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The Past and Present Society

Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial EuropeAuthor(s): Robert BrennerSource: Past & Present, No. 70 (Feb., 1976), pp. 30-75Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

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AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTUREANDECONOMICDEVELOPMENTNPRE-INDUSTRIALEUROPE*

GENERALNTERPRETATIONSFTHEPROCESSESFLONG-TERMCONOMIC

change n late medievaland earlymodernEuropehave continued obe constructed lmostexclusively n termsof what might looselybecalled "objective" economic forces, in particular demographicfluctuationsand the growth of trade and markets. A variety of

modelshavebeen constructed entring n theseforces.But whateverthe exact characterof the model, and whether the pressureforchange s seen to arise romurbanizationnd the growthof tradeoran autonomous emographic evelopment, market upply-demandmechanisms usuallyassumed o provide he elementaryheoreticalunderpinnings. So, the response of the agrarianeconomy toeconomicpressures,whatever heir source, s more or less taken orgranted, iewedas occurringmoreor lessautomatically,n a directioneconomically etermined y "the laws of supplyand demand".

In the construction f these economicmodels he questionof classstructure ends o be treated n a variety f ways. Typically, here sthe statement hatone is abstractingforthemoment) rom he socialor class structure or certainanalytical urposes.l The fact remainsthat in the actualprocessof explanation,hat is in the "application"of the model to specific economic historicaldevelopments, lassstructure ends, almost nevitably, o creep back n. Sometimes, tis inserted, n an ad hocway, to comprehend historical rendwhichthe model cannot cover. More often, however, consciously orunconsciously, lass structure s simply ntegratedwithinthe modelitself, and seen as essentially hapedby, or changeablen terms of,the objective economic orces aroundwhich the model has beenconstructedn the first place. In the most consistent ormulationsthe very fact of class structure s implicitlyor explicitly denied.Long-term conomicdevelopments understoodn termsof changing

* This paper was originally presented at the Annual Convention of theAmericanHistoricalAssociation,DecemberI974. An earlierversionwas givenat the Social Science Seminar of the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton,New Jersey,April I974. I wish to thankProfessorFranklinMendeis, ProfessorT. K. Rabb, Professor Eleanor Searle and ProfessorLawrence Stone, for thesubstantial time and effort they gave in commentingon and criticizing thispaper. I owe a special debt to Mr. Joel Singerfor the great amount of help hegave me, including both information and analysis, in trying to understandGerman developments.

1 See for example below, p. 34. M. M. Postan,"Moyen Age", IXe CongresInternational es SciencesHistoriques,Rapports, (Paris, I950), pp. 225 ff.



AGRARIANCLASSSTRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT 3I

institutionalizedelaiionships f "equal xehange') etween ontraet-ing individuals rading different,relativelysearce "faetors"underchangingmarket onditions.2

It is the purpose of this paper to argue that such attempts ateconomic model-buildingare necessarilydoomed from the startpreciselybecause, nzostcrudely stated, it is the structureof classrelations, f classpower,whichwill determirlehemanner nddegreeto which particular emographie ndeommercial hangeswill affectlong-run rends n thedistribution f ineomeandeconomic rowthand not vice versa. Classstructure, s I wishhere to use the term,hastwo analytically istinct,but historically nifiedaspects.3 First,the relationsof the directproducers o one another, o their tools

and to the land in the immediateprocessof production what hasbeen called he "labourprocess" r the "social orcesof production".Seeondly, he inherently onflictive elationsof property alwaysguaranteed irectlyor indirectly, n the last analysis,by force-bywhichan unpaid-for artof the product s extracted rom the directprodueers y a class of non-produeers whieh might be called he"propertyrelationship"or the "surplusextractionrelationship".It is around he propertyor surplusextraction elationshiphat onedefines he fundamentallasses n a society the class(es)of direct

producerson the one hand and the surplus-extracting,r ruling,class(es) n the other.4 It wouldbe myargumenthen that differentclass structures, specifically "property relations" or "surplusextraction elations",once established, end to impose ratherstrictlimitsand possibilities,ndeedrather pecifie ong-termpatterns, na society's economiedevelopment. At the same time, I wouldcontend,class structures end to be highlyresilient n relation o theimpactof economicforces;as a rule, they are not shaped by, oralterablen termsof, changes n demographic r commercialrends.It follows thereforethat long-term eeonomieehanges, and mostcrucially eonomie rowth,eannotbe analysed dequatelyn termsofthe emergeneeof any partieular onstellation f "relatively carce

2 For a recent attempt to apply this sort of approach o the interpretation fsocio-economic change in the medieval and earlymodern period, see DouglassC. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World(Cambridge, 973).

3 The following definitionsderive, of course, from the work of Karl Marx,especially: "Preface" to A Contribution o the Critique of Political Economy(New York, I 970 edn.); "The Genesis of Capitalist Ground Rent" and"Distribution Relations and Production Relations", in Capital, 3 vols. (New

York, I967 edn.), iii, chaps. xlvii and li; and "Introduction" to Grundrisse(London, I973 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 propertyrelationship n the specific sense implied here,that is in the last analysis non-consensual and guaranteedeither directly orindirectly by force.



32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER70

factors" unless the class relationshipshave first been specified;indeed, the opposite outcomes may accompanythe impact ofapparently imilar economic conditions. In sum, fully to com-

prehend ong-term conomicdevelopment, rowthand/orretrogres-sion in the late medievaland early modernperiod, it is critical oanalyse the relativelyautonomousprocesses by which particularclass structures, speciallypropertyor surplus-extractionelations,are established nd in particularhe class conflicts o whichthey do(or do not)giverise. For t is in the outcome f suchcl<assonflictsthe reaffirmationf the old property elations r theirdestruction ndthe consequentestablishment f a new structure that is to befoundperhaps he keyto the problem f long-term conomicdevelop-

ment in late medievaland earlymodernEurope,and moregenerallyof the transition rom feudalism o capitalism.Put n suchgeneral erms, he foregoing ropositions nddefinitions

likelyappear ague. WhatI should ike to do is to try to give themsubstanceby relating hem to a critiqueof certainmajor xplanatorymotifs in the economichistoriography f late medievaland earlymodernEurope,where hey havehardlybeen taken or granted,andwhere t seems o me thateconomic-deterministodel-building oldsan overwhelmingly ominantposition. Thus, I will focus on twodifferentover-archingnterpretationsf long-termeconomicchangein medievaland earlymodernEurope,one of whichmight be calledthe demographicmodel, the other of which might be called thecommercialization odel. The formergrew out of a critiqueof thelatter, but I shall try to show that both are subject to aIlalogousproblems.

THE DEMOGRAPHICMODEL

The emergingdominance f the so-calleddemographicactor n

the economic historiography f Europe even through the age ofindustrialization as recognized s earlyas I958 by H. J. Habakkukin his well-known rticle"The EconomicHistoryof ModernBritain".As Habakkukwrote:

For those who care for the overmasteringpattern, the elements are evidentlythere for a heroically simplified version of English history before thenineteenth century in which the long-term movements in prices, in incomedistribution, n investment, in real wages, and in migrationare dominatedbychanges in the growth of population. Rising population: rising prices,rising agriculturalprofits, low real incomes for the mass of the populationunfavourable erms of trade for industry - with variationsdepending upon

changes in social institutions, this might stand for a description of thethirteenth century, the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth, and theperiod I750-I8I5. Falling or stationary population with depressedagriculturalprofits but high mass incomes might be said to be characteristicof the interveningperiods.

6 H. J. Habakkuk,"The Economic History of Modern Britain''s 1. Econ.Hist., XViii ( I958), p. 487.



AGRARIANCLASSSTRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT 33

Well before Habakkuk's rticle, M. M. Postanhad presented hebasic contoursof what has become the standard nterpretation flong-termsocio-economic hange in the medievalperiod; and his

demographic pproachhas now been filled out and codified n hischapter on "Medieval AgrarianSociety in Its Prime: England"in the Cambridge conomicHistoryof Europe.6Roughlythe sameline of argumenthas, moreover,now been carried through thesixteenthand seventeenth enturiesby P. J. Bowden n the AgrarianHistory f England nd Wales. Nor has thisapproach een confinedto Englisheconomichistory,where t is now more or less standard.It has been rigorously pplied n what s perhapshe most influentialworkon Frenchsocio-economic istoryof the pre-industrial eriod,

E. Le Roy Ladurie's lassicmonographLespaysansde Languedoc.8With such eminent xponents, t is hardly urprisinghat whatmightbe termedsecularmalthusianism as attained omething f the levelof orthodoxy. Its cyclical dynamic has replaced the unilineal"rise of the market"as the key to long-termeconomicand socialchange n pre-industrialociety.

Nor can there be any questionbut that the malthusianmodel, inits own terms, has a certain compelling ogic. If one takes asassumptions first an economy's nability to make improvementsn

agriculturalroductivity, ndsecondlya naturalendency or popula-tion to increaseon a limitedsupplyof land,a theoryof incomedis-tributionseems naturally o follow. With diminishing eturns nagriculture ue to declining ertilityof the soiland the occupation fincreasinglymarginaland, we can logically xpectdemand o outrunsupply: thus terms of trade runningagainst ndustry n favour ofagriculture, alling wages, rising food prices, and, perhaps mostcrucially n a society composed argelyof landlordsand peasants,risingrents. Moreover, he modelhas a built-inmechanism f self-correctionwhichdetermines utomaticallyts own changeof directionand a long-termdynamic. Thus the ever greatersubdivisionorovercrowding f holdings and the exhaustionof resourcesmeans"over-populaiion"hich eads o malthusianhecks, speciallyamine/starvation; his results in demographic eclineor collapseand theopposite trends in income distribution rom the first phase. AsHabakkuk ointedout, this two-phasemodelhas now been appliedto the entire period betweenroughlyI050 and I800. Indeed, thevery essenceof "traditionalconomy"has seemed o be captured n

6 M. M. Postan, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", TheCambridgeEconomic History of Europe, i, 2nd edn., ed. M. M. Postan(Cambridge, 966).

7 P. J. Bowden, "AgriculturalPrices, Farm Profits,and Rents", in H. P. R.Finberg (ed.), TheAgrarianHistoryof EnglandandWales, v, Joan Thirsk (ed.),I500-I640 (Cambridge, 967).

8 E. Le Roy Ladurie,Les paysansde Languedoc, vols. (Paris, I966).



34PASTND RESENT

NUMBER0

thisenturies-longotion iseculairetwo-phasemovement). As Le

Royadurieuccinctly tates,"Malthuscame too late": ironically,

Malthus'sodelwascorrectnotfortheemergentndustrialconomy

heasnalysing,ut forthe stagnantbackwardociety romwhich

thisadrisen. Indeed,for Le RoyLadurie he pattern eemedso

"inescapable"s toinviteanalogiesrombiologyorphysiology. The

historyf ruralLanguedoc versix hundredyearsshouldbe seen,

heays,s "theimmenserespirationf a socialstructure".9

(a)emography,ncomeDzstributionndEconomicGrozvth

Inermsof its specialpremisesandthe smallnumberof variables

itntails, ecular malthusianism eems almost foolproof. Yet,

whatustbe questioneds its relevanceo the explanationf actual

historicalhange. Do the model's assumptionsand constants,

indeedts very dynamic, lluminateor actuallyobscure he crucial

conditionsndprocesses nderlyinghevarying atterns f long-term

economichange n latemedievalandearlymodernEurope? n his

classicrticleof I950 which set out his demographicmodel for

medievaluropeaneconomicdevelopment,Postanmade sure to

specifyhat he was concernedonly with what he termed "the

economicase"ofmedievalociety. Hedefinedhe"economic ase"

as:

populationand landsettlement, technique of productionand the general

trendsof economicactivity: in short,all those economicfacts whichcan be

discussed without concentratingupon the working of legal and social

institutionsand upon the relationsof class to class.10

Postanrguedthat what madeit "possibleand necessary o deal

withhis groupof subjects ogether",andin abstractionromclass

relations,as that "theyhaveall recentlybeen drawn nto the dis-

cussionf general rendsof economicactivity,or to use the more

Buthe questionwhichmustimmediately e posedpreciselywhen

ones attemptingointerpretlong ermmovementsfsocial ncome"

-that is, long-term rendsof incomedistribution nd economic

growth is whether t is at all admissible o abstract hem from

"theworkings f socialandlegal nstitutions". Can heproblems f

thedevelopmentof Postan'sso-called"economicbase" be very

meaningfullyonsideredpartrom he"relationsfclass oclass"

Withrespect o long-termrends n incomedistribution, shall ry

toargue hatthe malthusianmodelrunsinto particularlyntractable

problemsnrelationo thealwaysambiguousndcontested haracter

of medievaland earlymodern andholding rrangements.On the

one hand,the very distribution f ownershipof the landbetween

landlordand peasantwas continuallyn questionthroughout he

period. Could he peasantrymoveto establishheritabilityndfised

9 Ibid., "Introduction",esp. p. 8; also "Conclusion",esp. pp. 652-4.

10Postan,"MoyenAge", p. 225. 11 Ibid.




rents, that is essentially reeholdrightson the land? If so, the verysignificance f rent would be transformed, nd the viabilityof thelandlordclass put in jeopardy. On the other hand, in situaiions

wherethe landlordhad established wnership f the land, a furtherquestionmight be raised: could the landlordgain extra-economiepowerover hepersonof his tenant,controlmarriage, nd n particularland transfersand peasantmobility? If so, the possibilitywouldemerge of imposing"extra-economic"r arbitrary aymentsuponthe peasantry payments beyond custom or beyond what therelative scarcityof factors might dictate. Any explanation f theprogress f incomedistributionn the latemedieval ndearlymodernperiodmust thereforebe able to interpretnot merelythe changing

distributionof the immediateproduct of the land, but the priorquestionsof the distribution f propertybetween ord and peasantand of the directapplicability f force n the rentrelationship. Someeconomichistorianshave attempted o deal with this problembydenying or ignoring ts existence, n pariicularby describing heeconomy in terms of contractual elationshipsamong individualholders of scarce resources,such as militaryskill and weaponry,land,agriculturalabourpowerand so on.l2 Othershave attempted

12 See for example,D. C. North and R. P. Thomas,who arguethat "serfdomin Western Europe was essentially a contractualarrangementwhere labor

services were exchangedfor the public good of protection and justice": "TheRise and Fall of the Manorial System: A TheoreticalModel", i1. Econ. HistXXXi (I97I), p. 778. North and Thomas can make this argumentbecause theyassume: (a) that the serf was essentially "protectedfrom arbitrarycharges"and (b) that because there was an absence of "a central coercive authority"the serfs were essentially free, especially to move, and that as a result therewas a "rudimentary labor market". In my view, these assumptions areconsistent with one another but inconsistent with the realities of serfdomprecisely because serfdom was in its essence non-contractual. There was no"mutualagreement"between lord and serf according o North and Thomasa defining featureof contract. On the contrary, t is precisely the interrelatedcharacteristics f arbitrary xactionsby the lords from the peasantsand control

by landlords over peasant mobility that gave the medieval serf-economy itsspecial traits: surplus extraction hrough the directapplicationof force ratherthan equal exchange via contract, as North and Thomas would have it. Thesort of problems entailed in the approachof North and Thomas are evidentin their account of the origins of serfdom. Thus: "Individuals with superiormilitary skills and equipment were urgently needed to protect the peasantswho were unskilled in warfare and otherwise helpless. Here was the classicexample of a publicgood, since it was impossible to protect one peasantfamilywithout also protectingtheir neighbours. In such cases coercion vasnecessaryto overcomeeachpeasant's ncentive to let his neighbourpay the costs, and themilitarypowerof thelordprovided he neededforce." Rise of the WesternWorldpp. 29-30 (myitalics). This explanationnot only begsthe fundamentalquestionof class: How do we explain, in the first place, the distributionof the land, of

the instruments of force, and of military skill within the society. It alsoundermines their own argument for the essentiallycontractual characterofserfdom, for it is here explicitly admitted that the serf is coerced. To go on tosay that "the lord's power to exploit his serfs ... was not unlimited butconstrained (in the extreme case) by the serf's ability to steal away" (p. 30)does not eliminate he fundamentaldifficulty: hat is attempting o treat serfdomas contractual,while admitting ts essentially coercivecharacter.




to meetthe problemby assimilatingt to theirbasieeeonomiemodels:by insisiing, direetly or indireetly, that in the long run, thedistributionof propertyand the suecessfulapplieability f foree

in the rentrelationship ill be subjeet o essentiallyhe samesortsofsupply-demand ressuresas the distribution f the product tself,and will move in roughly he same direction. I shall try to showempirieallyhat this is not the case and argue nstead hat these arefundamentally uestionsof elass relationsand elass power, deter-minedrelatively utonomouslyrom economie orees.

The demographienterpreters f late medievaland earlymoderneeonomiesrun into even more serious problems n attempting oexplain general trends of total produetion,eeonomie growth or

stagnation, han they do with regard o the distribution f ineome.Certainly, heir assumption f deeliningproduetivityn agrieultureis a reasonable ne for most,thoughnot all, pre-industrial uropeaneeonomies. Indeed, these eeonomiehistorianshave been able tospeeifyelearly ome of the teehnieal nd eeonomie ootsof long-termfallingyieldsthrough heirresearehesnto the problems f maintain-ing soil fertility n the faee of a shortageof animalsand fertilizer,especiallyunder eonditions of baekwardagrieultural rganizationandteehnique nd ow levelsof investment.3 Nevertheless, peeify-

ing in this manner he eonditions ondueive o long-term tagnationis not really explaining his phenomenon, or no real aeeount isprovided f whysueheonditions ersisted.Thus,to explain eonomie"rigidity"as does Le Roy Ladurie as the " 'fruit' of teehnicalstagnation, f laek of capital,of abseneeof the spirit of enterpriseand of innovation"s, in fact, to beg the question.4 It is analogousto attempting o explaineeonomiegrowthmerelyas a result of theintroductionof new organizations f production,new techniques,and new levels of investment. These factors do not, of course,explaineconomiedevelopment,hey merelydescribewhat economicdevelopments. The continuing tagnation f mostof the traditionalEuropean conomies n the late medievaland earlymodernperiodcannotbe fully explainedwithoutaecounting or the real economicgrowth experiencedby the few of these economieswhich actuallydeveloped. More generally, economic backwardness annot be

13 Postan, "Medieval AgrarianSociety in its Prime: England", pp. 548-70M. M. Postan, "Village Livestock n the ThirteenthCentury",Econ.Hist. Reu.2nd ser., xv (I962); J. Z. Titow, EnglishRuralSociety 200-I350 (London, I969).

14 Le Roy Ladurie, Op. Cit., p. 634. Le Roy Ladurieseems at times to want

to view economic development as essentially the direct result of apparentlyautonomous processes of technical innovation. Thus, he says, "it was thetechnological weakness of the society ... it was its lack of ability to raiseproductivity, its incapacity lastingly and definitively to raise productionwhich created the barrierwhich, at the end of the period, stopped its quasi-two-phase (quasi-biseculaire) rowth of population and of small peasantproprietorship" p. 639); see also below, note 37.




fully eomprehendedwithout an adequate theory of eeonomiedevelopment. In deseribinghe speeifie wo-stage grarian-eeonomiecyele set in motion in a number of medieval and early modern

Europeaneeonomies by deelining agrieulturalproduetivity, hemalthusianheoristshave indeedisolatedone importantpatternoflong-termeconomiedevelopment nd stability. But this dramatietwo-phasemovement s not universal ven for traditionaloeieties;15and besides,it still needs an interpretation. I shall arguethat themalthusian ycle of long-term tagnation,as well as other ormsofeconomicbackwardness,an only be fully understood s the productof establishedstructuresof class relations (particularly surplus-extractionrelations"), ust as economic development an only be

fullyunderstood stheoutcome f the emergence f newclassrelationsmore favourableto new organizationsof production,technicalinnovations, nd increasingevels of productive nvestment. Thesenew classrelationswere themselves he resultof previous, elativelyautonomous rocessesof class conflict.

(b) TheDemographic odel n ComparativeerspectiveI hope the force of these objectionswill appearmoreeompelling

as they are specified n partieularhistorieal cases. My eonerete

methodof eritique s exceedinglyimpleand obvious: t is to observethe prevaleneeof similardemographie rends throughoutEuropeover the six- or seven-hundred-yeareriodbetween he twelfthandthe eighteenth enturiesand to showthe very different uteomesntermsof agrarian tructure, n particularhe patterns f distributionof income and eeonomic development, with which they wereassociated. In this way I maybeginto expose he problemsnherentin the eomplementary nd eonnected demographie-deterministicmodelsof Postan for the twelfthto fifteentheentllries) nd Le Roy

Lad-urieforthe sixteenth o eighteenth enturies).Demographie rowth,accordingo Postan, haracterizeshetwelfthand thirteentheenturies. It leads to the oceupationof marginallandsand heinereasingnfertility f the soil: in short,a risingdemandfor a relatively nflexible upply of food and land; thus, risingfoodpriees and rising rents. However, as Postan is of eourseaware,we aredealingn this periodwitha verypeeuliar ormof rent. Thereis very ittle n the wayof direct easeand eontraet. We have nsteada theoreticallyixed, but actually luctuating, tructure f customaryrights andobligations hat define andholding rrangements.Thesespecify in the first place the regular ostensibly ixed) payments obe madeby the peasant o the lord in order o retainhis land. Butthey often lay down, in addition, a further set of conditionsof

15 Cf. Clifford Geertz, Agricultural nvolution Berkeley, Calif., I963).




landholding:the lord's right to impose additionalextraordinarylevies (tallagesand fines); the peasant's ight to use, transfer,andinherit the land; and finally,the very dispositionof the peasant's

own person, n particular is freedom f mobility. Now it is Postan'sargument hat these latter conditions which together defined thepeasant's ustomary tatus his freedomor unfreedom in so faras they are relevant o long-term conomic rends,can be more orless directlyassimilated o his supply/demand emographicmodel.Thus the centralpoint for Postan s that due to developingpressureof population, he thirteenth entury s a period n which the land-lords' position mproves is-a-vis the peasantsnot only n those fewareaswherewhatmightbe termedmodern easeholding as emerged,

but also in the so-calledcustomary ector. Thus competition orland inducesthe peasantry o accept a seriousdegradation f theirpersonalltenurialtatus n order o hold on to their and and this, inturn, exacerbates he generallydeteriorating conomicsituation owhich they are being subjectedsimply by forces of supply anddemand. So, in order o retain heir and,the peasantsmust submit,in particular,o (I) increasing rbitraryaxes (fines, allages), eviedabove and beyond the traditional ent; and (2) increasing abour-serviceson the lord'sdemesne. These increasedpaymentsare part

and parcelof the generally ncreasing bilityof the lord to controlthe peasantsand determine heir condition. In other words, forPostan, he extra-economicelationships etween ordandpeasantspecifically, hose paymentswhich are associatedwith increasingpeasantunfreedom can be understoodn termsof the sameformof "relative carcityof factors" rgument hat wouldapply o purelymarketcontractual rrangements,nd indeed conduced o the sameeffect n termsof incomedistribution etween ord and peasant. AsPostan says, for example,at one point: "The fluctuation f labourservicerequiresno otherexplanationhan that which s providedbythe ordinary nterplayof supplyand demand demand or villeinservicesand supplyof serf labour".6

The fourteenthand fifteenth centuries witnessed a decline inpopulationas a result of falling productivity, amine arld plague.Ultimately,demographic atastropheed to a drasticreversalof theman/landratio. Postan hus argues,consistently nough, that thisdemographic hangebroughtabout precisely he oppositesituationto that which had obtained n the thirteenthcentury. Scarcityofpeasantsmeanta declinenot only in the level of rent, but equally n

the lord's ability to restrictpeasantmcbility, and peasant reedomin general. With competition mong ords to obtainscarcepeasant

16M. M. Postan, "The Chronologyof Labour Services", Trans.Roy. Hist.Soc., 4th ser., xx (I937), p. I7I. For the previousparagraph, ostan, "MedievalAgrarianSociety in its Prime: England", pp. 552-3, 607-9.




tenants,one gets according o the laws of supply and demand,notonly declining ents n general,and labour-servicesn particular, utgiving up by the lords of their rights to control the peasantry.

Demographic atastrophe etermines he fall of serfdom.l7Le RoyLadurieakesup the cycle rom hepointwherePostarleaves

it, that is at the end of the fifteenthcentury. Serfdom s now nolongerextant n eitherEnglandor most of France. We have nsteada societyof free peasants n both Englandand France, ome holdingtheir land on a roughlycontractual asis from the landlords, thershaving achieved a status of something ike freeholders. (I shallreturn o this a little later.) At any rate,as has been noted, we get arepetition f the two-phasemovementPostancharted or the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries and then the fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies:that is first an upwardpush in populationduring the"long sixteenthcentury" eadingto rising rents, falling wages andthe disintegration of peasant holdings. Drastically decliningproductivity hen leads to demographic atastrophesduring theseventtenth century, a turning of the trend, and the oppositeconfigurationn terms of thc distribution f incomeand of land.18

The obviousdifficultywith this whole massivestructure s that itsimply breaksdown in the face of comparative nalysis. Different

outcomesproceeded rom similar demographic rends at differenttimes and in different areas of Europe. Thus we may ask ifdemographic hange can be legitimately reated as a "cause", etalone the key variable. So it is tree that in the thirteenth enturyincrease n populationwasaccompanied y increasing entsand,moregenerally,ncreasing eigneurial ontrolsoverthe peasantry, ot onlyin Englandbut in partsof France especiallyn the northand east ofthe Paris region: Vermandois,Laonnais,Burgundy).l9 Yet, it isalso the case that in other partsof France Normandy,Picardy)nocounter-tendencyeveloped n this era to the long-term rendwhichhad resulted n the previousdisuppearancef serfdom.0 Moreover,in still other French regions (especially he area around Paris)a

17 Ibid., pp. 608-I0. "In the end economic forces asserted themselves, andthe lords and the employers ound that the most effectiveway of retaining abourwas to pay higher wages, just as the most effective way of retaining tenantswas to lower rents and release servile obligations"(ibid., p. 609).

18 Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans de Languedoc, assim.19M. Petot3 "L'evolution du servage dans la France coutumiere du XIC

au XIVe siecle", Recueilsde la Societe3reanBodin, ii (I937), pp. I55-64; Ch.-E.Perrin, "Le servage en France et en Allemagne", Xe Congres rzternationales

Sciences Historiques,Rapports, ii (Rorule, I955), pp. 227-8- Guy FourquinLes campagnes e la regionparisiennea la fin u moyenage (Paris, I970), pp.

I75-9; Robert Fossier, Histoiresocialede l'Occidentnzedie7>alParis, I970), pp.

I6I-3.

20 Robert Fossier, La terre et les hoenmesn Picardie usqu'a a fin du XIIIesiecle, 2 vols. (Paris, I968), ii; pp. 555-60. See also the references cited innote I9 above.



4o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 70

processof deterioraiionn peasant tatuswasat justthis time abruptlyterminatedand an opposite movementset in motion which haddecisively stablished easant reedom as well as nearly ull peasant

property) y the end of the thirteenth entury.1 These contrastingdevelopments bviouslyhad a powerfuleffect on trends of incomedistribution. As Postanhimselfpoints out, landlordswere able toextract ar greater ents romserfs(villeins) hanfrom ree tenantsand were able to increase hese significantlyn the course of thethirteenth entury.22 Postancontends,however, hat:

The reason why landlordswere now not only desirous to increasethe weightof labour dues but also "got away with it" are not difficult to guess. Withthe growing scarcity of land and with the lengthening queues of menwaiting for it, the economic powers of the landowner over his tenants were

more difficult to resist.23

Clearly,a growthof population eading o rising demand or landwould tend to increasea lord's power to extractrent, in whatelrerform, from the peasantry-but only if the lord had successfullyestablished is rightto chargemore hana fixedrent. However, hepoint is that by and large in the medievalperiod the only tenantssubject o the exercise f this sortof "economic" oweron the partofthe lord that is to the imposition f additionalabour ervices,aswell as additionalarbitrarypayments of other kinds above the

customary ent, in particular ntryfines and tallages were unfreeand held by villein tenure. The very status of free tenant in thethirteenth entury which ncidentallyncludeda significant ectionof the population) enerally arriedwith it precisely reedom romheavy (or increasing) abour-service n the lord's demesne, andfreedom from tallages, entry fines and other similar payments.24So, the determination f the impact of the pressureof populationon the land whowas o gainandwho o losefroma growing emandfor land and rising and pricesand rent-was subject o the prior

determination f the qualitative haracter f landlord-peasantlassrelations. Thus during the thirteenthcentury n the Paris regionthe trend toward ncreasing allagingof the peasantry y landlordswas directlyabortedby a counter-trendowardpeasant nfranchise-ment. The point, here as in England,was that, once free, peasants

21 Fourquin, Op. Cit., pp. I60-72, I89-90.

22 Postan, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: England", pp. 552-3603, 607-8, 6II. In particularp. 603: "... the money charges incumbentupon customary, .e., villein, holdings were heavy by all comparison . . evenwith those of substantialpeasant freeholders".

23 Ibid., p. 608 (my italics).24 See above, notes I6, 22, 23. R. H. Hilton, The Decline of Serfdom sMedieval England (London, I969) pp. I8-I9, 24, 29-3I. For graphicillustrations of the ability of estabiished free peasants to resist the mostdetermined (and desperate)efforts of rent-gouging andlords even during thethirteenth-century ncrease in population, see Eleanor Searle, LordshipandCommunity:Battle Abbeyand ts Banlieu) 066-I538 (Toronto,I974), pp. I63-6.




regionswe do get the classic risesof subsistence, emographicisasterand ultimately "turningof the trend".28 Nevertheless, ronically,parallelgrowth of population n England n this same period has

been used to explain precisely opposite developments. Thus,according o Bowden:

Under the stimulus of growing population, rising agriculturalprices, andmounting land values, the demand for land became more intense and itsuse moreefficient. The area under cultivationwas extended. Large estateswere built up at the expenseof small holdiws.29

So, in France,as populationncreased, herewas extreme ragmenta-tion of holdings and decliningproductivity. But in England,bycolltrast, he dominant endencywas to build up largerand largerunits; to consolidate oldingsand to farm hem out to a large enantfarmerwho in turn cultivated hem with the aid of wage labour.Accompanyinghis change n the organization f productionweremajor ncreasesn agricultural roductivity,with trulyepoch makingresults. By the end of the seventeenth enturyEnglishpopulationhad returned o its high, latethirteenth-centuryevels,but therewasnothing ike the demographic atternof seventeenth-centuryrance,no phase B following nescapablyrom phase A. Instead,we havethe finaldisruption f the malthusian atternand the introduction fa strikinglynovel form of continuedeconomicdevelopment.30

II

THE COMMERCIALIZATION ODEL

Before I presentthe alternativewhich I think follows from theforegoingcomparative nalysis, t should be noted that both of thetwo most prominent xponents f the population-centredpproachesto economicchange irl pre-industrial ociety, Postan and Le RoyLadurie, originally constructed heir models in opposition to a

prevailing istoriographicalrthodoxywhich assigned o the growthof tradeandthe market role somewhat nalogouso thatwhich heywere ultimately o assignto population. Thus Postanand Le RoyLaduriemade powerfulattackson the simple unilinealconceptionswhich had held that the force of the marketdetermines: irst, the

28 See for example, Pierre Goubert, "Le milieu demographique", inL'ancienregime, (Paris, I969)- also, Pierre Goubert, Beauvaiset le Beauvaisisde I600 a z730 (Paris, I960); Jean Meuvret, Etudesd'histoire conomiqueParisI97I); Ernest Labrousse, et al., Histoire economiquet socialede la France, ii,I660- I789 (Paris, I 9705.

29 AgrarianHistory of Englandasld Wales, v, I500-I640, p. 593 (my italics).

3?On English agrarian hange, its causes and consequences,see for exampleR. H. Tawney, The AgrarianProblen in the SixteenthCentury London, IgI2New York, I967 edn.); Eric Kerridge, The AgriculturalRevolution London,I967); Eris Kerridge, Agrarian Probleens f the Sixteenth Centuryand After(London, I969), esp. ch. 6 W. G. Hoskins, "The LeicestershireFarmer n theSeventeenth Century", AgriculturalHistory, xxv (I95I)* Agrarian History ofEnglandand Wales, v, I500-I640. See also below, pp. 62-8.



AGRARIANCLASSSTRUCTUREAND ECONOMIGDEVELOPMENT 43

declineof serfdom,which wasoften simply dentifiedas the changefromlabour- o money-rents nd pso facto the emergence f a freecontractualenantry;andsecondly, he rise of capitalist griculture,

classically large-scaletenant farming on the basis of capitalimprovement ndwage labour.

(a) TradeandSerfdomPostanwas, in particular,oncerned o showthat in the medieval

period he forceof themarket, arfromautomaticallyringingaboutthe dissolution of serEdom,might actually ceincide with itsintensification. He demonstrated,or example, hat in some areasmost accessible o the Londonmarket he trend toward ncreased

labour-service ndthe seigneurialeactionof the thirteenth enturywas most intense. Perhapsan even clearer llustration f Postan'spoint s provided n the areasunder he influence f theParismarketduringthe sameperiod. Thus, as one proceededalongtlle Seinethroughaseriesof different egionsall of whichproduced orParisianconsumption, nepassed hrough egionsof peasant reedom,peasarltsemi-freedomand peasantserfdom. Most spectacular, s Postanpointedout, was the case of EasternEurope,whereduring he latemedievaland earlymodernperiod he powerful mpactof the world

market or grain gave a major mpetus o the tighterling f peasantbondageat the sametime as it wasstimulating he development fcapitalismn the West.31

Still,Postanneverreally pecified he fatal lawof thetrade-centredapproacho European evelopment;his, in my view, is its tendencyto ignore he factthatserfdomdenotednotmerely, orevenprimarily,labour- as opposed to money-dues,but, fundamentally, owerfullandlord ights o arbitraryxactions nd a greater r lesserdegreeofpeasantunfreedom. Thus serfdom nvolvedthe larldlord's bility

to controlhis tenant'sperson, n particular is movements, oas to beable to determine he levelof the rent in excessof "custom" r whatmightbe dictatedby the simpleplayof forcesof supplyand demarld.For this reason he declineof serfdomcouldnot be achieved,as issometimes implied, through simple commutation, he "equalexchange" fmoney-rentorlabour-rent hichmightbetransactedrltheinterest f greater fficiencyorbothparties.2 NShatwouldremainafter commutationwas still the lord's power over the peasant.Indeed, t is notablehatcommotationouldbe unilaterallyictated-

31 Postan, "The Chronologyof Labour Services",esp. pp. I92-3; Fourquin,Campagnes e la regionparisienze,pp. I69-70 and I70, n. 7I- See also M. M.Postan,"The Rise of the Money Economy", Econ.Hist. Rev., xiv (I944).

32 For a recentre-statementof this view, see North and Thomas, Rise of theWesternWorld5 p. 39-40. It is of course a corollaryof their view of serfdomas an essentiallycontractual,ratherthan coercive and exploitativerelationship.(See above, note I2.)



44PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER70

and reversed at the lord's will. Thus, as Postan pointsout, commutationwas an extremelywidespreaddevelopment ntwelfth-century ngland;butthistrenddidnotsignify heemancipa-tion of

the peasants,or in the thirteenthcentury, heywereonceagainmadesubject o the landlords' emandsor services. Indeed,even where the lord did not decide to take labour-services,hepeasantwasstillrequiredo paymoney eesto "buyoff"his labour-dues and moreoverremainedsubjectto those arbitrary xactioIls(tallages, ntryfinesandso on)whichwereboundup withhis statusas a "bondsman'>.33Whatthereforehadto be eliminatedo bringabout he endof serfdomwasthetypeof "unequal xchange"whichwas manifestedin the direct, forceful, extra-economic ontrolsexertedby the lordoverthepeasant. Sincethe essenceof serfdomwas helord'sability o bringextra-marketressureo bearuponthepeasantsn determininghe levelof rent,in particular y preventingpeasantmobilityand thus a "freemarket n tenants', it is hardlysurprisinghatfluctuationsn trade, ndeedof marketactorsof anytype,werenot in themselves nough o determinehe dissolution fserfdom. Serfdomwas a relationshipof power which could bereversed,s it were,onlyin its ownterms,througha change n thebalancef classforces.

Obviouslyheremightbe periodswhentheenormousdemand orland,and thus for tenancies,deriving n particularromthe risingpressuref population,wouldallowthe lordsto takea veryrelaxedattitudeowardpeasantmobility(voluntarily asingrestrictions ntheirilleintenants'movements)incetheycouldalwaysgetreplace-ments, uiteoftenindeedon betterterms. The latterpartof thethirteenthentury,as noted,was probably ust this sort of period.Butvidence romsucha periodcannotbe legitimately sedto argueforhe end, or the essential rrelevance, f peasantunfreedom.34Serfdomanbe saidto endonlywhenthe lords'rightandability o

controlhepeasantry,houldheydesireodoso,hasbeenterminated.Its significanthateventhroughouthe thirteenth enturypeasantswishingo leave hemanorwererequiredo obtain icences o departandadto returneachyearforthe oneor twoviewsof frankpledge.Inhis period,as Raftissays,"themanorial ourtwasusuallyonlyconcernedo keep hevilleinunder helord's urisdiction,otto havehimackon the lord'sdemesne". What s telling,however,s thesuddenhange n the conditions urroundingilleinmobilitywhichfollowedmmediately pontheBlackDeathandthesudden hortage33 Postan, "MedievalAgrarianSociety in itS Prime: England", pp. 604-S,II. For an analysisof the reasonswhy commutation s misunderstood f its ssumedo mean a relaxationof serfdom,see esp. R. H. Hilton's Declineoferfdom,p. 29-3I, as well as his "FreedomandVilleinage n England",Pastndresent,no. 3I (July I965), p. II.34 As does, for examplenTitow, EnglishRuralSocietyI200-I350, pp. 59-60.




(as opposed o plethora) f tenants. For this period here s ampleevidence or the distraining f villeinsto become tenantsand takeoverobligations;or muchheavier inesfor licence o leavethe lord's

manor; or a remarkablencreasen the numberof pledgesrequiredfor thosepermittedo leave he manor;or a sharper ttitude oncern-ing fugitives romthe domain;andfor limitations n the numberofyears he villeinwasallowed o be away rom he manor.35 Certainly,from the lord'spoint of view, serfdomwas still the orderof the day,and they had every ntentionof enforcingt. Whetheror not theywouldbe able owasa question hatwasanswered nly n the conflictsof the followingperiod.

(b) Commercializationnd Agricultural apitalismIn a manner nalogouso Postan's,Le Roy Ladurie arriedorward

the critique of the trade-centred pproach o European conomicdevelopment y showing hat evenfollowing he downfall f serfdoma tendencytowardcapitalism large,consolidated oldingsfarmedon the basis of capital mprovementwith wage labour)could notnecessarily e assumed, ven under he impactof the market. ThusLe Roy Ladurie's tudy of ruralLanguedocwas designed n parttoqualify he earlierconceptions f historians ike Raveau,Bloch and

others hatthe earlymodernperiod,under he stimulus f the market,witnessed steady endency oward he development flargeholdings,cultivated ftenby farmers f bourgeois riginwith a strongorienta-tion toward mprovement nd efficientproduction or the market.In contrast,as we have seen, Le Roy Ladurie showed that theemergenceof "capitalist ent" (basedon increases n the produc-tivity of the landdue to capital nvestment) s opposed o the simplesqueezingof the peasant(on the basis of rising demand or landstimulated by increased demographicpressure) was far from

inevitable; hatfragmentationf holdingswas as likelyas consolida-tion. Still the fact remains hat,like Postan,Le Roy Laduriedoesnot get to the root of the difficulties f the trade-centredpproachoagrarian hangen this period orhe doesnot attempt o specifywhy,in fact, during he sixteenthandseventeenth enturies,a new cycleof fragmentation nd decliningproductivitywas set off in someplaces, while consolidation nd improvementook place in others.He does implythat morcellementfragmentation)ndrassemblement(consolidation)were in some sense competitive trends, and

shows that the "mercilessly ursueddismemberment"f holdings"renderedderisorythe efforts of the consolidators f the land".The result, he says, was that the economic history of rural

35 J. AmbroseRaftis, Tenure ndSMobility:Studies n the SocialHistoryof theMedieval EnglishVillage (Toronto, I964), pp. I 39-44.




III

CLASS CONFLICT AND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT

In sum, despite the destructive orce of their attacksupon the

unilineal trade-centred heories of economicchange, it may bedoubted hat eitherPostanor Le Roy Laduriehas carried is critiquequite far enough. For, rather than searching for underlyingdifferenceswhichmightaccount or contrasiingines of developmentin differentplaces under similarconstellations f economic orces,bothPostanandLe Roy Ladurie avechosen o construct ew modelslargelyby subsiituting diSerentobjectivevariable,population, orthe old, discreditedone, commerce. Because,in my view, theyhavefailedto place he development f classstructure nd its effects

at the centreof their analyses, heirown cyclicalmalthusianmodelsencounter, s we have seen, precisely he samesorts of difiicultiesnthe face of comparative istory hat theythemselves riticized n thetrade-centredunilineal approaches. In particular heir methodsprevent them from posing what in my view are perhaps he twofundamental roblemsorthe analysis f long-term conotnic evelop-ment in late medievaland earlymodernEurope,or more generally,the "transitionromfeudalism o capitalism":I) the declineversusthe persistenceof serfdomand its effects; (2) the etnergence nd

predominance f secure small peasantproperty versus the riseof landlord-large enant farmerrelations on the land. In histo-rical terms this means, at the very least: (I) a comparativeanalysis of the intensification f serfdom in Eastern Europe inrelationto its process of decline in the West; (2) a comparativeanalysis f the riseof agrarianapitalism nd hegrowth f agriculturalproductivity n England in relation to their failure in France.Simplystated, t will be our contention hatthe breakthroughrom"traditionalconomy" o relatively elf-sustainingconomicdevelop-

ment was predicatedupon the emergenceof a specific et of classrelations n the countryside, hat is capitalist lass relations. Thisoutcomedepended, n turn,uponthe previous uccessof a two-sidedprocessof class development nd class conflict:on the one hand thedestruction f serfdom;on the other hand,the short-circuiting fthe emergingpredominance f smallpeasantproperty.40

(a) The Decline of Serfdom

One can begin by agreeingwith Postan hattherewas a long-termtendency o demographic risis inherent n the medievaleconomy.But this tendency o crisiswasnot a natural act,explicable olelyby

40 This view obviously derivesfrom Marx'sargumentson the barriers o andthe class structural bases for the development of capitalism, especially aspresented in "The So-called Primitive Accumulationof Capital", Capitali, pt. VIII, and Pre-CapitalistEconomic ormations, d. E. J. Hobsbawm(NewYork, I965), pp. 97-I20.



so PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER70

means of support. The crisis of productivity ed to demographiccrisis,pushing he population ver the edge of subsistence.46

On the other hand, the lord'sproperty elationshipso that small

group of peasantswho had enough land to producea marketablesurplusandthus the potential o accumulate that is to concentrateland, assemblea labourforce and introduce mprovement wasalso a barrier o the development f productivity.47First,of course,feudal rent itself limited the funds availablefor accumulation.Secondly, restrictions on peasant mobility not only preventedpeasant movementto areas of greaterpotential opportunity,buttended to limit the developmentof a free market in labour.8Finally, eudalrestrictions n the mobilityof land tendedto prevent

its concentration. Unfreepeasantswerenot allowed o convey heirland to other peasantswithout the lord's permission. Yet it wasoften in the lord's interest to prevent large accumulating enantsfrom receiving more land, because they might find it harder tocollect he rentfromsuch tenants,especiallyf they had free status.49

Given these propertyor surplus-extractionelationships, roduc-tivity crisis leading to demographic risis was more or less to beexpected, sooner or later.50 The question, however,which mustbe askedconcerns he economic nd socialresultsof the demographic

catastrophe,n particular hat of the later fourteenthand fifteenthcenturies. Postan showed one logic: that the peasantsapparentlyused their economicposition,their scarcity, o win their freedom.As B. H. SlicherVan Bath argues or WesternEurope n general,

46 lton, "Rent and Capital Formation", pp. 53-5; Postan, "1MedievalAgrarianSociety in its Prime: England", pp. 548-70. The net product of atleast one third of all the land, including a disproportionate hare of the bestland, was directly in the hands of the tiny landlordclass (that is in demesne):E. A. Kosminsky, "Services and Money Rents in the Thirteenth Century",Econ.Hist. Rev., v (I934-5); Postan, op. cit., pp. 60I-2. See also above,note4I .

47 See Hilton, Decline of Serfdom, p. 30-I and passim.48 Admittedly, n the thirteenthcentury,given the extreme"overpopulation",

the availability f wage labourwas not a problem. On the supply of wage abourin the thirteenthcentury, see E. A. Kosminsky, Studies n the Sgrarian Historyof England n the ThirteenthCentury Oxford, I956), ch. vi.

49 See especiallyRaftis, Tenure nd Mobility, pp. 66-8, for evidence concern-ing lords' actions to prevent customary tenants from concentrating oo muchland or to prevent customary tenants from conveying land to freemen.Professor Searle suggests that a key motivation for Battle Abbey's continuingattempts from the mid-thirteenth century to depress its tenants from free tO

unfree status was to be better able to control the peasant and market n orderto assure rents. Lordship nd Comxnunity,p. I85 ff. See also M. M. Postan,"The Charters of the Villeins", in Carte Nativor7lm, d. Nt. M. Postan and

C. N. L. Brooke (Northampton Rec. Soc. Public., xx, I960), pp. XXXi-XXXiiand ff.60 Especiallyrelevant here is Postan's remark hat the peasants'feudal rents

"had to be treated as prior charges. They could not be reduced to suit theharvestsor the tenant's personalcircumstances . . in fact, the tenant's need offood and fodder had to be coveredby what was left after the obligatorychargeshad been met": "MedievalAgrarianSociety in its Prime: England", p. 604.



AGRARIANCLASSSTRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT SI

"the lord of the manorwas foreed o offergood eonditions r see allhis villeins vanish".1 Yet, euriously, quite another logie hassometimesbeen invoked o explain he intensifieation f serfdom n

EasternEurope: the erisis in seigneurial evenueswhieh followedupon the deeline n population nd the disappearaneef tenants edthe lords to assert heir eontrolover the peasantsand bind them totheir ands n order o proteet heir neomesandtheirveryexistenee.2Obviously, both "logies" are unassailable rom different elassviewpoints. It was he logieof the peasant o tryto use his apparentlyimprovedbargaining osition o get this freedom. It was the logieof the landlord o proteet his position by redueingthe peasants'freedorn. The result simply eannot be explained in terms of

demographie-eeonomieupply and demand. It obviously eamedown to a questionof power, ndeed of foree, and in faet therewasintense Europe-wide lord-peasanteonfliet throughout the laterfourteenth,fifteenth and early sixteenth eenturies, almost every-whereover he samegeneralssues: irst,of eourse, erEdom;eeondly,whether ords or peasantswere to gain ultimateeontrolover landedproperty,n partieularhe vastareas eft vaeantafter he demographieeollapse.

In England fter 349 and the BlackDeaththerewas a seigneurial

reaetion:attempts o eontrolpeasantmobilityby foreingpeasants opayimpossibleeesforpermissiono move; egislationo eontrolwages;an aetual nerease n rents n some plaees. But by I400 it was elearthat the landlords'offensive had failed; revolt and flight, whieheontinued hroughout he fifteentheentury, ed to the end of serf-dom.53 In Catalonia, partieularly evealingease, one also findsinereased egislationby the Corts the representative ody of thelandlords, he elergy and the urban patrieiate-to limit peasantmovementand deereasepersonal reedom. By the early fifteenthcentury his legislation adproeeeded gooddistanee,withapparentlysignifieant uecess. But, correlatively,t provoked n response ahigh level of peasantorganization nd, in particular,he assemblingof mass peasant armies. Well past the mid-fifteentheentury itappearedquite possible hat the seigneurial eactionwould sueceed.Onlya seriesof violentand bloodyconfrontationsltimately ssuredpeasant vietory. Armed warfareended finally in I486 with theSentenceof Guadalupe y whieh the peasantrywas granted n full

51 Slicher Van Bath, AgrarianHistory of WesternEurope,p. I45.

62 Carstens, Originsof Prussia,pp. I03 ff.- Malowist, "La commerce de laBaltiqueet la problemedes luttes socialesen Pologne aux XVe et XVIe siecles"pp. I3I-46; Guy Fourquin, Seigneurie t fetodalite u moyenage (Paris, I970),

pp. 2I5-I6.

63 Por the seigneurialreactionand its failure, see Hilton, Declineof Serfdompp. 36-59. For a close case study, see Raftis, Tenureand Mobility, esp. pp.I43-4 and ff-



52 PAST AND PRESENT NUlWlBER70

its personal reedom, ull right in perpetuity o its property whileremainingobligated to the payment of certain fixed dues) and,perhaps qually mportant, ull rightto those vacantholdings masos

ronecs)which they had annexed n the period following he demo-graphie atastrophes.54Finally, n Europeeast of the Elbe we havethe familiar tory of the lords entirelyoverwhelminghe peasantry,graduallydecreasing hrough egislationpeasantpersonal reedom,and ultimatelyeonfiscating n importantpart of peasant and andattaching t to their demesnes. In short, the questionof serfdomin Europe could not be reduced to a question of economics: tslong-termrise in the East correspondedirst to a fall in populationand stagnationn tradeand then to a rise in population nd rise in

trade I400-I600). In the West serfdomdeclinedduringa periodfirst of rising population nd growingeommerce, hen of decliningpopulation nd reduced rade I200-ISOO).

In sum, the contradietions etweenthe development f peasantproduetion nd the relations f surplus-extraetionhieh defined heclass relations of serfdom tended to lead to a erisis of peasantaccumulation,of peasant productivityand ultimately of peasantsubsistence. This crisis was accompanied y an intensification fthe class conflict inherent in the existing structure, but with

differentoutcomes n differentplaces the breakdown f the oldstructureor its re-strengthening dependingon the balance offorees betweenthe eontending lasses. Thus in the end the serf-basedor feudalclass structure penedup certain imitedpatternsofdevelopment, ave rise to certainpredictable rises and, espeeially,tended to the outbreakof certain mmarlent lass conflicts. Theelement of "indeterminacy" merges in relation to the differentcharacter nd results of these conflicts n differentregions. Thisis not to say that such outcomeswere somehowarbitrary, ut rather

that they tended to be bound up with certainhistorically pecificpatternsof the development f the contendingagrarian lassesandtheir relative strength in the different European ocieties: theirrelative levels of internal solidarity,their self-consciousness ndorganization, nd their generalpolitical esources especially heirrelationshipso the non-agriculturallasses(in particular, otentialurbanclass allies)and to the state (in particular,whetheror not thestate developedas a sCclass-like>ompetitorof the lords for thepeasants' urplus).

Obviously t is not possible n this compassadequatelyo account

for the differential trengthsof lords sis-a-ris peasants and thedifferent atterns f classconflictbetween hem acrossEurope n thelate medievalperiod. It is necessary, owever,at least to pose this

64 VicensVives,Historia de las Remensas,pp.23 ff.; Vilar, La Catalogne,1, pp. 466-7I) fo6-9.




problem n order o eonfronthe fundamental uestionof the sueeessor failureof the "seigneurial eaetion"whieh was nearlyuniversalthroughoutmedievalEurope,and thus, espeeially, he questionof

the differential uteomes f thelatermedieval grarianrisesandelasseonfrontationsn Easternand WesternEurope,resulting n totallydivergentpaths of subsequentsocial and eeonomie development.It shouldat least be clearthat we cannot ind an explanationn thedirect mpaet of foreesof supplyand demand,whethercommercialor demographien origin,nomatterhow powerful. Serfdombeganits rise in the East (and its definitivedownfall n the West) in theperiod of late medievaldemographic ecline; it was eonsolidatedduring the trans-Europeanncrease n populationof the sixteenth

and seventeenth enturies;and it was further harpened t the timeof the demographic isasters f the laterseventeenth entury.

Nor will the pressureof tradeprovidea more convincingansweralthough, ironically, he rise of large-scaleexport commercehassometimesbeen invoked o explain he rise of serfdom n the East55(as it has, analogously,he riseof capitalismn the Blest). It is not,of course, my point to denythe relevanceof economiceonditions,especiallyhe growth f trade, othe development f classrelations ndthe strengthof contending lasses. No doubt, in this instance, he

income from grain producedby serf-basedagriculture nd sold byexport rom the Balticto the West enhanced he class powerof theEastern ords, helping them to sustain their seigneurialoffensive.But the controlof grainproductionand hus the grain rade) ecuredthrough heirsuccessful nserfment f the peasantrywasby no meansassllredby the mere act of the emergence f the grainmarkets hem-selves. In the rich,grain-producingreasof north-westGermany,the peasantswere largelysuecessful n gaining commandof grainoutput in precisely he periodof developingenserfment n north-cast Germany and theyappear o have done so aftera prolongedperiod of anti-landlordesistanee. In fact, the peasants'ability inthis region to eontrol he eommeree n agrieultural ommodities ashareof the Baltieexport rade,as well as the inlandroutes)appearsto have been a factor n helping hem to consolidateheirpowerandproperty gainst he landlords.56 Indeed, on a moregeneralplane,the preeocious rowthof commerce n the medievalBlest has oftenbeen takento explain n largemeasure he relativestrengthof the

55 For a recent version of this position, see Immanuel Wallerstein, ThoModern World System: CapitalistAgricultureand the Origins of the European

WorldEconomy n the SixteenthCentury New York, I974), pp. 90-6.66 FriedrichLutge, Deutsche ozial- und WirtschaftsgeschichteBerlin, I966)

pp. 232-5. See the interesting material on the emergence in the regionsof Dithmarschenand Fehmarn of a highly-commercialized ree peasantrywithlarge holdings deeply involved in the Baltic export trade in the late medieval-early modern period presented in Christian Reuter, Ostseehandel nd Land-zvirtschaftim echzehnten ndsiebzeknten3fahrhundertBerlin, I9I2), pp. I8-29.



54PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER70

peasantryn WesternEuropeandthusthe declineof serfdom. Thegrowthof the market,t is argued,madepossible he emergence fa significant ayer of large peasantswho, throughthe sales ofagricultural

urpluses,wereable to accumulateargeholdingsand,on thisbasis,to amasspowerandto playa pivotalrolein organizingpeasant esistance.57So the argumentorthe disintegratingmpactof tradeon landlordpowerappears rima facie to be as convincingas the counter-case or its enhancingeffects. We are thereforebroughtbackto our point of departure:he need to interpret hesignificance f changing conomicanddemographicorces n termsof historically volvedstructuresof classrelationsand, especially,differingbalancesof classpower.

Perhaps he most widelyacceptedexplanation f the divergencebetweenEastandWestEuropean evelopment,n particularheriseof serfdomin EasternEurope, has been found in the weaker

developmentf the townsin this regionwhichmadethe entireareamorevulnerableo seigneurial eaction.58Because he townsweresmaller ndless developed hey couldbe moreeasilyoverwhelmedbythe nobility, hus shuttingoff a key outletfor peasant lightanddeprivinghe peasantsof significant llies. However, his classicallineof reasoning emainsdiEcultto accept ully because he actualmechanismshroughwhichthe townshadtheirreputedly

dissolvingeffectson landlordcontrolover the peasantryn WesternEuropehavetill to be precisely pecified.Theviabilityof the townsasa potential lternativeorthemassofunfreeeasantrymustbe called ntoquestion imply n termsof theirgrossemographiceight. Could herelativelyinyurban entres-which ouldhavesurpassed O per cent of the totalpopulationnonly fewEuropeanegions haveexerted uicieIlt attractiveoweron he ruralmassesto account or the collapseof serfdomalmosteverywheren WesternEuropeby Isoo?59 The real economic

opportunitiesffered by the towns to rural migrantsare alsoquestionable.Fewrunawayerfscouldhavehadthe capitalor skilltoenter the ranksof urbancraftsmenor shopkeepers,et alonemerchants. tthesame imetheessenceof urban conomy, asedonluxuryroductionora limitedmarket,waseconomic estriction,n57 See for example,R. H. Hilton, "PeasantMovementsin EnglandBefore38I"n in Essays in EconomicHistory, ed. E. M. Carus-Wilson, i (London962), pp. 8s-go; E. A. Kosminsky,"The Evolutionof FeudalRentin Englandromhe Eleventhto the Fifteenth Century",Past and Present,no. 7 (April

I955)) pp- 24-758 See Carsten,Originsof Prussia,esp. pp. II5-I6, I35; Blum, "The Rise oferfdomn EasternEurope", pp. 833-5.69For an indicationof the verysmallrelativesize of the urbanpopulation r)ateredievalEngland,see R. H. Hilton, A MedievalSociety: TheWestMid-andst theEnd of the ThirteenthCentury London andNew York, I966), pp.67-8



PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER70

was already fully free (or had never been enserfed), so there wasnever a question here of urban opposition to a rural social order ofunfreedom.64 Finally, in perhaps the most significant of the late

medieval revolts against serfdom-that of the Catalan remensas

from the later fourteenth century there were no significant ink-upswith the urban classes this despite the fact that in Cataloniaextended rural rebellion was paralleled by serious outbreaksof urbanclass conflict. The Catalan peasant revolt was probably the bestorganized and despite the lack of support from the urban classes themost successful in all of Europe: it brought about the downfall ofserfdom in Catalonia.65 In sum, the towns rarely aided peasantresistance to serfdom, nor was the success of such resistance

apparently dependent upon such aid.If the significanceof differing evels of urban development has been

overstated in some explanations of the divergent socio-economicpaths taken by Eastern and Western Europe from the later middleages, the importance of the previous evolutions of rural society itselfin these contrasting regions has been perhaps correspondinglyneglected. The development of peasant solidarity and strength inWestern Europe especially as this was manifested in the peasants'organization at the level of the village appears to have been far

greater in Western than in Eastern Europe; and this superiorinstituiionalization of the peasants' class power in the West mayhave been central to its superior ability to resist seigneurial reaction.The divergent evolutions of peasant class organizaiion is clearest inwhat is probably the pivotal comparative case-east versus westElbian Germany; and the divergent developments in these two regionsprovide important clues to the disparate development patterns of thefar broader spheres of which they were a part.

Thus, through much of western Germany by the later middle agesthe peasantry had succeeded, through protractedstruggle on a piece-meal village-by-village basis, in constituting for itself an impressivenetwork of village institutions for economic regulation and politicalself-government. These provided a powerful line of defence againstthe incursions of landlords. In the first instance, peasantorganizationand peasant resistance to the lords appear to have been closely boundup with the very development of the quasi-communal character ofpeasant economy. Most fundamental was the need to regulateco-operatively the village commons and to struggle against the lordsto establish and to protect commons rights common lands (for

B4 R. H. Hilton, BondMenMadeFree London, I973), pp. II4-I5, I25-7*

H. Pirenne, Le soulevemente la Flandremaritime e I323-I328 (Brussels,I900), pp. i-V andpassim.

66 Vilar,La Catalogne,, esp. pp. 449, 492-3, 497-9, So8-g (in general, pp.448-52I).




grazing and so on) and the common-field organizationof agriculturalrotation (in which the post-harvest stubble played an importantrole in the support of animals). Sooner or later, however, issues of a

more general economic and political character tended to be raised.The peasantsorganized themselves in order to fix rents and to ensurerights of inheritance. Perhaps most significantly, in many placesthey fought successfully to replace the old landlord-installedvillagemayor (Schultheiss) y their own elected village magistrates. Insome villages they even won the right to choose the village priest.All these gains the peasants forced the lords to recognize in countlessvillage charters(Weistumer) through which the specific conquestsof the peasantry were formally institutionalized.66

The contrasting evolution in eastern Germany is most striking.Here peasant economic co-operation and, in particular, the self-government of peasant villages appear to have developed onlyto a relatively small extent. As a result the east German peasantsappear to have been much less prepared to resist seigneurialattacksand the onset of seigneurial controls leading to serfdom than weretheir counterparts n the west. Probably most telling in this respectwas the relative failure to develop independent political institutionsin the village,and this is perhaps mostclearly ndicated by the apparent

inability of the eastern peasantryto displace the locator r Schultheiss,the village officer who originally organized the settlement as therepresentativeof the lord and who retained his directingpolitical rolein the village (either as the lord's representative or as hereditaryoffice-holder) throughout the medieval period. It is remarkable,moreover, that the numerous Weistumerhich clearly marked thestep-by-step establishment of village rights against the lord in thewest are very rarely found in late medieval eastern Germany.67

The relative absence of viliage solidarity in the east, despite theformally similar character of village settlement (the

so-called"Germanic" type), appears to have been bound up with the entireevolution of the region as a colonial society its relatively "late"formation, the "rational" and "artificial"character of its settlement,andespecially the leadershipof the landlords n the colonizingprocess.Thus, in the first place, the communal aspects of the village economyappear to have been comparatively underdeveloped. In generalthere were no common lands. Moreover, the common-fieldagricultureitself appears to have been less highly evolved; and thisseems to have been bound up with the original organizationof the

fields at the time of settlement-in particular,the tendency of the

6 GuntherFras, Geschichte esdeutschen auernstaudeson ruhenMittelat-ter bis zum I9. 3rahrhundertStuttgart, I970), pp. 48-66.

67 Ibid., pp. 50, 53, 58, 62. See the correlative ailure of the peasantry ofeasternGermany to win the right to appoint village priests (pp. 62-35.




colonists to lay out holdings withiIl the fields in rather large,relativelyconsolidated trips (often stretchingdireetly behind thepeasants' ouses) n contrasto the tiny,scattered arcels haracteristic

of the "natural" nd "chaotic"development n the west. Thereseems, then, to have been more of a tendency to individualisticfarming; less developed organization f collaborative griculturalpractiees t the level of the villageor betweenvillages for exampleinter-commoning);nd little tradition f the "struggle or commonsrights" against the lords which was so characteristic f westerndevelopment.8

At the same time, the planned, landlord-ledorganizationofsettlementn the easttended o placemajorbarriersn the wayof the

emergenceof peasantpower and peasantself-government.69EastGermanvillages were generally mallerand less dense than theirwesterncounterparts;hey tended, moreover, o have but a singlelord. As a result hey were ess diEcult for the lords o control hanwere the villages of the west, where the thick populationand, inparticular,he tendeneyof the villages o be dividedbetween wo ormore ordships, ave the peasantsmoreroomto manoeuvre,makinggemeinbildunghat mueh easier.70

As one historianof the Germanpeasantryhas stated, "uJithout

the strong development f eommunal ife in (west) Germany, hepeasantwars (of I525) are unthinkable". From this point of view,it is notable that the one east Germanregion which experiencedpeasantrevolt in I525 that is East Prussia was markedbyunusuallystrong peasantcommunities,as well as an (apparently)weak ruling nobility. Thus, on the one hand, the East Prussianpeasant evoltoriginated nd remained entred n Samland,arlareacharacterizedot only by extraordinarilyigh densityof population,comparableo WesternEurope,but also by the persistence f well-entrenchedand relativelypowerful orms of peasantoiganization.The Samlandwas one of the few east Elbian areasto escape theprocessof colonization nd thus the impositionof the "Germanic"

68 Hermann Aubin, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime: The LandsEast of the Elbe and German ColonizationEastwards", n Cambridge conomicHistory of Europe, (I966V, pp. 464-5, 468-9.

89 Note the comment of a recent student of the late medieval east Germanvillage community (Gemeinde)n accounting or its weakness:"The village lordwas there first, then came the village members. In the areaof older settlementthe Gemeinde,whose beginnings are mostly lost in the dark, distant past, wasprimary". H. Patze, "Die deutsche Bauerliche Gemeinde im Ordenstaat

Preussen", in Die iqnfnngeder Landgemeinde nd iAr Wesen, ed. T. Mayer,2 vols. (Stuttgart, I964), i, p. rsI. For a suggestive case study of a localitywhere landlord-led colonization left the peasantry in a position of weaknessopen to expropriation, ee Searle, Lordshipand Community, t. I, ch. 3, esp.pp. 63-8.

70 Aubin, op. cit., p. 469; Franz, Geschichre es deutschenBauernstandes,pp. 49, 53, 56-7.




agrarianand politieal forms of settlement. In consequence tsoriginalPrussianpeasanteommunitieswere left largelyundisturbedand were allowed to retain their own apparentlyaneient and

distinetive socio-politiealstructures.1 ()n the other hand, theEast Prussiannobilitywas perhaps he least well-establishedf anyin the entire region. The eolonizationof the area had been, ofeourse, argelyearriedout under the ''bureallcratic''dministrationof the Teutonie Order. At the time of the peasant evolt of I525,

the new "junker" uling aristoeracywas only just completing tstakeover rom the disintegratingtate of the TeutonieOrder.72

Of course, he peasantwars n both west andeast Germanywerelargelya failure,as weremost of the really arge-scale easant evolts

of the latermedievalperiod n Europe. Whatwas successful,how-ever, not only in western Germany, but tllroughoutmost ofWestern Europe, was the less spectaeularbut ultimately moresignifieant roeessof stubborn esistanee, illageby village, hroughwhich the peasantry evelopedts solidarity nd village nstitutions.It was on this basisthatthe peasants f WesternEuropewereabletolimit eonsiderablyhe elaims of the aristoeraey rld,ultimately, odissolve serfdomand forestallseigneurial eaction.73Laeking hestrength he \Vesternpeasantryhad developed n eonstrueting he

71 The quotation is to be found ibid., p. 63. On the development of theSamland region, the special socials political, and demographiccharacteristicsof its Prussian peasant communities,see R. Weirlskaus,"KleinverbandeundKleinraumebei den Preussendes Samlandes" n Die =4nfa7ngeer Landgemeindeund iAr Weserl, , pp. 202-32 and ff. See Weinskaus's comment (p. 232):"In north-west Samland,the centre of resistanceagainstthe Order,the nativedominant classes had disappeared. Precisely because of this, the old associa-tions appear to have been maintainedfor an especially lona time". See alsoHans Helmut Wachter, OstpreussischeDosnanenvorwerkem I6. ustd I7.

Tahrh2xndertWurzburg, 958), p. 7. Note also the apparent nterrelationshipof unusually dense populationand distinctively powerfulvillage communitieswith successful peasant revolt on the lands of the bishopricof Ermland (EastPrussia) n I440. Carsten,Origins 2f Prussia,pp. 60-I, I04-5. Patze,Op. Cit.,

pp. I64-5.72 On the decline of the Teutonic Orderand the rise of the Prussiannobility

especially n relationship o the revolt of I525, see Carsten,"Der BauernkriegnOstpreussenrs25") pp. 398-9; Seraphim,"Soziale Bewegungen n Altpreussenim JahreI525", pp. 2-3. Note also Seraphim's nterestingsuggestionthat theOrder requentlyattempted o defend the peasantry,and its customaryposition,against the growing incursionsof an emergent nobility which was of coursesimultaneouslyunderminingthe Order itself (pp. 9-II). Cf. Carsten, Originsof Prussia, part II ("The Rise of the Junkers"), esp. p. III and ff. See alsobelow, pp. 68-70.

73 For a m.eticulous econstructionof those processesin one French region

see Fossier's chapteron "Les conquetes paysannes", n La terreet les hommesen Picardie, ii, pp. 708-30. See Fossier's comment (ibid, p. 708): "Theprogressive elevation of the living standardof the peasantsand the progressachieved n the sphere of their social condition are rightlyconsideredas funda-mental phenomenaof medievalhistory .... In the face of an aristocraticworldon the defensive, that of the peasants' was strengthened,was emancipated ittleby little".



o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 70

instruments f villageco-operatioIl nd resistance, he peasantry fcolonized EasternEurope was less prepared o hold out; and inconsequence the) succumbed to seigneurial reaction and the

impositionof serfdom.The outcomesof the breakdownsnd conflicts f the late medieval

periodhad momentous onsequencesor subsequentEuropean ocialchange. For the patternof economicdevelopmentmposedby thenow-intensified lass structureof serfdom n the Eastaunder theimpact of the world market,was very different from that whichprevailedn the free conditions f the West. Specifically,he newly-emergent tructure f class relations n the East had as its outcomethe "development f underdevelopment',he preclusion f increased

productivityn general) nd of industrializationn particular. Firstof all, the availability f forced labourerswhose servicescould beincessantly ntensifiedby the lord discouraged he introduction fagriculturalmprovements. Secondly, he lord's ncreasing urplusextractionrom the peasantry ontinuallyimited he emergence f ahome market or industrial oods. Thirdly) he fact of direct andpowerful ontrolsoverpeasantmobilitymeant he constriction f theindustrialabour orce,eventuatingn the suffocation f industryandthe decline of the towns. Finally,the landlords,as a ruling class

which dominated heir states, pursueda policy of what has beencalled "anti-mercantilism";hey attempted o usurp the merchants'functionas middlemenand encouragedndustrial mports rom theWest, in this way underminingmuch of what was left of urbanandiIldustrial rganization.'t Thus) he possibility f b<alancedconomicgrowth was destroyedand East Europeconsigned o backwardnesstor centurles.

In sum, economic backwardnessn Eastern Europe cannot beregardedas economicallydetermined,arising from "dependence"upontrade n primary roducts o the West, as is sometimes sserted.Indeed, t wouldbe morecorrect o state hat dependence pon grairexportswasa resultof backwardness;f the failure f the homemarket-the terribly educedpurchasing owerof the massof the populationr ' which was the result of the dismal productivity nd the vastlyunequal distributionof income in agriculture, ooted in the lastanalysis n the class structure f serfdom.

74 Some of the most important recent analyses of the rise o? serfdom inEastern Europe, its causes and consequences may be found in the works ofMarian Malowist. A number of these writings are collected in his Croissanceet regression n EuropeXIVe-XVIIe siecles Paris, I972). See also, Malowist

"La commercede la Baltique et le probleme des luttes sociales en Pologne auxXVe et XVIe siecles". See, in addition,Carsten,Originsof Prussaa A. Maczak,"Export of Grain and the Problem of I)istribution of National Income in theYears I550-I650", Acta Poloniae Historica, xviii (I9689; J. Topolski, "Laregressioneconomiqueen Pologne du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle", ibid., vii (I962);

L. Zytkowicz, "An Investigationof AgriculturalProduction n Masovia in theFirst Half of the I7th Century", ibid, xviii (I968)*



AGRARIANCLASSSTRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT 6I

(b) TheEmergencend Checkof AgrarianCapitalism

Finally, however, it needs to be remembered that even in the Westthe collapse of serfdom did not lead in any automaticway to capitalism

or successful economic development. From the late fifteenth centurythere was Europe-wide pressure of population, development of themarket and rise in grain prices. In Englarld we find the landlordsconsolidating holdings and leasing them out to large capitalisttenants who would in turn farm them on the basis of wage labour andagricultural improvement. But in France we find comparativelylittle consolidation. Even the land controlled directly by thelandlords, that is the demesnes farmed out on terminable contractualleases, was generally let in small parcels and cultivated by small

peasant tenants. At the same time, of course, fragmentationdominated the sector of peasant proprietorship. These differentclass structures determined substantially different results in terms ofchanges in agricultural productivity and, indeed, wholly disparateoverall patterns of economic development and I shall return tothese shortly. But it is necessary first to account for the classstructures themselves; and once again I would argue that these canonly be understood as the legacy of the previous epoch of historicaldevelopment, in particular the different processes of class conflicts

which brought about and issued from the dissolution of serfdom ineach country.

In England, as throughout most of Western Europe, the peasantrywas able by the mid-fifteenth century, through flight and resistance,to break definitively feudal controls over its mobility and to win fullfreedom. Indeed, peasant tenants at this time were striving hard forfull and essentially freehold control over their customary tenements,and were not far from achieving it. The elimination of unfreedommeant the end of labour-servicesand of arbitrary allages. Moreover,

rent per se (redditus) as fixed by custom, and subject to declininglong-term value in the face of inflation. There were in the long run,however, two major strategies available to the landlord to preventthe loss of the land to peasant freehold.

In the first place, the demographic collapse of the late fourteenthand fifteenth centuries left vacant many former customary peasantholdings. It appears often to have been possible for the landlordsimply to appropriate these and add them to his demesne.75 Inthis way a great deal of land was simply removed from the "customarysector" and added to the "leasehold sector", thus thwarting in

76 Raftis, Tenureand Mobility, pp. I97-8; Hilton, Decline of Serfdom,pp.44 ff.; R. H. Hilton, "A Study in the Pre-History of English Enclosure n theFifteenthCentury", in Studi in onoredi ArmandoSapori,2 vols. (Milan, I957)

i, repr. in Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages M. W.Beresford,C'AReview of Historical Research to I968)", MauriceW. Beresfordand John G. Hurst (eds.), DesertedMedieval Villages(London, I97I).



62PASTND RESENT

NUMBER0

advancepossible evoluiion towardfreehold, and substantially

reducinghe potential area of land for essentially peasant

proprietorship.ignificantly,s we shallsee, this doesnot appear

to aveeenanalternativeasilyavailableo the landlordsn France

underimilarconditionsn the sameperiod.

Inhe secondplace, there often remainedone crucial oophole

openo the landlordwith regard o the freehold-tendinglaimsof

theustomaryenantswho still remairledn his landsandclungto

theiroldings. He couldinsiston the rightto charge inesat will

whenevereasantandwasconveyed,hat s insalesoroninheritance.

Indeed,n theendentry inesoftenappearo haveprovidedheland-

lordsith the Ieverthey neededto disposeof customarypeasant

tenants,orin thelongrunfinescouldbe substitutedorcompetitive

commercialents. 6

Theandlords' laim o therightto raise ineswasnot,atthe start

however,n open and shut question,nor did it go uncontested.

Throughouthe fifteenth century there were widespreadand

apparentlyuitesuccessful efusalsby peasants o pay fines. And

thisortof resistance ontinuednto the sixteenthcenturywhenan

increasingabour: and ratioshould,ostensibly,haveinducedthe

peasanto accepta deterioratingondition ndto paya higher ent. 7

Ultimately,n fact,the peasantsookto openrevoltto enforce heir

claims. s is well known,the first half of the sixteenthcentury

wasn Englanda periodof majoragrarianisingswhichthreatened

thentiresocialorder. And a major hemeof the mostseriousof

these-especiallyherevolt n thenorth n themid-Is30sandKet's

Rebellionn I549 wasthe securityof peasantenure, n particular

theuestionof arbitraryines.78

76 Tawney, AgrarianProblem,pp. 287-3I0. Lawrence Stone, The Crisis

ofhe Aristocracy558-I64I (Oxford, I965), pp. 306-I0. The significanceof

these of fines"atwill" as a mechanismby whichthe lordcouldgaineconomic

controlf the landremainscontroversial. It appears o hingeon two questions

in articular: I) the amount of "copyhold"land subject to variablefines;

(2)he rightof the lordto chargetrulyarbitraryineswherethe tenant'scopy-

holdwas otherwiseheld by inheritance. For some estimatesof the amountof

land ubject to variablefines, see Tawney, op. cit., pp. 297-300; Kerridge,

Agrarian roblemsof the SixteenthCenturyand After, pp. 35-46. Kerridge

has rguedthat copyholdby inheritancegenerallyensured"reasonable ines",

thats thatfineshadto be set at a level that wouldnot defeatthe tenant'sright

of nheritance. Still, the date from which this doctrineof "reasonableness"

uis-a-vis fineson heritablecopyholdswas recognizedandenforcedby the king's

courtss unclear. Kerridgeappears o produceno caseof this sort earlier han

I586: Op. Cit., pp. 38-9. See also, Tawney, Op. Cit., pp. 296, 296 n. 3, 307;

Stone, oc. Cit.

77 ChristopherDyer, "A Redistributionof Incomes in Fifteenth-Centry

England?",Past andPresent,no. 39 (April I968); Raftis,TenureandMobility,

pp. I98-9. On the early sixteenthcentury, see B J. Harris,"Landlordsand

Tenants in England in the Later Middle Ages: The BuckinghamEstates"

Past andPresent,no. 43 (May I969), pp. I46-50.

78Tawney, AgrarianProblem,p. 307; S. T. Bindoff,Ket's Rebellion I::list.

Assoc. pamphlet,London, I949; repr.London, I968), pp. 7-9.




If sueeessful, the peasant revolts of the sixteenth eentury, asone historianhas put it, might have "clipped the wings of ruralcapitalism".79But they did not sueeeed. Indeed, by the end of

the seventeenth century English landlords corstrolled n over-whelmingproportion f the cultivableand-perhaps 70-5 per cent80-and capitalistelass relationswere developingas nowhereelse,with momentousconsequenees or eeonomiedevelopment. Thus,in my view, it was the emergenee f the elassical andlord-eapitalisttenant-wageabour tructurewhichmadepossible he transformationof agricultural roduetion n England,8l nd this, in turn, was thekey to England'suniquely ueeessfuloveralleeonomiedevelopment.With the peasants' ailure to establishessentially reehold eontrol

over the land, the landlordswere able to engross,eonsolidate ndenelose,to create argefarmsand to lease them to eapitalist enantswho could afford to make eapitalist nvestments. This was theindispensablepreeondition or signifieantagrarianadvance,sinceagrieultural evelopmentwas predieatedupon signifieant nputs ofeapital, nvolving he introduetion f new teehnologies nd a largerseale of operation. Sueh higher levels of agrieulturalnvestmentweremade easible hrough he development f a varietyof differentleaseholdirlgrrangements, hiehembodied novel ormof landlord-

79 Ibid., p. 9.80 G. E. Mingay, EnglishLandedSociety in the EighteenthCentury London

I963), p. 25, gives a figureof 80-5 per cent for the proportionof land held by thelandlord classes (that is "the great landlords" and the "gentry") in I790 (anadditional, uncertainproportionwas held by "freeholdersof a better sort", acategorywhich presumably ncluded a significantnumber of capitalist owner-cultivators). He goes on to say that "the figuresfor the proportionof the landowned probablydid not change very significantly ver the hundredyears beforeI790, but there was certainly a shift in favour of the great landlords at theexpense 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 third of the land at the end of the seventeenth century: "The SocialDistribution of Landed Property in England Since the Sixteenth Century"Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xix (I966), p. 5I3.

81 This is not to say that precisely hese arrangementswere necessary or realagricultural breakthrough eading to economic development in this period-it is to say that some form of larger-scale apitalist armingwas required. Thusthe only real alternative o the "classical English" landlord-large enant-wagelabour form of capitalist agricultureseems to have been an equally capitalistsystem based on large-scaleowner-cultivators lso generallyusing wage labour.The latterwas the structurewhich in fact emerged n Cataloniaat the end of thefifteenthcenturyout of the previousperiodof agrarian truggle n which the largepeasants had been able to win not only essentially freehold rights over theirlands, but in addition, the proprietorshipof large areas of land (masosronecs)

which had been left vacant by demographic disaster in the later fourteenthcentury. Thus the characteristic nit of agricultural wnershipand productionin sixteenth-centuryCatalonia, he Masia, was typicallya very largebut compactfarm. And this structuredid in fact provide the basis for significantand con-tinuing agricultural advance throughout the early modern period. VilarCatalogne, , pp. 575-8, 584, 586, 588. See also above, pp. SI-2, and below,note 88.




tenant relationship. By virtue of these arrangementsthe capitalisttenants entered into essential partnership with landlords. Theywere assured that they could take a reasonable share of the increased

revenue resulting from their capital investments and not have themconfiscated by the landlords' rent increases.82 They were thereforeset free to bring in those key technological innovations, mostespecially convertible husbandry systems and the "floating of thewater meadows", as well as to make sizable investments in farmfaciliiies, which were generallyfar less practicableon small unenclosedfarms operated by peasants.83

This is not to say, of course, that peasant production was incapableof improvement. The point is that it could not provide the agrarian

basis for economic development. Thus small scale farming could beespecially effective with certain industrial crops (for example flax)as well as in viticulture, dairying and horticulture. But this sort ofagriculture generally brought about increased yields through theintensificaton of labour rather than through the greater efficiency ofa given unit of labour input. It did not, therefore, produce "develop-ment", except in a restricted, indeed misleading use of the term.Of course the very spread of this type of husbandry in "non-basic"agricultural commodities was, as in industry, predicated upon the

growth (elsewhere) of basic food (grain) production. And improve-

82 Kerridge, Agrarian Problems, p. 46; E. L. Jones, "Agriculture andEconomic Growth in England, I660-I750: Agricultural Change", TI. Econ.Hzst., xxv (I965).

83 On the strong advantages of large "capital" farms with respect toagricultural mprovement, investment and general efficiency, see Kerridge,AgrarianProblems,pp. I2I-6, and G. E. Mingay, "The Size of Farms in theEighteenth Century", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xiv (Ig62). It should benoted that some of the most important recent works dwell on the advantagesof English agrarian lass relationsfor agriculturaldevelopment,but in the end

tend to play down their significance. Thus in his "Editor's Introduction" oAgriculture nd EconomicGrowth n England650-I8I5 (London, I967), E. L.Jones argues that the key to English agriculturaldevelopment was the intro-duction of new techiiques rather than changing institutional arrangementsapparentlydismissing the idea that these were indissolubly linked. He statesat one point (pp. I2-I3): "Novel systems of husbandry hus accountmuch morefor the new 'responsiveness'of agricultural upply than do improvements nagrarian rganization". Nevertheless,Jones himself at other points emphasizesthe crucial advantagesof large-scalecapitalistfarming for agriculturaladvanceand, moreover, provides the key intra- and internationalcomparisonswhichwould tend to demonstrate he saliency of this connectionand, correlatively, oshow up the barriers o improvementbuilt into peasant-dominated griculturalsystems. Thus, he says (p. I7), "the pattern of the countryside and the

agrarianorganizationwhich evolved in England made productionmore flexibleand far more responsive o the market han a peasantsystem could have been".He also gives the following case in point (p. 43): "In parts of the Midlandswhere the land had belonged to a few proprietorsand enclosure had comeearly, the 'new' crops had been sown and farmersspecialized n fatstock breed-ing. More usually, the 'peasant' farming of the Midland clays defied anychange, except the pungent expedient of parliamentary nclosure".




ments in the productivity f grain were, in fact, best achievedonlargeconsolidatedarmswith majorcapital nputs.84

Even the emergenceof large-scaleunits of farmingdoes not, in

itself, guarantee griculturalmprovement. As we shallsee, in those(relatively estricted)areaswhere big farmsemerged n France, heydid not generallybringmajor ncreases n agricultural roductivity.What proved, therefore,most significant or English agriculturaldevelopmentwas the particularly roductiveuse of the agriculturalsurpluspromotedby the specialcharacter f its ruralclassrelations;in particular, he displacementof the traditionallyantagonisticrelationship n which landlord "squeezing" underminedtenantinitiative,by an emergentandlord-tenantymbiosiswhichbrought

mutualco-operationn investmentand improvement.85That agriculturalmprovementwas alreadyhaving a significant

effecton English conomicdevelopment y the end of theseventeenthcenturycan be seen in a numberof ways; most immediatelyn thestriking attern f relativelytablepricesand(at least)maintenancefpopulation f the latterpart of the century;and in the long run inthe interrelatedphenomenaof continuing ndustrialdevelopmentand growth n the homemarket. Thus althoughEnglishpopulationin this period reached he very high levels of the earlyfourteenth

century whichat thattimehadmeantdemographicrisis) herewerenot the same sort of violent fluctuationsn prices nor the crises ofsubsistencewhich grippedFranceand much of the continent n thisperiod.86 Nor was there the markeddemographic eclinewhichcame o dominatemost of Europeat this time, the famousmalthusianphase B.87 In short, Englandremained argely exempt from the"general conomiccrisis of the seventeenth entury"which sooner

84 B. H. Slicher Van Bath, "The Rise of Intensive Husbandry n the LowCountries", esp. pp. I35-7, I48-9, I53. As Slicher Van Bath concludes of theFlemish region of intensivehusbandry(p. I53), "it iS not a picture of wealthbut of scarcely controlledpoverty".

85 See Jones, "Agricultureand Economic Growth in England, I660-I750".

On large-scale arming n earlymodern France, see below, note I I I .

86 For the avoidance of crises of subsistence in late seventeenth-centuryEngland, see A. B. Appleby, "Disease or Famine: A Study of Mortality inCumberlandand Westmorland,I580-I640", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxxi(I973), esp. pp. 403, 430-I. For a comparisonof fluctuations n pricesbetweenFrance and England in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centurystressing England's avoidanceof the "violent fluctuations"which characterizedmuch of France, see J. Meuvret3"Les oscillations des prix des cerealesaux

XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles en Angleterre et dans les pays du bassin parisien",lGtudes t'hzstoireconomzque,p. II3-24.

87 G. S. L. Tucker, "English Pre-Industrial Population Trends", Econ.Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xvi (I963), pp. 205-I8. This is not to deny the possibilitythat there was some slowing down in the rate of growth of population,evenperhaps a temporary halt, in the late seventeenth andlor early eighteenthcentury.



66 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 70

or later struckmost of the continent.88This crisis, much like theprevious"generaleconomiecrisis of the fourteenthcentury",wasin the last analysisa crisis of agrarian roductivity, esultingas had

its predecessor rom the maintenance f relationships f propertyor surplus-extraction hich preventedany advance n productivity.By contrast, t was the transformationf the agrarian lass structurewhich had taken place over the period since the later fourteenthcentury hat allowedEnglatld o increase ubstantiallyts agriculturalproductivity nd thus to avoida repetition f the previous risis.

It seems,moreover, hat agriculturalmprovementwas at the rootof those developmental rocesseswhich, according o E. L. Jones,had allowedsome 40 per cent of the English population o rnove

out of agricultural mploymentby the end of the seventeenthcentury,mllch of this into industrial ursuits.89 Obviously,Englishindustrialgrowth,predominantlyn cloth, was in the first instancebased on exports) purredby overseasdemand. Yet such export-based spurtswere comrnon n Europe hroughout he middle agesand the earlymodernperiod;but previously one had everbeen ableto sustain tself. The inelasticity f agriculturalutput, t seems,hadalways et strict imits on the development f industrialproduction.Rising ood prices, f not a totalfailureof food supply,resulting rom

decliningagricultural roductivitymight directly tymie ndustrybylimitingthe proportion f the populationwhich could devote itselfto non-agriculturalursuits. Otherwise hey would undermine hemarkets or industrial oods eitherby forcingup wages(the cost ofsubsistence) nd thus industrial ricesor by cutting nto the propor-tion of the population's ncome which was available or non-foodpurchases. These mechanismsmeant, n particular,hat the generalagricultural-demographicrisis of the seventeenthcentury wouldalso mean, or most of Europe,a long-tcrm risisof indwstry. Thishas been shown most clearly for severlteenth-centuryrance byGoubert,who directly inks the long-termdecline of the extensisTetextile ndustryof Beauvaisn this period o underlying roblems nthe production f food.90 But a similar asecouldseemingly e madefor the declineof Italian ndustry n the early seventeent-hentury.Here drastically ising ood pricesseem, as muchas any other actor,to have been responsible or the enhanced subsistence)wage costswhich ostensiblypriced Italian goods out of their Europeanand

88 It is notable that Catalonia,one of the few areas to achieve agrarian rarls-

formation with a concomitant ncrease n agriculturalproductivity n this era,was also one of the fevn areas to escape the "general economic crisis of theseventeenth century", and, like England, to avoid demographic catastrophewhile achievingcontinuedeconomic development. Vilar,Catalogne,, part III,esp. pp. 586, 588. See also above, note 8I.

89Jones, "Editor's Introduction", Agriculture nd EconomicGeotvlh,p. 2.90Goubert3Beauvais et les Beausaisis,pp. 585-7.




especially heir easternMediterraneanmarkets. Correlatively,hebackward,argelypeasantagricultureppearso havelargelycut offthe possibilityof developinga significanthome marketin Italy

itself.9 Finally,althoughDutch industryappears o haveescapedthe "seventeenth-centuryrisis"with relativelyminordamage, tsfailureto sustaincontinueddevelopment hroughthe eighteenthcenturyappearso havebeenboundup to an important xtentwithan overwhelming ependence n overseasgrain mports,whichroseprecipitatelyn priceafterI750.92

ThuswhatdistinguishedheEnglishndustrial evelopmentf theearly modernperiod was its continuouscharacter,ts ability tosustain itself and to provide its own self-perpetuating ynamic.

Here,onceagain, he key wasto be foundin the capitalist tructureof agriculture. Agriculturalmprovement ot onlymade t possiblefor an evergreaterproportion f the population o leave the land toenter ndustry; quallymportant,t provided,directly nd ndirectly,the growinghome marketwhich wasan essentialngredient n Eng-land'scontinuedndustrial rowth hrough he entireperiodof the"generaleconomiccrisisof the seventeenth entury" n Europe.93Thus,during hesixteenth ndseventeenthenturies,heprosperousclass of tenantandyeoman armers,as well as landlords, ppears o

have offeredsignificantoutletsfor Englishindustrialgoods.94 Atthe same time,andin the longrun,especiallyrom the later seven-

91On high wages as a basic cause of the decline of export-centredItalianindustry from the early seventeenthcentury, see C. Cipolla,"The EconomicDecline of Italy," in Brian Pullan (ed.), Crisisand Change n the VenetianEcoslomyLondon, I968), pp. I39-42. On problemsof food supply and highfood pricesleadingto higherwages(subsistence),see B. Pullan,"Introduction"and "NVage arnersandthe VenetianEconomy"; bid.,pp. I2-I4, I46-74. Onthe structuralroots of problems of food supply and the home market in thesmall-tenant, rent-squeezing organization of the Venetian mainland, seeS. J. 'oolf, "Venice and the Terrafirma:Problems of the Change from

Commercialto Landed Activities", ibid. esp. pp. I79-87. For the generalproblem of food supply in Italy and the Diediterranean,which intensifiedsharply in the latter part of the sixteenth century, see C. T. Smith, AnHistoricalGeographyof WesternEuropeBefore I800 (New York, I967), pp.

4I6-I8.

9 This is suggested by E. L. Jones, "Editor's Introduction",AgricultureandEconomicGro7tJth,. 2 I .

9 3 For continuedEnglishindustrialgrowth nto the laterseventeenthcenturyandthe importantrole of the home market n this process,see L. A. ClarksonThePre-Ind2xstrialconomyn England SOO-I750 (London, I97I), ch. 4, esp.pp. II4-I5. See also, "The Originsof the IndustrialRevolution"(ConferenceReport), Past and Present,no. I7 (April I960), pp. 7I ff. CharlesWilson,F,ngland's pprenticeship603-I763 (London, I965), ch. 9, esp. pp. I85 and ff.

F. J. Fisher, "The Sixteenthand SeventeenthCenturies:The Dark Ages ofEnglishEconomicHistory", Economica, ew ser., xxiv (I957).

94 W. G. Hoskins, "The LeicestershireFarmer in the SixteenthCentury"in his Essays n Leicestershire istory(Leicester,I950). F. J. Fisher,"Londonas an Engineof EconomicGrowth", in J. Bromleyand E. H. Kossman(eds.),Britain and the Nethe1ands (London, I960); Fisher, "The Sisteenth andSeventeenthCenturies".




teenth and early eighteenthcenturies,continuing mprovementsnagricultural roductivity ombinedwith low food prices to give anextra marginof spendingpower to significant lements hroughout

the middle and perhapseven the lower class so as to expand thehome marketand fuel the steadygrowthof industry nto the periodof the industrial evolution.95Englisheconomicdevelopment husdepended upon a nearly unique symbiotic relationshipbetweenagriculture nd industry. It was indeed, in the last analysis,anagricultural evolution,based on the emergenceof capitalistclassrelations n the countrysidewhich made it possiblefor England obecomethe first nationto experiencendustrialization.

The contrasting ailure in France of agrarian ransformation

seems to have followed directly from the continuingstrength ofpeasant landholding nto the early modern period, while it wasdisintegratingn England. Referencehas alreadybeen madeto therelative uccesswith whichpeasant ommunitieshroughoutWesternEuropewere able to resist landlordpower in the medievalperiod.In particular,he long-termprocessby whichvillageaftervillage nvariousFrenchregionswas able to win certain mportant conomicand politicalrights to use the commons, o fix rents and securehereditability, nd to replacethe old village mayorswith its own

elected representatives has been traced with special care byhistorians,who have remarkedupon its historicalsignificance.96Whatstill requires xplanation, owever, s the abilityof the Frenchpeasantsnot only to establishcertain reedomsand property ightsznis-a-vis the landlords n the first place, but to retain hem over anextraordinarilyong historicalepoch - in particular, hroughtheperiod n which heir Englishcounterpartseased o be ableto do so.Any answermust be very tentative. But in the light of Englishdevelopments,what appears o lie behind he strikingpersistence fpeasantproprietorshipn France s its close interconnection ith theparticularorm of evolutionof the Frenchmonarchicaltate.

Thus in France,unlike England, he centralized tate appears ohave developed at least n largepart)as a "class-like" henomenon,that is as an independentxtractor f the surplus, n particular n the

95 For this argument, see Jones, "Editor's Introduction", AgricultureandEconomicGrowth; Jones, "Agriculture and Economic Growth in EnglandI660-I750; AgriculturalChange"; E. L. Jones, "The AgriculturalOrigins ofIndustry", Past and Present, no. 40 (July I968)- A. H. John, "AgriculturalProductivityand Economic Growth in England, I700-I750", 71. Econ. Hist.XXV (I965); A. H. John, "Aspects of English Economic Growth in the First

Half of the Eighteenth Century", Economica, ew ser. xxviii (I96I)- D. E. C.Eversley, "The Home Marketand Economic Growth l?nEngland, I750-I780"

in E. L. Jones and G. E. Mingay (eds.), Land, Labourand Population n theIndustrialRevolution London, I967).

96 See esp. Fossier, La terre et les hommes n Picardie, i, pp. 708-30. Alsoabove, note 73. See, in addition, Fourquin, Campagnes e la regionparisienne,part I, ch. iii, esp. p. I90.




lease. Unlikethe independent rtisan,he did not haveto be abletoprodueeeheaplyenoughto sell his goods profitably t the marketpriee or else go out of business. All that was necessary or

survival or the peasantproprietorassumingof coursethat he wasa food produeer)was sufficientoutput to providefor his family'ssubsistenee ndto payhistaxes andgenerallyixedcustomaryents);and this eouldoftenbe supplementedhroughwage abour.

Of eourse,merelymaintainingubsisteneewasrarelyeasy for thepeasantry,specially he largenumberswithrelativelymallholdings.Demographic rowthand the subdivisionof holdingsdiminishedthe size of the peasant'sproductivebase, either relativelyorabsolutely. Mear}while,hegrowth f taxation, speciallyonsequent

upon wars,meantthat greaterproductionwas necessarymerelytosurvive thus, ronically,hestatewhich n the first nstanceprovidedtheprimaryupport or peasantproprietorshipas ndirectly erhapsalso the majorsourceof its disintegration).Finally,risingpricesover the perioddecreasedhe valueof the supplementaryageoftenrequiredto makethe peasant'sholdingviable. Throughout heearlymodernperiodmany peasantswereindeed forceddeeply ntodebt and were ultimatelyobligedto sell theirholdings.105It wasno aeeident,moreover,hatthe greatestnumberof easualties ppear

to have occurred n times of war (espeeially he Warsof Religionandthe Fronde)and of dearth particularlyhe "subsistence rises"of the later seventeenthcentury)and to have been concentratedin the zonesimnnlediatelyffectedby military ction forexample hcParisregionandBurgundy).106Yet evensuchlong-termpressuresandshort-term atastropheseer-so haveworked heirunderminingeffectson peasantproprietorshipelatively poradically nd slowlyoverthe whole of France. The corltinuingtrengthof the Frenchpeasantcommunityand Frenchpeasantproprietorshipven at theendof theseventeenthenturywascvident n thefactthatsome45-50per cent of the cultivatedandwas still in peasantpossession,oftenscattered hroughout he open fields.l07 In England,by contrast,the owner-occupierst this time held no morethan 25-30 per centof the landlo8

105 See P. Goubert, ;'The French Peasantryof the SeventeenthCentury:A RegionalExample",Past andPresent,no. I0 (NovemberI956), p. 75.

106 For case studies of the destructionof peasant proprietorship,see esp.JeanJacquart,La criseruraleen Ile-de-France 550-I670 (Paris, I974), passin;Marc Venard, Bourgeoiset paysansau XVIIe siecle: Rechercheur le role desbourgeois arisiensdans la vie agricoleau sud de Paris au XVIIe siecle(Paris,

I957); P. de Saint Jacob,"lMutationsconomiqueset socialesdans es campagnesbourguignonnesa la fin du XVIe siecle", StudesRurales, (I 96 I), pp. 34-49 .

107 p. Goubert,"Le paysanet la terre: seigneurie,tenure, exploitation",inE. Labrousseet al. (eds.), Histoireeconomiquet socialede la France, i (Paris,I970), pp. I35-9. "It is commonlyadmittedthat the peasantsof Francewereable to 'possess' . . . a mere half of the Frenchsoil . . ." (p. I35).

108 See above, note 80.



74PASTND PRESENT NUMBER0

Giventhe Frenchproperty tructure)t is hardlysurprisinghat

theisingpopulation,markets ndgrainpricesof the sixteenthand

seventeenthenturiesdidnotleadin France c agriculturalmprove-

mentnut ulerely o arenewalof the old malthusianycleof under-

development.Given the strengthof peasantproperty,supported

byheexploitativetate, helandlordouldnotusuallyakeadvantage

ofncreasing rices or landandagriculturalroductsby inlproving

and y increasingoutput, becausethis usuallyentailedthe very

difficultaskof consolidation. The landlordshereforeooktheonly

courseenerally pento them:to tryto obtainanevergreater hare

ofa constantor even declining otal product. On their demesne

land, omposedgenerallyof small separatedplots, they imposed

short-termeases on draconian erms) designedto squeeze the

peasantenantsby raisingtheir rents and loweringtheir level ofsubsistencey takingadvantagef the growingdemand orholdings

arisingrom demographicpressure. This procedure,of course,

reducedhe possibilityof agriculturalmprovementy the tenantsn

sinceheywouldrarelyhavesufficientundsforinrestmenteftover

afteraying hererlt. 09 Thedifferencerom hesituationnEngland

-where landlordswouldobtain ncreasesn rent by co-operating

withheir enantsn capitalmprovementsnlarge armsandthereby

increasingotaloutput)rather hanbysimply akinga larger kareof

aconstantor decliningoutputat the expenseof the tenantstlo-couldnot havebeenmorestark.1ll At the sametime,in the sector

l?9For a good account of this procedureof "squeesing" the leaseholding

tenantsand its economic effects, see Merle, La metairieer l'evolationagraire

de a Gatinepoitevine.110See Adam Smith's analogousobservations:"Rent anciently formed a

largerproportionof the produceof agriculture hannow .... In the progress

of mprovement,rent,thoughit increases n proportion o the extent,diminishes

inproportion o the produceof the Iand". The Wealthof Nations)ed. Edwin

Cannan New York, I937), p. 3I8.

1ll It is striking n this respectthat in those relativelyrestrictedareaswhere

large consolidatedholdings were created inFrance, the landlordsgenerally

applied the same "squeezing" policy to their large tenants, with the result

thateven on the relativelysmallnumberof largefarmsfew improvementswere

adopted. See Jacquart,op. cit.:,pp. 289-9I, 3z6-30, and) in particular,pp.

747-8, 756-7. Also, VenardnBourgeoiset paysans, esp. pp. I I7-I8. Why

thelandlordsadopted hisapproach, ather hanoptingforthe"Englishsystem'

of landlord-tenant o-operation, s uncertain. But the reasonmay once agairl

be boundup with an overallstructureof landholding n Francewhichwas still

heavilydominatedby peasantproprietorship-and with the generallystagnant

economywhich this landholdingstructuretended to entail. Most especially,

in comparisonwith England,Frenchagriculturehadat its disposala greatpool

of agriculturalabourwithoutalternativeopportunities or employment-that

is at relativelyverylowwages andthis naturallyencouragedabour-intensive

methodsof cultivation, heneglectof capital-usirlgndlabour-savingechniques.With no apparent ncentive to promote capitalimprovementof his land) the

lordhadno reasollto reErainrom"squeezing"his tenant. Thus evenin areas

wherelarge consolidated armsdominatedconsiderableportionsof the surface

area, hey Stlll tendedto be surroundedby a seaof pettyproprietorswho needed

to hire themselvesout as wage labourersin orderto make ends meet. (See(cont. on p. 75)



AGRARIANCLASSSTRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPA1ENT 75

of free peasantproprietors,o repeat, heholdingsweredividedandsubdivided. This too naturally educed he general evel of peasantincome, he surplusavailable or potentialnvestment n agriculture,

andthe slim hope of agriculturalnnovation. Meanwhile, f course,thestate,whichhadhelped o maintain hepeasants n theland,rlowhelpedto reduce heirenjoyment f it by confiscatingmuch of whatwasleft of the peasants' roduct hrough verhigher axes.

In sum, it is not difficult o comprehend he dismalpatternofeconomicdevelopmentmposed by this class structure n France.Not only was there a long-term ailureof agricultural roductivity,bllt a correspondingnability o developthe homemarket. Thus,ironically, he most completefreedomand propertyrights for the

rural populationmeant povertyand a self-perpetuatingycle ofbackwardness. In England, t was preciselythe absence of suchrights that facilitatedthe onset of real ecollomic development.

Urziversityf California, osAngeles RobertBrenner

(270te 1Il cont.)

Jacquart,Op. Cit.) pp. 332-48, esp. 341, 348; Venard, Op. Cit.) pp. 27-g.) Itwas not merely that strong peasant rights in the land tended to be bound upwith subdivisionof holdings (partible nheritance)and the rapidconcentrationof the peasantpopulation on tiny holdings. Probablymore significant,due tothe lack of economic developmentelsewhere in the economy (industry, thetowns), which wasitself theresult of the establishedpeasant-dominated grarian

structure, his ruralsemi-peasantry'semi-proletariat,nlikethe English agricul-tural labourers,had virtuallynowhere to go (increasing pressureon the land

Brenner, “Agrarian class structure“, p. 61-75

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