A prendeur, a French term, is a labourer working as part of an early
Middle Age sharecropping system known as ''complant'', a precursor to the
métayage
The metayage ; es, mediería ; it, mezzadria . system is the cultivation of land for a proprietor by one who receives a proportion of the produce, as a kind of sharecropping. Another class of land tenancy in France is named , whereby the rent is ...
system. Under this system, the ''prendeur'' would cultivate land owned by a
bailleur. In exchange for using the ''bailleur's'' soil, the ''prendeur'' promised a share of the crop or its revenue. The length of this partnership varied and sometimes would extend over generations.
[Hugh Johnson, ''Vintage: The Story of Wine'' pg 116. Simon and Schuster 1989]
References
Agricultural labor
{{history-stub