Peasants into Farmers?: The Transformation of Rural Economy and Society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages - 19th Century) in Light of the Brenner ... Rural History of the North Sea Area, 4) 250351006X, 9782503510064

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f o r n

P u b lica tio n Series

C o m p a r a tiv e R u r a l H is to r y o f t h e N o r th S e a A r e a

Peasants into farmers? The tra n s fo rm a tio n o f r u r a l econom y a n d society in th e Low C o u n tries (m id d le a g e s -1 9 th c en tu ry) in lig h t o f th e B ren n er d e b a te

Edited by Peter Hoppenbrouwers and Jan Luiten van Zanden

BREPOLS

r o m P u b lica tio n Series

General editorial board: Erik Thoen (director, University of Ghent) EricVanhaute (University of Ghent) Erik Buyst (University of Leuven) Leen Van Molle (University of Leuven)

CORN is a research network founded in 1995. It is composed out of different research units that primarily want to study long term development of the rural society from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. It focuses on the North Sea area from a comparative and interdisciplinary point of view.

CORN is sponsored by the (Flemish) Fund for Scientific Research (FWO). Address of correspondence: CORN, Blandijnberg 2 B-9000 Gent e-mail: [email protected]

CORN Publication Series 4

© 2001, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other­ wise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2001/0095/43 ISBN 2-503-51006-X

Peasants into farmers ? The transformation of rural economy and society the Low Countries (Middle A ges-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate

Edited by Peter Hoppenbrouwers & Jan Luiten van Zanden

SB BREPOLS

CONTENTS List of contributors

7

List of figures

8

List of tables

9

Editors Preface

11

1. Introduction. The Brenner Debate and its historiographical fate Peter HOPPENBROUWERS and Jan Luiten VAN ZANDEN

13

2. Restyling the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Some critical reflections on the Brenner thesis Peter HOPPENBROUWERS and Jan Luiten VAN ZANDEN

19

3. Mapping an unexplored field. The Brenner Debate and the case of Holland Peter HOPPENBROUWERS

41

4. The transition to capitalism in a land without feudalism Jan DE VRIES

67

5. A third road to capitalism? Proto-industrialization and the moderate nature of the late medieval crisis in Flanders and Holland, 1350-1550 Jan Luiten VAN ZANDEN

85

6. A ‘commercial survival economy’ in evolution. The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages-19th century) Erik THOEN

102

7. Merchant capitalism and the countryside in the West of the duchy of Brabant (15th-16th centuries) Michael LIMBERGER

158

8. Elements in the transition of the rural economy. Factors contributing to the emergence of large farms in the Dutch river area (15th—16th centuries) Bas VAN BAVEL

179

9. Grain provision in Holland, ca. 1490-ca. 1570 Milja VAN TIELHOF

202

10.

Digging for a dike. Holland’s labor market ca. 1510 Petra VAN DAM

220

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P easants into farm ers?

11. Aspects of an uneasy relationship. Gouda and its countryside (15th-16th centuries) Bart IBELINGS

256

12. The Low Countries in the transition to capitalism Robert P. BRENNER

275

6

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS BAS VAN BAVEL

Department of Medieval History, University of Amsterdam, NL

ROBERT P. BRENNER

Center for Social Theory and Comparative History, University of California at Los Angeles, USA

PETRA VAN DAM

Department of Social and Economic History, ‘Vrije’ University of Amsterdam (VU), NL

PETER HOPPENBROUWERS Department of Medieval History, University of Amsterdam, NL BART IBELINGS

Department of Social and Economic History, University of Amsterdam, NL

MICHAEL LIMBERGER

Department of History, University of Antwerp (UFSIA), B

ERIK THOEN

Department of Medieval History, University of Ghent, B

MILJA VAN TIELHOF

ABN-AMRO Bank, Amsterdam, NL

JAN DE VRIES

Department of History, University of California at Berkeley, USA

JAN LUITEN VAN ZANDEN

Department of Social and Economic History, University of Utrecht, NL

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P easants into farm ers?

LIST OF FIGURES 0.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 8.1 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 11.1

8

The Low Countries circa 1500 Nominal wages of carpenters in grammes of silver (1320/29-1550/59) The price of one hectoliter of rye in grammes of silver (1320/29-1550/59) Real wages in hectoliters of rye (1320/29-1550/59) Land and labour productivity in the different provinces of Belgium Areas of flax cultivation and linen weaving in the eighteenth century Tax burden from the government in the fourteenth-eighteenth centuries in the areas of Audenarde and Alost Antwerp and its Brabantine surroundings Distribution of land, Schoten and O.L.V. Waver, 1571 Landed property of 18 prominent Antwerp merchants during the 16th century Confiscated landed property of 21 Antwerp citizens, 1569 Total income from taxation on real estate transactions Land van Mechelen (1475-1561) The position of the Linge area and the Land van Heusden Year-round labour cycle in the countryside of Holland north of the IJ before ca. 1650 Year-round labour cycle in the countryside of Holland south of the IJ before ca. 1650 Recruitment area of labourers employed at the Grote Gat, 1510 Percentages of the total potential village labour force employed at the Grote Gat, 1510 Inland waters and main inland water ways in Holland south of the IJ around 1500 The position of Gouda in later medieval Holland

LIST OF TABLES 3.1 5.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 7.1 8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2 9.3 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7

11.1 11.2

Forms of agrarian capitalism in Holland (Early Modem period) Estimates of the development of wages and rye prices in Holland and Flanders (1320-1559) Size of holdings in the neighbourhood of Courtrai in 1382 Small and large holdings in the neighbourhood of Flanders (inner Flanders, 1571) Small and large holdings in the Land Van Aalst (1569-1800) Small farms and large holdings from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century Distribution of holdings and the importance of lease-holding at Meigem, a proto-industrial village (1571-1846) Landowners in the village of Eke by social class (1571-1832) Population and its local character in Ghent (1796-1900) Population numbers, urbanisation and ‘larger’ holdings in Flanders (14691846) (estimates) ‘Anderstad’-farm; payments in kind (1465-1468) Total area of land leased out by Mariënweerd (in hectares), number of tenants and average size of tenancies, calculated for six reference years (1442-1580) Distribution of Mariënweerd tenants by size of their tenancies, calculated for four reference years (1442-1580) Grain export from Danzig according to the harbour records of Danzig (14901557) and the Sound toll tables (1562-1569) Grain export from England according to the customs list of King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth (1523-1529) Price-fixing of wheat and rye by the Utrecht magistrate in the autumn of 1565 Place of residence of the diggers and fork labourers, barrow carriers and boat labourers working at the Grote Gat 12-17 August 1510 Labour force at the Grote Gat 1510 Place of residence of the diggers at the Grote Gat 1510 Workers from Assendelft, Krommenie/Krommeniedijk and Medemblik in 1510 Frequency distribution of daily wages 1510 The recruitment of labour in 1510 and 1515 Labour force of villages with a share of a 2% of the total labour force (N a 10 labourers) in August 1510, as a percentage of their potential male labour force in 1514 Number of hearths in four villages in Rijnland in 1457,1477 and 1494 Land-distribution in Moordrecht in 1514 and 1553

9

P easants into farm ers?

Figure 0.1 The Low Countries circa 1500

10

Editors preface In June 1994 the two of us organised a conference at the University of Utrecht on the question of how to interpret the social and economic history of the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modem Period within the framework of what has become known as ‘the Brenner debate’. Most of the contributions to this volume were presented as papers at that conference. At our express wish the updating after the written versions had trickled in has been largely limited to literature references. Readers should be aware that, as a result, most of the articles presented here reflect stages of research that go back four or five years in time. Several authors have published major books or articles since which cover the same issues in more detail (for example the doctoral dissertations by Milja van Tielhof and Petra van Dam, and Bas van Bavel’s impressive book on social property relations in the Dutch central river area). But none of these are in English, nor is there much other literature on the subjects treated available in English. Therefore, this publication definitely will serve its purpose. But there is more to find in the vo­ lume. At the Utrecht conference Robert Brenner himself was present as an invited ex­ pert. At the end of the conference, he gave an extensive preliminary comment on the papers that had been presented. Fortunately Brenner did find the time to spin out his notes into a magnificent, typically ‘Brennerian’ essay on ‘The Low Countries in the transition to capitalism’ to top off the volume. One other article, by Jan de Vries, has been written for the volume at the special request of both Brenner and the editors, wit­ hout its author having been present in Utrecht. What has been brought together in the volume, almost inevitably surveys the Low Countries history in a highly incomplete and biased way. This is largely due to the programme of the Utrecht conference, which on purpose focused on the highly urbanised coastal areas and aimed at comparing Holland, Flanders and Brabant, rather than trying to survey the entire present-day Netherlands and Belgium in their proverbial regional diversity. The presupposition was that this strategy would add most value to the Brenner debate as such. Ironically, it was Brenner who in the end has exerted himself most of all authors to reach further, and take the inland areas into his historical considerations. Also he did hold on firmly to his prerogative, agreed with him from the start, that in this volume the last word would be his. Consequently, Brenner has till the end justly insisted on seeing all articles that were either added (as ours and De Vries’) or substantially changed (as Hoppenbrouwers’) after ‘Utrecht’, before submitting the final version of his own contribution. The long delay before this volume was finally ready to be published did yield at least one advantage, and that was its (and our) connection to CORN and its publication se­ ries. At the time of the Utrecht conference CORN may already have been conceived, but it had not yet been bom, let alone proven itself as a well oiled scientific task force. Soon after CORN had started, it seemed logical to us, as active CORN members, and to the editorial board of the CORN series to accommodate the ‘Brenner volume’ in the series. This prospect, and the financial backing by the Flemish Fund for Scientific Re­ search (FWO Vlaanderen) as the prime subsidizer of the entire CORN project, has sped

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P easants into farm ers?

up things in the end, and made a lot of attendant problems of publishing a book a lot easier. Also of great help was a generous grant of the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research) (NWO), which made it possible to employ Amanda Pipkin for checking the English of all but the two American contributions. Amsterdam/Utrecht, December 2000 Peter Hoppenbrouwers, Amsterdam Jan Luiten van Zanden, Utrecht

12

1 Introduction. The Brenner debate and its historiographical fate Peter H oppenbrouwers, University o f Amsterdam Jan Luiten van Z anden , University o f Utrecht I.

Brenner’s view of late medieval and early modern social history

In 1976 the American historian Robert R Brenner tried to come to terms with an issue already raised two centuries ago: how should we explain the differences in growthpatterns that French and English agriculture displayed since the beginning of the modem period? In a frontal attack on both the ‘(homeostatic) demographic’ and ‘commerciali­ sation’ models, Brenner traced the roots of the divergent evolutions back to the feudal social-property system. This is not to say that he did not accept what he himself called ‘the internal coherence, the logic of the neo-Malthusian cum Ricardian m odels’, encompassing the ‘two-phase grand agrarian cycles of non-development, bound up with demographic change’, that prevailed in the economy of most of Europe in the later medieval and early modem periods (Brenner, 1985b: 217). Only, as an explanatory scheme he deemed the Malthusian-Ricardian models to be insufficient. ‘It was my ar­ gument’, so he declared in his 1982 reply to his critics, ‘that changes in relative factor scarcities consequent upon demographic changes exerted an effect on the distribution of income in medieval Europe only as they were, so to speak, refracted through the prism of changing social-property relations and fluctuating balances of class forces.’ In the heart of the latter stood the social distribution of (possessory rights to) land between the two main classes of feudal society, lords and peasants. For ‘it was this prior allocation which determined the degree to which lords or peasants could potentially benefit from changes in the land/labour ratio’ (Brenner, 1985b: 218). According to Brenner the feudal economy itself was a dead-end street that could never have led to expanded reproduction. This had two main reasons, both entangled in feudal social-property structures. On the one hand, medieval peasants (at least most of them) had direct, that is non-market, access to their means of subsistence (land in the first place). They held a firm ‘possessory’ grip on the land, guaranteed by both strong customary rights and weak state powers. On the other hand, the lords had direct access to agrarian surplus, guaranteed by coercive arrangements surrounding its extraction. Both these structural features were ‘incompatible with the requirements of growth’. For they provided a shield from competition and in that way thwarted the commodification of land and labour respectively and, therefore, ‘failed to impose that relentless pressure on the individual producers to improve’ and ‘precluded any widespread tendencies to thorough specialisation of productive units, systematic reinvestment of surpluses, or to regular technical innovation’ (Brenner, 1985b: 214; 1985c: 28-29). Brenner’s conviction that feudal surplus extraction necessarily had a coercive character deserves a short comment. Given the strong ‘rights’ of peasants to the possession of

13

P easants into farm ers?

land, feudal lords simply had to apply some form of non-economic coercion or force, via legally based serfdom or otherwise, in order to secure enough surplus. To Brenner ‘the changing manner in which and degree to which the lords, as individuals and as a class, were able to apply power in the rent relationship (...) was central to their formation as a ruling class and, in turn, profoundly marked the development of the whole [feudal] system of production’ (Brenner, 1985b: 229). In short, the Marxist concept of surplus extraction by extra-economic compulsion is central to Brenner’s viewpoint that in feudal society ‘the economic’ and ‘the political’ were ‘fused’ (Brenner, 1985b: 227). According to Brenner, a breakthrough to ‘a system of more or less self-sustaining growth’ could eventually have taken place only after the (inevitable) collapse of the feudal order, without, at the same time, offering the peasantry too much opportunity to tighten its grip to the land within new legal definitions of exclusive ‘ownership’ or ‘property’. Where this happened all the same, as in (the bigger part of) France, peasant landownership was liable to endless subdivision (¡morcellement), while surplus extraction took on the typical forms of heavy state taxation and (bourgeois) rent squeezing. In England, on the other hand, the lords came out of the struggle for control over the land as victors. Here an entirely new social-property system emerged, that of agrarian capitalism. It was characterised by the three-tiered hierarchy already described by Karl Marx: at the top large landowning lords, in between their tenant farmers as capitalist organisers of production and at the bottom wage labourers, the direct producers, now separated from the means of production. To Brenner only this type of class-formation opened the gateway to economic advance (cf. Brenner, 1977: 60). Brenner’s model clearly places him in the Marxist current of politico-economic interpretation of late medieval and early modem history, the tradition of Maurice Dobb and Rodney Hilton (Holton, 1985; Kaye, 1986: 173-175). What these writers have in common is their focus on property relations (that is: the legal ‘translation’ of social relations of production) instead of exchange relations. It leads to a definition of capitalism ‘in terms of wage-labour and processes of capital accumulation dependent on the commodification of labour-power’ (in other words: on the emergence of a wage labour market) (Holton, 1985:79). Apart from this common ground, the three differ on a number of essential points as well, especially with regard to Brenner’s emphasis on producers’ separation from the means of subsistence leading to their subjection to competition in production, as well as his redressing Dobb’s neglect of political factors in explaining the transition from feudalism to capitalism (Mooers, 1991: 33-37).

14

Introduction

II. The historiographical fate of the Brenner thesis In the brand new Encyclopedia of historians and historical writing (1999), Robert Brenner is praised as the man who ‘has intervened decisively in two classic historio­ graphical debates: on the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and on the bourgeois revolution’ - and perhaps we should add a third one considering the lively response to Brenner’s recent work on the dynamics of postwar capitalism (Thompson, 1999: 124125).1 This places Brenner, together with Hobsbawm, Kiernan and Anderson, ‘among the most original and accomplished historians still at work in the Marxist tradition’. Since 1976, Brenner has re-examined his position in the transition debate on several occasions12 - his contribution to this volume is only the last segment in a continuous series. This may make us wonder, how influential Brenner’s thesis has been over the last twenty years outside the American westcoast’s new left avant-garde. During the first five years after the appearance of the first Past & Present article, Brenner has been in the centre of hot debate, in which some of the world’s leading historians, such as Michael Postan, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Guy Bois and Rodney Hilton have participated. The main output was brought together in a special volume, published in 1985 by Cambridge University Press in the Basi and Present Publications series (Aston and Philpin, 1985). With the appearance of this volume, The Brenner debate was silently considered to have run its course.3This does not mean that Brenner’s main articles were not quoted since in numerous foot notes4, but they have only rarely been the subject of solid historiographical treatment - William Hagen’s essay on rural capitalism in Agricultural History of 1988 (Hagen, 1988), and Richard Hoyle’s ‘post­ script’ to the Brenner debate in The Economic History Review of 1990 (Hoyle, 1990) are among the few exceptions. One sometimes wonders, whether precisely in England, whose history is so much in the heart of Brenner’s matter, there has always been a certain reluctance to the Brenner thesis. In the same Economic History Review - the main publishing forum for economic historians who have something to say on English economic history - Brenner’s articles on the transition issue were quoted only five times in all ‘articles’, ‘survey’s’ and ‘comments’ that appeared in the 22 issues from

1 Most important in Brenner’s recent work on capitalism is his book-size article ‘The economics of global turbulence’ (Brenner, 1998a), also published as a monograph by Verso (Brenner, 2000). 2As Brenner’s main contributions to the transition debate we have considered, in addition to the two Past and Present articles ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’ (Brenner, 1985a) and ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’ (Brenner, 1985b): Brenner, 1977; Brenner, 1978; Brenner, 1985c; Brenner, 1989 and Brenner, 1997. 3 When we offered the present volume for publication to the editors of Past & Present, the answer was that it was ‘more-or-less’ their ‘policy’ after the 1982 publication to ‘withdraw from the debate, and leave the field to others’. Letter from Joanna Innes to Peter Hoppenbrouwers d.d. 23 February 1995. 4 A bibliometric search in the Arts and Humanities Index en the Social Sciences Index, limited to the years 1988-1998 and to references to Brenner’s two Past and Present articles (or the reprints of those in Aston and Philpin, 1985) yielded exactly 50 quotes in no less than 35 different journals. We are grateful to Jan Dumolyn of the University of Ghent who helpfully carried out the search.

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P easants into farm ers?

1977 up to and including 1998.5When the Brenner thesis is tested or referred to, it often is in a rejecting, dismissive or passing way - see for example Barbara Harvey’s ‘Introduction’, and Richard Smith’s article on demography in the volume Before the Black Death (Harvey, 1991:16-19; Smith, 1991:33-37), or Mark Overton’s remarks in his recent Agricultural Revolution in England (Overton, 1996:204-205). Equally typical, although not English, is a recent paper by one of the leading economic historians of today, Patrick O’Brien, which despite comparing England and France just once mentions only one of Brenner’s articles (O’Brien, 1996). What is more, Brenner’s publications did receive even less attention in the other major target of his thesis: France. There, the most excellent monographs on rural history, such as Jean-Marc Moriceau’s awe-inspiring thèse de doctorat Les fermiers de l ’île de France of 1994, have at its best obligatory references to Brenner’s Past and Present articles (Moriceau, 1994). This neglect did find only slight compensation in AngloAmerican books on the rural history of France, such as Philip Hoffman’s (Hoffman, 1996: esp. chapter 1). A recent attempt to redress the balance a bit was undertaken in a volume edited by Gérard Béaur, in which (part of) Brenner’s 1976 article has finally been made available in French (Brenner, 1998). Outside the sphere of English and French agricultural - or rural - history, Brenner’s thesis on transition has been looked upon more favourably. We could point out a wide range of recent monographs, in which Brenner’s ideas play a leading role, or are seriously considered. Rather offhand, and primarily to show the variety, we mention R.J. Hol­ ton’s historical-theoretical book on the transition debate (1985), Richard Lachmann’s theoretical book on structural change in early-modern England (1987), Colin Mooers’ book on bourgeois revolutions (1991), Wally Seccombe’s on the feudal-capitalist transition from the family-historical perspective (1992), S.H. Rigby’s social-historical survey of late medieval England (1995), and Bas van Bavel’s recent in-depth study of the historical evolution of social property relations in the Dutch river area (1999). More in general it is our impression that some distinctive elements of the Brenner thesis have been toned-down over the years. One of the explanations may be that in the writings of economic historians the language of (neo)Marxism has been replaced by the vocabulary of neo-institutional economics.6As Jan de Vries has noticed in his contribution 51.e. in the articles on the estates of Isabella de Forz by Mavis Mate (1980) and on the emergence of capitalism in Cumbria by Nick Gregson (1989), and in ‘surveys’ by R.B. Outhwaite on English agriculture (1986), S.R. Epstein on regional fairs (1994), and P.K. O’Brien on differential industria­ lisation (1996). The total number of ‘articles’ covering Westem-Europe between ca. 1100 and ca. 1750 was 117. 6 For historians the main spokesman of institutional economics is Douglas North. For a succinct statement of what Northian institutional theory is all about, see Hopcroft, 1999: 8. Institutions are ‘social rules’ that ‘shape economic outcomes by influencing the costs, choices, and incentives for individuals.’ These social rules can be either formal rules, such as constitutions, legal rights with regard to property, contract law, or informal rules, such as ‘norms, mores, customs’. The most important costs are ‘social costs, or transaction costs, which are defined as the costs of defi­ ning and enforcing property rights, of measuring the valuable attributes of what is being exchanged, and of monitoring the exchange process itself.’

16

Introduction

to this volume, there are nonetheless striking similarities between core issues raised in the Brenner debate and topics discussed by neo-institutionalists. In our own opening essay, we shall try to ‘translate’ those issues into the neo-institutional idiom of the 1990’s. At the same time we are well aware that such a translation alters the contents of the debate. One could also say that Brenner himself - trained as a social historian by among others the great Lawrence Stone - has been quite responsive to this turn so far as over the years his historical argumentation has become less social-political and more economic. His contribution to this volume is proof of it.

Bibliograhy Aston, T.H. and Philpin, C.H.E. (eds) (1985) The Brenner debate. Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe, Cambridge. (Past and Present Publications). Bavel, B.J.P. van (1999) Transitie en continuiteli. De bezitsverhoudingen en de

plattelandseconomie in het westelijke gedeelte van het Gelderse rivierengebied, ca. 1300ca. 1570, Hilversum. Brenner, R. (1977) ‘The origins of capitalist development: a critique of neo-Smithian Marxism ’, New Left Review, 104, pp. 25-92. Brenner, R. (1978) ‘Dobb on the transition from feudalism to capitalism’, Journal of Economics, 2, pp. 121-140. Brenner, R. (1985a) ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 10-63. [orig. 1976] Brenner, R. (1985b) ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 213-327. [orig. 1982] Brenner, R. (1985c) ‘The social basis of economic development’, in J. Roemer [ed.], Analytical Marxism, Cambridge, pp. 23-53. Brenner, R. (1989) ‘Bourgeois revolution and transition to capitalism’, in A.L. Beier, D. Cennadine and J.M. Rosenheim (eds), The First Modern Society. Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone, Cambridge, pp. 271-304. Brenner, R. (1997) ‘Property relations and the growth of agricultural productivity in late medieval and early modem Europe’, in A. Bhaduri and R. Skarstein (eds), Economic Development and Agricultural Productivity, Cheltenham/Lyme, pp. 9-43. Brenner, R. (1998a) ‘The economics of global turbulence’, New Left Review, 229. Brenner, R. (1998b) ‘Structures sociales et développement agricole dans l ’Europe pré­ industrielle’, in G. Béaur (ed.), La terre et les hommes. France et Grande-Bretagne XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle, Paris, pp. 187-214. Brenner, R. (2000) The economics of global turbulence, London/New York. Epstein, S.R. (1994) ‘Regional fairs, institutional innovation, and economic growth in late medieval Europe’, Economic History Review, 47, pp. 459^482. Gregson, N. (1989) ‘Tawney revisited: custom and the emergence of capitalist class relations in north-east Cumbria, 1600-1830’, Economic History Review, 42, pp. 18^42.

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Hagen, W.W. (1988) ‘Capitalism and the countryside in early modem Europe: inter­ pretations, models, debates’, Agricultural History, 62, pp. 13—47. Harvey, B.F. (1991) ‘Introduction: the “crisis” of the early fourteenth century’, in B.M.S. Campbell [ed.], Before the Black Death. Studies in the ‘crisis’o f the fourteenth century, Manchester/New York, pp. 1-24. Hoffman, P.T. (1996) Growth in a traditional society. The French countryside, 14501815, Princeton Holton, R.J. (1985) The transition from feudalism to capitalism, London. Hopcroft, R. (1999) Regions, institutions, and agrarian change in European history, Ann Arbor. Hoyle, R.W. (1990) ‘Tenure and the land market in early modern England: or a late con­ tribution to the Brenner debate’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 43, pp. 1-20. Kaye, H.J. (1986) ‘From feudalism to capitalism: the debate goes on’, Peasant Studies, 13, pp. 171-180. Lachmann, R. (1987) From manor to market. Structural change in England, 1536-1640, Madison/London. Mate, M. (1980) ‘Profit and productivity on the estates of Isabella de Forz (1260-92)’, Economic History Review, 33, pp. 326-334. Mooers, C. (1991) The making of bourgeois Europe. Absolutism, revolution, and the rise of capitalism in England, France and Germany, London/New York. Moriceau, J.-M. (1994) Les fermiers de Vile de France: l ’ascension d ’un patronat agricole (XVe-XVIIIe siècle), [Paris]. O’Brien, P. (1996) ‘Path dependency, or why Britain became an industrialized and urba­ nized economy long before France’, Economic History Review, 49, pp. 213-249. Outhwaite, R.B. (1986) ‘Progress and backwardness in English agriculture, 1500-1650’, Economic History Review, 39, pp. 1-18. Overton, M. (1996) Agricultural Revolution in England. The transformation of the agrarian economy 1500-1850, Cambridge. Rigby, S.H. (1995) English society in the Later Middle Ages. Class, status and gender, Basingstoke/London. Seccombe, W. (1992) A millennium o f family change. Feudalism to capitalism in Northwestern Europe, London/New York. Thompson, B. (1999) ‘Robert Brenner, 1943- ’, in K. Boyd (gen.ed.), Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. 2 vols, London/Chicago, sub ‘B’, pp. 124-125.

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2

Restyling the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Some critical reflections on the Brenner thesis Peter H oppenbrouwers , University of Amsterdam Jan Luiten van Z anden , University of Utrecht

I.

Path dependency

The Brenner thesis can be viewed as a strong case for path dependency. Brenner himself speaks of ‘trajectories’, ‘paths taken’, and ‘strong system-maintaining bias’ (Brenner, this volume: 275, 279, 280; 303 and 289 respectively). The basic message is that institutions that evolved during the (central) Middle Ages in different parts of Europe determined socio-economic development all along the later Middle Ages and Early Modem period. From Brenner’s neo-Marxist perspective these institutions coincide with the ‘feudal’ or more rarely with ‘agrarian-capitalist’ social property and surplusextraction relations. This institutional setting and the interactions between the various social classes that then take shape, determined as it were the trajectory a region or a political unit (kingdom or other principality, states eventually) would follow until somewhere into the eighteenth or even nineteenth century. Only at that point other forces - industrialisation, for example - take over. The fact that during this long period of time regions such as Languedoc, (South) England, Tuscany, Flanders, Holland or Poland developed along very different lines, is in that view the result of different institutional settings at the outset of a formative phase in European history. Models like Brenner’s leave little room for contingencies; the actors follow a script that was written somewhere around the beginning of the second millennium. In this volume, this striking thought is accepted in its most uncompromising version by Erik Thoen and Bas van Bavel. Thoen interprets the long-term historical evolution of what he has coined the ‘commercial-survival system’ in inland Flanders as the result of certain structural features - dense urban network, high population density, strong claims of peasants on the land, low feudal dues - that were already in place in the thirteenth century. In a similar fashion, Van Bavel demonstrates how in the Guelders river area the rise of agrarian-capitalist relations can be traced back to a manorial past.1 In regions where large demesnes, exploited directly by landlords, had predominated a sudden transition to the leasing of these large estates took place after ca 1350. In the long ran this stimulated the rise of agrarian capitalism (i.e. the accumulation of large farms by capitalist farmers, investment of surplus into agriculture etc.). On the other hand, in those parts of the Dutch river area where small peasant land ownership remained strong, no such transformation occurred. As far as land was leased here, this only resulted in the ‘exploitation’ of peasant households by driving up lease prices.1 1Van Bavel has further elaborated this thought in his recent monograph (Van Bavel, 1999).

19

P easants into farm ers?

To some extent the debate on the early development of Holland’s economy is about the same issue (cf. Hoppenbrouwers, Van Dam, De Vries, Van Zanden and Ibelings in this volume). In his celebrated book of 1974, Jan de Vries suggested that Dutch peasants at the outset of the early modern period stood at the crossroads. Would they diverge and follow the glorious track of specialisation, or continue on their dreary peasant path? At the same time he took away much of their choice by repeatedly carrying back the unique and ‘new’ features of the development of the Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age to the ‘absence of a truly feudal past’.2In that manner, Dutch peasants were almost destined to the ‘specialisation model’ by their peculiar medieval prehistory. Van Zanden’s interpretation of the same phenomenon stresses that the Dutch countryside at the beginning of the sixteenth century was already highly ‘modem’, commercialised and market oriented, and that terms like ‘peasants’ and ‘peasant economy’ should therefore better be avoided.3 According to Van Zanden rural households in Holland during the sixteenth century did not have the choice to expand food production, which is essential to De Vries’ ‘peasant model’, because from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards they were unable to grow sufficient basic foodstuffs, and had to rely on imports to feed their families (cf. Van Tielhof in this volume). In addition, a typical ‘proto-industrial’ structure evolved. So, if Dutch peasants were predestined to specialisation, to Van Zan­ den this had a different medieval background from the one painted by De Vries. Thoen and Van Bavel extend the logic of path dependency even further than do Brenner and De Vries who, in the cases of France, England and Holland at least, stick to territorial ‘states’ as their units of analysis. For Thoen ‘different feudal institutions’ brought about a very different rural structure in different parts of one and the same state-like principality, the county of Flanders, and the same sort of reasoning is implicit in Van Bavel’s work. As we shall see in this volume, Brenner has to our surprise shown himself prepared to follow, despite the severe consequences for his original thesis, which owed a great part of its originality exactly to its suffusion of orthodox Marxist analysis of the relations of production with that of the social impact of feudal ‘states’ (f. Mooers, 1991: esp. 33-37).

II. Was England’s road to agrarian capitalism unique? In the end what Brenner really has to explain is why a certain system of agrarian production capable of sustained agro-economic growth, that is to say agrarian capitalism, first emerged in England, and not anywhere else. The key to his answer is in the trans­ formation of the structure of property relations. Only in England the feudal ‘trajectory’ somewhere at the end of the Middle Ages flew into a set of property relations - the

2 E.g. De Vries, 1974: 34. Already in De Vries, 1973 and repeated in De Vries and Van der Woude, 1995:160. In the last book mentioned, feudalism is equated with ‘hierarchical and collective forces’ (DeVries and Van der Woude, 1995:162), which is not what (neo-Marxists) understand by this term. 3 E.g. De Vries, 1974: 69: ‘the rural household’s pursuit of numerous employments, agricultural and nonagricultural alike, reflected its nonspecialised nature, which remained unchanged for centuries’. DeVries, 1974: 72: ‘the nonspecialisation of the peasant household’. DeVries, 1974: 120: ‘the peasant household of the 16th century was relatively self-contained’.

20

R estyling the transition from feudalism to capitalism

already mentioned three-tired hierarchy - that was conducive to the development of capitalist relations of production. Several British historians have questioned the value of this picture. Overton summa­ rised the objections by arguing that recent research has given ‘only little support’ to the ideas that a) landlords would have been all-powerful vis-à-vis their tenants all along the Early Modem period; b) landlords would have been sincerely interested in promoting innovation; c) large farms would have ‘necessarily’ been a ‘prerequisite for higher land productivity’; and d) capitalist relations in agriculture would have first developed in areas where peasant property rights to land were weak (Overton, 1996: 205). Richard Hoyle aimed his bolts at the first and last of these points. From a meticulous study of copyholds Hoyle inferred that Brenner misrepresented what happened in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Only after about 1650, when the economic climate turned against small farmers (whether still copyholders or already freeholders), the latter became ‘easy prey for acquisitive landlords’. Only then did a transformation of property rights take place, and even at that point it was never as radical as Brenner would have it (Hoyle, 1990: esp. 12-18). Especially the third item on Overton’s list has been brought up repeatedly in the Brenner debate as well as outside. It has been pointed out that the belief that enlargement of farm sizes is a necessary precondition for expanded reproduction in agriculture is shared by neo-Marxist and neo-Smithian historians alike. For the former this process is as inevitable as it is ‘objective’, for the latter just a ‘strategic necessity’ (Ellis, 1988:50). The virtues Brenner ascribed to the large English farm enterprises, owned by benevolent landlords made him sound to the ears of one of his critics Tike a Tory defender of the Com Laws’ (Cooper, 1985: 177). Behind Brenner’s conviction that only expropriation of the peasants could lead to capitalist development lies another one, namely that medieval peasants were ‘risk averse’ and lacked sufficient investment capital to accumulate and expand their business (Croot and Parker, 1985: 79; Ellis, 1988: 80-81; Epstein, 1991: 6-7, 48). In Brenner’s view medieval agriculture did not as such suffer from lack of technological development capable of raising productivity, as Postan and Hatcher in their comment on Brenner’s first article had claimed. Rather, the problem was that le­ vels of investment were far too low due to insufficient market incentives (Postan and Hatcher, 1985: 77-78; Brenner, 1985b: 233-234). For De Vries as well - representing the neo-Smithian side - only accumulation of landholding could have triggered off successful specialisation in the early-modern Netherlands and marked the watershed that took shape there between a highly productive agriculture of the coastal provinces and the lagging inland provinces. Though there is some confusion here between farm size and farm scale4, both Brenner and De Vries succumb, in the words of Croot and Parker ‘to the general unwillingness to believe that agricultural development could take place anywhere except on large farms which made large-scale capital investment possible and profitable’ (Croot and Parker, 1985: 79). Rephrased by Cooper the same criticism reads: ‘What hinders comparative analysis is

4The essential differences in economic terms are treated in Ellis, 1988: chapter 10.

21

P easants into farm ers?

the built-in assumption that small-scale peasant farming cannot achieve the increase in productivity necessary to support industrialisation.’ Opposing the cases of Andalusia and Flanders in the nineteenth century, Cooper attacked Brenner with the latter’s own most formidable weapon, comparative analysis. Whereas large-scale farming in Andalusia did not boost productivity, small-scale peasant farming in Flanders did (Cooper, 1985: 189). Even for the nineteenth century evidence from Belgium and also Italy ‘suggests that small farms could be more efficient in their use of labour than larger ones’ (Overton, 1996:127). Croot and Parker even go further; to them Brenner’s whole concept of capi­ talist relations may be ‘too narrow’. It does no justice ‘to the perhaps decisive role played by the small capitalist farmer at least from the early sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century’ (Croot and Parker, 1985: 88; for the early modern Netherlands: Hopcroft, 1999: 112). This is in total agreement with the findings of Robert Allen, who demonstrated that neither enclosure nor the creation by landlords of large farms dependent on wage labour ‘have been [primarily] responsible for the growth in yields and labour productivity in England between 1500 and 1800’. Instead, ‘the seventeenth-century yeomen were the decisive contributors. (...) The main contribution of the landlords’ agricultural revolution was a further shedding of labour in the eighteenth century’ (Allen, 1992: 17-19).5 The serious objections leveled against the English part of the Brenner thesis raises the question whether outside England, and particularly in the Low Countries, somewhere during the late medieval and early modem period either non-capitalist social relations of agrarian production were generated that nonetheless were conducive to self-sustaining growth (for instance as a consequence of a relatively strong market dependency) or capitalist relations originated with the same effect, that however were differently struc­ tured from those in England. In order to get a clear picture of the questions related to any supposed alternative roads to sustained growth and its link to (agrarian) capitalism, we shall first deal with what in our view is a major general flaw in the Brenner thesis: its disregard of peasant (strategic) behaviour. Peasants could - and still can - rationally resist intensive market involvement. After that we shall delve into some key issues that can be regarded as touchstones of the Brenner thesis with regard to the Low Countries: commercialisation of the rural economy, rural labour supply, protoindustrial development, and the influence of state formation on surplus-extraction relations.

III. Peasant behaviour, peasant strategies, and the limits to agrarian capitalism The dramatic degree of path dependency that is hypothesised in the Brenner thesis suggests that strong forces which ‘lock in’ a rural region into a certain development path must have been at work. Among these forces the specific economic behaviour of peasants is of primary importance. In Brenner’s view it was the peasants who, according

5As far as Allen refers to farm size and not farm scale, his findings answer the general mie that farm size is inversely related to productivity. Ellis, 1988,196-201.

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R estyling the transition from feudalism to capitalism

to some inner logic, resisted the advance of the market economy. His implicit assumptions on ‘traditional’ (i.e. non-market oriented) peasant societies are twofold: peasants would always orient to subsistence and would always be willing to extreme self-exploitation (cf. Ogilvie and Cerman, 1996: 235.). This logic would come to the well-known rule for reproduction ‘safety first’. It prescribes that traditional peasants ‘diversify to make sure they secured what they needed to survive and market only physical surpluses, rather than specialise to maximise exchange value’ (Brenner, this volume: 281). In the same tradition, ErikThoen discusses the ‘commercial-survival strategy ’ of Flemish households. Because ‘self-sufficiency was the most important goal of [Flemish] peasants’ they aimed at survival through the increase of labour input on increasingly smaller plots, and supplied their incomes with wage labour and/or non-agricultural activities, as well as with ‘limited production for the market’ (Thoen, this volume: 112). Although neo-Smithians, such as De Vries, strongly disagree on this point, it is very well possible to underpin Brenner’s and Thoen’s views with concepts borrowed from institutional economics. For one thing, it cannot be ruled out in advance that the subjective preferences of peasants had considerable effects on the process of making choices. Every analyst of the economic decisions of households will agree that preferences, which are the result of socio-cultural, economic and perhaps even political influences, contribute to shaping consumption and production patterns today, and there is no reason why they should not have done so in the past. These preferences may result from regionally quite specific experiences which generations of peasants had with markets, with their own subsistence-products, with the institutional framework governing market activity, etce­ tera. One good example is offered by the regulations made by peasant communities in many parts of Europe from the central Middle Ages onwards with regard to the exploitation of common waste lands. In order to prevent overexploitation special institutions were created which governed their management, such as the so-called markegenootschappen or marken in the Eastern Netherlands (Van Zanden, 1999). Among the rules adopted by many of these marken were restrictions on the number of cattle that a household was allowed to graze. Moreover, almost all bylaws forbade the grazing of cows and sheep of outside owners out of fear that this ‘commercialisation’ of the grazing rights would lead to overexploitation. Also, the use made of heath lands (to dig peat) and wood lands (to cut timber) was restricted to the needs of the village households. Again, one was certain that a commercial exploitation of the commons would in the long run result in their disappearance. This example clearly shows that some attempts to ‘keep the market at an arms length’ may have been rational in view of the long-term conservation of the resources of village communities. A second element, which De Vries seems altogether to ignore, are transaction costs. In a perfect, Pareto-optimal world there are no costs involved in market transactions: every producer and consumer has perfect information about both the actual and future state of the market. If even in modem economies transaction costs are real enough buyers and sellers have to spend time and money to acquire information, to negotiate about prices, and to get their commodities to the market place - in the pre-industrial world they could easily get prohibitive. Transaction bottlenecks were further aggravated by the inelasticity of (limited) local demand, impeding ‘the realisation of scale economies’ as soon as alternative markets were distant (Grantham, 1999: 215). All this either meant

23

P easants into farm ers?

that no market would come into existence, or that a large slice of the pie of the seller was taken away while commodities were on their way to the market. So it could very well be rational for peasants to eat the rye and potatoes that they grew themselves instead of offering them for sale and buy other food - or other commodities - in return. In fact, in a world of strong fluctuations in market prices and of regular debasements of money by princes agricultural commodities, such as grain or cattle, may have been - like land itself - a means to store value and to save up that which was superior to money. Whereas high transaction costs could reinforce peasant strategies in favour of subsistence production and of limited contacts with markets, costs associated with the risks and uncertainties of the switch from subsistence to market production worked as a discouragement to commercialisation as well. These transition costs became more im­ portant when participation in the market was considered to be risky. Peasants giving up subsistence always had to consider the vital question whether markets would be able to supply their households with food. Early modem Holland was an exceptional case in that respect, because it could count on a more or less stable supply of bread grains from the Baltic (Van Tielhof, this volume). This facilitated the final stage of the large transformation of Holland’s rural economy during which under the force of circumstances subsistence farming was virtually ended. Outside Holland, however, any switch-over to ‘total’ market production accompanied by the termination of subsistence would have revived old forms of dependence while creating new forms on the side. In pre-industrial Europe peasant smallholders were hit from such costs as mentioned in a different way than were peasants capable of generating regular surpluses. To begin with, subsistence production was relatively labour intensive (this is the reverse of the rule that labour productivity in subsistence production is relatively low). The many and diverse tasks involved in subsistence production demanded large amounts of labour time of household members. Again, this did not mean that peasant smallholders were by definition excluded from markets. Both in Flanders and the northern Low Countries we know of very successful types of small-scale commercial agriculture. In particular some industrial crops - tobacco, hemp, hop, flax - require a high labour input and for that reason could be grown with a profit by small peasant producers on tiny plots of land. But, apart from the high risks of crop failure and strongly fluctuating market prices, the ‘transition costs’ involved in growing this type of crops must have been relatively large: they required specialised know-how, special seeds, working capital and marketing networks, which means that the ‘barriers to entry’ were probably high.6 This goes even more for peasant smallholders who did not specialise. Their limited contacts with markets, and the small amounts of produce sold or commodities bought on these markets assured high transaction costs per unit, as can be illustrated with a typical story written down around the middle of the nineteenth century by the Dutch agronomist J. Zeehuisen. He ended a panegyric of the peasant ‘economy’ of the province

6 See for example the classic work on Dutch tobacco farming in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which showed that merchants played a large role in the growing of this very un-European crop. Roessingh, 1976.

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R estyling the transition from feudalism to capitalism

of Overijssel with a critical note on small peasants who sometimes exaggerated in their efforts to grab market opportunities: ‘Well known is the anecdote of the peasant from Den Ham, who with a cock under his arm, walked to the market in Zwolle [a distance of 25 kilometres], and for the difference of a dime walked back to Den Ham with the patient, half unconscious animal still under his arm’ (Zeehuisen, 1851:175-176). Anyone who has visited a Third World country nowadays, will have observed comparable situations: many small peasants - women in particular - invest large amounts of time in trying to sell minuscule amounts of cash crops. Wealthy peasants, on the other hand, can divide transaction costs over large quantities of commodities offered for sale. In addition, they profit from various other benefits. They will, for example, have easier access to credit as well as to information about market supply and prices, and their chances to become dependent on middlemen will be smaller. In short: from the perspective of peasant production, commercialisation is not by definition a superior strategy.7 Perhaps commercialisation is a process characterised by multiple equilibria. When surpluses increase, and market contacts become more fre­ quent and voluminous, the costs of selling products will fall almost automatically, and reveal the productivity-enhancing effects of specialisation. Peasants with a large sur­ plus, therefore, will in general face lower transaction costs per unit sold, and be more prone to further market involvement than smallholders. Commercialisation and speciali­ sation may therefore be self-reinforcing processes. At the same time sticking to low levels of commercialisation - Thoen’s ‘commercial-survival strategy’ - may have been a Tow equilibrium trap’ from which certain regions could not easily escape (Grantham, 1999: 220). To these institutionalist objections against over-simplistic liberal views of peasant behaviour that under the right historical circumstances would have led, as it were, automatically to ever greater market involvement, and thus to agrarian capitalist development, we could add other ones. They stem from a different research tradition: the neo-Marxist approach of rural sociology behind the so-called Mann-Dickinson the­ sis. This thesis formulates a number of ‘natural’ obstacles that resist against fully capitalist production in agriculture, or, from another angle, that explain why to this day agriculture is dominated by relatively small-scale family enterprises. The four main obstacles, as defined by the main protagonist of the Mann-Dickinson thesis, Susan Archer Mann, are the non-identity of production time and labour time in agriculture, the long turnover time of capital, the peculiar features of agricultural marketing because of the perishable nature of agrarian produce, and the relatively inefficient use of farm equipment leading to unfavourable depreciation (Archer-Mann, 1990: chapter 2). Mann and Dickinson have pointed out that all four of these impediments weighed more heavily in the past than they do now, because under pre-industrial conditions there was hardly any danger for either ‘appropriationism’ - i.e. (industrial-technological) attempts to reduce the

7 Even in present-day farming there are significant differences in degree of market ‘incorporation’. Consequently any ‘true understanding of agricultural development’ needs more than knowledge of markets as such. Equally indispensable is ‘an insight into the nature of the relationships bet­ ween farms and markets’. Van der Ploeg, 1991: 61.

25

P easants into farm ers?

importance of nature in agricultural production - or ‘substitutionalism’ - i.e. the actual elimination of nature either by using nonagricultural, synthetic materials or by creating industrial substitutes for food or fibers.8 Again, there is no reason to discredit the existence of some ‘internal logic’ in peasant societies, which is ‘not entirely sustained or defined by market relations’ (Archer-Mann quoting Harriet Freedman, 1990: 24-25), and which moreover operates independently from any historical set of (e.g. feudal) social property relations.

IV. The role of markets and commercialisation In addition to their similar views on the relationship between size enlargement and agrarian capitalism, neo-Marxist and neo-Smithian analysts agree in their appreciation of the commercialisation of late medieval and early modem rural economy. One could consider this appreciation ‘stagnationist’ as far as it is ‘forcefully downplaying the extent and influence of commercial activity’ (Bailey, 1998: 297). On the other hand, when markets eventually come into the picture, they are always perfectly functioning and completely open. Capitalist relations in agriculture seem to imply total commodification of land and labour leading automatically and quickly to most of the labour being proletarised, and most of the land being commercialised. Wallerstein, among other, has warned us that such a Smithian paradise has never existed in historical reality. ‘The hypothetical free market is an intellectual construct which serves the same intellectual function as frictionless movement: [it serves] as a standard from which to measure the degree of deviation’. And: if total availability of labour and land as commodities are typical features of capitalism, this does not mean that ‘they have in fact been exclusive features. They have to be sure become steadily more predominant, but it is the combination of free and “unfree” labour and land that in fact characterises the capitalist world-economy’ (Wallerstein, 1974: 14). In our view, Brenner has overreacted in his rejection of the trade-centred approach. His obvious fear to step into the Smithian trap which links the birth of capitalism to the emergence and expansion of (urban) markets makes Brenner shun the use of the con­ cept of market in his description of the earlier stages of the feudal economy. It made S.R. Epstein wonder, whether Brenner does not centre on the wrong analytical concept. For Epstein as an institutionalist economic historian economic development in any so­ ciety is determined primarily by market structures and the institutional arrangements facilitating or discouraging them. Social property relations are ‘only one (albeit crucial) determinant’ of those (Epstein, 1992: 22; 1994b: 477). Most important in Brenner’s view is that within a (Marxist) feudal setting neither lords nor peasants were compelled to respond to market opportunities because they had direct, non-market access to peasants’ surplus and means of subsistence respectively

8 Archer Mann, Agrarian capitalism, o.c., 42-46. The concepts of ‘appropriationism’ and ‘substitutionalism’ were taken from the work of Goodman, Soij and Wilkinson.

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R estyling the transition from feudalism to capitalism

(Brenner, 1985b: 233-234). So, Brenner in no way denies that lords and peasants could be active in terms of markets, but he insists in distinguishing between involvement in and dependence on markets (Brenner, this volume). Thus specified, and although the distinction Brenner has made can easily lead to squabbling over where one ends and the other starts, we can get along with Brenner a long way. Certainly, many commentators - Marxist as well as other - have exposed a potentially virtuous link between the market and the conflictive relations of feudal lords and their peasants. Rodney Hilton, Georges Duby, Witold Kula, Amost Klima, J.R Cooper, and, more recently, Richard Britnell, Bruce Campbell and James Masschaele have each stressed that growing demands on the peasants within an increasingly monetarised economy have contributed far more to the commercialisation of agriculture after the year 1000 than did increased technical efficiency (or rising prices, for that matter). To quote Hilton: ‘Although lords participated in market production in their demesnes, it would seem that the bulk of the agricultural commodities which were offered for sale in village markets, in country towns and in cities were produced by peasants in search of money to pay for rents, taxes, judicial fines and industrial products’.9 This increased use of markets was concomitant to the increasing economic sophistication of feudal society (as fully recognized by Bois, 1992: chapter 3), which unlike Brenner and other (neo-)Marxist historians have been prepared to accept, was capable of limited sustained growth - the best sign is overall levels of urbanisation which in many parts of Europe easily doubled between ca. 950 and ca. 1250, and the figures reached by the end of that period would not decline drastically anywhere during the following centuries.10 The point to be made here is that peasants had no choice as to the moment they entered the market. They were indeed driven - compelled in Brenner’s words - by the requirement ‘to raise cash for rents, fines and taxes, rather than for profit (...) or effi­ ciency gains it might bring them’ (Bailey, 1998: 309). And in so far as peasants were indeed forced to make use of the market, and this to an ever-growing extent, one could argue with Mooers that ‘in the later phases of feudalism the struggle [over peasant surplus] was in large measure a struggle over which class was to have greater access to the market’ (Mooers, 1991: 27). Where peasants got the upper hand, this sooner or later led to ‘petty capitalist accumulation’ and to social polarisation within the peasantry. In this way the rise of at least one class may be explained that in Brenner’s work seems to come out of the blue: the yeomanry and its continental equivalents (Mooers [criticising Brenner], 1991: 36-37).

9Hilton, 1973: 16 also quoted by Mooers, 1991: 27-28;. Duby, 1974:180, 254; for Kula: Klima, 1985: 207-208; Cooper [against Mendras], 1985: 188-189). Cf. Bailey, 1998: 309: ‘it seems likely that peasant farmers disposed a greater proportion of their output on the market than did demesnes.’ 10 For the earlier period the best figures are the English ones: the urban population of England would have at least doubled between 1086 (Domesday Book) and ca. 1300, from about 10% to about 20%. Shortly: Campbell, 1998:17. The standard estimate for overal urbanisation levels in late medieval Europe remains Bairoch, Batou and Chèvre, 1988. Bairoch c.s. estimate the rate of urbanisation in Europe without Russia at 14% in 1300 and 15.1% in 1500 (towns taken as places with over 2,000 inhabitants) (Bairoch, Batou and Chèvre, 1988: 255, Tableau B2).

27

P easants into farm ers?

Brenner would certainly riposte that being forced to the market does not imply being driven out of subsistence. As far as the later medieval period is concerned, he seems to get support from Mark Bailey who concluded from a survey of recent literature on commercialisation of the English countryside that, no matter how much peasants were exposed to commerce, at least by 1300 no significant numbers could yet have been tempted out of subsistence agriculture by urban demand (Bailey, 1998: 308-309). The whole point, of course (B rem er’s whole point one would almost say) is to determine when and under what historical circumstances this tempting did take place and peasants were forced into dependence upon the market. It also makes sense to distinguish bet­ ween coercive forces that drove peasants to markets on the one hand and the constraints of the working of those markets on the other hand. Finally it would be wrong to look only at output markets. Labour markets and, even more so, tenancy - i.e. lease hold markets were at least as important for the subjection of peasants to economic competition. Markets in tenancies and land leases, according to Mooers, were ‘critical’ exactly because they ‘implied a necessity to enter the market for the conditions of subsistence’ (Mooers, 1991: 28-29). So, instead of a sharp dichotomy between subsistence and market, subsistence could very well be, albeit partially, ‘delivered to’ market forces as well. It takes us back to the theme of this volume, and in particular to Robert B rem er’s contribution, because the possibility or non-possibility to stick to subsistence within a highly commercialised environment is exactly where the rural societies of later medieval Flanders and Holland according to B rem er’s argument diverged. It is also the point on which the neo-Marxist analysis of Bremer differs from the neo-Smithian one of De Vries. Whereas the latter’s primary interest - in his book of 1974 as well as in his contribution to this volume - seems to be in the results of the working of a market economy (how as a result of the operation of markets were patterns of specialisation resulting in productivity growth in agriculture created?), the Brenner debate, on the other hand, is basically about the creation of a market economy - or of merchant capitalism to use the 1970’s phrase. Once this market economy is in place, once producers are subjected to market forces one may expect the ‘systematic, continuous, and quasi-universal drive on the part of the individual producers to cut costs and to maximise profitability via increasing efficiency and the movement of means of production from line to line in response to price signals’, which is the precondition for ‘modem economic growth’ (Brenner, this volume: 278). This still leaves the question unanswered why a seemingly strong economy such as the Flemish one, in which markets were so important, was not able to generate so much growth as to drive the peasantry out of subsistence agriculture.

V.

Rural labour supply and protoindustrialisation

Closely related to the expansion of the market economy during the later phase of the transformation to capitalism are supposedly changes in rural labour supply and the expansion of so-called protoindustrial rural activities. Of great relevance to the Brenner debate is the distinction between wage labour contracted by capitalist farmers and family labour used by peasants. On the surface, peasant labour is cheaper - and therefore peasant farming does tend to be more labour intensive than capitalist farming. First, peasants face lower transaction costs, because the unit of production is the same as the unit of

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labour supply. The costs of hiring labour in an underdeveloped and imperfectly functio­ ning labour market may be substantial. Second, monitoring costs (to limit shirking) are substantially lower or even absent - when we assume with Gary Becker that the interests of household members involved are identical (i.e. to maximise the total consumption of the household). In a capitalist wage-relation, on the other hand, the objectives of labourers (i.e. to maximise the wage income and minimise the effort) clearly diverge from those of the capitalist farmer (i.e. to maximise his labourers’ efforts and minimise the wage costs). Third and final, opportunity costs for peasants working extra time - for example for the weeding of their crops - is in many cases the ‘utility’ of the leisure foregone, which may be very small when the consumption of the household is dependent on this extra work. For capitalist farmers, on the other hand, opportunity costs of (extra) labour amount to the sum of the wages paid, the transaction costs for hiring workers, and the additional costs for monitoring. It is true that capitalist farmers can make up for a part of the gap. They can vary the amount of hired labour through the year, attuning it to seasonal needs, and they can hire labourers with specific skills for specific labour tasks, thus having those tasks performed more efficiently. But in the end this is not enough to beat the flexible use of cheap labour on small peasant farms. The question of rural labour supply is further complicated by non-agrarian employ­ ment. According to the classical hypothesis formulated by Chayanov, peasant households will increase their labour input until the resulting marginal production/consumption equalises the marginal effort necessary, regardless of the nature of this labour (agrarian versus non-agrarian; non-wage versus wage labour). The problem with Chayanov’s model is that it hardly fits rural society of medieval and early modern Westem-Europe. In Chayanov’s model there is no real labour market11, and the access to land of peasant families is regulated in a highly flexible but non-market manner by the so-called mir system, which was totally unknown in the West. A better fitting approach, therefore, is offered by certain farm household models designed to analyse modem peasant economies in developing countries, such as Allan Low’s (cf. Ellis, 1988: 134-137). It is based on the assumption of semi-subsistence farming on small holdings within the wider context of an active labour market and flexible access to land by land leasing. Its predictive power is in calculating the point where wage work has a comparative advantage over labour committed to subsistence food production. According to Low’s model this point - the opportunity cost of peasant labour - is determined by ‘the ratio of wages to the retail prices of purchased food’ - two data types that are within reach for economic historians of the later medieval and early modem period. Low’s message is that in an environment with rather rigid (nominal) wages - like the later medieval and early mo­ dem period - the moment at which it would be economically opportune to switch from farm to off-farm work is mainly determined by falls in food (grain) prices (cf. Hoppenbrouwers, 1992:496-499). According to Low this mechanism would explain agricultural stagnation, the more so, because able-bodied male members of peasant households are always the first to switch to off-farm work.1

11 Although it is fair to say that this part o f Chayanov’s model is often misrepresented. In fact, it does provide for wage labour o f household members outside the household but curiously enough not for wage labour from outside added to the household work force; see Schmitt, 1988: 191-192.

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Low’s model, rather than Chayanov’s may help to explain the emergence of what has been called a proto-industrial structure during the late medieval agrarian slump in those parts of the European countryside where capitalist relations of production in agriculture had made the least headway and where peasants had best succeeded in sticking to ownership of their land. The irony is that once a proto-industrial ‘trajectory’ had taken off, it more often than not promoted capitalist relations of production, although of a diffe-rent nature. This is a point on which Brenner firmly disagrees as far as inland Flanders - the ‘classical’ case of proto-industrial development - is concerned: ‘[There] proto­ industry does (...) seem to have expanded more or less indefinitely, involving an ever growing population of peasants ever more profoundly. But far from having underpinned a development trajectory that was more positive or self-sustaining than that of the Dutch, it’s main accomplishment - and main raison d ’être - appears to have been to make possible the survival of those ever more numerous peasants, who could offer neither the surpluses nor the domestic market to support ongoing industrialisation.’ This was ‘in sharp contrast’ to the case of Holland, where peasants were forced to the market, but certainly not within a proto-industrial context by Brenner’s definition (Brenner, this volume: 317). Brenner has made strikingly clear that what really mattered was the rela­ tionship between proto-industrialisation processes on the one hand, and peasant sub­ sistence farming on the other hand, for it was exactly in that respect that the rural economies of two of the most densely populated and urbanised regions of Early Modem Europe inland Flanders and Holland - differed. Brenner’s critique of Van Zanden clearly neglects two essential features of protoindustrial development in Mendels’ original model that according to Van Zanden were present in late medieval and early modem Holland: the production for external markets and the emergence of a specific demographic reproduction regime that was closely related to proto-industrial development. However, since the more recent literature on proto-industrialisation has questioned both of these features (Ogilvie and Cerman, 1996b: esp. 7-9), we are again prepared to go along with Brenner. In particular with regard to the second, demographic feature we have to be cautious, because until now little is known in detail about demographic behaviour, marriage patterns, fertility rates, etce­ tera in Holland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Therefore, we should be extremely reluctant in making easy assumptions on the presence - or absence - of Hajnal’s European Marriage Pattern or rules such as Homans’ ‘no land no marriage’ as a consequence of proto-industrialisation. For Flanders in a much later period, the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Vandenbroeke did in fact corroborate that ‘proto-industry and population growth were unmistakably positively correlated’, but for very different reasons than Mendels assumed. The crucial factor was not rising fertility within a con­ text of a seemingly endless ‘self-propelling process of pauperisation’, but declining infant mortality combined with modest fertility within a context of relative economic prosperity (Vandenbroeke, 1996; see also Thoen in this volume). But apart from that we are convinced that the development that took place on the later medieval Dutch countryside - and we stick to the label of proto-industrial for it did in some way pave the (or: a?) road for the break-through of capitalist relations in agriculture after circa 1580, when the growth of towns was taken up again and when the bourgeoisie began to buy land on a large scale, the leasing of land expanded rapidly and

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enterprising fanners used these new opportunities to consolidate and enlarge their hol­ dings (Van Zanden, 1991: 48-53; also Hoppenbrouwers, this volume). So as far as we can see, capitalist development in agriculture could take various forms, some linked to proto-industry, some to the enlargement of farms, some to specific develop­ ments within core areas, etcetera. An important point is that those regions in the Low Countries in which some form of agrarian capitalism developed earliest - the maritime rim of Flanders (the object of a recent in-depth study by De Kraker, 1997: esp. Part lib.), the river clay areas of Guelders (the object of two recent in-depth studies: Van Bavel, 1999 and Brasse, 1999), and the later province of Zealand (the object of a recent in-depth study by Priester, 1998) - do not appear to have been breeding grounds of merchant capitalism, in any case much less so than the proto-industrial zones of Hol­ land and inland Flanders. The towns of the Guelders river area remained relatively small and did not witness the rise of urban merchant elites. In fact, the (early) rise of the Guelders type of labour-extensive capitalist farming in peripheral regions seems, rather according to a Von Tinmen pattern, to have been related to urbanisation elsewhere with the increased demand for foodstuffs that resulted from it. Apparently, this type of agrarian capitalism did not in itself create a viable structure for merchant capitalist development in the longer ran.

VI. Social property relations, surplus-extraction, lordship and state formation In Brenner’s famous prisma-metaphor of 1982 that we quoted at the outset, ‘socialproperty relations’ are defined as ‘the relative amounts of land held outright by lords and by peasants’ (Brenner, 1985b: 218). As several contributions to this volume will show, this cornerstone of the Brenner thesis proves not easy to tackle for the Low Countries. Clearly, a lot of work in this field remains to be done. The limited picture we get from often painstakingly detailed in-depth studies of (sub)regional property relations is inconclusive in two ways. First, regional variety makes it impossible to decide whether the Low Countries as a whole followed the French or the English track. More in general does the story of early modern state formation only to a certain extent coincide with socio-economic development on a sub-state level. Too often states were composed of a wide variety of highly different economic regions, each with their own institutional heritage and their own sets of social property relations upon which the state could only to a very limited degree encroach. The early modem Low Countries are a fine case in point, but regional variety was characteristic for early modem France and England as well. So the entire question may be a wrong one. Apparently, as we already said, it makes more sense to develop path-dependency reasoning from the perspective of agrarian regions than from territorial states. Second, the lack of adequate sources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to establish whether one could anyhow speak of the kind of transformative shifts in property relations which Brenner had in mind when he compared England, France, and east-Elbian Germany. An extra-complicating factor for the Dutch case is the burgeoning bourgeoisie. If any major shift in the social distribution of landed property took place, it

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was in their direction. But the Dutch bourgeoisie was quite a different social category than were the English lords, so competition for land was more subtle and small-scale, and is therefore more difficult to trace in primary sources. Whereas the accumulation of land and the consolidation of landed property in large estates was central to the English nobility’s ‘reproduction strategy’, operations of countless Dutch burghers on many land markets were but a sideline of their urban-commercial economic activities, and not in general aimed at the formation of larger farms with conjoined plots of land. This situation helps to explain two major features of early modem rural Holland: the resilience of small-sized peasant property (which in e.g. Holland had a deeper historical background as well) and the over-all small sizes of landed property (whether peasant or urban) as compared to England. Problems of a different nature surround the analysis of the ‘surplus-extraction relation­ ship’, defined in Brenner’s first Past and Present article as ‘the inherently conflictive relations of property (...) by which an unpaid-for part of the product is extracted from the direct producers by a class of non-producers’ (Brenner, 1985a: 11). To start with, we do not agree with Brenner’s assimilation of this concept to the ‘social property relationship’ (or ‘social relation of production’). The two can only be seen as coinciding when the lords’ surplus would under all circumstances have taken some form of land rent.12 This was certainly not the case. Brenner’s assumption that it did, is connected with a too vague conception of medieval lordship.13 In his second Past and Present article, Brenner duly distinguished between ‘domestic lordship’ and ‘banal lordship’, the former founded in large landownership and the possession of serfs, the latter in the exercise of decentralised rights of (public) jurisdiction (Brenner, 1985b: 258-259).14 Brenner could be no more right in his classifying banal lordship as a ‘critical’ (new) gateway to surplus-extraction by extra-economic means (Brenner, 1985b: 258-259), the more so because its proliferation occurred at a moment when ‘domestic lordship’ in many parts of Europe lost much of its original coercive traits. But linking new, banal lordship to rent payments is less compelling than Brenner suggests. Many ‘banal lords’ received the bulk of their income from other sources, whereas, on the other hand, not all large landowners in the later Middle Ages had banal rights so that not all payments of land rents could be extorted under the threat of ‘banal’ force. This is one of the whole points of the ‘Dutch case’ in the Brenner debate (see Hoppenbrouwers, this volume).

12 The assimilation was criticised in the Brenner debate by Wunder, 1985: 97. Apart from that, medievalists cannot make much o f an unspecified ‘ownership’ or ‘holding’ o f land. In order not to make things unnecessarily technical w e shall keep using these terms too, but only after expressly stating that ownership in the Roman-law sense o f exclusive ownership was unknown in large parts o f medieval Europe. 13 This in its turn probably ow es to the unjustified generalisation of the type o f lordship that came into existence in post-Conquest England. 14 In his use o f terms Brenner follows Duby. More precisely, Duby distinguishes three types of lordship: domestic, land- and banal lordship. The best reference would be: Duby, 1974: 174-177. Brenner in a way contaminates the first two, but with due reason, because they are difficult to differentiate.

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Brenner’s discussion of feudal lordship has another, equally important focus, namely the narrow relationship between feudal surplus-extraction and feudal state-building. Given the limited possibilities of enlarging income by colonisation or by the intensified use of already cultivated land, the only alternative to raise income for feudal lords was, sooner or later, to take it from one another. This tendency toward ‘intra-lordly competition and conflict (...) made political accumulation a real necessity’ (Brenner, 1985b: 238). Now, the outcome of this process alone was completely different in England than it was in France. In England the monarchy regained its strength within a century after the Norman conquest. This meant that the fate of the high aristocracy - the baronial class was from early on narrowly tied to the emerging state. In its turn, the Crown, while denying ‘banal rights’ to lords, had to recognise their private property rights to their manors, inclusive of a strong grip on their unfree tenants - which was quite untypical for what was happening elsewhere in western Europe at that time. In that way, ‘succesful decentralised feudal surplus extraction - that is, serfdom - was ensured’. In France, on the other hand, where ‘lordly disorganization’ led to peasant freedom and to free peasant property backed-up by the monarchy, centralised surplus extraction from the thirteenth century onwards got the upper hand over decentralised extraction by (banal) lords. This whole development ‘served to reorganize the aristocracy: it brought the lesser lords into dependence on royal office and induced the greater ones to come to court to ally themselves with the monarchy’ (Brenner, 1985b: 260-264, quotes from 264).15 What seems most relevant to this volume is that things change when the state is introduced in the debate, because state boundaries alter both unit and scale of analysis. Whereas the story of path dependency thus far was bound up with socio-economic structures and the institutional arrangements surrounding them, fitting those to the Procrustean bed of territorial states could easily frustrate any attempt at generalisations. To what extent could late medieval and early modem states indeed, by ‘rallying’ the support of specific groups or ‘backing up’ specific legal statuses, interfere with often deeply embedded structural features of rural society? And was military competition between states indeed capable, as De Vries states, of ‘weeding out’ inefficient economic institutions? No, says Brenner, who argues the other way round that ‘states based on more backward economies might easily defeat, or at least badly damage, those rooted in more advanced economies, as with absolutist France vis à vis republican and progressive Holland’ (Brenner, this volume: 295). One of the reasons was the sheer difference in territorial scale; another was given by Tilly, who modelled out that the better early modern states succeeded in concentrating capital, the lower their concentration of coercive means was, and vice versa (Tilly, 1990: 60 [fig. 2.7]).16 We fully agree with Brenner on this point, but, on the other hand, subscribe to De Vries’ conviction that interstate competition during the Early Modem Period did stimulate, certainly since the 15 Initially Brenner suggested that the centralised state acted almost like ‘an independent class­ like extractor of surplus’ (Brenner, 1985a: 55). Guy B ois disagreed with this view. Just as did for instance Perry Anderson, he rather saw the state as an ‘instrument o f feudalism’, that worked ‘to the almost exclusive advantage o f the seigneurial class’, even if it competed with - and thereby weakened - seigneurial extraction (Bois, 1985: 111; cf. also Mooers, 1991: 56). In his final reply, Brenner gave in on this point (Brenner, 1985b: 262-263 and note 87). 16 The main explanatory factor Tilly suggests is urbanisation/ urban density.

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rise of mercantilist thought and practice in the sixteenth century, the search for more efficient institutions. That is why the social and economic history of early modem Europe reveals traces of both path dependency - the medieval institutional legacy that governed the superstructure of Ancien Régime society - and structural change. The competition between the European states is anyhow regarded as one of the defining features of early modem economic development. It placed a dilemma before mlers in­ clined toward absolutist power: any violations of private property rights dictated by short term considerations of raison d’état weakened the economy, but creating institutions that would safeguard property rights, and thereby strengthen long-term economic development, limited the degree to which they could exploit the economy at their own will. Since most mlers most of the time were only focused on the short-term results of their policies - how to raise sufficient men of war, horses and canons to fight the next war, irrespective of the economic interests at stake - there seems to be broad agreement between Marxists (Brenner), institutional economists (North) and ‘Smithian’ economic historians (Jones) that such predator states posed a serious threat to economic development. To prevent states from becoming predatory, they had to be restructured so as to serve the private interests of the dominant owning classes. This happened in England and the Dutch Republic, but not in France. In England the monarchy from early on became the agent of the landowning nobility, even if the kings during some periods, as in the 1630’s and 1670’s-1680’s, tried to regain absolutist preponderance. In Holland, the struggle for dominance over the state had already been decided around 1575, but in favour of the merchant class. Once the owning class - whether landowning or merchant - was in control, the possibilities of the state to levy taxes, and borrow money at low interest rates increased significantly. By implication it was not so much the level of taxation (or ‘centralised surplus-extraction’) in itself that mattered - in England and the Republic taxes in the eighteenth century were much higher than in France - but the commitment of the state to transparent rules of political play as well as to the upholding of property rights. The reason why this whole development contributed to a much further lowering of transaction costs in England than it did in the Dutch Republic - and so only in England helped to pave the road to sustained economic growth - has to be sought in the English state’s superior efficiency in implementing its decisions, certainly from the end of the seven­ teenth century onwards. The working of the English state was not thwarted by a ‘towering pyramid of inherited and newly established powers and jurisdictions’, which gave local and regional authorities and corporative bodies ‘vast margins of political manoeuvre and, indeed, independence’ in their dealings with the political centre, as was the case in both the Republic and absolutist France (Epstein, 1994:12-17). From that institutionalist point of view, France succeeded in exploiting its large scale and high degree of centralism only to a limited degree. It may have reached some reduction of transaction costs and promoted some expansion of regional trade by creating larger units for exchange in which common rules were applied and communications within larger territories enhanced. It also may have given a more adequate military and political backing to its merchants and industrial entrepreneurs, needed because the differences between trade and war were often only marginal and all large merchant empires were built as much on military power as on economic superiority.

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But, as suggested above, it proves to be extremely difficult to link such changes in surplus extraction systems following from state policies directly to shifts in social property relations answering as much to regional as to ‘national’ institutions.

VII. Conclusion The Brenner thesis tries to explain the absence of sustained economic growth narrowed down by Brenner in his contribution to this volume to ‘the sustained growth of agricultural labor productivity’ (Brenner, this volume: 277) - in Europe between ca. 1300 and 1800, that is to say in a preindustrial world where markets, towns and commercialisation were not lacking. Without denying their merits, Brenner’s main goal has always been to supplement the two most authoritative explanatory models in post­ war historiography - the neo-Smithian commercialisation model and the neo-Malthusian demographic homeostasis model - with an analysis of social property relations from the (neo-)Marxist perspective of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. From this perspective the two main research targets are the struggle between (land)lords and peasants over property rights to land, and the transformation of the feudal surplusextraction system under the impact of demographic, economic and political changes during the waning of the Middle Ages. For only after the peasants had been dispossessed of their main means of production (land), and their labour commodified by destroying serfdom - and with it the classical feudal regime of non-economic surplus extraction a breeding ground for (agrarian) capitalism was created. In various articles Brenner has made it clear that although everywhere in Europe both transformative processes were set in motion even before 1300, only in England was the final goal reached. Brenner’s logical explanation was that elsewhere the road to capitalism was blocked by either features of peasant economies that kept (too many) peasants in possession of (too much of) their land, or by changes in the surplus-extraction regime that instead of removing mechanisms of non-economic or ‘political’ pressure replaced them by others. Our article was first of all meant as an attempt to rephrase the Brenner thesis in the neo-institutionalist vocabulary that is more palatable to the recent economic-historical taste. At the same time, however, it must be clear that the quintessential questions on social and economic change in late medieval and early modern Europe that Brenner has raised, are still valid and alive. Updating them does not mean throwing them carelessly into history’s dust bin. On the contrary, by ‘translating’ them we have tried to show how closely these questions are related to the tenets of institutionalism. Our second objective was to critically discuss four elements of the Brenner thesis that seem to us to be most relevant to the case of the Low Countries. First the strong degree of path dependency inherent to the Brenner thesis - and to the other models just mentioned, for that matter. Besides the warning that path-dependent reasoning should not make us turn a blind eye to contingent development, it may help us understand why the meso- or regional level of economic-historical analysis has proved to be so rewarding, as can be inferred from the impressive output of regional-historical monographs by the so-called ‘Wageningen School’ and others in postwar Dutch historiography (for a fairly recent overview in English: Wintle, 1991: 65-73). It has lent, we think, strong empirical support for the view that Europe in the late medieval and early modern period was very much

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regionalised. Each region was characterised by an interlocking set of institutions that, within a broader context of demographic evolution, social property structure, and dynamics of state formation, gave shape to a specific developmental trajectory between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. The nature and working of these institutions, in their turn, determined to a larger or lesser extent the advance of commercialisation and the growth of a rural labour market - maybe the two most fundamental agents of change in the rural economy and society of preindustrial Europe. Where commerciali­ sation did not make headway, as in large parts of Western Europe during the late medieval and early modem periods, this was probably due to the continued existence of inefficient institutions (in which, for instance, property rights were not respected), related to ‘feudal’ surplus-extraction based on extra-economic coercion. The second element regards our criticism of Brenner’s contention that the (peculiar) English road to agrarian capitalism has been the only successful one. We pointed out that a) other varieties of agrarian capitalism - some of them, as we shall see in more detail in several contributions to this volume, particularly flourishing in early modern Holland - had the same potential; and b) there were certain impediments to the full deployment of agrarian capitalism, arising partly from the ‘logic’ of peasant economies, partly from the nature of agriculture as a production process itself. As for labour supply - the third element - the case of the Low Countries seems again to have been more complicated than Brenner was until now willing to admit. However, we think that Brenner’s comparative analysis of the importance of non-agrarian wage labour to rural incomes in his contribution to our volume is of great interest. Especially Brenner’s proposal to distinguish the ‘means of subsistence’ (i.e. land capable of directly - with­ out exchanges taking place - sustaining a peasant family) from the orthodox Marxist concept of ‘means of production’ (i.e. land, capital, and labour) has proved to be illumi­ nating for the comparison between Flanders and Holland. Where, as in Holland, peasants got separated from their full means of subsistence, this did not mean they were at the same time dispossessed of all their land, or their labour and (agrarian) capital, for that matter. On the one hand, it made Dutch peasants dependent on the market, but at the same time it did not turn them into proletarians, obliged to sell (all) their labour power (Brenner, this volume). Finally we paid some serious attention to an element that is quite pivotal to the Brenner thesis: the (changing) role of states as central surplus extractors, and consequently, in promoting or blocking agrarian capitalist development. Our approach was centred around the concept of ‘institutional efficiency’ and our line of reasoning was that in early mo­ dern Holland a high concentration of capital and political dominance of the merchant class kept state rapacity in check and fostered institutional efficiency far more than could be the case in Flanders and Brabant. On the other hand, due to its particularistic tradition Holland never reached the level of institutional efficiency that England was able to attain from the late seventeenth century onwards. We doubted, however, whether this would have made the difference in productivity growth in agriculture in connection with changed, capitalist social property relations. We have stressed repeatedly that long­ term shifts in social property relations must be seen at least as much against a regional agrarian-institutional background as within the setting of territorial state formation.

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In the end, therefore, this volume offers only a beginning. Each and every of its contributions make us realise how limited our knowledge of the main variables of the Brenner thesis for the late medieval and early modern history of the Low Countries remains. What we know about social property relations has as many gaps as what we know about the nature of economic versus non-economic pressure behind surplusextraction - or, put differently, about the pressure as well as social redistribution of land rents and taxes.

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landseconomie in het westelijke gedeelte van het Gelderse rivierengebied, ca. 1300-ca. 1570, Hilversum. Bois, G. (1985) ‘Against the Neo-Malthusian orthodoxy’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 107-118. [orig. 1978] Bois, G. (1992) The transformation of the year one thousand. The village ofLournand from antiquity to feudalism, Manchester, [orig. French 1989] Brenner, R. (1977) ‘The origins of capitalist development: a critique of neo-Smithian Marxism’, New Left Review, 104, pp. 25-92. Brenner, R. (1978) ‘Dobb on the transition from feudalism to capitalism’, Journal of Economics, 2, pp. 121-140. Brenner, R. (1985a) ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 10-63. [orig. 1976] Brenner, R. (1985b) ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 213-327. [orig. 1982] Brenner, R. (1985c) ‘The social basis of economic development’, in J. Roemer (ed.), Analytical Marxism, Cambridge, pp. 23-53. Brenner, R. (1989) ‘Bourgeois revolution and transition to capitalism’, in A.L. Beier, D. Cennadine and J.M. Rosenheim (eds), The First Modern Society. Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone, Cambridge, pp. 271-304. Brenner, R. (1997) ‘Property relations and the growth of agricultural productivity in late medieval and early modern Europe’, in A. Bhaduri and R. Skarstein (eds), Economic Development and Agricultural Productivity, Cheltenham/Lyme, pp. 9-43.

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Hoyle, R.W. (1990) ‘Tenure and the land market in early modem England: or a late con­ tribution to the Brenner debate’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 43, pp. 1-20. Kaye, H J. (1986) ‘From feudalism to capitalism: the debate goes on’, Peasant Studies, 13, pp. 171-180. Klima, A. (1985) ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Bohemia’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 192-212. [orig. 1979] Kraker, A.M.J. de (1997 )Landschap uit baians. De invloed van de natuur, de economie

en de poiitiek op de ontwikkeling van het landschap in de Vier Ambachten en het Land van Saeftinghe tussen 1488 en 1609, Utrecht. Lachmann, R. (1987) From manor to market. Structural change in England, 15361640, Madison/London. Mooers, C. (1991) The making o f bourgeois Europe. Absolutism, revolution, and the rise of capitalism in England, France and Germany, London/New York. Moriceau, J.-M. (1994) Les fermiers de l ’île de France: l ’ascension d ’un patronat agricole (XVe-XVJIIe siècle), [Paris], O ’Brien, P. (1996) ‘Path dependency, or why Britain became an industrialized and urbanized economy long before France’, Economic History Review, 49, pp. 213-249. Ogilvie, S.C. and Cerman, M. (1996a) ‘Proto-industrialization, economic development and social change in early modem Europe’, in S.C. Ogilvie and M. Cerman (eds), European Proto-industrialization, Cambridge, pp. 227-239. Ogilvie, S.C. and Cerman, M. (1996b) ‘The theories of proto-industrialization’, in Ogilvie and Cerman, European Proto-industrialization, o.c., pp. 1—11. Overton, M. (1996) Agricultural Revolution inEngland. The transformation of the agra­ rian economy 1500-1850, Cambridge. Ploeg, J.D. van der (1991) Landbouw als mensenwerk. Arbeid en technologie in de agrarische ontwikkeling, Muiderberg. Postan, M.M. and Hatcher, J. (1985) ‘Population and class relations in feudal society’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 64-78. [orig. 1978] Priester, P. (1998) Geschiedenis van de Zeeuwse landbouw, circa 1600—1910, Wageningen. Rigby, S.H. (1995) English society in the Later Middle Ages. Class, status and gender, Basingstoke/London. Roessingh, H.K. (197 6)Inlandse tabak. Expansie en contractie van een handelsgewas in de 17e en 18e eeuw in Nederland, Wageningen. Schmitt, G. (1988) ‘Ein bedeutender Agrarökonom ist wieder zu entdecken: Alexander Tschajanow’, Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, 36, pp. 185-216. Seccombe, W. (1992) A millennium o f family change. Feudalism to capitalism in Northwestern Europe, London/New York. Smith, R.M. (1991) ‘Demographic developments in rural England, 1300-1348: a survey’, in Campbell, Before the Black Death, o.c., pp. 25-77. Thompson, B. (1999) ‘Robert Brenner, 1943- ’, in K. Boyd (gen.ed .), Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. 2 vols, London/Chicago, sub ‘B ’, pp. 124-125.

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Tilly, Ch. (1990) Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990-1992, Cambridge Mass./Oxford. Vandenbroeke, C. (1996) ‘Proto-industry in Flanders: a critical review’, in Ogilvie and Cerman, European Proto-industrialization, o.c., pp. 102-117. Vries, J. de (1973) ‘On the modernity of the Dutch Republic’, Journal of Economic His­ tory, 33, pp. 191-202 Vries, J. de (1974) The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, 1500—1700, New Haven/ London. Vries, J. de and Van der Woude, A. (1995) Nederland 1500-1815. De eerste ronde van moderne economische groei, Amsterdam. [English translation: The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy 1500-1815, Cambridge, 1997] Wallerstein, I. (1974) ‘From Feudalism to Capitalism: Transition or Transitions’. Revised version of a paper delivered at the American Historical Association Meetings, Chicago, December 28-30. Wintle, M. (1991) ‘Agrarian history in The Netherlands in the Modern Period; a review and a bibliography’, The Agricultural History Review, 39, pp. 65-73. Wunder, H. (1985) ‘Peasant organization and class conflict in eastern and western Germany’, in Aston and Philpin, The Brenner debate, o.c., pp. 91-100. [orig. 1978] Zanden, J.L. van (1991) Arbeid tijdens het handelskapitalisme. Opkomst en neergang van de Hollandse economie 1350-1850, Bergen. [English translation: The rise and decline of Holland’s economy, Manchester/New York, 1993] Zanden, J.L. van (1999) ‘The paradox of the marks. The exploitation of commons in the Eastern Netherlands 1250-1850 ’, Agricultural History Review, 47, pp. 125-144. Zeehuisen, J. (1851) ‘Statistieke bijdrage tot de kennis van den stoffelijken en zedelijken toestand van de landbouwende klasse in het kwartier van Salland, provinde Overijssel’, S .I., repr. in J.L. van Zanden (1991) “Den zedelijken en materiëlen toestand der arbeidende bevolking ten platten lande.” Een reeks rapporten uit 1851, Groningen.

40

3

Mapping an unexplored field. The Brenner debate and the case of Holland Peter H oppenbrouwers, University of Amsterdam

I.

Introduction

Since the appearance of Brenner’s first article many pages have been filled with critical discussions of its content but the remarkable economic and social history of the Low Countries during the later medieval and early modern period has as yet been consigned to scattered remarks in footnotes. Unjustly so, because central to it are exactly the kind of questions of socio-economic transformation related to urbanisation that constitute, according to S.R. Epstein, the underbelly in Brenner’s argument (Epstein, 1991: 3-4). Shortly considering ‘the Dutch case’ Brenner brushed it aside as the exception that proved the rule. In Holland there would ‘never’ have been a) ‘a strongly rooted lordly class capable of extracting a surplus by means of extra-economic compulsion’, nor b) ‘a traditional, “possessing” peasantry with direct, non-market access to its means of subsistence’. The Dutch social-property structure at the start of the early modem period would have had a fundamentally ‘non-feudal’ and ‘non-peasant’ character, lying thus open to urban market pressures (Brenner, 1985b: 319-320; italic supplied). Nevertheless, in the end, when the English economy took a definitive lead of the Continent, even its ‘most advanced region, the United Provinces’ showed a ‘constricted developmental path’ dependent as its industrial and transport sectors remained ‘upon the general growth of the European economy during the sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries’. ‘Enmeshed in what remained an essentially feudal circuit of production, the Dutch economy was slowly strangled [i.e. during the seventeenth century; PH], as that circuit gradually constricted with the onset of “phase B’” (Brenner, 1985b: 325-326). What is of the most interest here, is the first part, in fact Brenner’s summary of Jan de Vries’ The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age. Rather ironically, Brenner’s interpretation of the survey Jan de Vries gave of Dutch social structure around 1500 is diametrically opposed to what some of De Vries’ critics, like Noordegraaf and Van Zanden, made of it. While Brenner assumed from his reading of The Dutch rural economy that mral society in early modem Holland was ‘fundamentally non-peasant’, both Dutch historians precisely objected to De Vries’ representation of mral social structure in terms of a peasant society, and thus in fact endorsed Brenner’s (wrong) assumption (Noorde­ graaf, 1985b: 8-18; Van Zanden, 1988: 82-83)! At least as surprising is Brenner’s - or anyone else’s, for that matter - lack of criticism on the weak explanatory basis of the book. In the introductory chapter De Vries sums up a number of factors that may affect the course of mral development (that is to say, whether directed to specialisation or not), such as field patterns and village structure, soil qualities, legal systems and land tenure rights, attitudes and mentalities, etcetera. One would expect the author to at least

41

P easants into farm ers?

have indicated at the end of his book, which of these factors had, in his view, been responsible for steering the rural economy of the Netherlands coastal areas to specialisation during the ‘Golden Age’. Instead he did not return to this basic issue at all. In my opinion, however, a large explanatory potential for the ‘specialisation model’ is given in De Vries’ excellent outline of the class structure of rural society around 1500 in chapter 2. A closing chapter, dedicated to the changes in class structure between 1500 and 1700 would have given The Dutch rural economy both a more logical and satisfactory (in terms of explanation) finale. Now the chapter on class structure stands too isolated from the others and serves mainly to shade the Malthusian segment of the story (De Vries, 1974: 79-80). Brenner could have put his finger on this weakness, but he did not. Nevertheless, it will be clear that in order to view the later medieval and early modem history of Hol­ land through a Brennerian looking-glass, we must try to link the urban factor with the three historical preconditions Brenner pointed out as most fundamental to the restruc­ turing of the social-property- and surplus-extraction relations, or, in a broader perspective, to the transition from feudalism to capitalism: first the decline of serfdom, next the ‘short-circuiting of the emerging predominance of small peasant property’ and finally the obstruction of the substitution of a new mechanism of non-economic or ‘political’ coercion (sc. heavy state taxation) for the old one (sc. serfdom). In between, where the argument, so to speak, demands, we will focus our attention to closely related phenomena such as the prolétarisation of peasant labour, the accumulation of land and capital and the extension of expansive investment in agriculture.

II. The decline of serfdom and the expropriation of the peasantry The Dutch case seems to strongly validate Brenner’s view that the emancipation of the medieval European peasants hardly depended on urban support. The Dutch peasantry - on the assumption that there was one - shed its servile fetters almost completely even before urbanisation was really getting on. Yet, this is by no means synonymous to saying that ‘there had never been a strongly rooted lordly class’, as did Brenner. Surely, enough remnants of serfdom and of the functioning of a manorial system in Holland (though maybe not in its ‘classical’, bipartite form) have been brought to light, especially on the sandy and loamy soils along the coast and the larger rivers, the oldest inhabited parts of Holland. We also know for sure that the thirteenth century counts of Holland had to rely on a strong regional nobility while expanding their power over new territory. We should therefore wonder why feudal class structure disintegrated so early and how this altered peasant property rights in the short as well as in the long run. One of the explanations traditionally put forward is the large-scale opening up of the vast peat- and clay tracts of the coastal areas of the Low Countries during the medieval period of expansion. As far as the reclaimed lands were virgin territory to be newly colonised, serfdom and manorial relations were absent from the beginning, and this probably promoted emancipation in the ‘old land’ (Van der Linden, 1982: 75-76; cf. Tebrake, 1985: 225-228). It is, however, more difficult to link the emancipation of the peasantry to its expropriation. In addition to personal freedom, the reclamation movement

42

M apping an unexplored field. The Brenner debate and the case o f H olland

provided the peasants in the end with very strong property rights to land. There is no evidence at all that in Holland the traditional lords have tried to participate in the expansion movement by retightening their hold on the land, old and reclaimed alike, and by rationalising its exploitation, such as can be seen in Flanders and Brabant (Verhulst, 1990:74-76). According to a well-known (although not entirely undisputed) theory of law historian H. van der Linden, the two main territorial princes of the region, the counts of Holland and the bishops of Utrecht, managed to control the reclamation and colonisation of the vast peat-bog wilderness of the western Netherlands to a large extent. The principal aim would not have been the formation of large landed demesnes, but to establish public and ‘territorialised’ authority. In exchange for their recognition of the public authority and high justice of the count (or bishop) and for the guarantee of their personal freedom, the peasant colonists paid a fixed fee for the possession of the new land. In the older peat settlements this fee represented from the start a negligible amount of money with only symbolic value, in the younger colonies the fees were higher (but even so fixed) and went to function as a general land tax. Gradually such signs of the ‘new social order’ would have been transplanted to the old land as well. According to Van der Linden, the colonists must have been regarded from the start as the virtual owners of the reclaimed land (Van der Linden, 1982: 69-78). In this way the reclamation ‘movement’ can be justly described as a form of feudal development in the Marxian sense as it offers an example of extensive economic growth and played a part in the feudal state-building process (political accumulation) as well (Brenner, 1985b: 236-239). But we should keep in mind that this is only one side of the story. Without wanting to ascribe magic qualities capable of explaining almost everything in which Holland differs from the rest of the world to the peat reclamations and their ecological, institutional and economic consequences, we have to admit that at the same time they carried the seeds of some typically now-feudal evolutions: as a result of the early commodification of land in the wake of the peat reclamations, the peasantry of Holland was relatively early subject to (internal) polarisation and peasant- (‘petty’) as well as non-peasant accumulation of land. Potentially, this situation paved the road to a specific type of rural-capitalist develop­ ment quite early, fostering specialisation and employment of wage labour, as well as generating competitive land and land lease markets, and expansive investments in land. The question remains to what extent and in what direction this potential was drawn on during the later medieval and early modem period. In Brenner’s terms much depended on the evolution of first the social property relations, and second the surplus-extraction structure. Therefore, we will have a successively closer look into the social distribution of landed property, its size-structure and - quite dissimilarly - the size-structure of farms, the accessibility of labour and capital and finally some key-factors underlying changes in the surplus extraction system.

43

P easants into farm ers?

III. The social distribution of landed property at the beginning of the Early Modern Period From the start of the sixteenth century we can follow in detail the development of the social struggle over what by then can be called landownership. Jan de Vries summarised the most important data (De Vries, 1974: 34-67). According to the Informacie, a village-by-village survey ordered by the Habsburg government in 1514, the peasants owned little over 40 percent of all the cultivated land in the county of Holland. This number may have (heavily?) underestimated reality, as we can deduce from comparison with more complete statistics from the middle of the sixteenth century. For instance, peasant proprietorship in the core-district of Holland, Rijnland, totals some 30 percent in the Informacie (Naber, 1985: 42-43; Briinner, 1923: 35-55, 71 table). The very detailed and reliable Morgenboeken of the high drainage board of Rijnland over the years 15401544, however, would indicate at least double this amount, which certainly cannot be entirely ascribed to a sudden peasant land hunger in the intermediate years. If on the whole peasant-owned land in the early-modern period came to say half of the cultivated area, this would place Holland somewhere between England and France - though much closer to the former than to the latter (Brenner, 1985b: 247). In that sense peasant landownership seems to have been indeed ‘short-circuited’ rather effectively. Other than in England, however, the beneficiaries of this development were certainly not the traditional feudal lords. According to estimates of De Vries and Van Nierop, the nobility would have owned, around the middle of the sixteenth century, no more than about 5 percent, religious and charitable institutions somewhat over 10 percent and private townsmen somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of all cultivated land (Van Nierop, 1984: 111—112).1 Rough as these estimates may be, they unmistakably point to the townsmen as the victors and the feudal nobility as the (relative) loser of the struggle over landownership. It remains difficult, however, to give a detailed chronological account of this struggle and to tell at whose expense urban landownership had expanded during the late Middle Ages. Certainly, the nobility, not the towns and their burghers paid the higher price for the political turmoil and the wars by which Holland was chronically scourged during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But with regard to this period I agree with what Van Nierop observed for a later one: that the theme of the declining nobility versus a rising bourgeoisie should not be emphasised too greatly (Van Nierop, 1984: 295, note 3 to chapter 5). The core nobility of Holland, consisting of those noblemen belonging to the knighthood (ridderscap), may have even been revitalised considerably during the fifteenth century. From data recently collected by Janse we can infer that in the closing years of the fourteenth century the knighthood of Holland counted about 85 members (calculated from Janse, 1993: 258, table 8; 400-401, annex 4). That would have been about 20 more than a century before12, while Van Nierop estimated the total number of 1 Note that this calculation leaves up to 15 percent uncovered. Cf. Brand, 1996: 211, who rather deftly pins down rural land ownership by (private) townsmen at 30% around 1500. 2 Personal communication o f Antheun Janse, who is currently working on a comprehensive study o f the medieval nobility o f Holland.

44

M apping an unexplored field. The Brenner debate and the case o f H olland

male adult noblemen in Holland along the first half of the sixteenth century at on ave­ rage 200,150 of whom were of old Dutch origin, making up with their families maybe 3 to 3.5 per thousand of the total population. By then they owned on average something near 150 acres per male adult, which is not very much when compared to noble large landownership in other European countries (Van Nierop, 1984: 59,112; see also Kok­ ken, 1991: 31). In relation to the possession of land, the Dutch nobility probably had a structurally weak position with quite a long history. A number of reasons can be produced. First, the possession of jurisdictional (seigneurial) rights by noblemen generally was not coupled with (large) landownership within the same jurisdiction. This increased the danger of disintegration or loss of landed possessions (e.g. Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b: 348-349). Second, the old noble estates seem to have lacked the large demesnes (réserves) which provided the English lords with the perfect spring board to the expansion of their ownership to land from the sixteenth century onwards. A third point of relevance here may be that already in the fourteenth century many Dutch noblemen were not that de­ pendent on rent income from (cultivated) land anymore. A good example is the incomestructure of the lordship of Putten and Strijen, core-possession of one of the leading noble families of Holland. Of a total revenue in 1379 of about 600 pound groats, little over a quarter came from land leases and other land rents, a further fifth from tithes, but more than 40 percent from banalités, from leases of fisheries, fowling and reed lands, and from rights to out-dike waste lands (calculated from Van der Gouw, 1980:1-25). In the following years this ratio would be even higher, as the lords of Putten and Strijen began to engage in the very profitable leasing of so-called peat dikes (moerdijken), used for the winning of salt by the burning of salt-impregnated peat. Much the same story could be told of the possessions of what was without a shadow of doubt the richest nobleman of Holland in the first half of the fourteenth century, William of Duvenvoorde, lord of Oosterhout. There can be no mistake about Duvenvoorde being a large landowner, but his landed possessions were widely dispersed, each taken separately was relatively small. The total income from them must have been dwarfed by the money made from jurisdictional rights and peat digging concessions in the extensive waste peat-grounds he owned in the border area between Holland and Brabant (cf. Brokken, 1982: 231237). Considering these cases (and more could be easily added), the income of the Dutch nobility must have been drastically restructured during the fifteenth century, as Van Nierop established that in the sixteenth century land was the most important source of income for the majority of the nobility (Van Nierop, 1984:109). Even less solid than the position of the nobility in terms of large landownership was that of the monasteries, the other important segment of what (neo-)Marxism has coined the feudal lords. The Benedictine abbeys of Egmond and Rijnsburg, generally considered as the two most illustrious religious houses in the county of Holland, may have owned something like 2,500 and 1,500 hectares of land respectively (Hof, 1973: 437)3, which made them large but not huge landowners, certainly not in comparison to their English counterparts. Still, with landownership of this size, the two old monasteries stood out 3 H of calculated a total o f some 2,700 hectares for the beginning o f the sixteenth century, but he counted land given out by the abbot infeodo as property of the abbey. I do not agree on this point.

45

P easants into farm ers?

clearly in the county and were probably only rivalled by the Premonstratensian abbey of Berne in the Land van Heusden. The latter owned some 3,000 hectares, but more than two-thirds were situated in the duchy of Brabant (Van Dijk, 1970). Also of the ‘new orders’, the Cistercian women convent called Leeuwenhorst (near Noordwijk), came close to Rijnsburg with approximately 1,300 hectares (De Moor, 1994:331-332). But all others had much less. If most of the Dutch towns go back to the thirteenth century (which makes their appearance, as I said, relatively late), the process of urbanisation was sped up dramatically in the second half of the fourteenth century. De Boer has estimated the urban population of Holland around 1350 at 60,000 persons, about 23 percent of the - again, estimated total population of the county (De Boer, 1988: 31-34). In 1514 the total population of close to 270,000 would have been hardly larger than it had supposedly been one and a half century before. But the urban part had more than doubled to an ample 125,000 persons (Blockmans, 1980: 44). Practically from the moment towns are mentioned in written sources, there are reports of townsmen buying land in the countryside (Van Herwijnen, 1988: 23). Of course it was first and foremost the urban elite that seized its opportunities on the land market. Van Kan has shown that already before 1330 about one third of the area between the rivulets Old Vliet and Zwiet near the village of Zoeterwoude was in the hands of leading families from Leiden (Van Kan, 1988: 61-63, table 1). In the Heusden countryside I could trace, from the second half of the fourteenth century, landed possessions of 40 percent of all aldermen (scabini) of Heusden town in fact many more must have owned land, as the documentation was highly incomplete (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b, 368). Later, urban landownership must have become far more widespread in social terms. Of the 280 citizens (heads of households) the small town of Heusden counted in 1543, 37 (13%) owned 30 percent of the land in the neighbouring village of Herpt alone (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b, 366,369). The same close correlation between scale of urban landownership and distance to the town has been established for (compared to Heusden) huge cities like Dordrecht, Delft and Utrecht.4 Whether the expansion of urban landownership (that is landownership of both pri­ vate townsmen and urban religious and charitable institutions) was accomplished chiefly at the expense of the peasantry remains to be seen. More research is needed on this point. For the Land van Heusden it is plausible that peasant landownership did not, on the whole, suffer substantial losses (nor for that matter did it make large advances) between the end of the fourteenth and the middle of the sixteenth century (Hoppen­ brouwers, 1992b: 653-654). All we can say for sure is that so far as peasant landownership tended to advance with the peat reclamations and the clearing up of the last remnants of serfdom, this advance has been checked not by the feudal lords, nor by that other traditional large landowner, the old abbeys, but by urban capital, invested by private burghers and - not to be forgotten - countless urban religious and charitable founda­ tions of smaller dimensions.5 4 Dordrecht: Van Rees, s.d.: 124; Utrecht: De Vries, 1974: 47, table 2.3.; Delft: see text below. 5 According to a recent count by C. Doedeijns, who is preparing a Ph.D. on monasteries in the Rijnland district in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there must have been over 220 religious houses in Holland in the decades around 1500.

46

M apping an unexplored field. The Brenner debate and the case o f H olland

An important consequence of this ‘popularisation’ of urban landownership was no doubt its small average size (cf. Van der Woude, 1982: 203). The landed possessions of the aforementioned 37 Heusden burghers owning land in Herpt in 1543, for instance, amounted to no more than an average of 10 acres. Slightly larger - 1 3 to 14 acres - was the average size of urban possessions found in the villages surrounding Delft, one of the largest towns of Holland, where in 1561 burghers of Delft, Schiedam and The Hague owned over one-third of all the land (Verbürg, 1996:1,23, Figure 4 and 1,41; Claessens, 2000: 28, 33 and Annexe 3). Doubtless, the Tiende Penning-kohieren (land-tax regis­ ters) of ca. 1550 will provide many other examples.6And because landownership of the nobility and religious and charitable institutions prove to have been relatively small­ sized and dispersed as well, this must have placed peasants in a favourable position for negotiation on various land markets. In that way plenty of opportunity for ‘petty’ (or peasant-) accumulation arose. This was only one of the inroads massive urban landowner­ ship opened into feudal relations of production. Another, probably even more important track was the short-term leasing of land on competitive terms. It started to penetrate landlord-peasant relations on the continent from as early as the middle of the thirteenth century - a fact overlooked by Brenner - as much in the wake of the dissolution of classical forms of manorial exploitation as following the spread of urban landownership. I shall get back to this point in due time.

IV. Forms and scale of capitalist farming If the main shift in social property relations in Holland were indeed the transference of considerable amounts of land from traditional ‘feudal’ large landowners to urban investors, and richer peasants had ample opportunities to enlarge their holdings, the next question would be whether this generated or stimulated modem agrarian-capitalist development. As far as we can see it did, although not exclusively - or not primarily in the typical, three-tiered form that came to prevail in early modem England. Rather, four distinct types emerge from a survey of the material available for the sixteenth century. They can be tabulated as follows:

Table 3.1

Forms of agrarian capitalism in Holland (Early Modern Period)

Type

Organisation of production

Simple two-tiered Semi three-tiered/1

1) farmer is full owner; 2) hired labourers. 1) farmer is partly owner, partly tenant (leaseholder); 2) hired labourers. 1) owner is agrarian entrepreneur; 2) farmer is hired manager; 3) hired labourers. 1) owner is provider of land and capital; 2) farmer is tenant (leaseholder) & organiser of production; 3) hired labourers.

Semi three-tiered/2 Full three-tiered (English type)

6 Quite a few have been edited by now, but they remain to be analysed. For a survey o f all extant registers and editions: Bos-Rops, 1997: 30-36).

47

P easants into farm ers?

In its simple two-tiered version commercially operating farmer-owners of large farms regularly employ or hire farm labourers. The classical example has been produced for the coastal province of Friesland by B.H. Slicher van Bath: Rienck Hemmema of Hitsum, whom we know so well thanks to the account book he kept during the enervating war years 1569-1573. Hemmema owned about 25 hectares, one-third arable, two-thirds pasture, and only occasionally rented additional small plots. He produced wheat, barley, pulses, butter and cheese for the regional market of Franeker, employed on average five farmhands and maids and continually tried to improve his business, among other by purchasing manure and by investing in improvements of the farm buildings (Slicher van Bath, 1958). The second version is often found in early modem Holland, where commercial dairy farmers more often than not had to lease land in addition to the land they owned in order to build-up large enough farms to attain some economies of scale. This was what happened in for instance the villages of Overschie (near Rotterdam), and in the relatively well-studied Delft area. In the five villages in the immedeate surroundings of Delft there were, in 1561, about 40 local landowners with over 10 morgens (ca. 9 hectares) of property who leased additional land, up to 65 morgen (ca. 60 hectares). This created farms, with lands that were partly owned, partly rented, of between about 25 and 70 hectares. Slichtly larger sizes have been attested for three villages a bit further distanced from Delft: Zoutveen, Kethel and Spaland.7 From a detailled study of the so-called Westland - the area west of Delft - in the same period it has appeared that farms of that size usually had several farmhands and maids who were living in the farmhouse (Duifhuizen, 1977: 6-7).8 From the same period emerges a third type of agrarian capitalism, which must have been relatively rare, but is nevertheless interesting because it implies an early conception of farms as business enterprises. A striking example can be found in the business papers of the Leiden merchant Daniel van der Meulen. They contain a very detailed book keeping of a large polder farm in southwest Holland (present province of Northern Brabant). The accounts refer to the years 1584-1590. In that time, Van der Meulen acted as a solicitor for his brother-in-law, the rich Antwerp merchant Lois Malapert, who had not long before purchased two lots of about 32.5 hectares each in the reclamations near the new fortress town Willemstad, bordering the Hollandse Diep to the south-west of Dordrecht. The 65 hectares were not leased to a tenant, but kept in direct exploitation. The business was run by a manager on the spot, who was in the pay of the absent owner and had to account yearly for all the work done. It goes without saying that this was a highly commercialised farm, in constant need of many farm hands and growing a wide 7 For Overschie: Voskuil, 1982: 8-9; for the five villages close to Delft: Claessens, 2000: 45 and Annexes 4-6; for Zouteveen: Ham, 1977; for Kethel and Spaland: Verbürg, 1996: I, 141-142. Baars, 1986:123 even mentions the case of a farmer from Oud-Beijerland (in the Hoekse Waard polder area west of Dordrecht), who owned a farm o f 18 hectares, and in addition leased several other farms. The total amount o f land which he operated was about 145 hectares! But this is a case from a considerably later date, around 1650. 8 1 am grateful to professor emeritus J. Woltjer for having placed his copy o f this thesis at my disposal.

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range of products (seventeen arable products alone) for the markets of Middelburg and Leiden.9 The fourth and final version is represented by the classical English type of three­ tiered agrarian capitalism, where large landowners leased large farms to farmers who worked the farm mainly with rented labour, or contracted subtenants - the sources at our disposal not always allow us to make out which of these two possible solutions was chosen. An example from the Land van Heusden are the leases concerning arables of 35 and 65 hectares respectively, plus additional meadows, awarded in 1426 by the abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Truiden to two farmers, who for the working of such large tracts of land must have contracted either labourers or subtenants (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b: 423-424). In the villages around Delft in 1561 there were some 20 farmers leasing more than 25 morgen (ca. 22 hectare) who owned no land at all or, if they did, owned less than 5 hectares. The largest of their farms measured close to 40 hectares (calculated from Claessens, 2000: Annexes 4 and 6). On the newly endiked lands north of the Hollandse Diep the owners, often noble families from Guelders and Utrecht, created farms including farm buildings towards the end of the sixteenth century measuring between about 13 and 45 hectares (gathered from Baars, 1986:122-135). In my opinion, however, these early cases of agrarian capitalism were still rare in the fifteenth and even sixteenth centuries. As we shall see, even after processes of commercialisation and urbanisation had been sped up in late medieval Holland, small peasant property proved to be very resilient, the build-up of farms of considerable size, on the other hand, a slow and protracted process. By implication a size structure of landed property in which small landownership remained prevalent for the time being logically brought about a farm size-structure dominated by small farms. Indeed, the evidence for farms and/or landholdings in all comers of sixteenth-century Holland being on average small to tiny, is overwhelming. From a large sample of land leases more than 70% was smaller than 4.4 hectares around 1500; in 1600 this percentage had risen to 79% (Kuys and Schoenmakers, 1981:33-34,55-57, Tables 5 and 6; further: e.g. Van Gelder, 1953: 16, 23, 32, 78-79, 146; De Vries, 1974: 63, 66, 132; Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b: Annexe C.c.; DeVries and VanderWoude, 1995: 634-636). Only at a later stage and allegedly under the impact of growing specialisation, accumulation got on its way and relatively larger farms worked by hired labour became more common in the coastal regions of the Dutch Republic, a complex process, well analysed by De Vries. Even then we should not exaggerate the pace and extent of farm-size enlargement. In East Groningen, for instance - from the eighteenth century on the area of agrarian capitalism par excellence in the Netherlands - the majority of land users in 1660 had less than 6 hectares at their disposal and in many villages this had not changed more than half a century later. Between one-third and two-thirds of all private land users were other than those who would later be called gentleman-farmers (hereboeren) - i.e. the possessors of 9 Unpublished manuscript by C.G. van den Hengel. The original material is in the Municipal Archives of Leiden, Collection Daniel van der Meulen. For other examples from the same area: Van den Hengel, 1965 and Baars, 1986: 123 and 133, who mentions two cases in which noble owners o f large farms in the polder area north of the Hollandse Diep alternated between direct exploitation and leasing out.

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large specialised farms (heerden). And in those days the normal heerd measured no more than between 10 and 20 hectares, not enough to make large numbers of hired farmhands necessary (Hoppenbrouwers, 1991). So the question is, why this apparent delay in the formation of large farms and why this resilience of small peasant property? In the following I have examined five possible causes: the elasticity of labour input, proto-industrial development, the labour-intensive nature of agrarian specialisation in Holland, the equal profitability to large and small farmers of quality improvements in agrarian infrastructure and the relatively easy access to (urban) capital.

V.

Factors contributing to the resilience of small peasant property V.l. Elastic labour input and ‘proto-proletarisation’

In every discussion of peasants economics, the elasticity of peasant labour input is seen as an important asset because it shields peasant households from insecurities of the market. If necessary, peasant households make use of family labour at a marginal productivity level below the market wage. Thus, thanks to its capacity for self-exploitation, small family farms ‘require relatively small quantities of additional non-labour resources to result in large gains in additional output. Large farms, in contrast, require large quantities of capital to achieve the same (...)’ (Ellis, 1988: 205-206). Contributing to this elasticity of labour input on peasant holdings in late medieval and early modem Holland was another factor, put forward by Van Zanden in 1988. While accepting De Vries’s representation of the rural economic structure of Holland around 1550 as fundamentally un-specialised, Van Zanden nevertheless rejected its supposed subsistence character (cf. Brenner and De Vries, this volume).101Rather, the mass of the peasants out of necessity combined small-scale agriculture ‘functionally’ with ‘various entirely market-oriented’ non-agricultural activities that were often per­ formed as wage-work. We should think here of a wide variety of things, such as reedand peat cutting, sea- and sweet water fishing, fowling, salt making, ship building, land and water transport, brick making, spinning and weaving and, most of all, of incidental labour on the endless stretches of dikes and ditches that were so typical for the Dutch mral landscape.11 For this reason Van Zanden preferred to define the rural population of 10 It is fair to say that De Vries did not suggest that the Dutch peasant economy had a ‘subsistence’ character, rather the contrary. Cf. De Vries, 1974: 72: ‘This nonspecialisation o f the peasant household does not imply self-sufficiency’. Although one could argue that ‘self-sufficiency’ is not quite the same as ‘subsistence’. Cf. Van Zanden, this volume. 11 For more detailed studies of some of these activities: Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b: 264—272 (various activities); De Boer, 1997 (sweet water fisheries); Van Dam, 1998 (eel fishery); Van Dam, this volume (diking and ditching). The first mentions of rural textile work are fairly late: from the beginning o f the sixteenth century there were regular prohibitions o f spinning and weaving of w ool and linen outside Haarlem, some follow ing explicit complaints about the extension of these activities in the villages surrounding the town. Kaptein, 1 9 9 8:151-152, 214—215. According to

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early modern Holland as ‘proto-proletarian’ rather than as ‘peasant’ (Van Zanden, 1988: 82-83).12 It would have been the long period of falling real wages starting in the last quarter of the fifteenth century that triggered off ‘proto-industrial’ development in the Dutch countryside, while tendencies to scale enlargement, concentration and prolétarisa­ tion in the urban (textile) industries somewhere between 1580 and 1650 brought it to an end (Van Zanden, 1991: 41-53; cf. also Van Zanden, this volume). From that moment also, circumstances became more favourable to the enlargement of farms. In a recent article, De Vries clearly has adjusted his views and arrives at a comparable scenario. He observed a ‘large’ and ‘complex’ ‘casual/ unskilled labour market’ in the maritime zone until the 1620’s, where ‘wage labour [did] fit into the agrarian economy’. Then, ‘the days of this labour market were numbered’ as both labour demand and supply fell, the latter as a consequence of the gradual disappearance of small farms (De Vries, 1993: esp. 58-59 and 65; cf. De Vries and Van der Woude, 1995: 238). Van Zanden elaborated his ideas on the early ‘proto-proletarisation’ of the countryside in his book on the rise and decline of Holland’s economy (Van Zanden, 1991: chapter 1). Central to its thesis is the assumption, grafted on Mokyr’s economic model of protoindustrialisation, that under merchant capitalism the levels of reward for various sorts of (non-agricultural) labour were generally laying below the reproduction-costs of la­ bour.13 Only those forms of labour that had a basis in both production spheres - i.e. agriculture and protoindustry - could be sustained on their own. Oddly enough, although in itself not incompatible with Van Zanden’s ideas, in early modem Holland there seem to have been no differences in wage-levels between town and countryside to speak of (Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1984:26; Noordegraaf, 1985a: 54). DeVries, sticking to the tenets of marginal analysis, attributed this to the high labour productivity in agriculture rather than to the absence of any demographic pressure in the countryside. Consequently, opportunity costs of labour in the rural and urban economies might have been roughly the same; and the same reasoning must then hold for agricultural when comparing it to non-agricultural labour in the rural economy alone (De Vries, 1993,6364; cf. De Vries, discussion in Krantz and Hohenberg, 1975: 56). On the other hand, there were substantial interregional differences in wage payments, which must have affected relative cost prices of both agrarian and non-agrarian products and services (Blockmans, 1993:46-48; also Van Zanden, this volume). From that perspective, Dutch ‘proto-industrialisation’ (in Van Zanden’s sense) was more likely linked with the elasticity of rural labour input and wage differences on an interregional than with demographic pressure or wage differences on the intra-regional (town vs. countryside) level. Kaptein competition from rural textile workers in the surroundings o f Haarlem became really heavy after about 1560. Kaptein, 1998: 225. The earliest prohibitions o f rural linen weaving by the town governments o f Amsterdam and Dordrecht go back to 1459 and 1547 respectively: Kaptein, 1998: 221, 225. Contrary to Flanders, in Holland textile industries in Holland were concentrated in the larger towns, a tendency that was reinforced during the depression o f ca. 1475-1495. Kaptein, 1998: 94. On the background and effectiveness o f urban prohibitions o f rural industries, see Hoppenbrouwers, forthcoming. 12 Some years before, L. Noordegraaf already pointed out that around 1500 ‘the larger part o f the population of Holland’ was (partly) dependent on (additional) wage income. Noordegraaf, 1985a: 55. 13 For a critique on Van Zanden’s use o f the concept of merchant capitalism: Wallerstein, 1995.

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Even so, the factors stimulating proto-industrialisation just mentioned only worked to a certain extent. They were not capable of driving small peasants from their land on a sufficiently massive scale as to make agrarian capitalism predominant. As for the elasticity of rural labour, Klep has rightly articulated that the chronic occurrence of disguised rural un[der]employment in urbanised areas of pre-industrial societies - and we have ample proof that this occurred in Holland as well14- indicates that an extension of non-agrarian employment did not necessarily lead to the [immediate] clearance of all excess labour on peasant (family) farms, not even if it was coupled with an increase in wages. He attributed this phenomenon among other things to certain peculiarities of farm work, such as its highly variable, (sub)-seasonally determined labour demand (cf. chapter 2 of this volume). In Klep’s view this prevented a ‘definite transition to full­ time non-agrarian wage labour’ (Klep, 1981:268-274). The seasonal rhythms of agricul­ ture must have worked to the same effect in other respects as well, leading to cyclical patterns of alternating agrarian and non-agrarian labour input (a field of research well explored in Lucassen, 1982), but also to a sub-optimal use of capital (e.g. looms, fishing boats etc.). One final limiting factor on rural ‘industrialisation’, namely legal barriers thrown up by town governments, will be discussed below.

V.2. The nature of agrarian specialisation and the ‘equal profit’ of collective investments in infrastructure As a third possible cause that may have promoted the resilience of small-scale peasant property I mentioned the nature of specialisation in Dutch agriculture. Since grain production in Holland on any substantial - let alone commercial - scale was foreclosed from about the middle of the fourteenth century onwards due to the subsidence of the drained peat lands, specialisation leaned rather toward labour- than capital-intensive lines (DeBoer, 1978: esp. 211-224 and333-338; Lesger, 1990:75-76; Hoppenbrouwers, 1997: 97-98; Kaptein, 1998: 39-42, with an interesting hypothesis on extensive sheep­ holding on unreclaimed peat lands as a basis for inland wool production). We should think here of dairy farming primarily, often combined with the growing of cash crops like hemp, flax, oilseed or hop, but also of all kinds of specialised horticulture (Bieleman, 1992: 56-76).15 The decisive question we cannot answer is obviously that of the productivity of small-sized farms in comparison with large ones. But given late medieval and early modem techniques - and limited possibilities to substitute labour with capital (i.e. machines) - size enlargement would in neither of the aforementioned lines have

14 De Vries, 1993: 5 8 -5 9 and 64-65, in describing the rural economy before ca. 1570, speaks of a ‘large casual labour market’ with irregular employment, and volatile (though on the whole relatively low) wage earnings. Noordegraaf, 1985a: 77 -9 0 , has marked down several decades o f severe depression (i.c. 1475-95, 1520-40, and 1565-75), with sharply declining employment, starting with a decline in the number o f working days. When employment was increasing again, at first not so much the number of workers as the number o f working days was raised. 15 The fattening o f cattle, driven in large numbers from Denmark and Holstein to Holland only developed into a specialised, and very capital-intensive trade of real importance from the end of the sixteenth century. See Gijsbers, 1999: esp. chapter 2. Gijsbers, following Van der Woude, estimated the yearly consumptive need o f fattened cattle in seventeenth-century Holland at 50,000 pieces. Gijsbers, 1999: 56.

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resulted in any increasing returns to scale to speak of.16 On the contrary, large farmers could easily be confronted with ‘diseconomies of scale’ in so far as their arable land and their pasture was divided up in small plots, spread over a larger area, which as we saw was often enough the case in early modem Holland.17So even if land and capital improved in quality - which may have well been the case - this needed not have induced automatically, as it were, enlargement of farm sizes.18 This was the more so, because large and small landholders and/or farmers could reap the benefits of the most substantial of these quality improvements rather indiscriminately. The gradual draining of the vast peat moors of Holland from the tenth century onwards and the ‘cat-and-mouse game’ between the water and its drainers to which it led (Borger, 1992: 167), compelled the latter to invest continually in infrastructure as well as to chronic technical improvement - ‘investment by non-economic coercion’ would in this context be an appropriate designation. This whole development had at least two bene­ volent side effects. First, the gradual, more or less organic growth of a very impressive network of waterways, largely facilitating regional commerce and peasants’ access to (regional) markets, and fostering regional specialisation (Lesger, 1995; Smit, 1995, part 5; Hoppenbrouwers, forthcoming). Second, the fact that small landholders/farmers profited to the same measure as large ones from improvements they could never have financed on their own. Also, in the financing of maintenance works and improvements, the profit-principle was applied without acknowledging exceptions or privileges: all who profited paid in proportion to the size of their landed possessions. This kept the burden of expenses within limits, as I have shown for the Heusden villages. During the second half of the fifteenth century yearly expenses were on average slightly more than 10 Flemish groats (or 5 stuivers) per two acres, which was about 20 percent of the rental value (Hoppen­ brouwers, 1992b: 475-480). This was in accordance with the average burden in the heart of Holland - although variance was considerable - as we learn from the Informacie of 1514.

16 In the historical literature on this subject there tends to be some confusion between farm size (here: area size) and farm scale (the overall economic size o f farms, expressed in the total money value o f their produce). 17 The same has been observed for large landownership in early modem Spain. Yun, 1994. 18 On this point I tend to follow De Vries rather than Van Zanden. While for De Vries improvements in the quality of the production factor labour, following from specialisation, led to productivity increases and to the disappearance o f small, unspecialised peasants, for Van Zanden this was brought about by quality improvements in the spheres o f land and capital goods. In his view, modernisation of agriculture in the Netherlands coastal areas from the end o f the sixteenth century should be primarily described in terms o f an intensified use o f capital, not as a process of specialisation. Only then, circumstances would have arisen, under which large sized farms were promoted, as only large farms were capable o f making the input o f substantial capital costeffective. Van Zanden, 1988:86. A s w ill be clear from the following I in particular have difficulties with the last part o f Van Zanden’s reasoning.

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V.3. Availability of capital and levels of investment Quality improvements in vital infrastructure such as mentioned leave the question of the extent and employment of urban investments in the countryside largely unanswered. In general, urban money came to the countryside in three forms: as payments for purchases of land, as payments for improvements of farms by urban landlord/lessors, and as supply of credits. All three forms may have induced productivity-boosting investments and the spread of this ‘profit-maximising, cost-cutting, and technologically inventive economic behavior’, which Brenner placed, in a critique on Wallerstein, at the core of the rise of capitalism (Hagen, 1988: 36; Brenner, 1985a: 67, italic supplied). But did they indeed have those effects? And, in particular, how did they affect social property relations?19 The present state of research leaves the Dutch picture on this point quite opaque. We know virtually nothing of how peasants (re)used the proceeds of sales of land, and next to nothing of the investment behaviour of capitalist landlords - urban or otherwise. As to the latter issue, there is some discussion on the harshness of non-peasant lessors in dealing with their tenant farmers. In late medieval Flanders landlords/lessors would have applied non-economic pressure to force tenants to pay more than the market value of leases, especially during periods when they were short of cash. Thus, short-term leasing provided the lords with a formidable ‘instrument to pursue income policy’, enabling them to adjust income to financial needs. In Thoen’s opinion therefore, the financial needs of the lords, and not the market, determined lease-prices in the last resort (Thoen, 1988: esp. 531-550; for a critical discussion: Hoppenbrouwers, 1992a). Neither would landlords in this situation have been willing to invest in their farms when needed or when opportune. Speaking of the leasing of demesnes in later medieval Eng­ land, Britnell has recently argued in a completely reverse direction, judging that ‘many lords aimed to achieve stable rents from reliable tenants, rather than to bargain for the highest sum to be obtained at any given moment’ (Britnell, 1993: 189). He agrees with Thoen, however, in stressing the non-economic motives of lords/lessors. The Dutch evidence seems more supportive to Britnell’s than to Thoen’s line of reasoning. Although related to a period of continuous expansion, Van Nierop’s data on leases by noblemen do not show significant differences in the lease prices stipulated by different categories of (large) lessors in Holland at the beginning of the Modern Period (Van Nierop, 1984:116-119). Besides, in Holland large landowners - and certainly the corporate ones - used to lease by public bidding. From the beginning of the sixteenth century the drawing up of written contracts was prescribed, a measure, by the way, mainly directed against the many tenants claiming a right of prolongation (Kuys and Schoenmakers, 1981: 24-26). Likewise, Van der Woude came to a generally favourable

19 Investments are one o f the blind spots in the entire Brenner thesis. On the one hand they are essential to the kind of behaviour that distinguishes ‘feudal’ from ‘capitalist’ relations of production (as can be inferred once more from Brenner’s contribution to this volume), on the other hand there are very few ‘hard data’ before, say, 1600 that allow any general statements on behavioral changes in this sphere.

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judgement on short-term land leases. From lease contracts he distilled an essentially ‘farmer-friendly attitude’ among urban proprietors in late medieval Limburg and Bra­ bant. Everywhere tenants were not only legally well protected (in several ways), but also unforeseen misfortune (natural disaster, war, etc.) forced their landlords/leasers to indulge their tenants, being left with the choice of either getting less than agreed or nothing at all. Thus, tenants could pass part of the damage on to the landlords, and this, according to Van der Woude, may have been ‘one of the reasons for the relative well­ being of the peasantry in important parts of the Low Countries during long periods’ (Van der Woude, 1982: 194-195, 204; cf. De Vries and Van der Woude, 1995: 200201). Neither should we forget that short-term leases brought along definite advantages to (young) peasant families who were short of capital or temporarily in need of additional land. All thus points to the early presence of the sort of sensible (rational?), marketrelated economic behaviour that Brenner ascribes to capitalist-minded landlords (Brenner, this volume). We could add that non-peasant landlords seem on the whole to have been quite willing to put money into their farms. In a recent study of lease contracts in the Guelders river area Van Bavel calculated that landlords around 1550 re-invested as much as 20% of the total value of their income from leases in improvement of the farms and farm lands (Van Bavel, 1999: 540-550). A figure of this order of magnitude is totally in line with the only well-documented case on farm level, that is Rienck Hemmema’s. Hemmema ‘plowed back’ 7 to 36 percent of his yearly gross revenue from agriculture into his (own) farm, mostly to improve farm buildings and buy new equipment (calculated from Slicher van Bath, 1958: 124-127; write-downs could not be taken into account). To be sure, these indications of ‘progressive’, capitalist behaviour have to be balanced against such sharp - but also very traditional - denouncements of the aristocratic aspirations of ambitious farmers as have been made by some of Hemmema’s contemporaries, such as Abel Eppens, a wealthy farmer from the Groninger Ommelanden (Bergsma, 1988: 48).20

More in general, urban credit must have been fairly easily available to large groups of country dwellers in late medieval Holland, and this might have been another reason why small-scale peasant landownership and agriculture proved to be so resilient. Thanks to the large and proportionally ever expanding urban sector, and the lack of alternative possibilities for investment, plenty of capital was waiting to be laid out in the rural economy. It came to the peasants mainly by way of rent ‘creation’ or rent ‘constitution’, that is by charging property with fixed (and for a long time perpetual) annual payments in money or kind. As always, new credit facilities had a benevolent as well as a dark side. As for the dark side, rent creation established ‘a new kind of economic domination’ of peasants by lords after serfdom and the manorial system had been dissolved. ‘Like landownership and personal and territorial lordships, it siphoned off a large part of the profits of the field’ (Duby, 1968: 256). That rent charges were initially very heavy has been confirmed by the findings of Clark, who has argued, building on an article by Habakkuk, that interest rates before 1350 were, ‘with surprisingly close agreement’ for

20 It should be noted that Eppens’ denouncement had a religious and moralistic undertone.

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P easants into farm ers?

all northern Europe, too high to stimulate any large scale investments in technical improvements. Rather, savings were invested at minimal risk in land and mortgage bonds or other types of annuities. According to Clark, the high relative costs of capital may have ‘sharply’ reduced the price of labour (Clark, 1988). With the dramatic altering of the land/labour ratio after 1350, nominal rent charges were drastically reduced - probably something like halved. In the Low Countries, inte­ rest rates on ‘created’ rents during the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries as calculated by Thoen, Van Bavel and myself for Eastem-Flanders, Guelders and Hol­ land respectively, are closer to the higher ones Clark calculated for France and Germany in the same period than to those for England - where credit seems to have been cheapest (Thoen, 1988: 913; Van Bavel, 1993: 553; Hoppenbrouwers, 1992b: 406; Clark, 1988: 273-274, tables 3 and 4). Still, by the end of the Middle Ages this type of rural credit does not seem to have been prohibitively expensive anymore, and in Holland its avai­ lability was undoubtedly facilitated by the still expanding urban sector. According to J.D. Tracy, the dramatic shift of the tax burden from town to countryside in Holland during the first half of the sixteenth century proved that it did, because the shift at least to some extent reflected ‘an increase in the amount of capital invested in agriculture’ (Tracy, 1985: 91. But see further down p. 60 for an alternative interpretation). Even then it remains to be questioned how far down the social ladder credits spread and for what ends they were contracted. Quite intriguing is Thoen’s finding that Flemish peasants in the Ghent-Oudenaarde region used urban money primarily to enlarge their holdings as well as to improve them by buying equipment and draught animals or constructing better stables, etcetera (Thoen, 1988: 929-935). This interesting view deserves closer scrutiny for Holland, especially as the English and French evidence has left historians divided. Whereas the late J.P. Cooper maintained that ‘most’ peasant borrowing ‘was for consumption, even that on mortgages, rather than for productive investment’ (Cooper, 1985: 182), M. Mate placed mortgage loans at the centre of her alternative hypothesis as to why the English and French economic development diverged from the late Middle Ages. In her view relatively cheap credit and easy access to loans facilitated peasant participation in the land market, and thus to peasant accumulation of land in England (Mate, 1993: 65). For Holland - and for other parts of the Netherlands - a lot of work remains to be done. In connection with the case of Abel Eppens one could wonder, whether urban investors acted differently from creditors from the traditional lordly class, since far into the early modem era it was the nobility that provided the role model every bourgeois (or other) upstart wanted to emulate. Thoen, while making much of the keenness of Flemish peasants on depth-investments, played down the wishes of urban creditors to act like real capitalist investors. Before the sixteenth century urban investments would generally have taken away more capital from the countryside than they put into it (Thoen, 1988: 512 et seq.). And this brings Thoen back into line with Brenner, Hilton, Kriedte and others who think that during the late Middle Ages profits of merchant capital still ‘remained almost entirely in the sphere of circulation’ (Hilton, 1985:131; Hagen, 1988: 16-17 refers to Kriedte’s work). This view seems to offer at least a partial explanation for the fact that the availability of urban credit did not lead straight out to capitalism

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(Epstein, 1991:13; Croot and Parker, 1985:88; Holton, 1985:161), although we should not forget that even within the nobility economic attitudes could widely diverge. Did not Brenner himself regard the English nobility as the cradle of rural capitalism? While the investment climate may on the whole not have been unfavourable for small farmers thanks to certain peculiarities of the Dutch countryside and while capital to pay investments may have been within their reach, I tend to share Epstein’s opinion that in the end the extent and nature of political and institutional constraints determined the effectiveness and the accessibility of - in this case credit - markets (e.g. Epstein, 1992: chapter 1). To Epstein those constraints embraced more than the structure of pro­ perty rights - he mentioned, among other, state regulations, state and urban jurisdictions, institutions regulating town/country relations (Epstein, 1991:12 and 15, note 30). This leads us to the (possible) features of the transformation of the surplus-extraction system when staged against the Dutch background. Highlighting these should give us a better understanding of the reasons why small-scale peasant property, which withstood pressure from outside for so long, in the end did give way to enlargement tendencies.

VI. The transformation of the surplus extraction system: lingering feudalism, centralised surplus extraction and ‘state commercialism’ After the dissolution of serfdom all over Europe, feudal surplus-extraction could take, according to Brenner, two main new directions, both detrimental to capitalist development: decentralised economic extraction by way of rent squeezing and centralised extraction by way of heavy state taxation. Depending on the social property structure, one of the two prevailed in channelling income to the ruling class. In historical reality, of course, both modes of surplus-extraction could very well occur simultaneously. But what was the nature of this mixture in highly urbanised Holland?

VI.l. Centralised surplus-extraction and city power First, there is the point of late medieval and early modern urban imperialism. In addition to rent squeezing by private bourgeois landowners, who asked arbitrary rents and re-invested next to nothing in return, there was a second form of urban pressure, recently highlighted by S.R. Epstein. Distinguishing urbanisation as ‘the consequence of economic specialisation’ from urban institutional powers or jurisdictions as ‘the outcome of social and political processes’, Epstein argued that the latter ‘constituted nothing more than a collective (and usually stronger) equivalent of Brenner’s “systems of lordly surplus extraction by means of extra-economic compulsion’” . ‘In other words’, Epstein continued, ‘if they had the powers to do so, medieval towns would act just as “feudally” as any territorial lord to divert resources to their own benefit’. The only difference was that feudal lords extracted surplus at the point of production, suppressive towns at the point of distribution, that is to say, by attempting ‘to determine the flow of resources’ through control of factor and product markets (Epstein, 1991: 14-15; cf. already Anderson, 1974:192). As the result was the same, this would disclaim the rooted opinion that ‘strong urban powers invariably stimulated economic growth’ (Epstein, 1993: 454). Epstein proved his point for Florence. Florentine oligarchical government

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reacted to the contraction of long-distance trade after the Black Death with the virtual elimination of competition frpm its contado in manufactures and services. Next, agri­ culture was steered away from commercialisation and specialisation to self-sufficiency, a change of course that, according to Epstein, in no way reflected peasant aspirations, ‘but was a deliberate economic strategy pursued by urban landholders’ - whatever their intentions may have been. These changes heralded an ‘extraordinary intensity of political, military and fiscal pressure’, but nipped any development of an internal market for cheap manufactures in the bud and thus, at the same time, impeded proto-industrialisation (Epstein, 1991: 38-39 and 32 resp.). Although any comparison of rural-urban relations in Holland with those in the citystates of late medieval Tuscany seems to some degree uneasy and flawed, there is no point in denying the strong economic and political dominance of Dutch towns over their surrounding countryside. Forced staple of agricultural produce, prohibitions to the esta­ blishment of village markets or industries, forced payments of urban excises, the limiting of village retail trade, exemption of urban landed properties from land taxes, curtailment of jurisdictional and administrative authority, many arrangements of this kind can wit­ hout doubt be described in terms of surplus-extraction by means of non-economic coercion, springing from urban institutional powers and often backed up by governmental interference (Hoppenbrouwers, forthcoming; Noordegraaf, 1992: 15-20). Obviously, measures such as those mentioned obstructed the free circulation of goods, labour and capital. While granting this point to Epstein, I seriously doubt, however, whether this kind of coercion hampered the spread of capitalist relations of production to the same extent as it obviously did in the Florentine contado. One of the reasons may have been that in the end territorial princes succeeded in curbing urban powers far more in Flanders than they did Holland (e.g. Blockmans, 1983: 93-100; Blockmans, 1988). Another reason may have been that local seigneurs (ambachtsheren) often supported ‘their’ villagers against urban intrusions (Hoppenbrouwers, forthcoming; Ibelings, this volume). Thirdly, rural communities in Holland may have had more political strength compared to their Tuscan counterparts. Fourthly, none of the measures just mentioned was accompanied by a conscious desire from the side of urban administrators to fundamentally restructure social relations in the countryside (had they had the power to do this) as happened in Tuscany. As for that, I refer (without agreeing in every respect) to the recent judgement of De Vries and Van der Woude, who preferred to describe the relationships between town and countryside in the early modern (Northern) Netherlands more in terms of symbiosis than of contradiction or submission. To them it was primarily the successful penetration of the urban way of life and culture in the countryside that blunted the sharpest edges and shaped the ‘functional coherence’ between the urban and rural world (De Vries and Van der Woude, 1995: 587).

VL2. Centralised surplus extraction and the changing role of the state Centralisation of government, bureaucratisation and growing taxation are major themes of late medieval and early modem institutional history of the Low Countries. In the Burgundian Netherlands, definite centralising tendencies in the state-building process

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along French lines seem to have gone hand in hand with the building in of effective political checks on princely powers, not, however, in favour of the feudal lords (English model), but mainly of the urban/commercial élite. In this respect analysts like Poggi have rightly stressed the importance of the standenstaat for the creation of ‘a stable framework in which to conduct economic activity’, thus serving urban/commercial interests. That is perhaps why Gintis and Bowles’s theory on ‘state commercialism’ deserves renewed attention. In fact taking a Weberian stand, ‘state commercialism’ stood, according to them, for a ‘new social system’, in which the state was tied up along diffe­ rent lines with the commercial class and in which the class-like struggles between lords and peasants of the feudal age were replaced by struggles between ‘state- and classbased groupings’ (Gintis and Bowles, 1984; cf. Holton, 1985:138; Martin, 1983: 111— 112, criticising Skocpol and Mousnier). This comes very close to Tilly’s view that the efforts of late medieval and early-modern states to control coercion (that is: war-making) and concentrate capital depended heavily on urban oligarchies and institutions (e.g. Tilly, 1994). The towns’ rise to political power at the expense of the nobility has been well studied recently. Whereas Coenen uncovered the key position members of the high nobility still kept in the ‘entourage’ of the counts of Holland throughout the thirteenth century, Brokken retraced the gradual involvement of the towns in the administration of the county by their - at first still infrequent - admission to the comital council since the coming to power of count William V (1349-1358(-1389)) (Coenen, 1986; Brokken, 1982). As his successors became ever more dependent on urban financial support, the political influence of the towns grew. Their preponderant position was sealed, when the duke of Burgundy took over and formally instituted the Estates of Holland, in which eventually only the nobility and the towns were represented. However, the role of the nobility seems to have been very limited. The towns’ representatives - and in fact those of the six ‘capital’ cities (hoofdsteden) - completely dominated the assemblies of the Estates (Kokken, 1991: 279). Finally, in the new Estates or Staten of Holland, instituted in 1572 after the establishment of the Republic, the nobility retained no more than one vote against 18 for the towns (one for each of the 6 capital cities and 12 minor towns). The dominant political position of the towns naturally had consequences for the build­ up of centralised surplus-extraction. As the levying of taxes had formally to be conceded by the Estates, the representatives of the large towns had all the opportunity, during the course of preliminary bargaining, to shift part of the tax burden to small towns and countryside (Hoppenbrouwers, forthcoming). Any attempt to introduce, or augment, the taxation of commercial capital and trade could count on staunch opposition and almost invariably the larger cities traded their consent to aids for rebates or gratiën. Another harmful practice was the subjecting of villages to urban excises (from the revenues of which the towns paid the lion’s share of their portion in the taxes), whereas bourgeois landowners refused to contribute together with the villagers, who apportioned their tax burden (mainly) to local landed properties. On the whole, according to Blockmans, throughout the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands ‘urban wealth, and especially commercial capital, was taxed with great indulgence’ (Blockmans, 1999: 288). After the introduction of a brand-new fiscal system in 1542-1543, a further major shift of the tax burden from towns to countryside took place. On the one hand, this may reflect a

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growing urban eagerness to invest in the countryside, as Tracy would have it, but we could also look at the reverse of this inference and ask ourselves to what extent tax increases have eventually sped up the break-down of small peasant property or, the other way round, slowed down accumulation by small commercial farmers (cf. Martin, 1983: 114).

VII. Conclusions If we do refract the bundled light of demographic and socio-economic development in later medieval Holland through the prism of social property relations, as Robert Brenner has invited us, what do we see? No matter what we may call the coloured beams that flash up before our eyes, we cannot speak of a ‘classical’ transition from feudalism to capitalism. To start with, feudal surplus-extraction, linked to a feudal mode of production in the Marxist sense, had already almost entirely disappeared at the outset of the late medieval demographic contraction phase. I have pointed in this connection to the largescale peat reclamations, which fostered peasant freedom - but at the same time hampered their subsequent expropriation from the newly acquired land. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, Dutch peasants must have been in possession of about half the cultivated area in Holland. On the land market their main competitors at that time were neither noble lords nor ecclesiastical institutions, but burghers from the booming towns, who already owned about a quarter of all land. This peculiar social property structure planted the roots for a number of forms of agrarian capitalism that gradually came to development in the centuries around 1500 and which had in common: - Farms that from an international perspective were relatively small, and often consisted of land that was partly owned, partly leased by the farmer; - A type of agrarian production that was rather labour than capital intensive; and - Relative high levels of commercialisation and specialisation, especially as a consequence of growing urban demand for cheese, butter, and beef. It has been my argument that these characteristics, taken together, could well induce a growth in labour productivity without smaller farms (for some time) being outbid by larger ones. So, when the late J.R Cooper reproached Brenner for being too fixated on large tenant farms as the sole avenue of a successful transition to capitalism and for having overlooked the possible efficiency of small-scale ‘peasant farming’ (Cooper, 1985: esp. 187-189), he should have taken Holland as an example instead of Flanders. At the same time, however, capitalist farming, in whatever form, was slow to spread. Consequently, I examined a number of possible causes that supported the resilience of small peasant land ownership and hampered the speedy development of agrarian capita­ lism. The fact that small peasant property gave way in the end was linked to the trans­ formation of the surplus extraction system following in the wake of increasing centrali­ sation, and the growing political power of the (large) towns that went along with it. I have underlined that urban political influence not so much expressed itself into direct economic and political suppression of the countryside by powerful state-like towns - in

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a sort of Tuscan manner - as in the manifold opportunities and protection the ‘state commercialism’ displayed by the Burgundian-Habsburg government offered to urban/ commercial interests. Only at a relatively late date did small peasant property at last give in. For its surrender two developments have been decisive. First, the increasing part of urban, bourgeois investments in land, land reclamation and agrarian capital from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, when (fast) demographic growth was on its way and land and grain prices went up again. Second, increasing fiscal pressure on landed property which on the one hand forced commercial farmers to cost-cutting and on the other hand was responsible for finally evicting many small peasant proprietors from their plots.

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plattelandseconomie in het westelijke gedeelte van het Gelderse rivierengebied, ca. 1300— ca. 1570, Hilversum. Bergsma, W. (1988) De wereld volgensAbel Eppens, een Ommelander boer uit de zestiende eeuw, Groningen. Bieleman, J. (1992) Geschiedenis van de landbouw in Nederland, 1550-1950, Meppel/ Amsterdam. Blockmans, W.P. (1983) ‘De ontwikkeling van een verstedelijkte samenleving, X ldeXVde eeuw’, in E. Witte [et al.] (eds), Geschiedenis van Vlaanderen. Van de oorsprong tot heden, Brussels, pp. 43-103. Blockmans, W.P. (1988) ‘Alternatives to monarchical centralisation: the great tradition of revolt in Flanders and B rabant’, in H. Koenigsberger (ed.), Republiken und Republikanismus im Europa des frühen Neuzeit, Munich, pp. 145-154. Blockmans, W.P. (1993) ‘The economic expansion of Holland and Zeeland in the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries’, in E. Aerts [et al.] (eds), Studia Historica Oeconomica. Liber amicorum Herman van der Wee, Louvain, pp. 41-58. Blockmans, W.P. (1999) ‘The Low Countries in the Middle Ages’, in R. Bonney (ed.), The rise of the fiscal state in Europe, c.1200-1815, Oxford, pp. 281-308. Blockmans, W.P. [et ah] (1980) ‘Tussen crisis en welvaart: sociale veranderingen 13001500’, in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 4, Bussum, pp. 42-86. Boer, D.E.H. de (1978) Graafen grafiek. Sociale en economische ontwikkelingen in het middeleeuwse ‘Noordholland’ tussen ca. 1345 en ca. 1415, Leiden.

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4

The transition to capitalism in a land without feudalism Jan d e V r ie s , University of California at Berkeley

I.

Theory: social and economic

Macro-historical theorizing experienced something of a ‘golden age’ in the late 1960s and culminating in the early 70s.Then, in 1973, Douglass North and Robert Paul Tho­ mas breathed new life into institutional economics by grafting it to neoclassical economics in their Rise of the Western World (North and Thomas, 1973), a work whose audacity is only heightened by its brevity. In the same year Immanuel Wallerstein launched his Modern World System (Wallerstein, 1973). This neo-Marxist hybrid of dependency theory and Braudelian structuralism promised to explain nothing less than the inner dynamic of the world we live in - and have lived in since the sixteenth century. In the following year Robert Brenner presented a paper criticizing the reigning Malthusian and Smithian models of pre-industrial economic development. This paper, published two years later in Past and Present (Brenner, 1976) asserted the primacy of class struggle in Europe’s long-term economic development and revived interest in the crown jewel of Marxist historiography, the transition from feudalism to capitalism. These three works were not the only efforts at historical theorizing of this last expansive phase of social scientific history. The intellectual currents of the time were such that even my 1974 monograph, The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age, could be prefaced by a theoretical chapter on rural development. But among the many works of that era, the three above mentioned studies have gone on to cast long shadows over the writing of the history of pre-industrial societies. North’s new institutionalism led to the award of the Nobel Prize in economics, while Wallerstein’s world systems concept was institutionalized and turned into a veritable sub-discipline.1 Brenner went on to develop and refine his intellectual agenda with a remarkable tenacity and determi­ nation - defending it against the luminaries of the historical profession in the 1970s, and upholding its importance in our time of historical involution and social disillusion (for further reflections on the inward turn of modern historiography see: De Vries, 1999: 121-128). Robert Brenner’s 1976 article argued that neither demography nor trade could be the chief determinants of Western economic history since the phenomena they sought to explain were not uniquely determined by them. By his account, too much was left unaccounted for by the arguments associated with the names of such historians as

1 Institutionalized in the Fernand Braudal Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations at The State University of New York at Binghamton, and in the Center’s journal,

Review.

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Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and M.M. Postan. Brenner urged on his readers an analysis grounded in the primacy of class struggle. To a non-Marxian historian his argument seemed to translate into a reassertion of the importance of politics, to a revival of the despised histoire evenementielle, that is, to a kind of old fashioned history where capri­ cious events could send history off into any number of directions. For example, after arguing that agricultural developments in eastern Europe differed from western, and England differed from France chiefly because of differences in class structure, he went on to state: ‘(•••) it is necessary first to account for the class structures themselves; and ... I would argue that these can only be understood as the legacy of the previous epoch of historical development, in particular the different class conflicts which brought about and issue from the dissolution of serfdom in each country.’ (Brenner, 1976: 61) In Brenner’s second article, ‘The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’ (Brenner, 1982; references in this article are from its republication: Brenner, 1985), he responded to the critics of the first. There he emphasized the importance of the property system in determining the character of agricultural development. The property system is a product of class struggle (which he called a ‘relatively autonomous process’) and is thus not inconsistent with his earlier position. Still, the new emphasis of property systems attached greater importance to the structures that channel history rather than to the politics that make it capricious. Since then Brenner has continued to refine his argument, and in ‘The Low Countries in the Transition to Capitalism’, his contribution to this volume, we are told that what are now called ‘social-property relations ’ - once established, and however established give rise to self-reinforcing behavior by economic actors, who follow the internally rational rules for reproduction that adhere to the relations of reproduction (Brenner, this volume). There are quite a few terms in the previous sentence with quite specific mea­ nings, so we had best pause to clarify them. The economic actors in any society are two, the direct producers and the exploiters. We recognize these as peasants and lords in the feudal society, and wage workers and capitalists in the capitalist society. The actions of these economic actors are constrained, or regulated by social-property relations, which are bundles of relationships among the direct producers and the exploiters, and between these two groups. These social-property relations specify the terms on which the actors have access to the means of production (land, labor power, and tools), and the terms on which they have access to the economic product. These social-property relations vary in details, presumably, but Brenner is convinced that they fall into two broad but distinct types: pre-capitalist and capitalist. Indeed, a fault line of world-historical importance runs between the societies grouped in these two categories. In pre-capitalist social-property relations, direct producers have direct that is, non-market - access to the means of subsistence, or means of reproduction, while the exploiters rely on extra-economic coercion - again, on non-market relations to appropriate part of the product necessary for their own social reproduction. In capitalist property relations, this is no surprise, the direct producers are separated from the means

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of subsistence, which is to say that they gain access to the factors of production on market terms. Exploiters, for their part, cannot rely on coercion, but also must act through the market to reproduce themselves. While much of the foregoing will be familiar, Brenner introduces a significant refine­ ment here by describing social-property relations as ‘rules for reproduction’ rather than as ‘relations of production’. This may seem like a small distinction, but much depends upon it. These bundles of historical rules and property rights are not mere reflection of the state of technology or of population density which could be swept aside by the evolving needs of the society. Brenner ‘explicitly den[ies] (...) that economic actors can be assumed to increase productive efficiency through specialization, investment, and associated forms of improvement in response to the appearance of sufficiently increased market opportunities.’ In short: ‘the emergence of capitalist social-property relations is inexplicable from a neoclassical economic standpoint.’ Stronger still, ‘breakthroughs to modem economic growth [could occur only] as the unintended consequences of actions by individual lords or peasants... seeking to reproduce themselves as feudal-type actors in feudal-type ways.’ (Brenner, this volume: 292,294 and 290 respectively, emphasis in original) If I understand it correctly, Brenner’s basic argument has shifted over time: what began as an assertion of the primacy of class struggle - relatively autonomous processes where history seems to be up for grabs - has become an assertion of the primacy of social-property relations, where nothing can change except by some strong, unintended, disturbance to the system, some exogenous shock. We have moved from Marxism which explains how capitalism necessarily emerges from feudalism - to Brennerism which explains how it can’t. Adam Smith argued very differently, of course. He was convinced that it was ‘a pro­ pensity of human nature (...) to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another’ (Smith, 1776: Ch. II, 17). To be sure, Smith recognized that this propensity, ‘common to all men’, was held in check by the laws and institutions of many societies. The Wealth of Nations was largely concerned with the advocacy of public policies that would bring closer to realization the regime of ‘perfect liberty’. But to Brenner, the premises for the operation of the Smithian mechanism of modem economic growth - based on specialization and trade - are neither inherent in mankind nor attainable except ‘where, as an unintended consequence of the actions of feudal lords and peasants, there was a break beyond the basic pre-capitalist social-property structure.’ (Brenner, this volume: 291). Only when, for whatever reason, the direct producers have been pushed across the feudal/capitalist frontier into the zone of market-mediated production, and the lords have been shorn of their coercive powers and also made subject to market forces, have we entered the world where, Brenner concedes, the Smithian paradigm reigns. Only as a result of such compulsion does one observe ‘a systematic, continuous, and quasiuniversal drive on the part of the individual direct producers to cut costs in aid of maximizing profitability via increasing efficiency and (...) in response to price signals.’ (Brenner, this volume: 278). But until then, Brenner insists there is neither an irresistible force nor an innate propensity moving either producers or exploiters across this fatal

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frontier. To Brenner, Adam Smith’s account of economic development is valid, but it is a special case. It requires institutions, understood in the broadest sense of the word, whose emergence are by no means natural or inevitable and not be expected to arise gradually and unnoticed. Here a comparison of Brenner’s approach to very long-term economic development to the neoclassical institutionalism of Douglass North and R.P. Thomas can be illuminating, for both Brenner and North and Thomas criticize other theories of development for describing not the causes of growth, but outward manifestations of growth itself. These theories assume precisely what needs to be accounted for, and in rejecting them both bodies of work appeal to institutional change in their efforts to explain what makes economic growth possible. ‘Efficient economic organization is the key to growth’ according to North and Thomas. Similarly, Brem er writes ‘it has been my central proposition that this positive correspon­ dence between what is required for (...) modem economic growth (...) and what economic actions individuals find it in their own self interest to choose will prevail only with the emergence of capitalist social-property relations (...)’ (North and Thomas, 1973: 1; Brenner, this volume: 278). The attribute of these property relations that brings about this efficacious behavior is the correspondence that exists between what is required for modem economic growth in the system as a whole and the self-interested actions of the individual economic actors. Only when systemic needs and individual motivation correspond can economic development proceed. North and Thomas said essentially the same thing when they defined efficient economic organization as ‘institutions and property rights that create an incentive to channel individual economic effort into activities that bring the private rate of return close to the social rate of return.’ (North and Thomas, 1973: 12) Both define the phenomenon to be explained in similar terms. Where they part company is on how institutions change. In desperate brevity, North and Thomas place institutional change in a neoclassical supply and demand framework. An essentially exogenous force, population growth and the geographical expansion that flows from such growth, gives rise to an expanding basis for trade. Society responds to these new trading opportunities ‘in a manner Adam Smith would have predicted’. New secondary institutional arrangements accommodate these responses by reducing transactions costs, and these accumulate to set the stage for fundamental change. ‘By gradual steps the manorial lord and the peasant-servant would be transformed into employers and employee, or landlord and tenant.’ (North and Thomas, 1973: 24) To North and Thomas, the intrusion of the market induces economic agents to move along this path of many gradual steps since they are all guided by a single economic rationality. Specific historical outcomes vary, in their account, only because the external, institutional, environment in which economic agents function varies. And this varies chiefly because of the differing behavior of the state, the ‘supplier’ of new institutions. Facing pressures of their own (see below), the states also seek to maximize revenue, but the institutions and property rights they supply to augment their revenue vary enormously in their power to secure the correspondence of private and social returns.

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To Brenner, economic agents are governed by rules of reproduction, internal rules with a self-reinforcing logic that are specific to an existing set of social-property relations. The integrity of the pre-capitalist relations of reproduction is such that it cannot readily be undermined, not by the corrosive effects of merchant capitalism, nor by the advance of productive forces (technological change), nor by demographic forces. Since direct producers have direct possession of the means of subsistence, no market forces can intrude to weed out the inefficient from the efficient and break up the cohesiveness of the peasant community. There are two problems with Brenner’s argument for the resilience of the pre-capitalist relations of production that might be addressed here; one concerns the position of the exploiters, the other the economic behavior of the direct producers. Brenner insists that the direct producers face no compelling competitive pressures, but the exploiters, it seems, do face such pressures. Their rule of reproduction under feudalism is to strengthen their domination over the direct producers. In places Brenner speaks of the unity of the exploiters vis-á-vis the peasants, but elsewhere he notes that advances in military tech­ nology give rise to their need for increased revenues - and, hence, intensified exploitation of the peasants - so as to outdo their rivals. That is, they face competition to maintain their place within the ranks of the exploiters. North and Thomas made a similar argument, treating the advance of military technology as an exogenous phenomenon. This technical advance created economies of scale in the production of coercive power, which gave rise to state building. The chronic need of the state for revenue (to stay on the endless treadmill of rising military expen­ diture) led to the creation and sale of property rights by the state. Some of this state production proved conducive to efficient economic production, while some reinforced rent-seeking behavior. Is this not the Achilles heel of feudal exploitation? Here is a technological force that seems capable of destabilizing rather than tending to reinforce the rules of reproduction of feudal lords. The peasants may have been able to exempt themselves from the world of economic competition, but the lords could not escape from the world of military competition, and this - via the fiscal pressure of a constantly increasing minimum efficient size of politico/military unit - led inevitably to economic competition. The second issue concerns the economic behavior of the direct producers. Brenner does not subscribe to the view often held by anthropologists of a certain vintage that the inner values of, and social pressures faced by peasants makes them suspicious of markets and eager to ‘keep the markets at arm’s length.’ As a rural sociologist put it, how much innovative behavior could one expect of the ‘conservative homosociologicus peasant; the market insensitive, immutable, unpersuadable peasant; the kin-bound, cast-bound, contented peasant?’ (Krishna, 1969:186) Brenner rightfully rejects this straw man of social science, but his direct producer is no slave to the propensity to ‘truck, barter, and exchange’ either: ‘Peasants [i.e. under feudal social-property relations] found themselves shielded from competition on the market, and thus freed from that necessity to maximize exchange

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value competitively in order to survive. (...) This insulation from the market was funda­ mental, for it allowed peasants to find goals other than exchange value maximization to be in their own interest. (...) In view (...) of the nature of the economy around them, they could not find it in their self-interest to appropriate all the gains from exchange theoretically available to them. (...) [To do so] would have implied certain major tradeoffs that, as a rule, peasant possessors were unwilling to make’ (Brenner, this volume: 281).

These are not optimizing economic agents, but autonomous, uncoerced householders, whose rule of reproduction was, above all else, to keep what they had: peasant possession of the means of production and subsistence. ‘Safety first’ was their motto; they were too risk averse to be more than superficially involved in the market. We have here not homo œconomicus, the Smithian rational actor, optimizing gain and maximizing utility, but homo mediocritus, who possesses all that is needed to maintain a family, and is under no pressure to compete. Since no internal pressures exist to move the pre-capitalist direct producer from his satisficing state, peasant behavior ‘instantiated involution and decline, rather than real growth’ (Brenner, this volume: 281). Inevitably, the achievement of sustained economic growth requires a drastic intervention - an external compulsion. ‘This phenomenon comes into existence,’ Brenner argues, ‘only when the individual direct producers are not only free and have the opportunity, but also are compelled (...) to maximize the gains from trade ( ...)’. (Brenner, this volume: 278). No one voluntarily crosses the boundary into the land of Capitalism. Why is this? Why might a direct producer not see his opportunity precisely in greater market involvement? Brenner’s argument relies almost entirely on the concept of riskaversion: markets expose the peasant to too much risk. Here Brenner advances a view­ point shared broadly by historians. It is a viewpoint with important implications, for if it is true the peasant is rendered ineligible as a modernizer of agriculture. And it is a viewpoint that is demonstrably false. The perceived riskiness of market involvement compared to self-sufficiency rests on the observation that the self provider faces only a single probability distribution (that of crop yields), while the commercial farmer faces at least three: 1) that of physical production, 2) the sale prices of marketed goods, and 3) the purchase prices of acquired goods. Implicit in Brenner’s argument, and that of many other historians, is the belief that the product of these probabilities will yield a greater dispersion around the mean a higher coefficient of variation - than the distribution of crop yields alone. This is simply not the case: not as a statistical proposition, nor as an historical observation (see: Newbery and Sliglitz, 1981; for an historical application, see: Hoffman and Mokyr, 1984). To be sure, highly imperfect markets and uncompetitive markets may well justify the peasant keeping her distance from them. But the argument of Brenner and many others is not that highly imperfect markets are unreliable - which is true - but that mar­ kets per se introduce volatility that exceeds the volatility of autoconsumption - which is not true. And we have not yet mentioned the fact that only through market involvement can a producer hope to capture the efficiencies of specialization that yield higher

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productivity and gain access to consumer products that provide increased utility. I have selected these two aspects of Brenner’s argument for criticism because they speak most directly to a central feature of his model, the inherent tendency of pre­ capitalist relations of reproduction to resist the introduction of market relations, of capitalism. The ‘transition’ does not happen quietly or by itself. But if the exploiters are pressured to competitive economic behavior and the direct producers have every reason to embrace well-functioning markets, then there may be other paths to capitalism than are provided for in Brenner’s argument.

II. From social theory to ‘the Dutch Case’ This brings us to the place of Dutch history in Brenner’s theory and in other models of ‘transition’ and development to capitalism. No one reading the - usually brief sketches of Dutch or Netherlandic economic development in these works of historical theory can feel any great confidence in their explanatory power. North and Thomas grant ‘The Netherlands, in particular the seven provinces in the North’, the prize for being ‘the first areas of Western Europe to escape the Malthusian checks. (...) The first country to achieve sustained economic growth in the sense we have defined it.’ (North and Thomas, 1973: 132, 145) This it achieved by acquiring efficient institutions at an early date, but their account of how this was done remains highly general. The early rise of towns plays a major role in their story, as does a rather wishful account of Burgundian/ Habsburg rule as effective in unification and solicitous of the growth of trade. In truth, the Low Countries remain something of a black box to North and Thomas, and matters are really no different in Wallerstein’s Modern World System. There ‘Dutch world trade became a sort of precious fluid which kept the machinery going (...)’, while the Dutch Revolt ‘liberated a force that could sustain the world-system as a system over some dif­ ficult years of adjustment, until the English (and the French) were ready to take the steps necessary for its definitive consolidation.’ (Wallerstein, 1973: 210, 214) Wallerstein’s account called attention to the role of religion, trade, and international power politics, but relied heavily on metaphor to suggest how they worked, and he said nothing about forces internal to the economy of the Netherlands.2 Brenner’s initial critique of the Malthusian and Smithian developmental models em­ phasizes the importance of agrarian class structures, so it is not surprising that he focused his attention almost entirely on comparisons of the large agrarian societies of France and England, and, more generally, of eastern and western Europe. Thus, the more urba­ nized societies of the Middle Ages did not figure in his first article, although he did 2 These comments refer to Volume I o f The Modem World System (Wallerstein, 1973). Volume H, published in 1980 (Wallerstein, 1980), devotes a long chapter to the Dutch economy, and now the story is quite different from Volume I. Instead o f being a core state ad interim, the Dutch economy has become the first to achieve self-sustained growth on the basis of a ‘coherent, cohesive, and integrated agro-industrial production complex’ (Wallerstein, 1980: 44). Thus, the Republic is a serious capitalist economy, but Wallerstein does not supply an account o f a ‘transition’ from an earlier, pre-capitalist state.

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incorporate the Netherlands into his 1982 article. There he argued that the history of Dutch rural society did not challenge his generalizations for Europe as a whole since Dutch rural society was ‘systematically different from the typical west European feudalpeasant pattern’. It developed competitive market production from an early date, and this ‘specialized market production led to the supercession of smallholders and the build­ up of large farms’. However, it could not stand as a model for peasant-based agrarian capitalism (something Brenner denied could happen) because ‘there had never been a strongly rooted lordly class capable of extracting surplus by means of extra-economic compulsion, and by 1500 the landed class received exclusively economic rents.’ (Brenner, 1985: all quotes in the above paragraph are from 319-320). This exceptional comer of Europe, spared the institutional legacy of feudalism, could develop a progressive agriculture because, in effect, its peasants were really farmers. But apparently this was not sufficient to endow the Dutch Republic with a true capitalist economy. In his conclusion Brenner argued that the United Provinces were not really different from the rest of continental Europe, ‘fettered by its feudal agrarian base throughout the early modem period’. In fact, the Republic ‘hardly constituted an economy in its own right; it grew up as an integral part of the overall European economy and naturally shared its fate.’ (Brenner, 1985: 325) The reader of all these contributions to a social-theoretical history cannot help but come away from them with an unfocused if not a contradictory view of economic development in the Netherlands. In defense of these ambitious theorists it must be stated that the historical literature available to them, in whatever language, was not especially rich. The critical fifteenth century, and medieval history in the north more generally, began to receive the attention of talented social and economic historians only after the initial works were written (Ibelings, this volume). One might say, they made what they could of a limited and flawed literature. Indeed, it is the thesis of several contributors to this volume that Brenner was led to grievous error by reliance on my work (see: Hoppenbrouwers, this volume; Van Bavel, this volume; Ibelings, this volume). This led him to suppose, wrongly, 1) that the Northern Netherlands had never possessed a powerful class of lordly exploiters, and 2) that circa 1500 its mral cultivators were commercial farmers rather than self-sufficient peasants. This second claim, it is argued, is evidently based on a mis-reading of my work since Van Zanden has argued - and argues in his contribution to this volume - that my error was a different one altogether: to believe that Holland’s rural folk were self-sufficient peasants.3 If ‘the Dutch case’ is ever to contribute to the comparative study of long-term western economic development, it will be necessary to reduce the confusion that has arisen over such concepts as Dutch feudalism and peasantry and to specify as carefully as possible

3 The fountainhead o f error in this matter is the otherwise stimulating Van Zanden, 1988. See also Van Zanden, this volume. Hoppenbrouwers, this volume, notes the confusion, or perhaps simply the post-modem plasticity o f my text.

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the issues that remain in contention. The final section of this essay focuses on four key issues in the characterization of the fifteenth to seventeenth-century Dutch rural economy.

HI. The Dutch Case m . l . Were the Northern Netherlands ever ruled by a powerful lordly class and, if so, when did this class lose its hold over Dutch society? In other words, did this region share the general characteristics of medieval feudalism and when was a transition made to, or toward, capitalism?

Brenner’s assertion in ‘Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’ that ‘there had never been a strongly rooted lordly class ( ...)’ [my emphasis] is an obvious invitation to criticism by the careful archival scholar. Although he supported his statement with a general reference to my work, it will be clear from a perusal of my discussion that I made no such categorical claim (see: De Vries, 1974:24-43; DeVries, 1973). My position in those writings of over two decades ago can be summarized in the following three points: A. Serfdom, where it had existed at all, had by 1500 ceased to function as more than a residual phenomenon in the ‘maritime provinces’, where a basically free peasantry then functioned in a relatively individualistic society. B. Medieval seigneurialism varied in importance in the northern provinces, generally receding in strength from south to north. In the sixteenth century the institution persisted where it had existed to begin with, but it was fast being transformed into a type of property right. That is, it was losing its role as a means of extra-economic coercion. C. The privileged classes - Brenner’s lordly class - were, in the aggregate, economi­ cally and politically weak. Moreover, in a socially complex society of widely distributed land ownership, a model of two opposing classes is inadequate to account for historical developments in the region. In all these points I argued that while the Revolt brought further erosion to these dimensions of ‘feudalism’, their weakness was manifest long before that event - that the weakness (not the total absence) of classic lordly rule derived from the medieval history of colonization, drainage, livestock raising, urbanization, and the region’s physical remoteness from centers of feudal power. In what ways does the historical research of the past quarter century require aban­ donment or emendation of these generalizations? Today we possess a richer historio­ graphy of late-medieval Holland than I had access to around 1970. Consequently, matters of fact can be corrected, and nuance and regional diversity can be described in greater detail. It is evident, for example, that the agrarian structures in the Land van Heusden (studied by Hoppenbrouwers) differs significantly from the central Holland peat colonies, which differ, in turn, from West Friesland. It is also evident that political life in the County of Holland in the thirteenth century was led by nobles in a way it no longer was so exclusively by 1500. A political ‘transition’ of sorts had occurred. What is not so evident is how the three generalizations listed above should be altered. The purpose of generalizations is to define a significant historical pattern or condition while retaining

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the flexibility to accommodate the inevitable local variation. It sometimes happens that the accumulating evidence forces us to abandon a generalization as inconsistent with the facts. But in the case at hand we do not appear to be faced with such a decision. Current efforts to account for the weakness of extra-economic coercive institutions fo­ cus on the same combination of factors as listed above.

III.2. Was rural society in the maritime provinces circa 1500 populated by peasants or by farmers? That is, were the cultivators essentially self-sufficient householders or were they ‘already’ commercial, market-oriented producers? It is more than slightly ironic that while some have criticized The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age for exaggerating the weakness of any feudal legacy, others criticize this work for claiming that the maritime provinces around 1500 formed a “peasant economy” of undifferentiated, self-sufficient households. This misleading claim was most fully articulated by Jan Luiten van Zanden, who wrote: ‘An important criticism [of the work of De Vries] focuses on his characterization of the rural economy of the coastal provinces around 1500 as a sort of “peasant economy” with a low level of specialization and productivity. “Peasants” are commonly defined as small, unspecialized farmers who devote themselves primarily to production for their own use. The low productivity in a “peasant economy” is then attributed to the fact that large amounts of labor are dedicated to all sorts of subsistence activities that yield relatively little.’ (Van Zanden, 1988: 82) In support of this characterization of my work Van Zanden referred rather broadly to a 52-page chapter of Dutch Rural Economy. The burden of that chapter was rather dif­ ferent. In it I argued that the emergence of a market economy is advanced by regional specialization and by international, long-distance trade. Both were well established in northwestern Europe by 1500. Thus, the coastal Low Countries was full of markets. But, I argued, a society that sought to derive the full benefit from the market system had to go one decisive step further, and achieve household specialization - where the individual household units go beyond a market involvement in occasional surpluses and luxuries, to achieve market dependence as specialized producers of marketed goods and regular purchasers of a wide variety of goods and services (perhaps the clearest exposition of the distinctions made here is in De Vries, 1975:206-208). This development constitutes what for Brenner is the decisive step, the fatal crossing of the boundary dividing ‘feudalism’ from ‘capitalism’. But in the Dutch case, I argued, no institutional or political transformation was needed to push the rural households across this frontier. The institutional setting, in the broadest sense of the word, did not stand in the way, and it would be the ‘direct producers’ themselves who would play a large role in the transformation to come. They would not be ‘pushed’ or ‘forced’ into capitalist relations by a class of exploiters. Still, around 1500 (and one may justly criticize the excessive focus on that symbolic benchmark date) the rural households of most districts were not yet highly specialized. Most rural folk turned to a long list of supplementary employments, such as spinning

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and weaving, fresh water and ocean fishing, fowling, reed gathering, peat digging, dike work, and carting and shipping. Why this low level of occupational differentiation? Because ‘the low productivity in the agricultural factors of production forced even a peasant with a full hoeve [a traditional family holding] at his disposal to cultivate assiduously non-agricultural activities’ (p. 71). The key issue was not the ownership of productive assets or the motivation of the peasants, but the quality of their assets - land, especially, but also livestock, equipment, and ‘human capital’. The chapter concluded with the following passage: ‘This nonspecialization of the peasant household does not imply self-sufficiency. The numerous and populous cities and the general need, at least occasionally, to purchase grain insured the presence of a substantial local trade. But this trade, trade between nonspecialized production units employing primitive productive factors, must be clearly distinguished from the trade that developed later, among specialized production units employing more sophisticated productive factors.’ (De Vries, 1974: 72-73, emphasis added)

The critical problem in this society was not that the rural householders were oriented to self-sufficiency and therefore were unproductive generalists (as Van Zanden has it), but that their agricultural resources were of low productivity, forcing a resort to a wide array of supplementary employments. A deterioration of the hydrographic situation in the peat zones of Holland had imposed a certain flight from agriculture in the fifteenth century, while the growth of towns had expanded the range of non-agricultural employments for rural dwellers throughout the region. In a Marxian framework, society existed in a ‘post-feudal, pre-capitalist’ situation. Markets were ubiquitous, but producers were neither highly specialized nor highly productive. The demographic expansion and new commercial possibilities that grew in strength from the end of the fifteenth into the sixteenth century triggered a forceful response in this rural society of ‘petty commodity producers’, which brings us to the third question.

III.3. Did ‘small peasant property’ form an obstacle to rural capitalist development, or was it, in fact, the agency of change? In Brenner’s articles peasant capitalism is an oxymoron. The options are two: either small peasant property is short-circuited by the intervention of enclosing lords (Eng­ land), or it is exploited by the fiscal exactions of an agrarian-bureaucratic state (France). In Dutch Rural Economy I introduced two models of development from a smallholder base, the peasant model and the specialization model. I argued that the latter, based on specialized commodity production and market dependence by the peasant household, described in broad outline the course of development in the maritime Netherlands. That is, peasants could participate actively in construction of a capitalist economy, or as I put it then, ‘the peasantry, the rural class, became the farmers, a rural class.’ (De Vries, 1974: 120)

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The dynamic process of sixteenth and seventeenth century mral development described in Dutch Rural Economy emphasized the interactive processes of household speciali­ zation, occupational differentiation, and investment. Criticisms of this interpretation have focused on three basic issues. a. Specialization is an insufficient basis of long-term economic growth. Van Zanden argued that ‘in the analysis of De Vries (...) specialization is simultaneously the cause of increased productivity and of the emergence of a class of large farmers and of a rural proletariat.’ (Van Zanden, 1988: 82) He went on to doubt that specialized production, by itself, could have such far reaching, continuous effects, and argued that ‘the high productivity of agriculture in the coastal provinces was primarily the result of a centuries-long process of investment in capital goods.’ (Van Zanden, 1988: 86) Here, again, the critique is based on a less than careful reading. Investment, in my account, was at the heart of the specialization process, since only with land and equipment of higher quality could rural households devote themselves fully to market-oriented agricultural production. Urban investors and the state played significant roles in agricul­ tural investment, but I stressed that legal institutions, polders and hydraulic organizations, and tenure customs all made it possible that ‘the more important work of improving the quality of existing land, protecting it from the constant threats of inundation, and endowing it with the buildings and equipment needed for increased productivity fell to the rural dwellers themselves.’ (De Vries, 1974:196) Investment and specialization are obviously interrelated. Here, the key issue is the institutional as well as the economic setting in which rural households could play an independent role in the process. This led to occupational and social differentiation, which brings us to the second critique. b.

The process of specialization and differentiation described so optimistically in

Dutch Rural Economy was really a process of polarization and proletarianization.4 In my account, the specialization of production carried out by farmers was supported by a differentiation of occupations within rural society more generally. Both processes were pushed forward by acts of investment. Investment gave the farmers the means to capture scale economies and productivity gains, and it allowed non-farmers to earn a livelihood as the providers of goods and services to the farmers. The investment process at the heart of this rural development justifies applying to it the label ‘capitalist’, just as it is the key to explaining how numerous specialized non-farm occupations could emerge in rural society - as transporters, merchants, craftsmen, retailers, construction laborers, dike maintenance workers, etcetera (the occupational structure at the end of this process of differentiation is described in De Vries and Van der Woude, 1997: chapter 11). It was not only the farmers who were specializing. The more ‘pessimistic’ account stressing polarization and proletarianization seeks a Dutch parallel for Marx’s dramatic story of how the enclosure of the English open fields separated that country’s peasantry from the land, creating at once a class of capitalist farmers and the proletariat that one day would be sent into the dark Satanic mills and the insalubrious cities. In order to make an argument for this Dutch ‘premature proletariani­ 4 This alternative vision is presented in Van Zanden, 1988; Van Zanden, 1991 (translated in English: Van Zanden, 1993): 52, where Van Zanden attributes to this rural specialization/polarization a fatal undermining role in Holland’s merchant capitalist economy.

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zation’, it is necessary to emphasize the large-scale character of the Dutch agriculture that emerged from the process of sixteenth-century specialization. This brings us to the third criticism. c. The rural economy came to be dominated by large capitalist farmers standing opposed to a landless proletariat. Brenner argues that ‘highly specialized market production [in the Netherlands] led to the supercession of smallholders and the build-up of large farms’ (Brenner, 1985: 320), as, of course, does Van Zanden, who in his contri­ bution to this volume speaks of ‘the formation of large, capital-intensive farms’ and the collapse of a proto-industrial peasantry into a proletariat of farm laborers and migrants to the cities (Van Zanden, this volume). In their Introduction, however, Hoppenbrouwers and Van Zanden go so far as to associate me with this view, and upbraid both Brenner and me for succumbing to the argument that only large, labor-employing farms could form the basis for a productive, progressive agriculture (Hoppenbrouwers and Van Zanden, this volume). In fact, they state that ‘for De Vries, only accumulation of landholding could have triggered off successful specialization (...)’ (my emphasis). Nothing could be further from the truth. A key feature differentiating the ‘peasant model’ from the ‘specialization model’ is the tendency toward morcellement-th e division of holdings - in the former and the resistance to this tendency in the latter. That is, the specializing farm household managed to preserve its holding and invest in the impro­ vement of land quality, livestock, equipment, etc. The burden of Dutch Rural Economy was to show how farm households in most districts of the maritime Netherlands achieved greater output by investing in the quality of their capital and redirecting household labor toward specialized agricultural production. Thus, specialization depended neither on enlarging farm size nor on a rural proletariat of landless farm laborers.5 ‘Large’ is, of course, a relative term. A few exceptional seventeenth century farms reached 30-40 hectares, while many others, especially those devoted to the production of industrial crops such as hemp and hops, were very small, no more than a few hectares in size.6 But the key point is that large-scale dependence on hired labor was not characteristic of Dutch agriculture. Landless laborers were certainly not unknown, and in grain growing areas such as northern Friesland they formed a significant element of rural society. But most farms relied on family labor, live-in servants, and in some cases contract and seasonal laborers. ‘Large’ in the Dutch context was not comparable to the English-style tenant farm worked by day laborers. Which is to say that the numerous non-farmers populating the rural districts in the seventeenth century were not primarily

5 De Vries, 1974:127-136 assembles farm-size data from throughout the maritime zone, arguing that farms remained of roughly constant size despite the rapid growth of population. In the course of gathering these data, I noted some evidence for ‘the assembly o f landholdings sometimes larger even than the farms o f the early sixteenth century’ after the mid-seventeenth century. Until then, however, the chief feature is the resistance to morcellement. 6 Van Bavel’s contribution to this volume, and his references to Hoppenbrouwer’s study o f the Land van Heusden, illustrates the variety o f farm structure possible in nearly adjacent areas. The small holdings in the Land van Heusden became commercially oriented (and were not split into ever smaller parcels), as did the large tenant farms o f the Linge district. Van Bavel stresses the commercial character o f the land market in both areas, whether dominated by a large institutional landowner or by a multitude o f peasant proprietors.

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landless farm laborers (as assumed by the polarization model of Van Zanden) but spe­ cialist providers of goods and services for the farms and towns (as in the specialization model).

To summarize, the driving force of agricultural development in the 1500-1650 period was investment, much of it by peasants themselves. This made greater agricultural specialization possible at the same time that it created opportunities for the growing rural, non-farm population. This population was not primarily ‘proto-industrial’, as that term is commonly used, nor was it primarily composed of landless wage laborers dep­ endent on farmers for employment. The occupational differentiation of rural society was the pendant of a specialized agriculture, linked by market relations. Finally, these specialized farms were not necessarily larger than their predecessors. The key achievement was not increased size, but increased productivity, and this generally required not more land but better land and other capital. Having cleared a path through an underbrush of misunderstanding and exaggeration, we can turn now to a fourth, and final issue in relating the Dutch case to the theoretical debate about the emergence of agrarian capitalism in Europe.

IQ.4. Was the emergence of this productive rural economy held in check by new types of extra-economic coercion, in the form of either a parasitic urban sector or the heavy taxation of the state? In other words, did lordly feudalism fade away only to make room for new expressions of non-market exploitation, now emanating from the power of towns over their hinterlands and/or the state over its inhabitants? The peasant and specialization models oí Dutch Rural Economy stressed the potential for urban exploitation of an impoverished countryside in the former and the capacity of the latter to develop healthy economic relations between city and country. The focus of discussion in these models was the household - the rural producer and the urban investor. It had little to say about the city as a ‘corporate’ exploiter, extracting a tribute from the rural sector through its monopolistic control of the channels of distribution, such as staple rights (exclusive marketing privileges), tolls on transported goods, discriminatory taxes, and guild monopolies over the supply of goods and services to a rural hinterland. The more a city held its rural hinterland in its grip with such institutional power, the less a market economy could confer the benefits referred to so often in the preceding discus­ sions. To the extent that European cities exercised such institutional power the ironic implication must be that urbanization brought not market-induced specialization and rural development but instead rural subjugation, market-avoidance, and an absence of investment in agricultural capital. Stephen R. Epstein argues that just such a fate befell late medieval, that is Renaissance, Tuscany because, as he put it, ‘in Tuscany the state was the city, or rather, it coincided to a large extent with the ruling Florentine ruling oligarchy. In an unusually unmitigated fashion, this oligarchy bent the institutions of the state to its own purposes.’ (Epstein, 1991: 47) The long prominence of cities in the

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medieval Low Countries, their rise to some 40 percent of Holland’s population in the fifteenth century, and the establishment of the United Republic, a state dominated by cities as no other, suggest to the historian that Dutch rural society will also have suffe­ red from a self-interested urban stranglehold over the channels of distribution. From this perspective, a crucial achievement of the Netherlands, especially the north, was the avoidance of a polity of urban exploiters. This is not to say that cities and their patriciates did not strive to exercise institutional power over their hinterlands. One need only refer to the stapelrechten (regional monopolies) of Dordrecht and Groningen, the toll privileges of Gouda and Haarlem, and the efforts of Holland’s cities to outlaw rural industry and rural markets (briefly successful in the Order op de Buitennering of 1531) to establish the active presence of this congenital urban impulse. The urban impulse to subordinate and monopolize was certainly present, but in the Netherlands it could not act unchecked. The monopoly privileges of Dordrecht were opposed by other towns; the toll privileges of Gouda and Haarlem were objected to and evaded repeatedly, and the 1531 prohibition on rural industry could never effectively be enforced and soon became a dead letter. The region was full of cities, and in most areas no single city could hope to dominate as Florence dominated Tuscany. The competition of the numerous cities tended to restrain their monopolizing instincts, but that is only a part of the story. In the course of the sixteenth century the Northern Netherlands came to fashion a regional economy - an incipient national economy rather than a series of cities with their rural hinterlands. This happened because of two interacting processes, one economic and one political. Economically, the agricultural specialization and occupational differentiation referred to above took place via multiple initiatives, many of them rural in origin. Cities did not dominate and orchestrate this process. Without sharp social tension between city and countryside, a commercial system took shape that flowed almost seamlessly from city to country, from town to village.7 Politically, government, especially in Holland, was institutionalized at the provincial level in such a way as to check the unmediated rule of a city while it established a forum in which all economic interests could be integrated in the formulation of government policy. Habsburg rule sought to achieve greater centralization, but financial exigencies led to fiscal arrangements that strengthened the provincial States. In their efforts to meet their expanding fiscal responsibilities, the provincial States developed their administrative coherence and their financial sophistication. And no province moved further in this direction than Holland. James Tracy documented the emergency of a voluntary provincial bond market in Holland in the 1550s, while Jonathan Israel makes the plausible argu­ ment that Holland was pushed in the direction of strengthening provincial-level institutions because its chief sixteenth-century economic activities - the Baltic carrying

7 For a discussion o f the ‘sym biosis’ o f town and country, see De Vries and Van der Woude, 1977: 507-521; the case for treating the Republic as a ‘national econom y’ is made on 172-179. For a fuller account of rural-urban interaction in processes o f regional development see: De Vries, 1999:132-146.

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trade and the herring fishery - were both located chiefly outside the six ‘large towns’ with representation in the pre-Revolt States of Holland (Tracy, 1985; Israel, 1995: 39, 170). The multiple centers of economic power in Holland and the maritime Netherlands more generally (including drainage boards, rural markets, fishing ports, shipping cen­ ters, industrial towns, and commercial ports), helped encourage the fashioning of a coherent provincial level of government to coordinate these multiple interests. This supported an integrated regional economy that stood in sharp contrast to the citydominated hinterland described by Epstein for Tuscany. It appears that a significant distinction can also be made in this regard between Holland and the southern provinces of Brabant and Flanders, where provincial government tended to devolve to the quarters, each dominated by a large city. A second type of renovated ‘extra-economic coercion’ is the bureaucratic state, which secured for its class beneficiaries via heavy taxation what the old lordly exploiters could no longer secure directly via feudal extraction. The Habsburg regime seems to conform nicely to the North and Thomas/Brenner model of the state driven to raise ever larger revenues by the pressure of military competition. But, as noted above, the central government’s financial needs were usually met by delegating fiscal powers to the pro­ vinces, and from there to the cities. This devolution secured significant protections for vital economic interests, although it is a fair question whether the rural economy enjoyed much of this protection. The Revolt and the long war that followed placed unprecedented fiscal demands on the provinces of the new Republic; no one can deny that this was a ‘heavy-tax state’. But this is not necessarily the same thing as a neo-feudal polity extracting revenue for the support of a class of exploiters. It seems more fruitful to approach the fiscal policies of the Republic as one would a modem capitalist government. In the sixteenth century no less than in the twentieth, public policy stood before the choice of encouraging productive activity or rent-seeking behavior. The balance was then distinctly in favor of productive activity, but rent seeking ‘distributional coalitions’ were by no means absent. They never are. There is no need to evoke a ‘feudal transition’ to explain the existence of policies that transfer income to privileged groups; they remain a very modern pheno­ menon.

IV. Conclusion The single most important historical argument I have sought to make with respect to the agrarian history of the Netherlands is that the rural population played an active and major role in the construction of a productive, specialized, commercial economy in the maritime zone. The medieval peasantry was not enmeshed in ‘rules of reproduction’ that caused them to avoid market relations, or that prevented them from responding to commercial opportunities. On the contrary, the institutions of frontier settlement and water control as well as the environment of markets, transport routes, and production constraints, moderated or eroded extra-economic coercion wherever it existed. If the

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English peasants were driven horn the land by their lords, Holland’s peasants had to contend with their peat. The difference in historical agents requires a difference in historical explanation. Thus, the ‘direct producers’ acted to establish a market economy. They did not (neces­ sarily) do so by constructing large farms and employing a proletariat of farm laborers, nor were they outflanked by a reconstructed neo-feudalism of parasitic cities and absolutist fiscal pumps. Instead, they exploited the potential for household specialization via investment in land, equipment, and human skills and thereby contributed to the creation of an integrated regional economy.

Bibliography Brenner, R. (1976) ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’, Past and Present, 70, pp. 30-75. Brenner, R. (1985) ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, in T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (eds), The Brenner Debate. Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe, Cambridge, pp. 213-327. [orig. 1982] Epstein, S.R. (1991) ‘Cities, regions and the late medieval crisis: Sicily and Tuscany compared’, Past and Present, 130, pp. 3-50. Hoffman, E. and Mokyr, J. (1984) ‘Peasants, potatoes, and poverty: transactions costs in prefamine Ireland’, in G. Saxonhouse and G. Wright (eds), Technique, spirit and form in the making of the modern economies: essays in honor o f William N. Parker, Greenwich CT, pp. 115-145. (Research in Economic History ; Supplement 3). Israel, J.I. (1995) The Dutch Republic, its rise, greatness, and fall, Oxford. Krishna, R. (1969) ‘Models of the farm family’, in C.R. Wharton Jr. (ed.), Subsistence agriculture and economic development, Chicago. Newbery, M.G. and Sliglitz, J.E. (1981) The theory of commodity price stabilization: a study in the economics of risk, Oxford. North, D.C. and Thomas, R.P. (1973) The rise o f the western world. A new economic history, New York. Smith, A. (1776) Inquiry into the wealth o f nations, London, repr. 1976, Chicago. Tracy, J.C. (1985) The financial revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands. “Renten” and “Renteniers” in the County of Holland, 1515-1565, Berkeley. Vries, J. de (1973) ‘On the modernity of the Dutch Republic’, Journal of Economic History, 33, pp. 191-202. Vries, J. de (1974) Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, 1500-1700, New Haven. Vries, J. de (1975) ‘Peasant demand patterns and economic development: Friesland 1550-1750’, in W.N. Parker and E.L. Jones (eds), European peasants and their mar­ kets, Princeton, pp. 205-266. Vries, J. de (1999) ‘Great expectations. Early modem history and the social sciences’,

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Review: a journal of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study o f Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations, 22, pp. 121-149. Vries, J. de and Van der Woude, A. (1997) The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500-1815, Cambridge, [orig. Dutch 1995] Wallerstein, I. (1973) The modern world-system, Volume I: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world economy in the sixteenth century, New York. Wallerstein, I. (1980) The modern world-system, Volume II: Mercantilism and the consolidation of the European world-economy, 1600-1750, New York. Zanden, J.L. van (1988) ‘De prijs van de vooruitgang? Economische modemisering en sociale polarisatie op het Nederlandse platteland na 1500 ’,Economisch- en sociaal-historisch jaarboek, 51, pp. 80-92. Zanden, J.L. van (1993) The rise and decline of Holland’s economy. Merchant capitalism and the labour market, Manchester/New York. [orig. Dutch 1991]

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5 A Third Road to Capitalism ? Proto-industrialisation and the moderate nature of the late medieval crisis in Flanders and Holland, 1350-1550 Jan Luiten van Z anden , University o f Utrecht It can be argued that the Low Countries followed a ‘third road’ to capitalism, diffe­ rent from the two - English and French - paths analysed by Robert Brenner in his initial contribution. This article sets out to explore a number of features of this ‘third road’: high levels of urbanisation, early proto-industrialisation, and a very moderate late medieval crisis. Although there were many differences in the level and rate of economic development between Flanders and Holland in this period, these similarities are even more striking. Finally, it is suggested that those special features of the ‘third road’ to capitalism are interconnected. A common factor in much recent literature on the European economy in the early modem period is the importance attached to the emergence of a proto-industry in the development of processes of economic growth and social and demographic changes. Since the appearance of the classic article by Mendels, authors from divergent traditions have emphasised the importance this industrialisation had for the ‘Industrial Revolution’ in their theoretical reflections. At the same time, there has been an almost endless series of studies on the development of the cottage industry in various regions, in which hypo­ theses by Mendels and Medick are examined and further developed (Mendels, 1972; Mendels, 1982; Medick, 1981). In a nutshell, Mendels’ idea is that the proto-industry was a regional phenomenon, characterised by (1) the rural production of goods for markets outside the region, and (2) the presence of peasants who, because they were also active in agriculture, had to divide their time between work on the land and cottage industries (Mendels, 1982: 79). Moreover, according to Mendels, as these areas of proto-industry gradually began to suffer from a shortage of bread grains, regions of commercial agricul­ ture developed alongside them which were able to fill this grain gap. Furthermore, the importance of the rise of the proto-industry lay in the effect it had on the demographic pattem. It stimulated an increase in population and therefore a constant supply of (cheap) labour through which, given the limited capacity of agriculture, non-agricultural activities gradually increased in importance. In the long term, this was able to lead to the industriali­ sation of the region. The combination of agriculture and cottage industry resulted in an extremely flexible supply of labour which encouraged economic expansion. This, in its turn, stimulated the demand once more for labour. The benefits of economic growth, however, were unevenly divided. Because of an over supply of labour, the cottage worker was rarely able to profit from this growth. If anything, in the long term there was even a threat of a gradual prolétarisation of the work force. At the same time, entrepreneurs were in a

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position to accumulate large fortunes. In this way, the proto-industry was able to lay the foundations for the rise of the manufacturing industry to a certain extent (to put it in another context: in this way proto-industry played a crucial role in the transition from feudalism to capitalism; see Kriedte, 1981). For authors like Van der Wee, one of the most important points of criticism of this interpretation of the rise of the proto-industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is that the cottage industry had already begun to develop in many parts of Western Europe as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Van der Wee, 1988: 307-381, 317-318). It was actually in Flanders, the region Mendels examined so intensively, that what was in many respects an expansive cottage industry began to develop as early as the Late Middle Ages. At first sight, however, this industry appears not to have been as dynamic as Mendels’ theory would lead one to expect. In my study of the economic development of Holland during the period 1350-1850, I concluded that, in the early sixteenth century, there were many activities in the rural parts of Holland that, according to Mendels’ definition, could be considered as belonging to proto-industry, even though these were not always so much concerned with the production of goods as with the carrying trade (Van ¿anden, 1993b: 29-40). In this article I want to try to link this hypothesis that rural Flanders and Holland experienced a first phase of proto-industrialisation as early as 1350-1550 with the discussion on the moderate nature of the crisis in these two regions in the Late Middle Ages. To do this, three central questions need to be asked.

1. Is it possible to speak of a developing proto-industry in Mendels’ terms in Flanders and Holland during the period 1350-1550? 2. Are there indications that this specifically rural development had any influence on, or was linked to, the demographic changes in both regions and with the evolution of the relative labour shortage? 3. Did the specific dynamic of proto-industrialisation also occur in both regions; that is, was it characterised by processes of prolétarisation of labour, by the concentration of capital in the hands of entrepreneurs and, in the long term, by a concentration of industry in urban centres?

This article should be seen as an attempt, within the framework of my research on the development of the economy of Holland during this period, to re-examine hypotheses I have already formulated, taking also into account the influence of the ‘ecological crisis’ which hit agriculture in Holland about 1400.

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I.

Development of proto-industry

Under the influence of the economic success of the large cloth towns of Flanders and Northern France, a wool-processing cottage industry had already existed in rural Flanders since before 1300 (Thoen, 1988:1013). However, the exact nature of its development is still not very clear. After about 1300, the Flemish towns attempted to restrain this rural cloth industry as it began to compete more and more with the urban export industry. In 1314, Ghent acquired the rights to weave wool within an area of five miles around the town. Bruges and Ypres followed Ghent’s example and proceeded to adopt what was often a brutal oppression of the rural cloth industry. Only those towns which had a charter to weave wool escaped. Nicholas, in his detailed description of the tensions between town and country in Flanders in the fourteenth century, showed that it was especially Ghent that energetically and successfully managed to repress the cloth industry in its immediate environs. Mercantile Bruges was much more restrained. There, policy was directed much more towards preserving its (international) trade. Ypres followed a somewhat similar policy to Ghent, but the growth of a cottage industry in the period after 1350 was so dynamic in southern Flanders that the Ypres authorities eventually abandoned their attempts to quash it. The only thing they wanted was to prevent the cloth produced in the countryside from resembling the quality cloth produced in Ypres. The town authorities feared that such imitation cloth would bring the good name of their own into disrepute (Nicholas, 1971: 207-209). This sketch of the policies of the three towns should be seen against the background of the decline of their cloth industry after about 1300/1320. Competition from outside the region, from Italy, Brabant and, later, Holland and England was especially to blame. The further development of the cottage industry after 1350, however, should not be seen as something separate from the urban policies which began to take shape after 1314. Partly because of the heavy repression of the woollen industry, there was a development in the linen industry in the region around and to the south of Ghent towards the end of the fourteenth century and during the fifteenth century. In the words of the historian of the Flemish linen industry, Sabbe, ‘the urban cloth monopoly turned villages towards linen weaving’ (Sabbe, 1975:135). The density of the population of Flanders, the smallscale division of land, and the inadequate means of livelihood forced the peasants into supplementing their income with cottage industries. During the course of the fifteenth century, the rural linen industry expanded. This was the time, for example, when it began in the Leie Valley, that later became the centre of the industry (Sabbe, 1975:155). In southern Flanders, in the area around Ypres, however, it was the woollen industry that developed well. Small towns like Poperinge and Armentieres specialised in cheap imitations of traditional cloths (Nicholas, 1971: 211-216). In the fifteenth century, Hondschoote, a small town just outside the sphere of influence of Ypres, developed into the most important new textile centre of Flanders by concentrating on the weaving of light fabrics (serge). In the first half of the sixteenth century, these light textiles from Hondschoote expanded enormously (Coomaert, 1930). In both regions, the fifteenth century cottage industry was characterised (1) by a combination of agriculture and industry by peasants and, increasingly, by farm labourers

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and weavers, and (2) by production for a world market. Research by Thoen into the spread of looms among the rural population in the countryside of Oudenaarde between 1540 and 1550 confirms this picture (Thoen, 1988: 1000-1010). The characteristic dynamic of the proto-industry was present in that weavers in this period no longer, or almost no longer, had control over agricultural land but had become dependent on wages. I shall discuss this dynamic in the penultimate section.

Compared to the rather detailed picture that exists of the rise of the cottage industry in Flanders, there is relatively little known about the specific evolution of rural Holland during the same period. However, by comparing two situations, one about 1500, and one about 1350, it is possible to show that, in the intervening period, a strong growth in cottage industries, in the widest sense of the term, took place. Two inquiries into the economic situation of towns and villages in Holland were held in 1494 and 1514, for which representatives of these towns and villages were asked about the most important economic activities in their communities. It is possible to use these inquiries to convincingly show that in large parts of the countryside agriculture was only of secondary importance (Van der Woude, 1972: 346; Van Zanden, 1993b: 31-33). Non-agrarian activities like working in the herring fishing or in the merchant navy, cutting peat and spinning (and weaving) for the urban cloth industry were often the first and most impor­ tant means of livelihood. Small-scale arable farming and the keeping of a few cows were often added as sideline activities. Jan DeVries pointed to the existence of so many trade combinations as the typical, non-specialised character of ‘peasant economy’ (De Vries, 1974: 67-69). This typification, however, does not seem adequate as (1) almost all non-agrarian activities were carried out for wages, and (2) their production was not meant for domestic consumption but for markets outside the region. The analysis of registers of those liable to a levy of 10 percent on income from property (Tiende Pen­ ning Kohieren) for 1543-1561 also shows a rural structure characterised by small hol­ dings that were generally too small to maintain a household (Van Zanden, 1993b: 33; De Vries, 1974:61-66). From other sources we know that most of the crews on merchant ships and fishing boats came from the countryside. In many respects, the structure of rural Holland in the sixteenth century was similar to that of Flanders. In both regions there was a high population density, a large degree of urbanisation, small marginal farms, much wage labour, and important non-agrarian means of livelihood. The greatest difference was that the non-agrarian means of livelihood in Flanders was mostly connected with the wool and flax industries, while in Holland it was in fishing, the international carrying trade, peat cutting and nawying. However, there is no a priori reason for limiting the concept of the proto-industry to the cloth industry or even to industry in general. Working in the merchant navy performed the same econo­ mic function for the population in the rural areas of Holland as working in the linen industry did for the population in rural Flanders. In both instances it was related to the link between small-scale farming and a non-agrarian activity which benefited a market that extended beyond the region. However, this economic structure did not exist in rural Holland around 1350. Inter­ national trade and transport were still mostly in the hands of German Hanseatic merchants

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and carriers, the fishing industry had not yet developed and peat digging was still only done on a small scale, for meeting local needs (rather than for the export market which developed after 1530). Compared to Flanders and Brabant, Holland was a relatively underdeveloped region in 1350, with only a few reasonably large towns like Dordrecht and Leiden, and a largely agrarian countryside. H.P.H. Jansen placed the first spurt of growth in Holland between 1350 and 1400 (Jansen, 1978). It was round about the latter date that the economic development of Holland was forced to change direction because of ecological problems that arose in agriculture. Arable farming on the peat beds that had been created through large-scale reclamation of the peat moors from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries became more difficult because of the subsidence that resulted from the settling and eroding of the peat. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, attempts were made to prevent this by introducing better drainage and by shutting off river estuaries. It was during this period that the water boards (waterschappen) responsible for the building of sluices, dikes and canals were established. However, as De Boer showed in his study on rural South Holland, it was about 1400 that it became increasingly more difficult to grow winter grain crops on large areas, as can be seen from a sharp decrease in the incomes from tithes (De Boer, 1978: 211-250). The consequences of this were very complex. In the long term, arable on the fens had to give way to animal husbandry as the fens were very suitable for grazing. This meant that grains for bread had to be bought on the market in exchange for animal products. Presumably because of this problem, employment in agriculture decreased and there was an increase in migration to the towns (De Boer, 1978: 135-165). There was also a lot of pressure to develop non-agrarian activities. In the long run, fishing, peat cutting and transport along the many waterways flourished in the water-rich environment. Thus, the proto-industrial structure that can be read from the Enqueste (1494) and the Informacie (1514) developed partly because of the ecological crisis about 1400. However, as there has been no continuation of De Boer’s research there is, alas, little known about the exact nature of the evolution of rural Holland in the fifteenth century. The rise of the proto-industry in Holland therefore followed different lines from those of the proto-industry in Flanders. The cottage industry neither imitated nor competed with the urban export industry the way it did in Flanders. Rather, to a certain extent, it had its own dynamic, which came about partly because of the almost complete absence of sharp social tensions between town and country. Amsterdam merchants, for example, made unreserved use of barges from the surrounding countryside, especially from the Waterland, even though the town authorities saw to it that this did not lead to a transfer of the carrying trade from Amsterdam to these villages and small towns (Ketner, 1946: 148-151).

II. Demographic changes Various parallels can be seen between the economic development of Flanders and that of Holland between 1350 and 1550. In both regions, for example, the consequences of the 1348 plague were limited. Only after an intensive search in the archives have historians been able to find reliable proof that the number of deaths reached a peak in

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1349-1350 (which is even denied in some earlier literature), or that plague epidemics returned with a certain regularity after 1348, and were responsible for waves of death (De Boer, 1978: 32-134; Blockmans, 1980). Nevertheless there is no evidence that Holland and Flanders experienced the drastic decimation of the population that took place in other parts of Europe after 1348. Following the line Thoen used in his study of the region around Oudenaarde to look at demographic changes in the Flemish countryside, we can see that, after a certain recession between 1350 and 1380, a definite recovery of the population took place that continued until 1450 and even into the second half of the fifteenth century. Looked at in the long term, it is possible to talk of a period of stability followed by a relatively strong growth in the first half of the sixteenth century (Thoen, 1988:155-164). The population of the three large towns of Flanders probably decreased somewhat between about 1330 (130,000-140,000) and 1469 (123,000) (Prevenier, 1983). This decrease was chiefly concentrated in Ypres where the population was almost halved through the decline in the cloth industry. The populations of Ghent and Bruges probably remained fairly con­ stant. Compared to the ‘European pattern’, the population decline in Flanders was, on balance, fairly confined, but compared to the changes in Brabant and Holland, it was quite unfavourable (for Brabant: Klep, 1981). Changes in the population of Holland diverged even more strongly from the ‘European pattem’. Lesger estimated that between 1335 and 1477 the population of West Fries­ land increased by as much as 77 percent, from 22,100 to 39,200. The three towns in this region developed from almost nothing (their population increased from 2,500 to 19,600), the rural population grew by 33 percent (from 19,000 to 26,000) (Lesger, 1990: 217223). This strong growth of towns also took place elsewhere in Holland. According to estimates made by J.C. Visser, the population of urban areas with at least 2,500 inhabitants had increased to 8,000 by 1300, to 42,000 by 1400 and to 120,000 by 1514 (Visser, 1985). De Boer’s estimates are higher. He suggested that the total urban population in 1350 was about 60,000, just half the undisputed figure of 120,000 in 1514. De Boer put the total population of Holland at this time at 260,000 (De Boer, 1978: 41,45). According to his estimates, the mral population must have decreased from 200,000 in 1350 to 155,000 in 1514. The only indication De Boer gave for such a fall was taken from data on mral Rijnland, from which it is possible to ascertain a decline of 22.5 percent between 1369 and 1514 (De Boer, 1978: 47-61). However, a consideration of the data on population changes in West Friesland shows that this decline in the Rijnland cannot have been general. It seems safer to assume a much smaller decline, perhaps of 10 percent, for the mral population between about 1350 and 1514; a decline which possibly took place between 1350 and 1400. On average, however, because of the enormous growth of towns and the limited decline of the countryside, the total population of Holland probably rose by somewhere between 15 percent and 25 percent during the period 1350-1500. We must now ask ourselves if there was some sort of link between the relatively favourable changes in the (mral) population in both regions and the changes in the proto-industry. In earlier studies I did suggest such a connection without, however, having any irrefutable proof. Nevertheless, Thoen’s careful analysis of the demographic beha­ viour of the mral population round Oudenaarde does offer a starting point for the hypo­

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thesis that the rise of the proto-industry influenced the population evolution. Thoen showed that the ‘normal’ demographic pattem with a strong positive correlation between welfare and fertility seems to have been replaced in fifteenth century Flanders by a situation in which the natural growth of the various social classes did not differ very much from each other. A proletariat developed with an ‘internal growth dynamic’ reminiscent of the proto-industrial demographic pattem described in studies by Mendels, Medick and Levine (Thoen, 1988: 198-227). The result of this dynamic was a forceful population growth and a further prolétarisation of the population. Thoen believed that the proto-industry in Flanders at the end of the fifteenth century and in the first half of the sixteenth century could have contributed along these lines to the relatively favourable demographic changes (Thoen, 1988:1087). This is less evident for the period immediately after 1350. A proto­ industrial demographic pattern has not yet been found, but it is not unrealistic to believe that the expansion of the cottage industry as such provided more work and income in the countryside, thereby having an immediate influence on changes in population.

III. Development of wages A more specific test of the hypothesis that the demographic changes in Flanders and Holland were different from those elsewhere in Europe, and were not marked by a dra­ matic decrease in the population after 1348 involves a study of the real wages dining this period. Let us accept that a sharp decline in population is accompanied by an increase in the scarcity of labour, that generally leads to a sharp rise in real wages, unless non-economic means are used to withstand it. Almost all over Western Europe there was a sharp rise in real wages during the period after 1350. A similar examination is also relevant for testing the hypothesis for the relation between proto-industrialisation and changes in the availa­ bility of labour. It may be accepted that the development of a proto-industry is accompa­ nied by a continual over-supply of labour, which eventually leads to a prolétarisation and a decline in the level of real wages. By studying the changes in real wages it is possible to find out whether the evolution in the economies of Flanders and Holland satisfies or differs from the ‘European pattem’ characterised by a rising wage level. Thoen, in whose footsteps I once again follow, showed that the increase in real wages after 1350 was rather modest, which accords with the ‘moderate nature’ of the crisis in Flanders in the Late Middle Ages (Thoen, 1988: 941-962).1 In this section I want to compare Thoen’s data for Ghent with the changes in wages and grain prices in Holland (especially Leiden) which are available from other sources. Like Thoen, I limit myself to die wages of carpenters. As wages of other building craftsmen in both Ghent and Leiden virtually show a similar structure in the fifteenth century, conclusions drawn from carpen­ ters wages may be relevant for a number of crafts. Unfortunately, data for Holland do not go back further than 1342-1346. Data from the accounts of the Counts of Holland for Holland and Zeeland on wages and grain prices for these years were published by J.A. Sillem in 1895 (Sillem, 1895). From these1

1 1 thank Erik Thoen for sharing his data with me.

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we learn that an average daily wage for a carpenter in Holland, south of the IJ (the districts of Amstelland and North Holland) can be calculated as the equivalent of 3.625 Flemish groats. This was higher than the wages in Ghent that, according to Thoen, were then 2.67 groats per day. Wages and prices for ‘North Holland’ and The Hague up to about 1400 are available from De Boer’s study. Unfortunately, however, he did not col­ lect any data on the wages of carpenters. To fill the gap between 1350 and 1392, when we can fall back on the data for Leiden, I have made use of indices which De Boer calculated for the daily wage for mowing, hoeing and sawing in this period. I have also taken data on rye prices for 1340-1399 from De Boer (De Boer, 1978: 199 (table A), 203-206). There are more sources available for the period after 1392/1393: 1. Wages paid by the St Catherine’s Hospital (St Katrijnen Gasthuis) in Leiden for 1392-1692, collected but not published by Posthumus.2 2. Wages paid by the town of Leiden, recorded in the town accounts which begin in 1392. These can be found in accounts published by Meerkamp van Embden and in an unpublished study by De Goeje and Van der Vlist.3 3. For the period after 1450, use can be made of a study by Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers which contains a large number of wage statements for 1450-1600 (Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1984). These sources show a reasonably consistent picture. The daily wage in summer for a carpenter remained almost constant at 10 Flemish groats (or 5 stuivers). Only between 1420 and 1433 was there a (difficult to quantify) rise, under the influence of the monetary problems of those years.4 However, after the revaluation of 1433, a carpenter’s daily wage returned once more to the level of 10 Flemish groats.5 Rye prices for the period after 1390 are taken from Posthumus’s collection of ac­ counts for the St Catherine’s Hospital (Posthumus, 1946 series no. 160). However, as there are large gaps in the series (evidently the hospital’s consumption was almost entirely wheat), I have taken the series of wheat prices as my basis. Posthumus also published a series of rye and wheat prices taken from records for the Utrecht Chapter of Oudmunster. From these it is possible to deduce that prices of both cereals nearly always bore a constant relationship to each other. Between 1390 and 1550, rye prices per mud averaged 71 percent of the wheat prices, except for a few ups (78%) and downs (67%). By multiplying the Leiden wheat price by 0.71, figures can be produced that must approach those of the Leiden rye prices. When this was done for 1390/99 the results agreed almost

2 This unpublished material is available in Neha archives in Amsterdam, collection Posthumus. 3 Municipal Archives Leiden, N. de Goeje and E. van der Vlist, Lonen en prijzen in XVe eeuws Leiden (unpublished manuscript); A. Meerkamp van Embden, 1913-1914. 4 Municipal Archives Leiden, N. de Goeje and E. van der Vlist, Lonen en prijzen in XVe eeuws Leiden (unpublished manuscript), 5. 5 Recently collected data on the development o f wages paid by the Cistercian convent Leeuwenhorst between 1410 and 1553 collected by G. de Moor show that wages in the countryside of Holland were more flexible than in Leiden (and other cities); the long term trend o f the Leeuwenhorst wages was almost the same as in Leiden, however. These data were kindly made available to me by dr. G. de Moor. See also De Moor, 1994.

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A Third R oad to C apitalism ?

completely with the prices for rye based on the Counts of Holland Accounts which De Boer estimated for the same decade. Table 5.1 contains the results of these calculations and estimations. The comparison between both regions is considerably simplified because the same coin, the Flemish groat, formed the basis of the monetary system in both Flanders and Holland for most of this period. Only between 1365 and 1434 did the value of the Holland groat diverge a little from that of Flanders, and even then, except for the decades 1370-1379 and 1410-1429, the difference was never more than 10 percent. These differences can be corrected by converting wages and prices into their intrinsic (silver) value (sources: Flanders: Van der Wee and Aerts, 1979; Verlinden and Scholliers, 1965: XXXVIIXXXVIII; Holland: differences with the value of the Flemish groat between 1365 and 1434 are estimated from: De Boer, 1978: 177-187; Marsilje, 1985: 223).123

Table 5.1

1320/29 1330/39 1340/49 1350/59 1360/69 1370/79 1380/89 1390/99 1400/09 1410/19 1420/29 1430/39 1440/49 1450/59 1460/69 1470/79 1480/89 1490/99 1500/09 1510/19 1520/29 1530/39 1540/49 1550/59

Estimates of the development of wages and rye prices in Holland and Flanders (in silver groats)

(1) — 3.625 6.300 7.140 9.170 9.240 10.000 10.000 10.000 12.000 11.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000

Holland/Leiden (2) —

— 13.4 19.2 23.9 23.2 24.7 22.4 28.5 28.5 42.9 34.6 25.1 23.9 22.8 26.1 52.8 37.3 33.4 37.1 48.0 51.1 60.5 75.0

(3) — — 2.430 1.850 1.510 1.200 1.210 0.948 0.956 0.839 0.625 0.790 0.815 0.815 0.777 0.642 0.499 0.547 0.476 0.476 0.451 0.459 0.459 0.444

(1) 2.67 2.67 2.67 5.00 7.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 12.00

Ghent (2) 6.34 5.99 8.79 16.80 24.00 20.40 26.40 16.20 19.90 18.90 22.60 28.00 21.60 20.90 15.90 23.80 42.90 35.10 27.20 29.00 46.90 51.50 52.90 74.10

(3) 3.790 3.570 2.430 1.850 1.560 1.500 1.200 1.020 1.020 1.100 0.840 0.790 0.815 0.815 0.777 0.642 0.499 0.547 0.476 0.476 0.451 0.459 0.459 0.444

(1) wage carpenter (2) price of rye per hectolitre (3) silver content groat (in grammes)

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P easants into farm ers?

Sources: Amsterdam, Neha archives, collection Posthumus; Municipal Archives Lei­ den, N. de Goeje and E. van der Vlist, Lonen enprijzen in XVe eeuws Leiden (unpublished manuscript); De Boer, 1978: 177-187, 199 (table A), 203-206; Marsilje, 1985: 223; Meerkamp van Embden, 1913-1914; De Moor, 1994; Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1984; Posthumus, 1946; Sillem, 1895; Thoen, 1988:941-962; Verlinden and Scholliers, 1965: XXXVII-XXXVIII; Van der Wee andAerts, 1979. Around 1350, the level of the wages of a carpenter in Leiden were a little higher than those for a carpenter in Ghent (Figure 5.1). The sharpest rise in the nominal wage between 1350 and 1390, from 2.67 or 3.625 groats to 10 groats, can be largely explained by mone­ tary factors, namely the sharp devaluation of the groat in those years. It seems as if the ‘silver wage’ in Holland, and especially in Flanders, rose somewhat in 1350-1380. The peak in the Flemish series for 1370-1379 is somewhat suspect since in the series published by Thoen, data for these years is missing. Thoen assumed that in 1370-1379 the day wage was 10 groats, but he had insufficient data to back this up. On the basis of his own graphs, a day wage of 7 or 8 groats can be equally justified (Thoen, 1988: 953). What is certain is that after 1390 nominal wages were completely frozen, while the intrinsic value of the groat continued to fall, sometimes by small steps and sometimes by large leaps (1474-1499). This led to a halving of the intrinsic value of the wage during the fifteenth century. Until about 1480, this was counteracted by the low level of grain prices in the fifteenth century, as I shall show later. However, after 1480, it led to a sharp decline of real wages.

Figure 5.1. Nominal wages of carpenters in grammes of silver, 1320/29-1550/59

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A Third R oad to Capitalism ?

Changes in the intrinsic value of rye prices are just as illuminating. As Figure 5.2 shows, the period 1350-1390 was characterised by relatively high grain prices and not, as was probably the case elsewhere in Europe after the Black Death of 1348, by a fall in price level (Abel, 1966:51-58). This was because the increase in grain prices was sharper than the fall in the value of the coin. After 1390, however, a fall in the level of intrinsic grain prices set in which, with ups and downs, was to last until about 1470. What is noticeable is that the price of rye in Ghent fell more sharply than it did in Leiden, which meant a large increase in price differences between both towns. From an average difference of only 10 percent in the years 1340-1389, it reached an average of 27 per­ cent between 1390-1469, falling again to an average of 18 percent between 1470-1519, and to an average as low as 4 percent between 1520-1559. The ‘ecological crisis’ in the agriculture of Holland, which began in about 1400 and led to a large growth in the import of grains is reflected in this price difference. The near disappearance of the difference after 1520 can probably be explained by the heavy increase in imports of grains from the Baltic region which put pressure on the price level in Holland. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the supply of grain for the market in the southern part of the Low Countries passed through Amsterdam (Van Zanden, 1993a). This must have re­ sulted in prices in Holland even falling a little below those in Brabant and Flanders.

Figure 5.2. The price of one hectoliter of rye in grammes of silver, 1320/29-1550/59

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The result of changes in nominal wages and in the price of rye gives a rough estimate of the evolution that took place in real wages, in litres of rye (Figure 5.3). In his analysis of the price series for Ghent, Thoen emphasised the stability of the real wage level between 1320-1470. Because of the generally lower level of nominal wages, and the considerably higher rye prices in Leiden, real wages in Holland were almost always significantly

95

P easants into farm ers?

below those of Ghent. Likewise, the increase in the real wage in Leiden after 13501359 was even more modest than that in Ghent. However, what is striking is that in both regions, in spite of the high level of rye prices in the second half of the fourteenth century and the continuing devaluation of money, the real wage rose rather than fell until about 1390. This points towards a certain scarcity of labour. For Flanders, this agrees with the (light) fall in population ascertained by Thoen for the period 1350-1380 (Thoen, 1988: 155-156). Also, De Boer believed that the fall in the population in the countryside of South Holland most probably began in the same period (De Boer, 1978: 165). There was a second period of high real wages 1440-1470. This time it was par­ ticularly caused by the low level of rye prices during a period of political stability and (presumably) growing prosperity. This is the time of the hey-day of the Burgundian State.

Figure 5.3. Real wages in hectoliters of rye, 1320/29-1550/59

In my opinion, this analysis of the series of wages and rye prices shows that only for the period 1350-1390 can one talk of a scarcity of labour in both regions. The period 1390-1470 was characterised by stability in the relatively high level of real wages, caused particularly by a relative fall in grain prices. This fall, however, was sharper in Flanders than in Holland, where rye prices remained at a relatively high level. After 1475, and particularly after 1500, a sharp fall in real wages began as a result of a continuous rise in the price of rye while nominal wages remained constant. At the same time, there was a sharp increase in the processes of prolétarisation. I look at this dynamic more closely in the next section.

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A Third R oad to Capitalism ?

IV. Dynamics of proto-industry According to the hypothesis, proto-industry develops, via a strengthened demographic growth, a subdivision of farms, and an unequal division of the profits from the economic growth, hand in hand with processes of prolétarisation and the accumulation of capital by a small group of entrepreneurs. In this way proto-industry plays an important role in the structural transformation of the economic and, in the classical Marxist sense, in the ‘original accumulation of capital’. Once these processes are well advanced, then technoeconomic or market economic considerations can lead to entrepreneurs proceeding to concentrate on producing in larger units. In this way there is a link between the rise of ‘modern industry’ in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the proto­ industrialisation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Industrialisation is subsequently able to develop together with urbanisation because those working in the cottage industry lose their links with agriculture. A proto-industry provides, as it were, the conditions necessary for the rise of modem industry: a proletariat used to long working hours and that (almost) no longer has any connection with agriculture, and capital that is accumulated by entrepreneurs. This is not the place to examine how valuable this hypothesis is as an explanation for industrial processes in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although the theory is not without its critics, several writers have nevertheless fruitfully applied it to this period. The central question for this article is the relation between this ‘teleological’ part of the theory and the development of the proto-industry in Holland and Flanders in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The processes of strong demographic growth and prolétarisation, particularly in the late fifteenth century and the sixteenth century have been adequately demonstrated for the Flemish countryside by Thoen, as I have indicated above. Coomaert, in his classical study on developments in the cloth industry in Hondschoote, showed that through the continual growth of both its cloth industry and its population (it had at least 12 000 inhabitants in the middle of the sixteenth century), the association between agriculture and industry gradually became looser. During the sixteenth century, weavers in Hondschoote fully applied themselves to the production of serge and other light cloths (Coomaert, 1930: 335-340). In earlier publications I put forward a case for similar processes in mral Holland. In these I concluded that the changes predicted by the theory began there after 1580, with a transformation in agriculture that led to the formation of large, capital-intensive farms and to the disappearance of the marginal peasant class that had been the basis of the proto-industry. At the same time, there was a strong process of urbanisation, and also accelerated processes of concentration and increase in scale in both industry and trans­ port. It is my opinion that the transformation of the economy of Holland during the ‘Golden Age’ was in a way the logical outcome of the process of proto-industrialisation that began in the fifteenth century and noticeably accelerated in the sixteenth century (Van Zanden, 1993b: 35^10). For Flanders too, it is possible to see a break in the last quarter of the sixteenth cen­ tury which, to large extent, was decided by the political and military changes during those years (the Dutch Revolt of 1572 and the occupation by Spain in the 1580s). The Flemish contribution to the ‘big spurt’ of the economy of Holland after 1580 was im-

97

P easants into farm ers ?

portant. Wealthy merchants and specialised craftsmen who for religious and economic reasons left Flanders in large numbers played a major role in the expanding economy of Holland. Many weavers and entrepreneurs from Hondschoote, for example, moved to Leiden where, by introducing light cloth, they contributed largely to the recovery of the Leiden textile industry (Posthumus, 1939). The magnitude of this wave of migration can probably partly be explained by the fact that the association between agriculture and industry in the countryside, especially in Hondschoote, had become so much looser. Therefore, to a certain extent, it is possible to see the recovery after 1580 of the Leiden cloth industry (and the spread of the manufacture of light cloths elsewhere) as a continuation of the cottage industry of southern Flanders, in accordance with the protoindustry theory. After the dramatic events of 1572-1600, the proto-industrial structure that grew up in Flanders, particularly in the region around and to the south of Ghent, appears to have been characterised by a long period of stability (see e.g. Vandenbroeke, 1985). The re­ newed growth of the rural population, after having fallen in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, and the decrease in the size of farms was largely compensated for by the con­ tinuing growth of agricultural productivity through which the linen industry and farming seem to have balanced each other. Also the relation between cottage workers and entre­ preneurs seems to have been stable, with weavers generally remaining owners of their looms and of the (often home-grown) flax. As far as can be ascertained, there was almost no prolétarisation. This is not the place to go further into an explanation for this somewhat exceptional stable proto-industry - exceptional because it lacked the specific dynamic that, according to the theory, it should have had. Nevertheless, it is ironic that it is exactly this ‘special’ cottage industry that was the subject of Mendels’ research, and that was the cause for the theoretical reflections on the dynamic role of proto-industry.

V.

Conclusion

This article has concentrated in detail on two themes: changes in the proto-industry in Flanders and Holland during the period 1350-1550, and the moderate nature in both regions of the crisis in the Late Middle Ages. A few conclusions follow: Both regions, particularly in the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth century, experienced a strongly growing cottage industry which had all the characteristics of a proto-industry. It is possible to speak of a first wave of ‘proto-industrialisation’ dis­ tinguishable from a second wave that began during the (crisis of the) seventeenth century and expanded in magnitude and significance in the eighteenth century. In both regions, political and military troubles in the late sixteenth century caused a break in this development. In Holland, the rise of the cottage industry helped lead to the transformation of the economy during the Golden Age. In Flanders, however, an exceptionally stable cottage industry developed after 1600. Changes in population and in real wages show that there was a development in both regions that diverged from the general European pattern. There does not seem to have been a sharp fall in the rural population, although there are indications that between

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1350-1380/90 there was a limited decline and some scarcity of labour. Moreover, urban demographic changes were relatively favourable in Flanders, and exceptionally favourable in Holland. Finally, application of the theory on the proto-industry has revealed several new aspects of the development of the cottage industry in Holland and Flanders in the Late Middle Ages. These new aspects have helped to throw light on the special development of both regions within a European framework. At the same time, several additions to, and adaptations of the theory have been suggested. In Holland, the proto-industry in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries consisted of more than the production of goods; the carrying trade, peat digging and fishing were also central to it. Also, what was in many respects a stable proto-industry in Flanders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries makes adjustments to Mendels’ theory necessary. Moreover, the biased orientation of the theorists in this field of the cottage industry after 1600 has also been pointed out. The important question which this article does not answer adequately is how these developments in population, urbanisation and proto-industrialisation are interrelated. Should the favourable changes in the rural population be explained through the creation of a proto-industrial demographic regime, for which Thoen found evidence for Flanders? Or did the constantly high pressure on the countryside (as a result of the limited consequences of the plague epidemics) and the continuous reduction of the size of farms go hand in hand with the rise of the proto-industry? In the long term, these factors probably reinforced each other, with the proto-industry creating a positive demand for labour, and population growth stimulating non-agrarian activities to expand. In Hol­ land, these processes were, to a certain extent, intensified by ecological problems in arable farming. What still remains unanswered, however, is why the population decline in these regions after 1348 was smaller than elsewhere. The moderate fall of population after 1348 was probably very influential for the development that followed, but as such still remains to be explained. These issues should be researched more thoroughly if we want to understand the dynamics of the Low Countries’ ‘third road’ to capitalism.

Bibliography Manuscript sources Municipal Archives Leiden, Goeje, N. de and Vlist, E. van der, Lonen en prijzen in XVe

eeuws Leiden (unpublished manuscript). Nederlands Economisch-Historisch Archief (NEHA), Amsterdam, Collection Posthumus (unpublished material).

Printed and secondary sources Abel, W. (1966) Agrarkrisen und Agrarkonjunktur, Hamburg/Berlin. Blockmans, W.P. (1980) ‘The social and economic effects of plague in the Low Countries, 1349-1500’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 58, pp. 835-863.

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Boer, D.E.H. de (1978) Graafen grafiek. Sociale en economische ontwikkelingen in het middeleeuws ‘Noordholland’ tussen 1345 en 1415, Leiden. Coomaert, E. (1930) La draperie-sayetterie d ’Hondschoote, Rennes. Jansen, H.RH. (1978) ‘Holland’s advance’, Acta Historiae Neerlandicae, 10, pp. 1-20. [orig. Dutch 1976] Ketner, F. (1946) Handel en scheepvaart van Amsterdam in de vijftiende eeuw, Leiden. Klep, P.M.M. (1981) Bevolking en arbeid in transfor mafie, Nijmegen. Kriedte, P., Medick, H. and Schluhmbohm, J. (eds) (1981) Industrialization before industrialization, Cambridge. Lesger, C. (1990) Hoorn als Stedelijk knooppunt, Hilversum. Marsilje, J.W. (1985) Hetfinanciële beleid van Leiden in de laat-Beierse en Bourgondische periode 1390-1477, Hilversum. Medick, H. (1981) ‘The proto-industrial family economy’, in P. Kriedte, H. Medick and J. Schluhmbohm, Industrialization, o.c., Cambridge, pp. 38-73. Meerkamp van Embden, A. (1913-1914) De stadsrekeningen van Leiden, Amsterdam. Mendels, F.F. (1972) ‘Proto-industrialization: the first phase of the industrialization process ’, Journal of Economic History, 31, pp. 241-261. Mendels, F.F. (1982) ‘Proto-industrialisation: theory and reality. General report’, in La proto­ industrialisation: théorie et réalité. Rapports, V ille Congress International d ’Histoire Economique, Budapest, Section A2, Lille, pp. 69-107. Moor, G. de (1994) Verborgen en geborgen. Het Cisterciënzerinnenklooster Leeuwenhorst in de Noordwijkse regio (1261-1574), Leiden. Nicholas, D. (1971) Town and countryside: social, economic and political tensions in fourteenth-century Flanders, Bruges. Noordegraaf, L. and Schoenmakers, J.T. (1984) Daglonen in Holland 1450-1600, Am­ sterdam. Posthumus, N.W. (1939) De geschiedenis van deLeidsche lakenindustrie, vol. II, The Hague. Posthumus, N.W. (1946) Inquiry into the history of prices in Holland, vol. II, Leiden. Prevenier, W. (1983) ‘La démographie des villes du comté de Flandre aux XTVe et XVe siècles’, Revue du Nord, 65, pp. 255-275. Sabbe, E. (1975) De Belgische vlasnijverheid, I: De Zuidnederlandse vlasnijverheid tot het verdrag van Utrecht (1713), Kortrijk. Sillem, J.A. (1895) ‘Onderzoek naar loonen en prijzen van levensmiddelen in 14eeeuwsche nederlandsche bronnen’, Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeling letterkunde, 3e reeks, 11, pp. 295-340. Thoen, E. (1988) Landbouwekonomie en bevolking in Vlaanderen gedurende de late Middeleeuwen en het begin van de Moderne Tijden, 2 vols, Ghent. Vandenbroeke, C. (1985) ‘De proto-industriële ontwikkeling van België in het kader van de internationale historiogafie’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiede­ nis, 63, pp. 310-323.

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Verlinden, C. and Scholliers, E. (eds) (1965) Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en Ionen in Viaanderen en Brabant II, deel A, Bruges. Visser, J.C. (1985) ‘Dichtheid van de bevolking in de laat-middeleeuwse stad’, Histo­ risch Geografisch Tijdschrift, 3, pp. 10-21. Vries, J. de (1974) The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, New Haven/London. Wee, H. van der (1988) ‘Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and deurbanization in the Low Countries from the Late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century’, in H. van der Wee (ed.), The rise and decline of urban industries in Italy and the Low Countries, Louvain, pp. 307-381. Wee, H. van der and Aerts, E. (1979) ‘De Vlaams-Brabantse muntgeschiedenis in cijfers: een poging tot homogenisering van de veertiende- en vijftiende eeuwse gegevens’, Revue Belge de Numismatique, 125, pp. 59-87 Woude, A.M. van der (1972) Het Noorderkwartier: Een regionaal-historisch onder-

zoek in de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late Middeleeuwen tot het begin van de 19e eeuw, Wageningen. Zanden, J.L. van (1993a) ‘Holland en de Zuidelijke Nederlanden in de periode 15001570: divergerende ontwikkelingen of voortgaande economische integratie?’, in E. Aerts [et ah] (eds), Studia Historica Oeconomica. Liber amicorum Herman van der Wee, Louvain, pp. 357-368. Zanden, J.L. van (1993b) The rise and decline of Holland’s economy, Manchester, [orig. Dutch 1991]

101

6 A ‘commercial survival economy’ in evolution. The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages-19th century) Erik T hoen , University of Ghent I.

Introduction 1.1.

The study of economic development and the countryside in Flanders

Economic development and the roots of capitalism in the Netherlands have received much attention in recent years; in particular, new publications such as De Vries and Van der Woude (1995) and Van Zanden (1993), among others, have given the debate new focus and direction. However, no such all-encompassing studies have been published for the Southern Netherlands. In the present context we will concentrate on three subjects in particular: 1/ The so-called ‘proto-industrialisation’ debate, originally stimulated by Mendels (1972 etc.), and the function of proto-industry in the development of ‘industrialisation’; 2/ The place of (parts of) the Southern Netherlands in Wallerstein’s ‘Modem World System’ (see e.g. Vanhaute 1993a, 1993b; Saey 1994); and, finally, 3/ The stmcture of urban entrepreneurship in Flanders and Brabant, which seems to have been much more flexible than was previously thought (see especially the re­ search stimulated by R. Lis and H. Soly - a synthesis which appeared in 1997 in res­ ponse to Van Zanden (1993), mentioned above). Many authors - more so in the Southern Netherlands than in the North - have focused only on urban and commercial developments. This is true even of studies of ‘rural’ proto-industrialisation, a phenomenon which has been seen above all in the context of the development of industrialisation, and less as a structural element of the agricultural economy. Nevertheless, as will become clear, I believe that the role of proto-industrialisa­ tion has been marginalised to an unjustified extent in recent years in the ‘transition debate’. Particularly in the case of the Southern Low Countries, it is clear that the stmcture of the countryside has been largely neglected in discussions of this issue. This article will focus on important aspects of the role of the countryside in the transition towards commercial and industrial capitalism.

1.2. Goals and limits of the inquiry In recent decades it was especially Robert Brenner who has incorporated the structures of the countryside within the scope of his analyses. Partly due to lack of research and the fact that too few regional studies are published in international languages, the most densely populated areas of Europe, such as the Low Countries and Northern Italy, have been largely neglected in the debates aroused by Brenner’s remarkable publications.

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The main criticism levelled against his work (1976 and 1982) was that he did not take full account of market conditions beyond the agrarian structure of large pre-capitalistic farms (Cooper, 1985; Epstein, 1991). In his later publications the reproduction system of the small peasant and the role of the market were accorded greater importance, with the result that these elements were considered as one of the ‘social’ conditions for reproduction (Brenner, 1986,1996). However, there is still no detailed study of the role of the Flemish countryside and its population, the majority of whom were smallholding peasants, in the development of capitalism. This paper presents a survey of the state of research into the role of the countryside in the ‘transition’ of this region as well as my personal views about this topic. The starting point is the Brenner debate. As in the work of Brenner and other neo-Marxists, the fundamentally different social and political structures of each locality are seen here as the best way to explain the regionally diffe­ rent paths towards capitalism. We also believe that capitalism emerges from feudal structures which have their own laws and logic. Nevertheless, the paper will give a personal interpretation of the structural evolution of capitalism, and it is based on re­ search carried out over many years, as well as on secondary literature relating to the subject. The focus of this paper is not ‘Flanders’ in the sense of the present-day Flemish­ speaking region of Belgium, but rather the central part of the former County of Flanders. The importance of this region in the debate needs no emphasis. It was one of the earliest urbanised areas in Medieval Flanders, containing cities such as Gent, Bruges and Ypres. We will argue that the urban economy was founded on, and developed from, the rural economy. Even in the highly urbanised County of Flanders, rural and urban economies were interwoven to a greater extent than is commonly recognised; in part at least, the industrial revolution also had its roots there, as a result of an economic structure in which towns and rural surroundings almost literally formed a whole. Although the coastal region of Flanders will be referred to occasionally, it is largely omitted from the discussion, because - as I have argued elsewhere (Thoen, 1999; Thoen, forthcoming) the features of this area were more akin to those we find in many parts of the Northern Netherlands. It is common knowledge that Flanders (not only the former County, but present-day Flanders as a whole) witnessed the generalisation of the factory system in towns based on new industrial technology very late, towards the end of the nineteenth century much later than the Southern (French-speaking) part of Belgium, the Walloon region, where widespread early industrialisation developed at the beginning of the previous century, making it the first industrialised area of the Continent (see for example Mokyr, 1976). Recent research has stressed the importance of Flemish exceptions - such as Gent, Ronse and Lier - which industrialised early in the nineteenth century, with con­ centrations of pre-mechanised labour already present in the last decades of the previous century (Lis and Soly, 1997: 224). Notwithstanding these findings, it was only from the last decades of the nineteenth century onwards that Flanders as a whole followed more or less in the footsteps of the Walloon region, and only after the First World War that Flanders became a truly industrialised area. It seems that this later industrialisation of Flanders must also be explained, at least in part, in relation to the structural features of the countryside (see below).

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The origin of many of these features is to be found in the Middle Ages, in the countryside as well as in the towns. In what follows, a thematic rather than a chronological approach will be adopted, with each paragraph considering a significant element which influenced the transition to capitalism in a positive or negative way.

A survey of the transition from ‘feudalism’ to ‘capitalism’ requires at least a few definitions and remarks.1 ‘Feudalism’ is defined here as a dynamic (¿though not a linear) economic ‘system’ with changing structures and periods of acceleration. The period of the high Middle Ages (much more than the later Middle Ages, as Marx thought) was a period of acceleration12; it was important for the development of structures of the second stage of feudalism, evolving in the Flemish case on a, what we called, ‘commer-cialsurvival’ basis, as this article intends to demonstrate. But this structural framework was also dynamic, leading, with ups and downs, to generally slow and restrained increases in output, but not to ‘revolutions’ (at least, not until the system collapsed in the second half of the nineteenth century). Defining the ‘productive stage’ of feudalism as ‘commercial capitalism’ is legitimate, but it is actually beside the point. Even ‘capital accumulation’ had, in the long-term, its ups and downs, and was no guarantee of a fundamental and long-term change in so­ ciety. The real revolution in the transition was, and remains, the evolution of a factory system, grounded in innovation and profit-making, during the industrial revolution. To this development is often added the loss of the means of production by the producers. We would join Brenner in changing the latter to the loss of the means of subsistence by producers (Brenner, 1997: 14).3 We would also agree with him that the key to modern economic growth was ‘the onset of processes of transition through which pre-capitalist social-property relations were transformed into capitalist social-property relations’ (Brenner, 1997: 12). These property structures will therefore receive considerable attention in what follows.

The period covered in this paper is long, and many points must be dealt with briefly and generally. Due to a lack of data it must be considered, in many respects, a personal essay. We begin with the transformations of the ‘classic’ Middle Ages, in which there was accelerated growth towards capitalism, characterised by commercialisation and concentrated manufacturing, by growing trading activity and by the development of 1 For a summary of the main arguments in the transition debate see Holton, 1985. 2 In recent studies Richard Britnell (1993a and 1993b) argued that there is more reason to believe that capitalism in England expanded more in the High Middle A ges than in the late Middle Ages. In the classic marxist view, it is precisely the latter period which is considered crucial in the tran­ sition to capitalism. There are more reasons to assume that, in the evolution o f commercialisation, this view applies more to Flanders than to England even though Britnell overemphasised the arguments provided by Marx him self without taking into account the neo-marxist differentiations introduced by, among others, P. Sweezy (influenced by Pirenne) and recently, but in a completely different context, by R. Hilton, 1992. 3 This is explained more fully later on.

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public services within a network of towns. This period also laid the foundations of the ‘second’ period of feudalism, characterised by a ‘commercial-survival’ economy which, as we shall see, remained typical of the rural economy of much of Flanders until at least the mid-nineteenth century.

II.

Flemish agriculture in the high Middle Ages and the role of the countryside in the development of Flemish towns

According to H. Pirenne (19522: 105 ff.) and many others, there was a ‘logical’ and parallel evolution of town and countryside in Flanders during the period of the take-off of the towns, with the often implicit assumption that the development of cities served as the initial stimulus. Some later studies have denied the progressive character of Flemish agriculture in this period (Nicholas, 1991), while others have affirmed it (Verhulst, 1993). A number of studies have focused on the growth of (specific) towns out of (often early medieval) rural demesnes (Despy 1975; Verhulst, 1989). Nevertheless, until my study of 1993, nobody really tried to explain the development of Flemish towns in terms of the evolution of rural and feudal changes of a general and structural nature within the County (Thoen, 1993 and 1994a). Taking into account the longer-term context of the present study, the following section will briefly summarise (and modify where necessary) the thesis developed in that study.

ILI. Some features of the agricultural production system from the eighth to the eleventh-twelfth centuries It is clear that, as elsewhere in this early period, the rural economy still did not have the features which it would acquire in later centuries of the Middle Ages. A completely different type of agriculture, based on specialisation, seems to have been created in Flanders. The sources are scarce, and we often must work backwards from later periods to establish hypotheses. However, new studies appear to agree that: 1. Without a real ‘agricultural revolution’ (in the technical sense of the word) having taken place, there was already a greater dynamism in demesne structures than had been the case since the Carolingian period (See especially the studies of Morimoto, 1996 and Devroey, 1998/1999; for a summary applied to Flanders, see Devroey, 1998/1999). This is not a feature of Flanders alone. 2. There was a fundamental increase in agricultural output, especially in Flanders, where it had already begun in the Carolingian period, and where it had accelerated in the eleventh century. This increase in output was achieved in a number of ways: by a seigneurial ‘population policy’, and by reclamations (colonisation) encouraged by the lords; by an increase in up-and-down or convertible husbandry (Thoen, 1994b); by the expansion of ‘infields’ (intensively ploughed and manured areas of the village) as opposed to ‘outfields’ (Ibid); and by the wider application of a three-course rotation system (see Thoen, 1997).

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3. Serfdom (in the classical sense of judicial dependence) was weak in Flanders; where it still existed, it declined at an earlier stage than in many other areas because of power struggles between the upper strata of society (see below). 4. Commercialisation was increasing, on the one hand because of greater monetary circulation, on the other because of specialised use of large holdings, and perhaps of whole regions, within the countryside (see Thoen, 1993,1994a, 1997; confirmed by Devroey, 1998/1999). Specialised large farms or production centres, sometimes concentrated in the most propitious locations for that specialisation, appear to have been increasing in number in the former County of Flanders from the eighth century, but especially (after a slow downturn in the tenth century) from the eleventh and twelfth centuries onwards. These farms and regions4 were specialised in one product, or in a few basic necessities, such as food (cereals, meat in the form of mutton and pork, salt), drink (beer), fuel (mostly peat), and even the most important raw materials for manufacturing (wool, of course, was a by-product of sheep breeding, leather of cattle breeding). It is likely that no regular import trade on a large scale was needed to provide the increasing urban population with basic products before the thirteenth century. Moreover, it is only in the late thirteenth century that we find evidence of significant imports of these products, except for English wool, which had arrived in Flanders as early as the twelfth century (see Verhulst, 1993). These products formed an almost complete and complementary provisioning system for the developing towns. It is likely, therefore, that in the period of the take-off of the urban economy, the County of Flanders formed a more or less “closed” macro-economic agrarian eco-system with many specialised farmers. Regional, rather than established urban, markets (Yamada, 1991) seem to have been important in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in sustaining this network of rural specialisation. 5. Greater polarisation also appears to have occurred within rural society, a pheno­ menon which links this period to later developments. The trend towards specialisation was accompanied by increasing colonisation, especially from the second half of the eleventh century and in the twelfth (Verhulst, 1990: 46 ft.); and, as we shall see below, by an increase in population encouraged by the lords. Together with a new, more rational policy of decreasing the larger demesnes in size5, these developments probably created a greater number of peasant smallholdings6. Indeed, in inland Flanders many of the reclamations were carried out by the peasants themselves, mostly with only indirect encouragement from the lords (for example, by means of low, almost symbolic, customary rents, or by grants of free status: see Thoen, 1990). 4 In my article (Thoen, 1993) I may have focused a little too much on the regional aspect o f specialisation. Sometimes farms of different specialisation were located in the same area or even village (see e.g. Duvosquel, 1995: 73). 5 Especially the cutting down of less fertile parts o f the demesne centre (Verhulst, 1990:75) to make these lands more profitable, which probably did not make these demesnes less lucrative or commercial. 6 Although there is no proof, it would not be surprising if many peasant smallholders were, in the initial stages o f Flemish development, engaged in a rural w ool industry. Indeed for the coastal areas documents tell o f great sheep flocks in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and there are many place names in inland Flanders which give onomastic evidence for early large-scale herds (Devroey, 1998: 68 ff.; Verhulst, 1995). The first documentary evidence o f a rural woolen industry in Flanders dates to the end o f the thirteenth century.

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11.2. The role of power and property structures in the development of capitalism in this period What caused this specialisation? Why was there an increase in population and possibly greater polarisation within the countryside? In large part this must be explained by the typical structures of property-holding and power within society. It is well known that from the tenth century, the County of Flanders was one of the most powerful principalities in Europe. The count’s influence largely derived from the revenues of rural estates, which allowed him to dominate local lords. In other words, the power of the first counts of Flanders was based to a large degree on the agricultural sector, as Voet, Ganshof and others observed (Ganshof, 1943; Voet, 1942). To a conside­ rable degree this was made possible by the acquisition of royal manors dating back to the previous period, but also by appropriating uncultivated lands, especially ‘wastelands’ in the coastal area, the marshlands and moorlands, and territory in the dunes. The earliest, most complete, account of the rural demesne, dating back to 1187, gives us the first clear insight into the extent of the count’s holdings. The size of the demesne was impressive and, furthermore, it was scattered all over Flanders (except in the area south of Lille). From the same period, the other important large landowners who left archival documents, particularly clerical institutions, also had demesnes which were widely scattered and had differing soil conditions. One may wonder whether the territorial conquests of the count played a part in the formation of this well-adjusted rural economy. This is unlikely, although not impossible. It is more plausible that the count of Flanders first and foremost, and the other large landowners with him, stimulated the trend towards specialisation which we have described in order to meet their needs (and those of their retinue and courts). Rents in kind could have encouraged production to develop in a certain direction during this initial stage of the revival of industry, of commerce, and of land-reclamation. The concentration of rural surpluses increased the demands of the count and his entourage, especially for luxury goods. In this period, when international commerce of agricultural products was still more limited than later, domestic demand was the initial stimulus for specialisation in the countryside and the production of luxury goods in the developing towns, as well as for international trade. The development of the first urban commercial centres in the immediate surroundings of castra and large demesnes, which themselves played a part in the increased demand for consumer goods, has been emphasised in recent literature (e.g. Verhulst, 1989). Inevitably, these home-made products were soon exported to other principalities and countries by merchants who seized the opportunity to enrich themselves.

It should be mentioned in this connection that power structures in Flanders were exceptional in another way in the tenth and eleventh centuries. From an early stage in the history of the County, it appears - despite the reservations on the subject of some important scholars such as Koch and Dhondt - that the most significant lords were politically linked to the count. As E. Warlop (1975) - for example - has demonstrated, a great number of viscounts who lived in the towns, or who had castles there to represent the count, were the descendants of an early nobility which predated the year 1000. The

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highest rank of peers was composed of the richest and oldest titled families. In the neighbouring principality of Brabant, the richest noble families continued to be much more politically independent until the later Middle Ages. This situation in Flanders was undoubtedly the consequence of a power struggle in which the count, notwithstanding occasional crises, had been able to impose himself as uncontested primus inter pares in the crucial phase of urban development, and, as we saw above, it is distinctly possible that the count owed his position to wealth derived from his rural demesne. The relatively peaceful conditions which resulted undoubtedly contributed to a favourable economic climate. The Flemish nobility - whose wealth we know very little about before the thirteenth century - were probably able to benefit from the prosperity of the count, and members of this group were led to copy his lifestyle, perhaps as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries. Some important clerical institutions almost certainly benefited in this way too, since many of them had been granted land and rents by the count, whose influence over them could be great. In this way, the lords, with the count as their example, could have stimulated economic growth, probably activating demand for home-made products (especially luxury cloths), and providing an impetus for international trade. In other words, in the early period of Flemish history it is possible that a surplus extraction structure was emerging, based on a surplus extraction relation model which, in turn, stemmed from co-operation between the sovereign and the lords on ‘pre­ capitalist«:’ large farms; in short, a model that might be compared to the one Brenner finds so important for the further development of English capitalism (esp. Brenner, 1982). If this is the case, the difference between the two would have been that in Flanders the model failed relatively quickly, a process which had probably begun gradually before the twelfth century. We have already mentioned a number of elements of an internal, structural nature which were capable of influencing this process. Moreover, serfdom declined quickly, as a result in particular of power struggles between the lords (especially from the beginning of the twelfth century, see below); power struggles which arose from their need for cash, and from the importance they attached to incomes deriving from the local exercise of power (giving them the possibility of levying taxes), from justice (also generating revenue in cash), and from their linked policy of colonisation (see below). This evolution permitted greater (geographic) mobility within the population. In addition, there was the potentially greater stimulus of demand which, to a considerable extent, also led to the precocious development of large cities. These cities were considered by sovereign and nobility alike as an important source of additional revenue and surplus extraction, by means of new or increased tolls. These tolls quickly became one of the most valuable sources of income for all lay lords. They had the further advantage of providing cash incomes which played an increasingly large part in the growing Flemish money economy. As a consequence, lords were less interested in rents in kind and in the income which accrued to them from the direct exploitation of their demesnes, and the latter began to lose something of its function as a stimulus to specialisation.

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In Flanders, the ‘English’ co-operation model mentioned above (Brenner, 1982) was quickly forced to change7. The crisis in comital authority at the beginning of the twelfth century, following the murder of Charles the Good, probably accelerated this process. A large group of important new noble families, enriched by the favourable evolution of the rural economy, came to the fore. They shook the sovereign authority of the monarch, eventually murdering the count in 1127, and it was only thanks to the cities that the count’s authority emerged enhanced. This was probably the decisive turning point in comital efforts to undermine as far as possible the economic basis of the nobility. In a shrewd political strategy pursued in following centuries, and in which the ‘coalition’ with the towns played an important part at the outset, the counts succeeded in undermining the economic and political power of the nobility - even if the latter remained a threat until the end of the thirteenth century. Historical studies often overlook the fact that in Flanders (as well as in many other areas of Europe), competition within this surplus extraction system between lay and ecclesiastical lords also influenced rural structures. Indeed, from the post-Carolingian period, many of the holdings and much of the authority of local lords came from the usurpation of lands, dues and rights originally owned by the abbeys. In inland Flanders, from the second half of the eleventh century to the middle of the thirteenth century, a growing number of new local lay lords and administra­ tors of clerical demesnes (such as maiores and advocati) divided up seigneurial power among themselves (Ganshof and Verhulst, 1966: 308 ff.). Gradually - and probably as a result of a number of factors, including comital intervention (the count’s influence in many ecclesiastical institutions being great), the political impact of new religious move­ ments and, ultimately by a loss of power of the local lords - this aggression of lay lords against ecclesiastical lords was stopped in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Again this group of lords were eventually the losers. Nevertheless, competition between these groups at a local level may well have contributed to economic development in two respects. First, competition led to the further fragmentation of authority from which, I think, locals benefited in the long-term. Second, competition may have encouraged ecclesiastical lords to invest in the reclamation of land in the coastal area, where local feudal power was less developed, and where they enjoyed the count’s support. Nevertheless, another surplus extraction relationship was much more important. From the twelfth century onwards, the power of the count was threatened by that of another group of ‘lords’, the bourgeoisie in the cities of Flanders. While it is possible that Flemish surplus extraction relationships, and consequently manorial administration, were comparable with the English model of co-operation between lords and the central admini­ stration in the tenth and eleventh centuries, after that period the ‘competition model’ (which Brenner calls the ‘North-West-European-continental’ model) became more and more widespread. In any event, it is clear that a great difference existed between Flanders

7 In abstract, Brenner’s co-operation model is this: in England, there was a much greater degree o f co-operation between large farmers and owners for the purpose of increasing investment and increasing agricultural progress. It is a model which has been subjected to criticism, especially by English historians o f agriculture. However, a study of the interesting evidence contained in under-studied farmers’ diaries, when compared with the situation on the continent, reveals a greater degree of co-operation between lords and farmers in many progressive areas o f England.

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and other regions of the Continent. As Brenner pointed out, the power struggle between central authorities and local lords hindered economic development in many areas of Europe (Brenner, 1976). In Flanders however, the struggle that emerged was between three or four parties (the counts as overlords, the nobility, ecclesiastical lords and the towns), in which competition between the count and the large cities increasingly occupied the foreground.8 This made Flanders a particular case, and had many consequences for economic development, including: • The gradual division of the ‘seigneurie banale’ and ‘seigneurie foncière’ between the different categories of lords. This development increased the power of the peasant community and restrained the grip of the lords on the countryside. It hindered any change in demesne structure resulting from - for example - seigneurial reaction and made an ‘enclosure movement’ as in England impossible. It probably also encouraged ecclesias­ tical lords to invest in regions such as the coastal area, where they had more liberty to introduce new seigneurial structures. • In the second stage of this power struggle, urban influence counterbalanced comital influence, a development which restrained the overlord’s ‘seigneurie banale’, and which favoured the peasants (by causing lower taxes, for example; see below). These developments would have been impossible had there not been an increase in the population of the countryside. Population growth was itself the result of specific economic structures. Since lords were more interested in cash than in incomes in kind from their demesnes (especially after the beginning of the twelfth century, in order to buy luxury products), and since lords often limited serfdom themselves to advance their own interests (either to beat competitors for peasant labour, or because of the favourable position enjoyed by peasants due to the surplus extraction relations we have described), local lords effectively stimulated population growth within their manors, granted greater freedom to peasants, and asked for exceptionally low, sometimes symbolic customary rents in return for new reclamations and colonisation). In this way, changing conditions of property tenure generated a greater labour supply for the towns, which themselves had increased pull factors as growing centres for luxury goods and services.

II.3.

The long-term consequences for the evolution of capitalism in Flanders

Although the structure of society would change considerably in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, the period under consideration here saw several foundations established for the later development of capitalism in Flanders: • First, the emergence of an urban network based on a specific regional power structure and on agricultural specialisation. Thanks to the separation of capital from the means of subsistence, these towns would later become centres of a ‘capitalistic’ wageearning system which was accompanied by technological progress. • Second, the region became one of the most densely populated areas of Europe, creating a reservoir of labour to sustain the network, and to develop it further.

8 On economic development, the influence o f the power struggle (or the absence o f it) between surplus extractors has also been stressed for another urbanised area, Tuscany in Italy, by Epstein

(1991).

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At the same time, however, certain developments in these years heralded a new era in which progress was delayed rather than encouraged. The negative impact of these developments became much more visible in the following period, in which what we have termed a ‘commercial-survival’ economy was bom.

III. Development towards a ‘commercial-survival’ economy In the sandy areas of inland Flanders which made up a large part of the County, micro-holdings became prevalent within a system which we might call a ‘commercialsurvival’ economy. Although the system had its roots in the earlier period, its development was most marked between the late twelfth century and the middle of the fourteenth. Why and how did it come about? What were the consequences for the development of capitalism, and eventually for the transition to industrial capitalism? These are the most important questions addressed in what follows.

HU.

Features of the ‘commercial survival economy’

Although the system was not unstable or lacking in dynamism as we shall see, in the long term its features remained largely unchanged or became even more pronounced. The most important aspects of the system were the following: 1/ The majority of holdings were very small family holdings, many of them smaller than the minimum required for subsistence (which was changing during this time from about five hectares per average household in the Middle Ages to about one hectare per household in the nineteenth century). There was a significant minority of ‘larger’ farms, between 30 and 60 hectares in size (which was small by contemporary English standards). Less than 30 percent of the holdings possessed a horse, which was normally only possible when the holding was greater than 5 hectares. The long-term trend, which was only occasionally interrupted by periods in which the process was reversed, was for these subsistence holdings to become smaller. 2/ As long as peasants had enough to survive, slowly changing property structures did not profoundly alter the system. Indeed, in the long term, from the late thirteenth century onwards, lease holding (in the form of short-term leases of plots of land) became more significant than customary holding which was in decline.(From the Middle Ages in Flanders, customary holding was in effect practically tantamount to property holding.) 3/ Survival9was the most important goal; large-scale commercial plans, investment and social mobility were, broadly speaking, impossible (Thoen, 1988a: 888-894). 9 It is the merit o f Eric Vanhaute’s study to have drawn to the attention o f Belgian researchers of rural history the role o f survival strategies in rural Flanders. This is especially true o f his work on nineteenth century ‘Campines’ (see Vanhaute, 1992). In inland Flanders, survival strategies in general were more integrated into the commercial network; that is why I call the rural economy in inland Flanders a ‘commercial-survival’ economy (see below: 5/ and 6/).

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P easants into farm ers?

4/ A number of typical labour structures can be discerned: • Considerable labour input, considerable unemployment during much of the year, and low labour productivity. • A survival strategy based on additional income, distinct from the peasant holding. Many people had to work for part of the year on larger farms, and therefore lived in a close and mutually dependent relationship with these establishments. In the long term, this close relationship declined (see below). • A survival strategy based on additional income from non-agricultural activities, such as cottage industry. In the long-term, labour productivity declined. 5/ Physical production structures which included: • A high intensification rate (high yields per hectare); • A mixed farming system and the production of fodder crops; • Although self-sufficiency was the most important goal of the peasants, because of the presence of markets, the small acreage of their holdings, and the need for a small amount of cash to buy necessary non-agricultural goods and to pay taxes, survival was only possible through (limited) production for the market in the shape of industrial crops and even a variety of foodstuffs. 6/ Limited production for the market resulted in a limited, but increasing, dependence on the market (not only to sell food and basic products, but also to buy). As we shall see below, urban markets were gradually replacing rural markets (see p. 122 ff.). Limited dependence on the market was also influenced indirectly by the greater dependence in this respect of large estates, where peasants made additional income (see 4/). This dependence on the market encouraged peasants to use more intensive production methods, especially in periods of economic growth when prices were going up (because they had to pay more for basic products). In bad economic periods they were also encouraged to intensify, because they had to find new means of achieving self-sufficiency outside the market economy. Moreover, unlike the large commercial farms, peasants could sometimes survive by taking advantage of low-cost foodstuffs at market.

III.2.

Dynamism and inertia of the system

Many of the features mentioned above originated during the ‘boom’ period of the towns, but only began to evolve into a truly dominant ‘commercial peasant system’ in the course of the ‘long’ thirteenth century, supplanting the much more commercially organised economy of the earlier period. Nevertheless, as we have seen already, this evolution was a slow process, and the ‘commercial-survival’ economy possessed its own dynamism which will now be described systematically. We may begin with the long-term increase in the fragmentation of holdings, moving on to the evolution of land productivity and the intensification of farming, the influence on labour productivity, market structures and, last but not least, the property and surplus extraction structures which explain much of the nature of these developments.

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III.2.1.

The fragmentation of holdings

Origins We have seen that the fragmentation of holdings was already becoming common in the twelfth century. Nevertheless, it was in the thirteenth century that a great number of smallholdings became a dominant feature of rural economic structures, especially since the colonisation of the countryside had by then reached its limits. Indeed, the few stu­ dies which have been undertaken reveal a significant division of holdings from the late thirteenth century onwards, in Flanders, Hainaut, Namur and Brabant (for inland Flanders see, for example, Duby, 1956). From the same period onwards, the majority of holdings consisted of only a few hectares. Nevertheless, polarisation remained a significant feature in social structures. On the one hand, there were the large market-oriented farms, few in number but occupying the largest part of the cultivated land; and, on the other, the small farms, much greater in number, but occupying much less of the available land. As we have seen, this situation developed gradually in the preceding period but continued to grow at an accelerated pace in the thirteenth century. Although data for coastal areas are even more scarce, there are indications that a similar fragmentation of holdings occurred there too (see Thoen, 1999; Thoen, forthcoming). In inland Flanders, the main subject of this article, fragmentation was probably more pronounced as a result of earlier recla­ mation; the concentration of centres of large demesnes, which by that time had decreased; and a completely different structure of surplus extraction with a greater mix, as we shall see, of seigneurial lordship and landlordship. In coastal Flanders the smaller holdings slowly disappeared from the later Middle Ages onwards. By contrast, fragmentation continued in inland Flanders, and was only temporarily interrupted by the ‘crisis of the late Middle Ages’.

The slow-down in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries From the late thirteenth to the early fifteenth centuries, these trends were arrested, but the picture throughout Flanders remained more or less the same. The consequences of the late medieval crisis were less severe in (inland) Flanders than in other parts of Europe, with the exception of the coastal area (see Thoen, 1988; 1999 and forthcoming) and neighbouring areas such as the County of Namur (Genicot, 1970). In general during the later Middle Ages in inland Flanders, the features of the rural economy remained much the same as it had been at the end of the thirteenth century. In the later Middle Ages, to a certain extent medium-sized holdings and, to some extent, probably the smaller of the large demesnes too, increased in number. This was partly due to the slow but clear introduction of a short-term leasing system for small plots of land from the late thirteenth century onwards (Thoen, 1988a: I, 322; II, 867-874; Bil­ len, 1982). As the leasing system for smaller plots of arable land spread from the 1270s (a leasing system which was completely new in areas of early reclamation, but which was already a few decades older in more recently reclaimed coastal areas), mediumsize inland farms could develop, to a limited extent. Those in coastal areas could develop to a greater degree. At the same time, as a result of further bourgeois expansion into the countryside from the last decades of the thirteenth century on, the number of ‘fermes

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isolées’ - fairly large, commercially-oriented, leasehold farms of between 20 and 60 hectares - increased. These new farms were constructed by the bourgeoisie during the last stage of the great reclamations of the thirteenth century, or created in the later Middle Ages from smaller plots of land which were bought from smallholders, or which were acquired as pledge of unpaid loans arising from ‘constitutions de rente’ (Thoen, 1988a: I, 515 ff.; Nicholas, 1971: 287, note 61). At any rate, we believe that these new farms, often no more than a farm ‘à une charrue’, lacked the potential to increase productivity which G. Bois (1976) has attributed to them in his innovative study of Normandy (see Aymard, 1981). I believe that the new farms we have mentioned, together with the ‘older’ large demesnes (most of which also diminished in size to between 40-80 hectares during this period), militated against the further sub-division of smaller holdings, in that they created new employment for smallholding peasants who had to maintain the level of family income. This was the result of structural underemployment and low wages which prevailed even in the later Middle Ages, and indeed throughout the whole ‘transition period’. Wage-earning could only produce an additional income, even during the later medieval period (see Thoen, 1988a: II, 941 ff.). Wages were needed to generate cash to pay taxes, and for limited trade at market. We have already seen that during the initial stages of the developing commercial peasant economy there was a necessarily close relationship between large farms and smallholders. Neither could exist without the other (cf. the remarks of Lis and Soly, 1982:5). At the same time, as we shall see, additional earnings were made through rural cottage industry. Over time, the growing importance of rural industry tended to loosen the ties between smallholders and large farms in inland Flanders. Further confirmation of the fact that peasant smallholdings remained significant is to be found in a list of forfeitures dating from 1382 (following the Flemish revolt). The data concerns 1603 peasants from the neighbourhood of Courtrai. It should be noted that lease-holding probably did not figure in the source (Sabbe, 1936: 401):

Table 6.1

Size of holdings in the neighbourhood of Courtrai in 1382

Size of confis­ cated land No land Less than 1 bonnier2 1-2 bonnier 2-3 3^1 4-5 5-6 6-7

Number of peasants 3651 332 252 149 98 59 41 32

%

Size of confis­ cated land (bonnier)

23.0 21.0 16.0 9.0 6.0 3.7 2.6 2.0

8-9 9-10 10-11 11-12 12-15 15-18 18-20 20-25

Number of peasants 22 7 11 15 18 9 10 11

%

1.40 0.40 0.70 0.90 1.12 0.60 0.60 0.70

Source: Sabbe, 1936 Notes: 1 A percentage of the 365 people who owned no land were probably leaseholders. 2 1 bonnier was about 1.4 hectares.

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Around 12.8 percent of those who suffered confiscation possessed more than 4 bonniers of land (roughly 5 hectares). Even allowing for the fact that short-term leases and probably the poor do not figure in the data, this proportion is greater than that which we find in the post-medieval period.

Further evolution Tax lists mostly drawn up between 1569 and 1572 on the authority of the duke of Alva for the whole of the Netherlands, the so-called penningkohieren, afford the first opportunity to survey the distribution between smallholdings and large estates over a greater area. The lists permit reliable calculation of the size of the holdings, and they clearly distinguish property-holding (customary/free-holding) from lease-holding. The overall picture is nonetheless incomplete due to the loss of documentation for some areas, and the lack of research into others (most work having been done on the region around Gent and Tournai). The fullest documentation relates to the province of Eastern Flanders. On average in that province, 35 percent of holdings were smaller than 1 hectare, and only 12 percent were larger than 10 hectares (Van den Abbeele, 1985: 64).10

Table 6.2 Size of the holdings

0-0.9ha 1-4.9 ha 5-9.9 ha 10-19.9 ha +20 ha total

Small and large holdings in the neighbourhood of Flanders (inner Flanders, 1571) East-Flanders (inner Flanders) 1571 (Number in %)

Neighbourhood of of St. Niklaas (inner Flanders) 1571 (% holdings)

Neighbourhood of of St. Niklaas (inner Flanders) 1846 (% holdings)

34.4 39.1 14.8 8.1 3.6

35.1 39.2 16.5 8.3 1.0

51.2 24.8 14.0 7.9 2.1

100.0

100.0

100.0

Source-. Van den Abbeele, 1985. As a result of developments whose origins can be traced to the late Middle Ages (Thoen, 1988a, 1999 and forthcoming), the situation was completely different in the more fertile and more recently reclaimed polders near the coast. Here, at the end of the sixteenth century, smallholdings accounted for only 10 percent of the total amount of holdings, while large farms of more than 10 hectares accounted for almost 70 percent (Vandewalle, 1986: 97, table 6).

10 The situation in the twenty-one parishes of the Toumaisis is similar to Flanders: 51 % of the holdings were smaller than 1 bonnier; 12 % larger than 10 bonnier (Billen, 1982: 31).

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P easants into farm ers?

After a temporary increase in the size of the holdings as a result of the Wars of Religion, the subdivision of smallholdings became progressively more pronounced in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The following table illustrates this phenomenon in a large proto-industrial area south of Gent (Van Isterdael, 1988: 271). The number of small farms increased significantly, particularly during the eighteenth century (see the literature mentioned and also: Dekezel, 1988). There was only a temporary opposite movement in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Table 6.3 Period 1569-1571 1600-1650 1650-1700 1700-1750 1750-1800

Small and large holdings in the Land Van Aalst (1569-1800) Less than 1 ha

Less than 3 ha

41% 28% 38% 40% 47%

72% 64% 73% 77% 84%

Less than 5 ha 83% 76% 84% 86% 91%

Source: Van Isterdael, 1986. Moreover, as Table 6.4 clearly shows, this evolution continued in the course of the nineteenth century: by the middle of that period, more than 60 percent of holdings in inland Flanders were already smaller than 1 hectare.

Table 6.4

Small farms and large holdings from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century11 Eighteenth Century -1 ha +5 ha

Inner Flanders Waasland/ area of Dendermonde

40-50% 15-30%

10-20% 20-30%

Mid-Nineteenth Century -1 ha +5 ha 55-65% 50-60%

5-15% 10-20%

Source: Table made by Vanhaute; basis: Dekezel, 1988 and Vanhaute, 1993 What happened in this area to the ‘demesnes’, the larger farms which (most of the time) had been created in the Middle Ages? A number of studies, some of which remain unpublished, indicate that from the late sixteenth century (but at an accelerated pace from the seventeenth century), even these larger farms were themselves reduced in size by landlords. This development will be explained below, in the context of changing property relations. As in the earlier period, coastal areas and inland Flanders evolved in opposite direc­ tions: farm sizes in the former increased further (see Thoen, 1999 and forthcoming), and smaller farms diminished in size or even disappeared, a trend that was halted only briefly at the end of the eighteenth century.1 111 am grateful to Eric Vanhaute who has kindly allowed me to reproduce it here.

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A ‘com m ercial survival econ om y’ in evolution

Slow breakdown in the Modern Period The crisis of 1845-1846 (often seen as the last crisis of the Ancien Régime) heralded a period of fundamental change in agricultural society. Gradually during the second half of the nineteenth century, but at an accelerated pace from 1890, fewer people were occupied in agriculture in the area under consideration (Verhaegen, 1961:1, 255, 290; De Moor, 1997: 71). Technical innovation increased output (Blomme, 1992: 37 ff.). Nevertheless, these developments did not halt the fragmentation of holdings. In the provinces of East and West Flanders, the family smallholding remained typical until the inter-bellum years (De Moor, 1997:1, 168), but its income derived increasingly from non-rural activities. Nevertheless, the structures of the commercial peasant economy were destroyed. III.2.2.

The evolution of land productivity: mixed farming and intensification

Although the progressive decline in the size of holdings did not automatically lead in the medium-to-long-term to more intensive farming, there is no doubt that intensification and increased output per arable unit were the long-term consequences of this trend. Since we have given a general overview of this matter elsewhere, a brief description here will suffice (Dejongh and Thoen, 1999). First, during the ‘classic middle ages’ a long-term growth in the size of the cultivated area took place, at the expense of pasture lands and parts of the holdings which were less intensively cultivated. In the course of the thirteenth century, the large-scale differences between smaller ‘infields’ and larger ‘outfields’, which still existed in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, were disappea­ ring. Fallow land and ‘dries’ land (temporary cultivated land in an ‘up and down husbandry’ rotation system) were also progressively diminishing from the late thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries (Thoen, 1997). The three-course rotation system was gradually applied less rigorously, and had mostly disappeared by the late Middle Ages (the first signs of this development can be traced to the late thirteenth century). However, the use of fallow land in crop rotation only (almost) completely disappeared in the course of the eighteenth century (see Van Isterdael, 1988; Vanderpijpen, 1983) due to the sowing of more fodder crops, such as clover for a regular supply of manure. Leguminous plants played a large part in the evolution of farming systems in the coastal area, but in inland Flanders in particular, the widespread use of clover was very important for the growth of land productivity. The same crop, introduced into Flemish agriculture in the late sixteenth century (Lindemans,1952), certainly ended the practice of leaving land fallow. Gradually, from the Middle Ages on, the cultivation of catch crops (especially turnips for human consumption and fodder) became very significant. In the middle of the nineteenth century many villages were using as much as 40 percent of the land for a second crop in the same year. A very rough estimate of the total amount of land under permanent cultivation in inland Flanders suggests an increase from around 30 percent of the total arable in the twelfth century (with ‘outfields’ and ‘infields’, three-course rotation, up-and-down husbandry etc.) to around 120 percent in the middle of the nineteenth century (with general use of catch crops, abolition of fallow...) (Dejongh and Thoen, 1999: 58).

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P easants into farm ers?

Moreover, yields per acre for bread cereals did not diminish, but rather slowly increased from around 1500 litres per hectare in the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries, to around 1800-2000 in 1800. It is not impossible, therefore, that in inland Flanders the total output of the land, excluding meat and dairy products, was at least five times greater in 1850 than it had been in 1200. It is likely that output per unit of arable was increasing faster than anywhere else in Europe, and that gradually many more people could be fed by smaller and smaller plots of land. In the late eighteenth century, the introduction of potatoes accelerated this trend still further, since yields per hectare of this crop were greater than those of bread cereals. As a result, even smaller farms found space for the cultivation of industrial crops, such as flax, rape and cole-seed. The cultivation of fodder crops led to widespread mixed farming, with cattle breeding used in particular as a source of manure production. Larger farms also adopted methods of intensive cultivation, partly - as has been argued elsewhere (Thoen and Vanhaute, 1999) - because of a gradual diminution in their number. However, some differences remained between agricultural practices on the larger farms and those on smaller farms. Larger farms tended to focus more on commercial products, smaller farms more on crops for domestic consumption (such as potatoes). The presence of a few commercial products on smallholdings between 0.5 and 5 hectares in size was characteristic (Thoen and Vanhaute, 1999). In coastal Flanders, progressive intensive methods were also introduced, but there farming methods remained less intensive for a longer period (for example, the use of fallow land in crop rotation remained common practice for longer), and dairy production was often predominant (Vandewalle, 1986; Dalle, 1963). This progressive character stemmed from an initial period in which serf labour was uncommon; from farming techniques during the period of land reclamation which were not labour intensive (the cultivation of leguminous plants, for example); and, later, from the adoption of techniques used in the inland region, and, possibly, from former traditions of peasant farming.12 III.2.3.

Declining labour productivity

In inland Flanders, the stimulus behind increased arable output certainly came from the gradual fragmentation of farms. Although this essay necessarily takes a general view, it is clear that the most significant steps towards intensive farming coincided with the most significant stages in the fragmentation of holdings. Intensification was mainly caused by increasing labour input per arable unit. This can be easily illustrated with Figure 6.1, based on the agricultural census of 1846, where land productivity can be compared to labour productivity on a regional basis. In general, although not everywhere, land and labour productivity were inversely proportional. East and West Flanders, the areas under consideration here, forming the core of the former County of Flanders, had the highest land productivity, but the lowest labour productivity in Belgium. It is striking 12 Indeed, as mentioned above, in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries farms in this area were considerably smaller, and increased in size only from the later middle ages (see Thoen, 1999 and forthcoming).

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival econom y’ in evolution

that the earliest industrialised regions of the country, such as Namur and Liège in Walloon, were characterised by a combination of high labour and relatively high land productivity. Although there is no statistical evidence, it is likely that in the course of a long-term trend towards increased output, great achievements in land productivity could not prevent declining labour productivity. Perhaps only in the earliest stages, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, was declining labour productivity temporarily slowed down by compa­ rison with other countries as a result of the ‘commercial’ dimension of the survival economy, which was much less common elsewhere in Europe. Any such development may have contributed to the relatively low impact of the late medieval crisis in this part of Flanders.13

Figure 6.1 Land and Labour productivity in the different provinces of Belgium 1000

Source: Goossens, 1993. III.2.4.

Market structures and pre-industrial activity

Proto-industry as part of the ‘commercial-survival’strategy To some extent, indeed, a counterbalance to declining labour productivity in agriculture also came from other forms of income earned in the non-agricultural sector. These activi­ ties, which some authors describe as ‘proto-industrial’, were probably already in existence and significant from at least the late thirteenth century, although not yet on the scale which they would attain, for example, in the eighteenth century. It is likely, therefore, that a rural woollen industry was widespread in the countryside around 1300 (Nicholas, 1971: 13 For a developed version o f this argument, see Thoen, 1988a.

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P easants into farm ers?

76 ff.), perhaps as a vestige of the more commercial economic structure of the classic Middle Ages (see comments above relating to rural wool production). In south-western Flanders the rural wool industry survived into the later Middle Ages, especially in the triangle between Lille, Ypres and Belle.14When traditional cloth production in the towns came to specialise in the luxury end of the market as a response to growing competition from abroad in the later Middle Ages, the rural wool industry often adjusted, generally although not exclusively - making cheaper products, or specialising in the preparatory stages of production (Stabel, 1997). Nevertheless, the problems facing cloth production centres, and increasing transaction costs, also created a more competitive relationship between town and countryside. The most significant production centres of traditional cloths (Ypres, Bruges and Gent) received exclusive rights of production from the count, although these rights were only successfully enforced by the dominant political centres with the greatest influence over the neighbouring countryside - that is to say, Gent and, to a lesser extent, Bruges (which turned increasingly to commercial activities15).16 At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Gent received a privilege banning the production of woolen cloth within 15 km of the city. It was precisely within this area that the rural linen industry would be most developed during the remainder of the Ancien Régime and in the nineteenth century (see Figure 6.2).

Figure 6.2 Areas of flax cultivation and linen weaving in the eighteenth century

Flax cultivation Linen production

Source-. Vandenbroeke, 1986.

Border of Belgium

14 In his useful survey, Stabel (1997:137) considers the rural woolen industry (although perhaps a little too much) as a new industry, dating back to the late middle ages. 15 In Bruges, rural woolen industry partly survived, see Thoen, 1994b: 350; Dumolyn, 1977:98-102. 16 There is evidence that the people o f Ghent did not destroy the linen weaving looms in the country (Thoen, 1988a: II, 1011).

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival econ om y’ in evolution

Sabbe’s view (Sabbe, 1943: 71-78) that the rural flax industry was not supplanted by the rural linen industry appears to be unfounded (see Thoen, 1988a: II, 981). At the end of the fourteenth century, when rural linen manufacturing first began to spread, linen cloth was already being sold in England (Thoen, 1988a: II, 981). However, it was only from the middle of the fifteenth century that the rural wool industry (Stabel, 1997:138)17, as well as the rural linen industry, experienced the greatest period of expansion. In the area of Audenarde around the middle of the sixteenth century, as much as 47 percent of the peasant population possessed a weaving loom.18 Flax cultivation in the same period appears to have attained its maximum possible expansion (that is to say, peasants working between 0.5 and 4 hectares of arable cultivating flax on more than 12% of their land) (see Thoen 1988, II, 980-1021). While the rural wool industry declined, or concentrated in larger centres such as Hondschoote in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the rural linen industry continued to grow (in the same regions where it had first emerged in the Middle Ages) at an accelerated pace until the first decades of the nineteenth century, by which stage, in the core area of production, around 70 percent of holdings possessed a loom for linen cloth (Vandenbroeke, 1984; Mendels, 1984; Van der Wee and D ’Haeseleer, 1996). The rural linen industry only declined in the third decade of the nineteenth century as the result of an internatio­ nal crisis in the sector, but it survived, and even expanded once more in the late nineteenth century (Verhaegen, 1961:1, 342 ff.).19 Recent research indicates that the increasing importance of the countryside as a textile production centre from the late fifteenth century on did not destroy the urban textile industry, where production adapted in the shape of lighter, more fashionable cloths, and even fine linen (especially in Gent) (Dambruyne, 1996:167). So, the supposed ‘shift’ of the textile industry from the towns to the countryside probably owed more to unrelated urban and rural processes in each than has been previously been supposed. Indeed, the slow movement of the textile industry to the countryside from the fourteenth to the late eighteenth century paralleled a process of de-urbanisation, although the link between 17 In 1550 about twice as many woolen cloths were woven in the countryside as were woven in the towns. (Dambruyne, 1996:156). In the same period, in the Audenarde and A lost regions the rural (luxury) tapestry industry came into existence and grew dynamically in the course o f the sixteenth century (Thoen, 1988a: II, 1014 ff.) 18 In 1988 (Thoen, 1988a: H, 980 ff.) I argued the case for an adaption o f Mendels’ model, to under­ line the importance o f the mral linen industry before M endels’ period o f protoindustrialisation (see also Van der Wee and D ’Haeseleer, 1996: 258). 19 Blomme and Van der Wee estimate the growing importance of urban and rural linen output in Flanders and Brabant thus (Blomme and Van der Wee, 1994: 87): Year Total production Index 1510 6,483,750 100 1560 12,825,925 198 182 1610 11,833,450 1660 16,184,675 250 18,343,913 283 1710 24,681,864 381 1760 1812 31,662,253 488

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P easants into farm ers?

the two phenomena (see Van der Wee, 1988; Mendels, 1984) has, in our opinion, been exaggerated. It is also likely that in the absence of a growing cottage industry, the textile industry in towns would have changed in character and contributed to declining popu­ lation figures (in so far as these numbers were only influenced by industrial activity). The growing importance of the textile industry in the countryside was in large part the consequence of the fragmentation of holdings, with cottage industry becoming an increasingly substantial part of the rural ‘commercial-survival’ economy. The fact that in the countryside textile cottage industry declined (temporarily?) in the later Middle Ages may even be linked to the temporary slowdown in the subdivision of holdings in inland Flanders. Moreover, the fact that in Flanders most of the rural linen industry was organised according to the ‘Kauf system’ (Haagen, 1983), rather than the so-called ‘putting out system’, affords, in our view, additional proof that textile production constituted a cot­ tage industry which brought additional income to ‘commercial peasants’ - because in the Kauf system the initiative lay much more in the hands of the producers than in the hands of merchants. In many areas the linen-weaving peasants produced their own flax. Moreover, in expressing the view that it was the growth of the linen industry which resulted in an increasing number of unsustainable holdings, Mendels (1972,1984) appears to put the cart before the horse. Moreover, the structure of the linen and flax industry could be studied in greater detail at the micro-level. In the sixteenth century, micro­ holdings of less than 0.5 hectares did not produce flax and had no weaving loom: it was the wage-earners who had to produce exclusively for survival. The most typical peasants who had between 1 and 5 hectares of land were the most active in producing flax and in weaving it. But larger farms also possessed looms, and worked with wage earners on these looms (Thoen, 1988a, II: 1006; see also Lambrecht, 1999). In the nineteenth century, this situation remained identical, but as a result of even greater intensification, peasant holdings with looms and flax cultivation were smaller (Thoen and Vanhaute, 1999). III.2.5. Rural and urban markets, the breakdown of the regional ecological system and the peasants Urban markets gained in importance first and foremost because of their increasing role in the international import trade. The first reasonably reliable figures for more or less regular imports of cereals and other foodstuffs date to the late thirteenth century, even if studies from other regions such as England (often based on the Domesday book!) presuppose - without being able to provide real evidence - the existence of a much earlier export trade to the Netherlands (Snooks, 1992; also: Campbell, Galloway et al., 1993). If this analysis of the earlier period is correct, it would be logical to assume that from that moment on towns had to rely increasingly on foreign imports for their provi­ sioning. Van Uytven (1983) and Tits-Dieuaide (1975) have clearly illustrated the necessity of imports during the late Middle Ages. Even meat was gradually imported from Brittany. Wine was imported from the Rhine region and from France (in our view, it is likely that wine supplanted to a certain extent the local production of beer in the course of the thirteenth century as a result of the decline in the cultivation of oats). Grain came from Artois (an area which was once part of Flanders), and later from the Baltic region. Our information is disparate and mainly based on years of crisis. Even M.J. Tits-Dieuaide’s

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival econom y ’ in evolution

systematic study does not enable us to estimate the extent to which the provisioning of towns with cereals from Flemish rural areas had become inadequate. Without reliable evidence the literature suggests that imports of grain in the southern Netherlands amounted to around 25 percent of the amount consumed in the middle of the sixteenth century. Even assuming that this figure is accurate, a large part of the provisioning of the towns would have come from the neighbouring countryside, even if at that time pro­ portionately more people were living in the countryside than was the case in the fifteenth century. Figures for the southern Netherlands as a whole provide evidence for the ex­ port of rural products in the late eighteenth century (Vandenbroeke, 1975). Even allowing for the fact that we do not know how the situation in inland Flanders contributed to these figures, it is likely, given the growth of rural production and the process of de­ urbanisation which took place between the later Middle Ages and the eighteenth century, that the percentage of imports was declining in the area under investigation. So, from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, urban markets could probably rely increasingly once again on the local production of goods sold by the greater and greater number of peasants who were bringing their products to these markets.

But what happened to rural markets? To deal with this matter briefly, it seems that from the twelfth to the eighteenth/nineteenth centuries, rural markets declined in importance and often disappeared completely. As we have already seen, it is likely that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, rural markets were still relatively significant. In the course of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, these rural markets declined or disappeared in many areas of central Flanders (such as the markets of Herzele, or St-Lievens-Houtem20). Because of this change, towns increasingly became market centres for locally produced rural products. The evolution of towns as local market centres occurred alongside their growing importance as service centres (for the importance of Gent as a linen market in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, see Dambruyne 1996: 163; for Brabant in the eighteenth century, cf. Blondé, 1998b). To state the case briefly, in Flanders the evolution from a ‘commercial rural’ economy into a growing ‘commercial-survival’ economy occurred simultaneously with the growth in importance of towns as trade centres. Local survival and exchange circuits seem to have replaced local markets. To buy and sell commodities peasants had to go to the towns.21Typically, industrial activity in the Flemish countryside was almost exclusively focused on textile production, although other protoindustrial areas had a greater variety of products. The reliance on textile production characteristic of the ‘commercial-survival’ economy made it increasingly vulnerable, especially since the proto-industrial sector became so important to the economic survival strategies of the eighteenth/nineteenth centuries.

201 dispose of documentation concerning these rural markets which requires further investigation. 21 Still too little is known about shops and exchange circuits in the countryside.

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P easants into farm ers?

HI.3. factors

Property structures and surplus extraction structures as explanatory

III.3.1. Changing property structures and surplus extraction structures as an explanation for the origin of the ‘commercial-survival’ system’ As mentioned above, the roots of the ‘commercial-survival’ economy and the fragmen­ tation of holdings lay in the period of the great reclamations. This is especially true of the twelfth/thirteenth centuries. Nevertheless, the ‘commercial-survival’ economy became more pronounced in the thirteenth century. In inland Flanders, the system reached its most extreme form of development, in contrast to coastal Flanders. In large part, however, this evolution can be explained by the difference in property structures. From the twelfth century on, large landowners gradually relinquished direct mana­ gement of their demesnes, entrusting the centres of the latter to farmers, a practice which became more common in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Once more, it is the oldest comital record which provide us with the first proofs of the common practice of ‘farming out’ (Lyon and Veihulst, 1967). The bounds between tenancies and demesne centres became much more fluid. Lords did not interfere as much as they had previously in the management of these former demesnes centres. The same farms became increasingly dependent on markets; no longer did they create markets under the lord’s influence (see above). These markets, which were increasingly urban in nature, became more dependent on international markets, even for basic products, especially from the end of the thirteenth century. Specialisation remained important only on those farms which could compete on the international market. This turned out to be the case for parts of the Flemish coastal area which were reclaimed later (see Thoen, 1999 and forthcoming). In inland Flanders (which is our primary concern) in the twelfth/thirteenth centuries, there were universally fewer great demesnes, which were also feudal manorial centres. In other words, there was a long tradition in inland Flanders of a combination of lordship based on power (Fr. la ‘seigneurie banale’) and landlordship based on the pos­ session of estates (Fr. la ‘seigneurie foncière’). As we have seen, to increase their income and influence in the first stage of the period of the great reclamations (the post-Carolingian period), the lords of inland Flanders focused on the increasing revenues arising from the exercise of power and justice over their own lands, and sometimes over older ecclesias­ tical demesnes and manors, and even the expanding towns. This had the added advantage of bringing in cash for their increasing luxury needs. Encouraging population growth was therefore their first goal. This was done by encouraging the conditions under which reclamations were profitable, by taking very low, sometimes token customary rents, and by giving colonists privileges which undermined the established network of feudal bonds in the locality and in surrounding lordships. Colonisation was in large part the work of the peasants themselves, who were attracted by these favourable circumstances. There were also favourable ecological conditions: thanks to the light soils in the area, reclamation was often possible without much investment, and certainly, there were few planned investments. Consequently, holdings became very ‘free’ and easily divisible. In coastal areas, there were completely different feudal traditions. The link between ‘seigneurie foncière’ and ‘seigneurie banale’ was, from the beginning, nearly non-exis-

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival econ om y’ in evolution

tent. In coastal areas the count had judicial power and land-lordship from the beginning of the reclamation. While he retained the former, he usually handed over (or more commonly sold) the latter to religious institutions and, probably at a later stage, to urban entrepreneurs who were especially interested in the moorlands for peat. As overlord, the count could take for himself the new lands and any un-reclaimed moor and waste lands, which made up most of the region. Rich ecclesiastical institutions which posed no risk to his authority were especially favoured by the count in new lands, un-reclaimed moor, and waste lands. These institutions, many but not all of which belonged to the relatively young Cistercian movement (Baudelo and Ter Duinen were Cistercian, for example, the older abbeys of St. Peter and St Bavo in Gent were not) preferred this sort of land, because of the absence of lay lords who were their competitors in inland Flanders (see above22). They erected many large ‘capitalistic’ farms in that area, which were intro­ duced to the eco-provisioning system of the eleventh/twelfth centuries which is described above. Smallholding peasant-colonisers could often only come to settle in the area after the restoration of a network of new dikes, canals for drainage, locks etc., probably paid for in the first instance largely by the abbeys and the count. Special institutions were erected from the twelfth century under the protection of the count to undertake and maintain these infrastructures (for example, the wateringen), which levied special taxes for the purpose. In contrast with inland Flanders, landlords-buyers in the coastal areas did not find a fully-developed feudal tradition involving local lords who could build up a seigneurie and control their demesnes judicially. Nor did they find a community of peasants there who, in the traditions of early feudalism, preferred low and stable customary rents23 and a manorial judicial tradition (in which they were often integrated as members of the local courts) to a new customary rent system. This new rent system, by this stage some­ times even a leasing system, from the initial stage better reflected the value of the land use than in the earlier reclaimed parts of the Low Countries.24 In short, buyers in these areas could establish their landlordship in a new context, much more favourable for in­ vestment. These areas provided the count with a large additional income which he used to build up a more centralised state, a state which in the thirteenth century was already based on a service nobility powerful enough to counterbalance the increasing influence of the towns.

22 In some areas, reclamations took place with ‘contrats de pariage’ between lay lords and ecclesiastical lords. This did not happen frequently in Flanders (see Duby, 1968: 265). 23 In my opinion, one o f the features o f feudal society was the straggle o f peasants for fixed-rate dues. There has been some discussion of the stability of dues in the Carolingian period (see Morimoto, 1996), but I have noticed a tendency to fix dues even in the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. This tendency altered in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, because many lords underwent a crisis in their income, which caused them to attempt to reintroduce much more variable dues (see Thoen, 1988a). See also below our arguments concerning the movement against the generalisation of the leasing system. In coastal Flanders, changable dues were introduced earlier either because the traditional feudal system was weak, or because it had never existed there. 24 This seems to be different to the earliest reclamations in the Holland-Utrecht peat areas where rents were initially low (see e.g. Vanderlinden, 1956). See nevertheless the criticism in Augustyn, 1992: 293 ff.

125

P easants into farm ers?

Although much investment in coastal areas initially came from the lords, it was not so much the favourable rents that attracted peasants, but, rather, the initial investment of large landowners (who tried to escape from ‘established’ feudal traditions). Thanks to these investments peasants could find there not only a new ‘modern’ infrastructure, but also employment as agricultural workers with their own farmstead, as wage-earners on the new farms, or as workers living on the farms. Moreover, many peasants could find additional sources of income in the peat digging regions which were common in the coastal areas of Flanders, until they disappeared in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, peasants and farmers who had settled in coastal areas were subjected to variable rates of rent, even as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries - though this was not as common in inland Flanders in these centuries, and these variable rates probably made peasant smallholders in coastal areas vulnerable, because lords had to recoup their investments from the colonisers. So, from the time of the earliest settlements on the Flemish coast, a more widespread leasing system came into existence. At the outset there was little opposition to these short-term leases. There was also little opposition to the other variable charges levied by the Wateringen. This was because the tradition of raising customary rents had only recently been instituted, and also because lay lords had few feudal institutions. Further, when in the fourteenth century these char­ ges were added to other levies imposed by central government, this probably contributed as a factor in the disappearance of many peasant smallholdings from these areas (see below). To sum up: different surplus extraction relations encouraged investment in coastal areas by ecclesiastical institutions which were, from the outset, most interested in the ‘seigneurie foncière’ (the ‘seigneurie banale’ belonging, or about to belong, to the overlord, the count of Flanders). This resulted in the early existence of many specialised farms. The peasant smallholders, who had also been present from an early stage, were much more vulnerable because of variations in structures of surplus extraction, structures which led to the disappearance of many of them in the late Middle Ages and beyond. In addition, when peat digging was no longer possible, due to the exhaustion of reserves in the late Middle Ages, many of these smallholders lost their additional income. These features would lead to a reversal of the situation in the later Middle Ages, when greater farms would become more common in coastal Flanders. III.3.2.

Property structures from the late thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth century

Changes: from fixed to variable levies Surplus extraction structures and property relations underwent important changes, especially from the late thirteenth century on. It is almost certain that in Flanders the increase of surplus extraction was, to a certain degree, the cause of the crisis of the late Middle Ages. Near the end of the thirteenth century, various seigneurial groups maximised their opportunities to extract surpluses and used them to maintain their income because they could no longer expand their demesne by means of land reclamations, or continue the ‘population policy’ described above. This is not a Malthusian-ecological scenario, because the problems caused by population expansion did not trouble so much the farmers, but rather seigneurial groups. The farmers partly solved these “ecological”

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A ‘com m ercial survival econ om y’ in evolution

problems by capital investments (by means of the so-called ‘constitutions de rente’), and by employing survival mechanisms discovered in the earlier period. In real terms, the lords’ income dropped. They tried to do something about it by increasing charges per capita (Thoen, 1988a, comparing with Normandy, Bois, 1976). The demands of the famous Coastal Rebellion (1323-1327), which broke out not only in the coastal plain but almost everywhere in Flanders (unpublished data and Thoen, 1988a), were clear: the increased tax burden was the main reason for the uprising, and it was clearly a revolt of the population against seigneurial charges (see also Sabbe, 1992). The fact that the burden of taxation reached its height at the moment of rebellion has been deduced from the great amount of statistical data available (see also Thoen, 1988a). The second important cause of the revolt was the arbitrary character of the levy of seigneurial charges (Sabbe, 1992: 21 ff.). In this respect we must also bear in mind the change in the surplus extraction system from ‘unchangeable rents’ to ‘changeable rents’ in the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. My view, which an increasing number of foreign studies seems to confirm, is that one of the typical characteristics of the classic feudal period before the later Middle Ages was not arbitrary rent collecting, but rather fixed customary charges, often laid down in perpetuity, a phenomenon which probably resulted from pressure originating in the farmers’ community, and not pressure emanating from the lords, as has often been supposed. Along with the redeemable nature of these charges, this phenomenon was one of the stimuli in feudal society which could precipitate a drop in the rate of the feudal levy. Here we may detect a significant force in feudal society (compare: Bois, 1976 and Takahashi, 19772), but only (as Brenner, 1982, rightly pointed out) in the context of good surplus extraction relations, such as those which were, in fact, present in Flanders (described above). The decline of the feudal levy, which could carry on freely within the context of good surplus extraction relations, gradually got the large landowners into trouble, causing them to try to adapt their surplus extraction means to the possibilities at their disposal.25From this period, the bourgeoisie emerged as a new factor in the equation. The evolution we have described led increasingly to a separation of the ‘seigneurie banale’ from the ‘seigneurie foncière’, so that the two ended up in different hands. This too curbed the possibility of a seigneurial reaction. There was also a tendency to increase the adaptable revenues derived from the ‘seigneurie banale’, but given the circumstances of the period only the count was even temporarily successful in this respect. His struggle with the towns also reduced his ability to extract surpluses for a long time. The gradual reaction against unchangeable rents was most tangible around 1300. In what ways did this reaction become apparent?

25 Many local lords as w ell as religious institutions were bankrupted in the course o f the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (see e.g. Braeckman, 1963).

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P easants into farm ers?

Changes in landlordship: the introduction of the leasing system - a capitalist evolution? The ‘seigneurie foncière’, based on property rights in the strictest sense of the word, was mainly characterised by the generalisation of the leasing-system: short-term leasing of large farms, but also - a fact which has been overlooked for a long time - of small plots of land. This happened especially from the 1270s on (Thoen, 1988a: I, 322 ff.). Because it split labour from capital, one wonders whether this phenomenon was a step forward in the evolution of capitalism, as Marx thought and many neo-Marxists stiU think. Why should this view of landlordship be revised?26 Some reasons can be put forward: 1. It was the influence of the lords, not the farmers, which generalised the leasingsystem, because lords wanted to increase surplus extraction (and their income) by using more rational management. From this point of view, it was an instrument of feudal control, at least initially. The fact that in Flanders time leases proved durable, and, con­ trary to e.g. S. France and N.Italy, métayage did not, was the consequence of the balance of power between lords and farmers. 2. The separation of capital and labour was incomplete, as the lease-holder had to supply a large part of the capital, not least in the provision of seed for sowing. This can be considered a form of capital (in this sense métayage is more capitalistic than common lease). 3. In the balance of power between landowners and lease-holders, the latter, including those of large farms, found themselves subordinate to land-owning lords. As mentioned above, this was much more the case in the Ancien Régime than later, and much more in economically difficult times than in favourable economic circumstances. There are four main reasons for this: a) Especially in hard times, lease-holders of large farms were very dependent on large landowners. There was usually an important clause in the lease which stipulated that the lease-holder had to leave the farm as he had found it at the beginning of the lease. In practice, this meant that the lease-holder left an enormous amount of money, especially in the form of cultivation and seed for sowing. This clause was very restrictive of the lease-holder’s freedom of movement (this was especially true for those leasing large farms), as lease-holders did not have sufficient capital to buy out a lease, especially when (as some contracts attest) the capital had to be in specie. b) Although from the twelfth century the land market was important, we are still led to ask why it was almost impossible for independent farmers to build-up a large farm of their own. The answer is that owning a large demesne was fraught with enormous risks in the pre-industrial period. Only lords disposed of sufficient capital to carry the risks of the need to reconstruct a farm and its outbuildings, if these had been destroyed 26 What w e challenge here is the notion that leaseholding was o f itself a step forward in the evolution o f capitalism. This is not to say that, in areas where it was introduced in a relatively short period on a large scale, such as in parts o f the Northern Netherlands and in coastal Flanders, it contributed to agrarian capitalism, because it favoured concentration o f land and the emergence o f large farms (see Van Bavel, 1999: esp. 528-532). For coastal Flanders in the late Middle A ges, see Thoen, 1999 and forthcoming. In se it remained an instrument o f surplus extraction.

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival econ om y’ in evolution

as a result of war, looting or natural disasters. It was only in these calamitous periods that landowners invested heavily in the rural economy of inland Flanders. In calm periods, in this areas investments of the lords were low and, as mentioned above, for reasons of independence, they invested more in coastal than in inland Flanders. Nevertheless, to keep large farms going, these emergency investments were vital in both the Middle Ages and the Early Modem Period, because wars became increasingly destructive (especially in the Netherlands). In other words, the element of ‘risk’ (which might be thought of as a form of insurance against risk) seriously restricted large farmers’property rights. They were therefore increasingly dependent on the lords. North and Thomas have pointed out that the element of risk was a restriction on property rights in the development of capitalism, although this was in another context (North and Thomas, 1973). It is my contention that this played an important part in the mral economy and its structure. c) On many leasehold farms, until the eighteenth century, the Tord’ remained literally the supervisor who, out of nostalgia for the High Middle Ages, considered the leasehold farm as a kind of pleasure garden in which he kept a few guest-rooms or even a house. This attitude seems to have changed at some point during the eighteenth century when the mral estates were simply considered as sources of ‘income’. The lord’s interest in estates for prestige slowly moved to whealty houses in the towns.27 d) For large landowners, large leasehold farms remained important until the eighteenth century for another reason which, until now, has been underestimated: for their own survival in times of crisis. I have discovered numerous documents which suggest that farmers often paid the owner in kind to meet the owner’s needs (Thoen, 1988a: I, 589).28 They did this even though it was stipulated that the rents would be paid in spe­ cie. In this way the lord received foodstuffs and other products much cheaper than they could be bought at market, especially in periods of scarcity and high prices which were common until the end of the Ancien Régime. This was one of the reasons why, in inland Flanders, landlords waited until the ‘good times’ of the eighteenth century to split up or to reduce the size of their large farms (see above). It was more lucrative to lease out smaller plots.29 Briefly, in the Ancien Régime, leases continued, to a considerable extent, to be a form of surplus extraction in the countryside. From the late thirteenth century, the numbers of leases which acted as a form of surplus extraction increased, because economic condi­ tions allowed them to. They stimulated the evolution of a capitalistic economy only to a limited degree, if at all, and - in some area’s such as inland Flanders - they may even have slowed the process down.

27 In the 19th century, during the period o f industrialisation, the important ‘lords’ became again more interested in rural estates, especially rural country houses and ‘castles’. 28 For the farmer this had the advantage o f allowing him to avoid indirect urban taxes. 29 Another reason the nobility were careful o f their large demesnes, was that until 1672 they had the special privilege of importing tax-free into towns (see Janssens, 1980: 455; Coppieters, forthcoming: 112). Certainly, until the eighteenth century, many members of the bourgeoisie hoped to become members o f the nobility for both the ‘prestige’ and for these kind o f privileges. Some o f them succeeded.

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P easants into farm ers?

The first offensive of the bourgeoisie as landlords In the long term, the bourgeoisie’s influence on the countryside increased. It was in the later middle ages that the bourgeoisie first began to assert their right to act as land­ lords. They tried to increase their influence in the countryside by acquiring land to rent out, by buying peat land to provision the towns, and by erecting farms, both to increase their prestige and for their own survival (see Martins, 1976; Thoen, 1988a; Nicholas, 1971). These developments occurred especially from the late thirteenth century on, and continued slowly in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The ‘seigneurie banale’ and the government as surplus extractor in the context of changed surplus extraction relations The ‘seigneurie banale’ underwent important changes which began in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some changes in the structures of surplus extraction have been indicated. Let’s summarise, the main changes in this domain. Surplus extraction relations were a competitive power game, in which, from the point of view of the surplus extractors, three main groups were involved: central authority, the nobility and the large cities.30 The struggle between these groups continued apace, and was at its most complex in this period. Without going into details, we should briefly make mention of the role of the ‘bourgeoisie foraine’ in this struggle. Indeed, it was possible for farmers to acquire this way the status of townsman, and this was a fact which probably undermined the judicial power of local lords in their seigneuries. After all, what could a lord’s authority mean in practical terms, if he did not have any judicial power over a large (and often the richest) part of the inhabitants of his manor? Towards the end of the thirteenth century, in Flanders, to all intents and purposes, the nobility was both politically and economically powerless. The competition between towns and the count came to the fore. Thereafter, the ‘bourgeoisie foraine’ became an instrument of the central government. It was used to play off the smaller cities, over which central government retained more power, against the large cities, whose power was increasing. From this period, the impor­ tance of the ‘bourgeoisie foraine’ of the smaller cities, such as Geraardsbergen, Oudenaarde and Courtrai etc., increased with support from the count (see Thoen, 1988b). Centralised surplus extraction and the increasing ‘féodalisme d’état’ (Kosminsky, 1955) were also based, much more than they had been in the past, on an arbitrary and adaptable system of skimming surpluses. The collections taken by local lords had been structurally curbed in the preceding period. Cities, on the other hand, had extended their power, and had ensured that some of the income flowed in their direction (e.g. in fines, or in indirect taxes). From the 1360s, the centralising state introduced regular direct taxes. The profit made by the count’s mint (Van Werveke, 1968) can reasonably be considered as another form of indirect tax, especially in the fourteenth century. Surplus 30 In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the church seemed to play a less impor­ tant part in the power straggle, because the eccesialstical lords had especially become landlords.

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A ‘com m ercial survival econ om y’ in evolution

extraction by cities and sovereigns culminated in the numerous civil wars of the Late Middle Ages, when rural areas were looted by friend and foe alike. Surplus extraction relations between lords universally limited their ability to extract surplus, and this reduced the impact of the late medieval crisis. (For the arguments which support this contention, see Brenner, 1976,1982; Epstein, 1991; these arguments also apply to Flanders: cf. Thoen, 1988a). There was little possibility of a seigneurial reaction, because the ‘seigneurie banale’ and the ‘seigneurie foncière’ had fallen to competing interest groups. This excluded the possibility of an ‘enclosure movement’ like that which emerged in England. The count was moderately successful in attempting to diminish the power which land ownership in the country brought to the bourgeoisie. The extraction possibilities of the ‘seigneurie banale’ were limited because they were in the hands of competing interest groups. In the late Middle Ages, for example, these included cities and sovereigns, although the latter continued to erode what little remained of the power of local lords. Cities had some political power to withhold direct taxes (‘beden’) levied by the sovereign. In a serious confrontation, however, they were never successful. Comparative calculations of the burden of taxation seem to indicate that, per capita, the burden of taxation in Flanders was rather lower than it was abroad. If we assume that in the sixteenth century, the gross national product of Flanders was the highest anywhere (Brûlez, 1970), the low burden of taxation seems even more signifi­ cant. Nevertheless, the low rate of per capita tax was probably also the result of a growth in the peasant economy itself. There was a larger number of peasant smallholders who paid less per capita than in countries with a ‘richer’ peasantry. It is possibly no coincidence that the direct taxes levied by the monarch started to rise when the power of the (large) cities was broken definitively. This occurred after the last uprising in 1540. This rise was moderated somewhat in the case of the rural population because from 1540 on, taxes were more frequently collected on the basis of estimated income and possession and usufruct of estates. Urban taxation (which had been levied by large cities) was significantly reduced, or banned.

Conclusion: what were the consequences of the changed surplus extraction and property structures for the developing peasant economy? The introduction and generalisation of the leasing system did not in the long term significantly hinder the evolution of a commercial peasant economy, at least, it did not hinder it in inland Flanders, which was, of course, the largest area of the country. The numbers of small farms and the general structure of farming remained fundamentally the same. The number of small farms could grow, however, as employment opportunities existed in the new, larger farms. A few peasants became ‘middle class’, profiting from the short-term system of leasing parcels of land. The large majority of farms were still small, however. In large part this was caused by, on the one hand, the relatively low level of taxes (due to the structure of Flemish surplus extraction relations), and, on the

131

P easants into farm ers?

other, the fact that in the former period the basis had already been created for a patchwork of small farms which possessed their own means of subsistence, and which paid low rents. Moreover, large farms in this area were not used for capitalist investment by landlords. Rather, they were the preferred symbols of power of both a new generation of nobility and the bourgeoisie. They were also used for the subsistence of the landlords themselves in times of crisis. The impact of the short-term leasing system, which increased slowly through the centuries, did not alter this state of affairs. This system of leasing small plots of land eventually became a real feature of the commercial peasant economy. In the coastal areas, smaller farms inter alia could not survive for many reasons such as the fact that they were subject to adverse ecological conditions and a greater tax burden, and that there had been erected more large farms there in the preceding period. The result was that in the coastal areas, a peasant economy could not develop. In inland Flanders also, in the long term, there was an increase in the level of variable taxes (which could still be called ‘feudal’), but this burden increased much more slowly, so peasants could adapt their economic survival strategies. The result was the further splitting up of holdings and intensification of farming. In the late sixteenth century these processes became more pronounced. III.3.3.

Property structures from the late sixteenth century to the nineteenth century

The ‘seigneuriefoncière and the growing importance o f lease holding in inland Flanders From the late sixteenth century on, we have a good idea of the importance, spread, and distribution of large and small holdings, and also, for the first time, a reliable pic­ ture of the importance of lease holding, compared to holdings with customary rents. In the case of some villages we can follow this proportion until the nineteenth century (for example, Meigem, a small village in inland Flanders: Table 6.5).

Table 6.5

1571

less lha l-2ha 2-3 ha 3-4 ha 4-5 ha 5-10 ha 10-20 ha 20+ ha Total

132

Distribution of holdings and the importance of lease-holding in Meigem, a proto-industrial village (1571-1846) property 9 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 13

leasehold 9 1 3 4 2 3 2 3 27

mixed total 2 2 7 5 2 5 5 7 35

20 4 11 11 4 8

7 10 75

1765

less lha l-2ha 2-3 ha 3 ^ th a 4-5 ha 5-10 ha 10-20 ha 20+ ha Total

property leasehold mixed total 2 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 11

16 17 15 8

3 6 7 7 79

1 3 5 1 2 4 4 1 21

19 24 23 11 5 10 11 8

111

A ‘com m ercial su rvival econom y ’ in evolution

1631

less lha l-2ha 2-3 ha 3—4 ha 4-5 ha 5-10 ha 10-20 ha 20+ ha Total 1673

less lha l-2ha 2-3 ha 3—4 ha 4-5 ha 5-10 ha 10-20 ha 20+ ha Total

property leasehold 9 3 3 1 1 0 0 0 17

5 6 2 1 2 5 7 4 32

property

leasehold

5 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 10

15 19 8 4 4 4 6 11 71

mixed 1 2 3 6 0 4 5 8 29

total 15 11 8 8 3 9 12 12 78

mixed total 3 2 3 6 1 3 3 1 22

23 24 12 10 5 8 9 12 103

1787

less lha l-2ha 2-3 ha 3—4 ha 4-5 ha 5-10 ha 10-20 ha 20+ ha Total 1846

less lha l-2ha 2-3 ha 3—4 ha 4-5 ha 5-10 ha 10-20 ha 20+ ha Total

property leasehold ?

?

mixed

total

?

33 26 27 7 5 13 9 9 129

property leasehold mixed total 3 6 2 4 0 1 0 0 16

118 17 16 6 2 5 9 6 179

0 6 4 1 1 1 3 1 17

121 29 22 11 3 7 12 7 212

Source: Deprez, 1956; Thoen and Vanhaute, 1999 In the late sixteenth century, in inland Flanders, between c. 40 percent and c. 70 percent of the land was leased out (Van den Abeele, 1985: 103). It seems that this percentage was lowest in those areas where the power of the local lords was greatest in the Middle Ages. This is consistent with the theory that, thanks to the ‘population policy’ of the local lay lords, more land was given out for low customary rents. Most property was still held by smaller farmers, who, in general, remained property holders for the longest period, although they were, as we explained, also active on the leasing-market from the late Middle Ages. Smaller holders gradually lost much of their land in the course of the Early Modem Period, and at an accelerated pace in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (see below). In the middle of the nineteenth century, about 80 percent of the land was leased out (Verhaeghen, 1961: I, 172; Vanhaute, 1993). These percentages were the highest in Belgium (Verhaegen, 1961:1 ,172). Nevertheless, the peasant economy survived and was not slowing down, on the contrary, it was picking up. The result was certainly a growing ‘surplus extraction’ from the peasant smallholder. Why did peasants try to keep at least part of their holding in property for as long as they could? For a long time, peasants needed holdings to survive. Indeed, from the thirteenth century, the principal method of securing credit was by ‘constitutions de rente’: in periods when peasants had to invest to survive, they could acquire a sum of money, often from the townspeople, in exchange for a promise to pay the lender a customary rent with

133

P easants into farm ers?

(often) an estate as pledge (see Thoen, 1988a: II, 897 ff.; Servais, 1982:49 ff.). Especially in times of rising prices this was common practice. In periods of low economic produc­ tivity, however, ‘constitutions de rente’ were catastrophic for peasants. When they could no longer afford to pay their customary rents, they lost their mortgage. In this way, many peasants gradually forfeited their means of production. It is likely that in the course of the late nineteenth century, thanks to the intervention of central and new local authorities, other credit systems were organised for the peasants. These reduced the importance of peasant holdings for securing survival credit (see De Beider, 1986). In coastal Flanders, lease holding was already more important from the Middle Ages. It remained the principal method of holding land in the overwhelming majority of cases until the early nineteenth century.

The second and third ‘offensives’o f the bourgeoisie From the thirteenth century, the burghers in towns increased their influence over the countryside. In the long term, they acquired more land, buying it or obtaining it in the form of forfeits for unpaid ‘constitutions de rente’. Nevertheless, there were undoubtedly periods in which this evolution accelerated. As one might expect, these periods occurred mostly during, and after, crises in the rural economy, when land prices were low, and when peasants lacked the specie to purchase land. On the threshold of the Religious Wars, the majority of land was still in the hands of peasants and the rural lower classes. This changed in the following decades. The small village of Eke, south of Gent, exemplifies the evolution of the trends in land ownership in the Ancien Régime (see Table 6.6).

Table 6.6

Landowners in the village Eke by social class (1571-1832) 1571 ha %

Nobility Clergy Charity Bourgeoisie Local peasants1 Unknown Total

135 16 6 135 615 4 911

14.8 1.7 0.7 14.8 67.5 0.5 100.0

1656 ha % 165 28 6 228 47 2 907

18.2 3.1 0.7 25.2 52.7 0.2 100.0

1762 ha % 142 27 8 292 435 1 907

15.7 3.0 0.9 32.2 48.1

0.1 100.0

1832 ha % 152 41 6 301 372 46 918

16.6 4.4 0.6 32.8 40.5 5.0 100.0

'and working class people

Source: Coppieters, forthcoming, 140 ff. It seems that the period during and after the Wars of Religion was the period of the ‘second offensive’ of the bourgeoisie. Several studies reveal that many burghers could profit from the low cost of buying land by investing in parcels of land in the country (De Wever, 1978b: 55 ff.; Deprez, 1957: I, 141; Coppieters, forthcoming: 111 ff.; for

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A ‘com m ercial survival econ om y’ in evolution

Brabant, see Scheelings, 1983). In inland Flanders it seems that, in contrast to the earlier period, they did not concentrate these parcels into larger farms.31 In fact, there was no reason to continue this practice. Leasing out numerous small plots of land was more profitable than leasing out one big one, and large farms were gradually losing their function as a source of subsistence for owners in periods of crisis. Furthermore, it was more prestigious in this period to have an urban ‘estate’ than a country one (for Gent, see Coppejans-Desmedt, 1989: 147). In the second half of the eighteenth century, the trend of bourgeois infiltration into the countryside stopped temporarily; in comparison with leasing prices, selling prices of land were too high for the bourgeoisie. The ‘commer­ cial-survival’ economy was running smoothly, largely because of an increased labour supply in the linen cottage industry.32An increased number of divided holdings resulted as a consequence. When survival strategies functioned optimally, peasants were more active in the land-market, and when selling prices increased as a consequence, inroads made by the bourgeoisie were insignificant. From the late eighteenth century and during the nineteenth century, the third ‘offensive’ of the bourgeoisie took place. More land came into their hands due to unpaid ‘consti­ tutions de rente’, but also because the bourgeoisie increasingly invested heavily in estates for profit. Many burghers bought the estates of ecclesiastical institutions in the country­ side which were confiscated during the period of French rule. These included numerous burghers of Gent (Balthazar, 1989:156). Large estates survived, but for income reasons they were often split-up into smaller plots of land which were leased out. In the course of the nineteenth century, the bourgeoisie continued to buy up land, especially in times of crisis. They continued to do so until the beginning of this century (Verhaegen, 1961, Vanhaute, 1993b).

Leasing prices and peasant structures What can be said about leasing prices? There is still a shortage of studies into the differences in regional leasing rates. However, it seems clear that as short-term leases became part of the peasant system, owners could increasingly profit from the peasant structure by raising lease rates, or by maintaining them at a high level. In the nineteenth century, leasing prices were higher in East and West Flanders than they were in other regions of Belgium (see Verhaegen, 1961:1 ,171). In inland Flanders in the late Middle Ages, prices were not falling much in comparison with other inland areas and coastal regions. Especially from the seventeenth century on, the fragmentation of holdings and proto-industrialisation were on the increase and rent prices were increasing too (see, e.g. De Wever, 1978b, and the references there). Indeed, especially in areas of proto­ industrialisation, leasing prices exceeded the value of the land (Verhaegen, 1961: I, 175-176). What Benoit Verhaegen has argued for the early nineteenth century also applies to the earlier period: ‘Les propriétaires fonciers, profitant de la pléthore rurale, ont aug­ menté les fermages et les prix de la terre, non pas en proportion des revenus agricoles de la ferme, mais en proportion des revenus totaux, c’est-à-dire y compris les revenus de la production industrielle.’ 31 The situation may have been different in coastal areas. 32 Vandenbroeke, 1987; Mendels, 1972.

135

Peasants into farm ers?

The increasing impact of lease holding, which in inland Flanders was based more and more on small plots of land, became an ever more typical feature of the peasant structure. As a variable in income levels, lease holding brought about intensification of farming and commercial activity. In inland Flanders, both large and smallholders were competitors for small plots of land, so leasing prices were pushed up even for larger farmers. As has been mentioned, the land-owning classes profited from this situation by splitting up even their larger holdings, which emphasised the peasant structure in the area even more. In coastal areas, on the other hand, from the later Middle Ages and the sixteenth century, there had been a tradition of large farms. Smallholders did not compete for land, and it was leased out in larger plots. Here also, the situation brought about in the Middle Ages continued and became more pronounced, but in the opposite way as in inland Flanders. The ‘seigneurie banale’: the breakdown o f old surplus extraction structures The development of the ‘féodalisme d ’état’ in the sixteenth century (some designate it less accurate as a process of ‘state-formation’), resulted in a significant increase in the per capita tax burden recovered by the central government. The inevitable crisis came in the late sixteenth century, when the opposition of former surplus extraction classes was broken, as we described above. This figure speaks for itself:

Figure 6.3 Tax burden from the government in the fourteenth-eighteenth centuries in the areas of Audenarde and Alost. Indices: 1700 = 100 200 180-160-140 — 120- -

100 - -

80-60-40-20 "

cooN rH tN ^inr-ooo^cn^^op^csotN coinkooo^i-icvi^tnc^oo

Source: Thoen, 1988a, and Van Isterdael, 1988 (with extrapolations).

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival econ om y’ in evolution

Although we cannot deal with it in detail, Figure 6.3 is clear: there was a different tax level recovered by the government between in the later Middle Ages and the 16th century and the last two centuries of the Early Modem Period. The consequences for the commercial peasant economy With Mendels (1984) and Vandenbroeke (1984), we agree that the gradual increase in the tax burden led to an intensification of land use and to proto-industrialisation in inland Flanders: new kinds of income were the only solution to higher taxes. Moreover, surplus extraction levels were increasing everywhere, due to the universal adoption and implementation of the leasing system, and probably also because of the increased debts which resulted when farmers took out loans in the form of ‘constitutions de rente’ (see above). Larger holdings constituted the minority, but survived as long as they increased the prestige of the new nobility and, more significantly, were important for their owner’s survival in times of crisis. For a long time, they gave additional employment to peasants. As large farms gradually diminished in importance, this encouraged the peasants (who lost their jobs on these larger farms) to intensify their techniques. In the period when larger holdings were more important, and plentiful, peasants could appeal more easily to larger farmers; they could ask to borrow farming implements and horses, and offer labour on the large farm as payment (there is much archival evidence in support of this claim.). In coastal areas, this evolution had just the opposite effect: the increase in the tax burden, which began also in an earlier period, bankrupted many of the large holdings (in coastal areas the majority of holdings were large), and in consequence there was further concentration. Conclusion In previous chapters we saw how, as a consequence of the property and power structures which had been changing since the Middle Ages, the majority of the rural inhabitants of inland Flanders slowly became peasants whose main concerns were survival and reproduction. These peasants were pushed to the markets, markets which were bom out of a different rural stmcture in the high Middle Ages. In globo, urban markets survived and peasants gradually focused their subsistence strategies more and more upon these markets. For a number of reasons this survival pattem may be described as a pattern of ‘commercial-survival’ strategies. But the result was a parallel growth in the vulnerability of peasants, because in a functioning commercial peasant economy, they subdivided their holdings to an ever greater extent. Eventually, in a large part of Flanders, the main emphasis of survival strategies shifted gradually from a combination of different types of cultivation and rural cottage industry, to a survival strategy ever more based on mral cottage industry, which nevertheless retained links to agricultural production (albeit to a lesser degree). So, when the mral linen industry suffered from an international crisis in the 1830s, the first signs of the fragility of the system became clear. But even then there was no evolution towards ‘agrarian capitalism’. In coastal

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areas, by contrast, different property structures and ecological conditions favoured the development of larger holdings, and were a disincentive to the growth of peasant smallholdings. However, this coastal area was too small in Flanders to have a signifi­ cant influence on the development of capitalism.

IV. From agrarian development to the development of commercial and industrial capitalism in the towns So far, we have limited most of our comments to developments in the countryside; the role of the countryside in the evolution of the town has only been considered for the medieval period. It was nevertheless mainly in the towns that the development of industrial capitalism took place, where wage-earning, the concentration of capital and the concentration of labour under one roof, combined with work with machines, developed. Since a variety of challenges to Mendels’ thesis, many of which were justified but some of which were formulated in too extreme a manner, the role of the countryside in these developments has been minimised, except perhaps in its ability to provide an impetus for consumption. It seems to us that the role of the countryside in these develop­ ments has been underestimated in different ways, not only as a means of explaining the take-off of towns as capitalist industrial centres, but also as a way of understanding the relative backwardness of Flanders compared to other parts of Belgium, such as areas of the Walloon region. Limited by the constraints of space, this section will be confined to some brief criticisms and remarks on this subject, in keeping with our earlier comments. In the following paragraphs, we will examine whether the role of the countryside was negligible in the development of industrial capitalism, because it was not preceded by ‘agrarian capitalism’. In our view, even within the structures of society which prevailed, the countryside could be important for the development of capitalism in towns for many reasons.

IV.l.

The countryside and the development of the towns

The rural network of towns where the industrial revolution took place arose in the Middle Ages as a result of specific feudal property structures. We can deal with this point very briefly, because the rural origins of Flemish market structures have already been demonstrated above. Most importantly, although the fact may not be obvious, this network survived with more or less the same hierarchy (although not the same importance because of the de­ urbanisation) until the industrial revolution. This was partly due to constant labour flows from countryside to towns (which had higher mortality rates); to the growing market functions of the developing peasant economy (as we showed above); and to capital flows from the country to the towns which were constantly increasing in the long-term, as we shall see below.

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A ‘com m ercial survival econ om y’ in evolution

IV.2. The countryside as producer of food for the towns As the rural peasant economy remained partially market oriented, urban markets could profit from a supply of agricultural and rural industrial products, even if interna­ tional imports were also necessary. The rich - especially the large landowners, the bour­ geoisie and merchants - used their own demesnes as units of provisioning to meet their need for agricultural products, especially in times of shortage. In this way the countryside sustained the merchant economy in times of provisioning crises. As these crises became less significant, this function declined in importance (especially from the eighteenth century). Given the fact that the Flemish rural economy, even when it was based on survival, was an economy with a certain dynamism and a tendency towards intensification as we demonstrated above, land owners based in the towns could also benefit from it. Moreover, because the peasant economy was a mixed economy based on the production of many agricultural goods, many of these agricultural products were available in urban markets relatively cheaply (for example, dyes in the Middle Ages). To conclude, although food provisioning from the Flemish countryside to the towns was certainly not a fundamental element in the development of commercial capitalism, it played a positive and, until the eighteenth century, increasing role in the survival strategies of towns, and especially of the well-to-do living in them. Elements within this bourgeoisie class may have contributed to capital investment within capitalistic structures.

IV.3.

The countryside and flows of capital to the towns

A fundamental element in the development of capitalism is the concentration and accumulation of capital. There seems to be evidence that there was, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, an increasing flow of capital from rural areas to the towns. Three channels in particular led to growing capital flows into the towns of Flanders: IV.3.1.

Feudal dues and rents

The increasing importance of estate ownership in the countryside by urban elites, especially by the bourgeoisie and the new bourgeois nobility, has been described above. Most of the land owned by these elites was leased out. From the late thirteenth century on, as we have seen, a growing amount of money collected from rents went to the towns or to the non-agricultural sector. This was caused by the fact that rent investments were low (see Thoen, 1988a: 1,595) in an area such as in inland Flanders, where the market for lease holding was gradually extending. Moreover, little by little smallholders came to compete with larger farmers on the land market, thereby pushing upwards the rents per ha. So, smallholders slowly became more dependent on lease-holding. The drain of rents to the towns was also stimulated by the fact that these leases were more and more based on peasant family incomes across the board. It is possible to calculate that in the middle of the nineteenth century around 5,500,000 francs passed every year from the countryside to the landlords of Gent, the largest town

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of Flanders (Kint, 1989: 315). This was equivalent to around 41,698,200 litres of rye per year, which is to say 390 litres per person living in Gent33- more than the m inim um required to feed the town’s population. This also means that in the 1570s, when only half the amount of land was in the hands of townspeople of Gent (calculated with Van den Abeele, 1985; Coppieters, forthcoming: 113), the drain of money to the towns must already have been significant. IV.3.2. ‘Constitutions de rente’ The form of mortgage deed known as a ‘constitution de rente (Fr.)’, is one of the most underestimated and little studied subjects of the economic history of Flanders. Especially during periods when the described survival system of the peasants was functioning effectively (e.g. in the first half of the 16th century and the middle of the 18th century), the number of ‘constitutions de rente’ increased considerably, more or less in parallel with the subdivision of holdings. This was because a large amount of the money loaned was used for investment, for land or for plant to start a new peasant holding. So, already at the end of the thirteenth century, but especially in the course of the sixteenth century (Thoen, 1988a: II, 894 ff.), and again during the second half of the eighteenth century (Vandenbroeke, 1995:112), there was a remarkable increase in the number of ‘constitu­ tions de rente’. It is likely (but, as yet, this is an unproven hypothesis) that the mortgage system also further impoverished the countryside in favour of the towns in the first half of the nineteenth century (see Kint, 1989: 318). It is very difficult to evaluate these de­ velopments in terms of capital flows. Indeed, ‘constitutions de rente’ resulted, in the short term, in capital flows from towns to the countryside, but, in the long term, capital flows went in the opposite direction. In my opinion, one of the most significant negative features of this trend was that ‘constitutions de rente’, even more than leases, drained money away in the medium-to-long-term from the poorest peasants who, for a long period prior to that point, had owned their own farmstead. IV.3.3. Surplus extraction from growing centralised states and capital flows to the towns What can be said about surplus extraction by central government? How did it stimulate or slow down capital accumulation in the commercial and industrial sector? First of all, we have already argued that the relatively low burden of taxes imposed by government in the late Middle Ages, resulting from typical surplus extraction relations, played a part in the comparatively low impact of the late medieval crisis (Thoen, 1988a: II, 1071). The light burden of taxation also encouraged the continuity of the peasant system in large areas of Flanders. But after many centuries, when this peasant system was com­ pletely established and widespread, the increased tax burden from the end of the sixteenth century encouraged the further subdivision of holdings and the intensification of farming described above. These developments also had consequences for the flow of capital to the towns. The funds collected through increased government taxation from the period of the Counter331 hi. o f rye cost about 13.19 francs in 1850. In that year, Gent had about 106,704 inhabitants (Kint, 1989: 176, 315).

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Reformation were destined, to a large extent, to pay public debts, a fact which indirectly reinforced urban economies. Indeed, most of the beneficiaries of the public debt lived in towns (Blondé, 1998a: 202). It is clear that industry and commerce in many towns could profit from this situation. The consequences of growing capital flows to the towns It may be argued on the basis of remarks made thus far that Blondé’s thesis for Bra­ bant (Blondé, 1998a, 202-203) is even more appropriate for Flanders. Growing capital flows from the countryside to towns certainly increased possibilities of consumption for townspeople, especially when it was the richer bourgeoisie or noblemen living in towns who benefited. In some cases, however, investment in the countryside by lesser well-to-do townspeople, such as the craftsmen, was also only part of a survival strategy. At any rate, increased possibilities of consumption could have stimulated demand in the domestic urban market34, and this is probably what happened in the course of the eighteenth century, and especially in the nineteenth century. Whether growing capital flows to the towns also encouraged investments in industrial concentration, as some researchers seem to suppose (Kint, 1989; Hannes, forthcoming), is still debatable. Other authors consider that the opposite was true: increasing bour­ geois investments in rural estates drained capital away from modernisation, internatio­ nal commerce and industrialisation. For Verhaeghen (1961: I, 256), the growing importance of the Flemish bourgeoisie as landlords during the second half of the nineteenth century was a significant feature in the backwardness of the industrialisation process in Flanders, compared to the Walloon region. We are inclined to follow his line of argument. To conclude, the importance of growing flows of capital to the towns (which, in the long-term, was simply growing surplus extraction) had a positive influence on the consumption pattern within certain layers of urban society. Whether it also contributed to capital investment in commercial and industrial activities is less certain; increased possibilities of consumption probably had just the opposite effect. It is our opinion that growing capital flows from the country to the towns contributed in the long-term, at least down to the middle of the nineteenth century, to the process of de-urbanisation and to long-term change in many towns which came to serve increasingly as local commercial centres. At any rate, fewer people in the towns benefited from the increasing capital flows from the country to the town.

IVA The problem of rural labour supply for economic development in the towns It is likely that during the period of medieval urban growth, the increased pull factors of rising towns, as well as the increased push factors of changing rural society as it has been described briefly above, were important elements in the miraculous growth of the 34 In the middle of the sixteenth century, 66% o f the total domestic market was not exported, hence the importance of the local consumption market (see Blondé, 1998a; Lis and Soly, 1997,

221- 222).

141

P easants into farm ers?

Flemish towns. It is common knowledge that constant migration from the countryside to towns was necessary for the survival of the urban network in pre-industrial societies because of higher mortality rates in most towns. Towns always attracted craftsmen from the countryside (a far greater proportion of whom worked outside craft guilds than was previously thought (Lis and Soly, 1994), a factor which probably favoured immigration even more, as well as domestics (many of whom were female), and the lumpenproletariat. The constantly changing survival strategies of the guilds and merchants in the towns (which have often been underestimated in the past, see for example Lis and Soly, 1997) also resulted in a constant flow of people between towns and their regions.35 So, from the high Middle Ages on, there was a pattern of movement between towns, and between towns and country, which was typical of the Ancien Régime. The role of the rural labour supply in the developing industrialisation of towns has been a matter for debate for several years now. To put it another way, did the first factory workers come from the countryside? Although I have no intention of resolving this problem here, it can scarcely be avoided completely in an article which considers the role of the countryside in the development of capitalism. In a famous article which was not supported by statistical data, Jan Dhondt (1954) argued that in Gent (one of the first industrialised towns of the Continent, from around 1800, but also the only significant industrialised town in Flanders in the first half of the nineteenth century), the large majority of factory workers was composed out of poor people which lived in the town itself. This thesis was later challenged by Mendels (1972) and Mokyr (1976; for Gent, see esp. 9 ff.). According to both authors, it was above all the growing proto-industrialisation of the countryside which lay at the root of this trend. For Mendels the increased importance of the rural linen industry in the eighteenth century, the loss of the means of production for many peasants (due to a supposed Verlag system), the problem of lower wages, and consequently a decrease in the rural age of marriage, all combined to make many rural dwellers potential factory workers. Having lost their means of subsistence, these people played an important role in the industrialisation of towns. Most of Mendels’ arguments are disputable and have been rejected: - wage differences between town and country have been discussed, for example (Lis and Soly, 1997), and these were, in my opinion, more influenced by differing costs of living, by ‘peasant’ survival strategies and the consequent possibility to work under the reproduction costs (Van Zanden,199336), than they were by the law of supply and demand in the labour market (see Thoen,1988a: II, 941 ff.); - the Verlag system did not develop in Flanders (Haagen, 1983); - the growth of the rural population in the eighteenth century was not due to a lower marriage age, because the marriage age of peasants was in fact rising (Vandenbroeke, 1984). 35 For an example of the role o f migration during the Middle ages in the changing economy o f the town, see my article on Bruges in the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries (Thoen, 1994b). 36 Van Zanden underlined the wage differential between town and country to explain the economic development o f Holland. It seems to me that in Flanders, the wages o f unskilled labourers in the town and in the country were always very similar because in towns most o f the workers lived according to the same survival structures as in the countryside, even within the guild system.

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A ‘com m ercial survival econ om y’ in evolution

In the case of towns such as Antwerp and Lier, recent research has emphasised the role of the internal dynamics of the changing labour market as a factor in the first stages of industrialisation (Lis and Soly, 1997). In the case of Gent, recent unpublished studies lend general support to Dhondt’s view that during the first stage of Gent’s industrialisation, the majority of the first factory workers and the inhabitants of the purpose-built small houses they lived in (the socalled ‘beluiken’), came from urban circles (for the cotton industry, which became the major industrial sector from the second half of the eighteenth to the middle of the nine­ teenth century, see De Visser, 1977; Vermeulen, 1981: 59). Table 6.7, which is based on different sources, gives a general idea of the importance of immigration for the growth of the town in the industrial period. It compares the number of inhabitants born in the town with the number of inhabitants coming from outside. Although such figures must be interpreted with caution, they can give an indication as to whether there was a change in the immigration pattern from typical Ancien Régime levels towards significant acceleration in the industrial period.

Table 6.7

Population and its local character in Gent (1796-1900)

Year

Number of inhabitants

1796 1830 1846 1900

43,465 75,310 102,977 157,281

% born in Gent 73.24% 72.63% 62.50% 65.9%

Sources: De Bock, 1980: 77, 73; Jaspers and Stevens, 1985: 84 and the censuses of 1846 and 1900 (Recensement Général du 31 décembre 1900, Brussels, 1903 and Recensement Général de la population 15-10-1846, Brussels, 1949, 290-291). In 1796, Gent was still close to the average level for the whole province (with an average in other towns of 72 percent of the population who were natives; Jaspers and Stevens, 1985: 84). This is a fairly typical level for the Ancien Régime. In 1830, the proportion remained unchanged, despite the growing industrialisation of the town, especially in the cotton industry. It would appear, then, that in Gent there is no real evidence of a significant influx of labour from the countryside to the industrialising town in the earliest stage of industrialisation. However, one cannot entirely neglect the importance of rural immigration. Between 1815 and 1856, as many as 21 percent of the inhabitants of these social houses (‘beluiken’) were immigrants from the countryside (Wohlmutter, 1984: 75). The main mistake made by Mendels, and by others such as Mokyr, is that they overlooked the fact that proto-industry was an integral part of the ‘commercial-survival’ economy we have described, with its roots in the Middle Ages, and in which peasants were involved in spinning and weaving to increase their chances of survival. As long as these strategies for peasant economic survival functioned, there was no stimulus to emigration from the countryside to the towns. In that sense, rural commercial peasant

143

P easants into farm ers?

structures hindered the evolution of industrialisation, rather than the reverse. As a result of increased intensification in farming from the last decades of the eighteenth century on (through, for example, the widespread farming of the potato), a rural cottage industry which continued to flourish, and the introduction of new commercial crops thanks to the French ‘blockade’ (see above), for many peasants the ‘commercial-survival’ func­ tioned quite well until the 1840s. In the second half of the 19th century it remained in operation but passed its limits (Thoen and Vanhaute, 1999). From that time, prevailing structures were under attack in the manner we have described above. Most of the authors studying the relationship between town and countryside in the con­ text of the transition to a capitalist industrialised society have focused their attention on the first half of the 19th century. From Table 6.3 and some other data it seems, however, that immigration played a much greater part in the revival of the towns in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially that of Gent. In that context, Table 5.6 is signifi­ cant. The percentage of native Gent people in the town decreased to little more than 62. In the second half of the 19th century, peasants were encouraged to leave the agricultural sector. Before the middle of that century already the rural linen industry experienced its first important crisis, with declining prices and export problems. The rural production crisis of 1845-1947 revealed that the subdivision of holdings had reached its maximum. The large profits of surplus extraction had not yet been invested in the agricultural sector. As soon as the peasant economy was under threat, peasants and labourers were attracted by the pull of those sectors of the economy which were not under threat. In the second half of the nineteenth century there were indeed factories erected in smaller towns and - a fact which is often neglected - in the countryside (see Dumont, 1951; Linters, 1987). Nevertheless, pull factors were only present to a limited degree in Flemish towns before 1895 (Verhaegen, 1961:1, 254). It is likely that this was, among other factors, due to the ‘treason’ of the Flemish bourgeoisie, discussed above, as well as to the fact that, since the Middle Ages, the Flemish economy had focused too closely on a single sector, textiles. From the early nineteenth century, but especially in the late nineteenth century, many Flemish people had to emigrate (often temporarily as seasonal workers) to the larger farms in Northern France, and to the new industries in the Walloon region. Only Gent was able to enhance its pull factors to any extent in the second half of the century, in large part by taking over the flax processing activities of the countryside and by erecting linen factories in the towns near the cotton factories, which were then in crisis (Verhaegen, 1961:1,306 ff.). In the second half of the nineteenth century, then, the rural labour supply played a larger part in the advance of industrialisa­ tion. Nevertheless, Flanders remained a backwater compared to other regions of Belgium until the twentieth century, especially compared to some centres in the Walloon area. This trend owed something to the fact that the ‘rural survival’ economy could, to an extent, recover and survive well into the nineteenth century (see above). It seems likely that due to the slow but significant influence of modern techniques, especially on the larger farms (for example, the use of artificial fertilisers and machines: Blomme, 1993), wage earning in the countryside was declining in importance as an additional income for Flemish peasants (who were also able to produce for the market).37 Nevertheless, 37 We can deduce this using the De Moor’s interwar data. According to her study, the diminishing

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A ‘com m ercial survival econom y ’ in evolution

the family holding remains a typical feature today, and it was also the product of the earlier ‘commercial-survival’ economy.

IV.5.

The countryside: a possible stimulus for consumption?

Rural consumption patterns could also stimulate economic development and the development of capitalism. Some scholars consider the prosperity of eighteenth century Flanders to have acted as a stimulus for the consumption of industrial products (Vandenbroeke, 1995: 92 ff.; Lis and Soly, 1997: 222). In the high Middle Ages, as we have seen, the increasing number of local lords, who caused an increase in consumption, had influenced the commercialisation of society. It is possible that an upper layer of rural society had also influenced consumption patterns. But what of the influence of the peasant society which dominated the largest part of the Ancien Régime? It is our opinion that although the peasant economy developed in the course of the Ancien Régime in the way we described, the impact of farmers and peasants on the consumption of commodities remained restrained and maybe even decreased. Indeed, as we have pointed out, these commercial peasants were increasingly pushed to the markets to sell their products, as well as to buy additional products for survival. But the greater the number of ‘peasant farms’ in the countryside, the smaller the total influence of the countryside upon consumption became. So, the development of a peasant economy did not contribute to the growth of trade, nor did it stimulate production in the towns because: • These peasants tried to produce as much as possible for survival on their own holdings (see above); • The balance between selling and buying was gradually more unequal, since the tax burden was growing; much of the money earned from selling rural products was siphoned off in surplus extraction (see above); • There was a tendency to split holdings up, since real commercial investment in them was impossible; social promotion in this kind of rural society is a myth; • The standard of living of the peasants was too low to make it possible for them to contribute to the demand of commodities, which formed the basis for progress in trade and industry; • Moreover, the more the peasant economy developed, the more proto-industrial products were produced in the lap of the peasant family itself. This last statement can be proven to a large extent with some scarce data. In the proto­ industrial lordship of Nevele, which incorporated eight villages (including Meigem, mentioned above), luxury goods amounted to only 1 to 2 percent of the total value of the goods owned by households in the eighteenth century (Schelstraete et al., 1986: 189). We might also compare the number of people living in medium or larger holdings with the total number of inhabitants of Flanders, on the basis that it was only within these groups that we might expect to find the additional purchasing power which was needed to stimulate demand and production. number o f people working in the agricultural sector was not due to a diminution in the number of wage earners (De Moor, 1997: 71).

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P easants into farm ers?

If we consider holdings larger than 5 hectares38 as those which could afford at least some goods that could stimulate industrial production, data for the former provinces of Oriental and Occidental Flanders give the following results:

Table 6.8

Population numbers, urbanisation and ‘larger’ holdings in Flanders, 1469-1846 (estimates)

Period

Around 14691 Around 15702 18063 18463

Inhabitants of Flanders

% living in towns

% holdings > 5ha

Absolute number estimated

660,738 789,000 1,064,631 1,436,268

36 32 25 27

±30% (?) ±25%

±123,963 ±134,750

±15%

±156,458

Sources: T o r the whole County of Flanders. The statistic for the number of inhabitants is based on Prevenier, 1983. 2Based on Maddens, 1976 and De Ridder, 1985. 3For East and West Flanders. Based on Jaspers and Stevens, 1985:40 ff.; Gyssels and Van der Straeten, 1986: 39 ff.; Goossens, 1993: 364; Vanhaute, 1993b. Although these estimates are very superficial and speculative, they give some sub­ stance to the conclusion that the number of larger holdings, with some potential additional purchasing power to stimulate consumption and trade, was in fact decreasing from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. In absolute figures the number of the peasants (inhabitants, not households) who may have been able to buy a small amount of products which exceeded the needs to survive, was not great and was quite stable. In total they amounted to the equivalent of the population of only a few towns in the late Middle ages, in the Early modem period, and in the Modern period. It is hard to detect any creative force from the countryside which might stimulate production or trade. To conclude, it is likely that the peasant economy, although it was a dynamic system as we have seen, stimulated consumption by people living in the towns through exploi­ tation of the countryside, much more than it stimulated consumption in the country.

38 Actually, Table 6.8 is even more convincing if w e consider only the larger farms (greater than 10 hectares in size) because the medium-sized ‘single horse’ farms possessed a structural weakness which restrained their purchasing power: the horse itself was a big overhead (especially when we consider the amount needed to feed it) (see also: Aymard, 1981: his criticism o f B ois,1976). Hitherto, the data has permitted analysis only o f the ‘larger’ farms, especially as far as the long term analysis of this large area is concerned.

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A ‘com m ercial su rvival economy ’ in evolution

V.

Tentative conclusion

Compared to the internal dynamics of the towns, commonly in the literature of the Southern Netherlands little attention is paid to the role of the countryside in the develop­ ment of capitalism. This study of long-term developments has, on the contrary, empha­ sised the role of the Flemish countryside. It can be concluded that the particular rural structures, whose roots stretch back to the Middle Ages, played both a positive and a negative role in these developments, and that the latter, if anything, was more pronounced. It was the countryside, with its specific feudal property structures, which gave birth in the course of the (Early and) High Middle Ages to a remarkably well-established urban network. This network changed but remained essentially the same, and it could adapt itself to changing structures of demand; hence its survival into the Early Modern Period. Within this network of towns, the structures of capital accumulation, which were necessary for the transition to commercial and later industrial capitalism, could develop. To a large extent it was thanks to the increasing flows of capital from the countryside to the towns that this network survived and stimulated urban consumption. It was also due to the countryside of inland Flanders that within the urban network, investments and capital accumulation remained a negative economic force for so long. Indeed, in crucial periods such as the nineteenth century, the countryside still afforded too many unproductive investment opportunities to the bourgeoisie. The fact that, in many towns, the incentives to invest in new industrial activities still remained less pronounced than in Walloon may also partly be explained by the described increasing extortion of the countryside and, as a consequence, a possible ‘treason’ of the bourgeoisie, which could, partly thanks to the countryside, even increase its consumption possibilities. The link between town and country in the industrial and commercial sector, typical of a ‘commercial-survival’ economy as we have seen, also consolidated production structures in the towns which did not change in a fundamental way. A flexible textile industry largely remained the most significant industrial sector from the Middle Ages on, a fact which made urban industry particularly vulnerable during periods of industrialisation and periods when the amount of importation was increasing. Since diversification in the production of the towns was not encouraged, towns became more dependent on interna­ tional export than on local consumption. Moreover, the ‘commercial-survival’ economy, which was bom in the Middle Ages as we demonstrated, could not in any profound way stimulate rural consumption. Because of its labour-intensive character the ‘commercial-survival’ economy could, for a long time, absorb and even increase the growing population, a fact which made the population balance between town and country swing in favour of the countryside. Only when the fundamental structures of the ‘commercial-survival’ economy were slowly degraded in the course of the nineteenth century (due to a slow process which started before the nineteenth century, and which is not yet completely finished at the end of that century) was the road clear for towns and industry with new pull factors to benefit from the large rural labour market. Gent was the first town which could do so, but it first absorbed its own labour supply as it became one of earliest industrialised towns of the Continent. Only after the breakdown of the fundamental structures of the ‘commercial-

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P easants into farm ers?

survival’ economy did Gent recruit more widely in the surrounding countryside. But the absorption possibilities of the Flemish towns were in general too restrained because of the lack of investment. This caused an acceleration process of impoverishment from the nineteenth century and from the middle of that century, an exodus of many peasants and even paupers to Northern France and Walloon. We may conclude with the paradox that although the evolution towards a commercial peasant economy was dynamic, generating gradually increasing production and making Flanders the ‘garden of Europe’, and despite the fact that this system was driving peasants to the market, in the long term it created an impoverished countryside which could not really change market structures, and which was in a large part responsible for the late industrialisation process in Flanders, especially compared to the Walloon region. In addition, it is striking that many features of the Flemish rural economy were com­ pletely different from some Walloon areas, especially Namur and Liège, which were the first areas of the Continent to be industrialised on a large scale. Striking is the high level of rural labour productivity in these areas (see Figure 6.1, p. 119), in combination with a much more diversified proto-industrial system in the country as well as in the towns39; but this is another story which certainly needs more new research.40

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eeuw. Bijdrage tot de sociaal-stratificatorische problematiek en de integratie van de mecanografié in de geschiedenis, 2 vols, Ghent. Unpublished licentiate thesis University of Ghent. Visser, J. de (1977) De industrialisatie van de Gentse katoennijverheid (1750-1850), Ghent. Unpublished licentiate thesis University of Ghent. Voet, L. (1942) ‘De graven van Vlaanderen en hun domein’, W etenschappelijke Tijdingen, 7, col. 25-31. Vries, J. de and Woude, A. van der (1995) Nederland, 1500-1815. De eerste ronde van moderne economische groei, Amsterdam. Wallerstein, I. (1995) ‘Merchant, Dutch, or historical capitalism? Commentary on J. L. van Zanden, The rise and decline of Holland’s economy. Merchant capitalism and the labour market’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 21, pp. 309-18. Warlop, E. (1975), The Flemish nobility before 1300, 2 vols, Courtrai. Wee, H. van der (1988) ‘Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and deurbanization from the late middle ages to the eighteenth century’, in: H. van der Wee (ed.), The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and the Low Countries (late middle ages-early modern times), Louvain, pp. 307-381. Wee, H. van der (1995) ‘Continuïteit en discontinuïteit in de economische ontwikkeling van Nederland, 1500-1815’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 21, pp. 273-280. Wee, H. van der and Cauwenberghe, E. van (eds) (1978) Productivity of land and agricul­ tural innovation in the Low Countries (1250-1800), Louvain. Wee, H. van der and D ’Haeseleer, P. (1996) ‘Proto-industrialization in South-Eastern Flanders. The Mendelshypothesis and the rural linen industry in the Land van Aalst during the 18th and 19th Centuries’, in Leboutte, Proto-industrialization, o.c., pp. 243-262. Werveke, H. van (1968) ‘Currency manipulation in the Middle Ages: the case of Louis de Male, count of Flanders’, Miscellanea Medievalia, Ghent, pp. 255-267. Wever, F. de (1978a) ‘Pacht- en verkoopprijzen in Vlaanderen (16de-18de eeuw). Bij­ drage tot de coniunctuurstudie tijdens het Ancien Régime’, Biidragen tot de Geschiede­ nis, 59, pp. 268-272. Wever, F. de (1978b) ‘Rents and selling prices of land at Zele, sixteenth to eighteenth century’, in H. van der Wee and E. van Cauwenberghe (eds), Productivity of land and agricultural innovation in the Low Countries(1250-1800), Louvain, pp. 43-63.

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Wohlmutter, P. (1984) De sociale en geografische mobiliteit van de Gentse beluikbewoners tot 1914, Ghent. Unpublished licentiate thesis University of Ghent. Yamada, M. (1991) ‘Le mouvement des foires en Flandre avant 1200’, in J.-M. Duvosquel and A. Dierkens (eds), Villes et campagnes au Moyen Age. Mélanges Georges Despy, Liège, pp. 773-789. Zanden, J.L. van (1988) ‘Op zoek naar de “missing link”. Hypothesen over de opkomst van Holland in de late Middeleeuwen en de Vroeg-Modeme Tijd’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 14, pp. 359-386. Zanden, J.L. van (1993) The rise and decline o f Holland’s economy: Merchant capitalism and the labour market, Manchester.

157

7

Merchant capitalism and the countryside. Antwerp and the west of the duchy of Brabant (XVth-XVIth centuries)1 Michael L im b e r g e r , University of Antwerp - UFSIA

I.

Introduction

One of the problems concerning the transition from feudalism to capitalism that has scarcely been touched upon in the Brenner-debate is the impact of urban markets on the socio-economic structures of their surroundings. The role of cities is, however, crucial for understanding the economic dynamic of highly urbanised areas, such as the Low Countries. In comparison with England, France, or Eastern Europe, which were compared by Brenner, urban markets played an important role in European core-areas, such as the Low Countries or northern Italy. Hence, if the economic impact of towns can be somewhat neglected for predominantly rural areas, it deserves particular attention in a study concerning the metropolitan core of Europe. S. Epstein (1991, 1993) recently treated this problematic for the other focus of European urbanisation, Italy. In his contribution entitled ‘Cities, regions and the late Medieval crisis’ he shows the impact of Florence on Tuscany during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in comparison with the case of Sicily on the demographic, the economic and the institutional situation. A major point of criticism that Epstein levels at the ‘stagnationist’ concepts of Postan and Brenner is their deterministic view concerning property relations in the countryside. Instead of concentrating on the peasants’ property rights, he therefore primarily analyses ‘the institutional structures which shape peasants’ access to markets’ and especially the relations between town and country on a regional level (Epstein, 1991: 3-9). The institutional context of the southern Low Countries differed considerably from that of the Italian regions presented by Epstein. Despite their economic and political importance, the Flemish and Brabantine towns never formed city-states, as was the case in Tuscany or Lombardy, but remained under the domination of a territorial ruler. Further­ more, from the 15th century onward, the medieval territories underwent a process of centralisation under the dukes of Burgundy, and later integrated into the Habsburg Empire. In the case of Brabant, the most significant peculiarity during the sixteenth century is the primary position of the commercial centre of Antwerp, and not of the administrative centre and court residence of Brussels. Moreover, the commercial dynamic of Antwerp was never much due to its place in the regional economy of Brabant, but rather to its position in international trade. 1 Many thanks to Prof. R. Van Uytven and F. Daelemans for their helpful remarks and to S. Geukens for correcting the first version o f the manuscript.

158

M erchant capitalism and the countryside

These differences in the historical context, but also the nature of the available material, caused us to choose for an approach that differs slightly from the one used by Epstein. Due to the complex interaction within the network of the Brabantine towns, we first limited our focus on the immediate rural surroundings of the town, instead of analysing the whole region of Brabant. In this way, we hope to be able to analyse the interaction between the town and its surrounding land and to do so more profoundly than would be possible in a general synthesis. Furthermore, the almost complete absence of historical syntheses dealing with rural western Brabant compelled us to proceed upon a rather descriptive course in place of generalising based upon the existing literature. Our analysis of the interaction between the commercial metropolis of Antwerp and its rural surroundings during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries will therefore largely be based on archival material dealing with the social and economic structures of western Brabant and the interactions between Antwerp and its surroundings. Finally, it is not our intention to create a complete antithesis to Brenner’s approach by totally neglecting property relations. Together with the market-ties between town and countryside, property relations will form an important role in our analysis. Our particular interest will con­ centrate on the question, to what extent the commercial dynamic of the sixteenth century helped to transform the prevailing structure of small peasant landownership of western Brabant and introduce a new form of capitalist agriculture, known as ‘new husbandry’, which was praised all over Europe in the seventeenth century (see e.g. Weston, 1650).

II. Brabant and Antwerp - the general context Considering the principal distinction between a Flemish case versus the Dutch case of development within the Low Countries made by Brenner, the duchy of Brabant is likely to be associated with the first. This is due to the economic duality between the Southern and Northern provinces of the Netherlands during the late Middle Ages, which is generally accepted by Dutch and Belgian historians. Brabant is frequently described, as the ‘brilliant second’ after Flanders, which is very true for the late medieval period. Its crucial role within the Low Countries during the fifteenth and especially the sixteenth century, however, makes it interesting beyond that level of generalisation. We will delve deeper by analysing what is specific for the internal development of Brabant during that period. In fact, the economic situation as well as political shifts within the Netherlands between the fifteenth and the late sixteenth century suggest a distinction between Flanders, Brabant and Holland as units of analysis. What makes the case of Brabant particularly interesting in this context is not only the fact that it gained relative importance within the Burgundian Netherlands, but that it existed at the focus of an important step in the development of European merchant capitalism, that is, the first phase of Atlantic expansion during the sixteenth century. During that period, which we might call the ‘golden age of Antwerp’, or within the Low Countries the ‘Brabantine period’, the large Flemish towns did not play as important roles as centres of international commerce as did Antwerp, and the final break-through of the Dutch towns was still to come.2It seems

2 There is a lively discussion on the shifts o f predominance between the Low Countries from Flanders via Brabant and finally to Holland; their demographic dimensions, their structural pre-

159

P easants into farm ers?

therefore promising to look at the Brabantine countryside during the sudden rise and decline of Antwerp, and investigating whether its impact on the rural structures was as sudden and visible, as the rise of the town itself. The overwhelming dimensions of Antwerp’s rise become obvious in almost any economic analysis of the Netherlands during the sixteenth century, whether regarding commerce or manufacture (e.g. Brûlez, 1966/1967). Yet, after a long period of glorifi­ cation, the question arose, what the actual impact on the whole of Brabantine economy was. As far as the urban sector was concerned, the optimist vision of general growth has been modified and described as a process of polarisation between the big urban centres of Antwerp and Brussels, and to a lesser extent Mechlin on the one hand, and the small Brabantine towns on the other (Van der Wee, 1988:338-341). The rural development of Brabant has received far less attention in this context, and, in comparison with Holland or Flanders, relatively little is known about it. Nevertheless, two quite different hypo­ theses on this issue have been put forward which coincide largely with the results concerning the urban sector. Van der Wee stressed the positive impact of Antwerp’s economic growth on the surrounding countryside, especially underlining the factors of access to a huge urban market and of growing income from wage-labour (Van der Wee, 1963: II, 295-302). In contrast, van Uytven outlined the slump of the area around Louvain, in the countryside as well as in the towns in the context of the growth of Antwerp. The district of Louvain, which formed the ancient core-area of Brabant, suffered a severe economic crisis during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which was mainly linked with the declining economic importance of the local towns (Van Uytven, 1974). In our paper we can not, however, face the complex problem of changing hierarchies and economic functions within regional city networks and the respective rural hinterlands; we will therefore leave the Louvain-area as separate, concentrating on the immediate surroundings of Antwerp and the mechanisms influencing rural socio-economic structures there and working to ascertain whether a comparative analysis of both areas would be most interesting.*3Another point that we have to take into consideration is the shortness of the period during which the growth of Antwerp took place, that is, during less than a century. At the beginning and the end of this period existed deep political and social crises: the revolt against Maximilian of Habsburg in the 1480’s was the climax of a crisis, which led to a demographic decline of ca. 20 percent in Brabant (Van Uytven, 1975). At the end of the sixteenth century on the other hand, religious wars and the Dutch revolt led to a general chaos, which formed a significant rupture in the economic development of the Low Countries. These periods of unrest are particularly important in an analysis of the situation in the countryside, which was a victim of the devastations to a much greater extent than were the towns (on the impact of war on rural society see e.g.: Gutmann, 1980; Thoen, 1981; specifically for Brabant: Daelemans, 1988). conditions and their political nature as w ell as the impact on the economic welfare in the provin­ ces concerned have been discussed in numerous articles. See for example: Van der Wee, 1988 and Blockmans, 1987. 3 The impact o f metropolitan cities on the economy o f the larger surroundings was discussed in the B -6 section o f 10th Economic History Congress in Leuven: Aerts and Clark, 1990; see also Ringrose, 1983: 312-314.

160

M erchant capitalism and the countryside

III. The regional differences within the research area North versus South IU.1.

Nature and settlement

In the introduction to ‘The Dutch Rural economy in the Golden Age’, deVries makes an important distinction in his demographic survey of the Low Countries, by dividing Brabant in a northern and a southern part, which show considerable differences in their population density. The northern part, that is the districts (kwartieren) o f ‘s Hertogenbosch and Antwerp, showed very low figures (15 inhabitants per square kilometre), whereas the southern districts had a population density of more than 40 inhabitants per square km, which was about the same level as in Flanders (De Vries, 1974: 80-84). The main reason for this unequal situation has to be seen in the natural conditions. The hardly accessible sandy plains of the Campine and the Peel in the north differed vastly from the fertile area of south Brabant, which also contained a dense network of navigable rivers, joining the Scheldt. The latter area, with a large number of towns, such as Brus­ sels, Louvain, Mechlin, Lier, Herentals, and Diest can be called the actual core area of medieval Brabant: During the 14th and fifteenth century, this part of the duchy ranked among the most densely settled rural areas of the Low Countries and among the most populous regions of all of Europe (Pounds, 1971: 383). Antwerp was situated almost exactly at the boundaries of these demographic zones, which can be situated somewhat north of the frontier of the district of Antwerp, along a line running eastwards from Antwerp towards the small town of Herentals. North of this line the mean population density in 1437 was as low as 20 inhabitants per square km, to the south it was more than 50 inhabitants/square km. In the west, the Scheldt itself formed a kind of limit, north of Antwerp. The places along the river also had a high population density, which diminished drastically after a distance of only a few kilometres (calculated from Cuvelier, 1912; see Limberger, 1990: 90). The geographical position of Antwerp at the very frontier between the hardly populated Campine area and the traditional Brabantine core-area in the south of the duchy determined the interaction between the metropolis and its surroundings, according to the economic potential of the distinct sub-areas.4 The different structures of settlement of these two areas were likely to correspond with different socio-economic structures, as for example in the composition of agrarian production or in the patterns of distribution of land - and, therefore, different preconditions for economic change. For our further analysis we will concentrate on a limited area within a radius of 20 to 25 km around the metropolis, which contains, however, parts of the northern as well of the southern demographic zone, in order to be able to include the impact of their different natural preconditions in our study.

4 The position of Antwerp at the edge o f the Brabantine core-area fits w ell into the typology o f a gateway-town, which links a region with an international trading network, as opposed to a central place, which per definition, was to found in the geographic centre o f its ‘Umland’ (Hohenberg and Lees, 1985: 59-69).

161

P easants into farm ers?

Figure 7.1 Antwerp and its Brabantine surroundings

Sources-. Cuvelier, 1912; Taverne, 1993: 36 (survey) IIL2. III.2.1.

Differences in the economic activity The north

The area north-east of Antwerp the ‘Campine’ area is frequently described as the great exception in the generally advanced Brabantine economy: The image of a infertile and therefore deserted Campine is the dominating common-place on this region: J. Cuvelier, for example, writes: le s terrains sablonneux du Nord ne pouvaient rapporter suffisament pour nourrir leurs habitants...’ Cuvelier, 1912: XXVII). However, this hypothesis has been criticised lately. According to some authors, it is prejudiced by the situation in the

162

M erchant capitalism and the countryside

19th and 20th centuries and is not based upon the result of historical research (Avonds, 1992: 13). In fact, in the late sixteenth century, Ludovico Guicciardini even mentions a tendency towards intensive husbandry in the Campine area: ‘The air of Brabant is really very good and healthy: the country is flat, and for the greatest part fertile and fruitfull, although the area of the Campine is naturally infertile, but the labour and diligence of the people, together with much manure make it fertile and good.’5 We do not, however, know if this presumed intensification of agriculture was a ten­ dency of the sixteenth century or if it had started already in earlier periods. There is at least a testimony from the 17th century that such a development took place. The English merchant Richard Weston was most astonished at how Antwerp landowners cultivated the poor sandy soil in the surroundings of the town (Weston, 1650: esp. 1-5). As far as cattle- and sheep-breeding is concerned, which both Guicciardini and Weston saw as an important factor for intensification, Van der Wee calculated a strong increase in fortyfive farms of the abbey of Tongerloo, mostly situated in the southern Campine, between 1490 and 1530 (Van der Wee, 1963: II, 115 and I, appendix 42/1). Life-stock breeding was not only an alternative to grain farming, but it was also indispensable for fertilising. Sheep, which were particularly numerous, also provided wool for local textile pro­ duction.6 At the very west of the Campine, along the banks of the Scheldt, there were still large areas of polders, even in the immediate neighbourhood of Antwerp, which had not yet been cultivated until the beginning of the sixteenth century or which were regained after having been flooded.7 The diking activity that had started during the High Middle Ages was still going on in the sixteenth century, and witnessed a new wave of investment by Antwerp merchants.8There are also indications that the interest of Antwerp citizens in purchasing land in the western Campine area was high as early as the fifteenth century.9 The case of Jan vander Ryt, goldsmith and alderman in Antwerp, who bought considerable goods in the surroundings before 1448, is a well-documented example. The payments in kind of two of his farms situated about 12 km northeast of Antwerp, which were leased to individual farmers, give an idea of the sorts of grain cultivated: In 1453, the farm ‘Wyns Hoeve’, with an area of 13.5 ha. brought up a lease of 3£4st. Brabant groats, 1,640 litres of 5 Originally: ‘L’aria di Brabante è veramente buona per tutto et salubre: il paese è piano, & per la maggior’ parte fertile et fruttifero, quantunque il suo paese di Campigna sia naturalmente sterile, ma il travaglio et diligentia de g l’huomini sopplisce di sorto con molto bestiame che lo fanno fertile et buono.’ (Guicciardini, 1588: 65). 6 Tumhout and Herentals, the main urban centres o f the Campine, had their textile industry, but they were also markets for the regional production (De Kok, 1983; Vermeylen, 1991). 7 In 1515, for example, Jean Wyts, received the allowance to dike about 105 ha. polders in Ooster-weel and Wilmarsdonk, only about 5 km from Antwerp (Galesloot, 1 8 7 0 ,1: 20, No. 19, Hoofdleenboek Antwerpen fo. 55). 8 There are mentions of dikes along the Scheldt in sources from the middle o f the 12th century on (Leenders, 1985: 57; for the sixteenth century: appendix 1). 9 In Antwerp letters of aldermen (schepenbrieven) w e find regular purchases o f Antwerp citizens of houses and land on the surrounding countryside: Beterams, 1959: 5—45.

163

P easants into farm ers?

rye, 164 litres of buckwheat and 24 ‘mandelen’ of straw, as well as 4 capons. The second farm, situated next to it, was leased, in 1456, for 4£6 st., 1,968 litres rye, 328 litres buckwheat, 20 ‘mandelen’ of straw and 6 capons (Van Osta, 1991: 39-43). During the sixteenth century the trend of buying land in the surroundings of Antwerp greatly increased. Antwerp merchants did not only buy residences in the countryside, but also large agricultural holdings, in which their country-houses were often integrated (Van Osta, 1991: 50). These big lease-farms in the hands of wealthy Antwerp citizens provided a good environment for intensive husbandry, in spite of the low fertility of the sandy soil. III.2.2.

The south

The natural preconditions in the southern part of western Brabant were more favourable for farming than in the north. The receipts of rents in kind, as well as of leases in domandai accounts, reflect the importance of rye and oats, and to a less degree barley and wheat.101As far as cattle are concerned, the accounts contain information on grazing as well as on stall-feeding.11 The payments in kind from the sharecropping-contract of the ‘Anderstad’ farm, near the small town of Lier, give a very detailed picture of the composition of the agrarian product of a big westem-Brabantine farm.12

Table 7.1

‘Anderstad’-farm; payments in kind, 1465-1468 (in litres)

Year

Rye

Buckwheat

Barley

1465 1466 1467 1468

5,968.5 5,709.0 6,271.0 6,314.0

197.2 64.9

135.6 194.6

Oats

346

Peas

Turnips

346.00

15 roeden 1,384

302.75 324.40

5s.6p.

The text of the sharecropping-contract also mentions the permission of seeding a certain amount of linseed for the farmer’s own profit, and the existence of a small orchard in front of the farm. Furthermore, some information concerning the livestock of the farm is contained in the lease contract: the farm included large meadows for grazing cattle13, 20 of which the farmer was allowed to keep in the ducal forests during the 10 Accounts of 5 (lay) demesnes o f the fifteenth and sixteenth century: seignieurie Grimbergen (held by the family De Glimes), baronnie Grimbergen (Nassau), Duffel-Walern (De Merode): Àlgemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), Familie archieven Merode-Westerloo; Land van Mechelen (until 1464: van Wesemaal, after 1464: dukes of Brabant), Tervuren-Vilvoorde (dukes of Brabant): ARA, Rekenkamer (RK), registers 4751^-793 and 11895-11916. 11 Stall-feeding was a necessary precondition for fertilising. 12 ARA, RK, register 11897, accounts 1464/65-1467/68. The contract is copied in the account of 1467/68, fos. 18 ff. 13 The lease-value of these meadows o f 50 guilders suggests, the area can be estimated approxi­ mately between 8 and 12 ha.

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M erchant capitalism and the countryside

summer, where also he could graze his sheep during the winter. An interesting mention is made also concerning fertilisation: because of the fact, that there had not been any cattle on the farm the previous year, the farmer obtained a reduction on his lease of 12 guilders for the first year, that is about 12.5 percent of the total lease price. The missing fertiliser had to be bought, probably from Antwerp.14 The incomes from the Anderstad farm reflect the picture of a complex and sophisti­ cated system of diversified farming, which was only practicable on big farms. The large number of small exploitations, on the other hand, which were the dominant form in western Brabant, did not dispose of the same possibilities. The agrarian income was often not sufficient to guarantee economic reproduction.15 Besides the possibility of wage labour in larger farms, there was however also a whole range of non-agrarian sectors which provided possibilities for additional income, especially in the area bet­ ween Antwerp and Mechlin: The villages of Duffel, Kontich and Walem were impor­ tant centres of rural cloth production (Soly and Thijs, 1981: 40). The area along the Scheldt and the Rupel was also known for its concentration of brick-ovens, which made it the major furnisher of bricks of the Antwerp building industry of the mid sixteenth century, and which offered employment for a large number of workers.16Another sector very common in large parts of the Low Countries was peat cutting. We found indications for a - marginal - peat exploitation in the ducal forests of Duffel. The rising income from the ducal right on peat cutting nevertheless proves that the production increased sharply after 1520 and reached its top value around 1560.17 Further southwards finally, in the area between Mechlin and Brussels, the exploitation of stone was a major non­ agrarian activity.18 Basic raw materials as stone and clay (for the production of bricks), as well as peat were crucial products for the growth of the big urban centres of western Brabant and therefore knew a growing demand during the sixteenth century. Their exploitation was however strongly dependent on the existence of navigable waterways, which were an indispensable precondition for their transport over longer distances. Another stimulating factor for the economy of the places along the main routes of transport was the increasing inland trade along the Scheldt and the Rupel between Antwerp and Mechlin and along the axis Antwerp-Brussels. The latter was rising in importance in the middle of the sixteenth century, especially after the building of a channel between Brussels and the Rupel, between 1550 and 1561 and the introduction 14 Asaert indicates, that according to the registers o f the Antwerp aldermen 8 ships of fertiliser are known to have been destined for the farm of Anderstat during the fifteenth century: Asaert, 1973:332. 15 More than 50 % of the copyholders had less than 2 ha. of land at their disposal. See for example Van Passen, 1966 or De Waha, 1 9 7 9:155-161. 16 Around 1550, there were 20 brick-ovens in Hemiksem and Boom, with about 400 to 500 wor­ kers employed: Soly, 1977: 246-249; see also Baetens, 1979. Cosemans cites that, around 1570, most inhabitants of Rumst lived o f the production of bricks and lime (Cosemans, 1936: 349). 17 ARA, RK, registers 11902-11916, domainal accounts Land van Mechelen 1501-1566; there is no information about the market o f the peat produced in Duffel; anyway, the strong urban de­ mand for fuel seems to have been crucial, directly or indirectly, for the sudden rise o f production. For the northern area: Leenders, 1989. 18 The accounts of the ducal demesne Tervuren-Vilvoorde contain regular incomes from permis­ sions of stone-winning: ARA, RK, 4751^-793; see also Meskens, 1987.

165

P easants into farm ers?

of a regular ferry-service (Aerts and Daelemans, 1984: 20 ff.). The village of Rumst, situated at the confluence of the Nete and Dijle was a big market place with a ducal toll station, where not only woollens produced in Duffel and Walem, but also local beer produced by eight or even nine breweries, was traded (Van Passen, 1988:737; Cosemans, 1936: 315). The ducal accounts also repeatedly mention boatmen and shipbuilders from the villages along the Brabantine rivers.19 Hence, although Antwerp and its surroundings lay in a transitory area between northern and southern Brabant, there were certain differences within the Umland of the metro­ polis; the agrarian activity was based on the combination of the cultivation of grain and life-stock breeding in both areas, but there were differences mainly in the intensity of agriculture. Moreover, we mentioned the strong impact of non-agrarian activities in the places between Antwerp and Mechlin, especially along the rivers Scheldt and Rupel. The effects of the sudden rise of Antwerp during the sixteenth century were therefore different for both areas. As we tried to show in this section, the strong urban demand for building material had an important influence on the brick- and lime-production along the Rupel and on the stone winning in the villages between Mechlin and Brussels. The availability of this additional source of income therefore helped to maintain the position of the local population and gave the peasants a certain economic resistance to the fluctuations of agrarian prices.

UI.3.

The distribution of land

Although it is very difficult to detect the qualitative differences of agriculture between the areas mentioned, the fact that the population density was much higher between Antwerp and Mechlin than in the Campine, implies that the size of land available per household differed accordingly. Unfortunately, we have very little comparative information on the distribution of landed property and the actual size of agricultural productive units for the period before 1570. Even for the general taxation of the 100th penny in 1571, only some detailed taxation lists are available for our area. The two lists of the villages of Schoten and Onze Lieve Vrouw Waver (Van der Wee, 1963:1,509, Ap­ pendix 42/2, Kohieren van de lOOde penning Schoten and Onze Lieve Vrouw Waver) generally indicate a strong tendency towards very small farms.20 As the two villages were situated in the different demographic zones described above (Schoten in the thinly populated zone north of Antwerp, Onze Lieve Vrouw Waver in the densely populated southern zone), we can try to compare their figures for deviating features. On the other hand, we have to be aware that the two villages are not really typical of the two Brabantine sub-areas. They were both situated in a transitory area with intermediate features: There­ fore we cannot expect the differences to be enormous. 19 Cornelis Wouters, shipbuilder from Rumst, was repeatedly engaged for works on the ferry across the Rupel between 1553 and 1559 and built a new ferry in 1556: ARA, RK, register nr. 11909. In 1560 the ship-haulers from Weerde, a village on the Zenne near Malines were organised in a corporation (eventually integrated in the shippers’ guild o f Vilvoorde): ARA, Familie archieven Merode-Westerloo, P 782 fo. 165 ‘remissiebrieven’. 20 51.3% of the exploitation units of Schoten, and 43.3% in O.L.V. Waver were smaller than 1 bunder (=1.31/1.23 ha. resp.), 75.4% (in Schoten) and 80.1% (in O.L.V. Waver) smaller than 5 bunders.

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M erchant capitalism and the countryside

Nevertheless, Schoten showed higher percentages in the smallest as well in the three biggest categories, thus had a stronger degree of polarisation between very small exploitation units and very large farms. In O.L.V. Waver, on the other hand, the categories between one and five bunders were considerably higher, and the group between five and ten bunders was slightly higher than in Schoten.

Figure 7.2 Distribution of land, Schoten and O.L.V. Waver, 1571

‘bunders’ (1 bunder = 1.31 ha.)

The high percentage of exploitation units between one and four bunders in Onze Lieve Vrouw Waver (33.8 %; Schoten only 20.5) suggests a relatively high degree of me­ dium sized farms, which were not as widely spread in Schoten. There is certainly some coincidence in the difference of distribution, especially if we take into consideration the relatively low deviations. Taxation lists from more remote areas on the one hand and a village in the heart of the duchy, would certainly give a clearer picture. The main tendency, however, the absence of very big farms and the lower percentage of very small holdings in the southern area seems characteristic for the natural features. * * *

As a conclusion of this section, we can say, that the western Brabantine surroundings of Antwerp were divided into two sub-areas of strongly differing natural features. On the one hand the low fertility of soil of the northern area limited the possibilities of agriculture and on the other hand the absence of navigable rivers were an obstacle for the transport of bulk commodities. The latter factor becomes visible especially in the case of the production of building material along the main Brabantine rivers which turned out to be an important alternative source of income for the regional population. During the period of the economic growth of Antwerp, the rising inland-traffic as well as the rising urban demand for building material and fuel very quickly stimulated the

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rural economy along the rivers. In the Campine, on the contrary, we could not detect a comparable development. Nevertheless, we saw that Antwerp merchants were interested in buying land in the area north of Antwerp. In order to obtain a somewhat deeper insight in their investment policy, the second part will deal especially with the realestate market in the Antwerp surroundings. In this section, we will also return to the question to what extent the traditional property-structures were transformed by Antwerp merchant capital during the sixteenth century.

IV. Antwerp and the western Brabantine Land Market during the sixteenth century IV.l.

The seigneurie - legal framework and real estate

The power-relations between feudal landlords and peasants have received particular attention in the analysis of socio-economic structures in the medieval and early modem countryside. They constituted to a large extent the institutional and legal framework of rural society and therefore also for rural economy (Daelemans and Scheelings, 1986:453). In the case of the Low Countries, especially in the northern Provinces, the power of the lords at the end of the Middle Ages is estimated to have been relatively weak, and therefore lordly pressure on the peasantry was limited. For Flanders, Thoen argues, that the fact that the nobility lost the high jurisdiction to the count already in the thirteenth century, made it very hard for the lords to get a strong hold on the seigniories during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992:1, 672; for Flanders: Thoen, 1988:1,410). The situation in Brabant was similar to that of Flanders to a certain extent during the High Middle Ages. The dukes tried to strengthen their position against the nobility by giving privileges to the towns as well as by concentrating the jurisdiction. There was, however, an essential change during the fifteenth century. By sustaining a new group of court-nobi­ lity, the dukes of Burgundy helped to replace the old Brabantine dynasties by new landlords. Among this new group of Brabantine lords, powerful families as the de Croy, de Glimes, Nassau, Lalaing, Horne, Merode or Brimeu succeeded in accumulating seignieuries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Van Uytven, 1976: 95,105-113). Among the ‘seigneurs’ mentioned only few ecclesiastical institutions are to be found.21 They formed however, another important group of lords, although they rarely held the jurisdiction of a village. The term ‘seigneurie’, as it appears in the documents of the feudal court, referred to the jurisdiction of a place and specific seigniorial rights linked to it, i.e., only the aspect of the ‘seigneurie banale’ was concerned. The influence of the rich Brabantine abbeys, like for example the ones of Tongerloo, Sint Bernaerts on the Scheldt (in Hemiksem, near Antwerp) and Sint Michiels in Antwerp, all situated in the district of Antwerp, or Affligem, Park, and Averbode22 was based on large demesnes of 21 Two examples: The abbey o f Affligem held the seigneurial rights in ‘land van A sse’ during most of the sixteenth century (Galesloot, 1870-1884: I, 202, nr. 128, fo. 139); The abbey of Villers held half of the seigneurie o f Schoten (Baetens, 1982: 8). 22 On the occasion of the ducal aid in 1436, Tongerloo contributed 380 Philipps-Guilders, Sint M ichiels 378 G., Sint Bernaerts 372 G., Park, Affligem, and Averbode 310 G. each (see Cuvelier,

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geographically widely spread landed property, tithe-rights, and to a lesser extent, customary tenure, rather than on banal rights concentrated in a limited area, as it was the case for lay-landlords.23 The different nature of lay demesnes and ecclesiastical manors strongly influenced the organisation of the demesne, and also what we might call the lordly income-policy. The incomes of lay demesnes in western Brabant24 consisted to a high percentage of land rent (cijns), and seigniorial rights, whereas the part of lease-incomes from land or farms did not make up for more than 10 - 20 percent around the mid-fifteenth century.25 What is striking, is not only the low percentage of leased land and farms, but even more, the fact that during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries hardly any tenures were transformed from customary tenure into leasehold. Only after the devastations of the 1570s and 80s were a considerable number of new parcels leased out.26 The reason might have been the quasi-property rights of the tenants on their censal-goods, including the right to sell them in parts or entirely. The opportunity for the seigneur to transform the censal goods into leasehold was therefore limited. This relative liberty of landed property encouraged the creation of an open land market, which was already fairly developed at the beginning of the fifteenth century. From that period on, we find regular indications of transactions concerning land and credits, and in the sixteenth century even entire seigneuries regularly came on this market. One of the factors in this latter development was the policy of the Hapsburg rulers during the sixteenth century, which was marked by a chronic need of money. The jurisdiction of villages was, among other parts of the ducal demesne, the price the sovereigns had to pay for the loans they took from wealthy financiers. And, in fact in 1505 and again between 1559 and 1564 a large number of seigneuries, often including the high juris­ diction, was pledged by the sovereign. In addition to noblemen, urban investors and the town of Antwerp itself were among the new lords.27 In some cases direct economic interest was the reason behind the purchases, as it was the case with the seigneuries bought by Antwerp for reasons of taxation. Another example is the merchant Jacop van Henxthoven, who bought the seigniorial rights of Hemiksem, where he possessed a number of brick-ovens (Soly, 1975: 38). The reasons for buying seigneuries were not

1912:32); Villers (contributing 305 G. in 1436), although situated in the very south o f the duchy, had large holdings in the surroundings o f Antwerp (Baetens, 1982: 34-41). 23 For Tongerloo: Van der Wee, 1963: II, 36, graph. 12; for the abbey of Roosendaal: Rijksarchief, depot Antwerpen, Kerkelijke Archieven, Inv. 97, register 8. 24 Five demesnes as cited in note 9. 25 For example, in the demesne Land van Mechelen, 41% of the total income o f 769.93 lb. Bra­ bant groats in 1474/75 came from feudal rents (316.02 lb), and only 6.8 % (52.02 lb) from leased goods; the income from seigniorial rights made up for 7.7 % (59.34 lb) whereas a considerable sum came from sales of wood (342.46 = 44.5%!): ARA, RK, 11898, account 1.10.1474—30.9.1475. 26 In 1595 the income from leased goods in the Land van Mechelen, mainly consisting of land, was as high as 795 lb, that is 83% of the total income o f the demesne. This amount is nearly 16 times higher than the income from leased goods in 1555 (50,46 lb.). ARA, RK, register 11916. 27 The seignieuries of many villages were sold or pledged repeatedly during the sixteenth century: e.g. Hoboken 3 times (Galesloot, 1 8 7 0 ,1: 213, 216, 306).

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always that clear. The high fluctuation of transactions involving seigneuries during the sixteenth century indicates that they were somehow seen as a kind of real estate of very high value. Although the incomes from seigneurial rights were not very profitable in relation to their high price (Baetens, 1982:21; Van Uytven, 1976:108 f.), they provided regular incomes both in money and kind as well as the high social status linked with the position of a seigneur.

IV.2. Antwerp capital and the rural land-market During the sixteenth century, the economic structure of the west Brabantine country­ side was faced with a changing urban market for rural products as we tried to sketch roughly in the first part of this paper.28 Apart from this product-market, the market for land which was one of the most important productive factors of pre-industrial rural economy, played a crucial role in economic development. The concentration of capital in Antwerp was unique for the period and many merchants were eager to invest in real estate.29 They did so not only within the town itself, but also to a considerable degree in the surrounding countryside. The way they did so and the choices they apparently made reflect the poten­ tial, but also the limits of early merchant capitalists on the rural land market. This is why the investments in land will be analysed somewhat more closely in the following section. In his study of the Antwerp real estate market, Soly underlined the strong tendency of Antwerp merchants to invest in buildings and land. Although his special interest was directed toward the urban land market, he included some case studies of individual merchants who also possessed considerable landed property in the Antwerp surroun­ dings.30Although this sample is not at all representative for the average Antwerp citizen, it gives a good idea of the activities of the wealthiest group among the Antwerp merchants. The major part of the possessions of the persons analysed was to be found either within a distance of 10 km from Antwerp, or in the area north of the town, mostly in the polders along the Scheldt or even in Holland and Zealand. On the other hand there were hardly any large possessions of the cited merchants south of Antwerp (except the immediate surrounding within 10 km).

28 There was, o f course also a rural market for urban manufactures, which unluckily I could not treat in this paper because o f the scarcity o f information available. 29 On the other hand, Guicciardini complains about noblemen practising usury instead o f investing in their land. This had, according to him, severe consequences for the countryside (Guicciardini, 1588: 160). 30 Soly (1977, passim) gives 18 examples o f Antwerp merchants who possessed considerable landed property outside the town, with a total extension of at least 1435 ha. (in some cases the size o f the property is not indicated) - that is to say, that the cited merchants possessed an ave­ rage of 80 ha. land outside the town.

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Figure 7.3 Landed property of 18 prominent Antwerp merchants during the 16th century (in hectares)

Source-. Soly, 1997 We tried to test these patterns via another source, that is, the lists of confiscations at the beginning of the Dutch revolt. The results of their analysis confirm the impression we gained: most possessions were situated in the immediate surroundings of Antwerp, the largest holdings, on the other hand, lay in the polder area north of the town and the western Campine. Further south, we found only the forests owned by the merchant Fernando de Bemuy, one of the greatest landowners of Antwerp.31

Figure 7.4 Confiscated landed property of 21 Antwerp citizens, 1569 (in hectares)

Source: Brussels, ARA, Raad van Bewerten, nr. 164 31 ARA, Raad van Bewerten, nrs. 164 and 170/1.

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These two samples suggest that the type of land preferred by Antwerp merchants was: a) small plots in the immediate surroundings of the town, mostly for countryresidences, b) polder land along the Scheldt north of Antwerp, but also in Zealand or Holland, c) holdings in the western Campine, north-east of Antwerp. The low interest in farm-land to the south of Antwerp, in spite of its high productivity, must be explained by the low availability of large plots of land there, caused by the high population density and therefore, the strong division of land. Taking into account the social prestige of big landed property, the differences in agricultural productivity may have been of secondary importance for Antwerp merchants in comparison with other aspects, such as the size of a holding and the price. Large-scale investments in drainage projects in the polders were more promising than collecting little plots of farmland. On the other hand, a large demesne in the Campine, which also offered the possibility of other activities, such as hunting, was perhaps more attractive for them than a small, but highly productive plot of farm land in a peasant area, for a relatively higher price.32 The land-market of the Antwerp-Mechlin area was nevertheless affected by the growth of Antwerp. It showed an impressive boom from the 1520s until the late 1540s.33

Figure 7.5 Total income from taxation on real estate-transactions Land van Mechelen 1475-1561

The rise of the global volume of real estate purchases in the ‘Land van Mechelen’ was due both to the rising prices for land and to the increasing frequency of transactions.34 The competition for land seems therefore to have been very high during the first half of 32 For a discussion on investment strategies o f merchants, compare Soly, 1975 and more recently Boone, 1996. 33 According to the lists o f ‘coopgeld’, a ducal right o f 5% on real estate transactions in the demesne ‘Land van M echelen’, between 1475 and 1559: ARA, RK, registers 11898-11909. 34 The average frequency between 1501 and 1510 was 10 purchases per year; in the 1540s it was as high as 60 transactions. ARA, RK, registers 11902-11903 and 11907-11908.

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the sixteenth century. Unfortunately we can identify the persons involved only via their names. That is why we cannot say precisely which was the dominating group on the rural land market: Antwerp citizens, local peasants or perhaps the citizens of nearby Mechlin. A form of investment, which strongly gained importance from the fifteenth century on, were hypothecary rents, i.e. credits on land. In the Land of Mechelen they made up for about 1/4 of the transactions during the period between 1501 and 1510. Their importance for agrarian development has been stressed repeatedly in the literature. In our case, I want to underline their role as a form of urban investment in the surrounding countryside. For the buyer, the purchase of a rent provided a form of investment guaranteeing a fixed yearly income. For the land owner, on the other hand, these credits offered possibilities for internal investments, but they also brought along the risk of indebtedness: From letters of the Antwerp aldermen concerning rural real-estate transactions in the surroundings of Antwerp, we know, that a high percentage of the goods in question were mortgaged, many even very heavily.35Among the creditors, we find individuals, including Antwerp citizens, as well as a large number of ecclesiastical institutions both from the village concerned as well as from Antwerp. In many cases mortgage and indebtedness therefore were the first steps towards the sale of a good. Our analysis does not yet allow us to compare the different sub-areas of western Brabant in this context - in order to find out if the Antwerp-Mechlin area could better resist indebtedness than the Campine, or if there were other investors who replaced indebted peasants. The absence of large holdings in the hands of Antwerp merchants in the Antwerp-Mechlin area indicate nevertheless that Antwerp capital did not fundamentally destabilise the rural land-market during the actual commercial boom before 1570. Later, the period of war and disorder which followed at the end of the sixteenth century caused sufficient disruption to enable the remaining Antwerp capitalists to invest their money in a ruined post-war land market after a certain period (Scheelings, 1983).

V.

Conclusion

In this contribution we have attempted to show the impact of Antwerp merchant capitalism on the surrounding countryside of western Brabant. In a rough sketch, the major economic and social features of this area were described. The intensive character of agriculture and the importance of non-agrarian economic activities in the densely populated area south of Antwerp existed in contrast to the almost marginal area of the Campine, where, in the fifteenth century the household density was as low as 4 per square kilometre. Western Brabantine peasants had a legally strong position with de facto property rights on their customary tenures, the dominating form of tenure in lay demesnes. Lease fanning was however largely spread within ecclesiastical demesnes, but also for goods owned by townsmen or the local elites. During the sixteenth century, the rise of Antwerp as economic metropolis brought about important changes. First, the rising 35 From 13 goods mentioned between 1520 and 1529, 6 were already mortgaged at the moment of the transaction, one plot of land even 13 times, a farm 5 times, another 4 times; others were indicated as ‘already strongly mortgaged’ (Beterams, 1959: nrs. 336-370).

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demand for agrarian products, as well as for fuel and building materials, stimulated the rural production. Second, the economic growth stimulated different sorts of wage labour either along the inland transport routes or in Antwerp itself. Finally, townsmen also invested in land, both through hypothecary credits and purchases of farms and land. As far as the intensively used area in the south is concerned, the Antwerp merchants had, however, to compete with a numerous peasantry, citizens of neighbouring Mechlin and other groups on a highly dynamic land market. This created the situation in which they preferably invested in the western Campine and in the polder areas along the Scheldt where land was cheaper and more easily available. Although Antwerp merchants were certainly present on the rural land market of the traditional Brabantine core-area during the sixteenth century, they did not monopolise it by pushing away the local peasantry, except in the immediate surroundings of the city. The reasons for this development may be found in the strong legal, but also economic position of the local peasantry. The strong demand of the Antwerp market for foodstuffs and several non-agrarian products, as well as the dynamic labour market, provided a favourable situation for the Brabantine peasantry during the expansion of the town. It was the political and military crisis of the late sixteenth century, which formed the turning point and paved the way for urban investments, and not the economic penetration during the commercial boom. For the vast areas north of Antwerp, on the other hand, investments made by Antwerp merchants have probably brought along a tendency of (relative) agrarian intensification on the large estates in their possession. In some cases, these farms may have worked like the model-farms described by the Englishman Richard Weston around 1650. Thus, the introduction of the 'new husbandry’, based on big lease-farms, was easier in these ‘margi­ nal areas’, than in the traditional peasant-area in the south. This shows the strong potential but also the constraints of sixteenth century merchant capitalism. From the beginning of the century until the 1570s, the metropolitan position of Antwerp strongly influenced its surroundings. Under the prevailing legal and economic circumstances, the period of less than a century of economic growth between two profound political and social cri­ ses was however not sufficient to transform the socio-economic patterns of the Brabantine core-area into a system of capitalist lease-farming. It took political factors i.e. the Dutch Revolt, to create a profoundly new situation, which made possible in the long run a second phase of rural investments during the 17th century. Hence, sixteenth century merchant capital failed to achieve two basic preconditions which, according to Brenner, are necessary for the breakthrough of a system of selfsustaining growth, namely: ‘the breakdown of systems of lordly extraction by means of extra-economic compulsion’, which was, however not as pronounced in Brabant as in other European areas, and ‘the undermining of peasant possession or the aborting of any trend towards full peasant ownership of land’ (Brenner, 1985: 214). On the other hand, there are indications that the western Brabantine peasantry could respond quite well to the expanding market-opportunities, offered by the growth of Antwerp. They integrated into the urban market through intensive agriculture and especially through additional incomes from non-agrarian activities instead of taking refuge in self-sufficiency. Hypothecary credit and the lease of single plots of farmland provided possibilities of investment and a high flexibility concerning the size of agrarian exploitation. Thus, the peasants of the Antwerp area seem to have succeeded, at least in the short run, in taking

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part in the economic boom of the commercial metropolis. Given the limited evidence at our disposal, it is, nevertheless, hazardous to call the Brabantine case of ‘peasanteconomy’ a successful alternative to capitalist development. The eventual success was too dependent on the exceptional institutional as well as geographical situation of the area, as the comparison with the Campine and the Hageland-area near Louvain show (for the Hageland-area compare Van Uytven, 1974). And, finally, it found its end with the devastations of the Revolt and the subsequent massive investments of Antwerp citizens, which completed the delayed conquest of the Brabantine countryside by Antwerp capital.

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Van Osta, W. (1991) ‘Hoe het groeide, De vroege voorgeschiedenis van het Park van Brasschaat’, in F. Bellens (ed.), Brasschaat. Eenpark en een kasteel, Brasschaat, pp. 39-43. Venneylen, F. (1991) ‘In de ban van Antwerpen: De Kempen in de zestiende eeuw’, Taxandria, 63, pp. 229-243. Vries, J. de (1974) The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, 1500—1700, New Haven. Waha, M. de (1979) Recherches sur la vie rurale àAnderlecht au moyen age, Brussels. Wee, H. van der (1963) The growth o f the Antwerp market and the European economy (fourteenth-sixteenth centuries), 3 vols, The Hague. Wee, H. van der (1988) ‘Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanisation and de­ urbanisation in the Low Countries from the Late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. A synthesis’, in H. van der Wee (ed.), The rise and decline of urban industries in Italy and in the Low Countries (late middle-ages - early modern times), Louvain, pp. 307381. Weston, R. (1650) A discours ofhusbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders shewing the

wonderfull improvement of land there, and serving as a pattern for our practice in this commonwhealth, London.

178

8

Elements in the transition of the rural economy. Factors contributing to the emergence of large farms in the Dutch river area (15th-16th centuries) Bas v a n

I.

B avel,

University of Amsterdam

Introduction

In the debate about the transition processes in the late medieval and early-modern countryside, a relatively large amount of attention has been paid to the developments regarding the size of farms.1 In particular, the divergent evolution in France and Eng­ land have been thoroughly discussed. Whereas in France during the late Middle Ages and the early modem period there was a tendency towards fragmentation and subdivision of farms, in England during the same period large, capitalist tenant farms were built up. According to Brenner, this divergence can only be explained by taking into account the different social property systems, which in a way forced farmers and landlords to adopt particular strategies (Brenner, 1976 and 1982: esp. 16-19 and 68-92). In France, farmers in general held a fairly firm grip on their land, so that population growth led to extreme fragmentation of holdings. In England, on the other hand, the lords had retained control over much of the land, which they farmed out against competitive prices. This in turn furthered differentiation among tenants, and opened up opportunities for the creation of large farms. In France, existing property relations consequently led to frag­ mentation and stagnation, whereas in England, new social property relationships emerged in the form of a tripartite hierarchy of land-owning lords, large capitalist tenant farmers, and wage labourers. This competitive and market-oriented situation did - again according to Brenner - open new roads to rationalisation, innovation and specialisation, which was in the interest of landlords as well as tenant farmers (Brenner, 1982: 102-103). In spite of the plausibility of the explanation proposed by Brenner, his hypothesis has also drawn criticism from various sides. Some authors consider demographic factors to be more important, and look for explanations in a neo-Malthusian model. Others doubt whether the evolution of class and property structures was autonomous to the extent suggested by Brenner (see for example Le Roy Ladurie, 1978; respectively Croot and Parker, 1978). As a result of this difference of opinions, a lively debate has arisen, which still exercises the minds of many scholars. Unfortunately, the participants in this debate limit themselves almost exclusively to England and France. In both Brenner’s articles and the subsequent discussion, late-

1 The term farm is used here in the sense o f the surface o f land held by one fanner, whether allodial, leased or held in hereditary tenure.

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P easants into farm ers?

medieval developments in the Low Countries are disposed of in asides and footnotes. The present-day Netherlands in particular comes off badly.2 In addition to this, their discussion is almost entirely based on the works by De Vries, most of all The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age. True enough, this was a epoch-making book, but it has to be quoted with some care. In the first place, the work only deals with the Dutch maritime regions, Holland and Friesland in particular, which only cover about one-third of the territory of the present Netherlands. Although De Vries does mention this explicitly in a number of instances, it appears to be ignored by the authors who refer to The Dutch rural economy. As a result, too little attention has been paid to the development of the inland districts as well as to the interesting regional differences within the Netherlands. Secondly, since the appearance of The Dutch rural economy (1974/1978), a number of important studies in this field of research have been published, which correct some of its views. For instance, based on some works dating from the 1930’s, De Vries wrote that ‘manorial economy and peasant enserfment were uncommon features’ in Dutch areas north of the rivers Maas and Waal (De Vries, 1978: 25). This idea has since been refuted, because it has been proved that in many areas north of the rivers a manorial system actually did exist (see for example Dekker, 1983: esp. 150-161; and also Buitelaar, 1993: 121-132). In this respect, Brenner’s statement, following De Vries on this point, that there ‘had never been a strongly-rooted lordly class capable of extracting a surplus by means of extra-economic compulsion’ (Brenner, 1982: 107), is no longer valid. For the maritime regions, this assertion does not appear to be fully tenable, and for the Netherlands as a whole it is not valid at all.

We can conclude from the aforementioned that the Netherlands are still virgin territory within the scope of the Brenner debate. This is particularly true for one of the key elements in Brenner’s hypothesis: the aspect of the size of holdings. Any processes of enlargement or subdivision of holdings in the late-medieval and early-modern Nether­ lands have so far hardly been mapped or studied, let alone the factors which may have played a part in these processes. Therefore, in view of this twofold arrear, it is not in the least surprising that the developments regarding the size of holdings in the Netherlands thus far have not been incorporated into the debate. Since this might broaden our general notion of such processes, we will attempt to make an advance in this field, focusing on two regions in the transition zone between Holland and the inland districts, namely the Linge area and the Land van Heusden, both situated in the central part of the Dutch river area (see Figure 8.1). By comparing the late-medieval and early-modern develop­ ments with respect to the size of farms in these two regions, we may be able to shed some light on the factors that have determined these developments.

2 In Brenner’s article ‘The agrarian roots’, the developments in the Netherlands are discussed in less than one page (Brenner, 1982: 107).

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Elem ents in the transition o f the rural economy

Figure 8.1 The position of the Linge area and the Land van Heusden

(The present borders of the Netherlands are indicated in dotted lines.)

n . The Linge area: population and property structures The first region to be discussed is a part of the Linge area, which is situated in the heart of the Dutch river-land. The area under investigation, which in the late Middle Ages consisted of fifteen parishes, is about 13 kilometres long and 11 kilometres wide; it covers about 10,500 hectares of agricultural land. The soil of this area, cut across by the river Linge and bounded by the river Lek in the north, consists of light and heavy river clay, with alternating stream ridges and backlands. As regards the administrative divisions, this area nowadays comes under the province of Gelderland (Guelders). During the late Middle Ages, however, only part of the Linge area belonged to the duchy of Guelders, whilst other parts fell under the independent seigniories (from the 16th century: counties) of Buren and Culemborg. The Linge area comprised twelve villages and one small town (Culemborg). What do we know about the late-medieval population size of these villages, or more importantly, of the number of economic units? Our sources, primarily fiscal registers, from the second half of the fourteenth century onwards, provide us with some indication of the number of households.3Unfortunately, the fiscal registers for this area from the sixteenth century are lacking, and the registers which we do have from the fifteenth century are incomplete; the fiscal paupers, for instance, are not included in the registration. The figures indicated below are therefore no more than rough estimates based on available data and analogous reasoning, and they will be too low rather than too high. 3 Rijksarcbief in Gelderland (RAG), Hertogelijk Archief (HA), inv. nrs. 705 (1369), 211 (1382) en 685 (1434), adapted by Van Scha'ik, 1987: 275, table 27.

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P easants into farm ers?

Of the twelve villages in this region, Beesd was clearly the largest, which can still be observed in the grand layout of the Voorstraat (the main street) and inferred from the further planning of the village, which displays an almost urban style (Den Uyl, 1958). Beesd probably consisted of about one hundred households, a number which may have fluctuated considerably over the years (the same is true for all figures quoted here). Beusichem, also one of the larger villages, will have comprised approximately eighty households; Rumpt, Buurmalsen and Tricht about sixty households each; the villages of Enspijk, Deil, Geldermalsen and Zoelmond about forty each, and the smaller villages of Gellicum, Rhenoy and Acquoy about thirty each. The territory of the Praemonstratensian abbey of Mariënweerd, which was also situated in this area, comprised another eight farmers’ households, fifteen canons residing in the abbey and some fifty domestic servants and labourers (Van Bavel, 1993: 424-430). In this way, we reach a total number of about 650 households for this area in the fifteenth century; an area comprising 105 km2 of agricultural land (the test region, without the territory of the city of Culemborg). The average population density on the countryside in this area, then, was approximately 6 households per km2 of agricultural land, or (with a coefficient of 5 to 6 persons to a household) about 34 inhabitants per km2 of agricultural land. In addition to these twelve villages, the area had one small town: Culemborg, situated on the south bank of the River Lek. From the number of houses and households, which varied from 350 to 400, and from the number of communicants, we can deduce that around the middle of the sixteenth century, Culemborg must have had about 2,000 inhabitants; in the fifteenth century this number was probably slightly lower (Horsten, 1972: 103; Van Schalk, 1987: 150-151). Other towns of similar size, such as Tiel and Zaltbommel, were situated at a distance of about 15 kilometres from the centre of this area, whilst major cities such as Utrecht, Dordrecht and ‘s-Hertogenbosch were about 30 kilometres away. From a demographic point of view, with respect to both the presence and the size of the only town, and the population density in the rural area, this test region was quite similar during the late medieval period to surrounding regions in the Dutch river area, such as the Tielerwaard and the Bommelerwaard: a number of smaller and medium-sized cities in a rather densely populated countryside (cf. Van Schalk, 1987: 163-166,168-182). In relation to the fertility of the soils and the favourable location, however, population densities in this region are not very high, especially compared to the densely populated countryside in nearby Holland.

With respect to the property structures, large landownership in the Linge area was clearly predominant. Thanks to a relatively large number of reliable sources, we are able to reconstruct the nature and the scale of large landownership in this area. In the first place, there were the possesions of the territorial prince, the Duke of Guelders. In the parish of Beesd (an area of 1,300 hectares) for instance, he owned, in addition to jurisdictional rights and part of the tithes, a total of 170 hectares of land. Of these he had, by the middle of the fifteenth century, mortgaged 25 hectares, given out in hereditary tenure 15 hectares, and farmed out for short lease-terms 130 hectares.4 In this way, 14 percent of the land in this parish belonged to the ducal domains, most of which had been 4 RAG, HA, inv. nr. 828 K ([mid-fifteenth century]).

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Elem ents in the transition o f the rural economy

leased out for short terms. The same was probably true for the duke’s domains in other parishes in the area, which have not been documented with such accuracy. In addition to property which he leased out, mortgaged or gave in hereditary tenure, the duke also had granted in fief substantial pieces of land in this area. Around the year 1500, this amounted to approximately 600 hectares or 6 percent of the total area of the test region (Sloet (a): 552-613, 723-800; Sloet (b): 48-62). In some parishes this per­ centage was considerably higher, for instance in Gellicum (14%), Beesd (20%) and Rhenoy (27%). In the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some of these fiefs came into the hands of ordinary farmers and craftsmen, in the form of small, fragmented feudal tenures, but the larger part was attached to feudal estates, comprising a mansion, jurisdictional rights and tithes as well. These large estates were mostly held in feudal tenure by so-called ministeriales and members of the vrije ridderschap (approximately meaning yeoman belonging to the knightly class). In all likelihood they leased out the land to local farmers. In this respect, the Linge area differs from other regions in the Dutch river land (De Blécourt and Fisher, 1959: 207 and also Hoppenbrouwers, 1992: 289-294), where feudal tenures became highly fragmented during the late Middle Ages and mostly came into hands of farmers and townsmen, who used the land for themselves. Apart from the duke, there were two other noble lords in the Linge area who had managed to remain politically independent and who even acquired the dignity of countship in the sixteenth century: the lords of Culemborg and of Buren. Their landed estates, mainly situated in their own seigniories, were also of considerable size. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, in the parts of the Land of Culemborg which belong to the test region (Culemborg, Redinchem and Golberdingen), the lord of Culemborg had granted no less than 740 hectares of land in short-term lease,5 in addition to vast stretches of river forelands, in total amounting to over one-third of the total area. It is remarkable that the land given in hereditary tenure by the same lord only amounted to a negligible 25 hectares, which makes it clear that he had managed to maintain control of the land to a considerable extent. Apart from land, the lord of Culemborg also had the disposal of tithes, jurisdictional rights and fiefs. As regards the land granted in fief, which amounted in the late fifteenth century to 330 hectares,6 relatives of the lord of Culemborg and members of the regional gentry were the major beneficiaries. These noblemen and members of the gentry, not running farms themselves, had probably leased out the larger part of it.

Next to the nobility (the Duke of Guelders and the lords of Culemborg and of Buren), ecclesiastical and religious institutions were among the large landowners in the Linge area. The cathedral church of Utrecht, for instance, had owned land in this area since the early Middle Ages. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries this property had come into the hands of various Utrecht chapters, as a result of property divisions and donations by the bishop. In the Land of Buren in particular, the Utrecht chapters owned considerable estates: for instance in Beusichem, where both the cathedral chapter and the chapters of 5 RAG, Archief Heren van Culemborg (AHC), inv.nr. 3556 (1555-1556). 6 RAG, AHC, inv.nr. 4775 (1478-).

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P easants into farm ers?

St. John and St. Peter had some possessions and rights. Most of these goods were granted in fief or in hereditary tenure, but a considerable part of it was fanned out on a short­ term basis. The size of these landed estates, however, is nothing compared to the land owned by the Premonstratensian abbey of Mariënweerd, situated in the area under discussion. In the next section, the abbey’s estate will be discussed in more detail, but we would like to mention beforehand that Mariënweerd owned 1,600 hectares in the Linge area, almost all of which was given out in short-term lease. Next to the above-mentioned estates of high nobility and large ecclesiastical insti­ tutions, we also find in this region landed property of urban investors, of parish churches and vicarages, and especially of the gentry and lesser nobility. In some cases, the latter, of whom the ministeriales and members of the vrije ridderschap in particular had a strong position in this region, owned substantial allodial estates. Because of a lack of sources, we cannot be certain about this, but it is probably safe to assume that most of these lands were also granted in leasehold tenure, especially if the owner resided some distance away or considered operating a farm himself not appropriate to a chivalrous lifestyle.

We may conclude from the above that large land ownership, in particular of territorial princes, lesser nobility and ecclesiastical institutions, clearly dominated the Linge area. Most of this land was, during the late medieval period, given out in short-term lease, which meant that the land was leased for a period of generally 6 to 10 years, for an economic rent, without additional rights for the tenant. In most of the parishes in the Linge area from one-third to more than half of the cultivated area consisted of lease-land farmed out by one of these large landowners. If we add to this the properties of wealthy burghers, the allodial goods of the gentry and the vast feudal estates of the high nobility, all of whom probably farmed out most of their landed possessions, it will be clear that the larger part of the land in this region was held in leasehold tenure (cf. Van Bavel, forthcoming for comparisons with other parts of the Netherlands). Small allodial property was practically unknown. Bearing this in mind, we will now discuss the late-medieval developments regarding the land farmed out by one of the large landowners mentioned above.

III. The lease-lands of the abbey of Mariënweerd The Premonstratensian abbey of Mariënweerd was established in 1129 on the banks of the river Linge. As for its landed possessions, Mariënweerd was one of the most important religious institutions of the Netherlands. Over the centuries, the abbey had acquired a considerable estate, firstly (during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) as a result of donations, but later (during the first half of the fourteenth century) primarily by means of purchasing. Around the year 1350, when acquisition came to a halt, the estate covered over 3,000 hectares, half of which were situated in the area under discus­ sion. At first, Mariënweerd had held these lands in direct exploitation, using the work force of lay brothers (conversi), villagers owing labour services, serfs, and wage labourers. During the period around 1300, however, socio-economic conditions made it more

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profitable for the abbey to farm out the land (see Van Bavel, 1993: 216-223 for the background to this development). As a result, Mariënweerd became the most important lessor in this region. In the abbey’s records, the registration of leases has almost completely survived for the second half of the fifteenth century and the entire sixteenth century; something rather exceptional by Dutch standards. Thanks to this abundance of sources, we can to a large extent reconstruct the developments with regard to the Mariënweerd lease-land for the period 1440-1590, including the changes in the average size of leasehold tenancies.7In speaking of tenancies, we are referring in the following to the total size of land leased by one person: one tenancy can therefore comprise several parcels of land. If a lease is concluded by a group of persons, for instance a number of relatives or business partners, the total size of the tenure is divided by the number of persons involved, since we are only interested in the area of leased land per person. Apart from leased land, a tenant could also have allodial land, but in this case, we are forced to leave this aspect out of consideration. The nature of the sources and the current state of affairs concerning the research in this field, do not (yet) allow us to make reliable statements on this subject. However, in view of the established fact that small-scale allodial property was rather insignificant in this region, and that farmers here depended almost completely on the land they held in lease, this problem is less important than it seems at first sight. Any statements about the size of tenancies, therefore, give us a good impression of late-medieval trends in farm sizes - at least for this particular region. What, then, do the sources tell us about the Mariënweerd lease-land? They provide us with the opportunity to calculate the number of tenants and the size of their tenancies for six reference years (1442,1456,1490,1530,1550 and 1580):

Table 8.1

Total area of land leased out by Mariënweerd (in hectares), number of tenants and average size of tenancies, calculated for six reference years (1442 is the index base year)

year

total size of Mariënweerd lease land

number of tenants

av. size tenancies (ha)

1442 1456 1490 1530 1550 1580

1,198 1,142 1,353 1,217 1,437 1,272

175 140 160 152 134 93

6.9 8.2 8.5 8.0 10.7 13.7

index av. size tenancies 100 119 123 116 155 199

Sources: ArchiefAbdij van Mariënweerd, inv.nrs. 67 (1442), 68 (1456), 69/116 (1490), 70/71 (1530), 73 (1550) and 38 (1580).

7 For the following cf. also Van Bavel, 1993: 394-417.

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P easants into farm ers?

Table 8.1 shows us that in the course of the sixteenth century, the number of Mariënweerd tenants declined sharply. The number of people leasing land from this abbey, dropped from 152 to 93 over a period of fifty years (from 1530 to 1580), which is a decrease of 39 percent. The increase in the average size of tenancies is equally notable. There was a slight rise during the course of the fifteenth century, followed by a pause until 1530 and subsequently, during the period from 1530 to 1580, by an increase from 8.0 to 13.7 hectares on average, a 71 percent increase, no less. Apparently, during the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century a sharp decrease in the number of Mariënweerd tenants and a strong increase in the size of their tenancies occurred. A closer examination of the distribution of Mariënweerd lease-land over the tenants, makes it clear that the big tenants in particular had succeeded in enlarging their tenancies: in 1442, the ten largest tenants held only 21 percent of the total amount of land leased out by Mariënweerd; this percentage rose to 36 in 1490; and by 1580, it had increased to 50 percent. This development had already started in the fifteenth century; especially during the period 1442-1490, the ten largest tenants considerably increased their share. Apparently, the concentration of lease-land in the hands of a small number of large tenants was not a typically late-sixteenth century phenomenon; it had its roots in the fifteenth century. The question arises: what happened to the tenants with middle-size and small tenancies during this development? At the expense of which group was the concentration of leaseland? In order to answer this question, we need to differentiate between the various categories of tenants. In this way, it might become clear whether the increase of the size of tenancies is distributed evenly among the remaining tenants. Therefore, we divided the Mariënweerd tenants into five categories: tenants with a tenancy of 21/2 hectares or less; tenants with 2 1/2 to 6 hectares; with 6 to 17 hectares; with 17 to 40 hectares; and tenants with over 40 hectares of lease-land. This is a subjective division, but one that is still related to the less arbitrary distinction between the smallest tenants, who could not live off their tenancies alone; a second group that had more or less sufficient lease-land to make ends meet and could do well with the labour supplied by the own household (whom we might refer to as medium-scale tenants); a third group with more than enough land (the upper group of medium-scale tenants); a fourth group of large-scale tenants, needing additional wage labour on their farms; and a fifth group whom we might refer to as super-tenants, employing large numbers of wage labourers. For four reference years, the Mariënweerd tenants are distributed among these categories as has been depicted in Table 8.2:

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Elem ents in the transition o f the rural economy

Table 8.2

Distribution of Mariënweerd tenants by size of their tenancies, calculated for four reference years

< 2.5 ha 2.5 - 6 ha 6 - 1 7 ha 17 - 40 ha > 40 ha tot. number tot. area (ha)

1442

1490

1550

1580

39 70 54 12 0

45 57 41 9 8

21 41 53 10 9

23 24 26 12 8

175 1,198

160 1,353

134 1,437

93 1,272

Sources: ArchiefAbdij van Mariënweerd, inv.nrs. 67 (1442), 68 (1456), 69/116 (1490), 70/71 (1530), 73 (1550) and 38 (1580). The appearance of super-tenants that becomes evident from Table 8.2 is no surprise, given the above. The large reduction in the number of small and medium-scale tenants in the period from 1442 to 1550 is, however, striking, and especially the reduction of the number of upper medium-scale tenants during the period from 1550 to 1580. This group, hol­ ding tenancies of 6 to 17 hectares, was numerically halved during this thirty-year period. Summarising the aforementioned, in particular during the period from 1530 to 1580 the number of tenants appears to have dropped rapidly and the average size of tenancies has risen considerably (71%). The super-tenants in particular succeeded in enlarging their tenancies; in 1580, the ten largest tenants held 50 percent of the land leased out by Mariënweerd. This shift appears to have taken place primarily at the expense of the medium-scale tenants, who were gradually depleted in relative, but especially in abso­ lute numbers. These developments, that stand out after 1530 and even more sharply after 1550, appear to have partly started as early as the fifteenth century.

The noted concentration of lease-land in the hands of an ever smaller group of tenants is remarkable enough to deserve an explanation. Was it a development which was begun and accelerated by socio-economic conditions, or was it the result of a deliberate abbey policy? In the latter case, the lease-prices may have been a means used by the abbey to favour large-scale tenancies. In other words: if large tenants appear to have paid relatively low lease-prices, then this would be an indication for such a deliberate policy. The Mariënweerd sources, however, do not confirm that lease-prices paid by largescale tenants were significantly lower than prices paid by their smaller colleagues. Only for the reference year 1490 is a significant disparity noticeable; in that year large tenants paid a price per hectare that was on average 14 percent lower than the price paid by small tenants in identical parishes. In the sixteenth century, this difference had disappeared again; lease-prices paid by big tenants were only fractionally lower (1-2%) than those paid by others. This disproves our assumption that it was the abbey’s deliberate policy

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P easants into farm ers?

to stimulate the formation of large tenancies. It appears that in general, the abbey simply granted short leases to the highest bidder. Even though the lease-prices were equally high for small and large tenants, it is still possible that the abbey did favour big tenants, for instance by offering better facilities (as amply contented by Thoen, 1988: esp. 567-592 and Thoen, 1978: 370-372). Espe­ cially during and after a crisis, the landlords might have assumed a different attitude to­ wards large tenants than towards small ones. With large tenants, they possibly negotiated new terms for the lease and possible reductions to the rent, in order to compensate for the tenants’ loss of income. Furthermore, it was essential to landlords to have large tenant farms operational again as soon as possible. They stimulated this by bearing the expenses of repairs and by granting loans. This, at least, is the picture which Thoen sketches of the situation in Flanders. He also advances a number of possible explanations for this fundamentally different atti­ tude towards large tenants. First, he mentions the importance of large tenant farms to the landlord, which was increased by the fact that the large tenants in particular paid their rents mostly in kind, and in this way provided the food supply for the landlord. Secondly, a more personal contact existed between landlord and large tenant, which gave the latter the opportunity to improve his position by way of negotiation. Thirdly, large tenants were formally insured in times of crises, thanks to comprehensive lease contracts, which for example involved rent reductions in cases of war damage. Small tenants did not have such comprehensive contracts, and therefore had to rely on collective discounts that were only granted incidentally. A fourth factor was the presence - or absence, as the case may be - of a market element (Thoen, 1978:372; also contented by Jacquart, 1975:373-375). The forces of supply and demand came primarily into play in the farming out of single parcels of land since potential tenants were abundant. With large tenant farms, this would not have been the case, as the number of potential tenants was small; so these few candidate-tenants were able to turn the circumstances to their advantage, for instance by insisting on better facilities. This picture, and the arguments in its favour seem convincing. Consequently there might be a possibility that landlords favoured their large tenants without conceding to them lower lease-prices than smaller tenants had to pay. Did Mariënweerd also adopt such a policy? If so, this could be seen from larger reductions in rent, and better facilities. However, we do not find any differences in rent reductions, since all collective discounts did apply to both large and small tenants. In general, one single reduction percentage applied to an entire parish (Van Bavel, 1993:356-358,372-376). In the relatively small number of cases in which the abbey did separately negotiate a reduction with one of its large tenants, the reduction could equally well become smaller instead of larger. The facilities provided for large tenants could have primarily consisted of contributions to the cost of repairs of buildings, and of loans. Contributions to the expenses of repairs, though, were not seen as an extra facility, but rather as an established obligation on the part of the landlord. The farmhouses, bams, hay-sheds and other buildings were the landlord’s property (Jansen, 1955:48-50), so that all investments were to his own advan­ tage in the end. Therefore, it was only logical for landlords to reimburse tenants for

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their expenses on farm buildings. If the landlord paid for repairs after a farm had been destroyed or damaged in wartime, it was a duty rather than a favour on the part of the landlord; and this held irrespective of the size of tenancies. The second means of favouring large tenants was to grant them loans. The abbey of Mariënweerd never actually provided her tenants with direct advances or loans; it did so indirectly, by allowing them to be in arrears with their rent payment, sometimes up to many hundreds of guilders. On closer inspection, it turned out that small tenants were allowed to be in arrears just as were large tenants, and in many cases their debts were (at least relatively) larger than those of the big tenants (Van Bavel, 1993: 367-372). Consequently, in order to survive difficult periods, the abbey gave its smaller tenants just as much breathing space as the large ones. Evidence of a “fundamentally different attitude towards large tenants” is not to be found at Mariënweerd. But it is also doubtful whether Thoen’s description of the back­ ground to this alleged attitude holds in general. In the Linge area, at least, the situation seems to differ clearly from the picture sketched for inland Flanders. In the first place, large tenants were not the sole providers of the abbey’s food supply, since rent payments in kind were only of minor importance compared to payments in specie (Van Bavel, 1993: 361-367). In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the abbey, as well as most of the other large landowners, depended for the greater part on food purchases at the market, not on deliveries made by its tenants. Furthermore, at Mariënweerd the smaller tenants actually paid a larger share of their rent in kind than large tenants did. Secondly, the fact that small tenants lacked comprehensive lease contracts did not mean that they could not be successful in obtaining reductions, because concise contracts and entries in lease registers always explicitly referred to the general lease conditions, containing detailed descriptions of circumstances under which the abbey would grant reductions. Moreover, if rents were reduced after a calamity, a fixed reduction rate, holding for all categories of tenants, was determined for each parish, often at the instigation of local authorities. With respect to discounts, therefore, small tenants had both formally, and in practice, a position equal to that of big tenants. Finally, we come to the argument that the number of potential tenants was much smaller for large farms, thus giving them a advantageous bargaining position. For the Linge area this argument does not hold either, since these tenant farms usually consisted of a collection of several parcels of land, which could, if necessary, be leased out separately as well. If a small tenant offered a good price for such a parcel, the lease could quite possibly be granted to him. However, it was in the interest of the big tenants to keep the farms intact, which forced them to offer the abbey an acceptable price. This also tallies with the above observation that the lease prices per hectare paid by large tenants were only slightly lower than the prices paid by small tenants. Big tenants were even at a disadvantage in comparison to small tenants because of the additional obligations resting on their tenant farms. Small tenants only owed the rent plus one hen per morgen (almost one hectare), but for large tenancies, additional payments in kind had to be made, and these could be considerable. This form of additional

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Peasants into farm ers?

payment in kind, the so-called toebaat (extra gain), amounted on average to an extra burden of almost 15 percent on top of the rent (Van Bavel, 1993: 338-340). We saw earlier that in the sixteenth century, lease prices per hectare for larger tenancies were merely 1-2 percent lower than rents for smaller tenancies. However, this additional pay­ ment for which large tenant farms were responsible, amounting to almost 15 percent of the rent, was not included in the calculation of the average lease prices. Therefore, in all respects it is clear that Mariënweerd did not show any favouritism towards its large tenants. Should the attitude of the Flemish landlords towards big tenants have been fundamentally different from that towards small tenants, which would fit in the more ‘feudal’ and patriarchal way the lease system in inland Flanders was structured and used (cf. Thoen, this volume), this was certainly not the case at Mariënweerd nor with other large landowners in the Linge area.

It cannot be said, therefore, that the abbey favoured its large tenants, let alone pursued a deliberate policy in favour of large tenancies. The reasons for the increasing concen­ tration of lease land must be sought in external factors,8namely in general socio-economic developments. Apparently, large tenants economically had the wind in their sails. In order to determine the nature of their economic advantages, we have to trace the differences in management between large and smaller tenants. In the first place, there is the wage factor. Whereas big tenants benefited from relatively low wages, the opposite was true for small tenants. A tenant with a farm not large enough to support him and his household had to tap other sources of income, which in most cases meant hiring himself out, for example as a field hand for the maintenance of dikes or ditches, as a seasonal labourer, as a transporter of goods or as a homeworker. With the extra money he earned in this way on the side, he had to buy food to supplement the yield of the land he held in tenancy. Such a small tenant will therefore have benefited from a development in which wages rose more quickly than food prices. For big tenants, exactly the opposite was true. Because of the size of their tenancies, they were able to market surplus produce in large quantities, but they had to hire supplementary labour forces to work their farms. Therefore, a decrease of wages relative to prices was advantageous for them. During the second half of the fifteenth century and almost the entire sixteenth century, wages almost constantly lagged behind food prices; this development did not reach its lowest point until 1570 (cf. Scholliers, 1975). This explains the favourable position of large tenants as distinct from the rising difficulties experienced by small tenants. In this period, the food producer had a constant advantage over the food consumer.

The only clear exception was the period 1495-1520, during which corn prices were low and wages were relatively high (Posthumus, 1964: CX-CXI and also Van der Wee, 1963b: part 2, 113-118, 304—305). This situation, which was advantageous to small 8 Some of these factors can also been seen at work in later periods, for example in the Netherlands during the period c. 1750-1880. Cf. Van Zanden, 1985: 315-331.

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tenants, may explain the decrease in the average size of Mariënweerd tenancies during the period between 1490 and 1530, as shown in Table 8.1, and also the simultaneous decline in the number of large tenancies at Mariënweerd: the number of tenancies larger than 40 hectares was halved during this period. During the second quarter of the sixteenth century, however, com prices started rising again rapidly while wages lagged behind, so that the process of concentration of lease-land recommenced. The only category of tenants that was neither positively nor negatively affected by these wage and price developments were the tenants of medium-sized farms. If the labour force of the tenant and his family was sufficient to farm the land and if they produced enough food to survive, then the wage and food price factors hardly played a role. Notwithstanding this, there is a marked decrease in the number of medium-sized tenancies, especially in the second half of the sixteenth century, for which we have to find other causes. One of the aspects which did play a part was the fact that large tenants were better able to benefit from the circumstances, because they were able to market relatively larger food surpluses. In addition to this, they could keep part of the crop in stock, in order to wait for the price rise that would occur some months after the harvest, or in order to speculate on the outbreak of famine (Van der Wee, 1963a: 218-219). Moreover, large farmers had the financial reserves for capital intensive specialisation.9If market demand offered possibilities, they had the means to invest large sums of money in market oriented branches of agriculture, and take the concomitant risks. At that, by specialising in la­ bour extensive cultures, they could reduce labour inputs, which was the most effective way to profit maximisation, in view of their large need of hired labour. In this manner, large farmers could improve their competitive position vis-à-vis the medium-sized farmers. Indeed, on larger farms a strong rise of capital intensive, labour extensive branches of agriculture, like horse breeding and the fattening of oxen, can be observed in this region, especially during the sixteenth century. As a result of all these advantages afforded to large farmers, medium-scale tenants were gradually driven out of the lease-land market. On top of these factors came a factor of incidental nature, strongly deteriorating the position of tenants of medium-sized farms. This factor has to be found in the grave political troubles and the ensuing military campaigns in the Low Countries, which commenced in 1567. The medium-scale tenants in particular, existing in an unsteady equilibrium, were strongly affected by these crises. They had often invested their entire capital in sowing seed and cattle, and most of them lost almost everything when their farms were looted. In contrast to large farmers, they did not usually have the financial reserves to overcome such a terrible blow. Mostly as a result of the troubles, the lease prices dropped considerably in 1567 and succeeding years, while food prices increased. If a tenant managed to remain in busi­ ness throughout these difficult times, he could, therefore, benefit greatly from the economic circumstances. The large farmers, with their capital reserves, their financial resilience and perhaps also because of their spread of interests and investments, usually succeeded in doing so. In this way, they were able to reap the sweet fruits of declining lease prices, relatively receding wages and rising food prices. 9 Cf. for the following Van Bavel, 1999: 573-619.

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P easants into farm ers?

The above mentioned structural factors already took effect in the second half of the fifteenth century, as a result of which large tenants gained ever-rising margins of profit, while smaller tenants experienced growing financial difficulties. The troubles at the end of the sixteenth century even fuelled this threefold development, and made its im­ pact more deeply felt. In addition, pillaging and acts of war wreaked enormous havoc on the countryside (Thoen, 1978). This hit smaller and medium-scale tenants especially hard, since large tenants recovered more easily and quickly from the destruction. During this period, in the years from 1567 onwards, intensified long-term economic developments therefore combined with severe incidental phenomena. The process of concentration of lease-land, which had already started during the fifteenth century, consequently gathered more momentum, and struck especially hard at the tenants of medium-sized farms. The only farmers really profiting from the situation were the large tenants who managed to remain in business. They were able to expand their holdings and increase their profit margins. In the light of the above, it comes as no surprise that the same tendency can be observed with respect to the lease-land of other large landowners in the Linge area, such as the lords of Culemborg, who farmed out in short-term lease approximately 750 hectares in total. With respect to the average size of the tenancies, a development took place which was similar to the one observed at Mariënweerd, namely an increase from 5.0 hectares in 1433 to 7.3 hectares in 1491, followed by a plateau until 1555 (7.0 hectares on average) and, after that, a sharp increase to 9.3 hectares in 1576.10During this period, the percen­ tage of small tenant farmers (less than 2.5 hectares) dropped from 40 percent to 13 per­ cent, whereas the percentage of large tenants (more than 17 hectares) rose from 4 to 11. The fact that the average size of Culemborg tenancies was slightly but constantly smaller than at Mariënweerd can probably be explained by the fact that a substantial part of the Culemborg lease-land was situated in the immediate vicinity of the town of Culemborg. Labour-intensive growth of commercial crops, fruit and vegetables was more important here than elsewhere in the Linge area. Moreover, numerous citizens will have ventured onto the lease market in order to till a small plot of land just outside the city walls, along with the practice of their profession or trade. This probably forced down the average size of Culemborg holdings. Nevertheless, the direction of the development is plain to see: just as at Mariënweerd, the number of large tenancies and the size of these tenancies increased considerably during the course of the period under investigation. In 1433, for example, the largest tenancy farmed out by the lord of Culemborg amounted to merely 27 hectares, whereas in 1576, there were leaseholds of 34, 38, 40, 58 and even 114 hectares.

With a few exceptions, the large tenants in the Linge area will have run their farms themselves, using wage labour. This is because these tenants were no wealthy citizens, members of the gentry or noblemen, speculating with lease land; instead they were

10 RAG, AHC, inv.nrs. 3448 (1433-1434), 3512 (1491-1492), 3556 (1555-1556) and 3576 (1 5761577).

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farmers living in the villages. Their tenancies lent themselves to exploitation as a farm, because apart from some extremes (85, 92,106 and 114 hectares), most of these large holdings were between 35 and 70 hectares in size, which means they were indeed large, but still, by all means, workable and manageable for one farmer. Because of the location and configuration of the various parcels too, these tenancies were usually particularly well-suited to direct exploitation as a whole. At Mariënweerd, for example, some of the large holdings leased out by the abbey appear to have consisted of the nuclei of former grangiae. These granges were split up in the course of the four­ teenth century and were subsequently farmed out in parcels, but as a result of the concen­ tration of lease land in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were revived, albeit in the form of tenant farms, in the hands of large farmer-entrepreneurs. In many respects, the former granges were well-suited for this purpose; as a result of the careful land acquisition policy of the abbey, most parcels were situated conveniently with respect to each other and were easily exploitable as one farm. Furthermore, the large tenants needed well-equipped farms with large yards, which provided sufficient space for sheds, bams and stables. These buildings had to be preferably located in the centre of the farmland. Former granges satisfied all these criteria and were, therefore, an obvious choice. Besides, they probably appealed to wealthy tenant farmers, because their stately appearance differentiated them from ordinary farmhouses. A moat, for instance, not only provided a sense of security, but certainly added to the effect too. A good example of such a former grange restored to its former glory was De Haag in the village of Buurmalsen. By the second half of the fifteenth century, the farmstead of De Haag was already the centre of a large holding, comprising more than 50 hectares of land, grouped closely around the farmhouse. In the sixteenth century, De Haag apparently had become such an evident unit that the individual parcels were not even mentioned separately any more in the lease administration of Mariënweerd. Thanks to a number of notes in registers and lease contracts,11 we gain an impression of what De Haag must have looked like: a large brick farmhouse with a hall and outhouses, furnished with cellars and glass windows. In its turn, the farmhouse was surrounded by stables, bams, hay-sheds and a sheep fold. The maintenance of these buildings required enormous amounts of money; in 1548, no less than 477 carolusguilders (approximately eight years’ wages for a skilled craftsman) (cf. Offermans, 1972: 139-169) were spent on timber, ironmongery, bricks, mortar, thatch, and wages for a renovation. With a view to the social prestige and economic gain associated with the tenure of such farms, the large tenants probably tried to keep the farms in the family, which they often succeeded in doing because of their financial power. In this way, in spite of the fact that leases were granted for short periods (usually not more than six or eight years), most tenant farms remained in the hands of the same families for decades. This was because, in contrast to the use of separate parcels, where the mobility of tenants was high, lease terms of these large farms were frequently extended, and the lease was often 11 ArchiefAbdij van Mariënweerd, inv.nrs. 74 fl3 3 v -1 3 4 r (1542), 73 fl7 7 r-1 7 7 v (1549-1558) and 171 ([circa 1561]).

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P easants into farm ers?

transferred from generation to generation. As a result of this, a kind of rural aristocracy arose in the villages of the Linge area, holding a considerable economic power, which derived mainly from the tenure of lease-land, not allodial land. The large tenants, who had been hardly present or not at all in this region before the fifteenth century, also acquired a social preponderance within the village communities, for instance because they employed fellow villagers as wage labourers or seasonal workers, commissioned skilled labour, rented out or borrowed equipment, extended credit, et cetera (cf. Neveux, 1975:84-85,127,147-154). In sum, during the late Middle Ages and the early modem period, a new class of rural capitalist tenant-entrepreneurs came into being in the Linge area, who exploited their extensive tenant farms by means of wage labour. The structure of the rural economy dominated earlier by medium-sized family farms, worked with family labour, was thus changed fundamentally during the 15th and 16th centuries. As somewhat later in large parts of England (Brenner, 1982: 83-99), in the Linge area a tripartite hierarchy of large land-owning lords, big tenant farmers and wage labourers came into being.

IV. The size of tenancies in the Land van Heusden In the Land van Heusden, not too long ago the subject of an in-depth study (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992:29-53 for a general description of the area, 54-60 for population figures), we should expect to see a development much like the one which we have described above, because this area, part of the county of Holland since 1357, was similar in many respects to the nearby Linge area. The Land van Heusden, its 7,300 hectares of agricultural land being somewhat smaller than the investigated region in the Linge area, was also situated in the Dutch river land; a transitional zone from maritime regions to inland districts. It has about the same soil structure as the Linge area, consisting mainly of river clay, with alternating stream ridges and backlands. Stream ridges, however, were lower and smaller than in the Linge area, and sub-soils contained some peat layers. In this respect the Land van Heusden was in a kind of intermediate position between the river clay area and the Holland peat districts. The same goes for population figures. There was only one small town in the area: Heusden, which numbered approximately 300 households around the year 1500, about the same as the town of Culemborg. At the same time, there were sixteen villages in the area, with a total of about 800 households, which is a population density of about 60 inhabitants per km2 of agricultural land; considerably more than in the Linge region, and more resembling the high population densities on the Holland countryside.

Contrary to what one might expect, a process of scale enlargement of farms as described above did not take place in the Land van Heusden during the late Middle Ages. In the sixteenth century, nearly all tenancies in this area were of limited size, as in the fifteenth century. Around 1550, for instance, 26 percent of the tenant farmers held less than 1.7 hectares of land, and over 88 percent had tenancies which were smaller than 8.5 hectares (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992: 433^-36 and 654-656). The largest farms in the area, consisting of both leased land, allodial land and land held in hereditary tenure,

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only measured some 25 to 30 hectares, with the largest not exceeding 40 hectares. This was clearly different from the situation in the Linge area. The marked difference in size of tenancies between these two regions can also be illustrated with a comparison between the abbeys of Mariënweerd (situated in the Linge area) and Berne (in the Land van Heusden). Both were Premonstratensian abbeys and owned large estates, a significant part of which was situated in the respective areas under study. Around 1580, the abbey of Berne in the Land van Heusden had farmed out in short term lease a total of 425 hectares to 103 farmers (Van der Velden, 1987: 65-96). which shows us that the average size of the tenancies was 4 hectares. We saw earlier that the average size of Mariënweerd tenancies at that time was almost 14 hectares, which was more than three times as large. With respect to the percentage of large tenancies, the difference is equally striking: in 1580, only 2 percent of the tenants of Berne had tenancies which were larger than 17 hectares, whereas at Mariënweerd, this figure ran to no less than 22 percent.

How can we explain the almost total absence of really large farms in the Land van Heusden, whether consisting of lease land or allodial land? According to Hoppenbrouwers, this should, among other factors, be attributed to the fact that the town of Heusden never came to become a commercial and industrial centre of importance (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992: 654-655). It is doubtful, however, whether this explanation is correct. The Linge area did not have a flourishing commercial centre within its borders or in the immediate vicinity either. Moreover, during the late Middle Ages, distances were not an insurmountable problem for the transport of agricultural products, so commercial centres like ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Dordrecht were within easy reach of the Land van Heusden, at distances of fifteen and thirty kilometres respectively. At that, trade here was not hindered by heavy tolls, duties or other trade barriers. In these respects, the situation did not differ from that in the Linge area, so this cannot be the key to the explanation. Nor can the observed development in the Linge area be ascribed to a deliberate leasing policy of the abbey of Mariënweerd, as the abbey apparently did not favour its large tenants, either directly or indirectly. This leaves the combination of an ample availability of lease-land, relatively low wages, and high food prices which enabled the large tenants to acquire farms of this enormous size. These are the factors, therefore, to which we have to turn in order to find the explanation for the differences in development between the Land van Heusden and the Linge area in this respect. Of these factors, we can dismiss the influence of wages and food prices, because the two regions were practically bordering on each other, so movements of wages and prices will not have differed significantly. In fact, in markets throughout the Low Countries, the correlation coefficient of com prices had risen to great heights in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Achilles, 1957 and Tits-Dieuaide, 1975: esp. 251-255 and figures 39-1 and 39-2). However, with regard to the availability of lease-land, the discrepancy between the two test regions was large, as a result of considerable differences in property structures.

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P easants into farm ers?

In the Land van Heusden, small allodial property was predominant in most parishes, and it was at least strongly present in others. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, no less than 52 percent of the cultivated land in the region was owned by autochthonous villagers,12either as allodial property or on the basis of tributary tenure, hereditary lease or feudal tenure. In contrast to the Linge area, most fiefs in the Land van Heusden were small in size, and had mainly passed into the hands of local peasants, who in general have used the land themselves. Besides, there was no large landownership to speak of in the area. The largest of all landowners in the Land van Heusden, the abbey of Berne, owned about 700 hectares, whereas the Count of Holland, as lord of Heusden, owned no more than 280 hectares (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992: 333-346). Other landowners even had a great deal less, so large landownership in this region sinks into insignificance compared to that in the Linge area. In sum, the property structures in the two test regions differed completely: small peasant property was predominant in the Land van Heusden, whereas the Linge area was dominated by large landownership, most of which was given out in short-term lease. This difference had drastic consequences for the rural population. In the Land van Heusden, the farmers usually had a firm grip on the land, often owning it themselves, whereas available lease-land was scarce. A peasant structure of small, family worked farms, consisting mainly of owned land, remained intact, a structure which seems to have been very resilient. As a result of this, land transactions fitted to this peasant structure, and possibilities for accumulation were small. At that, lease-land was scarce, and did not offer much possibilities for accumulation either. Moreover, in most cases a peasant structure seems to have gone hand in hand with a relatively high rate of population growth (cf. Brenner, 1982: 25, 60-62 and 92-93; also Van Bavel, 1999: 620-638), and often resulted in population pressure and a concomitant fragmentation of farms. These circumstances, and the high prices many peasants were prepared to pay for small plots of land, also presented a tendency towards the accumulation of land. These factors were probably the main reason for the fact that large farms did not come to dominate this region. In the Linge area, on the other hand, there was ample land available for lease, and it could be freely accumulated by financially powerful farmer-entrepreneurs, benefiting from the socio-economic circumstances and the development of the wageprice ratio, and who in the process of accumulating land gradually pushed aside small and medium-scale tenants. By using the possibilities for capital intensive market specialisation and reducing labour inputs, they even further increased their profits. In addition, because large tenants were better able to withstand the effects of the political and military crises of the late sixteenth century, and because wages, food prices and rents developed even more strongly to their advantage, they managed to further strengthen their position during this period.

12 Calculated on the basis o f Hoppenbrouwers, 1992: 296, table 16.1.

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Elem ents in the transition o f the ru ral economy

V.

Conclusions

As described above, the developments which took place during the late medieval and early modem period with respect to farm sizes in the Linge area and the Land van Heusden can be reconstmcted to a considerable extent. This reconstruction reveals considerable differences between the two test regions, both situated in the Dutch river area. In the Linge area, large tenants turned economic circumstances to their advantage, continually increased their profit margins and were able to acquire ever larger holdings. As a result of this, numerous small and medium-scale tenants were gradually driven out of the lease-land market, they had to give up their farms, and they became dependent on earnings from wage labour. These developments had started as early as the middle of the fifteenth century, and after a standstill of several decades, continued from 1530 onwards. They reached their greatest momentum at the end of the sixteenth century, in a period of political and military troubles and sky-rocketing food prices. During this period of one and a half centuries, a far-reaching process of concentration of land and a sharp increase in the number of large farms thus took place in the rural parts of the Linge area. It is remarkable that wealthy citizens, merchants, institutions and local noblemen played no, or only a small part in this process; in fact, it was vil­ lagers who accumulated capital and farmland. As a result, socio-economic polarisation within the village communities greatly increased. Whereas the rural communities of the area had been quite homogeneous before the beginning of the fifteenth century, this was certainly not the case towards the end of the sixteenth century. In the Land van Heusden, this emergence of large farms and polarisation of farm sizes apparently did not take place, in spite of the fact that, from a demographic, physicalgeographic point of view, the area was not very different from the nearby Linge area, and was subject to the same economic processes and price developments. In order to find the reasons for the absence of a process of polarisation of farm sizes, we turned to the property structures of this region. Small-scale peasant property dominated in the Land van Heusden, whereas in comparison with the Linge area, large land-ownership was weakly represented. Consequently, available lease land in the Land van Heusden was relatively scarce and the land market showed little elasticity, so that there were only minimal opportunities for major accumulation of land. This study shows that demographic factors have not determined the divergent developments in these two regions, since in this field there was clear resemblance be­ tween the test regions: one small town, a rather densely populated countryside, and similar trends in population figures. Differences in price and wage movements were not the underlying cause of the divergent development either, since the Linge area and the Land van Heusden were practically adjacent to each other and the correlation between prices in the two regions was very high. As it turned out, property structures are the key to the explanation of the divergent developments in farm sizes. As a result of the dissimilar property structures in these two regions, the same price and wage movements had diffe­ rent effects in the Linge area and the Land van Heusden. In the Linge area, they resulted in the emergence of large farms and in the rise of a new socio-economic system, consisting of a tripartite hierarchy of large landowners, large capitalistic farmers and wage labourers.

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P easants into farm ers?

The developments in farm sizes, as observed in the Linge area, and the underlying factors too, resemble the simultaneous development in most parts of England, as analysed by Brenner (1982: 17-19 and 83-89). In both areas large land-ownership was predo­ minant. In both areas (in England especially in the late fourteenth century; in the Linge area earlier) the manorial system and serfdom were replaced by the leasing of land to non-serf farmers. Notwithstanding this transition, in both areas the nobility and the large institutions continued to keep firm control over the land; peasant property was virtually absent, and remained so. In the fifteenth/sixteenth centuries, most of the land thus consisted of lease land, which was farmed out for short terms by large landowners, and which was freely available for accumulation. The price and wage movements, combined with competitive market-oriented production, subsequently led to a process of socio-economic differentiation among the tenant farmers, and eventually to the rise of a new socio-economic structure, consisting of the above-mentioned tripartite hierarchy. In the Land van Eleusden, dominated by small-scale peasant property, such develop­ ments did not take place. This does not automatically mean that this region followed the French model, which Brenner compared to the English model. In contrast with France, the Land van Heusden, for instance, experienced neither an extreme fragmentation of farms nor a process of agricultural involution. The number of developing models seems to be larger and more varied than the Brenner debate suggests; the debate should not, therefore, be limited to the English and the French cases. Furthermore, it does not seem correct to hold this debate on the basis of large geographical units. The number of differing factors, then, becomes so large that it is difficult to isolate the determining variables. Moreover, these developments mainly occurred within a regional framework, and consequently could differ strongly from one region to another, even in almost adjacent regions such as the Linge area and the Land van Heusden. Future research should, therefore, be principally aimed at regional, instead of “national” developments.

An interesting subject for future research would be the roots of the property structures. These structures are not the product of the late Middle Ages, but are the outcome of a long process which has taken place in preceding centuries. By investigating the course of this process, we would be able, for instance, to clarify the way in which religious institutions and the nobility managed to accumulate their sizeable estates in the Linge area, and how manorial structures and direct exploitation of the land gradually disappeared and were replaced by the farming-out of land, which in its turn paved the way for the developments described above.13In this respect, the developments in regions such as the nearby Land van Heusden will turn out to have been quite different. Future research should also deal with the economic effects of the described developments. Brenner assumes that the English model opened new roads to strong market orientation, a transformation of agriculture and the rise of agricultural labour productivity, whereas the French model, characterised by small peasant property, led to production for subsistence, declining productivity and stagnation. However, this may

13 This investigation has recently been undertaken: Van Bavel, 1 9 9 9 :1 0 1 -4 0 2 and 475-532.

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not be a law of the Medes and Persians. In the Low Countries it seems to have been possible that a proportion of small farmers did actually abandon self-sufficiency and became more market-oriented. The possibility that small and medium-scale farmers, by means of capital investments, improvement of techniques, cost-cutting, specialisation, and by converting to market-oriented crops, could succeed in enlarging labour productivity and profits cannot be precluded in advance (Hoppenbrouwers, 1992: 660661; Cooper, 1985: esp. 149-151, 160). In regions like the Land van Heusden, where large farms were practically absent, growing market orientation and agricultural dynamism during the late medieval and early modem period does not seem to have been impossible by all means. By comparing the degree of market orientation, innovation and specialisation of farmers in adjacent regions with different property structures, the existing situations may become more clear.

The present investigation was limited to the developments in farm sizes in two test regions, situated in the Dutch river area. The study tried to offer some insight into the factors which played a part in the polarisation of farm sizes and the emergence of large farms. The main driving force behind this process turned out to have been changes in the wage-price ratio (higher food prices, relatively lower wages), which occurred almost continually during the period 1450-1570, and which greatly favoured the large tenants. Moreover, the large farmers had the financial reserves for market specialisation in capital intensive and labour extensive cultures, which enabled them to reduce labour input and thereby to maximise profits. This development, and the effects of the wage-price ratio were even strengthened at the end of the sixteenth century by the political-military crisis, which the larger farmers were better able to withstand than their smaller col­ leagues. As a result, the process of polarisation of farm sizes and the emergence of large farms, which had already started by the middle of the fifteenth century, culminated at that time. However, in areas where large land-ownership was relatively limited, and where small peasant property prevailed, land for lease was hardly available, and there was only limited opportunity for accumulating land, as a result of which the number of large farms hardly increased, if at all. Only in areas where enough land was available for lease, that is primarily in areas dominated by large land-ownership, did the economic circumstances in the Dutch river area indeed lead to the emergence of large farms.

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Bibliography Manuscript sources14 Abdij van Berne, Heeswijk-Dinther, ArchiefAbdij van Mariënweerd, inv. nrs. 73 (15491558), 74 (1542) and 171 ([circa 1561]). Rijksarchief in Gelderland (RAG), Arnhem, HertogelijkArchief (HA), inv. nrs. 211 (1382), 705 (1369), 685 (1434), 828 K ([mid-fifteenth century]). Rijksarchief in Gelderland (RAG), Arnhem, ArchiefHeren van Culemborg (AHC), inv. nr. 3448 (1433-1434), 3512 (1491-1492), 3556 (1555-1556), 3576 (1576-1577) and 4775 (1478-).

Printed and secondary sources Achilles, W. (1957) ‘Getreidepreise und Getreidehandelsbeziehungen europäischer Räume im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschriftfür Agrargeschichte undAgrarsoziologie, 7, pp. 32-55 Bavel, B.J.P. van (1993) Goederenverwerving en goederenbeheer van de abdij Mariën­ weerd (1129—1592), Hilversum. Bavel, B.J.P. van (1999) Transitie en conünuiteit. De bezitsverhoudingen en deplattelands-

economie in hetwestelijke gedeelte van het Gelderse rivierengebied, ca. 1300-ca. 1570, Hilversum. Bavel, B.J.P. van (forthcoming) ‘Distribution and mobility of landownership and lease land in the northern part of the Low Countries’, in P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers and E. Thoen (eds), Access to land and land markets. Blécourt, A.S. de and Fischer, H.F.W.D. (1959) Kort begrip van het oud-vaderlands burgerlijk recht, Groningen. Brenner, R. (1976) ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’, Past and Present, 70, pp. 30-75. Brenner, R. (1982) ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, Past and Present, 97, pp. 16—113. Buitelaar, A.L.P. (1993) De Stichtse ministerialiteit en de ontginningen in de Utrechtse Vechtstreek, Hilversum. Cooper, J.P. (1985) ‘In search of agrarian capitalism’, in: T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (eds), The Brenner debate. Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre­ industrial Europe, Cambridge, pp. 138-191. [orig. 1978] Croot, P. and Parker, D. (1978) ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development’, Past and present, 78, pp. 37-47. Dekker, C. (1983) Het Kromme Rijngebied in de middeleeuwen. Een institutioneel-geo­ grafische Studie, Utrecht. 14 Abbreviations: AHC = Archief Heren van Culemborg; HA = Hertogelijk Archief; RAG = Rijksarchief in Gelderland.

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Hoppenbrouwers, P.C.M. (1992) Een middeleeuwse samenleving. HetLand van Heusden (ca. 1360-ca. 1515), 2 vols, Wageningen/Groningen. (A.A.G. Bijdragen; 32). Horsten, F. (1972), Culemborg in de late middeleeuwen, Amsterdam. Unpublished Master’s thesis University of Amsterdam. Jacquart, J. (1975) ‘La rente foncière, indice conjoncturel?’, Revue Historique, 99, pp. 355-376. Jansen, H.P.H. (1955) Landbouwpacht in Brabant in de 14e en 15e eeuw, Assen. Le Roy Ladurie, E. (1978) ‘A reply to professor Brenner’, Past and Present, 79, pp. 55-59. Neveux, H. (1975) ‘Déclin et reprise: la fluctuation biséculaire, 1330-1560’, in G. Duby and A. Wallon (gen. eds), Histoire de la France rurale, part 2, pp. 13-173. Offermans, P.H.M.G. (1972) Arbeid en levensstandaard in Nijmegen omstreeks deReductie (1550-1600), Zutphen. Posthumus, N.W. (1964) Nederlandse prijsgeschiedenis, deel 2 , Leiden Schaïk, R.W.M. van (1987) Belasting, bevolking en bezit in Gelre en Zutphen (13501550), Hilversum. Scholliers, E. (1975) ‘Le pouvoir d’achat dans les Pays-Bas au XVe siècle’, in Album aangeboden aan Charles Verlinden, Ghent, pp. 305-330. Sloet, J.J.S. [et. al.] [s.d.] (a) Register op de leenaktenboeken van het vorstendom Gelre en graafschap Zutphen, ‘Kwartier van Nijmegen’, Arnhem. Sloet, J.J.S. [et. al.] [s.d.] (b) Register op de leenaktenboeken van het vorstendom Gelre en graafschap Zutphen, ‘Leenen buiten Gelderland’, Amhem. Thoen, E. (1978) ‘Oorlogen en platteland. Sociale en ekonomische aspekten van mili­ taire destruktie in Vlaanderen tijdens de late middeleeuwen en de vroege moderne tijden’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 91, pp. 363-378. Thoen, E. (1988) Landbouwekonomie en bevolking in Vlaanderen gedurende de late

middeleeuwen en het begin van de moderne tijden. Testregio: de kasselrijen van Oudenaarde en Aalst (eind 13de-eerste helft lòde eeuw), 2 vols, Ghent. (Belgisch Centrum voor Landelijke Geschiedenis; 90). Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1975), La formation des prix céréaliers en Brabant et en Flandre au XVe siècle, Brussels. Uyl, R.G. den (1958) ‘Dorpen in het rivierkleigebied’, Bulletin van de KNOB, 11, col. 105-114. Velden, G.M. van der (ed.) (1987) ‘Een Staat van landerijen, tienden en cijnzen van de abdij van Berne uit circa 1580’, Met Gänsen Trou, 37 pp. 65-96. Vries, J. de (1978) The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, 1500-1700, New Haven/ London. Wee, H. van der (1963a) ‘Typologie des crises et changements de structures aux PaysBas (XVe-XVIe siècles)’, Annales ESC, 18, pp. 209-225. Wee, H. van der (1963b) The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy (fourteenth—sixteenth centuries), part 2, The Hague. Zanden, J.L. van (1985) De economische ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse landbouw in de negentiende eeuw, 1800-1914, Wageningen. (A.A.G. Bijdragen; 25).

201

9

Grain provision in Holland ca. 1490-15701 Milja v a n T ie l h o f , ABN-AMRO Bank

I.

Introduction

According to R.P. Brenner, the development of the Dutch and Flemish agriculture during the transitional phase between feudalism and capitalism was unusual compared with the rest of Europe for various reasons. One of the reasons was the enormous amount of grain imported from the Baltic Sea region. While discussing ‘the Flemish case’Brenner states that this import allowed the Flemish farmers to give up any strivings toward selfsufficiency. Instead, Flemish agriculture became well-known early on for its speciali­ sation and market-oriented production (Brenner, 1985: 321-322). Brenner stressed the importance of this Baltic grain import for Holland as well. He referred thereby to the literature concerning the economic development in Holland in the late Middle Ages, which generally assigns a significant role to the necessity of importing grain. Since the end of the fourteenth century, local grain production in Holland was insufficient to meet the needs of the Dutch population (see, for example, Van Zanden, 1993: 30; Blockmans, 1993: 48-53). However, it is not clear from the literature actually how much of the total amount of grain required was imported. Therefore, the following question forms the basis for this paper: was only a small, progressive fraction of the Dutch rural population dependent on imported grain which could be obtained in the town markets or was the vast majority in this position? While the significance of the grain imported from the east in, for example, the setting of prices is indisputable, difficulties are still presented concerning the size of the import trade. There are even doubts about the continuity of this grain import in Flanders and Brabant during the fifteenth century (Tits-Dieuaide, 1975:156-166). However plausible Tits-Dieuaide’s argument that the import must have had a more permanent rather than an incidental character, the question of the quantities involved remains. As shall be made clear below, the export in the fifteenth century from Danzig, the most important grain exporter in the Baltic, was clearly not sufficient to feed a large part of the Flemish, Brabant and Dutch population. Therefore, the Baltic import can have freed only a limited percentage of the Dutch countryside from the need to grow grain. It is thus vital to examine the role played by imports from other regions. In the following three sections the various sources of grain available to Holland are described: first, local grain production in Holland; second, the import from the Baltic; third, the import from other areas. In the fourth section the importance of the Baltic grain will be compared with that from other origins. The study period is restricted to ca. 1490-ca. 1570. The absence of source material makes it impossible to start any earlier. The stopping point is defined by the beginning 1 1 would like to thank Prof.dr. W.P. Blockmans, dr. P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers and dr. P.J.E.M. van Dam for their comments on an earlier version o f this paper.

202

Grain provision in H olland ca. 1 490-1570

of the Dutch Revolt, during which trade in general and the Baltic Sea trade in particular were disrupted for long periods. The years from ca. 1490 until ca. 1570 were marked by a sharp increase in grain import from the Baltic countries. This makes it possible to examine whether the grain imported from other areas managed to maintain its share of the Dutch market.

II. Grain production in Holland Studying the grain provision in Holland, it is important to distinguish between on the one hand the hard grains, wheat and rye, and on the other the soft grains, barley and oat. These types of grain had different functions.2 The hard grains were primarily used to make bread and thus represented the most important part of the human diet. Wheat was relatively expensive. It was made into white bread, which was eaten by the well-to-do and on feast days by the common people as well. The cheaper rye bread was the daily foodstuff for the majority of the population. The soft grains, in particular oat, were used primarily as animal fodder. As cattle breeding occupied a prominent position in Hol­ land, the demand for oats was correspondingly great. In addition, barley and oats were important as the basic ingredients in beer brewing, since medieval brews were generally mixtures in varying proportions of oats, wheat and barley (see the composition of brews in: Doorman, 1955: 96-98). Dutch grain cultivation had been declining since the fourteenth century, and what remained was increasingly devoted to soft grains.3In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, hard grains were rarely grown. The most important cultivation areas for bread grains were probably in the south-west: the Westland and the South Holland islands of Voome, Putten, Goeree and Overflakkee. The islands produced enough to be able to sell on the markets in Rotterdam and Delft (Unger, 1916a: 27-28). As already mentioned, much of the land in Holland was not suitable for growing hard grains. For example, in the Noorderkwartier (the district between the river IJ in the south and the cities of Alkmaar and Hoorn in the north) farming was relatively insignificant (Van der Woude, 1972: 339341). According to the Informacie, a survey carried out in 1514 on behalf of the sovereign to determine the financial resources of the towns and villages in Holland in order to set new taxes, the village of Assendelft, which lies in the Noorderkwartier, did not possess any arable land at all (Fruin, 1866: 63). Therefore, many Dutch villages were not able to fill their grain requirement from the local produce. This is apparent from the Enqueste of 1494, a forerunner of the Informacie. Therein it was noted in Muiderberg that the rye, oats and other crops planted by the inhabitants on the available arable land barely made up a quarter of the village’s needs. The villagers of Sassenheim worked several fields, but they could not feed themselves with the harvest (Fruin, 1876: 113, 132). In various country regions of Holland, then, 2 This characterisation o f functions is derived from Tits-Dieuaide, 1975: 39-41. 3 This was brought about by the deteriorating condition o f the land, since the fourteenth century becoming more and more wet. See for this process and its economic consequences Van Zanden, 1993: 30-31.

203

P easants into farm ers?

the agricultural practice was insufficient to meet the needs of the local villagers, let alone produce enough grain to sell to the towns. We would like to know what proportion of the total grain consumption derived from imports. There is only one contemporary source that makes mention of it. In 1501 the city of Amsterdam responded to a prohibition of grain export by the central government. Concerns were expressed that the foreign traders might stop bringing grain to the city if they knew that they would not be allowed to re-export as necessary. If grain imports were halted, Holland and particularly Amsterdam would have serious difficulties as the domestic (Holland) grain accounted for less than a tenth of the total required (Graswinckel, 1651:2-3). According to this, the Dutch population depended on foreign imports for more than 90 percent of its needs. A second indication concerning this subject was contributed by the Estates of Hol­ land in 1536. In a plea against the levying of a tax on grain exports, they stated that three-quarters of the land consisted of dunes, moors and lakes which produced more disadvantages than advantages, and that the remaining quarter could not produce enough wheat and rye to supply one of the six laTge Dutch towns (Meilink, 1923a: 71-72). This argument was repeated in a remonstration from 1545, concerning the imperial prohibition against exporting grain to foreign countries.4 Thus, according to the Estates, Dutch agriculture produced enough for one of the six large towns. The size of the population is not known for the 1530s or 1540s, but it is possible to make an estimate for the first quarter of the sixteenth century based on the data given in the Informacie of 1514. The most recent calculation puts the population of the six large towns in 1514 at between ca. 6,000 and ca. 13,000. This represents only a small part of the total Dutch nation, which was reckoned to be 254,000 from the data in the Informacie (Blockmans, 1993:43-44). Dutch agriculture thus could only supply about 4 percent of the requirements (3 to 5% depending on whether one uses 6,000 or 13,000 persons) according to the Estates. The letter from Amsterdam in 1501 and the plea from the Estates of Holland in 1536/ 1545 were both political documents, aimed at bringing about a free grain trade. Surely, the Dutch grain harvest was purposely presented as totally insufficient. Nevertheless, the claims could not be so put that the political ‘opposition’ (the sovereign who wanted to forbid or tax grain export) could simply throw them out as nonsense. We must also ask what methods were used by Amsterdam or the Estates of Holland to measure, on the one hand, the Holland grain production and, on the other, the amount imported. It can hardly be anything other than a judgement on the Holland side communicating the general impression. This stemmed from observations of various matters, such as the massive import of foreign grain in Amsterdam and other places, for example Dordrecht, and the movement of grain from the town markets to the surrounding villages. They had access whenever they wanted to data sources such as harbour records in which the imports were registered. Of course, the figures produced by Amsterdam or the Estates of Hol­ land should be regarded as a minimum that is close to being realistic. We can presume

4 Algemeen Rijksarchief The Hague(ARA), Archieven van de Staten van Holland vóór 1572, no. 2459, no pagination (first page).

204

Grain provision in H olland ca. 1 490-1570

that at least 5 to 10 percent of the total population of Holland, and at most a quarter, in the first half of the sixteenth century could be fed with locally grown grain. For sixteenth century Europe this must have been an appallingly low percentage.

III. Imports from the Baltic Sea region5 The Baltic Sea region grew during the sixteenth century into a grain exporter of great proportions. The grain export from Danzig was already impressive by 1500 and increased afterwards. To gain an impression of this development, several export figures are avai­ lable. For the period up to 1560, these come from the harbour records of Danzig, and for 1562-1569 from the Sound toll tables, in which is recorded how much of the grain passing through actually originated from Danzig.6 The numbers have been rounded up to hundred last, a measure of volume of 30.1 hi.7

Table 9.1

Grain export from Danzig according to the harbour records of Danzig (1490-1557) and the Sound toll tables (1562-1569)

year 1490 1491 1492 1530 1557 1562-1569 (average)

last

hectolitres

10,000 5,900 10,500 18,000 29,800 45,300

301,000 177,600 316,000 541,800 897,000 1,363,500

Naturally, the export from Danzig was not the same as the total grain import in Hol­ land from the Baltic countries. Nevertheless, Danzig was by far the most important grain supplier in the Baltic. Of the total quantity of grain mentioned in the Sound for the period 1562-1569 (459 370 last), 79 percent (362120) originated from Danzig (calculated on the basis of Ellinger Bang, 1922: 3-39). The import figures from the Dutch side match well with those from Baltic sources. For example, Meilink estimated the import in Amsterdam in 1507, on the basis of an extrapolation of the import data for four months, at ca. 15,000 last (Meilink, 1923b: 201). This difference between 6,000 to 10,000 last in 1490-1492 and 15,000 last derives partly from exports from other Baltic Sea ports such as Riga and Reval (nowadays Tallinn) and partly from the fifteen years separating the two statistics. We can roughly estimate from these numbers that the im­ port of Baltic grain in Holland in 1507 stood at 10,000 to 15,000 last per year, or about 5 The data used in this and the next section are extracted from my PhD research on Dutch grain trade 1470-1570. For more information I refer to my thesis: Van Tielhof, 1995. 6 Sources: 1490-1492: Lauffer, 1894:36; 1530: Samsonowicz, 1974:54; Wojewodzkie Archivum Panstwowe, Gdansk, Komora Palowa, 300/19, 12; Register der Ausschiffung des Komes und Weizens 1557; 1562-1569: Ellinger Bang, 1922: 3-3 9 . 7 The capacity of the last is calculated as 108 Amsterdam schepel (bushel) at 27.9 liter: Zevenboom, 1959: 6 (1 last = 27 mud o f 4 schepel) and 30 (1 schepel = 27.9 liter).

205

P easants into farm ers?

300,000 tot 450,000 hi. For the years 1560-1569 there is available, in addition to the Sound toll figures, a description of the Low Countries written by the Italian diplomat Guicciardini about 1560. Guicciardini stated that yearly 60,000 last of grain was imported into the Netherlands from the East (the Baltic Sea region plus the German North Sea coast) (Beschrijvinghe, 1612: 99). Even after deducing the import from the German Bight from Guicciardini’s figures, they match the quantity of grain listed in the Sound for these years rather well. The importance of these figures becomes evident as we compare them with the grain consumption per member of the population. Estimates of the apportioned consumption of bread grains run from less than 150 kg to just 300 kg yearly.8 Given that the specific weight of rye was 70 kg per hectolitre (Tits-Dieuaide, 1975:268), these values correspond to about 2 to 4 hi of grain. Taking the average of 3 hi, then one last of grain (30.1 hi) was enough for the yearly bread consumption of 10 people.9 By 1500 about 100,000 people could live on the quantity of grain imported from the east. In the decade from 1560, this figure rose to the impressive total of 600,000. Of course it is not sensible to compare the estimated quantity directly with the grain consumption in Holland. Although the Dutch population had been steadily growing since 1514, it remained well under 600,000. Thus, much of the imported Baltic grain must not have remained in Holland. It was distributed in any case to other Dutch regions. An estimate of the total number of inhabitants in all of the Netherlands and of the per capita grain consumption was made by Scholliers: for the period 1562-1569 the grain imported from the Baltic countries supplied 23 percent of the needs in the Netherlands. Considering that in that period an unusually large quantity of grain came in through the Sound, he proposed the same calculation for a longer period, namely 1562-1601. The end result reveals that the Baltic grain represented in that period a smaller part of the Netherlands requirements, that is, 13.5 percent.10 Even this figure appears to me to be basically too high, as part of the Baltic grain undoubtedly was destined for regions out­ side the Low Countries. With regard to the summer of 1561, there is a revealing document on this issue. In January 1562 the sheriff of Amsterdam informed the governess Marguerita of Parma about the grain trade in the city. He wrote that in the pervious summer a very large quantity of grain, wheat as well as rye, was brought to Amsterdam from the east and stored. From there it was transported continuously from July 25 to

8 Scholliers (1960: 61) mentioned an amount o f 137 kg bread per person per year. Blockmans and Prevenier (1975: 502-503) estimated the consumption according to the prosperity o f the consumers, at 2.5 or 3.2 kg bread per day for a family o f four persons, which amounts to 228 or 292 kg per person per year. For later centuries a consumption o f 3.2 kilo is in any case unacceptably high (Noordegraaf, 1980: 64-65). 9 This number was still higher if consumption was lower than 3 hi. The Court o f Utrecht stated in 1565 that ‘as is generally assumed’ a human being needed 1.5 mud breadgrains per year, which makes only 1.8 hi. (Briinner, 1929: 163). The Utrecht mud = 1.204 hi: Verhoeff, 1983: 81). 10 Scholliers, 1960: 61, note 66. At first, some authors were impressed especially by the 23%. In 1964 Jeannin cited the number (Jeannin, 1964: 62). In 1966 H. van der Wee wrote that around the middle o f the sixteenth century one quarter o f the grains that were consumed in the Netherlands, was imported (Van der Wee, 1966: 284).

206

Grain provision in H olland ca. 1 4 90-1570

England, Scotland, Ireland, the countries on the Rhine and Meuse rivers, and thereafter to Spain and Portugal (Häpke, 1923: II, no. 144). Our sources tell us practically nothing about the relationship between this importing and re-exporting of eastern grain. The only mention comes from the previously cited remonstration from the Estates of Holland against the prohibition of grain exporting, which was produced in 1545. The Estates questioned why the emperor wanted to prohibit export when six times as much grain was imported as exported.11 They thus estimated the level of re-export as one sixth. Here again it would be interesting to know the basis for this judgement. If the document does indeed stem from 1545, then there was one interesting source available to the Estates. The export from the Netherlands was recorded between 1543 and 1545 for the purpose of levying a 1 percent tax. The study Posthumus produced based on this record of the export from Amsterdam revealed that between 10 August 1544 and 30 September 1545, that is, a period of about one year, grain was exported to the value of 121,433 pounds of 40 groten or guilders of 20 pennies (Posthumus, 1971: 264, 270). From this, a small proportion was exported to Groningen, Overijssel and other non-patrimonial provinces, while the larger part went to foreign countries. The latter must have amounted to about 100,000 pounds. As only export was taxed, the value of the import is unknown. For this we have to resort to data from ten years earlier. It was stated in 1534 that the amount of grain imported into the Netherlands from the east rose to more than 600,000 guilders every year (Häpke, 1923:1, no. 178, item 21). Although the ration between these two numbers is the same as the one-sixth proportion given by the Estates of Holland, it is not advisable for many reasons to compare the figures side by side. There is a ten-year difference between them for one thing, and large yearly fluctuations could have occurred in the import and export numbers. In addition, the 600.000 guilders applies to the import for all of the Netherlands, while the approximately 100.000 guilder export concerns only Amsterdam. Lastly, only eastern grain was included in the import calculation, whereas the export from Amsterdam may have contained some Dutch barley and oats as well. Despite these restrictions, the figures lend the impression that a small part of the eastern grain was sent to foreign countries. In this sense the declaration from the Estates that one-sixth of the imported grain was re-exported gains credibility. One must remember that in the decade from 1540 Holland was just at the start of a development that would make it into the grain entrepot of western and southern Europe. It is possible that the proportion of the Baltic grain that was re-exported has grown since the above-mentioned declaration by the Estates of Holland.

IV. Imports from other areas Some of the grain which was called ‘eastern’ did not actually derive from the Baltic but from the German Bight. Bremen and Hamburg lay here at the mouths of the Weser and Elbe rivers, which connected them with an extensive hinterland. Whenever the Nether­ lands suffered from a shortage of grain, the grain trade with the German coast flourished. Bremen and Dithmarschen gained advantages from the closing of the Sound, as in 1532, 1536 and 1542 (Häpke, 1923: I, no. 49, item 4 (1532) and no. 425 (1542); Meilink,1 11 ARA,Archieven van de Staten van Holland vóór 1572, no. 2459, no pagination (sixth page).

207

Peasants into farm ers?

1923a: 82, par. 38 (1536)), but even the crisis of 1557 which could not be attributed to such a closure led to huge profits for the inhabitants of Dithmarschen (Stoob, 1955: 131). Much grain also came from Bremen and Hamburg to Holland in that year. In March 1557 some 1,000 or 1,200 last arrived from Bremen and Hamburg in Amster­ dam, and in May of the same year ships were daily unloading wheat from Bremen in Amsterdam (Häpke, 1923:1, no. 811 and no. 820). The German Bight delivered not only grain from the outlying hinterland but also soft grain growing in the coastal region by the North Sea. Thus, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Dutch were plying a regular trade in oat from the mouth of the Elbe. This appears from the account of a tax on trade and transport from 1507, the socalled lastgeld. The charge was imposed between September and December 1507 on particular categories of ships and goods arriving in Amsterdam, Waterland and the Noorderkwartier. Among the taxable goods, those coming from Hamburg included only beer, oats and several sorts of wood. The account covered eight Dutch ships carrying cargoes of oat ranging from 16 to 30 last. In all, the import from Hamburg and from the Elbe during these four months made up 155 last (Meilink, 1923b: 193 (tariffs) and 222225 (ships)). This concerned only trade involving Dutch merchants, as foreigners were not obliged to pay. The total import was therefore most likely greater. Certainly on a yearly basis this flow of trade must have been of some importance. Soft grains were also imported from Schleswig, and in the second half of the sixteenth century the grain shipping along the Schleswig coast soared high (Kellenbenz, 1962: 17). In addition to eastern grain Holland imported in the sixteenth century all types of ‘western’ grain; in fact, this was a collective term for all grain that was not eastern. Into this category fell not only grain from England and France, but also for example from Germany if it entered Holland via the Rhine or Meuse rivers. Of old a very important source of western grain was northern France, namely the areas around the Seine and Somme rivers and northwards to Artois and South Flanders. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries much grain was exported from these regions to Holland (Sneller, 1925; Derville, 1987; Van Uytven, 1975: 1112). The significance of this trade waned radically, however, during the wars between the French kings and the Burgundian princes in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. This did not mean that the import from Flanders and France remained insignificant (Van Uytven, 1975:1113). After peace was established between France and Burgundy in 1493, Dutch ships regularly carried grain cargoes past the Zeeland tollhouse of Iersekeroord. This grain must have originated in Antwerp or Gent, where much Flemish and French grain was traded. In the years 1494 to 1499 a total of 194 Dutch ships loaded with grain sailed through Iersekeroord. Most of the ships were registered in Delft (145), and the rest in Gouda, Dordrecht, Schoonhoven, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Purmerend, Westzaan, Alkmaar, Rot­ terdam and Maasland. The ships had in all 75,392 Viertels of grain on board, or 60,035 hi, giving a yearly average of 12,565 Viertels or 10,006 hi.12 This is certainly not the total import of Flemish and French grain into Holland. For ships coming from the Flemish 12 Source: Unger, 1939: 378^-80. Justification o f the calculation as well as further specifications are to be found in Van Tielhof, 1995: 22-24.

208

Grain provision in H olland ca. 1 4 90-1570

or Artesian coast or from the Seine and Somme rivers, the route past Iersekeroord was too much out of their way. They would have chosen another route through the Zeeland waters or entered the Meuse at Den Briel. For a long period after 1499, there are no accounts from the Zeeland customs available. The accounts of 1570 from the tollhouse at Sas van Gent have been preserved. Since a canal connection to Gent had been established from the middle of the sixteenth century, a tollhouse of the Zeeland customs had been set up in Sas van Gent (Unger, 1939: XII). The grain which passed by that tollhouse must have come from the market in Gent. In contrast to most of the accounts of the Zeeland customs, in these the destination of the ships was usually given. It appears that between 1 January and 31 December 1570, 21 ships carrying grain sailed past Sas van Gent on the way to a Dutch destination. Ten of them went to Delft, three to Amsterdam, and one to Gouda, while the destination of the remaining seven was just given as ‘Holland’. In addition, two Gouda ships with grain and an unknown destination passed by, but a Dutch harbour is assumed. In total these 23 ships transported 1,650 mud of grain, or about 15,000 hi.13Other sources also indicate that a significant quantity of French grain came to Holland during the start of the Dutch Revolt, when the delivery of Baltic grain was seriously hindered. The toll-keepers in Arnemuiden in 1570 registered many grain ships from France; no fewer than 113 ship masters gave their port of origin or of departure as Saint-Omer, Newport or Dunkirk, or stated that they came from Flanders.14 An important grain exporter was Zeeland. In fact, the Zeeland islands made up together with the south-west of Holland an area suitable for cultivating bread grains (Unger, 1916b: 246-247). The export was concentrated on towns in the south of Holland, such as Delft and Dordrecht. Zeeland wheat was also well-known in the more northerly town of Leiden. Leiden’s St. Catherine Hospital bought Zeeland wheat quite regularly in the sixteenth century.15 Utrecht’s grain was brought, according to the Enqueste of 1494, to Leiden via Woer­ den, among other destinations (Fruin, 1876:170). Grain from Utrecht was also regularly brought to Amsterdam. That this import of grain from Utrecht became significant in the fourth decade of that century was shown by the creation of a new grain market specifically for it. In 1547 a new market was installed in the Oudezijds Burgwal for grain reaching the city in barges on the Amstel, which came from the direction of Utrecht and southern Holland, or in carts entering by one of the gates on the east side of the city, Saint Anthony’s or Regulierspoort (Van Iterson and Van der Laan, 1986: 80 (folio 35 v.)). Clearly this concerned other grain than the eastern import, which arrived from the IJ. Amsterdam statutes affecting bakers were concerned with the explicit use of Utrecht wheat (Van Dillen, 1929: nos. 72 (1522), 168 (1530) and 453 (1559)).

13 Calculated on the basis of Unger, 1939: 579-596. The Gent mud is 913.4 liter: Tits-Dieuaide, 1975: 263. 14 Calculated on the basis of Unger, 1939: 555-557. 15 This is evident from the accounts. The prices paid for Zeeland wheat are published in Post­ humus, 1964: II, 460-462.

209

P easants into farm ers?

As far as neighbouring provinces were concerned, Holland imported grain not only from Zeeland and Utrecht but also from Guelders. Grain reaching the Low Countries via the Meuse or Rhine rivers was usually traded in Dordrecht. Merchants from Venlo and Roermond, which belonged to the duchy of Guelders, transported grain via the Meuse to Dordrecht. This is evident, among other things, from conflicts with the customs officials in Lith, a toll station on the Meuse route to Dordrecht. These conflicts recurred throughout the whole of the sixteenth century and mostly affected the trade in wood, salt and grain. The grain exported from Venlo and Roermond was typically rye, grown in the regions surrounding both towns (Thurlings, 1945:111-113 and 22-23 respectively). From Gulik came mostly wheat (Jansma, 1974: 156). Guicciardini wrote in his book about the Netherlands that Dordrecht had the staple right for all grain that came down from Guelders, Gulik, Kleef and other nearby areas. The staple regulations required everyone transporting grain via the Meuse or Rhine rivers to unload at Dordrecht and continue their journey on local ships from the town (Beschrijvinghe, 1612:196-197). Wheat from Gulik, Kleef and Guelders was important for the grain provision in Hol­ land. For example, the Estates of Holland protested against the renewal of the grain export prohibition by Charles V on 8 October 1535. They were worried that the merchants from Guelders, Gulik and Kleef would avoid Holland if it was included in the export prohibition. The grain would probably no longer be sent via the Rhine or Meuse rivers to the Dutch towns bordering them, but rather overland to other regions. According to the Estates, this had already happened several times and had led to price rises in Hol­ land as the three principalities affected were its leading suppliers of bread wheat (Unger, 1916b: 505). Finally, England must be mentioned as the supplier of barley and malt. Trade bet­ ween the British islands and foreign countries is better documented than in any other country in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, because it was registered in the customs accounts, many of which have been well preserved. Gras produced tables based on these data concerning the import and export of grain from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. From them it can be seen that the grain export was often not large, but could regularly swell to a significant size. This pattem particularly applied to the ports of King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth which acted as exporters of produce from the fertile counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. In the sixteenth century according to the customs lists, the most sizeable exports, that is, of more than 5,000 quarters or about 14,000 hi.16 were realised in the following years:17

16 A quarter contains 2.82 hi: Zupko, 1977: 134. 17 Gras, 1915: appendix C. The customs account from Great Yarmouth 1523-1524 has not been used by Gras, but could be consulted at the Public Record Office, Londen, Customs Accounts (E122) 210/2.

210

Grain provision in H olland ca. 149 0 -1 5 7 0

Table 9.2

1523-1524 1530-1531 1538-1539 1548-1549

Grain export from England according to the customs list of King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth (1523-1529) King’s Lynn quarter hi

Great Yarmouth quarter hi

8,000 19,900 7,100 ?

14,500 ? ? 6,300

22,560 56,118 20,022

40,890

17,766

English exports involved mainly soft grains. Thus, the grain transported on Dutch ships from King’s Lynn consisted 60 percent of barley and malt in 1523-1524, 95 per­ cent in 1530-1531, 96 percent in 1538-1539. It appears that in the Netherlands in some years there was a greater demand for soft grains from England as the local harvest or that from the German Bight, from which oats and barley usually came, was damaged by flooding. In November 1530 large parts of Zeeland, South Holland and Brabant lay under water, and the harvest in 1531 was practically ruined. In the winter of 1538-1539 the German North Sea coast was hit by storms that caused flooding along the Weser and Elbe rivers, and the Meuse, Waal and IJssel burst their banks (Gottschalk, 1975: 432 ff. (1530), 514 (1538-1539). The customs accounts have not come down to us complete. Sometimes other sources reveal that the English grain export in a certain year must have been quite important. The anchorage records from Amemuiden registered no fewer than 96 English ships filled with grain at anchor in the fiscal year 1547-1548 (1 November 1547 - 31 October 1548). Here also there seems to have been a predominance of barley and malt: 62 carried malt, 12 barley and 22 wheat (Unger, 1931: III, 835). Within the scope of our investigation into the grain provision in Holland, we should uncover to where precisely the English grain was exported. It could be Holland or Zeeland, the southern Netherlands, France, etc. One failing of the customs accounts as a historical source is that the ship’s destination was not recorded. It is known that the English grain arrived in Zeeland and Brabant,18 and also that it appeared on the markets in Holland.19The shipping traffic in the middle of the sixteenth century between King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth on the one hand and Holland on the other was at least as intensive as that to the Scheldt delta (Williams, 1988: 70). It is therefore reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of the English barley and malt ended up in Holland.

18 For example: in 1542 the town of Middelburg bought 600 or 700 last of English wheat to sell to the poor (Unger, 1931:1, no. 493). In 1565 a cargo malt from Norfolk was transported to Antwerp (Smit, 1942-1950: no. 1101). 19 Thus, in 1550 a cargo barley and malt from Norfolk arrived at Dordrecht (Smit, 1942-1950: no. 846) and in 1562 a merchant tried to sell English barley in Dordrecht (Smit, 1942-1950: no.1092 with note 1). In 1543 8 last o f English wheat was traded from Delft to Amsterdam (Unger, 1916b: 249 note 5).

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P easants into farm ers?

V.

A differentiated grain market

The Dutch markets offered an assorted array of grains, differing in origin and thus in quality and price. A good example of this is the grain trading practised by the Delft merchant Claes Adriaensz van Adrichem, whose diary has been preserved. It records the buying and selling of grain for the years 1566-1571, including a section with details of his grain purchases in Delft.20 Usually the origin of the grain is noted, and the list is highly varied: not only Prussian rye and eastern wheat, but also Zeeland wheat, Bremen wheat, Scottish wheat, Brabant and French21 rye, etcetera. Claes Adriaensz traded often in barley as well, but its origins were not specified. Possibly, the majority of it was Dutch. He bought all these sorts of grain at the Delft market from other merchants. Then he sold the grain in smaller portions to a range of customers, including bakers from Schiedam, ‘s-Gravenzande and Delfshaven.22 It is important to realise that Van Adrichem’s buying practices are not necessarily representative of the other Delft traders. His business journal does show, though, that even as the grain trade with the Baltic was flourishing, bread grain from other origins had not disappeared from Dutch towns. According to the origin of the grain, there were variations in price and quality. In general, foreign grain was cheaper than domestic grain. Among the foreign grains, the eastern ones from the Baltic Sea region and the German Bight were cheaper than the western ones from France, England, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Kleef, Gulik etc. This applied to wheat as well as to rye. Amsterdam statutes tried to prevent bakers selling bread at inflated prices, by claiming that it was made with western wheat, whereas in reality (some) eastern wheat was used. Thus, a regulation from 1522 forbid bakers who used eastern grain from baking with western grains, such as those from Kleef, Gulik, Utrecht and such like, unless they had a special permission. A regulation from 1559 went even further and forbid bakers who used local or western wheat from having eastern wheat in their houses (Van Dillen, 1929: nos. 72 and 453). English envoys who came to the Netherlands in the first months of 1546 in the name of Henry VIII to stock up on grain and other foodstuffs for the starving English people confirmed that the grain prices at that time were lower in Dordrecht than in Amsterdam. The envoys wrote that this was very advantageous as the grain in Dordrecht came in from Gulik and Guelders, and thus was of better quality than the eastern sorts (Smit, 1942-1950: no. 771). There is an extant price quotation of grain from different origins from 1565. Because of the rapid rise in prices, the Utrecht magistrate took action in the autumn of 1565 to fix prices for grain, as follows (Briinner, 1929: 161):

20 ARA, Archief Van Adrichem (Inventaris Ruys), no. 35. There is an older journal from the years 1562-1565 (no. 34). This book, however, is in such a bad condition that it can no longer be consulted. 21 Namely ‘rivierse’ rye, which means rye imported from the region around the river Somme: Sneller and Unger, 1930: note 1. 22 There is an index ( ‘tafel’) on the part o f the journal containing sales o f grain (fol. 2 -3 ). The index contains bakers o f Schiedam, ‘s-Gravenzande etcetera.

212

Grain provision in H olland ca. 1490—1570

Table 9.3

Price-fixing of wheat and rye by the Utrecht magistrate in the autumn of 1565

Utrecht wheat foreign wheat, including Kleef and Gulik wheat local rye Kleef and Gulik rye eastern rye

5.5 guilder 5.0 guilder 4.5 guilder 4.5 guilder 4.0 guilder

From this, it can be seen that local grain (Utrecht wheat and local rye) was highly valued, eastern grain was rated lowest, while Kleef and Gulik grain occupied a middle position. Because of the low yield of Holland agriculture, the town markets at which foreign grain was traded played an essential role in the Dutch grain provision. As the import from the east grew strongly in contrast to that from other regions, the importance of Amsterdam as a grain market also grew compared with the South Holland towns such as Delft and Dordrecht, whose markets traded western grain. Amsterdam’s function as the grain warehouse of the Netherlands became particularly prominent in times of price increases. For example, let us consider the winter of 1556-1557. The grain stores in Amsterdam were inventoried on 14 January and found to be 7,181 last of wheat and rye, many times the needs of the inhabitants. The amount of bread grain consumed by the townspeople between 14 January and 17 February was estimated at 300 last,'23 or 60 last per week, representing about 3,000 last for a whole year. It was only truly necessary to hoard enough supplies for at most half a year, as in the summer new supplies could be expected from the Baltic and also a new local harvest. The governors of Amsterdam wanted to keep 2,000 last at the end of February to supply the local population and to provision a fleet, but it is clear that Amsterdam had a large excess quantity for export. Large parts of the Netherlands were able to call on this huge supply in Amsterdam. Five weeks after the inventory in January the supplies were considerably reduced as ‘Brabant merchants and others’ had secured 4,306 last of grain (Häpke, 1923:1, no. 798 with note 1). Directly afterwards, Amsterdam restricted the grain export for fear of a riot in Holland and other northern provinces. In a petition presented at the end of February for the export of 150 last to benefit the population of Antwerp, the condition was imposed that this must not lead to ‘grande discommodité ou cryerie’ among the inhabitants of Holland. In March Amsterdam had refused to export rye to Antwerp, Bruges, Mechelen and other Dutch towns. It was felt to be more pressing to provide for the needs of Holland and the surrounding provinces Guelders, Friesland and Overijssel. The cause of this was clearly fear of rioting. The need in the northern provinces was so great that ‘quelque émotion’ could have been expressed if Amsterdam had approved the export to the southern Netherlands. Most likely the attempts by Leuven, Maastricht, Valenciennes and Mons to secure 40 or 70 last of grain between 14 March and 1 May were also unsuccessful (Häpke, 1923:1, no. 805 and 592 notes 3 and 5). 23 Häpke, 1923:1, no. 798. The consumption o f the nearby towns and villages is estimated at 200 last in 5 weeks, so 40 last per week. In 1566 w e find the same estimation: 500 last in 5 weeks for Amsterdam and the surrounding countryside (Häpke, 1923: II, no. 384).

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P easants into farm ers?

That quite strict policy towards granting permission meant that at the beginning of April, Amsterdam had a rather large supply left. An inventory from 7 and 8 April revealed that there was still about 2,000 last of rye and wheat in the town. Other Dutch towns probably had no supplies left over by then. No town or village in Holland had any stores worthy of mention, and they had to fetch their ‘eetelcoorn’ (bread grain) every day from Amsterdam (Häpke, 1923:1, no. 814). The Amsterdam inhabitants seem to have been protected the best against starvation. Once the long awaited first fleet from the Baltic Sea arrived in Amsterdam on 8 June 1557 {‘Thank God’) the entire cargo of 9,000 to 10,000 last of wheat and rye was freely distributed outside Amsterdam, namely in Hol­ land, Friesland, Brabant, Artois and Flanders (Häpke, 1923:1, nos. 824, 825 and 830). The conditions during the time of high prices described above in the first half of 1557 focused attention entirely on Amsterdam.24We cannot, however, deduce from this that Amsterdam had developed into the sole grain entrepot for the Netherlands or even for Holland. It is almost certain that in years of high prices an excessive emphasis was placed on the cheaper Baltic rye, while in other years western grain was more impor­ tant. Thus, in March 1557 the distressing situation arose that sufficient wheat was available in Dordrecht (brought in via the Rhine) and also that 1,000 to 1,200 last of wheat from Hamburg and Bremen arrived in Amsterdam, but that this grain did not relieve the shortage as it was too expensive (Häpke, 1923:1, no. 811). On 17 May the town council of Amsterdam resolved not to export any of the inventoried rye from Holland, considering that foreigners could supply themselves with wheat, which was still available.25 It is known that the demand for wheat tends to wane in periods with high grain prices, while that for rye grows. As there was a predominance of rye in the export from the Baltic compared with that from other areas, the importance of Baltic grain became disproportionately large. In ‘normal’ and cheap years the position of western grain strengthened somewhat. In 1547 and 1548 the grain prices were conspicuously low (see the prices of rye in Antwerp: Van der Wee, 1963a: 177; wheat in Leiden: Posthumus, 1964: 450; and wheat and rye in Utrecht: Sillem, 1901: tabel III). Unger studied an excerpt from the com excise records from Gouda. For the period February to July 1547 he found that the export of wheat and rye from Gouda was a little over 253 hoed (ca. 2,900 hi).26 This grain was distributed over a large area: not only an entire assembly of villages and small towns around Gouda (like Oudewater and Woerden) but also towns and villages in North Holland, including Amsterdam and Haarlem. A large part of the total export was destined for Amsterdam: over 108 hoed (Unger, 1916b: 361 note 1). In Delft during the same period French grain was being traded. From an investigation into the trade in foreign grain conducted in 1547 it appears that wheat from Douai was sold in Delft to a man from Leiden (Sneller and Unger, 1930: no. 681). We have already seen that in 1547 a new market was established for grain coming into Amsterdam from a south-easterly direction and that nearly a hundred ships from England came to Zeeland with grain. 24 More details about this crisis and the very strong position o f Amsterdam in: Friis, 1953: esp. 199-209. 25 Gemeentelijke Archiefdienst Amsterdam, Vroedschapsresoluti.es 7(1 5 5 1 -1 5 6 5 ), 171 v. 26 In the south o f Holland a hoed grain contained 32 schepel; the schepel in Gouda was 35,8 liter (Verhoeff, 1983:106, 28).

214

Grain provision in H ollan d ca. 1 4 90-1570

Probably, the great influx of eastern rye during the sixteenth century put the masses of not-rich inhabitants of the Netherlands in the position of supplying their needs for a basic food item in a relatively cheap manner. In the sixteenth century the poor and the middle classes did not change from eating their usual rye bread even in hard times. Previously this was rather different. According to a price study by Van der Wee, consumers in the fifteenth century turned to barley in times of high prices, and probably on a large scale. From the first decades of the sixteenth century, however, this phenomenon no longer appeared. The economic situation of the population groups who usually ate rye bread had apparently so improved that they could afford to continue doing so even in times of high prices (Van der Wee, 1963b: 211-212, 215). They turned to employing barley- or oatmeal only when there was absolutely no other option. Thus, the plea by the estates if Holland in 1536 for a free grain trade stressed that if the Dutch had not delivered foreign grain to the Flemish, they would have had to eat barley and oaten bread (Meilink, 1923a: 78). They wanted to say that the grain export was literally vital. Statements such as these are encountered in many sources. A chronicler from Cologne exemplified the severity of the price rises in 1490-1492 by stating that bakers had resorted to making bread containing barley, beans and peas (cited in Van Scha'ik, 1978: 242). In this context it is interesting to note that, particularly in Holland, another approach to supplying basic needs was theoretically available. Barley and oats used in baking are truly difficult to digest, but in cooked form (oaten and barley porridge) can form an essential item of the diet. In the course of European history they have often served so. People in large parts of central and north Europe and also northern England and Scotland relied on all sorts of porridge made from barley, oat, buckwheat and millet as their basic diet until well into the nineteenth century (Collins, 1993: 32). The constitution of the Dutch soil in the late Middle Ages could well have led to eating habits in which barley and oats were more important than wheat and rye in the human diet. Similar eating habits would not have stimulated market-oriented production. The preference for bread can be partly ascribed to cultural factors. In addition, the access to foreign grain surpluses undoubtedly played an important role.

VI. Conclusion In order to supply its grain needs, Holland turned not only to the far-off Baltic Sea region, but also to nearby countries and provinces. Investigating the issue of the Netherlands grain provision, historians have probably over-stressed the imports of eastern grains. Part of the blame rests with the unevenness of the source material. There are no records for the shorter transport routes comparable with the Sound toll registers. The concentration of grain from a district ranging from Lübeck to Reval at one point on its journey to the Netherlands, namely at the Sound, contrasts sharply to the multitude of routes by which, for example, Utrecht and Zeeland grain reached Dutch towns. Another reason for the great emphasis on eastern grain is that in times of price rises - periods in which the most is written about food provisioning - the cheaper eastern rye was in the greatest demand. Taking into account the diversity of grain suppliers, the contemporary statements about the limited Dutch production become more credible. Amsterdam’s assertion in 1501 that Holland could not feed even one-tenth of its own population

215

P easants into farm ers?

seems clearly over-exaggerated, when only compared with the amounts of grain imported from the east.27 On close consideration of other historical sources, it is nonetheless reasonable to assume that not only the towns, but also the majority of the Dutch countryside were indeed already dependent on grain imports by the transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries.

Bibliography Manuscript sources28 Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), The Hague, Archieven van de Staten van Holland vóór 1572, no. 2459. Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), The Hague, Archief Van Adrichem (Inventaris Ruys), no. 35. Gemeentelijke Archiefdienst Amsterdam, Vroedschapsresoluties (1551-1565). Public Record Office, London, Customs Accounts (E122) 210/2. Wojewodzkie Archivum Panstwowe, Gdansk, Komora Palowa 300/19, Register der Ausschiffung des Komes und Weizens 1557.

Printed and secondary sources Beschrijvinghe van alle de Nederlanden anderssins ghenoemt Neder-Duytslandt door M. Lowijs Guicciardijn. Overgheset in Nederduytsche spraecke door Cornelium Kilianum (1612) Amsterdam. Blockmans, W. and Prevenier, W. (1975) ‘Armoede in de Nederlanden van de 14de tot het midden van de 16de eeuw: bronnen en problemen’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 88, pp. 501-538. Blockmans, W.P. (1993) ‘The economic expansion of Holland and Zeeland in the four­ teenth-sixteenth century’, in E. Aerts, B. Henau, P. Janssens and R. van Uytven (eds), Studia Historica Oeconomica. Liber Amicorum Herman van der Wee, Louvain, pp. 41—58. Brenner, R. (1985) ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, in Th. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (eds), The Brenner debate. Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe, Cambridge, pp. 213-327. [orig. 1982] Briinner, E.C.G. (1929) ‘Maatregelen, in 1565 van overheidswege genomen, om de voedselvoorziening van de bevolking in de Nederlanden te regelen’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 50, pp. 141-192. Collins, E.J.T. (1993) ‘Why wheat? Choice of food grains in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, Journal of European Economic History, 22/1, pp. 7-38.

27 Thus Jan de Vries (1974: 71) compared the assertion of Amsterdam with the still relatively inconsiderable import o f Baltic grain and therefore qualified it as a ‘dramatic exaggeration’. 28 Abbreviations: ARA = Algemeen Rijksarchief (The Hague).

216

Grain provision in H olland ca. 149 0 -1 5 7 0

Derville,A. (1987) ‘Le grenier des Pays Bas médiévaux’, Revue du Nord, 69, pp. 267-280. Dillen, J.G. van (ed.) (1929) Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van het bedrijfsleven en het gildewezen van Amsterdam, 1: 1512-1611, The Hague. (Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën (RGP) Grote Serie; nr. 69). Doorman, G. (1955) De middeleeuwse brouwerij en de gruit, The Hague. Ellinger Bang, N. (ed.) (1922) Tabeller over skibsfart og varetransport gennem Oeresund 1497-1660, II: Tabeller over varestransporten A, Kopenhagen/Leipzig. Friis, A. (1953) ‘An inquiry into the relations between economic and financial factors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 1, pp. 193-241. Fruin, R. (ed.) (1866) Informacie der staet faculteyt ende gelegentheyt van de steden

ende dorpen van Hollant ende Vrieslant om daernae te reguleren de nyeuwe schiltaele gedaen in den jaere MDXTV, Leiden. Fruin, R. (ed.) (1876) Enqueste ende Informacie upt stuck van der reductie ende reformatie van den schiltaelen, voertijts getaxeert ende gesteh geweest over de landen van Hollant ende Vrieslant, gedaen in den jaere MCCCCXCIIII, Leiden. Gottschalk, M.K.E. (1975) Stormvloeden en rivieroverstromingen in Nederland, vol. H: De periode 1400-1600, Assen. Gras, N.S.B. (1915) The evolution of the English cornmarket from the twelth to the eighteenth century, Cambridge Mass. (Harvard economic series; XIII). Graswinckel, D. (1651) Placcaetboeck op ‘t stuck van de lijftocht, Leiden. Häpke, R. (1913,1923) (ed.) Niederländische Akten und Urkunden zur Geschichte der Hanse zur deutschen Seegeschichte, 2 vols, 1: 1513—1557; II: 1558—1669, Lübeck. Iterson, P.D.J. van and Laan, P.H.J. van der (1986) (eds) Resoluties van de vroedschap van Amsterdam 1490-1550, Amsterdam. Jansma, T.S. (1974) ‘De betekenis van Dordrecht en Rotterdam omstreeks het midden van de zestiende eeuw’, in H.F.J.M. van den Eerenbeemt [et al.] (eds), Tekst en uitleg.

Historische opstellen aangeboden aan de schrijver bij zijn aftreden als hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Hague, pp. 146—177. Jeannin, P. (1964) ‘Les comptes du Sund comme source pour la construction d ’indices généraux de l ’activité économique en Europe’, Revue Historique, 88, pp. 55-102 and 307-340. Kellenbenz, H. (1962) ‘Bäuerliche Unternehmertätigkeit im Bereich der Nord- und Ostsee vom Hochmittelalter bis zum Ausgang der neueren Zeit’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 49, pp. 1—40. Lauffer, V. (1894) ‘Danzigs Schiffs- und Waarenverkehr am Ende des XV. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift des Westpreussischen Geschichtsvereins, 33, pp. 1-44. Meilink, P.A. (1923a) (ed.) ‘Rapporten en betoogen nopens het congégeld op granen, 1530-1541’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 44, pp. 1-124. Meilink, PA. (1923b) (ed.) ‘Rekening van het lastgeld in Amsterdam, Waterland en het Noorderkwartier van Holland in 1507’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 44, pp. 187-230

217

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Noordegraaf, L. (1980) Levensstandaard en levensmiddelenpolitiek in Alkmaar vanaf het eind van de lòde tot in het begin van de 19de eeuw’, in a.a.v.v. Van Spaans beleg tot Bataafse tijd. Alkmaars Stedelijk leven in de 17de en 18de eeuw, Zutphen, pp. 55-100. (Alkmaarse historische reeks; IV). Posthumus, N.W. (1964) Nederlandse prijsgeschiedenis, II, Leiden. Posthumus, N.W. (1971) De uitvoer van Amsterdam 1543-1545, Leiden. Samsonowicz, H. (1974) ‘Le commerce maritime de Gdansk dans la première moitié du XVIe siècle’, Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 9, pp. 47-65 Schaïk, R. van (1978) ‘Prijs- en levensmiddelenpolitiek in de Noordelijke Nederlanden van de 14e tot de 17e eeuw: bronnen en problemen’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 91, pp. 214-255. Scholliers, E. (1960) Loonarbeid en honger. De levensstandaard in de XVe en XVIe eeuw te Antwerpen, Antwerp. Sillem, J.A. (1901) ‘Tabellen van marktprijzen van granen in Utrecht in de jaren 1393 tot 1644. Uit de rekeningen en weeklijsten van de domproosdij’, Verhandelingen der Kon. Akad. V. Wet. Afd. Lett., Nieuwe Reeks, III, Amsterdam. Smit, H J. (ed.) (1942, 1950) Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den handel met Enge­ land, Schotland en Ierland, II: 1485-1585, 2 vols, The Hague. (RGP Grote Serie; nrs. 86 and 91). Sneller, Z.W. (1925) ‘De Hollandsche korenhandel in het Sommegebied in de 15e eeuw’, Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, 6e reeks, deel 2, pp. 161-178. Sneller, Z.W. and Unger, W.S. (eds) (1930) Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den handel met Frankrijk, I: 735-1585, ‘s-Gravenhage. (RGP Grote Serie; nr. 70). Stoob, H. (1955) ‘Dithmarschen und die Hanse’, Hansische Geschichtsblätter, 73, pp. 117-145. Thurlings, Th.L.M. (1945) De Maashandel van Venlo en Roermond in de 16e eeuw, 1473— 1572, Amsterdam. Tielhof, M. van (1995) De Hollandse graanhandel. Koren op de Amsterdamse molen, The Hague. Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1975) La formation des prix céréaliers en Brabant et en Flandre au XVe siècle, Brussels. Unger, W S. (1916a) De levensmiddelenvoorziening der Hollandsche sieden in de Middeleeuwen, Amsterdam. Unger, W.S. (1916b) ‘De Hollandsche graanhandel en graanhandelspolitiek in de Middeleeuwen’, De Economist, pp. 243-269, 337-386, 461-507. Unger, W.S. (1923, 1926, 1931) (ed.) Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van Middelburg in den landsheerlijken tijd, 3 vols, The Hague. (RGP Grote Serie; nrs. 54, 61 and 75). Unger, W.S. (ed.) (1939) De toi van Iersekeroord. Documenten en rekeningen 1321— 1572, The Hague. (RGP Kleine Serie; nr. 29). Uytven, R. van (1975) ‘Politiek en economie: de crisis der late XVe eeuw in de Neder­ landen’, Revue Beige de Philologie et d ’Histoire, 53, pp. 1097-1149.

218

Grain provision in H olland ca. 1 490-1570

Verhoeff, J.M. (1983) De oude Nederlandse maten en gewichten, Amsterdam. Vries, J. de (1974) The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, New Haven/London. Wee, H. van der (1963a) The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy, I: Statistics, Louvain. Wee, H. van der (1963b) ‘Typologie des crises et changements de structures aux PaysBas (XVe-XVIe siècles)’, Annales ESC, 18/1, pp. 209-225. Wee, H. van der (1965/1966) ‘De handelsbetrekkingen tussen Antwerpen en de Noordelijke Nederlanden tijdens de 14e, 15e en 16e eeuw’, Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 20, pp. 268-285. Williams, N J. (1988) The maritime trade of the East Anglian ports 1550-1590, Oxford. Woude, A.M. van der (1972) Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal-historisch onderzoek in

de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw, Wageningen. (A.A.G. Bijdragen; 16). Zanden, J.L. van (1993) The rise and decline of Holland’s economy. Merchant capitalism and the labour market, Manchester Zevenboom, K.M.C. (1959) ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis van de oude Amsterdamse graanmaat’. (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie voor Wetenschappen Afdeling Letteren, Nieuwe Reeks, LXVI; no. 1). Zupko, R.E. (1977) British weights and measures. A history from Antiquity to the seventeenth century, Madison/London.

219

10 Digging for a dike. Holland’s labour market ca. 1510 Petra v a n

D am ,

‘Vrije’ University of Amsterdam

This case-study on dike repair work in Holland 1510-1515 sustains the evidence for internal economic changes preceding the great shift of international trade from Flanders to Holland in the sixteenth century. According to Van Zanden an important factor of internal change is the formation of a proto-capitalist labour market characterised by high mobility, regional migrant labour, regional specialisation and a seasonal labour cycle. The evidence on dike labour sustains this model for Holland north of the IJ, in particular the Zaan region near Amsterdam. As such, this study follows the trend in the debate on the late medieval transition set by Epstein by viewing the late middle ages as a period of reorganisation of the market. However, in Holland the transition and the integration into the international market was conditioned by the specific changing environmental conditions of living on peat moors in a river delta. As a result already around 1500 the Dutch reorientation led to a proto-capitalist labour market, with typical specialisation such as dike building, fishing, exporting the natural energy reserves of peat and trading foreign goods.

I.

Introduction1

Internationally, investigation into the late medieval transition has a respectable historiographic tradition, which is also known as the Brenner debate (Aston and Philpin, 1985; Hilton, 1976). The various movements in this debate can be simplified into a few prevailing dichotomies. A classic, somewhat ideologically coloured antithesis is the one between historians directing attention to especially economic, demographic and technological factors on the one hand, and on the other (neo-marxist) historians viewing the essence of the transition in the light of altered production relations, especially of relations between the two main classes of lords and peasants. A different principle for the transition debate concerns the political scale based on which transition is studied. Investigators who base their study on the state consider as significant the influence of state constitution processes such as tax assessment, as well as the commercialisation and proletarianisation of the countryside. If on the other hand the local level is taken into consideration, as was done by Epstein for Sicily, light is shed on the effect of urbanisation processes on rural changes.

1 A slightly different version o f this article was first published in Dutch in Tijdschriftvoor Sociale Geschiedenis 18 (1992). Some of the material has also been inserted into my dissertation (Van Dam, 1998). I wish to thank prof. dr. W.P. Blockmans, dr. B.M.A. de Vries, dr. P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers, drs. A. van Riel, dr. M. van Tielhof, and dr. P.O. Long for their valuable comments.

220

D iggin g fo r a dike

Urbanisation processes play an essential role in the ‘case of Holland’ that is under discussion in this volume. Object of this study is the effect of urbanisation processes on the rural labour market of fifteenth and sixteenth century Holland. Since J. de Vries used the concept of ‘peasant’ as a central characteristic for the early modern labour market in his classic thesis of 1976, discussions fell silent for a while. When J. Lucassen applied the seasonal labour cycle model to rural Holland however, and J.L. van Zanden integrated this into a proto-capitalist model in 1988, discussions were enlivened once more. Where De Vries stressed the quick change of Dutch peasants into farmers in the sixteenth century, Van Zanden proposes a model of a proto-capitalistic countryside, starting already at the end of the 14th century. In addition recently attempts were made to situate the labour market in a comparative international perspective (De Vries, 1974: 67-73; Lucassen, 1984; Van Zanden, 1993; Blockmans, 1993; DeVries, 1992; DeVries and Van der Woude, 1997). My contribution to this discussion on transition is an attempt to investigate the Dutch labour market by means of a case-study on a typical kind of rural labour in Holland: a number of dike repairs at a large sea dike near Amsterdam, the Spaamdammer Dike, in the period of 1510-1515. This investigation provides new data for several aspects of proto-capitalism: surplus labour, regional specialisation, regional migrant labour, a seasonal labour cycle, wage patterns. The essence of the source material lies in a large number of sample roles unique for this period in size and detail.2

II. Proto-capitalism Let us first deal with the existing theories. With the introduction of the concept of proto-capitalism the economic historian Van Zanden goes back to the dual labour market model, an open system theory.3 It is suggested that in the pre-capitalist world there were capitalist islands, namely the towns. The wages earned in the towns were scarcely enough to make a living there. Therefore the people in the pre-capitalist world usually lived in the surrounding rural areas and only came to the towns for a short period of time, like a kind of seasonal workers. As Van Zanden adapts the model to the Holland situation, ‘town’ needs to be replaced by the whole of market-oriented, non-agricultural activities (Van Zanden, 1993:19). The most important of the non-agricultural activities are fishing, duck and geese farming, catching fowl, cutting peat, carding and spinning for the urban

2 1 have not been able to systematically check whether the payrolls presented here are the oldest in the Netherlands, however this is very likely. I have seen the accounts o f the dike repair works of the Grote Waard 1410-1411, Hondsbossche Zeewering 1497-1501 (both no payrolls) and Zijpe 1456-1457; o f the Beijerlanden accounts exist o f the end o f the sixteenth century. The literature based on these accounts deals with labour history only scarcely (Van der Helm, 1988; Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1985:127; Schoorl, 1979: 119-127; Baars, 1973). 3 In the Sixties this model was introduced by economic scholars trying to explain the labour mar­ ket in the Third World. Although by now it is being considered outdated, for historical explanations an adapted version o f the model may be useful (Hymer and Resnick, 1969).

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industry, cargo trade and earthworks for water management.4These activities were clearly not concentrated in a certain location, but they were concentrated on the towns, economically speaking, because the employers were usually townspeople. It is impor­ tant that the organisation of the non-agricultural activities and the trade in the products yielded by these activities was in the hands of townspeople, also because they were the people that could provide the capital to invest, to give credit and surety. When Van Zanden constructed his model it had little empirical foundation. There was only some evidence for the beginning of the sixteenth century and the end of the fourteenth century. It was among other things difficult to determinate when commercia­ lisation took place in which non-agricultural activities. Meanwhile F.WJ. Van Kan’s investigations into the Leiden patriciate proved that by the end of the fourteenth century the influence of Leiden entrepreneurs had already been noticed in various non-agricultural activities such as the extraction and de-processing of peat, lime burning, brick making and fishing. For hydraulic engineering as well proof has now been found that in the early Thirties of the fifteenth century urban entrepreneurs mediated in the building of sluices in rural areas.5

III. Surplus labour, regional specialisation and the seasonal cycle The non-agricultural activities show an obvious relationship to the regionally greatly varying possibilities offered by the natural environment in Holland. J. Lucassen presented a plausible argument that regional labour specialisation caused seasonal migrant labour and Van Zanden integrated this phenomenon into his model. The labour market experienced extreme fluctuations where demand was concerned in the pre-industrial period. Almost the entire economy was regulated by the seasonal cycle. The greatest demand was in the summer; there was very little work in the months of December through February. The demand peaks overlapped only partly and were for the greater part connected to the harvest cycle. Other activities such as peat cutting and ground­ works depended on the groundwater level and prevailing weather conditions. The great fluctuation in labour demand was taken care of by the elastic supply of hired labour from the large group of small farmers from the inland peat areas. It was exactly the limited size of the farms that caused such a large labour surplus, since they only required much attention part of the year, while the wives were able to manage on their own for the rest of the year. Based on these facts Lucassen constructed a labour cycle model for North and South Holland separately (cf. Figure 10.1 and 10.2). In both regions the private farms required labour from March through November. In addition ground-works for water manage­ ment were carried out in spring from March through May, that is after the high spring 4 Van Zanden, 1993: 43—44. Already in 1985, Augustyn proposed the term ‘proto-capitalism’ for the commercial Flemish peat digging, a term derived from the literature about the medieval Flemish textile industry (Augustyn, 1987). 5 Van Kan, 1988; Van Dam, 1994. Van Dam, 1998: 171-178, shows that the proto-capitalist model also applies to eel fishery.

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D igging fo r a dike

Figure 10.1

Year-round labour cycle in the countryside of Holland north of the U before ca. 1650 D

J

Source: Lucassen, 1982: 335 Figures 10.2 Year-round labour cycle in the countryside of Holland south of the U before ca. 1650 D

J

Source: Lucassen, 1982: 338

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tides and before the risk of storm tides and before the rain increased again. In June hay and grains were harvested, from July through December workers from the countryside sailed the sea for herring-fishing and merchant trading and in January and February seasonal unemployment prevailed, which was overcome by domestic industry probably primarily in the province of South Holland. In South Holland peat cutting was a second main activity in addition to ground-works that took place during spring season. In the summer and in the autumn hunting and inland fishing was of limited importance in North Holland. This labour cycle schedule broke down in the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the small-scale structure of the farms disappeared and the labour surplus within Holland was replaced by foreign migrant workers. The earliest sources that Lucassen cites for the existence of migrant labour within Holland date back to the second half of the sixteenth century and concern dike labour in particular. It contains advice from the well-known, ahead of his time civil engineer, Andries Vierlingh, to end the dike repairs at the South Holland islands before the coming harvest, because the labourers would otherwise disappear. The other source is a passage from a South Holland polder resolution that there was a multitude of North Hollanders working on the dike, most of them seamen that had already started to sail out for herring fishing and merchant trading.6

IV.

Labour surplus and wage level

In 1992, De Vries strengthened his theses of 1976 on the labour market in a synthetic study of the Dutch labour market in the period of 1460 through 1680. Blockmans supplied contradictory material for the fifteenth century (De Vries, 1992; Blockmans, 1993). In his labour market study, De Vries presented a number of partly new wage scales that he used as a basis for statements on labour reserve. Here I confine myself to the early begin­ ning of the research period, the transition from fifteenth to sixteenth century. De Vries asserts three statements: 1. In the period of 1460-1480 the highest wages in the Burgundian/Habsburg Low Countries were already paid in Holland. Therefore low wages cannot be an important factor to account for the rise of Holland. 2. The nominal wages of unskilled labour hardly went up in Holland between 1460 and 1550. 3. Unskilled labour was relatively abundant because the relative difference bet­ ween skilled and unskilled labour increased in the sixteenth century; education was valued more and more. In addition, this was suggested by the masses of labourers available for dock and diking projects. I will deal with the first two theses only briefly and discuss the third below. The fact that De Vries does not include Bruges or any other Flemish towns in his dissertation immediately takes the edge off the first thesis. The concise contribution that Blockmans 6 Lucassen (1984:161) quotes a well-known tract on dike works from the second half of the 16th century: D e Hullu and Verhoeven (1920). It concerns a polder ordinance for the dike works in the polders Nieuw-Beijerland and Nieuw-Piershil ca. 1580. Cf. Baars, 1973: 38.

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makes for the wage level in the fifteenth century is unambiguous. Departing from real wages, he points out that in the second half of the fifteenth century the wages in Holland turned out to be considerably lower than in Flanders. Data from Bruges were used for Flanders, those from Leiden and Haarlem for Holland, and grain prices for Leiden were re-calculated based on the original sources. Therefore, low wages around 1500 can surely be a factor to account for the rising of Holland. Where De Vries’ second thesis on the nominal wages of unskilled labour is concerned, some remarks are relevant especially for the fifteenth century. They are largely in line with the ones Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers published in the commentary on wage scales in Daglonen in Holland 1450-1600 (1984). Quantitative data on wages are very scarce for the fifteenth century. This however is not very clear from De Vries’ tables. He bases his Holland scales mainly on Noordegraaf’s scales, but for the earliest data he seems to have read the graphs without having studied the tables in detail.7 In addition, it is regrettable that he gives little commentary on the calculation methods and on the nature of his sources, even in the case of the new scale from the accounts of the Rijnland Regional Water Authorities (Hoogheemraadschap). The fact that the information on the fifteenth century is so scarce makes it even more regrettable that De Vries leaves out considerations about the qualitative aspects of wages. This is an important factor that he did consider in his later article on the functioning of labour markets (De Vries, 1994). Therefore, in my opinion De Vries’ data tell very little about the development of wages of unskilled labour and its relationship to the development of the wages of skilled labour before about 1525. It may well be that, in opposition to what his figures suggest and to the first and second statement above, labour shortage in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century was expressed in increasing rewards in terms of secondary labour conditions, such as leisure time or free beer as De Vries states for later periods. Let us now turn to our case-study. 7 See De Vries, 1992: Tables la and lb; the lack o f symmetry is striking as w ell as the time leaps that are not explained anywhere. The first column covers 20 years (1460-1480), the second 15 years (1510-1525), the third only 4 years (1550-1554). A consequence of these leaps is among other things that there is no registration o f the crisis years ca. 1480-1490. D e Vries reads the nominal wages for skilled and unskilled labour from the logarithmic graphs in Noordegraaf’s well-known overview Hollands welvaren? Levensstandaard in Holland 14501650 (1985). It can no longer be read from D e Vries’ tables that the information was scarce, but this immediately becomes clear from the tables in Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers (1985) on which the tables in Hollands welvaren were based. The larger part consists o f interpolation lines. This is striking for the period before 1500. For the unskilled wages paid by the city of Haarlem in the period o f 1465-1513 there are sources for only two years, namely for 1465 and 1471 (Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1985: 5 9 -7 1 , tables 3a-k). Thus these two isolated years determine the level for the entire period o f 1460-1480 and because the consecutive period of 1480-1510 is not mentioned in the table, these two years appear standard for the Haarlem situation o f 1510. In turn the tables proved more complete in some respects than the graphs for that matter. Thus wages appear to have been registered for The Hague for 1460-1480 3 ‘stuivers’ and 1 5 1 0 1525 3 ‘stuivers’ indeed (Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1985: 25, table 1). In addition comparison o f the graphs with the basic tables shows that sometimes more measuring points occur in the graphs than in the tables. In graph 4e, five measuring points occur in the period o f 1505-1510 against two in the table. This makes conversion o f values from graphs to tables somewhat difficult.

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V.

The bursts of the Spaamdammer Dike ca. 1510: geographic, political and economic context

A quotation from the accounts of the Rijnland Regional Water Authorities places us into the reality of a large dike break in the Holland countryside of the late Middle Ages with one leap: ‘On the first day of October 1514 master Filips Frankenzoon, clerk of the Rijnland Regional Water Authorities, travelled north to find out whether the Spaamdam­ mer Dike had burst by any chance. For the land had partly flooded and there had been a heavy thunderstorm the day before.8In a time without telecommunication it would take a while before it could be determined why the ditches ran over and the pastures were flooded. On October 1, 1514 it was not the abundant rainfall of the previous day that proved to be the cause of this, as it had been before. The reason was, that the larger part of the 300 metres long Spaamdam (near the town of Haarlem) had been flushed away including the eight drainage sluices, each about three and a half metres high and four metres wide. In addition large holes had been made in the Spaamdammer dike. This dike, situated on the southern bank of the IJ, was to protect the Rijnland north and south of the Oude Rijn against the violence of the Zuiderzee. (Vid. Annexe 3, Figures 10.310.5.) The 1514 burst was the dramatic highlight of a series in the Rijnland dikes since 1509. The years of 1510-1515 constituted an absolute administrative low in the history of the Rijnland Water Authorities and marked the beginning of a period of organisational change. However, the crisis had very adverse consequences for the local economy as well. To realise the sizeable closing activities a special committee was initially instituted in addition to the dike reeve and water authorities. Later on the so-called board of ‘hoofdingelanden’ (main landowners) came into being, to influence the financial policy. The board consisted of representatives of the most important large landowners: nobles, abbeys and townspeople. The old dike maintenance system (‘verstoeling’ or ‘verhoefslaging’) was replaced as well. Dike maintenance for that matter used to be divided over only the liable villages, which were situated at the dike. In the new system all Rijnland villages shared the costs of dike maintenance, including the inland ones. Centralisation of maintenance made reformation of taxation to land area, the so-called ‘morgengeld’, necessary. In the past every village collected their own taxes according to their needs and on an irregular basis. By means of these taxes local repair works were financed as well as the assigned share of the works to be maintained jointly, like the Spaamdam. From the middle of the sixteenth century on, the control on the collection of the ‘morgengeld’ was centralised.9

8 Archief van het Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland (AHR), Oud-archief van Rijnland (OAR), 9522, f. 30 (account on the year 1514: travel expenses). 9 Survey: Fockema-Andreae, 1934: 121 ff. The old system of cost sharing was being put under pressure by the main urban landowners from the end o f the fifteenth century on. They exploited their property for peat winning and refused to pay the rural taxes for water management. For a case-study: TeBrake, 1988.

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The crisis found its origin in a series of dike bursts and floods that started as early as the late fifteenth century. In 1496, 1497, 1507 and 1509 large parts of the Rijnland flooded as a result of dikes bursting in bordering water districts such as the Lek Dike, the Velser Dike, the Muider Dike and the Vecht Dike. We know of damage and burst of the Spaamdammer Dike in 1502,1508,1509,1510,1514 and 1515. This fits well into the picture of the Late Middle Ages as a period characterised by intensified storm tide frequency, higher sea levels, numerous breaks in the dike and floods in other places as well. Until recently historic-geographers considered these phenomena an expression of a general late medieval transgression phase, which caused the sea level to rise due to bottom sinking and melting of the glaciers. Nowadays alternative views stress the importance of the dynamics of local and regional systems and they focus attention on the changes man caused in the landscape and therefore on water management.101The historical hypothesis that the poor economic situation at the end of the fifteenth century together with the numerous wars did not benefit dike maintenance, fits into this modern perception. The desperation of the Rijnland villages in these years becomes obvious from the 1514 ‘Informarne’. This famous source is a government investigation into wealth, orde­ red by the Habsburg emperor Charles the Fifth. Many villages had incurred great debts in order to contribute to dike maintenance, especially after the bursts of 1509 and 1514. Meanwhile this imposed enormously on their means of subsistence. The villages had been flooded, the lands were completely ruined, the wood plantings were destroyed and the peat had floated off (Fruin, 1866 used in Gottschalk, 1975: 351). The dike villages were the worst off. The remark in a small Leiden chronicle (according to Chronyke, 1567 quoted in Gottschalk, 1975: 347) that the salt water killed all the trees in the vicinity of Leiden, Amsterdam and Haarlem is an illustrative example (Gottschalk, 1975: 347). In the total malaise the dike reeve and regional water authorities were no longer able to make ends meet in the long run. When the Spaamdammer Dike broke near Halfweg (halfway between Amsterdam and Haarlem) once more on the 27th of September 1509 after it had just been closed following the bursts of 1508, the big towns no longer put their faith in the administrative strength of the regional water authorities. They requested the national government to take action. One of the most prominent government officials, lord Claude Carondelet11, was authorised to organise the closing of the dikes with a committee of Holland councillors and representatives from the towns of Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leiden. At the end of 1509, Carondelet was employed for a couple of weeks and continued from the first of July through the autumn of 1510. During the authorisation of Carondelet, the dike reeve and regional water authorities were suspended. Therefore the 1510 closing near Halfweg was entirely arranged by the government committee. The 1514 and 1515 closings however were carried out under the supervision of the dike reeve and regional water authorities (Fockema-Andreae, 1934: 43-173; 10 Gottschalk, 1975: 818; Borger, 1992; Augustyn, 1992; latest handbook: Van de Ven, 1993: chapter 2. Unfortunately, the older view was taken over in D e Vries and Van der Woude, 1997: 38. 11 Member of the Great Council of Malines, bailiff o f Amont in the county of Burgundy, presi­ dent o f the Council o f Luxemburg, see Kerckhoffs-de Heij, 1980: 35.

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Gottschalk, 1975: 319-392; De Smìdt, 1987; Van Amstel-Horák and Lombarts, 1992: Introduction).

VI. Free labour and contractors In an examination on dike works in this period, it is relevant to know whether a free labour market was extent or whether labour was supplied to perform dike duty. The sample roles make a short answer possible. The larger part of the labourers came from the area north of the IJ, from villages that had absolutely nothing to do with the dike. Furthermore there is no evidence whatsoever that the labourers from the villages that had dike labour duty enjoyed a particular status. Why did the government committee carry out these dike closings themselves and not simply put them out to contract? Around 1410 large diking projects such as the ‘Grote Waard’ had already been carried out by contractors as well.12 Putting jobs out to con­ tract had even become established with the regional water authorities themselves. In the fifteenth century the building of sluices was put out to contract and from the Nineties on, the yearly Spaamdam maintenance works were as well. The Rijnland accounts make it obvious that the Regional Water Authorities did indeed try to put the job out for contract, but that they did not succeed. To make sure the work would be finished before the autumn storms, the committee decided to take matters into their own hands.13

VII. Working organisation In the first week of 1510,172 of the 202 labourers were named gravers, ofzetters or berriedragers. They were registered on the payroll as couples and paid accordingly.14 The first man of all 74 couples had a spade, he was a digger, the second had a fork, the forkworker; the remaining 12 couples were probably ‘berriedragers’ (barrow carriers). Furthermore, an additional 30 labourers were registered individually in this category; only some of them had forks. In the second week the classification in couples was maintained, tools however were hardly ever mentioned and by then only 74 of the 269 labourers were paid in couples. Remarkably, newly hired labourers were slid in with the 12 AHR, OAR, 16, f. 55. Contrary to what Fockema-Andreae states, at the Spaamdam putting out dikeworks on contract was an innovation introduced by the Rijnland water authorities in the Nineties. Before that time the local water authorities travelled to the Spaamdam to execute their share of repair work every year, see Sloof, 1985 (typed manuscript o f OAR 893). This measure was part o f an integrated policy to enhance the quality o f the sea dikes, see Van Dam, 1989. 13 At the large diking project at the Zijpe in 1556 half of the contractors gave up before the work was completed. According to Schoori (1 9 7 9 :1 2 1 ,1 2 3 ) this was due to their very small financial basis. Government measures put a maximum to the length o f dike a contractor was allowed to take on. Contractors were not allowed to work on more than one project at the same time. The maximum length o f dike was extended from five tot ten ‘roeden’ (1 roede = 3.77 metres) by the government in the fifteenth century. This leads Beekman (1905: 8: sources from several regions) to infer that the reliability o f contractors was increasing. 141 explain the several kinds of labour further on.

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old ones, sometimes as a replacement of labourers that had quit, but not always. Nine labourers were referred to by ‘rotmeester’, a well-known term in dike works, equivalent to foreman. After the second week the division in couples was maintained, but payment was totally individualised and when new labourers dropped out, the classification in couples shifted completely arbitrarily. These data suggest a certain shift classification on the dike, into so-called ‘rotten’, of which the size remains absolutely vague, and these were subdivided into couples. This distribution of work had no bearing on the wage administration. As will become clear below, wages were primarily individual, not subject to the kind of activity; and the ‘rotmeesters’ did not distinguish themselves either from the rest in this matter. Therefore this information was left out of the payrolls in the course of time and what was left is more of a lay-out usage for the administrative document. From the point of view of labour efficiency it is altogether quite remarkable that the different kinds of ground­ works were initially clearly distinguished per person. From later times we know that in ground-works a foreman had the different activities circulate because some were harder than others (Lucassen, 1984: 186). The evidence suggests that crews were formed by fellow-villagers. On the one hand, a rudiment might still be traceable of the old, medieval system of dike duty, for which each village needed to supply a fixed number of labourers corresponding with its land surface. On the other hand, working and family ties still coincided often in those days. In the first six weeks the labourers were lined up arbitrarily and mutual comparison of the roles teaches us that it was most likely the order of arrival in which individuals, smaller and larger groups took turns. Correspondence of patronymics suggests that quite a few men worked with their brothers or sons. Only a couple of times a combination of names and brackets and other reference marks suggests village and family ties for a larger group. An example of this in week six is the arrival of Symon Martz. van Assendelft, Aert Albertsz. and Diric Luytsz. together with Symon, Comelis Martsz., Claes Claesz. and Aemt Martsz. his brother: ‘magen’ (relatives) and neighbours, as this company would be described in medieval terms. In week five and six a number of new arrivals were suddenly supplied with a village name as a cluster. Thereupon from week seven on and at later closings a classification was indeed used. In view of the above information the impression seems justified, however, that this had a purely administrative function that gradually arose from a practical need of more order in the accounting. I emphasise the administrative character of this change because in a superficial examination of the later roles the village division soon suggests a correspondence with dike duty. In 1510 the crews were managed by some seven ‘homannen’ or ‘hoofdmannen’ (chiefs). This is a reasonably current term that can be traced back to the ‘homanscippen’ that referred to the districts in neighbouring towns as well as for instance in the count’s army of the fourteenth century. In dike maintenance these were originally the ‘hoofd­ mannen’ of the four quarters into which each village was divided, who each had responsibility for a part of the dike. The particular, high status of the ‘homannen’ becomes clear from the fact that they were not paid every week through the sample roles, but that

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they were paid all at once through the account during the whole period they worked, varying from 25 to 50 days. Their wages were high too, they all got 6 ‘stuivers’ a day. Five ‘homannen’ came from villages located directly at the dike, Osdorp, Sloten and Sloterdijk. At least two of them belonged to the local administrative elite, Willem Gijsbersz., sheriff of the village of Sloten, and Claes Noort, who is registered as repre­ sentative of Osdorp and Sloten in the 1514 Informacie.ls This fits well into the picture of other diking projects where local authorities acted as supervisors at the daily course of events.1516

V ili. Pattern and size of the labour employment The Grote Gat (‘Large Hole’) near Halfweg had originated at the dike burst as a consequence of storms as early as October and November of 1509 and attempts to close it had later been undone again, mainly by the storm of 27 September 1509. Meanwhile, it measured up to 120 metres wide and 7 to 9 metres deep. The small strip of land that separated the IJ from the Spiering Meer had been washed away, which gave the seawater free access through the Spiering Meer to the Haarlemmer Meer and the Leidse Meer, the three largest lakes that would constitute the large Haarlemmer Meer in the course of the sixteenth century. Rijnland was flooded up until the Hoge Rijndijk (High Rhine Dike), and even Leiden had flooded. By the summer of 1510 the hole must have been eroded substantially, for due to the circumstances described above it had been open all winter and summer. As can be seen in Annexe 1 andAnnexe 2, Tables 10.1 and 10.2 the number of labourers that were involved in the repair works was impressive. The first two days as many as 475 men were working on the dike and this increased very quickly to over 900 in the fourth week. The larger part of the labourers were deployed from the second through the sixth week, in which yet a period of more intensive labour can be distinguished: the sample roles give a non-stop account of the third through the fifth week, from 22 July to 10 August, this includes Sundays and obligatory holidays. In later weeks the work was stopped during the larger holidays, due to which over half of the number of working weeks was shorter than six days.17A small group of labourers even worked nights in the 15 AHR, OAR, 9512, f. 25, and 36. 16 Schoorl, 1979:119; Beekman, 1905: 834. Elsewhere I found contractors from the same social group. For instance, in 1515 the sheriff o f Rietwijk contracted for a diking project near Amster­ dam. This pattem o f social origin makes one think o f the collection o f indirect urban taxes. Alternately the members o f the urban elite leased the tax collecting as a private enterprise or carried it out as temporary officers of the local government, cf. Boone, 1989. 17 Work was carried on on the following obligatory holidays for the diocese o f Utrecht: Maria Magdalena 24 Juli, Jacobus Maior 25 Juli, Vincula Petri 1 August and Laurentius 10 August; the labourers had a day off on the following official holydays: Bartholomeus 24 August, Mattheus 21 September, Simeon and Judas 28 Oktober, A ll Saints 1 November, A ll Souls 2 november. Cf. Post, 19 5 7 :1, 254; Exaltatio Crucis 14 September was not an official holiday in Utrecht but was being celebrated on the dike nevertheless. Most labourers did not work all six days o f the week as this sample o f week 6 shows: 1 labourer worked 1 day, 1 worked 2 ,1 worked 3 ,6 9 worked 4, 31 worked 4, 25 worked 5, and only 2 worked 6 days.

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fourth and the fifth week. After the sixth week the number of labourers reduced by half and it stayed at this level until the end of the thirteenth week. Not all people involved in the repair project are included in this investigation. After week thirteen a huge breach can be detected. No work was done for over two weeks and afterwards only a small number of labourers showed up. I suspect that this was a special job, more or less separate from the actual closing. In further observations I therefore did not include the weeks from week fourteen on. The above figures are purely limited to the labourers accounted for in the sample roles. These, however, were not nearly all the people involved in the project. Apart form the labourers, others were involved in the diking project including administrators, managers and some 57 sailors and Cartwrights who transported officers and materials. Because of the inaccurate dating of their servi­ ces and the fact that they were not paid daily, they are excluded from this investigation as well. For the later dike closings of 1514 and 1515 the composition of the source makes it impossible to count the labourers per week. However, it is possible to get a general impression of the pattern of the labour employment pattern. In the 1514 accounts labour expenses reached a remarkable peak right after the first week in the four weeks of 19 November through mid December. Around Christmas, work came nearly to a standstill and from January through March there was very little left. Just as in 1510 the labourers worked continuously through holidays in the peak period. The priest of Spaarndam received compensation for preaching to the workers on Assumption Day because diking had to continue on that day as well.18 In 1515 work seems to have lasted only 22 days, administered in a period of 9 days and one of 13. In both periods over a thousand people were paid. These figures of the 1510,1514 and 1515 closings suggest that dike closing was characterised by a large concentration of labour in the first couple of weeks, after which the number of labourers could be reduced to half.

IX. Types of labour Table 10.2 has already shown that various kinds of labour were distinguished in the sample roles. The largest group was constituted by the diggers, the ofzetters and the berriedragers. In a sample role of the first week within this group a classification into labourers with a graefne (spade) and those with a vorck (fork) is applied. Apparently the latter were the ofzetters, who had the task to spread and even out the earth or to place the sods as well, just as the slechters (‘levelers’) at the 1556 Zijpe diking (Schoorl, 1979: 125). The group of labourers without tools were the berriedragers. They carried the soil with carrier barrows19from the location where the boats unloaded. The soil was supplied by the navigators with a fleet of over a hundred boats of various types and sizes: damlopers, evers, aalmannen, utrechtse schuiten, and roeischuiten. No carts were involved 18 AHR, OAR, 9522, f. 23. 19 The new open-air museum in the former Zuiderzee trading town o f Enkhuizen shows examples of ‘berries’ and other traditional diking tools. On diking tools and techniques a small standard work is available in the Frisian language: Groustra, 1981.

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in the soil transport, which leads us to believe that all of the soil was supplied from outside the dikes from the spacious Spaamdammer Dike foreland which was easily accessible to the boats. This soil was not free incidentally. Many names of soil sellers are mentioned in the accounts and two land surveyors had the task to administer these purchases together with the reed purchases. The price of the soil was strongly linked to its quality; the most expensive category was the top layer with the sod still attached to it, which was used to constitute the body of the dike, a building method that is discovered at recent excavations.20 It was impossible to conclude from the sources whether the diggers only worked at the dike or if they were involved in digging up soil as well. Table 10.2 teaches us that in 1510 the peak of labour employment coincided with a certain type of activity. Only from week one through week six were carpenters, sailors, boatswains and pile drivers put together as a group on the payroll, of which the latter quit a week sooner. These categories of labourers are not mentioned separately in the sample roles in the other years. Together, the three to four sailors had two large boats and a small one, which carried the pile driver. Apparently the large group of pile drivers supplied the manpower necessary to lift the pile hammers. Together with the carpenters this group of labourers probably took care of the dike foundation; it is also possible that at the same time (one of) the discharge sluices were rebuilt that had been built there for the first time in 1492.21 In general the method used to close holes, was to lay a founda­ tion for the dike (dijkpen, dijkstal, zate) with sharply pointed piles, boards, twigs and soil. A framework was built from parallel rows of piles driven into the ground with a board timbering. The space in between was filled with a lattice of stakes and braided osiers and the like, with a filling of soil, reed, twigs and/or debris and stones in between (Van der Helm, 1988: 40; Bekker, De Boer and De Jong, 19943; Van Dam, 1998: 256259 for an edition of the technical document). It is striking that there is no mention of twig workers in the sample roles. In their investigations into the daily wages in Holland, Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers state that where unskilled labour is concerned the different types of activities cannot be clearly separated: pile drivers dug and porters dredged if necessary (Noorde­ graaf and Schoenmakers, 1985:17). Just how specialised were the types of dike labour in 1510? To investigate this a sample survey was done for the villages of Assendelft, Krommenie together with Krommeniedijk, and Medemblik, a total of 247 people. This concerns the diggers, forkmen, barrow carriers and boatsmen from the only three villages of the highest category that are registered in the sample roles for the full thirteen weeks without any combinations and the like (see Table 10.3). Of them only 8 percent appeared to have changed activities once or twice.22 It goes without saying that the figures were 20 Beekman, 1905: 37. See Carmiggelt, Guiran and Van Trierum, 1997. 21 Fockema-Andreae, 1934: 79; Van D ee, 1876 quoted in Gottschalk, 1975: 347 states that a sluice was being washed away in Halfweg, but for this I do not find evidence in the sources. AHR, OAR, 9512, f. 7v indicates that there were still two drainage sluices. However, the fact that financial and technical sources fail is not watertight proof. They might not have been needed because work w as carried out not on contract but under direct control o f the governmental commission and water authorities. 22 It cannot be stated what is the effect o f the large group of unknown in week one to six.

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corrected for the weeks where the classification in sections in the source modifies slightly. This suggests that it was not at any rate a matter of picking up a spade one week and a barrow the next. It is striking that for some individuals digger was used for professional reference and as a middle name as well. What were their motives to change activities? It could not have been the wage increase, for no one would earn more by changing to a different kind of activity. It seems impor­ tant that people were able to make longer hours by changing activities. In the above sample survey 29 percent of the labourers that changed activities worked the maximum period of 40 to 60 days in comparison to only 14 percent of the total (cf. Table 10.3c). In 13 out of 19 cases there was a change to digging and most of the changes took place in the seventh week which was the precise time in which the total number of labourers decreased drastically. In general the labourers stuck to one type of activity.

X. Wages In 1510 the wages for the largest group were the same for every one during the whole period. There was no increase in the period in which they were working at their highest capacity and no decrease at the end of the project when less labourers were needed. An exception to this is a small group of labourers from Medemblik that can be considered specialists as will become apparent below. They were part of the high-wage category of 5 or more silver ‘stuivers’ a day and from week ten on they would earn 4 ‘stuivers’. Their specialisation probably no longer had any surplus value by that time. For the group of diggers and forkmen the sample roles of 1510 mention a collective wage of 4 ‘stuivers’ the head. And yet individually there appear to have been large differences in payment, varying from 2 to 8 ‘stuivers’. The general overview however is fairly accurate. In week 6 for instance the average group of about 86 percent earned 4 ‘stuivers’, and a small group of 9 percent 3 ‘stuivers’ a day (cf. Table 10.4). It is striking that those who earned more than 4 ‘stuivers’ came without exception from more distant places: Geervliet, Brabant, Enkhuizen and Medemblik. Of the other categories of labourers no collective wages are registered in the source. The wages of the barrow carriers were considerably lower than those of the diggers and the forkmen: an average of 2 to 2.5 ‘stuivers’ a day and this was both in those weeks in which only the young and in the ones in which the young and the old are registered in one section. The other groups seem slightly more homogeneous. Boatswains and pile drivers earned 4 ‘stuivers’ a day. The two members of the 'roeischuit’ crew were paid 9 ‘stuivers’ a day together. From a few single records it becomes clear that a boat usually cost 2 ‘stuivers’23, which brings the sailors’ wage to 3.5, unless the owner of the boat reserved a larger part for himself, but there is no trace of this in the sources. Among these sailors were quite a few father and son combinations; in that case the son received half the wage. I already mentioned before that a change of activities in no case resulted in a higher wage. The different data point out that the unskilled labour wages therefore differed mostly according to individual factors such as age, experience and manpower. 23 AHR, OAR, 9523a, f. 3.

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An exception to this is barrow carrying, which was probably considered a lighter kind of labour and possibly carried out by the weaker labourers, by the youngest in particular.24 Being craftsmen, the carpenters were not included in this definition. The master carpenter earned 12 ‘stuivers’, the other carpenters 6, and there is no record as to whether or not they were apprentices. Conclusion: average wages of 3.5 to 4 ‘stuivers’ for all kinds of unskilled labour, except for the barrow carrying which made 2 to 2.5 ‘stuivers’. The fairly sizeable wage differences were mostly individual. Specialists’ wages were considerably higher amounting to 5 to 8 ‘stuivers’, carpenters 6 to 12.

XI. Comparison with wages elsewhere How do these wages compare to the wages that were paid elsewhere for similar activities? It should be noted that compensation for food was not included in the wages. It appears from a regulation that the labourers bought their bread and beers on the site, probably at stands taken care of by inns from Amsterdam (dike ordinance edited in Van Dam, 1998: 256-259). Compensation for food is a wage factor that can mount up con­ siderably. It amounted to 25 percent for the IJsseldijk dikeworks in 1439 (Sloof, 1985: f. 17). The data brought up in the study of Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers are very scanty for this period and do not allow for construction of an average wage. Moreover, the fact that considerable discrepancies are found in their sources for unskilled labour makes comparison difficult, and even more so because there is no record of whether or not food was included in the wages. The variation and the level correspond roughly in­ deed: the summer wages for unskilled labourers varied between 2.5 and 5 ‘stuivers’, in which we are unable to discern between town and countryside.25The same applies to the average nominal unskilled wages De Vries constructs based on these 3 ‘stuiver’ data. The thesis by Van Zanden that dike labour was relatively well-paid cannot be demonstrated for 1510 (Van Zanden, 1993: 168; De Vries, 1992). The wages for expert carpenters in the towns was between 5 and 6 ‘stuivers’.26 The 24 Later sources only show a distinction between labourers on land and on water, so a comparison cannot be made. 25 Summer wages, unskilled labour: Haarlem, for the city, among other things, driving in piles, digging, dikework 1515-1554 3 ,3 .5 en 4 stuivers; Leiden, St. Catherine’s hospital, earthenwork: 1509 2.5 s t , 1511 4 s t , 1513 2.5 en 2.8 s t , 1517 3 s t , 1522 2.5 st.; Woerden, earthenwork 1500 2.5 st, 1520 4 st.; Den Haag, earthenwork 1480 3 st., 1520 4 st.; Dordrecht, diking, driving in piles, transport 1512 3 and 5 st., 1521 3 and 4 st.; Hondsbossche sea dike, transporting sand 1497-1501 3.5 st. A ll data from Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1985. Explaining the wage differences the authors point to the ‘institutional factor’. Among other things, in hospitals and abbeys with a kitchen running daily, labourers working close to the compounds would receive food, in contrast to labourers o f the city government. Arguing this way the dike wages should be compared to the Haarlem wages, where food was not provided. The dike wages turn out to be at the same level as these city wages. 26 Summer wages o f master carpenters: Haarlem 1516-1524 5 stuivers-, for work at the Spaamdam sluice 8 st. per day was paid in 1542, in 1544-1547 6 st. was paid, so a higher wage rate for wor­

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wage level on the dike seems to be on the high side then, but a concrete statement is impossible to make because the status of the carpenters is unknown.

XII. Recruiting method, role of specialists Messengers were sent out to have proclaimed in the village churches, the sole public buildings, that labourers and boats were needed. It seems that this was not approached on a large scale. For 1510 there are only three travelling expense accounts. One concerned the villages with dike duty. A second account concerned two specific villages, one vil­ lage north and the other south of the IJ. The third expense account concerned a trip to Zeeland to visit dike workers, during which from Brielle another messenger was sent to four villages. Very little research has been done, however, concerning message systems in the Burgundian lands.27 It is possible that a news system was fed by a number of messengers in which, among others, travelling priests played a part. Unlike many yearly returning maintenance works such as dredging ditches and levelling up dikes, the closing of dike breaks was not a routine activity. It required spe­ cialised technical knowledge which half the time the administrators involved did not have. Therefore, they had to rely on specialists. It seems obvious that the skills of expe­ rienced local authorities and experts in their own circle of acquaintances should be tapped first. This is my interpretation of the performance of Mr. Floris Van Tol, priest, and Joest Jansz., court carpenter, who received compensation in 1514 for their efforts to find a new way of repairing the Spaamdammer Dike.28At the same time specialists from much farther away were appealed to. At the beginning of the closing project of 1510 a mes­ senger was sent to Zeeland to recruit dike workers.29 This was not very successful considering the fact that only one dike labourer from that area appears on the payroll. It might very well be, though, that this appeal reached that one carpenter from Rotterdam. The administrators aimed their hopes north and quickly sent letters to burgomaster Rijckaert Mattijsz. in Medemblik. Was the Rhine wine that they sent along the decisive factor?30From the third week onwards Rijckaert stayed at the dike for four weeks together with four other men to give advice.31 How were such contacts with specialists established? Was it the mouth to mouth advertising of the very mobile dike labourers? Pile driver Hendrik who was the only Medemblikker that had been present since week 2 could have functioned in this role as informant. On the other hand there had been regular contacts on a regional level. The king at sluices was not unusual; for the church 1494-1528 5 st; Woerden 1503 5.5 st., 1507 6 st.; Den Haag 1515 5 st.; Dordrecht 1512 5 and 6 st. A ll data from Noordegraaf and Schoenmakers, 1985. 27 H. von Seggem, Kiel University, Germany, is working on the message system under Charles the Bold as part o f the Burgundy project of Prof. W. Paravicini, Germanisches Institut, Paris. 28 AHR, OAR, 9522, f. 24. 29 AHR, OAR, 9512, f. 43. 30 AHR, OAR, 9513a, travel expense account Jan van Gelre. 31 AHR, OAR, 9512, f. 43.

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decree of Philip of Burgundy of 1466, in which a committee was established to strengthen the Frisian Ommedijk, is well-known. Next to the Rijnland Regional Water Authorities and several other regional water authorities a Medemblik representative was a member of this committee as well (Van Amstel-Horák and Lombarts, 1992: 15; Meylink, 1850: Annexe ‘Bewijsstukken’, 247). Possibly Rijckaert had been a well-known personality in administrative circles for years and can be considered an engineer ahead of his time. As appears from the Enqueste for which he acted as an informant he was burgomaster of Medemblik as early as 1494. In this very position, that involved being in charge of public works such as the town ramparts, Rijckaert will have become experienced in maintaining the dikes that were to protect Medemblik against the ever-advancing Zui­ derzee. Medemblik, which had become very much exposed to the prevailing north­ western wind since the most recently deposited dike of 1335, had been heavily ravaged in the preceding years. In 1514 it was recorded that new inland dikes had to have been built for which about 100 hectares of land had to be sacrificed. In addition the entire harbour was destroyed (Fruin, 1866: 106). Against this background it is no wonder Rijckaert appears to have been part of a complete family of dike specialists.32 In 1510 Pieter Mathijsz., possibly his brother, appears in the sample roles as one of the two best paid workers. He also received separate compensation for the 21 nights he guarded the dike. His efforts were not in vain for he made a career for himself. In 1514 he drew up an instruction with his son Jan to close a break in the Spaamdammer Dike. Incidentally, this time a respectable inhabitant of Medemblik acted as intermediary. Floris Pieterszoon, possibly his son, was at the market in Leiden selling his animals when the regional water authorities asked him to travel to Medemblik to speak to the burgomasters and request the interested parties from Medemblik and vicinity to travel to Leiden with him. Thereupon Pieter Mathijsz. filled an important position from November through April in the closings of various breaks. Eventually he had built up enough of a reputation to be summoned personally. He was even sent for in Haarlem together with a couple of labourers by bailiff Philips Vranckenz. in person. Rijckaerts involvement probably led to the huge rush of dike labourers from Medemblik that appeared at the dike the very week he did in 1510. Of the 44 Medemblikkers who worked on the dike for some weeks in 1510, 21 earned 5 to 6 ‘stuivers’ a day most of the time, which was one and a half times average. The eight diggers that worked overtime at night in the peak period belonged to this select company as well. The exclusive position this group had acquired seems to have expanded to all Medemblik labourers. At later closings they were mentioned separately and up front on the payroll, and they had a different working schedule than the other labourers. It is peculiar that of the 1510 group not a great many returned at later closings. From the 44 from 1510 13 returned in 1514 and 8 in 1515. The wages of these Medemblikkers did not exceed the prescribed wages in later years either, although 8 of the 21 labourers from 1514 and 1515 belonged to the ones that indeed received the high wages in 1510.

32 The record office of Medemblik does not contain documents from this period.

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D igging fo r a dike

XIII. Origins of the labourers Investigation into the geographic origins of the labourers provides many leads. Table 10.2 shows the origin of the largest group, the diggers.33 When the rush of labourers is followed from week to week it is immediately clear that there are no big leaps per village. Either there was a fixed core or a regular change. Either the number of labourers gradually increased to a certain maximum or it started with a maximum and decreased gradually afterwards. For the rest some villages joined in considerably later than others. Whereas the number of diggers from Assendelft reached a maximum as early as week six, most of the Westzaan diggers appeared as late as week twelve. The way in which the labourers were recruited probably had something to do with this. To get an impression of the geographic spread of the origins of the labourers, the data of one week have been charted (cf. Figures 10.3 and 10.4 and Table 10.2). Period six (12-17 August 1510) was chosen because it contained the least unknown origins and it fell only just within the highest labour employment period (cf. Table 10.1). The most striking feature is that most of the labourers came from a part of Holland north of the IJ. This is interesting for it concerned a dike belonging to the Rijnland Regional Water Authorities, situated on the south bank of the IJ. Furthermore people appeared to travel great distances to come to work. Most locations were within the boundaries of the pre­ sent-day provinces of North and South Holland, but the farthest villages of origin were considerably outside these boundaries: Terschelling, Groningen, Kämpen, De Waal, Cologne, Aken, the bailiwick of Den Bosch, the river Leye and Geervliet. These cases only concerned individuals. In view of the long travelling times it goes without saying that a large number of the travellers had already been roaming in Holland and that they did not leave their home towns especially for this project. The travellers were generally diggers. A couple from Kämpen that came by rowing boat was the only exception. The division into villages shows large differences and a large concentration can be observed (cf. Table 10.5a). In 1510 52 percent of the labourers of whom we know the origin came from 7 percent of the villages. It can be concluded from the charts that main concentrations were around the IJ and in upper North Holland. The Zaanstreek villages, just north of the IJ, of Assendelft, Krommenie together with Krommeniedijk, Oostzaan, Westzaan and Zaandam made up a category of their own with over 5 percent of the total labourers each. Compared to Table 10.2, which indicates the development of the number of labourers employed, the interests of Medemblik are given somewhat too little attention, considering the maximum labourers employed was only after week six. What attracts further attention is that apart from Medemblik the contribution of the towns of the larger centres as well as of the small towns along the Zuiderzee coast can be neglected. The con­ tribution of the coastal areas compared to the inland villages can be neglected as well. The general impression of the origins of the labourers according to labour types is, that the recruiting area for the navigators is smaller than the one for the diggers, forkmen and barrowcarriers. The farthest boundary for the boats lay at Medemblik in the north, at Kämpen in the east and at Katwijk in the south. 33 The total is not taken because after week 6 junctions take place differing per kind o f labour.

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P easants into farm ers?

Comparison to the Kruiswaal in 1515 leads to some other interesting observations (cf. Table 10.5a). The Kruiswaal of 1515 was right next to the Grote Waal of 1509, which keeps the geographic variable just about constant. As was explained above, the 1515 closing was administered in two unequal periods of 9 and 13 days, which means that a mutual comparison as well as a comparison with the six-day sixth week of 1510 can actually only be done in terms of order of magnitude. The borders of the recruiting area seem somewhat less far; they included no peaks far outside of Holland. The largest suppliers of labourers were the same in both periods of 1515, except for Osdorp, which in the second period fell back to the second category of 2 percent to 4 percent. There was slightly more change in the second category of villages, but most of the villages remained present here as well. Further comparison to 1510 teaches us that the average contribution of labourers per village was twice as high, a higher peak load.34 Even when a large 20 percent group of unknown people is considered here, the average was considerably higher in 1510. A very small group of villages supplied the larger part of the labourers in 1515 as well: in the first period 60 percent of the labourers came from 13 percent of the villages. The differences can partly be resolved into to the lower number of small villages in the third category. Which were the new villages to supply a great deal of dike workers in 1515? Medemblik, Spaamwoude and Uitgeest had already been in the second category in 1510. The sevenfold increase which made Medemblik leave most Zaanstreek villages behind, is particularly striking there. Osdorp seems an absolute newcomer among the leading villages, which is yet another warning that we must be very careful interpreting these inadequate figures. Osdorp and Spaarnwoude can be characterised as villages with dike duty. It is true that two cities joined in 1515, Alkmaar and Haarlem, but it should not be ruled out that they were referred to as ‘areas around the towns ’. Alkmaar for that matter is explicitly referred to as Alkmaar and surrounding countryside and Haarlem is consistently mentioned together with Haarlemmerliede, a conglomeration of villages on the east under the broken dike. Those villages of which there is no mention are Oostzaan and Zaandam, although Zaandam appears at the bottom of the second category in the second period. Between 1510 and 1515 less continuity can be detected in the second category. It can be observed that the villages that belong to this category in 1510 and not in 1515 are all situated in the east of modem North Holland except for Sloterdijk (Beets, Twisk, Landsmeer, Oostwoude, Ransdorp, Purmerland, Wervershoof). In 1515 the recruiting area had been expanded to western sections of West Friesland (Alkmaar, Limmen, Akersloot). The other villages of this category are all Rijnland villages. Were the eastern villages replaced by north-western and Rijnland villages? Looking back on the first category we can point out that while the Zaanstreek is maintained as most important recruiting area, the emphasis seems to have shifted from east to west: Oostzaan and Zaandam are replaced by Uitgeest. 34 The total of labourers with known origin is in 1510 648 spread over 73 places, an average o f 9. In 1515 this is 1,056 labourers over 60 villages respectively 1,022 over 56, an average for both of 18.

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D iggin g fo r a dike

The geographic spread can be summarised as follows. In 1510 and 1515 the large majority of the labourers came from the parts of Holland north of the IJ. There are three areas of concentration: the Zaanstreek villages north of the IJ, eastern West Friesland with Medemblik as its centre, and the dike villages south of the IJ. The 1510 and 1515 projects differ in a number of ways. In 1515 the average is considerably higher, whereas the number of villages is smaller, and particularly fewer small villages participated. Viewed geographically there is a minor shift from east to west and from north to south. The contribution of the eastern villages in the Zaanstreek and at the Zuiderzee is replaced in 1515 by western Zaanstreek villages, the countryside of Alkmaar and some Rijnland villages. It is important to realise that the tables are snapshots of approximately a week. For how long were labourers away from home? Tables 10.3a and 10.3c prove that they usually worked at the dike a couple of weeks in a row. The labourers that came from farther away generally worked longer than the ones that lived nearby. Most labourers were at the dike during a continuous period of time.

XIV. Interpretation of the geographical distribution pattern, comparison to labour surplus based on the Informacie I shall try to explain some of the geographical patterns observed above. Fortunately, in order to inspect the proto-capitalist labour market the relative size of the labour surplus per village can be reconstructed from the payrolls in 1510 by comparing it to the Informacie of 1514. As mentioned above this was a government investigation into wealth. One of the survey questions concerned the number of hearths and communicants. The answers were given by local authorities such as town administrators and priests and are considered reasonably reliable. With the help of the Informacie a general indication of the relative size of the most important villages to supply labourers can be calculated. The distribution pattern of the dike labourers over the villages is to be explained in different ways. The distribution pattem (see Figures 10.1 and 10.3) demonstrates that some villages supplied considerably more labourers than others. First of all, the fact that most labourers came from villages around the IJ is not very peculiar. Travelling over water was easier than travelling by land in those days. In the perception of those concerned there was little cause to distinguish between villages north or south of the IJ. This is at least how I interpret the combining of the sample roles for villages north and south of the IJ such as Purmerend and Spaamwoude or Sloterdijk, Osdorp, Knollendam and Zaandam. From the break-through at Halfweg these villages were located more westward and it was obviously of no importance that there was a sizeable stretch of open water in between the villages. Complete discretion can be mied out here, for the order of the villages in the sample roles shows a classification in geographical districts.35

35 Note that for a comparable peat region Henderikx (1989) stated that water streams did become a barrier to regional commune formation after the 13th century.

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P easants into farm ers ?

The observation that the Zaanstreek villages supplied the majority of labourers should also be explained in demographic terms: some villages were bigger. The recruiting area just about corresponds with the following administration districts of the Informacie: West Friesland, Kennemerland, Waterland, Rijnland and Amstelland. Of the 162 villages that appear in the Informacie of 152 the number of hearths is given.36 Only 22 villages count over 150 hearths, of which the maximum amounts to 350. Exactly most Zaanstreek villages belong to this category of largest villages: Assendelft 180, Oostzaan 280, Uitgeest 259. Krommenie and Westzaan count for 310 together, so at least one of them belongs here as well. There is no mention of Zaandam in the Informacie. In order to make patterns more simple I reworked a selection of the villages, see Figure 10.4 and Table 10.6. In Table 10.6 the contribution of the villages that supplied 2 percent or more of the dike labourers in 1510 was measured against the size of the local male labour force. For the size of the male labour force half the number of communicants given by the Informacie was used. It can be read from this that the number of labourers the villages could make available for dike closing could amount to one third of the labour force. The situation in small villages such as Spaamwoude is difficult to measure. It seems that according to the figures of the second period of 1515 the dike labourers would even have made up 124 percent of the Spaarnwoude labour force. Could it be that not enough inhabitants were registered for Spaarnwoude? According to Van der Woude, this would in general only occur when the local parish priest would fail to appear, which was not the case here. It is also possible that registration in the pay roles was not always accurate, which causes the discrepancy to increase quickly for small villages. The above reference ‘Alkmaar and surroundings’ was already an indication. However, this does not necessarily exclude the fact that exactly the small villages had a large part of their population at the dike. As an explanatory factor the size is irrelevant for the other villages from the highest category. Osdorp and Spaamwoude are small.37 This gives cause to divide the region of IJ again into two: large peat villages of the Zaan region and dike villages on the Spaarndammer dike.38 Legally speaking Medemblik was a town, but when it comes to size it corresponded to the largest villages; the other Zuiderzee towns were two to three times as large. More likely, the rush of labourers and technical specialists from Medemblik and surroundings should be explained by strong local specialisation and by the recruiting powers of the family of diking specialists of Rijckaert Mathijsz.

36 Van der Woude (1972: 86) states that systematic fraud can least be expected in the assessment o f the numbers o f haardsteden, because checking was easy here. 37 Spaarnwoude 63 haardsteden; Osdorp was counted together with Sloten for 128 haardsteden. 38 The other villages with dike duty were Sloten, Sloterdijk, De Gheer, Houtrijk cum Polanen, and Hofambacht.

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D iggin g fo r a dike

XV. Conclusion To what extent does the evidence fit in with the model proposed by Van Zanden for the late medieval labour market with respect to the dike labourers? How do the wages compare to known wages, in particular those collected by De Vries? Considerable numbers of labourers obviously had no problems being away from home for many weeks in the summer season. In view of the size of the recruiting area and the project length, most dike labourers of 1510 and 1515 can be characterised with a term introduced by Lucassen as regional migrant labourers.39 Furthermore, labour mobility was extensive in Holland. People travelled to the Spaarndammer Dike from all of northern Holland, even from Friesland, Zeeland and Cologne. Walking for a week was not exceptional. According to Van Zanden’s model, labour employment was seasonal and it shows

regional specialisation. The fact that in the spring large numbers of labourers could be recruited is in accordance with his model. However, it is less consistent with the model that large numbers of labourers were still available in the autumn. Especially in Holland north of the IJ they should have been herring fishing at that time. Were the dike wages competitive with the fishing wages? There are no data available to answer this question. The fact that the labourers north of the IJ contributed much more to all projects than those from the region south of the IJ can theoretically be explained by the fact that the north was much more specialised in dikeworks than the south, where the people would specialise in peat cutting. It is more likely however, that the flooded area south of the IJ was largely depopulated and could therefore supply fewer labourers. A similar situation presented itself after the dike bursts in Zeeland in 1530 and 1532, when labourers had to come from Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, and after the Christmas flooding in 1717, when labourers for German dikes had to be recruited in northern Holland.40 The regional specialisation is confirmed by the evidence about the origin of the labourers. The model suggested that here at the small farms in the peat-pasture area the largest labour surplus should exist. Indeed, the dike labourers did not originate from the towns and the coastal villages, but from the inland villages on the peat-moors, both north and south of the IJ. As an illustration of the proto-capitalistic model, I was able for the first time to reconstruct the relative size of the labour surplus per village by comparing the numbers of dike labourers with the male labour force as based on the Informacie of 1514. Up to a third of the local labour force worked on the dike. Three regions were discerned. The peat-pasture villages in the Zaan region supplied high percentages of their labour force. According to the model they had suffered the loss of their agricultural activities due to 39 Probably regional migrant labour existed long before. Already at the diking project of the Grote Waard in 1410-1412 messengers were sent for dike specialists and dike labourers in all directions including Heusden, Culemborg, Amsterdam en Alkmaar (Van der Helm, 1988: 57). 401 owe the information on Zeeland to C. Dekker, with thanks. Cf. Jakubowski-Tiessen, 1992.

241

P easants into farm ers?

a man-induced worsening of environmental conditions since the 14th century. Furthermore I showed that these villages were big and they were close to the repairworks. In order to illustrate the long term developments that conditioned such a regional specialisation, I add here that the people living on the peat moors were originally the most familiar with ground-works. As excavations show, they started digging canals and raising their house-plots by meters in case of flooding from the first moment they moved into these areas around the year 1000 (Bos, 1988). Villages situated on the dike supplied a large percentage of their labour force as well. As their land was flooded there was little else to do. Finally the town of Medemblik and surrounding villages in the very north of Western Friesland scored rather high also. Labourers here probably followed a local diking specialist. As to the seasonal labour cycle, some differences were detected between 1510 (JulyOctober) and 1515 (March). The higher peak load in March 1515 coincided exactly with the regular dikeworks season. In the late summer of 1510, on the other hand, part of the potentially large North Holland labour surplus was already at sea. The higher peak load that proved possible in 1515, was perhaps also co-determined by the shorter duration of the project. This in turn can help account for the smaller number of villages, assuming that the number was related to the speed with which the news about the closing spread. When the seasonal cycle is applied to account for the geographic shifts of 1515 compared to those of 1510, the results are more ambiguous at first sight. According to the labour cycle, where the north-south shift is concerned a relatively smaller participation could have been predicted for spring, that is in 1515, this being the time when the Rijnlanders would be extracting and de-processing peat. The opposite proved to be the case however. Furthermore a shift from east to west could have been related to the sailing season, assuming the villages closer to the Zuiderzee had more ties with the activities there. According to the Informacie villages such as Wormer, Ransdorp and Purmerend had their own ships, whereas the Zaanstreek villages did not. Here the evidence indicates the opposite as well. The emphasis on the villages situated further inland in North Holland occurs precisely in March of 1515, meaning before the sailing season. As to the area south of the IJ, the pattern appears distorted. The region was possibly depopulated as a result of the floods and the people fled to nearby towns. This observation leads to a new question, a question that has gained no attention in Dutch historiography so far: how did big floods contribute to regional migration to the towns, in addition to the structural push factors of the worsening environment on the countryside? Concerning wages, dike wages do not deviate from unskilled wages elsewhere as the series collected by De Vries and Noordegraaf show. However, it was argued that qualitative aspects of labour and secondary rewards can not be left out when analysing wage levels. As a result the levels of the real unskilled wages of the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century remain obscure and little can be said about international competition, in particular with Flanders. Therefore the lower industrial wage levels in the second part of the fifteenth century in Holland as compared to Flanders, as referred to by Blockmans, remain interesting as a competitive factor.

242

D iggin g fo r a dike

The conclusion may be that the proto-capitalist model for the Holland labour market proposed by Van Zanden is confirmed by the payrolls of dike labour at the Spaamdammer Dike around 1510 for Holland north of the IJ on three important aspects: the existence of regional migrant labour, the existence of a considerable labour surplus, and regional specialisation in earthen work. In the context of the more general debate on the transition, the relationship between the labour market and the shift of the European north-south trade of Antwerp to Amsterdam in the sixteenth century, it is remarkable that the chan­ ges in the labour market seem to have taken place well before the shift. As a recent study of the grain trade shows, this shift became definitive from about 1530 onwards (Van Tielhof, 1995: 233). What is more, the same study explains the crucial importance of lower transaction costs that induced the grain flow to Amsterdam. Partially, these lower costs were due to the abundance of local labour, particularly for shipping. The evidence on dike labour stresses the importance of internal changes in the labour market and the availability of a surplus of unskilled labour long before 1530.

Bibliography Manuscript sources41 Archief van het Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland (AHR), Leiden, Oud-archief van Rijnland (OAR), 16, 9512, 9513, 9522, 9523a

Printed and secondary sources Amstel-Horák, M.H.V. van andLombarts, R.W.G. (eds) (1992) Regestenboek van het Hoog­ heemraadschap van Rijnland, aprii 1253—Oktober 1814, Leiden. Aston, T.H. and Philpin, C.H.E. (eds) (1985) The Brenner debate. Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe, Cambridge. Augustyn, B. (1987) ‘Traces of a proto-industrial organisation of the medieval north Flemish peat region. Test-case Kieldrecht, a peat-diggers village ca. 1400’, in H.-J. Nitz (ed.), The medieval and early-modern rural landscape of Europe under the impact of the

commercial economy. Papers presented at the meeting of the Permanent European Confe­ rence for the Study of the Rural Landscape atRostade and Hagen, Federal Republic of Germany, 2.-9. September 1985, Göttingen, pp. 61-74. Augustyn, B. (1992) Zeespiegelrijzing, transgressiefasen en stormvloeden in Maritiem Viaanderen tot het einde van de XVIde eeuw, 2 vols, Brussels. Baars, C. (1973) De geschiedenis van de landbouw in de Beijerlanden, 2 vols, Wageningen. Beekman, A.A. (1905,1907) Het dijk- en waterschapsrecht in Nederland vóór 1795, 2 vols, I = A -H ; II = I-Z, The Hague. Bekker, M.E., Boer, J. de and De Jong, J. (19943) Kust- en oeverwerken, Houten. 41 Abbreviations: AHR = Archief van het Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland; OAR = Oud-archief van Rijnland

243

P easants into farm ers?

Blockmans, W.P. (1993) ‘The economic expansion of Holland and Zeeland in the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries’, in E. Aerts, B. Henau [et al.] (eds), Studia Historica Oeconomica. Liber Amicorum Herman Van der Wee, Louvain. Boone, M. (1989) ‘Triomferend privé-initiatief versus haperend overheidsoptreden? Over pachters van indirecte belastingen in laatmiddeleeuwse steden’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 15, pp. 113-139. Borger, G. (1992) ‘Draining-digging-dredging; the creation of a new landscape in the peat areas of the low countries’, in J.T.A. Verhoeven (ed.), Fens and Bogs in the Netherlands: Vegetation, History, Nutrient Dynamics and Conservation, Dordrecht, pp. 131-171. Bos, J. (1988) Landinrichting en archeologie: het bodemarchiefvan Waterland, Amersfoort. (Nederlandse Archeologische Rapporten; 6). Carmiggelt, A., Guiran, A J. and Trieram, M.C. van (eds) (1997 ) Archeologisch onderzoek in het tracé van de Willemsspoortunnel te Rotterdam, Rotterdam (BOORbalans: bijdragen aan de bewoningsgeschiedenis van het Maasmondgebied; 3). Die Chronyke van Hollant, Zeelant ende Vrieslant (1567), Leiden. Dam, PJ.E.M. van (1989) Beleid en bestuur in het moeras. Het Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland in de vijftiende eeuw, Leiden. Unpublished M aster’s thesis Leiden University. Dam, PJ.E.M. van (1992) ‘Gravers, ofzetters en berriedragers. Werkgelegenheid aan de Spaamdammerdijk omstreeks 1510’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 18, pp. 447-478. Dam, PJ.E.M. van (1994) ‘Spuien en heien. Innovatie en de rol van de stedelijke elite bij sluisbouw te Spaarndam in de 15e eeuw’, in L. Giebels (ed.), Zeven eeuwenRijnlands uitwatering in Spaarndam en Halfweg. Van beveiliging tot beheersing, Hilversum, pp. 29-46. Dam, PJ.E.M. van (1998) Vissen in Veenmeren. De sluisvisserij op aal tussen Haarlem en Amsterdam en de ecologische transformatie in Rijnland, 1440—1530, Hilversum. Dee, C.H. van (1876) Een crisis in Rijnland (1509-1510), Leiden. Fockema-Andreae, S J. (1934) Het Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland, Leiden. Frain, R. (ed.) (1866) Informacie up den staetfaculteyt ende gelegentheyt van de steden ende dorpen van Hollant ende Vrieslant etc. 1514, Leiden. Gottschalk, M.K.E. (1975) Stormvloeden en rivieroverstromingen in Nederland, Part II (1400-1600), Assen 1975. Groustra, G.R. (1981) Mei slykboar en kramizer, Leeuwarden. Helm, R. van der (1988) Dat nye verloren dyckagie, een geschiedkundig onderzoek naar

de oorzaken van de ondergang van de Grote Waard en een beschijving van het bedijkingsproject tussen Broek en Zevenbergen in de jaren 1410-1412, Leiden. Unpublished Master’s thesis Leiden University. Henderikx, P. (1989) ‘Die mittelalterliche Kultivierung der Moore im Rhein-Maas Delta (10.-13. Jahrhundert)’, Siedlungsforschung Archäologie-Geschichte-Geographie, 1, pp. 67-89.

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Hilton, R. (ed.) (1976) The transitori from feudalism to capitalism, London/New York. Hullu, J. de and Verhoeven, A.G. (eds) (1920) Andries Vierlingh. Tractaat van dyckagie [ca. 1572], Den Haag (Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Kleine Serie; 20). Facsi­ mile reprint, Rotterdam, 1973. Hymer, S. and Resnick, S. (1969) ‘A model of an agrarian economy with non-agricultural activities’, American Economic Review, 59, pp. 493-506. Jakubowski-Tiessen, M. (1992) Sturmflut 1717. Die Bewältigung einer Naturkatastrophe in der Frühen Neuzeit, Oldenburg. Kan, F.J.W. van (1988) Sleutels tot de macht. De ontwikkeling van hetLeidse patricaat tot 1420, Hilversum. Kerckhoffs-de Heij, A.J.M. (1980) De Grote Raad en zijn functionarissen 1477—1531, Amsterdam, Part 2. Lucassen, J. (1982) ‘Beschouwingen over seizoengebonden trekarbeid naar het westen van Nederland, ca. 1700—1800’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 8, pp. 327-358. Lucassen, J. (1984) Naar de kusten van de Noordzee. Trekarbeid in Europees perspectief 1600-1900, Gouda. Meylink, A.A.J. (1850) Geschiedenis van het hoogheemraadschap en der lagere water­ besturen van Delfland, The Hague. Noordegraaf, L. (1985) Hollands welvaren? Levensstandaard in Holland 1450—1650, Bergen. Noordegraaf, L. and Schoenmakers, J.T. (1985) Daglonen in Holland 1450-1600, Am­ sterdam. Post, R.R. (1957) Kerkgeschiedenis van Nederland in de Middeleeuwen, Utrecht/ Antwerp, I, 254. Schoorl, H. (1979) ‘t Oge, Hillegom. Sloof, J.H.M. (1985) (ed.) De oudste ambachtsrekeningen 1437—1442, Leiden, [typed manuscript of OAR 893] Smidt, J.Th. de [et al.] (1987) ‘Slotens verzet zet geen zoden aan de Spaamdammerdijk’, in C. Streefkerk and S. Faber (eds), Ter recognitie. Opstellen aangeboden aan prof Mr. H. van der Linden bij zijn afscheid als hoogleraar etc., Hilversum, pp. 205-274. TeBrake, W.H. (1988) ‘Land drainage and public environmental policy in medieval Holland’, Environmental Review, 12, pp. 75-93. Tielhof, M. van (1995) De Hollandse graanhandel 1470-1570. Koren op de Hollandse molen, The Hague. Ven, G.P. van de (1993) Man-made lowlands: history o f water management and landreclamation, Utrecht. Vries, J. de (1974) The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, New Haven/London Vries, J. de (1992) ‘The labour market’, Economic and Social History of the Netherlands, 4, pp. 55-78. Vries, J. de (1994) ‘How did pre-industrial labour markets function?’, in G. Grantham and M. MacKinnon (eds), Labour market evolution; the economic history of market

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P easants into farm ers?

integration, wage flexibility and the employment relation, London/New York, pp. 3963. Vries, J. de and Woude, A. van der (1997) The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500-1815, Cambridge, [orig. Dutch 1995] Woude, A.M. van der (1972) Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal historisch onderzoek in

de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late Middeleeuwen tot het begin van de 19e eeuw, 3 vols, Wageningen. Zanden, J.L. van (1993) The rise and decline o f Holland’s economy. Merchant capitalism and the labour market, Manchester/New York. [orig. Dutch 1991]

246

D iggin g fo r a dike

Annexe 1 Table 10.1 Place of residence of the diggers and fork labourers, barrow carriers and boat labourers working at the Grote Gat 12-17 August 1510. Domicile

No. of labourers

Aalsmeer Aarleveen Abcoude Aken Alkmaar Amstelveen Amsterdam Assendelft Avenhoorn Beets Beverwijk Buiksloot Delft Diemen Enkhuizen Friesland Geervliet Groningen Haarlem Hart, ‘t (Halfweg) Hoorn Horn, Den Houtrijk Huisduinen Katwijk Katwoude Kämpen Keulen Knollendam Krommenie Krommeniedijk Kudelstaart Landsmeer Leiden Leimuiden Leye, De (rivier N.B.) Lisse

2 1 1 1 1 2 7 92 3 22 6 1 3 2 7 2 1 1 6 1 1 5 4 1 2 1 1 1 6 48 12 2 18 2 1 4 2

Domicile

No. of labourers

Loosdrecht Lutjebroek Medemblik Meijerij D.B. Muiden Naarden Nieuwendam Nieuwerkerk Nieuwenveen Osdorp Oostwoude Oostzaanen Purmerland Ransdorp Riek (Rietwijk) Rijnsaterwoude Rijnsburg Schelling Sloterdijk Spaamdam Spaamwoude Spieringshoom Twisk Uitgeest Utrecht Venhuizen Waal, bij de Waard Weesp Wervershoof Westzaan Wetering (Oude) Wieringen Wormer Wognum Zaandam Unknown

1 2 24 1 2 3 1 5 2 3 17 69 14 16 2 1 1 1 18 2 26 2 19 11 1 1 1 1 1 11 54 1 3 1 2 55 167

Total

815

See Figure 10.3; Source: AHR, OAR, 9513 F.

247

P easants into farm ers?

Annexe 2 Table 10.2 Labour force at the Grote Gat 1510 period no. of days

df

be

bl

ca

bm

bh

pd

tot

8 10 9 9 9 9

3 3 4 3 4 3

10 10 10 10 10 10 5

122 84 36 40 33

475 704 894 913 894 837 424 442 373 378 326 412 393

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

3 6 6 7 7 6 5 6 6 5 5 6 4

202 269 431 473 442 396 221 218 181 200 175 211 177

35 87 118 113 76 74 56 48 40 43 45 51 54

95 241 286 265 320 345 142 176 152 135 106 150 162

14 15 16 17

6 2 5 5

17 15 14 13

25 27 23 15

42 42 37 28

Source-. AHR, OAR, 9513 A - 0 Glossary: df: diggers and fork labourers be: barrow carriers bl: boat labourers ca: carpenters bm: barge men bh: boat hands, probably on the barges of the barge men pd: pile drivers and boat hands on the damlopers (= type of ship) Labourers that arrived or left during the week are accounted for a full week. Period and date 1 Thu 11-Sa 13 July 2 Mo 15-Sa 20 July 3 Mo 22-Sa 27 July 4 Su 28 jul-Sa 3 Aug 5 Su 4—Sa 10 Aug 6 Mo 12-Sa 17 Aug 7 Mo 19-Fri 23 Aug 8 Mo 26-Sa 31 Aug 9 Mo 2-Sa 7 Sep

248

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Mo 9-Fri 13 Sep Mo 16—Fri 20 Sep Mo 23-Sa 28 Sep Mo 30 sep-Thu 3 Oct Mo 21-Sa 26 Oct Tue 29-Thu 31 Oct Mo 4-Sa 9 Nov Mo 11-Sa 15 Nov

D iggin g fo r a dike

Table 10.3 Place of residence of the diggers at the Grote Gat 1510 Categories of towns and villages12

2

4

6

38 1 30 28 8

39 9 29 15 18

48 22 19 20 26

14 9

7 11

—

-

6 11 3

5 8 7 6 24 15

-

-

-

-

Period (see Table 10.2)1 7 8 9 10

11

12

13

9 26 21

9 24 24

9 25

-

-

-

30

36

34

Category I Assendelft Medemblik Oostzaan Spaamwoude Westzaan

10 20 23

25

4 6 6 6 24 2

3 6 3 6 25

2 5 2 3 25

—

—

-

(4)

(4)

6 3 11

-

-

-

-

3 13

1 13

2 17

-

-

-

18

17

17

58

43

45

42

56

48

(4) 27

10 31 20

4 23 24 (5) 34

10 34 22 (4) 27

-

—

Category II Amsterdam Den Horn, Houten Enkhuizen Haarlem Krommenie,-dijk Oostwoud Purmerland Twisk Wieringen Zaandam

2 6 —

1 7

12

19 3 15

42

128

96

65

83

185

63

-

269

473

396

-

(1)

4 6 —

-

-

-

—

-

-

—

—

-

5 27

—

—

-

24

24

24

—

—

—

—

9 12

9 11

(4)

5

Category III Diverse

Category IV Unknown Total

221

—

218

—

181

-

200

—

175

-

211

—

177

1 From week 7 onwards the source shows combinations of towns and villages. All such combinations have been reckoned to Category III (‘Diverse’). Only the figures for Spaamwoude cum Purmerland - from period 7 placed between brackets - have been randomly split-up in two, because this village alone supplied relatively large numbers of labourers, who were again noted separately in 1515 (cf. Table 10.5a). 2 Category I is defined as the group of towns and villages that supplied 26 or more labourers in any one week (which was 60% of the maximum number of labourers). Category III: i.e. the towns and villages of Abkoude, Akersloot, Alkmaar, Amstelveen, Arleveen, Avenhom, Beverwijk, Buiksloot, Calslagen, Delft, Diemen, Geervliet, Gro­ ningen, Keulen, Kudelstaart, Langedijk, Leeuwarden, Leiden, De Leye, Nieuwenveen, Nieuwerkerk, Oegstgeest, Oude Wetering, Rijsel, Rijnsaterwoude, Sassenheim, Sticht, St. Paneras, Terschelling, Venhuizen, Bij de Waal, Waarden, Wervershoof and Wormer.

249

P easants into farm ers?

Table 10.4 Sample: Workers from Assendelft, Krommenie/Krommeniedijk and Medemblik in 1510 Table 10.4a Number of labourers working continually Assendelft abs % continually not continually

90 24

Total

Krommenie, -dijk abs %

79 21

72 17

114 100

Medemblik abs %

81 19

40 4

91 9

44 100

89 100

n=247

Table 10.4b Number of days worked per labourer

days 0-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 Total

Assendelft abs % 43 25 22 13 7 4

Krommenie,-dijk abs %

38 22 19 11 6 4

26 14 9 16 14 10

114 100

29 16 10 18 16 11

89 100

Medemblik abs % 9 10 14 8 2 1

total abs %

21 23 32 18 5 2

78 49 45 37 23 15

32 20 18 15 9 6

44 :101

247

100

Table 10.4c Number of labourers changing function (Assendelft, Krommenie and Medemblik taken together)

days 0-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 Total

not-changing abs. % 77 44 41 36 23 9

changing abs. %

34 19 18 16 10 4

230 101

Source: AHR, OAR, 9513 A -0

250

1 5 4 2 —

5

6 29 24 12 —

29

17 100

D iggin g fo r a dike

Table 10.5 Frequency distribution of daily wages (in ‘stuivers’) 1510 Table 10.5a Diggers and fork labourers No. of stuivers 2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

5.5

6

8

week 4 abs. % week 6

3