An Economic History of Medieval Europe [2 ed.] 9780582215993

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AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE

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AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE Second Edition

NJ.G. Pounds

~ ~~o~;!~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 1974 by Longman Group Limited Second Edition 1994 Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 1974, 1994, Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. ISBN 13: 978-0-582-21599-3 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue recorded for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pounds, Norman John Greville. An economic history of medieval Europe / N.J.G. Pounds. - - 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-582-21599-4 (pbk) 1. Europe - - Economic conditions - - To 1492. 2. Economic history-Medieval, 500-1500. I. Title. 93-27069 HC240.P64 1994 CIP 330.94'01 - - dc20 Set by 5B in Baskerville

Contents

List of figures List of abbreviations

Vlll XI

Foreword to the First Edition

XIV

Foreword to the Second Edition

XVI

1. The Later Roman Empire

The frontiers The population The land and rural conditions The towns Manufacturing and trade The economic fortunes of the Empire

2. The Early Middle Ages The invasions of the fifth century Villa and manor The towns Trade and manufacturing The Byzantine Empire The invasions of the ninth century

1 4 6 9

18 25

32

40

40 45 64

69 77

80

3. The Expansion of the Medieval Economy

90

The measures of economic growth Economic revival in Italy Economic growth in north-west Europe The medieval monetary system Conclusion

92 104 106 115

122 v

An Economic History of Medieval Europe

4. The Population of Medieval Europe

125

Sources for the history of population Birth and death in medieval Europe The medieval household Demographic history Population estimates

125 130 140 143 157

5. Agriculture and Rural Life Settlement The rural economy The later Middle Ages 6. The Development of the Medieval Town The urban revolution The size and function of the medieval town Urban finances The urban scene 7. Medieval Manufacturing Manufacturing: rural and urban The organisation of medieval manufacturing Branches of medieval manufacturing Manufacturing in the medieval economy 8. Trade in the Middle Ages Early medieval trade The merchants Fairs and markets The pattern of trade Road and river transport The commodities of medieval trade 9. The Commercial Revolution Credit and usury Medieval banking The bill of exchange Commercial organisation Medieval book-keeping The Merchants' Law VI

164 165 185 216 223 225 253 273 274 283 285 289 301 338 343 343 351 357 364 388 395 407

408 412 418 422 425 427

Contents

Medieval currency The role of government 10. The Late Middle Ages

428 432 443

The economic consequences of the Black Death Manufacturing production The Low Countries Italy in the late Middle Ages Eastern Europe Wages and prices A depression of the Renaissance

445 451 458 463 472 476 482

Bibliography

488

Index

521

VB

List of figures

1.1

1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Vlll

Towns and provinces of the Roman Empire Plan of Roman Pompeii, first century A.D. Rank-size graph of the towns of Roman Gaul Transport within the Roman Empire Distribution of finds of goods exported from the Roman Empire The fiscs recorded in the surviving ninth century polyptyques Size of the mansi of the Abbey of Saint-Germain, c. 810 Trade routes of the Carolingian Empire The invasions of the ninth century Core-areas of European states A drawing in the Sachsenspiegel, showing forest clearance and the creation of a settlement A moneyer at work The dates of town foundation in Central Europe Europe's developed, developing and backward areas during the later Middle Ages Valuation of dioceses, in Florentine florins for Papal taxation, about 1300 Valuation of dioceses, about 1300, in florins per thousand kilometres Distribution of population in Rouergue Graph of hearth size at Carpentras Number of hearths in seven parishes near Montmelian, Savoy The area required for the food supply of one person with increasing yield ratios The spread of the Black Death

5 22 24 27 33 49 52 55 82 94 98 100 102 112 113 114 127 142 146 149 151

List of figures

4.6

Plague mortality: an English case from the late sixteenth century 4.7 Number of hearths at Millau Hearths at Volterra and San Gimignano 4.8 4.9 Changes in population density in the Low Countries and Burgundy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 4.10 Growth of population in Poland 4.11 A hypothetical map of population density in Western Europe during the fifteenth century 5.1 A model of German eastward colonisation and settlement 5.2 The eastward spread of German settlement 5.3 Plans of village types in Central Europe during the late Middle Ages 5.4 Cereal pollen found in the peat of the Rote Moor, Germany 5.5 Deserted villages in England 5.6 Types of ploughs 5.7 Diagram showing the ploughing of a ridge 5.8 Ploughing, sowing and harvesting routine in a three-field system 5.9 Grain prices at Douai 6.1 A late medieval German town, Soest in Westphalia 6.2 Seal of the city of Ypres 6.3 Italy and Italian towns during the later Middle Ages 6.4 Arras as a binary town 6.5 Krakow in the later Middle Ages 6.6 Prague in the later Middle Ages 6.7 Late medieval German towns : Hildesheim and Magdeburg 6.8 A schematic representation of the functions of medieval towns 6.9 The distribution of urban friaries in France 6.10 The distribution of houses of the four regular orders of friars 6.11 An urban map of late medieval Europe 6.12 A parochial map of an 'overchurched' city, Norwich 7.1 Jost Amman's engravings of late medieval craftsmen 7.2 Drawing of a warp-weighted loom 7.3 Textile manufacturing centres of the Low Countries 7.4 Georg Agricola's engraving of a metalliferous mine

152 153 154 155 156 157 167 175 177 179 186 194 196 197 215 229 231 235 239 247 249 250 254 256 257 259 266 302 304 309 329 IX

An Economic History of Medieval Europe

8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 9.1 9.2 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9

x

The sequence of Champagne fairs The sequence of South German fairs Venetian and Genoese commercial empires Types of ships in use in the Middle Ages The Itinerary of Bruges The export of English wool and cloth The Hanseatic League in the fifteenth century A typical bill of exchange transaction Some typical late ancient and medieval coins Model showing the late medieval reduction of cropland Production of cloth at Louvain and Courtrai and of leather at Louvain, 1400-1500 Lorenz curve, showing the growing concentration of wealth at Santa Maria Impruneta, near Florence Cloth production in the Ypres region, 1350-1600 Production of says at Hondschoote and of linen at Courtrai Prices of wheat, oxen and cheese in England before the Black Death Wheat prices at Ghent Grain prices at Krakow Real income of a building craftsman expressed in the volume of consumables, in Southern England

360 362 367 373 376 378 385 420 430 446 453 458 459 461 479 480 480 481

List of abbreviations

A.A.A.G. A.A.G.Bij.

Annals of the Association of American Geog;raphers (Washington) Afdeling Agrarische Geschiedenis Bijdragen (Wageningen,

Netherlands) Acad. lnscr. C.R.

Comptes Rendus, Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres

Actes ColI. Int. Dem. Hist. Agric. Hist. Rev. Am. Hist. Rev.

Actes du Colloque International de Demog;raphie Historique (Liege, 1964) Ag;ricultural History Review (Reading) The American Historical Review

Ann. Dem. Hist.

Annales de Demog;raphie Historique

Ann. E.S.C. Ann. Geog Ann. Hist. Econ. Soc. Ann. Midi Ann. Norm Ann. Rept. Am. Hist. Soc. Bibl. Ec. Chartes

Annales: Economies - Societes Civilisations (Paris) Annales de Geog;raphie (Paris) Annales d'Histoire Economique et Sociale (Paris) Annales du Midi (Toulouse) Annales de Normandie (Caen) Annual Report, American Historical Society (Washington, D.C.) Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes

Bibl. Ec. Franc;. Ath. Rome Bull. Comm. Roy. Hist.

Bibliotheque des Ecoles Franr;aises d'Athenes et de Rome Bulletin de la Commission Royale d'Histoire (Brussels)

(Paris)

(Washington, D.C.) (Paris)

(Paris)

Xl

An Economic History of Medieval Europe

Bull. Phil. Hist. Bibl. Ec. Htes. Et. Cah. Hist. Mond. C.B.A. Res. Rept. Cib. Rev. Comm. Roy. Hist. Compo Stud. Soc. Hist. Conf. Int. Hist. Econ. Deutsch. Akad. Wiss Dumb, Oaks Pap. E.E.T.S. Ec. Prato Htes Et. Econ. Hist. Rev. Et. Rur. Hans. Geschichtsbl. Hist. Htes Et. Med. Mod. 1 ahrb. Nat. Stat. 1ahrb. Ver. Meckl. Gesch. 1nI Eccl. Hist. 1nI Econ. Bus Hist. 1nI Econ. Hist. 1 ni Econ. Soc. Hist. Orient 1nI Interdisc. Hist.

XII

Bulletin Philologique et Historique de la Comite des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (Paris) Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes (Paris) Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale (Paris) Council for British Archaeology (London) Ciba Review (Basel) Commission Royale d'Histoire de Belgique (Brussels) Comparative Studies in Society and History (Chicago) Conference Internationale d'Histoire Economique Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin) Dumbarton Oaks Papers (Washington D.C.) Early English Text Society (London) Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris) The Economic History Review (London) Etudes Rurales (Paris) H ansische Geschichtsbliitler (Leipzig) Historica (Prague) Hautes Etudes Medievales et Modernes (Geneva) Jahrbilcher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik (Jena, Stuttgart) J ahrbuch des Vereins fur Mecklenburgische Geschichte (Schwerin) Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Economic and Business History (Cambridge, Mass.) The Journal of Economic History Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient (Leiden) Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Pittsburgh, Penn.)

List of abbreviations

Jnl Pol. Econ. Jnl Rom. Stud. Jnl Soc. Hist. Kwart. Hist. Kult. Mat. Med. Hum. Mem. Comm. Dept. Pas-de-Calais Mon. Germ. Hist. Moy. Age Pet. Mitt. Pop. Stud. Rev. Belge Phil. Hist. Rev. Et. Anc. Rev. Hist. Rev. Hist. Econ. Soc. Rev. Hist. Sid. Rev. Nord Rev. Int. Onomast. Spec. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. VerOff. Planck Inst. Gesch. Viertel. Soz. Wirtsch. Zeitscher. Schweiz. Gesch.

Journal of Political Economy (Chicago) Journal of Roman Studies (London) Journal of Social History (Berkeley) Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej (Warsaw) Medievalia et Humanistica (Boulder, Col.) Memoires de la Commission Departementale des Monuments Historiques du Pas-de-Calais (Arras) Monumenta Germaniae Historica Le Moyen Age (Paris) Petermanns Mitteilungen (Gotha) Population Studies (London) Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire (Brussels) Revue des Etudes Anciennes (Bordeaux) Revue Historique (Paris) Revue d'Histoire Economique et Sociale (Paris) Revue d'Histoire de la Siderurgie (Nancy) Revue du Nord (Paris) Revue Internationale d'Onomastique (Paris) Speculum (Boston, Mass) Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, Penn.) Veroffentlichungen des Max Planck Instituts der Geschichte (G6ttingen) Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Leipzig) Zeitschrift fur Schweizerische Geschichte (Zurich)

xiii

Foreword to the First Edition

This book is an attempt to present the economic history of continental Europe as a whole, giving as much attention to Eastern Europe and the Balkans as considerations of space and balance would permit. References to Great Britain are incidental, and are made only when British developments - the wool trade, for example - impinged directly on those of continental Europe. Russia, similarly, receives scant attention, since, for much of the period covered , it lay remote from the affairs of 'peninsular' Europe. The method has been to begin (Chapters 1-3) and end (Chapter 10) with chapters which deal broadly with the changing economy, and to sandwich between them six topical or systematic chapters, which each deal with one of the salient sectors of the economy. Such an organisation leads inevitably to a certain repetitiveness, and for this the author apologises. The author is greatly indebted to his friends and colleagues at Indiana University for their help and encouragement, especially to Professors Glanville Downey, A.R. Hogue, and Maureen F. Mazzaoui (now of the University of Wisconsin), each of whom read much of the manuscript; to Dr Edward Miller, Master of Fitzwilliam College of the University of Cambridge; to Dr John Hatcher of the Department of History of the University of Kent at Canterbury (now of the University of Cambridge) , who also read and commented on it; and to numerous students, especially Miss Annette Koren, whose 'feed-back' did much to soften some of its asperities. He also wishes to express his gratitude to Professor E.M. CarusWilson for permission to use her graph of English cloth and wool exports; to Mr R.A.G. Carson of the Department of Coins of the British Museum for authorising him to make the drawing in XIV

Foreword to the First Edition

Figure 9.2 from illustrations in his study of the coinage systems of the world. Department of History, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., U.S.A.

xv

Foreword to the Second Edition

In preparing a second edition the opportunity has been taken to make considerable changes to the text. In particular greater care has been taken to show the economic relations of continental Europe with Great Britain. Both footnotes and bibliography have been updated in the light of work published since the first edition appeared. The author is deeply indebted to Cambridge University Press and to Indiana University Press for permission to reproduce art work originally published by them. Cambridge

XVI

October 1993

CHAPTER ONE

The Later Roman Empire

In the middle years of the second century A.D. the Roman Empire stood at the height of its power and prosperity. Eulogised by contemporaries and praised by posterity, the Empire was peaceful, happy and affluent. From this high level under the Antonine emperors the fortunes of the Empire declined - so it is commonly held - to the nadir of its fortunes in the fifth century, when power fell from the hands of the last feeble emperor in the West, and imperial soil was occupied by barbarian invaders and ruled by their tribal leaders. The reasons for this reversal of fortunes have been a subject of controversy and debate for fifteen centuries, and every possible argument, from racial degeneration to climatic change, has been advanced. The decline of Rome still arouses interest, even though no one today would dare to explain it in terms of a single decisive factor. The phenomenon of Rome's fall was complex, and no simple explanation can ever be admissible. All was not well with the empire of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. The legend of the golden age of the Antonines, which owed much to Gibbon's Decline and Fall, is unquestionably exaggerated, and by this time the seeds of Rome's decay had already been sown. Fighting was increasing in intensity on the frontiers of the Empire, and Marcus Aurelius was obliged to spend much of his later years campaigning along the Danube. The army was increased in size and heavier taxes were levied to support it. The soldiery, once recruited from among the peasants of Italy, was more and more drawn from provincials and even from those barbarian peoples whom it was its purpose to resist. Whole contingents of such Foederati were recruited for the legions. Heavy and all too often inequitable taxation depressed the peasant and increased the gulf between rich and poor. The well-to-do broadened their estates while the descendants of a once free 1

An Economic History of Medieval Europe

peasantry become in the course of time coloni, bound to the soil of their masters. The needs of defence explained and in some measure excused the strengthening of imperial control over the prcvinces and over the cities (civitates) of which they were composed. The imperial bureaucracy grew in size and power, and the social structure became increasingly rigid. Imperial edicts bound the craftsman to his trade and the farmer to his land. Such occupations, and even membership of the city councils, were made hereditary, restricting social mobility and destroying initiative. The cities, the principal bearers of Roman civilisation and culture, had grown steadily in number, as well as in size and splendour during the later years of the Republic and under the Principate. But few were founded after the first century A.D. and almost none after the middle of the second. The erection of vast public buildings and the construction of public works such as aqueducts and baths, diminished in importance during the second century, except in Rome itself, and, during the third, the building of defensive walls against barbarian raids came to be of greater urgency and importance. The age of the Antonines was a watershed between the period of territorial expansion and economic growth which had, in general, characterised the Principate, and that of invasion and economic recession which followed. The economic change which took place in these centuries is difficult to trace and impossible to express in any quantitative manner. The decline was not continuous or consistent; there were periods when the fortunes of the Empire appear to have taken an upward turn; when the military commanders met with success on the frontiers and the Emperors, through their edicts, tried courageously, if in the end vainly, to stem the spreading social evils of the times. Nor was the decline common to the whole Empire. The Middle East and eastern Mediterranean did not in all respects share the fortunes of the western Mediterranean and of the European provinces. If the Roman Empire in the West 'fell' in the fifth century, one must always remember that the Eastern Empire, with its focus in Constantinople, continued for another thousand years. The 'fall' of the Roman Empire, politically considered, meant the termination of a succession of emperors who had ruled it from Rome or Milan or Ravenna. At the same time the provinces of the Empire were transformed into kingdoms ruled by barbarian

2

The Later Roman Empire

leaders and dominated by a non-Roman elite. This transition, however, was not matched by any comparable event in the economic field. The urbanised society of the second century passed slowly and gradually into the non-urbanised society of the early Middle Ages. Trade, which had characterised the former, dried up, and the interdependence of town and country and of one province with another by and large gave way to local self-sufficiency and isolation. This was not a sudden and revolutionary change. It took centuries to accomplish, just as, during the Middle Ages, it took centuries to restore towns, manufacturing and trade to the European economy. This economic change was not an even and continuous process. It was strongly marked in the third century, but in the fourth there was a recovery in the West, followed by a golden autumn of the ancient world, before the winter of the Dark Ages. The fortunes of the Western Empire were not reflected in those of the Eastern. The latter did not fall until 1453. Its territory grew smaller, but its capital city of Constantinople remained inviolate and its ships continued to ply the seas, bearing its trade and maintaining the food supply of its cities. There were many reasons for this contrast. The eastern provinces were wealthier and more populous than the western, and in this way could more easily support both the burden of defence expenditure and the bureaucratic superstructure of the Empire. They had an exportable surplus of grain and of manufactured goods. The West had very little with which to requite its imports from the East, and, except when these represented the proceeds of imperial taxation, they were presumably paid for by an outflow of gold from West to East. 1 The Western Empire, despite its lower level of wealth and the very much sparser population, was exposed to greater dangers than the Eastern. The Persians, it is true, represented a threat, especially after the accession of the Sassanids (A.D. 224). One emperor - Valerian (A.D. 253-260) - was even captured by the Persians, but the latter showed no desire to occupy more than the territories to which they could show some historic claim and to maintain a defensible boundary against the Roman Empire. The West, however, was exposed to the pressure of the Germanic peoples and, in the fifth century, of the Mongol Huns. Invasion routes impinged most readily on the Rhine and Danube frontiers, and, at least from the mid-second century A.D., there was almost continuous war. Most of the legions were stationed along the line of 3

An Economic History of Medieval Europe

the two rivers, and the supply both of recruits and of supplies taxed the resources of the Western Empire to the uttermost. The eastern provinces, from Egypt to Asia Minor, were in no great danger, at least until the seventh century, of invasion and destruction. In the West such fears were ever present. In the later years of the third century Germanic tribes raided deep into Gaul, and the hastily contrived defences of the towns show how the provincials attempted to meet the danger. The social problems facing the Western Empire were more serious and more deeply rooted than those in the East. In part they were the consequence of the military danger and of the need to maintain a large army; in part, they date from the Principate and even from the Republic. In short, there was a widening gap between rich and poor, with the rich increasingly successful in evading their social responsibilities. The burden of taxation was borne by an increasingly impoverished tax-base, while the technological backwardness of the Empire - itself in some degree a consequence of the institution of slavery - prevented any significant increase in production. THE FRONTIERS The Empire had reached its greatest territorial extent under Trajan, with the subjugation of the province of Dacia. Antoninus Pius advanced the frontier in northern Britain to the Scottish Lowlands, but this was shortlived. For the rest, the boundary between the Empire and the Germanic and Celtic tribes, between civilisation and barbarism, followed the course of the lower Rhine (Fig. 1.1); then from near Coblenz (Confluentes) it cut across to the Danube, which it met near its great bend at Regensburg (Regnum) and followed, except for the inclusion of Dacia, to its mouth in the Black Sea. The river boundary was clearly defined and readily defensible. It, furthermore, made the movement of soldiers and supplies relatively easy between one frontier fort and another. The boundary of the Empire in the East was based on no such geographical feature. It extended from the easternmost shore of the Black Sea across the mountains of Armenia to the valley of the Euphrates. From here it stretched southwards, very roughly along the boundary of the steppe and the desert, to the borders of Egypt. It was a fluctuating line, and only where it followed the upper course of the Euphrates did it have any degree of

4

Ul

Towns and provinces of the Roman Empire.

Figure 1.1

TARRACONENSIS

BAETICA

LUSITANIA

CORSICA

NARBONENSIS

AQUITANIA DALMATIA

SICILIA

SARDINIA

ITALIA

PANNONIA

RAETIA NORICUM

AGRI DECUMATES

GERMANIA INFERIOR

GERMANIA SUPERIOR

BELGICA

LUGDUNENSIS

BRITANNIA

A

MACEDONIA AC HA I

MOESIA

DACIA

THRACE

~.

~

~

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