History

The “Masseria” is a typical rural building in Puglia, in the Salento inland, whose origins can be traced back to the 17th century.
It is a courtyard-farm built according to the customs of that time, considering the farmer’s needs and the activities he had to realize in this place. The Masseria in Puglia was a real agricultural centre, dedicated to farming and production, in which the farmer lived with his family, each of them having specific duties and roles. Occasionally there were also sowers, gleaners, shepherds and other workers who helped in the periods of more intense activity. From dawn to dusk everyone in every masseria in Puglia was involved in the hard activities required to make the farm work: someone sent the sheep out to pasture, others were engaged in the sowing and others in the threshing. The animals in this farm played a significant role: horses, oxen and cows were needed for the work and, where necessary, they also represented an important supply of meat.
In Puglia the farmer was the “boss” of the masseria, a tenant who undertook to give the owner half the harvest and the first fruits of each variety. All the organizational, productive and social life of every masseria in Puglia was focussed on this person: he had to hire the workers and assigned the various tasks, he gave orders and distributed the goods produced. A modest and hard life, marked by the uncertain cycle of the seasons: in autumn men were engaged in the ploughing of the land, sowing and vintage; in winter they pruned the plants around the masseria and carried out maintenance works; in spring they worked with the cereals and sowable land, and in summer they harvested the hay, reaped and threshed the cereals. The threshing took place in a farmyard, that is a portion of land with round shape facing the farm, levelled and covered with “chianche” (sheets of rocky stone), in which the bunches of spikes were put in circle. A peasant placed himself at the centre of the farmyard, and, holding the reins of one or more mules, made them move in circles and step on the spikes with their hooves, thus making the grains of wheat come out. 
While in apulian masseria men had to do the hardest work in the fields, life for women was not easier, as they had to look after their children and realize household and rural work: they prepared bread, pasta, conserves, jams, tomato sauce, spirits, cheese and ricotta, in order to meet the owner’s requests and guarantee a warm dish to their family even in periods of shortage; they bred rabbits, chickens, turkeys and pigs which animated the large central courtyard, and, when necessary, women also had to help men in the fields.
The children, considered a source of wealth because they could work, sent the animals out to pasture and milked the goats and sheeps.
Thus, masseria in Puglia was a business based on the family as an essential centre of production, where a poor and difficult life was led, but also marked by gathering moments, collaboration and mutual help.