Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe

The Past and Present Society
The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism Author(s): Robert Brenner Source: Past & Present, No. 97 (Nov., 1982), pp. 16-113 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650630 . Accessed: 08/09/2011 16:47
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SYMPOSIUM AND AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTURE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EUROPE PRE-INDUSTRIAL

Infourearlierissuesofthe>Zournal,number78torFebruaryI978,number
I978 andnumber forNovem85 79forMay I9 78, number forAugust 80 to on berI979, we published sevencontrzbutionsa Symposium the imBrenner "Agranan on Class portant article issuenumber byRobert in 70 in Europe". are We Structure Economic and Development Pre-Industnal by Brenner. nowpleased publish Rejoinder Professor to a
THE AGRARIANROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM*

INTRODUCTION IN MY ORIGINAL ARTICLE I BEGAN FROM THE IDEA THAT SOCIAL-
propertysystems,once established,tend to set strictlimits and im1 pose certainoverallpatterns uponthe courseof economicevolution. the actorsto certain Theydo so becausetheytendto restrict economic limitedoptions, indeed quite specificstrategies,in orderbest to rethemselves theirestabin producethemselves thatis, to maintain lished socio-economicpositions. On this basis I argued that the trends, which have hitherto long-termdemographic commercial or of econformedthe foci of widelyacceptedinterpretations long-term Europe,acquired theireconomic omicdevelopment pre-industrial in of significance the distributionof income and the development for the productiveforces only in connectionwith specific,historically relationsandgiven balances of developedsystemsof social-property class forces. Under differentpropertystructuresand differentbalor trends,withtheir ancesof power,similar demographic commercial associated patternsof factorprices, presentedvery differentopporStoneandGeoffrey Symcox * I am deeplyindebtedto PerryAnderson,Lawrence and improvements forthesubstantial andefforttheygavein criticizing suggesting time Mendels,Jon on this article.I wish also to thankJoshCohen,Jon Elster,Franklin Wienerand EllenWoodfor theirhelpfulcomments. and EconomicDevelopment Pre-Inin 1 R. Brenner,"Agrarian Class Structure dustrial Europe",PastandPresent, 70 (Feb. I976), pp. 30-75. no.
THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM
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responses,with ditunitiesand dangersand thus evoked disparate for verseconsequences the economyas a whole. Indeed,as I triedto of and structures balances classforces show,underdifferentproperty and in variousEuropeanregions, preciselythe same demographic commercialtrends yielded widely divergenteconomicresults, not of only with respectto long-termtrendsin the distribution income, of or of but to overallpatterns the development non-development the productiveforces. For this reasonthe relativelyautonomousprocesses by which class structureswere established,developedand of have to be placedat the centreof any interpretation transformed economy. European the long-termevolutionof the pre-industrial My argument thus started with the assertion that the feudal for mechanisms certaindistinctive systemestablished social-property certainlimited methodsfor income and, in particular, distributing and developingproduction,which led to economicstagnation involution.It did so, mostcrudely,becauseit imposeduponthe members of the majorsocial classes feudal lords and possessingpeasants themselveswhich, when appliedon an for strategies reproducing of economy-widebasis, were incompatiblewith the requirements by reproduction the lordsthroughsurplusexgrowth.In particular, compulsionand by peasants tractionby means of extra-economic tendthroughproductionfor subsistenceprecludedany widespread reunits, systematic of encies to thoroughspecialization productive investmentof surpluses, or to regulartechnicalinnovation.The system-wideconsequenceof this structureof reproduction-esincrease was demographic peciallygiven the tendencyto long-term of a built-inseculartrendtowardsdecliningproductivity labourand crisis. socio-economic to ultimately large-scale in that the originalbreakthrough Europe I argued,correlatively, upon growthwasdependent to a systemof moreor less self-sustaining of a two-sideddevelopmentof class relations:first, the breakdown comby systemsof lordlysurplusextraction meansof extra-economic of pulsion (especiallyserfdom);secondly,the undermining peasant ownership full of or possession the aborting anytrendtowards peasant was of of land. The consequence this two-sideddevelopment the rise system,aboveall on the land, in which,for of a novel social-property and of the firsttime, the organizers production the directproducers to and (sometimesthe samepersons)foundit both necessary possible reproducethemselvesthrougha course of economicaction which to was, on a system-widescale, favourable the continuingdevelopment of the productiveforces. Becausein this systemthe organizers from direct, were separated of productionand the directproducers (esor accessto theirmeansof reproduction subsistence non-market peciallyfrompossessionof the land), they had no choice,in orderto maintainthemselves,but to buy and sell on the market.This meant
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that they were compelledto producecompetitively way of costby cuttingand, therefore, theyhadas a ruleto attemptto specialize, that accumulate innovateto the greatestextentpossible.They were, and on thewhole,ableto succeedin thisbecausethe collapse thesystem of of surplusextractionby extra-economic compulsion,in connection with the separation the directproducers of fromtheirmeansof subsistence,freedlabourpower,landandthe meansof production be to combined (accumulated) themostprofitable in manner. particular, In the rise of the landlord/capitalist tenant/wage-labourer systemprovidedthe basisfor the transformation agriculture of and, in turn, the breakthrough the ongoingeconomic to development whichtookplace in earlymodernEngland.On the otherhand,throughout mostof the Continent the sameperiod,the perpetuation, variousforms,of in in social-property systemscharacterized peasantpossession surby and plus extractionby extra-economic compulsion(the tax/officestructure in France,serfdomin easternEurope),was at the root of continuing agriculturalstagnation,involution and ultimatelygeneral
. . . .
soclo-economlc
crlsls.
In light of the foregoingI arguedfinallythat it is of criticalimportanceto recognizeand analysesystematically differinglongthe term processes of class forrnation whichcharacterized various the regions within feudal Europe. For, in my view, these divergentprocesses criticallyconditionedthe differentformsand outcomesof the lordpeasantclassconflictswhichwereendemicto latermedievalEurope in the wake of the generalized crisesof feudalproduction seigarld neurial revenues. It was the various propertysettlementswhich emerged,in differentplaces, from the latermedievalseigneurial reactionand the classconflictswhichaccompanied reaction that which laidthe basisfor the dramatic regional divergences wereto charthat acterizeEuropan economicevolutionin the subsequent epoch. The centralelementsof this interpretation have been calledinto question. First, my view of what might be called the internaldynamicsof the European feudaleconomyhasbeen challenged. M. M. Postanand JohnHatcher,2 alongwith Emmanuel Roy Ladurie,3 Le havereaffirmed theirpopulation-centred interpretation long-term of economicdevelopmentin pre-industrial Europe. Guy Bois,4 while criticalof the demographic interpretation, foundmy accountsof has feudaleconomicdevelopmentand class formationto be essentially arbitrary, especiallyin the absenceof a fullerpresentation whathe of would term the "economiclaws of motion"of feudalism-in par2 M. M. Postan andJ. Hatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety", and in Past andPresent, 78 (Feb. I978), pp. 24-37. no. 3 E. Le Roy Ladurie,"A Reply to Professor Brenner", Past andPresent, 79 no. (MayI978), pp- 55-94 G. Bois, "Against Neo-Malthusian the Orthodoxy", andPresent, 79 (May Past no. I978), pp. 60-9.
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ticular, his own organizingconception, "the falling rate of feudal levy". Secondly)doubts have been registeredas to my accountof the divergent developments, of the latermedieval out crisisof seigneurial revenuesand associated classconflicts,of differentsystemsof property relationsin variousEuropean regions.Heide Wundern5 well as as Postanand Hatcher,has challengedmy explanation why serfof dom arosein easternEuropewhileit declinedin the west. In parallel fashion Guy Bois and PatriciaCrootand David Parker6 havequestioned my explanation the divergentevolutionsof propertyrelaof tionsin Englandand France the rise of agrarian capitalism versus the consolidation peasantproperty connection of in with absolutism. Finally, my view of the way in which diversepropertysystems, once installed,structuredqualitatively differentlong-termpatterns of economicevolutionin variousEuropean regionsduringthe early modernperiodhas been sharplydebated.The view I presented,that the imposition of serfdom had deleteriousconsequencesfor the long-termevolution of the east Europeaneconomy, is, I believe, widely accepted.My argument) however,that the strengthening of peasantproprietorship connectionwith absolutism Francewas in in significantly favourable the development agricultural less for of productionthan was the rise of capitalistsocial-property formsin Englandhasbeenquestioned,fromdifferent angles,by CrootandParker, by Le Roy Ladurie,and by Cooper.7 In what follows, I will take up each of the foregoingobjections in the courseof presentinga morefully developedinterpretation the of problemsof European feudalevolutionand of the transition capito talism. In Section I I will attempt, once again, to lay bare what I believe to be the faulty foundationsupon which the demographic interpretation been constructed. SectionII I will try to sketch has In a general approach long-term to feudalsocio-economic evolution,and then to demonstrate that this approachcan better graspthe actual courseof medievaleconomicdevelopment) incomedistribution and feudal crisis in the differentEuropeanregionsthan can either the demographic interpretation Bois's"fallingrateof levy"approach. or Finally,in SectionIII, I will, in directresponseto the criticisms that havebeen raised,lay out whatI taketo be the originsof the different propertysystemswhichemergedin differentregionsof Europeduring the earlymodernperiod,andexplainwhy theseproperty systems werein factcentralin determining subsequent the pathsof economic development.
5 H. Wllnder, C'Peasant Organization ClassConflictin East and West Gerand many",Past andPresent, 78 (Feb. I978), pp. 47-55. no. 6 p. Croot andD. Parker,"Agrarian ClassStructure Economic and Development", Past andPresent, 78 (Feb. I978), pp. 37-47. no. ' J. P. Cooper,"In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", andPresent, 80 (Aug. Past no. I978), pp. 20-65-
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To lay the basisfor Irlyown argument,I offereda criticismof the dominantapproaches long-termeconomictrendsin to medievaland early modern Europe:the "demographic model", overwhelmingly predominant these days, as well as the "commercialization model'>) out of favourin recentyears.To this end)pace Postan and Hatcher) I madeno attemptto "minimize roleof the population", nor matterthe growthof trade)"in the promotion economic for that of change"8 . My argument beganfromthe acceptance, at leastin broad the main long-termeconomictrendsdescribedby the outline,of demographic interpreters. Nor) of course, did I challengethe internalcoherence, the logic, of the neo-Malthusian cum Ricardian models,given their highlyrestrictive premises.This, I shouldhavethought,wasobvious, since my explicit point of departurewas preciselythe two-phase "grandagrarian cycles"of non-development, boundup with demographic change.Population growth,in- faceof the technique, ledin the "up-phase" the cycleto increased stagnant of returns landrelative to tolabour,increased food pricesrelativeto manufactures, ingoutput per person(sometimesinterpreted the anddeclinas ductivity labour).Ultimately,';overpopulation'' decliningproof ing,eventuating a reversal the demographic was self-correctin of trendand, in turn, a "down-phase" characterized the oppositetrends in the land/ by labour ratioandin relativefactorprices.This two-phase cyclicalpattern prevailed the economyof mostof Europein the later in medieval period (IIOO-I450), and continuedto predominate over largeparts of into the earlymodernperiod(I450-I700). My it intentionwasnot to deny the existenceof these two-phase cycles;it was to exposethe limitations the neo-Malthusian of cum Ricardian models advanced by demographic the interpreters actuallyexplaining the long-term in patterns income distribution,of cyclicalfluctuations of and of the economic non-development associated with them*9 (I.I)DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION No woulddeny, concerning one incomedistribution, in an econthat omy wherethe potentialfor increases the productive in forcesis limited, population growthwill tendto bringaboutrisingreturns land to relative labourand risingpricesof food relativeto to manufactures (and versa).Postanand Hatcherpile fact upon fact vice to 4'prove" that these relationships held in medievalEurope,as if I had argued the contrary,which of courseI did not. My point was that the dePostan and Hatcher, "Population and Class Relations in Feudal Society", p. 30. 9 Brenner, "AgrarianClass Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe", 30-42, esp. pp. 33-4, 37. pp.
8
THE DEMOGRAPHIC MODEL AND CLASS RELATIONS
2I
to haveerredin attempting use this modelof mographic interpreters demographically determinedreturnsto factorsto explainthe distributionof income betweenclasses. In orderto do so they have been in compelledto assimilate illegitimately my view-the evolution model. On the other hand, of class relationsto their demographic wherethey haveavoidedthis pitfall,they havebeenobligedto introduce class relationsin an ad hocmannerto cover trendsin income distributionwhich their model cannot explain; but to do this, of course,is to beg the question. conIt was my argumentthat changesin relativefactorscarcities changesexertedan effect on the distrisequentupon demographic butionof incomein medievalEuropeonly as they were, so to speak, relations and social-property refracted throughthe prismof changing fluctuating balancesof class forces. Thus, any effect of demographically induced changesin relativefactorscarcitiesor prices on the distributionof income was obviouslystrictly dependentupon the relativeamountsof land held outrightby lords and by peasants.It the which determined degreeto whichlords was this prior allocation benefitfromchangesin the land/labour or peasantscouldpotentially ratio. Of course, throughmost of the medievalepoch, much of the it landwas ownedoutrightby neitherlordsnor peasants; was "possessed"by peasants,subjectto exactionsby the lordswhichwerein (this was landheld by theoryfixed, but in practiceoften fluctuating tenure).The effect, if any, of depeasantsfrom lords in customary of mographic changeson the distribution incomebetweenlordsand peasants holding this customary land depended entirely upon whether the peasants succeeded in getting the dues fixed, or on whetherthe lords retainedthe power to alter them. In the former case, the peasantscould assumesomethingakin to full propertyin most of its fruits.In the lattercase, the lords the land, appropriating couldlevy a rent which might be less than, equalto, or even greater rent than the market-determined for the same amountof land, depending on their powers over their customarypeasantsand their desireto exercisethese powers. Once again, a priordistribution of the this time of classpower- structured significance demographmarketforces. icallydetermined the interTo cope with the foregoingconsiderations, demographic pretershavebeen moreor less compelledto makesurplusextraction or class relationsa dependentvariablein their population-centred in models.In orderto explaintrendsin incomedistribution medieval Europein termsof trendsin population,they have been obligedto developments deterargue,explicitlyor implicitly,thatdemographic or minednot only relativefactorscarcities prices,but alsothe distributionof powerand property.They haveasserted,as do Postanand rise Hatcheronce againin their contribution,that the demographic
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of the thirteenthcenturynot only broughtabout high land prices relative thosefor labour,but madefor the lords'increased to capacity to imposelevieson theircustomary tenants(anintensification serfof dom) and, moregenerally,for lordlyprosperity England.10 in They have arguedin turn that the medievaldemographic decline determinednot only the oppositeconstellation relativefactorscarcities of andprices,but also the declineof serdomin westernEurope. 11 I would simplyreassertthat this line of argument be refuted can by demonstrating, in my original as essay,thatthe samedemographic trendsin roughlythe sameperiodwereaccompanied the.opposite by trendsin incomedistribution differentEuropean in regions.During the populationupturnof the latertwelfthand thirteenthcenturies, therewasin Englanda shift,grosso modo, favourable the lordsover to and againstthe peasants;this was madepossibleby an interrelated strengthening lordly property(stableor growingdemesnes)and of the strengthening lordship(the lords'increased of capacityto make arbitrary levieson customary tenures).Butin France,underthe same conditions,there was just the opposite shift in the distribution of income, favourable the peasantsover and againstthe lordsi this to was madepossibleby the interrelated weakening lordship(fixing of of peasantdues) and of the lords' controlover property(shrinking demesnes).During the populationdownturnof the later medieval period,therewasin westernEuropea shiftin the longrunfavourable to the peasantsover and againstthe lords, manifested the decline in of serfdom. But from the fifteenth century onwards in eastern Europe, especiallyeastern Germany,there was just the opposite trend.12 Postanand Hatcherapparently would rejectnot only ttie content of this argument,but its entiremethod,its "logic".They ask, rhetorically:"Does Professor Brennermeanthat no causalfactorcan be
10"Thereasonwhy landlords werenow not onlydesirous increase weightof to the labourdues but also 'got awaywith it' are not difficultto guess. With the growing scarcity landand with the lengthening of queuesof men waitingfor it, the economic powers thelandowner his tenants of over weremoredifficult resist": M. Postan, to M. "Medieval Agrarian Society its Prime: in England", TheCambridge in Economic Histoty of Europe, i, TheAgrarianLife of the Middle Ages, 2nd edn., ed. M. M. Postan(Cambridge,I966), p. 608. PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations Feudal and in Society",p. 32. See alson. 57 below. 11"Intheendeconomic forcesasserted themselves, thelordsandtheemployers and foundthatthe mosteffectivewayof retaining labourwasto payhigherwages,justas the most effectiveway of retainingtenantswas to lower rents and releaseservile obligations": Postan,"Medieval Agrarian Societyin its Prime:England", 609. p. 12 In view of doubtsconcerning the foregoingpropositions, exampleI. Blanfor chard, "Reviewof PeriodicalLiterature,I977", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxxii (I979), p. I37, further evidenceis given belowof divergent trendsin incomedistribution, in the face of similardemographic trends, under the impactof divergent evolutions classrelations balances classforces(England of and of versusFrance,thirteenthcentury;east versuswest Europe,fifteenthcentury).See pp. 4I-3, 45-50, 6970 below.
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proved true unless it can be shown to produceidenticalresultsin totallydifferentcircumstances?". But they can easilybe answered 13 in kind. Do PostanandHatcherreallywishto arguethatanhistorical explanation be countedadequatewhen the "factor" can imputedto be "cause"(demographic increase/decline) be shownto produce can the oppositeeffects(in termsof incomedistribution) very similar in conditions?Can Postan and Hatcherdeny, in particular,that the Frenchand Englishcountrysides the latertwelfthand thirteenth of centuries inappropriate are objectsforthe comparative analysis which I suggested,whentheirruralstructures wereso verysimilar when and their evolutionswere so closelyintertwined? Apparently not, for in theircontribution PostanandHatcher(somewhat curiously, is true) it seek to referme to preciselythe contrast betweenthe declineof lordship in thirteenth-century northernFranceand its consolidation in Englandin the sameperiod,in the faceof similarpopulation trends, as one of the "betterexamplesof the 'contradictory' processes" better, that is, than those I invoked.14 But, of course, this was one of the two maincomparative examples used!15Similarly, Postan I can and Hatcherconsistentlyassertthat the west German societywhere serfdomdeclinedand the east German societywhereserfdombegan its ascentin the fifteenthcenturyin the face of population drop-off are too differentto be fruitfullycompared? think not. The latter I hadonly recentlydevelopedas a colonialextensionof the former,on very similar principlesof socio-economicorganization. Postan As himself assertselsewhere,"In the earlystagesof Germanconquest and settlement,the societiesof East and West differedin detailand degreeratherthanin substance". 16
'3 Postanand Hatcher,"Population ClassRelationsin FeudalSociety",pp. and 26-7. 4 Ibid., p. 28. 15 Brenner, "Agrarian ClassStructure Economic and Development Pre-Industrial in Europe"? pp. 39-40. This oversight on the partof Postanand Hatcheris especially strange smceelsewhere theirarticle in theyactually that"Professor note Brenner draws ourattention the disappearance serfdom Normandy theParisregion. . .": to of in and PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 3I. and in 16 M. M. Postan,"Economic Relations betweenEastern Western and Europe",in G. Barraclough (ed.), Eastern Western and Europe theMiddle in Ages(London,I970), p. I67. Postan andHatcher seemto wantfurther argue it is improper compare to that to eastandwest Germany fromthe latermedieval period("totally different situations") becausethe rise of the international grainmarketstimulatedgrainproduction for exportin the east, therebyproviding incentivefor the riseof serfdom: the Postanand Hatcher,"Population Class Relationsin Feudal Society",pp. 27-8. Yet their and argument difficultto accept,for the impactof the international 1S grainmarketwas felt as profoundly westernEuropeas it wasin eastern in Europe.It consitutes another point of similarity, of difference, the experience the two regions,andfor this not in of reasoncannothave accountedfor their divergence.We shall have to returnto this point in greaterdetail, but for the momentit is enoughto quote Postan:"Eastern Europedivergedwidely from the West in its economicand socialdevelopment. It would havedtrerged if it hadbeen even unaffected trade": by Postan,"Economic Relations betweenEasternand WesternEurope",p. I67 (my italics).For a siniilarstatement see M. M. Postan,"TheChronology LabourServices", of Trans. Roy.Hist.Soc., 4th ser., xx (I937), pp. I92-3. See alsop. 74 and nn. I34-5 below.
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The point of these comparative analyseswas not, of course, to challengethe fact that populationgrowth/decline, determining by changesin relativefactorscarcities prices,createdproblems and and openedup opportunies lordsandpeasants for throughout mediethe val periodand beyond. It was to deny that such changesin supply/ demandforcescould, in themselves,determinethe resultingdistributionof income.The demographic interpreters at times,obliged are, to grantthis, if only implicitly.For they do, on occasion,referto the (unexplained) development classrelations accountfor trendsin of to the distributionof income inexplicable termsof trendsin popuin lation. Indeedin theircontribution Postanand Hatcherdisarmingly assertthat the demographic interpreters "havenot maintained that a risingpopulation invariably to an intensification serfdomand led of a fallingpopulationto its demise''.17 But, if not, the questionnaturallyarisesunder whatconditions rise/decline population the of did or did not so lead?Merelyto ask this questionis, in my opinion,to acknowledge that demographic forcesin themselvesled nowhereas faras thedistribution incomeis concerned. is to posetheproblem of It of systematically accounting the (divergent) for evolutions agrarian of classrelationsin pre-industrial Europe.18 (I.2) THE GRAND AGRARIAN CYCLE The difficulties facedby the demographic interpreters accountin ing for their long cycles of economicstagnation perhapsas inare
PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 28. and in In a recentarticleHatcherhas attributed me a positionentirelyat oddswith to the one I presented my original in essay.He assertsthat,in my view, the feudallords could essentiallydeterminethe distribution income, by the exerciseof virtually of unlimited powers overtheirpeasants. thisattribution obviously But is unfounded. For the explicitpointof the comparative analyis whichwasat the coreof my essaywasthat undersimilar"objective" economicconditions(demographic commercial), or either lordsorpeasants couldbenefitat the others'expense,depending especially uponthe levelof theirclassorganization power.I concluded to understand divergent and that the evolutionsof incomedistribution pre-industrial in Europe,it is necessary analyse to the historically specificprocesses classformation classconflictcharacteristic of and of the differentregions.Compare "Agrarian my ClassStructure EconomicDeveland opmentin Pre-Industrial Europe",pp. 37-42,withJohnHatcher,"EnglishSerfdom andVilleinage: Towards Reassessment", andPresent, go (Feb. I98I), p. 4. a Past no. Remarkably, the samearticleHatcheradoptsseveralof the centralarguments in of my original essay,whileimplictlydemolishing positionof the demographic the interpreterswhich he and Postandefendedin their own contribution. he makesno Yet substantive reference their contribution, aloneto the positionsI actuallypreto let sented.Specifically, Hatcher concludes I do that"Forunfreemedieval as peasants the strengthof customwas rangedagainstthe rights and powersof their lords. Thus althougheconomicand demographic trends and fluctuations invariably generated powerful forcesfor change,a miscellany social,politicalandlegalinfluences of acted andreacted uponthem, sometimes compounding theirimpact,sometimes inhibiting and sometimes reversing. Changes thelevelof population thesupply landcould in or of make labour landmore or scarce more or abundant, for tenants in thepower their but both of lords protected custom changes and by these alonedidnotdetermine amount typeof the and renttheypaid". Moreover: "We can . . . state with assurance the outcomewas that rarely,if ever, dictatedsolelyby marketforces":ibid., pp. 36-7(myitalics).
17 18
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tractableas those concerningthe distributionof income. No one would deny that continuing demographic increasein the face of declininglabourproductivitysooneror later leads to an imbalance betweenpopulationand resources ultimatelyto poverty,famine and death. "Overpopulation" leads, therefore,to a compensatory demographic drop-off,resultingin a reversal the land/labour of ratio and a new onset of demographic growth the two-phase,self-correctingcycle. Thereis no reasonto challenge logic of this model, the in view of its premises.Nor is theremuch doubtthat the two-phase grand agrariancycle characterized most of western Europein the medievalperiod and part of it duringthe early modernperiod. In question,however,is the adequacyof the Malthusian model to explainthe specificcontoursof the grandagrarian cycle. First, the actualappearance "overpopulation" strictlyrelaof was tive to the distributionof income and wealth (not to mention the availability uncultivated of land). To the extentthatthe lordsowned the land and extracteda surplus from the peasants,the so-called population "ceiling"was loweredin two ways:directly,as a resultof the immediatesubtraction from peasantconsumption the lords' for unproductive use; and indirectly,as a resultof the loss of potential funds for the increaseof the peasants'forcesof production through investment innovation. and PostanandHatcherviewsuchreferences to the class-relative character the populationceiling as so much of obfuscation, since"overpopulation" tendedto occureventually in any case (under medieval conditions). Nevertheless,as shall be seen, under differentbalancesof power and propertybetweenlords and peasantsin differentregions, demographic growthappearsto have led to "overpopulation" differentpopulation at densities,at different pointsin time and with differentsocio-economic effects.19 Secondly,the Malthusian mechanism supposedto haveoperated is as a processof homeostatic adjustment, bringthe labouring to populationinto line with the society'spotentialresources(givenexisting technology).But, in fact, it could not necessarily accomplish in this pre-industrial Europe,becauseproduction distribution and were so profoundlyshapedby the surplusextractingrelationships between lordsand peasants.Thus the workingsof the socio-economic system did not merelytend to matchthe producing population its needs and with the potentialoutput;at the same time, it tendedto matchthe surplusappropriated fromthe directproducers with the needsof the non-producing ruling class. All else being equal, a decline of the producingpopulationin responseto "overpopulation" would have tended to bring it into line with potentialoutput. Nevertheless,a declinein the numberof directproducers tendedsimultaneously to
30-I
19Postanand Hatcher,"Population ClassRelationsin FeudalSociety",pp. and ff. See alsopp. 60-I below.
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threatenthe income of the lords; for the level of the was a functionof the numberof peasantproducers lords' income (tenants),given a particular rate of surplusextraction.In consequence) orderto in maintain increase or theirincome)in the faceof declining population, the lordstendedto be obligedto attemptto extracta greater amount from each peasant,as well as to try to take more from one another (viabrigandage, warfare the like). The result,at leastin and might be the disruptionof productionand therebythe potential, creationof conditionsfor furtherdemographic decline, ratherthan a returnto equl 1 Drlum. In fact, throughout much of Europefromthe middleof teenthcentury,populationdrop-offfailedto re-establish the fourtionsfor economicrevivalin accordwith Malthusian the condiprinciples.Hit bydecliningincomes, the resultof fewer rent-paying lordsresortedto increasinglevies (throughrents and peasants,the taxes)and to intra-feudal warfare,in this way underminingthe peasants'productive forcesandcausingfurther demographic adownwardspiralratherthan Malthusian decline ultimately adjustment. least in At some places,moreover,population remained a low pointfor quite at an extendedperiod,long afterstableeconomicconditions hadfinally been restored.It was this long-term failureof adjustment the later in medieval period which gave to Le Roy Ladurie'sC'grand agrarian cycle" dramatic its contours- but which seems to placeit beyond the powerof the Malthusian modelto explain.20
. . .
(I.3)FROM MALTHUSIAN STAGNATION TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Finally, becausethe demographic interpreters not root their do accounts the grandagrarian of cycle in a theoryof economicbackwardness economicdevelopment, and they cannotprovidea satisfactory explanation either the specificform of stagnation of they isolated, the forces which made for a breakbeyondit to have or regular economic growth ongoingspecialization, capitalinvestmentand technical change. They cannot, in other words, tell us why their Malthusian premiseof the non-development the productive of essentially true throughout whole epoch, but then forces held a do This weaknessis especiallymanifestwith respect ceasedto so. to relative priceswhich were characteristic the "up the rising food of phases"of the grandagrarian cyclesandwhichofferedthe potential increased of "profits"those who specialized,investedandimproved. to Suchdemographically inspiredmarketincentivesfailed to call forth a productive responsein most of Europeduringthe thirteenthand early
20 See especially Bois, Une crise G.
dufeodalisme (Paris, 62-7 below. Le Roy Ladurieis awareof this problem I976), passim. See alsopp. in termsdiseaseand war; see his "Replyto Professorand offersan explanation of Brenner", 57- E. Le Roy p. Ladurie, "L'histoire immobile", Annales. E. S. C., XXiX-(I974), pp. 680-6.
27
centuries; or centuries the sixteenthandearlyseventeenth fourteenth transyet they do appearto have stimulatedthe startof an agrarian Whataccountsfor this differin formation earlymodernEngland.21 terms? in ence, and couldit possiblybe explained demographic that in maintains his contribution his demographic Le Roy Ladurie Yet model does hold good for westernEuropeas a whole.22 he also pattern that Englanddid breakfrom the Malthusian acknowledges in the earlymodernperiod. These would seem to be contradictory would of explanation this inconsistency assertions.Le Roy Ladurie's modelalsocontainsa certainuniappearto be thathis "homeostatic Yet capitalism".23 he never lineardrift in the directionof agrarian specifieseitherthe sourcesof this "drift"or the reasonsfor its unilineardirection.At one point he appearsto concedethat the action partin creatingthe of the seigneurssometimesplayedan important socialconditionsfor economicdevelopment,by expellingthe peasYet, antsfromthe landandcreatinglarge,unifiedfarms.24 if so, this Europe,fromthefifteenth merelyposesthe problem.Forthroughout century onwards, seigneurs respondedto roughly similar demographicconditionsin differentways;therewas no simple"unilinear drift" towardscapitalism.In the east, they ultimatelyenserfedthe peasants,setting in traina highly restrictedprocessof "growth".25 In France,as Le Roy Ladurieelsewheretells us, despitethe efforts of ruralengrossers,peasantpropertyremainedlargelyintact;morand outranreassemblement;26 meanwhiletherewas the decellement velopmentof absolutism.This led to a repetitionof the established and leadingto population medievalpatternof decliningproductivity action to productioncrisis. Finally, in England,direct seigneurial underminepeasantpossessiondid pave the way for the rise of the the familiarcapitalistagrarianstructure,underpinning growth of To and productivity overalleconomicdevelopment. obagricultural serve these divergencesis at once to challengeLe Roy Ladurie's assumptionof a "unilineardrift" and to raise the questionof the conditions feudalclassesto similar by responses the dominant different
21 See P. J. Bowden, "Agricultural Prices, Farm Profits, and Rents", in H. P. R. iv, and of History England Wales, ISOO-I640 (Cambridge, Finberg (ed.), TheAgrarian I 967) 22 Le Roy Ladurie, "Reply to Professor Brenner", p. 58. 23 Ibid.,p. 56. 24Ibid., p. 59. 2s Le Roy Ladurie denies that developments in east Europe can properly or relehe vantly be compared to those in the west; yet elsewhere makes precisely this comparison and for the same purpose that I do: in order to help shed light on the decline of serfdom and the strengthening of the peasantry in western Europe in general and France in particular. Compare his "Reply to Professor Brenner", p. 58, with his "Les masses profondes: la paysannerie", in F. Braudel and E. Labrousse (eds.), Histoire de et economzquesoczale la France,3 vols. (Paris, I970-7), i, pt. 2, pp. 526 ff. 2 26 See E. Le Roy Ladurie, Les Paysansdu Languedoc, vols. (Paris, I966), p. 8, and passtm.
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andproblems: how to protectandimprovetheirpositionsin the face of the latermedievaldemographic declineandthe subsequent developmentof population, tradeandindustry the earlymodern in period. This is, in my view, to poseunavoidably problem the divergent the of tendenciesof class formationwithin feudalEurope,and the power struggles whichlay behindthem. Yet for Le Roy Laduriesucha line of investigationis ruled out. "In the final perspective",he writes, "the system containsits own destiny; the effectof conflict ismerely
supeNcial'.27
II
CLASS STRUCTURE, CLASS ORGANIZATION AND FEUDAL DEVELOPMENT IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Counteringmy emphasison the way class or propertyrelations shapedeconomicdevelopment, Roy Ladurieaccusesme of a misLe leadingrunningtogetherof "the economic"and "the political".In the wordsof Le Roy Ladurie,in speaking the "surplus of extracting or rulingclasses', I haveadopteda "simplistic assimilation between power(political) surplusvalue(economic)". and Paradoxically, Bois, writing from an explicitly Marxianviewpoint, makes a somewhat analogous charge.Mineis a "political" a "voluntarist" and Marxism: a preoccupation with the vagariesof the class strugglepreventsme fromdiscerningthe economic "lawof motion"of feudalsociety in his view, "thefallingrateof feudallevy".28 Nonetheless,it is, indeed, central myviewpoint a "fusion" putit imprecisely) to that (to between "the economic"and "the political"was a distinguishing constiand tutivefeatureof thefeudalclassstructure system production. and of This was manifestedin the fact that the "economic"conditionsfor the reproduction the rulingclass-the incomeit required carryout of to its life activities,includingthe continuing subjection the peasantry of - dependedupon a systemof extraction surpluslabourfromthe of directproducerswhich was characterized extra-economic by (ispolitical")compulsion.In turn, the varying forrns development this of of systemof surplus extractaon byextra-economic compulsion) in connection to and in conflictwith the development the productive of forcesby peasantpossessors the means of subsistence(land, tools and so of forth),providean indispensable to the evolutionof the European key feudal economy:to its specificpatternsof agricultural demoand graphicdevelopment which issuedin declininglabourproductivity; to its characteristic types of unproductive industrial production and exchange)dominated luxurygoods to fill the "political" by needsof
27 Le Roy Ladurie, "Histoire immobile", p. 689) quoted in Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy" p. 6I n. 6 (my italics). 28 Le Roy Ladurie, "Reply to Professor Brenner", p. 56; Bois, "Against the NeoMalthusian Orthodoxy", p.67.
29
the lordlyrulingclass;andto its particular formsof crisis,manifested in the exhaustionof the productiveforces(includingthe producing population itself), the declineof lordlyrevenues,and the seigneurial reaction as well as the ways in which the systemwas or was not superseded differentregionsby different in typesof social-productive systems. (II. I )
TIONS FEUDAL DEVELOPMENTAND FEUDAL CRISIS: SOME GENERALIZA-
(II.I.I) Peasant4'Possession" SurplusExtractionby Extraand EconomicCompulsion In the economywhichcharacterized mostof medieval Europe,and much of it throughthe early modernperiod, productionwas, as a rule, carriedout by peasantsin 'ipossession" the land and tools of requiredto producetheir subsistence."Possession" here marked is off by invertedcommas because the questionof its changingand conflicted character manifested the conditional in character feuof dal property lay at the heartof feudaldevelopment. Becausepeasants actuallydid hold relativelystable and relativelyuncontested possessionof theirmeansof subsistence,theirreproduction required no economicintervention productive or contribution the lords.As by a result,mereownership other of land(demesne) the lordswasnot by sufficientfor them to realizea surplusfrom the peasants;for the peasantswere underno economiccompulsionto workfor a wageon the lords' land or to pay an economicrent to lease it. In orderto securea rent thatis, to get the peasantsto handoverpartof their labouror theirproduct the lordshad to be able to exerta degree of control over the peasantsS persons. This was made possible by virtueof the lords'capacityto exerciseforcedirectly.29 Peasant possessiontendedto be secured,on the one hand,through the growingstrengthof peasantcommunities the peasants'opand portunitiesfor mobility(especiallyto the extent therewas free, unsettledland). It tendedto be realized,on the otherhand)as a result of the "dividedsovereignty" whichcharacterized lordlyrule* that is, the autonomyand the mutualseparation the individuallordof
29 This situation should be contrasted with that which characterizes the capitalist economy. Here the working class must sell their labour power to the capitalists for a wage in order to survive. In the process they must alienate a surplus (profit) to the employers) precisely because they do not possess the means of production and cannot therefore provide directly their subsistence or, alternatively, produce a commodity for for sale on the market. In turn, the capitalists may appropriate a surplus without, as a rule, any need for directly "political" (forceful) domination over the direct producers for the capitalists' monopoly of the means of production allows them to exert an "economic" compulsion against the workers, who are compelled to depend upon them to make a living. The power of the state is needed only to protect the property of the ruling class and enforce the contractual exchanges between capital and labour.
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ships, their politicalself-sufficiency, which was the obverseside of theirdirectaccessto the meansof coercion.Dividedsovereignty, by making competition for amonglordships impeding and collaboration, tendedto obligethe lordsto grantthe peasants theirplotson a more or less permanent basis,as an incentiveto keepthemon the landand pay their dues. Even so, by dispersingforce amongthe individual lordships,dividedsovereignty tendedto makeit difficultfor the also peasantsto securefull property,as it obligedthemto put themselves underthe "protection" a lord preciselyin orderto maintain of their land (againstother lords). Thus, peasantpossessionwas ultimately circumscribed lordlypower.Indeed,to the degreethe individual by lordshipswere able to amassforce, and especiallyto the degreethat the lords,as a class,wereableto lessenthe competition amongthemselvesand to increasetheircollaboration therebyovercoming the effects of divided sovereignty they were able to intensifytheir domination,and even threatenpeasantpossession.It may therefore be understood why the changing manner whichanddegree which in to the lords, as individualsand as a class, were able to applypowerin the rentrelationship typicallyexpressed the changing in character and effectivenessof their politico-jurisdictional authorityover the peasants was centralto their formationas a rulingclass and, in turn, profoundlymarkedthe developmentof the whole system of production. It shouldbe emphasized once thatundercertaincircumstances at it did becomepossibleforthe feudalrulingclassesto extract surplus a fromthe peasantswithoutrecourseto formally feudalarrangements basedon extra-economic compulsion that is, merelyon the basis of ownership land, and even withouta monopolyof it. Wherethe of peasantclass as a whole had insufficient land to guarantee subsisit tence, some peasantswould have no choice but to lease additional plotsand/orhirethemselves as wagelabourers makeendsmeet. out to They couldnot avoid,in the process,alienating of theirproduct part to the lordwithoutrecompense. This situationtendedto be spontaneously producedas a resultof the tendencyto demographic growthwhichwas characteristic the of European possessingpeasantry) least from the periodcircaI050. at Within limits (and leavingaside, for the moment, exogenously induced mortalities,diseasesand so forth), the rate of demographic expansionappears havedependedon the age of marriage fecto (for undityseems to have been, moreor less, a constant).Marriage age, in turn, dependedupon accessto the meansto establisha family,in particular accessto a cultivable plot. Given,then, peasant possession and the associated potentialfor the subdivision holdings(bothof of which could be limited to a lesser or greaterdegree, dependingon the strength lordshipandthe weightof lordlylevies),parents of could
3I
treat their plots as the basis for the continuanceof a family, and childrencould count upon receivinga holdingat a relativelyearly in a age. Thereappearsto have been established, consequence, west which seems to have earlymarriage, Europeanpatternof relatively growthrates rapidmedievaldemographic underpinned relatively the and this patternmayhavebeen slow to changeeven in the faceof which went with the extreme the decliningeconomicopportunities The long-termtendency,therefore,apmorcellement holdings.30 of leadingto increasing pearsto have been towards"overpopulation", growingrents, of demandfor land, creatingthe possibility extracting or pressures controls. withoutdirect resortto extra-economic Even so, the degreeto whichthe feudalrulingclasscouldactually for realizethe potentialin this wayestablished whatmightbe termed was strictlyconconditioned"surplusextraction "demographically long-term basisfortheir tingent,andcouldprovideonlyan uncertain continuinghegemony.On the one hand, the mannerand the degree of to which populationgrowth leading to the appearance a rural would quasi-peasantry/quasi-proletariat determinea changein the distribution income betweenclassesdependedupon the existing of distributionof the land the extent, relativeand absolute,of the lords'lands(the demesnes,wherethey werefree to chargeeconomic land). Yet this distrirents) versus that of the peasants(customary butioncouldnot be assumedto favourthe lords.On the otherhand, to the extent that the lords were dependentfor their income upon alone thatis lackingextra-economic accessto theirlandedproperty product theirabilityto realize the peasants' labouror the peasants' a rent (no matterhow much demesneland they held) wouldtend to Lordlyincomeswouldthus be subjectto require"overpopulation". drop-off.Indeed,at succesdrasticthreatin the event of population sive juncturesin the later medievalperioddifferentsectionsof the of European feudalrulingclasssufferedfrom(a) an inadequacy land increase(the twelfth of (demesne)to take advantage the population which and thirteenthcenturies),and/or(b) a drop-offin population madeit difficultto derivean incomefromthe landthey did hold (the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries). These situationsrevealedthe by uponthe institutions whichtheycould lords'ultimatedependence and compulsion, forcedthe lords extracta surplusby extra-economic to attempt,in differentways, to rebuildand/orreshapethese institutions.
to the In sum, pace Le Roy Ladurie,it is imperative "assimilate to economicand the political"preciselyin orderadequately characgrowthin medieval Europe of to 30 For this interpretation the tendency population of age, in termsof earlym?rriage linkedto subdivision holdingsand, in turn,peasant and p. possession,see Bols, Crisedufeodalisme, 33I* C. Howell, "Stability Change FamilyFarmin Contextof the Self-Perpetuating I300-I700: The Socio-Economic ii England", Peasant T1. Studies, (I975).
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terizethe "surplus extracting rulingclasses"in feudalsociety,and or to understandthe basis of their domination.For throughoutthe medievaland into the earlymodernperiod,the existenceandreproductionof the feudalrulingclassesdepended upon"extra-economic" ("political")arrangements which the requisitesurplus("econby omic")wasextracted fromthe peasant producers. Initiallyembodied in jurisdictional rightsoverthe customary tenantry whichsanctioned the extractionof a rent, these arrangements later took the form of property officewhichgaverightsto a sharein centralized in exactions, statetaxation. Furthermore, is impossibleto graspthe evolution the feudal it of economyas a whole simply by meansof the so-called"economic" formula proposed Bois. According this formula,the "structural by to contradiction small-scale of production large-scale and property" led inexorably towards "fallin the rateof [thefeudal]levy".In Bois's the view, the very fact that the systemof production set in motion was by small peasant possessors ("small-scaleproduction")directly ("economically") determined decayof the systemof surplusexthe tractionby extra-economic compulsion("large-scale property").It did so, specifically, determining long-term by the "disintegration" of the lords' ability to realizereturnsfrom the "variousrent-paying holdingswithinthe framework the seigneurie". of Nevertheless,the heavilyone-sidedcharacter this formulation of makesit ultimately
misleading.3l
In particular, I shall try to show, just as the feudalsystemof as class relationswas "politically" constituted,it tendedto imposean "extra-economic" dynamicon the courseof feudaleconomicevolution. Naturally,what the lords could extractwas limitedby what the peasantscould produce, and in this sense peasant-based productionprofoundly shapedthe feudaleconomy,as Boissays.But the fact remainsthat the systemof surplusextraction tendedto develop according its own logic, so to speak,and, to an important to degree, withoutreferenceto the requirements peasantproduction as a of function, in particular,of the lords' growingneeds for politicallymotivated consumption, arisingfrom their needs both to maintaina dominantpositionvis-a-visthe peasantry to protectthemselves and vis-a-visone another.If it is true that lordlysurplusextraction was ultimately restricted peasant-based by production, wasalsothe case it thatthe systemof lordlysurplusextraction couldlimit, even govern, the development peasant of production itself.As a result,feudaleconomic developmentmanifesteda two-sided, conflictiveinteraction: betweena developingsystemof production subsistence for through whichthe classof peasantpossessors aimedto reproduce themselves
31 Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 6I-3, esp. n. 7. For a full pp. discussion Bois'sapproach, pp. 4I-5 below. of see
33
and provide for the continuityof their families, and a developing system of surplus extraction by extra-economiccompulsion for non-productiveconsumption)by which the class of feudal lords aimedto reproduce themselvesas individuals as a rulingclass. and (II.I .2) Lords, Peasantsand DecliningProductivity I would, therefore,begin by maintaining) againstPostanand as Hatcherwho appearto deny this, that the overallclass structure of production(propertystructure) based on extra-economic compulsionby feudallordsin relationship peasant to producers who possessed their means of subsistence- was at the root of declining productivity and, ultimately) formsof feudalcrisis.Instead,Posthe tan and Hatcherassertthat the causesof decliningproductivity are to be found in the "backwardness stagnation prevailing and of technologyandaboveall the insufficiency manorial of investment"32 But this is only to pose the questionwhich, in my view, they do not fully face: what accountsfor these inadequacies? Postanand Hatcherattributethe lackof technological innovation the "insufficient to supply of technological possibilities'. But if it were true, as they say, that capital-using technologiescapableof increasing agricultural productivity were unavailable,then their complementary contentionthat agricultural investmentwas insufficient wouldnot makesense. For) in thatcase even a low levelof investment wouldhavebeensufficient to maintainproductionat the highestpossible level. This is, indeed) thepositionof J. Z. Titow, whoargues lordlyinvestment, that though low in proportion theirtotalincome)was adequate the low level to to of existingtechnology. Nevetheless,it hasbeenconvincingly 33 shown by EleanorSearle othersthattechnologies and capable significantly of raisingagricultural productivityby means of relativelylarge-scale investmentswere indeed availablein medievalEurope and they includedsomeof the centralcomponents whatwas laterto constiof tute the agricultural revolutionof the earlymodernperiod.Whatis more, these technologieswere actuallyused,on at least some occasions,duringthe thirteenth fourteenth and century,evenin England. The questionwhich needs to be asked, therefore,is why were they not morewidelyapplied.The problemin other words was not, as PostanandHatchercontend,the "insufficient supplyof technological possibilities",but ratherthe feudaleconomy'sinabilityto makeuse of the possibilitieswhich existed. Given the low capacityto apply
Titowputsit, "Thetechnical limitations medieval of husbandry seemto haveimposed theirown ceilingon whatcouldbe spenton an estate".
32 Postanand Hatcher) "Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p 33 and in 33 J. Z. Titow, EnglishRuralSociety,I200-I350 (London, I969), pp. 49-50 As
existing capital-using technologies/innovations, low level of inthe vestmentin agricultural production immediately is understandable. 34 How, then, did feudalproperty surplus or arrangements limit the capacityfor the adoptionof more extraction productive methodsand in this wayreducethe potentialforproductive investment thereby turningthe economytowards"extra-economic" or forms of development? beginwith, they did so (like "political" To otherpre-capitalist economicarrangements) makingthe directproducers, by both lords and peasants,independent,to an important degree,fromthe imperative to respondto marketopportunities by maximizing from exchange. The economy thus remained"patriarchal" returns in its central aspects.In general,peasant producers possessed (moreorless)direct, non-market access to their means of subsistence(land, tools). This meantthat they were not compelled sell on the to marketto acquire the means to buy what they needed to subsist and to produce.In consequence,they did not haveto deploytheirmeansof production so as to competemost effectivelywith other producers. They could, instead,orientproduction directlyto reproducing theirfamilylabour force.Similarly,since the lords had immediate accessto theirpeasants'surplus,thus directaccessto theirmeansof they wereunder no directlyeconomiccompulsiontoreproduction, producecompetitively the marketandtherefore on wererelieved the directpressure of tocut costs. Thisis not, of course,to denythatthe development of tradecreated important incentivesto increaseoutputin orderto increasereturns fromexchangeso as to meet growing consumption needs; for of course did especially the lords,who could it for potentially dispose of largesurpluses.Nevertheless,even to the extentthat the lordsdid attempt maximizeproductionfor exchange,their to relationswith their tenantstendedto inducethem to try to do so, not throughthe application fixedcapitalandincreased of skill to improve ductivity, throughthe intensification peasant labourprobut of crease levies in money or kind on the peasant labour,the inof producers,or the expansion the areaof cultivation. of Where feudal lords were able to retain significant economiccontrols over a dependent peasantry,direct, extraas in early thirteenth-century England,it was only naturalthatin so faras they tried increase to outputthroughincreasing demesneproduction, they turned intensifyingvilleinlabour.Yet, in so doing, to the necessarily eschew the applicationof new techniqueslordshad to and fixed
34 Brenner, "Agrarian Class Structureand Economic Society", 48-9; B. H. Slichervan Bath, TheAgrarian Developmentin Feudal pp. History Europe, A.D. 500-I850, trans.O. Ordish(London,I963; repr.London, of Western Searle, Lordship Communi: BattleAbbeyand its Banlieu, I966), pp. I78-9; E. and I066-I538 (Toronto, I974), pp. I47, I74-5, I83-94, 267-329. The quotation is "Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 36. fromPostanand Hatcher, and in
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35
capital.For labourby villeins, in possessionof the meansof subsistence, was necessarilyforced labour;and such "non-dismissable" labourwas notoriouslydifficultto adaptto methodsof production of requiring carefulapplication fixed capitalor high skill (or nethe costs). Thus, the lords'relianceon cessitatedvery high supervisory their "costless"labourmade economicsense, but this labourcould not be combinedwith investmentin new techniquesto providethe intransformation.35 course, as population Of basisfor agricultural as centuryworeon) wagesdropped creased(especially the thirteenth so low and land pricesrose so high that lordswereinducedto commute labourrents for money rents, and to cultivatetheir demesnes theycould usingwagelabouror to leasethemon the market(because profit by this shift). But low wages and high land prices also labour-saving innoreducedthe incentiveto opt for capital-using, labourthe vations, in favourof maintaining old labour-intensive, squeezingmethods althoughnow on the basis of hired labour investment fundsinto ratherthanvilleinservices and channelling landpurchases (ratherthancapitalimprovements). on There were, in addition, other obstaclesto improvement the agriwith village-organized demesnes,causedby theirentanglement the culture.Demesne parcelswere often scatteredthroughout open cultifields, and were, moreover,subject to community-regulated or vation.Attemptsby the lords to consolidate engrosscould thereof barriers the resistance the peasantcomforeruninto significant munityas a whole, or the refusalof the individualpeasantto sell his land. It is somewhatpuzzlingthat Postanand Hatcheraccuseme of implyingthat the "massevictionof villeinswas a practicein which landlordscould regularlyengage",when I referred,in this regard, preciselyto "the difficultand costly processesof buildingup large peasants bringing and customary holdingsandinvesting,of removing In in new techniques".36 any case, to the extentthat the strengthof communitycontrolsor peasantpossessionlimited the lords' ability production,theirattemptsto increaserevto reorganize agricultural than enues were, once again, channelledtowardssqueezingrather
improvement.
their income Wherethe lords tried, and succeeded,in increasing

In my original essay, I implied that the lords did not improve production because of they had the alternative squeezing the peasants by extra-economic compulsion. This formulation is misleading. I believe it is more correct to say that because the lords had no choice but to rely upon surplus extraction by extra-economic compulsion, they were largely prevented from improving, because the former could not be combined successfully with the latter. Brenner, "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe", p. 48. Cf. M. Mate, "Profit and Productivity on the Estates of Isabella de Forz, I260-92", Econ.Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxxiii (I980), Pp. 326 ff. 36 Postan and Hatcher, "Population and Class Relations in Feudal Society", p. 35Brenner, "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe", p. 48.
35
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PAST AND PRESENT
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throughincreasedlevies on the peasantsin money or kind (rather thanin labour)they undercutthe chancesfor development lands on possessedby peasants,throughreducingthe peasants'funds for investment.In Englandsuchleviesappear haveincreased to duringthe thirteenth century.But it wasalsothe casethatthepeasants' potential for developingthe forcesof production itself definitelylimited. was Given the small plots availableto most of them and their limited investmentfunds, the peasants'possibilitiesfor accumulation and innovation were sharplyrestricted.Given,in turn, the uncertainties of the harvest, the giant oscillationsof food prices and the related vagaries the marketfor cash crops, the peasantsnaturally of wished to avoid the risk of dependenceupon the marketfor sales or purchases.Theyattempted,therefore, orienttheirproduction to directly towardsinsuringimmediatesubsistence needs. This required diversifying,in order,so faras possible,to produceon theirown plotsthe fullrangeof theirnecessities,marketing physical only surpluses. This tendency to "productionfor subsistence"naturallyconstituteda strong barrierto commercialspecialization and ultimatelyto the transformation production,even when marketopportunities of developed. It also posed a majorbarrierto those ruralaccumulators, richerpeasants lords,whowishedto collectland;forthe peasants and would not easily part with the plots which were the basis for their existence,unless they had to. On the contrary,therewas everytendencyon the partof the possessingpeasantsto subdividetheirholdings amongtheirchildren.Indeed,the peasants' morcellement of parcels under populationgrowth tended to overwhelmany countertendencyto accumulation the agricultural in economyas a whole, furtherundermining potentialfor development.37 the (II.I.3) Forms of Feudal Development:From Colonizationto "Political Accumulation" The inability to improve labour productivitybeyond a certain point,a consequence feudalclass-productive property of or relations, thusimposedcertainlimitsandpossibilities, conditioned and specific overallpatternsof feudaleconomicdevelopment patternswhich were, in the long run, typicallynon-productive and "extra-economic". The majorexceptionprovesthe rule. Majorcapitalexpenditures on productionare to be found above all on new agricultural "plant"(on the infrastructural conditions whichformedthe basisfor the extension of existing forms of production)ratherthan on the equipmentof labourwith moreandbettermeansof production. Col37 H. Neveux, "Declin et reprise:la fluctuation bi-seculaire, I330-I560", in G. DubyandA. Wallon(eds.), Histoire la France de rurale, vols. (Paris,I975-6), ii, pp. 4 20-9. Herethereis an excellent discussion the limitsto peasant on production, to and specialization investment,in the medieval and context.
onization,the openingup of new landto cultivation,was indeedthe 37 form of feudal developmentand feudalimprovement. archetypical grew,lordscould and So long as new landswereavailable population at Potentially least, peasants. theirincomesimplyby planting increase in this situation,outputcould growand lordsand peasantsimprove their condition,with a minimumof conflict.For lordsmight avoid of fromthe multiplication tenthe costsof coercion,while benefiting uresat, say, constantrents(whichis not to arguethatthey wouldor couldalwayschoosethis option). was Nevertheless,the potentialfor this form of development obarea, of viouslylimited.For the possibilities extendingthe cultivated peasants,were rent-paying in and for supporting this way additional clearlyrestrictedby the finite supplyof land. Beyondcolonization, outof therefore,especiallygiven the limitedpossibilities increasing tendedto feudaldevelopment put via investmentand improvement, of forms formsof redistributionwealth,rather takeinward-looking tnanltScreatlon. Postanand Hatcherpoint out that therewas a strongpredilection on the part of feudal lords to purchaseland, ratherthan invest in this and fixedcapitalimprovements, they attribute to a "preference" which "wasdeeply rootedin the mode of life and scaleof valuesof answer.Forthe preference But feudalnobility".38 thisis onlya partial for land must itself be understood,at leastin part, as an outcomeof it relations; madesensefromaneconclass-productive the established omic point of view. Becauseinvestmentin fixedor humancapitalto improvedemesneproductioncould, as noted, be expectedto yield for only the most limitedreturns,it was reasonable the lordsto use their surplusessimplyto increasethe size of theirholdingsthus exland and peasants.Moretendingtheir controlover rent-producing extendedto the peasant to over, becausethe barriers improvement sectoras well, the peasantsshowedthe same bias towardsthe purchaseof land, partlyas speculation,as well as to help furtherensure subsistence.In other words, in the feudalcontext, land was a good investment.Indeed, it showed itself to be that much better an ina growthpropelled long-term vestmentto the degreethatpopulation tendencytowardsrisingland and food prices and as the economy provedincapableof respondingto these marketsignalsby proporoutput. tionallyincreasing cultivatedland, the Beyond opening up new land or purchasing increasetheir incomeonly by lords, as a rule, could systematically takingfrom one anotheror by squeezingmorefrom their peasants. the throughout feudalepoch tendency,prevalent Thus, the long-term (from circa IOOO-IIOO), to "politicalaccumulation" that is, the
. .
in and 38PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 37.
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build-upof larger, more effective militaryorganization and/orthe constructionof strongersurplus-extracting machinery may be viewedas conditioned the system'slimitedpotential long-term by for economicgrowth, and, to a certainextent, as an alternative exto tendingor improving cultivation.Giventhe difficulties increasing of production,the effectiveapplication forcetendedto appear,even of in the shortrun, as the best methodof amassing wealth. But to whatextentcouldindividual lords, or groupsof them, gain access to more of the social surplus through "politicalaccumulation"?39 This problemwas posed especiallysharplybecausethe very prerogatives(force/jurisdiction) requiredby every individual lord to ensurehis reproduction a lord)vis-a-vis the peasants (as constituteda threatto the other lords, and madefor a generalized tendency to intra-lordly competitionand conflictwhichmade"political accumulation" necessary. the otherhand, this "parcellized On sovereignty",and its potentially anarchic effects,hadto be neutralized, if "political accumulation" to be pursuedsuccessfully. was In the firstinstance,of course,militaryefficacyversusotherlords or improvedjurisdictional powersoverthe peasants required colthe lecting and organizingof followers recruited,naturally,for the most part, from within the ruling class, normallyfrom among its lesserelements.But to gain and retainthe loyaltyof theirfollowers, the overlords to feed andequipthem, andin the longrunreward had them. Minimally,the overlord's householdhadto becomea focusof lavishdisplay,conspicuous consumption gift-giving.Butbeyond and this, it wasgenerally necessary providethe followers to withthe means toattainormaintain status members thedominant their as of class that is, a permanentsource of income, requiringa grant of land with associated lordlyprerogatives later,an office).Naturally, para(or, if doxically,suchgrantstendedto increase followers' the independence fromtheoverlords, leadingto a renewed potential disorganization, for fragmentation, anarchy.As a result, in the long run, furthergrants tendedto be necessary.Successful "political accumulation" therefore required increased that military powerand/orjurisdictional authority yield returnswhichmore thancovered theirincreased costs, and such coststendedto growovertime. As a result,"political accumulation" tendedto becomeself-perpetuating escalating the amassing and of morelandand men to moreeffectivelyexertforcein orderto collect the resources the furtherapplication power. for of "Politicalaccumulation" nevertheless, is, quite incomprehensible merelyin such quantitative terms. It was, in addition,a qualitative
39 For the following paragraphs, forexample Duby, TheEarlyGrowth the see G. of European Economy (Ithaca,I974); P. Anderson, Passages fromAntiquity Feudalism to (London,I974); essaysby 0. Brunner,G. Duby, O. Hintze,J. F. Lemarignier and J. R. Strayer,in F. L. Cheyette(ed.), Lordship Community Medieval and in Europe (New York, I968).
processrequiringthe increasingly sophisticated self-organization of the feudal ruling class. In the first place the lords needed broader) more elaborateforms of politicalco-operation orderto extracta in surplusfrom increasingly well-organized peasantcommunities,and to counteractthe effects of peasantmobility. Especiallysince the scope of peasantorganization tendedto be geographically limitedto the villageor region,the effectiveness the lords'surplus-extracting of administration would tend to dependon the degreeto which intralordlyorganization could be extended,and intra-lordly competition correspondingly reduced. Secondly,moredevelopedpoliticalforms wererequired facilitate reciprocal to the protection the lords'propof erty againstone another-the establishment rightsthroughthe of promulgation enforcement law. Finally, intensifiedcompetiand of tion betweengroupsof lords tended to requireincreasingly sophisticatedformsof militaryorganization weaponry.Speaking and generally, the organization groupsof lords arounda leadingwarlord of for "external" warfare defenceor conquest)mostoftenprovided (for the initial sourceof intra-lord cohesion,and this served,in turn, as the basis for building more effective internalcollaboration the for mutualprotectionof one another'spropertyand for controlling the peasantry. Throughout feudalepoch, then, warfare the great the was engineof feudalcentralization. All this is merelyto say that an essentiallong-termbasisof feudal accumulation the developmentof feudal states by which is was minimally meantthe variousformsof association self-government for of groupsof feudallords,eachof whommaintained, the lastanalyin sis, direct access to, or privatepropertyin, the meansof applying force. This is not to say that a high level of lordlyorganization was alwaysrequired.Nor is it to arguethat state buildingtook place as an automaticor universalprocess. One might argue, for example, that at the frontiersof feudal society)to the east and the south, so long as colonizationremainedan easy optionnthere was relatively little (internally generated) pressure uponthe lordlyclassto improve its self-organization and thatthe oppositetendedto be the casein theolder,long-settled regions.At the sametime, justbecause strong a feudalstatemightbecome"necessary" not alwaysdetermine did that the lordscouldsuccessfully avoidanarchy (witnesswesternGermany afterthe twelfthcentury).Whatis beingargued,however? that to is the degree that disorganization and competitionprevailedwithin groupsof feudallords, they would tend to be vulnerable only to not depredations from the outside, but to the erosionof theirown dominance over the peasants to their decay as a ruling class. The economicsuccessof individuallords, or groupsof them, did tend to depend on feudal state building, and the long-termtrend, overall, does appearto have been towardsgreaterpoliticalcentralization for "politicalaccumulation".
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It seems to me, therefore,that those historians who haveinsisted upon a narrowly"political"definitionof feudalismas a "form of government" who have, in turn, focusedupon the broadrange and of relationships obligationand exchangewhich were constructed of to bind man to man in feudalsociety(not only the relationsof vassalagestrictlyspeaking,but alsothe morelooselydefinedassociations structured patronage,clientageand family)have graspedan esby sentialdrivingforceof the system.40 Yet, in the samewaythatsome Marxistshave failed to drawall of the necessary"economic" implications of the specifically"extra-economic" ("political") natureof the feudalsurplus-extracting relationship, thosehistorians who have stressed heavily"political" the nature feudaldynamics of havetended sometimesto forgetthat muchof feudalgovernment, feudal"state" buildingwas about"economics", indeed"accumulation" the extraction,circulation, redistribution consumption peasant-proand of ducedwealth. In this context, tradeexpandedlargelyin relationship growing to ruling-class consumption needs, fuelledespeciallyby the expanding requirements "politicalaccumulation". facilitateda circuitof of It productionessentiallyinvolving the exchangeof artisan-produced luxury and militarygoods for peasant-produced necessities(food), extracted the lords. In the firstinstance,the growthof this social by divisionof labour,foundedon the riseof urban-based industry(concentratedclassicallyin Flandersand north Italy) furtherbenefited the lords, for it reducedcosts throughincreasing specialization, thus makingluxury goods relativelycheaper.Nevertheless,in the long run, the growthof thisformof socialdivisionof labour a European on scale was disastrous.41 meant a growingdisproportion It between productiveand unproductive labourin the economyas a whole (for little of the output of the growingurbancentreswent "backinto production"to augmentthe meansof production meansof conor sumptionof the directpeasantproducers). Overtime, moreover, the tendencyto "politicalaccumulation" intensifiedthe growing was by needsforconspicuous consumption (whichwentalongwiththegrowing availability luxurygoods) and by the increasing of requirement for militarysupplies(whichgrewup with the escalation the size of of armiesand the growingcomplexityof weapons).As the agricultural economythus saw its foundations progressively sapped,the weight of the urbansocietyupon it continuedto grow, invitingseriousdisruption.
40 For a convenient summary the arguments a narrowly of for political definition of feudalism(Strayer,Coulborn,Lyon), see J. W. Hall, "Feudalism Japan:A Rein assessment", J. W. Hall and M. Jansen(eds.), Studies theInstitutional in in History of EarlyModern3'apan (Princeton, I968), esp. pp. 24-6 ff. Cf. R. H. Hilton,A Medieval Society: West The Midlands theEndof theThirteenth at Century (London,I966), ch. 2. 41 See R. H. Hilton, "A Crisis Feudalism", of PastandPresent, 80 (Aug. I978), no. esp. pp. I0-II.
4I
If it is true, then, that the effectivenessof lordly "politicalaccumulation" was, in the last analysis,limitedby the weaknessof the underlying feudal-productive base,it is still the casethatincreasingly powerful, increasinglywell-organized feudal class states could be, andwere,constructed throughconcentrating energyandcentralizing organization, even in the face of the decliningcapacityof the agriculturalforces to supportthe population.As a result, the self-propellingtendencyto increasing politicalcentralization politicalacfor cumulation only tended to accelerate long-termtendencyof not the the productivityof labourto decline, but to disruptthe "normal" Malthusian mechanismfor bringingpopulationinto line with production. Indeed, as real output tendedto reachits limit, the buildup of morepowerful instruments redistribute viacoercive to it surplus extraction warfare and tendedto quicken,therebycreatingthe conditionsfor catastrophic crisesof the economyand societyas a whole. (II.2)
DEMOGRAPHY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE GROWTH PHASE OF THE ECONOMY CIRCA I I50- I300
Inabilityto comesatisfactorily termswith the "fusion"between to the "political" "theeconomic",thatprofoundly and marked feuthe dal productivesystem, is the centralweaknessof the approaches of bothBoisandthe demographic interpreters. This problem indeed, is, manifestedin the analysesby bothBois and the demographic interpretersof the "growthphase"of the European medievaleconomyin the latertwelfthand thirteenthcenturiesand, as we shallsee, of the longperiodof crisiswhichfollowed.Theirapproaches of course, are, quitedifferent.Nevertheless,theirinterpretations sufferfroma similardifficulty a failureadequately takeintoaccount divergent to the evolutions,in both character strength,of those mechanisms and of extra-economic compulsionimprovisedby the feudal lords in different regions to ensure the extractionof a surplusin the face of peasantopposition.By counterposing analysisof Bois to that of the the demographic interpreters, is possible to see the force of this it objectionand to begin to indicatethe sortof alternative required. (II.2.I) The FrenchEconomyin the ThirteenthCentury: FallA ing Rateof FeudalRent? The guidingconceptionof Bois for his analysisof the feudaleconomy as a whole is what he terms "the tendencyto a fallingrate of feudal levy". In the "up-phase"of the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies,the feudalrulingclasswas able to takeonly a decreasing proportionof the totaloutput,as compared the classof peasants.This to was, in the firstinstance,becausethe rentsleviedby the lordstended to be fixed in money, while populationgrowthled to risingrelative
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landprices,rentsandfood prices.A processof economicgrowthwas facilitated this tendencyof the rateof rentto decline,fordeclining by ratesof rent, saysBois, allowedpopulation growthand the multiplicationof peasanttenures,especiallythroughthe openingup of new lands(assarts).For a time population growthand new tenuresgave the lords enough new income to compensatefor decliningreturns fromtheirestablished customary tenures.Still, the end pointhad to come sooner or later: the potentialfor colonizationwas used up, peasantproductivity declined,and, with continually growingpopulation,therewasa quickening in prices.At a certain rise point, therefore, the absolutesize of the rent going to the lordshad to drop, for increasing cultivatedsurfacesand risingpopulation could no longer makeup for the accelerating declinein the rateof rent, and a crisis wouldensue.42 Now thereis no reasonto disputethe foregoingtrends,presented by Bois, as they applyto medievalNormandy.Indeed,as I observed in my originalarticle, they seem to hold good beyond Normandy throughoutmuch of northernFrancein the later twelfthand thirteenth centuries.By this time, the cens were everywhere fixed and hereditary.Moreover,not only Normandybut the neighbouring provincesof Ile-de-France Picardyalso experienced importand the ant trendtowardsfixing tallages,eliminating theirarbitrary character, at leastby the end of this period(I250-I300). The sametendency is evident,in theseprovinces,for entryfines:thesealsoseemto have been generallyset at a fixed and steadyrate.43 Finally,and of paramount importance,throughoutmost of this region, the demesnes (wherean adjustable,economicrent could be levied) were of very restrictedscope in relationto the peasantsector(whererents were fixedin money).By Bois'ssurvey,the demesnes seemto havecovered I0 per cent or less of the cultivatedsurfacein thirteenth-century Normandy.G. Fourquinobtainedan analogousresult (I0-I2 per cent)for the areaaroundParis.And the findingsareapparently similarthroughout region,although the quantitative is hardto come data by.44Thus, throughmuchof thirteenth-century France(particularly the north), the situationwas as Duby has summarized labour it: serviceswere inconsequential; therewas a generallylight incidence
Bois, Crise feodalisme, 203-4, 354-60. du pp. Brenner, "Agrarian ClassStructure Economic and Development Pre-Industrial in Europe", 38-40, 69-70; G. Fourquin, campagnes la region pp. Les de parisienne lafin a du moyen (Paris, age I970), pp. I75-9; R. Fossier,La terre les hommes Picardie et en jusqu'a lafin duXIIIesiecle,2 vols. (Paris,I968), ii, pp. 555-6, 7I4; Neveux,"Declin et reprise", 36. p. 44 Bois, Crise feodalisme, 2I7. Bois'sresultsfor Normandy du p. aresupported by M. de Bouard, Histoire la Normandie de (Toulouse,I970), p. I60. FortheParisregion see Fourquin,Campagnes la region de parisienne, I38-9. For furtherindications, pp. see G. Fourquin,"A seuildu XIVesiecle",in Duby andWallon(eds.), Histoire la de France nrale, i, pp. 566-8.
42 43
43
left as rent of customary fromthe cens, inflation moneyrentsabsurdly As unadjusted. a result,the lion'sshareof the lord'sincomewasmade levies,these up of returnsfromthe demesne,since, unlikecustomary But could be adjustedto prices.45 the inability,or the loss of ability, to dispose of the requisitepowersto extractadequate(or even significant)rents from their customarylands (cens)seems to have left landed largesectionsof the Frenchfeudalclass with an insufficient then widespread economicbase. In consequence,firstindebtedness, of It landsalesbecameendemic.46 is no wonderthathistorians medieval FrancebesidesBois havefounddecliningrentsleadingto a crisis of seigneurialrevenuesfrom variouspoints in the thirteenthcentury.47The question,however,is the sourceof this trend. Why was there a fallingrateof feudallevy in northernFrancein Boistellsus it wasbuiltintothe verystructure century? the thirteenth of feudalproduction.The peasant,Bois asserts,"disposed,with the usufructof the land and the controlof the processof production,a card,while the seigneur,excludedfromthis process,exercised trump origin"."There his levy only by virtueof acts of an extra-economic of resultedin the long run, an evolutionof relations economicforces to favourable the peasantand generativeof an erosionof the rate of levy". This balanceof forceswas clearlymanifestin the principle of tenurechassee hereditaryholding at fixed and customary
charges.48
shouldbe evident. of Nonetheless,the insufficiency this reasoning by We havealso, of course,arguedthatin viewof production peasant possessors,the lords'abilityto exact a rent throughextra-economic compulsionwas critical for their reproduction.But, the question should whichmustbe askedof Boisis why sucha set of arrangements necessarilyhave been favourableto the peasants,as far as income sharesis concerned,especiallyoverthe long run. Why couldnot the lords, in the face of peasantpossession,have maintained,or even proportionallyincreased, their manifold charges (fines, tallages, We labourrentsandso forth)by coercivemeans?49 canagreethatthe in to conditions peasants orderto grant lordsmightatfirst favourable induce them (and allow them) to open up new land for cultivation. the But this wouldnot explainwhatwouldhaveprevented lordsfrom new leviesor introducing ones in established adjusting subsequently
S.C., West (Columbia, Life and Economy Country in theMedieval 45 G. Duby, Rural 224, 238-9. 2I8-I9, I968), pp. 2IO-II, Campagnes ii, en et La terre leshommes Picardie, pp. 622-3; Fourquin, 46 See Fossier, pp. du pp. parisienne, I5I-2; Bois, Crise fe'odalisme, I96-7. de la region esp. the sectionon in of 47 See the summary research Neveux, "Declinet reprise", pp. de the "difficultes la seigneurie", 35-9. p. du 48 Bois, Crise fe'odalisme, 355; alsopp. 203-4. explanation but in my view gives no satisfactory of 49 BolS 1S aware this posstbtltw, pp. as to why it could not be realized.See, for example,Bois, Crtsedufe'odalisme, 203-4.
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order to protect or improvetheir incomes. What is required,but missing,is an explanation the lords'ostensiblyinherent,long-terrn of structuralweaknessas surplus extractorsby extra-economic compulsionfrompeasantpossessors. This difficultyis madeall the moreacute,sinceBois points(somewhat contradictorily) a secondary to tendencywithin feudalismtowards the accumulation land by lords (and big peasants)at the of expenseof the massof the peasantry, whichhe sees as characteristic of the growth phase of the feudal economy.50 Yet, Bois does not explainwhy this trend,whichpotentially openedthe wayto increasing "economic" rentsfromgrowingdemesnes,couldnot havecounteractedthe tendencyto a decliningrate of "feudal"levy from the customary holdings.For, especiallyunderthe conditions increasof ing population,whichwouldobviouslyhavepushedup returns from each unit of demesneland, increasing land to the lordswould have meantincreased rentsandthusa counter-trend incomedistribution in to the fallingrateof feudallevy. The questionis, then, why the lordscouldnothaveexpanded their demesnesenoughto be ableto counteract decliningreturnsfromthe customaryplots? They could have accomplishedthe latter either through appropriating newly assartedland to their demesnes, or throughtransforming customary old, tenuresto leaseholds. will be It noted that this questionis analogous the first. For it poses, once to again,in a differentform,the problem the distribution property of of and of classpower,and its determinants. insufficiency Bois's The of reasoning indeedmanifestwhenit is simplynotedthattherewould is havebeenno declinein the rateof feudallevyhadthe lordsbeenable to add sufficiently largenew seigneurial levies to the old ones or to increasethe relativesize of theirdemesnes,or had they merelybeen capableof takingtheirrentsin kind (ratherthanmoney)and/orextractingit as a proportion the harvest(ratherthanas an absolute of amount).In fact, Bois providesinstancesof all of these phenomena in thirteenth-century France. Finally,Boisspeaksas if the lordswerecontentto maintain steady a absolute income,and to allowthe peasants takean increasing to share of the output. But this is to assumeawaythe problemof the lords' needs a rulingclassin relationship the incomethey werereceivas to ing. Withoutan analysisof the lords'changing consumption requirements, and the processesaffectingthese, we cannotdeterminethe economicdemandsthey would havewishedto placeupon the peasants, hadthey been able. But Bois failsto considerthis problem and, as a result, he ends up by proceedingas if the lords' needs were
50 Ibid, pp. I67-8, 2I7, 342-6, 36I
ff-
45
or This assumptioncannotbe justifiedempirically conconstant.51 of ceptually.The requirements the feudallords,andtheiractualconrose sumption,undoubtedly throughoutthe medievalperiod. Morenor needswerenot accidental, can over, theirgrowingconsumption They expressedcertainimthey be dismissedas "superstructural". peratives,derivingfromthe processesby whichthe lordswerecomand themselvesas individuals as a class above pelledto reproduce all, the necessity to build up, increasingly,the means for political
accumuiatlon.
to tendency a declining a In sum, evenwerewe to discover universal rate of feudal rent throughoutthe medievalperiod, we would still it. it haveto explainwhy the lordsallowed and/orcouldnotprevent DemoCentury: (II.2.2) The EnglishEconomyin the Thirteenth DeterminedLordlyProsperity? graphically While the model of Bois seems to "fit" the French evidence, it differentEnglishdatafor by to appears be contradicted the radically century(I279), a good the sameperiod.First, in the laterthirteenth was landin England heldin unfreetenure,and thirdof the cultivated and these villein holdings were subject to arbitrary potentiallyincreasingdues of all sorts.52In contrast,the French cens tenures, centwhich yieldedderisoryreturnsby the middleof the thirteenth ury) appearto have coveredsome five-sixthsto nine-tenthsof the cultivatedsurface(they should)indeed) be seen as somewhatanalogous to the lightly taxed Englishfreeholdtenures,which covered to abouta thirdof the cultivatedland). On average,according Postan'sestimates,some 50 per cent of the villeintenants'totalproduce Bois'sconcluwas extractedby Englishlords, while in comparison, sion is that the French lords' take was only 9-IO per cent of their In peasants'output.53 turn, Englishdemesnescovereda customary covered thirdof the cultivatedsurface,perhapsthricethe proportion yieldedincreasing France(andnaturally by the demesnesof northern increases).Finally,and population rentswith the thirteenth-century relatedly) villein labour services were very much alive in later England.Duby has describedthe Englishsituathirteenth-century
51 Thus he tends, for example,to see the lordsmovingto intensifytheir surplus only when thereis an absolutedeclinein theirincomes.It shouldbe emextraetion the of that phasized the problem evaluating extentto whichthe incomeof the lordsas of a classis "adequate"-that is, the sufficiency theirincome is a verycomplicated needs.For consumption asidethe questionof theirchanging one indeed,evenpeaving goingto therulingclassin relationship amounts first,theabsolute onehasto determme, the of size to its changing and, second,the distribution the surpluswithin rulingclass. s2 These resultsfor England,basedon the HundredRolls of I279, are given in Century in of History England theThirteenth in Studies theAgrarian E. A. Kosminsky, (Oxford,I956), pp. 92-5, 203-6. p. 53 Bois, C"sedufeoodalisme, I9I.
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tion at this point with respectto labourservicesas analogous that to on the Continentin the ninth century.S4 Bois'sresponse thisdivergence curious,butfollowsinexorably to is fromhis theoryof the decliningrateof feudallevy. He tells us that thirteenth-century England with its large demesnes, its labour services,and arbitrary levies on customary land (villeinage) "exhibits an evident backwardness" with respect to French development.55 wasbehind,havingsomecatchingup to do. In time, EngIt lish developments wouldhavegonethe samewayas the French,with an inevitabletendencyto fallingleviesandshrinking demesnes; they simplyrequired moretime to do so. Nevertheless,long-termtrendsin medievalEnglandactuallyran counterto Bois's interpretation. only did Englandfail to catch Not up to France,it sometimes travelled theoppositedirection.Indeed, in the fact that incomein Englandappears have gone increasingly to to the lordsduringmuchof the growthphaseof the medieval economy has been used by the demographic interpreters by Postanand and Hatcherto argue againstme that it was not feudalpower, but increasingpopulation,operatingthroughthe laws of supply and demand,whichwasdeterminant incomedistribution.56 complete of To this argument they feel obligedto assertonceagainthatthe strengtheningof lordshipwhichtookplacein England this periodwasitself in a functionof populationincrease.S7 would simplyrespondthat it I neveroccurred me to denythatpopulation to growthleadingto rising demand landwouldhavedistributed for incomein favourof the lords -if they hadestablished enoughpowerto varyrentsin accordwith priceson customary landsand/orif theypossessed ampledemesnes.58 But I do deny that populationincrease,in itself, could endow the lordswith eitherof these. As Postanand Hatcherthemselvespoint out, even thoughpopulationwasincreasing throughthe twelfthcentury,muchof thisperiod witnesseda trend towardsfixed paymentsfrom the peasantsto the lords, a tendencywhich favouredthe peasants.S9 (This is perhaps what Bois's theorywould lead us to expect.) Nonetheless,fromthe
Duby, Rural Economy Countty pp. 2IO-I I . and Life, Bois, "Against Neo-Malthusian the Orthodoxy", 65. p. PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety", 32, and in pp. 34, andpassim. 57 Thus they arguethat the fact that rentswerehigh for freelynegotiated leasesin the thirteenth centuryshowsthatthe highandmounting payments unfreecustomon arylandsreflected market forces,rather than"mere excesses feudalpower": of Postan andHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 32. See alson. and in IO above. 58 Brenner, "Agrarian ClassStructure Economic and Development Pre-Industrial in Europe",p. 40. 59 Postanand Hatcher,"Population andClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 28in Postan,"Medieval Agrarian Societyin its Prime:England", 585-6; R. H. Hilton, pp. The Decline Serfdom of (London,I969), pp. I 5-I6.
54 55 56
latertwelfthandespecially thirteenth the centuries,theredeveloped, 47 with continuingpopulation growth,a reversal the previoustrend. of The lords successfullyreasserted theirrightsto makeincreasing exactionsfromthe peasants.This hadits legalexpression the hardenin ing of the lines betweenfreeandunfreepeasants,with a largepartof the ruralpopulation consignedto unfreedom. Withunfreedom went liabilityto increasing payments (verymuchcontrary whatBois and to wouldlead us to predict)this was especiallythe case, apparently) in the longestsettledregions.60 Finally,throughout thirteenth the century the lordsseem to haveexpandedtheirdemesnes,partlythrough assartsand partlythroughconverting demesnecustomary to tenures upon which they found it difficultto raiselevies.61Thus, although population rose consistentlythroughthe twelfthand thirteenth centuries,in Englandit could, in itself, determine consistentpattern no of income distribution.The latterdependedon the changingcharacterof the social-property relationships the changing and balance of class forces. These seem to have underpinneda reversalof midtwelfth-century trendswhichwereapparently favourable the peasto ants, so as to shift the distribution incomeduringthe thirteenth of centuryin favourof the lords, ourer againstthe unfreepeasants and (whileleavingthe free peasantsin a relatively favoured position). To clarifythis pointit is necessary takeexceptionto the puzzling to statement madeby PostanandHatcher,that"Theclosedefinition of villein status and obligationsin the late twelfth and the thirteenth centuries mayhave . . . helpedto protectthe villeinsagainst arbitrary exactions".They quoteBracton the effectthatthe lords'authority to over their peasants"once extended to life and death, but is now restrictedto civil law".62But this is beside the point. For the lords hardlyrequiredsuch untrammelled physicalpowersovertheirpeasants to exerciseeconomically effectivelordship.Whatwas unquestionablycriticalin this respectwas the exclusionof the villeinsfrom the protectionof the royal courts againstthe lords' arbitrary exactions, and this resultwas preciselythe upshot of the legal developments of this period. It was enoughfor the lord to establishthe fact thathis tenantwas a villein(unfree)to havehim deniedlegalprotection; to have thrownout of court any appealby the tenantthat the
60 "Inmuchof the 'anciently settledcoreof medieval England'. . . thetrendseems to havebeenforthe outgoings the customary of tenantsto rise . . . seigneurial charges wereaugmented": Edward MillerandJohnHatcher, Medieval England: Rural Society and Economic Change, I 086-I 348 (London, I 978), p. I 5 I, and also pp. I I I, I 3 I 2I 3-24. See alsoHilton,who speaks "acounter of attackby estateowners. . . waging a successful battleagainst theircustomary villeintenants": Hilton,Decline of Serfdom, pp. I6-I7. 61 Hatcher,"EnglishSerfdom andVilleinage", I6-2I pp. 62 Postanand Hatcher,"Population and ClassRelationsin
FeudalSociety",pp.
33-4-
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lord'sexactionswereunjustified; to forcethe peasant and backupon his ownandthe community's resources anyconflict in withthelord.63 If we do not understand villeintenureopenedthe peasants that to potentially arbitrary exactions,whilefree(or freer)tenurecouldgive themlegalprotection fixeddues, backedup by the king'scourts, and we cannot comprehendwhy there was such intense conflictin the latertwelfthandthirteenth centuries betweenlordsandpeasants concerningthe statusof the tenureof individualpeasantsor groupsof them.As Postanhaselsewhere concluded,"ingeneral remains it true that the enhancedpower over tenantswhich landlordsacquiredas land grew scarcerand dearerlay lightly on the censuani lighter and still on the freeholder. The chief sufferers fromthe twin processes of growing land shortageand manorialreactionwere again the villeins" 64 It is therefore hardto see how Postanand Hatchercan argueas if certaincases which they cite where unfree tenants(particularly heirs)inside the communitywere subjectedto lowerfineson taking overa plot thanfreemenfromoutside,or whereunfreepeasants paid lowerdues on their customary plots thanwerepaid for (similar) demesne leases-constitute evidencethat "villeintenurein the thirteenth centurycould providea measureof protection".65 there For wasno legalbasisfor such protection.On the contrary, instances the theyreferto wouldseemto provideevidencethatthe unfreepeasants could sometimes protect themselves againsttheirlords, evenin theabsenceof legal rights.That the peasantcommunitywas often better prepared defendits ownmembersthanstrangers whatwe would to is expect.Nor is it surprising that,on someoccasions,the factthatland was held in customary tenure(even if unfree)could providea basis for peasantresistance the lords'demands(whereasdemesneland to
63 SeeHatcher's ownrecentsummary: "Theunfreetenant. . . enjoyed possession a regulated a private by manorial courtandheldhis land . . . merelyin villeinage the at will of the lord . . . To the extentthatthe villeinin factheld at his lord'swill, uncertaintydid lie at the heartof villeinage . . . and uncertainty extendingto both the securityof tenureand termson whichhe held his land. The king'scourtswouldnot affordhim protection againstevictionnor awardhim damages againsthis lord, the villeinhad no standingin the publiccourtsagainstthe lordunlessthe latter's actions wentbeyondall reason(e.g., maiming killing). . . The logicalconclusion that and is the lords could regardthe customthat governedvillein tenuresas 'but a revocable expression theirown wills' ": Millerand Hatcher,Medieval of England, II6-I7 pp. and, in general,ch. 5. 64 Forexamples conflict of between lordsandpeasants thestatus thepeasants' over of tenure,and of their criticaleconomiceffects on incomedistribution, abilityor the inabilityof the lordsto collectrents(in this casetheirinability,due to the peasants' successful proofof freelegalstatus),see Searle,Lordship Community, I54-66. and pp. SeealsoE. Searle,"Seigneurial Control Women's of Marriage", andPresent, Past no. 82 (Feb. I979), p. I7. For quote fromPostan,see his "LegalStatusand Economic Conditionin MedievalVillages",in his Essayson Medieval Agriculture General and Problems theMedieval of Economy (Cambridge, I973), p. 289, andpassim. 6s Postanand Hatcher,"Population and ClassRelations FeudalSociety",pp. in 34, 36-
might be concededto be outside the community'spurview).Such plots for could, in turn, leadto lowerpayments customary resistance than for similardemesnelands subjectto the market.But none of this meansthatvillein status gaveprotection.It only pointsto the fact that the communityof villeinpeasantscould on occasionenforceits levies (whichis a very custom againstthe lords' rights to arbitrary differentthing). Indeed,suchcasesrevealonce againthe inadequacy of accountslike that of Postanand Hatcherwhich attemptto comprehendthe rate of feudallevy as a functionof marketforces, and the show the need to investigate evolutionof feudalrentin termsof the sourcesof classpower,and as the outcomeof classconflict.66 how In light of the foregoing,it is difficult,finally,to understand of the observation Postanand Hatcher,that throughthe thirteenth centuryincreasingly"high fines seem to have been supportedby of my marketforces",undermines view thatthe increase theselevies restedon feudalpowers,as they seem to think. For what, afterall, Indeed,the point were such fines, but incidentsof feudallordship? made by Postanand Hatcherthat increasedentryfines were sometimes used in this periodas a substitutefor increasedtallagesonly rightsover the emphasizes connectionwith the lords' jurisdictional Withoutsuch lordship,neithertallages,nor entry their peasants.67 dues, heriots, fines,northe wholerangeof otherfeudallevies(labour and so on) could be exacted,let aloneincreased. fines on marriage, pressurecould had WherelordsElip been firmlysecured,population perhapsat times make it easier for the lords to collect dues from by unfreetenants(whoseeconomicoptionswere severelyrestricted conthe scarcityof land). But, as we have seen, such demographic ditionscould, in themselves,in no way establishsuch lordship,nor make possible such levies (let alone endow demesne automatically lands). It was, on the contrary,only becausethe Englishseigneurs such lordship succeeded,on the whole, in zmposing and maintaining over and againstthe peasantsand in holdingon to broaddemesnes, but favourable, that they were able to prosperfrom the apparently
49
of the beware exaggerating effectiveness of 66 At the sametime, we shouldperhaps in the or peasant resistance of underestimating powersof lordship thirteenth-century that beendemonstrated on theveryampleestates For it England. example, hasrecently higherthroughout weresystematically Abbeyrentson villeinholdings of Westminster of tenancies any sort, in the wholeof the medievalperiodthanthose for contractual Abbeyestatesthe monkssucceeded demesneleases. On the Westminster particular centuryin turningthe screwmore and the throughout thirteenth into the fourteenth a againstthe villeins, using entryfines, tallagesand ultimately or less continuously high labourdues to moneyrentsat increasingly methodof commuting sophisticated Abbey its and (moneyper workunit). B. H. Harvey,Westminster ratesof conversion Estatesin theMiddleAges (Oxford,I977), pp. 236-8, and appendix9. See also E. that for the Abbey'svilleins, "totalchargeswere higherthan Miller'sobservation E. that anything couldhavebeengot fortheirlandon the freemarket": Miller,review 3 Lit. of ibid., in Times Supplement, Feb. I978. in and "Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 34. 67 Postanand Hatcher,
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potentially disastrous, marketconditions the latertwelfthandthirof teenthcenturies. To takethe argument smallstepfurther: a withoutthe powersthat accruedto lordship expressedin legal rightswhichallowedvariable, indeedarbitrary exactions the lordswerein dangerof losing their property,in any meaningfulsense, in their customary land.68 In otherwords, by assuringthat they could adjustlevies (especially fines),iudal powerstendedto give the Englishlordsultimate control over the land. Indeed duringthe thirteenthcentury,Englishlords went a significant distancetowardsestablishing theirproprietorship of villein land. This helped enablethem to maintaintheir position notonlyin the favourable conjuncture the "up-phase" the feudal of in economy,but, as we shallsee, overthe verylong run.69 That populationgrowth, in itself, could in no way ensure such powersis finallyconfirmed when we merelyrecollectdevelopments in northernFranceat this time. Here in the face of rapidlyrising population,pricesand rentsper acrefromthe latertwelfthandthirteenthcenturies,the lordslost theirprerogatives lordship,as the of peasantssucceededin gettingtheirfeudaldues fixed tallagesand fines, as well as rent. (As an indirectresult, moreover,the lords' demesnestended to contract.)By the earlyfourteenth century,the peasants northern of Francehadachieved effectively property full rights to thecustomary (fixed,minimaldues and rightto inherit).This land outcomewas in starkcontrastto thatof Englandin the sameperiod, and it too was to have importantlong-termconsequences.In any case, in this French context, it is hardly surprisingthat Bois has discovered tendencyto "a decliningrateof feudallevy". But in the a samewaythatthe Frenchdevelopments charted Bois (andothers) by highlightthe shortcomings the model of the demographic of interpreters,so the Englishtrendspresentedby the demographic interpreters(andothers)highlightthe shortcomings the modelof Bois. of The evidenceadducedby eachundermines theoryof the other. the (II.2.3) Feudal"States"and"Economic"Evolution:Englandversus France Now Bois cautionsus that the "various mechanisms wherebythe class struggleis dominantin the historicalprocessare normallyso complexand unexpectedthat it is very rare that such a unilateral approach[as Brenner's]leads to anythingother than ideological short-cuts"70 But in lightof the foregoing . discussion areperhaps we
68 For illustrations the connection of betweenrightsaccruing lordship effecto and tive controlover property,and vice versa,see Searle,Lordship Community, and pp. I 54-66, I 84-94 69 On the Englisharistocracy's long-term abilityto maintain controloverthe land, and the roleof feudalpowersin assuring this, see pp. 82-6below. 70 Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 63. p.
5I
entitledto ask whetherthe mechanisms whichclassorganization by and class strugglehave affectedeconomicdevelopments not, at are timesat least, less obscurethanBois wouldhaveus believe.To what else, indeed,arewe to attribute the divergent dynamics distribution of in the French, as opposedto the English, ruralsociety of the thirteenth century, with their powerful,differentialeffects on rulingclassfortunes? factis thatforquitesometimehistorians medieThe of val Francehavebeen describingthe periodculminating the latter in partof the thirteenth centuryas one of "peasant conquests"71 Mean. while, historians medievalEnglandhavebeendescribing same of the periodas one of "seigneurial" "manorial or reaction".72 Whereas in thirteenth-century Francethe generallyobservedtrendhas been towardsseigneurialrevenuedifficulties,in Englandthe same period has been understood a goldenage for the lordlyclass. Is therenot as at least an apparent basis for concludingthat we are registering the effects of differentbalancesof power, a consequenceof divergent processes class-political of organization classconflict? and And is the attemptto pose the problemof this difference retreat historical a into "voluntarism", inexplicableand lawlessrealmof "politics",as the Boisasserts. Or mustwe not recognize to analyse evolution 73 that the of an economyin whichthe dominant classrelies"economically" for its very existence(its reproduction the dominantclass)upon aras rangements extracting surplusfromthe directproducers for a which arespecifically "extra-economic" is, "political"), is necessary (that it to offer a systematicaccountof the developmentof these arrangements, as they areconditioned classconflict. by What may, therefore,be at issue in the divergentevolutionsin Englandand Francein the thirteenthcentury thereis at least a basisfor the hypothesis is not so muchthe backwardness Engof land's"economic" evolutionrelativeto thatof France,as Boiswould haveit, but ratherEngland's relativeadvance termsof feudal"polin itical"ruling-class organization. Whatmayhavebeenresponsible for the superiority the Englishlords as extractors a surplusfrom of of theirpeasants theirsuperior was self-organization-theirsuperiority vis-a-vis the Frenchlords as feudalcentralizers feudalaccumuand lators. Indeed, it seems to be a matterof a differencein the developmentof the feudalstate. In this contextwe shouldperhaps beware
71 Neveux, "Declinet reprise", 36; Fossier,La terre leshommes Picardie, p. et en ii pp. 708 ff., sectionentitled"Les conquetespaysannes"; Fourquin,Campagnes la de region parlsienne, I90. p. 72 Millerand Hatcher,Medieval England,p. 2I2- R. H. Hilton, "Freedom and Villeinage England", in Past andPresent, 3I (July I965), pp. 6, 9-I3 ff., Hilton no. Decline Serfdom, I6-I9 ff. Hiltonexplicitlynotesthe relative of pp. lackof successof peasant resistance England,as compared France,andalludesto its implications in to for analysingthe balanceof class forces, incomedistribution so forth:Hilton and 'Crisis Feudalism , pp. IO-I I. of 73 Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 65, 67. pp.
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of usingBois'sterminology "unequal of development", especially as he links this to the notion of the "age"of the system. This is not becausethesephrases entirelyinapplicable, because are but theytend to lead Bois in the directionof unilinealevolutionary conceptions, wherebyeachregionis bound, sooneror later,to experience same the developmental patternas its neighbours (decliningrateof rent), unaffected either directly or indirectly by previous evolution elsewhere.74 In factEnglishfeudalclassself-government appears have to been "ahead"of the Frenchin the twelfthand thirteenth centuries, not only becauseits startingpointwas different,but becauseit built upon advancesin this spherealreadyachievedon the Continent,especiallyin Normandy.In turn, when Frenchcentralization accelerated somewhatlater,it was influenced Englishdevelopment, by and was indeed, in part, a responseto direct English politico-military pressure.But Frenchfeudalcentralization not followthe English did patternand, over time, radically divergedfromit. Thus, the developmentof the mechanismsof "feudalaccumulation" tended to be not only "uneven"but also "combined", the sense that laterdein veloperscould build on previousadvances madeelsewhere feudal in c ass organlzatlon. Thus the precocious Englishfeudalcentralization around monthe archywas, of course, no mere legacyof the Anglo-Saxon kings. It owed its strengthin largepart to the level of feudal"political" organization already achievedby the Normans Normandy in beforethe Conquest,which was probablyunparalleled elsewherein Europe. The emergence this organization undoubtedly of was associated with the Normans'careeras warriors and conquerors. was evidenced It especiallyin the establishment effectivesupremancy the duke of by in settlingdisputesamonghis tenants,as well as in the duke'sability to controlthe buildingof castles by his nobles and his capacityto confiscate their landsin case of rebellion.Nevertheless,the efficacy of the duke'sadministration not simplythe resultof the duke's was imposition,but emergedlargelyas an expression the high level of of solidarityof the Normanaristocracy a whole-and this set the as patternfor subsequentfeudalevolutionin England.75 coursethe Of requirements organizingthe Conquest,occupyingEnglandand of
. .
74 Ibid., pp. 66-7. Bois is quiteaware such "external" of interactions indeedhe charges with neglecting me them but this does not, in my opinion,freehis interpretation froma tendencyto unilineality. 75 See, for example,F. M. Stenton, English Feudalism, I066-II66 (Oxford,I932), ch. I; D. C. Douglas, Williamthe Conqueror (Berkeley,I964), pp. I33-55. "It is misleading. . . to dissociate reassertion ducalpowerin Normandy the of underDuke Williamfromthe rise of the feudalaristocracy thattime . . . [The]rapidincrease at in Normanstrengthis not to be explainedby reference a continuedopposition to between Norman the dukeandtheNorman magnates . . [The]interests thegreater . of Normanfamilieswereseento be becoming evermorenotably linkedwiththoseof the duke":ibid., p. I 37.
53
establishing their class rule there broughtthe Normanaristocracy's self-organization an even higherpitch.76Feudalcentralization to in Englandwas spectacularly expressed the outlawing private in of warfare, a developmentpreviouslyinconceivable the Continent.It on wasmanifested, in the novelprocedure too, whereby undertenants all were requiredto swearallegiance only to theirimmediate not overlords, but also to the king) as well as in the more highly evolved system of militaryobligationand organization.77 monarch,as The leadinglord, was of coursethe focusof all theseprocesses; monbut archicalstrengthin this case was the expression the breadthand of depthof lordlycollaboration. Subsequent developments, especially duringthe reignsof Henry I andHenryII, by andlargemanifested samecentripetal the tendency towardsincreasing capacities the crown.But growingmonarthe of chicalpowerreflectedgrowingaristocratic coherence.This is not to dispute, of course, that the monarch,with his patrimony, playeda criticalinitiatingand constructive in feudalcentralization, to role or denythathe could, for variousresons,findhimselfin seriousconflict with his aristocratic followers,as individuals as a group.Nor can or the king's actions be understood,in any simple or direct way, to reflect willof his aristocracy, the which,in anycase,wasrarely united. It remainstrue, nonetheless,that the developmentof the English feudalgovernment,througha sort of homeostatic mechanism,was madeto conformcloselywith the interestsof the Englisharistocracy. For in everyareaof governance crownremained the profoundly dependentupon the aristocracy's support.The feudallords,led by the magnates,operatedall levels of Englishroyaladministration, from the immediateentourageof the king (the Curia),on down through the perambulating courts, to the countysheriffs;they providedthe coreof the monarch's military organization; theyultimately and guaranteedthe crown'sfinancialwherewithal. a result, the construcAs tionof an increasingly effectivefeudalstaterequired aristocracy's the acquiescence backing,and reflectedtheirinterest.For the king and to build his power it was requiredthat he organizeand coherehis aristocracy aroundhim; it was thus unavoidable that he build their strengthin the veryprocess. As has often been recognized,it thus makeslittle sense systematicallyto counterpose Englishmonarch chief lordwith the barthe as
76 J. Le Patourel,"The NormanColonization Britain," of Settimane studio de del centro italiano studisull'altomedioevo, (I969), pp. 4I2-I3, 4I9-33. This article di xxvi offersa superbsynthesison the developing cohesiveness the Normanaristocracy of over the processof conquest,its methodsand goals, its underlying feudaldynamic see especially ibid., pp. 430-3. See also J. Le Patourel,TheNorman Empire (Oxford, 77 Stenton,English Feudalism, II-I4, 23. In France,of course,the reigning pp. princlplewas "the vassalof my vassalis not my vassal".Correlatively, elaborate the attempts regulate to privatewarfare attestto its acceptance a factof life. as
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ons who surrounded him, supported turnby theirown followers. in An unusuallystrongmonarchy reflected unusually an strongaristocracy, hierarchically organizedin the most highly developedfeudal statein Europe.Monarchical government indeeda manifestation was of the lords'more or less consciousrecognition the commonality of of theirinterests,and of the need to regulatetheirmutualinterrelationsin ordersuccessfully exploitthe peasantry, wellas to profit to as handsomely, they did, fromexertingtheirmilitarymightagainst as otheraristocratic groupings theContinent. on Thegrowth a powerful of monarchical in England,therefore, state expressed "merely no political" evolution, theconstructionsocial-class but of relations which made possible themost effective "accumulation" theeconomic in realm. 78 Thus one of the initialresultsof the occupation Englandby the of highlycohesiveNormanaristocracy appears havebeenthe tightento ing of feudalcontrolsandthe imposition increased of leviesuponthe peasantry. is perhaps It notablein thisrespectthatfromearlyNorman timesthe seigneurs "enjoyed assistance the royaladminstration the of androyalcourtsto recovertheir'fugitive'villeins".79 turn,it may In be no accidentthat the temporary disorganization the feudalclass of duringthe civil wars of King Stephen'sreign was accompanied by the significant peasantgains of the middleof the twelfthcentury.80 Finally, the restrengthening the monarchy of duringthe latterpart of the twelfthcenturyseemsto havebeen reflected the recontrucin tion of lordlypoweroverthe peasants fromaboutthe sametime. The growthof monarchical authorityfoundits highestexpression the in developmentof royal justiceand the commonlaw. Especiallywith the "legislation" Henry II, the feudal aristocracy of registeredits commoninterestin allowingthe monarchical courts to adjudicate disputesamongthem over privilegesand property(although goes it without saying that the royal administration never escapedaristocraticcontrol).In this way the rulingclasssecuredthe privaterights of its individualmembers.On the other hand, the obverseside of preciselythis legaladvance no less important becauseit wasinexplicit was the development law which led to the restriction in of accessto the king'slawtofreemen therebytheexlusion theunfree and of peasant?y. granting monarchical In the administration taskof prothe
78 On feudal monarchical centralization underHenryI andHenryII, its aristocratic character dynamic,see Stenton,EnglishFeudalism; L. Warren,HentyII and W. (London,I973); J. C. Holt, MagnaCarta(Cambridge, I965; repr. I969). Note also R. H. Hilton'scommentthat "therewas no European aristocracy which,as a class, had the samepowerin the stateas the EnglishBarons": Hilton,A Medieval Society, p. 2. 79 H. R. Loyn,Anglo-Saxon England theNonnan and Conquest (London,I962), pp. 327-8, 343;Hatcher, "English Serfdom Villeinage", 28-9; Miller Hatcher, and pp. and Medieval England, I26, I I4. pp. 80 Postan,"Medieval Agrarian Societyin its Prime:England", 585; Hilton,Dep. clineof Serfdotn, I6. p.
55
in tectingtheirproperty(fromone another),the Englisharistocracy the processcame to define that propertyto include their arbitrary rights over their peasants.The unfree peasantswith "their"lands wereconsignedto the courtsof theirlords, so that in the eyes of the and law81 lordscoulddispose"atwill" overboth peasants lands. the leverto raiseduesarbitrarily the This provided lordsanindispensable coheintra-class landsand tenants.The extraordinary on customary simultawas sivenessof the Englisharistocracy therebymanifested militarystrength,in its abilityto regulate neouslyin its formidable The the to conflict,andin its capacity dominate peasantry. intra-lord of interdependence "the political"and "the economic" inextricable evolutioncouldnot havebeen in the courseof feudalclass-productive moreclearlymanifest. The foregoingdevelopmentin Englandis in markedcontrastto by that in France of the same period, which was characterized a by dominated competing feudaljurisdictions, multitudeof conflicting England feudal lords. Whereaslate eleventh- and twelfth-century these yearsin centralization, witnessedthe growthof monarchical of by most of Francewere characterized the extremefragmentation at authority,expressedin the lack of effectivepoliticalorganization Throughmuch or the level of the monarchy even the principality.82 of Francein this era, powerwas effectivelyin the handsof the soof The emergence thesepotencalled"banallords"or "castellans". broadpolof tatesseemsto havedependedon the creation relatively iticalorganization-the buildupof a powerfulfollowingaroundthe on overlordand his castle, and the construction this basisof a wide Effectivejuapparatus. rangingand effectiveadministrative-judicial machine, knightlymilitary dicialauthority,backedby the magnates' appearsto have providedthe criticalfoundationfor the successful rent as of extraction whatcameto be understood customary fromthe peasantry.Meanwhile,those whom Duby calls "domesticlords" (lackingbanalpowers)appearto have found it difficultto maintain coherent by feudallevies in the face of directresistance increasingly peasantcommunities,while peasantmobility in the face of lordly competitionmade things worse. Their control over the peasants erodedfrombelow, the domesticlordswerewideopento attackfrom into lesserlandlords aboveby the castellans,who, in turn, absorbed Once again, therefore,the extra-economic their administration.83
and VilHilton, "Freedom pp. II2-I7: Medieval England, and Hatcher, 81 passim. leinage m England", Bull. Inst. Century", "The King and the Princes in the Eleventh 82 E. M. Hallam, (London, Capetian France, 987-I328 pp. I43-6; E. M. Hallam, Hist. Res., liii (I980), I980), pp. 27-63-
Mi!ler
83G.Duby,TheThreeOrders:FeudalSocietyImagined(Chicago,Ig80),pp.IsI-8;
on the effects Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life, pp. I88-9. For observations Feudal Society in the Bailliage on lordly power, see T. Evergates, peasant mobility I975), pp. 23-30. IZ52-I284 (Baltimore, the Counts of Champagne, Troyes under of of
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formsof feudaldevelopment cameto "govern" feudaleconomic evolution, thoughin a differentwayfromEngland.As Duby putsit, the "dominant forceinfluencing direction whichthemanorial the in economy developedcamefromthe changeddistribution the powersof of authority", whichoccurred with the riseof banallordship.84 It maynot, then, be unreasonable attribute relative to the incapacity of the Frenchfeudallordsas surplusextractors duringthe growth phaseof the medievaleconomy,to a significant extent, to its lackof politicalcoherence.If this is so, the trendtowards decliningseigneurial revenuesin Francein this periodis incomprehensible Bois's in terms,as an inevitableoutcomeof a mechanical tendencytowardsa "decliningrate of feudal levy". It was ratherthe manifestation of peasant conquests,achieved through resistance highlycohesive the of Frenchpeasantcommunities. Whatappears,however,to havebeen criticalfor the French peasants'successwas the relativelyextreme disorganization the Frencharistocracy. apparently of For comparably well-organized rebellious and Englishpeasants couldnot makecomparable gainsagainsta muchmoreunifiedEnglishrulingclass. The full significance the processof class formationand class of conflict specific to later medievalFrance can be seen particularly clearlyin the Parisregionduringthe firstpartof the thirteenth century. There the seigneurs,facingrisingprices, movedsharplyto reverse the prevailingtrend towardsthe fixingof peasantdues by attemptingto depressthe peasants'conditionback towardsserfdom. They did so, in particular, insistingupon the peasants' by liabilityto arbitraty levies, notablythe seigneurial taille,whichwasthe acknowledged token of serfdom.But the lordswere ultimatelythwarted by peasantrevolt. Less dramatic equallyeffectiveprocessesof rebut sistancehavebeen chartedthroughthe villagesof muchof Francein this same period.85Now, Bois taxes me for makingthe decay of serfdom thatis, the declineof the lords'abilityto extract surplus a from peasantpossessorsby meansof extra-economic compulsion86
84 Duby, RuralEconomy and Country Life, pp. II3 ff. Note Duby's contrastof Frenchdevelopments with those of the sameperiodin England,wheretherewere essentially castellans no banallordships, wherethe "kingrecognized no and and the personal authority the lordsof the manors thushelpedto consolidate of and 'domestic lordship'": ibid., p. I95. 8s Fourquin,Campagnes la region de parisienne, I66-8, for the slide towards pp. serfdomin the regionin the mid-thirteenth centuryand its reversal.On successful peasant resistance elsewhere this time, see alsoR. Fossier,La terre leshommes at et en Picardie, pp. 555-60. ii, 86 Bois, "Against theNeo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 6I-2, n. 7. Boisat thispoint pp. deepens confusion the whenhe speaks if I haveequated as serfdom labour with services. In reality wentout of my wayto denythisequation, statethatlabour I to services were notof the essence,and to arguethatit was the systemof surplusextraction extraby economiccompulsionwhich was critical."Serfdomdenotednot merely,nor even primarily, labour- opposedto money-dues, as but, fundamentally, powerful landlord rightsto arbitrary exactionsand a greateror lesserdegreeof peasantunfreedom": Brenner,"Agrarian Class Structure and EconomicDevelopment Pre-Industrial in
(cont. on p. 57)
But centralto my accountof feudaldevelopment. it seemsclear, 57 the that perspective, it wasprecisely French in especially comparative lords' inability to prevent the decay of serfdom(lordship) ex(that presseddirectlyin the lords'loss of abilityto imposearbitrary land in the face levies axldto adjustdues on customary is, variable) of inflation87 which was responsiblefor the Frencharistocracy's esdecliningfeudal rents and, in turn, their decliningincomes,88 peciallyin the thirteenthcentury.It shouldbe recollected,in conthe wereprecisely centuries trast,thatthe latetwelfthandthirteenth as periodin Englandwhen the aristocracy a whole- also in part reactingto inflation succeededin excludingtheir villein tenants tenantry muchof the customary fromthe king'scourtsandassigning to villein status, thus opening much of the peasantryto arbitrary 89 exactions. Finally, the same line of reasoningmay be seen to supportmy basis for the development originalargumentthat the key long-term monarchyin France, esof and consolidation effective centralized superiority century,wasthe relative peciallyfromthe laterthirteenth statetaxation) (especially extraction of system surplus of its centralized over the decentralized,competitivelordshipof the castellansand the other greatmagnates.In this context I emphasized highly conin development France,its contraflictedprocessesof monarchical evowhich standsin sharpcontrastto the parallel dictorycharacter, house beganas one lordship For lution in England.90 the Capetian
(n. 86 .ont.)
basesof Europe",pp. 43 ff. On the otherhand,whenBois saysthatthe "economic of the systemare in realitythe variousrent payingholdingswithinthe framework ibid., p. 6I n. 7. Forwhatwasessential matters: he seigneurie", doesnothingto clarify or fixed wasthe conseis thatthis (feudal)rent whetherhigh or low, arbitrary ofthe disintegration Whenhe speaks,therefore, compulsion. of quence extra-economic rents abilityto adjust preciselyto the lords'decreasing of the system,he is referring holdingsand the resultingdecayin the valueof the fixedmoney on theircustomary seigThis is the declineof serfdom.The weakened in payments the faceof inflation. or still, lordship serfdom,but in an attenbe neuriemaytherefore saidto represent, at 1S threatened, leastin tendency. uatedform:its vervY existence to few Frenchlords(generally be found 87 It shouldbe notedthat thoserelatively were the vis-a-vis peasantry strength who did retainthe requisite amongthe greatest) the themto counteract effects to ableconsciously imposeleviesin a waywhichallowed in Conditions the Countyof Beaumont-le"Economic of inflation.See J. R. Strayer, xxvi Roger",Speculum, (I95I), pp. 279-80. loss with the resultant of revenues 88 Note that the erosionof lordship(serfdom) fromtheir revenues to to appears haveled, indirectly, the lords'lossof land.Declining the tenantswas, in turn,one of the forceswhichcompelled lordsto selloff customary et theirdemesnes.Fossier,La terre les the theirlandsthroughout period,shrinking pp. en hommes Picardie,ii, pp. 622-3; Bois, Crisedu feodalisme, I96-7; Fourquin, p. partsienne, I5I. de Campagnes la region no. PastandPresent, 6I of 89 p. D. A. Harvey,"TheEnglishInflation I I 80-I220", in and (Nov. I973), pp. 3-30, esp. pp. 2I-3, Hilton, "Freedom Villeinage England", pp. England, 2I0-I2 ff., 242-3. Medteval pp. I3-I4; Millerand Hatcher, in Development Pre-Industrial and ClassStructure Economic "Agrarian 90Brenner, I however,withthe formulations madethere see pp. Europe", 69-7I. For problems, n p. s8 andn. 94 below.
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among many, one feudal "politicalaccumulator" amongmany. It emergedand established itself as a greater lordshipoverandagainst, in competition with, the more localized, more individualized lordships.91The distinctivecharacter this development initially of was evidencedin the absence, indeed exclusion,of the greaterFrench lordsfromthe king'shouseholdandadministration its staffing by lesserknights whichstandsin sharpcontrast theAnglo-Norman to government, fromthe firstby the magnates led withtheirlesserlords aroundthem.92The competitiveprocessthroughwhichthe monarchy evolvedwas also manifested the development royaljustice in of asa mechanism fill the royalcoffersat theexpenseof the seigneurial to courts, and above all in the rise of (arbitrary) royaltaxationwhich threatened collectionof lordlydues of all sorts. It was, finally, the tellingly expressedin the French crown'spropensityto recognize peasantappealsagainstarbitrary levies by local seigneursat a time (the later thirteenthcentury)when, in stark contrast,the English monarch recognizing lords'rightsovertheirpeasants' was the persons and propertyby refusingthem access to the royal courts.93This divergent evolutionof peasantlegalstatus- towards property sanctionedby monarchy France,towards in serfdom backedby the crown in England appears providea significant to indexof the divergent patternsof class formationand class conflictand of the divergent evolutions the systemsof property the tworegionsatthisperiod. of in Nonetheless,althoughI believethis formulation be essentially to correct,I think that Bois, in his reply, has pointedto an important lacunain my account, which could, as he says) open the way for misunderstanding. Bois indicates,local lordswerevulnerable As to royalpenetration their territory partbecausethey had already of in experiencedthe erosionof their power to extractrents from their tenants.Weakenedby the priordeclinein their income, they were less ableto fightthe impositionof royaltaxation.On the otherhand, as Bois rightlyemphasizes,it is also true that at least some of these verysamelordscouldtakeup officein the new statemachine. They 94
91See, in general,J. F. Lemarignier, Francemedie'vale: La institutions socie'te' et (Paris,I970), pp. 227-30, 248-58ff. 92 Stenton, English Feudalism, 30-5;C. W. Hollister J. W. Baldwin,"The pp. and Rise of Administrative Kingship:HenryI and PhilipAugustus", Amer.Hist. Rev., lXxXiii (I978), esp. pp. 902-5;E. Bournazel, gouvernement Le cape'tien XIIe sie'cle: au I I08-I I80, structures sociales mutations et institutionnelles (Paris,I975),passim. also See the reviewof Bournazel's book by G. T. Beech, in Cahiers civilisation du me'die'vale Xe-XIIe siecles, (I977), pp. 269-70. xx 93 Bois, Crise fe'odalisme, Io3-204,254-6, 364, G. Fourquin, du pp. "Les tempsde la croissance", Duby andWallon(eds.), Histoire la Francerurale, pp. 38I-2; in de i, Neveux, "Declinet reprise",pp. 35-6;Lemarignier, France me'die'vale, 227,296pp. 8; P. Chaunu,"L'etat",in Braudel Labrousse and (eds.),Histoire economiquesociale et de la France,i, pp. I46-7. 94 Bois, Crisedu fe'odalisme, pp. 204, 264; Bois, "Againstthe Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 63-4. In this context,my reference the stateas an "independent" pp. to "class-like" surplus extractor could,asBoissays,bemisleading. usedtheterminology I
(cont. on p. S9)
and The would, in this way, becomeits beneficiaries, its supporters. thus occurred withinthe contextof the dismonarchy's development and, in important reorganization the Frenchfeudalaristocracy of the spects,in conflictwith it. Yet, ironically) long-term,unintended the and consequence to reorganize recompose Frenchrulingclass was on a stronger basis. In sum, there was a gradualaccretionof power by the French monarchyby means of conquestand alliance.Especiallyfrom the revenues a prodlaterthirteenth century,the declineof seigneurial and uct of lordly disorganization peasantconquests appearsto stepstowardsa newformof monarchical haveallowedfor significant reorientation the on centralization. Therebegana general,long-term openingthe partof individual lordsaroundthe royaladministration, state witha concomof waytowards construction the tax/office the By of itant strengthening peasantpropertyby the monarchy.95 the earlyfourteenth centurythis evolutionhadonly justbegun,andhad a very long way to go towardscompletion.Therewas, of course,as rule. Long-established a yet nothingresembling unified"absolutist" of furstrong;the creation newappanages banalpotentates remained ther threatened unity. Nonetheless,in retrospect,the basic pattern In had of subsequent development beenestablished. thelongrun,the the surplus extraction servedto reorganize arisgrowthof centralized tocracy:it broughtthe lesser lords into dependenceon royaloffice
(n. 94 cont.)
59
surplus extraction (tax/office) to emphasize noveltyof the new formof centralized the and of associated with the development Frenchabsolutism its conflictwiththe established decentralized form and I still believe this emphasisis vital to graspthe the evolution.Nevertheless, aforementioned specificity the Frenchsocio-economic of the formulation: over-emphasizing pointsof separation phrases leadto a one-sided can and and systemsof surplus extraction betweenthemonarchy andconflictbetweenthe and the aristocracy, whilepassingoverthe pointsof interconnection interpenetration for andthe waythe rise of the one helpedcompensate the declineof the other. original basein the Paris of gs In connection with the consolidation the monarchy's century "Between middleandend of the thirteenth the region,Fourquin concludes: the Ile-de-France freedof serfdom. . . The 'French'ruralcommunity . . . was was century gainthe fixing to by of indisputably strengthened the struggles the thirteenth clearwhen . . . it pushedthe of the tatlleand othercharges.Its powerwas already fromthe seignthe dividingthe peasants motherof St. Louis to arbitrate differences its eurs, and the deathof serfdomin the Parisregionrepresented victory. . . From the of groups. its side, the crownmovedmoreandmoreto reinforce cohesion the rural to authority" werea remarkable counterweight seigneurial Forthe rural communities from parisienne, I89-90. In turn,saysFourquin, pp. Fourquin, Campagnes la region de to "no the end of the reignof St. Louis,the seigneurs longerhaveenoughrevenue live more taxesmakesof the seigneur fromtheirlands,the moreso as the fixingof peasant entryintothe royaladministration andmorea rentier the soil. Theymakea massive of as hereemphasizes risingexpenditures, wellas declining in full expansion". Fourquin ibid., pp. I5I-3. In the financial difficulties: incomes,as the sourceof seigneurial expenerodingincomesandincreased Maconnais was also both peasantresistance it penetration lordshipandopenedthe way to monarchical dltureswhichundermined Duby'swork.For the same p. See Lemarignier, Francemeodievale, 250, summarizing en ii, et processes Picardy,see Fossier,La terre leshommes Picardie, pp. 598ff., 708 in
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themselves inducedthe greaterones to come to court and ally and the with monarchy. of the By contrast,in England,the more advancedorganization the baronsaround of class ruling as a whole, the centralization the powersand of permittedthe reintensification seigneurial monarchy, throughthe later and againstthe peasantry rightsover institutional politicalcoherand twelfth thirteenthcenturies.In this way, lordlyextraction, that surplus feudal ensuredsuccessfuldecentralized ence conceived, broadly theirproperty, serfdom.The lordsthussecured is no signof the both the shortandthe long run. As a result,thereis in France of crisis seigneurialrevenuesevident in thirteenth-century to substitutean emergentsystem in and, turn, thereis no tendency system for surplusextraction an erodingdecentralized centralized of formof rule. riseof an absolutist no embryonic (II.3)THE ONSET OF FEUDAL CRISIS AND ITS FORMS tendency a determined long-term relations Feudalclassorproperty it were, the basic and todecliningproductivity,96 this formed, asof the feudalsocial limitationon the overalldevelopment structural discussion,it At economy. the same time, in light of the foregoing divergentprowillperhapsbe clearerwhy systematicreferenceto is requiredin cessesof feudal class formationin differentregions feudal crisis the orderto understandthe differentways in which the through century fomthe laterthirteenth itself manifested actually pointsin time; its at century:its appearance different mid-fifteenth and causesandcharacteristics; its difimmediate disparate somewhat results. fering Ceiling", its Class-Relative (II.3.I) The "Output-Population Europe in Character Pre-Plague preoccupation Postanand Hatcherberateme for an exaggeratedpeasants,and between lords and with surplusextractionrelations neglect of the economiclimitationsof prowith a corresponding Postan and duction by small peasant producers. In particular, to growthleadingeventually povHatcherpoint out thatpopulation lordnot only of the regionsof entrenched erty was a phenomenon I or non-existent.97 muse ship, but those wherethe manorwas weak concernof at expressa certainamazement this charge,for a central developposed to realeconomic the barriers my essaywas precisely
(cf. on productivity whichBoisandI arein agreement to The tendency declining Europe", in Development Pre-Industrial and Structure Economic Class my "Agrarian rate to declining of feudal pp. 48-50)is not, of course,the samethingas a tendency rent. in and ClassRelations FeudalSociety",pp. 97 Postanand Hatcher,"Population 30-2.
96
AGRARIAN ROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM THE
6I
This peasants.98 basedon small"parcellized" by ment an agriculture nor could it have been obscurely theme, hardlya subterranean was other by for expressed, (as we shallsee) I havebeen attacked several the the groundsthat I haveunderestimated economic-proon critics potentialof the smallpeasantry. ductive which agriculture On the otherhand, althoughthe peasant-based andmuchof earlymodernEuropecouldnot, medieval characterized develto inmy view, sustaina qualitativebreakthrough economic degree a of supporting substantial it opment, was certainlycapable economicgrowth. For this reason,pace Postanand ofquantitative I Hatcher, would argue that the variablestrengthof lord-peasant factorsnlimitingor couldbe a significant relations extraction surplus and economic demographic forpeasant-based the increasing potential Indeed, the facts cited by Postanand Hatcheractually expansion. lordship of The theirownargument. regions weaker to serve undercut they refer could not, as they say, andheavy populationto which demographicexpansion. Continuingpopulation supportunending It povertyandfamirse. to had eventually resultin widespread growth whichthesefreer of population notablethatthe levels is,nonetheless, thanthoseto be found couldanddid supportwerefargreater regions to areasin the sameperiod.According one manorialized inthe highly "thedensityof popuconditions, surveyof thirteenth-century recent ... lationcomputedfor Normandy[wherelordshipwasveryweak] than can possiblybe ascribedto any major was very much higher England [which was, of course, highly provincein contemporary the Similarly, figuresgivenby PostanandHatcher manorialized]".99 nonfor the amountof land per person on the averageplot in the twoEnglish fenland region are somethingbetween manorzalized in minimum to thirdsand one-halfthat considered be the subsistence in are results perhapsunderstandable These manorialEngland.t?? in villeinpeasants the areasof estabthe average viewof the fact that gaveup 50 percent of theirincomeon rent. lishedlordshipnormally whoseresultsconcerning It is worthnotingthatthe veryhistorian andpovertyareemployedby PostanandHatcher population peasaIlt relationship of in orderto playdownthe significance feudalpowersinratherfar in developmenthas gone to economicand demographic drawingquite the oppositeconclusionsfrom theirs. H. E. Hallam . agriculture "advanced argues,in fact,thattheregionof relatively
in Development Pre-Industrial and ClassStructure Economic "Agrarian 98 Brenner, Europe",p. 47. in the Later and in 99N. J. G. Pounds,"Overpopulation France the LowCountries Hlst., iii (I970), p. 239. Soczal MiddleAges", peasant the The minimumplot capableof providingsubsistenceforto IOaverage to 2 2 100 acres by members)is calculated Titow to run from I3-5 minimum (3 family(4 5 subsistence pp. Sociew, 78-83 ff. Titow's Rural Titow,English acres/person): 50 rent assumedto confiscate per to be doubledin size to coveran average plot had ibid., p. 8I. product: of the peasant cent
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where and also was the regionof heavypopulation free institutions,in the In otherwords, the peasants was lordship at a discount''.10l consumpto of areas weaklordshipnot only appear havehadgreater In turn, they seem levies. possibilitiesdue to lowerseigneurial tion per production acrethantheircounterparts haveachievedgreater to more of regionsbecausethey had significantly the in manorialized it is not surprising to surplusat theirdisposal reinvest.In result, their growth potentialwas also correspondingly their demographic that to Indeed,in this light it does not seemfar-fetched interpret greater. densitiesof muchof thirteenth-century population high relatively the in precisely termsof the relative to compared thoseof England France to compared Engextraction surplus and of weakness Frenchlordship in land this period.102 Revenuesandits Results (II.3 2) The Crisisof Seigneurial not take a The crisis of the feudal economy, when it came, did in It does appearthat almosteverywhere form. Malthusian simple or fourteenth Europe,at variouspointsin the laterthirteenth western growth.Indeed an therewas)eventually, endto population centuries, centuryand after seem to have theplaguesof the mid-fourteenth denouementto a processof demographic the marked catastrophic already well under way. Accordingto strict Malthusian decline downturnshould have cured the systhis reasoning, demographic settingoff into line with resources, population ills tem's by bringing thereensued growth.But instead, periodof demo-economic another decline stagnation a long period of economicand demographic and,in someplaces,catastrophe. of aware thisdifficulty. are interpreters certainly The demographic of despitethe contention Postanand Hatcher,it is difNonetheless, framework, ficultto see how it can be resolvedwithin their basic Postanand or "Malthusian" "Ricardian". whetherthis be dubbed trendof dimirreversible argue,"Ifwe acceptthatRicardo's Hatcher and as so far as it remained inishingreturnsoperatedonly so long then the absenceof innouncheckedby investmentand innovation) wouldgo a in of investment medievalagriculture vationand paucity was recovery so slow and long way to explainwhy the late-medieval population 103 tardy". Yet, this seemsto me to beg the question.For
[Australiaand New Zealand], 101H. E. Hallam, "The Postan Thesis", Hist. Studies XV ( I 972), p. 222. also of an abundantpeasantrythusflows from 102 As Neveux argues, "The sutvival of seigneurial positive weakeningof the seigneune . . . [The decline village conquests,a contributed to maintaining a relaexactions thus] diminished the peasants' costs and the exiguity of many plots. Conin the countryside, despite tively dense population Neveux, "Declin sequently, the seigneurs submit to an economic impoverishment": pp. 36 39 (my italics). et reprise", and Class Relations in Feudal Society", p. 29. 103 Postan and Hatcher, "Population to the factor of disease. Ladurie does not make this argument, but simply refers Le Roy
63
drop-offshouldhavebroughtcultivation backoff the marginal to on the good lands and, by this veryprocess, have raisedagricultural to productivity.Correspondingly, higherper capitaincomeof the the peasantryshould have facilitatedgreateragricultural investment. Both of these mechanisms take effect and did ultimatelypower did a new demo-economic upsurge but onlyin the verylongrun, after a lag of at leasta century.The questionis, why the delay? This difficult problemis not yet fully resolved. Nonetheless, I would agreewith Bois that the latermedievalEuropean-wide crisis of seigneurial revenuesand its effectswill have to be a centralcomponentof any adequateinterpretation.104 Decliningaristocratic incomes,sooneror later,broughtdetermined effortseverywhere the on part of the seigneursto recoup their fortunesthrougharistocratic reorganization squeezethe peasants to wageintra-feudal to and warfaremoreeffectively.This was the so-called'4aristocratic reaction", to which I referredat length in my originalessay.105 tended to It causefurtherdisruption the peasantproductive of forces,leadingto additional demographic downturn thusa downward spiralreflecting the disequilibrium betweenthe conflictingneeds of conflicting socialclasses,not justbetweenpopulation resources. and On the otherhand, the seigneurial crisiswas not) as Bois claims, a simpleanddirectoutcomeof a moreor less automatic continuand ous processof "declining of feudallevy", butwasboundup with rate the divergentevolutionsof class relations.In some placesthe crisis of seigneurial incomesprecededpopulationdeclineand was a more or less immediateoutcome of peasantconquestsand the resultant declinein the rateof rent. But elsewhere,whereseigneurial powers and propertyhad remained intactor been strengthened, declining a rateof rentand the seigneurial incomescrisisoccurred only afterthe
104 The persistence the plaguethrough of muchof the fifteenthcenturymustalso be centralto any attemptat explanation. But even acceptingthat the plaguewas undoubtedly important one factorin preventing refluxof population, it proper the is to regard as whollyexogenous? lt This is at leastquestionable. For, as hasoftenbeen pointedout, the outbreakof plagueepidemicstendedto be closelycorrelated with the onsetof famines.In the fifteenth century,famineitselfwasgenerally resultof the the ravagesof war. The fact that the plagueappearsto have struckso lightly in fifteenth-century Flanders,whichenjoyedunusually advanced agriculture which and largelyavoidedthe disruptive effectsof warfare, one piece of pnmafacie evidence is for this connection. Thatthe strength the plagueappears havedeclinedwiththe of to improYed nutrition the massesand the end of the disruption of causedby warfare in laterfifteenth-century Franceis another.On the otherhand,it seemsalsoto be true that the plaguestruckfiercelyin certainplacesand on certainoccasions wherethere appearsto have been no particular sign of malnutrition. Bois, Crisedufeodalisme pp. 278-80;Le Roy Ladurie,C'Masses profondes: paysannerie", 488-97, 5IIla pp. ; Neveux, "Declmet reprise", 9I. p. 105 Brennern "Agrarian ClassStructure EconomicDevelopment Pre-Indusand in trialEurope",p. 5I; Bois) "Against Neo-Malthusian the Orthodoxy", 62, n. 7. I p. do not fully understand Bois accusesme of neglecting declineof seigneurial why the incomesandinsistingon a difference betweenus on thispoint(evenif we arenot fully n accordon the causes).
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downturnin population,which was itself the result partlyof the tendencyof productivity declineand partlyof the persistence to of bubonicplague.At the sametime, becausefeudalsurplusextraction systemshadtakendifferent formsandoperated withdiffering degrees of effectiveness differentplaces, the methodsto which the seignin eurscouldresortin orderto counteract theirincomeproblems varied - with variable consequences short-term for production trendsand long-term economicdevelopment. In northernFrance,the declineof seigneurial revenuesbeganas earlyas the mid-thirteenth century,if not before.106 From the end of the thirteenth century,this decaywasparalleled by anelin part conditioned the rapidriseof centralized monarchical taxation. The latterwas radically intensifiedwith the onset of the HundredYears War.Waritselfmet with the approval manyof the seigneurs, of both largeand small,becauseit could, in variousways, offera wayout of their economicdifficultiesthroughoffice in the state apparatus, or from the fruits of battle, especiallythe ransoming wealthyprisof oners. lshus the state apparatus grew, becamemore effectiveand increased exactions, its with someof the revenues beingusedto offset the intensifiedseigneurial revenuecrisis. Risingtaxation,however, strucka peasanteconomywhich was alreadystretchedto the limit. By the earlyfourteenth century,precisely weakness seigneurial the of levies appears,as noted, to have allowedpeasantpopulation apto proach whatwerecloseto thehighestpossiblelevels,giventhelanded resources level of technique(in anycaselevelsnot to be attained and again,in some places, until the eighteenthcentury).107 a result, As the rising centralized levies had the effect of disrupting production and undermining population.During the middlethirdof the fourteenthcentury,declinebecameprecipitate, with the invasionof foreigntroops,followedcloselyby plague,thenfurther invasions leading to demographic devastation. Nevertheless,demographic drop-offfailedto restoreequilibrium. For it meantfewertaxpayers, loweroverallrevenuesto the seignso eurs, and thus an ever-greater need to recoup.In someplacesseigneurs attemptedto respondafter I350 by tighteningseigneurial controls and increasingdecentralized levies, that is by restrengthening serfdom.108 But, in general,Frenchlordsdid not have this option. The basic responsewas thereforeto encourage,and try to take ad106 See Neveux'scommentthat "The malaise of the seigneurie long term . . . is goingbackat leastto the secondquarter the thirteenth of century": Neveux,"Declin et reprise", 35. SeealsoBois,Crise p. dufeodalisme, 200, 240;Fourquin, pp. Campagnes de la region parisienne, I52. p. 107 Le RoyLadurie, "Masses profondes: paysannerie", 483-5.Seealson. I02 la pp. above. 108 For seigneurialreaction in France via the intensification decentralized of lordship/serfdom, referencesgiven in Brenner,"Agrarian see Class Structure and Economic Development Pre-Industrial in Europe",p. 4I n. 26.
6S
vantageof, the interconnected developmentof intensifiedwarfare, the growth of monarchicaltaxation,and the buildup of the state machine(offices).In consequence,duringthe latterpartof the fourteenthcenturyandthe earlier partof the fifteenth century,increasing taxation increasingly and destructive militarycampaigns, relationin ship to the shrinkingpeasantproductivebase, set off an "infernal cycle"(Bois) of disequilibrium decline)which repeated and itself at intervalsfor a century,and reachedcatastrophic proportions the in I430S and I440S. The acceleration politicalcentralization polof for itical accumulation thus short-circuited needed Malthusian the adjustment,and plungedthe system insteadinto long-termand generalizedcrisis.109 In England,in contrastto France,signs that seigneurial revenues wereunderpressure, stagnating falling)apparently or beganto appear only severaldecadesinto the fourteenthcentury,if then another indication,perhaps,of the relatively well-entrenched positionof the English lords vis-a-vas their peasants.1l0 This was about the same time that populationseems to have reachedits limit and begun to decline,and it is possiblethat the two phenomena related.Even are so) it is hardlycertainthata broadthreatto feudalincomesappeared before the plaguesof the mid-fourteenth centuryand after, which broughta drasticpopulationdrop-off,and thus downward pressure on rents of all kinds. Not surprisingly,these took the form of endeavoursto strengthenlordly politicalorganization orderto use in the alreadyexistingmachinery decentralized of surplusextraction by extra-economic compulsion.Effortsweremadeto holddownpeasant mobility,to set wage ceilings, and to controlintra-lord competition for labour-in order to increase, or at least maintain,old rent levels.111 Thus, contraryto what the demographic interpreters might lead us to expect, populationdrop-offin Englandafter I349 did not in manyplacesbringaboutan immediate,corresponding declinein levies. It is, indeed,in connection withincreasing seigneurial extra-economicpressures andcontrolsoverthe peasants, historians on that have tended to accountfor the maintenance rents at old, pre-plague of levels, sometimeswell into the I380S on variousestatesaroundthe country despitethe drasticdemographic decline.1l2 This partially
109 Bois lays barethe foregoing interconnected processes superbly well in Crise du feodalisme, esp. chs. IO-I3. I am greatlyindebtedto his account.See also Neveux "Declinet reprise",pp. 55 ff. 110 Hilton, "Crisis Feudalism", I2-I3, n. I8. The timingshouldonceagain of pp. be compared thatof France. to Hilton,Decline Serfdom, 35-42 of pp. 112 See, for example,J. Ambrose Raftis, Tenure Mobili: Studies theSocial and in History the MedieualVillage(Toronto, I964), pp. I39- ff.; Hilton, Declim of of Serfdom, 35-42. In Harveys'swords, 'iManyof the tenurialarrangements . . pp. . defiedthe economic realities the time. Rentdid notfallequallywiththedemand of for
(cont. on p.
66)
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attemptto maintainold rent levels in the face of rapidly successful populationmay have caused some dislocationof peasant declining or its undermining ability to recovereconomically deproduction, ratio. This land/labour despite the more favourable mographically of downward have may set in motion, to someextent, the samesort in France,at leastfor a time. as spiral was charted signifiNevertheless,economicdisruptionappearsto have been had density in France.Population less cantly severein Englandthan in France: in not generalreachedsuch high levels as were attainedearlyfourthe levy likely, the high levelsof seigneurial through very expansion. the centuryprevented samedegreeof demographic teenth in (rentsplus taxes)increase England did Nor the rateof feudallevy to have done in I350 to anythinglike the extent it appears after Nor did the Engnot and France, certainly for any extendedperiod. in of sufferthe devastations warexperienced France, countryside lish Warwas foughton Frenchsoil.1l3Morethe since HundredYears reaction by over, the earlypartof the fifteenthcenturythe seigneurial mobility. as well as peasant failed,brokenby peasantresistance, had Englishdecenof is (This an indicationperhapsof the inferiority the and howeverwell-organized unisurplusextraction, formof tralized sysFrenchcentralized with the newly emergent fied,in comparison especially under the tem of surplus extraction (tax/office) ages.) The of of conditions relativedepopulation the later middle economic,conlordscould extractonly much lower, now basically state tax of rents. There was no development a centralized tractual whole was forcedto recouptheirinThe rulingclass as a machine. and ulticomesby othermeans- by foreignmilitaryinterventions been it mayhave civil war. Ironically, small-scale) mately(relatively up surplus to of the long-terminability the Englisharistocracy step by intenforce vis-a-visthe peasantry by extraction extra-economic short-terrn sifyingserfdom,combinedwith the Englishlords'merely abroad, by militarymeans success in solving their financialcrisis thatwereexperiwhichpreventedthe sortof economiccatastrophes in placeson the Continent this period. encedin some Medieval In east ElbianGermany,there is still anotherpattern. to have in development this areaappears and demographic economic trends,due to its heavy been stronglyinfluencedby west European fromthe west. As a result,the timingof the relianceon colonization delayed;it crisis in east Germanyappearsto have been somewhat outcome and it had a verydifferent differentform; took a somewhat downand stagnation ultimately fromthatin the west. Demographic
(n. 112 cont.) to be askedfor, andto pay, rents landafterI 348) if theyfell at all; villeinscontinued holdingon had monks of Westminster no hope of exactingfrom tenants Ages,p. that the in Abbeyandits Estates theMiddle terms":Harvey,Westminster contractual 268, andalsopp. 262-4. p. Orthodoxy", 65. the Neo-Malthusian 113 Bois, "Against
67
turnin east Germany seems to havefollowedupon the end of populationgrowthin the west, andit manifested itselfrather clearlyin the laterfourteenthcenturywith the dryingup of colonization.1l4 This naturally poseda greatthreatto seigneurial incomes.For, in the east, developmenthad taken place on the basis of what was perforcea highly attentuated form of lordship.The problemfor the lordswas to makeprofitable unsettledlands.They hadhadlittle choice,therefore, but to offer peasantsettlersfavourable terms:fixed dues and free status(the so-called"Germanic Law"). Still, so long as population grew, both lords and peasantscould benefitin a situationof plentifulland.115 Undertheseconditions,thereappears havebeen to little incentivefor the developmentof the lords' self-organization) centralization purposesof "politicalaccumulation". for States remained, by and large, extremelyweak and the nascentaristocracy was notoriously disorganized, incoherent,undisciplined. But from the laterfourteenthcentury,population growthsharply decelerated. contrast In withthewest, theexplanation thisappears for only to a slightextentconnectedwith problems decliningproducof tivity; for in the east there were still masses of unsettledland to colonize.It wasin partthe plagues,but apparently aboveallthe sharp slow-downof immigration, consequentupon the generalized demoeconomicdownturnin the west, which set off in the east the same sort of cycle of declinewhich was alreadytakingplacein the west, with correspondingly disruptiveeconomicand demographic consequences.Lordsexperienced decliningrevenues,and they attempted to respond by taking "extra-economic" measures. Lacking any well-developed centralizedstate apparatus turn to (for enhanced to incomefrom officesand taxation),the lordsof easternEuropetried to increasetheir exactionsfrom the peasantryby intensifyingserfdom. At the same time, they stepped up their attacksupon one another,whilelargelydismantling whatlittle therehadbeenof monarchiesor unifiedstates (the decayof the TeutonicOrderin the fifteenth centuryis only the most spectacular case in point). Finally, theyorganized warexternally, the devastations the military for and of campaigns appearto havehad particularly disruptive effectson pro114 F. L. Carsten,TheOrigins Prussia(Oxford, I954), pp. IOI-2, Il4 and, in of general,ch. 8; Postan,"Economic Relations betweenEastern Western and Europe" p. I49: M. Malowist, "TheEconomic SocialDevelopment the BalticCountries and of from the Fifteenthto the Seventeenth Centuries", Econ. Hist. Reu., 2nd ser., xii (I959), p. I8I. It shouldnot be assumed that population downturn universal was in north-eastern Europein the latermiddleages. For example,Poland,in contrastto easternGermany(Mecklenberg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Prussia),may not have experienced serlousbreakin its demographic any growththroughthe sixteenth century. I. Giezysztorowa, "Research into the Demographic Historyof Poland:A ProvisionalSumming Up," ActaPoloniae historica, (I968), pp. IO-I I, andpassim. xviii 115 For a recent discussion,see At. Malowist,"Problemsof the Growthof the National Economy Central-Eastern of Europe the LaterMiddleAges",.{1. in European Econ.Htst., iii (I974), pp. 322-9. See alsoCarsten, Origins Prussia. of
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ductionandpopulation. Theirrevenues furtherthreatened, lords the maderenewedattemptsto recoupat the expenseof the peasants and one another leadingto the familiar downward spiralof eco-demographicdisequilibrium decline.1l6 and III
THE OUTCOME OF FEUDAL CRISIS AND SUBSEQUENT PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT
From the middle of the fifteenth century, in much of western Europe,the conditionsmakingfor crisis finallyreceded,and there wasa new periodof economicupturn.Peasant cultivation drawn had back on to the better lands, makingfor the potentialof increased productivity; incidenceand destructiveness civil and external the of warfareseems to have abatedsomewhat,reflecting perhapsthe exhaustion and temporarydisarrayof the nobility; the levels of ruling-class exactionsfromthe peasants appear havedeclinedcorto respondingly,at least temporarily; and the impact of the plagues appearsto have diminished.There occurreda new periodof populationincreaseand expansion cultivation, of leadingto the growthof productionwith a concomitant increasein the incomesof both the lordandpeasant classes.The consequent growthin demand provided the basis for a new era of expansionof Europeancommerce.The latterreachedfarbeyondits previouslimits, especially the Amerito casandoverthe searouteto the east. In important respects,however, the Europeancommercial economyof the earlymodernperiod retainedmuch of its medievalcharacter. remainedheavilyfocused It on the productionof high-qualitytextiles (now made especiallyin Englandand Holland),as well as wine (fromFrance),supplemented by silksandspicesbroughtin fromthe east.Thesegoods,whichwere heavily,thoughnot solely, orientedtowardruling-class consumption were, grosso modo,exchanged basicfood products,suppliedby a for radically expanding grainmarket,nowprofoundly involving agrithe cultureof easternEurope. It was my argumentthat the divergenteconomicresponses,in differentEuropean regions,to the opportunities dangers and opened up by the new periodof economicexpansionwere criticallycondi116 Carsten, Origins Prussia,ch. 8; M. Biskup, "PolishResearch of Workon the Historyof the TeutonicOrderStateOrganization Prussia", in ActaPoloniae historica ii (I960), pp. 95-9, whereare summarized, particular, in the studieson the question of the manpower shortage Prussia thefifteenth in in century B. Geremek. by Geremek emphasizes importance warfare causingthe demographic the of in declinein the early fifteenthcentury:B. Geremek,"Manpower Problemin Prussiain the First Half of the FifteenthCentury" Polish),Przeglad (in historyczny, fasc.2 (I957). I wishto xlviii thankMs. KashaSeibertfortranslating articleforme. See, to a similar this effect,H. HelmutWachter,Ostpreussische Domanenvorwerke I6 undI7 3'ahrhundert im (Wurzburg, I958), p. I5-
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tioned by the agrarian propertysettlements,the systemsof surplus extraction,which emergedfrom the crisisof seigneurial incomesof the latermedievalperiod.These settlements themselves represented, to a significant degree,the outcomeof divergent long-term processes of agrarian class formationand class conflict processesin which the peasantryof the differentregions of Europehad been able to limit, to a greateror lesserdegree,the formand the strengthof the structures which could be developedby the rulingclassto extracta surplusto ensure their reproduction. the same time, it appears At that in every case the rise of serfdomin easternEurope,the rise of absolutismin connectionwith the consolidation peasantpropof erty in France,the development classically of capitalistrelations on the land in connectionwith the emergence a new formof unified of statein England-the newlyemergentsystemsof surplusextraction manifesteda significantly higher level of ruling-class self-organization, of self-centralization, had previously than been attained that in region-and may thus be seen, at least from one angle, to marka continuation, not a culmination, the generalfeudaltendencyin if of this direction.Finally,the differentsystemsof property whichwere established were responsible,in my view, for structuring widelydivergentpatterns economicevolutionin the different of regions-the impositionsof different forms of agricultural involutionand ultimately"generalcrisis"on most of the Continent,the criticalbreakthroughto self-sustaining growthin England. (III.I)
THE ROOTS OF THE DIVERGENCES
(III.I.I) The Rise and Decline of Serfdom: EastversusWest For some reason Postan and Hatcherdeny that the population drop-off,especially fromthe fifteenthcentury,andthe accompanying threatto seigneurial incomes,wasa critical inducement the movefor ment towardsenserfingthe peasantsin east ElbianGermany the use of "extra-economic" jurisdictional rights in order to extracta surplusin the face of demographically induceddownward pressures on rents and upwardpressureon wages.1l7Nonetheless, it is no coincidencethat in Prussia,for example,the firstin a long seriesof governmental ordinancesaimingto strengthenlordlycontrolsover the peasantry (especiallyby limitingmobilityin variousways), so as to buttresslordlyrent exactions,was issued in the wakeof the first sharpdemographic lossesthatcamewith the warsof the firstdecades of the fifteenthcentury.Theseordinances explicitly referto the shortage of labouras theirjustification explanatiorl. and 118
117 PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety", 27; and in p. see alson. I6 above. 118 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, ch. 8; Geremek,"Manpower Problem Prussia", in
passtm.
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Moreover,despitewhatPostanandHatcherimply,thereseemsto be agreementamong historiansthat during the second half of the fifteenthcenturythe lordsbeganto succeedin subjecting Prussian the peasantsto more severecontrolsand heavierdues in theface of, and despite, sharply reduced population levels.Certainly, riseof serfdom the in easternGermany not dependupona new periodof population did upturn;serfdomhad been firmlyestablished long beforepopulation began to rise again, towardsthe middle of the sixteenthcentury. Precisedata is difficultto come by. But, for example,in Samland, wherethe seigneurial offensivewaspursuedearlyandvigorously, we know that the population I525 remained in approximately one-third belowits level of I400. Yet, in the intervening period,serfdomhad been intensifiedand had becomea fact of life for a largesectionof the peasantry the region.ll9 It was, of course,this installation of of serfdomin east Germanyunder conditionsof demographic slump which led me to call into question the widely held view that the corresponding population drop-off westernEuropecould,in itself, in haveaccounted the accompanying for declineof serfdom. To begin to explain why the lords of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century westernEuropewereunableto respondto the seigneurialrevenuecrisisby strengthening serfdom,despite attempts their to do so, while theircounterparts east ElbianEuropewereindeed in able to succeed, my accountfocusedon the relatively recentdevelopmentof the latterregion,andespecially colonialcharacter. its The lords of north-eastEurope easternGermany,as well as Poland had led andcontrolled fromthe starta belatedprocessof agrarian development, imposing"artificial", rationally out formsof peaslaid antsettlement.In contrast,theircounterparts westernEuropehad in to impose their power "from the outside", againstpeasantcommunitieswhichwerelongerestablished betterorganized with and
119 Heide Wunder,who in her critique(see below)is concerned emphasize to the simllarlty betweeneastandwest German developments the end of the middleages at nonetheless summarizes evolutionin the eastfromthe laterfifteenth the centuryin a waywhichbringsoutits distinctiveness: groups[among peasantry] them"All the saw selvesconfronted a sociallevellingof the previous by rural socialorder,whichbrought with it socialinsecurity.Thetendency thissociallevelling downwards, reverse of was the therefore theupward of levelling tendency thefourteenth since century . . The peasants . and freemensoughtby meansof theirrebellion[I525] to reversethis levellingprocess . . .": H. Wunder,"TheMentality Rebellious of Peasants: Samland The Peasant Rebellionof I525", in B. Scribner G. Benecke(eds.), TheGerman and PeasantWar of I525. New Viewpoints (London,I979), p. I55 (myitalics).For further material on population declineandthe deterioration the peasants' of positionin the laterfifteenth century,see H. Wunder,"ZurMentalitat aufstandischer Bauern: Moglichkeiten der Zusammenarbeit Geschichtswissenschaft Anthropologie, von und dargestellt Beisam piel des samlandischen Bauernaufstandes I525", Geschichte Gesellschaft, von und SonderheftI, Derdeutsche Bauernkrieg, I524-ISX6 (I975), pp. 22, 32; H. Wunder, "Der samlandische Bauernaufstand I525: Entwurffur eine sozialgeschichtliche von Forschungsstrategie", R. Wohlfeil(ed.), DerBauernkrieg, in I524-IS26: Bauernkrieg und Reformation (Munich,I975), pp. I53, I62-3; Geremek, "Manpower Problem Prusin Sla", pp. 23I-2 ff.
7I
establishedtraditionsof (often successful)strugglefor their rights. As a result, the easternlordshad the possibilityof solvingtheirrevenue problemsthroughenserfingthe peasants,whereasthis option was foreclosedto those in the west by the relatively greaterstrength of the westernpeasants.The easternlords actuallywere able to accomplishthis task largelyby meansof politically reorganizing themselves, especiallythroughdevelopingnew formsof feudalstate.120 Heide Wunderfindsthis accountcontradictory. the east Elbian If German peasantswere, at the start,by my own admission,the freest in westernEurope,how could they also be so ripe for enserfment? Wunderpoints especiallyto the fact that the east Elbianpeasants receivedfrom their lords, upon their settling, very broadgrantsof liberties. 121 Thereis in my view, however,nothinginconsistent aboutarguing that peasantscould gaininitiallyexcellentconditions,yet remainessentiallyweak as a class over and againstthe lords. The lords were obligedto offer favourable termsto inducecoloniststo settle, andit was in theirinterestto do so. Indeed, so long as they couldattracta steady flow of new settlers to open as yet uncultivatedland, they could, over an extended period, take a relaxedapproachto their peasants,benefitingfromincreased landsin production perhaps and improved productivity, whileavoidingthe costsof coercion.Yet this does not gainsaythe fact that these conditionswere granted the by lords(fortheirown reasons),thatthe peasants received themfromthe lords. This was a very differentprocessfromthatwhichoccurred in manyplacesin the west, wherethe peasants oftenextracted gains their fromthe lords by meansof successfulresistance,requiring selfthe organization the communityovera verylong run. In consequence of thepeasants the eastwereat a disadvantage in whenthe lordschanged their policy in the directionof greaterexactionsand controls,122 in orderto dealwith theirproblemof labourscarcity. 123
120 Brenner,"Agrarian ClassStructure EconomicDevelopment Pre-Indusand in trialEurope",pp. 56-60. 121 Wunder, "Peasant Organization ClassConflict EastandWestGermany", and in p. 48. 122 For cases in the west where the lords successfully made similarreversals in policy, see Searle,Lordship Communit,pp. 45-68; Duby, RuralEconomy and and Countty in theMedieval Life West,pp. I I 3-I4. 123 In this light, Wunder's referenceto the Handfeste the originalsettlement contracts whichgranted eastGerman the peasants theirfreedoms seemsto missthe point;forit appears confusethe questionofformal to rights(granted attract to settlers) withactualsocialandpowerrelations. Handfeste The manifested lords'initialneed the for labour,but they tell us littleaboutthe subsequent evolution forces.A historian of of the regionhasdrilyremarked theHandfeste: of "theircontentis of analmostbarren similarity, the lastonethatonereadssayshardly and moreaboutthelegalrelationships of the vlllagecommunitythan does the first one". By contrast,the granting the of peasant charters the west, the Weistumer, of reflectin general outcome a process the of of struggle,constituting directevidencethat the peasantshad won their demands. Wunder,"Peasant Organization ClassConflictin East and West Germany", and p. 49; H. Patze, "Die deutschebauerliche Gemeinde", T. Mayer(ed.), Die Anfange in tler Landgemeinde ihrWesen, vols. (Stuttgart, und 2 I964), i, p. I50.
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As to the long-termbasisfor the relatively weakerpositionof the peasantsvis-a-visthe lords in east as comparedto west Germany, Wunderhas rightlypointedout that my referenceto the spreadin the east of the particular Waldhufen of villagecommunity in type which peasantproduction was organized a significantly on moreindividualistic less communally and regulated basisthanelsewhere can provideat best partof the explanation. For, as she states,these werefar fromuniversalin the region.124 Nonetheless,Wunderdoes seem to agreethat settlementin the west was far denserthanin the east. Nor does she appearto disputethe fact that in the west there was quite commonlya lack of correspondence betweenvillageand lordship,while, in contrast,a one-to-onelord-to-village relationship wasthe normin the east. This disparity betweenlordship village and in the west led to divided authorityand gave the westernpeasants certainpotentials manoeuvre for apparently unavailable theireastto ern counterparts. west European The peasants couldstandunitedas a villageagainsta lordwho couldclaimjurisdiction overonly partof the village or, put anotherway, againstlordswhose jurisdiction over the villagewas dividedand perhapscompetitive.In addition, the peasantscould, and did, more easily develop solidarityacross villagesthan could the variouslordsof these villages,who mightbe frustratedand disorganizedby the maze of separatejurisdictions throughwhich they, individually,dominatedthe villagers.These differences whichput the east European peasantry a disadvantage at relativeto theirwest European counterparts seemto be connected do with the later developmentof the regionand its development a as colonialarea. Indeed, the lords directoperation the colonization of processin the east appears haveallowedthem, consciously unto or consciously,to establisha pattern settlement of whichin the longrun facilitated theirdomination overthe region'seconomy. I attemptedto give furtherindications the possiblesignificance of for subsequentdevelopmentof the differentialevolutionsof lordpeasantrelations eastas compared west Europeby showingthat in to the onlyareain eastern Germany wheretherewasa significant peasant outbreakat the time of the GreatPeasantWarsin I525 that is, east Prussia had experienced agrarian an evolutionwhich distinguishedboth its lordandpeasantclassesfromthoseof the restof the region.The TeutonicKnightswho settledeast Prussiacarried a out highlydistinctivepolicy of colonization development. much and As as possible they aimed to build their regimedirectlyupon peasant producers to forestallthe emergence a lordlyor knightlyclass and of which might provecompetitive.It seemslikely that this madefor a peasantry the Teutoniclandswhichwasmorestrongly in entrenched
124 Wunder, "Peasant Organization ClassConflict EastandWestGermany", and in PP 49-50.
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When, than those of the other regionsof east ElbianGermany.125 disinteduringthe fifteenthcentury,the TeutonicOrdergradually grated and a new class of knightly landownersbegan to establish mayhavefoundsometemporthemselvesin its place, this peasantry elsewherein unavailable its counterparts to ary room to manoeuvre easternGermany.126 thatthe to Furthermore, pace Wunder,it appears me no accident PeasantRevolt of I525 in east Prussiawas centredin Samland,for this areawas dominatedby Prussianpeasants,with cohesivecomcolmunitieswhich had a long historythat precededthe Germans' unaffected that by relatively onizationprocess,and which remained communities werethe process.Wunderdoes admitthatthe Prussian most thickly populatedin the east. However,she arguesthat they cannotbe consideredstrong,for the politicallibertiesgrantedto the than Prussianpeasantsby the TeutonicOrderwereless far-reaching to settlersin the sameterritory. thosewhichweregranted the German rightswith evidence But this is again,in my view, to confuseformal comof actualsocialrelationships of socialpower.127The Prussian at and munitiesretainedsome of theirold solidarities the communal In for extra-communal level, andthis gavethemresources resistance. particular, there seems to be evidencethat the older organizational by formswere maintained the Prussianpeasants,not only the Pruspeasants elite betweenthe Prussian sian freemen(the big "peasant" and Teutonicknightsto whom Wunderwishesto call specialattention).128 any case all evidence,includingthat offeredby Wunder In the settlersbarelypenetrated (see below), indicatesthat the German colonization Samlandregion. As Wenskusconcludes,"the German had only very little influence,so that the old Prussianrelationships werelong able to remainundisturbed''.129 Continuing criticismalongthe sameline, Wunderarguesthat her in "all sectionsof the peasantry this multi-ethnicregion[Samland] peasants, peasants,the Prussian tookpartin the rising the German freemen. . .".130 But surelythis is misleading. andalsothe Prussian
Hen125 Carsten, Origins Prussia,pp. 54, 57-78, 60-I, 70-3; Friedrich-Wilhelm of der Beitrage Geschichte Herrschaftsverzur ning, Herrschaft Bauernuntertanigheit: und Paderborn I800 von Bereichen Ostpreussens desFurstentums und haltnisse denlandlichen in (Wurzburg, I964), pp. 36-7. Bauernaufof Wunder,"Samlandische 126 Carsten,Origins Prussia,pp. 89-I48Bauern", 29-32; Henpp. aufstandischer stand",pp. I62-3; Wunder,"ZurMentalitat pp. ning, Herrschaft Bauernuntertanigheit, 4I-9 ff. und in Organization ClassConflict EastandWestGermany", and 127 Wunder, "Peasant
Pp. 5 I -2. bei des und 128 R. Wenskus, "Kleinverbande Kleinraume denPrussen Samlandes" i, der und in Mayer(ed.), Anfange Landgemeinde ihrWesen, pp. 220, 227-32. evidenceto sameeffect, see her "ZurMentalitat 129 Ibid., p. 202. For Wunder's p. aufstandischer Bauern", 22 andn. 53. in Organization ClassConflict EastandWestGermany", and 130 Wunder, "Peasant p. 5I-
Wunderhas elsewhere analysed participants the revolt.By her the in evidence,thereseem to havebeen about2,500 who took partin the peasants' army.It seemslikely, she says, thatalnost all of the 300 or so Prussian freemenresidentin Samland wherethe revolt basedwere active. On the other hand she also points wasmostly out number of Germanpeasants participatingcannot have that "the togetherthat great, in that relativelyfew Germannew been alsettlements were present, [and those] primarily the easterly in area" (whereasthe revoltwas centredin the westernpartterritorial of Samland).l3l This leads unavoidablyto the conclusionthat the majorityof the activistsin the revoltweremerePrussian peasants.I see no reasonto contestWunder's view thatthe Prussian freemen-who constituted a distinctlayerin the population with unusuallybroadpoliticaland commercial connectionsbeyondthe villages-played izing role in the rising. Nevertheless,I do not see howa key organthe position of leadership theyapparently assumed anywayrunscounterto my in argument concerning significance relatively the of strongly organized Prussian communities; seemsmerelyto amplifyit. it But the main point is that Wunder'scritiquefails tocome to termswith the centralissuesat stake.In almostentirely I525 therewere massive peasant revoltsthroughout muchof westGermany, none but ineast Germany,with the one exception (Samland) which I reto ferred. Why was there, relatively,so little oppositionin the compared the west?Why did oppositiondevelopin the east, as to Samland Prussian peasant communities,but virtuallynowhereelse? After all,at this time the free Germanpeasantsof the east Elbianregion ingeneraland Prussiain particular the peasantry both big and small were also undergoinga significant deterioration their in position.l32 did they not rebel?Finally,the key Why question:why was that in west Germany long-term it the trenchwarfare peasant of communities the lordsleft the peasantry with with some90 per cent of landandonly minorduesowedto their the immediate lords,while in eastthe tableswereturnedandserfdom the rosewitha vengeance? Wunderrefersto the graintradeas the basicconditionfor the rise of serfdom eastern in Germany. alsopointsout thatfromthe later She middle ages the seigneurs'problemsof decliningrevenues forced them seek new solutions.l33 to However,she does not explainwhy enserfing peasants a viableoptionforthe east the was lords, when does not appearto have been one for theirEuropean it counterparts in the west, who had similarproblemsandsimilarincentives. Afterall,
131 Wunder,"ZurMentalitat aufstandischer p. "Kleinverbande Kleinraume", 202-3. Bauern", 22 andn. 53; Wenskus, und pp. 132 Wunder,"Zur Mentalitat aufstandischer Bauern",p. 32; Wunder,"Samlandische Bauernaufstand", I63. p. 133 Wunder, "Peasant Organization ClassConflict EastandWestGermany", and in PP 53-4
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the opportunities arisingfrom the developinggrainmarket,as well as the problems decliningseigneurial of revenues,presented same the powerfulincentives from Normandyto Poland and beyond. Yet, despite their attempts, the lords of western Europenowheresucceededin re-establishing serfdom.Indeed,in someplacesit was the peasants,andnot the lords,who consolidated theirpositionandwho therebygained access to the expandinggrainexportmarkets.It is oddthatin his contribution Postancouldalsofallbackuponthe grain tradeto explainthe differentdevelopments east andwest Europe, in since he has devoted so much of his own work to demolishingthe notionof a directcorrelation betweenthe development commerce of and either the emergenceor the declineof serfdom and since he has only veryrecentlyexplicitlydeniedthatthe distinctive evolution in the east can be explainedby the world commercein grain.134 Economicneedsor desirescannotexplaintheirown satisfaction, nor canopportunities accountfor the capacity takeadvantage them. to of As Postanwrites, "The divergence betweenEastand West . . . was not, however, the result of spontaneouseconomicchange;it was broughtaboutby the exerciseof the landlords' power".135 In fact, the lordsof easternEuropewere, in the end, ableto enserf the peasantsonly by means of steppingup the level of their own political organization.The crisis of seigneurialrevenueshad led, sooneror later,to the disintegration eventhe strongest of monarchies of medievaleasternEurope, leavingno potentialfor the growthof absolutismin the east. Instead,we find a dual development taking place throughoutthe region from the later medievalperiod. First, there was a long-termdevelopmentof intra-lordly cohesionat the localandprovincial levels. This wasclassically manifested Poland, in with the growingstrengthandimportance the localandprovincial of diets. Secondly,there was the consolidation lordlypowerat the of nationallevel throughthe rise of the estates, a phenomenon which was nearlyuniversalin easternEurope.In creatingthese governing institutions,the lords of easternEuropeconstructed formof state a peculiarly appropriate their rathersimpleneeds. It was a formin to which they could representthemselvesin the most immediateand direct way, and throughwhich they could make certainthat their rights over their land and peasantswere protected,while ensuring that the costs of any state administrative apparatus could be kept to a minimum(a task naturallycomplicatedby their tendencyto involvement warfare). It was,finally,a formof statewhichdiffered in 136 significantly from those which were emergingthroughoutmost of
See n. I6 above. Postan "Economic Relations betweenEastern Western and Europe", I74. p. J. Bariach, "Gouvernants gouvernes Pologneau moyenageet auxtemps et en modernes", Recueils la Societe3tean de Bodin,xxv (I965), pp. 255-85, esp. pp. 273-4; Carsten, Ortgtns Prussta) I2. of ch.
34 35 136
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westernEurope.Nonetheless,it was similarto the statesof the west in one crucialrespect:thatis, in manifesting qualitative a advance in the self-consciousness self-organization the aristocracy, adand of an vance apparentlyeverywherenecessaryto ensure the aristocracy's continuingdominance capacityfor reproduction, the wakeof and in the seigneurialcrisis and peasantresistanceof the later medieval period. The easternlords'politicalreorganization allowedthemto benefit fromthe trans-European economicupturnof the sixteenthcentury. But their increasedcapacity for surplus extractionby means of extra-economic compulsion for "political and accumulation" created the potential,overthe longerrun, for economicdisruption. Agricultural growth on the basis of expandingdemesnes and increasing labourservicesofferedonly the most restricted possibilitiesfor development.By the I560S and I570S, Poland's national outputappears to have reachedits outer limit (not to be attainedagain until the eighteenthcentury). From this point onwards,the growth of the lords' product depended upon redistributivemeasures and was achievedlargelyby increasing size of the demesnes the directlyat the expense of the peasants'plots, therebyerodingthe system'schief productive forces(peasant labourandanimals).Poland's experience, moreover,appearsto have typifiedthat of the north-east European region. Precipitately decliningproductivity everywhere calledforth the familiar"political" remedies.Increased levies on the peasantry, intensifiedstruggleswithin the rulingclasses,and externalwarfare issued in economicregression the east European and versionof the "general crisisof the seventeenth century". 137 (III.I.2) The Rise of Capitalist PropertyRelationson the Land: EnglandversusFrance Bois, for all his disagreements,accepts my argumentthat the emergenceof differentclass-productive structuresin Englandand Francelay behindtheirdivergentpatternsof economicevolutionin the earlymodernera and he accepts,in part, my accountof the historicalroots of these developments.Bois appearsto agreethat a successfuldrive towardsundermining possessingpeasantry the and establishing capitalist classrelations behindthe transformation lay of agriculture risingagricultural and productivity earlymodernEngin land. He also agreesthat the consolidation productionbasedon of smallpeasant possessors, especially relationship now-centralized in to
137 A. Maczak,"Export Grain of and the Problemof Distribution NationalInof comein the YearsI550-I650", ActaPoloniae historica, (I968); J. Topolski,"La XViii regression economique Polognedu XVI'auXVIII'siecles", en ActaPoloniae historica Vii (I962)- L. Zytkowicz, "AnInvestigation Agricultural of Production Masovia in in the First kalf of the I7th Century", ActaPoloniaehistorica, (I968); E. Le Roy XViii Ladurie J. Goy, Tithes Agrarian and and Histoty (Cambridge, I982), pp. I22-3.
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surplusextraction the absolutiststate(as well, we shouldadd, as by the "squeezing" landlords tenantswherethe formerownedthe by of land), was responsiblefor continuing agricultural stagnationand eventuallyagrarian crisis in France.138 thrustof his criticism, The however,is that these divergentevolutionsbecomecomprehensible only when interpreted light of his overallschemafor feudaldevelin opment,centredon the tendencyto a fallingrateof feudalrent. France. As I did in my essay, Bois links the failureof French agriculture respondmore successfullyto the rise of pricesand of to markets the earlysixteenthcenturylargelyto the entrenched in position of the peasantry.But Bois's interpretation the latterreveals, of in my view, the mechanistictendencyof his overallapproach.He says, "thepeasants resistedexpropriation betterthanelsewhere, here becausethe tenantswere alreadybeginningto appearas proprietors (aneffect,in thefinal analysis, ofthelong-termfall therate levy)". in of 139 It seems to me that Bois's causalchainis here set out backto front. The fallingrateof feudallevy which the lordswereunableto counteractin the first partof the sixteenthcenturywas theresult, the not cause,of the peasants'increasinglyeffective proprietorship the in land. This proprietorship not, of course,a new development was in the sixteenthcentury,but represented outcomeof a long process the wherebythe lords'variouslevieswerefixedandthe peasants' tenure becamehereditary. Indeed,already the latterpartof the thirteenth by century,censtenurehad been recognized tantamount full propas to ertythroughmuchof the northof France. Andwhatof the sources 140 of this proprietorship? professesdisdainat my accounting it, Bois for in part, throughreferenceto the long historyof strugglesof peasant communities the Continent on againstaninitiallydisorganized feudal rulingclass. Yet, can he reallyproposea "fallingrateof feudallevy" apartfromthis historyof struggleandits effects? Bois impliesthat the securityof tenureof the Frenchpeasantry in the sixteenthcenturymay be explainedfurtherby a certainlaxityon the part of the lords, attributable, turn, to the benefitssome of in them could derivefromthe absolutiststate. He saysthat "the lords, who had found some measureof salvation the serviceof the state, in were less inclined than elsewhere to explore new economic avenues''.14lNonetheless, this formulation misleading.For the is lords' "inclinations" were structuredby their class position in particular, their limited by capacity exert class poweragainstthe to peasants.
138 Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 6I-2; Bois, Crisedufeopp. daltsme, 347, and "Conclusion p. generale". 39 Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 66 (my italics). p. 140 Fourquin, Lordship Feudalism, I89-92; Fourquin, and pp. Campagnes la region de partstenne, I 75-6, I 79. pp. 141 Bois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 66 (myitalics). p.
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Whatevertheir access to revenuesfrom state office, the French lords would, in any case, certainlyhave wishedto expropriate their peasanttenants.For this was the onlywaythey couldpositionthemselves to raise rents from their land. As it was, powerfulpeasant tenuredetermined hereditarily fixeddues, thus exiguousand, in the face of inflation,decliningcustomaryrents-"a decliningrate of feudallevy". As Bois himselfpoints out, duringthe earlysixteenth centurythe lordsmadesystematic powerful and attempts evicttheir to tenants. Yet, as a rule, they were unableto succeed, in largepart becauseof the strengthof the peasantry,sometimesmanifestedin successfulpeasantrevolts.142 It was preciselythe ensconcedposition of the peasantrywhich compelled lords to turn to the state for revenues.Manyof them the had only smalldemesnes.And they couldnot, locallyand individually, successfully raiselevieson customary tenures.To extracta surplus fromthe customary peasantry, lordshad to turnto the conthe centrated powerof the stateapparatus (tax/office). The lords'involvement withstateofficeandtaxation had,however, furtherimportantimplicationsfor the strengthof the peasantry in the localities(especially securityof peasanttenures),thus for the the lords' abilitiesto expel them from the land, and ultimatelyfor the economicpotentialof peasantproduction. as the lordsturnedto For state office and state taxation,they tended throughthat processto strengthen overallpowerof the monarchical the adminstration, and thusmonarchical jurisdiction. resultwasto clip the wingsof the The lords'localjurisdiction, furtherreducing theirabilityto moveagainst peasantpossessors.As Bois is obligedto admit,although"the state remains,for the most part, the instrumentof feudalism",it is also thecasethatthe "useto whichthisinstrument actually served was put in the long termto weakenfeudalism competing by with directseigneurialextraction". This was, of course,the pointI triedto make 143 (andfor whichI was nevertheless chastisedby Bois). Now, Croot and Parkerdeny that the French monarchywas a significant forcefor peasantprotectionand go so far as to deny that Frenchpeasants stronger had property rightsthantheirEnglishcounterparts.But ratherthan offeringevidencefor their position, they
142 Cooper therefore is wrongto attemptto use evidencegathered Boisto prove by that lordscouldindeedexpel theirtenants.He confusesthe desire do so with the to abiliwto do so. Cooper,"In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 37. As Bois states: p. "WhatI wasableto observein Normandy fullyaccords withhis [Brenner's] analysis: fromI 520-30onecanseethebeginnings a tendency of towards expulsion peasant the of farmers faintechoof theBritish (a enclosure movement), whichin theendencountered fiercepeasantresistance . . This is the sameclassstruggleas occurred England, . in but the resultis different becausethe peasantry Franceprovedto be verystrong": in Bois, "Againstthe Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 62. For a nearlyidentical p. statement, see Bois, Cnsedufeodalisme, 347. p. 143 QuotefromBois, "Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxyf', I2 n. I2. p.
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content themselveswith pointing out that, in the long run, royal taxationof the land had the effect of ruiningpart of the French 144 This is just what I myselfasserted. But it simplydoes peasantry. taxationunderminedpeasant not follow that becausemonarchical judicialinover the long run), thatmonarchical property(especially peasant rights,thusprotecting did tervention not alsoenforcepeasant property. In fact, Crootand Parkernever begin to come to termswith the to variousways in which the stateintervened supportpeasantproperty in France(whichis odd, in view of theirwillingnessto believe in implicitlyin the state'sactionto supportthe peasantry England). period,notablyduringthe the In the firstplace,throughout medieval of and devastation landdesertions the fifteenth epochof demographic century, the monarchyappearsto have played a powerfulrole in land affirmingthe integrityof the cens. Greatmassesof customary wereleft unoccupiedat this time. But it was difficultfor the lordsto would, in effect, absorbthem to their demesnes,for the monarchy who couldprove peasants standup for the rightseven of long-absent heirs of theyhadonce been occupants the tenures,or evenlegitimate for of formeroccupants.Indeed, it was necessary the crownto pass a series of acts in the fifteenthcentury, merelyto provideenough to assurance the lordsto allowthem to resettlethe land- as before cens tenures(the so-calledreaccesson the basis of fixed hereditary the In the periodof reconstruction, peasants'positionas ments).145 as holdersof cens tenurewas furtherconsolidated, for the firsttime set therewas a cens contractwhich was universally in writing,thus in protection the courts.146 providingfor even stronger Secondly,in the fifteenthand sixteenthcenturiesthe statemoved the of to abolishthe remnants serfdom,and in particular seigneurial rents. By this time, the exactionof arbitrary taille, thus preventing of course, such burdenswerein manypartsof Francea thingof the did past. Nevertheless,the monarchy havea realimpactwhereserfcentury,notablyin the centre into strongly the fifteenth domsurvived playeda (for example,Nivernais)and the east. Here, the monarchy gainswon by and part by recognizing thus consolidating significant directpeasantaction.147
pp. Development", and ClassStructure Economic CrootandParker,"Agrarian in and ClassStructure EconomicDevelopment Pre-IndusBrenner,"Agrarian trialEurope",pp. 73 ff. for necessary the lordsto of andextendedprocedure "criees", 145 For the complex recoverland vacatedby the peasantsand, moregenerally,for the lords'difficulties pp. and vis-a-visthe land in this period,see Fourquin,Lordship Feudalism, 2I8-22du pp. parzsienne, 430-2 ff.- A. Plaisse,La baronnie de Fourquin,Campagnes la region (Paris,I96I), pp. 366-8. Neubourg p. 46 Neveux, "Declinet reprise", I36. pp. pp. I46-7; Neveux, "Declinet reprise", I35-6; A. Bos147 Chaunu,"L'etat", cxvii de de au en Nivernais XVesiecle",Bibliotheque l'ecole Chartres, suat,"Le servage pp. la profondes: paysannerie", 526-8. "Masses pp. I I5-20; Le Roy Ladurie, (I959),
144 40-I;
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Thirdly, from the mid-fifteenth century,the monarchyissued a seriesof ordinances supporting localcustomsand,in particular, published for provinceafter provincethe so-called"customs",which fixed peasantrights and gave them full backingin law, definitively consolidating peasantpropertythroughmuch of France.It also became a good deal easier in this period to make appealsfrom the seigneurialto the monarchical courts, as the royal administration effectivelyinvadedthe countryside a trend manifested,for example, in the establishment from the I550S of a new layerof royal courts,the presidiaux courts.148 Finally, and perhapsmost symptomatic the overallevolution, of the monarchy movedto placefull responsibility the collectionof for the royaltaillein the handsof the peasantvillages.It thus reinforced the communityover and againstits old rivalthe seigneurie.But, of course,as it did so, it prepared groundfor the increasingly the effective and increasingly heavyimpositionof royal, centralized surplus extraction, placeof the decaying in decentralized seigneurial levies.149 The fact is that despitethe enormousincentivesprovidedby rapidly rising prices in the early sixteenthcentury, which drastically devaluedreturnsfromfixedrentsfromthe censtenures,thereis little evidenceof an effectiveseigneurial reaction.The seigneurssimply did not have sufficientfeudalpowersat their disposal-expressed especiallyin rights to make arbitrary levies- to allowthem to establish their ownershipof the land in order to charge economic rents.150 The absolutiststate, basedon taxation office,thus developed, and to a significant degree,in conflictwith andat the expenseof, the old decentralized forms of seigneuralextraction,and many individual feudallordswerelosersin this process.As a result,the rise of absolutismprovokedsystematic,thoughsporadic ultimately and ineffectual, oppositionfrom the seigneurialclass. The "seigneurial reactions" against the monarchywhich periodicallyinterruptedthe long-termexpansionof Frenchabsolutiststate organization the are most obviousexpressions the realcompetition of whichprevailed betweenthe old andthe new modesof extraction. On the otherhand, 151
148 Chaunu,"L'etat",pp. 9I-3 ff.; Neveux, "Declinet reprise", pp. I35-6; Jacquart,La criserurale Ile-de-France, en ISSO-I670 (Paris, I974), pp. I02-3- Le Roy Ladurie,"Masses profondes: paysannerie", 526-8. la pp. 49 Lemarignier, France me'die'vale,3I8; Neveux,"Declinet reprise", I35-6. p. pp. 150See Le Roy Ladurie'scommenton this period:"The very popularnotionof 'seigneurial reaction' refeudalization for neitherthe sixteenthcenturynor the or has eighteenthcenturyany realsignificance": Roy Ladurie,"Les paysans Le francaises duXVI'siecle",p. 346. As Jacquart pointsout, thesaisiefe'odale failure hommage for of waspractised, it neverbroughtaboutthe confiscation the fief:Jacquart, but of Crise rurale Ile-de-France, I02. See also Bois, "Againstthe Neo-Malthusian en p. Orthodoxy",p. 62. 151 Chaunu, L etat, pp. I36) I44) I66 ff-
8I
Frenchabsolutismcould developmore lesscontinuously,because or it could absorbinto state office manyof those very samelords who werethe casualties the erosionof the seigneurial of system.152Meanwhile, throughits entiredevelopment,the absolutistmonarchy had no choicebut to allywith, andsimultaneously incorporate, greatthe est feudallords- magnates who kept theirpoliticalautonomy right into the seventeenth century,even as they penetrated heartof the the statemachine,especiallythe army.153If the absolutiststatemachine thus helped to corrodethe old structure surplusextraction,it also of benefitedmanyof the personnel hadlived off thatstructure. who In sum, the absolutiststatewas no mereguarantor the old forms of of propertybasedon decentralized seigneurial extraction. Rather,it cameto expressa transformed versionof the old system.It shouldbe emphasized,however,that as the Frenchmonarchy built up its absolutist organizationit could not but, in that very process, reconstructruling-class power)if on a verydifferentbasis. It was officers of the crown,manyof them "newmen", who mostassiduously went about building up the monarchical state. But, in turn, actuallyto consolidate power,the crownhadto ensurethe allegiance these its of servants.This could only be done, in whatwas, in its essentials,the old manner: crownhadno choicebut to secureserviceandloyalty the by grantingassuredprivatepropertyrights in part of the surplus extracted fromthe peasantry. This hadbeenclassically accomplished in the medievalperiod throughthe endowmentof a fief (although manyothersortsof grantswerealsomadeto the samepurposein that epoch). Now, archetypically, therewas the grantof an office,at first for life, laterhereditarily154 (although,again,other sortsof endowments, such as pensionsand land, werealso given).In short)a more effectivesystemof surplusextraction againstthe peasantry required a moreeffective,tightly-knitpoliticalassociation the rulingclass, of a stronger "state".This was)in fact)constructed largepartthrough in the re-creation ;'privatepropertyin the politicalsphere"for the of benefitof the crown'sservants-and this meant,paradoxically, the renewalof the crown'sultimatedependenceupon a (reconstructed) independentruling class (heavily, though only partially)based in ofiSce).The evolution of the office-holders' independencewas expressed in the declarationof the full heritabilityof office in I604 (whichwent alongwith the impositionof the the paulette) tax on or office), and was manifestedthroughoutthe earlymodernperiodin the increasingself-organization the office-holders their parleof in ments and)in turn, in theirperiodicresistances revolts.155 and
Bois, Cnse du feodalisme, pp. 257, 364. R. Mousnier, Etat et societeen France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles:le gouvernement et les corps(Les coursde Sorbonne, Paris,I969), pp. 89-92. 154 Ib.d-, pp 46-5I
52 153 I5SIbid.,p. 5I.
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This new crystallization class relationships to provedisasof was trous for economic development.Peasantpossessionwas further strengthened, its old limitations and remained force:the failureto in specialize to improveandthe tendencyto morcellation or rather than accumulation. make mattersworse, the new system of surplus To extraction moreeffectivethanthe oldandwasoriented was evenmore single-mindedly conspicuousconsumption war. It developed to and to an evengreater extentwithoutreference the requirements the to of peasants'productiveforcesand, in the long run, morefully at odds with them. Fromthe secondhalfof the fifteenthcentury,the French"middle peasants",assumingpowerfulcontrolover the land, set in motion the developmental patternfamiliarfrom the medievalperiod: demographic growthleadingto the pulverization holdings,accomof panied by declining productivity,leadingultimatelyto stagnation and decline. For a time the lords could benefitfrom this process: theirincomescould growmerelythroughthe reopening deserted of landandthe multiplication peasant of tenures(evenwithfixedrents). But aftera while, as cultivation spreadto moremarginal was lands, and as productivitybegan to fall in the face of rising population, accelerating inflationbeganto eat awayat fixedrents.This signalled the beginningof the end for the periodof "growth",and the onset of economicproblemsof all sorts-not only for the peasantry, but forthe locallords,whoonceagainfoundtheirincomesfailingto keep up with growingneeds.156 Duringthe secondhalf of the sixteenthcenturyFranceappears to have reachedthe old ceilings of populationand productionit had attainedin the early fourteenthcentury.157 Correspondingly, in as the latermedievalperiodone witnessesthe outbreak everysortof of struggleto redistribute extra-economic by meansthe relatively fixed national income.But now the tendencies "political to accumulation" throughtaxationand warfare were realizedto an unprecedented degree. BeforeI550, taxeshadnot risenas a proportion peasant of output. But the situationwas then transformed. Taxes on a familyof four rosefroman equivalent sevendays'outputperyearin I 547 to the of equivalent fourteendays'outputperyearin I607 andto an equivof alentof thirty-four days'outputper yearin I675.158 Meanwhile, the depredationsaccompanying Wars of Religion directly underthe mined productionto a disastrousdegree. From the stagnation and decline which were alreadyevident in the middle of the sixteenth
Le Roy Ladurie,"Masses profondes: paysannerie", 555-76. la pp. Ibid., pp. 576-85158 M. Morineau, "La conjuncture les cernesde la croissance", Braudel ou in and Labrousse (eds.), Histoire economiquesociale la France,i pt. 2, pp. 978-80. et de
156 157
83
century,the Frencheconomydescendedby fits and startsinto the "general crisisof the seventeenth century".Afterdecadesof destruction by troops and taxation,the sixteenthcentury"endedin catastrophemarked aboveall by a a fallin population production". and 159 After a brief period of subsequentrecovery,there was after I630 onceagain,near-perpetual disruption the economy,resulting of from external (the ThirtyYearsWar),compounded civil war(The war by Fronde)and the continuingbuild-upof the absolutisttax state. As in the fourteenth earlierfifteenthcenturies) intensification and the of everyformof "political accumulation" undermined operation had the of the classicalMalthusian mechanisms adjustment forcedthe of and economyas a wholeinto protracted, systemiccrisis. England.To explainthe emergence capitalist of property relations on the landin EnglandBois assertsthatthe nobility"wasfacedwith a peasantry whose rights had been too well established a return for to serfdomto be possible, but not sufficiently established enable to it to maintaincontrolof the land when facedwith seigneurial pressure". The lords could, therefore,proceedover time to undermine andeliminatethe peasantpossessors.This wasprecisely analysis. my On the otherhand,Boisonceagainaccounts this situation terms for in of his unilineal"decliningrateof rent" schema.As he argues,"the relativebackwardness [England's] of socialevolutionas compared to that of France was to prove its trump card in the transitionfrom feudalismto capitalism".In his view the fallingrate of feudalrent had not playeditself out in (backward) Englandto the extentit had in (advanced) France,so thatthe Englishlordsremained enough well placedto recovertheirpositions. 160 We havealready statedour reservations concerning approach. this In contrast)we have arguedthat preciselythe advanced self-organizationof the Englishrulingclassin the medieval periodhadallowed them to make their decentralized formsof feudalsurplusextraction workwell duringthe growthphaseof the feudaleconomy;that,with the collapseof populationin the mid-fourteenth century,they had naturally attempted fallbackon thesetriedandtrueformsin order to to recoup, initiating'4theseigneurial reaction"after I350; but that these decentralized methodsof surplusextraction proveninadhad equatein the long run to counteract peasantresistance mobility, and to preventthe declineof serfdomor to stop a long-term in rents, fall especiallyfromthe laterfourteenth century.The Englisharistocracy may, for a certainperiod,havecompensated someextentthrough to war overseas,benefitingperhapsfor the last time from its superior
Morineau"Laconjuncture les cernesde la croissance", 994. ou p. Quotations from Bois, "Againstthe Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy", 66. One p. shouldrecallin this regardthat Bois also explainsthe greater successof the English lordsvis-a-vas theirpeasants thetwelfthandthirteenth in centuries termsof English in "backwardness".
159 160
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feudalclass organization coherence.16l once war ceasedto and But pay when waged againstan ever more cohesiveFrencharistocracy and Frenchstate, they werethrownbackon theirown resources. As a resultof the class-widecrisisof seigneurial revenues,neither the crownin relationto its magnatefollowers,nor the magnates in relationto theirlesserlandedclassfollowers,possessedthe economic resources,the necessary"glue", to coherethe old intra-aristocratic alliances whichhad formedthe basisfor aristocratic ultimately, and, monarchical strengthand stabilityin England.For the heightened demands madeuponfinancially straitened overlords needyfollowby ers with collapsingrents were simply too great. The resultwas the rise of faction, aristocratic incoherenceand the intra-classconflict whichled to the breakdown government the descentinto civil of and warwhichmarkedthe middlepartof the fifteenthcentury. 162 It was the Englishlords' inabilityeitherto re-enserfthe peasants or to move in the directionof absolutism had theirFrenchcoun(as terparts) which forcedthem in the long run to seek novel ways out of their revenuecrisis. With the declineof theirown self-discipline and self-organization underthe pressureof the latermedievalcrisis of seigneurial revenue,the Englishrulingclass was impelled,for a time, to turn the instrumentsof feudal"politicalaccumulation" in uponitself.163But the resultingzero-sum gamewithin ruling the class, in the context of decliningoverallruling-class incomes, could not constitutea stable solution. Lackingthe ability to reimposesome system of extra-economic levy on the peasantry,the lords were obligedto use their remaining feudalpowersto furtherwhat in the end turnedout to be capitalist development. Theircontinuillg control over the land their maintenance broaddemesnes,as well as of their ability to prevent the achievementof full propertyrights by theircustomary tenantsandultimately consignthesetenantsto the to statusof leaseholders-proved to be theirtrumpcard.This control of landed propertywas, above all, an expressionof their feudal powers,the legacyof the positionthe lordshadestablished mainand tainedthroughout medievalperiod. the Now here againCrootand Parkerdemur:just as they think that I haveoverstated security the Frenchpeasants' the of possession, they believeI haveunderrated hold of the Englishcustomary the peasants on the land. In particular, they raisethe questionof the securityof
161 On aristocratic profitsfromwar, see the conflicting viewsof K. B. McFarlane, "War,the Economy SocialChange: and England the Hundred and YearsWar",Past andPresent, 22 (July I962), pp. 3-II ff., and M. M. Postan,"The Costsof the no. HundredYears'War",Past andPresent, 27 (Apr. I964), pp. 34-53. no. 62 R. L. Storey,TheEnd of theHouse Lancaster of (London,I966), Introduction. 163 See Storey's comment:"Baronial revoltsabroad wereprovoked the increasby ingly despoticnatureof royalgovernment, here [in England] but civil warcamefor the veryoppositereason,for whatcontemporaries calledthe 'lackof politicruleand governance"': Storey,End of theHouseof Lancaster, 28. p.
8S
the tenllreenjoyedby the Englishcopyholder, implyingI haveunderestimatedit.164This is an importantquestion. But the securityof copyholdwas only one of a wholeseriesof factorswhichaffectedthe hold on the land which could be exertedby the Englishpeasantsin the early modern period) and it needs to be evaluatedn therefore) withina broader context. First, it is necessaryto recallthat alreadyby the end of the thirteenth century,the Englishlords held outrightin demesnea much greater percentage the cultivated of landthandid theirFrenchcounterparts, something like one-third as comparedto one-eighthor one-tenth.Secondly,andequallyimportant, another thirdof the land in Englandwasin villeintenuren thus subjectto arbitrary leviesfrom thelords(tallages, finesandso forth),withthe (unfree) tenants having recourseonly to themselvesto protecttheir rightsto it. (In the eyes of the king's courts, this was the lords'land, whateverthe varying realities localcustomand the localbalance power.)By contrast, of of in France(at leastin the north) some 8s-go per cent of the landwas undercens tenure, thus effectivelyfree fromarbitrary levies and essentiallyownedby the peasants. The periodof population drop-off onlyaccentuated difference. this In France,as noted, the peasants' unoccupied customary landswere largelyprotectedfrom takeoverby the lords. As a result) arollnd I450-IS00) just about the same amountof land remained underdemesne, subjectto economicrents, as in the thirteenth century. In 165 England,by contrast,the processof assimilating unoccupied customary(unfree)landsto the demesneswenton apace(therewascertainly no law to preventit). It is difficultto make quantitative estimates, but in study after study there is evidencethat at least a significant portion of formerlycustomary(villein) land- consideredby the lordsto be theirs(especially becausethe law saidit was)andwith no one to challengethem-was simplyaddedto the demesnes,that is to the leasehold)economicrentsector.166 This brings us to the question of the evolutionof the (formerly
164
Crootand Parker,"Agrarian ClassStructure Economic and Development'7, p.
165 Bois, Crise feodalisme, du pp. 28I, 3I9; Fourquin,Campagnes la region de parastenne, 474-5. In the areaaroundParisstudiedby Jacquart, pp. seigneurial demesnes coveredsome I2 per cent of the cultavated surface the laterfifteenth in century: Fourquln, Crzse mraleenIle-de-France, I I0. p. 166 Hilton,"A Studyin the Pre-History English of Enclosure the Fifteenth in Century",m Studt Inonore Annando di Sapora, vols. (Milan,I957), i, pp. 675-85- J. P. 2 Genet,';Economie societeruraleen Angleterre XV' siecle, d'apresles comptes et au de l'hopital d'Ewelme", Annales. E.S.C., xxvii(I972), pp. I464-7I * Howell,"Stability and(Change, I3Q0-I700", p. 473; R. A. Lomas,sCDevelopments LandTenureon in the Priorof Durham'sEstatein the LaterMiddleAges",Norlhern Hist., xiii (I977) pp. 27-43; R. B. Dobson, Durham Cathedral Priory,I400-I450 (Cambridge, I973), pp. 282-3; H. P. R. Finberg,Tavistock Abbey(Cambridge, I959), pp. 250-2, 256-7Cooper,"In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 39-40,andn. 80. pp.
4o.
the later fifin land villein) which remained customarytenureinto can see that of copyholdperse. We now century-the issue teenth deal less of the the at beginningof the earlymodernperioda goodthan in France, England was surface held in this form of tenurein (demesne). a and good deal morewas fully in the handsof the lords land whichwas left? Did it, the customary was What the futureof tenure(cens),evolveinto virtualfreehold? the like Frenchcustomary could charge did Or it reverteventuallyto the lords, so that they rents? economic boils downto the questionof whatrights This problemultimately now assuming to the the of copyholder courtswereprepared backup,both Kerridge in court(as couldget recognized the that copyholders sixteenth Grayagree they could from the early decadesof the customand seemsto comedownto the questionof the 167 century). This held theirland.Wherethey conditionsunderwhichthe peasants ary fixedfines as the customthey could and heritability established had over essentiallyfreeholders.But, as Kerridgepoints out, such become no established areasof the countrythe peasantshad significant to They held for a given numberof yearsor lives, subject customs. couldbe charged copyholders Kerridge, to fines. arbitrary According throughthe west of Englandand on finesparticularly arbitrary with A insecuretenuresprevailed. thenorthernborders,whereespecially demesne thussubjectto essentially of proportion the landwas further was equivalent that conditions; is, copyholdunderthese conditions fines of landlordproperty,since adjustable to economicleasehold case thereis the anomalous couldbe used as economicrents. Finally did wherecopyholders hold whichhas arousedso muchcontroversy, This situationwas by inheritance,but where fines were arbitrary. Plain,the Fens, the especiallyin EastAnglia,the Midland prevalent Crootand Parkerpresent regions.168 SouthDowns and south-coast the century courtshad of theseventeenth evidencethatbytheearlyyears this situation by setting fines at "reasonable" begun to resolve For it showsthat their But rates.169 this fact actuallyundercuts case. fixed fines began without by inheritance protectionfor copyholders only verylate in the day aftera centuryof rising to be established to have been no prices and rents. During this time there appears be raised,and be suplegallyestablishedlimit to which fines could who had survivedto portedin court on appeal.Those copyholders
(Lonand Century After in Problems theSixteenth Agrarian E. Compare Kerridge, Law (Cambridge, Equityand the Common Copyhold, don, I969), and C. M. Gray, Mass., I963). pp. Centuty, 38-9. in Problems theSixteenth Agrarian 68 Kerridge, Development", and ClassStructure Economic andParker,"Agrarian 169 SeeCroot of to theHistory An uponA. W. B. Simpson, IntroductionTawney,The p. 40, who basethemselves by R. H. I964), p. I6I. The samepointis made theLandLaw (London, (New York, I967), pp. 296-7,296, n. 3, and Century in Problem theSixteenth Agrarian p. Century, 40. in Problems theSixteenth Agrarian Kerridge,
167
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87
this late date must very often have been rathersubstantial figures, capableof payingthe risingrents(through higherfines)or buyingup the propertythemselves. In sum, it seems hard to deny that the direct feudal rights and powers)maintained the Englishlordsthroughout wholeof the by the medievalepoch, gavethema powerfulbasisforestablishing, holding on to and extendingtheir controlover the land in the subsequent period andthat,in thisrespect,theyenjoyeda farstronger position vis-a-vis theirpeasants thandid theirFrenchcounterparts. course, Of the Englishlords'propertyin the landonly gavethemrightsto lease their holdingsat competitiverates;and at the start, in the fifteenth century,rentsmusthavebeenverylow. Nonetheless,so longas there was the potentialfor increasedcompetitionfor the land, the market in leases providedthe basic conditionfor differentiation amongthe tenants. The initialprocesses differentiation, of resulting theriseof larger in capitalisttenant farmers,were perhapsfacilitated,in the fifteenth century,by the maintenance wool exports(in eitherrawor manuof facturedform)at roughlyfourteenth-century levels, in the face of a 50 percentdrop-offin population; is, halfthe number farmers that of in Englandwere now producingthe sameamountof wool as before. Thisdifferentiation probably was givenanimpetusby thegeneralized commercial upturn,markedby the rapidgrowthof clothproduction for exportfromthe thirdquarter the fifteenthcentury)and accelof eratingrapidlyfrom the I520S.170 Ultimately,the growingshift of population industrial into employments, supplemented a powerful by demographic upturn,determined long-term a increase the demand in foragricultural products,leadingto a risein foodprices,whichcalled forththe growthof agricultural production productivity. Agriand 171 culturaldevelopmenttook placethroughcharacteristically capitalist processesconditionedby the new systemof socialrelations which in the organizers production the directproducers of and (sometimes the same persons)no longerpossessedtheir full meansof reproduction (especially land)andweretherefore the compelled produce to systematicallyfor the market.The resultingcompetition amongtenantsfor the land and among landlordsfor tenantsstimulatedcost-cutting,
170 On the earlyphasesof differentiation, T. H. Lloyd, The Movernent Wool see of Prices in MediewalEngland (Econ. Hist. Re?w. Supplement 6, London,I973), pp. no.
24-30;Hilton,"Studyin the Pre-History EnglishEnclosure", 675-85-F. R. H. of pp. DuBoulay, "WhowereFarming Demesnes theEndof theMiddleAges?", the at Econ. Hist. Reu., 2nd ser.) xviii(I965), pp. 443-55;F. R. H. DuBoulay, TheAge of Ambition (London,I970), pp. 55-8;Genet, "Economie societeruraleen Angleterre XVe et au siecle",pp. I464-7I. 171 SeeP. J. Bowden,"Agricultural Prices,FarmProfits, Rents",in TheAgrarand ian History of England and Wales, ed. H. P. R. Finberg,v, ISOO-I640, ed. J. Thirsk (Cambridge, I967), passim; D. C. Coleman, TheEconomyof England, I450-I750 (OX ford, I977), esp. chs. 2, 3, 7.
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thus specialization and improvement,leadingover time to the replacementof small, inefficientpeasanttenantsby largercapitalist tenants,thus underpinning agricultural an transformation. As opportunities agricultural in production commercial and landlordshipgrewand the economicpotentialof the old feudalaf:Snities and their marauding activitiesdeclined, the balanceof forces was tipped increasingly againstany sort of successfulattemptat feudal reorganization "politicalaccumulation". for Growingnumbersof landlordsand tenantsthus turnedto the monarchy the sourceof as the peace and stabilityrequisiteto ongoingcommercial productive activity. During the early modernperiod, the long-termtendency towards increasing the self-centralization of the Englishlandedclasses wastherebyextended,althoughnow in a qualitatively different form whichcorresponded the transformed to character the property of or surplus-extraction relationsthroughwhich the landedclasseswere coming to reproducethemselves.An increasingly centralized state) rooted ever more firmly in broad landed layers, could thus more effectivelyunderminethe disruptivebehaviour those decreasing of numbersof landedelementswhose economiesstill dependedupon the application "extraeconomic"methods(at this point focused of mainlyupon banditry,raidingand the spoliation monarchical of administration justice).In turn, as even the greatestmagnates and saw their localizedpoliticalstrengtherodedby the state, manyof them wereobligedto turnto economiclandlordship.172 The affirmation absoluteprivateproperty the landlords of by over and againstpeasantpossessionwent hand in hand, therefore,with the gradualrise of a differentsort of state, one which attaineda monopolyof force over and againstthe privatized powersof feudal potentates.The state which emergedduringthe Tudorperiodwas, however,no absolutism. Ableto profitfromrisinglandrents,through presiding overa newlyemerging tripartite capitalist hierarchy comof merciallandlord,capitalist tenantandhiredwagelabourer, Engthe lish landed classes had no need to recur to direct, extra-economic compulsionto extracta surplus. Nor did they requirethe state to serve them indirectlyas an engine of surplusappropriation polby iticalmeans(tax/office war). and Whattheyneeded,at leaston the domesticfront,wasa cheapstate, whichwouldsecureorderandprotectprivate property, thusassuring thenormaloperation contractually of basedeconomic processes. This goal they were able to achieve in the course of the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries(through processes beyondthe scopeof this far
See L. Stone, "Power",in his TheCrisis theAristocracy, of I558-I64I (Oxford, ch. 5; M. E. James,Change Continuity theTudorNorth and in (Borthwick Papers, no. 27, York, I965); M. E. James,"TheFirstEarlof Cumberland the Declineof and NorthernFeudalism", Northern Hist., i (I966).
172 I965),
89
essay to describe)by means of the strengthening parliament of as their specialinstrumentof centralized controlover the government and throughan increasingstranglehold state office, aboveall at on the local level. Two experiments royalabsolutism in were aborted, and no tax state came to prey on a developingEnglish economy. Characteristically, althoughthe new state was operatedat all levels by the landedclass, it offeredonly restrictedopportunities the for fruitsof office, and localadministration typicallynot paidat all. was In turn, althoughit monopolizedforce, the new state levelledonly minimaltaxes. It is indeedsymptomatic whentaxesdid beginto that be raisedsignificantly fromthe laterseventeenth century,thesewere levied uponits ownmembers a landlordclassnow unambiguously by in controlof the state, thanksto its victoriesover the crown.This is in contrastto the situationin Francewherea markof membership in the rulingclasswasexemptionfromstatetaxation andnaturally so, since the statewas centrallyconceivedas a political,wealth-generating mechanism the aristocracy. England,the landlord for In class, havinguprootedthe peasantry,could dependlargelyupon the operationof "impersonal", "economic" processes:the exploitation by capitalisttenantsof free wage-labourers and, in turn, the operation of intravcapitalist competition the agricultural in sectorandthe economy as a whole. To sum up, by the end of the seventeenthcenturythe English evolutiontowardsagrarian capitalism broughtaboutthe end of had the age-old"fusion"of the "economic" the "political", the and and emergenceof an institutional separation between"state"and "civil society". With the breakthrough economicdevelopment,manito festedaboveall in the increasing productivity labour,the achieveof mentof wealthceasedto be essentially zero-sum the gameit hadbeen underfeudal social productiverelations.In turn, the amassingand direct application force in orderto redistribute strictlylimited of a social productceased to be the sine qua non for the success of the rulingclass. Englishdevelopment distinguished had itself fromthat in most placeson the Continentin two critical,interrelated aspects. It wasmarked the riseof a capitalist by aristocracy whichwaspresiding overan agricultural revolution. (III.2) RESULTS
OF THE DIVERGENCES: LORDS, PEASANTS AND CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE I450- I 750
Justas my accountof the roots the divergent of evolutions propof erty or surplusextractionrelationsin differentEuropean regionsin the wakeof the latermedievalcrisisof seigneurial revenues been has calledinto question, so has my understanding the implications of of these propertysettlementsfor the subsequentcourse of economic
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development. This is particularly casewith regardto my view of the the differentsignificances, the distribution wealthand the defor of velopmentof the productiveforces, of the consolidation peasant of proprietorship relationship the rise of absolutism classically in to in France in comparison with the rise of the classicallandlord/ capitalist tenant/wage-labourer relationship aboveall, in England. (III.2.I) PropertyFormsandthe Evolutionof Landownership To beginwith, CrootandParker contendthatevenif the peasantry did emergein later medievalFrancewith far strongerrightsto the soil thandid theircounterparts England,this couldhavehadlittle in realsignificance; "economic" for forces,most especially market, the musthavebeen determinant the long run. As they state, "in both in Franceand Englandeconomicratherthanlegalconsiderations were instrumental determining pattern landholding". in the of Theymaintainthat"therightsof the Frenchpeasantry wereanobstacle more to rationalfarming. . . but these would not havebeen an insuperable obstacleif the economicincentivesand determination override to themhadexisted".According CrootandParker,the general to problem withmy approach specifically is manifested my failureto come in to termswith the "lackof any equivalent Franceto the celebrated in classof Englishyeomanry,whichwas itself the productof a process of [economic]differentiation within the ranks of the peasantry,a processnot experienced theirFrenchcounterparts".173 by But Crootand Parkerbeg the centralquestion.Thereis no disagreementbetweenus as to the specialsignificance economicdefor velopmentin Englandof "the rise of the yeoman" that is, the emergence a classof largercommercial of farmers of a processof out economicdifferentiation the peasantry, contrastwith the pulof in verization levellingof the peasantry and whichwas the predominant trendin earlymodernFrance.The problemis to explainthese differenttrends.The pointis thatthe purely"economic" starting point for these divergentprocesseswas roughlythesamein both England and France.In the laterfifteenthcentury,in both places,a "middle peasantry" relativelyquite largeholdingsappearsto haveheld a on strongposition.174 The difficultyarisesbecause,despitewhatCroot and Parkerimply, the peasantry and especiallypeasantproperty subsequently underwent radically differentevolutionsin the two places, even thoughmarket forces,aboveall rising food prices,made themselves strongly in both felt placesthroughout earlymodern the period, creating morethan ampleincentives profitmakingthrough acfor the
173
CrootandParker,"Agrarian ClassStructure Economic and Development", pp.
42, 4I, 43. 174 Compare Genet,"Economie societerurale Angleterre XV' siecle",pp. et en au I468-9, with Neveux, "Declinet reprise", I07. p.
9I
cumulation land leadingto differentiation. is to explainthese diof It vergingevolutionsthat it is indispensable make reference the to to differentpropertysystemsin which the peasantries were enmeshed in France and England. For these allowed and/or compelledthe peasantry eachplaceto respondto roughlysimilar in economic(market) conditionsin differentways. The differentiation the English peasantrywas thus critically of conditionedby the fact that, under the newly emergentsocial-productive relations,they had no choicebut to respondto the rising marketby competingwith one anotheras effectivelyas possibleby cost-cutting,and thus by specializing,accumulating their surpluses,andinnovating.But this compulsion competewasonly the to resultof the fact that theywereseparated possession the land, from of thus deprivedof direct(non-market) accessto theirmeansof subsistence, correlatively consignedto leaseholdstatus, and, as a result, subjected the systemof competitive 175 In thissystemthe larger to rents. farmers,who could producemoreefficientlyandmoreprofitably on the market,could use theircompetitiveedge to accumulate landdirectlyat the expenseof the smaller farmers superseding themwhen their leases ran out by offeringa higher and more secure rent or outbiddingthem for those tenancieswhich came on to the market. In turn, the landlordshad to competefor the best tenantsif they wished to get the maximumrent from leasingtheir land-in particularby offeringlarger,consolidated holdings,sometimes enclosed and improved.It was not, as Crootand Parkerimply, the riseof the market in itself which made for the rapid differentiation the of peasantry Englandandthe riseof the yeoman(almostalways in larger commercialtenants),but rather the social-property relationships whichmadethe Englishagricultural producers fullydependent upon competitive production.176 In contrast,as virtualownersof theirplotsFrenchpeasants not did facethe fallingin of theirleases,risingfinesor directcompetition for theirtenures.So longas theyhelda plotwhichcouldproduce enough to feed their familiesand pay their taxes they were not, as a rule,
175 As Genet, puts it, duringthe fifteenth century,"The positionof the peasants was strengthened. . . Their tenureswere vast, their libertyno longerchallenged and . . . at least they had imposeda retreatupon the landlords far as rentswere so concerned. . . Butwasit a decisive,irreversible progression? the lastdecade the In of fifteenth century,the seigneurs wereableto imposeon the peasants increase, an light it is true, in their rents. They had not given up the essentialmechanism their of domination. They preserved rightsthey had on theirlandsand . . . they mainthe tainedthemeansof takinga profitfromthem . . .": Genet"Economie societerurale et en Angleterre XVesiecle",pp. I468-9. au 176 Paradoxically, Crootand Parker,on severaloccasions,referto preciselythese competitive processesas lying behindthe economicdifferentiation the peasantry of whichtook placein England,but they do not makethe appropriate comparison with thequitedifferent situation France.SeeCroot Parker, in and "Agrarian Structure Class andEconomicDevelopment", 40-I, 43. pp.
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compelledto sell and competeeffectivelyon the marketto survive. Mosthadlittlepossibility accumulating. of Theyhadlittlechoicebut to follow the familiarpatternof producingwith the aim of directly supportingthemselvesand their children,and of subdividingtheir land on inheritance.Crootand Parkershouldnot be surprised that in this contextof social-property relations tendencyto differenany tiationleadingto the rise of a yeomanclasswas overwhelmed the by tendencyto morcellation. It was thus from the latterpart of the fifteenthcenturythat the institutionalization differentpropertyor surplus-extracting of systems in Englandand Francebeganto conditiona definitiveparting of the waysfor theirrespective economies.This wasmanifested first of all in a dramaticdivergencein the subsequentevolutionsof the distribution landedproperty the two places.The latterwas the of in result,firstly,of an apparent difference the demographic in regimes whichcameto prevailin eachcountryand, secondly,of the new rise of the market,which thoughpowerfully in both placeshad diffelt ferent effects in each. Both of these causeswere traceable back, in turn, to the differentinstitutionalized property arrangements. In France, from variouspoints after I450, there was a sharply accelerated upturn in population,as in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Indeed, alreadyby the mid-sixteenthcentury, in some regionsa little later, Frenchpopulation already had equalledand in someplacesactually exceededthe recordlevelsof theearlyfourteenth century.177 contrastwith Englandis remarkable. The There, population stagnateduntil perhapsthe I5IOS. Moreover,even when it beganto grow,its paceappears havebeensignificantly to slowerthan thatof France,reaching fourteenth-century levelsonly in the middle of the seventeenth century,or perhapsonly by I7oo.178 It is hardto avoidthe temptation seein thisdemographic to contrast an initialand definitiveeffect of the divergence property in systems, aswellas a critical causeof the divergent evolutions the distribution in of property.In France,the reaffirmation, the strengthening, even of peasantpropertyfromthe mid-fifteenth centurymadepossiblea renewalof the old peasant-based demographic regime.This wasapparently set in motionby the (relatively) earlyageof marriage, rootedin turnin the easy and earlyaccessionto a plot, basedfinallyon strong peasantproperty whichallowedfor the subdivision holdings.The of rapiddemographic advance whichwas therebymadepossible,led to the extremeparcellization property.In England,by contrast,we of
177 Le Roy Ladurie, "Massesprofondes: paysannerie", la pp. 555-61;Neveux "Declinet reprise", IOI-3. pp. 178 J. Cornwall, "English Population the EarlyI6thCentury", in Econ.Hist.Rev. 2nd ser., xxiii (I970); I. Blanchard, "Population Enclosure the EarlyTudor and in Economy",Econ.Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxiii (I970); Coleman, Economy England, of pp. I2-I3 ff.
93
can at leasthypothesizethatdue to the loss of firmpossessionby the directcultivators the correspondingly and enforcedrise of commercialtenantry,holdersof plots(leasehold farmers) littlechoicebut had to treattheirholdingsas commercial investments, a sourceof profit as (if they wishedto keep them), and couldno longerview themas the directly self-sufficient basis for a continuingfamily. This tended to precludesubdivision, smallerplotswereuneconomic. a resultn for As childrencouldno longercounton receivinga plot on comingof age. On the contrary)the number of childrenin the family, so far as possible,hadto be adoptedto the economic-productive requirements andpotentials the commercial of holding.The resultappears have to beenlatermarriages, smaller families,the sendingof children outside of the householdinto otheroccupations.The interrelated outcomes wereslowerpopulation growthand, in general,the prevention the of subdivision holdings.179 of In this same period of generalized,Europe-wide commercial upturn,the impactof the marketupondifferent social-property systems constituteda secondpowerfulforce conditioning divergentevothe lutionsof the distribution propertyin Englandand France.This of canbe broughtout especially well by comparing developments the in most commercialized areasof Francewith those in Englandin the periodfrom the mid-fifteenth into the secondpart of the sixteenth century. For these purposes,the Paris region is exemplary,for it would be difficultto specifyan areaof Francewheremarketforces had a greaterimpact.The city itself grewrapidlyin this period)and exercizeda huge pull on its hinterland.Moreover,populationincreasedin the agricultural regionaroundParisat a tremendous pace. The resultwas especiallyfast risingprices)particularly food and for land. Not only the incentivesfor accumulation the potentialacbut cumulators the personsof local lords, courtlyofficeholders,city (ir. merchants well-offpeasants)were present.Those who failedto and accumulateland missed an enormousopportunityto profit;those landholders stayedwith theircustomary who tenuressawtheirrents, in realterms,dwindleinto insignificance.180 Whatwere the actualresults?We can get a remarkably good idea on the basis of Jacquart's massivestudy, which encompasses seven seigneuriescoveringsome 4,699 cultivatedhectaresin the Parisregion. Even in this area,by I550-60, afterclose to a centuryof urban development, demographic growth,expansion the market skyof and rocketingprices, some 2,567 proprietors, each with holdingsof less than 60 acres still held 69 per cent of the cultivatedland, in com179 The previous paragraph derivedfromBois,Crisedufeodalisme,pp. 353-4, and is Howell,"Stability Change". and 180 See Fourquin, Campagnesde la regionparisienne;Jacquart, Crise rnraleen Ile-de
France.
parisonwith I7 proprietors with more than 60 acres(includingthe seven seigneursseatedon the large, ancientdemesnes) who held 3I per cent of the cultivated surface(the demesnesthemselves covering I8 per cent). Presentingthe same results slightlydifferently: proprietors with holdingsof less than 24 acres(IO hectares) 2,5I6 owned 55 per cent of the land, while 75 proprietors with 25 acresor more held 45 per cent of the land.18lThere had clearly been some significant build-up of properties;but very few proprietorsbenefited fromaccumulation, a massivepeasantry and remained seatedon the land. The limited underminingof peasantproperty placein the Parisregionhad been conditionedbywhich had taken processesbeyond themarket. I550, population By growthandmorcellement already had led to a situationin which 88 per cent of the properties (2,273 holdings)were under6a2acres(2 5 hectares),thus too smallto support afamilywithoutsupplementary sourcesof income.Pressured rapby idly rising prices, which meant higher subsistence costs and lower wages,combinedwith the weight of taxation,many peasantswere forced sell out.182 to Evenwheresomeaccumulation property place, of took the basically peasant organization production or remainedas yet unaffected.Indeed,the patternof ownership failsto revealjusthow were thepotentialsfor accumulation the purposeof restricted for more effective production, marketfarmingand for improvement. the for units ofpropertywere themselvesbrokenup into many, For manyparcelsof cultivation, scatteredthroughthe fields, minisculein size an unambiguous testimonyto the continuity the peasant of dominated system. one of the sevenseigneuries On studiedby Jacquart, a single not parcel reachedI22acresin size! Indeed,if we excludethe seigneurie of Trappes(whereboth units of ownership cultivation and wereexceptionally concentrated), therewas a totalof only ten parcelsin all which exceeded I21 acresin the entireareacoveredby the Engrossment proceededapartfrom, indeedoften in survey. thus contradiction with, the needsof production. Ironically, larger unitsof property might meansmallerunits of cultivation. 183 The contrast between the evolution of even this most precociously-developed French region and that of Englandis, it
181 Calculated from chartin Jacquart, Criserurale Ile-de-France, II8, with en p. clarifying information ch. 3. in 182 J. Jacquart, "Immobilisme catastrophes", DubyandWallon et in (eds.),Histoire de Francerurale, p. 265. la ii, 183 Jacquart, Criserurale Ile-de-France, I23-4. For the en pp. pulverization the of units cultivation a fundamental of as barrier agricultural to progress France,see J. in Meuvret, vainepatureet le progres "La agronomique avantla revolution", Etudes in d'histoire I97I), pp. I95-6. Forincreasing (Paris, pulverization holdings of evenin the faceofengrossment, Cabourdin, seeG. TerreethommesenLorraine, I550-I635 (Nancy, I977 pp*640- I ?),
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95
seemsto me, clear.For in manyareasof England by no meansall of course thereoccursa continuousprocessof build-upof larger holdingsandunits of cultivation the expenseof smallones, at least at fromthe secondpartof the fifteenthcentury.In the closelystudied community Chippenham of (Cambridgeshire), the thirteenth in century, the half-virgate holding(I5 acres)was predominant, almost as everywhere else. By the second third of the fifteenthcentury,still only a fifth of the holdingswere morethan 30 acres.By I540, however,22 out of 42 holdingswere27 acresor more.Indeed,I2 of these holdings(includingthe demesne)were 50 acresor more, and they constitutedI ,560 acres(of whichthe demesnecounted780 acres)out of a total of 2,265 cultivatedacres, or some 64 per cent.184 the In Wiltshirechalklands, moreover,we learnthatalready"by the early sixteenthcentury, most of the land was in the hands of capitalist farmers,and by the middleof the seventeenth centurycapitalfarms occupiedmostof the farmland". In the west midlands,it hasbeen 185 found that from the fifteenthcentury,"The trend . . . towardsthe diminution the smallholding of groupandthe increase the number in of large holdings [30-I00 acres of arable]seems fairly certain''.186 Evenin Leicestershire, ostensiblehold-outof Englishpeasantfarming, the average and typical unit was already45 acresin the second partof the sixteenthcentury. This is almostfourtimesthe size of 187 the representative peasantholdingin the medievalperiodor the representativeFrench holding of the sixteenthcentury. As early as I500, half-yardlanders were already becoming rare in Leicestershire.188 Now Cooperappearsto arguethat agrarian structures France in and Englandwere not, by the later sixteenthcentury,significantly different. In contrast,I would concludethat while the patternof 189 agrarian evolutionin Francefrom I450 did not breakfundamentally fromthatof the medieval periodbecauseit was, as before,dominated by peasant possessors, that of England did experiencea breakthrough.This differencehad, moreover,profoundimplications for the development production. of
184 M. Spufford, Contrasting Communities (Cambridge, I974), ch. 3. Spufford, however, demesthat the peasants' lackof property rightswas important conditioning in theirloss of the land. 185 E. Kerridge,"Agriculture, I500-I793", c. in V.C.H. Wiltshire, (London, iv I959), pp. 57 ff186 R. H. Hilton, TheEnglishPeasant7yintheLaterMiddleAges(Oxford, I975),pp. 39-40,quotedin Cooper,"In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", 34 n. 57. p. 187 W. G. Hoskins, "The Leicestershire Farmer the Sixteenth in Century", his in Essays Leicestershire in History (Liverpool,I950), pp. I37-8. However,thisfiguredoes not includeeitherthe manycottagers' farmsor the demesnes. 88 Howell, "Stability andChange", 474. p. 89 Cooper,"In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", pp. 44-6. esp.
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(III.2.2) PropertyRelationsand Productivity The foregoingdivergence propertysettlements Englandand in in Francewas, by the latterpartof the sixteenthcentury,conditioning not onlydistinctive patterns the evolutionof property in distribution, but differentpaths of developmentof the agricultural productive forces. Crootand Parker,as well as Cooperand Le Roy Ladurie, arguethat I underestimate capacityof the peasantry increase the to agricultural productivity when I insist that the productivesystems basedon smallpeasantsin possessionof their meansof subsistence were a barrierto the qualitativeagricultural development required for sustaining economicgrowthin the earlymodernperiod,whilethe "Englishsystem"providedthe groundfor a definitebreakthrough in this era. Nevertheless,it appears me thatthesepropositions to are well-supported the economicexperiencesof both Englandand by Francethroughthe earlymodernperiod,as well as that of western Europeas a whole. (III.2.2.a) PeasantPossession Franceversus in Capitalist Tenantry in England In the face of the massivegrowthof demand,expressedin rising foodpriceswhichaffected broadareas France,especially north, of the fromthe earlysixteenthcentury,the peasantgripon production was clearlyresponsible stiflingthe growthof output.As we learnfrom for casestudiesof Normandy Cambresis, and areasexposedto especially heavy pressuresfrom the market,the high point of production for the market,both local and overseas,cameearlyin both places in the firstdecadeor two of the the sixteenthcentury.Afterthis point, as populationgrew, peasantswith increasinglysmallerplots were forcedto devotegreaterandgreater proportions theirlandto proof ductionfor immediate subsistenceto ensuretheirsurvival.We find, therefore,a decreasein the production such commercial of cropsas hemp, flaxandthe like. Animalproduction was, moreover, continuously cut back in favourof productionfor the peasants'own consumption.By the I540S in both places,not morebut less grainwas actuallybeing sent to market,even thoughgrainpriceswere rising precipitately.Meanwhile,the potentialfor improvingagricultural productilrity, dependent uponincreased animal production, defiwas nitelyundermined. 190 There is no sign whatsoesTer innovationor advancein peasant of farmingin the sixteenthcentury,or at any time throughto the end of the seventeenth century.Productive techniques stagnate through190H. Neveux, Lesgrains Cambresis duXIVe, debut XVIIesiecles): et du (fin de vie declin d'unestructure economique (Lille, I974), pp. 692-3, 697-8; Bois, Crtse feodaldu
Isme, pp.
337-40.
97
sumout France, no less in the north than elsewhere.As Jacquart marizesrecentlocal researchthroughoutthe variousregionsof the country, "one finds no traceof decisivetechnicalprogressand the resultsof peasantactivityremainedsensiblythe same in their mein In diocrity''.19l consequence,almosteverywhere France,producby tivity per headwas decliningsignificantly the earlydecadesof the sixteenthcentury, leading to new subsistencecrises, skyrocketing output(not to pricesand, as noted, absoluteceilingson agricultural the 192 century). Wellbefore onset againuntilthe eighteenth be reached oftheReligious Wars,therefore,Frenchpeasantofthe devastations had basedagriculture in the courseof its own unimpededdevelopand ment sunk into stagnation decline. The contrastwith Englandis clear.There, over the courseof the Given revolution. earlymodernperiod,one witnessesan agricultural productionof the technology availableto the mixed agricultural which improvement medievaland earlymodernEurope,qualitative recheapeningin basic food production would make for significant be quiredthat animaland arablehusbandry moretightlyboundtoanimal in gether and made more mutuallyreinforcing; particular, productionhad to increasein relationto arablein orderto provide manureand ploughingto counterthe tendencyto decliningfertility of the soil. Whereaspeasantproductionfor subsistencetended to make animal and arable production mutually competitive, and thereby constitutedan immediatebarrierto the foregoingsort of the transformation, rise of the capitalistpropertysystemfacilitated and a it. It did so not only by conditioning tendencyto specialization enforcedby competition,but by giving rise, via the improvement (instead morcellation), of of processes differentiation aforementioned to a class of capitalistfarmerswho could take the risks, make the farmingwhich was reinvestmentsand carryout the larger-scale quired. close study of are These mechanisms laid barein Eric Kerridge's in and arrangements developments earlymodernWiltagricultural from shire. Here therewas a systemof capitalistfarmsin operation the early sixteenthcentury.The impactof the marketwas also felt fromvery earlyon. There ensueda processof economicdifferentiaEverywhere and specialization improvement. tion, with concomitant on grainfarmingcame to predominate the chalk soils whereit was century, by Moreover, the mid-seventeenth appropriate. particularly
p. et 191 Jacquart,"Immobilisme catastrophes", 239; see also pp. 2I3, 2I6-2I, profondes: payla findings,see Le Roy Ladurie,"Masses 237-9. For slar pp. sannerie", 568-78. pp. la "Masses profondes: paysannerie", 576-85. Boisfinds 192 SeeLe Roy Ladurie, du by its reaches heightin Normandy I540, if not before:Bois, Crise thatproduction also p. feodaltsme, 337. Jacquart finds the outputceilingat aroundI540-50, for Ilepp. rurale Ile-de-France, 49-50. en Jacquart, Crtse de-France:
224-5,
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largefarmshad entirelytakenover specialized grainproduction, for the smallfarmer couldnot competein the application the favoured of sheep-cornmethods. On the otherhand, if they wishedto survive, the smallerfarmers,as tenants,werethemselvesforcedto specialize for the market.They had to abandongrainproduction,but in the so-called CheeseCountry, whichwasquitesuitable dairyfarming, for they were able to hold theirown. For in this line the largeproducer enjoyedrelatively little competitive edge.193 The developments Wiltshirerepresent microcosm the proin a of cesses which occurredin Englandas a whole in the earlymodern period.JoanThirskrefersto "the predominance largefarmers of in the specializedcorn growing areas"and she concludesthat, "In specialized cornareas,the successful men werealwaysyeomenfarmers or gentlemen with substantial fortunes"."Asforthe smallfarmer in the arableareas,he had little hope for survival''.194 reasons The forthis arenot farto seek. In the firstplace,in grainproduction there were significant economiesof scale to be had in the use of basicinfrastructure of farmanimalsand implements,as well as in the and application labour.Secondly,especially of with the requirements for large sheepfolds,a great deal of capitalwas required.Thirdly, the cost of perhapsthe most potent innovationapplicable the tradito tional sheep-cornarea, the "floatingof the water meadows",was beyondthe reachof the smallfarmers. 195 Similarly, wherelandswereturnedfromarable the revolutionary to system of up-and-down husbandry-which allowedfor the interdependentgrowthof both animaland arableoutput it was nearly alwayscapitalist farmers who wereresponsible. Kerridge As puts it, "makingan up-and-down farmwas not a thingany one coulddo. It took boldness,patience,andplentyof capital".This wasbecausebig changeswere requiredin the layoutof the farm, in its equipment, andin the timerequired yieldreturns.Not surprisingly, to therefore, in thoseareaswhereup-and-down husbandry adopted was duringthe earlymodernperiod,accelerating especially fromthe laterpartof the sixteenthcentury-the MidlandPlain, the Vales, the north-east lowlands these developments were accompanied the massive by declineof smallfarmers. 196 It appearsthat smallfarmers were also at a disadvantage cattle in
Kerridge,"Agriculture, I500-I793", c. pp. 6I, 49, 54, 57-9, 63-4. J. Thirsk,"Seventeenth-Century Agriculture SocialChange", and Agric.Hist. Rev., xviii (I970), pp. I5I, I66; J. Thirsk,"ThePeasant Economy England the of in Seventeenth Century",Studiahistoriae oeconomicae, (I975), p. 8. Thirskdefines x yeomenas "substaniial farmers with largeacreage, who reliedon hiredlabour". 195 Thirsk, "Seventeenth-Century Agriculture SocialChange", I5I, I53, and pp. I55, I66; Thirsk,"Peasant Economy England", 8, I0; Kerridge, of pp. "Agriculture, c.I500-I793", pp. 52, 54, 55-7; E. Kerridge, TheFanners Old England of (London,
93 194 I973), pp. 75-7, 8I196 Kerridge, Fanners OldEngland, of pp. I06, I27, I28,
andin general 4. ch.
99
rearing.The graziers,it seems, tendedto be big capitalists who had plentyof investment fundsandcouldaffordto wait. This was, at any rate, the case on those lands which were turnedover to permanent grassfrompermanent arable,a specialization carried to bringthe out husbandry into closeraccordwith the suitability the soil. In these of areasa greatdealof capitalwas appliedfor enclosureandrestructuring of the farms.197 On the otherhand, smallmen could and did survivein particular lineswherethey couldbe as efficientas large aboveall in dairying, but also in marketgardening close by the towns. The smallfarmers maintained strongholdin the pastoralregions,wherethey carried a on a multiplicity smallcommercial of agricultural example (for hemp, flax) and industrialactivities.Even so, the restrictedrangeof agricultural possibilities opento thesehighlycommercialized smallfarmers must be emphasized.In turn, they owed their very existenceto the increasesin productivityof the grain producingareas, which allowedthem to exporttheirgrowingfood surpluses. 198 Finally,it needsto be emphasized the advantages the system that of of capitalist agriculture, comparison a systembasedon peasant in with possessors,is not merelya questionof the advantages largerversus of smaller farmers particular in agricultural lines, theirsuperior capacity to makethis or that"onceandforall"specialization improvement. or Perhapsmost significant the tendencyof capitalistpropertyrelais tions to enforce,by way of competition,a systematicdrivetowards specialization improvement an ongoingprocessin the economy and as as a whole to a socialand geographic divisionof labour.Thus we find in Englandnot only the earlydevelopment a complexsystem of of interdependent regionalspecialization, which the development in of one specializedareafed off and fed into the development the of next, but a continuingevolutionandtransformation this systemas of new techniquesbecameavailable. This is exemplified with the riseof the very potentsystemsof "mixedfarming" which, schematically in
197 Thirsk, "Seventeenth-Century Agriculture", pp. I55, I57; Thirsk "Peasant Economy England", I I; Kerridge, of p. Farmers OldEngland, 62, 90-I . of pp. 198 In the foregoing context,national averages farmsizeslikethoseputin evidence of by Cooperhide more than they revealaboutthe transformation agricultural of productionin England;for, as we have seen, this was the oppositeof an homogeneous process.It was, on the contrary, characterized the greatest by variation farmsize in by region,terrainand crop. The survivalof numerous smallfarmers leadingto a relatively national low average of farms is explained wayswhichin no way size in contradict argument: the competitiveness smallfarmers pastoral our by of in regions and in horticulture; the disinterestof big farmersin areasof poor soils; by the by security tenureenioyedby peasants a few regions.It shouldbe noted,moreover, of in thatthe weightof smallfarming agriculture exaggerated in is whenit is measured in termsof the proportion smallfarmsout of the totalnumber,ratherthanthe proof portionof the total cultivatedsurfacecoveredby smallfarms-or betterstill, the proportion good corn-producing of land coveredby such farms. See Cooper,"In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 25-6. Coopermakesmanyof these samepoints pp. himself.
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speaking,the increasedcultivation foddercropswas used to supof port the production animals,whichin turnfed backinto ongoing of grainproduction, withfallowsabolished. This systemwasmuchmore adaptable the light sandysoils thanto the heavyclayeyoneswhich to had hithertoprovidedEnglandwith much of its grain.As a result, duringthe seventeenthcenturyone witnessesa wholesaletransformationof formerly grainproducing areas,particularly MidlandEngland,towards animal production. accompanying The "depopulation" and freeingof labouropenedthe way for the rise of new industries in the adjacentlocales, amongthem leathergoods (connectedwith animalraisingin the area), lace, hosiery and clothmaking.Meanwhile, the light-soilareasof the southernpartof the countrybecame even more fully devoted to grairl.Consequently, demandfor agriculturallabour in the arableareasintensified,and industrialproduction in these areastended correspondingly decline. Instead, to these regionsexportedgrainto supportindustryand non-foodcommercialagriculture elsewhere.199 (III.2.2.b) LargeTenant Farmsin FranceandEngland What, then, is to be said about the fact, broughtagainstme by both Crootand Parkerand by Cooper,that largetenantfarmsusing wagelabourdid ultimatelybecomepreponderant someregionsin in France,especially the laterseventeenth in century,yet do not appear to have been associatedwith improvement to have broughtproor gressto theirregions?Does this invalidate interpretation? my the In originalessay I pointed to the same phenomenon and advancedan explanation: that despite its similarity outwardform, the system in of productioncharacterized large demesneswhich emergedin by partsof Francein the earlymodernperiodexpressedin realitythe existence of very different social-productive relationsfrom those whichobtainedin England.200 underlying The pointI triedto make was that to analysethe productive potentialsassociated with a given system of propertyrelations indeed, to fully definethat system -it is not enoughto focus on individualunits of production; their placewithin the economicsystemas a whole mustbe specified.One needs, in this case, to comprehend largerindividual the unitsin their interrelations with the otheragricultural productive units, as well as with those in industry.In fact the largetenantfarmin seventeenthcenturyFrancetendedtofunction verydifferently thandidits English counterpart, only becauseit represented outcomeof a very not the
199 E. L. Jones (ed.), Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, I660-I8IS (New I967), pp. 9-II, 36-7; E. L. Jones, "Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, I660-I750: Agricultural Change", Zl. Econ. Hist., xxv (I965), pp. I0-I8. 200 Brenner, "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe", pp. 73-4, n. I I I .
York,
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different historical evolution, but especially because it operated system onewhichremained property overall withina verydifferent peasolnt-dominated. in its basisdynamic the Thus, largertenant farms as a rule represented outcomeof wereablefor thefirsttimeto processeswherebythe Frenchlandlords land. Just been peasant asserttheirpropertyoverwhathad formerly in the as the originalprocessof dispossessing peasantry Englandhad of to depended a largedegreeupontheoperation the systemof surplus the (in compulsion particular, feudalright by extraction extra-economic fines), so it did in France.In France,however,it was to levy variable direct growingroyallevies of taxes, combinedwith the devastating whichmadeit properties, effectsof militaryconflicton the villagers' of possible for accumulators the land to underminethe peasants' of position (often alreadyweakenedby the extremefragmentation came during wave of expropriations holdings).The first significant in especially areas the Warsof Religion,and they wereconcentrated and directlyexposedto fighting,notablyBurgundy the Parisregion. the accompanied internal wave of engrossment A secondsignificant century, andexternalconflictsof the secondthirdof the seventeenth especiallythe years of the Fronde. Again, it was the undermining depredations, by exacerbated military effectof risingfiscalpressures, which forced peasantsinto debt and ultimatelyto sell out to local 201 proprietors. The large units of propertywhich emergedin Francefrom the similarto those of England.However, foregoingprocessesappeared surrounded in theyarosewithinanenvironment whichtheyremained France by a masin theirimmediateenvironsand throughout As peasantry. a result,theytookon aneconsive, albeitsemi-landless omicdynamicverydifferentfromthatof theirEnglishcounterparts. landby villageengrossers whichonly of The appropriation peasant the exacerbated effects of the subdivisionsof holdings,consequent on growth left massesof peasants holdings on peasantpopulation too snlall to providesubsistence,havingto seek leases and suppleMeanwhile,the weakmentaryemploymentto make ends meet.202 proproductivity,boundup with peasant-based ness of agricultural sector, and the duction,restricted Frenchhomemarket the industrial In outsideagriculture. the last employments leavingfew alternative
and EconomicEffectsof Seventeenth-Century 201 N. Fitch, "The Demographic BraudelCenter,BingFrance",Review[Fernand Wars:The Caseof Bourbonnais, econohampton,N.Y.], ii no. 2 (I978), pp. I8I-206; P. de SaintJacob,"Mutations a bourguignones la fin du XVIesiecle",Etudes miqueset socialesdansles campagnes pp. en Crise rurale Ile-de-France, 2I3-27, 248-53, i rurales, (I96I), pp. 34-49; Jacquart, 723 ff69I-707 the alongside producers, of of 202 For the maintenance largenumbers mini-peasant pp. en rurale Ile-de-France, 72I, 724-7, 74I-2- Le Roy Crise greatfarms,see Jacquart, in Ladurie,"De la criseultimea la vraicroissance", DubyandWallon(eds.),Histoire ll, de la Francerurale, pp. 4I4, 428.
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analysisit was thedemand landfor subsistence peasants for by confined to the countryside whichthuscontinued determine level of rents, to the despitethe riseof largeunitsof property production. This was and 203 manifestedin the secularrise in rents throughmuch of the seventeenthcentury,as the continuing erosionof the peasants' shareof the surfacedetermineda continuinggrowthin demandfor land, even afterpopulation reachedits peak.204 had In the foregoing economiccontext,the bestreturns obviously could be made simply by squeezingthe tenants(directlyby raisingrent). Correlatively madesense for the proprietors desistfrominvestit to ment in fixed capitaland to ploughtheirreceiptsbackinto the purchase of more land. This squeezingsometimestook place directly throughleasing the demesne in small bundles to peasanttenants. Veryoften, however,the demesnewas takenoverby a largefarmer. But these big tenantstendedto play morethe role of financial intermediariesbetweenthe lord and the mass of the peasantry than that of independent capitalists. They did providesomeinvestment funds, especiallyfor largeploughsandfor animals.But othercapitalexpenditures appearto have been restricted,and labour-intensive techniques favoured.The big tenantsappearto have been, in the last analysis,the lords' dependants: more or less "stuck"on the land, they had few economicalternatives wereallowedrelatively and little scope to accumulate surpluses.They relievedthe lordsof directresponsibility managing lands, while carrying myriadseigfor the out neurial administrativetasks such as collections and justice for them.205 turn the lords, recruited In increasingly fromthe ranksof the high officialsand urbanbourgeoisie,appearto have adopteda largelypassiveapproach theirestates,makingfew improvements to whilebuyingevermoreland. But this "rentier mentality" a good had and sufficientmaterialbasis the profitability rent-squeezing of methodsof surplusextractionin the face of endemicpeasantland hunger. I did indeedarguethat a moreproductive morecollaborative and relationship had by this time emergedbetweenlord and tenantin
203 For the upward pressureon rents from small, often sub-subsistence peasants who wouldpay significantly higherratesper acrethan big tenants,see J. Jacquart, "Larentefonciere,indiceconjuncturel", Revuehistorique, (I975), pp. 372-4. See ccliii alsoB. Veyrassat-Herren E. Le Roy Ladurie,"Larentefonciere and autour Paris de au XVIIesiecle", Annales.E.S.C., Xiii (I968), pp. 549-55; Cooper,"In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 48. p. 204 For the fluctuations rentin the northof France its risethrough in the period of the ReligiousWars;its fall-offafterthat;its recovery its old high levelsrather to earlyin the seventeenth century,andits accelerated increase fromaroundI640 see Jacquart, "Immobilisme catastrophes", 25I-2; Jacquart, et pp. "Rente fonciere, indice coniuncturel", 365. p. 205 SeeJacquart's comment: labourers the "wereneveranything themandataires but [representatives], the heartof the ruralworld,of thosewho heldthe trueelements at of power": Jacquart, Criserurale Ile-de-France, 756-7. en pp.
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significantareasof England,helping to underwrite continuingdevelopment.Cooperconsidersthatin so doingI havesomehowattributed distinctivelycharitablemotives and productiveintentionsto Englishlandlords("Professor Brennersoundslike a Tory defender of the CornLaws' ).206 Butno suchthingis contained my argument I in (nor do I imply that Frenchlords were somehowbackward antior entrepreneurial). point is simply that the differentsocial-proMy ductiveconditionswhichhadcometo prevailin England France and by the laterseventeenth centurymadefor differentstrategies best to protectand improvelandlordincomes.In England,especially the in graingrowingregions,capitalistfarmers controlled highlycapitala intensivehusbandry,and the numbersof landholding peasantshad declined drastically.In this situation, landlordincomes depended upon the tenants'ability to farm effectivelyon the basis of capital investment.Capitalist profitswere, in short,a conditionfor landlord rents.To the degreethatthe landlords attempted squeezetenants, to preventing themfrommakinga reasonable profiton theirinvestment, the lattermight cease to invest, and ultimatelygive up their leases, movingto anotherfarmor perhapseven anotherline of production. On the other hand, there existed no mass of semi-proletarianized peasantry the land let alone one which could affordto pay a on rentequivalentto that paid by the capitalisttenants.Economicsuccess, in brief, dependedon accumulation innovation and and, in this context, when the tenantwas short of funds it was at times in the interestof the landlordto take over, to some degree,the functionof capitalinvestment(in whichcase the landlord wouldtakepartof his returnin the form of profit).Thus the sort of landlord-tenant symbiosis to which I referred a good economicrationale tended had and to conditiona dynamicagricultural development.Cooperis in the end obligedto acknowledge its existencehas been verifiedagain that andagainfor the laterseventeenth eighteenthcenturies.207 and The qualitativedifferencebetweenthe anatomically similarEnglish andFrenchlargefarmsis strikingly evidenced theirmanifestly in differentfunctioningin the period of low grain prices of the later seventeenth century.Excellentprofitscould still be madein English agriculture this period, providedthat the appropriate in steps were takento make farmsmore efficient.On landssuitablefor grainthis meant an intensification and expansionof the advancedforms of sheep-corn husbandry the greateruse of foddercrops,enclosure, the build-upof largerfarms.On formerly arablelandsappropriate to pasture,good returnswere possible throughthe transformation to
Cooper, "In Search of Agrarian Capitalism", pp. 53, 55-6. I39. See Jones, "Agriculture and Economic Growth in England", as well as the sources cited by Cooper himself. See also Coleman, Economy of England London, I 977), pp. I 22-3 . (
206 207
Ibid., p. 55and n.
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permanentgrass, or to up-and-down husbandry,usuallyrequiring enclosureand the constructionof essentiallynew farm operations. The build-upof productive units, the inputof capitaland the accelerationof innovation werewhatwasrequired bothcases.Thatthis in was, indeed, what took place providesconvincingevidencefor the grip of capitalistproductionrelationson Englishagriculture this in period,as well as the superiority theserelations.208 of The responseof the Frenchproprietors the low food pricesof to the period from the I660S was in markedcontrastto that of their Englishcounterparts, Cooperhimselfpointsout. In the face of a as decliningmarketfor agricultural products,a marketwhich "indicated" that rents "should" be lowered to correspondto lowered prices, they insistedon raisingthem. As a result,a greatnumberof theirtenants,includingtheirlarger tenants,werecaughtin a squeeze betweenhigh rents and low prices, were pushedinto debt and ultimatelywere forced to yield up their farmsto their lord, as well as muchof theiraccumulated property, includingfarmimplements and even householdfurnishings.209 did not, however,indicatethat This the Frenchlandlordswere moreor less rational,moreor less charitable than their Englishcounterparts; they simplyfaceda different situation.When the bad times hit after I660, it made sense for the Frenchlordsto shift the burdento theirtenants,becausethey could get awaywith it and still profithandsomely.Rents appearto have been kept up, on the one hand, by the demandfrom semi-landless peasants,who wereapparently willingto intensifytheirlabourto be better able to pay more to the lords. On the other hand, the big tenantsappearto have been unableto avoidcontinuingto pay high rentsbecausethey had no placeelse to go. They endedup, in many cases, handingover to the lords every last bit of their accumulated capital orderto holdon to theirleases,beforegoingunder.Jacquart in thus refersto the "lamination" the farmers ruralmerchaxlts of and in this period.210 course, in the end marketforceswere bound to Of assert themselves.But they did so only in the long run. In many cases, landlordswere able to sustainhigh rents in the face of low prices for a generation.While rents were kept up in the north of Franceuntil I700,211 Frenchagricultural the base continuedto be eroded.
208 Thirsk, "Seventeenth-Century Agriculture and Social Change",pp. I55-7; Cooper,"In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", 53-6.Thus the factthatmanylandpp. lordsadopteda draconian pOlicy towards theirsmalltenantsdoes not controvert my argument, Coopersuggests,but further as supports it. 209 Jacquart, Crise rurale Ile-de-France, 742, 744-8;Jacquart, en pp. "Immobilisme et catastrophes", 254-5, 26I-5. pp. 210 Jacquart, Criserurale Ile-de-France, 747-8. en pp. 211 Jacquart, "Rentefonciere,indiceconjoncturel", 365. p.
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(III.2.2 c) Agrtcultural Production: Long-Term The Resultsin Englandversus France The long-termoutcome of the operationof these very different systemsof social-property relationsin Englandand Francewas only to intensifythe sharpdisparityin their respectiveagricultural performances.This conclusionhas recentlybeen disputedby a revisionist school (apparentlysupported, although inconsistently,by Cooper),which has sought to deny what was for long an accepted orthodoxy.Thus Cooperimplies that it was the greaterexposureto the devastations warfare of which explainsany weaknessof French agriculture relativeto Englishagriculture the sixteenthandsevenin teenth centuries.212 Other historianshave arguedin turn that especiallyfromthe earlyeighteenthcentury,with the end of the worst excessesof absolutism, Frenchagriculture experienced impressive an growthwhichcompared quite favourably with thatof England.213 The revisionist casedepends,however,on the findingsof Toutain, containedin a large-scale macro-study Frenchnationalincome. of Toutain'sdata have been largelydiscredited.214 Certainlythey are acceptedby few studentsof the French agricultural historyof the eighteenthcentury.On the basis of their studiesof tithe returns as well as less directevidence almostall haveconcludedthatagriculture stagnated leastto I750.215 at The evidencefor Englandis less direct than for Francen the but resultsare fairlyclear. Englishpopulationwas about2@2 millionin I450; it exceeded5 millionby I700. At the samelevel of population in the fourteenth century,therehad been chronicfamineand crisis. By I700, subsistencecrisishad already been, for a long time, a thing of the past. The last even relatively severeone hadoccurred I597, in but even this was not seriousby Continental standards. Meanwhile,
212 Cooper,"In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 59. It seems to me that his p. positionon this questionin this articleis profoundly contradictory, I havemade and use of the evidencehe himselfoffersagainstthis view 213 Seeespecially K. O'Brien, P. "Agriculture theIndustrial and Revolution", Econ. Hist.Rev., 2ndser., xxx (I977), pp. I66-8I;alsoR. Roehl,"French Industrialization: A Reconsideration", Explorations Economic in Histoty,xiii (I976), p. 260. 214 E. Le Roy Ladurie,"Les comptesfantastiques Gregory de King", Annales. E.S.C., xxiii (I968), pp. Io86-Io2-D. Landes,"Statistics a Source the History as for of Economic Development Western in Europe", V. LorwinandJ. Price(eds.), The in Dtmensions thePast (New Haven,Conn., Ig72), p. 74; E. L. Jones,"Introduction: of Industrial Patterns theirRuralBackgrounds", the Italian and in editionof Agricultural History Industrial and Development (typescript). wish to thankProfessor I Jonesfor allowing to consultthis manuscript me beforepublication. 215 Le Roy Ladurie thinksthat I do not in my essaysufficiently appreciate French agricultural progress thepre-industrial in period,but I amperfectly accord in withhis own summary: "On the whole, from the fourteenth centuryto the firstpartof the eighteenthcentury,the agricultural productwas withoutdoubt agitatedby fluctuation . . . but it was not animated,in the very long run, by a durable movement of growth. . . A truegrowthtakesform . . . onlyafterI 750, andthenoftenin a hesitant fashion":Le Roy Ladurie"Massesprofondes: paysannerie", 575. See also Le la p. Roy Ladurie,"De la criseultimea la vraicroissance", 395. p.
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by I700, perhapsup to half the population was in non-agricultural pursuits,havingto be supportedby agricultural producers.At the sametime, Englandhad becomeEurope's largestgrainexporter.216 What about the eighteenthcentury?For this period, approximations of English and French agricultural growthhave been based largelyon an assumedconstant capita per consumptiongrain.On this of assumptionpopulationgrowthcan provide,in gross terms, a good indicator the rateof growthof the foodsupply.As Cooper of explains, the caseof the revisionists Englishagricultural that growthin the first part of the eighteenthcenturywas not relativelygreaterthan the Frenchis basedon outmodeddemographic data (the Bowley-Rickman estimates). More recent figures supplied by the Cambridge Group,on the basis of datafrom parishregisters,show that (while food prices were relativelystable)Englishpopulationwas growing much fasterthan earlierestimatesindicate.This evidencesa much more rapid growthin agricultural output for the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century than had been previouslythought. Cooperends up by concludingthat "thereprobably appreciable was growthof agricultural outputin the late seventeenth earlyeightand eenthcenturieswhen Frenchoutputwas stagnant falling,andthe or Englishrateof growthwouldhavebeenmuchfasterthanthe French until I750". "By I760", he says, "the differences betweenEnglish and Frenchagricultures were certainlymuch greaterthan in I560, even if the comparison restricted the predominantly is to arableregionsof open-fieldFrance''.217
(III.2.2.d) French English and Agrtculture European in Comparative Perspective The development agriculture of elsewherein Europein the early modernperiodtends to confirmthe foregoingrelationships patand terns.
216 On the mildness Englishsubsistence of crises,evenin the sixteenth century,in comparison with the French,see A. Appleby,"Grain Pricesand Subsistence Crises in Englandand France,I590-I740'',?1. Econ.Hist., xxxix(I979). On Englishgrain exports, see D. Ormrod,"Dutch Commercial Industrial and Decline and British Growth the Late Seventeenth EarlyEighteenth in and Centuries", F. Krantzand in P. M. Hohenberg (eds.), Failed Transitions Modern to Industrial Societ: Renaissance ItalyandSeventeenth-Century Holland (Montreal, I975), pp. 36-43- J. A. Faber,"The Decline of the BalticTradein the SecondHalf of the Seventeenth Century", Acta historiae Neerlandica,(I966), pp. I25-6; A. H. John,"English i Agricultural ImprovementandGrain Exports,I660-I765", in D. C. Coleman A. H. John(eds.), Trade and Government Economy Pre-Industrzal and in England (London,I976), pp. 45-68. 217 Cooper,"In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 23, 24, 59. Lookingat the pp. eighteenth centuryas a whole,andusinganalogous methods,E. L. Joneshascometo similarconclusions. findsthatwhereas England Walesin I700 one person He in and employed farming I-7 persons,in I800 one personfed 2-5 persons,an increase in fed of 47 per cent. In Francethe equivalent calculation thatin I70I one personfed I-2 is persons,andin I789 one personfed I-3 persons,an increase only8 percent:Jones of "Introduction: Industrial Patterns theirRuralBackgrounds", 27-9. and pp.
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TheDutchCase. Cooperand Le Roy Laduriereferto the rise of progressive Dutch agriculture the sixteenthand seventeenth in centuries as if it exemplifiestheir argumentthat a peasant-dominated agricultural economycould, in the earlymodernperiod,providethe foundationfor agricultural breakthrough.218 what is most sigYet, nificantabout the Dutch agrarian structureat the startof the early modernperiodis its systematic difference fromthe typicalwest Europeanfeudal-peasant pattern.Therehadneverbeena strongly-rooted lordlyclass capableof extractinga surplusby meansof extra-economic compulsion,and by I500 the landedclassreceivedexclusively economic rents.Equallysignificant, therehadneverbeena traditional "patriarchal", "possessing" peasantry,with direct, non-market access to its meansof subsistence.219 Agriculture couldbe established, apparently, only on the basisof smalldairyandlivestockproduction; as a result, from the start, farmershad little choicebut to specialize outputfor exchange,for they hadto buy grainin the marketin order to subsist.220Fromveryearlyon, moreover, tenantry appears have to beenwidespread, furtherenforcing tendencyto competitive the market production.221 Giventhis non-feudal,non-peasant social-property structure, is it perhapsnot surprisingthat, from the sixteenthcenturyonwards, Dutch agriculture experiencedno tendencytowardsa demographicallypoweredevolutionon the basisof ensconcedpeasant possessors the familiar Malthusian patternleadingto morcellation, declining productivity,and crisis.222 Instead,underpressurefrom the urban marketsthere took place a process of economicgrowth based on competition and differentiation:highly specialized market productionled to the supercession smallholders the build-upof of and largefarms,on the basisof capitalinvestment,technicalchangeand the introduction wagelabour. of 223 TheFlemishCase. Finallyboth Cooperand Le Roy Laduriepoint to the precociousimprovement Flemish agriculture the early of in
218 Cooper, "In Searchof Agrarian Capitalism", 30 n. 47j Le Roy Ladurie, p. "Replyto Professor Brenner", 59. p. 219 J. DeVries,"On the Modernity the Dutch Republic", of Zl.Econ.Hist., xxxiii (I973), pp. I94-5 ff.; J. DeVries,TheDutch RuralEconomy theGolden in Age, I500I700 (New Haven,Conn., I974), pp. 24-4I. 220 DeVries, "On the Modernity the Dutch Republic", of p. I94. Note the huge roleof grainimportsin makingpossiblespecialization livestock wellas industry. in as DeVries,DutchRuralEconomy, I69-73; H. vander Wee, "TheAgricultural pp. Development the Low Countries Revealed the Tithe and Rent Statistics,I250of as by I800", in H. vander Wee and E. van Cauwenberghe (eds.), Productivity Landand of Agrtcultural Innovation theLow Countries in (Louvain,I978), p. I2. 221 DeVries,Dutch RuralEconomy, 33. p. 222 It is notablethat DeVriesexplicitly conceptualizes specificity the Dutch the of agrarian development followinga "spectalization" opposed a "peasant" as as to model: DeVries,DutchRuralEconomy, passim. 223 J. DeVries, TheEconomy Europe an Age of Crisis,I600-I750 of in (New York, I976), p. 7I-
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modernperiod, which was indeed operatedby very small agriculturalists.224 Does this caseprovethatpeasants couldanddid provide the basis for a breakthrough agricultural to and, in turn, economic development the earlymodernperiod?It needsto be notedat the in outsetthatthe smallFlemishagriculturalists generally not did their means of subsistence.It appears,in fact, that an possess phase in separating peasantsfrom the "possession" important the of the land and thus in conditioning agricultural development took place duringthe reconstruction the countryside the wakeof the of in late medieval population drop-off,whenlandlords turnedcustomary tenures to leasehold.In any case, in the earlymodernperiod Flemish agriculture primarily was carried eitherby commercial out tenantsor by mi-ni-freeholders whosefarmsweretoo smallto produce"forsubsistence".Both had to producefor the marketand to specializein orderto survive.225 What made it not only necessaryfor these small producers to specializeand improvefor the market, but also possible to do so successfully, firstlythe easyavailability grainbroughtin from was of eastern Europe.Massivegrainimportsfrom east Germaxly Poand landgave the Flemish cultivatorsrelativefreedomfrom the pressures orientproduction the varietyof subsistence usual to to nceds, in order avoiddependence the marketfor survival.Such to on ofsupplyin basicnecessitieswas not, of course,available security to mostof Europe's peasantry, whichwasin general obligedto be self-reliant.226 Correlatively, Flemish peasants'immediateaccess to the great the Flemish industrial centres theywerelocatedin the shadows the of Flemish towns gavethemreadyandconsistent markets andmade specialization muchless risky.227 that Finally,andindispensably, the Flemish farmers' proximityto the cities gavethem accessto the big urban suppliesof fertilizer(humanand animal).Fertilizerfromthe towns was a linchpin of their entire productiveenterprise,which would havebeen verydifficultwithoutit.228
224 Cooper, "In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", 30-I; Le RoyLadurie, pp. "Reply to Professor Brenner", 59. p. 225 H. rran der Wee and E. van Cauwenberghe, "Histoire agraire publiques Flandredu XIVe au XVIIesiecle", Annales.E.S.C., et finances en xxviii (I973), pp. I056-8; Cooper,"In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", 39- F. M. Mendels,"Agrlp. culture PeasantIndustryin Eighteenth-Century and Flanders", E. L. Jonesand in W. Parker N. (eds.), European Peasants their and Markets (Princeton, I975), pp. I94, I98-9. 226 A. Verhulst, "L'economie ruralede la Flandre la depression et du bas moyenage", Etudesrurales, (July-Sept.I963), pp. 76-7; A. economique iii "The A. G. Biidragen the Studyof DutchRuralHistory", van der Woude A. and Z1. European Econ. Hist., (I975), p. 235; B. H. Slicher iv vanBath,"TheRiseof Intensive in the Low Countries", J. S. Bromleyand E. H. Kossman(eds.), Cultivation in Britainand the Netherlands (London,I960), p. I49. 227 Slicher van Bath, "The Riseof Intensive Cultivation", I45-6 pp. 228 "The modelfunctions full only in nearcities . . . whichfurnishthe complements of fertilizer": Roy Ladurie,"De la criseultimea la vrai necessary Le croissance", p. 4I4.
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It must be emphasizedthat these minifarmers not, by and did large)producebasicfood crops. They specialized, rather,in all sorts of industrial crops, in dairyproductsand in marketgardening.229 It was not, therefore,the smallFlemishagriculturalist supported who the expandingFlemish industrialcentres. On the contrary,neither the specialized,Flemishsmallpeasantagriculture) the advanced nor Flemish industry could have flourishedhad it not been for grain importsfromthe east. In view of all its special features, it is hardly surprisingthat Flemish-typeagriculture barelyspreadat all beyondthe regionsin whichit originally founda home. Are we to supposethatthe neighbouringpeasants northern of Franceweresomehowtoo conservative to copy their Flemishbrethren? Did the Enlightenment come early to the Catholicpeasantsof Flanders,while it eluded their less favouredcounterparts too manymiles awayin Normandy)Camnot bresis, Picardyand other places?Le Roy Laduriehimself)writing elsewhere,is carefulto describethe Flemish agricultural developmentsas "aberrant" to point out that they "seemto developin and isolation' (in a "vase clos") - preciselybecauseof the peculiar) urbanized, grain-importing conditionsof the region.230 it not clear Is thatthis is the exceptionthatprovesthe rule? Onequalification concludetheseconsiderations the potentials to on of pre-industrial peasant agriculture: whatwas"therule"in medieval andearlymodernEuropecannotbe takento hold good for all times andall places.Forthe relationships betweencertain property systems and certainpaths of economicevolution)especiallyof the development of the productiveforces, are not governedby trans-historical laws. In particular, once breakthroughs ongoingcapitalisteconto omic developmenttook place in variousregions, these irrevocably transformed conditionsand character the analogous the of processes which were to occur subsequewntly elsewhere.Over time, and especiallyin the courseof the nineteenthcentury,the significance for economicadvanceof agriculture basedon smallowner-operators was altered.The incentivesfor production the marketgrew;the presfor suresto orientproduction subsistence to declined;and the technical potentialof the small family farmwas expanded.As the rise of industry made availablean ever wider range of commoditiesat low costs, thereweretremendous inducements the peasants giveup for to home production necessities,and to specializeand buy whatthey of neededon the market.With ever-expanding worldsuppliesin basic foodandimproved transportation maketheseaccessible) to therewas
229 Mendels,"Agriculture andPeasant Industry", passim. 230 Le Roy Ladurie,"Masses profondes: paysannerie", 514 and, in general la p pp. 5I I-I4; alsoquotedin Cooper, "In Search Agrarian of Capitalism", 39. Le Roy p. Ladurie,"De la criseultimea la vraicroissance", 4I4-I6. pp.
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decreasingrisk in specialization. Finally, with the development of artificial fertilizersand the growthof biologicalknowledgetowards the end of the nineteenthcentury, the small familyfarmobtained positiveadvantages certainproduction in lines. Especially the new in forms of animal (combinedwith fodder crop) production("polyculture-elevage"), best techniqueswereas applicable smallas the to to largefarmsand requiredlittle capital.Moreover, smallfamily the farmercouldapplya qualityand carein labournecessary animal for production whichwas usuallyunattainable capitalist on farmsusing wage labour.231 These developmentsnaturallymade much more likely a "smooth"transitionfrom peasantto essentiallycapitalist farming,withoutthe need for extra-economic processesto separate the directproducerfromthe meansof subsistence the continuity of the familyfarm.
CONCLUSION: INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
It was the growthof agricultural productivity, rootedin the transformation agrarian of class or propertyrelations,whichallowedthe Englisheconomyto embarkupon a pathof development foreclosed to its Continental neighbours.This path was distinguished conby tinuingindustnalization overall economic growth through and the periodwhen "general crisis"grippedthe otherEuropean economies, andinto the epochof the Industrial Revolution. Now, quite possibly, the spectacular rise of English cloth productionfor exportfromthe laterfifteenthcentury powerfully supplementedby populationgrowtha bit later was what set off the overall processof Englisheconomicdevelopment the earlymodern in period.It may well have providedthe initial pressureof demand whichset in motion the highly responsiveagricultural productive system.Nevertheless, is criticalto emphasize the Englishcloth it that export industry,like its Continental counterparts, characterized was byits continuity and similanty the greatmedievalcloth induswith to triesof Flandersand northernItaly:it responded the samefeudal to dynamics, was subjectto the same feudallybased limitations,and couldnot thereforeprovidethe foundations continuinggrowth. for Itgrew up on the basis of its abilityto capturea largesegmentof a growing European demandfor essentially luxuryproducts,rootedin growingupper- and middle-classincomes, based finally on the "growth phase"of the European economyextendingfrom the later
231 C. Servolin "L'absorption de l'agriculturedans le mode de production capitaliste", Y. Tavernier, Gervais C. Servolin in M. and (eds.),L'univers politique des paysans (Paris,I972), pp. 44-5, andpassim; Gervais C. Servolin,"Reflexions M. and sur l'evolutionde l'agriculture dansles paysdeveloppes", Cahiers l'Institut de eoconomique appliquee, Ag 3, no. I43 (Nov. I963), pp. I02-6. ser.
III
of fifteenthcentury. But like its predecessors the medievalperiod, limited for thegrowthof the Englishclothindustry exportwasstrictly boundedby market,ultimately size by the restricted of the European Thus the production. agricultural the system'sinabilityto transform counterparts, Englishclothexportindustry,like all of its Continental on inevitablybeganto falteras populationand production the Continent reacheda ceilingand beganto descendinto crisisin the later excompetition centuries.The intensified sixteenthand seventeenth periencednot only by the Englishcloth exportindustry,but by all cloth exportindustries,was an indication of the majorContinental Beyondthatpoint thatthe markethad reacheda pointof saturation. there might be some redistributionof market shares among the nationalcloth exportindustries,but industryas a whole could not Henceforth,every Continentalregion sank, grow significantly.232 crisis and agricultural industrial sooneror later,into the interrelated century. of the seventeenth off What, therefore,marks the Englisheconomyfromthose of all centurywas not only its in neighbours the seventeenth its European beyondtheoldMalthusian increase demographic to capacity maintain and industrial overalleconlimitsbut its abilityto sustaincontinuing of omicgrowth,in the faceof thecrisisandstagnation thetraditionally dycloth exportindustry.Althoughperhapsoriginally predominant expannamizedby cloth exports, the continuingEnglishindustrial sionwasfoundedupona growingdomesticmarket,rootedultimately production.It was, of in the continuingtransformation agricultural and by contrast,the restricted declininghomemarket undermined productivity which was at the root of by decayingagricultural productionthroughout the widespreaddrop-off in manufacturing and France,west Germany easternEurope. Europe The fact that the industrialdevelopmentof Continental the base throughout continuedto be fetteredby its feudalagrarian developby earlymodernperiodis finallyconfirmed the constricted region,the UnitedProvinces. mentalpathof even its most advanced By the early seventeenthcentury, Dutch shippingdominatedthe Europeancarryingtrade and may have constitutedthe economy's clothindustryfor mostdynamicsector.Therewasalsoan impressive paper, important export,locatedespeciallyat Leiden. Furthermore, brewing,bleaching,baking,and brickand tile makingindustries,at
Export "London's pp. 48-55, 6I-5; F. J. Fisher Economy of England, 232 Coleman, B. Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., iii (I950)Century", Trade in the Early Seventeenth I959)- D. (Cambridge, I600-I642 Crisis and Change in England, Commercial Supple, in B. Pullan (ed.), Crisis Industry", Woollen Sella, "The Rise and Fall of the Venetian "La concurrence and Change in the Venetian Economy (New York, I968); P. Deyon, lainieres aux XVIe et XVII' siecles", Annales. E.S.C. des manufactures international in the Competition and International "Cloth Production C. Wilson, xxvii (Ig72); Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xiii (I960). Century", Seventeenth
I I2
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least partlyfor export, grew up in this period. Meanwhile,a vital agricultural sector developedrapidlyby carryingspecialization by region, and especiallyin relationship the European to economy,to an extremely high pitch. The problemwas, however,that all of these developments were spurredby and dependentupon the generalgrowthof the European economyover the sixteenthand into the seventeenthcentury.The industrial agricultural and sectorswereheavilydependent upongrain importsfromeasternEuropefor theirexistence.Even moresignificantly,both shippingand cloth, as well as a numberof otherleading Dutchindustries,weredependent uponoverseas exportmarkets, and thus overseasproduction.This was eventuallytrue also of Dutch agriculture. sum, Dutch productionhardlyconstitutedan econIn omy in its own right; it grew up as an integralpart of the overall European economyand naturally sharedits fate. It was predictable, then, thatas the European economyas a whole movedinto stagnation crisisat variouspointsin the seventeenth and century, the Dutch economy would be profoundlyaffected. The carryingtradewas perhapsmost sensitiveto the generalEuropean crisis, stagnating after I650. Cloth, too, couldnot help but be hurt, the output of Leiden falling by one-thirdbetween I650 and I700. Becauseit wasso deeplyrootedin the European economy,the Dutch economycould not turn back in upon itself when the crisis came. The Dutchhadsimplybuilttoo greatanedificeon shakyfoundations. The region'sadvanced economicorganization allowedit to domhad inate the growingmarketsof Europe'seconomyin "phaseA". But when these marketsinevitablyreachedtheir limit, the Dutch economy was bound to fall back. Enmeshedin whatremained essenan tially feudal circuit of production,the Dutch economywas slowly strangled, as that circuit graduallyconstrictedwith the onset of "phaseB".233 By contrast,the Englisheconomyof the earlymodernperiodwitnessed the gradualconstructionof mutuallyinterdependent, mutually self-developingagricultural and industrialsectors at home. That Englishproductionhad alreadybegun to orienttowardsa developinghomemarketby the secondquarter the seventeenth of century appearsto be evidencedin the relativelysmalldegreeto which the dramatic crisisof the traditional cloth exporttradein this period disrupted economyas a whole.The economic"crisis" largely the was
233 Forthe foregoing paragraphs, especially derWoude,"A.A.G.Biidragen see Van andthe Studyof DutchRural History",pp. 227-4I . Schoffer comments: a certain "To degree,we cancallthe economic prosperity the DutchRepublic of parasitical . . [It] . wasboundto Europein all its fibres. . . Holland's prosperity wanedafterI660, the Republicwas alsoenmeshedin the B-phaseof European economic development": I. Schoffer,"DidHolland's Golden Coincide Age witha Period Crisis?", of Actahistoriae hIeerlandica, i (I966), pp. I00-I.
II3
for confinedto the areasdirectlyinvolvedin clothproduction export, and was manifested in high levels of unemploymentin these But locales.234 at the verysametime (I6I5-40) therewasa significant growthof all sorts of import trades:not only luxurygoods for the goods,suchas fruitsfrom upperclassesbut a widerangeof consumer Spain, currantsfrom the Levant, spices from the Indies, tobacco This fromAmerica.235 seemsto indicatethe existenceof a substantial of middle-class,even lower-class,marketat home. The appearance in an actualglut in grainproduction theseyears,with accompanying lower prices, seems to have eased the effects of the cloth crisis and providedthe basisfor continuinggrowth.236 The continuingdynamismof the Englisheconomyin the second which half of the seventeenthcenturyevidencedthe transformation hadoccurred.Duringthis time, as Thirskexplains,therewasa rapid in growthof a whole rangeof industrieswhichhad theirbeginnings the Tudor period (includingstockingknitting, lace making, linen industries" and weaving so forth),aswellasa hostof other"consumer (knives, edge tools, hats, pots and the like).237It is difficult to Nevertheless,the weight to these developments. assignquantitative that trendsseem to confirmthe impression there "macro-economic" goods.Demogrowinghomemarketforindustrial wasa significantly century growthcontinuedthroughthe end of the seventeenth graphic continuedto shiftfromagriandinto the eighteenth,andpopulation cultureinto industryand fromthe ruraltowardsthe urbanareas,as there was a big growthnot only of London, but also of Liverpool, and Birmingham.Even so, grainprices ceasedto rise. Manchester This allowedreal wages to increase,a new golden age for working incomes providinggrowingdiscretionary people. With agriculture powernot only to the middle but to the and increasingpurchasing lowerclasses, the home marketcontinuedto grow. Industryfed on improvement and agriculture stimulatedin turnfurtheragricultural Revolution.238 an upwardspiralthatextendedinto the Industrial Los of University California, Angeles
234 235
Brenner Robert
passim. in CnsisandChange England, Supple,Commercial Road',I630-I648", Econ.Hist. and H. Taylor,"Trade,Neutrality the 'English Tradeof London "TheImport Rev., 2ndser., xxv (Ig72), pp. 236-60,A. M. Millard, I600-I640"(Univ. of LondonPh.D. thesis, I956), appendices. Sociew of The PolicyandProjects: Development a Consumer 236 J. Thirsk,Economic England(Oxford, I978), p. I6I. I wish to thank Dr. Thirsk for in EarlyModern of in me allowing to consulther manuscript advance publication. ch. PolicyandProjects, 5, andConclusion. 237 Thirsk,Economic chs. 6, 7 of Economy England, see development, Coleman, 238 For the continuing and Productivity EconomicGrowthin England 9, II; A. H. John, "Agricultural and Econ.Hist., xxv (I965); D. E. C. Eversley,"The HomeMarket I700-I760",?1. in E. L. JonesandG. E. Mingay(eds.) Growthin England,I750-I780", Economic (London,I967). Revolution in and Land,Labour Population theIndustrial

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The Past and Present Society

SYMPOSIUM AND AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTURE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EUROPE PRE-INDUSTRIAL

THE AGRARIANROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM*

THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM

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THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM

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THE DEMOGRAPHIC MODEL AND CLASS RELATIONS

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THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM

their income Wherethe lords tried, and succeeded,in increasing

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in and 38PostanandHatcher,"Population ClassRelations FeudalSociety",p. 37.

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THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISM

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