The metayer system was in vogue, especially on temple lands.
The principal landowners, who reside in fortified houses, are all Moslems; their estates are cultivated on the metayer system.
Interest was rarely charged on advances by the temple or wealthy landowners for pressing needs, but this may have been part of the metayer system.
The mountainous slopes of Biscay arestudded with the traditional Basque caserio, or farmhouse, in which the peasantry live on the metayer system, dividing theprofits of the soil with absentee landlords.
This culture-system worked fairly during Van den Bosch's tenure of office, but gave rise to many abuses between 1833 and 1844, involving, as it did, a combination of the metayer and corvee systems.
He strongly condemned the metayer system, then widely prevalent in France, as "perpetuating poverty and excluding instruction" - as, in fact, the ruin of the country.
