynasty), corvée labor helped in 'government' projects; during the times of the
Nile River floods, labor was used for construction projects such as
pyramids, temples, quarries, canals, roads, and other works.
In later Egyptian times, during the
Ptolemaic dynasty,
Ptolemy V, in his
Rosetta Stone Decree of
196 BC, listed 22 reasons for being honored. They include abolishing corvee labor in the navy.
*"men shall no longer be seized by force [for service] in the Navy" (Greek text on the Rosetta Stone).
*
Tax farming*Budge.
The Rosetta Stone, E.A.Wallis Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1929, Dover edition(unabridged), c 1989.
