Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe

The Past and Present Society
Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe

Author(s): Robert Brenner
Source: Past & Present, No. 70 (Feb., 1976), pp. 30-75
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650345 .
Accessed: 26/07/2013 18:58
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Oxford University Press and The Past and Present Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to Past &Present.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
AGRARIAN CLASS STRUCTURE AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN
PRE-INDUSTRIAL EUROPE *
GENERALINTERPRETATIONSOF THE PROCESSESOF LONG-TERMECONOMIC
changein late medievaland earlymodernEuropehave continuedto
be constructed almostexclusively in termsof whatmightlooselybe
called "objective" economic forces, in particular demographic
fluctuations and the growthof trade and markets. A varietyof
modelshavebeen constructed centring on theseforces.But whatever
the exact characterof the model, and whetherthe pressurefor
changeis seen to arisefromurbanization and thegrowthof tradeor
an autonomousdemographic development, a marketsupply-demand
mechanismis usuallyassumedto providethe elementary theoretical
underpinnings.So, the response of the agrarian economy to
economicpressures,whatevertheirsource,is moreor less takenfor
granted,viewedas occurring moreor less automatically, in a direction
economically determined by "the laws of supply and demand".
In theconstruction oftheseeconomicmodelsthequestionof class
structure tendsto be treatedin a variety of ways. Typically,thereis
thestatement thatone is abstracting (forthemoment)fromthesocial
or class structure forcertainanalyticalpurposes.' The factremains
thatin the actualprocessof explanation, thatis in the "application"
of the model to specificeconomichistoricaldevelopments,class
structure tends,almostinevitably, to creepback in. Sometimes,it
is inserted,in an ad hocway,to comprehend a historical
trendwhich
the model cannot cover. More often,however,consciouslyor
unconsciously, class structureis simplyintegrated withinthe model
itself,and seen as essentially shaped by,or changeablein termsof,
the objective economicforces around which the model has been
constructed in the firstplace. In the mostconsistentformulations
the veryfact of class structureis implicitlyor explicitlydenied.
Long-term economicdevelopment is understood in termsofchanging
* This paper was originally presented at the Annual Convention of the
AmericanHistoricalAssociation,December 1974. An earlierversionwas given
at the Social Science Seminar of the InstituteforAdvanced Study, Princeton,
New Jersey,April 1974. I wish to thankProfessorFranklinMendels, Professor
T. K. Rabb, ProfessorEleanor Searle and ProfessorLawrence Stone, for the
substantial time and effortthey gave in commentingon and criticizingthis
paper. I owe a special debt to Mr. Joel Singer forthe greatamount of help he
gave me, including both informationand analysis, in tryingto understand
German developments.
1 See forexample below, 34. M. M. Postan,
p. "Moyen Age", IXe Congres
Internationaldes SciencesHistoriques,Rapports,i (Paris, 1950), pp. 225 if.

AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTUREAND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 31
institutionalized
relationships of "equal exchange"betweencontract-
ing individualstrading different,relativelyscarce "factors"under
changingmarketconditions.2
It is the purpose of this paper to argue that such attemptsat
economic model-buildingare necessarilydoomed from the start
preciselybecause, most crudelystated,it is the structureof class
relations,ofclasspower,whichwilldetermine themannerand degree
to whichparticulardemographic and commercialchangeswill affect
long-runtrendsin thedistribution ofincomeand economicgrowth-
and not viceversa. Class structure, as I wishhereto use the term,
has twoanalytically distinct,but historically unifiedaspects.3 First,
the relationsof the directproducersto one another,to theirtools
and to the land in the immediateprocessof production- whathas
been calledthe"labourprocess"or the"social forcesof production".
Secondly,the inherently conflictiverelationsof property- always
guaranteeddirectlyor indirectly, in the last analysis,by force- by
whichan unpaid-for partof theproductis extractedfromthe direct
producersby a class of non-producers - whichmightbe calledthe
"propertyrelationship" or the "surplus extractionrelationship".
It is aroundthe property or surplusextraction thatone
relationship
definesthefundamental classesin a society- the class(es)of direct
producerson the one hand and the surplus-extracting, or ruling,
class(es)on theother.4 It wouldbe myargument thenthatdifferent
class structures,specifically"property relations" or "surplus
extractionrelations",once established,tend to imposeratherstrict
limitsand possibilities,indeedratherspecificlong-term patterns,on
a society'seconomic development. At the same time, I would
contend,class structures tendto be highlyresilientin relationto the
impactof economicforces;as a rule, theyare not shaped by, or
alterablein termsof,changesin demographic or commercialtrends.
It followsthereforethat long-termeconomicchanges,and most
cruciallyeconomicgrowth,cannotbe analysedadequatelyin termsof
the emergenceof any particularconstellationof "relativelyscarce
2
For a recentattemptto apply this sort of approach to the interpretationof
socio-economic change in the medieval and earlymodern period, see Douglass
C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World
(Cambridge, 1973).
3 The followingdefinitionsderive, of course, fromthe work of Karl Marx,
especially: "Preface" to A Contributionto the Critique of Political Economy
(New York, 1970 edn.); "The Genesis of Capitalist Ground Rent" and
"Distribution Relations and Production Relations", in Capital, 3 vols. (New
York, 1967 edn.), iii, chaps. xlvii and li; and "Introduction" to Grundrisse
(London, 1973 edn.).
4 This is not necessarily to imply that classes exist or have existed in all
societies. Classes, in my view, may be said to exist only where there is a
"surplus extraction"or propertyrelationshipin the specificsense implied here,
that is in the last analysis non-consensual and guaranteed either directlyor
indirectlyby force.

32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 70
factors"unless the class relationshipshave firstbeen specified;

indeed, the opposite outcomes may accompanythe impact of
apparentlysimilareconomic conditions. In sum, fullyto com-
prehendlong-term economicdevelopment, growthand/orretrogres-
sion in the late medievaland earlymodernperiod,it is criticalto
analyse the relativelyautonomousprocessesby which particular
class structures,especiallypropertyor surplus-extraction relations,
are establishedand in particularthe class conflictsto whichtheydo
(or do not)giverise. For itis in theoutcomeofsuchclassconflicts -
thereaffirmation oftheold property relationsortheirdestructionand
the consequentestablishment of a new structure- that is to be
foundperhapsthekeyto theproblemoflong-term economicdevelop-
mentin late medievaland earlymodernEurope,and moregenerally
of the transitionfromfeudalismto capitalism.
Putin suchgeneralterms,theforegoing propositionsanddefinitions
likelyappearvague. WhatI shouldliketo do is to tryto givethem
substanceby relatingthemto a critiqueof certainmajorexplanatory
motifsin the economichistoriography of late medievaland early
modernEurope,wheretheyhave hardlybeen takenforgranted,and
whereit seemsto me thateconomic-determinist model-building holds
an overwhelmingly dominantposition. Thus, I will focus on two
differentover-arching interpretations of long-term economicchange
in medievaland earlymodernEurope,one of whichmightbe called
the demographicmodel, the otherof which mightbe called the
commercialization model. The formergrewout of a critiqueof the
latter,but I shall tryto show that both are subject to analogous
problems.
I
THE DEMOGRAPHIC MODEL
The emergingdominanceof the so-calleddemographicfactorin
the economichistoriography of Europe even throughthe age of
was recognizedas earlyas 1958by H. J. Habakkuk
industrialization
in hiswell-knownarticle"The EconomicHistoryofModernBritain".
As Habakkukwrote:
For those who care forthe overmasteringpattern,the elementsare evidently
there for a heroically simplified version of English history before the
nineteenthcenturyin which the long-termmovementsin prices, in income
distribution,in investment,in real wages, and in migrationare dominatedby
changes in the growth of population. Rising population: rising prices,
rising agriculturalprofits,low real incomes for the mass of the population,
unfavourabletermsof trade forindustry- with variationsdepending upon
changes in social institutions,this might stand for a description of the
thirteenthcentury,the sixteenthcenturyand the early seventeenth,and the
period 1750-1815. Falling or stationary population with depressed
agriculturalprofitsbut high mass incomes mightbe said to be characteristic
of the interveningperiods.5
6 H. J. Habakkuk, "The Economic History of Modern Britain", Ji. Econ.
Hist., xviii (1958), p. 487.

Well beforeHabakkuk'sarticle,M. M. Postan had presentedthe
basic contoursof what has become the standardinterpretation of
long-termsocio-economicchangein the medievalperiod; and his
demographicapproachhas now been filledout and codifiedin his
chapter on "Medieval AgrarianSocietyin Its Prime: England"
in the Cambridge EconomicHistoryof Europe.6 Roughlythe same
line of argumenthas, moreover,now been carriedthroughthe
sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesby P. J. Bowdenin theAgrarian
HistoryofEngland and Wales. 7 Nor has thisapproachbeenconfined
to Englisheconomichistory, whereit is now moreor less standard.
It has been rigorouslyappliedin whatis perhapsthemostinfluential
workon Frenchsocio-economic historyof the pre-industrialperiod,
E. Le Roy Ladurie's classicmonographLes paysansde Languedoc.8
Withsucheminentexponents, it is hardlysurprisingthatwhatmight
be termedsecularmalthusianism has attainedsomething of the level
of orthodoxy. Its cyclical dynamic has replaced the unilineal
"rise of the market"as the key to long-termeconomicand social
changein pre-industrial society.
Nor can therebe any questionbut thatthe malthusianmodel,in
its own terms,has a certaincompellinglogic. If one takes as
assumptions firstan economy'sinabilityto make improvements in
agriculturalproductivity, and secondlya naturaltendency forpopula-
tionto increaseon a limitedsupplyof land,a theoryof incomedis-
tributionseems naturallyto follow. With diminishing returnsin
agriculture due to decliningfertility ofthesoil and theoccupationof
increasingly marginalland,we can logicallyexpectdemandto outrun
supply: thus termsof trade runningagainstindustryin favourof
agriculture,fallingwages, risingfood prices, and, perhaps most
cruciallyin a societycomposedlargelyof landlordsand peasants,
risingrents. Moreover,themodelhas a built-inmechanismof self-
correction whichdetermines automatically itsownchangeofdirection
and a long-termdynamic. Thus the ever greatersubdivisionor
overcrowding of holdingsand the exhaustionof resourcesmeans
"over-population" whichleadstomalthusian checks,especially
famine/
starvation;this resultsin demographicdeclineor collapse and the
opposite trendsin income distribution fromthe firstphase. As
Habakkukpointedout, thistwo-phasemodelhas now been applied
to the entireperiodbetweenroughly1050 and 18oo. Indeed, the
veryessenceof "traditional economy"has seemedto be capturedin
6 M. M. Postan, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", The
Cambridge Economic History of Europe, i, 2nd edn., ed. M. M. Postan
(Cambridge, 1966).
7 P. J. Bowden, "AgriculturalPrices, Farm Profits,and Rents", in H. P. R.
Finberg (ed.), The AgrarianHistoryofEnglandand Wales,iv, JoanThirsk (ed.),
15oo-1640 (Cambridge, 1967).
8
E. Le Roy Ladurie, Les paysans de Languedoc,2 vols. (Paris, 1966).

thiscenturies-longmotion biseculaire
(two-phasemovement). As Le
Roy Ladurie succinctlystates,"Malthus came too late": ironically,
Malthus'smodelwas correctnotfortheemergent industrial
economy
he was analysing,but forthe stagnantbackwardsocietyfromwhich
thishad arisen. Indeed,forLe RoyLaduriethepatternseemedso
"inescapable"as toinviteanalogiesfrombiologyorphysiology. The
historyof rural Languedocover six hundredyearsshouldbe seen,
he says,as "the immenserespiration of a social structure".9
(a) Demography, IncomeDistributionand EconomicGrowth

In termsof its specialpremisesand thesmallnumberof variables
it entails, secular malthusianismseems almost foolproof. Yet,
whatmustbe questionedis its relevanceto the explanationof actual
historicalchange. Do the model's assumptionsand constants,
indeed its verydynamic,illuminateor actuallyobscurethe crucial
conditionsand processesunderlying thevarying oflong-term
patterns
economicchangein late medievaland earlymodernEurope? In his
classic articleof 1950 which set out his demographicmodel for
medieval European economic development,Postan made sure to
specifythat he was concernedonly with what he termed "the
economicbase" ofmedievalsociety. He definedthe"economicbase"
as:
populationand land settlement, techniqueof productionand the general
trendsof economicactivity:in short,all thoseeconomicfactswhichcan be
discussedwithoutconcentrating upon the workingof legal and social
and upon therelationsof class to class.1'
institutions
Postan argued that what made it "possible and necessaryto deal
withthisgroupof subjectstogether",and in abstraction fromclass
relations,was that"theyhave all recentlybeen drawnintothe dis-
cussionof generaltrendsof economicactivity,or to use the more
fashionableterm,the 'long termmovementsof social income'".I1
But the questionwhichmustimmediately be posed preciselywhen
oneis attemptingtointerpret"longtermmovements ofsocialincome"
- that is, long-termtrendsof income distribution and economic
growth- is whetherit is at all admissibleto abstractthemfrom
"the workings ofsocialand legalinstitutions".Can theproblemsof
the developmentof Postan's so-called "economic base" be very
meaningfully consideredapartfromthe"relationsofclassto class"?
Withrespectto long-term trendsin incomedistribution,I shalltry
to arguethatthe malthusianmodelrunsintoparticularly intractable
problemsin relationto thealwaysambiguousand contestedcharacter
of medievaland earlymodernlandholdingarrangements.On the
one hand, the verydistribution of ownershipof the land between
landlordand peasant was continuallyin questionthroughoutthe
period. Could thepeasantry moveto establishheritabilityand fixed
910Ibid., "Introduction", esp. p. 8; also "Conclusion", esp. pp. 652-4.
Postan, "Moyen Age", p. 225. 11 Ibid.

freeholdrightson the land? If so, thevery
rents,thatis essentially
significanceof rent would be transformed, and the viabilityof the
landlordclass put in jeopardy. On the otherhand, in situations
wherethe landlordhad establishedownershipof the land, a further
questionmightbe raised: could the landlordgain extra-economic
poweroverthepersonofhistenant,controlmarriage, andin particular
land transfers and peasant mobility? If so, the possibilitywould
emergeof imposing"extra-economic" or arbitrarypaymentsupon
the peasantry- paymentsbeyond custom or beyond what the
relativescarcityof factorsmightdictate. Any explanationof the
progressofincomedistribution in thelatemedievaland earlymodern
periodmusttherefore be able to interpret
not merelythe changing
distributionof the immediateproductof the land, but the prior
questionsof the distributionof propertybetweenlord and peasant
and ofthedirectapplicabilityofforcein therentrelationship. Some
economichistorianshave attemptedto deal with this problemby
denyingor ignoringits existence,in particularby describingthe
economyin terms of contractualrelationshipsamong individual
holdersof scarce resources,such as militaryskill and weaponry,
land,agriculturallabourpowerand so on.12 Othershaveattempted
12 See forexample, D. C. North and R. P. Thomas, who argue that"serfdom
in Western Europe was essentially a contractual arrangementwhere labor

services were exchanged for the public good of protectionand justice": "The
Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Theoretical Model", JI. Econ. Hist.,
xxxi (1971), p. 778. North and Thomas can make this argumentbecause they
assume: (a) that the serf was essentially"protected from arbitrarycharges"
and (b) that because there was an absence of "a central coercive authority"
the serfswere essentiallyfree, especially to move, and that as a result there
was a "rudimentary labor market". In my view, these assumptions are
consistent with one another but inconsistent with the realities of serfdom
precisely because serfdomwas in its essence non-contractual. There was no
"mutual agreement" betweenlord and serf- accordingto North and Thomas
a definingfeatureof contract. On the contrary,it is preciselythe interrelated
characteristicsof arbitraryexactionsby the lords fromthe peasants and control
by landlords over peasant mobility that gave the medieval serf-economyits
special traits: surplus extractionthroughthe directapplication of forcerather
than equal exchange via contract,as North and Thomas would have it. The
sort of problems entailed in the approach of North and Thomas are evident
in their account of the originsof serfdom. Thus: "Individuals with superior
militaryskills and equipment were urgentlyneeded to protect the peasants
who were unskilled in warfareand otherwisehelpless. Here was the classic
example of a public good, since it was impossible to protectone peasant family
withoutalso protectingtheirneighbours. In such cases coercionwas necessary
to overcome each peasant's incentiveto let his neighbourpay the costs, and the
militarypowerofthelordprovidedtheneededforce." Rise of the WesternWorld,
pp. 29-30 (myitalics). This explanationnot onlybegs thefundamentalquestion
of class: How do we explain, in the firstplace, the distributionof the land, of
the instrumentsof force, and of militaryskill within the society. It also
undermines their own argument for the essentially contractualcharacter of
serfdom,forit is here explicitlyadmittedthatthe serfis coerced. To go on to
say that "the lord's power to exploit his serfs . . . was not unlimited but
constrained (in the extreme case) by the serf's ability to steal away" (p. 30)
does not eliminatethe fundamentaldifficulty: thatis attemptingto treatserfdom
as contractual,while admittingits essentiallycoercive character.

36 PASTANDPRESENT NUMBER70
to meettheproblembyassimilating itto theirbasiceconomicmodels:
by insisting,directly indirectly,that in the long run, the
or
distributionof propertyand the successfulapplicabilityof force
in therentrelationship willbe subjectto essentially thesamesortsof
supply-demandpressuresas the distribution of the productitself,
and will move in roughlythe same direction. I shall tryto show
empirically thatthisis notthe case and argueinsteadthattheseare
fundamentally questionsof class relationsand class power,deter-
minedrelatively autonomously fromeconomicforces.
The demographic interpreters of late medievaland earlymodern
economiesrun into even more seriousproblemsin attempting to
explain general trends of total production,economic growthor
stagnation, thantheydo withregardto the distribution of income.
Certainly,theirassumptionof decliningproductivity in agriculture
is a reasonableoneformost,thoughnotall, pre-industrial European
economies. Indeed, these economichistorianshave been able to
specifyclearlysomeofthetechnicaland economicrootsoflong-term
fallingyieldsthroughtheirresearchesintotheproblemsofmaintain-
in the face of a shortageof animalsand fertilizer,
ing soil fertility
especially under conditionsof backwardagriculturalorganization
and techniqueand lowlevelsofinvestment. 13 Nevertheless, specify-
ing in thismannerthe conditionsconduciveto long-term stagnation
is not reallyexplainingthis phenomenon,for no real account is
providedofwhysuchconditions persisted.Thus,to explaineconomic
"rigidity"as does Le Roy Ladurie as the " 'fruit'of technical
stagnation,of lack of capital,of absence of the spiritof enterprise
and ofinnovation"is, in fact,to beg the question.14 It is analogous
to attempting to explaineconomicgrowthmerelyas a resultof the
introductionof new organizationsof production,new techniques,
and new levels of investment.These factorsdo not, of course,
explaineconomicdevelopment, theymerelydescribewhateconomic
development is. The continuing stagnation ofmostofthetraditional
European economiesin the late medievaland earlymodernperiod
cannotbe fullyexplainedwithoutaccountingforthe real economic
growthexperiencedby the few of these economieswhichactually
developed. More generally,economic backwardnesscannot be
13
Postan, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", pp. 548-70;
M. M. Postan, "Village Livestockin the ThirteenthCentury",Econ. Hist. Rev.,
2nd ser.,xv (1962); J. Z. Titow, EnglishRural Society1200oo-350 (London, 1969).
14Le Roy Ladurie, op. cit., p. 634. Le Roy Ladurie seems at timesto want
to view economic development as essentiallythe direct result of apparently
autonomous processes of technical innovation. Thus, he says, "it was the
technological weakness of the society ... it was its lack of ability to raise
productivity,its incapacity lastingly and definitivelyto raise production,
which created the barrierwhich, at the end of the period, stopped its quasi-
two-phase (quasi-biseculaire)growth of population and of small peasant
proprietorship"(p. 639); see also below, note 37.

fully comprehended without an adequate theory of economic
development. In describing thespecifictwo-stageagrarian-economic
cycle set in motionin a numberof medievaland early modern
European economies by decliningagriculturalproductivity, the
malthusiantheoristshave indeed isolatedone importantpatternof
long-termeconomicdevelopmentand stability. But this dramatic
two-phasemovementis not universalevenfortraditional societies;15
and besides,it stillneeds an interpretation.I shall argue thatthe
malthusiancycleof long-term stagnation,as well as otherformsof
economicbackwardness, can onlybe fullyunderstoodas theproduct
of establishedstructuresof class relations(particularly"surplus-
extractionrelations"),just as economicdevelopmentcan only be
fullyunderstood as theoutcomeoftheemergence ofnewclassrelations
more favourableto new organizationsof production,technical
innovations,and increasinglevelsof productiveinvestment.These
new class relationswerethemselves the resultof previous,relatively
autonomousprocessesof class conflict.
(b) The DemographicModel in ComparativePerspective

I hope the forceof theseobjectionswill appearmorecompelling
as they are specifiedin particularhistoricalcases. My concrete
methodofcritiqueis exceedingly simpleand obvious:it is to observe
the prevalenceof similardemographictrendsthroughoutEurope
overthe six- or seven-hundred-year periodbetweenthe twelfth and
the eighteenth centuriesand to show the verydifferent outcomesin
termsof agrarianstructure, in particularthe patternsof distribution
of income and economic development,with which they were
associated. In thiswayI maybeginto exposetheproblemsinherent
in the complementary and connected demographic-deterministic
modelsof Postan(forthe twelfth to fifteenthcenturies)and Le Roy
Ladurie (forthe sixteenth to eighteenth centuries).
Demographicgrowth, accordingto Postan,characterizes thetwelfth
and thirteenth centuries. It leads to the occupationof marginal
landsandtheincreasing infertilityofthesoil: in short,a risingdemand
fora relatively inflexiblesupplyof food and land; thus,risingfood
prices and risingrents. However,as Postan is of course aware,
we aredealingin thisperiodwitha verypeculiarformofrent. There
is verylittlein thewayofdirectlease and contract. We haveinstead
a theoretically fixed,but actuallyfluctuating, structure of customary
rightsand obligationsthatdefinelandholdingarrangements.These
specifyin the firstplace the regular(ostensiblyfixed)paymentsto
be made by the peasantto thelord in orderto retainhis land. But
they oftenlay down, in addition,a furtherset of conditionsof
15 Cf. CliffordGeertz, AgriculturalInvolution(Berkeley,Calif., 1963).

landholding:the lord's rightto impose additionalextraordinary

levies (tallagesand fines);the peasant'srightto use, transfer, and
inheritthe land; and finally,the verydispositionof the peasant's
ownperson,in particular hisfreedomofmobility. Now itis Postan's
argumentthat these latterconditions,which togetherdefinedthe
peasant'scustomary status- his freedomor unfreedom - in so far
as theyare relevantto long-term economictrends,can be more or
less directlyassimilatedto his supply/demand demographicmodel.
Thus the centralpointforPostanis thatdue to developingpressure
of population,the thirteenth centuryis a periodin whichthe land-
lords' positionimprovesvis-a-visthepeasantsnot onlyin thosefew
areaswherewhatmightbe termedmodernleaseholding has emerged,
but also in the so-calledcustomarysector. Thus competition for
land inducesthe peasantryto accept a seriousdegradationof their
personal/tenurial statusin orderto hold on to theirland and this,in
turn, exacerbates the generallydeteriorating economicsituationto
which they are being subjectedsimplyby forcesof supply and
demand. So, in orderto retaintheirland,thepeasantsmustsubmit,
in particular,to (i) increasingarbitrary taxes (fines,tallages),levied
above and beyondthe traditionalrent; and (2) increasinglabour-
serviceson the lord's demesne. These increasedpaymentsare part
and parcelof the generallyincreasingabilityof the lord to control
the peasantsand determinetheircondition. In otherwords,for
Postan,theextra-economic relationshipsbetweenlordand peasant-
specifically,those paymentswhich are associatedwith increasing
peasantunfreedom - can be understoodin termsof the same form
of "relativescarcityof factors"argumentthatwouldapplyto purely
marketcontractual arrangements, and indeedconducedto the same
effectin termsofincomedistribution betweenlordand peasant. As
Postan says,forexample,at one point: "The fluctuation of labour
servicerequiresno otherexplanationthanthatwhichis providedby
the ordinaryinterplayof supplyand demand- demandforvillein
servicesand supplyof serflabour".16
The fourteenth and fifteenth centurieswitnesseda decline in
populationas a resultof fallingproductivity, famineand plague.
Ultimately, demographic catastrophe led to a drasticreversalof the
man/landratio. Postanthus argues,consistently enough,thatthis
demographicchange brought about precisely the opposite situation
to thatwhichhad obtainedin the thirteenth century. Scarcityof
peasantsmeanta declinenot onlyin thelevelof rent,but equallyin
the lord's abilityto restrictpeasantmcbility,and peasantfreedom
in general. Withcompetition amonglordsto obtainscarcepeasant
16M. M. Postan, "The Chronologyof Labour Services", Trans. Roy. Hist.
Soc., 4th ser., xx (1937), p. 171. For the previousparagraph,Postan, "Medieval
Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", pp. 552-3, 607-9.

tenants,one gets accordingto the laws of supplyand demand,not

onlydecliningrentsin general,and labour-services in particular,
but
giving up by the lords of theirrightsto controlthe peasantry.
Demographiccatastrophedetermines the fallof serfdom.17
Le RoyLadurietakesup thecyclefromthepointwherePostanleaves
it, thatis at the end of the fifteenthcentury. Serfdomis now no
longerextantin eitherEnglandor mostof France. We haveinstead
a societyoffreepeasantsin bothEnglandand France,some holding
theirland on a roughlycontractual basis fromthe landlords,others
having achieved a status of somethinglike freeholders.(I shall
returnto thisa littlelater.) At anyrate,as has been noted,we geta
repetition of thetwo-phasemovementPostanchartedforthetwelfth
and thirteenthcenturiesand then the fourteenthand fifteenth
centuries:that is firstan upward push in populationduringthe
"long sixteenthcentury"leadingto risingrents,fallingwages and
the disintegrationof peasant holdings. Drastically declining
productivitythen leads to demographiccatastrophesduring the
seventeenthcentury,a turningof the trend, and the opposite
configuration in termsof the distributionofincomeand of land.18
The obviousdifficulty withthiswholemassivestructure is thatit
simplybreaksdown in the face of comparativeanalysis. Different
outcomesproceededfromsimilardemographictrendsat different
times and in different areas of Europe. Thus we may ask if
demographicchange can be legitimately treatedas a "cause", let
alone the keyvariable. So it is truethatin the thirteenth century
increasein populationwas accompaniedbyincreasing rentsand,more
generally, increasingseigneurialcontrolsoverthepeasantry, notonly
in Englandbut in partsof France(especiallyin thenorthand east of
the Paris region: Vermandois,Laonnais, Burgundy).'9 Yet, it is
also the case thatin otherpartsof France (Normandy,Picardy)no
counter-tendency developedin thisera to thelong-term trendwhich
had resultedin thepreviousdisappearanceofserfdom. 20 Moreover,
in still other French regions(especiallythe area around Paris) a
17 Ibid., pp. 6o8-io. "In the end economic forcesasserted themselves,and

the lords and the employersfoundthatthe most effective way of retaininglabour
was to pay higher wages, just as the most effectiveway of retainingtenants
was to lower rentsand release servileobligations" (ibid., p. 609).
18 Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans de Languedoc,passim.
19 M. Petot, "L'evolution du servage dans la France coutumiere du XIL
au XIVe si&cle", Recueilsde la Socidtde'eanBodin, ii (1937), PP. 155-64; Ch.-E.
Perrin,"Le servage en France et en Allemagne", Xe CongresInternationaldes
Sciences Historiques,Rapports, iii (Rome, 1955), Pp. 227-8; Guy Fourquin,
Les campagnesde la regionparisiennea la fin du moyenage (Paris, 1970), pp.
175-9; Robert Fossier, Histoiresociale de l'Occident mddidval(Paris, 1970), pp.
161-3.
20 Robert Fossier, La terreet les hommes en Picardiejusqu'- la fin du XIIIe
sikcle,2 vols. (Paris, 1968), ii, pp. 555-60. See also the referencescited in
note 19 above.

processofdeteriorationin peasantstatuswas at justthistimeabruptly

terminatedand an opposite movementset in motionwhich had
decisivelyestablishedpeasantfreedom(as well as nearlyfullpeasant
property) by theend ofthethirteenth century.21 These contrasting
developments obviouslyhad a powerfuleffecton trendsof income
distribution.As Postanhimselfpointsout, landlordswere able to
extractfargreaterrentsfromserfs(villeins)thanfromfreetenants-
and were able to increasethese significantly in the course of the
thirteenthcentury.22 Postan contends,however,that:
The reason why landlordswere now not only desirous to increase the weight
of labour dues but also "got away with it" are not difficultto guess. With
the growing scarcity of land and with the lengthening queues of men
waiting for it, the economicpowers of the landowner over his tenantswere
more difficultto resist.23
Clearly,a growthof populationleadingto risingdemandforland

would tend to increasea lord's powerto extractrent,in whatever
form,fromthe peasantry- but only if the lord had successfully
establishedhis rightto chargemorethana fixedrent. However,the
pointis thatby and largein the medievalperiodthe onlytenants
subjectto theexerciseofthissortof"economic"poweron thepartof
the lord - thatis to the impositionof additionallabourservices,as
well as additionalarbitrarypaymentsof other kinds above the
customary rent,in particularentryfinesand tallages- wereunfree
and held by villeintenure. The verystatusof freetenantin the
thirteenth century(whichincidentally includeda significantsection
of the population)generallycarriedwithit preciselyfreedomfrom
heavy (or increasing)labour-serviceon the lord's demesne,and
freedomfromtallages,entryfinesand other similarpayments.24
So, the determination of the impactof the pressureof population
on theland- whowastogainandwhotolosefroma growing demand
forland and risingland pricesand rent- was subjectto the prior
determination of the qualitativecharacterof landlord-peasantclass
relations. Thus duringthe thirteenth centuryin the Paris region
the trendtowardincreasingtallagingof the peasantryby landlords
was directlyabortedby a counter-trend towardpeasantenfranchise-
ment. The point,hereas in England,was that,once free,peasants
21
Fourquin, op. cit., pp. 160-72, 189-90.
Postan, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", pp. 552-3,
22
603, 607-8, 611. In particular p. 603: ". .. the money charges incumbent
upon customary,i.e., villein, holdings were heavy by all comparison ... even
with those of substantialpeasant freeholders".
23
Ibid., p. 608 (my italics).
24 See above, notes I6, 22, 23. R. H. Hilton, The Decline of Serfdomin
Medieval England (London, 1969), pp. I8-I9, 24, 29-31. For graphic
illustrations of the ability of established free peasants to resist the most
determined(and desperate) effortsof rent-gouginglandlords even during the
thirteenth-century increase in population, see Eleanor Searle, Lordship and
Community : Battle Abbeyand itsBanlieu, 1o66-1538 (Toronto, 1974), PP. 163-6.

paid onlya fixedcustomaryrent; theycould not be forcedto pay
additional,arbitraryrents. It is notable,moreover,thatthistrend
towardrestricting rentand establishing
freetenurein theParisregion
tookplace in themostheavilypopulatedregionin all of France.25
The demographicdeclineexperiencedthroughoutEurope which
began at various points during the fourteenthcenturyposes
analogousproblems. In thelongruntheparalleltrendsofdeclining
rentsand the rise of peasantfreedomdid dominatethis periodin
England, certainlyby the fifteenth century. But in contrast,the
latefourteenth and fifteenth
centuriesalso witnesseda sharpeningof
landlordcontrolsoverthe peasantryin Catalonia;and thiswas also
the case, apparently,in partsof France (Bordelais,the Centre).26
It is truethatin theseareasand in mostof WesternEuropeserfdom
was dead by the earlysixteenthcentury. On the otherhand, in
EasternEurope,in particularPomerania,Brandenburg, East Prussia
and Poland, declinein populationfrom'thelate fourteenth century
was accompaniedby an ultimatelysuccessfulmovementtoward
imposingextra-economic controls,that is serfdom,over what had
been, untilthen,one of Europe'sfreestpeasantries.27By 15oo the
same Europe-widetrendshad gone a long way towardestablishing
one of the greatdividesin Europeanhistory,the emergenceof an
almost totallyfree peasant populationin Western Europe, the
debasementof the peasantryto unfreedom in EasternEurope.
But the period from1500 to 1750 markedanothergreatdivide
which puts in question once more the explanatoryvalue of the
malthusian model. This timewhatis leftunexplainedis notmerely
the question of income distributionbut the whole problem of
dramatically trendsofeconomicdevelopment:
contrasting continuing
long-runstagnationaccompanyingincreaseof populationin some
areas,thespectacularemergence ofan entirelynewpatternofrelatively
self-sustaininggrowthaccompanying increaseof populationin other
areas. Thus, as Le RoyLaduriewouldlead us to expect,in muchof
France duringthe sixteenthand seventeenth centuries,increasing
populationdid lead to fragmentation of holdings,risingrentsand
decliningproductivity.And at different pointsin timein different
25 Fourquin, op. cit., esp. pp. 170 ff.
28 Pierre Vilar, La Catalogne dans l'Espagne moderne,3 vols. (Paris, 1962),
i, pp. 466 if.; Jaime Vicens Vives, Historia de las Remensasen el Siglo XV
(Barcelona, 1945), pp. 23-4 if.; Robert Boutruche, La crise d'une socidte.
Seigneurset paysans du Bordelaispendantla Guerrede Cent Ans (Paris, 1947;
Paris, 1963 edn.), pp. 321 if.; Isabelle Guerin, La vie rurale en Sologne aux
XIVe et XVe sidcles(Paris, 1960), pp. 202-15 ff.
27 F. L. Carstens, The Originsof Prussia (London, 1954), pp. 80-4, ioi-i6;
M. Malowist, "Le commerce de la Baltique et le probleme des luttes sociales
en Pologne aux XVe et XVIe siecles", La Pologneau Xe Congr'sInternational
des Sciences Historiquesa Rome (Warsaw, 1955), PP. 131-6, 145-6; J. Blum,
"The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe", Amer. Hist. Rev., lxii (1957), PP.
820-2.

regionswe do gettheclassiccrisesofsubsistence,demographic disaster

and ultimatelya "turningof the trend".8s Nevertheless, ironically,
parallel growthof populationin Englandin this same periodhas
been used to explain preciselyopposite developments.Thus,
accordingto Bowden:
Underthestimulus of growing population, prices,and
risingagricultural
mounting landvalues,thedemandforlandbecamemoreintense andits
usemoreefficient.
The area undercultivation
was extended. Largeestates
were builtup at the expenseof small holdings."9
So, in France,as populationincreased,therewas extremefragmenta-
tion of holdingsand decliningproductivity.But in England,by
contrast,the dominanttendencywas to build up largerand larger
units;to consolidateholdingsand to farmthemout to a largetenant
farmerwho in turncultivatedthemwiththe aid of wage labour.
Accompanying this changein the organizationof productionwere
majorincreasesin agricultural withtrulyepoch-making
productivity,
results. By the end of the seventeenth centuryEnglishpopulation
had returned to itshigh,latethirteenth-century
levels,but therewas
nothinglikethedemographic patternof seventeenth-centuryFrance,
no phase B followinginescapablyfromphase A. Instead,we have
thefinaldisruption ofthemalthusian patternand theintroduction of
a strikingly
novel formof continuedeconomicdevelopment.30
II
THE COMMERCIALIZATION MODEL
BeforeI presentthe alternativewhichI thinkfollowsfromthe
foregoingcomparativeanalysis,it shouldbe notedthatboth of the
two mostprominent exponentsofthepopulation-centred approaches
to economicchange in pre-industrial society,Postan and Le Roy
Ladurie, originallyconstructedtheir models in oppositionto a
orthodoxy
prevailinghistoriographical whichassignedto the growth
oftradeand themarketa rolesomewhatanalogousto thatwhichthey
wereultimately to assignto population. Thus Postanand Le Roy
Ladurie made powerfulattackson the simpleunilinealconceptions
whichhad held thatthe forceof the marketdetermines:first,the
2" See for example, Pierre Goubert, "Le milieu demographique", in
L'ancien regime,i (Paris, 1969); also, Pierre Goubert, Beauvais et le Beauvaisis
de z6oo a 1730 (Paris, I960); Jean Meuvret,Etudes d'histoiree'conomique (Paris,
1971); Ernest Labrousse, et al., Histoire &conomique et sociale de la France, ii,
1660-1789 (Paris, 1970).
29 Agrarian Historyof England and Wales, iv, p. 593 (my italics).
30On English agrarianchange, its causes and 15oo-i64o,
consequences, see for example
R. H. Tawney, The AgrarianProblemin the SixteenthCentury(London, 1912;
New York, 1967 edn.); Eric Kerridge, The AgriculturalRevolution(London,
1967); Eric Kerridge, Agrarian Problemsof the SixteenthCenturyand After
(London, 1969), esp. ch. 6; W. G. Hoskins, "The LeicestershireFarmer in the
SeventeenthCentury", AgriculturalHistory,xxv (1951); Agrarian Historyof
England and Wales, iv, 15oo-i640. See also below, pp. 62-8.

declineof serfdom,whichwas oftensimplyidentified as the change
fromlabour-to money-rents and ipsofactothe emergenceof a free
contractual tenantry;and secondly,the rise of capitalistagriculture,
classically large-scale tenant farmingon the basis of capital
improvement and wage labour.
(a) Tradeand Serfdom

Postanwas, in particular,concernedto showthatin the medieval
periodtheforceofthemarket,farfromautomatically bringingabout
the dissolution of serfdom,might actually coincide with its
intensification.He demonstrated, forexample,thatin some areas
most accessibleto the London marketthe trendtowardincreased
labour-service and the seigneurialreactionof the thirteenth century
was mostintense. Perhapsan even clearerillustration of Postan's
pointis providedin theareasundertheinfluence oftheParismarket
duringthe same period. Thus, as one proceededalong the Seine
througha seriesofdifferent regionsall ofwhichproducedforParisian
consumption, passedthroughregionsofpeasantfreedom,
one peasant
semi-freedom and peasant serfdom. Most spectacular,as Postan
pointedout, was the case of EasternEurope,whereduringthe late
medievaland earlymodernperiodthepowerfulimpactof the world
marketforgraingave a majorimpetusto the tightening of peasant
bondageat the same timeas it was stimulating the development of
capitalismin the West.3
Still,Postanneverreallyspecifiedthefatalflawofthetrade-centred
approachto Europeandevelopment;this,in myview,is itstendency
to ignorethefactthatserfdom denotednotmerely, norevenprimarily,
labour- as opposed to money-dues,but, fundamentally, powerful
landlordrightsto arbitrary exactionsand a greateror lesserdegreeof
peasantunfreedom. Thus serfdominvolvedthe landlord'sability
to controlhistenant'sperson,in particularhismovements, so as to be
able to determine theleveloftherentin excessof "custom"or what
mightbe dictatedbythesimpleplayofforcesofsupplyand demand.
For thisreasonthe declineof serfdomcould not be achieved,as is
sometimes implied, through simple commutation,the "equal
exchange"ofmoney-rent forlabour-rent whichmightbe transacted in
theinterest ofgreaterefficiency
forbothparties."2Whatwouldremain
aftercommutationwas still the lord's power over the peasant.
Indeed,itis notablethatcommutation couldbe unilaterallydictated-
31 Postan, "The Chronologyof Labour Services",
esp. pp. 192-3; Fourquin,
Campagnesde la rigionparisienne,pp. 169-70 and 170, n. 71; See also M. M.
Postan, "The Rise of the Money Economy", Econ. Hist. Rev., xiv (1944).
32 For a recentre-statement of this view, see North and Thomas, Rise of the
WesternWorld,pp. 39-40. It is of course a corollaryof theirview of serfdom
as an essentiallycontractual,ratherthan coercive and exploitativerelationship.
(See above, note 12.)

and reversed - at the lord's will. Thus, as Postan points

out, commutationwas an extremelywidespreaddevelopmentin
twelfth-century England;butthistrenddid notsignify theemancipa-
tion of the peasants,forin the thirteenth century,theywere once
againmade subjectto thelandlords'demandsforservices. Indeed,
even where the lord did not decide to take labour-services, the
peasantwas stillrequiredto paymoneyfeesto "buy off"his labour-
dues and moreoverremainedsubject to those arbitraryexactions
(tallages,entryfinesand so on) whichwereboundup withhis status
as a "bondsman".33 Whattherefore had to be eliminatedto bring
abouttheend of serfdomwas thetypeof "unequal exchange"which
was manifestedin the direct, forceful,extra-economiccontrols
exertedby the lordoverthe peasant. Since the essenceof serfdom
was thelord'sabilityto bringextra-market pressureto bearupon the
peasantsin determining thelevelofrent,in particular by preventing
peasantmobilityand thus a "freemarketin tenants",it is hardly
surprising thatfluctuations
in trade,indeedof marketfactorsof any
type,werenot in themselves enoughto determine the dissolutionof
serfdom. Serfdomwas a relationshipof power which could be
reversed,as it were,onlyin its own terms,througha changein the
balanceof class forces.
Obviouslytheremightbe periodswhentheenormousdemandfor
land, and thus fortenancies,derivingin particularfromthe rising
pressureof population,would allow the lordsto takea veryrelaxed
attitudetowardpeasantmobility(voluntarily easingrestrictions on
theirvilleintenants'movements) sincetheycouldalwaysgetreplace-
ments,quite oftenindeed on betterterms. The latterpart of the
thirteenth century,as noted,was probablyjust this sortof period.
But evidencefromsucha periodcannotbe legitimately used to argue
for the end, or the essentialirrelevance,of peasant unfreedom.34
Serfdomcan be said to end onlywhenthelords'rightand abilityto
controlthepeasantry, shouldtheydesiretodo so,has beenterminated.
thateventhroughout
It is significant thethirteenth centurypeasants
wishing to leave themanorwere requiredto obtainlicencesto depart
and had to returneach yearforthe one or twoviewsoffrankpledge.
In thisperiod,as Raftissays,"the manorialcourtwas usuallyonly
concernedto keepthevilleinunderthelord'sjurisdiction, notto have
him back on the lord's demesne". Whatis telling,however,is the
suddenchangein the conditionssurrounding villeinmobilitywhich
followedimmediately upon theBlackDeath and thesuddenshortage
33 Postan, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", pp. 604-8,
61I. For an analysis of the reasons why commutationis misunderstoodif it

is assumed to mean a relaxationof serfdom,see esp. R. H. Hilton's Decline of
Serfdom,pp. 29-31, as well as his "Freedom and Villeinage in England", Past
and Present,no. 31 (July 1965), p. 11.
3" As does, for example, Titow, EnglishRural Society 1200-1350, pp. 59-60.

(as opposedto plethora)of tenants. For thisperiodthereis ample

evidenceforthe distraining of villeinsto become tenantsand take
overobligations;formuchheavierfinesforlicenceto leavethelord's
manor;fora remarkable increasein thenumberof pledgesrequired
forthosepermitted to leavethemanor;fora sharperattitudeconcern-
ing fugitivesfromthe domain;and forlimitations on thenumberof
years thevilleinwas allowedto be away from themanor.5 Certainly,
fromthelord'spointof view,serfdomwas stilltheorderof theday,
and theyhad everyintentionof enforcing it. Whetheror not they
wouldbe able to was a questionthatwasansweredonlyin theconflicts
of thefollowingperiod.
(b) Commercializationand Agricultural Capitalism

In a manneranalogousto Postan's,Le RoyLaduriecarriedforward
the critiqueof the trade-centred approachto European economic
development by showingthatevenfollowing thedownfallofserfdom
a tendencytowardcapitalism(large,consolidatedholdingsfarmed
on the basis of capitalimprovement with wage labour) could not
necessarilybe assumed,evenundertheimpactofthemarket. Thus
Le Roy Ladurie'sstudyof ruralLanguedocwas designedin partto
qualifythe earlierconceptionsof historianslike Raveau, Bloch and
othersthattheearlymodernperiod,underthestimulusofthemarket,
witnesseda steadytendency towardthedevelopment oflargeholdings,
cultivatedoftenby farmers of bourgeoisoriginwitha strongorienta-
tion towardimprovement and efficient productionfor the market.
In contrast,as we have seen, Le Roy Ladurie showed that the
emergenceof "capitalistrent" (based on increasesin the produc-
tivityoftheland due to capitalinvestment) as opposedto thesimple
squeezing of the peasant (on the basis of risingdemandfor land
stimulatedby increased demographicpressure) was far from
inevitable;thatfragmentation of holdingswas as likelyas consolida-
tion. Still the factremainsthat,like Postan,Le Roy Ladurie does
notgetto therootofthedifficulties ofthetrade-centred approachto
agrarianchangein thisperiodforhe does notattemptto specifywhy,
in fact,duringthe sixteenthand seventeenth centuries,a new cycle
of fragmentation and decliningproductivity was set offin some
places, while consolidationand improvement took place in others.
He does implythat morcellement (fragmentation) and rassemblement
(consolidation) were in some sense competitivetrends, and
shows thatthe "mercilesslypursued dismemberment" of holdings
"renderedderisorythe effortsof the consolidatorsof the land".
The result, he says, was that the economic historyof rural
35 J.Ambrose Raftis, Tenureand Mobility: Studiesin the Social Historyof the

Medieval English Village (Toronto, 1964), pP. 139-44.

46 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER70
Languedoc ended up as "pure peasant history... far fromthe

'originsof capitalism'".36
But Le Roy Ladurieneverreallyposes the question(not onlyfor
ruralLanguedocbutforall of WesternEurope)of whythevictory of
one trend ratherthan anotheroccurred.37Nor does he search
foran answer,as I am inclinedto do, in theemergence ofa structure
of ownershipof land which providedthe peasantryin most of
France(in contrastto Englandand elsewhere)withrelatively power-
fulproperty rightsovercomparatively largeareasofthe land. This
presenteda powerful barrierto thosewhowishedto concentrate land.
For whateverthemarketsituationor thepriceofland,thepeasantry
would not in generaleasilyrelinquishtheirholdings,the bases of
theirexistenceand thatof theirheirs. It was thus,I willargue,the
predominance of pettyproprietorshipin Francein theearlymodern
period which ensured long-term agriculturalbackwardness.38
This was not onlybecause of the technicalbarriersto improvement
built into the structureof small holdings,especiallywithinthe
commonfields. It was,as I shalltryto demonstrate, becausepeasant
proprietorship in Francecame to be historicallybound up withthe
developmentof an overallpropertyor surplus-extraction structure
whichtendedto discourageagricultural investmentand development;
in particular,the heavy taxationby the monarchicalstate; the
"squeezing"of peasanttenants(leaseholders)by the landlords;and,
the subdivisionof holdingsby the peasantsthemselves.39
finally,
36Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans de Languedoc,passim; the quotationsare at p. 8.
37Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans de Languedoc, pp. 8 ff. To explain the
failure of agrarian capitalism in France, Le Roy Ladurie falls back,
in the last analysis, upon the prevalence of backward mentalities. Thus
(ibid., pp. 640-I): "technological stagnation (immobilisme) was enveloped in,
supportedby, a whole series of... culturalblockages". For Le Roy Ladurie,
it was the "invisible spiritualfrontiers"which were "the most constrainingof
all" on the economy (p. II). And consistentlyenough, he appears to findthe
germs of true economic growthin the "new mentalities" (mentalitisnouvelles)
of the epoch of the Enlightenment(p. 652).
(not of course the impossibility,especiallyunder certain
38 For the difficulties
conditions and over a relativelylong term) of consolidatinglarge holdings in
the face of widespread and entrenched peasant proprietorship,see Louis
Merle, La mitairie et l'dvolutionagraire de la Gdtine poitevinede la fin du
moyendge &la rdvolution (Paris, 1958), pp. 70-2; Andre Plaisse, La Baronniedu
Neubourge(Paris, I96I), pp. 583-5; also Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans de Languedoc,
p. 327. Roger Dion enunciated the following general rule concerning the
powerfullimitingimpact of the French peasant communityon the development
of largefarms:"The regionsoflargefarmsare definednegatively:theyare those
which largely escaped the grip of the village communities". Quoted in
J. Meuvret, "L'agriculture en Europe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sicles", in his
Etudes d'histoiredconomique(Paris, 1971), P. 177. Of course, as Meuvret
points out (agreeingwith Dion) large farmstended to develop in France only
to a verysmall extent,and even then generallyon the worstlands - precisely
because theywere preventedfromdoing so by the widespread strengthof the
"strongly-rootedpeasant collectivities"(ibid.).
9 For the full arguments,see below, pp. 72 ff.

III
CLASS CONFLICT AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
In sum, despitethe destructiveforceof theirattacksupon the
unilineal trade-centred theoriesof economic change, it may be
doubtedthateitherPostanor Le Roy Laduriehas carriedhis critique
quite far enough. For, rather than searchingfor underlying
differenceswhichmightaccountforcontrasting linesofdevelopment
in differentplaces under similarconstellations of economicforces,
bothPostanand Le RoyLaduriehavechosento construct newmodels
largelyby substituting a different objectivevariable,population,for
the old, discreditedone, commerce. Because, in my view, they
have failedto place thedevelopment of class structureand its effects
at thecentreof theiranalyses,theirown cyclicalmalthusianmodels
encounter,as we have seen,preciselythesamesortsof difficulties in
the faceof comparative historythattheythemselves criticizedin the
trade-centredunilineal approaches. In particulartheir methods
preventthemfromposing what in my view are perhapsthe two
fundamental problemsfortheanalysisoflong-term economicdevelop-
mentin late medievaland earlymodernEurope,or moregenerally,
the "transition fromfeudalismto capitalism":(I) the declineversus
the persistenceof serfdomand its effects;(2) the emergenceand
predominanceof secure small peasant propertyversus the rise
of landlord-largetenantfarmerrelationson the land. In histo-
rical terms this means, at the very least: (I) a comparative
analysis of the intensification of serfdomin Eastern Europe in
relationto its process of decline in the West; (2) a comparative
analysisoftheriseofagrariancapitalism and thegrowthofagricultural
in
productivity England in relation to their failurein France.
Simplystated,it will be our contention thatthe breakthrough from
"traditionaleconomy"to relatively self-sustainingeconomicdevelop-
mentwas predicatedupon the emergenceof a specificset of class
relationsin the countryside, thatis capitalistclass relations. This
outcomedepended,in turn,upontheprevioussuccessofa two-sided
processof class development and class conflict:on the one handthe
destructionof serfdom;on the otherhand, the short-circuiting of
the emergingpredominance of smallpeasantproperty.40
(a) The Declineof Serfdom

One can beginby agreeingwithPostanthattherewas a long-term
tendencyto demographiccrisisinherentin the medievaleconomy.
But thistendencyto crisiswas nota naturalfact,explicablesolelyby
40
This view obviously derivesfromMarx's argumentson the barriersto and
the class structuralbases for the development of capitalism, especially as
presented in "The So-called Primitive Accumulation of Capital", Capital,
i, pt. VIII, and Pre-CapitalistEconomicFormations,ed. E. J. Hobsbawm (New
York, 1965), pp. 97-120.

reference to availablehumanand naturalresourcesin relationto an

ostensiblygivenlevel of technique. It was, rather,built into the
interrelated structureof peasantorganizationof productionon the
one hand,and, on the otherhand,the institutionalized relationships
of serfdombywhichthelordwas able to extracta feudalrent. Thus
the inabilityof the serf-basedagrarianeconomyto innovatein
agriculture even underextrememarketincentives to do so is under-
standablein view of the interrelated facts,first,of heavysurplus-
extraction by thelordfromthepeasantand, secondly,thebarriersto
mobilityof men and land whichwerethemselves partand parcelof
the unfreesurplus-extraction relationship.
Thus the lord's surplusextraction (rent)tendedto confiscate not
merelythe peasant'sincomeabove subsistence(and potentially even
beyond)but at the same time to threatenthe fundsnecessaryto
refurbish thepeasant'sholdingand to preventthelong-term decline
ofits productivity.Postanhas estimatedthaton averagesomething
like50 percentoftheunfreepeasant'stotalproductwas extracted by
the lord."4 This was entirely unproductive "profit",forhardlyany
of it was "ploughedback" intoproduction;mostwas squanderedin
military expenditure and conspicuousconsumption.42
Atthesametime,givenhisunfreepeasants,thelord'smostobvious
mode of increasingoutputfromhis lands was not throughcapital
investmentand the introduction of new techniques,but through
"squeezing" the peasants,throughraisingeithermoney-rents or
labour-services.In particularthe availability of unfreerent-paying
tenantsmilitatedagainstthe tendencyto expel or buy out peasants
in order to constructa consolidateddemesne and introduce
improvements on this basis. Revenues could be raised through
increasing rentsvia tallages,entryfinesand otherlevies,so therewas
littleneed to engagein the difficult and costlyprocessesof building
and of
up largeholdings investing, removing customary peasantsand
bringing in newtechniques. Thus theargument sometimes advanced
thatthe medievallandlords'agricultural investments wereadequate
to therequirements of theirestatesbegs the question,forit takesas
given the landlords' class-positionand the agrarianstructure bound
up withit.43
41 Postan, "Medieval AgrarianSociety in its Prime: England", pp. 603-4.
42 M. M. Postan, "Investment in Medieval Agriculture",JI. Econ. Hist.,
xxvii (1967). R. H. Hilton, "Rent and Capital Formationin Feudal Society",

Second InternationalConferenceof EconomicHistory 1962 (Paris, 1965), esp.
pp. 41-53. Hilton estimatesthat no more than 5 per cent of total income was
ploughed back into productive investmentby the landlords of the thirteenth
century(p. 53). This paper is reprintedin R. H. Hilton, The EnglishPeasantry
in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1975).
43 Titow, English Rural Society, pp. 49-50. If I properlyunderstand his
argument,Dr. Titow is assertingthat the failureto improve was by and large
theresultofthelack oftechnicalknowledge,theunavailabilityofnew techniques.
Thus, he says, "the technicallimitationsof medieval husbandryseem to have
imposed theirown ceiling on what could be spent on an estate".

There were,in fact,knownand availableagricultural improvements
- includingthe ultimately revolutionary "convertiblehusbandry"
- whichcould have broughtsignificant improvements in demesne
output.44 Indeed, as Professor Searle has recentlydemonstrated,
fully-fledged convertiblehusbandrywas systematically adopted on
BattleAbbey'smanorof Marleyfromthe earlyfourteenth century.
It is most significant thatthis manorconsistedentirelyof a single
consolidateddemesne(withno customary tenancies)and was farmed
entirelywith wage labour, markinga total break from feudal
organization of productionand class relations. It is notable,more-
over, thatthe manorof Marleyhad been constructed by buyingout
freetenants. Because thesetenantswerefreeholders, BattleAbbey
had notbeen able to increaseitsrents,althoughit had triedto do so.
Indeed, BattleAbbey had waged an extendedstruggleto forceits
tenantsintounfreestatus,preciselyin orderto open themup to the
impositionof additionallevies. However,in the end thishad been
unsuccessfuland, as a result,the only alternativefor raisingthe
revenuefromtheselandswas to buyup thepeasants'holdings. The
Abbey could then farmthese itselfas a consolidateddemesne-
and this,in fact,is the solutionit hitupon.45
Of course,the methodsused on the manorof Marleyby Battle
Abbey were almost totallyignoredby English landlords. They
generallydid not have to improve- to raise labour-productivity,
efficiencyand outputin order to increaseincome. This was
because they had an alternative, "exploitative"mode available to
them:theuse oftheirpositionofpoweroverthepeasantsto increase
theirshareof the product.
At the same time,because of lack of funds- due to landlords'
extractionof rentand the extrememaldistribution of bothland and
capital,especiallylivestock- thepeasantrywas by and largeunable
to use theland theyheldin a freeand rationalmanner. They could
not, so to speak, put back what they took out of it. Thus the
surplus-extraction relations of serfdomtended to lead to the
exhaustionof peasantproductionper se; in particularthe inability
to investin animalsforploughingand as a sourceof manureled to
deteriorationofthesoil,whichin turnled to theextensionofcultiva-
tiontolandformerly reservedforthesupportofanimals. This meant
the cultivationof worsesoils and at the same timefeweranimals
and thusin theend a viciouscycleofthedestruction ofthepeasants'
** See forexample, the use of convertiblehusbandryin Flanders in the early

fourteenthcentury: B. H. Slicher Van Bath, The AgrarianHistoryof Western
Europe, A.D. 5oo-185o (London, 1963; repr. London, 1966), pp. 178-9.
46 Searle, Lordshipand Community, pp. 147, 174-5, 183-94, 267-329.

means of support. The crisisof productivity led to demographic

crisis,pushingthe populationoverthe edge of subsistence.46
On the otherhand,the lord'sproperty relationshipsto thatsmall
group of peasantswho had enoughland to producea marketable
surplusand thusthepotentialto accumulate- thatis to concentrate
land, assemblea labour forceand introduceimprovement - was
also a barrierto thedevelopmentofproductivity.47 First,ofcourse,
feudal rent itself limited the funds available for accumulation.
Secondly, restrictionson peasant mobilitynot only prevented
peasant movementto areas of greaterpotentialopportunity, but
tended to limit the developmentof a free marketin labour.48
Finally,feudalrestrictionson themobilityof land tendedto prevent
its concentration.Unfreepeasantswerenotallowedto conveytheir
land to otherpeasantswithoutthe lord's permission. Yet it was
oftenin the lord's interestto preventlarge accumulatingtenants
fromreceivingmore land, because they mightfind it harderto
collecttherentfromsuchtenants,especiallyiftheyhad freestatus.49
Given thesepropertyor surplus-extraction relationships,produc-
tivitycrisisleadingto demographiccrisiswas more or less to be
expected,sooner or later.50 The question,however,which must
be askedconcernstheeconomicand socialresultsofthedemographic
catastrophe, in particularthatof the laterfourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Postan showed one logic: that the peasantsapparently
used theireconomicposition,theirscarcity,to win theirfreedom.
As B. H. SlicherVan Bath arguesforWesternEurope in general,
46 Hilton, "Rent and Capital Formation", pp. 53-5; Postan, "Medieval
Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", pp. 548-70. The net product of at
least one third of all the land, including a disproportionateshare of the best
land, was directlyin the hands of the tinylandlord class (that is in demesne):
E. A. Kosminsky, "Services and Money Rents in the ThirteenthCentury",
Econ. Hist. Rev., v (1934-5); Postan, op. cit.,pp. 601-2. See also above, note 41.
47 See Hilton, Decline of Serfdom,pp. 30-I and passim.
48 Admittedly, in the thirteenthcentury,giventhe extreme"overpopulation",
the availabilityofwage labour was nota problem. On the supplyofwage labour
in the thirteenthcentury,see E. A. Kosminsky,Studiesin theAgrarianHistory
of England in the ThirteenthCentury(Oxford, 1956), ch. vi.
49 See especiallyRaftis, Tenureand Mobility,pp. 66-8, forevidence concern-
ing lords' actions to preventcustomarytenantsfrom concentratingtoo much
land or to prevent customary tenants from conveying land to freemen.
ProfessorSearle suggests that a key motivationfor Battle Abbey's continuing
attemptsfrom the mid-thirteenthcenturyto depress its tenants fromfree to
unfreestatus was to be betterable to controlthe peasant land marketin order
to assure rents. Lordshipand Community, pp. 185 ff. See also M. M. Postan,
"The Charters of the Villeins", in Carte Nativorum,ed. M. M. Postan and
C. N. L. Brooke (Northampton Rec. Soc. Public., xx, 1960), pp. xxxi-xxxii
and ff.
o0Especially relevanthere is Postan's remarkthat the peasants' feudal rents
"had to be treated as prior charges. They could not be reduced to suit the
harvestsor the tenant's personal circumstances. .. in fact,the tenant's need of
food and fodderhad to be covered by what was leftafterthe obligatorycharges
had been met": "Medieval AgrarianSociety in its Prime: England", p. 604.

"the lordof themanorwas forcedto offergood conditionsor see all
his villeins vanish".51 Yet, curiously,quite another logic has
sometimesbeen invokedto explainthe intensification of serfdomin
Eastern Europe: the crisisin seigneurialrevenueswhichfollowed
upon the declinein populationand the disappearanceof tenantsled
the lordsto asserttheircontroloverthe peasantsand bind themto
theirlandsin orderto protecttheirincomesandtheirveryexistence.52
Obviously, both "logics" are unassailable from differentclass
viewpoints. It wasthelogicofthepeasanttotryto use hisapparently
improvedbargainingpositionto get thisfreedom. It was the logic
of the landlordto protecthis positionby reducingthe peasants'
freedom. The result simply cannot be explained in terms of
demographic-economic supply and demand. It obviously came
down to a questionof power,indeedof force,and in facttherewas
intense Europe-wide lord-peasantconflictthroughoutthe later
fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenthcenturies,almost every-
whereoverthesamegeneralissues:first, ofcourse,serfdom;secondly,
whetherlordsor peasantswereto gain ultimatecontroloverlanded
property, in particularthevastareasleftvacantafterthedemographic
collapse.
In Englandafter1349 and theBlackDeath therewas a seigneurial
reaction:attempts to controlpeasantmobilityby forcingpeasantsto
payimpossible feesforpermission tomove;legislationtocontrol wages;
an actualincreasein rentsin someplaces. But by 1400oo it was clear
that the landlords'offensivehad failed; revoltand flight,which
continuedthroughout the fifteenthcentury,led to the end of serf-
dom.53 In a
Catalonia, particularly revealingcase, one also finds
increasedlegislationby the Corts- the representative body of the
landlords,the clergyand the urban patriciate- to limitpeasant
movementand decreasepersonalfreedom. By the earlyfifteenth
century thislegislationhad proceededa gooddistance,withapparently
significant success. But, correlatively, it provokedin responsea
highlevel of peasantorganization and, in particular,
the assembling
of mass peasant armies. Well past the mid-fifteenth centuryit
appeared quite possible thatthe reaction
seigneurial would succeed.
Onlya seriesofviolentand bloodyconfrontations ultimately assured
peasant victory. Armed warfareended finallyin 1486 with the
Sentenceof Guadalupe by whichthe peasantrywas grantedin full
11
Slicher Van Bath, Agrarian History of WesternEurope, p. 145.
52 Carstens, Originsof Prussia, pp. 103 ff.; Malowist, "La commerce de la
Baltique et la problemedes luttessociales en Pologne aux XVe et XVIe siecles",
pp. 131-46; Guy Fourquin, Seigneurieetfdodalitiau moyenage (Paris, 1970),
pp. 215-16.
653 For the seigneurialreactionand its failure,see Hilton, Decline of Serfdom,
pp. 36-59. For a close case study, see Raftis, Tenure and Mobility,esp. pp.
143-4 and ff.

its personalfreedom,fullrightin perpetuity to its property(while

remainingobligatedto the paymentof certainfixed dues) and,
perhapsequallyimportant, fullrightto thosevacantholdings(masos
ronecs)whichtheyhad annexedin the periodfollowingthe demo-
graphiccatastrophes.54Finally,in Europeeast ofthe Elbe we have
the familiarstoryof the lordsentirelyoverwhelming the peasantry,
graduallydecreasingthroughlegislationpeasantpersonalfreedom,
and ultimatelyconfiscating an importantpart of peasantland and
attachingit to theirdemesnes. In short,the questionof serfdom
in Europe could not be reduced to a questionof economics:its
long-term rise in the East corresponded firstto a fallin population
and stagnationin tradeand thento a rise in populationand rise in
trade(1400-1600). In the West serfdomdeclinedduringa period
firstof risingpopulationand growingcommerce,thenof declining
population and reduced trade (1200-1500).
In sum, the contradictions betweenthe developmentof peasant
productionand therelationsof surplus-extraction whichdefinedthe
class relationsof serfdomtended to lead to a crisis of peasant
accumulation,of peasant productivity and ultimatelyof peasant
subsistence. This crisiswas accompaniedby an intensification of
the class conflictinherentin the existingstructure,but with
differentoutcomesin different places - the breakdownof the old
structureor its re-strengthening - dependingon the balance of
forcesbetweenthe contendingclasses. Thus in the end the serf-
based or feudalclass structure openedup certainlimitedpatternsof
development, gave rise to certainpredictablecrisesand, especially,
tended to the outbreakof certainimmanentclass conflicts. The
elementof "indeterminacy"emergesin relationto the different
characterand resultsof these conflictsin different regions. This
is notto say thatsuch outcomesweresomehowarbitrary, but rather
that theytended to be bound up with certainhistorically specific
patternsof the developmentof the contendingagrarianclassesand
their relative strengthin the different European societies:their
relativelevels of internalsolidarity,their self-consciousness and
organization, and their generalpolitical resources - especiallytheir
relationshipsto the non-agricultural classes (in particular,
potential
urbanclass allies) and to the state(in particular, whetheror notthe
state developedas a "class-like"competitorof the lords for the
peasants'surplus).
Obviouslyit is notpossiblein thiscompassadequatelyto account
for the differential strengthsof lords vis-d-vispeasants and the
differentpatternsofclass conflict betweenthemacrossEuropein the
late medievalperiod. It is necessary,however,at leastto pose this
14 Vicens Vives, Historia de las Remensas,pp. 23 ff.; Vilar, La Catalogne,
i, pp. 466-71, 506-9.

problemin orderto confront thefundamental questionofthesuccess

or failureof the "seigneurialreaction"whichwas nearlyuniversal
throughoutmedievalEurope, and thus,especially,the questionof
thedifferential outcomesofthelatermedievalagrariancrisesand class
confrontations in Easternand WesternEurope, resultingin totally
divergentpaths of subsequentsocial and economicdevelopment.
It shouldat leastbe clearthatwe cannotfindan explanationin the
directimpactof forcesof supplyand demand,whethercommercial
or demographic in origin,no matterhowpowerful. Serfdombegan
its rise in the East (and its definitive downfallin the West) in the
period of late medievaldemographicdecline; it was consolidated
duringthe trans-European increasein populationof the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries;and it was further sharpenedat thetime
ofthedemographic disastersofthelaterseventeenth century.
Nor will the pressureof tradeprovidea moreconvincinganswer
although,ironically,the rise of large-scaleexportcommercehas
sometimesbeen invokedto explainthe riseof serfdomin the East55
(as it has,analogously, theriseofcapitalismin theWest). It is not,
of course,my pointto denythe relevanceof economicconditions,
especiallythegrowth oftrade,to thedevelopment ofclassrelations
and
thestrengthof contendingclasses. No doubt,in thisinstance,the
incomefromgrainproducedby serf-basedagriculture and sold by
exportfromthe Balticto the West enhancedthe class powerof the
Easternlords, helpingthem to sustaintheirseigneurialoffensive.
But thecontrolofgrainproduction (and thusthegraintrade)secured
throughtheirsuccessfulenserfment ofthepeasantry was byno means
assuredby themerefactoftheemergence ofthegrainmarkets them-
selves. In the rich,grain-producing areas of north-westGermany,
the peasantswere largelysuccessfulin gainingcommandof grain
outputin preciselythe period of developingenserfment in north-
east Germany- and theyappearto have done so aftera prolonged
period of anti-landlord resistance. In fact,the peasants'abilityin
this regionto controlthe commercein agricultural commodities(a
shareof the Balticexporttrade,as wellas theinlandroutes)appears
to have been a factorin helpingthemto consolidatetheirpowerand
property againstthe landlords.56Indeed, on a moregeneralplane,
the precociousgrowthof commercein the medievalWest has often
been takento explainin large measurethe relativestrengthof the
55 For a recent version of this position, see Immanuel Wallerstein, The
Modern World System: Capitalist Agricultureand the Origins of theEuropean
WorldEconomyin the SixteenthCentury(New York, 1974), PP. 90-6.
66 Friedrich
Liitge, Deutschesozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte
(Berlin, 1966),
pp. 232-5. See the interestingmaterial on the emergence in the regions
of Dithmarschenand Fehmarn of a highly-commercialized freepeasantrywith
large holdings deeply involved in the Baltic export trade in the late medieval-
early modern period presented in Christian Reuter, Ostseehandel und Land-
wirtschaft im sechzehnten und siebzehntenJahrhundert (Berlin, 1912), pp. 18-29.

peasantry in WesternEuropeand thusthedeclineofserfdom. The

of
growth the market,it is argued,made possiblethe emergenceof
a significant layer of large peasants who, throughthe sales of
agriculturalsurpluses,were able to accumulatelargeholdingsand,
on thisbasis,to amasspowerand to playa pivotalrolein organizing
peasantresistance.57 So theargumentforthe disintegrating impact
of tradeon landlordpowerappearsprimafacie to be as convincing
as the counter-casefor its enhancingeffects. We are therefore
broughtback to our pointof departure:the need to interpret the
significanceof changingeconomicand demographic forcesin terms
of historicallyevolvedstructuresof class relationsand, especially,
differingbalancesof class power.
Perhapsthe most widelyacceptedexplanationof the divergence
betweenEast and WestEuropeandevelopment, in particular
therise
of serfdomin Eastern Europe, has been found in the weaker
developmentof the townsin thisregionwhichmade the entirearea
morevulnerableto seigneurialreaction.58Because the townswere
smallerand less developedtheycould be moreeasilyoverwhelmed
by the nobility,thusshuttingoffa keyoutletforpeasantflightand
deprivingthe peasantsof significant allies. However,this classical
line of reasoningremainsdifficult to acceptfullybecausethe actual
mechanismsthroughwhichthetownshad theirreputedlydissolving
effectson landlordcontrolover the peasantryin WesternEurope
have stillto be preciselyspecified.
The viabilityofthetownsas a potentialalternative forthemassof
unfreepeasantry mustbe calledintoquestionsimplyin termsoftheir
grossdemographic weight. Couldtherelatively tinyurbancentres-
whichcould have surpassed 0oper cent of the totalpopulationin
onlya fewEuropeanregions- haveexertedsufficient attractive
power
on the ruralmasses to accountforthe collapse of serfdomalmost
everywherein WesternEurope by 1500?59 The real economic
opportunitiesofferedby the towns to rural migrantsare also
questionable. Few runawayserfscould have had thecapitalor skill
to enterthe ranks of urban craftsmenor shopkeepers,let alone
merchants.Atthesametimetheessenceofurbaneconomy, basedon
luxuryproductionfora limitedmarket,was economicrestriction, in
57 See for example, R. H. Hilton, "Peasant Movements in England Before

1381", in Essays in EconomicHistory, ed. E. M. Carus-Wilson, ii (London,
1962), pp. 85-90; E. A. Kosminsky,"The Evolution of Feudal Rent in England
from the Eleventh to the FifteenthCentury", Past and Present,no. 7 (April
1955), PP. 24-7.
68 See Carsten, Originsof Prussia, esp. pp. 115-16, 135; Blum, "The Rise of
Serfdomin Eastern Europe", pp. 833-5.
1, For an indicationof the verysmall relativesize of the urban population in
later medieval England, see R. H. Hilton, A Medieval Society: The WestMid-
lands at theEnd of the ThirteenthCentury(London and New York, 1966), pp.
167-8.

particularcontrolof thelabourmarket. Certainly, fewof theestab-

lished citizensof the medievaltowns,typicallyorganizedin closed
corporations, could have welcomedruralimmigrants.Admittedly,
the urban"freemen"oftenconstituted onlya minority of the urban
population;but theywereoftenin a positionto place real limitson
opportunities in thetowns.60 It is in facta historicalcommonplace
that the strengthof the guilds was a significant factorin forcing
potentialindustrial capitalintothecountryside to find"freelabour".
It is indeed farfromobvious that the medievaltownshoused the
"natural" allies of the unfreepeasantry. For many reasons the
urban patriciatewould tend to align themselveswith the nobility
againstthe peasantry. Both of theseclasseshad a commoninterest
in maintainingsocial order and the defenceof propertyand in
protectingtheir mutuallybeneficialrelationshipsof commercial
exchange(rawmaterialsforluxuryproducts). Moreover,theurban
patricianswereoftenthemselves landowners and, as such,opponents
of the peasantsin the same nexus of rural class relationsas the
nobility.61It is truethat,in contrast, the urbanartisanstendedto
be anti-aristocratic.But this would not necessarilylead them to
supportthestruggles ofthepeasants;for,again,freeing thepeasantry
posed a threatto urbancontrolsoverthe labourmarketand invited
increasedcompetition.
In truth,thehistoricalrecordof urbansupportfortheaspirations
to freedomof the medievalEuropeanpeasantryis not impressive.
The largetownsof Brandenburg, Pomeraniaand Prussia,whichwere
thesceneof chronicsocialconflictthroughout thelatermiddleages,
offeredno apparentobjectionto the nobility'sdemandsthat they
legislateagainstfleeingserfs.6" Nor did the townsmenof Koenigs-
burgcometo theaid ofthepeasantrevoltof East Prussiain 1525-
the one reallylarge-scaleruralrisingof thisperiodin north-eastern
Europe. The town's patriciatepositivelyopposed the revolt.
Meanwhilethe remainderof the citizenry- despite their own
engagementat thistimein fiercestrugglesagainstthe patriciate-
failedto come forthwiththe materialaid whichwas requestedby
the rebellious peasants threatenedby encroachingenserfment.63
Correlatively, in the large-scalerevoltof the latermedievalperiod
in whichurban-rural ties wereperhapsmostpronounced- thatof
maritime Flanders between 1323 and 1328 - the peasant element
60 For a surveyof urban organizationin the medieval period, see The Cam-
bridgeEconomicHistoryofEurope,iii, ed. M. M. Postan, E. E. Rich and Edward
Miller (Cambridge, 1963), esp. chaps. iv, v.
61 See for example, Vilar, La Catalogne,i, pp. 490-3.
62
Carsten, op. cit., p. III (see also pp. 83-8).
"3 F. L. Carsten, "Der Bauernkriegin Ostpreussen I525", Int. Rev. Social
Hist., iii (1938), pp. 400-1, 405-7; G. Franz, Der DeutscheBauernkrieg(Munich,
1943), p. 287; A. Seraphim, "Soziale Bewegungen in Altpreussen im Jahre
1525" in Altpreussische Monatsschrift, Iviii (192I), esp. pp. 74, 82-3, 87, 92.

was alreadyfullyfree(or had neverbeen enserfed),so therewas

nevera questionhereof urbanoppositionto a ruralsocial orderof
unfreedom.64 Finally,in perhapsthe most significant of the late
medievalrevoltsagainstserfdom- that of the Catalan remensas
fromthelaterfourteenth century - therewereno significant link-ups
with the urban classes - this despite the fact that in Catalonia
extendedruralrebellionwas paralleledby seriousoutbreaksofurban
class conflict. The Catalan peasant revoltwas probablythe best
organizedand despitethelackof supportfromtheurbanclassesthe
most successfulin all of Europe: it broughtabout the downfallof
serfdomin Catalonia.65 In sum, the towns rarelyaided peasant
resistanceto serfdom,nor was the success of such resistance
apparentlydependentupon such aid.
If thesignificanceofdiffering levelsofurbandevelopment has been
overstatedin some explanationsof the divergentsocio-economic
pathstakenby Easternand WesternEurope fromthe latermiddle
ages,theimportance of thepreviousevolutionsof ruralsocietyitself
in these contrastingregions has been perhaps correspondingly
neglected. The developmentof peasantsolidarityand strength in
WesternEurope- especiallyas thiswas manifested in the peasants'
organizationat the level of the village- appearsto have been far
greaterin Westernthan in Eastern Europe; and this superior
of the peasants' class power in the West may
institutionalization
have been centralto its superiorabilityto resistseigneurial reaction.
The divergentevolutionsof peasantclass organization is clearestin
what is probablythe pivotalcomparativecase - east versuswest
ElbianGermany;andthedivergent developments in thesetworegions
provideimportant clues to thedisparatedevelopment patternsofthe
farbroaderspheresof whichtheywerea part.
Thus, throughmuchofwesternGermanyby thelatermiddleages
the peasantryhad succeeded,throughprotracted struggleon a piece-
meal village-by-village foritselfan impressive
basis, in constituting
networkof villageinstitutions foreconomicregulationand political
self-government. These provideda powerfullineof defenceagainst
theincursionsoflandlords. In thefirst instance,peasantorganization
and peasantresistance to thelordsappearto havebeen closelybound
up withthe verydevelopmentof the quasi-communalcharacterof
peasant economy. Most fundamentalwas the need to regulate
co-operativelythevillagecommonsand to struggleagainstthe lords
to establishand to protectcommonsrights- commonlands (for
14 R. H.
Hilton, Bond Men Made Free (London, 1973), PP. 114-15, 125-7;
H. Pirenne, Le soulgvementde la Flandre maritimede 1323-1328 (Brussels,
1900oo),pp. i-v and passim.
15 Vilar, La Catalogne, i, esp. pp.
449, 492-3, 497-9, 508-9 (in general, pp.
448-521).

grazingand so on) and the common-field organizationof agricultural

rotation(in which the post-harveststubble played an important
rolein thesupportofanimals). Sooneror later,however,issuesofa
more generaleconomicand politicalcharactertendedto be raised.
The peasantsorganizedthemselves in orderto fixrentsand to ensure
rightsof inheritance. Perhaps most significantly, in many places
to
theyfoughtsuccessfully replace the old landlord-installed
village
mayor(Schultheiss)by their own elected village magistrates.In
some villagestheyeven won the rightto choose the villagepriest.
All thesegainsthepeasantsforcedthelordsto recognizein countless
villagecharters(Weistumer) - throughwhichthe specificconquests
of the peasantrywereformally institutionalized.66
The contrasting evolutionin easternGermanyis most striking.
Here peasant economicco-operationand, in particular,the self-
governmentof peasant villages appear to have developed only
to a relativelysmall extent. As a resultthe east Germanpeasants
appearto have been muchless preparedto resistseigneurialattacks
and the onsetof seigneurialcontrolsleadingto serfdomthan were
theircounterparts in thewest. Probablymosttellingin thisrespect
was the relativefailureto developindependentpoliticalinstitutions
in thevillage,andthisis perhapsmostclearlyindicatedbytheapparent
inabilityoftheeasternpeasantry to displacethelocatoror Schultheiss,
the village officerwho originallyorganizedthe settlementas the
representative ofthelordand whoretainedhis directing politicalrole
in the village (eitheras the lord's representative or as hereditary
office-holder) throughoutthe medievalperiod. It is remarkable,
moreover,thatthe numerousWeistumer whichclearlymarkedthe
step-by-step establishment of villagerightsagainstthe lord in the
westare veryrarelyfoundin late medievaleasternGermany."6
The relativeabsence of villagesolidarityin the east, despitethe
formallysimilar characterof village settlement(the so-called
"Germanic"type),appearsto have been bound up withthe entire
evolutionof the regionas a colonialsociety- its relatively"late"
formation, the "rational"and "artificial"characterof its settlement,
andespeciallytheleadershipofthelandlordsin thecolonizingprocess.
Thus, in thefirstplace,thecommunalaspectsofthevillageeconomy
appear to have been comparatively underdeveloped.In general
there were no common lands. Moreover, the common-field
agriculture itselfappearsto have been less highlyevolved;and this
seemsto have been bound up withthe originalorganization of the
fieldsat the timeof settlement - in particular,the tendencyof the
"6 GuntherFranz, Geschichte des deutschen
BauernstaudesvonfriihenMittelat-
ter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert(Stuttgart,1970), pp. 48-66.
87 Ibid., pp. 50, 53, 58, 62. See the correlativefailureof the peasantryof
eastern Germany to win the rightto appoint village priests (pp. 62-3).

coloniststo lay out holdings withinthe fields in ratherlarge,

relativelyconsolidatedstrips(oftenstretching directlybehind the
peasants'houses)in contrast tothetiny,scattered parcelscharacteristic
of the "natural" and "chaotic" developmentin the west. There
seems, then, to have been more of a tendencyto individualistic
farming;less developed organizationof collaborativeagricultural
practicesat the level of the villageor betweenvillages(forexample
inter-commoning); and littletraditionof the "struggleforcommons
rights" againstthe lords which was so characteristic of western
development.68
At the same time, the planned, landlord-ledorganizationof
settlementin theeasttendedto place majorbarriers
in thewayofthe
emergenceof peasantpower and peasantself-government.69 East
Germanvillageswere generallysmallerand less dense than their
westerncounterparts; theytended,moreover,to have but a single
lord. As a resulttheywereless difficult
forthelordsto controlthan
were the villagesof the west,wherethe thickpopulationand, in
thetendencyof thevillagesto be dividedbetweentwoor
particular,
morelordships,gave thepeasantsmoreroomto manoeuvre,making
gemeinbildungthatmucheasier.70
As one historianof the Germanpeasantryhas stated,"without
the strongdevelopmentof communallife in (west) Germany,the
peasantwars(of 1525) are unthinkable". From thispointof view,
it is notablethat the one east Germanregionwhich experienced
peasant revolt in 1525 - that is East Prussia - was marked by
unusuallystrongpeasant communities, as well as an (apparently)
weak rulingnobility. Thus, on the one hand, the East Prussian
peasantrevoltoriginatedand remainedcentredin Samland,an area
characterizednotonlyby extraordinarily
high densityof population,
comparableto WesternEurope,but also by the persistence of well-
entrenchedand relativelypowerfulformsof peasant organization.
The Samland was one of the few east Elbian areas to escape the
processof colonizationand thusthe impositionof the "Germanic"
68Hermann Aubin, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: The Lands
East of the Elbe and German Colonization Eastwards", in CambridgeEconomic
Historyof Europe, i (1966), pp. 464-5, 468-9.
19Note the comment of a recent student of the late medieval east German
village community(Gemeinde)in accountingforits weakness: "The village lord
was therefirst,thencame the villagemembers. In the area of older settlement,
the Gemeinde,whose beginningsare mostlylost in the dark, distant past, was
primary". H. Patze, "Die deutsche BdiuerlicheGemeinde im Ordenstaat
Preussen", in Die Anfdngeder Landgemeindeund ihr Wesen, ed. T. Mayer,
2 vols. (Stuttgart,1964), i, p. 151. For a suggestivecase study of a locality
where landlord-led colonization left the peasantry in a position of weakness,
open to expropriation,see Searle, Lordship and Community, pt. I, ch. 3, esp.
pp. 63-8.
70 Aubin, op. cit., p. 469; Franz, Geschichtedes deutschenBauernstandes,
PP. 49, 53, 56-7-

agrarianand political forms of settlement. In consequence its
originalPrussianpeasantcommunities wereleftlargelyundisturbed
and were allowed to retain their own apparentlyancient and
distinctivesocio-politicalstructures.71On the other hand, the
East Prussiannobilitywas perhapsthe least well-established of any
in the entireregion. The colonizationof the area had been, of
course,largelycarriedout underthe "bureaucratic"administration
of the TeutonicOrder. At the timeof the peasantrevoltof 1525,
the new "junker" rulingaristocracywas only just completingits
takeoverfromthe disintegrating stateof the TeutonicOrder.7"
Of course,thepeasantwarsin bothwestand east Germanywere
largelya failure,as weremostofthereallylarge-scalepeasantrevolts
of thelatermedievalperiodin Europe. Whatwas successful, how-
ever, not only in westernGermany,but throughoutmost of
Western Europe, was the less spectacularbut ultimatelymore
significantprocessof stubbornresistance, villageby village,through
whichthe peasantrydevelopedits solidarity and villageinstitutions.
It was on thisbasisthatthepeasantsofWesternEuropewereable to
limitconsiderably the claimsof the aristocracyand, ultimately, to
dissolveserfdomand forestallseigneurialreaction.73Lacking the
strengththe Westernpeasantryhad developedin constructing the
71 The quotation is to be found ibid., p. 63. On the developmentof the

Samland region, the special social, political, and demographiccharacteristics
of its Prussian peasant communities,see R. Weinskaus, "Kleinverbaindeund
Kleinraume bei den Preussen des Samlandes" in Die Anfdngeder Landgemeinde
und ihr Wesen, i, pp. 202-32 and ff. See Weinskaus's comment (p. 232):
"In north-westSamland, the centreof resistanceagainst the Order, the native
dominant classes had disappeared. Precisely because of this, the old associa-
tions appear to have been maintained for an especially long time". See also
Hans Helmut Wichter, OstpreussischeDomdnenvorwerkeim i6. und 17.
Jahrhundert (Wiirzburg, 1958), p. 7. Note also the apparent interrelationship
of unusually dense population and distinctivelypowerfulvillage communities
with successful peasant revolton the lands of the bishopric of Ermland (East
Prussia) in 1440. Carsten,Originsof Prussia, pp. 60-I, 104-5. Patze, op. cit.,
pp. 164-5.
72 On the decline of the Teutonic Order and the rise of the Prussian nobility,
especiallyin relationshipto the revoltof 1525, see Carsten,"Der Bauernkriegin

Ostpreussen 1525", pp. 398-9; Seraphim,"Soziale Bewegungenin Altpreussen
im Jahre1525", pp. 2-3. Note also Seraphim's interestingsuggestionthatthe
Order frequentlyattemptedto defendthe peasantry,and its customaryposition,
against the growingincursions of an emergentnobilitywhich was of course
simultaneouslyunderminingthe Order itself(pp. 9-II). Cf. Carsten, Origins
of Prussia, part II ("The Rise of the Junkers"), esp. p. III and ff. See also
below, pp. 68-70.
73 For a meticulous reconstructionof those processes in one French region,
see Fossier's chapteron "Les conquites paysannes", in La terreet les hommes
en Picardie, ii, pp. 708-30. See Fossier's comment (ibid, p. 708): "The
progressiveelevation of the living standard of the peasants and the progress
achieved in the sphere of theirsocial conditionare rightlyconsideredas funda-
mentalphenomenaof medieval history.... In the face of an aristocraticworld
on the defensive,thatof the peasants' was strengthened,was emancipatedlittle
by little".

60o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 70
instruments of villageco-operationand resistance,the peasantryof

colonized EasternEurope was less preparedto hold out; and in
consequence they succumbed to seigneurialreaction and the
impositionof serfdom.
The outcomesofthebreakdowns and conflictsofthelatemedieval
periodhad momentous consequencesforsubsequentEuropeansocial
change. For the patternof economicdevelopment imposedby the
now-intensified class structureof serfdomin the East, under the
impactof the world market,was verydifferent fromthat which
prevailedin thefreeconditionsoftheWest. Specifically, thenewly-
emergentstructure of class relationsin the East had as its outcome
the"development ofunderdevelopment", thepreclusionofincreased
productivity in general,and of industrialization in particular. First
of all, the availabilityof forcedlabourerswhose servicescould be
incessantlyintensified by the lord discouragedthe introduction of
agricultural improvements.Secondly,the lord'sincreasingsurplus
extraction fromthepeasantrycontinually limitedtheemergenceof a
home marketforindustrialgoods. Thirdly,the factof directand
powerfulcontrolsoverpeasantmobility meanttheconstriction ofthe
industriallabourforce,eventuating in thesuffocation ofindustry and
the declineof the towns. Finally,the landlords,as a rulingclass
which dominatedtheirstates,pursueda policyof what has been
called "anti-mercantilism"; theyattemptedto usurp themerchants'
functionas middlemenand encouragedindustrialimportsfromthe
West,in thiswayundermining muchof whatwas leftof urbanand
industrialorganization.7'"Thus,thepossibility ofbalancedeconomic
growthwas destroyedand East Europe consignedto backwardness
forcenturies.
In sum, economicbackwardnessin Eastern Europe cannot be
regardedas economicallydetermined,arisingfrom"dependence"
upontradein primary productsto theWest,as is sometimes asserted.
Indeed,it wouldbe morecorrectto statethatdependenceupon grain
exportswasa resultofbackwardness; ofthefailureofthehomemarket
- theterribly reducedpurchasing powerofthemassofthepopulation
- whichwas the resultof the dismalproductivity and the vastly
unequal distributionof income in agriculture, rooted in the last
analysisin the class structure of serfdom.
74 Some of the most importantrecent analyses of the rise of serfdom
in
Eastern Europe, its causes and consequences, may be found in the works of
Marian Malowist. A number of these writingsare collected in his Croissance
et rigressionen Europe xIVe-XVIIe siecles(Paris, 1972). See also, Malowist,
"La commercede la Baltique et le probleme des luttessociales en Pologne aux
XVe et XVIe siecles". See, in addition,Carsten,OriginsofPrussia; A. Maczak,
"Export of Grain and the Problem of Distribution of National Income in the
Years 1550-1650", Acta Poloniae Historica, xviii (1968); J. Topolski, "La
regressioneconomique en Pologne du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle", ibid.,vii (1962);
L. Zytkowicz,"An Investigationof AgriculturalProduction in Masovia in the
First Half of the 17th Century", ibid, xviii (1968).

(b) The Emergence and Checkof AgrarianCapitalism

Finally,however,it needsto be remembered thatevenin theWest
thecollapseofserfdom didnotlead in anyautomaticwayto capitalism
or successfuleconomicdevelopment. Fromthelatefifteenth century
therewas Europe-widepressureof population,developmentof the
marketand rise in grainprices. In Englandwe findthe landlords
consolidatingholdings and leasing them out to large capitalist
tenantswhowouldin turnfarmthemon thebasisofwagelabourand
agriculturalimprovement.But in France we find comparatively
little consolidation. Even the land controlleddirectlyby the
landlords,thatis thedemesnesfarmedout on terminable contractual
leases, was generallylet in small parcels and cultivatedby small
peasant tenants. At the same time, of course, fragmentation
dominatedthe sector of peasant proprietorship.These different
class structures determined substantiallydifferentresultsin termsof
changesin agriculturalproductivity and, indeed, whollydisparate
overallpatternsof economicdevelopment- and I shall returnto
these shortly. But it is necessaryfirstto account for the class
structures themselves;and once again I would arguethatthesecan
onlybe understoodas the legacyof the previousepoch of historical
development, in particularthe different processesof class conflicts
whichbroughtabout and issued fromthe dissolutionof serfdomin
each country.
In England,as throughout mostof WesternEurope,thepeasantry
was able by the mid-fifteenth century, throughflightand resistance,
to breakdefinitively feudalcontrolsoverits mobilityand to winfull
freedom. Indeed,peasanttenantsat thistimewerestriving hardfor
fulland essentially freeholdcontrolovertheircustomary tenements,
and werenot farfromachievingit. The elimination of unfreedom
meanttheendoflabour-services and ofarbitrary tallages. Moreover,
rentper se (redditus)was fixedby custom,and subjectto declining
long-term valuein thefaceofinflation. Therewerein thelongrun,
however,two major strategiesavailableto the landlordto prevent
the loss of the land to peasantfreehold.
In the firstplace, the demographiccollapseof the late fourteenth
and fifteenth centuriesleftvacantmanyformercustomarypeasant
holdings. It appears oftento have been possibleforthe landlord
simplyto appropriatethese and add them to his demesne.75 In
thiswaya greatdeal oflandwas simplyremovedfromthe"customary
sector" and added to the "leasehold sector", thus thwartingin
76 Raftis,
Tenure and Mobility, pp. 197-8; Hilton, Decline of Serfdom,pp.
44 ff.; R. H. Hilton, "A Study in the Pre-Historyof English Enclosure in the
FifteenthCentury", in Studi in onoredi ArmandoSapori, 2 vols. (Milan, 1957),
i, repr. in Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages; M. W.
Beresford,"A Review of Historical Research (to 1968)", Maurice W. Beresford
and JohnG. Hurst (eds.), DesertedMedieval Villages (London, 1971).

advance a possible evolutiontoward freehold,and substantially

reducing the potential area of land for essentiallypeasant
proprietorship.Significantly, as we shall see, thisdoes not appear
to havebeen an alternativeeasilyavailableto thelandlordsin France
undersimilarconditionsin the same period.
In the second place, thereoftenremainedone crucialloophole
open to the landlordwithregardto the freehold-tending claimsof
the customary tenantswho stillremainedon his lands and clungto
theirholdings. He could insiston the rightto chargefinesat will
whenever peasantlandwas conveyed, thatis in salesoron inheritance.
Indeed,in theend entryfinesoftenappearto haveprovidedtheland-
lords withthe lever theyneeded to dispose of customarypeasant
tenants,forin thelongrunfinescouldbe substituted forcompetitive
commercialrents.76
The landlords'claimto therightto raisefineswas not,at thestart
however,an open and shut question,nor did it go uncontested.
Throughout the fifteenthcenturythere were widespread and
apparentlyquite successfulrefusalsby peasantsto pay fines. And
thissortof resistancecontinuedintothe sixteenthcenturywhenan
increasinglabour: land ratioshould,ostensibly, have inducedthe
peasantto accepta deterioratingconditionand to paya higherrent.77
Ultimately,in fact,the peasantstookto open revoltto enforcetheir
claims. As is well known,the firsthalf of the sixteenthcentury
was in Englanda periodof majoragrarianrisingswhichthreatened
the entiresocial order. And a majorthemeof the mostseriousof
these- especiallytherevoltin thenorthin themid-153osand Ket's
Rebellionin 1549- was thesecurityofpeasanttenure,in particular
the questionof arbitraryfines.78
76 Tawney, Agrarian Problem,pp. 287-3Io. Lawrence Stone, The Crisis
of the Aristocracy1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 306-io. The significanceof
the use of fines"at will" as a mechanismby whichthe lord could gain economic
controlof the land remainscontroversial. It appears to hinge on two questions
in particular: (I) the amount of "copyhold" land subject to variable fines;
(2) the rightof the lord to chargetrulyarbitraryfineswherethe tenant's copy-
hold was otherwiseheld by inheritance. For some estimatesof the amount of
land subject to variable fines, see Tawney, op. cit., pp. 297-300; Kerridge,
Agrarian Problemsof the SixteenthCenturyand After,pp. 35-46. Kerridge
has argued that copyhold by inheritancegenerallyensured "reasonable fines",
thatis thatfineshad to be set at a level thatwould not defeatthe tenant's right
of inheritance. Still, the date fromwhich this doctrine of "reasonableness"
vis-a-visfineson heritablecopyholdswas recognizedand enforcedby the king's
courtsis unclear. Kerridge appears to produce no case of this sortearlierthan
1586: op. cit., pp. 38-9. See also, Tawney, op. cit., pp. 296, 296 n. 3, 307;
Stone, loc. cit.
77 ChristopherDyer,
"A Redistributionof Incomes in Fifteenth-Century
England?", Past and Present,no. 39 (April 1968); Raftis, Tenureand Mobility,
pp. 198-9. On the early sixteenthcentury,see B J. Harris, "Landlords and
Tenants in England in the Later Middle Ages: The Buckingham Estates",
Past and Present,no. 43 (May 1969), pp. 146-50.
78 Tawney, Agrarian Problem,p. 307; S. T. Bindoff,Ket's Rebellion(Hist.
Assoc. pamphlet, London, 1949; repr. London, 1968), pp. 7-9.

If successful,the peasant revoltsof the sixteenthcentury,as
one historianhas put it, mighthave "clipped the wings of rural
capitalism"."9 But theydid not succeed. Indeed, by the end of
the seventeenthcenturyEnglish landlords controlledan over-
whelming proportion ofthecultivableland- perhaps70-5percent80
- and capitalistclass relationswere developingas nowhereelse,
withmomentousconsequencesfor economicdevelopment. Thus,
in myview,it was the emergenceof the classicallandlord-capitalist
tenant-wage labourstructure whichmadepossiblethetransformation
of agriculturalproduction England,s8 and this,in turn,was the
in
keyto England'suniquelysuccessfuloveralleconomicdevelopment.
With the peasants'failureto establishessentiallyfreeholdcontrol
over the land, the landlordswere able to engross,consolidateand
enclose,to createlargefarmsand to lease themto capitalisttenants
who could affordto make capitalistinvestments.This was the
indispensablepreconditionfor significant agrarianadvance, since
was
agriculturaldevelopment predicatedupon significant inputsof
capital,involvingthe introductionof new technologiesand a larger
scale of operation. Such higherlevels of agricultural investment
weremade feasiblethroughthe development ofa varietyof different
leaseholdingarrangements, whichembodieda novelformoflandlord-
7" Ibid., p. 9.
so G. E. Mingay, EnglishLanded Societyin theEighteenthCentury(London,
1963), p. 25, gives a figureof 80-5 per centforthe proportionof land held by the
landlord classes (that is "the great landlords" and the "gentry") in 1790 (an
additional, uncertainproportionwas held by "freeholdersof a bettersort", a
categorywhich presumablyincluded a significantnumber of capitalistowner-
cultivators). He goes on to say that "the figuresforthe proportionof the land
owned probablydid not change verysignificantly over the hundredyears before
1790, but there was certainlya shiftin favour of the great landlords at the
expense of the other two groups (that is the gentry and freeholders)".
F. M. L. Thompson has estimated that freeholders(large and small) owned
about one thirdof the land at the end of the seventeenthcentury:"The Social
Distribution of Landed Propertyin England Since the Sixteenth Century",
Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xix (1966), p. 513.
s" This is not to say thatpreciselythese arrangementswere necessaryforreal
agricultural breakthroughleading to economic development in this period;
it is to say thatsome formof larger-scalecapitalistfarmingwas required. Thus
the only real alternativeto the "classical English" landlord-largetenant-wage
labour form of capitalist agricultureseems to have been an equally capitalist
systembased on large-scaleowner-cultivators also generallyusing wage labour.
The latterwas the structurewhichin factemergedin Catalonia at the end of the
fifteenth century out of the previousperiod agrarianstrugglein whichthelarge
of
peasants had been able to win not only essentiallyfreeholdrights over their
lands, but in addition, the proprietorshipof large areas of land (masos ronecs)
which had been left vacant by demographic disaster in the later fourteenth
century. Thus the characteristicunit of agriculturalownershipand production
in sixteenth-century Catalonia, the Masia, was typicallya verylarge but compact
farm. And this structuredid in fact provide the basis for significantand con-
tinuing agricultural advance throughout the early modern period. Vilar,
Catalogne,i, pp. 575-8, 584, 586, 588. See also above, pp. 51-2, and below,
note 88.

64 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER70
tenantrelationship.By virtueof thesearrangements the capitalist

tenantsenteredinto essentialpartnershipwith landlords. They
wereassuredthattheycould takea reasonableshareoftheincreased
revenueresultingfromtheircapitalinvestments and not have them
confiscated by the landlords'rentincreases."2 They weretherefore
set free to bring in those key technologicalinnovations,most
especiallyconvertiblehusbandrysystemsand the "floatingof the
watermeadows", as well as to make sizable investments in farm
whichweregenerally
facilities, farlesspracticable
on smallunenclosed
farmsoperatedby peasants.83
This is notto say,ofcourse,thatpeasantproduction was incapable
of improvement.The pointis thatit couldnotprovidetheagrarian
basisforeconomicdevelopment. Thus smallscalefarming could be
especiallyeffective with certainindustrialcrops (for exampleflax)
as wellas in viticulture,
dairyingand horticulture.But thissortof
agriculturegenerallybroughtabout increasedyields throughthe
intensificationof labourratherthanthroughthegreaterefficiency of
a givenunitoflabourinput. It did not,therefore, produce"develop-
ment", exceptin a restricted, indeed misleadinguse of the term.
Of coursethe veryspreadof thistypeof husbandryin "non-basic"
agriculturalcommoditieswas, as in industry,predicatedupon the
growth(elsewhere)of basic food(grain)production. And improve-
82 Kerridge, Agrarian Problems, p. 46; E. L. Jones, "Agriculture and

Economic Growth in England, 1660-1750: AgriculturalChange", Ji. Econ.
Hist., xxv (1965).
s3 On the strong advantages of large "capital" farms with respect to
agricultural improvement,investment and general efficiency,see Kerridge,
Agrarian Problems,pp. 121-6, and G. E. Mingay, "The Size of Farms in the
Eighteenth Century", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xiv (1962). It should be
noted that some of the most importantrecent works dwell on the advantages
of English agrarianclass relationsforagriculturaldevelopment,but in the end
tend to play down theirsignificance. Thus, in his "Editor's Introduction"to
Agricultureand EconomicGrowthin England 1650-18i5 (London, 1967), E. L.
Jones argues that the key to English agriculturaldevelopmentwas the intro-
duction of new techniques rather than changing institutionalarrangements,
apparentlydismissingthe idea that these were indissolublylinked. He states
at one point (pp. 12-13): "Novel systemsof husbandrythus accountmuch more
for the new 'responsiveness' of agriculturalsupply than do improvementsin
agrarianorganization". Nevertheless,Joneshimselfat otherpointsemphasizes
the crucial advantages of large-scale capitalistfarmingfor agriculturaladvance
and, moreover,provides the key intra- and internationalcomparisons which
would tend to demonstratethe saliencyof this connectionand, correlatively, to
show up the barriersto improvementbuilt into peasant-dominatedagricultural
systems. Thus, he says (p. 17), "the pattern of the countryside and the
agrarianorganizationwhich evolved in England made productionmore flexible
and farmore responsiveto the marketthan a peasant systemcould have been".
He also gives the followingcase in point (p. 43): "In parts of the Midlands
where the land had belonged to a few proprietorsand enclosure had come
early,the 'new' crops had been sown and farmersspecialized in fatstockbreed-
ing. More usually, the 'peasant' farmingof the Midland clays defied any
change, except the pungent expedient of parliamentaryenclosure".

mentsin the productivity of grainwere,in fact,best achievedon
largeconsolidatedfarmswithmajorcapitalinputs.84
Even the emergenceof large-scaleunitsof farmingdoes not, in
improvement.As we shallsee, in those
itself,guaranteeagricultural
restricted)areaswherebig farmsemergedin France,they
(relatively
did not generallybringmajorincreasesin agricultural productivity.
What proved,therefore, most significant for English agricultural
developmentwas the particularly productiveuse of the agricultural
surpluspromotedby the specialcharacterofits ruralclass relations;
in particular,the displacementof the traditionallyantagonistic
relationshipin which landlord "squeezing" underminedtenant
by an emergentlandlord-tenant
initiative, symbiosiswhichbrought
mutualco-operationin investment and improvement."8
That agriculturalimprovement was alreadyhavinga significant
effecton Englisheconomicdevelopment bytheendoftheseventeenth
centurycan be seen in a numberof ways; mostimmediately in the
strikingpatternofrelativelystablepricesand (at least)maintenance of
populationof the latterpartof the century;and in the long run in
the interrelated phenomenaof continuingindustrialdevelopment
and growthin thehomemarket. Thus althoughEnglishpopulation
in this periodreachedthe veryhigh levels of the earlyfourteenth
century(whichat thattimehad meantdemographic crisis)therewere
not the same sortof violentfluctuations in pricesnor the crisesof
subsistencewhichgrippedFranceand muchof the continent in this
period.86 Nor was there the marked demographic decline which
cameto dominatemostofEuropeat thistime,thefamousmalthusian
phase B.87 In short,England remainedlargelyexemptfromthe
"generaleconomiccrisisof the seventeenth century"whichsooner
84 B. H. Slicher Van Bath, "The Rise of Intensive Husbandry in the Low

Countries", esp. pp. 135-7, 148-9, 153. As Slicher Van Bath concludes of the
Flemish region of intensivehusbandry(p. 153), "it is not a picture of wealth,
but of scarcelycontrolledpoverty".
85 See Jones, "Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1660-1750".
On large-scalefarmingin earlymodern France, see below, note III.
86 For the avoidance of crises of subsistence in late seventeenth-century
England, see A. B. Appleby, "Disease or Famine: A Study of Mortalityin
Cumberland and Westmorland, 158o-I640", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxxi
(1973), esp. pp. 403, 430-I. For a comparisonof fluctuationsin prices between
France and England in the later seventeenthand early eighteenthcentury,
stressingEngland's avoidance of the "violent fluctuations"which characterized
much of France, see J. Meuvret, "Les oscillations des prix des cereales aux
XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles en Angleterreet dans les pays du bassin parisien",
Etudes d'histoiredconomique, pp. 13-24.
"7 G. S. L. Tucker, "English Pre-Industrial Population Trends", Econ.
Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xvi (1963), pp. 205-18. This is not to denythe possibility
that there was some slowing down in the rate of growthof population, even
perhaps a temporaryhalt, in the late seventeenthand/or early eighteenth
century.

or laterstruckmostof the continent.88This crisis,much like the

previous"generaleconomiccrisisof the fourteenth century",was
in the lastanalysisa crisisof agrarianproductivity, resultingas had
its predecessorfromthe maintenanceof relationships of property
or surplus-extraction whichpreventedanyadvancein productivity.
By contrast, it was thetransformation of the agrarianclass structure
which had takenplace over the period since the laterfourteenth
centurythatallowedEnglandto increasesubstantially its agricultural
productivity and thusto avoida repetition ofthepreviouscrisis.
It seems,moreover, thatagricultural improvement was at theroot
of thosedevelopmental processeswhich,accordingto E. L. Jones,
had allowed some 40 per cent of the Englishpopulationto move
out of agriculturalemploymentby the end of the seventeenth
century, muchof thisintoindustrial pursuits.89Obviously,English
industrialgrowth,predominantly in cloth,was in the firstinstance
based on exports,spurredby overseasdemand. Yet such export-
based spurtswere commonin Europe throughout the middleages
and theearlymodernperiod;butpreviously nonehad everbeen able
to sustainitself. The inelasticityofagriculturaloutput,it seems,had
alwaysset strictlimitson the development of industrialproduction.
Risingfoodprices,ifnota totalfailureoffoodsupply,resulting from
decliningagricultural productivity mightdirectlystymieindustry by
limitingthe proportionof the populationwhichcould devoteitself
to non-agricultural pursuits. Otherwisetheywould underminethe
marketsforindustrialgoods eitherby forcingup wages(the cost of
subsistence)and thusindustrial pricesor by cuttingintothepropor-
tion of the population'sincomewhich was availablefor non-food
purchases. These mechanisms meant,in particular, thatthegeneral
agricultural-demographic crisis of the seventeenthcenturywould
also mean,formostof Europe,a long-term crisisof industry. This
has been shown most clearlyfor seventeenth-century France by
Goubert,who directlylinksthe long-termdeclineof the extensive
textileindustry of Beauvaisin thisperiodto underlying problemsin
theproduction offood.90 Buta similarcase couldseemingly be made
forthe declineof Italianindustryin the earlyseventeenth century.
Here drastically risingfoodpricesseem,as muchas anyotherfactor,
to have been responsibleforthe enhanced(subsistence)wage costs
which ostensiblypriced Italian goods out of theirEuropean and
88 It is notable that Catalonia, one of the few areas to achieve agrariantrans-

formationwith a concomitantincrease in agriculturalproductivityin this era,
was also one of the few areas to escape the "general economic crisis of the
seventeenthcentury", and, like England, to avoid demographic catastrophe
while achievingcontinuedeconomic development. Vilar, Catalogne,i, part III,
esp. pp. 586, 588. See also above, note 8I.
89Jones, "Editor's Introduction", Agricultureand EconomicGrowth,p. 2.
90 Goubert, Beauvais et les Beauvaisis, pp. 585-7.

especiallytheireasternMediterraneanmarkets. Correlatively, the

backward,largelypeasantagriculture appearsto have largelycut off
the possibilityof developinga significant home marketin Italy
itself.9' Finally,althoughDutch industry appears to have escaped
the "seventeenth-century crisis" with relativelyminordamage,its
failureto sustain continueddevelopmentthroughthe eighteenth
centuryappearsto have been bound up to an important extentwith
an overwhelming dependenceon overseasgrainimports,whichrose
precipitatelyin priceafter1750.92
Thus whatdistinguished theEnglishindustrial development ofthe
early modern period was its continuouscharacter,its abilityto
sustain itselfand to provide its own self-perpetuating dynamic.
Here, once again,thekeywas to be foundin the capitaliststructure
of agriculture.Agricultural improvement notonlymade it possible
foran evergreaterproportion of the populationto leave the land to
enterindustry;equallyimportant, it provided,directly and indirectly,
the growinghomemarketwhichwas an essentialingredient in Eng-
land's continuedindustrialgrowththroughthe entireperiodof the
"generaleconomiccrisisof the seventeenth century"in Europe.93
Thus, duringthesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, theprosperous
class of tenantand yeomanfarmers, as well as landlords,appearsto
have offeredsignificant outletsfor Englishindustrialgoods.94 At
the same time,and in the long run,especiallyfromthe laterseven-
91 On high wages as a basic cause of the decline of export-centredItalian
industryfrom the early seventeenthcentury,see C. Cipolla, "The Economic
Decline of Italy," in Brian Pullan (ed.), Crisis and Change in the Venetian
Economy(London, 1968), pp. 139-42. On problems of food supply and high
food prices leading to higherwages (subsistence),see B. Pullan, "Introduction",
and "Wage Earners and the Venetian Economy". ibid., pp. I2-I4, 146-74. On
the structuralroots of problems of food supply and the home market in the
small-tenant, rent-squeezing organization of the Venetian mainland, see
S. J. Woolf, "Venice and the Terrafirma: Problems of the Change from
Commercial to Landed Activities", ibid., esp. pp. 179-87. For the general
problem of food supply in Italy and the Mediterranean, which intensified
sharply in the latter part of the sixteenth century, see C. T. Smith, An
Historical Geographyof WesternEurope Before 18oo (New York, 1967), pp.
416-18.
92 This is
suggested by E. L. Jones, "Editor's Introduction", Agriculture
and EconomicGrowth,p. 21.
93 For continuedEnglish industrialgrowthinto the laterseventeenthcentury,
and the importantrole of the home marketin this process, see L. A. Clarkson,
The Pre-IndustrialEconomyin England 1500-1750 (London, 1971), ch. 4, esp.
pp. 114-15. See also, "The Origins of the IndustrialRevolution" (Conference
Report), Past and Present,no. 17 (April 1960), pp. 71 ff. Charles Wilson,
England'sApprenticeship 1603-1763 (London, 1965), ch. 9, esp. pp. 185 and ff.
F. J. Fisher, "The Sixteenthand Seventeenth Centuries: The Dark Ages of
English Economic History", Economica,new ser., xxiv (1957).
94 W. G. Hoskins, "The LeicestershireFarmer in the SixteenthCentury",
in his Essays in Leicestershire
History(Leicester, 1950). F. J. Fisher, "London
as an Engine of Economic Growth", in J. Bromleyand E. H. Kossman (eds.),
Britain and the Netherlands (London, 1960); Fisher, "The Sixteenth and
SeventeenthCenturies".

teenthand earlyeighteenth centuries,continuingimprovements in

agriculturalproductivity combinedwithlow food pricesto give an
extramarginof spendingpowerto significant elementsthroughout
the middleand perhapseven the lower class so as to expand the
home marketand fuelthe steadygrowthof industryintothe period
of the industrialrevolution.95Englisheconomicdevelopment thus
depended upon a nearly unique symbioticrelationshipbetween
agricultureand industry. It was indeed, in the last analysis,an
agriculturalrevolution,based on the emergenceof capitalistclass
relationsin the countryside whichmade it possibleforEnglandto
becomethe firstnationto experienceindustrialization.
The contrastingfailure in France of agrariantransformation
seems to have followeddirectlyfromthe continuingstrengthof
peasant landholdinginto the early modernperiod, while it was
disintegratingin England. Referencehas alreadybeen made to the
relativesuccesswithwhichpeasantcommunities throughoutWestern
Europe were able to resistlandlord power in the medievalperiod.
In particular,the long-term processby whichvillageaftervillagein
variousFrenchregionswas able to win certainimportant economic
and politicalrights- to use the commons,to fixrentsand secure
hereditability,and to replace the old villagemayorswith its own
elected representatives - has been traced with special care by
historians,who have remarkedupon its historicalsignificance.96
Whatstillrequiresexplanation, however,is theabilityofthe French
peasantsnot onlyto establishcertainfreedomsand propertyrights
vis-a-visthe landlordsin the firstplace, but to retainthemoveran
extraordinarily long historicalepoch - in particular,throughthe
periodin whichtheirEnglishcounterparts ceasedto be able to do so.
Any answermust be verytentative. But in the lightof English
developments, whatappearsto lie behindthe striking persistence of
peasantproprietorship in France is its close interconnectionwith the
particularformof evolutionof the Frenchmonarchicalstate.
Thus in France,unlikeEngland,the centralizedstateappearsto
have developed(at leastin largepart)as a "class-like"phenomenon,
thatis as an independent extractorof thesurplus,in particular on the
95 For this argument, see Jones, "Editor's Introduction", Agricultureand
Economic Growth; Jones, "Agriculture and Economic Growth in England,
1660-1750; AgriculturalChange"; E. L. Jones, "The AgriculturalOrigins of
Industry", Past and Present,no. 40 (July 1968); A. H. John, "Agricultural
Productivityand Economic Growth in England, 1700-1750", Jl. Econ. Hist.,
xxv (1965); A. H. John, "Aspects of English Economic Growth in the First
Half of the EighteenthCentury", Economica,new ser., xxviii (1961); D. E. C.
Eversley,"The Home Market and Economic Growthin England, 1750-1780",
in E. L. Jones and G. E. Mingay (eds.), Land, Labour and Population in the
IndustrialRevolution(London, 1967).
96 See
esp. Fossier, La terreet les hommesen Picardie, ii, pp. 708-30. Also
above, note 73. See, in addition,Fourquin, Campagnesde la rdgionparisienne,
part I, ch. iii, esp. p. 190.

basis of its arbitrary powerto tax the land. To the extentthatthe
peasants were able to uniteagainstthelandlords,to wintheirfreedom
fromserfdomand to gain the essentialsoffreeholdproperty - and
theydid so, as noted,to a significant degree- theytendedto open
themselvesto potentialexploitationas a financialbase for the
monarchy. For ifthe peasants'locally-basedorganization - which
was theessentialsource,and effective limit,of theirpower- might
at timesbe adequateto withstand the claimsof thelocal landlord,it
was farless viableagainstthepretensions ofthecentralizingstate,at
least in the long run. Correlatively, the statecould develop,as it
ultimately did, as a competitor withthe lords,largelyto the extent
to whichit could establishrightsto extractthe surplusof peasant
production. It therefore had an interestin limitingthe landlords'
rentsso as to enablethepeasantsto pay morein taxes- and thusin
intervening againstthe landlordsto end peasantunfreedomand to
establishand securepeasantproperty.
Probablythearchetypal case ofthestateactuallydevelopingin this
manneras an independentclass-likesurplus-extractor in relationto
theemergenceof an entrenched landholdingpeasantrycan be found
in theriseof the "mini-absolutisms" of thewestGermanprincesin
the early modernperiod. In these statesthe princespursued a
conscious policy of protectinga peasant proprietorship which,
emergingfrom the medieval period, was already relativelywell
ensconced. In particular, the princessoughtto defendthe security
and extentof peasantlandholding,withthe aim of providingtheir
ownindependent tax base (Bauernschutzpolitik). Thus peasantdues
were fixedin law; peasanthereditability was retainedor restored;
and in some cases land whichhad formerly been in peasanthands
but had thenbeen lost to the nobilitywas returnedto the peasants.
At thesametimetheprincesdid whattheycould to reconstitute the
scatteredparcelsof peasantland intounifiedtenementsand, on the
otherhand, acted to preventthe peasantsfromsub-dividingtheir
holdings. In the end the princessucceededin turningthe peasant
holdinginto a unifiedfiscalunit fortaxation.97But, correlatively,
by the seventeenth centurythe west Germanpeasantryappears to
havebeen able to gaincontrolofup to 90opercentoftheland.98
The stages in the corresponding process by which the French
peasantry was able to consolidateits own powerful(if far less
97F. Liitge, Geschichteder deutschenAgrarverfassung(Stuttgart, 1963),
pp. 1oo-2, 134-54. For the foregoing discussion of west German develop-
ments I am deeply indebted to Mr. Joel Singer.
"8Eberhard Weis, "Ergebnisse eines Vergleichs de grundherrschaftlichen
StrukturenDeutschlands und Frankreichesvom 13. bis zum Ausgang des 18.
Jahrhunderts", Vierteljahrschrift fair Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte,Ivii
(1970), pp. 1-14, esp. p. 13. As a result,the German nobilityappears to have
been forced into an extraordinarydegree of dependence upon the princes,
becoming the administrativearistocracypar excellence.

extensive)gripon the land in relationship to monarchicaldevelop-

ment are far fromclear. One turningpoint does seem to have
occurred,at least in the Paris region,duringthe middlepartof the
thirteenth centuryin what emergedas decisiveconflictsbetween
peasantsand landlordsover the landlords'attemptsto extendthe
seigneurialtaille(tallage). It was aroundthe questionof the taille,
as we have noted,thatthe questionof peasantunfreedomin this
regioncame to be decided. The lords aimed to consolidatetheir
rightto tax theircustomarypeasantsat will. Their successwould
haveestablishedthepeasants'unfreestatus,exposingthemto further
arbitraryseigneuriallevies. However,the peasants of the Paris
regionresistedwith forceand in greatnumber. What seems to
have turnedthe tide in theirfavourwas the intervention of the
monarchicalstateagainstthe landlords. Whenthe crownagreedto
considerthe case, it recognizedby implicationthe peasants' free
legal status,pavingthe wayforfixedrentsand effective proprietor-
ship."9 Perhaps even more decisivein the long run were certain
actionstakenby the stateduringthe fifteenth century. In thisera
the monarchyseemsto have generallyconfirmed the integrity
of the
cens(peasanthereditary tenure). It thus remainedlegallydifficult
for the landlordsto appropriateto theirown demesnesthe large
number of holdings subject to this tenure abandoned as a
consequenceof war and demographicdecline. The resultwas the
preservation of thearea of land underpeasantproprietorship.It is
notablethatit was at just this timethatthe monarchywas taking
decisivesteps formallyto organizethe peasantcommunity around
villageassemblieswithelectedsyndics,in orderto administer and
collectthe dramatically increasingroyaltaxes.100
Certainly, by theearlymodernperiodtheconsolidation ofpeasant
property in relationship to the development of the Frenchstatehad
createda verydifferent sortof class structurein theFrenchcountry-
side fromthat whichhad emergedin England. And thereis no
betterindex of these contrasting structuresthan the dramatically
differentsortsof peasantrevoltswhichmarkedtheearlymodernera
in bothcountries. In England,ofcourse,peasantrevoltwas directed
against the landlords,in a vain last-ditchstruggleto defend
disintegrating peasant proprietorship against advancingcapitalist
encroachment.In France the target of peasant revolt was,
typically,thecrushing taxationoftheabsolutiststate,whichironically
99Marc Bloch, "Blanche de Castille et les serfs du Chapitre de Paris",

Melanges Historiques,2 vols. (Paris, 1963), i, pp. 462-90; Fourquin, op. cit.,
part I, ch. iii.
100
Ibid., pp. 180o,377, 382, 430-2 and ff., 514-15; J. F. Lemarignier,La
France mddi'dvale: et sociedt(Paris, 1970), p. 318; Marc Bloch, French
institutions
Rural History(London, 1966), pp. 128-9.

had been instrumental in securingand protecting peasantproprietor-
ship (and thus impedingcapitalistdevelopment).101
Thus in France strongpeasantpropertyand the absolutiststate
developed in mutual dependenceupon one another. The state
increasedits own powerby virtueof its abilityto get betweenthe
landlordsand the peasants,to ensurepeasantfreedom,hereditability
and fixedrents,and thusto use peasantproduction, via non-parlia-
mentarytaxation,as the directsourceof revenueforroyalstrength
and autonomy. As Marc Bloch pointed out, in the seventeenth
century- the highpointof absolutistdevelopmentin France - a
keyfunction oftheintendants, thedirectadministrative representatives
ofthemonarchy in theprovinces,was "to protectruralcommunities,
ripe materialfor taxation,fromintemperateexploitationby their
landlords".1)0 Correlatively, the landlordswageda fiercedefensive
strugglethroughout the periodto protect"their"peasantsfromthe
encroachments of a royalfiscalmachinewhichsoughtsystematically
to extendits scope withinthe countryside.103
In England, by contrast,monarchicalcentralization developed,
especiallyfromthelaterfifteenth century, in relationship
to and with
ultimate dependence upon the landlord classes, as was most
dramaticallyevidencedin the contemporaneous growthof parlia-
mentaryinstitutions (whiletheydecayedin France). The English
peasantry, as we have seen, throughflightand resistancewereable
to win theirfreedomfromserfdomby the fifteenth century. Their
relativefailure,however,to establishfreeholdrightsover much of
the land (as had their French counterparts at a far earlierdate)
deprivedthe monarchy of a potentialfinancialbase in the peasantry
fordevelopingitsindependenceofthelandlords. Thus monarchical
centralizationcould not take an absolutistand peasant-basedform.
By the same token, themonarchy's relianceupon thelandlordsin its
drivetowardcentralization in the laterfifteenth and earlysixteenth
centuriespreventedits playinga decisiverolein aidingthe peasants
101
For the English revolts,see above, p. 62. On peasant revoltsin France,
see the summaryarticle by J. H. M. Salmon, "Venality of Officeand Popular
Sedition in Seventeenth-Century France", Past and Present,no. 37 (July1967).
Although there is sharp debate on many aspects of these revolts,virtuallyall
parties to the argument,includingthe leading protagonistsBoris Porchnevand
Roland Mousnier, agree that the opposition to state taxation was central.
See Boris Prochnev, Les soulkvements populaires en France de 1623 a 1648
(Moscow, 1948; Paris, 1963 edn.); Roland Mousnier, "Recherches sur les
soulbvementspopulaires en France avant la Fronde", Revue d'histoiremoderne
et contemporaine, v (1968), pp. 8I-II3.
102 Bloch, French RuralHistory,p. 134.
103 For a revealingaccount of the strugglebetweenthe French monarchyand
the French nobilityto protectthe peasantryin orderto exploitit forthemselves,
focusing especially on the attemptsto extend royal land-taxationand noble
resistanceto these attemptsin the name of their peasants, see P. Deyon, "A
propos des rapportsentrela noblesse franqaiseet la monarchieabsolue pendant
la premieremoiti6du XVIIe sicle", Revue Historique,ccxxxi(1964), pp. 341-56.

in theirabortive struggleforfreehold, whichoccurred in precisely

thisperiod. Important sections oftheEnglishnobility and gentry
werewillingto supportthemonarchy's centralizing politicalbattle
againstthe disruptive activitiesof the magnate-warlords in the
interest
ofachieving orderandstableconditions foreconomic develop-
ment. Butit wasprecisely thesesamelandlord elements whowere
mostconcerned to undermine peasantproperty in theinterests of
enclosureand consolidation ... and agriculturalcapitalism.104
It cannotbe saidthattheFrenchlandlords didnotwishtoconsoli-
dateholdings.Butthepointisthatinorderto doso theycouldnot,
as inEngland,merely raiserentsorfines toimpossible levelsandthus
evictthe smalltenantat the expiration of his lease or copyhold.
ThroughmostofFrance,state-supported lawassuredhereditability
and fixedfines(lodset ventes) forcustomary tenures.Thus the
landlordmighthaveto buyup countless smallpeasantholdings in
orderto amassa consolidated unit. And thiswas rarelyeasyto
accomplish.On the one hand,the peasanthad everypositive
incentiveto holdontohis holding, forit formed thebasisforhis
existence,and thatof his familyand heirs. On the otherhand,
purelyeconomicforcesseemto have workedto undermine the
peasants'property only in the verylong term. Thus the pointis
thatthe peasantproprietor was underrelatively littlepressureto
operatehisplotas profitablyorefficiently
as hispotential competitors
inordertosurvive, fortherewasnodirect meansforsuchcompetitors
to "defeat"him. In otherwords,thepeasantdid nothaveto be
competitive,becausehe did notreallyhaveto be ableto "holdhis
place"intheworldofthemarket, themarket
either fortenants orthe
market forgoods. Unlikea tenant, thepeasantproprietor did not
haveto providea levelofrentequalto whatthelandlord might get
fromanyothertenant- or elsebe evictedat theexpiration ofhis
104 For the process of centralizationunder the Tudors, especially the inter-
relationshipbetween the crown and those sections of the landed class (noble
and non-noble) who supported centralizationagainst the magnate-warlords,
see L. Stone, "Power", in Crisis of theAristocracy,ch. v.; as well as the series
of works by M. E. James: A Tudor Magnate and the Tudor State (Borthwick
Papers, no. 30, York, 1966); Change and Continuityin the Tudor North (ibid.,
no. 27, York, 1965); "The First Earl of Cumberland and the Decline of
Northern Feudalism", NorthernHistory, i (1966); "The Concept of Order
and the NorthernRising of 1569", Past and Present,no. 60 (August 1973). The
researchesof these authorsare beginningto provide detailed case studies which
demonstrate the important overlap between those landlord elements, both
noble and non-noble, who supported royal centralizationin the interestsof
social peace and public orderand those who wished to pursue highlycommercial
and progressivepolicies with regard to theirland - consolidation,enclosure,
agriculturalimprovement. On this point I have benefitedfrom reading an
unpublished essay by Eleanor Searle, "The JackCade Rebellion: Social Unrest
in England 1450-1460". On the developmentof parliamentin this period, the
fundamental works are the many books and essays by G. R. Elton and
J. E. Neale.

lease. Unliketheindependent artisan,he did nothaveto be able to
producecheaplyenoughto sell his goods profitably at the market
price - or else go out of business. All that was necessaryfor
survivalforthe peasantproprietor (assumingof coursethathe was
a food producer)was sufficient outputto providefor his family's
subsistenceand to payhistaxes(and generally fixedcustomary rents);
and thiscould oftenbe supplemented throughwagelabour.
Of course,merelymaintaining subsistencewas rarelyeasyforthe
peasantry,especiallythelargenumberswithrelatively smallholdings.
Demographicgrowth and the subdivision of holdingsdiminished
the size of the peasant's productivebase, either relativelyor
absolutely. Meanwhile,thegrowthoftaxation, especiallyconsequent
upon wars,meantthatgreaterproductionwas necessarymerelyto
survive(thus,ironically, thestatewhichin thefirstinstanceprovided
theprimary supportforpeasantproprietorship was indirectlyperhaps
also the major source of its disintegration).Finally,risingprices
overtheperioddecreasedthevalue of thesupplementary wageoften
requiredto make the peasant's holdingviable. Throughoutthe
earlymodernperiodmanypeasantswereindeedforceddeeplyinto
debt and were ultimately obligedto sell theirholdings.10?It was
no accident,moreover, thatthegreatestnumberof casualtiesappear
to have occurredin timesof war (especiallythe Wars of Religion
and theFronde)and of dearth(particularly the "subsistencecrises"
of the later seventeenthcentury)and to have been concentrated
in thezones immediately affected by military action(forexamplethe
Paris regionand Burgundy).106Yet even such long-term pressures
and short-term catastrophes seemto have workedtheirundermining
effectson peasantproprietorship relativelysporadicallyand slowly
overthe wholeof France. The continuingstrength of the French
peasantcommunity and Frenchpeasantproprietorship even at the
end oftheseventeenth century was evident in thefactthat some45-50
per centof the cultivatedland was stillin peasantpossession,often
scatteredthroughout the open fields.'0" In England,by contrast,
the owner-occupiers at thistimeheld no morethan25-30 per cent
of the land.?sO
105
See P. Goubert, "The French Peasantry of the Seventeenth Century:
A Regional Example", Past and Present,no. Io (November 1956), p. 75.
106 For case studies of the destructionof peasant proprietorship, see esp.
Jean Jacquart,La criseruraleen Ile-de-France 1550-1670 (Paris, 1974), passim;
Marc Venard, Bourgeoiset paysans au XVIIe sikcle: Recherche sur le r6le des
bourgeoisparisiens dans la vie agricoleau sud de Paris au XVIIe sidcle(Paris,
1957); P. de Saint' Jacob,"Mutations economiques et sociales dans les campagnes
bourguignonnes la findu XVIe siecle", Etudes Rurales,i (i96i), pp. 34-49.
107 P. Goubert, "Le paysan et la terre: seigneurie,tenure, exploitation", in
E. Labrousse et al. (eds.), Histoire dconomiqueet sociale de la France, ii (Paris,
1970), pp. 135-9. "It is commonlyadmittedthat the peasants of France were
able to 'possess' . . . a mere half of the French soil ..." (p. 135).
108 See above, note 80.

Given the Frenchpropertystructure, it is hardlysurprising that

the risingpopulation,marketsand grainpricesof the sixteenthand
seventeenth centuriesdid notlead in Franceto agriculturalimprove-
ment,but merelyto a renewalof theold malthusiancycleof under-
development. Given the strengthof peasant property,supported
bytheexploitativestate,thelandlordcouldnotusuallytakeadvantage
of increasingpricesforland and agricultural productsby improving
and by increasingoutput,because this usually entailedthe very
taskofconsolidation. The landlordstherefore
difficult tooktheonly
coursegenerallyopen to them:to tryto obtainan evergreatershare
of a constantor even decliningtotal product. On theirdemesne
land, composedgenerallyof small separatedplots, they imposed
short-termleases on draconianterms, designed to squeeze the
peasant tenantsby raisingtheirrentsand loweringtheirlevel of
subsistenceby takingadvantageof thegrowingdemandforholdings
arisingfrom demographicpressure. This procedure,of course,
reducedthepossibilityof agricultural improvement by the tenants,
sincetheywouldrarelyhave sufficient fundsforinvestment leftover
afterpayingtherent.109The difference fromthesituation in England
- wherelandlordswould obtainincreasesin rentby co-operating
withtheirtenantsin capitalimprovements on largefarmsand thereby
increasingtotaloutput,ratherthanbysimplytakinga largershareof
a constantor decliningoutputat the expenseof the tenants1o0 -
could nothave been morestark."' At the same time,in the sector
109 For a good account of this procedure of "squeezing" the leaseholding
tenants and its economic effects,see Merle, La me'tairieet l'dvolutionagraire
de la Gdtinepoitevine.
110See Adam Smith's analogous observations: "Rent anciently formed a
largerproportionof the produce of agriculturethan now .... In the progress
of improvement,rent,thoughit increasesin proportionto the extent,diminishes
in proportionto the produce of the land". The Wealthof Nations, ed. Edwin
Cannan (New York, 1937), P. 318.
111 It is strikingin this respect that in those relativelyrestrictedareas where
large consolidated holdings were created in France, the landlords generally
applied the same "squeezing" policy to their large tenants, with the result
that even on the relativelysmall number of large farmsfewimprovementswere
adopted. See Jacquart, op. cit., pp. 289-91, 326-30, and, in particular,pp.
747-8, 756-7. Also, Venard, Bourgeois et paysans, esp. pp. 117-18. Why
the landlordsadopted thisapproach,ratherthan optingforthe "English system"
of landlord-tenantco-operation,is uncertain. But the reason may once again
be bound up with an overall structureof landholdingin France which was still
heavilydominatedby peasant proprietorship- and withthe generallystagnant
economy which this landholding structuretended to entail. Most especially,
in comparisonwith England, French agriculturehad at its disposal a greatpool
of agriculturallabour withoutalternativeopportunitiesforemployment- that
is at relativelyverylow wages - and this naturallyencouragedlabour-intensive
methodsof cultivation,theneglectof capital-usingand labour-savingtechniques.
With no apparent incentiveto promote capital improvementof his land, the
lord had no reason to refrainfrom"squeezing" his tenant. Thus even in areas
where large,consolidated farmsdominated considerableportionsof the surface
area, theystilltendedto be surroundedby a sea of pettyproprietorswho needed
to hire themselves out as wage labourers in order to make ends meet. (See
(cont. on p. 75)

of freepeasantproprietors,to repeat,theholdingsweredividedand
subdivided. This too naturally reducedthe generallevelof peasant
income,the surplusavailableforpotentialinvestment in agriculture,
and theslimhope ofagricultural innovation. Meanwhile,ofcourse,
thestate,whichhad helpedto maintainthepeasantson theland,now
helpedto reducetheirenjoyment of it by confiscating
muchof what
was leftofthepeasants'productthrougheverhighertaxes.
In sum, it is not difficult
to comprehendthe dismal patternof
economicdevelopmentimposed by this class structurein France.
Not onlywas therea long-term failureof agriculturalproductivity,
but a corresponding inabilityto developthe home market. Thus,
ironically,the most completefreedomand propertyrightsforthe
rural populationmeant povertyand a self-perpetuating cycle of
backwardness. In England, it was preciselythe absence of such
rightsthat facilitatedthe onset of real economic development.
Universityof California,Los Angeles RobertBrenner
(note Itl cont.)

Jacquart,op. cit.,pp. 332-48,esp. 341, 348; Venard,op. cit.,pp. 27-9.) It
was notmerelythatstrongpeasantrightsin theland tendedto be boundup
withsubdivision ofholdings(partibleinheritance)and therapidconcentration
ofthepeasantpopulationon tinyholdings. Probably moresignificant, due to
the lack of economicdevelopment elsewherein the economy(industry, the
towns),whichwasitselftheresultoftheestablished peasant-dominated agrarian
structure,thisruralsemi-peasantry'semi-proletariat,
unliketheEnglishagricul-
turallabourers,had virtuallynowhereto go (increasing pressureon the land
meantdownwardpressureon wages). Their naturaltendencyto remainon
theirmini-holdings was thusgreatlyintensified
by the economicnecessity to
do so. Thus peasantagriculture set up yet anotherviciouscycleof back-
wardnessthwarting agricultural
capitalismevenwhereitsoutwardforms(large
consolidated holdingsfarmedby big tenantsusingwagelabour)werepresent.


Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Past and Present Society

Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

factors"unless the class relationshipshave firstbeen specified;

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

(a) Demography, IncomeDistributionand EconomicGrowth

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

in Western Europe was essentially a contractual arrangementwhere labor

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

(b) The DemographicModel in ComparativePerspective

15 Cf. CliffordGeertz, AgriculturalInvolution(Berkeley,Calif., 1963).

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

landholding:the lord's rightto impose additionalextraordinary

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

tenants,one gets accordingto the laws of supplyand demand,not

17 Ibid., pp. 6o8-io. "In the end economic forcesasserted themselves,and

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

processofdeteriorationin peasantstatuswas at justthistimeabruptly

Clearly,a growthof populationleadingto risingdemandforland

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

regionswe do gettheclassiccrisesofsubsistence,demographic disaster

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

(a) Tradeand Serfdom

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

and reversed - at the lord's will. Thus, as Postan points

61I. For an analysis of the reasons why commutationis misunderstoodif it

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

(as opposedto plethora)of tenants. For thisperiodthereis ample

(b) Commercializationand Agricultural Capitalism

35 J.Ambrose Raftis, Tenureand Mobility: Studiesin the Social Historyof the

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

Languedoc ended up as "pure peasant history... far fromthe

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

(a) The Declineof Serfdom

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

reference to availablehumanand naturalresourcesin relationto an

xxvii (1967). R. H. Hilton, "Rent and Capital Formationin Feudal Society",

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

** See forexample, the use of convertiblehusbandryin Flanders in the early

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

means of support. The crisisof productivity led to demographic

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

its personalfreedom,fullrightin perpetuity to its property(while

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

problemin orderto confront thefundamental questionofthesuccess

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

peasantry in WesternEuropeand thusthedeclineofserfdom. The

57 See for example, R. H. Hilton, "Peasant Movements in England Before

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

particularcontrolof thelabourmarket. Certainly, fewof theestab-

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

was alreadyfullyfree(or had neverbeen enserfed),so therewas

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

grazingand so on) and the common-field organizationof agricultural

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM

coloniststo lay out holdings withinthe fields in ratherlarge,

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:58:32 PM