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    The Agrarian Revolution in Southern France and Italy, 801-1150 David Herlihy Speculum, Volume 33, Issue 1 Jan., 1958), 23-41 ‘Your use of the ISTOR database indicates your acceptance of ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use. A copy of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use is available at hup://www,jstororg/abouvierms.himl, by contacting ISTOR at jstor-info@umich.edu, or by calling ISTOR at (888)388-3574, (734)998-9101 or (FAX) (734)998-9113, No part of a JSTOR transmission may be copied, downloaded, stored, further transmitted, transferred, distributed, altered, oF otherwise used, in any form or by any means, except: (1) one stored electronic and one paper copy of any article solely for your personal, non-commercial use, ot (2) with prior written permission of JSTOR and the publisher of the article or other text, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sc printed page of such transmission. Speculum is published by The Medieval Academy of America. Please contact the publisher for further permissions regarding the use of this work, Publisher contact information may be obtained at hutpulwww.jstor.org/journals’medacad.html. Speculum ©1958 The Medieval Academy of America ISTOR and the ISTOR logo are trademarks of JSTOR, and are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office For more information on JSTOR contact jstor-info@umich edu, ©2001 JSTOR bhupswww jstor.org/ Wed Feb 21 18:41:55 2001 THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION IN SOUTHERN FRANCE AND ITALY, 801-1150 By DAVID HERLINY ‘Tur central problem in tracing economic changes in what we would today call, an “underdeveloped” community, bears on the question ofthe sources of its food, 50 much so that in this field economic history may be considered an extension of Iuman “ecology,” the relationship of men and men’s communities with their habitat or environment.! In influencing the “ecological equilibrium” of com= smunity and environment, in determining whether that equilibrium be maintained or disturbed, a factor of paramount importance — indeed, comparable in sguific ‘ance only to major changes in the environment itself — is that of population growth. To be sure, let us give due recognition to the complexities of demographic analysis, and to the varieties of reaction within a community that demographie growth may produce. Obviously, under certain favorable conditions, where land is abundant and cheap and the investment of eapital and effort needed to bring it under cultivation small, population growth ean mean inereased production with virtually no economic dislocations. On the other hand, in areas of denser settlement, where good land is not so accessible or cheap, population growth may not result in an increase of production, and indeed, because of the parceling of the older farms among heirs and the undermining of their efficeney, may actually ‘work to reduce ‘That areas of the latter type existed even before the year 1000 in parts of the European continent is already an established fact. “At the end of the tenth century,” says Georges Duby of one such area, Burgundy, “the most remarkable trait of economic history is exactly. the continuous impoverishment of laymen.” ‘This picture of an agricultural production failing to inerease in proportion to the population which Georges Duby finds in Burgundy could be reproduced in yet ore somber colors for the still more densely settled Lombard plain. Indeed, as we shall be illistrating in nig pages, examples of population growth hampering agricultural production ean be drawn from many: areas seattered widely across the face of Southern Europe, from Poitou to Salerno, In this study we are concerned primarily with the pattern of crisis and recon struction characteristic ofthe economic development of these more lensely settled areas of southern France and Italy in the tenth and eleventh centuries. We re in fact isolating for special consideration one from among many possible and, in- deed, historically significant patterns of economic change within the growing European community. Such a limitation is, in a sense, imposed upon us by the + Excellent introductory discussions on the relationships between population growth and agricul tural settlements may be fou lack, Prehistoric Europes The Ezonomio Basis (New ‘York, 1952) especialy Chapter I, “Peological Zoues and Beonomic Stages" and Man's Rote in Changing the Face of the Barth, ed. W. Thomas, J, and others (Chicago, 1956), especialy Past T, “Retrospect.” *G. Duby, La socité ave Xe ot XU le sitses dans la rigion maconnaive (Paris, 1958, p. 6h 3 24 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 nature of our sources — private contracts, upon a statistical analysis of which this study is based. The more densely settled areas of the European South which have given us the bulk of our surviving contracts are likewise the areas where demographie growth tended to have the more immediate effect of hampering agricultural production rather than enhancing it. This basie fact lends their economic development a characteristic twist whieh we must be careful not to tuniversalize. Areas of less concentrated settlement and less intensive eu tion, where population growth could be converted into inereased productivity with relatively Tittle social or cconomie dislocations, have left a much weaker imprint on the historical record. ‘We must take eare to point out from the start, therefore, that the growth pat= tern we shall attempt to reconstruct cannot be considered universally valid for all areas, even south of the Loire River (to which this study is restricted), and still Jess, of course, for the “open fields” of the northern plains and England. Nor is it, even south of the Loire, the only historieally significant pattern of econon growth, We can maintain, however, that the pattern which will emerge from our contracts does have historieal signifieanee, in the sense that the economic devel- opinent of the more densely settled areas of the European South to an important extent can be described by it. We can say further, Ebeleve, that within the gen- eral and more complex picture of the agrarian revolution, and the great European evival, of about the year 1009, it holds a special place. Our first interest in tracing the agrarian history of the South is to establish the fact and define the impact of demographic geowth after the year 800. Of that growth, one of our earliest indications is the pareelling of landed property among heirs, As Georges Duby has stated, population growth, parceling of holdings, and wide-spread impoverishment are already chai of Burgundy even before the year 1000. We have, however, little direct information concerning the extent of these parttionings and the demographic growth they betray. By virtue of a Junge fund of private contracts, we are, onthe other hand, much better informed concerning a phenomenon closely related to land pastitionings and indeed in our period very nearly the mirror image of it: fluidity in agricultural holdings, the extent of land exchanges and sales. Tnan agrarian community where each productive unit — large estate or single- family farm — produces predominantly for its own consumption and where we can, therefore, discount the effeets of an external market, we should expect to find a relatively low rate of land mobility. Presumably each estate and farm be- comes stabilized over Lime at a satisfactory degree of eficene size, available labor, and the arrangement of its constituent fields. Partitionings, however, so often in agrarian history “the ruin of village families,” undermine this stability. They threaten the efficiency of production at the very time when the land must feed more mouths. Sometime before 1059, at the little parish- lage of Sainte-Radegonde, probably somewhere near Bordeaux, this “rising of land” (oriente permiztione terrarum) so crippled production that the village was abandoned, the inhabitants preferring to fle to a nearby forest and to uy their hand at a fresh start.? On the other side of Europe, in distant Salerno, Agrarian Revolution in France and Haly, 801-1150 5 ‘we hear even before 950 of property “in diverse places” lost to cultivation, “b ‘cause of the births (enerationibus) that had taken place.”* In the county of Poi tou, sometime before 1081, we are told of ‘a wide and fertile field” “which the quarrelsome and seditious heirs reduced to a desert.”* In 1097, in the Haute- Loire, a monastic seribe bewails the fate of fertile land overlooking the Loire, once in the memory of men so fruitful and overflowing with vines, now made “destitute by the multitude of owners and their quarrels.” “Truly,” he moralizes in a phrase that would go far to e the cause of Southern Europe's agrarian crisis of the tenth century, “the prophecy of Him Who eannot err was proved true in regard to this property: ‘every kingdom divided against itself shall be desolate.’ * ‘Not surprisingly, therefore, the critical problem that the growing agrarian ‘community faces — that of finding new farms for its increasing membership wit cout destroying the efficiency’ of the old — makes landowners more prone, even tually indeed forces them, to engage in land exchanges and sales, “hecause it ng that we should unite our inheritance into one,” “because of the burden- journey to reach these lands,” “for the congeuity of our [holdings),” “be- cause it is near our property,” “because cattle are trampling our lands [which] are divided off neither by bushes nor fences.” “Internal equilibrium,” says Georges Duby of this race between the seattering of land through partitionings ‘and the effort to compensate for it through exchanges and sales, “constantly destroyed, constantly re-established.”"* And yet there is no assurance that the “intemal equilibrium” of a rapidly growing agrarian community will in fact be immediately re-established If popula- tion grows faster than available land, the pulverization, scattering, and “mixing” of holdings may outdistance efforts to compensate for it through exchanges and sales: \ high rate of land transfers betrays, for any given period, a high proportion of estates and farms of low efficiency — in the sense of being composed of too many, too small, and too widely scattered constituent fields — the very ine ficiency of which the owners are trying to combat through exchanges and sales Such farms and estates we can also eall marginal, both because, as we shall see, a high rate of land transfers can be associated historically with periods of rampant famine, and because only a very pressing nced to improve the efficiency of their tenures, it would seem, could have moved owners to resort to the step, extraor- inary for the age, of trading land. A mounting rate of fuidity in agricultural tenures over an extended period shows that efforts to solve the problem are fail- ing, that the proportion within the community of such scattered, inefficient, and marginal holdings is in fact growing. We may describe this problem in another * Seint-Maixent, No, 116, April 1059. For explanation of the short bibliggraphical references to hartularis used in the notes, se lit of works in the appendix, Cava, No. 170, 042, * SuintFtienne-de-Limoges, No. 95, 20 December 1081, Chumalites-sur-Loire en Vey, No. 8, 1097, * Cava, No. 468, March 904; No. 877, August 1005; No, 664, April 1008, Dombes, No. 80, 8 Sune 1102, Salerno — Sen Giorgia, No. 10, September 1199, * Soc mdeonnatin . 7. 26 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 + way by ealling it crisis of agearian overpopulation or undes excess of hands for the agricultural work that must be done, an excess of mouths for the food that the increasingly deficient utilization of the soil ean produce. We may conclude too that « high and continuously groving degree of fluidity in agri- cultural holdings hetray's a deepening economic depression in and impoverish- ment of our agrarian community as a whole. Conversely, however, if new or newly emphasized juridical institutions — primogeniture, or kinship solidarity and its economic concomitant the undivided inheritance — slow the rate of further parcellings if elem yy with the power to do so move vigorously enough to rebuild and preserve efficient farms and estates even at the cost of foreing the “underemployed” from the land, if population pressure on the old centers of cultivation is relieved through colonization or urban employment, in the long run the rate of fluidity in agricultural holdings will fall, as more com= pact, more efficient and stable estates and farms tend to replace the small, scattered, incllicient, marginal, and highly fluid holdings that had formerly pre- dominated. Tn view of the importance of this principle of fluidity in agricultural holdings for the further development of the argument, it may not be amiss to adcluce, by way of illustration, parallels from other chapters in agrarian history. In south- western Germany, for example, the extensive parcellement of peasant holdings hhas tended, even in recent times, to inerease the mobility of real estate.? Another ‘example is provided by the experience, in the late nineteenth century, of the Russian repartitioning commune, the mir. From the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 to the end of the eentury the Russian village population doubled in number, and as peasant land increased only slightly, the number of “eaters” grew much rmore rapidly than available agricultural land. This “land crowding” provoked ever more frequent and extensive rearrangements of the tenures within the village commune, though here the commune itself, and not individual efforts through exchanges and sales, was responsible for the reorganization. Still, the constantly growing rate with which tenures within the village chan indicative of the growing popula icultural overpopulation ancl under employment, the deficient utilization of the land, and the decpening depression in and impoverishment of the Russ ‘one of the most pressing problems with which the Russian state of the cope. ‘This article proposes to study fluidity in agricultural holdings in southem France (approximately south of the Loire) and Italy (exelucling the islands) — in short, over a considerable section of southern Europe — during the period 801- 1150. By such an analysis it hopes to illustrate the period's agrarian history of and reconstruction, the reconstruction phase of which recent historiog- raphy tends to call the “seigneurial revolution.” Our sources are private con- od hands is ° G, Pleifer, “The Quality of Peasant Living in Central Europe,” Man's olen Changing the Face ofthe Barth, p. 286. 19 For the agricllural history ofthe petiod and bibliographical guidance, ae eapecaly M, Bloc, es caraciresoriginauz de Vhistoire rurale franain, ed. R. Dauvergne (Paris, 1950), and Re Grand Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 2% tracts, specifically land exchanges or sales. In Ttaly, the bulk of these contracts hhave come to us as original parchments; in France most have heen preserved as, transcriptions, often abbreviated, into chartularies, made usually by ecclesias- tical institutions to collect and preserve their proof of land titles. Before about 1000, the contracts are predominantly rural in provenience, and not surprisingly our richest collections come from such great monasteries as Chiny and Farfa, After 1000 an increasingly large proportion come from cities, and of course, at this time the urban contracts of Italy become particularly mumerous, However, whether from rural monastery or nascent city, the contracts remain finmly focused on the agricultural activities which fed them both. Of course, too, the contracts are overwhelmingly ecclesiastical in provenience; but, besides transactions in- volving churches and laymen, the archives have preserved a considerable number of strictly lay transactions, which helped establish title to land subsequently acquired by the Church. Let it further be said — and I hope this and future articles will bear me out — that in spite of the obvious difference between lay and ecclesiastical tenures (the latter supposedly not subject to division among licirs), the histories of them both should not be thought of as radically going their separate ways. Rather the high rate of land turnover, redundancy of rural labor and deficient utilization of the land in the late ninth and tenth centuries struck the Chureh as well as the laity, and the vast effort at agricultural reorganization from about 1000 was likewise & movement common to them both. ‘To measure the degree of fluidity in agricultural holdings, as an illustration of the relative predominance of seattered, inefficient, and marginal tenures and re- dundaney of rural labor, our approach must be statistical. Here, however, let us tuy to be very clear as to what we mean by that strange word “statistics” when applied to so remote a period and as to what we can legitimately expect from it. For direet measurement of economic phenomenon in the early Middle Ages we have little hope, We have, however, in our great collection of private contracts on all counts a richly detailed and eminently dispassioned commentary on the period's economic changes. By analyzing statistically changes in the material and in the vocabulary of that commentary, by resorting to something like a com- parative word count over time, we ean hope to isolate and highlight changes in our commentary and, indirectly, the economic movements they reflect. Let us emphasize the word “indirectly.” Tnsofar as we pretend to a certain arithmetical precision, that precision measures words more than realities, and the words in tur only roughly delineate economic movements. Is so patently erude an ap- proach worth the effort? The question, I believe, ean be fairly reversed, Our contracts for the obscure tenth century alone deseribe the exchange ot sale of over 6,000 pieces of land. Can anything but a statistical approach hope to extract, from this material — every bit of which, in view of the period's scarcity of snd R. Delatouche, Lagriultre au Moyen Age deta fin de empire romain au XVTe side (Pats, 1050). Por agrarian history in relation to Europe's general econotnic development, see most reently R. Latouche, Les origines de P économie ocidntale (IVe-XTe sive), Levcution de Vhamanite, 48 (Paris, 1950), 28 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 sources, must be considered precious — its potential contribution to economic history? We shall count in all eontracts involving exchanges or sales of land (oF dated, indirect references to sales and exchanges in other contracts) all pieces of land Uwansferred (whether completely or an undivided portion thereof). We shall con- sider as sales all transfers of land in full ttle (ie., no rents later to be paid, no mortgages), where some compensation is offered, and hence shall count pieces of land donated or renounced whenever some sort of compensation is given. We shall count all pieces of property so transferred by bwenty-five-year periods from 801-1150. Undated contracts are given the approximate dates assigned them by their editors; where such are dated wil d (es 970-900), they a peri are counted according to the middle year of that period (e.g., 980). Tere, however, « serious difficulty arises: ean we pretend that the number of pieces of land transferred in any twenty-five-year period refleets anything more immediate than the chance survivals of contracts, more in one period, less in an= other? To offset this, we must deal not in single ubsolute volumes, but rather in the relationship, expressed by a ratio, between two volumes, both of which arc Dased on the same contracts and subject to the same vicissitudes in the mumbers that have survived, but one of whieh is relatively more sensitive to the change we are seeking to measure. ‘Typically, the mediaeval farm consisted of two principal parts: the homestead proper whercon stood the house, which might be either isolated or one of a village, and an indefinite number of frequently detached pieces of properly agricultural land. Efforts to restore the “congruity”’ of property seattered by partitionings among heirs will be revealed more nearly by trade in these detached pieces than by trade in homesteads, and henee we can take the latter as sort of @ constant value to which to compare the volume of trade in detached pieces. In periods of seater fluidity of agricultural holdings, we should expect trade in detached pieces to grow much more rapidly than that of homesteads, and conversely, stability in holdings will be reflected more immediately by a fallin the transfers of detached pieces than by that of homesteads. By constructing & ratio of the number of de- tached pieces transferred as opposed to the number of homesteads, in the varia- tions of that ratio we should have a crude but serviceable index of the degree of fluidity in agricultural holdings. In the majority of instances, our contracts inform us rather precisely as to what type of land was transferred. In « fraction of them, however, we are not fully nor clearly told as to what type of land was transferred, and here we must resort to somewhat arbitrary rales of interpretation. However, in interpreting notarial vagaries, the critical element is not so much to be exactly right as to be consistent, as even a mistake, if consistently followed, will affect only the absolute value of the ratio and not that with which we are most eoncerned: changes in the ratio. All pieces of land (salt flats, water rights, wells, toxes and tithes of all types, are excluded) not explicitly described as possessing a house or directly bordering, cone (insimul fenens) or by one of the words cited below are presumed to be de- Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 29 tached pieces. As homesteads we shall count all pieces of land described as hold- ing a house (casa, domus, eapanna, and their variants), centered upon @ house (casale, easaricia, and variants), having a room of a house, « foundation (sedimen, Sundamentuns, catodium, and variants), a courtyard (curlile and variants), a church (ecclesia, oratoriun, and variants), simply buildings (edifica), but mills, furnaces and wine presses, which might be located away from the homesteads, ‘are not counted as such." We count as single homesteads, too, the large estates and villas (curtis, villa, often eavale), parishes and monasteries, and castles (cas- trum), even where the number of constituent houses is stated. homesteads, too, are counted tenures sold with serfs attached, or that pre- sume occupation (mansus, colonica, bordaria, sorts, res massaritia, condamina, and their variants), unless specifically described as deserted. A number of mansi located in the same village and worked by the same family are, however, con sidered a single homestead. ‘The results of our count are given in the appended Table and are illustrated by Graph T accompanying this study. Our ratio shows that fluidity in agricultural holdings is already tising markedly by the third quarter of the ninth century, and the growing rate of land transfers does not seem to have been seriously affected by the Saracen, Hungarian, and Norse invasions of the Inte ninth and early tenth centuries. Just possibly, the momentary reversal in our curve’s rise evident in the second quarter of the tenth ‘century might reffect an easing of population pressure due to the violence, and fewer births, of the generation before, but the reversal isso slight as to render any speculations upon its meaning hazardous. While the number of transfers upon which our eurve is based is small for this carly period, we are fortunate in having confirmation from other sources for the phenomenon it represents. In 864 in the Edit of Pistes, Charles the Bald com plained expressly of the breakup of the single-family farm unit, the mansus, rough land transfers, “so that not only is it impossible to collect the census, but even to know which lands belonged to which mansus.”"* He forbade all future tuansfers of land, “lest the villages become destroyed! and confused.” Our curve would seem to offer statistical illustration of the phenomenon he is protesting, ‘and measures how little success his efforts to prevent future transfers enjoyed. We should hasten to add, however, that. we cannot legitimately conclude from the behavior of our curve that the population of southern France and Italy was, in absolute terms, greater in the last quarter of the ninth century than it had Deen in the first quarter, and that it was continuing upward unaifected by the shock of the invasions. Such a conclusion would be hazardous, in view of full "The formula common in Talan contracts, “cass et res" “casas et tereag” where 0 further indiation is given as to the numer of houses or the number of detached plows i taken to mean ingle homestead # Monumenta Germaniae Mietria, Legum Sertio nw, Capit, Re. Francorum, 1, No. 278 p: 983 On population gros lating tothe break-up ofthe mans already evident inthe with cent sce C.F, Perrin, “Observations sur le mance dans Ia rigion parsieane au début du TXe sil, Annales hinire sociale (1945), 99-82. 80 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 & @ Graph I: Fluidity in agricultural holdings references in the sources to mass destruction, to the reduction of certain areas of Europe — southern Aquitaine, even central Italy, eoastal arcas generally — to a lesertion as a result of forays of the “pagani.” Southern Europe’s agrarian community seems to have contracted considerably as a result of this on- slaught, becoming concentrated in those areas where remoteness or inaccessibility. offered the protection that arms were failing to provide, especially in the Lombard plain and the upper Rhone valley. Smaller in geographical extention, the agrarian, commanunity may well have been smaller, too, in absolute numbers in 900 than it had been in 800, We don’t know, nor, for our purposes, is the question of major import. What our curve does permit us to conclude is that within this certainly con- tracted community there was developing manifestly by 900 a crisis of relative overpopulation and underemployment, of redundaney of rural labor and deficient utilization of the land, that in these terms the community was more depressed and impoverished in 900 than it had been in 800. Certainly this eonelusion of growing agrarian depression is not a surprising one. The withering away of the state, its failure to mount an effective defense against the onslaughts of the in- vaders, the simultaneous erisis of the Chureh as more and more her resources fell into the hands of land-hungry laymen — all these indications would seem to con- firm what our curve suggests: that the agrarian community of southern France Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 31 and Ttaly was already faced with the crisis of an economic output shrinki terms of its population size, caused by too many “confused” villages, of which, Charles the Bald by 864 is already complaining. But if southern Europe was already facing economic depression by 900, in the course of the tenth century that depression deepens. Fluidity in agricultural hold ings and all it suggests in terms of redundant labor and deficient use of the soil continues to grow, reaching its peak in the last quarter of the tenth century, sug gesting that behind the celcbrated “terrors of the year 1000" stood the fact, and the very real terror, of mass famine. Again, narrative sources add ample if understandably scattered material to confirm what our curve suggests, and incidentally to interpret the meaning, in human terms, of its dispassionate rise, We hear of the growing, size of vill Peter Damian, Italy’s great monastic reformer, knows of one “divided of ol into ine households,” now into “very many,” and adds significantly “as is the modern custom.” We hear, too, of exposure of infants in the face of hunger. Peter hime self had been abandoned by his family. “How badly," an elder brother had said, ‘slimness of inheritance suits a mob of heirs.” Peter tells too of a German mar grave, Berardus, who because of his large family (twelve sons), disinherited all his heirs and gave his property to the Church.!* He was moved to this not only for religious merit, but because the contentment and peace of his peasants would suffer if they had to answer to ‘‘sueh a mob of owners.” Tn our chronicles few descriptions are so commonly met, re luridlly presented, than those of the great famines raging over Europe about the year 1000." If we are to believe a Lombard source, which in reference to the year 1018 speaks of a “twenty-year famine,” hardly any year of the period was free from unger.” Outdoing all others in stories of the devouring of eadlavers, of killings for cannibalism, of mass despair, of crowds roaming the highways and byways in search of food, is the monk of Cluny, Raoul Glaber, who, if himself often suspect of exaggeration, finds plenty of support for his portrait of hunger in less emo- tionally inclined contemporary chroniclers.!* Raoul says further that after the millennium of Christ's death (1033), « new period of plenty began for Europe. Indeed, by the second quarter of the eleventh century our curve is falling rapidly. Significantly, too, the absolute number of ® Mie, Patrlogia Latina (henceforth PL), cx1v, 458 D, 1054-1055. "The aiesote tilly Peter Damian is dated by its principal elaeacter Will, mother ofthe Margrave Mug of Tixrany (0. 1002). "PL, exuay, 9B, "PL, exix, 218 D, July 1064 ™ Mang notices of famine during the pero are clleted in C.J, Hefle, Hvar des roi, H. Leclercq, 1? (Pasi, 1911, 9, 60. " Landulphi Senioris Medistanensio Mistoriae Kit quatwor, el. Ax Cutolo, Regum Tabicarutn Seripones ne 68 (Bologna, 1952), Le, 2, A 1018, Raoul Glaber, Historiarun liiri quingue ed. Prou (Pais, 1886) 1.1 4 Raoul wrote at Chany ‘not much before 1080. The accounts of Raoul snd athercinonilers are conveniently net and translated in L'An mile, ed. Poguon, sth ed (Pats, 1917) 32 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 pieces of land exchanged falls by 80% between 1000 and 1100, showing that ‘owners were holding on to, and were able to hold on to, their lands with new and ‘unprecedented tenacity. The factors behind this newly achieved stability we must seek to expl ‘We must inquire, first of all, whether juridical or institutional developments might have worked to obstruct the transfers of land or further partitionings and hence have contributed to this new stability. We do have much evidence that in the course of the eleventh century juridical developments were placing obstacles the path of land trading. Perhaps of greatest importance in this regard, and at any rate most evident in the sources, are the land polices of the Church-reform party, ever more powerful within the Church from about 1000, and indeed by the accession of Pope Leo IX (1048) her virtual rulers." Not only did the re- formers repeatedly and violently condemn all alienations of ecclesiastical prop- ‘erty — whether by sales, exchanges, or leases to anyone but direct cultivators —as robbery of Christ’s spouse and Christ’s poor. They also, in one of their basie goals of reform poliey, the ereation of chapters of clerics living celibately in common and sharing their landed property in common, fought to free the land ‘supporting individual churchmen from the claims of and division among lay reli tives, The implementation of this policy of canonical, eelibate living meant that ‘an important portion of churchmen’s property, which had formerly passed tinuously and freely into lay hands and had been continuously and freely par tioned by them, became stabilized in the hands of Church chapters. We also have shreds of evidence that the reform Church, in the interest of preserving the ‘economic efficiency of land given in lease to direct cultivators, made some effort to impose the practice of primogeniture upon them, but the importance of this we do not yet have enough evidence to evaluate.” ‘As the reform Chureh was busy stabilizing her own tenures tion of her, perhaps in necessary react n to have been making efforts to stabilize tenures, though our sources are, of ‘course, considerably more scanty in lay matters than in ecclesiastical. We find in the eleventh century a re-emphasis on the rights of the kin to reclaim land given by one of its members to one outside its fold, a juridieal development which would courage donations of property to the Church and sales and exehanges to any= .2 This re-emphasis on the need of securing the laudatio parentum in land transfers — the practice seems to have fallen half into desuetude in the ninth ‘and tenth centuries — would therefore act as a stabilizing factor in lay tenures. ‘Then, too, along with this aspect. of kindred solidarity, the practice of the n= 1 An excellent introduction in English tothe history of Church property in Taly is C. B Boye Tithe and Parishes in Modierl aly (Whsaca, N.¥., 1952). 8 Auch — Chapitre cathédral, No. 96, ca 1140, Lease made three generations previously, “sub ea conditione, ut nuimquam colturam ila fis vel Aiabus suis divideret, sed totam et integram Inberet per sucessonein persona masculini sexus que primogenita eset.” = CF, Duby, Soviété méconnait, pp. 196-197; 272-28, and the literature there cited. In Tey, too the growing frequency with which the ngreement of relatives is ited in dations and transfers slows that 9 parallel development was taking place, Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 38 divided inheritance seems also to have grown in application, as pethaps ean be illustrated in Italy by the fact that so many patrician consorteries begin to appear in our sources from the late tenth and eleventh centuries, Typical of the constit tion of these consorteries, if not its very basis, was the ownership of land i While we do have, therefore, much evidence of juridical and institutional devel- ‘opments influencing the degree of fluidity in agricultural holdings, nevertheless it , would seem almost self-evident that this attempt to discourage land transfers would hardly have been effective if it represented no more than an effort to stabilize the situation of crisis as it had existed by the last quarter of the tenth. century. We must inquire, too, whether these juridieal developments ran parallel to movements more nearly economic, in the sense of attempts to solve the basic problems of redundancy of rural labor and deficient utilization of the land. ‘The history of other agrarian crises —~ the “enclosure” movement of early ‘modem times or the Russian crisis of the late nineteenth century — might sug- gest for us our line of inquiry. Was it possible that by the year 1000, within the depressed and impoverished agrarian community, certain elements with resources, energy or ambition superior to their neighbors — “the strong and the sober” so to speak — had embarked on a vigorous effort to buy up scattered pieces of land, or “confused” farms, to restore their “congruity,” to “reintegrate” them into compact and efficient estates? “Let everyone know,” says the Chartulary of Auch about 1064, “that the field of St Mary, which is near the castle, was collected from many parts, and from, ‘many owners.” “This field,” says the Chartulary of Chamalieres, “although, as we have said, rendered destitute by the number of owners and their quarrels « [our abbot] Jarento . . . saw to be most promising for harvests of all types... - Me went to each of the owners of the place in each of the towns and villages they. inhabited... Although many owners refused and many were reluctant, still with God's help... he brought it about that all... gave up the land.” Jarento in his efforts relied upon both a forceful appeal to the owners’ religious susceptibilities and a considerable outlay of cash. This same pattern — pristine productivity of a piece of land, partitionings, ruin, repurchase from the many owners and restoration — is repeated exactly in the Chartulary of Saint-Etienne- de-Limoges, and in almost every chartulary, concentrated buying of land in par- ticular areas suggests that this was a policy widely pursued, though not every- where explicitly stated 2 About 1075 the monks of Saint-Aubin-d’Angers (just north of the Loire) were even accused of forcibly ejecting peasants from the soil “so that they themselves might cultivate the land,” to which the monks replied that the land in question, 2 See F, Nicolay “I conor Air talano, xa (104), fase, robilir ed i comune nelfats © media Walia,” Rive di storia ded No. 89, e0 1064, + Chamaliéres-tur Loire en Velay, No.5, 1097 * Saint-Eiennede-Limoges, No, 95, 2 December 101, 34 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 was already ruined beeause of death, war, poverty, and violence, and would have remained uncultivated, but for their enterprise. This effort to acquire or buy up land finds its parallel among the laity as well. ven before the middle of the tenth century, Odo of Chiny (ob. 942) detects ertain powerful men (civtes), aecustomed to bur for this [buying up of land], tunminelful of the prophet’s dreadful warning, ‘woe to you who lay house to house, and field to field..." Still, even Odo’s hero, St Gerald of Aurillac, had to be forgiven for buying up “a little field,” “almost surrounded” by his own property. A century later Peter Damian is still more outspoken: “Perhaps for this reason do we amass wealth, so that we may buy up possessions and fields? But what does it profit toestend the boundaries of property? . . . To what extent will you spread your lancls — you, who eannot live without fellows in this common world? You press upon those near or neighboring to you. But you will always find [more] against whom to expand.” ‘This hint that the agrarian revolution took the form essentially of an effort on the part of certain elements in the agrari xl pieees and farms, inan effort to wield them into compact and efficent produetive units, perhaps ean be illustrated by our contracts. A tendeney toward estate b and the concentration of property in fewer hands, woul be refl. tracts by a decisive inerease in the volume of land purchases. We ean, T think, gain a crude but serviceable picture of this volume by comparing the number of pieces of property sold (both homesteacls and detached pieces, since the move- rent seems to have represented an effort to buy up property of all types) with the number of picces exchanged (again, both detached and homesteads). To be sure, the juridical and institutional obstacles to land transfers we have already mentioned undoubtedly worked to diminish the volume of land exch: course of the eleventh century, but the same obstacles should hy effectively in cutting down the volume of land sales. A radieal cl ‘ume of lind sold as opposed to land exchanged may therefore be considered to have econo or institutional significance. Indeed, a ratio based upon the number of pieces of property sold as opposed to the number exchanged does show a radical change from about the After two centuries of a relatively fixed ratio, the volume of land sales increases greatly in the cleventh century, reaching its highest point in the century's last ‘quarter. (See Graph TL) On the basis of our two curves, I think we ean conclude to the following pattern representing the course of the agrarian revolution, at least with southem France and Italy characterized by intensive cultivation. Beeause of in- creasingly redundant rural labor and deficient utilization of the land, the agrarian community from about 801 to 1000 went through a course of ever greater lepres- sion and impoverishment. From about 1000, however, certain elements within rather than juri those areas of % Cartatar de Fabia de Saint-Aubin d! Angers, ed. B, de Brousillon (Angers 1800), No. 180, HPL, exxxan.659 4 PL, exty, 588 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 95 é 2 Graph TE: Sales versus exchanges, the depressed agrarian community, those with resources superior to their nei bors, began a vigorous effort at agricultural reorganization, ‘That effort consisted importantly in an effort to buy up scattered pieces of land and marginal farms, to restore the “congruity” of holdings, to “reintegrate” estates too widely sealtered — to make use of the language of the contemporary texts. If this conclusion is correct, we ean, I believe, find in the pattern of erisis within the agrarian community during the high Middle Ages a situation very similar to other crises in agrarian history, especially the Russian agrarian depression of the late nineteenth century and the similar agrarian problem of certain “under- developed” countries of our own day, such as Egypt and India. Essentially it is the pattern of an agrarian community depressed economically by ils own too rapidly growing population, by the redundancy of labor and deficieney in the utilization of the soil that result from it. Essentially, too, the solution to the problem consists in relocating this redundant labor and turning its productive capacity lo other activites, colonization of new land, foreign settlements, or urban employment. Experience in underdeveloped countries of our own day has shown, however, that the “underemployed” do not come spontaneously to recognize the cause of their impoverishment. They remain extremely reluctant to emigrate, preferring to remain on their overcrowded lands, “although the physieal product 86 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 of the ‘last’ ostensible worker on each holding may be zero.” To accomplish the relocation necessary for the welfare of the community requires the application upon the adult rural male of strong incentives and pressures. If itis permissible to apply the experience of underdeveloped countries of today back to our period, we may say that in effecting the relocation of the redundant population of southern Burope’s agrarian community, an important role was played by the effort on the part of the Church ancl a less clearly discernible group of lay divites to buy up property, and thereby to persuade or force the marginal producers to leave the old centers of cultivation. We should not assume, however, that this economie factor alone was or could have been strong enough to effect the relocation necessary for the community's welfare. A full consideration of the pattern of this agrarian revolution would have to examine, too, the incentives and pressures ereated by political and even ideological nts, most espe- cially by the effort, contemporaneous with the agrarian revolution, to reform the rch and to create an economic basis for the support of her new, celibate clergy. Needless to say, however, a discussion of these would take us beyond the limits of this preliminary study. Suffice here only to allude to their importance. If the here roughly outlined pattern of agrarian crisis and reconstruction in Europe of the high Middle Ages is correct, we can go on to say too that it has certain implications in regard to other phases of the period’s economic develop- ‘ment. It would perhaps not be premature to state those implications here, in the hope they might serve as working hypotheses for future research, One implication is that the effort on the part of the community’s more re~ sourceful elements to buy up land means that they must marshal what wealth in liquid capital they possess. Peter Damian, as we have mentioned, refers explicitly to this “amassing of wealth” (congerere lucra) out of a desire to buy up land. ‘The ‘effort should mean, therefore, that considerable amounts of formerly hoarded or inactive capital would be forced out into the economy. In the enclosure movement. of eighteenth-century England, so hard pressed were the great landowners for the cash to buy out peasant claims to land that the progress of the movement was extremely sensitive to the interest rate on borrowed money.** In the eleventh century we do have evidence of a erisis in credit leading to a marked outflow of formerly hoarded wealth, the emergence of which the author has attempted to illustrate in an earlier article." We might note, too, that the pattern of this re- ‘emergence of hoarded wealth — growth throughout the eleventh century, elimax n the century’s latter half — corresponds with the graph here given on the rela~ of land purchases. cation is that the redundant rural labor, those “underemployed” and forced from the old centers of cultivation as a result ofthis agrarian revolution, will be turning its productive eapacity to other activities 8, Ene “Speculations on Population Growth and Economie Development,” Quarterly Journal of Boonamia, 1304 (1957), 26 8 C4. T.8. Ashton, An Eoonomic History of England: The 18th Century (London, 1985), pp 40 “Treasure Hoards in the Italian Bconony, 960-1189," Beonomc History Review, x (1987), 1-14. Agrarian Revolution in France and Haly, 801-1150 37 ‘Those activities with which the eleventh century is especially marked — the “great clearances,” the mass pilgrimages and crusades, the rise of towns — all presume to some extent an outpouring of men andl capital from the older centers of cultivation. We should like to know further if there is an organic link between the agrarian revolution and these eleventh-century movements, Specifically in regard to the origins or growth of towns, the formation of new, efficient estates may, as we have seen, forced out into the economy considerable amounts of formerly hoarded wealth which conceivably helped finanice new urban, oF mercantile activities. Then, too, the estates themselves could feed the new towns through their own greater productivity. Again, the experience of under~ developed countries of our own day might permit us to speak of another link be~ tween the agrarian and urban revolutions. In certain underdeveloped areas, the introduction of industries is rendered very diffieult because the low productivity, of the farms does not allow the development of an internal market strong enough to support the new industries.* In those areas, agricultural reform aimed at rais- ing productivity is prerequisite for the beginnings of urbanization and industrial- ization. From the standpoint of the strong rural market it ereated, might not the agrarian revolution of the eleventh century have similarly been a necessary pre~ liminary for the urban revolution of the same period? ‘This pattern of agrarian revolution we have outlined is meant, as we have stated, only to represent one aspect or phase (albeit in the south of Europe the aspect most prominent in our sources) within the general pattern of the agrarian revolution of the high Middle Ages. Further, the outline itself, and the methodol- ogy by which its keystones were placed, are recognized by the author to be in every sense preliminary, and he hopes that both will be considerably developed and sharpened. He believes, however, that the approach to economic problems of the high Middle Ages through comparative history and statistical classifications of contractual material is a legitimate one. Beonomie science has gathered much, material on the economies of “underdeveloped areas” of recent history or the contemporary world. May we mediaevalists not project the patterns it has found back into history, to the time when Europe herself was an “underdeveloped area,” in the hope that they might at least suggest for us lines of inquiry? We medi- aevalists have in our great collections of private contracts a rich source, from which, unimagined wealth is yet to be had, if only we can develop the means of finding it. Buy Mawr Couns C1. E, Staley, The Future of Underdeloped Countries (New York, 1961), p- 258. "°A major ob stacle to development of efficient manfscturng in uvlerdeveloped countries s the srl sizeof the dnarket, which isin tum a consequence of the low purchasing power af the bulk of the people, most of whom get thei ving from the lan.” 88 Agrarian Revolution in France and Italy, 801-1150 APPENDIX, ‘The statistical count is based on all transfers of property contained in the following chartularies and parchment collections. The list does not pretend to be exhaustive, but the author believes that he had incorporated into it all the major colletions of private sonres forthe period. For ditional bibliography, se, for France, “Liste sles eartulaires et recueils contenant des pi cares Tan 1000, dvessée par les soins de Ferdinand Lot ot de ses collaborateurs,” Arehiewn Latinitatis Metit Aeei (ALMA), xv (1940), 5-24, and “Liste de cartulaires et recucils contenant des pidecs antérieures i V'an 1100 dressée par les soins du comité francais,” ALMA, xxut (1952), 239-259. For Ttaly, see C. G. Mor, L’Eta feudal (Milan, 1952), 1, xi-xi All French chartularies anc collections are cited according to their place of provenience and the number given them by H. Stein, Bibliographie générale des eartulares francais Paris, 1907). Only those not listed in Stein are given here in ful, For Italy, where possible, chartularies and collections published in important series or journals ure cited only by their place of provenience and the number of the series or journal. The following abbreviations are used: ASLSP=

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