Food Supply, Demand and Trade: Aspects of the Economic Relationship between Town and Countryside (Middle Ages - 19th century) 9782503512839, 2503512836

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Food production and food processing in western Europe

CORN Publication Series 14

© 2012 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-2-503-51283-9 D/2012/0095/52

Food supply, demand and trade Aspects of the economic relationship between town and countryside (Middle Ages – 19th century)

Edited by Piet van Cruyningen and Erik Thoen

H F

CONTENTS

List of contributors List of figures List of tables

vii viii ix

0. Food supply, demand and trade. Aspects of the economic relationship between town and countryside (Middle Ages - nineteenth Century). Book introduction Piet VAN CRUYNINGEN and Erik THOEN

1

1.

Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts James A. GALLOWAY

7

2.

Crisis management in London’s food supply, 1250–1500 Derek KEENE

19

3.

Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure of the town’s rural surroundings Michael LIMBERGER

31

4.

Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent Johan DAMBRUYNE

49

5.

The rise and decline of the Amsterdam grain trade Milja van TIELHOF

85

6.

Maritime transport and the integration of Low Countries grain markets in the Late Middle Ages Richard W. UNGER

101

7. Feeding Cities. Transportation costs, paved roads and town-countryside relationships in eighteenth-century Brabant Bruno BLONDÉ

123

8.

143

English grain trades and farmers’ strategies in the later seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries: a general view John A. CHARTRES

9. Farmers’ strategies and the West-Zeeland-Flanders grain trade, 1648–1794 Piet van CRUYNINGEN

161

v

contents

10. The importance of the food trade in urban credit networks in early modern England: the example of King’s Lynn Craig MULDREW

173

11. Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880 Michael KOPSIDIS

189

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS BRUNO BLONDÉ Department of History University of Antwerp, B JOHN A. CHARTRES

School of History University of Leeds, UK

PIET VAN CRUYNINGEN

Rural History group Wageningen University, NL

JOHAN DAMBRUYNE

National archives of Belgium Brussels, B

JAMES A. GALLOWAY Centre for Metropolitan History University of London, UK DEREK KEENE Centre for Metropolitan History University of London, UK MICHAEL KOPSIDIS

Leibniz-Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO), Halle (Saale), D

MICHAEL LIMBERGER Department of History Ghent University, B CRAIG MULDREW

History Faculty University of Cambridge, UK

ERIK THOEN

Department of History Ghent University, B

MILJA VAN TIELHOF

Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, and Utrecht University, NL

RICHARD W. UNGER

Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study and Department of History, University of British Columbia, CA

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LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Location map food and fuel supply medieval England 10 2.1 London wheat prices and wages, c. 1280–1500 20 3.1 Soils in the Antwerp surroundings 33 3.2 Farms owned by Antwerp citizens and religious institutions, 1496 35 4.1 Ghent, Annual income of leased muddegeld in Ghent, 1489–1568 55 4.2 Annual income of leased zaemcoperie in Ghent, 1489–1568 55 4.3 Annual income of leased muddegeld and zaemcoperie in Ghent, 1489–1568 57 4.4 Annual net income of muddegeld and zaemcoperie in Ghent, 1489–1600 57 4.5 Total grain volume that yearly was supplied in Ghent, 1568–1600 59 4.6 Annual net income ‘old’ and ‘new’ grain tax in Ghent, 1500–1600 62 4.7 Annual income of ‘new’ grain tax in Ghent, 1540–1600 63 4.8 Share of the various valuation locations in the annual income of muddegeld and zaemcoperie in Ghent, 1568–1600 66 4.9 Share of the various town gates of Ghent, 1568–1583 69 4.10 Share of the various market boats arriving in Ghent, 1568–1583 70 4.11 Correlation between grain supply and grain prices in Ghent, 1568–1600 72 4.12 Price evolution of rye in Ghent and Antwerp, 1499–1600 76 4.13 Percentage of the annual wage an unskilled building worker of Ghent saved after purchase of the necessary quantity of rye for his family, 1500–1600 78 5.1 Grain transports through the Sound, 1562–1795 91 6.1 Difference in rye price averages; North Sea minus Baltic 1300–1900 105 6.2 Difference in wheat price averages; North Sea minus Baltic 1300–1900 105 6.3 Ratio of averaged rye prices; North Sea divided by Baltic 1520–1900 106 6.4 Ratio of averaged wheat prices; North Sea divided by Baltic 1520–1900 106 6.5 Wheat prices Bruges, Brussels and Louvain 1365–1550 109 6.6 Rye prices Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels and Louvain 1365–1550 110 6.7 Wheat prices Exeter and Southern England 1300–1550 110 6.8 A great galley before Rhodes and a two-masted carrack 113 6.9 A full-rigged ship 114 6.10 Town seal of Danzig showing a cog 115 6.11 River boats in Paris 117 6.12 A boyer with a complex rig 118 6.13 An una rig on boats near Dordrecht 119 7.1 Transportation system Brabant in 1780 125 7.2 Agricultural hinterlands of Brabant towns, early nineteenth century 128 7.3 Location of retail sector in Nijvel, 1796 129 7.4 Location of retail sector in Lier, 1796 130 7.5 Namen-Leuven: total transport volume, 1761–1788 132 7.6 Road transport volumes and grain market Leuven, 1761–1788 133 7.7 Traffic between Heverlee-Hamme and Hamme-Incourt on the road from Namen to Leuven, 1761–1788 133 viii

list of figures

7.8 Aggregate index of Brabantine road transportation volumes,1711–1790 7.9 Toll receipts from peripheral barriers as a percentage from barriers located close to towns 1777–1790 8.1 England’s exports of malt and barley, by country, 1743–63 8.2 England’s exports of wheat, by country, 1743–63 8.3 Wheat prices, England and Wales, 1693–1700 8.4 European wheat prices, 1700–89 9.1 Destinations of cereals exported from Sluis, 1693–1769 9.2 Price received for barley by farmers Van de Vijver and Becu, 1765–1769 9.3 Exporters of cereals, 1720–39 11.1 The Prussian Province Westphalia: its regions and counties,1865

135 135 145 146 148 153 163 166 167 194

List Of Tables   4.1 Income of leased muddegeld (decennial averages), Ghent 1489–1568   4.2 Income of leased zaemcoperie (decennial averages), Ghent 1489–1568   4.3 Evolution of the rates for muddegeld and zaemcoperie, Ghent 1486–1600   4.4  Total grain volume that was yearly supplied in Ghent and number of people that yearly could be fed with this quantity, Ghent 1568–1600   4.5 Tariff of the ‘new’ grain tax, Ghent 1540–1600   4.6 Net income of the ‘new’ grain tax (decennial averages), Ghent 1540–1598   4.7 Comparison between the Sound grain trade and the Ghent grain trade (annual averages), 1562–1600   4.8 Price of wheat in Ghent and Antwerp (decennial averages), 1499–1599   4.9 Price of rye in Ghent and Antwerp (decennial averages), 1499–1599   6.1 Wheat prices, 1260–1510. Pearson correlations between pairs of towns   6.2 Rye prices, 1260–1510. Pearson correlations between pairs of towns   7.1 Size of the urban markets for agricultural products in Brabant in 1813   8.1 Comparative wheat prices, Canterbury, Eton, and London bread equivalent, 1730–54 10.1 Total number of individuals involved in each occupational category, King’s Lynn, 1683–86 10.2 Percentage figures for the clothing, food, and building industries in Northhampton, Chichester, Exeter, York and Norwich, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 10.3 Members of occupational groups involved in the court as plaintiffs 10.4 Members of occupational groups involved in the court as defendants 11.1 Criteria for classifying regions in Westphalia 11.2 Regional agricultural net product around 1830 and 1880

54 54 58 60 62 63 65 75 76 111 111 136 150 175 176 181 182 193 195

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List of Tables

11.3 Regression functions for the districts’ net profit per acre of total area 1822/35 and 1841/65 11.4a Coefficients of determination (R-Squared Values) for grain prices 1790/99–1850/59 11.4b Average yearly variation coefficient of grain prices 1790–1850/59 11.5a Average variation coefficients and prices 1790–1880 11.5b Average difference of yearly prices within a decade in percent for the period 1790–1880 11.6 Correlation of peasant farm gate rye and wheat prices with average urban market prices in Westphalia 1810–1880 11.7 Average variation coefficients of monthly rye prices 1790–1879 11.8 Share of wheat and rye (in %) in the total amount of grain sold by eight Westphalian farms 1750–1889

x

196 201 202 203 204 209 210 211

0 Food supply, demand and trade. Aspects of the economic relationship between town and countryside (Middle Ages-nineteenth century) Book introduction Piet van Cruyningen, Wageningen University Erik Thoen, Ghent University

Following in the footsteps of Henri Pirenne, many historians of urban economics thought that it was cities that triggered economic development, without there being any important links with rural society; at most, cities would have dragged the countryside along in their progress.1 For others, cities had a positive influence on rural development and growth. Yet others saw them simply as parasites within the feudal society that grew out of changing rural structures; for many of these scholars, the countryside played a most important part in the development towards capitalism. These days, however, nobody underestimates the role of town-country relations in economic development. Such relations are at the core of economic history in many ways. Because the material is complex, it remains problematic to know how and to what extent they influenced development (as well as stagnation and de-urbanization in certain periods, since we know that development was not a straightforward phenomenon over the long term2). One of the main reasons is that urbanization of an area automatically generated an increased division of labour, a necessary precondition for specialization and development.3 Town-country relations indeed had a large influence on the labour market via both labour provision and the absorption of abundant skilled or unskilled labour, especially during periods of town emergence and urban growth. Even during periods of stability, uneven mortality rates meant that many towns had to import labour in order to maintain inhabitant numbers.4 For many rural societies, temporary migration to towns was an important part of the life cycle of rural households (viz. the many younger, unmarried peasants who went to towns as temporary domestic servants) (Caunce, 1997). 1 David Nicholas (1991) even considered the Flemish countryside as backward when the growth of Flemish towns took off in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (for a different opinion, see Thoen 1993). 2 In certain areas of Western Europe, the breakthrough of industrialization was preceded by de-urbanization in the eighteenth century. See, for example, van der Wee (1988). Furthermore de-urbanization did not necessarily hinder the development of the countryside (see Brusse, P. and Mijnhardt, W., 2011). 3 See, for example, Persson (2010). However, high urbanization ratios are not a sufficient factor for development (compare some highly urbanized areas in currently underdeveloped countries). 4 When mortality was higher in the towns, as was often the case in pre-industrial societies.

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Food supply, demand and trade

Town-country relations also affected commodity market structures in many ways. According to some, for example, rural demand from enriched power classes would thus have played a large part in urban development during the Middle Ages (see, for instance, Verhulst, 1999). Down the line, these relations came to influence other markets too, such as new credit markets and land markets, structures that, to a large extent, were linked to the property and power structures that affected or were affected by these relations. In areas where towns were abundant, indeed, much rural land came into the hands of urban classes, a process that started most notably in the thirteenth century, but whose rate of progress varied, depending on the region and the evolution of power structures. Besides the ­direct possession of landed property, however, other forms of (political and institutional) coercion of the surrounding countryside by towns influenced economic development too. According to S.R. Epstein, this evolution was a positive one. In his view, the most plausible reason why territorial coercion by towns showed positive returns to scale is that it gave urban elites the security and financial incentives to invest in the physical infrastructure (roads and military works) and in the institutional framework (law courts, unified measurements and co-ordinated tariffs) that were needed to lower the costs of town-county trade and to establish the town’s role as a service and manufacturing hub (S.R.Epstein, 2001:14).5 ­Others have been less positive about such relations and have focused on the negative impact on the countryside that stemmed from the increased tax burden consequent on the urban bourgeoisie especially renting out land via leasehold (instead of via customary rents). It is agreed that the production structures of towns changed as a result of relations with the surrounding countryside and that urbanization and trade also caused production structures in the countryside to change. Despite the importance of town-country relations for economic development, few general, in-depth or comparative studies exist on these topics. Often, moreover, a topic is only superficially studied for one particular test case or area. Too much, still, rural history and urban history are seen as separate fields. A well-known and still very valuable exception is the book Town and Country in Europe 1300-1800, edited by the late S.R. Epstein in 2001 that focused on particularly the politico-institutional links between town and country and their relationship with economic development. A special sub-theme that the series of studies presented in this book addresses is food-market structures, the provisioning of towns with food from the countryside. After all, whatever the necessary institutions and markets linking towns to the countryside to generate economic development were, every urbanization implied that the rural areas were producing enough (food) surpluses for the urban consumers. Some case-studies in this volume show how, between the Late Middle Ages and the end of the Ancien Regime, Western-European cities organized their food provisioning. Other studies look especially at how food markets and market regulations influenced farmers’ production strategies and rural production structures. The several articles in this volume dealing with the food-provisioning strategies of some of the major cities in the North Sea area – Antwerp (Limberger), Ghent (Dambruyne)

5 For many aspects of town-country property and power relations in Western Europe, see also B. van Bavel and R. Hoyle, 2010.

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Introduction: Food supply, demand and trade

and London (Keene and Galloway) – show that, from at least the Late Middle Ages, local supply was not sufficient for large cities, which consequently needed to access markets further afield. For most cities, long-distance trade in foodstuffs became more and more important. Many studies underline the role of the different authorities in facilitating imports, especially during years when food generally was in short supply (Keene, Dambruyne). In some cases, as in Ghent from the mid-fourteenth century on, supply was guaranteed to a certain degree by the establishment of a staple right, though this could not prevent high prices in the event of scarcity. Keene also underlines the moderate success of provision facilities for late medieval London, adding that providing facilities such as a public granary seems to have been driven less by the immediate necessity of solving the problems of food supply than by a wider concern for the standing of the city and for the ordering of its trade and public spaces. In the seventeenth century, Amsterdam was the dominant centre in the trade in Baltic grain, and it is the rise and fall of that city’s grain trade that is described in Van Tielhof’s article. Market integration was an important factor influencing the growth of long-distance trade in foodstuffs; obstacles to the free flow of goods, which underlies the concept of market integration, can be government intervention or high transportation costs; two articles in this volume deal with the relationship between transport costs and market integration. Unger discusses the influence of innovation in ship-building technique in the Later Middle Ages on European grain trade and market integration, and, for that period, sees no positive correlation between new ships and changes in the grain market. Blondé presents a more positive picture, analysing the relationship between the development of a network of paved roads and market integration in the duchy of Brabant during the eighteenth century. The study by Chartres also deals with market integration in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and focuses on the role and mechanisms of price-support systems for export from the country. This study shows among other things that, despite the importance of international trade on price formation, less than 3.5% of the net output between 1697 and 1765 was exported; indeed, other studies too, have shown that one may not overestimate pre-nineteenth-century trade volumes. However, this underlines all the more the importance of Amsterdam as trade centre for grain from the Baltic area in the seventeenth, given the large quantities of grain imports mentioned by Van Tielhof, who shows that this city lived almost completely from the long-distance importing of cereals in that period. According to some studies, the implications of food-provisioning relations with towns were simple for the producing countryside. Scholars such as Wrigley even thought that the urbanization rate was a good measure to evaluate and compare rural productivity (Wrigley, 1987). In other words, towns directly influenced agricultural productivity in the surrounding countryside in a parallel way. Others, such as the German agronomist Johann Heinrich Von Thünen, whose model is still popular, divided the countryside into zones, each of which practised a different branch of agriculture, depending on the distance from and the cost of transporting products to town. Studies in this book show that the influence of food markets on rural producers was much more complicated than the above-mentioned would suggest. Limberger’s contribution on the countryside around Antwerp shows that the economic, geographical and ­political reality was too complex to divide the countryside into neat zones providing specific products to the urban market. Many other studies in this volume show the importance of middlemen and hoymen as links with the producers. An interesting point about the

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Food supply, demand and trade

book is that several of these studies are based on scarce sources offering a window on the daily practices of trades and consumers. After all, markets are the result of the decisions of many individuals engaged in production, trade and consumption: farmers, middlemen (merchants, brokers, retailers) and consumers; by analysing the behaviour and strategies of these individuals, we gain more insight into the complex relationship between urban markets and commercial agriculture. This micro-approach is used in several contributions to this volume: for farmers, bargemen and corn brokers in the south-western Netherlands (Van Cruyningen); hoymen, merchants and distillers in England (Chartres); and retailers and consumers in King’s Lynn on the east coast of England (Muldrew). Considering these studies within especially a comparative perspective may give us a better insight into the complex ways in which towns and trade had various influences on the development of the countryside (and vice versa). As van Cruyningen shows, larger farms had completely different market relations with towns and traders than smallholdings, as they had much greater scope for speculation in obtaining the best prices. Within this context, it is worth mentioning the hypothesis that, due to trade growth and rising urban demand from the Late Middle Ages on, increasing price uniformity – an important topic in this book – must have had important consequences for not only consumers (especially in the towns), but also production structures in the countryside. Rural society had indeed to adapt to increasing price uniformity.6 Within that context, it is only logical that, in the long run, the development served to lower grain prices and that prices came to be largely determined by the producers with the lowest production costs (cf. areas such as those of the ‘second serfdom’ between the late fifteenth and the seventeenth century). It is easy to understand why - as local and regional production became more and more dissociated from prices on neighbouring markets (as shown in the present studies and also in others such as that of Tits-Dieuaide (1975) -smallholders increasingly gave up the production of basic foodstuffs and began specializing to a large extent in proto-industrial products or products such as dyes (as in Flanders from the thirteenth century) or dairy products (as in Holland from the mid-fifteenth century) or others. Since this happened especially in the neighbourhood of towns, it may have forced larger cities to look beyond their immediate hinterland for their provisioning and may have caused some regions, albeit situated in the immediate surroundings of large cities, to develop what is called a ‘commercial survival economy’ (Thoen, 2004). This may also contribute to the debate as to why Western Europe, despite its moves towards ‘divergence’ in the world economy, had few mega-towns in the pre-industrial period,7 although that is of course not the only reason for this phenomenon. In sum, this book provides much food for further thought, as well as avenues for a­ dditional research, even though it has been published much later than initially planned, practical obstacles having delayed its appearance, as unfortunately too often happens with collectively written studies. We apologize to the authors for this, but believe that, In certain rural areas, this may also have contributed to the late medieval crisis, since trade before the Later Middle Ages was to a large extent in the hands of landowners rather than of local farmers. 7 Even in the most densely populated areas of Europe, towns with more than 50 000 inhabitants were exceptions during the Ancien Regime. 6

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Introduction: Food supply, demand and trade

even though the final changes in most of the studies presented date from 2004, the book can be very useful as a reference point for comparison and as a trigger for new studies on the relations between town and countryside.

Bibliography Bavel, B.J.P. van and Hoyle, R.W. et al., eds. (2010) Social Relations. Property and Power (Rural Economy and Society in North-western Europe, 500–2000), CORN, Turnhout. Brusse, P. and Mijnhardt, W. (2011) Towards a new template for Dutch history. De-urbanization and the balance between city and countryside, Utrecht. Caunce, S., (1997) ‘Farm servants and the development of capitalism in English agriculture’, The Agricultural History Review, 65, pp. 49–60. Epstein, S.R. (2001) ‘Introduction. Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800’ in: S.R.Epstein, Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 1–29. Nicholas, D. (1991) ‘Of Poverty and Primacy. Demand, Liquidity and the Flemish Economic Miracle 1050–1200’, American Historical Review, 96, 1991, pp.17–41. Persson, K.G. (2010), An Economic History of Europe, Cambridge University Press. Thoen, E. (1993) ‘The count, the countryside and the economic development of the towns in Flanders from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. Some provisional remarks and hypotheses’ in: Studia Historica Oeconomica, Liber Amoricum Herman Van der Wee, pp. 259-278, Leuven. Thoen, E. (2004) ‘Social agrosystems’ as an economic concept to explain regional differences. An essay taking the former county of Flanders as an example (Middle Ages-19th century)’ in: B. J.P. van Bavel and P. Hoppenbrouwers, eds., Landholding and land transfer in the North Sea Area (Late Middle Ages-19th century), pp. 47–66. Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1975), La formation des prix céréaliers en Brabant et en Flandre au XVe siècle, Brussels, Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Verhulst, A. (1999), The rise of cities in north-west Europe, Cambridge University Press. Wee van der, H. (1988), ‘Industrial Dynamics and the Process of Urbanization and De-urbanization 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), Leuven University Press, pp. 333–407. Wrigley, E.A. (1987), People, cities and wealth, Oxford.

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1 Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts James A. Galloway, University of London I.

Background

The1 level of urbanisation in medieval England was low in comparison to more highly developed regions such as Flanders and northern Italy, with the most ­generous of recent estimates putting the proportion of town-dwellers at no more than 20% between the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries (Dyer, 1995). London constituted a uniquely large, concentrated and complex market for foodstuffs and fuel within England. The population of the city may have peaked at some 80,000 in the decades around 1300, before falling back to 40-50,000 in the later fourteenth century (Keene, 2000: 194–5). By contrast, few of England’s provincial towns reached populations of 20,000 during the course of the middle ages, and most were substantially smaller. The presence of many poor and middling inhabitants in London created a considerable demand for bread grains - both the favoured wheat and the cheaper rye and ryebased mixtures- and for barley, oats and dredge (an oats/barley mixture) for brewing into ale, plus the legumes used in pottage and which, with oats, were also made into ‘horsebread’ for the city’s large equine population. Fish and meat of all kinds were also consumed, frequently by the rich, more rarely by the poor, but undoubtedly by a larger section of the reduced population after 1349. Fuel was required for domestic heating, brewing, baking, and to supply the important metal-working, textile-finishing, building, pottery-making and other industries of the city, its suburbs and the immediate hinterland (Galloway and Murphy, 1991; Campbell et al., 1993: 9–11, 31–6; ­Galloway, Keene and Murphy, 1996: 447–8). The proximity of the centre of royal power at Westminster and the presence of many aristocratic and episcopal townhouses within London contributed to demand for high-quality produce, while parliaments sitting at Westminster Hall brought periodic influxes of aristocrats, gentry and burgesses, creating significant if short-term additions to the city’s needs for all types of food, animal fodder and fuel (Barron, 1995: 9; Barron, 2000: 427; Keene, 2000: 214). This paper explores the supply systems which had developed to meet these complex and varied needs by c.1300, the changes which followed the Black Death of 1349, and the responses of the city’s agrarian hinterland. It attempts to place that hinterland in its regional and international context, assessing the impact of economic, locational and environmental factors, and by so doing to address some apparently contradictory features of its development.

1

This paper was last revised in 2004.

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Food supply, demand and trade

Unlike many of its counterparts on the European mainland, London had only limited regulatory powers over the economic life of its rural hinterland. In the twelfth century its citizens enjoyed hunting rights in adjacent counties, and for many centuries the city possessed jurisdiction over an extensive stretch of the river Thames. This enabled Londoners to intervene in the activities of fishermen with the aim of conserving fish stocks, through restrictions on the times of the year at which certain species could be caught and through the regular inspection of nets, and the destruction of those found to be of too fine a gauge (eg. Cal Letter Book A: 185–8; Cal Letter Book F: 88, 99–100, 111,116, 195). Tolls were exacted from outsiders trading in London, while Londoners attempted to enforce their own right, contained in the Charter attributed to Henry I, to be toll-free ‘throughout England and the ports of the sea’ (Douglas and Greenaway, 1981: 1012–3). However, the city had little direct power over the regional trade in foodstuffs; no politically-dependent contado was obliged to bring its produce to London. Rival traders and markets could only be supressed within a very limited radius; three miles in the twelfth century, seven miles after 1327 (Liebermann, 1903: 673; Keene, 1989:103). London’s direct influence was thus largely restricted to quality-control. City officials examined the measures of capacity used for grain, charcoal and salt, regulated the weight of loaves the bakers might bake as the price of grain fluctuated, and checked the quality of meat, fish and other foodstuffs displayed in London markets, destroying putrid food or false measures and fining or otherwise punishing offenders (Murphy, 1995: 87–8; Campbell et al. 1993: 26, 199; Cal Letter Books: passim). In the absence of political control over an extensive territory London was obliged to rely principally upon the smooth operation of the dense network of markets established in England in the centuries before the Black Death. By the middle of the fourteenth century at least 2,000 places had obtained the right to hold either a market or a fair, or most commonly both, as lords sought to exploit a significant expansion of commercial activity.2 Urbanisation levels increased markedly between the later-11th and the late-13th centuries, and the volume of coin in circulation appears to have risen many times faster than the population over the same period (Britnell, 1995; Mayhew, 1995: 62, 72). The seigneurial class participated in the growth of trade through the marketing of agrarian produce from their directly-managed manorial demesnes in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, selling on average 39 per cent by value of all available grain (after the deduction of seed-corn and tithe) from a sample of demesnes in the counties around London c.1300 and 37 per cent from a similar sample at the end of the fourteenth century (Campbell, 2000: 216–7). Grain paid to the church as tithe was almost all subsequently sold, and so the proportion of net yields sold from demesne lands must have approached 50 per cent. The peasantry were also closely engaged in this commercial economy. As the tax-burden grew under Edward I and his successors they were increasingly obliged to orient their production to the market, selling produce in local towns and villages where they could also A major study of medieval English markets and fairs has been undertaken at the Centre for Metropolitan History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, during the research project ‘Markets and fairs in England and Wales to AD 1540’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Award No R000237395). The principal product of the research is a Gazetteer of markets and fairs, compiled by Dr Samantha Letters, which can be consulted online at http:// www.history.ac.uk/cmh/gaz/gazweb2.html.

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Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts

purchase a limited range of processed foods and manufactures (Maddicott, 1987; Dyer, 1989a). Court litigation and other evidence confirms that a large proportion of the trade in local markets involved foodstuffs, often in small quantities, although some strategically located towns had emerged by the thirteenth century as nodes in regional supply systems, handling bulk consignments destined for London and elsewhere. Commercialisation of the pastoral sector of the agrarian economy, although more difficult to measure, appears to have progressed in parallel. By the late fourteenth century sales of animals, animal products and herbage had come to represent 47 per cent of gross demesne income from agrarian sources in the London region (Campbell, 2000: 184–5). Foodstuffs, and more particularly fuels, were relatively expensive to transport overland in the medieval period, despite the existence of an extensive and fairly well-maintained road network. While the cost of transporting wheat 10 miles (16km) overland represented around 4 to 5% of its sale price in London in an average year in the early fourteenth century a similar journey with firewood cost around 50% of the average sale price. Water transport costs varied greatly with the routes adopted, and the greater or lesser degree of obstruction of rivers. Coastal journeys could be ten or more times cheaper than equivalent overland haulage, but on inland watercourses the ratio might fall to 2 or 3:1 (Campbell et al., 1993: 193–8; Galloway, Keene and Murphy, 1996: 457). Consequently, the ­primary role in supplying London and similarly located large cities was always inclined to fall upon the more immediate hinterland, and especially upon those localities which had ready access to navigable water. Nevertheless, it is impossible fully to understand the nature and organisation of London’s supply systems, and the extent of the city’s impact upon the agrarian system of its hinterland, without a consideration of the wider regional, national and international contexts within which that hinterland existed.

II. Grain While the routine supply system for grain operated largely within and adjacent to the fully navigable section of the Thames valley and estuary (see Figure 1.1),3 recourse to more distant parts of England, and to sources of supply from the northern and north-western European mainland, were by no means rare. References to imports of grain are naturally most prominent in periods of acute scarcity such as 1258 and the famine years of 1315–18, but the integration of the London region into an embryonic European market appears to go further than this. By the 1280s Hanse merchants seem regularly to have warehoused and sold grain in London, although the sources of that grain are not certain. Similarly, merchants from Picardy, and especially Amiens, were active in the London grain trade from at least as early as the 1230s. However, it seems clear that England was normally a net exporter rather than an importer of grain in the period before the Black Death, with trade focusing upon the ports of the Wash, notably Lynn, and those of eastern Kent rather than on London itself which, so far as surviving customs records indicate, normally saw only small quantities directly exported or imported. Demand from the towns of the Low Countries may have been at least as important as that The location map includes the historic (pre-1974) counties of England. I am grateful to Professor Marjorie MacIntosh of the University of Colarado for permission to use and modify her digitised base-map of historic county boundaries. The boundaries shown are approximate only.

3

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Food supply, demand and trade

Figure 1.1 Location map - metropolitan food and fuel supply medieval England

of London and smaller English urban centres in stimulating the emergence of progressive and relatively high-yielding agricultural regimes in parts of Norfolk and the eastern half of Kent, characterised by more intensive manuring, widespread cultivation of legumes, and the virtual elimination of fallowing; these were among the few locations in pre-Black Death England which could match the productivity levels attained in parts of Flanders at the same period (Campbell et al., 1993: 27, 90, 125ff; Campbell, 1995: 81, 100).

10

Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts

Eastern Kent appears by c.1300 to have fallen within London’s routine supply zone for grain, linked via the ports of Faversham and Sandwich, but Norfolk seems to have remained on the fringes of that zone, drawn upon before 1350 only when prices exceeded a certain level. It thus seems that Yarmouth may have been drawn upon by London approximately once every six years at this period, and Lynn every nine years, whereas Faversham was probably supplying London every year. In cost-distance terms the Norfolk coast was closer to Zeeland and Flanders than it was to London (Campbell et al., 1993: 69–71). Nevertheless, the presence of an established surplus-producing region, with a well-developed mercantile organisation, just beyond London’s routine supply hinterland, seems to have exerted an important influence upon both the city and the rural hinterland itself. When the price trigger was activated London merchants could buy into a system which was normally geared to other markets. This ready availability of supplies from supplementary sources may have limited the impetus to invest in improving the productivity of London’s more immediate arable hinterland. The routine supply zone was largely restricted to areas within some 30–35km of fully navigable stretches of the Thames valley and estuary (see Figure 1.1), in a band stretching from the southern half of Oxfordshire and eastern Berkshire to south-east Essex and northeast Kent. This is the area within which the city’s cornmongers were most active, with particularly strong associations evident with the towns of Henley in Oxfordshire, where the Londoners owned granaries and beyond which costs of navigation on the Thames increased sharply, and Faversham in Kent (Campbell et al., 1993: 46ff). As we would expect, the market here appears to have been quite well integrated, with price gradients declining to the east and particularly to the west (up-river) of London (Galloway, 2000: 28–30). Petty producers and traders whose costs, interests and perceptions of the market doubtless differed from those of the large-scale corn-dealers, may have tended to draw slightly more distant inland areas into the city’s supply zone, as on occasion did those magnate consumers who brought produce from their own estates for consumption in London. In general, however, the costs of transport seem to have restricted the core supply zone to the areas indicated. While a Von Thünen-like tendency towards market-responsive specialisation and zoning of grain production can be discerned within this zone in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries - rye and oats were grown most widely in areas closest to the city and the river, wheat and malting barley dominated somewhat further away - there is little evidence for intensivity-zoning of arable farming, and overall yield levels remained low. Within the demesne sector, the mean yields of wheat, oats and barley in ten counties around London were 8.8, 7.4, and 13.4 bushels per acre, net of seed, respectively (7.7, 6.4 and 11.7 hl per ha) (Campbell et al., 1993: 40). Even these low averages conceal how extensive and unproductive arable husbandry was in most of the region which supplied London with grain, as they incorporate data from i) some highly productive demesnes in eastern Kent which, as already noted, was under the combined influence of London and overseas markets, and where yields double the average could be obtained and ii) another productive area of arable farming in Northamptonshire which almost certainly lay outside the city’s routine supply zone. By contrast, in some parts of Hertfordshire which we know to have fed London net yields of wheat struggled to reach an average of 7 bushels per acre (6.1 hl per ha) c.1300 (Campbell et al., 1993: 126). Clearly, the direct stimulus of the London market was not sufficient on its own to promote intensive cultivation in the hinterland when other accessible, surplus- producing regions were

11

Food supply, demand and trade

capable of meeting and profiting from the city’s needs in high-price and crisis years; London was not a ‘captive market’ for its rural hinterland. After the Black Death arable husbandry in the counties around London became, if anything, less intensive as aggregate demand contracted (Campbell, 2000: 333–5). A notable decline in the intensivity of cultivation in the productive parts of eastern Kent and Norfolk may reflect a diminuition of urban markets both within England and abroad. The immediate post-plague period also saw some disruption of London’s established supply networks, reflected in a decline in the stability of price gradients within the Thames valley (Galloway, 2000: 31–3). During the 1350s Londoners had unusually frequent recourse to supplementary sources of supply in Norfolk and, more unusually, to more distant parts of eastern England, including Lincolnshire, the Humber estuary and beyond. London merchants and others acquired licences to bring grain from these areas virtually every year during the 1350s, and the quantities involved were often substantial. In February 1356, for example, licences were granted to John Lovekyn, a London citizen, and Robert Gosson, of Kelby in Lincolnshire, to obtain 400 quarters and 1000 quarters of grain respectively at Barton and Grimsby, both ports on the Humber, and to ship them to London for sale (CPR 1354–8: 338). Imports may also have been higher than average in these years but are difficult to document due to the deficiencies of the customs records and because importing grain required no licence, unlike exporting. However, the occurrence of licences to re-export grain to Holland, Zeeland and elsewhere in the 1350s show that some importation was occurring, and suggest that the relation between prices in England and the other countries was unstable at this period (Galloway, 2000: 33). A longer-term tendency for London to depend more on grain from distant sources may have been set in train at this time. During a period of scarcity in February 1391, the Londoners noted that prices in their city were less elevated than those in other parts of England and attributed this to the bringing of wheat “from distant foreign parts”, which may reflect both a general increase in imports and the beginning of more regular contacts with the Baltic (CalP&MR 1381–1412: 174–5). It seems probable, however, that most of these additional supplies had been brought from within England, as numerous licences to ship grain, especially from the ports of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, had been granted between October 1390 and January 1391 (CPR 1388–92: 306–11, 374–5). The scale and structure of the coastal grain trade within England requires further exploration, as the evidence so far available is far from clear-cut; thus, it seems from an analysis of price data that a quite well-integrated coastal wheat market which linked London and southwestern England before the Black Death largely broke down after mid-century, and more particularly after c.1360 (Galloway 2000: 37–9). It may thus be that increasing evidence for the seeking out of distant supplies, and the more frequent granting of licences to ship grain, reflects a decline in overall integration levels, and a deprofessionalisation of the wheat trade, as aggregate demand declined (see below). An excessive scholarly concentration on wheat and other bread grains is even less justifiable after than before the Black Death. In London, as elsewhere, there is evidence for a significant shift in the structure of demand for grains after 1350, and an accompanying shift in the patterns of arable production within its hinterland. It seems likely that the per caput consumption of grain in the city may have increased from the c.1.65 quarters per head estimated for c.1300, of which one-quarter consisted of brewing grains, to ­something

12

Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts

a­ pproaching the figures calculated for his city by an early-sixteenth century mayor of Coventry, viz. 2.2 quarters per head, of which over one-half comprised brewing grains (Harris 1907–9: 674–5). Certainly, by 1381 ale seems to have been regarded as an essential component of the diet of the poor within London (Galloway, 1998: 95–6). In the hinterland, cultivation of barley and dredge, the principal grains used for malting and brewing, expanded notably from 20 to 32% of the sown demesne acreage between the beginning and end of the fourteenth century, and as a proportion of the grain sold by demesnes, malted or unmalted, these crops increased from 29 to 49% (Galloway, 1995: 31–2; Galloway 1998: 97–9). This growing significance of the brewing grains in commercial exchange is also reflected in urban and rural court records, where barley and malt often emerge as the most common subjects of debt litigation by c.1400. A strengthening of relations between London and East Anglia - a major producer of barley - might be expected to have accompanied this shift in patterns of trade and consumption, and there are indeed some indications that this took place, although that region’s incorporation into the capital’s routine supply system does not appear to have taken place until after 1600. The most striking result seems to have been a strong increase in barley cultivation in areas around 40–70km from London, especially to the north and north-west, in Bedfordshire, north Hertfordshire and adjacent areas, and the rise of an overland trade in malt, based upon a number of small towns in and to the south of this zone. This trade, conducted by specialised dealers known as maltmen, comes to prominence at just the time when specialised London cornmongers, the core of whose business pre-1350 had lain in wheat, seem to have been losing their identity as a distinctive group within the city, the organisation of bulk shipments of wheat being increasingly handled by other mercantile groups (Galloway 1995: 28–9, 32–3; Galloway 1998: 98–100).

III. The Pastoral Sector A decisive shift also took place after 1349 in the balance between arable and pastoral land-uses, and once again urban demand appears to have exerted a key influence upon the spatial articulation of a general economic trend (Galloway, 2001: 115–6). There was an overall shrinkage of the market for grain, only partly offset by the growth in ale consumption, while the per caput and perhaps overall demand for meat and animal products grew as living standards improved (Dyer, 1989: 158–9). The market for English wool remained generally buoyant, a decline in the export of raw wool after mid-century being more than offset by the requirements of the expanding domestic woollen textile industry. Similarly, a decline in the number of hides exported from England probably reflects increased domestic manufacture and consumption of leather goods rather than any contraction of total output. Buoyant demand for pastoral products allied to a reduced overall market for grain prompted a contraction in the acreage under crops, and an expansion of pasture. Demesne sown acreages contracted by some 20 to 25 per cent during the course of the fourteenth century, while animal numbers increased by a similar factor, and stocking densities (measured against the sown acreage) rose by between 50 and 70 per cent (Campbell, 2000: 172–8). Mixed sheep-corn husbandry expanded notably in parts of midland and southern England, areas which were ecologically well-suited to this type of farming, and which were well-placed to respond to the changing demands of London and the numerous

13

Food supply, demand and trade

small and medium-sized local towns. A significant expansion of the area under grass took place in the midland county of Warwickshire between the mid-fourteenth and the laterfifteenth centuries. The trend is evident both in areas which had been almost exclusively arable at the earlier date and in the more wooded Arden region. Warwickshire towns such as Birmingham and Coventry appear to have become increasingly important as livestock markets at just this period, catering to the needs of both local buyers and sellers and the commercial drovers who brought Welsh cattle into the region to fatten before selling them on (Dyer, 1981: 10, 20; Holt, 1985). These midland towns were linked by drove routes to the rearing areas of north Wales and Cheshire, and to the metropolitan market. Both commercial and non-commercial livestock-related connections between London and distant parts of England and Wales are documented in London and national sources. Animals for consumption in royal and aristocratic households had been brought to London from Cheshire in the thirteenth century, and from north Wales in the mid-fourteenth. A London butcher purchased livestock in the city’s Smithfield market from a Cheshire man in the 1360s,4 and, while this may not have been typical, commercial droving links with the midland counties of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire were certainly well-established by the end of the fourteenth century, and perhaps much earlier (Galloway, 1999: 94–5). Closer to London, fairs at Uxbridge, Chertsey, Chelmsford, Stortford and other similar locations handled a significant trade in livestock after the Black Death and seem likely to have played an important role in supplying the capital, as they were to do in later centuries. Fattening of cattle took place in some areas close or immediately adjacent to the city and was already a prominent feature by the later thirteenth century, resulting in notably high valuations of grassland (Galloway and Murphy, 1991: 9–10).

IV. Fuel Of all the supplies required by a major preindustrial city, fuel was perhaps the one in which constraints of cost and distance were most critical. Even here, however, understanding of the hinterland supply system is enhanced by a consideration of regional, national and international contexts. Aggregate demand was considerable; making bread and ale required considerable quantities of fuel to fire ovens and heat brewing vats, while other forms of cooking, and the many industrial processes carried out in the city and suburbs, all added to the total, as did domestic heating which increased in importance in the later Middle Ages as standards of comfort increased. In total, London may have required some 140,000 tons of fuel wood in 1300 and perhaps 90,000 tons a century later. Much of the requirement naturally fell upon the immediate hinterland, where the accessible woods of Middlesex and Surrey were highly valued and intensively managed. This part of England contained an above average proportion of woodland - around 20% of the land area c.1350 compared to a national average of 10% - partly due to environmental factors, but partly, it seems clear, because the woods were being preserved and managed in a sustainable manner to provide a self-renewing source of fuel and timber for London and other southern markets (Galloway, Keene & Murphy, 1996: 457).

4

Corporation of London Record Office, Mayor’s Court Bills, MC1/1/169.

14

Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts

The accessible woods of south-eastern England - in Middlesex, Surrey, parts of the southern Chiltern Hills, coastal Kent and Essex - were managed on variable coppicing cycles to produce the large quantities of faggots and bavins (bundles of rods or sticks tied by one or more band) and the larger dimension billets and talwood (small logs) required in London for baking, brewing and heating. The predominance in medieval woods of short cropping cycles - usually no more than ten years, but sometimes as short as four or five years - indicates the bias of demand towards firewood production. The modern distribution of woodland species may also partly reflect the predominance of demand for firewood at earlier periods. Thus hornbeam, which coppices well and the commercial uses of which are almost entirely restricted to firewood and charcoal-making, is prominent in many of the ancient woods of the London area, including those of southern Essex and parts of Hertfordshire and Middlesex (Rackham, 1986: 40). While environmental factors seem to be primarily responsible for this distribution, woodland management practices in an area of concentrated firewood demand may have disproportionately favoured the survival of hornbeam woods. Manorial demesnes at such places as Hampstead, Hendon, Edgeware and Acton in Middlesex generated sizeable income each year from the sale of faggots, while charcoal, used in a variety of industrial processes and for heating, was brought overland by packhorse from locations up to c.40km from London. As a processed fuel, it was more valuable relative to its bulk than was wood, and could hence economically be carried further, in the same way that malt could sustain longer transport to market than raw grain. Specialised London woodmongers were active within the Thames valley, and made much use of river transport, bringing supplies from western Surrey and the southern Chiltern Hills via river ports like Henley, Marlow and Kingston (Murphy, 1995: 93–4). Much of the extensive woodlands of the Kentish and Sussex Weald were inaccessible to London, given the high cost of transporting bulky wood overland, and the relative expense of the sea journey around the north foreland of Kent from the south coast. Some supplies from this region reached the capital via Maidstone and the river Medway, and the Wealden woods were home to an iron industry which supplied London’s metal trades (Cleere and Crossley, 1985), but perhaps more important as a commercial outlet for the Wealden woods were the fuel-hungry towns of the Low Countries, to which they regularly sent large quantities of billets and other types of firewood via the river Rother and the port of Winchelsea. Men of ‘France, Flanders, Zealand and Eastland’ as well as of England were enumerated among the purchasers of fuel-wood at Winchelsea prior to 1357, and the export trade was still active in the 1390s (Galloway, Keene and Murphy, 1996: 467). Whereas there is little to suggest that London’s routine grain supply system had been under particular strain at the period of the city’s maximum medieval population c.1300, the same may not be true of fuel. Prices of faggots and other types of firewood seem to have increased much more rapidly than those of grain, with a doubling taking place in the prices obtained by the manor of Hampstead, 8km from London, in the late 1280s and early 1290s. Similar if less dramatic increases are evident in other parts of the city’s immediate hinterland in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. By contrast the price of coal rose much less rapidly, which presumably encouraged an increase in its consumption (Galloway, Keene and Murphy, 1996: 449). Coal was brought to London by sea from north-eastern England (hence its common name of ‘sea-coal’) and since the twelfth century it had occupied a niche in the London fuel market for blacksmiths and other industrial 15

Food supply, demand and trade

consumers. London also acted as a centre for re-export; prior to January 1370 three London merchants sold to Simon Corder, merchant of St Valery in Picardy, 1600 chalders of Newcastle coal, the purchaser being bound by a bond for £525 (CalP&MR 1364–81: 246). While firewood was plentiful, widespread use of coal within London was resisted, as its smoke was considered noxious. An ordinance passed before 1299 banned night-working by the smiths ‘propter putridinem carbonis marine’ (CalP&MR 1298–1307: 34). Rising firewood prices must have stimulated increased coal consumption, but the population collapse of the mid-fourteenth century averted a wholesale switch of fuels for over two centuries. When during the sixteenth century the city regained and then greatly exceeded the levels of population which it had attained c.1300, coal came to displace wood as the principal source of domestic as well as industrial fuel. Without easy and cheap watertransport links, enabling coal to be brought in great volume from north-eastern England, it must be doubtful whether the phenomenally rapid growth of early modern London could have taken place without placing extreme strain on the wood-fuel supply system, or perhaps displacing the crisis into the area of food production, as may have happened in the hinterland of Paris, where large areas of land remained under wood. By contrast, in the vicinity of London in the later sixteenth century many of the formerly highly-prized and carefully-managed woods were being cut down for grazing, tillage and horticulture; as a resource they had become devalued by the switch to a cheaper and ­(apparently) infinitely-expandable fuel supply (Galloway, Keene and Murphy 1996: 468–9).

V. Conclusions London’s accessibility to both domestic and key continental markets via the Thames was a major factor in its emergence as England’s economic metropolis, the conduit through which an extraordinarily high proportion of the country’s overseas commerce was channeled by the later Middle Ages (Barron, 2000: 412–25). The same factor may help to explain the patchy and ambivalent impact of the city’s demands upon its agrarian hinterland. It was comparatively inexpensive for London - in comparison with, say, Paris to bring in supplies of grain from a distance, via the Thames estuary and the coast, when local harvests fell short. Initially such grain shipments supplemented the production of the Thames valley, although ultimately, in the post-medieval period, they would become a routine component of supply. This factor, together with the absence of other large cities in southern England, may have tended to limit the intensification of arable production in London’s immediate hinterland until at least as late as the sixteenth century. As London’s population began to grow rapidly once more in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, soon far outstripping its medieval peak, the stimulus to local agriculture became more intense and consistent, and arable yields in accessible counties such as Hertfordshire may then have begun to surpass their rather dismal medieval levels (Galloway, 2001: 128). The emergence of specialised livestock fairs and an associated development of commercial cattle-droving, bolstered in post-Black Death England by a decisive shift towards the pastoral sector, meant that London could readily obtain the supplies of animals and animal products it required as foodstuffs and as raw materials for industry. Only the fuel supply seems to have had the potential to constrain London’s development. The city was fuelled principally by the production of a significant but not vast extent of well-managed woodland in adjacent counties, a system which was beginning to exhibit signs of strain 16

Metropolitan food and fuel supply in medieval England: regional and international contexts

in the later thirteenth century. However, here again the presence of accessible alternative supplies from a distance limited pressure upon the local system. Had the plague not intervened it seems likely that London would have been obliged to switch to coal as a routine domestic fuel as well as a specialised industrial one, despite the apparent distaste for its polluting qualities. In the event that switch was delayed until the later sixteenth century. As an externally-oriented metropolis as well as a national and regional centre of production and consumption, London was able to thrive during the Middle Ages without provoking significant economic or ecological crises within its rural hinterland. By the same token, there were clear limits on the city’s ability to stimulate specialisation and intensification of production within that hinterland before the later sixteenth century.

Bibliography Barron, C.M. (1995) ‘Centres of conspicuous consumption: the aristocratic townhouse in London 1200 –1550’, London Journal, 20, pp. 1–16. Barron, C.M. (2000) ‘London 1300–1540’ in D.M.Palliser (ed.), Cambridge urban history of Britain, vol I, 600–1540 (Cambridge), pp. 395–440. Britnell, R.H. (1995) ‘Commercialisation and economic development in England, 1000–1300’, in: idem. and B.M.S. Campbell (eds.), A commercialising economy: England 1086-c.1300 (Manchester), pp. 7–26. Cal Letter Books - R.R. Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of the Letter-Books preserved among the archives of the Corporation of London at the Guildhall, Letter-Books A - L (London, 1899–1912). Cal P&MR - A.H. Thomas and P.E. Jones (eds.) Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls preserved among the archives of the Corporation of London at the Guildhall (Cambridge, 1924–61). CPR - Calendar of Patent Rolls (London, 1892 onwards). Campbell, B.M.S. (1995) ‘Ecology versus economics in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English agriculture’, in: D.Sweeney, (ed.), Agriculture in the Middle Ages: technology, practice and representation (Philadelphia), pp. 76–110. Campbell, B.M.S. (2000) English seigniorial agriculture 1250–1450 (Cambridge). Campbell, B.M.S., Galloway, J.A., Keene, D. and Murphy, M. (1993) A Medieval capital and its grain supply: agrarian production and distribution in the London region c.1300 (Historical Geography Research Group, Research Series no. 30). Cleere, H., and D. Crossley (1985) The iron industry of the Weald (Leicester). Douglas, D.C., and G.W. Greenaway (eds.) (1981) English historical documents, 1042–1189 (London). Dyer, C. (1981) Warwickshire farming 1349-c.1520. Preparations for agricultural revolution, Dugdale Society Occasional Papers no. 27. Dyer, C. (1989a) ‘The consumer and the market in the later middle ages’, Econ. Hist. Review 2nd ser. 42, pp. 305–26. Dyer, C. (1989b) Standards of living in the Later Middle Ages. Social change in England c.1200–1500 (Cambridge). 17

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Dyer, C. (1995) ‘How urbanised was medieval England?’, in: J.-M. Duvosquel and E. Thoen, (eds.), Peasants & townsmen in Medieval Europe: Studia in Honorem Adriaan Verhulst (Gent), pp.169–83. Galloway, J.A. (1995) ‘London’s grain supply: changes in production, distribution, and consumption during the 14th century’, Franco-British Studies, 20, pp. 23–34. Galloway, J.A. (1998) ‘Driven by drink? Ale consumption and the agrarian economy of the London region c.1300–1400’ in: M. Carlin and J. Rosenthal (eds.), Food and eating in Medieval Society (London and Rio Grande), pp. 87–100. Galloway, J.A. (1999) ‘Metropolitan market networks: London and its agrarian hinterland in the later middle ages’, London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Transactions, 50, pp. 91–7. Galloway, J.A. (2000) ‘One market or many? London and the grain trade of England’, in: idem. (ed.), Trade, urban hinterlands and market integration 1300–1600, Centre for Metropolitan History, Working Paper Series no 3 (London), pp. 23–42. Galloway, J.A. (2001) ‘Town and country in England 1300–1570’, in: S.R. Epstein (ed.), Town and country in Europe, 1300–1800 (Cambridge), pp. 106–30. Galloway, J.A., and M. Murphy (1991) ‘Feeding the city: medieval London and its agrarian hinterland’, London Journal, 16, pp. 3–14. Galloway, J.A., D. Keene and M. Murphy (1996) ‘Fuelling the city: production and distribution of firewood and fuel in London’s region, 1290–1400’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 49, pp. 447–72. Harris, M.D. (ed.) (1907–9) The Coventry Leet Book (Early English Text Society). Holt, R.H. (1985) The early history of the town of Birmingham, 1166–1600, Dugdale Society Occasional Papers no. 30. Keene, D. (2000) ‘London from the post-Roman period to 1300’ in: D.M. Palliser (ed.) Cambridge urban history, I, pp. 187–216. Liebermann, F. (ed.) (1903) Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i, (Halle). Maddicott, J.R. (1987) ‘The English peasantry and the demands of the Crown 1294–1341’, in: T.H.Aston (ed.), Landlords, peasants and politics in Medieval England (Cambridge), pp. 285–360. Mayhew, N.J. (1995) ‘Modelling medieval monetisation’, in: Britnell and Campbell (eds.), Commercialising Economy, pp. 55–76. Murphy, M. (1995) ‘The fuel supply of medieval London, 1300–1400’, Franco-British Studies, 20, pp. 85–96. Rackham, O. (1986) The ancient woodland of England: the woods of South-East Essex, (Rochford).

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2 Crisis management in London’s food supply, 1250–1500 Derek Keene, University of London I.

Episodes of crisis

Grain1 contributed 70 per cent or more of the calorific requirement of the average medieval Londoner, who consumed it principally as bread and ale (Campbell et al., 1993: 31–6). Fluctuations in London grain prices and especially those of wheat, the premier grain, are relatively well recorded from about 1280 onwards and provide an indication of those years when food generally was in short supply in the city. Plotting the Autumn prices (Figure 2.1) reveals that short-term fluctuations were considerable, but that the years 1315–17 and 1438–40 were outstanding as periods of crisis in food supply. In addition, during the two decades following the Black Death of 1348–9 prices were generally high, with a notable peak in 1370 which, however, is indicated only by the single price recorded for that year. Thereafter, prices fell and remained generally at a low level into the sixteenth century, with periodic years of relative shortage. One of those years was 1391, when special measures were taken in London and elsewhere. Although apparently not as serious as the high-price years of the early fifteenth century, the shortage of 1391 followed twenty years of generally falling prices and so may have been perceived as especially critical. Moreover, the authorities had recently experienced the ‘Peasants’ Revolt’ of 1381 and were sensitive to potential threats to public order. Chroniclers had noted the year 1258 as one of severe dearth, with particular reference to London. By comparing the highest price which they record for that year with the highest prices for later crisis years (Figure 2.1), it appears that 1258 witnessed one of three most serious crisis episodes in the food supply of London and its vicinity between the mid thirteenth and the late fifteenth century. Chroniclers’ coverage of London during these centuries is far from even, but all three episodes were recognised by contemporary writers on the city as serious events. The most disastrous of them was probably that of 1315–17, noted at the time as the worst dearth for a century (Denholm-Young, 1957: 69–70). This was probably because the crisis was precipitated very rapidly by bad weather in the spring of 1315 and because it ate most deeply into such reserves as there were. In those years famine affected much of northern Europe (Jordan, 1996). Many people died of starvation and disease. Population totals in districts near London fell sharply and there are similar, though less readily quantifiable, This paper is a version of that given at the CORN conference in 1999, revised soon after the c­ onference.  The study was subsequently extended and published as: Derek Keene, ‘Crisis management in London’s food supply’, in B. Dodds and C. D. Liddy, eds., Commercial Activity, Markets and Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Richard Britnell (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 45–62.

1

19

Food supply, demand and trade

Figure 2.1 London wheat prices and wages, c.1280–1500

The year runs from 30 September to 29 September in the stated year. Where possible, October prices are given. Up to 1370 most prices are derived from the records of the city’s assize of bread (see note 1), which usually provides an October price. For missing years, and for the years 1370–1400, prices are sale prices from accounts for manors close to London. Fifteenth-century prices concern purchases made close to the city by Westminster Abbey, and have been derived from the papers of the late David Farmer, held in the Archives of the University of Saskatchewan, ref. MG 145, III.C.5. The ‘highest prices’ for 1315–16 and 1322 are derived from the assize of bread, and those for 1258 and 1440 from chronicles (Luard, 1880: 701. Thomas and Thornley, 1938: 174). The wage index is based on late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century wage payments recorded in accounts for repairs to houses in London belonging to London Bridge (Corporation of London Records Office). Between the late thirteenth and the late fourteenth century the index is derived from a national index (Phelps Brown and Hopkins, 1955) adjusted upwards so as to match the London rates, as indicated by the period of overlap during the fifteenth century. For the mid thirteenth century the index is based on payments to craftsmen employed on royal works at Westminster (Colvin, 1971: 12), adjusted downwards so as to indicate the standard London rates, which in later periods were consistently lower than those paid for royal works.

20

Crisis management in London’s food supply, 1250–1500

indications for the city itself (Keene, 1985b: 19–20. Poos, 1985). London wheat prices reached similar absolute levels in 1439–40, although by then the general standard of living had risen, as the index of craftsmen’s wages shows (Figure 2.1). That crisis was presumably less severe than the one of 1315–17, since in the fifteenth century a higher proportion of the populace would have owned possessions capable of being converted into cash with which to purchase food. Nevertheless, the late 1430s witnessed three years of notably poor harvests and livestock mortality, which would have appeared the worse to contemporaries since they followed a period in which corn prices had been relatively low (Hatcher 1996: 246). In 1258 wage levels were much lower than during the later episodes: in its severity the city’s crisis of that year probably exceeded that of the 1430s and may have approached that of 1315–17. Chroniclers do not tell us much of London’s particular experience during the two later crises, but accounts of 1258 reveal classic features of metropolitan famine (Luard, 1869: 118. Luard, 1880: 673, 690, 693, 701, 710–12, 728; Stapleton, 1846: 37. Stubbs, 1882: 49–51). Some allowance should be made for rhetorical effect, but unlike some contemporary descriptions of the famine of 1315–17 those of 1258 do not recycle Biblical episodes by way of embellishment (Marvin, 1998). The incipient disaster was revealed about March 1258, when it was apparent that corn was not growing in three counties. These counties were probably close to London, since the principal report was from a well-informed writer based only a day or two’s journey from the capital. Men flowed from the countryside to the city in search of food, and died there in thousands: one account mentions 15,000 dead in London, probably an exaggerated figure. The dead were to be found everywhere, in the muddy streets, in doorways and on dunghills. Trenches were dug in the cemeteries for use as mass graves. The greatest mortality appears to have been in early summer, when there was an outbreak of disease. Much of the harvest was lost on account of bad weather. The citizens of London, like many people elsewhere, participated in solemn fasts and processions in the hope of a good harvest. In the ­attempt to cope with shortage, people sold their possessions and reduced their households. This paper examines responses to these crises in what was by far the largest and economically the most dynamic city in the realm. London was also the principle seat of power, and a metropolis in more or less the modern sense of that term. Those responses involved action by the citizens of London themselves as an administrative authority, by royal government and by powerful individuals close to the king. The nature of the response is also explored through evidence concerning some of the lesser crisis episodes. An important theme to emerge concerns the developing will and capacity of the citizens to take collective action in dealing with such emergencies. As we shall see, however, their responses seem to have been driven only partly by the need to supply fellow ­Londoners with food.

II. London’s food supply: city and state in the management of crises London’s situation in relation to its food supply was different from that of many ­ ontinental cities of comparable size. It lay within a relatively extensive and highly cenC tralised realm, where no other city approached it in size. Yet, despite its wealth and power,

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the city’s territorial powers were weak, and the collective rule of the citizens extended only a few hundred metres beyond the city wall. Not until 1327 did Londoners acquire an explicit right to suppress markets in the vicinity of their city, and then only within 11.2 km (7 miles), hardly more than the standard interval between markets over much of the country (Birch 1887: 58). Their economic muscle, rather than any legal privilege, gave them influence in the more distant markets through which food was supplied to London, but they could not establish any form of staple right (Campbell et al. 1993: 46–53, 84–7, 91–101, 103). That level of control lay with the royal government, which at various times when harvests fell short (and sometimes for other reasons, as in times of war) forbade the export of corn from the realm, a practice documented from the twelfth century onwards (Gras, 1926: 210–17). London was not normally exposed to the risk of its food supply coming under the control of a hostile power. Consequently, the citizens of London had little need to pursue a political economy of territorial control, as was common, for example, with many cities in Italy, where regnal power was weak. That is one reason why a public stock of grain has played little part in London’s history. The stocks of grain which supplied London lay in barns in the country, in private granaries (many of them belonging to London merchants) in the small towns which served the London market, and in the corn merchants’ granaries in the city itself (Campbell et al., 1993: 101–4). The scale and relative efficiency of London as a market, along with the financial strength of its merchants, meant that in times of shortage foodstuffs were more readily available there, at a price, than elsewhere. Thus it is not surprising to find that in 1319, shortly ­after the Great Famine, London’s corn merchants are revealed by tax assessments to have been richer by comparison with other Londoners than they had been in 1292 (Campbell et al., 1993: 82–3). In February 1316, at the height of the famine, the king, who needed honey and wheat to supply his castles in Wales, ordered an official to buy all the honey in London and 1,000 quarters (2,819 hl.) of wheat there, since he understood that these commodities had lately come into London in great quantity (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1893: 267). Such royal demands presumably drove up prices in the city, but perhaps not by much since even 1,000 quarters of grain represented a good deal less than one per cent of London’s annual needs (Campbell et al., 1993: 35). The flow of people into the city during a famine was perhaps mainly driven by their expectation of charity, but was probably also stimulated by the visible flow of food. Moreover, medieval experience taught that in times of shortage the security of a city’s food supply depended upon prices there being higher than those in other markets in the vicinity. Thus in 1375 the city of London fined one of its citizens who offered too high a price for corn at Henley, one of the market towns further up the river Thames which routinely supplied the city (Thomas, 1929: 192), while at a later date in Venice the authorities at times of shortage posted guaranteed high prices for grain which were supported out of public funds (Lane, 1973: 306). Attempts to keep city prices down could be disastrous. When the Catholic Kings naively insisted on low prices in Córdoba during the shortage of 1502–3 they precipitated starvation, for sellers of grain stayed away (Edwards, 1982: 112–13). In times of shortage large and ­efficient markets, like those of London or Venice, by drawing in supplies imposed hunger on their hinterlands, which was relieved only by the migration of the starving to the city. London dealers also gathered in foodstuffs so as to supply them to the territory round about. In a crisis the city probably contained more than its actual needs, ­although ­consumers in the city presumably did not see it that way. In April 1325, a time of

22

Crisis management in London’s food supply, 1250–1500

r­ elatively high prices, London merchants were stockpiling grain shipped in from Flanders in expectation of supplying districts outside London as well as the city itself. In response to a royal order to prevent a rise in prices the city authorities attempted to prevent corn being carried out through the city gates (Sharpe, 1903: 196–7). In other years when prices were similarly high the city authorities, in pursuit of royal orders concerning the kingdom as a whole, issued proclamations against the export of corn from London, while in 1432 the ‘commonalty’ of London, fearing a scarcity, asked the ruling elite in the form of the mayor and aldermen to urge the royal government to restrict exports from the city itself (Sharpe, 1911: 146–7). Thus London’s leaders could employ their influence at a national political level to help secure the food supply. In years of shortage London merchants drew on areas well beyond the city’s normal provisioning zone, often buying corn at ports on the east coast, around the Wash and as far as the Humber or beyond, whence it could readily be shipped to London. There is a well-recorded group of such cases from the high-price years of the 1350s, when the king sometimes offered special protection to merchants or their agents seeking supplies far from London (Campbell et al., 1993: 69–71. Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1898: 353). Flanders and Ponthieu were, in terms of transport costs, more accessible sources of supply, and were regularly drawn upon, except when hostilities intervened, as they did during the 1350s. A regulatory tool exercised by the city authorities on behalf of the king was the Assize of Bread, by which the weight of the standard loaf of bread was fixed according to the price of corn in the open market, thus restricting the bakers’ capacity to corner supplies (Campbell et al., 1993: 26, 199). In years when prices rose sharply the assize was conducted on numerous successive occasions and for the cheaper bread grains as well as for wheat.2 To judge from the surviving records, the assize was less carefully administered in London from the later fourteenth century onwards when the real price of grain fell. In addition, the city, along with other English towns from at least as early as the twelfth century onwards, had developed sets of rules governing the operation of its food markets. These rules were periodically reiterated and codified when prices rose and shortage threatened (Britnell, 1986: 131–4, 236–8. Campbell et al., 1993: 104–7. Keene, 1985a: 251–55). Political conditions also affected the practice of regulation. In London the Assize of Bread fell into disuse during the last years of the reign of King Henry III, when both city and kingdom were torn by factionalism and civil war. The new regime which emerged in the city during the 1270s, following the succession to the throne of Henry’s more powerful son, included the restoration of the assize as part of a wide-ranging programme of reform (Sharpe, 1899: 215–16). Again we see that an effective national government took a close interest in the capital’s food supply. Moreover, the charitable provision of food to the urban poor was a mark of the piety and honour of a medieval king. Henry III was notably lavish in such almsgiving. In 1244, for example, he supplied 15,000 meals for the poor at St. Paul’s cathedral within London and 15,000 at his palace of Westminster just outside the city (Stacey, 1987: 240. Dixon-Smith, 1999). Thus over the year beginning October 1315 the assize was operated ten times, by comparison with three or four times in the years before the Great Famine: Corporation of London Records Office, Letter Book D, fos. 170–90.

2

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The threat of famine in 1258 became apparent at a time when the political crisis of Henry III’s reign was coming to a head both at court and in the city. In London, an enquiry on behalf of the king judged that the city’s leaders, the mayor and aldermen, had oppressed the commonalty, principally over the payment of taxes (Stapleton, 1846: 31–6. Stubbs, 1882: 49). Mismanagement and the dominance of an elite mercantile interest in the city may have exacerbated the incipient food crisis. In any case the city’s fractured political state would have made it difficult for Londoners to take collective action to alleviate the effects of the shortage. The only recorded action to relieve London at that time was that of the king’s brother Richard, who was himself king of Germany, immensely rich and a committed supporter of King Henry. Richard, a more effective man of affairs than his brother, was in Germany at the time of the famine and procured fifty ships which came from Germany and Holland to London with wheat, barley, rye and bread (Luard, 1880: 673, 701, 710–11). Richard was doubtless motivated by the spirit of charity befitting a great lord, but was presumably also aware of the threat both to public order and to political stability posed by famine in London, whose inhabitants were notoriously volatile, violent and prone to align with opposing factions at court. He was probably also familiar with the practicalities of supplying the London corn market, for his English estates where he spent most time included extensive lands in the middle Thames area from which London drew much of its corn supply. Up to 1246 he had also controlled Queenhithe, the market on London’s waterfront where grain shipped down the Thames was landed (Campbell et al., 1993: 154–5, 174. Sharpe, 1901: 15). Royal intervention during the crisis of 1315–17 was of an entirely different character and less explicitly concerned with London’s needs. This may have been because this crisis was less localised than that of 1258. Moreover, the pressing need to maintain defences and an army against the Scots meant that an important concern of the royal government was to obtain supplies and send them north (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1898: 370–1, 373, 386), thus presumably exacerbating shortages in southern England. Royal proclamations fixing the prices of livestock were issued in March 1315, in response to pressure from parliament earlier in the year (Rotuli Parliamentorum: i, 295). For some items the London prices were set higher than those for elsewhere, but the overall effect of the measures was to drive goods out of the market place and they were repealed a year later. After the poor harvest of 1315 exports of corn and other victuals were forbidden (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1983: 308). Attempts were made to encourage the flow of supplies within the kingdom. In the spring of 1316 the king granted protection to London merchants who were seeking supplies for the city in Cornwall, which was relatively unaffected by the crisis and lay far outside London’s normal supply zone (Hatcher, 1970: 85). In the third year of the crisis the trade in foodstuffs was facilitated by removing the customs dues on the import and export of corn, salt and fish at London and other ports, and the price of ale was fixed, so that brewing would not withdraw wheat and barley from the supply of grain for bread (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1893: 449, 498.). Overall, the crisis in London was addressed by essentially national measures such as these, and by the Crown’s diplomatic efforts to secure permission for English merchants to obtain supplies overseas. In December 1315 those efforts were addressed to Ponthieu, Normandy and Brittany, but a year later corn was being brought from more distant sources in Gascony and Spain, parts of Europe where the harvests had not failed (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1893: 318, 385, 452. Jordan, 1996: 173–4). Developments in commerce and shipping since 1258

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Crisis management in London’s food supply, 1250–1500

favoured this longer distance trade. In particular, the highly-capitalised Italian merchants were now much better established in England, and above all London, than formerly: as prices rose in northern Europe they began to invest in grain from Gascony and the south. The king extended his special protection to alien merchants supplying corn, including those of Sicily, Spain and Genoa (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1893: 425). The port of Sandwich assumed particular significance as a site for stockpiling this grain since it was strategically situated for transferring supplies to London, to the royal garrisons in the north or, if the export ban could be evaded, to the hungry towns of Flanders (Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1893: 291, 341, 380, 385, 522. Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1898: 466, 501–2). In Liège it was noted that supplies were being carried toward the Flemish coast (Kershaw, 1973: 9). The southern part of the North Sea and the Strait of Dover were the established focus of an international market in grain which during the Famine probably achieved an unprecedented level of intensity and speculation. The key to London’s supply at this time was the operation of national and international markets. Royal policy acknowledged the special needs of London, but did not involve the direct intervention that had been such a notable feature of 1258. Indeed, in some respects royal policy, by encouraging flows of supplies to the north and to Wales, was contrary to the interests of the city. This may have been possible at least partly because London was not intimately embroiled in a national political crisis to the degree that it had been in the mid thirteenth century. The city authorities, nevertheless, took action of their own. In August 1317, for example, they prohibited the London brewers from making malt, presumably so that grain would available for bread (Sharpe, 1903: 77). Their main intervention concerned the operation of the grain market within the city. At some time during the year 1315–16 they issued a comprehensive set of regulations, stressing their customary nature (Sharpe, 1903: 56–7). These rules, the first comprehensive code on such matters to survive for London, were primarily concerned to ensure the openness of the market and the visibility of the grain for sale. Only the four accustomed market-places for grain were to be used. The operations of middlemen, and buying and selling between dealers rather than directly to consumers, were prohibited, as was sale by sample. In several instances the code contains the first surviving formulation of rules or ideals which continued to be applied periodically throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. During the grain crisis at the end of the eighteenth century, for example, there was an almost identical concern over the problems of buying to sell again, the visibility of the grain supply and selling by sample, which was believed to conceal the true quantity of grain in the market (Smith, 1999: 126–7, 129, 161). While in the aftermath of the Great Famine Ghent appears to have established its famous grain staple, which subsequently shaped the trade of its region (Nicholas, 1987: 241–4. Stabel, 1997: 168–70), the most enduring legacy of the episode in London was the code of rules governing the corn trade within the city.

III. After the Great Famine: public stocks of grain During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most English towns, and above all London, developed more coherent and stable systems of internal government which appear to have controlled, per head of population, greater financial resources than had been the case formerly, and with a greater degree of consent. This found expression in

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Food supply, demand and trade

public building, in the role of civic authorities as trustees for charitable and religious endeavour, and in attitudes towards food supply. In 1391, for example, when corn was scarce, the mayor and citizens of London used the money that they held on behalf of the orphaned children of citizens to buy corn for the ‘commonalty’. In 1429, a year of similar shortage, the common council of the city ordered persons to be sent abroad to buy corn at the city’s risk of any loss by sea or otherwise (Thomas, 1932: 174–5. Sharpe, 1907: 361–2. Sharpe, 1911: 92). The more serious shortage of 1439–40, which according to one chronicler drove the ‘poor commons’ of London to make bread of barley, beans and peas rather than wheat (Thomas and Thornley, 1938: 174), prompted much more drastic action, including, for the first time in London so far as we can tell, the establishment of a public granary. Civic funds were used to pay for at least a substantial part of the new building, erected on a property already belonging to the city, but enlarged for this new purpose. Donations from wealthy individuals also made a contribution. The work was being planned in March 1440 and appears to have been substantially complete five to six years later (Thomas, 1923). A wealthy citizen in his will drawn up in 1443 left money for stocking the granary with wheat when needed (Public Record Office, 1869: 26). The outcome of this effort, known as Leadenhall and thus perpetuating the name of the earlier house on the site, was one of the most architecturally sophisticated and ambitious public buildings ever erected in London (Samuel, 1989). The granary occupied part of the upper storey of a quadrangular structure, which in its central space and ground-floor galleries provided accommodation for a market in all sorts of foodstuffs. In addition, the building complex included an elegant chapel, a college of priests and a school. This investment today appears out of all proportion to the scale of the food crisis, which was an isolated event. Indeed, Leadenhall seems not to have been used for long as a granary, and in the sixteenth century when the maintenance of grain stocks became a routine element in city policy those stocks were kept elsewhere (Gras, 1926: 80–2). Several explanations for the scale of investment can be suggested. It may be, for example, that in fifteenth-century London there was a clearer appreciation than earlier of the value of maintaining a public stock of grain so as to even out price fluctuations from year to year, but we know too little about the operation of the granary to test that proposition. Another factor is the possibility that in the fifteenth century London was more vulnerable to shortterm interruptions in its corn supply than it had been in the early fourteenth. On the one hand, the networks and production systems within England which supplied the smaller metropolis of the fifteenth century were perhaps less capable of responding to crises than the more specialised and intensive ones which had supplied the larger city of an earlier date. On the other, London’s economy was in the mid fifteenth century probably less dynamic by comparison with those of its nearest Continental urban rivals than had been the case in 1300, so that the risk of the market diverting grain supplies to overseas consumers in times of scarcity may have appeared greater than it had been in the past, especially now that grain shipped from the Baltic made a significant contribution to the needs of cities on both sides of the southern North Sea basin (cf. Campbell et al., 1993: 104). Indeed, the Londoner who left money to maintain the stock at Leadenhall was well aware of detailed aspects of Baltic trade (Public Record Office, 1869: 26). Perhaps more significant than these purely economic considerations, was what seems to have been an increasingly common policy in English towns during the fifteenth century of providing buildings to house the commercial activities of unenfrachised traders who brought in foodstuffs and other goods

26

Crisis management in London’s food supply, 1250–1500

from outside, and who in earlier times would have traded in the street (cf. Keene, 1985a: 258). The food traders who operated in the new buildings at Leadenhall appear previously to have stood in the street outside. Later the complex also accommodated markets in cloth, lead, nails, and hides, all supplied by outsiders. The granary may thus from the beginning have been part of a larger plan for organising the trade of the city and for enhancing its status and dignity by removing traders from the street and erecting an impressive multipurpose civic structure. At Florence, a few years after the Tuscan famine of 1329–30, the commune, intending to ameliorate the impact of such events in the future and seizing an opportunity presented by a fire in the corn market of Orsanmichele, erected there one of the most imposing public buildings in the city, which was to serve as a common granary, as a corn market and as a major focus for civic and guild culture (Herlihy, 1967: 105, 124. Goldthwaite, 1980: 6–7). A century later the citizens of London had the political and financial capacity to make a similar gesture, but like the Florentine building, Leadenhall was destined to serve only a few years life as a granary.

IV. Conclusion This examination of food crises in medieval London has focused on the three major recorded events, each of which had a very different character. The ways in which those crises and lesser episodes of a similar nature were dealt with highlight several points of general interest. Especially striking is the significance of the wider polity of which the city was part for shaping its response. Given the structure of the kingdom of England, it was appropriate that the monarch (or his brother in 1258) should take the lead in fulfilling the traditional role of public authority in managing food supply during a crisis, perhaps especially for cities. In the early Middle Ages the bishop of London would very likely have assumed that responsibility for the city on behalf of the king (Doehard, 1978: 152–3, 158. Leyser, 1984. Wormald, 1999: 451–4), but by the thirteenth century bishops had retreated from such direct involvement in civic affairs. Another notable feature is the size and economic strength of London, and its dominance within the kingdom (not only as capital), which gave it unique powers of attraction both for food itself and for starving people. The development of the citizens’ collective capacity to take remedial action during a food crisis is also significant: from codifying and enforcing the rules governing the internal corn market, to using the public funds to purchase supplies or set up a common granary. In the case of London, this capacity appears to have developed from the later thirteenth century onwards, although absence of sources renders invisible any earlier initiatives. Certainly, the political circumstances in which food crises occurred could influence the form of action taken. Even in such a relatively well-ordered city such as thirteenth-century London, factionalism and strife perhaps undermined it capacity to respond. In the long run, however, the growth of Londoners’ collective and administrative powers, and their ability to draw on the precedents and innovations of other European cities, enabled them to adopt new approaches to the management of food crises. Yet whatever the rhetoric of the time, the provision of facilities such as a public granary seems to have been driven less by the immediate necessity of solving the problems of food supply than by a wider concern for the standing of the city and for the ordering of its trade and public spaces. As in our own day, it seems that investment in public infrastructure can be driven as much by a sense of cultural identity and pride as by purely utilitarian considerations.

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Bibliography Birch, W.deG. (1887) The historical charters and constitutional documents of the City of London, London. Britnell, R.H. (1986) Growth and decline in Colchester, 1300–1525, Cambridge. Campbell, B.M.S., Galloway, J.A., Keene, D. and Murphy, M. (1993) A medieval capital and its grain supply: agrarian production and distribution in the London region c.1300, Historical Geography Research Paper Series. Colvin, H.M. (1971) Building accounts of King Henry III, Oxford. Deputy Keeper of the Records (1893) Calendar of the Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Edward II. A.D. 1313–1318, London. Deputy Keeper of the Records (1898) Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Edward II. A.D. 1313–1317, London. Edwards, J. (1982) Christian Córdoba: the city and its region in the late Middle Ages, Cambridge. Denholm-Young, N. (ed.) (1957) Vita Edwardi Secundi, London. Dixon-Smith, S. (1999) ‘The image and reality of alms-giving in the great halls of Henry III’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 152, pp. 79–96. Doehard, R. (1978) The Early Middle Ages in the West: Economy and Society, Amsterdam, New York, Oxford. Goldthwaite, R.A. (1980) The building of renaissance Florence: an economic and social history, Baltimore and London. Gras, N.S.B. (1926) The evolution of the English corn market, Cambridge, Mass. Hatcher, J. (1970) Rural economy and society in the Duchy of Cornwall, 1300–1500, Cambridge. Hatcher, J. (1996) ‘The great slump of the mid-fifteenth century’ in: R. Britnell and J. Hatcher, (eds), Progress and problems in medieval England: essays in honour of Edward Miller, Cambridge, pp. 237–72. Herlihy, D. (1967) Medieval and renaissance Pistoia: the social history of an Italian town, 1200–1430, New Haven and London. Jordan, W.C. (1996) The Great Famine: northern Europe in the early fourteenth century, Princeton. Keene, D. (1985a) Survey of Medieval Winchester, Oxford. Keene, D. (1985b) Cheapside before the Great Fire, London. Kershaw, I. (1973) ‘The Great Famine and the agrarian crisis in England, 1315–1322’, Past and Present, 59, pp. 3–50. Lane, F.C. (1973) Venice, a Maritime Republic, Baltimore and London. Leyser, K.J. (1982) ‘The tenth-century condition’ in K.J. Leyser, Medieval Germany and its neighbours, 900–1250, London. Luard, H.R. (ed.) (1869) Annales Monastici, London, vol. IV, Rolls Series. Luard, H.R. (ed.) (1880) Matthaei Parisiensis monachi Sancti Albani Chronica Majora, London, vol. V, Rolls Series. 28

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Marvin, J. (1998) ‘Cannibalism as an aspect of famine in two English chronicles’ in: M. Carlin and J.T. Rosenthal (eds), Food and eating in Medieval Europe, London and Rio Grande, pp. 73–86. Nicholas, D. (1987) The Metamorphosis of a Medieval City: Ghent in the age of the Arteveldes, 1302–1390, Lincoln and London. Phelps Brown, E.H. and Hopkins, S.V. (1955) ‘Seven centuries of building wages’, Economica, new series 22, pp. 195–206. Poos, L.R. (1985) ‘The rural population of Essex in the later Middle Ages’, Economic History Review, 2nd series 38, pp. 515–30. Public Record Office (1869) Report on the Foedera, Appendix C, London. Rotuli Parliamentorum. No date, but probably1783. London, 6 vols. Samuel, M. (1989) ‘The fifteenth-century garner at Leadenhall, London’, The Antiquaries Journal, 69, pp. 118–153. Sharpe, R.R. (ed.) (1885) Calendar of Letters from the Mayor and Corporation of the City of London, circa A.D. 1350–1370, London. Sharpe, R.R. (ed.) (1899) Calendar of the Letter-Books . . . of the City of London . . . Letter-Book A, London. Sharpe, R.R. (ed.) (1901) Calendar of the Letter-Books . . . of the City of London . . . Letter-Book C, London. Sharpe, R.R. (ed.) (1903) Calendar of the Letter-Books . . . of the City of London . . . Letter-Book E, London. Sharpe, R.R. (ed.) (1907) Calendar of the Letter-Books . . . of the City of London . . . Letter-Book H, London. Sharpe, R.R. (ed.) (1911) Calendar of the Letter-Books . . . of the City of London . . . Letter-Book K, London. Smith, C.S. (1999) ‘The market place and the market’s place in London, 1660–1840’, Ph.D. thesis, University of London. Stabel, P. (1997) Dwarfs among giants. The Flemish urban network in the Late Middle Ages, Leuven and Apeldoorn. Stacey, R.C. (1987) Politics, policy, and finance under Henry III, 1216–1245, Oxford. Stapleton, T. (ed.) (1846) De Antiquis Legibus Liber. Cronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum Londoniarum, London, Camden Society. Stubbs, W. (ed.) (1882) Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II, London, vol. I, Rolls Series. Thomas, A.H. (1923) ‘Notes on the history of the Leadenhall, A.D. 1195–1488’, London Topographical Record, 13, pp. 1–22. Thomas, A.H. (ed.) (1929). Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls . . . a.d. 1364–1381, London. Thomas, A.H. (ed.) (1932) Calendar of Select Pleas and Memoranda of the City of ­London. . .a.d. 1381–1412, London. Thomas, A.H. and Thornley, I.D. (eds) (1938) The Great Chronicle of London, London. Wormald, P. (1999) The making of English law: King Alfred to the tenth century. Volume I, Legislation and its Limits, Oxford. 29

3 Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure of the town’s rural surroundings Michael Limberger, University of Ghent I.

Introduction

The rise of big pre-industrial cities has attracted the interest of many historians. The reasons for their rise and eventual decline, their size and their importance as economic, political or cultural centres constitute rich material for numerous city monographs. At the same time, these cities, through their demographic and economic rise, put their mark on the economy of their surroundings. Towns were closely related to their hinterlands by their demand for food, raw materials and manpower as well as by the central functions they played for their surroundings. As a result, urban demand had an impact on the economic development of the surroundings. According to the theory of J.H. von Thünen, in which transport costs were the major determining factor, the urban demand for specific rural products would lead to regional specialisation in function of the distance of the town. In the ideal case, concentric circles with particular forms of specialisation would form around the city. In practice however, a whole range of factors played a role in the interaction between the urban market and the agrarian hinterland. Geographical features, such as the access to navigable rivers or the sea, the quality of the soil, natural frontiers etc. were one type of factor, the proximity of other towns (with their respective hinterlands) and political borders another (Irsigler, 1985, Campbell e.a. 1993: 4–8). Furthermore, the relationship between towns and their surroundings also had an institutional dimension: towns with a stronger political and juridical grip on the countryside had other possibilities to define the rules of urban provisioning than those towns with less political power (Epstein, 1993). Case studies on major European cities and their surroundings have shown that under favourable circumstances urban demand acted as a stimulus for the agriculture of its surroundings to specialise in cash crops for the urban market and to improve agrarian productivity. This was the case, for example, for London and its greater surroundings during the early modern period. In the counties surrounding London, market gardening and specialised agriculture developed from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards. Together with direct market incentives these changes were brought about by the investments of urban wholesalers in agrarian production and improvement (Fisher, 1934–1935, Wrigley, 1978: 226–230). Also in the coastal areas of the Northern Low Countries, especially in Holland and Friesland, urban demand was a stimulus for the rise of specialised agriculture. International trade, above all imports of grain, allowed specialisation in other types of farming, such as dairying, and the cultivation of industrial crops for the urban market as well as for export. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries formerly lowly specialised peasant households developed into commercial and

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highly specialised farming enterprises. (De Vries, 1974: 119–173). In other European metropolitan regions however, the requirements for agrarian improvement were not met in spite of a rising urban demand. Instead, towns such as Madrid and some Northern Italian towns drained the rural surplus and failed to invest into the agriculture of their surroundings. The result was agrarian stagnation, coinciding in many ways with what J. de Vries described in his peasant model of development (Ringrose, 1983; Epstein, 1998; Hopcroft & Emigh, 2000). Urban demand and trading opportunities were therefore not the only precondition for agrarian specialisation and increasing productivity. A whole set of local factors determined the impact of large cities on their surroundings. The case of sixteenth-century Antwerp is particularly interesting in this context. Like Amsterdam it grew into a major commercial centre within a few decades, which went hand in hand with a spectacular demographic growth. The limitations of its immediate agrarian hinterland to provide sufficient food for the rising metropolis were compensated through food imports, among others grain from the Baltic. Yet, the natural preconditions, and hence the agrarian system differed fundamentally between Holland and the surroundings of Antwerp. In contrast with the coastal areas of the Northern Low Countries, where the land was often flooded during the winter, the agrarian structure of West Brabant was based on the cultivation of grain, in combination with some other crops and livestock farming. Brabant also differed from Holland in terms of social structures. While in Holland, feudal structures were comparatively weak, Brabant was closer to the classical Western European pattern. The question that arises in the context of the food provisioning of sixteenth century Antwerp is therefore twofold: first, to which extent was Antwerp provisioned by its immediate agrarian hinterland and to which degree through food imports? Second, what consequences did this situation have for the agrarian structure of the surroundings of Antwerp? Did farmers near Antwerp specialise in other crops than grain as a result of the competition from the Baltic, as it was the case in parts of the Northern Low Countries, or was the impact of the imports not of the kind, or insufficient, to bring about such change? Or was the geographic situation of the environs of Antwerp so different from that in Holland that it led to a totally different agrarian response? In order to answer these questions, the circumstances conditioning the food provisioning of Antwerp have to be analysed. We have to examine the potential of the local agriculture to feed a town of the dimensions of Antwerp, the organisation of Antwerp’s food trade, and the place of the imports of Baltic grain in it. The second set of questions concerns the impact of urban demand on local agriculture. Did farmers respond to rising urban demand by specialising in particular products? Did they try to increase production via intensive farming? Or, on the contrary, did the competition of imported food make them withdraw from ­market-oriented production and concentrate on subsistence farming?

II. The agrarian hinterland of Antwerp Antwerp is situated on the right bank of the river Scheldt, about 80 km from the open sea. It therefore formed a very favourable inland port with both easy access to the sea and a good connection with its commercial hinterland via navigable inland waterways. From the agrarian point of view, its location was not all that spectacular. The quality of

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Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure

the soil in the surroundings of the town was highly irregular. It ranged from very fertile in the South, to sandy and relatively infertile in the East and Northeast. North of Antwerp, a narrow strip of fertile river-meadows stretched out along the banks of the Scheldt, which was well suited for cattle grazing and the cultivation of oats, but not so suitable for winter crops (Figure 3.1). Figure 3.1 Soils in the Antwerp surroundings

The major crop of the area in the late middle ages was rye, which was generally combined with summer crops such as oats, rough oats (evene), barley and in the Kempen, since the fifteenth century, buckwheat. Wheat was relatively uncommon, except for the more fertile places south of Antwerp. Additionally, legumes such as peas and beans were relatively frequent. Other foods that were grown in the surroundings of Antwerp were fruit and vegetables, although the latter only seldom figure in written documents. The livestock of Brabantine farms in the fifteenth century consisted mainly of cattle, sheep, pigs and some hauling-horses as well as poultry. Livestock farming, both for dairying and meat, was however of secondary importance in most cases. Its major function was that of providing fertiliser for arable farming. Arable productivity south of Antwerp was relatively high (ca. 1300 l. of rye per ha.1), although the area did not range among the most productive of the Southern Low Countries. East of Antwerp, the figures were considerably lower (500–1200 l.2) (Limberger, 2001: 161–6; 2000: 141–142).

1 2

Anderstad farm near Lier: between 1465 and 1468. In Deurne, according to tithe-records from 1406–1418.

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A greater disadvantage was the limited extension of the town’s agrarian hinterland. The river Scheldt, while connecting the town to a world-wide commercial network, was at the same time the frontier between the duchy of Brabant (including Antwerp) and the county of Flanders. This made that the direct access to food supplies at the left bank of the Scheldt was limited. The Flemish countryside between Antwerp and Ghent traditionally fell under the influence sphere of Ghent, which was larger than Antwerp in the late Middle Ages, and which protected its grain supply through a severe staple right (Bigwood, 1906; Stabel, 1995: 119–121). The immediate provisioning area of Antwerp is therefore located to the east of the town, although during the sixteenth century Antwerp merchants also bought landed property on the left bank of the Scheldt and therefore retrieved provisions also from Flemish territory. A second factor confining the extension of Antwerp’s supply area was the closeness of other towns with their respective hinterlands. Antwerp was situated only 20 km from Mechelen (ca. 25,000 inhabitants in 1526), and 10 km from Lier (ca. 7000 inhabitants in 1526) which made that its agrarian hinterland was relatively restricted precisely in the south where the grain yields were highest. To the east and to the north, the distance to other towns was greater. Bergen-op Zoom (10,000 inh.), was situated at 30 km north of Antwerp. In the Kempen-area, Turnhout (6000 inh.) and Herentals (3500 inh.), situated ca. 35 km from Antwerp were too small to become serious competitors for Antwerp’s food supplies (Cuvelier, 1912; van Uytven, 1992: 58–59). While the limitations imposed by political frontiers and the surrounding towns can be mapped relatively easily, there is little empirical proof for the actual dimensions of the direct provisioning area of Antwerp in the sixteenth century. Due to the absence of figures concerning the spread of the ­Antwerp grain measures or similar indicators, the only data available are those concerning landed property of Antwerp citizens. The spread of landed property held by townsmen is an indirect but nevertheless useful indicator for the dimensions of the agrarian supply area. On the one hand it reflects the area from which agrarian produce came into the town in the form of land rent; on the other hand, it is has a major factor in common with the urban supply area, that is the accessibility from the town, or vice-versa. In theory, the direct marketing area of a pre-industrial town was limited to a distance of 10 to 15 km. A greater distance would have made weekly market trips very difficult for the farmers (Campbell et.al. 1993: 2). In fact, the farms owned by Antwerp citizens in the surroundings of the town, as reflected by the Brabantine household census of 1496, were almost exclusively situated within a semi-circle of about 12 to 13 km from the town. The absence of landed property on the left bank of the Scheldt can be explained by the fact that the 1496 household count only covered places in Brabant, hence on the right bank (fig. 2). An extensive study of the landed property of Antwerp townsmen between 1394 and 1402, based on sources, which in principle also include properties in Flanders, reveals very similar patterns. More than 80% of the very small plots were clustered within a ray of 13 km to the east of Antwerp. The rest was scattered within a distance of 30 km. (de Nave, 1978: 309–313; Limberger 2000: 166–169). It is striking that the area with the highest concentration of urban landed property coincided largely with what seems to have been considered the town’s immediate hinterland in the fourteenth century, that is the districts of waterland and land van Rijen. When the count of Flanders seized Antwerp in 1357 during a dispute concerning the succession in Brabant, these two rural districts were comprised in the annexed area (Kerremans, 1949: 43). The location of the

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Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure

landed property of Antwerp citizens before 1500 suggests that the immediate supply area of Antwerp covered indeed about 10 to 15 km from the town at that time, as expected, except for the left bank of the Scheldt where the influence of Antwerp seems to have been very weak. However, in the polder area north of the town the influence sphere of Antwerp reached further than elsewhere. In the late Middle Ages it was especially the abbey of St. Michael that held extensive landed property there, at 20 km from the town. During the sixteenth century many Antwerp merchants would purchase land in the polders at even greater distance (see Figure 3.2 and below, IV.1). Figure 3.2 Farms owned by Antwerp citizens and religious institutions, 1496

III. Local supplies, imports and regional marketing Considering the limitations of the agrarian productivity and the restrictions of the Antwerp hinterland in size, it is questionable to what degree the rural surroundings could fulfill the task of provisioning the rising metropolis. Two very rough calculations should give a general idea of the difficulties of the immediate surroundings of the town to provide sufficient bread grain. According to estimates by R. van Uytven, a late medieval Flemish or Brabantine town of 20,000 inhabitants would have consumed the marketable surplus of rye of about 1700 mid-sized farms, or ca. 150 villages (1985: 78–79). Even if we consider that towns were not exclusively provisioned with grain directly sold by farmers, but also

35

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through the sales of revenues by landholding institutions and individuals and through direct provisioning of landlords residing in town, the required number of farms would be much higher than that situated within 15 km of Antwerp. By adjusting the average number of farms per village to the specific situation in the surroundings of Antwerp, the number of villages needed would still be 60 to 70, that is about twice the number of villages within the theoretical supply area sketched in the previous paragraph. A similar result will be obtained through (equally hypothetical) estimates based on the size of arable land per village. Supposing an average yield of 1200 l. per ha, the output of 30 villages within 15 km of Antwerp, for which the size of arable land in 1686 is known, would have been about 9 million litres of rye per year. About one sixth of this quantity was needed as seed for the next year, and of the remaining part more than 60% was consumed by the 3800 local households (1250 l./household). The rest, ca. 2,750,000 l., would have been available for consumption outside the village. The thirty villages hence would have produced a surplus sufficient to feed about 8600 people. Hence, to feed 20,000 of them - the number of inhabitants Antwerp had around 1440 – the surplus of about 70 comparable villages would have been necessary.3 However, by 1500 the population of Antwerp had reached 40,000 inhabitants, by 1526 about 55,000 and around 1565 it reached its maximum with almost 100,000 inhabitants. Thus, the demand for bread grain multiplied almost by five between 1440 and 1565, and even a provisioning area of 350 villages would not have been sufficient to feed the town. As did most of the towns of the Southern Low Countries, Antwerp therefore had to take recourse on grain from a larger supply area, by means of trade. Grain was traded within Brabant, but also imported from other areas. In the fifteenth century, a great part of the foreign grain supplies of Brabant came from Hesbaye, Hainaut, Walloon Flanders and Cambrai, as well as from Artois, Picardy, Normandy and Brittany. Grain imports from Northern Germany, Prussia and Poland became only of major importance after 1480 (Derville, 1987; van Tielhof 1995: 11). In the 16th century, however, the Baltic was the major foreign supplier of bread grain for the Low Countries. According to estimates by E. Scholliers, the imports via the Sound covered ca. 13–14% of the total annual demand of the Low Countries, and during the 1560s even up to 23% (1960: 61). A comparison of grain prices in Antwerp and in rural Brabant provides clear evidence of the significance of maritime grain imports. Due to increasing imports from the Baltic after 1529, rye prices in Antwerp, which had strongly risen during the previous decade, stabilised, whereas in rural Brabant, they continued to rise during the same period (Van der Wee, 1963: II, 171–173). Which proportion of the supply of Antwerp was covered by Baltic grain can however hardly be quantified. Being the greatest town of the Low Countries, Antwerp probably had a larger share in the imports than other, smaller towns. In fact, Van Tielhof assumes that a considerable part of the grain transported from Amsterdam to the South via Gouda was destined for Antwerp. Antwerp was however not only a centre of consumption but also a centre of distribution, and therefore only a part of the grain that

Estimates based on the cultivated area per village as given in the census of the district of Antwerp in 1686 (Archives of the Public Assistance, Antwerp, OCMW, EG Register 172; see also Prims, 1954), and on the number of households in 1526 (Cuvelier, 1912). The figures concerning per capita consumption and the proportion of sowing grain area based on the estimates by Van Uytven cited above (1985:78–79).

3

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Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure

entered the town was actually consumed there. Moreover, the percentage of ‘Eastern’ grain in the transports to Antwerp differed strongly between years with a good harvest, and those with a bad harvest. While it was very low in years of low grain prices, it rose considerably in years of very high grain prices, like in 1557 for example. This indicates that grain supplies from North-western Europe still played an important part in the provisions of Antwerp during the sixteenth century, and that only in years when grain supplies were scarce, Baltic grain prevailed (van Tielhof, 1995: 207–209; 2001). This assumption is also confirmed by the relation between grain prices and the regional supply. Although grain imports helped to lower the amplitude of the cyclical fluctuations of grain prices during the sixteenth century, regional harvest failures remained the main reason for the cyclical fluctuations of grain prices (Van der Wee, 1963 II: 392; Scholliers, 1960: 20–23). Besides for bread, grain was predominantly used for brewing. According to a recent article by R.W. Unger, the shift to beer consumption in the late Middle Ages had strong implications on grain demand in the Low Countries. Considering that for the production of a litre of beer about one litre of grain was needed, the yearly demand for ­brewing grains of a town such as Antwerp corresponded with the net production of an area of about  30,000–50,000 hectares (1998: 334–337). While until the fifteenth century, a large part of the beer consumed in the Southern Low Countries was imported from the Northern Provinces, where the production of summer crops was relatively high, local production became increasingly important in the sixteenth century. The main brewing grains, oats and barley, were produced as summer crops in Brabant, but apparently in insufficient quantities. They were imported in considerable quantities from Zealand, as the toll register of Rupelmonde in 1541/42 proves.4 Also other basic foods, such as meat and dairy products had to be imported. Imports from Denmark and Holstein via the Northern Low Countries and Western Germany increased during the sixteenth century. Although Antwerp had an important livestock market itself, the cattle market of Lier, only several kilometres from Antwerp, played an important role as distribution market for the imported cattle. The number of oxen that was sold per year reached a maximum of about 20,000 in the 1540s. The monopoly of Lier was challenged however by cattle merchants from’s Hertogenbosch who bought oxen as they passed the town in order to resell them in Lier. Furthermore, there was a number of secondary livestock markets in the larger surroundings of Antwerp, such as Hoogstraten, Turnhout, Herentals, Mechelen, Rumst, and Walem, where in the first place local cattle was traded (Van der Wee & Aerts, 1979). Imported oxen were however not the only source of meat for the Antwerp consumers: cows, lambs, sheep, wethers, pigs and poultry of local production figured also in great quantities among the meat purchases of Antwerp institutions such as the St. Elisabeth-hospital (Scholliers 1959: 291–308, De Commer & Soly 1988: 81). Dairy products were imported essentially from Holland and Flanders. Ever since the fifteenth century, Antwerp had been a distribution centre of Dutch and Flemish cheese for a large hinterland reaching far into Western Germany (Doehaerd, 1963). Butter and cheese from Holland and Flanders prevailed among the dairy products purchased by Antwerp institutions. However, the accounts also contain references to cheese from the land of Herve (near Liège) and various Brabantine types, such as Tiense kaas and isaex (Van der Wee, 1963: I, 217). 4

Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels, Rekenkamer reg. 22739 (oct. 1541-sept. 1542).

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Food supply, demand and trade

Fish played an important role in the provisioning of Antwerp too. Freshwater fish was caught in the Scheldt and other rivers, as well as raised in fishponds. Generally, however it was expensive and only available in limited quantities. There was a busy trade of sea fish in Antwerp which was a major distribution centre for herring (Van Uytven, 1985: 102–104, Baetens, 1989: 172–174). The St. Elisabeth hospital spent about 20% of its food budget on fish. The greatest part was spent on herring, stockfish, sprat and eel. Furthermore codfish, ray, sole, tuna and salmon figured regularly among the purchased fish (De Commer and Soly, 1988: 82). Other sorts of food were absent in the Antwerp countryside and therefore had to be imported, such as salt, spices, wine, sugar and tropical fruit. These imports however had only little influence on the rural economy of the Brabantine surroundings. Wine was cultivated in the Southern Low Countries during the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century, the production and consumption of local wine became marginal. The main supply areas of wine were the Rhine- valley and South western France (van Uytven, 1997: 63–64). On the contrary, eggs, poultry and vegetables were predominantly local products. Although the production of the individual peasant household was not high, the quantity of producers meant that these secondary farming products came on the market in great quantities. Fruit and vegetables were however not only produced by peasants, but also by professional gardeners. Market gardening expanded considerably near Antwerp (see below: par IV.2.1). Fruit was furthermore traded in considerable quantities within Brabant and along the Scheldt, as the toll register of Rupelmonde shows. The previous sections show that exclusively local supply was insufficient to feed a metropolis such as Antwerp. Especially during the 1560s, when the population of Antwerp reached its peak, the proportion of local grain supplies was maybe not higher than 20–25%. ‘Imports’ from outside the immediate supply area therefore played an important role. The exact balance between local, regional and international supplies is however difficult to measure. There is plenty of evidence of food trade with relatively remote areas. In the case of bread-grain, the most common type of food, local supplies had to be complemented with surpluses from less urbanised areas of the Southern Low Countries and Northern France as well as from the Baltic. For meat, the imports of Danish oxen via the Low Countries were essential. Dutch herring bypassed the Scanian herring, which had been dominant during the late middle ages, during the fifteenth century. What is striking, is the important role of Holland and Zealand as providers of basic food supplies for Antwerp. Dutch sailors acted as carriers of Baltic grain, Dutch fishermen were the major suppliers of herring, Dutch cattle merchants were the main intermediaries in the Danish oxen trade, and finally Holland and Zealand were also producers of basic agrarian products such as oats and dairy products. On the other hand, toll registers and various qualitative sources confirm the existence of a substantial regional trade in food products. The role of short-distance trade within Brabant and other parts of the Southern Low Countries is difficult to quantify, but its importance for the food provisions of Antwerp is not to be underestimated. Nevertheless, food imports and regional trade did not undermine the role of the immediate surroundings as provider of basic foods supplies. Food imports were necessary but on their own would not have been sufficient. Relying exclusively on imports would have been a great risk in case of commercial problems. In spite of the importance of trade, the surroundings of the town therefore continued to form the basis of the urban food supply.

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Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure

IV. Urban demand and the agrarian structure of the surroundings of Antwerp The increasing urban demand for agrarian produce during the sixteenth century was supposed to create economic opportunities for farmers and landowners in the ­surroundings of Antwerp. The high prices were likely to stimulate them to increase their output in order to maximise their profits. The question is, however, in which way they responded to the economic challenge, what were the factors influencing their response, and what were the consequences for the agrarian system of the surroundings of the town. In our analysis of the response to the market incentives, we have to distinguish the different groups of economic agents, and their respective possibilities. Peasants with smallholdings are likely to have responded to a rising urban demand in quite a different way than farmers of large farms. Their strategies were different again to those of non-peasant landowners, who generally leased out their land. A central question in this context is the degree of market integration of the direct producers. According to R. Brenner, peasants were in principle risk-averse and therefore would not specialise entirely on market-oriented production but rather tended to guarantee their subsistence by diversifying agrarian activities. J. de Vries, on the other hand, sustains that in the Northern Low Countries peasants actively commercialised and specialised without necessarily having to increase their farm size (2001: 82–83). For Flanders, E. Thoen observed a ‘commercial-survival strategy’, with peasants producing to a significant degree for the market without however giving up subsistence farming (Thoen, 2001: 112). While peasants could therefore choose either to specialise or not, farmers without direct access to their means of reproduction, that is, without sufficient landed property to provide for their subsistence, were forced to specialise, in order to cope with the requirements of the market. The influence of non-peasant landowners, or landlords, in contrast, consisted not so much in their choice of particular crops or farming techniques, but rather in their real estate policy. By buying land in a particular area, they influenced the local property relations, whereas by accumulating or splitting their property they could change the farm size in a specific place. Each of the three groups, according to their particular conditions, responded in a particular way to the commercial incentives offered by the urban market. Property relations, therefore, played an important role in the degree of commercialisation and specialisation together with urban demand, location and natural conditions. IV.1. Increase of cultivated land The easiest way, in technical terms, to augment the agrarian output was to increase the cultivated area. In spite of the structural limitations discussed in paragraph II, there are indications that the agrarian hinterland of Antwerp actually expanded during the sixteenth century. While during the fifteenth century the landed property of Antwerp citizens was situated almost exclusively within an area of ten to fifteen kilometres, Antwerp merchants bought large holdings in the polders North of Antwerp on both sides of the Scheldt, as well as in Zealand and Holland (Limberger, 2000: 237–238; 2001: 170–172, Soly, 1975: 37). The yields of these holdings were not destined exclusively for the Antwerp market, but we can suppose that they were for a considerable part. Additional farmland could also be obtained by transforming wasteland into farmland. This option was however only possible where there was uncultivated land available. The Kempen area and the polders along the Scheldt, which were relatively thinly populated, offered good opportunities for the

39

Food supply, demand and trade

extension of the farming area. It is therefore not by coincidence that Antwerp merchants acquired considerable landed property exactly in those areas, although investments in land reclamation were very costly. On the contrary, in the immediate surroundings of Antwerp, where population density was already very high in the late Middle Ages, the possibilities to reclaim wasteland were rather limited. Considering however the strong demographic increase of this area during the sixteenth century, an increase in the intensity of land-use probably took place. A declaration concerning the economic situation of the villages of Rumst and Boom around 1570 mentions that the villages were ‘fully cultivated’, so that ‘it was difficult to obtain a lease’.5 The individual farmer or landowner could of course always purchase or lease a farm or a plot of land from other landowners. By doing so, he did not increase the total farming area of the Antwerp surroundings but only his personal share. Through redistribution of the farmland, however, farm-sizes and property relations were affected, which also had important consequences on the agricultural structure. In spite of strong local deviations, landed property in the surroundings of Antwerp was highly fragmented and displayed a high degree of social polarisation. While the landed property of religious institutions, members of the nobility and the gentry as well as urban citizens could comprise 100 hectare and more, the average peasant holding was hardly larger than one or two hectare. Around 1570, almost 45% of the holdings situated within five villages near Antwerp were smaller than a hectare, ca. 35% were between 1 and 5 ha and only a bit more than 20% were farms with more than 5 ha. The latter however held a large share in the total landed property. Purchases of farms and loose plots of land by urban citizens meant that the peasants’ share in the landed property of the surroundings of Antwerp diminished sharply during the sixteenth century. Around 1570, the proportion of the land owned by the local population in the surroundings of Antwerp was only about 15–20%. Most of the farms as well as a great part of the farmland were held in lease, which led to a high degree of market dependency of the farmers. The size of individual farms could be increased by purchasing or leasing loose plots of land. Urban landowners could increase the size of their farms by systematic purchases of adjacent plots of land. Several examples of great Antwerp merchants show that such purchases took place and led to the formation of considerable farming units. So, the Spaniard Fernando de Bernuy enlarged one of his farms in the Antwerp polders from 37 ha to 95 ha in the period of 1522–1539 by purchasing 34 single plots of land next to it.6 For land-owning peasants the leasehold system offered various possibilities of enlarging their farming area. Relatively wealthy peasants leased large farms while subletting their own holding. In contrast, among smallholders the most frequent way of obtaining a larger farming area was by leasing additional plots of land. By means of this strategy, quite some peasants in the village of Boechout for example obtained farms between 5 and 10 ha, while their own property was only a fraction of this size (Limberger, 2000: 253–255). IV.2. Qualitative responses All these forms of increasing the farming area were subject to a major obstacle, that is the limited availability and therefore high price of land. They therefore required substantial financial means, which were not at everyone’s disposal. Furthermore, large farms could only be exploited by means of wage labour, which constituted another extra cost. There were, on 5 6

SAA, VG 5 fo. 84. SAA, VG 2, Letter of Aldermen, nov. 10th 1563.

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Feeding sixteenth-century Antwerp. Food imports, local supply, and the agrarian structure

the other hand, also qualitative measures to increase the agrarian output, which were also available to the smaller producer. These could consist either in changing the composition of land-use, or in increasing the productivity of land or labour. M. Overton distinguishes six possibilities of increasing the agrarian output by changing the composition of land-use: land reclamation or –improvement, a changing ratio between grassland and arable, the reduction of the fallow, the production of fodder crops, a changing balance among different crops, and, finally regional specialisation (Overton, 1996: 88). These measures in themselves did not increase the productivity of the soil in itself, but the quantity of particular agrarian goods produced on the same farming area, at the expense of other less productive forms of landuse. The other alternative were techniques allowing an increase of the productivity of land or labour. The productivity of the soil could in principle be increased by using more sowing grain, manure or more labour. Particularly the latter two factors are considered the most effective. The productivity of labour could either be raised by technological innovations, such as the use of better tools, or through economies of scale, that is by the optimal efficiency of tools, horses and labour through adapting the farm size to the productive potential of the farm. The Southern Low Countries, and especially Flanders, already had a highly advanced agrarian system since the Middle Ages, in which the above-mentioned strategies were applied to a considerable extent. The crop rotation was highly flexible: legumes, turnips and industrial crops were sown in the fallow or together with the classical summer crops, up and down husbandry was common in central Flanders, in the area around Ghent, rye was sown in two consecutive years, etc. Furthermore, Flemish and Brabantine agriculture was characterised by the intensive use of fertiliser and labour, which helped to raise ­physical productivity to extremely high levels (Verhulst, 1990; Thoen, 1997: 74–81). During the sixteenth century, a further diffusion of these innovations, together with a tendency towards intensification and regional specialisation took place (Dejongh & Thoen, 1999). How does this general observation apply to the Antwerp area, where the agrarian system was somewhat less progressive than in some other parts of Flanders and Brabant, but where, on the other hand, the urban influence during the sixteenth century was particularly strong? IV.2.1.  Specialisation: Market gardening and cattle fattening There were two particular areas of highly specialised agriculture in the closer s­ urroundings of Antwerp. Like in the surroundings of London, a market gardening-belt developed around the city walls. Especially east of the town, outside the ‘Rodepoort’, and south, outside the ‘St. Jorispoort’, numerous gardens of significant size were concentrated. These gardens were leased by specialised gardeners (hoveniers) who supplied the urban market with fruit and vegetables (Baetens, 1989: 178–179). There were also specialised gardeners in some of the villages surrounding Antwerp, such as Mortsel or Borgerhout. Market gardening was, however, not exclusively restricted to specialised gardeners. Most farms and even small houses in the countryside around Antwerp had a vegetable garden, the yields of which could be sold partly in town. The places of origin of gardeners who had immigrated to Antwerp during the sixteenth century were concentrated within an area of 10 to 15 km east and south east of the town.7 Most of them will have already been familiar with gardening before moving to Antwerp. It is therefore very likely that gardening was a common occupation in this relatively fertile area. 7

Stadsarchief Antwerpen, ed., Antwerpse Poortersboeken, 1533 - 1608, Antwerp, 1977, passim.

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A second area of specialised agriculture near Antwerp were the meadows along the banks of the Scheldt, especially in the polders north of Antwerp. These meadows formed privileged pastures for Antwerp cattle fatteners and butchers, to fatten imported lean oxen. In the early fifteenth century, the polders of Oosterweel and surroundings were already used as meadows by Antwerp butchers (Prims, 1950). During the sixteenth century, and especially after the 1540s the increased demand for meat in Antwerp meant that cattle fattening played an ever more important role in the surroundings of Antwerp. Data from the accounts of the St. Elisabeth hospital prove that the practice of buying meagre cattle and selling it after fattening could yield profits of more than 70% (­Scholliers, 1960: 38). Also in the suburbs of Antwerp, particularly in Borgerhout, Berchem and Dambrugge, cattle fattening played an important role. Borgerhout, where between 30 and 50 butchers were active, became a serious competitor for the Antwerp butchers’ guild. According to the village aldermen, the livestock of Deurne and Borgerhout was said to have comprised 1 200 head of cattle and 4 000 sheep around 1570 (Nooyens, 1981: I, 593–599). IV.2.2  Intensification Except for these two areas near the town, the sixteenth century did not bring about spectacular tendencies of specialisation near Antwerp. The composition of crops remained largely unchanged. Rye remained the major winter crop in the greatest part of the area, wheat was only cultivated in the area with heavier soils, south of Antwerp. Also the summer crops remained basically the same. Declarations of village authorities mention oats, barley, buckwheat, beans, peas and vetches. According to the same declarations, the livestock of the average farm was relatively small and consisted maybe of 10 to 20 cows and a somewhat higher number of sheep on the larger farms (Cosemans, 1936). Lease contracts indicate however that some of the agrarian techniques that were common in late medieval Flanders and in parts of the Southwest of Brabant were introduced in the surroundings of Antwerp after 1500. The practice of sowing rye during two subsequent years, which was still explicitly forbidden in various lease contracts at the beginning of the sixteenth century, became accepted in some places after 1530. In a contract of 1537, the lessee of a farm in Deurne was told to sow two thirds of the land with winter crops and to leave the remaining third fallow, ‘according to the local customs’. Estimates of the yields of two farms in the same place from 1587 confirm this practice: at the Kattenberg farm, 66% of the land was sown with rye, 3% with barley and 33% were left fallow. In another farm, the fallow was omitted totally during that year: 57% were sown with rye, 29% with barley and 14% with buckwheat (Nooyens, 1981: I, 433, 552). To apply such demanding crop rotations in an area that was not particularly fertile, intensive fertilising had to be applied. In fact, the clauses concerning the maintenance of the dung heap and the prohibitions of taking away fertiliser from the farm play a central role in the lease contracts of most farms of the area. Stall-feeding was a convenient method of obtaining a high quantity of manure without assigning too much land to pasture. At the same time purchases of alternative types of fertilisers, such as urban and industrial waste were frequent. In some places, up and down husbandry was applied on particular plots, although with strict limitations: the lessee was only allowed to plough up certain plots of meadow that had already been cultivated. Furthermore he had to leave them as meadows at the end of his term (Limberger, 2000: 214).

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These references to changes in the farming technique mostly refer to relatively large lease farms. Indications concerning the small peasants are even scarcer. Declarations of the village aldermen depict the cottars not so much as intensive agricultural producers, but rather as humble peasants that tried to make a living from their small plot of land, a cow and different sorts of non-agrarian occupations.8 They may have cultivated some vegetables for the urban market or other types of cash crops, but this was not the predominant feature of their activity in the eyes of the representatives of their villages.

V. Conclusion The demand for food in sixteenth century Antwerp was a strong incentive for local farmers to produce for the urban market. Imports helped to attenuate peak prices in years of grain shortage and to compensate for structural shortages of other kinds of food, such as meat and dairy products. They did not however push the local producers off the market. In spite of the limited dimensions of the rural surroundings of Antwerp, we can identify different zones of specialisation that correspond very well to some of the von Thünencircles. Firstly, we can distinguish a gardening belt around the town, which was very narrow if we consider only professional gardening. Market gardening in a less intensive form, and in combination with other forms of farming, was however wide-spread in the villages south and east of Antwerp. This area, covering the most fertile parts of the surroundings of the town, corresponds to a high degree with the so-called zone of ‘crop alternation’, which was characterised by manure-intensive mixed farming, where fallows were eliminated, leguminous fodder crops cultivated and livestock was kept intensively, in order to maximise the output of manure. The less fertile areas to the east and northeast correspond with von Thünen’s ‘improved system’, with its up-and-down-husbandry, and the combination of commercial grain farming with commercial dairying (Campbell et.al., 1993: 6). Finally, the polders north of Antwerp with their intensive pasture form a farming area which does not correspond immediately with one of the von Thünen-circles, but which is integrated in the so-called medieval model developed by F. Irsigler on the basis of von Thünen. In this model, intensive cattle farming was part of zone 2, which was located immediately outside the city-walls, together with the municipal woods, watermills, and depots of basic materials (Irsigler, 1985: 144). This great variety of farming systems within such a limited area points out the importance of geographic factors together with the distance from the town in determining the kind and degree of specialisation. For their largest part, the surroundings of Antwerp stuck to their traditional agrarian system, that is, to intensive grain production in combination with a series of secondary crops and livestock farming, instead of specialising in new types of farming. A major reason for this response to commercial factors was the fact that in contrast with Holland the soil near Antwerp was capable of generating relatively high grain yields. High grain prices were therefore a stimulus for agriculturalists to intensify grain production rather than to orient towards alternative crops. The location so close to the Antwerp market provided a sufficient comparative advantage against Baltic grain under the given circumstances.

8

SAA, VG 4, 5 and 14.

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Intensive grain production furthermore allowed the farmers to produce for a high degree for the urban market, without however giving up the possibility of subsistence farming. The expansion of Antwerp, how strong and impressive it may have been, was not a fundamental break point in the town’s relationship with the countryside from the point of view of the agrarian structure. The interaction between Antwerp and its surroundings was already intense during the late middle ages. Contacts with the urban market and monetization were strongly rooted in the rural economy of western Brabant. Throughout the fifteenth century, the urban impact increased strongly, and reached its culmination in the period between 1540 and 1565, together with the demographic peak of the metropolis. Local specialisation in particular areas, with origins in the Middle Ages, was increased during this period. At the same time, urban demand led to a strong intensification of agrarian production. The large-scale investments of Antwerp citizens in landed property, that took place during the sixteenth century brought about profound changes in the rural property structures near the town. If it was mostly geographic features and the accessibility of the town that determined the type of agrarian specialisation, the investments by townsmen affected the rural property relations and hence the degree of market integration of the direct producers. By purchasing rural estates they pushed forward the leasehold system and separated the local peasantry in a group of market dependent farmers and a group of landless or land-poor cottars who had to rely on alternative sources of income.

Bibliography Manuscript sources Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), Brussels, Rekenkamer (RK) reg. 22739: Tolregister Rupelmonde okt. 1541 -sept. 1542. Archives of the Public Assistance (OCMW), Antwerp, Elisabethgasthuis (EG) register 172: Cohier van de zeven kwartieren van Antwerpen 1686. Stadsarchief (SA), Antwerp, Vreemde Gemeenten (VG) nr. 2. (Letter of Antwerp Aldermen, nov. 10th 1563) and nr. 5: Toestand der dorpen van het markgraafschap in 1593. Printed sources and literature Baetens, R. (1989) ‘De lokale markten te Antwerpen (16e-18e eeuw)’, in: Antwerpen in de XVIIde eeuw, Antwerp, pp. 169–199. Campbell, B.M.S., Galloway, J.A., Keene, D., Murphy, M. (1993) A medieval capital and its grain supply: agrarian production and distribution in the London region, c.1300, London (Historical geography research series; 30). Commer, P. de and Soly, H. (1988) ‘De zestiende eeuw. Harde Tijden voor zusters en zieken (1490–1585)’, in: Het St.-Elisabethziekenhuis te Antwerpen. 750 jaar Gasthuis op’t Elzenveld 1238–1988, Brussels, pp. 65–89. Cosemans, A. (1936) ‘Het uitzicht van Brabant op het einde der XVIde eeuw’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis XXVII (1936), pp. 285–351. Cuvelier, J. (1912) Les dénombrements de foyers en Brabant (XIV e - XVIe siècle), Brussels.

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Dejongh, G. and Thoen, E. (1999) ‘Arable productivity in Flanders and the former territory of Belgium in a long-term perspective (from the Middle Ages to the end of the Ançien Regime)’ in: Bavel,B.J.P., van and E. Thoen, eds. Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area. Middle Ages - 20th century. Elements for comparison, Turnhout 1999 (Corn publication series 2), pp. 30– 46. Derville, A. (1987) ‘Le grenier des Pays-Bas médiévaux’, Revue du Nord LXIX, pp. 267–280. Doehaerd, R. (1963) Etudes anversoises. Documents sur le commerce international à Anvers, 1488–1514, 3 vols., Paris. Epstein, S.R. (1993) ‘Town and country: economy and institutions in late medieval Italy’ Economic History Review, XLVI,3, pp. 453– 477. Epstein, S.R. (1998) ‘The peasantries of Italy, 1350–1750’ in: T. Scott (ed.), The peasantries of Europe. from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, London, New York, pp. 75–108. Fisher, F.J. (1934–1935) ‘The development of the London food market. 1540–1640’, The Economic History Review V, pp. 46–64. Hopcroft R.L. and Emigh, R.J. (2000) ‘Divergent paths of agrarian change: Eastern ­England and Tuscany compared’, The Journal of European Economic History, 29/1, pp. 9–51. Irsigler, F.(1985) ‘L’approvisionnement des villes de l’Allemagne occidentale jusqu’au XVIe siècle’, in: L’approvisionnement des villes de l’ Europe occidentale au Moyen Age et aux Temps Modernes, Auch, pp. 117– 44 (Flaran 5). Kerremans, C. (1949) Etude sur les circonscriptions judiciaires et administratives du Brabant et les officiers placés à leur tête par les ducs, antérieurement à l’avènement de la Maison de Bourgogne (1406), Brussels. Limberger, M. (2000) Sixteenth-century Antwerp and its rural surroundings. Social and economic changes in the hinterland of a commercial metropolis (ca. 1450- ca. 1570) Antwerp, unpublished PhD-thesis University of Antwerp (UFSIA). Limberger, M. (2008) Sixteenth-century Antwerp and its rural surroundings, Turnhout. Limberger, M. (2001) ‘Merchant Capitalism and the countryside. Antwerp and the west of the duchy of Brabant (XVth - XVIth centuries)’ in: P. Hoppenbrouwers, J.L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? The transformation of the rural economy and society in the Low Countries (middle ages-19th century)in light of the Brenner debate, Turnhout, pp. 158–178 (Corn publication series no 4). Nave, F., de (1978) Antwerpen, stad en land (1394–1402). De innerlijke vervlechting van stedelijk en landelijk milieu in de late middeleeuwen op basis van het privé bezit aan gronden en renten en andere soorten van goed, 5 vols., Brussels, unpublished PhD.thesis, VUB. Nooyens, F. (1981) Geschiedenis van Deurne I (tot 1648), Deurne. Overton, M. (1996) Agricultural revolution in England: the transformation of the agrarian economy, 1500–1850, Cambridge (Cambridge studies in historical geography; 23). Prims, F. (1950) ‘Het oudste landboek van Oosterweel. 1425’ Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis, 33, pp. 193–207.

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Prims, F. (1954) ‘Het “denombrement” van de zeven kwartieren van Antwerpen van 1686’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis, 37, pp. 108–122. Ringrose, D. R. (1983) Madrid and the Spanish economy, 1560–1850, Berkeley. Scholliers, E. (1959) ‘Prijzen en lonen te Antwerpen (15e en 16e eeuw) - Prix et salaires à Anvers (15e -16e siècles)’ in: C. Verlinden e.a, Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant (XVe -XVIIIe eeuw)/Documents pour l’histoire des prix et des salaires en Flandre et en Brabant (XVe-XVIIIe siècles) vol. I, Ghent, pp. 241– 480. Scholliers, E. (1960) Loonarbeid en honger. De levensstandaard in de XVe en XVIe eeuw te Antwerpen, Antwerp. Soly, H. (1975) ‘The Betrayal’ of the Sixteenth Century Bourgeoisie: A Myth? Some Considerations of the Behavior Pattern of the Merchants of Antwerp in the Sixteenth Century’, in: Acta Historiae Neerlandica, 18/1975, pp. 31–49. Tielhof, M., van (1995) De Hollandse graanhandel, 1470–1570: koren op de Amsterdamse molen, Den Haag (Hollandsche historische reeks; 23). Tielhof, M., van (2001) ‘Grain provision in Holland, ca. 1490- ca. 1570.’ In: P. ­Hoppenbrouwers, J.L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? The transformation of the rural economy and society in the Low Countries (middle ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate, Turnhout, pp. 202–219 (Corn publication series no 4). Thoen, E. (1997) ‘The birth of the ‘Flemish Husbandry’: agricultural technology in medieval Flanders’ in: G. Astill and J. Langdon (eds.) Medieval farming and technology. The impact of agricultural change in Northwest Europe, Leiden, pp. 69–88. Thoen, E. (2001) ‘A “commercial survival economy” in evolution. The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages –19th century)’, in: Hoppenbrouwers and van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? o.c., pp. 102–157. Unger, R.W. (1998) ‘Beer, wine and land use in the late medieval Low Countries’, in: “Proeve ‘t al, ‘t is prysselyck”. Verbruik in Europese steden (13de - 18de eeuw) Consumption in European Towns (13th -18th century). Liber Amicorum Raymond van Uytven (Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis; 81), pp. 71–89. Uytven, R., van (1985) ‘L’approvisionnement des villes des anciens Pays Bas au Moyen Age.’ in: L’approvisionnement des villes de l’ Europe occidentale au Moyen Age et aux Temps Modernes, Auch, pp. 75 –116 (Flaran; 5). Uytven, R., van (1992) ‘Brabantse en Antwerpse centrale plaatsen (14de-19de eeuw)’ in: Het stedelijk netwerk in België in historisch perspectief (1350–1850). Een statistische en dynamische benadering/le reseau urbain en Belgique dans une perspective historique (1350–1850), une approche statistique et dynamique, (Handelingen 15de Internationaal Colloquium /Actes 15e Colloque International, Spa, 4–6 sept. 1990), Brussels, pp. 29–79. Uytven, R. van (1997) ‘Le combat des boissons en Europe du moyen âge au XVIIIe siècle’ in: S. Cavaciocchi (ed.), Alimentazione e nutrizione secc. XIII-XVIII, Atti della “Ventottesima Settimana di Studi” 22–27 aprile 1996, Firenze, pp. 53–88 (Istituto Internazionale di Storia economica “F.Datini” Prato, serie II - Atti delle “Settimane di Studi” e altri Convegni; 28). Verhulst, A. (1965) Het landschap in Vlaanderen in historisch perspectief

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Antwerpen (Uitgaven van het Willems-Fonds 202). Verhulst, A. (1990) ‘The ‘agricultural revolution’ of the middle ages reconsidered’ in: B.S. Bachrach and D. Nicholas (eds.), Law, custom and the social fabric in medieval Europe, Essays in honor of Bryce Lyon, Kalamazoo, pp. 17–28. Vries, J. de (1974) The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age, 1500 – 1700, New Haven. Vries, J. de (2001) ‘The transition to capitalism in a land without feudalism’, in: Hoppenbrouwers and van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? o.c., pp. 67–84. Wee, H. van der (1963) The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy (fourteenth - sixteenth centuries). 3 vols. Den Haag. Wee, H. van der and Aerts, E. (1979) ‘The Lier livestock trade in the Low Countries from the 14th to the 18th century’ in: E. Westermann (ed.), Internationaler Ochsenhandel (1350–1750). Akten des 7th International Economic History Congress Edinburgh 1978, Stuttgart, Bamberg, pp. 235–254 (Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte; 9). Wrigley, E.A. (1978) ‘A simple model of London’s importance in changing English ­Society and Economy 1650–1750’, in: P. Abrams, E.A. Wrigley, eds., Towns in societies: essays in economic history and historical sociology, (Past and present publications; 10), Cambridge, pp. 215–309.

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4 Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenthcentury Ghent Johan Dambruyne, National Archives of Belgium I.

Introduction

It is widely known that without the countryside early modern cities would not have been able to survive, let alone grow, neither demographically nor economically. The larger a city was, the more it depended on the countryside, and the bigger its rural influence was. That statement is true for many economic aspects of the relationship between town and countryside, and especially when it comes to food supply. Due to the importance of bread in the diet of the majority of the city population, the supply of grain was one of the main priorities for city councils (Van Uytven, 1985). Despite the high land and labour productivity in the County of Flanders (Dejongh and Thoen, 1999: 43, 45, 57; for an European comparison see van Zanden, 1999 and Allen, 2000), its own rural grain production was insufficient, due to the high population density and degree of urbanisation (de Vries, 1984) and the omnipresence of small farms that only destined a limited amount of grain for the cities (Dejongh and Thoen, 1999: 57; Thoen, 2001: 111–116). Some taxations from the mid-sixteenth century indicate a 20 to 25 percent production shortage in the Southern Netherlands (Van der Wee, 1966: 284; Scholliers and Vandenbroeke, 1980: 270; Thoen, 2001: 123), which is why Flanders relied upon other grain-producing regions in and outside the Low Countries in order to meet the dietary needs of its population. Since the Middle Ages, Flanders imported a lot of grain from what is now the north of France. Large amounts of grain (mostly wheat) were transported from Artois, the region of Cambrai, Picardy and Hainaut on the Lys and Scheldt rivers (Derville, 1987: 276). However, Flanders was not only the final destination of this interregional grain trade, but it was also a transit zone, since part of the grain that was exported from the north of France was destined for other regions in the Low Countries (Brabant, Zeeland and Holland). Thanks to its strategic location at the confluence of the Lys and Scheldt rivers and its central position in the urban network of the County of Flanders (Prevenier, Sosson and Boone, 1992), Ghent was almost predestined to dominate the interregional grain trade. More than one hundred years ago, G. Bigwood (1906) wrote a voluminous article in which he proved that the City of Artevelde was able to play an important role in the ­Flemish grain trade thanks to its staple privilege for grain. Since then, various medievalists (Tits-Dieuaide, 1975; Tits-Dieuaide, 1984; Boone 1990a; Howell and Boone, 1996) have further examined the significance of Ghent’s staple market, and they all concluded that the staple right for grain offered both economic and social opportunities to late medieval Ghent. However, we are not so well-informed when it comes to the sixteenth century, which is remarkable, since we have good quantifiable archives for that period. Historical literature has taught us that during the sixteenth century: 1. Ghent’s staple right for grain was reformed and

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eroded, and 2. the Low Countries imported more and more grain ­(especially rye) from the Baltic area (Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Germany). However, we still know little to nothing when it comes to the positive or negative effects of these institutional and commercial transformations on the grain trade and society of sixteenth-century Ghent. Therefore, the goal of this article is to determine the economic and social consequences of those structural changes. The key question is: did Ghent continue to play an important role in the interregional grain trade in the Low Countries during the sixteenth century? In order to find an answer to that vital question, we should look at the grain trade in a quantitative way. The structure of this article will be as follows: first we will define Ghent’s staple right and the reforms it underwent during the sixteenth century. We will then try to measure the size and the cyclical movements of the grain trade in Ghent, based on various figures that have never been examined before. Subsequently, we will compare the volume of the grain trade in Ghent to the well-known Baltic trade. In the next paragraph, we will try to find out where the grain came from, we will calculate the share of transport on land and by water in the grain trade, and we will analyse the impact of eastern grain on the Flemish grain trade. Finally, we will examine the social effects of the interregional grain trade on the City of Artevelde. Two questions will have to be answered: was there a positive correlation between the supply of grain and its price level, and were prices on Ghent’s grain market actually lower thanks to the staple right?

II. The staple right for grain In the course of the fourteenth century, Ghent claimed the staple right for grain, thanks to which the city soon became the main distribution centre for grain in Flanders (Tits-Dieuaide, 1984: 485–487; Nicholas, 1987: 241–242). The decision to impose the staple duty was undoubtedly inspired by the fact that the rural production of grain in the immediate surroundings of Ghent was insufficient to provide the city’s entire population with grain. Ghent’s staple right consisted of two parts: 1. all the grain that was traded in Flanders had to pass through Ghent, and 2. part of that grain had to be sold on Ghent’s market. According to the charter that archduke Maximilian of Austria granted Ghent on 14 April 1486, the staple right meant that all the grain that was transported by ship on the rivers Lys and Scheldt, in order to be sold outside Flanders, had to be collected in Ghent. Furthermore, all the grain that came from Hainaut or other regions and that was transported to Courtrai, Oudenaarde, Alost, Termonde, Geraardsbergen, Menin, Rupelmonde, Hulst, Axel or Assenede by cart or by any other means of transport, also had to be collected in Ghent, together with the grain that was cultivated in Flanders and that was to be exported.1 Every grain merchant or transporter that passed through Ghent, either by ship or on land, was obliged to unload part of their cargo and sell it in the city. Only the so-called winter grains (rye and wheat) were subject to the staple right. The part that was claimed and that was called ‘unfree grain’ was first stored in one of Ghent’s many storehouses for a while, after which the merchant was able to sell it to the residents on Ghent’s grain market. Since 15 January 1457, the quota was set at one quarter of the cargo 1

City Archives Ghent (CAG), series 94, no. 751.

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(Bigwood, 1906: 430). In 1533, that rule was still valid (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887: 131). During the second half of the sixteenth century, however, the rate was reduced. From 18 December 1565 onwards, it was still set at one quarter of the winter grains that were transported downstream on the rivers Lys and Scheldt (so from the south), but that no longer applied to the cargo that was carried upstream. The staple right for grain that was carried upstream (north-south traffic) was reduced to one sixth of the cargo (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887: 378–379). In 1587, the rate for grain that was transported downstream on the river Lys was also reduced to one sixth (Decavele and De Herdt, 1976: 123–124). After that, the quota remained unchanged (Bigwood, 1906: 431). The grain trade and staple right were very important to the prosperity of Ghent’s late medieval economy (Howell and Boone, 1996:311–312). The figures that we will present, will reveal that this was still the case during the sixteenth century (see paragraph III). The staple right had turned the City of Artevelde into the granary of Flanders, and it therefore attracted plenty of grain merchants. The grain trade and staple right created numerous jobs in the city. Several craft guilds (such as the pijnders (bag carriers) and the grain measurers) would not have existed otherwise. Ghent’s transport sector also benefited from the grain trade (Dambruyne, 2001a). The economic success of the free boatmen’s guild could largely be attributed to the grain trade. Furthermore, many non-corporative workers (such as unfree boatmen, unfree bag carriers, drivers, etc.) were involved in this trade, and several other important craft guilds (such as bakers and brewers) were economically dependent on it. However, numerous cities that were involved in the interregional grain trade were not exactly pleased with Ghent’s staple right. During the fifteenth century, Ypres made frantic efforts to elude the City of Artevelde’s privilege and to manifest itself as a distribution centre for the grain trade in West Flanders. There were various conflicts between Ypres and Ghent, but Ypres lost every single one of them (Bigwood, 1906: 403–410; Decavele and De Herdt, 1976: 118–119), because Ghent was supported by the central government. Like his predecessors, Philip the Good (1424) and Maximilian of Austria (1486), Archduke Charles renewed Ghent’s staple right during his inauguration on 4 April 1515, in the city where he was born, ‘for the common profit of this city, the principal and central city of our county of Flanders’ (Laurent, 1893: 351).2 Time and time again, successive sovereigns granted Ghent the exclusive staple right for grain for Flanders, not only because of its central location, the political importance of the City of Artevelde and the excellent relations between Ghent’s boatmen’s guild and the prince (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887: 38–39), but also for their own personal interest. A lot of princely tolls had to be paid on the rivers Lys and Scheldt (e.g. at Menin, Termonde, Rupelmonde and Antwerp), and so the grain trade via Ghent generated plenty of extra income for the princely treasury. Ghent was also regularly at loggerheads with Douai, which also had a staple market for grain (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887: 130–137). Every time its staple right for grain was being criticised, Ghent defended itself by stating that its staple right In the charter it is stipulated that all grain coming from Béthune, Aire, Lille and elsewhere and being transported on the Lys to Waasten and from there along Ypres and Nieuport to the sea, had to be gathered in Ghent. In order to control this regulation, Ghent was permitted to place two watchmen in Waasten.

2

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Food supply, demand and trade

benefited the entire county. The people of Ghent argued that the grain that was collected should be distributed in Flanders from Ghent because of their city’s favourable position with regard to the rivers in the county. Furthermore, they claimed that Ghent’s staple right countered possible monopolies and speculation, which would surely cause the grain price to rocket (Bigwood, 1906: 428). Since the staple right for grain was a princely privilege that had always been granted to them, the people of Ghent were quite sure that they would win possible conflicts and legal proceedings. In 1565, the aldermen of Mons complained to the governess because they had to give Ghent one sixth of the grain that they had bought in Amsterdam in order to avoid possible famine. Margaret of Parma sought the advice of the Council of Flanders, which told her that there were no legal objections to Ghent’s staple right (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887: 378–379). In times of crisis (for instance in 1546, 1556 and 1565), however, Ghent did tend to grant free passage to ships that were filled with grain of common benefit to those cities that had specifically requested it (Lille, Arras, Valenciennes, Douai, Antwerp, Oudenaarde, Tournai, Bruges and Courtrai) (Bigwood, 1906: 452). During the 1570s, the grain merchants of Douai, Aire and Béthune asked their city councils to attack Ghent’s staple right once more. They sent a petition to governor Requesens, declaring that Ghent’s privilege went against the free trade policy for grain that was supported by the princely decrees and that they therefore wanted to have it abolished.3 The commercial metropolis of Antwerp was not too happy about Ghent’s staple right either. On 11 December 1573, it sent two of its aldermen to Ghent to ventilate the complaints and grievances of the grain merchants from Antwerp and elsewhere. The merchants were very dissatisfied with the fact that all the grain that was transported through Ghent on the rivers Scheldt and Lys was measured and that one quarter or one sixth of the rye and wheat had to be stored. Detaining the vessels, measuring the grain and storing part of it caused extra delays and costs to the grain merchants. The two aldermen hoped that their colleagues in Ghent would respond to their complaints, because otherwise, they would have to turn to the central government for help. However, Ghent’s city magistrate replied that the merchants from Antwerp were complaining more for their own benefit than for the general interest.4 In the event of any irregularities or abuses, the aldermen of Ghent were always prepared to discuss and solve the problems, but the basic principle of the staple right could not be affected. The year 1587 was a turning point for Ghent’s staple right. When king Philip II of Spain suspended all privileges that hindered the free grain trade on the 10th of September, Ghent objected immediately and fiercely. However, if the people of Ghent wanted their staple right back, they would have to make several concessions. The royal ordinance of 8 October 1587 decided that the staple right would no longer apply to grain from outside Flanders that had not yet been sold.5 Every town and village that transported grain that was supposed to fulfil a general need for food was also exempted. Furthermore, grain merchants were given a choice between storing the quota that was claimed in storehouses CAG, series 349, no. 108. The aldermen’s books of resolutions show that in May 1577 the conflict between Ghent and the cities of northern France still was not settled (CAG, series 107, no. 3, f. 124r). 4 CAG, series 107, no. 2, f. 204r-204v. 5 CAG, series 110bis, no. 1, f. 51r. 3

52

Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

and later selling it on the grain market, or immediately selling the quota to the city. At first, these regulations were temporary, but they remained unchanged until 1673 (Bigwood, 1906: 457). It is quite obvious that Ghent’s staple right for grain was severely eroded by the ordinance of 1587. Although economic motives were an important factor in the decision to reform and weaken the staple right, we would also like to point out a change in the political relations between the ruler and the city of Ghent (about this topic see Dambruyne, 1999; Dambruyne, 2000). During the so-called ‘regime of three members’ (1360–1540), the successive sovereigns never questioned the staple right for grain, since Ghent was very powerful at the time, and also because they knew that, politically speaking, the subject was very sensitive and that it would definitely generate new conflicts. But after the reconciliation (1584), the situation had completely changed: Ghent no longer had any political significance. Philip II only had to fear some verbal opposition by the City of Artevelde. Since the people of Ghent had adopted a very hostile position towards Philip II during the Calvinist Republic (1577–1584), it came as no surprise that he did not want to do them any favours. Furthermore, the staple right for grain was seen as an economic symbol of the medieval municipal particularism, so there were plenty of reasons to reduce the political and economic importance of this privilege in a substantial manner. In the course of the seventeenth century, the staple right for grain became completely unsettled (Bigwood, 1906: 458).

III. Size and trend of Ghent’s grain trade The supervision of Ghent’s staple right and grain trade was the responsibility of three staple officials. According to the 1485 ordinance, they were obliged to keep a register or staple book. They wrote down how much grain came in, to whom it belonged, what ship it was unloaded from and where it was stored. They also recorded who received permission to export or sell grain and how much grain was allowed to be sold (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887). Unfortunately, there are no (complete) staple books left from the sixteenth century. However, it is possible to examine the economic meaning of Ghent’s grain trade and staple right on a statistical level, thanks to the municipal accounts and fiscal sources that are kept in Ghent’s city archives. At the end of the fifteenth century, Ghent imposed two municipal taxes on all grains, i.e. the so-called muddegeld and the so-called zaemcoperie or broker’s duty on grain. Both indirect taxes allow us to analyse the trade cycle of Ghent’s sixteenth-century grain trade, since both taxes were imposed on the amount of grain that entered the city on the various rivers and canals and through the city gates. Until May 1568, both duties were tendered out every year, but afterwards, Ghent decided to collect them itself. In order to represent the trends as clearly as possible, we have calculated decennial averages of the amounts of the muddegeld and the broker’s duty on grain.6 The results are to be found in Tables 4.1 and 4.2.

All amounts in this article are expressed in Flemish groats (Fl. gr.) or in guilders. 1 pound ­Flemish groats = 240 Flemish groats = 1.5 pound Brabant groats = 6 guilders. 1 guilder or florin = 20 stuivers = 40 Flemish groats.

6

53

Food supply, demand and trade

Table 4.1 Income of leased muddegeld (decennial averages), 1489–1568 Period 08/1489 – 08/1499 08/1499 – 08/1509 08/1509 – 08/1519 08/1519 – 08/1529 08/1529 – 08/1539 05/1540 – 05/1550 05/1550 – 05/1560 05/1560 – 05/1568

Rent in Fl. gr.

Index

21,440 25,440 24,270 24,720 25,509 24,624 29,766 32,247

100 119 113 115 119 115 139 150

Source: CAG, series 400, nos 30–74. Note: For an annual survey see figure 4.1. Table 4.2 Income of leased zaemcoperie (decennial averages), 1489–1568 Period 08/1489 – 08/1499 08/1499 – 08/1509 08/1509 – 08/1519 08/1519 – 08/1529 08/1529 – 08/1539 05/1540 – 05/1550 05/1550 – 05/1560 05/1560 – 05/1568

Rent in Fl. gr.

Index

2,727 3,740 3,773 3,660 3,845 3,938 4,757 4,959

100 137 138 134 141 144 174 182

Source: CAG, series 400, nos 30–74. Note: For an annual survey see figure 4.2. Table 4.1 shows that the income from the leased muddegeld was at its lowest during the 1490s. The grain supply at the time was less important than during the following decades, which was undoubtedly due to the demographic and economic crisis that ­Ghent was experiencing (Dambruyne, 2001b). Figure 4.1 confirms that the decline in the grain trade followed on the Peace of Cadzand in 1492. However, the same graph also shows that the grain trade quickly recovered. If we look at the first half of the sixteenth ­century per decade, we can see that the decennial averages are comparable, which means that the grain supply was stable. On the other hand, figure 4.1 illustrates that the yearly ­fluctuations were at times substantial. Especially the contrast between the years 1519–1521 and 1521–23 was considerable. However, this was due to the century’s first real grain shortage, in 1521–1522. Because of the uncertain situation concerning the grain supply, possible leaseholders decided to take no chances in 1522: nobody raised the initial rent, although it was low (14,160 Fl.gr.). The crop failures of both 1513–1514 and 1536–1537 are clearly reflected in the graph. During the 1550s and 1560s, the income from the

54

Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

Figure 4.1 Annual income of leased muddegeld in Ghent (Flemish groats), 1489–1568

Figure 4.2 Annual income of leased zaemcoperie in Ghent (Flemish groats), 1489–1568

55

Food supply, demand and trade

Figure 4.3 Annual income of leased muddegeld and zaemcoperie in Ghent (Flemish groats), 1489–1568

Figure 4.4 Annual net income of muddegeld and zaemcoperie in Ghent (Flemish groats), 1489–1600

56

Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

­ uddegeld increased. Since the nominal rate of taxation had not changed (compared to m the previous decades) (see Table 4.3), this increase can only be attributed to an increase in the grain supply. Furthermore, figure 4.1 also illustrates that the yearly fluctuations were less sharp than during the first half of the sixteenth century. The decennial averages of the income from the broker’s duty on grain that was leased, show the same cyclic movement as for the muddegeld, but the trend is even more obvious here. Figure 4.3 nicely illustrates that the yearly fluctuations of both taxes are nearly identical. This graph also proves that the well-known crop failures of 1556–1557 and 1565–1566 had little effect on the income from the muddegeld and the zaemcoperie. During the years 1489–1568, the leased muddegeld and zaemcoperie together yielded 35,000 to 40,000 Fl.gr., at best. Figure 4.4 reveals that in the period between 1568 and 1572, the income rose sharply. In the years 1569–1571, it even surpassed 600,000 Fl.gr. As shown in Table 4.3, this extraordinary increase could not be attributed to a rise in the supply of grain, but to an immense rise in tariffs. We see that the rates of taxation were almost multiplied by ten! The tariffs were adjusted because the city had to deal with new, unexpected costs. Especially the arrival of a Spanish garrison at the end of August 1567 meant a sharp rise in expenditure. The Spanish soldiers’ pay was a heavy burden on the city’s treasury (De Potter, 1885: 252–253). The city council then came up with the idea of imposing more taxes on the grain trade, which was flourishing at the time. Thanks to this measure the costs were mainly borne by the foreign grain merchants, and the citizens of Ghent did not have to pay extra taxes. Philip II agreed to the rise in tariffs and granted the city a patent for three years.7 However, several cities objected vehemently against the outrageous rise in tariffs for the muddegeld and zaemcoperie.8 Especially the grain merchants from Lille, Douai, Béthune and Aire fiercely expressed their objections at the Privy Council.9 They felt that the people of Ghent prejudiced them twice: with the staple right for grain on the one hand, and with the high taxes on the grain trade on the other. On 7 February 1572, the Privy Council issued a sentence in which it stated that the merchants were right.10 Ghent was forced to reinstate the old tariff (see Table 4.3). It is no coincidence that in the same year the city council decided to raise the tariffs for the muddegeld and broker’s duty, it also decided to collect these indirect taxes itself. The aldermen probably thought that if the city collected the taxes itself, instead of leasing them, like it always had, that would yield a larger net income. Looking at the sources that are available, it is impossible to tell whether that was actually the case. But we do know for sure that thanks to the new management methods since May 1568, there are more archives available, which give us even more information concerning the grain trade. The collection of both taxes by the city’s own staff obliged the city of ­Ghent to create and keep detailed records. The result is to be found in series 455 and 458 of Ghent’s municipal archives. Both series contain the yearly and half-yearly accounts of the collector of the muddegeld and zaemcoperie respectively. The accounts of series CAG, series 458, no. 1, f. 5r. According to Joos de Deckere, tax collector of the muddegeld and zaemcoperie, foreign grain merchants resisted vehemently to the tariff increase. CAG, series 458, no. 1, f. 15r. 9 CAG, series 107, no. 2, f. 4v. 10 CAG, series 458, no. 8, f. 1r; series 107, no. 2, f. 84v. 7 8

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Food supply, demand and trade

Table 4.3 Evolution of the rates for muddegeld and zaemcoperie, 1486–1600 Tariff from 1486 until 30 June 1568:   - Muddegeld: for every mud (= 643.8 litres) of grain that entered the town: 0.6 Fl.gr.   -M  uddegeld: for every mandel (includes an unknown number of schoven) of grain that came from outside the town: 0.083 Fl.gr.   - Zaemcoperie: for every mud of grain imported in the town by poorters (burghers) 2 miten (= 0.083 Fl.gr.) and by other people 3 miten (= 0.125 Fl.gr.) Tariff from 1 July 1568 until 22 April 1572:   - Muddegeld + zaemcoperie: for every mud (= 643.8 litres) of grain that entered the town: 6 Fl.gr.   - Muddegeld: for every mandel of grain that came from outside the town: 0.333 Fl.gr. (till 1 September 1568)   - Muddegeld: for every 100 schoven of grain that came from outside the town: 1 Fl.gr. (from 2 September 1568) Tariff from 23 April 1572 until 1600:   - Muddegeld: for every mud (= 643.8 litres) of grain that entered the town: 0.6 Fl.gr.   -M  uddegeld: for every 100 schoven of grain that came from outside the town: 1 Fl.gr.   - Zaemcoperie: for every mud of grain imported in the town by poorters (burghers) 2 miten (= 0.083 Fl.gr.) and by other people 3 miten (= 0.125 Fl.gr.) Source: CAG, series 145, nos 1–6; series 458, nos 1–36. Note: These rates were applicable to all cereals (rye, wheat, barley, oats. . .). 458 give a monthly overview of the grain that entered the city on the rivers and canals and through the city gates. Those accounts contain both receipts and expenditure. On the other hand, the accounts of series 455 concentrate exclusively on income, and they are even more detailed than the accounts of series 458. They give a daily overview of the amount and sort of grain and the name of the importer for all grain that was unloaded and measured at the Graslei (literally: Herb Quay). To indicate the amounts of grain that were weighed at the Graslei, both the accounts of series 458 and the ones of series 455 mention the grain measures that were used in Ghent at the time (1 mud = 12 halsters = 48 meukens). If the grain was unloaded and taxed in another area of the city or if it was supplied by a so-called market boat, only the gross income was registered. However, that gross income also allows us to calculate the exact amount of grain, unlike the net income that was mentioned in the municipal accounts. The result of our calculations is to be found in Table 4.4 and Figure 4.5.11 For the fiscal years that cover not a full year figure 4.5 indicates to how many months the ­numerical data refers.

11

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Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

Figure 4.5 Total grain volume that yearly was supplied in Ghent (in litres), 1568–1600

It is obvious that the grain staple and grain trade in Ghent thrived during the 1570s. Especially during the first few years, a substantial amount of grain was supplied. ­During the fiscal year May 1569-May 1570, some seventy million litres of grain entered the city.12 The only time when less than forty million litres entered the city, was during the fiscal year 1573–1574, due to a crop failure. Apart from 1584–1585 and 1587–1588, the 1580s were disastrous for the grain trade in Ghent. During the Calvinist Republic, the trade underwent a profound crisis. The volume of grain went down from 63.3 million litres in 1577–1578 to 16.5 million litres in 1582–1583. It is clear that the grain trade suffered greatly due to the significant increase in armed conflicts in Flanders. The absolute low point was reached in 1583–1584, when less than five million litres of grain entered the city. That figure proves that the systematic isolation of the City of Artevelde by governor Alexander Farnese in 1584 was successful. The two successive crop failures during the years 1585–1586 and 1586–1587 caused another drastic fall in the supply of grain. The 1590s were not much of an improvement. The amount of grain never rose above 40 ­million litres in any of the years for which we still have information. The period 1594–1598 was an utter disaster for the grain trade in Ghent. For three out of the four years, the volume of grain fluctuated around 20 million litres. In 1596–1597, the level even sank below 14 million litres!

By way of comparison: Louvain exported in the first half of the sixteenth century on average 812,000 litres of grain per year. During the second half of the century the volume was even lower (Van Uytven, 1961: 267).

12

59

Food supply, demand and trade

Table 4.4 Total grain volume that was yearly supplied in Ghent and number of people that yearly could be fed with this quantity, 1568–1600 Fiscal year

In Ghent mud

In litres

Index

Number of people

11/05/1568 – 10/05/1569 11/05/1569 – 10/05/1570 11/05/1570 – 10/05/1571 11/05/1571 – 10/05/1572 11/05/1572 – 10/05/1573 11/05/1573 – 10/05/1574 11/05/1574 – 10/05/1575 11/05/1575 – 10/05/1576 11/05/1576 – 10/05/1577 11/05/1577 – 10/05/1578 11/05/1578 – 15/08/1578 16/08/1578 – 15/08/1579 16/08/1579 – 15/02/1580 16/02/1580 – 15/08/1580 16/08/1580 – 15/08/1581 16/08/1581 – 15/02/1582 16/02/1582 – 28/08/1582 29/08/1582 – 15/08/1583 16/08/1583 – 15/08/1584 16/08/1584 – 04/12/1584 05/12/1584 – 04/12/1585 05/12/1585 – 04/12/1586 05/12/1586 – 04/12/1587 05/12/1587 – 04/12/1588 05/12/1588 – 04/12/1591 05/12/1591 – 04/12/1592 05/12/1592 – 04/12/1593 05/12/1593 – 04/12/1594 05/12/1594 – 04/12/1595 05/12/1595 – 04/12/1596 05/12/1596 – 04/12/1597 05/12/1597 – 04/12/1598 05/12/1598 – 04/12/1599 05/12/1599 – 04/12/1600

83,633 108,414 106,844 100,929 102,093 57,735 81,244 – 85,967 98,329 25,624 69,201 – 12,489 23,496 – 14,998 25,686 7,447 9,118 62,633 34,850 33,446 72,604 – 58,629 – 55,662 29,640 31,849 20,786 29,121 45,665 51,666

53,842,925 69,797,124 68,786,012 64,978,384 65,727,584 37,169,995 52,305,009 – 55,345,803 63,304,499 16,496,934 44,551,505 – 8,040,239 15,126,435 – 9,655,793 16,536,496 4,794,539 5,869,990 40,323,223 22,436,712 21,532,330 46,742,278 – 37,745,130 – 35,835,456 19,082,338 20,504,078 13,381,903 18,748,243 29,389,974 33,262,773

100 130 128 121 122 69 97 – 103 118 – 83 – – 28 – – 31 9 – 75 42 40 87 – 70 – 67 35 38 25 35 55 62

147,515 191,225 188,455 178,023 143,301 101,836 143,301 – 151,632 173,437 – 122,059 – 22,028 41,442 – 26,454 45,305 13,136 16,082 110,475 61,470 58,993 128,061 – 103,411 – 98,179 52,280 56,176 36,663 51,635 80,545 91,131

Source: CAG, series 455, nos 1–12; series 458, nos 1–36. Note: The index was calculated only for fiscal years that cover a full year. 60

Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

In order to put the nominal amounts of grain into perspective and to find out which percentage of the grain that was supplied was to be consumed inside the city, we have calculated how many people could be fed with those amounts. During the years 1568– 1575, some 161,490 people could be fed with the grain that entered the city.13 In 1573, the aldermen and grain merchants of Antwerp, Douai, Béthune, Aire and other cities declared that Ghent was able to amass so much grain in one year that the city’s inhabitants would need ten years to consume it.14 Although our calculations show that this was a gross exaggeration, it is a fact that the amount of grain that was collected in Ghent at the time was more than enough to feed its inhabitants. During the years 1584–1588 and 1593–1600, the food capacity fell to 89,750 and 66,620 people respectively. Although those figures are only indicative, we can deduct that the amounts of grain that were supplied in times of normal harvests significantly exceeded the minimum need for grain for the city’s population. If we assume that Ghent had some 42,000 inhabitants during the years 1568–1575 (Dambruyne, 2001b), then 26% of the grain that was taxed was consumed within the city and 74% was exported again. In reality, the part that stayed in the city will have been larger, since our calculations did not include the amount of grain that was needed for the production of beer. Ghent had an important brewing industry (De Commer, 1981; De Commer, 1983). However, it is safe to assume that the bulk of the grain that came to Ghent was destined to be exported, which indicates that Ghent was an important transit port for the Low Countries. If we assume that the average population figure for Ghent between 1593 and 1600 was 28,000, it would mean that the city needed 42% of the grain that was imported to fulfil its own needs, and ‘only’ 58% was exported.15 Those calculations prove that the grain trade in Ghent did not only fall sharply in absolute figures since the reconciliation (1584), but the percentages also went down. In addition to the muddegeld and the broker’s duty, Ghent imposed a third indirect tax for grain from 1540 onwards. Unlike the other two taxes, the new duty applied to the consumption of all sorts of grain in the so-called vrijheid of Ghent (the juridical territory of the city inside and outside the town walls), both the grain that was imported and the grain that was cultivated inside the vrijheid. As we can see in Table 4.5, this tax was much heavier than the muddegeld and the broker’s duty. The nominal rate per halster for wheat (2 Fl.gr.) amounted to 4.8% of the average price for wheat during the 1540s. The duty of one Flemish groat for every halster of rye was equal to 3.5% of the average price for rye in the 1540s. Figure 4.6 clearly illustrates that the income from the new tax on grain was a multiple of the old taxes (muddegeld and zaemcoperie), that also remained in place. The situation was only reversed during the years 1568–1572. The relatively high rates of taxation can be attributed to the specific political and financial context at the time when the new tax was imposed. In order to punish the town where he was born for its revolt of 1539–1540, emperor Charles V According to E. Scholliers (1960: 168–176) a family of five persons needed about 12,200 calories per day during the sixteenth century. This means an average of 2,440 calories per head and corresponds with about 1 litre of rye. So the minimal grain need per head amounted yearly to 365 litres. 14 CAG, series 349, no. 108. 15 At its lowest demographic point, about 1590, Ghent counted c. 27,000 inhabitants (Dambruyne, 2001b). It may be assumed that the following years the population rose slowly. Therefore we estimate the population during the period 1593–1600 at average 28,000. 13

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Food supply, demand and trade

Table 4.5 Tariff of the ‘new’ grain tax, 1540–1600 Cereals

Tariff for 1 halster (= 53.65 litres) of grain

Tariff for 1 mud (= 643.8 litres) of grain

Wheat, maslin, beans and peas

2 Fl.gr.

24 Fl.gr.

Rye, barley, oats and horse-beans

1 Fl.gr.

12 Fl.gr.

Yellow peas, vetches and buckwheat

1 Fl.gr.

12 Fl.gr.

Source: CAG, series 400, nos 47–109; series 145, nos 1–6. Figure 4.6 Annual net income ‘old’ and ‘new’ grain tax in Ghent (Flemish groats), 1540–1600

imposed a heavy fine of 150,000 guilders on 30 April 1540. That was a heavy financial burden for a city that already had numerous debts to pay. The city council usually imposed as few taxes as possible on basic food, but apparently the financial manoeuvring space was extremely limited in 1540, and there were few to no alternatives. Table 4.6 shows that the decennial averages from the net income of the new tax on grain were remarkably stable during the period 1540–1580. When we look at figure 4.7, we will notice that the high level was even maintained until 1584.16 After that, revenue started to For the fiscal years that do not cover a full year figure 4.7 indicates to how many months the data refers.

16

62

Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

Table 4.6 Net income of the ‘new’ grain tax (decennial averages), 1540–1598 Period 11/1540 – 05/1550 05/1550 – 05/1560 05/1560 – 05/1570 05/1570 – 08/1579 08/1579 – 02/1590 02/1590 – 05/1598

Income in Fl. gr.

Index

246,136 242,453 228.053 252,525 218,220 146,245

100 99 93 103 89 59

Source: CAG, series 400, nos 47–109. Note: For an annual survey see figure 4.7.

Figure 4.7 Annual income of ‘new’ grain tax in Ghent (Flemish groats), 1540–1600

fall dramatically. The sharp decline in the grain consumption in the city is undoubtedly linked to the impressive fall of Ghent’s population figure after the reconciliation, which was due to the massive emigration abroad (Dambruyne, 2001b). When we discussed the muddegeld and the broker’s duty, we noticed that the grain supply to Ghent was severely disturbed during the first half of the 1580s (see figure 4.5). However, we find no traces of this crisis in the income from the new tax on grain. How should we explain this paradox? Like we already said, the new tax reflects the consumption of grain, rather than the grain trade. The fact that the level of consumption was so high during the first half of the 1580s was due to the temporary immigration of the rural population. But where did Ghent find the grain that was needed? Since the supply was insufficient through the

63

Food supply, demand and trade

usual ­channels - the staple right mechanism proved to be inadequate17 - it bought certain amounts of grain on Amsterdam’s market on several occasions.18 However, the muddegeld and zaemcoperie did not apply to the grain that the city purchased, which is why we cannot find it in the corresponding fiscal statistics and graphs.19 On the other hand, the grain that was purchased was subject to the consumption tax. Furthermore, the new tax on grain is only an approximation to the real income, since it was leased. It is widely known that the international grain trade between the Low Countries and the Baltic area was very important from the fifteenth century, and that it was dominated by the Dutch, especially the Hollanders (Unger, 1926: 138, 148). During the sixteenth century, the Baltic grain trade became even more intense. According to Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude (1995: 239), the import of grain from the Baltic rose from an average of 2,000 to 3,000 last in the 1470s to more than 50,000 last in the 1560s. Contemporary Lodovico Guicciardini wrote that during the 1560s, the Low Countries imported 60,000 last of grain from the Baltic area each year. The fact that eastern grain was cheaper than western undoubtedly contributed to the huge success of this trade (Van Tielhof, 2001: 212–213). According to a calculation by Etienne Scholliers (1960: 61), the grain that was imported from the Baltic would have covered an average of 13.5% of the annual domestic consumption of grain in the Low Countries during the period 1562–1601.20 That percentage is probably overestimated, since part of the grain from the Baltic must have been destined for areas outside the Low Countries (Van Tielhof, 2001: 206). Thanks to the well-preserved registers of the so-called Sound toll - the ships that crossed the Sound had to pay a toll - we now know the exact ship movements to and from the Baltic Sea and the amounts that have been transported since the 1560s (studied by Christensen, 1941). The bulk of the grain from the Baltic ended up in Amsterdam, and from there it was exported to the different regions in the Low Countries and the rest of Europe (mainly Southern Europe) (Van Tielhof, this volume). If we want to know the exact magnitude of Ghent’s grain trade, we should compare the figures for Ghent to those for the Baltic trade. Table 4.7 illustrates that at the end of the 1560s, the Sound received 2.8 times more grain than Ghent. The amount of grain that was exported from Danzig, the main export port for Baltic grain, in 1557 (29,800 last) (Van Tielhof, 2001: 205), was 45% higher than the amount that passed through Ghent during the period 1568–1574 (an average of 20,579 last). During the years 1574–1580, the difference between both ports was at its smallest. Both the grain trade in Ghent and the Baltic trade had a setback at the time, but

During the years 1580–1584 the supplied grain volume was not enough to feed the whole population. In 1583 and 1584 perhaps 55 to 60,000 people stayed in the town (Dambruyne, 2001b:), whereas with the grain that during the fiscal year August 1583-August 1584 reached the town, one could feed only about 13,000 inhabitants (see Table 4.4). 18 In 1580 for instance 655 citizens lent more than one million Flemish groats to the city to purchase grain. CAG, series 532, no. 33. Between 16 February and 15 March 1582 three Amsterdam boatmen delivered in all 214,064 litres of wheat and rye. CAG, series 458, no. 21. 19 CAG, series 458, nos 21 and 24. 20 Hugo Soly (1983: 106) speaks of 10 percent. 17

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Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

Table 4.7 Comparison between the Sound grain trade and the Ghent grain trade (annual averages), 1562–1600 Period

The Sound

Period

Ghent

1562–1569 1574–1580 1581–1590 1591–1600

57,400 last 35,100 last 42,100 last 63,100 last

1568–1574 1574–1580 1580–1588 1591–1600

20,579 last 17,319 last 8,007 last 8,909 last

Source: For the Sound trade see (Christensen, 1941: 371), for the Ghent trade see Table 4.4. Note: Both for Ghent and The Sound the figures refer to all sorts of grain, so not only rye and wheat. The annual averages are expressed in last of Amsterdam. 1 Amsterdam last = 2,918 litres. the decrease in trade in the Baltic was much more spectacular. As a result of the Dutch Revolt, much less grain was transported to Amsterdam in the 1570s. However, the volume of grain that crossed the Sound was still twice as high as the amount that passed through Ghent. During the 1580s, the difference between both toll locations increased yet again: the strait saw 5.3 times as much grain being transported, compared to Ghent. That trend continued into the 1590s. The expansion of the grain trade between the Northern Netherlands and the Baltic area caused an even bigger difference between the Sound and Ghent: 7.1 times as much grain passed through the Sound.

IV. The origin of the grain and the share of water and land transport in the grain trade The accounts for the muddegeld and zaemcoperie give us an insight into the share of the different taxation and unloading locations in the grain trade during the second half of the sixteenth century, and into the ratio between the transport of grain by water and on land. The accounts made a systematic distinction between grain that was transported 1. in special grain ships, 2. in market boats and 3. in ordinary ships, and taxed and unloaded at the Graslei, 4. grain from ships that were moored at the Sluizeken, 5. the grain that entered the city by water and that was taxed and unloaded at Nieuwbrug and Koepoort, and 6. the grain that entered the city through the city gates. Figure 4.8 clearly shows that the grain ships that were loaded and unloaded at the Graslei were an absolute majority in the grain transport. That comes as no surprise since, unlike other cargo ships, they only transported grain and they navigated on both the rivers Lys and Scheldt - traditionally the two major arteries for the transport of grain in Flanders. On the other hand, the cargo of the market ships, that provided a regular connection between a number of urban and rural markets (Oudenaarde, Courtrai, Deinze, Sint-Martens-Leerne and Wakken) in the Gentse Kwartier (the hinterland of Ghent), and of the other vessels also consisted of other merchandise besides grain. Furthermore, they only transported grain in bags, which means that the quantities were smaller.

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Figure 4.8 Share of the various valuation locations in the annual income of ­muddegeld and zaemcoperie in Ghent, 1568–1600

It has been known for a very long time that the centre of the grain trade in Ghent was to be found at the Graslei, but the true share of this location has never been calculated before. According to the gross income from the muddegeld and broker’s duty, its average market share in the grain transport for the years 1568–1600 was no less than 92.3%! Compared to the years 1568–1584, however, this busy place for unloading and taxing lost part of that share during the 1590s: its average share dropped from 94.5% to 90.2%. Those figures are essential in the debate concerning the true impact of Baltic grain in the Southern Netherlands. In her study of the price setting and pricing mechanisms of cereals in Brabant and Flanders during the fifteenth century, Marie-Jeanne Tits-Dieuaide (1975: 250–260) stressed the importance of the Baltic grain trade to the Burgundian Netherlands. She thought that the influence of the export areas in the north of France on the price level of grain in Brabant and Flanders was much less important. In regard to Ghent she writes: “ Certes, ce trafic était vital pour les bateliers gantois, et il assurait à Gand une partie de son approvisionnement. Mais cela n’implique pas nécessairement un volume considérable, capable de dominer les autres données du marché flamand ” (Tits-Dieuaide, 1975: 256). We do not wish to comment on Brabant, but as far as Flanders is concerned, it may be stated that the import of grain was dominated by the grain from the north of France during the entire sixteenth century. Since 1. all grain that was taxed at the Graslei came from the north of France and Hainaut, 2. more than 90% of the total import of grain in Ghent was measured at the Graslei, and 3. Ghent’s role as a staple market for grain in the County of

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Flanders was still very significant during the sixteenth century, it is safe to conclude that the share of the Baltic grain in the supply of grain to Flanders and Ghent was rather limited. Our statement concerning sixteenth-century Flanders is surprisingly similar to the recent findings of Milja van Tielhof (2001: 214–215) for Holland. She also concluded that the share of eastern grain in the overall grain supply to Holland has been overestimated until now. Furthermore, she states that the demand for eastern grain in Holland was bigger in times of high grain prices, whereas in times of normal and low grain prices, the demand for western grain rose. That thesis can probably also be applied to Flanders. The grain policy of Ghent’s city council confirms that this might be the case.21 However, the City of Artevelde continued to rely on grain from Artois and other western regions, including during times of crisis.22 The fact that Ghent’s city magistrate only turned to Artois and Hainaut at critical moments during the 1590s,23 illustrates that political and military factors (the war between the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands) also influenced the supply of grain in Flanders. The fact that Ghent mainly imported grain from the north of France, leads us to believe that the share of wheat bread in Ghent’s food consumption during the sixteenth century was a lot larger than we used to think. However, that does not mean that it was predominant, since the local production of grain was aimed at rye. The Sluizeken was a taxation and unloading location for the grain that was imported from Zeeland through the Sassevaart canal. From 1563 onwards, the year in which the new canal became fully operational, a grain market was held every week, which was aptly called Zeeuwse Aard. However, the very modest share of the Sluizeken in the gross income - a yearly average of only 2% for the period between 1568 and 1600 - indicates that very little grain was shipped from Zeeland to Ghent and that the Sassevaart canal was not often used by grain ships, or at least compared to the Lys and Scheldt rivers. During the fiscal years 1551–1552 and 1553–1554, 2,574 and 2,812 mud of grain were transported through the Sassevaart canal respectively (Decavele and De Herdt, 1976: 328). Between 1568 and 1572, the average import amounted to 2,475 mud. After the reconciliation, the import of grain through the Sassevaart canal dropped by 627 mud per year on average (1584–1600). Given the fact that the grain from the Baltic was taken from Amsterdam to Zeeland on the inland waterways, from where it was shipped to the Southern Netherlands, it is quite surprising that not much of that Baltic grain was taken to Ghent through the Sassevaart canal during the second half of the sixteenth century. Since Ghent kept importing most of its grain from the north of France, the people of Zeeland must have decided to focus on Antwerp, since the grain market in Antwerp grew rapidly during the sixteenth century (Van der Wee, 1963: 120–122). The grain trade between Ghent and Zeeland only experienced a growth in 1580–1583, at least when we look at the percentage - the Sluizeken’s market share rose to an average of 9% - but that was not the case for absolute figures. The grain trade on the Scheldt and Lys rivers had plummeted due to the recapture carried out by governor Alexander Farnese, and Ghent was forced to turn to the Sassevaart canal. It is For instance on 21 November 1565 the city bought 200 last of Prussian rye; in 1566 Ghent purchased 50 last of wheat at Amsterdam. CAG, series 107, no. 1, f. 329v, 335r. 22 On 11 September 1566 the Ghent aldermen sent town pensionary François van der Haghen to the court in Brussels to receive permission to import weekly one hundred mud of grain from Aire and Béthune. CAG, series 107, no. 1, f. 302v. 23 CAG, series 107, no. 4, f. 315r, 320v, 355r, 357r. 21

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also remarkable that little grain from Zeeland was shipped to Ghent through the Sassevaart canal, since Zeeland was quite an important grain-producing region. However, the Zeeland grain export was concentrated on towns in Holland (Van Tielhof, 2001: 209).The movement of grain on the Sassevaart canal in the opposite direction (i.e. from south to north) was not spectacular either. The amount of grain that was exported from Ghent to Holland through this canal was rather modest. In 1570, 23 ships passed through the so-called Sas van Gent on their way to a port in Holland; they carried a total amount of 1,650 mud of grain (Van Tielhof, 2001: 209). Figure 4.8 clearly demonstrates that the number of ships that moored at Nieuwbrug and Koepoort and that was responsible for the transport of grain between Antwerp and Ghent on the river Scheldt, was always very modest. That confirms our thesis that the grain that was supplied to Ghent came mostly from the south, and not from the north. Due to the limited supply, the taxation and unloading of grain at Nieuwbrug and Koepoort was ceased in 1583. The share of the town gates in the gross income from muddegeld and broker’s duty gives us a clear insight into the ratio between the transport of grain on land and by water, and we see that the transport by water was by far the most important. During the years 1568–1600, an average of only 4.7% of the grain that was taxed entered the city through the gates. Given the fact that Ghent was at the heart of a dense network of waterways in Flanders and the long-distance transport on land was definitely more expensive (Blondé and Van Uytven, 1999: 136), we can understand why the transport of grain by water was so dominant. However, we do see quite a substantial increase in the supply of grain on land at the end of the sixteenth century: the share of the town gates between 1568 and 1578 and during the Calvinist Republic amounted to 2.5 and 3% respectively, and rose to 8.6% between 1593 and 1600. When we compare graph 4.8 to graph 4.5, we can see that the share of the city gates, and therefore of the transport of grain on land, increased when the total supply of grain fell sharply. For the years 1568 to 1584, the accounts of muddegeld and zaemcoperie mention the gross income of every individual town gate, so we can clearly see where the largest and smallest amounts of grain entered the city. Figure 4.9 is clear: the largest amounts of grain passed through the Keizerpoort and Sint-Lievenspoort. From 1568 to 1584, the average share of both city gates amounted to almost 60%. That grain mostly came from the Land of Alost and the Land of Termonde, and to a lesser extent from Brabant. That percentage illustrates that the grain from those regions was not transported on the Dender and Scheldt rivers (cf. the limited market share of Nieuwbrug and Koepoort), but that the traffic was mainly concentrated on land. The increase in armed conflicts between 1580 and 1584 ­severely disturbed the grain trade with those production regions, and at one point it was even halted. Apart from the Keizerpoort and Sint-Lievenspoort, the largest amount of grain came through the Brugse Poort. That gate accounted for one fifth of the import of grain on land. The bulk of the grain came from the kasselrij Oudburg and Meetjesland. An average of only 12% of the grain that was transported by cart entered the city through the Dampoort, which leads us to believe that most grain that was transported from the Land van Waas came through the Sassevaart canal and the river Scheldt. The amounts of grain that entered the city through the Muidepoort (from the Vier Ambachten), Overpoort (kasselrij Oudenaarde) and Petercellepoort (kasselrij Courtrai) were negligible. Since the market centres of those Flemish rural areas were located on major waterways (Lys and Scheldt rivers, Sassevaart canal), it is only logical that they hardly transported anything on land.

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Interregional grain trade in the Low Countries and its economic and social effects on sixteenth-century Ghent

Figure 4.9 Share of the various town gates of Ghent, 1568–1583

Figure 4.10 Share of the various market boats arriving in Ghent, 1568–1583

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As far as the period from 1568 to 1584 is concerned, the accounts of muddegeld and zaemcoperie also allow us to investigate the importance of the different market boats for the grain trade in Ghent. It is remarkable that the market ships were mainly used on the river Lys (Courtrai, Deinze, Wakken, Sint-Martens-Leerne) and to a much lesser extent on the river Scheldt (only Oudenaarde). We also know that the grain trade in Ghent was focused on grain from Artois, and all this indicates that the traffic on the river Lys was probably more important to the grain trade than the river Scheldt. Before we look at the share of each of the five market boats, we should point out that the supply of bags of grain on market ships fell sharply from the fiscal year 1572–1573 onwards: in 1571–1572, muddegeld and broker’s duty yielded 6,296 Fl.gr., but during the following year, gross income dropped to 872 Fl.gr. From August 1583 onwards, the market boats even ceased sailing. During the 1560s and 1570s, the largest amount of grain was supplied from Courtrai. No less than 60% of all the bags of grain that were transported on market ships came from Courtrai. But after the city had been captured by the Malcontenten in February 1580, the grain trade between Courtrai and Ghent came to a halt (see figure 4.10). Apart from Courtrai, the largest amount of grain that was shipped to Ghent came from Deinze. The market boat from Deinze had an average market share of 21% between 1568 and 1584. On the other hand, the average share of the market boats from Oudenaarde, Sint-Martens-Leerne (not far from Deinze) and Wakken (between Deinze and Courtrai) amounted to 10.7%, 8.3% and 6.8% respectively, so little grain was transported from these areas to Ghent on market boats.

V. Grain provision, determination of prices and social rest Marc Boone (1990a: 21–23; 1991: 854–856) linked the internal social peace and stability that was typical of fifteenth-century society in Ghent to the staple right, and the consequential duty to keep a certain amount of grain available to the inhabitants of Ghent. The author believes that this municipal institution was an efficient tool to avoid social unrest. Before that, Bigwood (1906: 398) had already pointed out that the staple right ensured an adequate and regular supply of grain, and so reasonable grain prices. ­According to Howell and Boone (1996: 316) in Ghent and Douai, as a result of their grain staple, shortages were fewer, supplies easier to commandeer and prices lower than elsewhere. Of course, the question here is whether Ghent’s staple right for grain also had positive effects on the supply of grain during the sixteenth century, like it did during the fifteenth century. Ghent was situated in the middle of a sandy area that was not very fertile and where the cultivation of rye was predominant. Quite recently, Erik Thoen (2001: 111–112) called this area (inland Flanders) a ‘commercial survival economy’. The agricultural system was characterised by an abundance of very small family holdings, mostly mixed holdings that concentrated on self-sufficiency and whose main objective was to survive. In 1571 in the province of Eastern Flanders on average 74 percent of holdings were smaller than 5 hectare, and 34 percent even smaller than 1 hectare (Thoen, 2001: 115). Despite the intense cultivation of the soil (high land productivity), those holdings could only destine a small amount of grain for the urban market due to their limited size. Furthermore, the county was densely populated and highly urbanised. Flanders is said to have had some 740 to 790,000 inhabitants round about 1570 (Maddens, 1976: 170; Thoen, 1988: 634, estimates the number even at 830,000), which was equal to a population density of

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87 to 93 inhabitants per km² (own calculation based on data in (Maddens, 1976: 170) and (Prevenier and Blockmans, 1983: 29, 392), while the degree of urbanisation probably amounted to 32% (Thoen, 2001: 146). The grain production in the rural areas around the city did certainly not suffice to feed the large number of inhabitants in Ghent. Therefore, the City of Artevelde needed to look for grain from other production areas in and outside the County of Flanders. At first glance Table 4.4 reveals that thanks to its role as a staple market and a transit port for grain, Ghent was hardly ever short of supply during the sixteenth century, even in times of severe crisis (for instance 1585–1586 and 1586–1587). Only during the first half of the 1580s, due to the war situation, the amount of grain was insufficient to supply the entire population with bread. Yet the municipal authorities also bought large amounts of grain in times of crop failures. How can we explain this contradiction? We must not forget that the staple right only applied to one quarter, and later one sixth of the grain that passed through Ghent. That part was not enough to supply the entire population of Ghent with grain. During the peak year 1569–1570, the staple right resulted in some 11.6 million litres of grain. That quantity was enough to feed some 32,000 people for one year, while the total population at the time can be estimated at some 42,000 people (Dambruyne, 2001b). Of course, Ghent also benefited indirectly from its role as a staple market. Since the grain had to pass through Ghent anyway, many grain merchants probably decided that they would also sell part of the cargo to which the staple right did not apply on the market in Ghent. In times of normal harvest, the combination of the free grain trade and the duty to store ensured a steady supply of grain. However, the city might have been short of supply due to crop failures, because less grain was transported due to the decrease in yield, and because the staple right also yielded less grain due to the limited supply. That is why Ghent’s city council decided to take no chances in times of crisis, and it placed orders on grain markets outside Flanders. It is remarkable, however, that the city magistrate did not start to buy amounts of grain until the crisis year 1565–1566. The sources give no indication of any purchase prior to that, although there had been important crop failures in the Southern Netherlands previously (for instance 1520–1521, 1531–1532, 1556–1557). That leads us to suspect that the positive influence of Ghent’s staple right started to decline in the second half of the 1560s, and that the reduction of the quota that was claimed, from one quarter to one sixth, did indeed cause more supplying problems during crises. For the years 1568–1600, the sources from Ghent allow us to study the link between the supply and the prices of grain. Figure 4.11 speaks for itself: the amount of grain that was supplied certainly was decisive for the price level of grain (both wheat and rye). The graph unmistakably illustrates that as the import of grain in Ghent fell, prices rose, and the amplitude between the supply index and the price indices became considerably larger. When the amount of grain that was supplied rose, the situation was exactly the opposite. Between 1568 and 1578, the amplitude between the import index and the grain indices was at its smallest, but it increased substantially during the Calvinist Republic. The graph clearly indicates that the grain prices rose as a result of a fall in the supply of grain. The distance between the indices was at its largest during the two horrible crisis years 1585–1586 and 1586–1587. On the other hand, we see that despite the fact that the grain prices were extraordinarily high during both crisis years, more grain was imported than during the first half of the 1580s. How can

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Figure 4.11 Correlation between grain supply and grain prices in Ghent (%), 1568–1600

we explain that contradiction? There is a possibility that the high prices for grain in 1585–1586 and 1586–1587 were partly caused by speculations made by merchants, and so by withholding part of the grain, prices were partly artificially inflated. Moreover, the city council bought certain amounts of grain on foreign markets at several times during the Calvinist Republic. That grain is not to be found in the graph, because it was not subject to indirect taxes. Finally, the Calvinist government probably kept the grain prices in Ghent low in an artificial way, for both social and political reasons. The figures for the fiscal year 1583–1584 seem to point in that direction: as the supply of grain reached a low point due to the isolation of the city by governor Alexander Farnese, prices were still much lower than during the years 1584–1585, 1585–1586 and 1586–1587. Despite the reduction of the staple right in 1587, prices for grain remained low until 1594. That can be attributed to the rise in the overall amount of grain that was brought to Ghent. The price curve for grain (especially wheat) was inversely proportional to the supply of grain during the 1590s: a fall in the import between 1593–1594 and 1596–1597 led to an important rise in prices. On the other hand, an increase in the amount of grain that was supplied between 1596–1597 and 1599–1600 caused the grain prices to decrease. Did the presence of a staple market in Ghent keep the grain prices low? Howell and Boone (1996: 313) think it did. In order to prove it, they compared the purchasing power of skilled artisans in the building trades from Ghent and Douai to that of their colleagues in Bruges. Between 1362 and 1500, a master craftsman from Bruges had difficulties feeding his family properly from his wage on four occasions (during the years 1437–1438, 1438–1439, 1481–1482 and 1482–1483). A master from Douai only had problems on two occasions and his colleague from Ghent had no problems whatsoever. The authors thought that since the wage levels in Ghent and Bruges were comparable, the different prices for

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grain must have caused the differences in purchasing power. However, the positive social effect of the staple right on the people of Ghent should not be exaggerated, since the same calculation proved that only the corporative middle class had nothing to worry about. The lower social groups did sometimes find it very difficult to keep their heads above water. Between 1380 and 1500, the skilled wage-earners failed to reach the so-called comfort limit (more than 100 working hours needed in order to feed a family of four properly) at least five times, the unskilled workers at least eleven times (see graph in Baillieul and Duhameeuw, 1989: 210). During the sixteenth century, their situation did not improve at all. On the contrary, between 1500 and 1539 alone, the bricklayer’s journeyman crossed the 100-hour wage limit eight times, and the bricklayer’s unskilled helper did so thirteen times (see the same graph). Does this indicate that due to the erosion of the staple right, the positive influence of the staple on the price setting of grain in Ghent wore off during the sixteenth century? That question can only be answered adequately if we can compare the price level of grain in Ghent to that in other cities. And that is the problem. Despite the numerous efforts that were made at the University of Ghent during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to trace and publish series of grain prices (the monumental series Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant is the result of this project), we still have very few adequate series of prices that allow us to compare several cities in the Southern Netherlands. The situation concerning sixteenth-century Ghent is far from favourable, e.g. we have no records of weekly market prices. We therefore have to make do with the prices from Ghent’s institutional accounts (Toch, 1973: 338–340 and 344–347). Since those are often wholesale prices, they were usually lower than the market price. Because of lack of uniform price series, it is currently impossible to compare the average price level of grain in Ghent to that of other cities in the County of Flanders during the sixteenth century.24 Fortunately, there are also non-statistical sources that inform us, albeit in a shallow way, of the relation between the price level of grain in Ghent and in other Flemish cities. In 1573, several cities (Antwerp, Douai, Aire, Béthune. . .) and grain merchants sent a petition to governor Requesens, and that petition has taught us that due to the staple right, the prices for grain in Ghent were indeed lower than in many neighbouring cities.25 Although the grain price in Ghent was also primarily determined by the relation between supply and demand – the city council was not allowed to set the market price for grain – the staple did prove to be an efficient tool to manipulate the price level. The permission to sell the grain that had been claimed and stored was granted by the three staple officials, who were very well aware of the amounts of grain that were stored in the city. They were the ones who decided when the ‘unfree’ grain that had been stored could be sold, and what the amount should be (Du Bois and De Hondt, 1887: 21–23).

For example the nature of the published grain prices of the Bruges chapter of Sint-Donatiaan (Verhulst, 1965) is totally different from those of the Ghent institutional accounts. This implies that a price comparision between sixteenth-century Ghent and Bruges is senseless. Seeing that P. Vandewalle (1988) in his study on grain prices of West and South Flemish towns, used market prices, rent prices (spijkerprijzen) and institutional prices indifferently, it was to risky to confront our data with those of him. Some economic historians use econometric methods to compare the price level of different grain markets (see for instance the study of Persson, 1999), but they forget often that sophisticated calculations only have sense if one has the disposal of uniform basic material. 25 CAG, series 349, no. 108. 24

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By allowing a larger or smaller quantity of grain to be put on the market, they were able to influence the pricing mechanism. By selling a part of the municipal grain stock, they could keep the prices relatively low in times of crisis. Of course, their interventions only had any effect when the grain stock was large enough. However, Ghent had nothing to worry about when it came to stocks. According to the staple officials, the different storehouses contained 2,033 mud of ‘unfree’ (60.6%) and 1,322 mud of ‘free’ grain (39.4%) in September 1573, which means that there was no less than 3,355 mud or 2,160,000 litres of wheat and rye available.26 The 1573 petition teaches us that the grain prices in Ghent were lower because of the fact that grain merchants were obliged to sell one quarter or one sixth of their merchandise on Ghent’s market, but also that the merchants tried to compensate for the money that they lost in Ghent by charging higher prices on the neighbouring markets. The staple right and the so-called lastbreken (the obligation to load a ship’s cargo aboard a ship that belonged to a boatman from Ghent) caused substantial economic transaction costs and transport costs (loss of time and profit) for grain merchants that passed through the City of Artevelde. Since their political and juridical efforts to have those two privileges of Ghent lifted remained unsuccessful, they recovered the extra economic costs from cities that were weaker than Ghent. Although we ought to be cautious, the sources that we have at our disposal allow us to make a fairly reliable comparison between the prices on the grain markets of Ghent and Antwerp. The commercial metropolis has also preserved series of grain prices from institutional accounts, and the averages were calculated according to a method similar to the one used for the series of prices from Ghent (Scholliers, 1960: 3–16). In order to further increase the comparative reliability factor, we have calculated decennial averages. Let us first compare the price of wheat on both markets. Table 4.8 shows that the price of wheat in Ghent was always lower than the price in Antwerp during the course of the sixteenth century, or at least during those years for which we have traced the figures. However, we must add that as from the 1520s, the discrepancy became very small. The table illustrates that an unmistakable levelling pro­ cess took place during the first half of the century: the price difference during the first decade amounted to more than 12%, whereas during the fifth decade, it dropped to less than 1%. Following Antwerp’s spectacular demographic and economic expansion, the importance of its grain market within the Duchy of Brabant also rose. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the commercial metropolis still depended heavily on Ghent’s grain staple, but that started to change in the 1520s. The imperial ordinance of 25 June 1521 gave Antwerp the right to trade grain freely (Van der Wee, 1963: 120–122). In times of scarcity, Antwerp also supplied grain to other cities in Brabant, such as Louvain (Van Uytven, 1980: 131). During the 1580s, the price difference between both cities had again increased significantly. The metropolis’ economic and demographic decline appeared to be linked to important supplying problems for wheat (from the southern regions of CAG, series 107, no. 2, f. 197r. On 31 October 1592 the stocked quantity of grain was nearly equally: 3.391 mud or 2.183.000 litres (Bigwood, 1906: 447). By way of comparison: in Louvain, a city that indeed had less by half inhabitants than Ghent, the grain stock amounted to 4,360 ­hectolitres in November 1568 (Van Uytven, 1980: 133), five times less than in Ghent in 1573.

26

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Table 4.8 Price of wheat (1 hectolitre) in Ghent and Antwerp (decennial averages), 1499–1599 Decade 1499/00 – 1508/09 1509/10 – 1518/19 1519/20 – 1528/29 1529/30 – 1538/39 1539/40 – 1548/49 1549/50 – 1558/59 1559/60 – 1568/69 1569/70 – 1578/79 1579/80 – 1588/89 1589/90 – 1598/99

Ghent price in Fl. gr.

Antwerp price in Fl. gr.

Difference in Fl. gr.

Difference in %

40.1 42.0 67.4 69.4 77.1 107.0 115.8 168.9 281.8 236.2

45.0 46.9 70.0 70.5 77.7 – – – 352.8 254.1

+ 4.9 + 4.9 + 2.6 + 1.1 + 0.6 – – – + 71.0 + 17.9

+ 12.2 + 11.7 + 3.9 + 1.6 + 0.8 – – – + 25.2 + 7.6

Source: Decennial averages calculated on the basis of (Toch, 1973: 338–340) and (Scholliers, 1960: 14–15). Note: Difference = Proportion of the Antwerp price in respect of the Ghent price. There are no Antwerp figures available for the 1550s, 1560s and 1570s.

the Low Countries). Moreover, the countryside around Antwerp was characterised by a lack of wheat-producing soils (Scholliers, 1960: 23). During the final decade of the century, the prices on the grain markets of both cities appeared to be levelling again. And how about the prices for rye? Table 4.9 contains the answer. During the first half of the sixteenth century, the discrepancy between the prices of rye in Ghent and Antwerp was minimal. The only real difference worth mentioning was noticed during the 1530s, when rye was 11% cheaper in Antwerp compared to Ghent. However, the second half of the sixteenth century showed a completely different picture: the price difference between both cities was much more noticeable. Between 1550 and 1590, the price level for rye in Antwerp was significantly lower than that in Ghent. Every decade, the discrepancy grew. During the 1570s, the average price difference even amounted to more than 30%. Why did prices diverge to such an extent? Of all the grain markets in Flanders and Brabant, Antwerp was probably the one that was most focused on rye and its price for rye was probably the lowest (Scholliers, 1960: 21–23). It is a common fact that the countryside around the city concentrated on the cultivation of rye. But that factor is not enough to explain the price difference, since the countryside around Ghent was also dominated by rye (Vandenbroeke, 1972: 96–97). The explanation has to be found in the different nature of the interregional grain trade in both cities. During the sixteenth century, Ghent continued to focus on western (from the north of France) grain (wheat) (see above), while Antwerp started to import more eastern grain (rye) through Holland and Zeeland (Scholliers, 1960: 23). Since our research has shown that mostly wheat was supplied to Ghent, it seems only logical that the effect of the staple right for grain on the price for rye in Ghent was much smaller than on the price for

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Table 4.9 Price of rye (1 hectolitre) in Ghent and Antwerp (decennial averages), 1499–1599 Decade 1499/00 – 1508/09 1509/10 – 1518/19 1519/20 – 1528/29 1529/30 – 1538/39 1539/40 – 1548/49 1549/50 – 1558/59 1559/60 – 1568/69 1569/70 – 1578/79 1579/80 – 1588/89 1589/90 – 1598/99

Ghent price in Fl. gr.

Antwerp price in Fl. gr.

Difference in Fl. gr.

28.2 29.0 44.8 52.8 53.2 78.2 82.9 111.4 219.5 182.1

27.4 29.7 45.2 47.5 51.0 62.9 65.6 85.2 188.9 178.0

– 0.8 + 0.7 + 0.4 – 5.3 – 2.2 – 15.3 – 17.3 – 26.2 – 30.6 – 4.1

Difference in % – 2.9 + 2.4 + 0.9 – 11.2 – 4.3 – 24.3 – 26.4 – 30.8 – 16.2 – 2.3

Source: Decennial averages calculated on the basis of (Toch, 1973: 344–347) and (Scholliers, 1960: 7–9). Note: Difference = Proportion of the Antwerp price in respect of the Ghent price. For an annual survey see figure 4.12. Figure 4.12 Price evolution of rye in Ghent and Antwerp (Flemish groats for one hectolitre), 1499–1600

wheat. That explains why the City of Artevelde was beaten by the Scheldt City when it came to low prices for rye. During the final two decades of the sixteenth century, prices started to level. The price for rye in Antwerp increased, which was probably due to the severe economic and demographic crisis that hit the trade metropolis and to the closing of the Scheldt, which had a negative effect on the supply of eastern grain.

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The interregional importance of Antwerp’s grain market decreased significantly in the years after 1585. The price of rye in Ghent also rose spectacularly, but still less strongly than in Antwerp. In the sixteenth century, there were remarkably few food riots in Ghent. During the course of the entire century, the archives contain only two references to disturbances, considerably less than Antwerp (Soly, 1993: 42). The first time was in August 1532, when some fourteen citizens were planning to kill a number of grain merchants, whom they thought to be responsible for the high grain prices at the time. They were believed to have inflated the price by hoarding up grain. Eventually, the conspiracy was foiled because one of the conspirators let the cat out of the bag (Vander Meersch, 1854: 91–92). The only true riot took place on Wednesday, 21 August 1566 (De Potter, 1870: 10–11). That day, very little grain was offered for sale at the Korenmarkt. Moreover, the grain price had kept on rising the previous days. The women who came to the market started to express their dissatisfaction with the situation. When some women proclaimed that grain merchant Jan Doens had bought eight to nine cartloads of grain from a farmer just outside the Sint-Lievenspoort and that he had stored all of it in his house, the situation got out of control. People started to claim that he had deliberately stored the grain to inflate the price. Subsequently, the angry women went to the grain merchant’s house. Jan Doens and his son-in-law were taken to the city jail by policemen. In order to restore peace, the bailiff had grain brought in from the municipal storehouses and he set the grain price for that day. Figure 4.13 demonstrates that the 1532 conspiracy and the 1566 riot both took place during or right after a crisis year. We believe that the limited number of food riots can be attributed to the positive effect of the grain staple on the price level for grain in Ghent (lower prices and smaller price fluctuations). But figure 4.13 also illustrates that the staple right did not always reach its social objective. During nine crisis years, the full year’s pay of an unskilled wage-earner was not enough to feed his family properly (assuming that the family consisted of five people and that the head of the family was the only breadwinner).

VI. Conclusion The literature has often described the grain staple and grain trade in Ghent as one of the three pillars of the city’s sixteenth-century economy. In this contribution, we have used quantitative facts to determine whether that statement, that has relied mainly on impressions until now, actually reflects the historic truth. Our research has revealed that Ghent’s role as the staple market of grain for Flanders and as a transit port for the interregional grain trade in the Low Countries was still very important for most of the sixteenth century, and that the economic consequences for the City of Artevelde were favourable. Although the interregional grain trade in Ghent could not bear comparison with the international grain trade in Amsterdam, no less than seventy million litres of grain were transported to Ghent during the peak years (the beginning of the 1570s), and most of it was exported again. Just like any other economic sector, the grain trade was also affected by cyclical fluctuations. Our long-term analysis has revealed that, economically speaking, the third quarter of the sixteenth century was the most prosperous period. It was then that the different municipal taxes on grain reached their highest average level and

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Figure 4.13 Percentage of the annual wage an unskilled building worker of Ghent saved after purchase of the necessary quantity of rye for his family (shortage/ surplus in %), 1500–1600

the yearly fluctuations were reduced to a minimum. Although the taxes on grain yielded as much income during certain years of the first half of the sixteenth century as they did during the third quarter, the overall score of that period was not that favourable. During the final quarter of the sixteenth century, Ghent became less important as a staple market for grain and a transit port for the interregional grain trade. The supply of grain to the City of Artevelde had obviously dropped, just like the percentage of grain that was exported again. If we want to find an explanation for this decline, we should first of all consider the trade cycle, and more specifically the general economic crisis that hit the Southern Netherlands during the 1580s and 1590s. The reform and erosion of Ghent’s staple right in 1587 probably reinforced the downward movement. On the other hand, it may be stated with great certainty that the reduction of the staple right in the 1560s did not have any negative effects on the grain market in Ghent and on the city’s role as a transit port for grain. Those empirical findings lead us to the conclusion that the evolution of the grain trade in Ghent during the sixteenth century was mostly determined by economic-cyclical factors, and to a much lesser extent by institutional-structural factors. Authors such as Marie-Jeanne Tits-Dieuaide and Etienne Scholliers believe that the expansion of the grain trade in the Baltic area during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was of vital importance to the supply in the Southern Netherlands. However, our research has revealed that the impact of eastern grain on the grain trade in the County of Flanders was very modest. The fact that both historians have based their research predominantly on archival sources from Brabant explains why they have misinterpreted the situation in the County of Flanders. Contrary to what Tits-Dieuaide (1975: 250) thought, the grain trade in Flanders, of which Ghent was the pivot, mainly relied beside the local production

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on imported western grain, especially from Artois. The Ghent grain trade was essentially a south-north movement. Less than 10% of the overall supply of grain in Ghent came from the north. Milja Van Tielhof had already qualified the importance of Baltic grain in sixteenth-century Holland. So it seems that the impact of eastern grain on the food supply and the interregional grain trade in the Low Countries during the sixteenth century should be revised. Given the fact that sixteenth-century Ghent had an excellent network of waterways (rivers and canals) and that there was no efficient (intercity) road network in the Southern Netherlands at the time (that would have to wait until the eighteenth century), it does not come as a surprise that 95% of the grain in Ghent was transported by water. Although we have no exact figures, it does seem that the grain trade on the river Lys was more important than the trade on the other waterways. One of the main conclusions of Tits-Dieuaide’s doctoral study (1975: 254–256, 260) was that the setting of the grain prices in Brabant and Flanders during the fifteenth century was influenced in a profound way by the interregional and international grain trade, rather than by local and regional production (harvest fluctuations caused by changing weather conditions). That theory certainly applies to the price setting in sixteenth-century Ghent. The surrounding countryside proved unable to feed the entire population of Ghent. Our research has clearly revealed a positive correlation between the intensity of the grain trade and the price level: as less western and eastern grain was supplied, the price of wheat and rye on Ghent’s market rose, and vice versa. Of course, Ghent’s staple right did not solve all social problems. Despite the privilege, the grain supply was insufficient and the grain price high at certain times. Ghent’s staple market was also unable to protect the citizens from the sixteenth-century price revolution. Between the beginning and the end of the sixteenth century, the increase in prices was comparable to that in other cities in the Southern Netherlands (multiplied by six or seven). Ghent did use the staple right to try to secure its supply of grain as much as possible, but eventually, the City of Artevelde also depended on the supply on the market, a factor on which it had little or no influence. Economic (crop failures, speculation, rumours) and political circumstances (war, export ban, government interventions) could seriously disturb the supply of grain. The social importance of Ghent’s grain staple and grain trade should not be overestimated, but it should not be underestimated either. In this respect, we can point out the fact that, compared to other cities, the sources contain hardly any reference to famines, abnormal deaths (Dambruyne, 2001b) and food riots in Ghent. By lack of reliable and uniform figures, it remains very difficult to make a quantitative comparison between the price level of wheat and rye on the sixteenth-century grain market in Ghent and that on other urban markets in Flanders and Brabant. Still, several contemporary documents seem to suggest that the price level was indeed lower and price fluctuations were less extreme, thanks to the staple market. By marketing a larger or smaller part of the grain stock that was subject to the staple right, the municipal authorities were able to influence the free grain price indirectly. However, there were probably no extreme price differences between Ghent and the other cities - Ghent’s grain stock may have been substantial, but it did have its limits.27 We should remember that only one quarter of the grain that was supplied had to be sold on Ghent’s market. Furthermore, it seems that because of the erosion of the Tits-Dieuaide (1975: 251) has pointed out that the Flemish and Brabant grain markets were characterised since the fifteenth century by market integration.

27

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staple right (from the second half of the 1560s onwards) and the cyclical decline in the grain trade (since the end of the 1570s), that tool no longer sufficed to supply the people of Ghent with enough grain in times of crisis and to keep the price at a reasonable level. From then on, Ghent’s municipal authorities were obliged to buy grain on the markets of Amsterdam and the north of France during crisis years, just like other cities. Finally, our comparison of prices in Ghent and Antwerp has proven that the staple right mainly had a positive effect on the price of wheat on Ghent’s grain market, and to a lesser extent on the price of rye. This proves once again that the grain trade in Ghent during the sixteenth century was mostly focused on western grain, while Antwerp concentrated on eastern grain.

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d’état, solidarité communale et intérêts privés dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux à l’époque bourguignonne (XIVe-XVe siècle)’, in: S. Cavaciocchi (ed.), L’impresa. Industria, commercio, banca, saec. XIII-XVIII, Florence, pp. 839–862. Christensen, A.E. (1941) Dutch trade to the Baltic about 1600, Copenhagen-The Hague. Commer, P. de (1981) ‘De brouwindustrie te Gent, 1505–1622’, Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, 35, pp. 81–114. Commer, P. de (1983) ‘De brouwindustrie te Gent, 1505–1622’, Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, 37, pp. 113–171. Dambruyne, J. (1999) ‘Identité urbaine et culture politique à Gand’, in H. Soly and J. Van de Wiele (eds.), Carolus. Charles Quint 1500–1558, Ghent, pp. 111–121. Dambruyne, J. (2000) ‘Aspiraties van corporatieve middengroepen. Een onderzoek naar sociaal-economische en politiek-institutionele patronen en interacties in het 16de-eeuwse Gent’, Ghent. Unpublished doctorate thesis Ghent University. Dambruyne, J. (2001a) ‘De Gentse transportsector en de interregionale handel in de Nederlanden tijdens de 16de eeuw: een conjunctuuranalyse’, in J. Parmentier and S. Spanoghe (eds.), Orbis in Orbem. Liber amicorum John Everaert, Ghent, pp. 133–156. Dambruyne, J. (2001b) Mensen en centen. Het 16de-eeuwse Gent in demografisch en economisch perspectief, Ghent. Decavele, J. and De Herdt, R. (1976) Gent op de wateren en naar de zee, Antwerp. Dejongh, G. and Thoen, E. (1999) ‘Arable productivity in Flanders and the former territory of Belgium in a long-term perspective (from the Middle Ages to the end of the Ancien Régime)’, in B.J.P. van Bavel and E. Thoen (eds.), Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area (Middle Ages - 20th century). Elements for comparison, Turnhout, pp. 30–64. Derville, A. (1987) ‘Le grenier des Pays-Bas médiévaux’, Revue du Nord, 69, pp. 267–280. Du Bois, A. and De Hondt, L. (1887) Coutumes de la ville de Gand, volume 2, Brussels. Guicciardini, L. (1612) Beschrijvinghe van alle de Nederlanden; anderssins ghenoemt Neder-Duytschlandt, Amsterdam. Howell, M. and Boone, M. (1996) ‘Becoming early modern in the late medieval Low Countries’, Urban History, 23, pp. 300–324. Lameere, J. and Simont, H. (1907) Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas, 2e series, volume 4, Brussels. Laurent, C. (1893) Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas, 2e series, volume 1, Brussels. Maddens, N. (1976) ‘Hoeveel inwoners telde het graafschap Vlaanderen op de vooravond van de opstand tegen Spanje’, in Opstand en pacificatie in de Lage Landen. Bijdrage tot de studie van de Pacificatie van Gent, Ghent, pp. 166–172. Meersch, P.C. vander (ed.) (1854) Memorieboek der stadt Ghent. Van ’t jaer 1301 tot 1795, volume 2, Ghent. Nicholas, D.M. (1987) The metamorphosis of a medieval city. Ghent in the age of the Arteveldes, 1302–1390, Leiden. Persson, K.G. (1999) Grain markets in Europe, 1500–1900: integration and deregulation, Cambridge. 81

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Potter, F. de (ed.) (1885) Chronijcke van Ghendt door Jan van den Vivere, Ghent. Potter, F. de (ed.) (1870) Dagboek van Cornelis en Philip van Campene, Ghent. Prevenier, W. and Blockmans, W. (1983) De Bourgondische Nederlanden, Antwerp. Prevenier, W., Sosson, J.-P. and Boone, M. (1992) ‘Le réseau urbain en Flandre (XIIIeXIXe siècle): composantes et dynamique’, in: Le réseau urbain en Belgique dans une perspective historique (1350–1850). Une approche statistique et dynamique. Actes du 15e Colloque International, Spa, 4–6 sept. 1990, Brussels, pp. 157–200. Scholliers, E. (1960) Loonarbeid en honger. De levensstandaard in de XVe en XVIe eeuw te Antwerpen, Antwerp. Scholliers, E. and Vandenbroeke, C. (1980) ‘Structuren en conjuncturen in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden 1480–1800’, in: Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, volume 5, Haarlem, pp. 252–310. Soly, H. (1983) ‘De dominantie van het handelskapitalisme: stad en platteland’, in ­Geschiedenis van Vlaanderen. Van de oorsprong tot heden, Brussels, pp. 105–178. Soly, H. (1993) ‘Sociale relaties in Antwerpen tijdens de 16de en 17de eeuw’, in J. Van der Stock (ed.), Antwerpen, verhaal van een metropool, 16de-17de eeuw, Antwerp, pp. 37–47. 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, Ghent. Thoen, E. (2001) ‘A ‘commercial survival economy’ in evolution. The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages-19th century)’, in: P. Hoppenbrouwers and J.L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate, Turnhout, pp. 102–157. Thoen, E. and Vanhaute, E. (1999) ‘The ‘Flemish Husbandry’ at the edge: the farming system on small holdings in the middle of the 19th century’, in: B.J.P. van Bavel and E. Thoen (eds.), Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area (Middle Ages 20th century). Elements for comparison, Turnhout, pp. 271–296. Tielhof, M. van (2001) ‘Grain provision in Holland ca. 1490–1570’, in: P. Hoppenbrouwers and J.L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate, Turnhout, pp. 202–219. Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1975) La formation des prix céréaliers en Brabant et en Flandre au XV e siècle, Brussels. Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1984) ‘Le grain et le pain dans l’administration des villes de ­Brabant et de Flandre au Moyen Age’, in: L’initiative publique des communes en Belgique. ­Fondements historiques (Ancien régime). Actes du 11e Colloque International, Spa, 1–4 sept. 1982, Brussels, pp. 453–494. Toch, M. (1973) ‘Prijzen uit Gentse instellingsrekeningen (16de eeuw)’, in: Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant, volume 4, Bruges, pp. 326–400. Unger, W.S. (1916) ‘De Hollandsche graanhandel en graanhandelspolitiek in de ­Middeleeuwen’, De Economist, pp. 243–269, 337–386, 461–507. Unger, W.S. (1926) ‘De Sonttabellen’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 41, pp. 137–155. 82

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Uytven, R. van (1961) Stadsfinanciën en stadseconomie te Leuven van de XIIe tot het einde der XVIe eeuw, Brussels. Uytven, R. van (ed.) (1980) Leuven. “De beste stad van Brabant”, deel 1. De ­geschiedenis van het stadsgewest Leuven tot omstreeks 1600, Louvain. Uytven, R. van (1985) ‘L’approvisionnement des villes des anciens Pays-Bas au moyen âge’, in: L’approvisionnement des villes de l’Europe occidentale au moyen âge et aux temps modernes, Auch, pp. 75–116. Vaernewyck, M. van (1568) Die historie van Belgis, Ghent Vandenbroeke, C. (1972) ‘Graanbevoorrading en graanaanvoer te Gent en Brussel ­tijdens de eerste helft der 19e eeuw’, Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en ­Oudheidkunde te Gent, 26, pp. 93–115. Vandewalle, P. (1988) ‘De evolutie van de graanprijzen in West- en Zuid-Vlaanderen, 14e-19e eeuw’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van Vlaanderen en Brabant, 3, pp. 22–112. Verhulst, A.E. (1965) ‘Prijzen van granen, boter en kaas te Brugge volgens de “slag” van het Sint-Donatiaanskapittel (1384–1801)’ in Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant, volume 2, Bruges, pp. 3–70. Vries, J. de (1984) European urbanization 1500–1800, London. Vries, J. de and Woude, A. van der (1995) Nederland 1500–1815. De eerste ronde van moderne economische groei, Amsterdam. Wee, H. van der (1963) The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy (fourteenth-sixteenth centuries), volume 2, The Hague. Wee, H. van der (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. Werveke, H. van (1934) De Gentsche stadsfinanciën in de middeleeuwen, Brussels. Zanden, J.L. van (1999) ‘The development of agricultural productivity in Europe, 1500–1800’, in: B.J.P. van Bavel and E. Thoen (eds.), Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area (Middle Ages - 20th century). Elements for comparison, CORN Publication Series, 2, Turnhout, pp. 357–375.

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5 The rise and decline of the Amsterdam grain trade Milja van Tielhof, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands and Utrecht University

In1 the late Middle Ages and the early modern period the Northern Netherlands were densely populated and strongly urbanised. Large parts of the countryside were unsuited for the cultivation of bread grains, especially in the province of Holland, and imports of ­foodstuffs were therefore necessary. From the fifteenth century onwards Amsterdam played a growing role in this trade. The city developed into a European entrepôt from which grain was re-exported abroad to varying destinations in Western and ­Southern ­Europe, though the distribution over the Dutch hinterland always remained most ­important. Contemporary politicians attached the greatest importance to the Baltic trade and considered it the backbone of the Dutch economy. Indeed, the massive commerce on the Baltic stimulated shipping and shipbuilding in the Netherlands. In turn the flourishing shipbuilding industry led to a sizeable timber trade and stimulated the manufacture of sails, ropes, and nails. Dutch ships bringing cereals to Amsterdam were the ideal carriers of western commodities to the Baltic. North-Sea herring, textiles, and salt and wines from France and Portugal were among the most popular commodities imported into Baltic ­cities. Other spin-offs of the grain trade were the herring fisheries, cloth industry and salt refineries in the Netherlands. The feeling prevailed that the grain trade was a cornerstone of the Dutch economy, not to be removed without enormous consequences. In this article the long history of the Amsterdam grain trade is treated in a bird’s eye view.

I.

Late Middle Ages

From the second half of the fourteenth century grain production in the province of Holland failed to meet the needs of the inhabitants. This was caused by a structural transformation of the countryside, during which arable farming declined and the rural population developed a large number of non-agricultural activities such as brickmaking, shipping, fishing, hemp processing, and peat digging instead (Van Bavel-Van Zanden, 2004). Originally grain was imported from nearby regions. The Southern Netherlands and France – Artois, Picardy and Normandy – supplied wheat. Presumably, bread grains were also imported from Western Germany and from the Dutch provinces of Zeeland, Utrecht and Guelders, but due to a lack of sources not much is known about these trade routes. In exceptional cases barley and malt were bought in England. Although Dutch

1

This paper was last revised in 2005.

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ships did sail to the Baltic as early as the fourteenth century, the import of Baltic cereals was of minor importance in comparison with the grain imports from France, the Southern Netherlands and Germany, at least until the end of the fifteenth century (Van Tielhof, 2001: 212–215). The cities of Delft and Gouda, in the south of the province of Holland, had large brewing industries and were important markets for wheat coming from France and the Southern Netherlands (Sneller, 1925: 175–176). The role of the Amsterdam market was still limited. During a restricted period in the late fifteenth century the grain export from the Polish city of Danzig expanded strongly, but this was due mainly to exceptional circumstances in Western Europe. As a result of prolonged wars, crop failures, and monetary developments grain fetched high prices in the 1470s and 1480s. The grain export from France and the Southern Netherlands was seriously interrupted and it was expensive and troublesome to import foodstuffs via the traditional trade routes. Under these circumstances the grain export from Danzig rose from a few thousand last yearly in 1465–1475 to some ten thousand last in 1490 and 1492. When trade relations in Western Europe normalised, trade with the Baltic probably declined to a more modest level. From 1493 trade and navigation from Gouda and Delft recovered (Van Tielhof, 1995: 20–25, 87). A journal of an Amsterdam partnership covering the years 1485–1490 shows that one of the partners stayed in Danzig during the shipping season, from March to October, to do business in rye and other commodities. Presumably, it was not yet customary for Dutch merchants to live in a Baltic city permanently. The organisation of trade was not very sophisticated. In minor ports shipmasters acted as representatives for merchants, and part of the trade was carried out by shipmasters trading on their own account (Jonker-Sluyterman, 2000: 15–17). Nevertheless, compared to other ports in Holland, Amsterdam greatly strengthened its position as a trading city in the last quarter of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Towns and villages to the north of Amsterdam used to have their own trade and navigation to the Baltic and other overseas destinations, but a restructuring process made Amsterdam into a kind of gateway for the province of Holland. Other ports saw their trade relations contract, while Amsterdam maintained its position (Lesger, 1993: 190–192). This process of concentration occurred on a regional scale. In other Dutch provinces Baltic products were still imported directly at this time, for example in Bruges in Flanders, in Antwerp in Brabant, and in Veere and Middelburg in Zeeland.

II. Expansion during the long sixteenth century (1530–1650) The importance of Baltic grain for the Dutch food supply started to increase strongly from the second quarter of the sixteenth century, especially in the province of Holland which stood at the beginning of a long period of incredibly fast demographic growth. In 1514 the number of inhabitants was around 275.000, in 1622 around 672.000 and about 1680 even 883.000 (Lucassen, 2002: 182). More and more people depended on food imports for their daily bread. Population growth occurred in France, the Southern Netherlands, England and Germany as well, reducing grain surpluses for export. The rye trade on Danzig and other Baltic ports, on the other hand, developed from a relatively modest and unstable affair into a large and steady trade involving hundreds of Dutch ships every year. 86

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Some figures can serve to illustrate what happened. From 1 September to 31 December 1507 4,300 last of rye and a very small quantity of wheat were imported into ­Amsterdam from the Baltic. Extrapolating these figures to the whole trading season, this means that total imports were probably something like 12,500 last (Meilink, 1923: 200–201). Imports from May to October 1539 (practically the whole trading season) amounted to 22,400 last rye and wheat (Theissen, 1912: 217). According to a pamphlet of 1630, the import of Baltic grain into Amsterdam averaged 40,000 last per year for the period 1560–1630, and this quantity could rise to 70,000 last in years of shortage (Vlessing, 1995: 239–240). For the period 1636–1662 we have better data, because the proceeds from the Amsterdam grain excise are known. The highest proceeds were recorded in 1649 (circa 53,000 guilders), the lowest in 1659 (circa 19,000 guilders), and this must have been the equivalent of about 149,000 resp. 51,000 last of imported grain. Amsterdam grain imports were closely linked to grain exports from the Baltic region in this period. The correlation (r) between the proceeds of the local grain excise on the one hand and the volumes of grain registered at the toll house in the Sound (the entrance to the Baltic) on the other was found to be as high as 0.8, showing that Baltic grains dominated the Amsterdam market (Van Tielhof, 2002: 69–70). The continuous trade expansion stimulated Dutch shipping and shipbuilding and led to far-reaching efficiency gains. Mercantile correspondence and account books show that a spectacular decline in transport costs occurred during the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century. Considering the fact that almost all commodities became more expensive during the sixteenth century, one would expect freight costs to rise as well, but surprisingly enough the freight on Dutch ships stayed more or less the same. In the period 1513–1530, merchants paid about 4 to 8.5 guilders to carry a last of rye from the Baltic to Amsterdam, depending on the season, the availability of ships etc., and in the 1580s this was still a usual amount. It is true that at the end of the shipping season, after September, freight costs could rise swiftly to above 10 guilders, but from April to September 5 to 7 guilders per last was a normal price. As the general price level had gone up substantially, transport on Dutch ships had become relatively much cheaper in the course of the sixteenth century (Van Tielhof, 2002: 197–199, 209). In the last quarter of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century the design of cargo ships was improved and the famous fluyt ship, a remarkably long ship, was developed. Fluyt ships were built from 1595 at the latest. The proportion between the length and beam of ships had already changed before the introduction of the fluyt. New ships were built longer and even existing ships were made longer by cutting them in half and adding a piece in between. This lengthening of ships occurred mostly from the 1580s until about 1619, and it is characteristic of a transitional stage during which old ships were adapted to new insights in shipbuilding and to the great demand for carrying capacity (Wegener Sleeswyk, 2003: 48). The need for such adaptations diminished in time, as old ships broke down and were replaced by ships of new design. By building longer ships the loading capacity was greatly enlarged, while the costs of building and operating the ships rose much less. The fluyt was a ship that could be built and operated very economically, not only because of the proportion between length and beam, and the roundish shape with a flat or nearly flat bottom, but also because of the simplicity of rigging and the absence or near-absence of guns. The large-scale use of fluyt ships caused a decrease in transport costs in the first decades of the seventeenth 87

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century, especially during the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain (1609–1621). It should be emphasized, however, that the decrease was not as spectacular as during the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century. Technical superiority in shipbuilding was not the only, or even the most important, reason for the success of Dutch shipping. Crucial was the interaction between technological development and commercial expansion, and the economies of scale that could be realised thanks to that expansion. The growing transport of bulk commodities created the opportunity to build ships exclusively suited to that purpose. Fluyts and their forerunners were everything but all-round: they were not fast and could not defend themselves against pirates or war ships. As the Baltic Sea was generally safe, fluyts were the perfect cargo carriers to be used here. The continuous expansion of the trade in grain, salt, wine, timber etc. paid off the many experiments and investments in ship building. Even more important were the economies of scale. The time ships had to wait in port for a return cargo diminished, which meant that they could realise more journeys in one shipping season. In addition, ships were more often loaded to full capacity. Dutch shipmasters and merchants gained more knowledge about navigation in the Baltic, the geographical situation of the Baltic ports and trade customs, which all enhanced the efficiency and reduced the turn-around time. While Dutch shipmasters had to reckon one and a half to two months for a return voyage to Danzig in the 1530s, including loading and unloading, in the 1580s this was reduced to about one good month (Schildhauer, 1968: 72). In the second quarter of the sixteenth century Amsterdam developed into the central entrepôt for Baltic grain in the Netherlands, while direct imports into Antwerp, Middelburg or Veere were strongly reduced. This had much to do with the determined fight of the States of Holland against a tax the Habsburg government wanted to impose on grain exports. In an attempt to raise tax revenues, and concerned about the food supply, the government introduced an export tax on cereals, the so-called congégeld. In Brabant, Flanders and Zeeland this tax was in fact levied, but in Holland the cities and the States of Holland tried to prevent the actual levying by all available means: political, legal, and even illegal. For instance, proceedings were started before the Great Council of Malines in which Holland invoked old privileges obtained from Philip the Bold. And in 1541 Amsterdam merchants did not hesitate to intimidate the person who was charged with collecting the congégeld (it was reported that a huge riot ensued in which the city magistrates had to open one of the gates to permit the tax collector to escape with his life), while the next year powerful men were presented with impressive quantities of wine. As a result of this prolonged, creative and determined resistance the Brussels government finally abandoned its attempts and exports from Holland remained untaxed. From then on merchants preferred to bring their grain to Amsterdam instead of Zeeland, Brabant or Flanders, as the chances of re-exporting it smoothly in case prices were better elsewhere, were bigger (Tracy, 1983: 300, 302; Tracy, 1990: 94–105; Van Tielhof, 1995: 132–138). During a crisis in the grain supply in 1557 Amsterdam’s role as the leading grain market became apparent. Excessive and prolonged dryness in the summer of 1556 resulted in one of the poorest grain crops ever recorded in the Netherlands. In the first half of 1557 most Dutch towns experienced serious problems in finding enough grain to feed their inhabitants, yet supplies in Amsterdam were not only sufficient for the local population but also for sizeable distribution to other towns (Friis, 1953: 205).

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The Dutch Revolt caused a short-lived, but serious crisis in Amsterdam. Amsterdam remained loyal to the Spanish authority quite long, until 1578, and as a result became isolated from the greater part of Holland which joined the Revolt sooner. From 1567, people in favour of political and religious reforms began to leave Amsterdam, merchants often heading for foreign trade centres like Emden, London, La Rochelle, Danzig, and Königsberg. The Rebel cities blockaded the town in 1574 and trade and traffic practically came to a standstill. Economic stagnation and a dramatic decline in the standard of living ensued (Lesger, 1987: 57–59). This disastrous economic downswing was temporary; after Amsterdam joined the Revolt in 1578, it quickly and almost automatically regained its former leading position. In the last decade of the sixteenth century grain shortages in Southern Europe, especially Italy, caused a structural expansion of the Dutch trade network. Shipmasters and merchants from Holland ventured into the Mediterranean, got to know the navigation routes, the ports and local customs, and managed to develop an extensive shipping and trading network within a limited period of time (Hart, 1978; Van Royen, 1990; Van Tielhof, 2002: 204–208). From then on, the Amsterdam entrepôt for grain assumed pan-European dimensions (Noordegraaf, 1982: 47), although most grain was still distributed within the Dutch Republic. Merchants from Holland sent their representatives to different parts of the trading network, where they took up residence for some years or even for the rest of their lives. In the first half of the seventeenth century large and flourishing communities of Dutch agents were found in Danzig, La Rochelle, Venice, Leghorn, and elsewhere (Veluwenkamp, 1996: 153, 159; Van Tielhof, 2002: 166–179). The Dutch presence in the Baltic did not remain limited to the trading season, as it had been in the Middle Ages. The expansion of the overseas trade went hand in hand with the creation of new institutions in Amsterdam facilitating that trade. In 1578 the brokers’ guild was established; from around 1585 the Amsterdam price current was published weekly, noting the prices of trade commodities including different sorts and qualities of grain; in 1611 an Exchange was opened; and to do justice to the rapid growth of the grain trade a specialised Grain Exchange was built and opened in 1617. These facilities reduced the costs of searching for information about mercantile opportunities. Lesger underlines the importance of the easy availability of information in Amsterdam. Rather than a staple of goods Amsterdam was a staple of news and knowledge about trade conditions, commodities, trade routes and so on. The town played a pivotal role in the stream of information flowing through the merchant communities in Europe, and this gave the merchants based in Amsterdam a competitive advantage over their colleagues in other cities (Lesger, 2001: chapter 6). The prolonged resistance of the States of Holland and the city of Amsterdam against the levy of congégeld was a clear sign that the grain trade received ardent political support in Holland in the first half of the sixteenth century, ardent enough in fact to influence Habsburg governmental policy in a decisive way. Nevertheless, the fact that Holland was part of the Habsburg empire was often detrimental to Dutch Baltic trade in this period. More than once, purely dynastic considerations induced the emperors Maximilian and Charles V to follow a foreign policy that interfered with the interests of Dutch trade and navigation in Northern Europe. Their grand design to create a sphere of influence in Scandinavia by establishing family ties with Danish kings or

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pretenders to the throne clashed with Dutch mercantile interests. In this respect a better period came with the Peace of Speyer in 1544, when emperor Charles V promised to stop interfering with the succession to the Danish throne and in return got a guarantee that his subjects could sail through the Sound unhindered in the future (Sicking, 2004: 207–241). During the Republic of the United Provinces there was no sovereign with dynastic considerations to be reckoned with. When differences of opinion arose about which line to take in foreign affairs or in commercial matters, it was never a foregone conclusion that the Baltic trade should be given priority over other branches but, at the end of the day, this was exactly what happened in most cases. If need be, a warfleet was sent to Denmark to convince the Danish king to lower the tariffs of the Sound toll, as happened in 1645. Warships escorted all Dutch cargo carriers through the Sound and saw to it that no toll was paid during the whole summer. This display of power was extremely humiliating to the Danes, who finally felt compelled to lower the tariffs (Israel, 1991: 158–159; Lindblad, 1998: 14). Taxation policies in the Dutch Republic were also shaped to further overseas trade: customs duties were very low and the rich, including the mercantile elite, saw their wealth rarely taxed. The state derived most of its income from taxes on real property and in the form of excise duties, especially on bread, beer, fuel and other first necessities of life. Even the monetary situation favoured foreign trade above other economic branches. From 1606, big silver coins especially suited to export were produced in the Dutch Republic, of which the rijksdaalder was specifically minted for trade on the Baltic and exported there in large numbers. Characteristic of these coins was the fact that they were constantly undervalued, which gave them a lower purchasing power within the Republic, where they were worth their nominal value, than abroad, where they were valued at their intrinsic value, i.e. the quantity of silver they contained (Polak, 1998: part I, 203–208; Polak, 1999: 438). Rijksdaalders were extremely popular in the Baltic ports and the fact that Dutch merchants paid in cash and with first-quality coins afforded them an advantage over rival merchants who had to cope with all kinds of export prohibitions on coins, silver and gold in their countries (Attman, 1983: 26–28). From 1600 at the latest, the Baltic acquired the character of a Dutch domestic market: Dutch shipmasters, sailors and merchants dominated navigation and trade, Dutch coins circulated freely and were a popular means of payment, and the Dutch language was spoken and understood by many. In this period grain merchants were typically flexible and enterprising business men. They experimented with new trade routes, invested their money in new shipmodels, and were willing to live abroad for a few years or permanently if they thought this would be advantageous to their trade. Normally businesses were run by a man on his own or by two partners, and the small scale and enormous flexibility of the enterprises greatly stimulated Dutch commercial expansion at the time (Jonker-Sluyterman, 2000: 30–31). Another characteristic feature was that merchants deeply influenced politics by accepting political functions at local and provincial level. Important merchants were members of the Amsterdam City Council or were appointed burgomaster.

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III. On the defensive (1650–1760) Around the middle of the seventeenth century the steady rise in grain prices came to a halt. The two most important reasons for this were the stagnation of population growth, which manifested itself in many European countries around this time, and the extension of the cultivation of foodstuffs (Faber, 1988b: 51). For example, in the Mediterranean region the cultivation of maize was extended, in Brabant and the eastern Dutch provinces the same happened with the cultivation of buckwheat, and in Germany agriculture recovered from the destructive influence of the Thirty Years’ War. In England the cultivation of cereals was also remarkably enlarged, causing overseas imports to decline in the second half of the seventeenth century. In the first half of the eighteenth century England even turned into a net exporter of grain. The demand for Baltic grain stagnated and the effects of this were reinforced by problems on the supply side. Agriculture in the Baltic region was hit severely by two disruptive wars, the Swedish-Polish War or First Northern War in 1655–1660, and the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. In the First Northern War many villages and arable fields in the basin of the River Vistula were destroyed and a large part of the Polish population, at least 25 percent, died. Labour became very scarce, fields were left waste on a large scale and it took a long time before agriculture recovered from this distressing episode. During the Great Northern War the area now belonging to Estonia, Livonia and Lithuania was hit hardest. Like in Poland, grain exports were decimated as a consequence of the plundering of the countryside (Van Tielhof, 2002: 53–54). A very explicit downward trend manifested itself in the development of grain transports through the Sound between circa 1650 and 1740 (see Figure 5.1). The Amsterdam grain trade did not remain untouched by all these changes. As the role of Baltic cereals declined, the trade in Brabant rye and buckwheat, Zeeland wheat, Figure 5.1 Grain transports through the Sound (in last), 1562–1795

Sources: Bang-Korst, 1906–1953; Johansen, 1983.

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English barley and malt, and wheat and rye from Western Germany gained in importance. Total imports remained substantial as four isolated figures from the first quarter of the eighteenth century show: in 1710, 1711, 1717 and 1723 total imports of grain in Amsterdam amounted to around 63,000 last yearly (Van Dillen, 1917b: 83). In these same years only 21,000 last of grain on average per year was transported through the Sound heading to a destination in the Dutch Republic (Bang-Korst, 1933–1953). Baltic cereals threatened to become marginal. In 1681 customs duties on grain imports were raised somewhat as a concession to Zeeland grain farmers who hoped to stimulate demand for their own products (Faber, 1988a: 27), but the adaptation of tariffs did not create anything even remotely resembling a tariff wall. The overall political support for the overseas grain trade remained very strong, despite the fact that direct political influence of merchants weakened; business men did not have political functions as frequently as before, and personal ties between regents and merchants were also less customary. Trade was still given priority. Even when famine threatened due to a very poor crop in the Baltic in 1698, the Amsterdam magistracy lifted the restrictions to export grain from the town as early as January 1699 in order to encourage merchants to bring their grain to Amsterdam (Van Dillen, 1917a: 273). Trade restrictions were a topic of discussion when the Baltic was struck by the plague in 1709–1715. It was known that people and goods travelling long distances could spread the disease, but nevertheless the States General decided that its priority was to not disrupt the grain trade (Bourgois, 1988: 201). In the eighteenth century there was never a prolonged discussion on the question whether the grain trade should be controlled by the central government or be left free. Only at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) was the freedom of trade temporarily under threat, when the central government planned to interfere with the grain export (Davids, 2001: 254–255). The reluctance to intervene in overseas trade in general was not a matter of principle, and the many serious discussions about the measure of freedom in trade were dominated by pragmatic and moral arguments (Davids, 2001: 289; Noordegraaf, 1989: 54). From the second half of the seventeenth century the Dutch communities in the Baltic ­cities began to dwindle, as Amsterdam enterprises began to make use of local ­representatives, for example Danzig burghers, instead of family members. There are several explanations for this change in the organisation of trade. The differences between Dutch and Baltic merchants gradually diminished: differences in trade knowledge, in the ability to raise capital to invest in commodities, and in the number and quality of ­relations they had abroad all began to disappear. Logically, more and more local merchants ­qualified as commercial agents or correspondents for enterprises in Holland (Veluwenkamp, 1996:163–164). Moreover, magistrates of Baltic towns took measures to stimulate the economic activities of their own population at the cost of foreigners. In Königsberg, for instance, foreign merchants were confronted with regulations limiting their freedom from the beginning of the eighteenth century. They could only sell to burghers of the town and were forbidden to conduct transactions with other foreigners. The use of foreign coins like Dutch rijksdaalders, once the trump card of Dutch merchants, was no longer allowed for all transactions (Amsterdam City Archives, Private Archive 78, nos. 265 and 272). A third explanation is found in the great improvements of the postal system in the second half of the seventeenth century (Van Tielhof, 2002: 161). As a result commercial ­correspondence

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was delivered faster and much more regularly than before, making it ­possible to instruct agents overseas more precisely and leaving them less authority to take important ­decisions. Under these circumstances the need for Dutch merchants to move to Baltic cities themselves diminished. These were the first ominous signs of a long-term development, which can be summed up by saying that Dutch entrepreneurs gradually lost their unique position in the Baltic grain trade in the course of the eighteenth century.

IV. The two faces of the eighteenth-century flowering (1760–1800) From the middle of the eighteenth century grain transports through the Sound were on the rise again and this trend persisted until the 1790s, albeit with a few interruptions. In 1790–1795 annual averages of grain declared with the customs officials in the Sound were about equal to volumes that had been declared there during the years 1640–1645, which are considered the heyday of the Baltic grain trade. The background to this trade revival was the demographic growth in many parts of Western Europe. The import of Baltic grain in Amsterdam grew substantially and in this respect the entrepôt clearly profited from the renewed importance of Baltic foodstuffs. The other side of the picture was that the Amsterdam Baltic trade in this period was slowly but unrelentingly undermined by a number of tendencies, relating to the demand for and the supply of grain, the organisation of trade, the growth of non-Dutch shipping etc. For the first time in history a structural demand for Baltic grains arose outside the Netherlands, namely in England, while in the Netherlands the domestic supply of potatoes and grain made a growing contribution to fill the need for foodstuffs. The almost automatic relationship between the Baltic grain trade and the Amsterdam entrepôt was endangered by the rise of London and, to a lesser degree, Hamburg as ports of destination for Baltic grain. Besides England, France and other Southern European countries, too, imported large quantities of cereals directly from the Baltic in quite a number of years. Until about 1740 more than three quarters of the grain coming through the Sound was destined for the Dutch Republic, but this percentage dropped swiftly thereafter (Unger, 1958: Appendix X). In the seventeenth century there had been direct grain shipments from Northern to Southern Europe as well, but in the second half of the eighteenth century the situation was different in many respects. In the seventeenth century transport took place by Dutch ships mostly, the commodities were often financed by Dutch merchants, transactions were generally conducted at the Amsterdam Exchange or Grain Exchange and, as far as ships and goods were insured, the insurances were usually effected in Amsterdam. All of this changed in the course of the eighteenth century. The Dutch fleet’s loss of superiority is demonstrated most clearly by the administration of the Sound toll. Around 1700, ships commanded by a shipmaster from Holland transported circa 90 percent of all cereals through the Sound, but this percentage dropped to about 50 percent around 1770 (Van Tielhof, 2002: 193, Graph 10). French, English, German, and Scandinavian ships became more numerous instead. In the course of the eighteenth century Holland was unable to maintain its dominance of the Baltic grain trade and to a large extent this can be explained simply by the fact that other countries caught up. The overall expansion of trade in Europe enabled ­non-Dutch

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merchants and shipowners to profit from economies of scale comparable to the ones the Dutch had realised back in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Labour productivity on English, French, and Scandinavian ships improved and at the end of the eighteenth century it was about as high as on Dutch ships in the seventeenth century. The same set of explanations holds true here. The size and construction of ships were specifically geared towards the transport of particular commodities or on particular trade routes. Cargo ships operated on safe routes or were protected by convoy ships, they themselves were not or only lightly armed and therefore carried only small crews (Lucassen-Unger, 2000: 131–132, 140). The turn-around time diminished strongly, not because ships sailed faster but because they spent less time in ports loading and unloading. This was caused by improvements in loading techniques, but it also had much to do with the easier availability of commodities to be shipped and thus with the scale of trade. All these factors added up to a spectacular reduction of transport costs on English ships in the second half of the eighteenth century (Shepherd-Walton, 1972: 73–90). In other words, there were remarkable resemblances between the development of English shipping in the eighteenth century and Dutch shipping in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The same probably applied to French and Scandinavian shipping. In the second half of the eighteenth century many Dutch merchants presumably switched over from grain trade on their own account to commission business in the service of foreigners, but the ins and outs of this process are not clear. In other branches commission business expanded at the end of the seventeenth century, but it seems that in the grain trade this happened much later. The reason might be that most grain was destined for the domestic market and that it was important for merchants to keep large stocks, preferably of different sorts of grain. Be that as it may, they finally switched over to commission business, probably by a gradual process in which entrepreneurs increasingly combined trade on their own account with commission business. Foreign merchants now took the initiative in commercial transactions, financed those transactions, and ran the risk of loosing the goods at sea. The commission agent in his turn looked for a buyer or seller and often provided other services, like insurance for ships and goods, transport and storage. The risks of commission business were much smaller than the risks of trade on one’s own account. The switch to commission business was made possible by the flourishing of communities of independent, local merchants abroad, including in the ­Baltic cities. The rise of commission business can be interpreted as an attempt to minimise risks and concentrate on activities for which living and working in Amsterdam was still an advantage (Jonker-Sluyterman, 2000: 83–89). Of course the fact that the grain trade was less and less dependent on Dutch capital and entrepreneurship made Amsterdam all the more vulnerable to the consequences of changes in the demand for and the supply of grain. The age-old ties between the Baltic grain trade and Amsterdam could be loosened all too easily. In at least one respect Amsterdam remained ahead of other grain markets in this period: the availability of commercial information. It is true that many other cities made progress as a result of the multiplication of commercial transactions within their walls and because they started to print their own price currents or stimulated the development of other economic institutions. And not just Amsterdam, but many other towns profited from the improved postal services in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, Amsterdam

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was still quite a unique source of news and information about the grain trade. This is ­illustrated by the fact that the government of the Austrian Netherlands in Brussels used the Amsterdam price current as a source of documentation on which to base its food policy (Materné, 1994: 11–15). Price studies also suggest that the Netherlands continued to play a pivotal role in the European grain trade in the eighteenth century (Allen-Unger, 1990: 12).

V. Retreat to the margins (1800–1860) The identified tendencies undermining the Dutch grain trade on the Baltic in the eighteenth century, manifested themselves even more clearly in the nineteenth century. The growing supply of domestic grains and potatoes reduced the demand for Baltic cereals in the Netherlands. The vitality of the grain trade in Amsterdam was now very dependent on crop failures in Europe (Knotter-Muskee, 1986: 164–165). In England on the other hand, where demographic growth accompanied industrialisation, the demand for Baltic grain was now large and permanent. In the period 1816–1850, for example, half to two thirds of the grain export from Danzig was destined for England, and only ten to twenty per cent for Holland (Cieslak-Biernat, 1995: 339). Apart from exceptional years, Amsterdam was practically finished as a European entrepôt for grain. The Dutch fleet, too, had lost its dominant position in Baltic navigation. In the years 1814–1850 Dutch shipmasters seldom commanded more than ten percent of all the ships passing the Sound! (Horlings, 1995: 192). The total tonnage of the Dutch merchant fleet was 400.000 in 1780, but it had diminished to 131.000 in 1824 (Van Zanden, 1993: 19). The effects of these structural developments, so unfavourable to Amsterdam, were reinforced by set-backs of a political nature. The wars during the French Revolution and the rule of Napoleon had devastating effects on the grain trade, just as on overseas trade in general (Van Zanden-Van Riel, 2000: 87–91). After Napoleon promulgated the Continental Blockade in 1806, prohibiting all trade with and navigation to ­Great-Britain, a very serious stagnation in the Dutch Baltic trade followed. It seems that in 1807 not a single ship sailed through the Sound to the Netherlands (Faber, 1988c: 105). After the French armies left in 1813 the Amsterdam grain trade never really recovered. There were only incidental upswings, for example during the scarcity crisis in 1816–1817 and, not surprisingly, in the years 1845 and 1846 when the potato blight caused ­terrible crop failures. The overseas trade was no longer given almost automatic priority over other economic branches. The most important reason for this was that trade in general, and Baltic trade in particular, had lost much of its significance to the Dutch economy and the food supply. Especially in 1814–1830, when the Northern and Southern Netherlands were united in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, there was a lot of discussion about tax systems and customs tariffs. Trade interests seldom ran parallel with the interests of agriculture and industry or with consumer interests. In the first half of the nineteenth century proposals to raise tariffs or to introduce import or export regulations regularly aroused political turbulence (Van Zanden-Van Riel, 2000: 115–121; Kramer, 1940). In the 1820s Amsterdam grain merchants published many articles pleading for a return to the traditional freedom of trade and the generous tax system, claiming that this would be the surest way to re-establish

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the European trade entrepôt in Amsterdam. Of course their pleas were inspired by personal interests, but at the same time they were genuinely convinced that a liberal trade policy was in the general interest as well. Their defence of free trade was much better founded theoretically than the arguments heard during the Republic and was thus typical of nineteenth-century thinking (a good example are the ideas of Willem de Clercq, treated in Van Tielhof, 2002: 312–321). In this respect the discussions became more principled. From the establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814 trade was actually not heavily taxed, nor was it subject to many disturbing interventions, still Amsterdam’s position in the international trade was and remained weak. The mere uncertainty about possible changes in tariffs and trade regulations, so often emerging in the first half of the nineteenth century, must have been harmful to Amsterdam’s position. It certainly was quite different from what merchants were used to earlier.

VI. Conclusion Of the many factors influencing the development of the Amsterdam grain trade, we would like to emphasise two of the most important. Firstly, the role of politics: trade policies, tax policies, monetary policies, and foreign policies were all favourable to overseas trade, at least until the end of the eighteenth century. The failure of the Habsburg government to introduce congégeld in the province of Holland around the middle of the sixteenth century was instrumental in the establishment of Amsterdam as the central grain market for the whole of the Netherlands, and it was also characteristic of the full support given to overseas trade during the rest of the early modern period. In the Dutch Republic customs duties were very low and if necessary the government even saw to the toll tariffs in Denmark. When they were raised too high the States General were prepared to send warships to Denmark to force the king to lower the tariffs of the Sound toll, as happened in 1645. Sometimes long discussions arose about the freedom or regulation of trade, but in general overseas trade, and particularly the grain trade, was treated with kid gloves not only by the local Amsterdam magistracy, but also by the provincial States and by the States General. Merchants must have had great confidence in politics. This changed after 1795 and especially when the French declared the Continental Blockade, which dealt the final blow to the Baltic trade of Holland, weakened as it already was by the declining demand for grain. The second factor that needs to be emphasised is the large scale of the Dutch Baltic trade, especially compared to other trade flows. The remarkable expansion in the period 1530–1650 caused a sharp reduction in transport costs (especially in the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century), in the costs of searching for information, and probably in the handling costs of commodities in ports and warehouses, which were all to a large extent economies of scale. Thanks to these economies of scale Dutch merchants and shipmasters performed better than their competitors. This had been the case in the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth century efficiency increased even further. In the course of the eighteenth century, however, the expansion of trade and shipping of other nations enabled them to realise comparable efficiency gains, which slowly undermined the competitive position of the Dutch fleet and the unique role of Amsterdam as a central grain market for Europe.

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Bibliography Allen, R.C. and Unger, R.W. (1990) ‘The depth and breadth of the market for polish grain, 1500–1800’, in: J.Ph.S. Lemmink and J.S.A.M. van Koningsbrugge (eds.), Baltic Affairs. Relations between the Netherlands and North-Eastern Europe 1500–1800, Nijmegen, pp. 1–18. Attman, A. (1983) Dutch enterprise in the world bullion trade 1550–1800, Göteborg. Bang, N.E. and Korst, K. (eds.) (1906–1933) Tabeller over skibsfart og varetransport gennem Oeresund 1497–1660, 3 vols., Copenhagen/Leipzig. Bang, N.E. and Korst, K. (eds.) (1933–1953) Tabeller over skibsfart og varetransport gennem Oeresund 1661–1783 og gennem Storebaelt 1701–1748, 4 vols., Copenhagen/ Leipzig. Bavel, B.J.P. van and Zanden, J.L. van (2004) ‘The jump-start of the Holland economy during the late-medieval crisis, c. 1350–1500’, Economic History Review LVII, pp. 503–532. Bourgois, D. (1988) ‘Les Provinces Unies, les mesures contre la peste et le commerce dans la région baltique, 1709–1715’, in: W.G. Heeres et al. (eds.), From Dunkirk to Danzig. Shipping and trade in the North Sea and the Baltic, 1350–1850, Hilversum, pp. 191–202. Cieslak, E. and Biernat, C. (1995) History of Gdansk, Danzig. Davids, C.A. (2001) ‘From De la Court to Vreede. Regulation and self-regulation in Dutch economic discourse from c. 1660 to the Napoleonic Era’, Journal of European Economic History, 30, pp. 245–289. Dillen, J.G. van (1917a) ‘De duurte van het jaar 1698’, Onze Eeuw, 17, pp. 250–273. Dillen, J.G. van (1917b) ‘Stukken betreffende den Amsterdamschen graanhandel omstreeks het jaar 1681’, Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek, 3, pp. 70–106. Faber, J.A. (1988a) ‘The grain trade, grain prices and tariff policy in the Netherlands in the second half of the seventeenth century’, in: W.G. Heeres et al. (eds.), From Dunkirk to Danzig. Shipping and trade in the North Sea and the Baltic, 1350–1850, Hilversum, pp. 23–30. Faber, J.A. (1988b) ‘The decline of the Baltic grain-trade in the second half of the seventeenth century’, in: W.G. Heeres et al. (eds.) From Dunkirk to Danzig (o.c.) pp. 31–51. Faber, J.A. (1988c) ‘Shipping to the Netherlands during a turbulent period: 1784–1810’ in: W.G. Heeres et al. (eds.), From Dunkirk to Danzig (o.c.) pp. 83–94. Friis, A. (1953) ‘An inquiry into the relations between economic and financial factors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The two crisis in the Netherlands in 1557’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 1, pp. 193–241. Hart, S. (1978) ‘De Italiëvaart 1590–1620’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum, 70, pp. 42–60. Horlings, E. (1995) The economic development of the Dutch service sector 1800–1850. Trade and transport in a premodern economy, Amsterdam. Israel, J.I. (1991) Nederland als centrum van de wereldhandel 1585–1740, Franeker. Johansen, H.C. (1983) Shipping and trade between the Baltic and Western Europe 1784–1795, Odense. Jonker, J. and Sluyterman, K. (2000) Thuis op de wereldmarkt. Nederlandse handelshuizen door de eeuwen heen, The Hague.

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Knotter, A. and Muskee, H. (1986) ‘Conjunctuur en levensstandaard in Amsterdam 1815–1855. Een onderzoek op basis van plaatselijke accijnzen’, Tijdschrift voor sociale geschiedenis 12, pp. 153–181. Kramer, E.L. (1940) De Graanwet van 1835, Amsterdam. Lesger, C. (1987) ‘Tussen stagnatie en expansie. Economische ontwikkeling en levensstandaard tussen 1500 en 1600’ in: M. de Roever and B. Bakker (eds.), Woelige tijden. Amsterdam in de eeuw van de beeldenstorm, Amsterdam, pp. 45–62. Lesger, C. (1993) ‘Intraregional trade and the port system in Holland, 1400–1700’, in: C.A. Davids and L. Noordegraaf (eds.), The Dutch Economy in the Golden Age Amsterdam, pp. 186–217. Lesger, C. (2001) Handel in Amsterdam ten tijde van de Opstand. Kooplieden, commerciële expansie en verandering in de ruimtelijke economie van de Nederlanden ca. 1550 - ca. 1630, Hilversum. Lindblad, J.T. (1998) ‘Nederland en de Oostzee, 1600–1850’, in: R. Daalder et al. (eds.), Goud uit graan. Nederland en het Oostzeegebied 1600–1850, Zwolle, pp. 8–27. Lucassen, J. and Unger, R.W. (2000), ‘Labour productivity in ocean shipping, 1450–1875’, International Journal of Maritime History 12/2, pp. 127–141. Lucassen, J. (2002) ‘Holland. Een open gewest. Immigratie en bevolkingsontwikkeling’, in: T. de Nijs and E. Beukers (eds.), Geschiedenis van Holland II: 1572 tot 1795, Hilversum, pp. 181–216. Meilink, P.A. (1923) ‘Rekening van het lastgeld in Amsterdam, Waterland en het Noorderkwartier van Holland in 1507’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen Historisch Genootschap, 44, pp. 187–230. Materné, J. (1994) De prijzenadministratie van de centrale overheid te Brussel tijdens de 18e eeuw. Vlaamse, Brabantse, Noordnederlandse, Engelse, Duitse en Baltische graanprijzen op de Amsterdamse beurs (1767–1792), Brussel. Noordegraaf, L. (1982) ‘Crisis, wat voor crisis? Duurte, hongersnood en sociale politiek in de Republiek aan het eind van de zestiende eeuw’, Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek, 45, pp. 39–57. Noordegraaf, L. (1989) ‘Dearth, plague and trade: Economy and politics in the Northern Netherlands, fifteenth to nineteenth centuries’, Economic and Social History in the ­Netherlands 1, pp. 49–66. Polak, M.S. (1998) Historiografie en economie van de ‘muntchaos’. De muntproductie van de Republiek (1606–1795), Amsterdam. Polak, M.S. (1999) ‘Monetaire politiek in de zeventiende eeuw’, in: C. Lesger and L. Noordegraaf (eds.), Ondernemers & bestuurders. Economie en politiek in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in de late Middeleeuwen en vroegmoderne tijd, Amsterdam, pp. 433–444. Royen, P.C. van (1990) ‘The first phase of the Dutch Straatvaart (1591–1605): Fact and Fiction’, International Journal of Maritime History 2/2, pp. 69–102. Schildhauer, J. (1968) ‘Hafenzollregister des Ostseebereiches als Quellen zur hansischen Geschichte’, Hansische Geschichtsblätter, 86, pp. 63–76. Shepherd, J.F. and Walton, G.M. (1972) Shipping, maritime trade, and the economic development of colonial North America, Cambridge.

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Sicking, L. (2004) Neptune and the Netherlands. State, economy, and war at sea in the Renaissance, Leiden. Sneller, Z.W. (1925) ‘De Hollandsche korenhandel in het Sommegebied in de 15 e eeuw’, Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, 6e reeks deel 2, pp. 161–178. Theissen, J.S. (1912) De regeering van Karel V in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, ­Amsterdam. Tielhof, M. van (1995) De Hollandse graanhandel, 1470–1570. Koren op de Amsterdamse molen, The Hague. Tielhof, M. van (2001) ‘Grain provision in Holland ca. 1490–1570’, in: P. Hoppenbrouwers and J.L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasants into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate. CORN Publication Series 4, Turnhout, pp. 202–219. Tielhof. M. van (2002) The ‘mother of all trades’. The Baltic grain trade in Amsterdam from the late 16th to the early 19th century, Leiden/Boston/Köln. Tracy, J.D. (1983) ‘Habsburg grain policy and Amsterdam politics: the career of sheriff Willem Dirkszoon Baerdes, 1542–1566’, Sixteenth Century Journal, XIV/3, pp. 293–319. Tracy, J.D. (1990) Holland under Habsburg rule 1506–1566. The formation of a body politic, Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford. Unger, W.S. (1958) ‘De publikatie der Sonttoltabellen voltooid’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 71, pp. 147–205. Veluwenkamp, J.W. (1996) ‘Merchant colonies in the Dutch trade system (1550–1750)’ in: C.A. Davids, W. Fritschy and L.A. van der Valk (eds.)., Kapitaal. Ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azië van 1500 tot heden, Amsterdam, pp. 141–164. Vlessing, O. (1995) ‘The Portuguese-Jewish Merchant Community in SeventeenthCentury Amsterdam’, in: C. Lesger and L. Noordegraaf (eds.), Entrepreneurs and ­Entrepreneurship in Early Modern Times. Merchants and Industrialists within the Orbit of the Dutch Staple Market, The Hague, pp. 223–243. Wegener Sleeswyk, A. (2003) De Gouden Eeuw van het fluitschip, Franeker. Zanden, J.L. van (1993) ‘Economic growth in the Golden Age: the development of the economy of Holland 1500–1650’, in: C.A. Davids and L. Noordegraaf (eds.), The Dutch Economy in the Golden Age, Amsterdam. Zanden, J.L. van and Riel, A. van (2000) Nederland 1780–1914. Staat, instituties en economische ontwikkeling, Amsterdam.

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6 Maritime transport and the integration of Low Countries grain markets in the Late Middle Ages1 Richard W. Unger, University of British Columbia I.

Introduction

Late medieval towns relied on supplies of grain, the principal source of nutrition for both people and animals, for survival. The ability of towns to continue, to thrive, to ­expand depended on their ability to draw on an ever widening geographical range of food sources. The more varied the sources the more likely towns could endure the numerous food crises that plagued North-Western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The more mutually reliant, the more interconnected - in short the more integrated the markets for grain from the countryside were with the towns the more likely would be security and even prosperity for both urban and rural populations living in lands bordering the North Sea. Market integration is a concept that is inadequately or imprecisely defined. It exists presumably when two or more different markets become more like a single market. The presumption always is that in conditions of freedom of action that goods will tend to flow between different regions, just like they will flow between individuals, to satisfy demand. If a commodity is in short supply in one market consumers will seek out alternative sources in other markets, goods will move from markets of relative abundance, the two markets will behave in similar way, all leading to market integration. The relatively short supply would be signalled by a price of the good being higher in one market compared to its price in the other. Integration, the flow of the good from a region of relatively lower price to one of relatively higher price, would lead to the prices for the good becoming similar in the two markets. The equalization of prices would occur where goods can move without restriction from one place to another. The barriers to integration and so to the equalization of prices would typically be government actions, incomplete or poor information, and transportation costs. In the last case the cost of moving the good between the two markets has to be lower than the difference in price. Otherwise it would not pay to carry any commodity from one place to the other. The higher the transport costs the higher the barrier to market integration. Falling transport costs should then be a source for greater market integration. A comparison of the evidence for market integration with evidence for improvements in transportation technology in the late Middle Ages in the region around the North Sea suggests that the relationship is more complex than the theory

I am indebted to the members of the Economic and Social History Seminar of the University of Utrecht and of the seminar of the Center for Research in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of New York University for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. This paper was last revised for publication in November, 2004.

1

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would suggest or, more precisely, the theoretically predicted link between the two and what happened in markets in the period suggests productive paths to investigate in trying to estimate improvements in maritime transportation. In short, the results from the study of urban markets and rural grain supplies can serve as a corrective to conclusions about ships and how they were used and what was important about them. Work on finding levels of market integration in Europe started in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when economic historians, following the goals of political economy, set about looking for the origins of nation states. Scholars like N. S. B. Gras, Henri Hauser and Wilhelm Naudé examined records of England, France and Germany respectively to see when national markets emerged, presumably a precursor to the creation of national political units (Gras, 1915; Hauser, 1936; Naudé, 1896). The study of market development took a new turn in the 1970s with research into riots in general and food riots in particular. The reasons for such outbursts of popular discontent were to help in explaining resistance to authority as well as draw attention to the historical rationality of popular protest. Scholars like E. P. Thompson and Louise Tilly wanted to find out about early modern European markets as well as the reactions to and resistance to what they saw as emerging capitalism. That was especially true of E. P. Thompson as he described popular agitation against the movement of grain from one region to another in England in the first half of the eighteenth century (Thompson, 1970; Tilly, 1971–1972). The presence of complaints about such trade implied that in the period England was in the throes of the creation of a single market, at least for food grains. More recently J. M. Chevet and Karl Gunnar Persson have continued the study of market development in France and Italy and Scandinavia in both early modern and modern Europe but with more of an eye to the role of governments in controlling or limiting the pace of integration, that true especially in the case of Karl Gunnar Persson (Chevet, 1996; Persson, 1999). The now sizeable body of information created to date on markets and their evolution and with the development by those same scholars of various tests for market integration it is possible to say something about the growth, or lack of growth, in connections among markets. The agrarian historian Wilhelm Abel strongly suggested that market integration in Europe started already in the thirteenth and was certainly well under way by the fourteenth century. He found that over the long term the movement of grain prices was similar not only in England but also on the Continent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He used some of the earliest surviving price data to make those observations (Abel, 1980: 20). The similarity in the trends in prices he said indicates that there was trade in food grains. He cited anecdotal evidence from the end of the thirteenth century to support that contention. Further research indicates that it was in the thirteenth century that bulky goods like wood and grain began to travel over longer distances in northern Europe (Berggren, Hybel and Landen (eds.), 2002). For Abel ‘the extension of trade routes and the widening of the trading area helped to keep the cost of cereals down’ (Abel, 1980: 20). Abel based his discussion on the changes in and the character of prices. Abel did that because the founder of the theory of the location of economic activity, Johann Heinrich von Thünen, based his discussion on prices (Thünen, 1842–1850). Abel did that because price data is the data that exists. Abel did that because the theory of market integration is about prices. The theory of the single price, the tendency of prices to be the same when goods flow freely between regions, is the basis for discussion of market integration. While the 102

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theory is straightforward in practice finding a measure of market integration has proven extremely difficult. Sporadic and incomplete data, problems of the comparability of data, noise created by changes in transportation and transactions costs and by information flows and government actions combined with common exogenous causes for price formation all contribute to the confusion about how best to measure market integration. No single gauge proves good enough to answer the question of when markets are integrated, more or less. There are obviously degrees of market integration and so the ideal method of assessing the phenomenon should be sensitive to the level of uniformity in prices in two or more markets. Since no one method gets the desired results the solution has been to exploit different ways to assess integration with the hope that a convincing argument and an accurate result can emerge from agreement in the differing measures. Since there are so many other factors involved it is certainly possible for any or all of the tests to miss tendencies toward integration. It is not surprising then to find an absence of integration for the Middle Ages. What is surprising is to find evidence for any integration at all.

II. Market integration in the North Sea region The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and towns in the region around the North Sea offer large enough data sets for prices that it is possible to carry out tests for market integration. It is the earliest period for which there are enough data to say much of anything. It is also a period of concern for economic historians because of famine and plague which had significant economic as well as social effects. It was also a period of significant changes in ship design according to historians of technology. Those improvements in the principal carriers of grain over any distance should have led to falling transport costs and so greater ease of moving goods and so easier integration of markets. Anecdotal evidence supports the idea that markets were becoming more integrated in the late Middle Ages. Among other indications there are signs of more trade perhaps per capita, of more shipping over longer distances between the Mediterranean and northern Europe and more ships travelling from Gdansk in the Baltic to Western Europe (Epstein, 2000: 57–68; Postan, 1933; Hammel-Kiesow, 2002). Even more there is evidence that the movement of grain in and around the region of the North Sea grew from the late fourteen century (Van Tielhof, 1995: 1–3). To measure late medieval market integration the logical source of data is grain prices. Food grains were the most likely good to be shipped, had a wide sale and were in universal demand. Food grains were also universal in type and description and were moderately easy to preserve. They were durable, could be carried over some distance and for some time without deteriorating. The trade in grain was possibly growing per capita in the period. The reason for using the prices of food grains, ultimately, is that they are the goods for which most data exists by far and away. The figures used to explore market integration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries come from a database of prices for more than 100 towns in Europe from 1260 to 1914.2 Figures come from various sources such as purchases by institutions, sales in markets or on exchanges, government reports. In all cases the 2 The database has been created in cooperation with Robert Allen and with the assistance of ­Shannon Parker and Stephanie McWhinnie (See: http://www.history.ubc.ca/faculty/unger/ECPdb/about.html).

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figures are annual which in some instances involved averaging monthly data. All prices in the sets of data are converted to grams of silver per litre to gain comparability across space and time. To get such comparable data measures of grain had to be standardized to volume and the current coins had to be standardized to quantities of silver. No adjustments are made for inflation or deflation in the price of silver, at least at the outset. Tests are used to confirm the validity of results only where comparisons over the long term might prove misleading without controlling for the changing supplies of silver. The expectation is that over the long term the movement historically has been toward the integration of markets. The reduction of barriers to exchange is part of creating greater efficiency and so a contributor to economic growth. Greater exchange should generate specialization and so economic growth, or at least so Adam Smith and David Ricardo argued and believed. Greater market integration is presumably part of the long term economic progress of Europe that led ultimately to the Industrial Revolution. But just as the idea that the history of Western Europe is one of sustained progress toward some higher level of civilization is highly suspect so too is the idea of a continuous progression toward ever increasingly integrated markets. It is clear from the available price data that market integration was not historically a one way street. The relationship between prices in Northeast and Northwest Europe over the long term indicates a complex history and anything but a linear drive toward market integration. The average price of rye in all ports around the Baltic for which data survive was subtracted from the average price of rye in all ports around the North Sea for which data survive. The same was done with wheat prices. The result is the series of North Sea minus Baltic prices. The curves of differences in prices for rye and for wheat in the two regions show no single trend. The long term tendency is for the difference between the averages to vary over time, falling and then rising and falling and rising from 1300 to 1900 with periods of stability interspersed over the six centuries. The apparent greater fluctuation after 1600 is in part a product of the much fuller data series in the later years (see Figures 6.1 and 6.2).3 The greater fluctuation could also possibly be the result of a general rise in the amount of silver needed to buy grain after the influx of large quantities of American silver into Europe from the mid sixteenth century. To test for the influence of the increasing supply of silver indices of prices were created for the Baltic and North Sea series, the bases for the series being the averages of the averages of all prices in the sample for each region for the period 1501 to 1550. The ratio between the two indices was then calculated, dividing the figure for the North Sea region by that for the Baltic region. Wheat and rye again were treated separately. The ratio between the two price indices for the two regions should tend toward unity over time if markets were becoming more integrated. The use of indices should wipe out any effect from changes in the value of silver. The statistical manipulation, however, does not appreciably affect the results. The ratios do not move toward 1.0 but rather fluctuate widely. The indication is that the quantities of silver available The towns used for the average price in the Baltic for rye were Gdansk, Lwow, Rostock and Warsaw, and for wheat Gdansk, Lwow, Rostock and Warsaw. The towns used for the average price of rye in the North Sea region were Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, southern England, and for wheat Amsterdam, Bruges, Edinburgh, Lier, Paris, and southern England. No wheat prices survive for the Baltic before 1531 which explains the starting date.

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Figure 6.1 Difference in rye price averages; North Sea minus Baltic 1300–1900 (grams of silver per litre)

Figure 6.2 Difference in wheat price averages; North Sea minus Baltic 1300–1900 (grams of silver per litre)

to make payments did not promote or deter market integration (see Figures 6.3 and 6.4). While the measures are far from perfect they still demonstrate that prices did not move inexorably toward some common standard over the long term. J. M. Chevet has shown that despite improvements in transportation and the eradication of barriers to internal trade even at end of the nineteenth century France was still not a single market and that wide variations remained between prices in the capital and in the Southwest. His results come from a unitary state in an era when industrialization had begun and when transport costs were falling rapidly. If France in the 1890s failed the test of integration then it is hardly surprising that markets across northern Europe were not consistently integrated and did not always move toward integration in the previous six hundred years.

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Figure 6.3 Ratio of averaged rye prices; North Sea divided by Baltic 1520-1900 (grams of silver per litre)

Figure 6.4 Ratio of averaged wheat prices; North Sea divided by Baltic 1520-1900 (grams of silver per litre)

Markets could become more integrated over time but markets could disintegrate at various periods. It may well be that disintegration rather than integration was precisely what was going on in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. To identify the tendency in the period markets in the North Sea region, that is in North-Western Europe including the Low Countries, were chosen to see if markets had prices that moved in the same direction, a clear sign of more integration. The data are for wheat and for rye, the principal food grains, and from urban markets in England, the Low Countries, and along the Rhine in Germany. The prices are expressed in grams of silver per litre. Comparing the correlations of prices between pairs of markets the results are mixed. Both wheat and rye prices show something little short of confusion. The figures cover the period from 1384 to 1520. While some pairs of towns show high levels of correlation others show virtually none (Unger, 1999: 346–353). Some 106

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towns in Brabant and Flanders had prices that tended to go up and down together but prices in southern England and northeast France showed less similarity in performance. Not all towns in the southern Low Countries showed significant correlations in price movements with nearby towns. In some cases the relationship between price movements was closer to that of distant German towns than to towns close by and close to the North Sea. To see if there might have been a change toward greater integration over time the period under study, 1384–1520, was split at 1477. That was an important year in the political history of the Low Countries and one which presumably might have ushered in a period of greater ease of ­exchange among the different towns in the same region. But the data do not demonstrate the anticipated result of greater integration as time went on. If anything correlations of prices between markets tended to fall afer 1476 indicating less market integration rather than more. Another test for levels of market integration and in some ways more informative than correlations is the extent of price fluctuation. A dampening of variations in prices over time should indicate movement toward a single market because different, new or alternate sources of supply would keep prices from swinging too widely. If prices started to fall dramatically then goods would flow out to other markets. If prices started to rise then goods would flow in from other markets. The presence of other supplies and markets would set upper and lower limits for prices variations. The standard deviation was taken as a measure of the variability of prices and the same data sets of rye and wheat prices from towns in North-Western Europe from 1384 to 1520 were used. The evidence, as with correlations, is mixed. In some markets the measure of price fluctuation was low, in others significantly higher. As with correlations the period was split at 1477 to see if in fact prices were more stable, less subject to wide swings as time went on. Again the evidence is mixed. The standard deviation went down in some towns from one sub-period to the next but it went up in others. All in all the data point as much to less as to more market integration in North-Western European grain markets over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And even if there are problems with the measures and even if there are doubts about the accuracy of measures still the impression is of something much less than a singular and massive and sustained drive toward market integration. Late medieval towns relied overwhelmingly on local supplies of grain to meet their food needs. They did not have to venture far in most years to satisfy demand within their walls. The cities of North-Western Europe were not large compared to what they would become later in the sixteenth century. Only Paris approached anything like the size of capitals in the region in 1600. For most cities numbers were modest and some which had a bright future, such as Amsterdam, were little more than oversized villages. Even London, the second largest and possibly at some times the largest city in the region, with a population in around 1300 of some 80,000, got virtually all the food it needed from 100,000 hectares, an area in total about twice the size of the small county of Middlesex. It may be that because of the nature of surviving documents research has missed some sources Londoners used for food, for example nearby on the Continent, but whether that is true or not the fact remains that food for the largest city in England and one of the largest cities in northern Europe came almost entirely from the southeast of ­England (Galloway, 2000; Galloway and Murphy, 1991: 11). In around 1500 farmers in the coastal Low ­Countries could supply something on the order of twice as much grain as was needed to feed the existing urban population (Unger, 1999: 330–332). Even if there are problems with the estimates to arrive at that conclusion and even if the final result is off by as much as 107

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100% still the weight of the evidence strongly supports the impression that for most of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most grain to feed towns came from close by and so did not have to brought from far a field, that is except in unusual years. If the overwhelming majority of food most of the time came from close by then long distance trade served as a supplement at most to the market. Long distance trade meant shipment of goods over water. Transport on land was relatively costly so few goods could sustain movement over any distance at all without becoming prohibitively expensive for virtually all consumers. Grain certainly could not be moved far overland and still be marketable. If most grain came from near to towns any indication that suppliers some distance away experienced any ripple effects from price evolution in other markets should be a surprise. Von Thünen after all predicted that necessities would be produced nearby and the circle around the consumption site would grow until it reached a point where competition for use of the land to produce some other crop became too great. The obvious alternative use of land in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was for producing heating fuel in the form of wood. As the area of arable grew and wood had to be brought from further away its price would have gone up to a point where it made sense to leave the land in trees rather than clear it and convert to arable. In that case to get more grain buyers would leap over the circle devoted to wood and leap over even the surrounding circle devoted to grazing and find grain in some distant place. They would go to places so far away that land values were much lower than they were in any proximity to the city. It was that search for places of low land values that lead to a long distance trade in grain. And there was undoubtedly some trade in grain, sometimes over considerable distance in the late Middle Ages. It was perhaps only in some regions of the Low Countries, in inland Flanders and in Holland, that local conditions forced reliance on distant supplies. In the case of Flanders population was so high and farm sizes so small that peasants were forced to develop strategies for survival, leaving little if any surplus grain for sale in towns. That in turned forced the nearby towns to look further afield for sources of food. Even the sharp decline in population after the 1340s did not appreciably change the pattern (Thoen, 2001: 112–115). For Holland the poor quality of the land, the dominance of dunes and bogs, meant that local farmers could not raise enough food to feed the local population even in the late fourteenth century so any urban growth automatically triggered imports of grain. Those two cases were exceptional and even for them nearby sources of supply, from other parts of the Low Countries and North-Eastern France, often could satisfy their demand for food grains (Tielhof, 2001: 202–216; Tielhof, 1995: 1–85). The price evidence confirms that grand integration of grain markets, and therefore probably of markets in most goods, with regular reliance on distant supplies for towns around the North Sea simply did not take place. There was, however, integration it seems on a smaller scale in the fourteenth and ­ fteenth centuries. For the southern Low Countries and especially for Flanders and western fi Brabant there is evidence from price data, for example as shown by the elaborate ­statistical testing of Marie-Jeanne Tits-Dieuaide, that through the fifteenth century exchange or the potential for exchange within that region was enough to lead to effectively something like a single market (Tits-Dieuaide, 1975: Wee, 1963: I, 23–24, 31). N. S. B. Gras found some signs of movement toward an integrated market in the period within England or at least part of England (Gras, 1915:216–218). Stephan Epstein has argued that regional fairs came to

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have greater value and importance to the economy in the late Middle Ages because they acted as sites connecting two more highly integrated regions. The emergence of a number of such fairs and at sites not historically important to trade suggests that smaller areas or regions may have enjoyed a rising level of integration (Epstein, 1994). Examining the prices of the same grain in a smaller region tends to confirm or at least support those conclusions. Figures for these comparisons are taken from the earliest possible date of comparison down to 1550. The prices of wheat for example in Bruges, Brussels and Louvain or of rye in those three towns plus Antwerp show common trends (see Figures 6.5 and 6.6). Their levels are often close to the same and they rise and fall together. That impression is even stronger for wheat prices in southern England compared to Exeter (see Figure 6.7). Figure 6.5 Wheat prices Bruges, Brussels and Louvain 1365-1550 (grams of silver per litre)

Figure 6.6 Rye prices Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels and Louvain 1365-1550 (grams of silver per litre)

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Figure 6.7 Wheat prices Exeter and Southern England 1300–1550 (grams of silver per litre)

Another way to approach the same issue is to look at the hierarchy of the correlation of grain prices between pairs of cities.

Table 6.1 Wheat prices, 1260 – 1510 Pearson correlations of prices between pairs of towns Paris - Mons London - Exeter Antwerp - Bruges Antwerp - Leiden Amsterdam - Leiden Brussels - Leuven Bruges - Leiden Antwerp - Leuven Frankfurt - Antwerp Paris - London Bruges - Leuven Bruges - Douai Douai - Mons Paris - Antwerp Frankfurt - Paris

110

0.9718 0.8924 0.8942 0.8719 0.8637 0.7415 0.6817 0.6410 0.6860 0.6225 0.6048 0.5894 0.5731 0.5689 0.5645

Antwerp - London Frankfurt - Bruges London - Bruges Antwerp - Brussels Brussels - Bruges Amsterdam - London Paris - Douai Brussels - Douai Frankfurt - Brussels Amsterdam - Exeter London - Aragon Antwerp - Aragon Antwerp - Valencia Amsterdam - Aragon London - Valencia

0.5577 0.5553 0.5342 0.4974 0.4513 0.4476 0.4312 0.2865 0.2438 0.1579 0.0573 0.0288 -0.0413 -0.0814 -0.2562

Maritime transport and the integration of Low Countries grain markets in the Late Middle Ages

Table 6.2 Rye prices, 1260 – 1510 Pearson correlations of prices between pairs of towns Brussels - Leuven Antwerp - Bruges Antwerp - Brussels Augsburg - Munich Augsburg - Wurzburg Wurzburg - Munich Amsterdam - Rostock Frankfurt - Augsburg Brussels - Strasbourg Frankfurt - Strasbourg Antwerp - Frankfurt Bruges - Strasbourg

0.9201 0.8220 0.5580 0.8996 0.7999 0.8107 0.6290 0.6035 0.5906 0.5583 0.4986 0.4810

Antwerp - Leuven Bruges - Brussels Antwerp - Rostock Bruges - Leuven Amsterdam - Antwerp London - Antwerp Frankfurt - Wurzburg Frankfurt - Munich Amsterdam - Bruges London - Rostock Amsterdam - Leuven

0.4800 0.4734 0.4190 0.3723 0.3651 0.3604 0.2986 0.2497 0.2423 -0.0375 -0.5104

All of the towns in the sample were compared one with the other and then placed in rank order based on the level of correlation. Redundant or repetitive examples were dropped from the list as well as instances where the number of observations was too small to guarantee some reasonably reliable figure for the correlation of prices. There are different results for wheat and rye because data for the two types of grain do not come entirely from the same cities. The ordering of the level or degree of correlation yields some groupings. For wheat for example (see Table 6.1) Paris and Mons like Exeter and London appear to be part of the same market. Then there is a cluster of towns from Brabant, Flanders and Holland. Not all the towns in the Low Countries demonstrate a high level of correlation. In some cases prices are not any more related to those of nearby towns than they are to more distant capitals such as London and Paris. The pairings for the Low Countries may indicate the relative difficulty of moving grain between cities. Introduced into the comparison are towns in Iberia. They show little or no correlation with price movements in England or the Low Countries. For rye prices (see Table 6.2) there are no Iberian comparisons but there are strong indications of at least two regional markets, one in the Low Countries and the other in and near Bavaria. The comparison of pairs of towns indicates the emergence of groupings of towns and so of regional markets around or near the North Sea. None of these indicators by itself is conclusive but all of them together do shift the burden of proof and suggest that instead of some large single market emerging in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was rather the emergence of a series of regional markets. That conclusion flies in the face of expectations based on the understanding of technical changes in ships and the implied developments in transportation and trade.

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III. Ship design and market integration The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the most dramatic advances in sailing ship design in the history of Europe. Starting with vessels which owed much to their roots in the German rowing barge and the Celtic coaster, ships changed character dramatically because of cross-fertilization of knowledge between northern and southern Europe. While the two maritime areas of Europe, the Mediterranean on the one hand and the Baltic and North Seas on the other, enjoyed quite separate evolution before the twelfth century, they came increasingly into contact one with the other after around 1150. That in turn led to technical borrowing and finally a common and decisively superior technology of seaborne transport. The Crusades, from the Second but especially the Third on, brought typical North-Western European ships into the Mediterranean. Those vessels probably never returned to their home ports, too damaged by the long voyage and invasion by ship worm in the warm waters of the South. But in the course of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century that incapacity to make trips back and forth between the two regions was overcome (Lewis, 1976). The first Genoese ship made a return voyage to the Low Countries in 1277 (Hardenberg, 1941: 223). Around 1300 Venetian shipbuilders constructed the first great galley. Originally designed as a warship the relatively large type powered by both oars and sails proved to be an efficient carrier of high value commodities like cloth and luxury wool between northern and southern Europe (Lane, 1965: 11–20). Great galleys became regular visitors to ports in southern England and the Low Countries in the fourteenth century and they continued trips back and forth well into the sixteenth century (see Figure 6.8). Venice and Florence used great galleys for trade to northern Europe but Genoese captains and traders came to rely on another type which in the long run would undermine the role of the great galley and be the platform from which the greatest technical advances would be made. The Genoese preferred carracks. That type developed from a merger of a northern design with a number of southern features to create a unique and revolutionary vessel. The northern vessel was the cog, descended from a Celtic coaster in use in the North Sea and English Channel in the time of Julius Caesar. Shipwrights in North German ports added a keel and sternpost rudder to the already spacious vessel to make it a better sailor. By the mid fourteenth century the cog was the preferred vessel for moving bulk goods in northern European waters (see Figure 6.9). Its box-like cross-section generated greater carrying capacity per unit of length than its predecessors. While cogs might not be very fast sailors they could and did make voyages across open seas and make distant landfalls (Ellmers, 1994). At first cogs did that in the North Sea but by the thirteenth century and possibly even before sailors were navigating their cogs along the western front of Europe and down into the Mediterranean. Once in the hands of southern shipwrights the cog went through a series of changes. Those men built the hull in the typical manner of the South with strength coming not from overlapping external planks but from the internal frame with hull planks nailed on the outside. They also added a second sail behind the single square sail and with that lateen or triangular sail they created the carrack. It became in that form an effective carrier of goods like wine and grain through the Mediterranean and between the Mediterranean and northern Europe (Friel, 1995: 157–160; Hutchinson, 1994: 25–46). The two-masted ship was more manoeuvrable and was easier to hold on a course. The logical next stage was to complete efforts to balance

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Figure 6.8 A great galley before Rhodes and a two-masted carrack

Source: Bernhard von Breydenbach and Erhard Reuwich. Die Heyligen Reyssen Gen Iherusalem Zu Dem Heiligen Grab Vnd Furbass Zu Der Hochgelobten Iungfrauwen Vnd Mertreryn Sant Katheryn. Mainz: Erhard Reuwich, 1486. the rig and add a third mast, this time at the bow of the ship. The full-rigged ship with a complement of square sails on the forward two masts and a triangular sail on the mizzen was superior to any of its predecessors (see Figure 6.9). Its origins may be Portuguese or Spanish or French but almost certainly it was somewhere along the west coast of Iberia or the shores of the Bay of Biscay that this new type first appeared. It combined many northern and southern design features. Shippers and governments imported the new type into northern Europe but only slowly. They imported the ships themselves and even more gradually the techniques of building them. The full-rigged ship was more efficient, that is able to travel farther and with fewer crewmen, than any earlier European ship type. One historian has perhaps foolishly even gone so far as to call it “the great invention of European ship designers” and make claims for a significant economic impact from the new ship type (Unger, 1980: 216; Friel, 1995; Gardiner, 1994). At about the same time as Iberian shipwrights were developing the full-rigged ship German shipbuilders made improvements in the cog. Borrowing features from another bulk carrier with Celtic origins, the hulk, they modified the cog to a point where by 1400 contemporaries had trouble differentiating one from the other. The modified cog was the vehicle for trade between North-Eastern and Western Europe. Authorities in Gdansk, the principal export centre of food grains in the Baltic, thought it important enough to depict

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Figure 6.9 A full-rigged ship. Een kraeck (A carrack) by the Flemish artist known as WA

Source: Print, 1475, Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, A.0149(708). Also at http://www.maritiemdigitaal.nl/index.cfm?event=search.getdetail&id=101002725 the improved type on their new town seal in 1400 (Ewe, 1972: 128, #53; Hagedorn, 1914: 43–51) (see Figure 6.10). Technical improvements in ship design, the emergence of the full-rigged ship and its continuing adaptation and the development of a superior cog/hulk suggest a significant improvement in transport services and in turn a fall in transport costs and in turn increasing trade and so greater market integration. Evidence from prices on the other hand does 114

Maritime transport and the integration of Low Countries grain markets in the Late Middle Ages

Figure 6.10 Town seal of Danzig (Gdan´sk) showing a cog

Source: Herbert Ewe, Schiffe auf Siegeln, Berlin: Verlag Delius, Klasing & Co., 1972, p. 35. Also at http://www.ngw.nl/int/pol/g/gdansk.htm not point to any great gains in bringing distant markets together. Even the presumed fall in freight rates which would be a logical result of the marked improvement in ship design has been questioned. Data from the Bordeaux wine trade suggest little if any fall in the real cost per ton shipped between the Gironde and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Menard, 1991: 236–248). The greatest improvements technically were in vessels to carry goods efficiently over long distance but it is precisely those distant markets which show few if any signs of integration in the period. The size and technical capabilities of ships travelling from Iberia to northern Europe certainly improved in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Wheat prices indicate virtually no connection between grain markets in the two places. 115

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IV. Design of smaller ships If falling transport costs can make a valuable contribution to moving markets together and if in the fourteenth and fifteenth century the most obvious development in commerce was the emergence of regional grain markets then perhaps it is not design improvements in the largest long distance traders that had the greatest impact but rather changes in smaller ships, vessels used in coastal and river transport. River boats are rarely a topic worthy of the time of historians or archaeologists. There is little that is grand about them and little reason to examine them when found or to preserve records of them. Yet rivers, even some rather small and insignificant ones, had a central role in inland transport in the late Middle Ages. Getting grain or wood to urban markets very often depended on proximity to a creek or rivulet which ultimately gave access to a major stream. That was certainly true in England (Langdon, 1993; Galloway and Murphy, 1991). The data on prices suggest it would be worthwhile to look more closely at even the boats and rafts that made their way along the Seine or the Maas or the Scheldt in the fourteenth century to find changes or improvements in their ability to handle grain (see Figure 6.11). Though each of those craft could carry only small quantities of goods their total numbers, the location of production and the relatively low capital cost involved in building them were great enough to make river boats very possibly more important to grain transport than their much more impressive three-masted seagoing relatives. It is difficult to say if river craft went through technical advances at all in the late Middle Ages. Certainly what improvements that did occur were not on a scale with advances in seagoing ships. Already in the Roman Empire people along the lower Rhine had developed effective craft for moving bulk goods along Low Countries rivers (De Weerd, 1988b; De Weerd, 1988a). Such types were presumably still in use and still as effective in the fifteenth century. Small cargo ships and fishing boats suffer from the same sort of disinterest among historians of the economy and of technology but again price history suggests they too are worthy of serious consideration. The boyer which employed a range of different sails from square to lateen to gaff all on two masts may have set something like records for high labour productivity in the late sixteenth century operating along the North Sea coast (Hagedorn, 1914: 82–92; Scammell, 1960/1961:333–334) (see Figure 6.12). Most important for smaller sailing craft may well have been the development of the una rig. It combined on a single-mast a sprit-rigged sail and a staysail which hangs down from the forestay, the rope that runs from the top of the mast to the bow. The new simple combination probably dates from the fourteenth century and shows up first it seems in the Low Countries. Small boats used on rivers, in estuaries and over short distances with that rig could be handled by one man though often he presumably had another man or boy along to give him a hand (see Figure 6.13). Such small vessels then could match the ratios of tons served per man of even seagoing full-rigged ships but the smaller craft had much greater flexibility in providing transportation services. They could move goods in smaller units, could venture out in a great variety of weather, and reach a much greater variety of destinations. It is difficult to estimate labour productivity in ocean shipping but it appears that there was little improvement in the fifteenth century, that is that once the gain from changing

116

Maritime transport and the integration of Low Countries grain markets in the Late Middle Ages

Figure 6.11 River boats in Paris

Source: Virginia Wylie Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediaeval Paris; a Record of Early Fourteenth-Century Life. [Princeton] N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 37.

from vessels with sails and oars to manoeuvrable vessels with just sails had been reaped. It was the end of the sixteenth century before there was another significant advance in the effectiveness of sailors on seagoing ships (Lucassen and Unger, 2000). So if there were efficiency gains, if there were decreases in transport costs in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the most likely source, especially in the Low Countries, was probably improvements in coastal and fishing craft.

V. Conclusion The images of ships, the indications of design changes and the records of market integration or the lack of it all point to humble vessels as having a greater impact than their larger cousins on the economy of the late Middle Ages in North-Western Europe. Price data strongly suggest that it was in coastal and river transportation that the greatest strides in efficiency were made in the last years of the Middle Ages. It would appear that

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Figure 6.12 A boyer with a complex rig

Source: see Richard W. Unger, “Four Dordrecht Ships of the Sixteenth Century”, The Mariner’s Mirror, LXI (1975), plate 2 facing p. 117. the gains were greater and easier to discern in the Low Countries, a combination of the extensive waterways and the possibility that technical change occurred there earlier than elsewhere. There can be no doubt that the full-rigged ship was technically superior to its predecessors but price data indicate that the better design had little of no impact on grain markets in the century or more after its introduction somewhere around 1400. Not only is there little sign of productivity increase but in trades where the new type should have made its greatest contribution, that is in carrying goods between Iberia and North-Western Europe, it seems to have had no effect on grain markets at least through the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The new design may have opened the way to voyages of exploration to Asia and the New World and may have opened new trade routes across the Atlantic and into the Indian Ocean and so transformed global commerce. But the effects on the internal European economy of the full-rigged ship must have come later than the fifteenth century or have been in trades in parts of Europe outside the lands around the

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Maritime transport and the integration of Low Countries grain markets in the Late Middle Ages

Figure 6.13 An una rig on boats near Dordrecht. Detail from St Elizabeth Flood in the Night of 18 to 19 November 1421

Source: Oil (?) on panel, Master of the Elizabeth Panels c. 1470, Rijksmuseum, ­A msterdam. Also at http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-3147B?lang=en North Sea or in goods other than grains. The role of the new revolutionary type, “the great invention of European ship designers” was then not a simple and straightforward one. Its impact on intra-European trade, like the integration of world grain markets, would be a slow process and have to wait for some time. In the late Middle Ages and in the Low Countries and with grain it appears that the economic impact was greatest from advances in and the use of small, flexible, versatile boats which rarely if ever saw the high seas.

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Sources for Prices Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht - N. W. Posthumus, Inquiry into the History of Prices in Holland, 2 volumes, Leiden: Brill, 1946–1964. Augsburg, Frankfurt, Munich - Moritz J. Elsas, Umriss einer Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Deutschland vom ausgehenden mittelalter bis zum beginn des neunzehnten jahrhunderts, Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff’s Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V. 1936, Vol. II, 461–469. Antwerp and Lier - Herman van der Wee, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963, I, 177–178, 184–188. Bruges - 1374–1520 - Charles Verlinden, E. Scholliers et al., Dokumenten voor de Geschiedenis van Prijzen en Lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant, 4 volumes, Bruges: De Tempel, 1959–1973, vol. II, 33–59. Brussels and Louvain - Marie-Jeanne Tits-Dieuaide, La Formation des Prix Céréaliers en Brabant et en Flandre au XVe siècle, Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1975, 270–275. Douai - Monique Mestayer, “Prix du blé et de l’avoine de 1329 à 1793,” Revue du Nord, XLV, no. 178 (Avril-Juin, 1963), 168–170. Edinburgh - A. J. S. Gibson and T. C. Smout, Prices, Food and Wages in Scotland, 1550–1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Exeter - B. R. Mitchell, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, 484–487. Gdansk - Julian Pelc, Ceny w Gdansku w xvi i xvii wieku, Lwow, 1937 and Tadeusz Furtak, Ceny w Gdansku w Ltach 1701–1815, Lwow, 1935. Lwow - Stanislaw Hoszowski, Ceny we Lwowie w XVI i XVII Wieku, Lwow, 1928. Paris - Henri Hauser, Recherches et Documents sur L’Histoire des Prix en France de 1500 à 1800 (Paris, 1985, originally published 1936) and Micheline Baulant, “Le prix des grains à Paris de 1431 à 1788,” Annales Economies Sociétés Civilisations, 23, no. 3(May–June, 1968), 537–540. Rostock - Ursula Hauschild, Studiën zu Löhnen und Preisen in Rostock im Spätmittelalter, Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1973, 76–78. Southern England, sometimes called London - James E. Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England From the Year after the Oxford Parliament (1259) to the Commencement of the Continental War (1793) compiled entirely from original and contemporaneous records, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1882, vol. 4, 282–291. Warsaw - W. Adamczyk, Ceny w Warszawie w XVI i XVII Wieku, Lwow, 1938.

Bibliography Abel, W. (1980) Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries, Olive Ordish, trans., London (original German ed. 1935). Berggren, L., N. Hybel and A. Landen (eds.) (2002) Cogs, Cargoes, and Commerce Maritime Bulk Trade in Northern Europe 1150–1400, Toronto.

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Chevet, J. M. (1996) ‘National and Regional Corn Markets in France from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of European Economic History, 25, 3, pp. 681–703. Ellmers, D. (1994) ‘The Cog as a Cargo Carrier’ in: R. Gardiner (ed.), Cogs, Caravels and Galleons, History of the Ship, London, pp. 29–46. Epstein, S. R. (2000) Freedom and Growth The rise of states and markets in Europe, 1300–1750, London. Epstein, S. R. (1994) ‘Regional Fairs, Institutional Innovation, and Economic Growth in Late Medieval Europe’, Economic History Review, 47, 3, pp. 459–482. Ewe, H. (1972) Schiffe auf Siegeln, Berlin. Friel, I. (1995) The Good Ship Ships, Shipbuilding and Technology in England 1200–1520, London. Galloway, J.A. and M. Murphy (1991) ‘Feeding the City: Medieval London and its Agrarian Hinterland’, The London Journal, 16, 1, pp. 3–14. Galloway, J. A. (2000) ‘One market or many? London and the grain trade of England’, J. A. Galloway (ed.) Trade, Urban Hinterlands and Market Integration c. 1300–1600, Centre for Metropolitan History Working Papers Series, No. 3, London, pp. 23–42. Gardiner, R. (ed.) (1994) Cogs, Caravels and Galleons, History of the Ship, London. Gras, N. S. B. (1915) The Evolution of the English Corn Market from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge, Mass. Hagedorn, B. (1914) Die Entwicklung der wichtigsten Schiffstypen bis ins 19. ­Jahrhundert, Berlin. Hammel-Kiesow, R. (2002) ‘Lübeck and the Baltic Trade in Bulk Goods for the North Sea Region 1150–1400’ in: L. Berggren, N. Hybel and A. Landen (eds.) Cogs, Cargoes, and Commerce Maritime Bulk Trade in Northern Europe 1150–1400, Toronto, pp. 83–88. Hardenberg, H. (1941) De Nederlanden en de Kruistochten, Amsterdam. Hauser, H. (1936) Recherches et documents sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800, Paris. Hutchinson, G. (1994) Medieval Ships and Shipping, Rutherford, New Jersey. Lane, F. C. (1965) Navires et Constructeurs à Venise pendant la Renaissance, Paris. Langdon, J. (1993) ‘Inland water transport in medieval England’, Journal of Historical Geography, 19, 1, pp. 1–11. Lewis, A. R. (1976) ‘Northern European Sea Power and the Straits of Gibralter 1031–1350 A.D.’ in: W. C. Jordan, B. McNab and R. F. Ruiz (eds.) Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer, Princeton, pp. 139–164. Lucassen, J., and R.W. Unger (2000) ‘Labour Productivity in Ocean Shipping, ­1500–1850’, International Journal of Maritime History, 12, 2, pp. 127–141. Menard, R. R. (1991) ‘Transport costs and long-range trade, 1300–1800: Was there a European “transport revolution” in the early modern era?’ in J. D. Tracy (ed.), The Political Economy of Merchant Empires State Power and World Trade 1350–1750, Cambridge, pp. 228–275. Naudé, W. (1896 and following) Die Getreidehandelspolitik der Europaischen Staaten vom 13. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert als Einleitung in Preussische Getreidehandelspolitik. Berlin. Persson, K. G. (1999) Grain Markets in Europe, 1500–1900 Integration and ­Deregulation, 121

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Cambridge. Postan, M. M. (1933) ‘The Economic and Political Relations of England and the Hanse from 1400 to 1475’, in E. E. Power and M. M. Postan (eds.), Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century, London, pp. 91–154. Scammell, G. V. (1960/1961) ‘English Merchant Shipping at the End of the Middle Ages: Some East Coast Evidence’, Economic History Review, 13, pp. 327–341. Thoen, Erik. (2001) ‘A ‘commercial survival economy’ in evolution. The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages-19th century)’ in P. Hoppenbrouwers and J. L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasant into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate, Corn Publication Series 4, Turnhout, pp. 102–157. Thompson, E. P. (1971) ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, Past and Present, 50, pp. 76–136. Thünen, J. H. von (1842–1850) Der isolierte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie. . ., second ed., Rostock. Tielhof, M. van (2001) ‘Grain Provision in Holland ca. 1490–1570’, P. Hoppenbrouwers and J. L. van Zanden (eds.), Peasant into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner debate, Corn Publication Series 4, Turnhout, pp. 202–219. Tielhof, M. van (1995) De Hollandse Graanhandel, 1470–1570 Koren op de Amsterdamse molen, The Hague. Tilly, L. (1971–1972) ‘The Food Riot as a Form of Political Conflict in France’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, II, pp. 23–58. Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1975) La Formation des Prix Céréaliers en Brabant et en Flandre au XVe siècle, Brussels. Unger, R.W. (1999) ‘Feeding Low Countries Towns: the Grain Trade in the Fifteenth Century’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 2, 77, pp. 329–358. Unger, R.W. (1980) The Ship in the Medieval Economy, 600–1600, London. Wee, H. van der (1963) The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, The Hague. Weerd, M. D. de (1988a) ‘A landlubber’s view of shipbuilding procedure in the Celtic barges of Zwammerdam’ in: O. Filgueiras (ed.), Local boats. 4. Int. Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology Porto 1985, British Archaeological Reports, International Series 438, Oxford, pp. 35–51. Weerd, M. D. de, (1988b) Schepen voor Zwammerdam, Amsterdam.

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7 Feeding Cities. Transportation costs, paved roads and town-countryside relationships in eighteenth-century Brabant Bruno Blondé, University of Antwerp I.

Introduction: provisioning markets and friction of distance

Urban historians1 nowadays tend to describe and explain urban developments by focusing not on the individual city as such, but by highlighting its relationships with other towns in the urban system and with its connections to the (not necessarily surrounding) rural economies. Moreover, interconnections between urban economies and their surrounding countryside are increasingly described and explained in symbiotic terms (De Vries-Van der Woude, 1995: 585–600). Hence, it is no longer the individual economic biography of a city, which is coming to the front stage in urban historical research, but instead the flows of people, goods and information passing from one city to another (Hohenberg, 1992: 22; Epstein ed., 2001). In this article friction of distance, transport costs more in particular, will be investigated as a central key in understanding both food trade patterns and the functioning of regional economies. Indeed, in dealing with the provisioning of urban markets surprisingly little a­ ttention -up until now- has been devoted to the problem of transportation. For ­example, in his voluminous masterpiece on the provisioning of Paris in the eighteenth century, S. Kaplan refers to the issue of transportation only about ten times. Transportation was slow and costly, he states, but it made some progress in the age of Enlightenment, though no exhaustive study has yet enabled us to measure the changes. (Kaplan, 1984: 596). However, the (presupposed) importance of eighteenth-century road improvements for Parisian development is underscored by various authors such as Szostak, Lepetit, Hohenberg and Lees (Lepetit, 1984; Szostak, 1991; Hohenberg & Lees, 1996). The hinterland of Paris was supported by a more elaborate and well ­maintained road network. In addition, it seems sensible to argue for a gradual ­improvement of speed and a fall in transportation prices in the course of the century of Enlightenment. According to recent research, the agricultural sector greatly benefited from faster and cheaper transportation possibilities as well. France and England, this is generally known, witnessed considerable transportation improvements during the eighteenth century (Szostak, 1991). Moreover, the impact of infrastructure and land transportation improvements in the process of economic modernisation has recently been reassessed (Gerhold, 1993; Barker & Gerhold, 1995). 1

This paper was last revised in 2001.

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II. The ‘road building program’ In transportation history, the Southern Netherlands, and Brabant in particular, followed a comparable trajectory of progress in infrastructure and organisation. During the eighteenth century, the Brabantine transportation system considerably improved. Supervised by the central government, efforts were made to increase the navigability of several rivers such as the Demer, Dijle and Gete (Breugelmans, 1987; Van den Broeck, 1992). In addition, the city of Leuven won government approval to dig a canal to the Rupel (near Mechelen) (Urbain, 1939). This major project almost ruined the municipal finances of the city. However, the Leuven economy greatly profited from this modern connection, in part as a result of the revival of transit trade to the land of Liège and the Rhineland (Van Buyten, 1972, 1982, 1985). For several reasons, which need not be fully documented here, intermodal competition (water transportation) played only a marginal role in agricultural town-countryside relationships. Though Brabant is gifted with a dense network of navigable waterways, the lions’ share of urban-rural traffic went overland. Even the newly built canal from the Rupel to Leuven attracted only a small volume of the agricultural surplus of adjacent villages (Van Buyten, 1994; De Peuter, 1999). Hence, the central importance of the paved road network for agricultural development purposes of the expansion. Before 1704, the old Duchy of Brabant counted only 94 km. of paved roads serving fragmented parts of the local market. By 1718, this figure had already risen to 208 km., and it increased to more than 500 km by 1793 (Genicot, 1946: 584). Initially, it were the great Brabantine cities that benefited most from the construction program of paved roads, but during the second half of the eighteenth century, small towns were also fully integrated into the new road network. By 1784 Brabant had already obtained a remarkable density of modern paved roads (Figure 7.1) (Lejour, 1931). Within Brabant, at that time, only the Campine area in the North East and parts of Walloon Brabant were not or insufficiently opened up. This shift in favour of small towns was paralleled by a shift in political and economic strategy. While political and military considerations -especially the need to interconnect the capital with other major cities- were at the heart of the first building boom, economic motives were gradually taking the lead. New paved roads were believed to profoundly influence transit trade policies, to facilitate the provisioning of the urban market and -last but not least- also to provide important incentives for agricultural growth. The anonymous author of an eighteenth-century small treatise on the utility of nouvelles branches de chaussées indeed recalled the necessity of paved roads for the purchase and transportation of urban waste as a fertiliser (Zylbergeld, 1995: 201), the provisioning of urban markets and the year-round possibilities of selling on urban markets. These functions were believed to enhance a series of agricultural improvements: En sorte qu’on peut dire qu’il y a un enchainement des avantages dont l’un résulte de l’autre, qui sont tellement meultipliés, qu’il est même impossible de les détailler. This optimistic viewpoint from an eye-witness should, however, be treated with reservation. Eighteenth-century observers seldom proved capable of predicting the economic impact and even failed to assess the financial strength of future road exploitations. As a result, several newly built roads a­ttracted very low ­traffic volumes and -in the end- turned out to be financially

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Figure 7.1 Transportation system Brabant in 1780

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unrewarding. This was the case, for instance, with the roads constructed by the small town of Nijvel in the southern part of the duchy (Bruneel & Delporte, 1995). After all, only the main paved roads exploited by the provincial Estates of Brabant turned out to be financially successful enterprises.

III. Assessing the impact of the road building program: ­qualitative ­arguments In spite of the often precarious financial conditions, most economic historians labelled the transportation improvements as an important economic achievement (e.g. Blondé, 1999: 174–183). Obviously, thanks to the paved roads heavier freights could be transported over longer distances with fewer horses and lighter wagons. Especially the cost reductions resulting from savings on horse-power were enormous. Under normal conditions, horse provender costs accounted for at least half of the budget of inter-urban passenger transportation services (Gerhold, 1993: 127–134; Van der Jonckheyd, 1995: 73–74). Moreover, the overall cost of transportation considerably fell thanks to a growing reliability of transportation services. Indeed, the negative impact of bad weather conditions on transportation was considerably reduced. Early nineteenth-century cadastral officials, for instance, witnessed how inhabitants of villages deprived of such modern transportation facilities were frequently locked out from urban markets, ce qui oblige les cultivateurs à vendre une grande partie de leurs denrées chez eux à un prix très modéré (for example General Archives Brussels, Kadaster Brabant, 227). N. Bacon, a Brussels merchant rightly observed toute simple puisque les villages aboutissans aux grands chemins et chausses ont l’aisance de pouvoir conduire aussi commodement pendant l’hiver que pendant l’été leur crus et denrées aux marchés des villes tandis que ceux qui en sont éloignés ne peuvent y avoir accès à cause des chemins impraticables (Hasquin, 1978: 64). The impact of lesser seasonal vulnerability can also be illustrated by the example of the stone quarries of Arquennes and Feluy, south of the small town of Nijvel. Before the construction of the paved roads, transport of heavy stones was almost infeasible during eight to ten months a year. Unfortunately, the opportunity cost for farmers during summer time was high. As a result, even during these months transport services were supplied at high prices only. After the completion of the paved roads, transport was possible on a year-round basis (Van Belle, 1990: 32–33). Time savings and a growing organisational reliability were also among the major advantages resulting from improved transportation facilities (Blondé, 1998: 21). Even though travellers on these new roads were forced to halt at regular intervals to pay the road taxes, paved roads allowed for considerable time savings. Eighteenth century intercity transport regulations betray a growing time-consciousness. Some of the cost-reducing advantages were partially eroded by the way the new paved roads were financed. Most roads were financed by selling ‘renten’ which were paid off by the receipts of barrier tolls. Indeed, approximately every 5 kilometres a barrier was installed, where travellers had to pay a barrier toll in proportion to the number of horses harnessed, in other words relative to the weight of the cargo and/or the intended speed

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of the transportation service. Consequently, bulk cargo was discouraged: on the paved road from Charleroi barrier expenses amounted to 50% of the transportation price for coal transporters and merchants (Genicot, 1946: 533–535). Similar figures were reported for pave transports from the stone quarry of Quenast (Van Belle, 1990: 267). This tax structure, inspired by a willingness to let the user pay for the wear and tear of the roads, profoundly affected the profitability of these roads for agricultural purposes. However, farmers only had to pay when they used the roads for marketing purposes. For the cultivation of their fields, the milling of grain, and other productive goals the use of the roads was free. In addition, the majority of farmers driving to urban markets benefited from structural reductions on barrier taxes. These reductions could easily amount to about 50% of the standard tariff. Yet, it was only thanks to these more favourable tariff conditions that the advantages of the new paved roads use outweighed the extra cost of paying a barrier tax in proportion to the total weight of the cargo transported. When in 1751 farmers in the neighbourhood of Merksem and Brasschaat near Antwerp temporarily lost their advantageous tax ­conditions, they immediately reacted by switching to the old unpaved roads in the Campine area. As a result, barrier tolls collapsed. Not surprisingly, the old and more favourable tariffs were quickly installed again. Immediately thereafter barrier fees were on the rise again. How important then were the new roads for the development of market oriented ­agriculture in Brabant?

IV. Assessing the importance of the paved roads network: grain ­markets and hinterlands in eighteenth-century Brabant An incomplete series of early nineteenth-century cadastral surveys allows us to evaluate the central importance of the paved roads network from a geographical perspective. The new roads were decisive for the mapping of agricultural hinterlands in Brabant and the marketing of the agricultural surplus of the Brabantine countryside. However incomplete, Figure 7.2 clearly reveals the central role played by the paved road network in the demarcation of the agricultural hinterlands in Brabant. In general, the map can also be characterised as a variant on the ‘law of urban gravity’ (Reily, 1931). Bigger cities rely upon larger provisioning areas, whereas the agricultural hinterland of small towns is correspondingly small. In addition, in the Brabantine context, small towns occupy a more peripherical position, both within the urban network but also in relation to their own hinterland (Blondé, 1999: 143–148). Leuven, a beer brewing city, was by far also the biggest grain market of Brabant. Thanks to the paved road to Namen, the Leuven area of influence reached at least 35 ­kilometres into Walloon Brabant. The Leuven example also underlines the complexity of the concept of transaction costs. Transport costs did matter of course, but -however prohibitive they could be- they were but a part of the decision making process of the

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Figure 7.2 Agricultural hinterlands of Brabant towns, early nineteenth century

farmer. The size of the grain market was almost as important as the distance separating farm from market centre. The cost of transporting the agricultural surplus to the town was, in the case of the bigger cities, largely compensated for by the prospect of a more important ‘grain’ market, and the possible advantage of the multiple purpose trip. In the early nineteenth century farmers of Jodoigne, for instance, went to the Leuven market instead of riding to the nearby (and important) Tienen market. Le marché de cette dernière ville, quoique plus éloigné que celui de Tirlemont, est beaucoup plus fréquenté par les cultivateurs, à cause qu’ils y trouvent ordinairement plus d’avantage sous le rapport du prix des denrées et sous celui de la facilité de la vente (General Archives Brussels, Kadaster van Brabant, 171). The current stage of research suggests that, thanks to the construction of roads, larger cities succeeded in enlarging their agricultural hinterlands! Although it was the city of Mechelen that financed and constructed a paved road to 128

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Leuven, it was principally the latter that profited from this road. Thanks to this chaussée Leuven enlarged its hinterland at the expense of the Mechelen grain market. Although Boortmeerbeek is located closely to Mechelen, farmers preferred the bigger market of Leuven. The same holds true for farmers of Wespelaar: Le marché de Louvain, comme étant le plus considerable est celui qui est le plus fréquenté (. . .) (Blondé, 1999: 146). Something similar happened with the sizable Brussels grain market. In the late 1760s, the construction of the paved road from Brussels to Waver had been inspired by the need to improve the connection between the capital and its agricultural hinterland (General Archives Brussels, Rekenkamer, Reg. 152, f°203). Since that point, the small town of Waver functioned as a satellite of the capital city (Van Uytven, 1992: 45). ­Cynical as it may seem: thanks to the roads financed by the small town of Nijvel, eager to be integrated into the big transport network, Brussels also succeeded in depriving this town from its immediate hinterland north of the city (Blondé, 1999: 146, 152). As a result Nijvel also lost its central place functions for the adjacent countryside north of the town (Figure 7.3). At the end of the eighteenth century, virtually no shops were

Figure 7.3 Location of retail sector in Nijvel, 1796

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located in the roads leading to the Porte de Bruxelles (Brussels citygate) and/or the Porte de Namur (Namur citygate). The law of urban gravity was also at work north in the region. Mechelen and Antwerp clearly compelled Lier to an eastward hinterland orientation to the Campine area, a region deprived from paved roads until late in the nineteenth century. Farmers of Boechout, however close to the small town, made use of the paved road from Lier to Antwerp to visit the latter for the marketing of their agricultural surplus. Yet, thanks to the river Nete, Lier succeeded in attracting agricultural surpluses from far in this region. Still, judging from the location of the Lier retail sector, the immediate surrounding countryside served by roads east of the city was of major importance (Figure 7.4). Transportation costs and networks mattered greatly, that much is clear. As a result, all the cities studied developed the most intensive contacts with their immediate surroundings (Vandenbroeke, 1972: 101). Eventually, the construction of the paved roads network clearly resulted in a redrawing of the map of Brabantine agricultural markets. It enabled the most important outlets, Leuven and Brussels, to enlarge their influence far south into the Walloon part of Brabant. In addition, it reinforced their competitive position at the expense of the smaller ones (Van Uytven, 1995: 221). Figure 7.4 Location of retail sector in Lier, 1796

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Whereas the southern part of the duchy was integrated into the central urban network, the northeastern Campine area almost fell outside the system. In spite of the range of its hinterland, the Turnhout grain market (deprived from a modern transportation infrastructure) was insignificant (Vanhaute & Landuyt, 1989: 313–314). The strategic importance of transportation infrastructure is underscored by the relatively weak agricultural development of this area within the region under scrutiny (Klep, 1973: 186–187; Goossens, 1992: 224–225). Not surprisingly, between 1760 and 1790 rye prices at the Turnhout market lay 13–15% below the level of the markets of Antwerp and Malines (Vanhaute, 1992: 233; De Jongh, 1999: 307–308). The rapid price convergence after the nineteenth-century integration of Turnhout into a paved roads network seems to underline the seminal role of transportation infrastructure in the market integration process (De Jongh, 1999: 312).

V. Challenging the impact of the paved roads contribution: market integration In a recent study, the impact of the construction of paved roads on market integration has been challenged (Buyst, Dercon, Van Campenhout, 2000). These authors argue that the construction of the paved roads did not result in a considerable lowering of transaction, measured by market integration. This can be explained by the toll structure used on the new roads. Tolls did, as has already been stressed, discourage bulk transports. Consequently, the advantages of faster and cheaper transport were offset by the cost of the new tolls. The new roads facilitated faster arbitrage between different centres but they did so without actually contributing to a lowering of transaction costs. After all, the Brabantine markets were already fairly well integrated in the eighteenth century (De Jongh, 1999: 298; Bruneel, 2004: 499). As interesting as these findings appear to be, they do need further and close reflection. The existing toll structure did discourage professional inter-urban bulk trade. Consequently, it did little -if anything at all- to improve the process of market integration. But it is questionable -given the preferential tax tariffs granted to farmers- whether it did also hinder market-oriented production in much the same way (Overton, 1996). The central question to be tackled is whether or not the equation between market integration and market oriented production can be left undisputed under all circumstances. In order to solve that question, we will turn away from the agricultural price analysis-methods used in market integration studies. Instead, we will try to focus on the actual trade volumes between town and countryside.

VI. Market oriented agriculture and transportation volumes: the Leuven grain market It is a well established fact that our regions turned from a net importer of grain in the second half of the seventeenth century, into an exporter of grain in the second half of the eighteenth century (Vandenbroeke, 1975). The case of Leuven, the most important grain market of Brabant is significant in this respect. Needless to stress the importance of the paved road from Leuven to Namen. The magistracy of Namen testified that la facilité

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qu’a procuré au roulage la construction de la chaussée a fait que les particuliers et les censiers des environs, qui la fréquentent, se sont procure des chariots beaucoup plus forts que ceux qu’ils avaient auparavant (General Archives Brussels, Financial Council, 3296). If the chaussée de Namur, the paved road to Namen, was as important as suggested in the previous paragraphs, we would expect transportation volumes to expand after the completion of the road. For several reasons, barrier receipt accounts have to be treated with extreme caution. Figure 7.5, however, gives a fairly adequate image of the global traffic development upon this major transportation axis. A more detailed analysis of the absolute differences of the collected taxes between different barriers enables us to gain a rough idea about the nature of traffic along this major axis. Indeed, the different receipts between the barriers located close to the town and the more remote ones, can only be understood as the minimum share that has to be explained by rural traffic flows. On the paved road from Leuven to Namen, the difference in price between the barrier of Heverlee (near Leuven) and the barrier located close to the periphery of the Leuven hinterland, grew by 44% between 1770 and 1784. The close correspondence with the municipal tax on the grain market is striking. Here without any doubt, agriculture played a dynamic role in the strongly expanding road transportation volumes (Figure 7.6). Nevertheless, it was only after the completion of the canal between Leuven and the Rupel that road volumes started to expand. The paved road was perhaps a welcome, but by no means decisive incentive for Walloon farmers to start selling their agricultural surplus on the Leuven market. Thanks to the canal, however, the Leuven grain market considerably grew in importance and the grain trade could easily be integrated into the international grain market (Materné, 1994). As for Leuven, the growing export facilities to the Amsterdam staple market clearly contributed to a lowering of transaction costs, among other thanks to the increased economies of scale, such as the famous facilité de la vente.

Figure 7.5 Namen-Leuven: total transport volume (1761 = 100), 1761–1788

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Figure 7.6 Road transport volumes and grain market Leuven (1766 = 100), 1761–1788

It is striking in this respect that the new paved road did not succeed in creaming off a growing production in the neighbourhood of Leuven, which was already well-­integrated. By contrast, it was the agriculture of Walloon Brabant which was increasingly turning to market production. Between Hamme and Heverlee, where town-countryside ­exchange was dense, growth gains were small. Between Hamme and Incourt (towards the periphery of the agricultural hinterland), on the other hand, growth was systematic and ­relatively-speaking impressive. Figure 7.7 Traffic between Heverlee-Hamme and Hamme-Incourt on the road from Namen to Leuven (1755 = 100), 1761–1788

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The Leuven evidence could easily be multiplied for the city of Brussels. De Peuter, for instance, has amply shown how, in the course of the eighteenth century, Brussels grain merchants increasingly engaged in growing grain exports. In doing so they also sold grain which was produced and bought outside the immediate hinterland of Brussels (De Peuter, 1999).

VI. Market oriented agriculture and transportation volumes: the Brabant grain markets On the paved road from Leuven to Namen the majority of quantitative data relates to collected barrier receipts. This enabled us to gain some insight into the volume of ­town-countryside exchanges. Elsewhere in Brabant, however, most barriers were leased out, often for periods of three years to the highest bidder. Hence, we do not possess ­reliable quantitative information related to the traffic streams on Brabantine roads. At best, the collected data give some insight into the long run development of transport ­volumes. Moreover, it is impossible to split barrier revenues into their different ­components ­(town-countryside traffic, inter-urban traffic of passengers and merchandise, transit trade, etc.). In general, , farmers were taxed on a favourable basis, hence barriers receipts are always biased in favour of inter-urban traffic. Yet, as we did for the Leuven-Namen road, comparing barrier receipts on the same road may yield valuable insights. By their very nature, barriers located close to the towns were to a larger proportion influenced by ‘agricultural traffic’, and as a result, they (generally speaking) also yielded more revenue. The above-mentioned bias in favour of inter-urban traffic is aggravated, however, by the fact that barrier-farmers could expect an income, not only from the collection of barrier tolls, but also from subsidiary activities such as the putting up of horses and inn-keeping, (General Archives Brussels, Staten van Brabant, Cart. 485). Almost by definition agricultural traffic had a more limited impact upon these kinds of subsidiaries. And, not surprisingly, barrier houses located further away from towns, were more likely to profit from such sources of extra-income than barriers located close to towns (where inn-keeping competition was fierce). Barrier receipts need to be interpreted very cautiously. The tariff structures used, the exploitation procedures, and the decentralised bookkeeping procedures render any evaluation of traffic volumes extremely difficult. Yet, when the aggregate transportation volume index moves upward and barriers close to the town follow or surpass this general trend, then by consequence town-countryside transportation must have been growing by at least the same intensity. A confrontation of Figure 7.8 with Figure 7.9 is revealing in this respect. During the first half of the eighteenth century falling agricultural prices and the strong de-urbanisation heavily constrained any market-oriented agriculture (Van der Wee, 1988: 356–364, Klep, 1988). Road improvements and the accompanying fall in the overall cost of transportation (reliability, speed, etc.) at that time caused a further expansion of inter-urban traffic streams. Thus, the apparent stability of aggregate road transportation volumes from the

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twenties onwards (Figure 7.8), is hiding a major underlying shift (Figure 7.9). This shift occurred at the expense of urban-rural exchanges and in favour of passenger transportation and inter-urban traffic flows. During the second half of the eighteenth century, both intercity as well as towncountryside transportation expanded vigorously, but this time, more or less at an equal pace (Figure 7.9). Around Brussels and Leuven the growth of agricultural traffic substantially contributed to the general increase of barrier payments. The relative revenue of the barrier at Tubize (on the road leading to Brussels), for instance, rose slightly during the sixties, but it fell back afterwards. The barrier at Asse expressed as a percentage of

Figure 7.8 Aggregate index of Brabantine road transportation volumes (index 1755 = 100), 1711–1790

Figure 7.9 Toll receipts from peripheral barriers as a percentage from barriers located close to towns (*100), 1711–1790

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the remote barrier at Zellik remained rather constant, with overall volumes growing strongly. Only on the vigorously expanding axis of transit trade (via Leuven, Tienen and Liège) did long distance trade grow faster. Yet, this does not necessarily imply that the ‘hidden’ agricultural traffic was unimportant, on the contrary (Tits-Dieuaide, 1987: 117). The small town of Tienen, for instance, was -in spite of its proximity to Leuven- a very important agricultural market itself (Table 7.1). The revenue of the grain trade tax along this axis at the Tienen citygate in Leuven almost exploded during the seventies and eighties of the eighteenth century (Blondé, 1999: 225). Table 7.1 Size of the urban markets fr agricultural products in 1813 Place

Hectoliters barley, buchwheat, maslin, oats, rye, wheat and potatos

Leuven Brussel Tienen Mechelen Antwerp Diest Lier Turnhout Aarschot Waver Jodoigne Nijvel

290639 121362 103270 80388 74046 59094 40190 32940 7045 3656 3419 3375

Source: Archives Nationales Paris, 1813, F11 843.

With rising grain prices, growing urban populations and increasing international marketing facilities of grain surpluses, a strong incentive for market-oriented agricultural production was given. By the end of the eighteenth century, overland transport was challenged by rising horse feeding costs (Van Buyten, 1972). While, at that moment in time, the relative cost of transportation may -other things being equal- have been falling for agricultural producers (Ballaux & Blondé, 2002), it was without doubt rising for others.

VII. Conclusions This survey did little to quantify the impact of road improvements in the eighteenth century. Qualitative evidence, however, does seem to support the key importance usually attributed to the construction of modern paved roads for the agricultural development of Brabant. The paved road network, so much is clear, strongly influenced the agricultural markets of this area. Especially Leuven and Brussels seem to have expanded their rural hinterland 136

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at the expense of smaller agricultural markets. Not surprisingly, both towns strongly participated in the export of grain during the second half of the eighteenth century. Farmers often preferred a longer journey to a bigger market, instead of a shorter trip to a nearby market. Economies of scale and perhaps also the prospect of multiple purpose trips doubtlessly played in favour of these bigger players. Paved roads also influenced agricultural productivity, a phenomenon which helps to explain strong increases in the price of land located nearby new transportation roads (Hasquin, 62–63; Lenders, 1989: 39). The impact of road construction upon the process of market integration remains open to debate (Buyst et.al., 1988; Buyst et.al., 2000). The positive influence on the peripherical markets in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, however, further underscores the importance of a modern road system. While the prevailing toll tariff structure on the new roads promoted town-countryside exchanges, it did discourage inter-urban traffic flows of bulk products. In doing so, the process of market integration was constrained. In addition, whereas road taxes on the new paved roads facilitated the feeding of cities, they discouraged the fuelling of them. Indeed, no tax reductions were granted to transporters of firewood or coal. Yet, market integration is not necessarily relevant for the assessment of the process of market-oriented agriculture. Thanks to the barrier receipts we could gain a rough insight into the evolution of town-countryside exchanges. Clearly, during the first half of the century, the benefits of the modern paved road system were completely eroded by falling prices on (de-urbanising) markets. The tide turned, however, during the second half of the eighteenth century. Thanks to its canal, Leuven gained considerable importance as a grain market. Growing urban populations and the prospect of selling surpluses with a profit on the international market contributed to a market-oriented agriculture (De Jongh & Segers, 2001: 177–178). Finally, the cost structure of pre-industrial transportation was in itself an important determinant of town-countryside exchanges. In spite of the predominance of fodder costs in the total cost structure, rising agricultural prices almost by definition contributed to a narrowing of the friction of distance between city and rural surroundings. This is exactly what happened in late eighteenth-century Brabant (Blondé & Van Uytven, 1999: 148; Masschaele, 1997: 209).

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Epstein, S.R. ed. (2001) Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800, Cambridge. Genicot, L. (1939, 1946) ‘Etudes sur la construction des routes en Belgique’, Bulletin de l’Institut des Recherches Economiques et Sociales, 10, pp.421–451 & 12, pp. 495–559. Gerhold, D. (1993) Road transport before the Railways: Russell’s London flying wagons, Cambridge. Goossens, M. (1989) De economische ontwikkeling van de Belgische landbouw in regionaal perspectief, 1812–1846. Een analyse op basis van de ontwikkeling van het regionaal landbouwprodukt, (KUL, unpublished PhD-thesis) 2 vols., Leuven. Goossens, M. (1992), The economic development of Belgian agriculture: a regional perspective, 1812–1846, (Studies in Belgian Economic History, 2), Brussels. Hasquin, H. (1978) Les Réflexions sur l’état présent du commerce, fabriques et manufactures des Païs-Bas autrichiens (1765) du négociant bruxellois, Nicolas Bacon (1710–1779), conseiller député aux affaires du commerce, Brussels. Hohenberg, P.M. (1992) ‘Réflexions d’entrée sur le réseau urbain en Belgique’, Het stedelijk netwerk in België in historisch perspectief (1350–1850). Een statistische en dynamische benadering, Brussels, pp. 19–25. Hohenberg, P.M., and L.H. Lees (1996), ‘Urban Systems and Economic Growth: Town Populations in Metropolitan Hinterlands, 1600–1850’, in: P. Clark & B. Lepetit eds., Capital Cities and their Hinterlands in Early Modern Europe, Aldershot. Kaplan, S. (1984), Provisioning Paris. Merchants and millers in the grain and flour trade during the eighteenth century, Ithaca. Klep, P.M.M. (1973) Groeidynamiek en stagnatie in een agrarisch grensgebied. De economische ontwikkeling in de Noordantwerpse Kempen en de Baronie van Breda, 1750–1850, Tilburg. Klep, P.M.M. (1988) ‘Urban Decline in Brabant: the traditionalization of investments and labour (1374–1806)’, 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), Leuven, pp. 261–286. Lejour, E. (1931) ‘Les routes brabançonnes sous le règne de Marie-Thérèse’, Premier congrès international de géographie historique, 2, Brussels, pp. 152–157. Lenders, P. (1989) ‘De schulden van de openbare besturen in de Oostenrijkse Nederlanden. Hun ontwikkeling vanaf 1749’, in: H. Houtman-De Smedt, ed., Overheid en Economie. Economische Aspecten van de Overheidspolitiek in en met betrekking tot de Oostenrijkse Nederlanden. Handelingen van het Colloquium te Antwerpen, 27 februari 1988, Antwerp, pp. 10–48. Lepetit, B. (1984) Chemins de terre & voies d’eau. Réseaux de transports et organisation de l’espace en France, 1740–1840, (Recherches d’histoire et de sciences sociales, 7), Paris. Masschaele, J. (1997) Peasants, Merchants and Markets. Inland Trade in Medieval ­England, 1150–1350, New York. Materné, J. (1994) De prijzenadministratie van de centrale overheid te Brussel tijdens de 18de eeuw. Vlaamse, Brabantse, Noordnederlandse, Engelse, Duitse en Baltische graanprijzen op de Amsterdamse beurs (1767–1792), Brussels. Núñez, C.-E. ed. (1988) Integration of commodity markets in history, Sevilla.

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Overton, M. (1996) Agricultural revolution in England. The transformation of the agrarian economy 1500–1800, Cambridge. Pawson, E. (1977) Transport and Economy: The Turnpike Roads of Eighteenth Century Britain, London. Reilly, W.J. (1931) The Law of Retail Gravitation, New York. Szostak, R. (1991) The role of Transportation in the Industrial Revolution. A Comparison of England and France, Montreal. Tits-Dieuaide, M.-J. (1987) ‘Peasant dues in Brabant. The example of the Meldert farm near Tirlemont, 1380–1797’ in H. Van der Wee and E. Van Cauwenberghe, eds., Productivity of land and agricultural innovation in the Low Countries (1250–1800), Leuven, pp. 107–123. Urbain, Y. (1939) ‘La formation du réseau des voies navigables en Belgique. Développements du système des voies d’eau et politique des transports sous l’Ancien Régime’, Bulletin de l’institut de recherches économiques et sociales, 10, pp. 271–314. Van Belle, J.-L. (1979) ‘Le rôle des chaussées au XVIIIe siècle dans le transport des pierres de Feluy - Arquennes – Ecaussinnes’ in L’industrie de la pierre en Belgique de l’ancien régime à nos jours. Colloque du 20 novembre 1976, (Etudes et documents du Cercle Royal d’histoire et d’archéologie d’Ath et de la région, 1), Ath, pp. 29–39. Van Belle, J.-L. (1990) Les maîtres de carrière d’Arquennes sous l’Ancien Régime. Un métier. Des hommes, Brussels. Van Buyten, L. (1972) ‘Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de transitohandel en de transitowegen in de Oostenrijkse Nederlanden. De doorvoerhandel op Lorreinen’, Histoire économique de la Belgique. Traitement des sources et état des questions. Actes du colloque de Bruxelles, 17–19 nov. 1971 (Ie-IV sections), Brussels, pp. 311–333. Van Buyten, L. (1982, 1985) ‘De Leuvense Stadsfinanciën onder het Oostenrijks Regiem (1713–1794)’, Arca Lovaniensis artes atque historiae reserans documenta. Jaarboek 1982, 11: 1–304 & Arca Lovaniensis artes atque historiae reserans documenta. Jaarboek 1985, 14, pp. 305–665. Van Buyten, L. (1994) ‘Bijdragen van stad en platteland in de driehoek MechelenBrussel-Leuven tot het scheepsverkeer op de Leuvense Vaart (1764–1794)’, Van Brussel tot Siebenburgen. Progress in human geography in Europe. Liber amicorum Prof. Dr. Herman Van der Haegen. Acta Geographica Lovaniensia, 34, pp. 607–615. Van den Broeck, A. (1992) ‘Het hoofd boven water houden. Waterbeheersing in het Netebekken tijdens de 18de eeuw’, Lira Elegans. Jaarboek van het Liers Genootschap voor Geschiedenis, 2, pp. 7–38. Vandenbroeke, C. (1972) ‘Graanbevoorrading en graanaanvoer te Gent en Brussel tijdens de eerste helft der 19e eeuw’, Handelingen van de Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, n.r. 26, pp. 93–115. Vandenbroeke, C. (1975) Agriculture et alimentation, Gent; Leuven. Van der Jonckheyd, K. (1995) Diligencediensten in Brabant in de achttiende eeuw, (KUL, unpublished MA-thesis), Leuven. Van der Wee, H. (1988) ‘Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and deurbanization in the Low Countries from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.

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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), Leuven, pp. 307–381. Vanhaute, E. & Landuyt, G. (1989) ‘Turnhout en de Turnhoutse Kempen op het einde van de achttiende eeuw. Een sociaal-economische schets’, Turnhout den eersten troost der Staten. Taxandria. Jaarboek van de Koninklijke Kring van de Antwerpse Kempen, 61, pp. 311–324. Vanhaute, E. (1992) Heiboeren. Bevolking, arbeid en inkomen in de 19de-eeuwse Kempen, (Belgisch Centrum voor Landelijke Geschiedenis, 102), Brussels. Van Uytven, R. (1992) ‘Brabantse en Antwerpse centrale plaatsen (14de–19de eeuw)’, Het stedelijk netwerk in België in historisch perspectief (1350–1850). Een statistische en dynamische benadering, Brussels, pp. 29–79. Van Uytven, R. (1995) ‘Transport- en verbindingsmiddelen voor de Brabantse steden 1500–1850’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis, 78, pp. 217–224. Zylbergeld, L. (1995) ‘Bruxelles et les demandes d’octrois de construction de routes en Brabant au XVIIIe siècle. Aspects économiques et sociaux de la construction de la ­chaussée Louvain-Malines (premier tiers du XVIIIe siècle)’, Bijdragen tot de ­Geschiedenis, 78, pp. 171–203.

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8 English grain trades and farmers’ strategies in the later seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries: a general view John A. Chartres, University of Leeds I.

Introduction

This chapter1 surveys the present state of knowledge and understanding of the English grain trades between the middle of the seventeenth century and the third quarter of the eighteenth. It presents the strengths and weaknesses of existing analysis to explore agendas for future research, and to set case-studies of specific actors in these grain markets into context. It assesses, through its brief case-studies, the operations of principals and agents in these grain markets, attempting to apply detailed historical analysis to our understanding, which, to date, has successfully employed quantitative approaches to demonstrate a strongly integrated market emerging in the period. It concludes by exploring to what extent single-nation studies of grain trades for this period remain valid, and whether the wider European environment determined or influenced the attitudes or actions of those trading in the English market place. To these ends, we first survey the accepted basics of the dynamics of change in the grain market in the period, and review the roles of price-support systems in generating interaction with the international grain trades, revisiting the work of David Ormrod (Ormrod, 1985) and Arthur John (John, 1976), who both saw export bounty payments as major forces in agrarian change. These issues are set into the context of analysis of price integration in the period (Granger and Elliott, 1967; Chartres, 1985), and assessments of the nature of market relationships at successive levels from farmstead to metropolitan market, summarizing earlier work exploring probable asymmetry in power between traders at each level, and its implications (Chartres, 1991; 1995). Our three case-studies are set into these general patterns. The first revisits Dennis Baker’s work on Kent in this period, probably the most finely-textured study ­available of the linkages of farm and market in one of the most commercialized regions of ­English farming. Our second case-study looks at the behaviour and thought processes of ­middlemen operating in the provincial grain trades, through the firm of Hoar, operating around 1700 largely from the port of Bridgwater in Somerset, an area to Britain’s west, geographically detached from the North Sea and English Channel trading zone. The final case jumps over the top of the trading hierarchy, the London cornfactors, to explore what we can learn of the trading process through the records of a major industrial ­end-user of This paper is a version of that given at the CORN conference in 1999, revised soon after the conference.

1

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grains, Currie & Co., primary distillers in London in the 1760s. Each of these, it is argued, points to directions for future work, and suggests the need for much to be undertaken on a European basis.

II. English grain production and export During the third quarter of the seventeenth century, England’s grain supply shifted rapidly from scarcity to plenty, causing major economic and political problems as it did so. Politicians used to fear of scarcity, to conceptualizing the food market as threat to order, and to seeing the plough as the basis for rents had to adjust to relatively depressed grain prices, and the new and different threat to social order these circumstances represented. For many members of the gentry and the aristocracy after the Restoration in 1660, these circumstances represented unexpected and unwelcome additions through the rent-roll to the disruptive economic legacy of the Civil War and Interregnum. Rentier society accordingly felt the twin pressures of the costs of bringing estates back to condition and clearing the mortgages accumulated as the means of compounding for lands with the parliamentary regime, and the cold wind of adverse product prices (Barnes, 1930; Ormrod, 1985; Bowden, 1985; Thirsk, 1985). The outcomes were mixed but generally positive. Improvement was stimulated as practice within an already supportive environment of agricultural writing and investigation. Shifts in product mixes at farm level were displayed in the development of the livestock trades, and, in the midlands and the north, new and effective engagement in dairying, with commercial cheese and butter manufacture developing significantly, and being traded interregionally. As noted below, a particular mix of circumstances led to the intensification of cereal-growing in the eastern districts. Estate management was stimulated by the strict economic ‘corset’ of the times, and professional stewards and managers came increasingly to run estates in the century after 1660. Improved cropping techniques, manurance, and the reorganization of lands through enclosure, by agreement and later by act, all symbolized the productive response of farming to this new environment (Overton, 1996; Allen, 1992; Campbell and Overton, 1993). English agriculture did not, however, depend from the outset only upon such self-help. The initial responses to the changed price regime from the mid seventeenth century lay in state interference with the market. First came the traditional casting of blame upon the overseas producer, the false scapegoating of imports, and then, in the 1650s, the raising of the export-threshold prices of the Corn Laws (Thirsk, 1985: 305–9). More locallyfocused discrimination against neighbours followed, with first grain import restrictions (1669), and, from the 1663 and 1667, the banning of Irish cattle imports Experimentally, under the Act of 1672, grain exports were encouraged through the payment of debentures, 1674–1680, and bounties were revived under the Act of 1689, in combination with a largely theoretical continuation of threshold levels for imports. Bounty payments lasted to 1776, when Britain’s corn regime switched again to import limits by price threshold, the system most commonly associated with the 1815 Corn Law (Barnes, 1930; Thirsk,1985: 301–9,328–38).

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The historiography of British agriculture has traditionally accorded these export bounties a critical role in the development process. Certainly, the often-quoted peak figure for exports under bounty, around a million and a half quarters of all grains in 1749/50, perhaps the equivalent of 10 per cent of net output (Smith, 1795) appears at first sight to provide impressive evidence of their stimulus to producers. Treated as an artificial form of harvest deficiency, and applied in full to the market place, by Jevons’ reworking of ‘Gregory King’s law’, such a traffic would have had the effect of raising price levels by around a third, or by just over a quarter, if Bouniatian’s superior price estimating formula was applied (Davenant, 1699; Jevons, 1871; Bouniatian, 1927; Wrigley, 1987). However, this peak figure was quite misleading. For only a few of the years between the 1670s and the 1760s did English grain exports attain anything like this magnitude, as summarized in Figures 8.1 and 8.2. Up to 1730, malt and barley were the principal components of English exports, and as the data of Figures 8.1 and 8.2 show, they retained a strong position over much of the period 1743–63. Apart from a steady trade in malt to Ireland, and the single peak year of exports to southern Europe, these exports were confined almost entirely to supplies from the East Anglian ports of Yarmouth, Wells, Lynn, Blakeney, and Cley to the Dutch distilling market. There are reasons seriously to doubt recorded levels. Much was made by contemporaries of the practice of ‘blowing up’ malt and barley for such export: measured and qualifying for bounty payments by volume, grains were supposedly watered by the merchants, gaining in bulk but not intrinsic quality, and distorting the indications about the market derived from the bounty payment figures (BL, Add MSS 38,387; Smith, 1795; John, 1976; Ormrod, 1973, 1985; Chartres, 1985). Figure 8.1 England’s exports of malt and barley, by country (quantity in quarters), 1743–63

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Figure 8.2 England’s exports of wheat, by country (quantity in quarters), 1743–63

Wheat, the premium export, showed a countervailing pattern. Its principal market lay in southern Europe, in Figure 8.2 defined as the three zones of Spain, Portugal and the Straights. Only in a limited number of years were shipments made in any quantity to the Netherlands, Flanders, France or the other northern countries, although its impact upon European trade was to reduce the volume of grains traded through the Amsterdam market (De Vries-van der Woude, 1997: 416–7). While for much of the period 1700–60, England supplied around half Europe’s grain traded by sea, treating arbitrarily total supply these plus shipments westward through the Sound, this remained a relatively small share of domestic output (ibid: 417). On average, between 1697 and 1765 less than 3.5 per cent of net output was exported. Treating this as a harvest deficiency, and applying Bouniatian’s formula, the direct price effect, on average, did not exceed 9 per cent, significantly below the 19 per cent estimated by the most judicious of contemporaries, Combrune (Wrigley, 1987; Combrune, 1768). The direct stimulus to improving farm productivity derived from such protectionism during the period was thus more modest than many accounts would suggest, correspondingly inflating the significance of other factors in the causation of change. There may have been very particular regional effects, as Ormrod suggested, such as the great shift into commercial barley in East Anglia (Ormrod, 1973; 1985); stimuli to merchant ­activity and scale as Adam Smith thought (Smith, 1776); and damage to the hegemony of the Amsterdam Korenbeurs (de Vries and van der Woude, 1997). There may also have been

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some long term gains on the foreign exchange account after the 1750s: the reservoir of foodstuffs this sustained surplus provided allowed Britain to be almost completely selfsufficient in grains at least to 1800. However, some exports may have taken place without bounty, in that they were relatively small, ‘top-up’ supplies in international trading terms, and overall were insufficient to stand much credit for transforming English grain farming. Some peaks in the export trade, notably that of 1675–7 associated with the Franco-Dutch War, were clearly the outcome of external demand conditions, not just the availability of export subsidy. Obviously significant in the political economy of the times, and perceived by contemporaries as having the catastrophic mercantilist consequences of raising domestic labour costs at the same time as reducing those of Britain’s overseas rivals, corn bounties are more significant to the historian as indicators of the relative plenty of home food supplies, and the success of supply responses to the changed economic environment (Chartres, 1985).

III. Market integration The impact of specific ‘shocks’ on the home market, as we can regard the export peak of 1749/50, was attenuated by the extent to which the English grain market was already a mature, well-articulated, and largely integrated whole. Contrary to the views expressed by Thorold Rogers (1866–1902) and given wider currency in Arthur John’s classic study (John, 1960), later seventeenth- and earlier eighteenth-century England no longer appears as a federation of autonomous price regions. At least as early as the 1690s, grain prices, at least at the top end of the bread scale, appear to have shown a high degree of integration. The Mark Lane Corn Exchange, the commercial centre created by London’s leading cadre of cornfactors in 1750 on the model of Amsterdam, symbolized the development of the grain trade, but did not in itself represent a novel transforming element (on Amsterdam, see de Vries-van der Woude, 1997: 414–9). The evidence for this price integration is, admittedly, less than satisfactory, and is an area in which more research is required to generate new price series of the short periodicity required for the most interesting and discriminating statistical tests. In this respect, English material is currently significantly poorer than that available for many of its near neighbours.2 The evidence supporting the case for integration, despite these caveats, can be summarized briefly. The very evidence applied by Thorold Rogers and John to define autonomous ‘price regions’, John Houghton’s Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade ­(1692–1703), in fact provides the reverse. Data extracted on a monthly basis from the Houghton material for five grains and fourteen locations produced a matrix of strong ­correlations by first differences in most cases for wheat, many for barley, some for rye, and virtually none for horse beans (Chartres, 1985; 1991; 1995). While there were distinct It is notable that neither volume V nor volume VI of the Agrarian History of England and Wales produced long-run series that would meet this need, nor was the issue of price integration explicitly addressed in either of the appendices on prices, by P J Bowden and A H John.

2

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Figure 8.3 Wheat prices, England and Wales (shillings per bushel), 1693–1700

differentials in the prices of wheat, as illustrated in Figure 8.3, they reacted largely in common, and, allowing for quality differences, strongly suggested an integrated market; at the lower points in the cereal ladder, with rye and beans, local price autonomy indicated a localized and fragmented market. Wheat, the premium breadstuff, and major internationally-traded commodity, appeared to have displayed the characteristics of a national market before 1700. The evidence thereafter is less convincing, and depends largely upon the work of Granger and Elliot (Granger-Elliot, 1967), supported by the price materials published in the Agrarian History of England and Wales. These suggest a broadly integrated price regime for wheat for the limited number of English towns available during the middle years of the eighteenth century, with still closer price correspondence across regions visible after the 1780s (Bowden, 1985; Perren, 1989; Chartres, 1995). While these price data are not wholly satisfactory measures of this process of integration, they provide for the time being a sufficient basis for the critical conclusions: that the eighteenth-century corn market was sufficiently advanced to permit the economy to reallocate land resources to best uses, engendering productivity gains through regional specialization (Overton, 1997; Jones, 1968).

IV. Hoymen and farmers The agency through which this integration was attained was the complex network of middlemen and factors, coupled with the overwhelming power of London as market and entrepôt. This mercantile system advanced significantly in quality and efficiency during the course of the seventeenth century. The structure of this trading system needs to be

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summarized on the basis of earlier research, to act as background to the first of the three case-studied of segments of the grain trade, the most tantalizing linkage of farmer to market in the first instance. In an earlier study I described the hierarchy of factors operating in the grain trade serving London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to assess the relationship of these merchants with those of the provincial ports who supplied the coastwise trade (Chartres, 1991). Coupled with detailed analysis of the hoymen shipping grain into one of the port of London’s main legal quays, Wiggins Key, this permitted conclusions to be drawn on the basis of a fair segment of the seaborne grain trade of the Thames basin. By the final quarter of the seventeenth century, London’s seaborne grain trade lay in the hands of perhaps 100–120 hoys, carrying from the coastal ports of Kent and Essex; Yarmouth, King’s Lynn, Spalding, and Wisbech, the principal East Anglian ports; and ranging as far north as Hull, where supplies reaching the Humber from the River Trent system would be met (Chartres, 1980: 38–40). Although these vessels were modest in size – on average around 40 tons - they were very busy, with around a quarter of the fleet making eight or more return trips in a standardized year (ibid: 42–3). As this suggests, the numerous hoymen appear to have been operating in a strongly competitive environment, with even the largest carrying enterprises controlling modest shares of the trade. At the most, the leading six hoymen shippers in 1678–80 conducted a quarter of the identified trade. By contrast, the London cornfactors, with whom they dealt, and to whom a fair number of hoys appear to have been tied, were already highly oligopolistic, with the leading six factors handling four-fifths of the traffic at the quay. While we cannot be certain whether Wiggins Key, with perhaps a fifth of the capital’s seaborne grain trade, was typical of the whole, it clearly suggested a trade characterized by strongly asymmetrical power relationships: the Herfindahl index for factors in 1678–9 was 0.133, whereas that for hoymen was 0.025 (Chartres, 1985: 476). At the top of this trading system, then, factors already possessed the dominant market power that was to create the Mark Lane Exchange in 1750. How were such traders linked with the producer? Measures of the degree of concentration of trade at the supplying ports can be derived from two classic studies, by K H Burley and D C Coleman. Although their findings are not fully compatible with a full calculation, both yield Herfindahl Indexes indicative a very high degrees of concentration: Milton Regis, 0.24 in 1699/1700; Faversham, 0.086 in the same year; Sandwich, 0.061; and Maldon, 0.120 in 1700 (Coleman, 1951: 128–31; Burley, 1957: 290; Chartres, 1985: 476, for details of this estimation). The grain trade at supplying port appeared on this basis to be as concentrated as that of London: this highly articulated system of supply was characterized by asymmetric power relationships at each of its levels. Where did that place the producer? Fortunately, Dennis Baker’s study of Kentish farming and trade provides us with a case study to answer some of these questions, although no subsequent studies have sought to replicate his results for other counties, and in both transport and farming terms, Kent was at the leading edge of England’s development, and cannot be regarded as typical. Although some of the hoymen operating from the Kentish ports were also factors dealing in their own right, the bulk of trade, while concentrated into relatively few hands for carriage, was conducted on a commission basis. The Kentish hoymen factors mediated between the great London factors and the farmer, supplying

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collection, carrying, and selling services as modest family businesses, competing fairly strongly on quality of service. From at least the 1730s, Francis Turner conducted a carrying business for grains by hoy from Herne, with Whitstable one of the sub-ports of Faversham, using the Rose Inn, St George’s Street, Canterbury, as receiving and information point. Turner or his agent attended each Wednesday to make arrangements, and goods could be taken inn at the inn. For parcels and passengers, also carried to London by hoy, he ran a ‘packet waggon’ on alternate Fridays to link with the ship. Farmers were invited to bring their grains to the inn, where they would be collected and carried to the quay at Herne, around seven miles distant, for between 9d (for barley and oats) and 1s (wheat and beans) per quarter. Freight and factorage for the hoy to London were around 5–6 per cent of the sale price at Bear Key: road carriage from Canterbury to the port added around 3.7 per cent (Baker, 1976: 308–9).3 Although satisfactory London wheat prices are not available for comparison, it is possible to apply this evidence to examine price differentials. Baker generated a number of interesting price series, including one for Canterbury, derived from Quarter Sessions records (Baker, 1976: 83–4). These can be compared with proxies for London wheat prices, taken from the Eton College series and derived from the Assize of Bread. The results of these calculations appear in Table 8.1 (Baker, 1976: 83–4; Chartres, 1986: 173). As theory would lead us to expect, they suggest that transport costs account fairly for the differences between the price level in a supplying district and the consumer in the capital, since the London bread equivalent prices are those derived from the retail price of bread. If Canterbury wheat cost around 9 per cent to market in London, on average over the whole period, that left a clear 7–8 per cent margin for milling and baking. While this was inadequate to cover all such costs and reasonable profit margins, it is a sufficiently close approximation to suggest that these data accurately reflect the basics of trade and of price differentials. This small case-study thus illustrates the linkages between trade from farm gate to bakery within the limited empirical evidence of grain prices. Table 8.1



1730–4 1735–9 1740–4 1745–9 1750–4 1730–54

3

Comparative wheat prices, Canterbury, Eton, and London bread ­equivalent, 1730–54 (shillings per quarter) Canterbury

Eton

% Difference

London Bread Equivalent

% Difference

23.6 28.6 25.0 28.2 29.2 26.0

26.4 31.8 27.9 28.7 31.6 29.3

11.9 11.2 11.6   1.8   8.2 12.7

27.1 34.0 28.0 30.6 32.3 30.4

14.8 18.9 12.0   8.5 10.6 16.9

My calculations on the basis of Baker’s evidence on The Turner business.

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Some of these Kentish shippers developed into more substantial businesses, with financial functions. The Tappendens of Milton and Sittingbourne were hoymen from the 1680s, and had shifted their business to Faversham by the 1720s, continuing to remit sales revenues for grains to suppliers in cash, but also dealing on a credit basis, and extending loans at interest. During the course of the next half century, this side of their activities grew, and in 1789 they founded the Faversham Bank (Baker, 1976: 313–4). Like a number of other cornfactors and intermediaries in the grain trade, such as the Hoares in London and the Coutts in Edinburgh, they built their business in the testing environment of the corn trade, and subsequently refocused their activities towards banking. Kentish hoymen also provided a focus for collective action in the producing districts, as illustrated by a trade dispute over sales charges at Bear Key. When in 1732 the London buyers attempted to shift the burdens of such charges to the sellers, the hoymen and the farmers for whom they acted, they joined with the agency of the Faversham Farmers’ Club (the first in England, founded in 1727) and less formalized coalitions of farmers and shippers from Milton and Sittingbourne to petition the Lord Mayor and Common Council against the change (Baker, 1970: 136). Subsequent silence on this issue suggests that they were successful. This case-study of shippers in a critical region of supply for London suggests that despite the high degree of concentration observed in the handling of grain in the Kentish ports, this did not necessarily translate into an overt expression of monopsonistic power. Kentish farmers and their chosen shipping agents appear instead to have co-operated without the subordination of one to the other in market relationships, though some of the latter, like the Tappendens, were clearly rising in the local business hierarchy. Faced at the ultimate market, London, with oligopolistic cornfactors, they were capable of a regional collective defence. Within this community, however, some hoymen were clearly acting as factors, and thus, when the Mark Lane Corn Exchange was established in 1750, institutionalizing the sale by sample only that had developed during the first half of the century, eight of the seventy-two stands in the exchange were reserved for the Kentish hoymen. If this was a victory, it did not endure, since by the end of the century Mark Lane was a fourteen-factor oligopoly (Baker, 1976: 319–20).

V. Nathaniel Galpine; a middleman’s network and information system Information systems were critical to the establishment of the cornfactor’s power, increasingly expressed in the eighteenth-century market as monopsony. The second case-study in the corn trade explores the middleman’s internal business networks and information systems, with a study of Nathaniel Galpine’s trading partnership in the Bristol Channel port of Bridgwater as its core. So far as other fragmentary evidence relating to the internal dealings of provincial merchants goes, it suggests that this partnership may be reasonably typical of the trade as a whole, though the degree to which it was exactly representative cannot be judged. The Galpine partnership was established by deed in March 1696, being signed by twelve signatories: Roger Hoar; John Harvey; Valentine Smith; John Franklin; Richard

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Duke; George Balch; Isaac Hurd; John Symes; George Thomas; John Roberts; Joseph Greenway; and Nathaniel Galpine. It was short-term, and expired in September of the same year, a system of six-monthly accounting and renewal fairly common in the trade (PRO, C/104/11 part 1, journal B). Arrangements of a similar kind were found in the copartnership of Robert Cook and David Wake, cornfactors dealing in the purchase of grain in Northumberland for Leith in 1699, and John Green, an agent dealing in Durham for the London cornfactors William Wallis, Charles Middleton, and George Moore in 1684 (PRO, E/126/18 f 503, 5 July 1705; E/126/17, f 157, 28 June 1700). It lasted, with various names changing or withdrawing, until June 1714, when Nathaniel Galpine was clearly the dominant or managing partner. The business was based in a Somerset port in the Bristol Channel, thus in a relative backwater in the grain trade, far removed from the furious traffic of the Thames estuary and east coast discussed earlier, and superficially distant from the signals emitted by the powerful price transmitters of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Thus the records are those of a mixed merchant firm, dealing in bottomry, salt from Liverpool, culm from Swansea, wharfage and warehousing, as well as beef, tallow, and grain. Despite this, the records from the 1690s, when Roger Hoar was clearly the active manager of the group, show a trade network with very extensive connections. There were strong Irish links, as might well be expected, with correspondents reporting market conditions and prospects for beef from Cork, tallow from Waterford, and seeking association from Dublin. A trowman wrote to report his voyages trying to sell salt [uncertain identification of cargo] in the Scillies in May 1696: unsuccessful there, because ‘ye country was not in a condition to buy’, William Beavour went to Aberthaw where he sold the bulk of the consignment of around 27 tons to Mr Passitt of Cowbridge (Glamorgan; PRO, C/104/12 part 1, letterbook, 3d, 19 May 1696). In addition to dealing on the southern coast of the south-western peninsula, at Truro and Exeter, Haverfordwest and a dozen other locations in South Wales, there were inland correspondents at Stratford-upon-Avon, Banbury, and in London, and overseas in Stockholm, where iron was being purchased. At Roger Hoar’s death in May 1699, when he was described by his successor, Galpine as ‘head of our company’, Christopher Dyer in St John’s, Newfoundland, was urgently instructed to return home and sell his purchases of train-oil and wet fish at the best price he could attain in Dartmouth (PRO, C/104/12 part 1, letterbook, passim, and 174d, 20 May 1699). Not surprisingly, the partnership was an assiduous observer of information on and astute dealer in grain markets. On 29 August 1696, Richard Smyth reported from Haverfordwest that barley was ‘farthest from yielding’, but that the Pembrokeshire farmers were short of cash to pay harvest wages, and thus bargains were to be had by a merchant with ready money (ibid, 27d). Philip Cockram confirmed this from Tenby, and found similar scarcity at Truro in December (ibid, 28, 67–8), compounded everywhere by the ‘distraction over money’, the disruption caused by England’s recoinage of the silver currency. Under such conditions of scarcity, supplies were hard to secure, and by December Hoar was himself in London, scurrying round Smithfield to secure bills to cover those becoming due. John Smith reported from Stratford-upon-Avon on sales of 400 bushels of malt, and the ­receipt of orders for 1000 more, plus 1000 of barley, 300 of wheat, and 50 bags of wool, in Mr Dartmouth’s ship: he held back on the wool purchases, because he did not wish to be

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‘too forward of buying’ in present poor trading conditions (ibid, 75). By the following February, Smith was writing to Galpine from Exeter to report satisfactory sales of all their malt in Taunton, and that it attained sufficient reputation to lead to orders for 200 bushels more at Bridgwater (ibid, 90d, 6 February 1697). They were not, of course, infallible. Michael Currant failed to sell malt sent on speculation to Ilfracombe in February 1697, though he had disposed of the peas. He was returning the malt to Bridgwater, because the costs of keeping the ship there were prohibitive (ibid, 201d, 24 February 1697). In general, the partners were sharply informed. In April that year, John Hutchings reported the on prices and his actions: wheat at Banbury was at 5s 6d – 5s 8d the bushel, maslin 4s 6d – 4s 8d, and barley 2s 9d; at Bristol, 8s – 8s 6d for wheat and 4s 6d – 5s for barley; accordingly, he had purchased six and a half quarters of barley at Stratford at 23s the quarter, 2s 10½d the bushel (ibid, 109d, 24 April 1697). Nor were the partners concerned merely with the price levels of western England and the Bristol Channel. They looked at and responded to European price levels. While they could not explore the annual movements plotted in Figure 8.4, it is clear they were sharply aware of relativities, and of indicative turning points and opportunities. These data, drawn from British consular reports in the 1820s, and subject to the uncertainties of the process of collection – each consul employed local agents or antiquaries to furnish the information – were converted at the time at par rates of exchange, another potential source of distortion (Parliamentary Papers, 1826–7, XVI, Accounts and Papers relating to Corn and Grain). Yet they suggest a fairly clear picture on an annual basis: apart from the Baltic price level, indicated by Königsberg, most wheat prices in north-western and Figure 8.4 European wheat prices (shillings per quarter), 1700–89

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southern Europe were closely bunched, following broadly comparable levels and trends. As an element of the business environment within which the Hoar-Galpine partnership, and indeed other factors and traders in grain, operated, they suggest that information from correspondents upon harvest prospects, local price ‘shocks, and so on could provide an effective context for decision making. Valentine Francis corresponded from Stockholm, on the iron trade. But Nathaniel Galpine looked for grain market information, writing in April 1698 to thank Michael Stucky at ‘Rochell’ and Jacques Viard of Amsterdam for their letters on the ruling prices in the markets (ibid, 119d, 13 April 1698). Though Galpine and other merchants like him must have faced information of some vintage, it was collected and scrutinized with care, and trends and comparative levels such as those of Figure 8.4 were real bases for decisionmaking, even in modest businesses of modest ports like Bridgwater. Faced with such factor networks, as Westerfield argued, the forces integrating markets, the Pembrokeshire farmers short of cash for wages were inevitably weak (Westerfield, 1915: 154–5). These were the agencies creating the national market within which comparative advantage in agriculture could be the more fully expressed, the forces for ‘improvement’ at farm level.

VI. Currie & Co., an industrial end-user Our final case-study is of an industrial end-user, Currie & Co., primary distillers of Bromley-by-Bow. Like the Hoar-Galpine partnership discussed above, Curries acted as factors on behalf of their clients and customers, but their principal interest for this study lies in their function as a major consumer of grain. The records of debts owed to the Bridgwater firm showed a merchant trading predominantly in western England and on a small scale; these distillers by contrast were emphatically metropolitan, and sold their spirits to rectifying distillers and other users, such as the shippers in the Africa trade. They were major industrial users of the system of grain supply, primarily malt and wheat, operating on a national basis. Currie & Co’s letterbook, 1760–70, allows a detailed assessment of their dealings in the corn trade, and, supplemented with other materials, notably their account books, permits a fairly full evaluation of their systems of supply, and their own minor role as intermediary in the grain trade. Though identification is not absolutely certain, they were almost certainly the predecessors of England’s leading corn distillers, who by 1791 accounted for 15.2 per cent of total national output (by then Hatch & Co; share estimated from British Library, Add MSS 39683, Cooke & Co, ‘Observations’ 1765–91: 68). Their business lay in the primary distillation of malt spirits, selling them to provincial customers for rectification. During this decade, their market extended from Chatham and Yarmouth in the east, to Portsmouth, Chichester and Southampton on the south coast, and, increasingly towards the end of the decade, to the north-west, supplying the Atlantic trading ports of Liverpool and Whitehaven (United Distillers & Vintners Archives, Leven, Fife, TG 738, Copy Letter Book, Currie & Co, 1760–70, passim). Perhaps inspired by this growing trade, but probably seeing opportunities to sell where none existed at home, Curries twice engaged in direct export ventures. In May 1761,

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prohibited by domestic Excise regulations from reducing their spirits for home sales, they despatched 4463 gallons of what they carefully represented as ‘eau de vie’ to Mounier and Lee at Quebec, in the Eleanor & Cecelia, seeking returns from sales at the quayside, ‘to avoid surcharge on freight. . .in good paper of this kingdom’ (ibid, 55). A year later, an introduction from existing customers, Clarmont and Linwood, led the firm to another speculative transatlantic venture. ‘Eau de Vie Britannique’ (2563 gallons) was sent to Charles Clarmont at St Pierre, Martinique, also only recently captured, on similar terms, with Curries keen to collect the bounty paid on exports (ibid, p 86, 18 August 1762). The venture was not a success: one pipe arrived empty, a loss of 5 per cent of the total, and despite talking of this being ‘a very bad beginning to our trading relationship’, they appear not to have repeated direct export (ibid, 97, 4 March 1763). Export trade was thus conducted by their customers, with the exception of a regular direct trade through their agent in Lisbon, John Martin. Here Curries also dealt in a small way in grains, probably at the initiative of Martin, who spotted the opportunity for profit in the context of mercantile trade disrupted by French privateering (Mahan, 1890: 280–1). Wheat was despatched to Lisbon in the snow, Providential Friend, in April 1760, with instructions to join the convoys if possible (Currie, 8 April 1760, 7). The ship proved too slow to take the planned cargo, and around 120 tons of revet and red wheat, plus 350 casks of flour eventually arrived in Lisbon (ibid, 22 April 1760, 8). Martin sent a further order in August, delayed because of wartime conditions – ‘we have been constantly on the watch for English running vessels’ – clearly for sale to Lisbon cornfactors, some destined for Brazil (5 August, 19–20; 19 August, 21–3). Sales to the Na Sociedade da Guia Santo Antonio Jozé [near Recife?] were completed satisfactorily, but dealings with Francis da Silva led Martin to a ‘lively impression of his villainy’, and usage of old books and phantom accounts. Curries appear to have conducted little subsequent grain trade, although Martin was able to report good prospects for the settlement of debts in August 1761, when the Rio fleet arrived in Lisbon (ibid, 4 August 1761, 59–60). Foreign ventures thus appear to have been restricted to the uncertainties and perceived new opportunities of wartime. Curries tended thus to confine themselves to their home trade and their core business of selling spirits, but they also supplied their customers with raw materials, contacts, and information, as the large commercial operation in the capital. Thus Francis Gostling, one of their Yarmouth customers, consulted Curries when seeking recommendation of a correspondent in Stockholm: they made enquiries and recommended Jennings and Finlay (ibid, 24 February 1761, 44). London was the centre for imports of juniper, mostly from Italy, and William Ernle [of Portsmouth?] sought advice on prices and the availability of supplies from Curries, buying his berries regularly through them; Pike and Spicer, also at Portsmouth, were supplied with molasses in similar fashion (ibid, 6 July 1761, 57; 11 July 1761, 58; 16 March 1762, 77; 23 April 1763, 102; 17 December 1763, 115; 23 February 1764, 121). These customers reciprocated, or offered to do so. Carter & Goodman, of Gosport (Hampshire) wrote in November 1768 to offer Curries their services in procuring corn from their locality. The offer was courteously rejected, clearly illustrating the means employed by the firm to procure their raw material for distilling. They bought all of their corn in the London market from a factor; that avoided any difficulty of settling prices

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between parties, as there would be if they brewed corn originally consigned to Carter & Goodman; and they reported prices to confirm the superiority of the arrangement. Barley was currently selling at 12 s to 21 s the quarter, and malt at 23s to 31s, when the average for the harvest year at Reading was 25.96 s (John, 1989, 976), and, as they reminded their correspondents, distillers had no need of the best grains: ‘the seller let his corn be ever so indifferent, we call it good’ (Currie, 8 November 1768, 217). Thus, when Curries contemplated using their customer network to supply, they did so in special circumstances. They existed in several ways symbiotically with the brewers, as we have seen, taking the grains of lesser quality, and largely dependent upon them for their yeast supply. Both businesses were highly seasonal, before the nineteenth-century era of refrigeration, and at times Curries were clearly frustrated at waiting upon the London brewers to start up for the autumn season. In July 1760, very early indeed, they wrote to thank William Trotman for the four casks of very good yeast delivered through the Saracen’s Head Inn [Aldgate?], and that September they were seeking ‘all the yeast Mr Pike can spare until the London brewers begin’ and had searched both the King’s Arms and the Bull in Leadenhall in the hope of receiving consignments (ibid, 20 September 1760, 26). An early start to the distilling season, when conditions were favourable, was potentially a major commercial advantage. Curries did not even deal direct with the cornfactors they used for supplies, although they claimed in a letter to John Cazeneuve of Chatham that they were ‘constantly’ at the corn factors’ coffee house, Corn Market, Mark Lane from 10 am to 1 pm every Monday Wednesday and Friday (ibid, 15 October 1763, 111). They attended to sell spirits, never to buy corn. This contrasted with the practice of the major brewers, both metropolitan and provincial: Benjamin Wilson of Burton on Trent [Allsopp’s brewery] purchased barley direct from a broad swathe of Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Norfolk in the 1790s; the great London brewers dealt direct with a range of malt factors and shippers; and the advantages in duty and quality control were leading both towards greater integration with the malt trade (Mathias, 1959, 448–74). Less bothered than the brewers about the specific characteristics of their grains, Curries sought instead to minimize costs, and to this end employed two commission agents to buy on their behalf, Mr Cobley and Nathaniell Tuffnell, of Graing[e] Road, Southwark, further distancing themselves from the risks of the grain market. In 1770, they resolved to use just one, and sent the disappointing news to Tuffnell: ‘We have this day settled the Commission for the year past with Mr Cobley who will account with you for your share of it & as we think our business too inconsiderable to be divided between two we propose employing Mr Cobley only to buy for us in future, not that we have any dislike to you, but we are desireous to make our business better worth while to the person we employ’ (ibid, 11 September 1770, 256).

Our end users therefore provide evidence of a further level of sophistication. They traded in ways quite different from the big brewers, whom they might otherwise be expected closely to resemble. In using commission agents to buy their grain in the Mark Lane exchange, they applied a further layer of arbitrage to insulate them from the uncertainty of

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the market. At times they dealt direct, or considered doing so, but the circumstances were always particular, as they were for export sales, though they were constantly happy to act as intermediaries, supplying goods other than spirits as a means of locking customers into long term relationships. The evidence of the growth of the business, and its longevity, suggests that the tactic was successful.

VII. Conclusion At each stage of the transition from farm gate to consumer, England’s grain trade was characterized by complex mercantile relationships. As Westerfield had argued in 1915, each of these layers of middlemen operated at and shaved off margins. With the decline of enthusiasm for regulation of domestic marketing, seen in the erosion of legislative sanctions from the 1660s, and in the falling incidence of presentments for middleman offences from the 1680s, such dealers came to operate within an environment of greater economic freedom (Westerfield, 1915: 142–5; Chartres, 1985: 495–7). While the picture was more complex and less simple than Westerfield suggested, the corn trade in the later seventeenth century does appear to show ‘economic man’ in action. The outcome was the integration of markets for at least the premium grains, and with these the development through forward contracts, arbitrage and storage facilities, of a greater elasticity of response to shocks. Within this broadly established framework, the present study has attempted to explore the details of trading practice, to test the overall structures identified from largely statistical exercises. Asymmetry in the market place between buyer and seller did not necessarily, in the case of Kent, lead to the expression of monopsonistic power, though that clearly existed in London. In Kent, grain was carried from farm to inn yard or staithe by the producers, and thence to the ultimate market by hoymen who were only sometimes jobbing dealers, speculating on their own account. The collective response of the county community to the attempted change in terms of trade at the London market in 1732 shows us a flatter, less hierarchic trading system than the quantitative picture of buyers and sellers might suggest. This case-study also demonstrated that by at least the second quarter of the eighteenth century, price differentials between producing and consuming markets can be demonstrated to consist primarily in transport costs, plus dealers’ margins, a modest but significant empirical validation of theoretical expectations. Britain was a significant exporter of malt, barley and wheat for the first half of the eighteenth century, with exports peaking at around 1.5 m quarters in 1749/50, but we must me careful not to exaggerate its impact. For most of the period, exports were a modest proportion of domestic output, and had a beneficial impact upon English price levels but produced no dramatic transformation. They may have assisted the long term processes of regional specialization that raised total farm productivity during the period, easing the capacity of the British farm largely to sustain growing population well into the nineteenth century. The new source of bread grain for the deficiency zone of southern Europe for a period dented the supremacy of the Amsterdam market, and correspondingly repatriated some of the mercantile profits (de Vries/van der Woude, 1997: 416–7) to the growing English economy. Again, the impact of such trade must not be overstated:

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although ­Britain contributed around half of the grain traded by sea 1700–69, that total was a minute proportion of all corn grown, marketed, and consumed in Europe.4 This suggests that the international grain trade was more directly relevant to the practice of traders than to the grand issues of plenty or scarcity in any one country. Thus the evidence of the Hoar-Galpine partnership at the beginning of the century demonstrates how traders in grains, albeit in this case safely hedged into several other commodity trades, benchmarked the behaviour of domestic prices against all the information they could obtain on the European market. The availability of that market for sales aided by bounty payments clearly impacted upon domestic prices and trade, as we have inferred from price statistics alone, and even in Bridgwater, which was relatively isolated from the great currents of the European grain trade, these data were critical parts of mercantile decision making and assessment of forward market prospects before 1700. Even our distillers, in mid-century, focused largely on home supply and home markets, and offsetting all the fluctuations of the grain market they could by employing purchasing agents at Mark Lane, did engage in some Portuguese trade, and clearly registered European market conditions as relevant to their business decisions. The outcome of these three case-studies is thus to confirm earlier analyses of integrated markets, but to refine that picture. At the same time they suggest a somewhat paradoxical broader conclusion. While careful reassessment of England’s European export trade in the first half of the eighteenth century somewhat reduces its impact, our case studies suggest that even the domestic grain trade cannot with validity be studied in isolation. After around 1650, although one can demonstrate the relatively small proportion grain exports bore to total production, England’s internal trade in corn cannot be studied satisfactorily without reference to her North Sea neighbours. This clearly suggests the need for many more empirical studies on the comparative and international basis that underlies the CORN project.

Bibliography Allen, R.C. (1992) Enclosure and the yeoman: The agricultural development of the South Midlands 1450–1850, Oxford. Baker, D.A. (1970) ‘The marketing of corn in the first half of the eighteenth century: North-East Kent’, Agricultural History Review, 18, pp. 126–150. Baker, D.A. (1976) ‘Agricultural prices, production and marketing, with special reference to the hop industry: N.E. Kent, 1680–1760’, unpublished University of Kent Ph.D. thesis. Barnes, D.G. (1930) A history of the English Corn Laws from 1660–1846, London. Bouniatian, M. (1927) La loi de la variation de la valeur et les mouvements générales des prix, Paris.

Based upon the assumption that the sum of grains exported from England and westward through the Sound accounts for the totality, applying data in de Vries-van der Woude, 1997: 417.

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Bowden, P.J. (1985) ‘Agricultural prices, wages, farm profits, and rents’ and ‘Statistics’, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, V, II, ed. J. Thirsk, Cambridge, pp. 1–118, 827–902. Burley, K.H. (1957) ‘The economic development of Essex in the later 17th and early 18th centuries’, unpublished University of London Ph.D thesis. Campbell, B.M.S., and M. Overton (1993) ‘A new perspective on Medieval and Early Modern agriculture: six centuries of Norfolk farming’, Past & Present, 141, pp. 38–105. Chartres, J.A. (1980) ‘Trade and shipping in the port of London: Wiggins Key in the later seventeenth century’, Journal of Transport History, 3rd series, I, pp. 29–47. Chartres, J.A. (1985) ‘The marketing of agricultural produce’, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, V, II, ed. J. Thirsk, Cambridge, pp. 406–502. Chartres, J.A. (1986) ‘Food consumption and internal trade’, London 1500–1700: the making of the metropolis, ed. Beier, A.L. and Finlay, R., London, pp. 168–196. Chartres, J.A. (1991) ‘City and towns, farmers and economic change in the eighteenth century’, Historical Research, 64, pp. 138–155. Chartres, J.A. (1995) ‘Market integration and agricultural output in seventeenth-, ­eighteenth-, and early nineteenth-century England’, Agricultural History Review, 43, pp. 117–138. Coleman, D.C. (1951) ‘The economy of Kent under the later Stuarts’, unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis. Combrune, M. (1768) An enquiry into the price of wheat, malt, and occasionally other provisions, London. Davenant, C. (1699) An essay upon the probable methods of making a people gainers in the balance of trade, London. Granger, C.W.J., and C.M. Elliott (1967) ‘A fresh look at wheat prices and markets in the eighteenth century’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XX, pp. 257–265. Jevons, W.S. (1871) The theory of political economy, London, reprinted Harmondsworth, 1970. John, A.H. (1960) ‘The course of agricultural change, 1660–1760’, Studies in the Industrial Revolution, ed. L.S. Pressnell, pp. 125–155. John, A.H. (1976) ‘English Agricultural Improvement and Grain Exports, 1660–1765’, Trade, Government and Economy in Pre-Industrial England: essays presented to F.J. Fisher, ed. D.C. Coleman and A.H. John, London, pp. 45–67. Jones, E.L. (1968) ‘Agricultural origins of industry’, Past & Present, 40, pp. 58–71. Mahan, A.T. (1890) The influence of seapower upon industry, New York, reprinted New York, 1957. Mathias, P. (1959) The brewing industry in England 1700–1830, Cambridge. Ormrod, D.J. (1973) ‘Anglo-Dutch commerce, 1700–1760’, unpublished Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis. Ormrod, D.J. (1985) English grain exports and the structure of early capitalism, Hull. Overton, M. (1996) Agrarian revolution in England. The transformation of the agrarian economy 1500–1850, Cambridge.

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Perren, R. (1989) ‘Markets and marketing’, The agrarian history of England and Wales, VI, ed. G.E. Mingay, Cambridge. Smith, C. (1766) Three tracts on the corn trade and Corn Laws, London. Thirsk, J. (1985) ‘Agricultural Policy: Public Debate and Legislation’, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, V, II, ed. J. Thirsk, Cambridge, pp. 298–388. Vries, J. de, and A. van der Woude (1997) The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500–1815, Cambridge. Westerfield, R.B. (1915) Middlemen in English business, particular between 1660 and 1760, New Haven, reprinted Newton Abbot, 1968. Wrigley, E.A. (1987) ‘Some reflections on corn yields and prices in pre-industrial economies’, People, cities and wealth, ed. E.A. Wrigley, Oxford, pp. 92–130.

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9 Farmers’ strategies and the West- Zeeland-Flanders grain trade, 1648–1794 Piet van Cruyningen, Wageningen University I. Introduction Agriculture1 in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, consisting of the province of Zeeland and the adjoining regions of the South Holland Islands and western Brabant, is primarily arable. Until well into the nineteenth century this region specialized in the cultivation of wheat for the urban markets of Holland. Most people are familiar with the export of Baltic grain to the Netherlands, but recent research has shown that about 50% of the demand for wheat in Holland was covered by production in the southwestern ­arable region of the Netherlands (De Vries, 1994). In this article I examine the effects of wheat production for urban markets upon rural society in a small part of this region: West Zeeland Flanders, situated between the river Westerschelde and the Belgian border. I concentrate on the eighteenth century, because of the availability of very good sources for this period and also because important social changes took place in this century that can be partly explained by the effects of economic relations between town and countryside. I introduce the subject by giving a description of the region and its agriculture.

II. West Zeeland Flanders agriculture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries In 1604 the Dutch managed to get control over a small region in the northwest of Flanders, on the left bank of the river Westerschelde. Possession of this region was of strategic importance because it strengthened Dutch control over the entrance to Antwerp. The area itself was not very attractive. After two decades of warfare between the Dutch and Spain it had been almost entirely destroyed. About 80% of the land had been flooded and most of the population had fled to safer places. The signing of the Twelveyear Truce in 1609 marked the beginning of a change for the better. Population and economy were growing and prices of agricultural products were rising. Wealthy Dutch merchants realized they might gain large profits by reclaiming land. Between 1609 and 1665 over 17 000 hectares of land were reclaimed in West Zeeland Flanders. Another 5 000 hectares followed during the next century and a half. As the land area of the region was about 26 000 hectares in 1832, more than 80% of the land had been reclaimed after 1609 (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 21–24).

1

This paper is a version of that given at the CORN conference in 1999, revised in 2005.

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The marine clay soil of the new polders was very fertile, but the salt content of the groundwater was high. This meant the land was suitable for arable agriculture, but less so for cattle-breeding or dairy farming. The quality of the soil, combined with the high prices for cereals in the first half of the seventeenth century made it worthwhile for the owners of the new polders to use them mainly as arable. More than 80% of agricultural land in West Zeeland Flanders was arable (Priester, 1998: 193). The landowners created large holdings with a rational allotment. These farms were leased to tenants who concentrated on commercial arable farming for the urban markets of Holland, Zeeland and Flanders. Thus the foundation of rural society in West Zeeland Flanders was laid by urban capitalists. As a consequence of their decision to create large arable farms, rural society in West Zeeland Flanders was characterized from the beginning by social inequality. The top of this society was formed by a relatively small group of large tenant farmers. The bottom consisted of a large group of farm labourers. Farmers in the new polders specialized in the cultivation of cereals. About half the arable land was sown with wheat, barley, oats and some rye. In the crop rotation, cereals alternated with nitrogen-fixing legumes to restore soil fertility. Usually the land was left fallow once every six or seven years. Weed control was considered very important, the land being ploughed and harrowed several times during the fallow, and weeded intensively in spring. Crop yields were high. Farmers’ account books from the second half of the eighteenth century show that wheat yielded on average 25 hectolitre per hectare and barley over 50 hectolitre (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 184, 188–189). From 1660 the price of cereals fell. The situation became even worse when in the last decades of the seventeenth century the burden of taxation became heavier. There was also much depression that was especially severe between the years 1710 and 1750 (Priester, 1998: 80). Strangely enough, West Zeeland Flanders farmers did not react to the fall in cereal prices by reducing grain cultivation. They continued to put 50% of their arable land under cereals. However, some changes did occur, the major one being that wheat became more and more important. The area of the arable land under wheat rose from 24% at the beginning of the eighteenth century to 30% around the middle of the century. As a consequence, cultivation of barley was reduced and oats all but disappeared from the fields (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 131). Very probably, farmers reacted this way because wheat brought in more money per hectare than barley or oats. This way they hoped to compensate for their loss of income. They also tried to cut down labour costs by replacing local labourers with seasonal labourers from Flanders. Many labourers left the region, the number of inhabitants decreased from almost 13 000 in 1698 to less than 10 000 in 1748, and many houses and farmsteads were demolished. The developments during the first half of the eighteenth century affected rural society. Both the number of farm labourers and the number of farmers were reduced. The number of farmers decreased because many of them were not able to adjust enough to adverse circumstances. This was especially true for small and middling farmers who fell victim to the depression. The larger farmers took over their holdings. These large farmers even managed to become landowners during the depression. As a result, a rural elite of large, landowning farmers came into being and social inequality increased. There were several reasons for the success of the large farmers. One of these was the role they played in the

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grain trade. I examine this later in this paper, but first I want to discuss the destination of cereals exported from West Zeeland Flanders.

III. The destination of West Zeeland Flanders cereal exports There is good information about West Zeeland Flanders cereal exports during the eighteenth century, because in 1684 the province of Zeeland imposed a tariff on agricultural products exported from the southern Netherlands and the territories under the sovereignty of the States General (Priester, 1998: 318, 816). West Zeeland Flanders was one of those territories, and all exports of its arable crops and cattle were subjected to this tariff. There were offices in several harbours, where exporters had to declare what and how much they were going to export and where it was going. Accounts for West Zeeland Flanders exist for the period 1693–1793. I have examined these accounts for the most important harbour of the region, Sluis. Figure 9.1 shows the destinations of cereals, pulses and coleseed exported from Sluis in the period 1693–1793. Surprisingly, at the end of seventeenth century the Flemish ­cities of Bruges and Ghent were the main destinations for West Zeeland Flanders exports. Dutch historiography generally supposes that the economic relations between the Dutch and ­Spanish parts of Flanders were severed after Flanders had been divided by the peace Figure 9.1 Destinations of cereals exported from Sluis, 1693–1769

Sources: Zeeuws Archief, Rekenkamer B, toll accounts Sluis.

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treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Even Priester accepted this in his impressive work on the history of agriculture in Zeeland (Priester, 1998: 22). However, Figure 9.1 shows that almost two thirds of agricultural exports from Sluis went to the south. Evidence for the period before 1693 is scanty, but probate inventories and accounts show Bruges and ­Ghent to be the main destinations. It seems that during the second half of the seventeenth century the most important export destination for West Zeeland Flanders was Flanders, probably because Flemish agriculture was suffering heavily from almost continuous warfare on Flemish territory during this period. Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, was not very important for West Zeeland Flanders cereal exports at the end of the seventeenth century. Only some 4% of exports went there. This is surprising because most historians adhere to the view that Middelburg was the staple market for agricultural products from Zeeland and Zeeland Flanders (Bouman, 1946: 48). Clearly, by the end of the seventeenth century this was not the case. Figure 9.1 also shows that the situation had changed by the third decade of the eighteenth century. Exports to Flanders had disappeared and Holland had become the most important export destination, with 90% of the grain exported to Holland going to ­Rotterdam. Middelburg is now more important but is still of minor importance compared to Rotterdam. This shift in agricultural exports began in 1698. Because of the harvest failure in that year the States General had forbidden exports of cereals and pulses to the Southern Netherlands. Usually, such a prohibition was withdrawn after a couple of months, but because of the threat and later the outbreak of war with Spain and France, in this case it lasted until 1708. During these years trade relations between Dutch and Spanish Flanders were finally severed and farmers and merchants from West Zeeland Flanders had to export their cereals elsewhere. The fact that exports to Flanders did not recover after the Peace of Utrecht may also have been caused by the quick recovery of Flemish agriculture in the first decades of the eighteenth century, which meant that demand for Dutch cereals in Flanders decreased. By 1760 the situation had changed again, as Figure 9.1 shows. Middelburg is now the main destination of West Zeeland Flanders cereal exports at the expense of Rotterdam. Later on in the eighteenth century, Middelburg attracted as much as three quarters of cereals from West Zeeland Flanders. The rise of Midddelburg as a staple market dates from about 1740. It seems surprising that the small town of Middelburg, which was already past its prime, was able to supersede Rotterdam, the largest harbour and cereal market of the south west of the Netherlands. To explain this, we have to examine the way the grain trade was organized and the role of farmers and merchants in it.

IV. Organization of the grain trade A farmer had two ways to sell his grain. He could sell it immediately after harvest to a merchant or he could have it shipped to Middelburg or another important market town and have it sold there by a broker. In the first case there were two sorts of merchants the farmer could sell to. He could sell his grain to a local merchant from one of the small market towns within the region, or he could sell it to a bargeman from elsewhere who also was a merchant and who travelled about the countryside buying cereals directly from the farm.

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Both categories of merchants had to make a living by selling at a profit. This meant they had to buy as cheaply as they could from the farmer and sell as dearly as possible at the urban market. As a result, there was a conflict of interest between farmer and merchant. The trading bargemen especially gained a bad reputation. These bargemen were usually known as Oosterhouters, because many of them came from Oosterhout in North Brabant. This small inland town was connected with open water by means of a canal to the river Donge. It was a centre of pottery and brick making industry (Hollestelle, 1976: 257). Oosterhout bargemen sailed to Zeeland with pottery and bricks and returned with grain. The Oosterhouters were accused of making use of the ignorance of simple country folk and paying them prices far below the market price. Moreover, they often paid the farmer with pottery and other consumer goods, for which they charged too much and by which they caused damage to local shopkeepers. We should bear in mind that as most of this criticism came from towns like Middelburg and Goes, whose trade was damaged by the Oosterhouters, these bargemen probably were much more decent than they were depicted (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 211). However, it cannot be denied that there was a serious conflict of interest between farmer and merchant. It was in the farmer’s interest to receive a high price for his grain, but the merchant needed to purchase it at a low price. When a farmer had his cereals sold at the urban market for by a corn broker, he had to pay for the transport and he also had to pay taxes and commission to his broker. However, he still had a better chance of making a profit than if he had sold to a merchant. The broker sold the grain by order of his principal, who paid commission for the broker’s services. In the eighteenth century, this commission was 1.5% of the selling price. Interests of farmer and broker ran parallel to each other, both gaining by selling the grain at a good price. However, the broker had to take care not to ask too much, because the level of his income was dependent on both the selling price and his turnover. The broker not only had to sell at a good price, but he also had to sell a large quantity in order to gain a good income. Disadvantages of selling at the urban market were that the farmer had to pay transport costs and commission, and that he ran a price risk. It took several days before the grain arrived at the market place and the farmer could not know beforehand what price he would receive for his products. Farmers’ accounts show that they tried to minimize the price risk by shipping their grain in small quantities at a time. They shipped the first quantities in October, shortly after harvest, and continued sending grain to market until the next summer. The weakest link in the chain was formed by the bargemen. They brought the grain to market and returned with the money received for selling it. However, sometimes they embezzled part of the money or took their time in bringing it back to the farmer. Both brokers and farmers took measures to prevent embezzlement. The brokers put the money with a receipt in a sealed bag, marked with the farmers’ initials. Some farmers had a bank account in Middelburg, so the money could be put into their account without the intermediation of the bargemen. In 1752 the local magistrates issued a ‘regulation on the bargemen’ to prevent abuse (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 210). From that moment, anyone who wanted to become a bargeman had to submit a certificate of good moral conduct and had to find at least two people to stand surety for him. After 1752 no more complaints about the bargemen were heard, so probably the regulation had a positive effect.

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Although it had its drawbacks, it seems the best thing for farmers to do was to ship their grain to market and have it sold there by their broker. In that case they could be reasonably sure that they would receive a good price for their crops. Comparing data from two farmers’ account books can show this. The first one was kept by Jacobus Bernardus van de Vijver, living at a farm at Heille, a small village near the town of Sluis. He rented this farm from the chapter of St Bavo at Ghent. He sold part of his cereals, especially barley, to Oosterhouters. The second account book was kept by Jean Baptiste Becu, who owned a farm near Breskens. He sold all of his cereals at the markets in Middelburg and Rotterdam. Both had medium-sized holdings of about 60 hectares and cultivated mainly wheat and barley. Figure 9.2 shows that Van de Vijver, who sold to merchants, received less for his barley each year, than Becu, who sold at the urban market. Over the whole period 1765–1769, Van de Vijver received 8% less than Becu, even after deduction of Becu’s extra costs (transport, taxes, commission). For wheat the difference was less striking, but here too Van de Vijver’s revenues were smaller than those of Becu (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 242). After the harvest of 1768, when the price of barley was low, Van de Vijver received 15% less for his crop than Becu. Van de Vijver was doubly struck because a substantial part of the low proceeds of his crops were appropriated by the merchant, Jan van Etten from Oosterhout. So the bad reputation of the Oosterhouters was not completely unjustified. These trading bargemen indeed paid the farmers less than the price they would have received if they had sold their crops in Middelburg or Rotterdam. However, it would not be fair to say that Van Etten and his colleagues behaved badly towards the farmers. There had

Figure 9.2 Price received for barley by farmers Van de Vijver and Becu (guilders per hectolitre), 1765–1769.

Sources: Private collection Verschoore and Zeeuws Archief, RAZVL n° 2151qqq.

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Farmers’ strategies and the West-Zeeland-Flanders grain trade, 1648–1794

to be a margin between purchase price and selling price if these merchants were to make a profit, and a margin of 8% is narrow. Moreover by buying the cereals at the farm, they took over the farmers’ price risk. If the farmer chose to ship his corn to market himself, this risk was his, but if he sold to a merchant, it was the merchant who ran that risk. It was fair that the merchant asked for a risk premium. Although it is unlikely that Oosterhouters and other grain merchants were as wicked as their adversaries depicted them, it is true that those farmers who sold to them had lower revenues. Because farmers’ profit margins were very narrow, the difference of one percent could have grave consequences. Even in the 1760’s, when cereal prices were higher than during the first half of the century, farmers’ profit margins were still narrow. Over the years 1766–1768, Jean Baptiste Becu, who had more revenues than Jacobus Bernardus van de Vijver, had only 3% more income than expenditure. Van de Vijver’s results were probably negative. As selling crops to merchants was not very profitable, one might expect that most farmers preferred selling at the urban market, employing a broker. Curiously enough, many farmers did not do so, as is seen in Figure 9.3, which shows for whose account cereals were shipped from Sluis for the period 1720–1739. The exporters have been divided into three categories: local merchants, Oosterhouters and farmers. Only half of Figure 9.3 Exporters of cereals (% of total volume), 1720–39

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the crops were exported for the account of farmers, the other half of the corn trade was being controlled by merchants. One man, Jacques Hennequin, grain merchant at Sluis, exported two-thirds of this latter half. In spite of the drawbacks, a substantial part of the harvested grain was sold to merchants. The reason why this was so can be found by identifying the farmers who shipped grain themselves. Many of them are mentioned in the census and tax records for 1747–1748. Three-quarters of them belonged to the wealthiest sections of the population. They had large farms and most of them owned land. These farmers belonged to the group that managed to survive the depression of the first half of the eighteenth century and even to enrich itself. It seems the decision of the farmer whether to sell directly to a merchant or to ship his grain to market himself, was highly influenced by his financial situation. Wealthy farmers could allow themselves to ship their grain to market themselves, but poorer farmers had to sell quickly in order to be able to pay rent and taxes. They especially needed money fast to pay the rent, because this became due on 1 October. The regional historian De Hullu quoted an interesting saying in the local dialect which bears on this problem: ‘zijn piezel staat op wielen’ [his granary is on wheels] (De Hullu, s.a.: 99). This was said about a farmer who was in financial trouble and could not put the threshed grain in the cornloft as he usually did, but had to load it immediately upon wagons and take it to the merchant’s warehouse or ship to collect his money as soon as possible. Because of the adverse economic circumstances in the first half of the eighteenth c­ entury, there must have been many farmers in this period whose ‘granary was on wheels’. Records of the local court show that between 1720 and 1740, out of a total of less than 300 farmers, 63 were forced to pawn their moveable property because of rent arrears (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 59). It is clear that under such circumstances farmers could not allow themselves to ship their grain in small quantities over a long period to the market place. They had to thresh the grain quickly and sell it as soon as possible. They needed money fast to meet their obligations. It could even be said that Oosterhouters and other merchants played a positive part, because they helped farmers with financial problems to survive in the short term. But as these farmers received less for their products than they would have if they had sold at the urban market, in the long term their problems worsened. They got more and more into debt and became more and more dependent upon the grain merchants, until they finally had to give up farming. The same process occurred in north German Butjadingen, where poor cereal farmers became dependent upon loans from merchants and in many cases went bankrupt (Norden, 1984: 217). Farmers who had enough capital could be assured they would receive the highest possible price for their cereals. Moreover, they had other ways of enlarging their income. They could profit from price differences between markets or speculate by hoarding part of the harvested crops in anticipation of better prices. Both kinds of behaviour can be found in the account books of the Mullié family for the years 1740–1743. This family had a large farm of 109 hectares near Sluis. They never sold to merchants, but always shipped their corn to Middelburg or Rotterdam. In Middelburg they always employed the same broker, Pierre Florimond Grandjon, who also worked for many other wealthy West Zeeland Flanders farmers. The Mullié family sold most of their wheat and barley in Middelburg, but now and again they shipped quantities of grain to Rotterdam. This way

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Farmers’ strategies and the West-Zeeland-Flanders grain trade, 1648–1794

they could profit from the fact that prices in Rotterdam were sometimes higher than in Middelburg. For instance, in the spring of 1742, they sold wheat in Rotterdam for which they received – after deduction of transport costs –38 cents per hectolitre more than in Middelburg (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 240). Making use of price differences between market places was also practised by eighteenth-century farmers in Massachusetts and Ile-de-France (Rothenberg, 1992. Moriceau and Postel-Vinay, 1992). As Rothenberg stated, this practice ultimately had to lead to price convergence, because the behaviour of the farmers led to narrowing of price differentials (Rothenberg, 1992: 97). The Mullié family made very large profits in 1740/41. Because of the severe winter and rainy spring of 1739/40, the harvest of 1740 was very poor. In the spring of that year the family had been obliged to plough up all the wheat they had sown the previous year. However, during the winter of 1740/41 they were still able to sell 165 hectolitres of wheat, for which they received the impressive sum of 2 000 guilders (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 239–240). It seems they had hoarded part of the harvest from the previous year, hoping they would get a better price later. This kind of behaviour was not without its risks, because prices might not rise and meanwhile the quality of the grain deteriorated. However, in 1740 the tactic paid off, and that year the Mullié family receipts exceeded expenditure by 65%. This kind of speculation was also practised by commercial farmers elsewhere, for instance in Ile-de-France (Moriceau, 1994: 652). These findings contradict Persson’s conclusion that households only kept small inventories of grain in order to cover private consumption in case of some emergency. Large farmers at least seem to have kept substantial inventories with the purpose of speculation (Persson, 1999: 71). Only those farmers who possessed enough capital were able to profit from price differences and speculation. Poorer farmers had to accept the prices local merchants and Oosterhouters were willing to offer. Wealthy farmers were also usually large farmers, because renting or buying a large farm was only possible for the rich. Thus large, wealthy farmers could make profits which helped them to overcome the problems of the first half of the eighteenth century. Smaller farmers with a weaker financial position did not have these opportunities, and many of them went bankrupt. Thus the position farmers had in the trade between town and countryside was one of the causes of growing social inequality in West Zeeland Flanders during the eighteenth century.

V. Causes for the dominance of the Middelburg market after 1740 At the end of the discussion of the export destinations of cereals, I left the question of why Middelburg became the staple market for cereals after 1740 unanswered. This was not caused by wars or export prohibitions, unlike the change that took place after 1698. Nor had the ultimate destination of exported corn changed. Before 1740 it was shipped to Rotterdam directly. After that year it was first shipped to Middelburg and from there most of it was transported through to Rotterdam. There must have been another cause for the rise of the Middelburg market. Again, records of the tax on exported cereals can be of help. As I have already shown, before 1740, about half of the grain was exported by merchants. After 1740, this changed, and

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the farmers exported most grain themselves. Local corn merchants all but disappeared in the 1740’s, and some thirty years later the Oosterhouters had ended their activities in West Zeeland Flanders. This was a result of the fact that by 1740 most of the poorer farmers had been forced to quit. Most of the remaining farmers were wealthy and did not need the services of merchants, but shipped their grain to market themselves. As cereal prices rose after 1750, the position of farmers became stronger and by the end of the eighteenth century they controlled almost all of the corn exports from West Zeeland Flanders. The merchants who controlled a substantial part of grain exports before 1740 were specialized grain merchants, well informed on developments on far away markets. An important corn merchant like Jacques Hennequin shipped most of his corn to Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Farmers, however, were less well informed about the prices on different markets. Although, as we saw, they sometimes shipped grain to Rotterdam, most of their cereals were destined for Middelburg. They preferred the nearest market place which they knew well and where they had a trustworthy broker. So the fact that farmers took over from merchants was one of the reasons for the shift from Rotterdam to Middelburg. This shift might also have been caused by the deliberate policy of Middelburg grain brokers. While studying eighteenth-century accounts and probate inventories, I was struck by the fact that in hundreds of documents, only a couple of names of grain brokers are mentioned. Around the middle of the eighteenth century, many farmers in West Zeeland Flanders were doing business with broker Grandjon. It seems brokers took care to build a relationship with their principals based on trust. They also gave financial support to bargemen. In 1757, for instance, Grandjon even lent money to a bargeman from Retranchement to build a new ship.2 Clearly the Middelburg brokers took trouble to be on good terms with farmers and bargemen from West Zeeland Flanders. There are no traces of this kind of activity by Rotterdam brokers (Van Cruyningen, 2000: 213). An important question is how farmers kept informed about market developments. The Middelburgsche Courant published market reports, but this newspaper was only founded in 1758, and not many farmers read it. I do not know of any price lists published in the eighteenth century in this region. Very likely farmers were told about prices by the bargemen when these returned from Middelburg and delivered the farmers’ money. Sometimes brokers wrote messages about market developments to their principals. Another possibility is that farmers were given information by relatives living in town. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries several people from West Zeeland Flanders settled in Middelburg. Documents show they kept in touch with their relatives back home, so it is very well possible that they informed their kin about developments on the grain market at Middelburg. News gathered in these ways was doubtless discussed at the weekly markets in the West Zeeland Flanders market towns where farmers met, and so the news spread throughout the region. It might be questioned whether news gathered in this way was very reliable, but until the second half of the eighteenth century, there were no alternatives.

Zeeuws Archief, Middelburg, Rechterlijke-, notariële - en weeskamerarchieven ZeeuwschVlaanderen no. 1449, 27 June 1757.

2

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Farmers’ strategies and the West-Zeeland-Flanders grain trade, 1648–1794

VI. Conclusion This case study concerns an agricultural region that had close economic links with towns. The area was reclaimed in the seventeenth century by urban capitalists who geared the regional farming system to production for urban markets. They created large cereal farms and leased them to capitalist tenant farmers who worked the farms with a large number of wage labourers. As a result of the activities of these urban capitalists, seventeenth-century West Zeeland Flanders must have resembled English rural society with its landlord – tenant farmer – wage labourer structure. Rural society in West Zeeland Flanders was characterized by social inequality from the very beginning. During the agricultural depression of the first half of the eighteenth century, social inequality increased, because many smaller farmers were unable to cope with the problems and large farmers took over their land. The number of farmers became smaller and the remaining farmers became wealthier. This was partly caused by economies of scale and partly by the power relations between farmers and grain merchants. Smaller and poorer farmers usually had to accept the prices merchants offered because they were in need of money. Larger farmers, who usually possessed more capital, could afford to sell their grain at the urban market themselves and could also allow themselves to store their grain until prices were higher. This way they got better prices for their products and could sometimes make large profits from speculation. In the first half of the eighteenth century, small farmers in West Zeeland Flanders were squeezed between grain merchants and large farmers. Merchants decreased the small farmers’ income by offering them relatively low prices, and large farmers benefited from the resulting problems by buying up small farmers’ holdings. The result was the creation of a rural elite of large, landowning farmers. The forming of this elite was caused partly by the power relations between town and countryside and by the power relations within the countryside itself. Farmers were wise to control the sale of their products themselves. That way they could make better profits. This conclusion is not new. Koning mentioned it as an important reason for the success of commercial farming between 1750 and 1875 (Koning, 1994: 19). Nineteenth-century farmers already realised its importance when they founded selling cooperatives to get a better bargaining position by bypassing the middlemen. However, this article might help to clarify why control over the sales of their products was so important to farmers and why this control – or lack of it – could have far-reaching consequences for rural society.

Bibliography Bouman, P.J. (1946) Geschiedenis van den Zeeuwschen landbouw in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw en van de Zeeuwsche Landbouw-Maatschappij 1843–1943, Wageningen. Cruyningen, P.J. van (2000) Behoudend maar buigzaam. Boeren in West-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen 1650–1850, Wageningen.

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Hollestelle, J. (1976) De steenbakkerij in de Nederlanden tot omstreeks 1560, Arnhem. Hullu, J. de (s.a.) Uit het leven van den Cadzandschen landbouwer in vroeger dagen, Oostburg. Koning, N. (1994) The failure of agrarian capitalism. Agrarian politics in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, 1846–1919, Wageningen. Moriceau, J.M. (1994) Les fermiers de l’Ile-de-France. L’ascension d’un patronat agricole (XVe-XVIIIe siècle), s.l. Moriceau, J.M. and G. Postel-Vinay (1992) Ferme, famille, entreprise. Grande exploitation et changements agricoles XVIIe-XIXe siècles, Paris. Norden, W. (1984) Eine Bevölkerung in der Krise. Historisch-demographische Untersuchungen zur Biographie einer norddeutschen Küstenregion (Butjadingen 1600–1850), Hildesheim. Persson, K.G. (1999) Grain markets in Europe 1500–1900. Integration and deregulation, Cambridge. Priester, P.R. (1998) Geschiedenis van de Zeeuwse landbouw circa 1600–1910, ­Wageningen. Rothenberg, W.B. (1992) From market-places to a market economy. The transformation of rural Massachusetts, 1750–1850, Chicago and London. Vries, J. de (1994) ‘The production and consumption of wheat in the Netherlands, with special reference to Zeeland in 1789’ in: H. Diederiks, ed., Het platteland in een veranderende wereld. Boeren en het proces van modernisering, Hilversum, pp. 199–220.

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10 The importance of the food trade in urban credit networks in early modern England: the example of King’s Lynn Craig Muldrew, University of Cambridge

I.

Introduction

By1 the early modern period in England it is difficult to measure the extent to which food was sold on the open market in towns because of the lack of detailed toll records for the small amounts of food which might have been brought into town markets by farmers, or their wives and servants for sale. In the town of King’s Lynn, for instance, -which I will concentrate on in this paper- there is a document which lists the appointment of a collector of market tolls for 1678, which states that tolls should be gathered ‘of all and every person whatsoever that hereafter shall place use or sell by any moveable stalls or booths in both or either of the markett places’. Then from 1689 there exists a list of petty tolls to be collected from foreigners for a huge variety of goods transported out of the town by either land or water. Most are for fairly large amounts of goods such as the charge of 4d. for barrels of tar, butter or honey, or 1s. for a last of soap. But there was also a charge of 4d. for every 20 beasts or 2d. for every 20 sheep driven through the town, and a 2d. charge for every ‘hamper or great basket of goods other than victualls and provisions from markett’.2 But obviously from this list we cannot get an idea of what sort of food was brought into town for sale, as it is intended for goods transported elsewhere. However, it does seem to indicate that many goods were moved through the town, but surviving records of tolls paid are almost all for water based transport in large consignments in the coastal trade, presumably transported by wholesalers.3 Because a regular supply of food to urban markets was considered vital by town authorities to keep the price as low as possible to help the increasingly large numbers of poor in towns, there was probably not a pressing inclination to enforce or charge tolls on food being brought into the market to sell. But even without toll records much can be learned about food markets in towns by looking at records of litigation in borough courts. Most households within towns were engaged in litigation over unpaid debts and broken promises concerning commercial matters in very large numbers on a regular basis. By looking at the degree and nature of litigation of householders, occupational structure, and the nature of goods litigated over, it is possible to discover some information on the degree of importance of the food trade to the urban economy. In addition, it is possible to look at the number of rural

This paper is a version of that given at the CORN conference in 1999, revised soon after the conference.  2 Norfolk Record Office, (hereafter NRO) KL/C36/258; KL/Ee40. 3 NRO, KL/C44/8. 1

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plaintiffs who lived outside of towns, but sued for debts owing to them from town dwellers. Most of the discussion of this question will focus on evidence for the town of King’s Lynn because I have done a detailed analysis of inter-personal litigation for the town’s population between 1683–1686, which can be examined in terms of occupation. But I will also look at a sample of much smaller debts sued in the Bristol court of conscience from 1692.

II. Debt litigation in King’s Lynn King’s Lynn was a chartered borough and major trading entrepot standing at the head of the Great Ouse river in Norfolk. In the late seventeenth century it had a population of about 7000–8000, which meant that it was smaller than Norwich, Bristol, or Newcastle, but was larger than many other towns of the period (Corfield, 1982: 8–15). The bank of the Ouse was lined with merchants’ warehouses and dwelling places, and the whole town was encompassed by the medieval town walls. Trade was the most important part of the town’s economy since at least the twelfth century.4 In 1709 only London, Scarborough, Whitby, Newcastle and Yarmouth, had a larger total tonnage of coasting vessels than Lynn, and after Norwich, Lynn had the second most complex occupational structure in East Anglia in the late seventeenth century (Corfield, 1982: 36–7; Patten, 1978: 282–90). I have made a database of almost 6000 suits involving 2983 litigants who appeared before the town’s Guildhall Court, which heard civil suits -almost all of which involved credit of one sort or another, for the four years from 1683–1686 which included information on status, occupation and taxed wealth (Muldrew, 1998: 69–88). Altogether, I was able to gather occupational or status designations for 1007 of the litigants in the sample. The great majority of these designations came from the plaints in the court books, but I have also examined the list of the town’s freemen, and the apprenticeship registers (which usually supplied masters’ occupations) for the late 1670’s and the 1680s, together with the 1692 poll tax in which occupations were also supplied for many individuals.5 These 1007 litigants formed 34% of the 2983 people who appeared before the court in the years between 1683–1686, and this total also included 155 individuals who came from outside King’s Lynn. Since total number of households in the town at this time was about 2019, this means occupational designations have survived for 43% of the population who might have been expected to follow a trade (Pound, 1966: 50; Patten, 1978: 182–205).6 In 1682, Lynn imported 45,491 tons of coal and 1472 weys of salt. In comparison, London imported 368,475 tons of coal and 2695 weys of salt. (Dietz, 1986: 292–4; Willan, 1967: 161). 5 Seven hundred and seventy one defendants could be given an occupational designation, and 714 plaintiffs. Of the 771 defendants, about 500 were listed with occupational designations in plaints. In addition to the four years of the sample, I broadened my search for plaints which might include information on occupation, and looked through the plaint books which covered all of the years between 1675 and 1695. When matching names with occupational designations from the freemens’ list and apprenticeship registers, to individuals in the court sample, I also normally confined myself to searching only through the years 1675 to 1695 to reduce the possibility that an incorrect match might be made between two different people with the same name. However, a comparison of individuals for whom an occupational designation was given in the court records, with information from the other sources, reveals that the occupational designation was the same in both sets of records in over 80% of the cases. So while there is a possibility of error, in most cases it is reasonably certain that the matches are accurate. A Calendar of the Freemen of Lynn: 182–205; NRO KL/C9/24, KL/C47/12–15. 6 Gregory King estimated that there were many more labourers’ and paupers’ families that there were those of merchants, shopkeepers, tradesmen, or artisans. (Laslett, 1971: 36–37). 4

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The people from Lynn for whom information exists practised 116 different occupations which I have dived into ten categories which are listed below on Table 10.1. This occupational structure was similar to what historians have discovered about other towns in the early modern period. It might have been expected that maritime trades would have dominated the economic structure of the King’s Lynn, given the importance of water bound trade in the town’s economy, yet although the maritime trades did form the largest single category, and mariners often sued over unpaid wages, yet they still only accounted for 18% of the sample of occupations. Lynn’s maritime occupations did not dominate as much as was the case in the two smaller south coast ports of Brighton and Hastings where maritime occupations made up 50% and 54% respectively of the occupational structures of the towns (Patten, 1978: 170–171). The textile, victualling, and building categories, however, were represented in very similar proportions to those discovered in other towns examined by historians of the urban economy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Table 10.2). Lynn’s agricultural sector was slightly smaller than that of some other towns but not unduly so.7 All in all, though, the pattern of Lynn’s economy appears to have been fairly typical for an early modern town. The basic business of feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for people formed the backbone of the urban economy, but what is of interest here, of course, is the victualling trade. Table 10.1 Total number of individuals involved in each occupational category: King’s Lynn 1683–86 Category

Number

Percentage

Maritime Victualling Clothing/Textile Building Service Distribution/Sales Leather Manufacturing Agricultural Office

145 138 130 107 72 63 48 50 17 22

18% 17% 17% 14% 9% 8% 6% 6% 2% 3%

Total:

792

100%

Status Designations8

59

In comparison, the towns of Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Cirencester in Gloucestershire had a combined total of 3.9% of their work forces involved in agriculture in the early seventeenth century. (Tawney and Tawney, 1934–1935, p.36). 8 I have not included status designations in the total count of occupations, because strictly speaking they did not refer to what a person did. An individual might be a merchant and a gentleman, but this would not have been indicated if he was just referred to by his title of gentleman. 7

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Table 10.2 Percentage figures for the clothing, food, and building trades in Northampton, Chichester, Exeter, York, and Norwich in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries9 Clothing Northampton (1520s) Chichester (1680–1730) Exeter (1620–40) York (1690–1700) Hull (1690–1700) Norwich (1680–90)

15% 20% 27% 16.8% 12% 54.5%

Food

Building

15% 18% 11% 16.8% 16% 15.1%

7.5% 14% 12% 16.2% 13.4% 8.3%

As far as single occupations are concerned, although seafarers outnumbered every other occupation by at least two to one, the next most common occupation was that of butchering with 49 individuals. After these two, the next most common occupations in descending order were: tailors (36), cordwainers (32), bakers (30), bricklayers (28), merchants (29), and grocers (28). But in terms of occupational groups the business of victualling was almost as important as the maritime trades, and if grocers, (who would have retailed imported luxury foodstuffs as well as being wholesalers), and fishermen, (who must have sold their catch as there are no fishmongers listed), were to be included, then this would have been the largest occupational group in the town. Clothing trades were of equal importance, given that clothes were another necessity required by all, but were not as dominant in Lynn as in towns like Norwich with a high degree of cloth production.

III. Food trade and consumption There was one butcher for every 41 households in the town, and one baker for every 67 households. These figures show that the sale of meat and bread, together with the sale of basic clothes and shoes was the most active part of the retail economy in Lynn. The fact that there were more butchers than bakers, however, seems on the face of it to be surprising given that bread was cheaper than meat, and is supposed to have formed the largest proportion of the diet of poorer families who composed about 64% of the population of the town (Muldrew, 1998: 69–75). It is possible that some of the butchers were actually grazers involved in fattening cattle from the north in the fens, which would then be driven on to London for slaughter (Woodward, 1977: 35–58) But, unfortunately only one contemporary inventory has survived, that of Thomas Thaker, who died in 1686 worth £99 14s. He had stalls and a shop listed in his inventory, so was clearly selling meat. But, he also possessed 12 bullocks and 61 sheep, but these were probably intended

(Hoskins, 1956: 14; Patten, 1978: 170–171; MacCaffry, 1975: 163; Forster, 1961a: 167; Forster, 1961b: 150; Corfield,1972: 275).

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to be slaughtered for his own sale.10 Also, the number of butchers in Lynn, while high, was not that much higher than numbers found in other similar sized provincial centres. Most other research where numbers can be compared has been done for the Elizabethan period, but it shows that numbers of butchers were already high by the mid- to late-sixteenth century. In midsummer 1599, 23 native butchers paid rent for 33 stalls, and 16 foreign butchers for 17 stalls in Manchester’s shambles. This means that a town which might have had a population of about 2,000 people at most possessed 50 stalls used by 39 butchers. Many of these butchers also had their own shops, and if the situation was similar to King’s Lynn 80 years later then there might have been other butchers who were quite well off selling from shops only and not renting stalls in the shambles. There, in the early 1680s there were 29 stalls in the Tuesday Market shambles and another 18 in the Saturday Market. In 1681, however, eight were empty, while another 19 butchers from Lynn sued in the town court who did not rent a stall.11 But just counting butchers renting stalls means that there was one butcher for every 11 households in Elizabethan Manchester. Here, as T.S. Willan has suggested some customers much have been coming from the rural hinterland of Manchester to support these sellers (Willan, 1980: 38–9, 68–70). Similarly, Alan Dyer has calculated from probate records that there were at least 30 butchers in Elizabethan Worcester. Given that this figure is not taken from a contemporary list of some sort, it is probably a minimum estimate, but it still means that for a population of about 4,250 in 1563 there would have been about one butcher for every 31 households (Dyer, 1973: 26, 136). The inventories for these butchers show they were worth £3 to £489, and that they were not acting as butcher-graziers, but kept small numbers of animals, like Thomas Thaker, as a source of meat supply (Dyer, 1973: 136–137). In Tudor York 128 butchers were admitted to the freedom between 1550 and 1600 or 2.6 a year, in a town of 8–10,000 people (Palliser, 1979: 112–113). If we assume they had careers of about 20 years, there would have about 50 butchers in the town. Some of these men undoubtedly moved away, but there would also have been butchers who were not freemen. In Norwich in 1589 there were 91 non-free victualers compared to 60 free victualers. Since there were 29 free butchers listed in a muster list of 1569 which included 70% of the population of about 8,000 people, there might have been over 44 free and non-free butchers at this date (Pound, 1988: 28, 55–60; Fleming, 1980: 279). In Worcester, like King’s Lynn there were more butchers than bakers, while in Norwich in 1569 there were 32 free men butchers compared to 32 bakers. However, many more butchers were admitted to the freedom of the city between 1550–1600. More bakers were admitted to the freedom than butchers after 1600, but there were still more freemen butchers listed in the 1671 hearth tax (Dyer, 1973: 138; Pound, 1988: 36, 61–64). In York, there were more bakers made freemen than butchers between 1550–1600 (152), but the number is not hugely different. This indicates that there were commonly as many, if not more butchers than bakers in early modern towns. It is possible that some households were baking their own bread, but in Worcester by the end of the sixteenth century ovens were valued at about £3, and the cost of firing them for a single family would have been

10 11

NRO INV 64/10. NRO KL/C39/105, 107.

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uneconomical. It is also possible that there might have been more large scale bakers than butchers, but again in Worcester the butchers were on average wealthier than the bakers, and in King’s Lynn the figures for the average wealth of both groups was almost identical (Dyer, 1973: 138). But bread was cheaper than meant, so even if there were less bakers than butchers, they would still have been producing a significant amount of bread each in order to satisfy the needs of town populations. The estimates of meat consumption made by Gregory King in 1696 also indicate that a large amount of meat was being consumed nationally (Thirsk, 1978: 165–166). He estimated that 398,090,000 lbs. of meat was being consumed every year, of which the great majority was beef, mutton and lamb. He also estimated the population to by 5½ million, but if we take the figure of 4,950,000 from Wrigley and Schofield, this gives a yearly consumption figure of 80 lbs, 6oz. per person, or 3.52 oz. per person per day (King, 1696: 38; Wrigley and Schofield, 1989: 533). But King also assumed that only children under the age of 13 months did not eat an average amount of meat, and further that 2,300,000 people only ate meat 1–2 days in the week. It might be more realistic to assume that children ages 2–12 on average only ate about ½ as much meat as an adult, making it possible to assume that children ages 1–7 ate no meat for the purposes of ­calculation. Since children of these ages formed 17.6% of the population, this gives us a population of 4,078,800 meat eaters. Given the large amounts of meat being consumed, I have estimated slightly more generously than King that 2,060,000 poor people ate meat twice a week, with the remaining 2,018,000 eating it every day of the year. Then if we divide the total amount of meat consumed only on days when it was eaten, this gives an average daily consumption of 6.6 oz per day, with the wealthiest half of the population consuming 2 lbs. 14 oz. Per week, or 150.6 lbs. per year, and the rest of the population 13.2 oz. Per week or 42.9 lbs. per year. But, King’s estimate of the size of each cattle carcass at 260 lbs. is oddly small. Peter Bowden has estimated that the size of cattle would have been generally between 500–900 lbs., while the weight of oxen carcasses recorded by Thorold Rogers was about 600 lbs (Bowden, 1984: II, 10–11; Thorold ­Rogers, 1866–1902: V, 331–333, 347–350). If we assume a weight of 600lbs. for an adult carcass, and 100 lbs. for a calf (given that the weight of a calf skin was 1/6 of that of an adult animal), and if, according to King’s figures, 500,000 adults and 300,000 calves were slaughtered, this produces an average weight of 412 lbs. If this figure is used it raises the total amount of meant consumed per annum by 30% to an overall average of 4.6 oz. per day. In comparison, the daily consumption of meat in great Britain in 1998 was 4.7 oz.. But, taking age and King’s social distribution of meat consumption into account, this means that consumption per day would have been 8.6 oz. Meaning that the half of the population which ate meat every day was somewhere between 70–80% more meat than people in the U.K. do today, assuming that present consumption is not so radically different between wealth groups as it once was.12

The modern statistics do not mention whether age is taken into consideration in the calculation of the average. Annual abstract of statistics, (London, 2000), 345. Although this has fallen from 5.6 oz. In 1978; Ibid., (1980), 266.

12

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Taking the higher average consumption figure of 4.6 oz per person per day, this means that the 49 recorded butchers in King’s Lynn, might well have been selling about 44 lbs. of meat per day each on average given the town’s population of 7,500. At a price of 3d. a pound this would produce annual sales of about £200 per year. At a rate of 10% annual profit this would produce earnings of about £40 which is what we might expect given that the average wealth of all the butchers was 2.6 according to the wealth categories worked out for late seventeenth century King’s Lynn in my book The Economy of Obligation (Muldrew, 1998: 69–77). There is also evidence from probate inventories that many butchers in towns were also engaged in the selling of fast food to the population. In late sixteenth century Ipswich, for instance, one butcher was clearly using his front chamber as an ordinary or victualling house as he possessed 57 plates, as well as tables and benches. The fact that he also possessed £40 worth of cash on hand suggests that many such small sales were paid in hand, but the fact that he was still owed £110 in debts also shows that many more were not (Reed, 1981: 35). Similarly, a butcher from mid-sixteenth century Chesterfield was doing the same, as he possessed many cooking implements, 26 saucers, and other plate weighing 548 lbs. (Bestall and Fowkes, 1977: 91–93). Since real wages had risen in the 1670s and 1680s for the first time in over a century meat consumption might well have been growing in the late seventeenth century, but there is evidence that livestock densities were already increasing from the early part of the century, as did the production of conventional fodder supplies (Overton, 1996: 111–116). Also, as we have seen, the numbers of butchers in Elizabethan towns were very high. Further, looking at patterns of inflation, while the price of meat did not rise as high as the price of grain from 1550–1700, it still rose in roughly the same pattern, which indicates that, either the proportion of the population eating meant was growing in almost the same proportion as the population as a whole (assuming everyone are bread), or that those who ate meat were increasing their consumption steadily. But, while the latter is likely to have been true to an extent, it is unlikely that it can account for the inexorable rise paralleling that of grain. Given this evidence it might be reasonable to argue that there was what we could term a ‘luxury preference’ for meat in the economy despite the fact that it was more expensive to produce and consume, and that its production led to higher prices for grain. But if King was correct in his estimate about the social division in consumption, this was a preference driven by the 50% of the population who consumed 78% of the meat. But it is a mistake to look at livestock production simply in terms of meat consumption. As Peter Bowden has noted sheep and cattle were necessary sources of manure for fertiliser, which meant that the production of farinaceous produce had to be integrated with the production of meat (Bowden, 1984: 12). Cattle and sheep were also of equal important for the leather industry. As L.A. Clarkson has noted, at least one contemporary noted that the value of leather was second only to the value of woollen cloth (Clarkson, 1960–61: 245). There was a constant demand for leather for shoes, boots, gloves, saddles, horse collars, harnesses, workmen’s aprons, and other things, which is shown by the large number of cordwainers in King’s Lynn. Here again Gregory King made some estimations of the consumption of cattle hides for shoes, boots, spatterdashes and coach harnesses, based on his estimation that

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300,000 calves and 500,000 ‘beeves’ were slaughtered each year. He calculated that this produced 19,800,000 lbs. of dressed leather per year. He then estimated that on average everyone went through two pairs of shoes per year resulting in a demand for 10,600,000 pairs weighing 10,140,000 lbs. (given his population estimate of 5,400,000 with 100,000 people going barefoot). To this he added 1,630,000 lbs for boots, etc. giving a total of 11,770,000 lbs. (Harte, 1991: 284). This, however, leaves out saddles, collars, and harnesses. Since King estimated that there were 1,200,000 horses in the country, if we assume that each horse needed leather gear weighing about 20 lbs. this would amount to 24,000,000 lbs. which if used constantly might have had to have been replaced on average every five years (King, 1696: 37). This would require a further 4,800,000 lbs. giving a total of 16,570,000 leaving 3,230,000 for all other uses and exports. King did not make any estimation of the amount of sheepskin used for gloves, but given the huge numbers given away at funerals, they must have been consumed in even greater numbers than shoes (Houlbrooke, 1998: 252, 274, 276–7, 280–3, 285–6, 288). Although King’s figures might be high because of his overestimate of the size of the population, there were wealthier individuals like the Oxford undergraduate William Freake who, in his three years as a student from 1619–22 expended £108 which included the purchase of 22 pairs of shoes and boots which also had to be repaired nine times (Somerset, 1957: 85–6). This means that to supply the needs of the leather industry it made sense to consume a lot of meat to supply people with shoes and saddles.

IV. Debt litigation and food trade The analysis of debt litigation I have made can also be used to see how litigious victualling trades were in comparison to other occupational groups. A sample of plaintiffs from the 1650s with names in the freemen’s list for the same period shows that most people sued over debts owing for goods which they might have been expected to sell given their occupation, and the same was probably the case 30 years later. But, individuals who sued, tended to sue people following a wide variety of different occupations. In addition to those townspeople who sued each other there was a percentage of litigants who came from outside of town to sue in the court. From the evidence contained in cases of debt, where the debtors place of residence was listed in the court books it can be estimated that about 28% of defendants resided outside of King’s Lynn. Since the transaction sued over in the town court actually had to have taken place in the town we can assume these debts occurred when people came into town to make purchases or to borrow money. Unfortunately the place of residence is not listed for plaintiffs, so it is not possible to trace how often farmers might have sued tradesmen in the town for grain and animals sold to them. Those few cases which exist where we do know the residence of some plaintiffs from outside of town, though, do show a fairly large number of sales to made by farmers to bakers. There were undoubtedly many other plaintiffs who sold agricultural produce to town retailers, such as the many country gentlemen who sued in the court, but without further information it is impossible to say for certain what these sales involved.

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Table 10.3 Members of occupational groups Involved in the Court as Plaintiffs Occupation Number of Avg. Number   Plaintiffs   of suits per    Plaintiff attorneys bakers beerbrewers blacksmiths bricklayers butchers carpenters clerks cordwainers gentlemen grocers innkeepers joiners knights labourers maulsters mariners mercers merchants ropers ship carpenters tallowchandlers tailors watermen woolendrapers worsted weavers

11 26 12 9 22 39 11 10 27 33 20 13 8 10 10 8 70 12 25 8 8 11 2 9 8 14

17.6 8 9.1 3.4 6.9 9.1 5.9 3 4.9 2.5 8.3 9.1 9.1 1.8 4.4 6.3 4.6 6.5 7.6 4 3.3 9 6.5 3.6 8.1 4.8

Average Wealth13 5 2.6 3.8 2.1 3 2.7 1.8 2.3 2 2.2 3.4 3.2 3.2 2.2 1.2 2.6 2.5 3.3 4.4 1.4 1.5 2.5 2.5 2.4 1.5 2.5

Tables 10.3 and 10.4 examine litigation for those occupations for which eight or more individuals appeared as litigants. Table 10.3 shows that, not unexpectedly, that attorneys were the most litigious group since they acted as lenders and as a result often had to sue defaulters. But the next most litigious group were the victualling and drink trades: bakers, beerbrewers, butchers, grocers, innkeepers, and maulsters. The average number of times each plaintiff in this group sued was 8.3 times, compared to an average of only 5.8 for These averages are based on wealth groups devised for the town ranging from one (poorest) to nine (wealthiest). (Muldrew, 1998: 69–87). 13

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Table 10.4 M  embers of Occupational Groups Involved in the Court as ­Defendants Occupation

bakers beerbrewers blacksmiths bricklayers butchers carpenters cordwainers gentlemen grocers innkeepers joiners labourers mariners maulsters merchants tallowchandlers tailors watermen woolendrapers worsted weavers

Number of Plaintiffs

Avg. Number of suits per Plaintiff

Average Wealth

19 8 10 21 35 18 23 21 18 10 20 15 94 10 15 8 31 8 8 17

6.9 4.5 4.6 9.3 6.7 13.6 6.3 4 3 5.7 3.8 5.5 4.7 4.6 2.9 4.9 6.3 5.5 2.5 4.8

2.8 3.9 1.9 2.8 2.5 1.6 1.9 2 2.9 3.1 2.1 1.1 2 3 4.4 2 2 2.1 1.6 1.8

all the other occupational groups combined (5.3 if attorneys are left out). This figure is considerably higher than that for tailors and cordwainers, the other two most numerous occupations. In comparison, the amount of times they themselves were sued by others (5.2) was actually slightly lower than the average for other occupational groups (5.6). An analysis of the litigation of butchers and bakers gives an indication of why this group had to sue more often. Most of their suits were for amounts of less than 99s., and very few were for cases of debt involving sealed bonds for larger amounts. Although unfortunately we do not have any information of the nature of their suits, the fact that the vast majority were for small amounts indicates that most were probably for debts owing for sales of meat and bread for household consumption in the town, rather than for goods sold in large consignments. The only baker who sued for any number of larger debts was the wealthy Henry Framingham who was mayor in 1690. Further, both bakers and butchers sued more poorer households more often than on average (70% and 64% respectively compared to an average of 53% of total suits against defendants who were in category one), whereas grocers, on the other hand, who were more involved in wholesaling sued less poor families than ­average (only 44%), and more wealthy households (Muldrew,

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1990: 136). This suggests that victualers needed to do more of their business on credit, and had more trouble collecting their debts because food was a necessity which would have had to have been purchased by poor householders more often. Elias Barker, for instance, a poorer butcher, sued forty four different times, but never actually prosecuted any of his cases as far as judgement. Similarly, Jonathan Ashley sued thirty one times but only brought one case to judgement. This can be further demonstrated by examining two other sources of evidence in which the natures of the actual debts litigated over detailed. The first is a sample of 257 declarations from actual cases from King’s Lynn from the period 1652–54. The declarations in the cases of assumpsit for broken promises listed the time, nature and value of every transaction which had not been paid, are the most informative. Because declarations were only made if a suit proceeded beyond the stage of complaint and summons or mesne process, most of the transactions recorded were for larger sums than average, but the type of goods involved again show the importance of the food and drink trade within the town.. One hundred and forty nine of the declarations from the 1650s sample were based on pleadings in assumpsit. Many contained complaints concerning a number of different transactions, but only eight percent of the cases involved no form of dispute over sales credit, or some other market oriented dispute.14 Of the other 137 suits, 99 contained some direct record of sales credit which described sales of fifty eight different types of goods. Of these the commodity that was most commonly litigated over was beer, which appeared in 14 cases. The next most common, was cloth which appeared in eight cases, followed by livestock (cattle, sheep, and hogs) which appeared in seven cases. Both salt and grain (wheat, rye, and malt) appeared in six cases each, while five cases involved wine. Most of the other goods appeared in less than three cases each. There were, for instance, two cases concerning hay, two over hops, two over fish and three for barrels. Other items included baskets, brooms, deals, household stuff, tar, pails, mercers’ wares, tobacco, and much else. Here the food trade dominates the types of goods litigated over. There were over 36 cases concerning food and drink compared to only eight for cloth. Most of these suits involved large scale transactions such as £85 worth of barrels of beer, £70 worth of biscuit, or £63 worth of bullocks sold, and they also show the importance of wholesaling in the trade as well as small scale transactions. But there were also transactions for small amounts, which give an indication of just what sort of things poorer people could have been buying and selling on the market. Although the wealth of the litigants is unknown, sales of 24s. 6d. worth of prunes, 19 lbs. of beef at 2d. a pound, 12s. of beer, or 14s. worth of ‘wheate, drinke and tobacchoe’, could have been undertaken by even very poor people.15 John Woodbridge presented four declarations concerning various transactions over a period of almost four years, one of which was for a sale of some wheat worth 32s. on 2 November, 1651.16

NRO KL/C25/17, 09/04/52, 09/22/52, 11/13/52; KL/C25/18, 07/01/54, 07/15/54, 07/22/54, 07/26/54, 08/09/54, 08/23/54. 15 NRO KL/C25/17, 04/28/52, 06/28/52, 09/18/52, 10/23/52. 16 NRO KL/C25/17, 04/03/52, 06/12/52, 06/16/52. 14

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What is perhaps more surprising is that beer and wine figured so much more prominently than any other foodstuff. Certainly grain, coal and salt were more important imports into Lynn than beer and wine. Most beer, however, would still have been produced ­locally. I have counted nineteen known brewers living in Lynn in the 1680s, together with three distillers, twelve innkeepers, two ale drapers, and a vintner. Clearly a substantial number of people were involved in the trade, but this alone does not explain the large amount of litigation. It seems to indicate that there was a grain of truth in moralists’ claims that the trade caused poor people to spend too much on credit at the alehouse, and since many alehouse keepers were relatively poor themselves this might have strained their own credit (Muldrew, 1998: 269–270, 309–311). As Peter Clark has shown the trade was highly competitive, which meant that most alehouse keepers would have had to let customers drink on credit in order to survive, which would have led to the need for much litigation to maintain their own credit.17 But at the same time the risk could also be rewarding because in King’s Lynn in the 1680s many brewers and innkeepers were proportionately very wealthy in comparison to many other trades, and a number of brewers were members of the town’s elite. Ciprian Anderson, Daniel Goodwyn, and Benjamin Holly were all brewers, and all served as mayors.18 The opportunity for a great deal of profit existed in the drink trade because there was always a constant demand, but at the same time, because of the nature of the trade, a lot of people tended to default on their debts, which meant that sellers of alcohol needed to sue more often. An examination of much smaller debts for less than 40s. from the Court of Conscience from Bristol for the year 1692 shows a very similar situation. Bristol was one of the first towns in England outside of London to have a Court of Conscience.19 These institutions were established to hear pleas for small debts which were tried summarily before the mayor of a town, or a court official, and were aimed to provide quick and speedy justice which poor people could afford. Although the limit on cases which could be brought before the court was 40s. most were for less than a pound, and thus show what sort of debts poorer households litigated over. In Bristol 14% of the suits were brought by individuals in the victualing trades, but where the goods sold were listed, food and drink accounted for 29% of all sales. But here again the drink trade dominated. There were 33 cases involving beer, ale, cider and wine compared to only nine for bread and four for meat. Also, 45 victuallers, inn holders, brewers and vintners sued compared to only 21 bakers and eight butchers.

V. Conclusion What this indicates, is that, as in King’s Lynn, a large amount of litigation was for small scale food sales. The fact that most of this was over drink also indicates that there was more demand for drink as a commodity than anything else. It also probably indicates that In the early 1650s the duty would have been 6d. a barrel on 4s. beer, and such costs could exert considerable pressure on small brewers. Since most excise charges, like taxes, needed to be paid in cash, many brewers and innkeepers might have found themselves squeezed for funds. (Clark, 1983, pp.103–108, 178–179). 18 A calendar of the freemen of King’s Lynn, 1292–1836, compiled by the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society (1913), pp.173, 180, 199. 19 Bristol Archives Office, Z33 14413. 17

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there was more access to the trade despite intense efforts by the government to regulate the numbers of alehouses through licences. Occupational figures for King’s Lynn suggest that there were still more butchers and bakers than drink sellers in the town, but it is probable that many of the poorer households in the town might have been selling drink on a small scale to make ends meet. But however many ale sellers there might have been in King’s Lynn, the evidence of the high demand for the commodity is clear, and this combined with the high number of butchers in the town is indicative of an economy where basic need was being met as far as we can determine from the aggregate evidence of consumer choice. Had most of the poorer households in Bristol or King’s Lynn been reliant on a diet of mostly bread then we would assume that the number of bakers and of sales over bread appearing in court should have been much higher than anything else, assuming that poorer households would have needed to buy bread, or at least pay to have it baked by bakers. But this was not the case. Litigation over small sales of meat and drink shows that there was at least credit to buy such goods quite often, but the amount of litigation also shows that such debts were often hard to pay. Of course the 1680s was generally a decade of good harvests and things might have been different in years of bad harvests such as 1693 or 1698–99. In King’s Lynn the fact that the town kept a town grain stock, purchased in good years by the town council to be sold in bad years to help keep the price down, indicates not only charity but a sensitivity to the problems which high prices might have created for the stability of the market for bread in the town. Thus before any definite conclusion could be drawn a comparison would have to be made to litigation in a poor harvest year, but for other years we might say that this indicates an economy where the poor were precariously balanced between being able to purchase some points in the year and then not being able to pay for them at others, which led to litigation. But this evidence certainly suggests a great deal of sophistication in the organisation of the market in both Bristol and King’s Lynn it shows that a lot of food was being purchased by consumers from specialised traders within the town, who presumably were purchasing it from wholesale traders. There is evidence in the records of King’s Lynn’s chamberlains’ accounts that many of the town’s butchers rented fields from the town within the liberties where they must have kept cattle which they had purchased awaiting slaughter. Unfortunately, though, the court records offer little evidence of how such meat and grain were being brought into the town, but it was most likely being done by large scale purchases, and being paid for by bonds which did not detail the nature of the transaction. Certainly the lack of any suits in both Lynn and Bristol for small scale transactions for vegetables or small amounts of grain which might have been sold on the open market suggests that these goods were bought in small amounts on a weekly basis for cash or short credit, whereas purchases of meat and bread were more integrated into longer terms credit networks which could have been reckoned against other goods traded in the town. This stands in contrast to the types of goods sued over in the manorial court of the much smaller town of Thirsk in Yorkshire where agricultural produce and services predominated, and prepared food did not figure very prominently, although there were still a large number of suits concerning beer. Similarly, the account books of the Cambridgeshire rector and farmer John Crakanthorp of the village of Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire detail many small scale sales of a few pecks of grain to his tenants and other villagers, but many large scale sales to the major market town of Royston, and some also to Hitchin and Cambridge, where the grain might have been sold to bakers or shipped

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to other towns to be sold in the same way.20 Thus, this evidence suggests that there was a significant difference in the structure of the market for food between towns and villages.

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Muldrew, Craig (1998) The economy of obligation: The culture of credit and social relations in early modern England, London. Overton, Mark (1996) Agricultural revolution in England, The transformation of the agrarian economy 1500–1850, Cambridge. Palliser, D.M. (1979) Tudor York, Oxford. Patten, John (1978) English towns 1500–1700, Folkestone. Pound, John (1966) ‘The Social and trade structure of Norwich 1525–1575’, Past and Present, 34. Pound, John (1988) Tudor and Stuart Norwich, Chichester. Reed Michael (ed.) (1981) The Ipswich probate inventories 1583–1631, Suffolk Record Society, 22. Somerset, H.V.F. (1957) ‘An account book of an Oxford undergraduate in the years 1619–1622’, Oxoniensia, 22. Tawney, A.J. and Tawney (1934–35) R.H., ‘An occupational census of the seventeenthcentury’, Economic History Review, 5. Thirsk, Joan (1978) Economic policy and projects, the development of a consumer society in early modern England, Oxford. Thorold Rogers, J.B. (1866–1902) A history of agriculture and prices in England from 1259–1793, I-VIII, Oxford. Willan, T.S. (1980) Elizabethan Manchester, Chetham Society 27. Willan, T.S. (1967) The English coasting trade, 1600–1750, Manchester. Woodward, D.M. (1977) ‘Cattle droving in the seventeenth-century, A Yorkshire example’, in: W.H. Chaloner and Barrie M. Radcliffe (eds.), Trade and transport, Manchester. Wrigley, E.A. and Schofield, R.S. (1989), The population history of England, Cambridge.

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11 Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880 Michael Kopsidis, IAMO Halle I.

Introduction

Already1 in the decades before industrialisation, a long-lasting process of agricultural growth had started in Western Europe. To a large part this development was triggered and fostered by increasing market integration of the agricultural sector. Compared to England, France and the Netherlands2, a theoretical based quantitative research into the relations between market integration and agricultural development in Germany is still in its infancy.3 The present study investigates the connection between the process of market integration and the appearance of domestic markets for agricultural produce on the one hand, and the development of Westphalian agriculture from the end of the 18th century till the end of the 19th on the other. The following two questions are examined: 1. Was the emergence of a domestic market since the end of the 18th century the decisive factor to induce and foster a process of sustainable agricultural growth in Westphalia? 2. Did Westphalian peasant agriculture really show a lack of market orientation and thus hamper agricultural development? The period under investigation saw an acceleration of population growth, as well as the beginning of industrialisation. Both developments led to a clear increase in the demand for agricultural products. Westphalia is a suitable place for studying the role of markets in agricultural development because proto-industrial centres, and later the upand-coming Ruhr, began to generate a steadily rising demand for agricultural produce.4 At the same time, Westphalian agriculture consisted largely of peasant family farms (10–50 ha), so that one can investigate whether such institutional structure limited the

This paper is a version of that given at the CORN conference in 1999, revised in 2003.  Grantham (1978, 1989a and 1989b), Biddick (1985), Wrigley (1987), Kussmaul (1985), De Vries (1974), Newell (1973) and Heywood (1981). 3 For Germany the process of market integration of the agricultural sector between 1750 and 1880 is only examined briefly or without applying any economic theory (in detail see Kopsidis, 1996: 3,52). Just now this situation is beginning to change. 4 Of all three Westphalian administrative districts (Regierungsbezirke) only Münster and Arnsberg could be included in the study because the original data sources for Minden do not exist anymore. However, since the Ruhrgebiet, which lies at the north-western edge of the Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg, was the region with the largest and most rapid growing excess demand for agrarian products, it is possible to examine the effects of the emergence of a supra-regional market for a sufficiently large area. 1 2

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growth and market orientation of agriculture.5 Classical development theory had always maintained that peasant farms limited such growth, but without any empirical evidence. However, numerous empirical studies, as well as fresh approaches to development theory and policy, have made it apparent that the peasant sector’s alleged hostility to progress and insensitivity to the market influence were no more than empty assertions (Schultz, 1964, Johnston and Kilby, 1975, Binswanger et al., 1995, Hayami, 1998). These findings of modern development theory also justify fresh consideration of the development of German agriculture in the 19th century. To analyse the historical process of market integration, first, a consideration of macro­ economic structural changes for peasant producers is necessary (growing market demand, an improved infrastructure etc.). Second, it needs to be established whether fundamental growth inducing changes in the behaviour of agricultural market prices did occur. If these prerequisites for agricultural growth were all met, it needs to be asked additionally on the micro level whether the preconditions to react to market incentives were given in the framework of the peasant economy. Only if this was the case were peasants able to seize the opportunities of an expanding market during the 18th and 19th centuries.

II. The data and its preparation Three different types of sources or data are used. In order to analyse the relation between market integration and agricultural growth, Prussian land-tax records and crop statistics have been taken. Structural changes on markets are analysed on the base of agricultural price series. The ability of peasant farmers to act successfully on markets is examined by utilising peasant account books. To analyse the integration of peasant farmers into a market economy, the combination of a microeconomic and a macroeconomic perspective has many advantages. It allows examining hypotheses more thoroughly by using very different types of sources and makes it possible to investigate many important aspects of the process of market integration in their complex interaction. On the basis of Prussian land-tax records concerning the period 1822–1835, which contain numerous and carefully-collected data on agricultural output, and Prussian crop statistics for 1878–82, it has been possible to undertake extensive calculations to estimate the net product by the agricultural sector in the Province of Westphalia around 1830 and 1880, broken down according to regions. The present study represents the first attempt to exploit the extensive archival materials on the land tax.6 Accurate output data could

During the nineteenth century there was no big change in Westphalian agrarian structure. The division of land among different categories of farm sizes did not alter. Peasant farms between 10 and 50 ha dominated clearly with respect to the share of farmland. In 1882 48.8 % of the whole farmland belonged to this farm category, 27.7 % was cultivated by small farms between 2 and 10 ha. Only 5.8 % had been farmed in holdings larger than 100 ha; author’s own calculation based on data of the Preussische Statistik, Vol. 176, Part Three (1885): 177, 186. 6 The geographer Müller-Wille was the first who described and examined the Prussian land tax ­records of 1822/35 and of the reassessment 1861/65 in his studies on the development of ­Westphalian agriculture in the nineteenth century. However, his work did not contain any ­quantitative or ­statistical analysis of the extensive data material; Müller-Wille (1938, 1940 and 1981). 5

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Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

be obtained for a Prussian territory in the early 19th century, which were not based on crude estimates or generalisations made from observing individual farms.7 Extensive calculations and estimates were necessary to aggregate the physical crop yields and crop areas for single products, which were documented in the land tax records village for village, to district values, so that they become comparable with the Prussian crop statistic around 1880. In addition, crop yields of wide areas had to be estimated from monetary net profits, which were recorded also.8 Compared to previous empirical studies our data on crop yields, farmland, and output, which is based on land tax records, have the following advantages: a. Individual observations, on which average values are based, can be classified exactly with respect to their geographical origin and soil quality. b. A lot of highly standardised data is available on the micro level of single villages, which can be aggregated on district, regional or province-level. c. Great emphasis was placed upon the computational transparency of calculating aggregated values for districts, regions, and the whole area from individual observations at the micro level. This method gives highly aggregated values on yields that are based on a broad micro level data set, thereby avoiding the shortcoming of subjectively weighting individual observations according to the author’s own view. d. The crop yield data of the land tax records were collected by special commissions. They depend on several years’ observations for small areas. Each commission only had to deal with a couple of villages. The data deliberately refer to the average performance of a normal rather than a model farm. Since the land tax was one of the most important sources of revenue for the Prussian government, the state collected the information needed for land tax records in a much more careful way than is customary for purely statistical reasons. Even contemporary agrarian authors, who travelled through these regions, did not have as deep an insight into local conditions as the tax authorities. Also, the commission was forced to justify its results, because its superiors controlled it. In addition, entries in eight farmers’ ledgers and books containing information on sales, the payment of wages, as well as loan and leasing transactions, have been statistically evaluated to illuminate the relationship between the smallholders’ farming practice and markets. The bookkeeping practice of peasant’s ledgers and books can hardly be described as systematic.9 Normally, only sales and their date, the type of product, the quantity sold, the sales price, and the names of the buyer were recorded. Before a computerised statistical analysis could be applied, all records had to be standardised and edited. The existing unsystematic mass of data had to be structured. Also, it was necessary to ­convert the local grain measures, which changed in time to a uniform unit of measurement. Crop yields for Westphalia based on early estimations of the Prussian statistician Leopold Krug (1805) are presented in Teuteberg (1981). 8 A short description of the numerous calculations involved and references to the original data can be found in Kopsidis (1995). 9 The eight peasant ledgers and books used are property of the “Archiv für westfälische ­Volkskunde” in Münster. A detailed description of the peasant ledgers and books and the relevant references can be found in Kopsidis (2002a). 7

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Similar problems emerged with the local and temporal changes of currencies. All these steps were prerequisites for examining the peasant ledgers and books in a comparative analysis (Kopsidis, 1998a). Published and archival materials on prices represent yet the third type of data whose statistical analysis helps to clarify important questions about the process of integration.

III. Regional agricultural growth and market integration Dividing the whole area into different agrarian regions is a suitable method to examine the market integration’s effects on agricultural production. The landscapes’ great variety within a small area permits to investigate the influence of natural conditions as well as the impact of human factors on the process of market integration and on agricultural sector’s development. These human factors greatly differed spatially. Five criteria were used in forming the agrarian regions: soil quality, population growth, structure of labour force, transportation infrastructure and proximity to the fast growing industrial belts. These are important factors for a market oriented agricultural development. The soil decisively determined the existing latitude for the cultivation’s intensification. In addition it is necessary to ask, how far the realisation of a region’s potential output depended on human factors. The sectoral structure of labour force and the population growth serve as indicators for the development of market demand. The transportation infrastructure allows us to infer the connection of a potential agrarian surplus region with a region of excess demand. There are six regions which can be distinguished clearly (table 1 and map 1): the industrial Ruhr had very fertile soil and a tremendous population growth, the proto-industrialised Niedersauerland had a high population density but only medium soils, the Hellweg region had good soils and linkages to the Ruhr but only moderate population growth, and the agrarian Kernmünsterland had a weak population growth, mostly medium or good soils and transportation linkages to the Ruhr, which had been much improved between 1830 and 1880. The Sandmünsterland and the hilly region Sauer- and Siegerland were remote areas with unfertile soils, an underdeveloped transportation infrastructure and insufficient connections to the Ruhr. The Sandmünsterland had the highest share of rural population and a stagnating population growth, whereas in the Sauer- and Siegerland population growth still proceeded moderately. Between 1830 and 1880, differences in the level of development between regions within Westphalia increased considerably (table 2). Regions which already around 1830 showed the highest yields, most intensive farming systems and good connections to expanding markets experienced the highest increase in agricultural net product between 1830 and 1880 as well. Over the whole period the “Intensitätskern” (intensity nucleus) of Westphalian agriculture was formed by the whole Ruhr area. Only the “interior intensity ring” of relatively intensive farming covering the Hellweg at the beginning expanded significantly by including nearly the whole Kernmünsterland until 1880. The regions Sandmünsterland and Sauer/Siegerland can be seen as the “exterior intensity ring” of Westphalian ­agriculture between 1830 and 1880.10 Thünens view of regional spatial farming patterns as concentric

10

Table 2 reveals that only the Hellweg and Ruhrgebiet were able to realise above average

192

0.90 1.39 2.72 3.08 1.38 0.62

5.7% 35.3% 54.9% 474.9% 135.9% 57.3%

58.7% 44.8% 37.9% 7.6% 12.3% 34.1%

4–34% 16–54% 46–84% 53–70% 42–58% 2–26%

Net profit per Population Share of Share of acre of total growth agrarian medium and area 1861/65 in 1828–1880 population high quality Reichs-taler** around 1882 soils 0.78–0.98 1.28–1.56 2.28–3.11 3.04–3.11 1.29–1.49 0.39–0.81

–7–25% 13–54% 38–86% 395–557% 126–141% 10–98%

Net profit per Population acre of total growth area 1861/65 in 1828–1880 Reichstaler

Range of district values

47–66% 37–56% 29–45% 9–6% 12–13% 23–55%

Share of agrarian population around 1882

Source: Kopsidis (1995: 142 and 1996: 95) for explaining more comprehensive the formation of regions. Notes: *The region Sandmünsterland contains the northern part of Westphalia at the border to Holland with five districts: Borken, Ahaus, Steinfurt, Tecklenburg and Warendorf. The region Kernmünsterrland is located between the Sansmünsterland and southwards the Ruhr and Hellweg. It comprises five districts: Recklinghausen, Coesfeld, Lüdinghausen, Münster and ­Beckum. The relative small region Ruhrgebiet is formed by the districts Bochum and Dortmund. Eastwards to the Ruhrgebiet the ­Hellweg contains the three districts Hamm, Soest and Lippstadt. The complete southern boarder of the Ruhrgebiet is ­occupied by the hilly region Niedersauerland with its two districts Hagen and Iserlohn. Southwards from the Niedersauerland you find the region Sauer-/Siegerland with seven districts: Altena, Arnsberg, Meschede, Brilon, Olpe, Wittgenstein and Siegen. All these districts formed the two administrative districts Münster and Arnsberg in 1865. **The net profit per acre were calculated by the tax administration and served as tax basis for the land tax.

Sandmünsterland Kernmünsterland Hellweg Ruhrgebiet Niedersauerland Sauer-/Siegerland

Regions*

Average

Table 11.1 Criteria for classifying regions

Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

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Figure 11.1 The Prussian province Westphalia: its regions and counties, 1865

7KH1HWKHUODQGV Sandmuensterland

Kernmuensterland

Ruhr area

Hellweg

Niedersauerland 5KLQHODQG

Sauer-/Siegerland

Note: For counties see table 1. cycles around a demand centre does fit very well to Westphalian agriculture. The results concerning regional differences in the growth of agricultural net product are supported by the reassessment of land tax in 1861/65. Between 1822/35 and 1861/65 the increases of net profits per Prussian acre – calculated by the tax administration – show nearly an identical regional pattern of a strongly divergent agricultural development within Westphalia (in detail see Kopsidis, 1996, pp. 123). This divergent regional development was connected with the degree of market ­integration, which also varied considerably. As mentioned above regions with good connections to the large, expanding market of the Ruhr, for example, achieved distinctly higher rates of growth

increases in animal and crop production simultaneously. The regions Sandmünsterland and Niedersauerland show an above average growth only in one of this production lines by neglecting the other. Solely the Sauer/Siegerland had below average rates in both. In contrast the Kernmünsterland realised high increases in crop production connected with an average growth in animal production.

194

13.722 15.223 7.209 4.762 2.990 12.062 55.967

29.821 38.564 20.418 13.273 6.601 24.489 133.166

Agrarian Agrarian netnetProduct product around 1830 around 1880

117.3 153.3 183.2 179.7 121.8 103.0 137.9

45 47 35 43 64 53 47

52 48 43 48 57 60 51

Growth Share of animal in % production of the agrarian net product in % around around 1830 1880 155.8 158.7 244.3 207.0 98.2 126.7 157.9

Growth in %

55 53 65 57 36 47 53

48 52 57 52 43 40 49

86.4 148.6 149.8 157.0 160.1 75.9 120.3

Share of crop Growth in % production of the agrarian net product in % around around 1830 1880

Source: Kopsidis (1995: 160). Notes: Concerning the computation of the agricultural net product and its manifold problems see Kopsidis 1996, pp. 192, pp. 192 and pp. 497. The crop production contains wheat and rye as bread grains, peas as proxy for human consumption of pulses and the estimated part of non-garden potato production used for human consumption. The animal production comprises raw milk, meat (except poultry) and wool. Even if not all agricultural products could be considered it was possible to take nearly all the important agricultural products to calculate the net product.

Sandmünsterland Kernmünsterland Hellweg Ruhrgebiet Niedersauerland Sauer-/Siegerland Total area

Regions

Table 11.2 Regional agricultural net product around 1830 and 1880 in prices of 1880 in millions of marks

Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

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Food supply, demand and trade

Table 11.3 Regression functions for the districts’ net profit per acre of total area for 1822/35 and 1861/65 1. Re/Fl1822/35 = 0.5942+0.0174*GuMiB (5.79) 2. Re/Fl1822/35 = 0.2469+0.0136*GuMiB+0.0081*BevD28 (4.42) (2.5) 0.4615 0.2608 3. Re/Fl1822/35 = 0.4582+0.0068*GuMiB+0.0064*BevD28+ 0.6098*Dummy (2.13) (2.39) (3.49) 0.2292 0.2052 0.3688 4. Re/Fl1861/65 = 0.3389+0.0298*GuMiB (6.34) 5. Re/Fl1861/65 = 0.1596+0.0241*GuMiB+0.0043*BevD64 (4.95) (2.43) 0.6544 0.3206 6. Re/Fl1861/65 = -0.0596+0.0259*GuMiB+0.0178*VW100qkm68 (5.47) (2.09)    – – 7. Re/Fl1861/65 = 0.3486+0.0182*GuMiB+0.0561*EuW100qkm68 (4.86) (5.46) 0.4956 0.5563 8. Re/Fl1861/65 = 0.5553+0.0122*GuMiB+0.02788*EuW 100qkm68+0.9401*Dummy (3.41) (2.31) (3.29) 0.3329 0.2764 0.4565

r2(adj.)= 0.6035 r2(adj.)= 0.665

r2(adj.)= 0.7815

r2(adj.)= 0.6466 r2(adj.)= 0.6977

r2(adj.)= 0.6796

r2(adj.)= 0.84

r2(adj.)= 0.891

Source: Kopsidis (1995: 164), data from Kopsidis (1995: 162). Notes: The estimates are based on 24 observations. All districts, except the very small town district Münster, are concerned. Figures in parenthesis refer to t-values, the BETA-values are printed in italics. The abbreviations mean: Re/Fl = Net profit per acre of the total area B ev D = P o p u l a t i o n d e n s i t y (28 = 1828, 64= 1864) VW100qkm = Kilometres traffic route per 100 km2

196

GuMiB = Share of medium and high ­quality soils of the total area EuW100qkm = Kilometres tracks and ­waterways per 100 km2 (1868) Dummy = Dummy-variable (“proximity to the Ruhrgebiet”).

Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

for agricultural net product than did remote areas (table 2).11 In this context it can be statistically shown that the extension of the railways was of decisive importance for the speed of a region’s agricultural development (table 3). Regressing the land tax record’s monetary net profits per Prussian Morgen (3, 92 preußische Morgen = 1 ha) for 24 districts (all districts except the very small municipal area of Münster) on the soil quality give R-squared values for 1822/35 and 1861/65 of 0.6035 and 0.6466, respectively, which are significantly different from zero (this can be seen from the t-values of equation no. 1 and no. 3 in table 3).12 Multiple regressions, including human factors, give substantially improved statistical results. Especially the inclusion of variables, which quantify regional differences in transport infrastructure necessary for drastic cost reductions in long distance agricultural trade like railways and waterways give good results. Including a dummy-variable, called “proximity to the Ruhr,” further improves the estimates. Fertile areas in the proximity of this industrial high- income region with excess demand for food received impulses through manifold connections to improve their agricultural production. The inclusion of the Dummy-variable results in an increase of the r2-values to 0.7815 for 1822/35 and to 0.891 for 1861/65. In most cases the variables, which indicate human factors, especially the quality of inter-regional transportation infrastructure or the proximity to the Ruhr, have higher BETA and t-values than the variable “soil quality”. Despite all of the remaining uncertainties (problem of multicollinearity between some of the regression variables) it is reasonable to assume, that with missing market integration the favoured regions would have realised their production potential only to a smaller extent. This can be further shown by examine regional differences in the intensity of farming systems (Kopsidis, 1995 and 1996: 201). The different regional opportunities to realise market income significantly influenced production patterns. An expansion of highly profitable intensive forms of production could only be observed in regions with good connections to the growing market of the Ruhr. In contrast, traditional extensive farming systems survived only in remote areas. Additionally it should be mentioned here, that “cash products” which were strongly demanded by the growing urban population experienced by far the biggest growth rates of all agricultural products. This is especially true for wheat, milk and pork meat.13 Agricultural growth in Westphalia even in the second third of the nineteenth century can be described as being strongly dependent on the market demand’s medium and long term trend. Regional differences with respect to the intensity of farming are primarily the result of market processes. The pronounced regional growth differences within Westphalia cannot be explained primarily in terms of differences in the fertility of the soil. Rather, the decisive factor was that not all areas were similarly The net product has been taken as an indicator for agricultural sector’s performance because it condensed all factors influencing agricultural output’s growth (development of yields, intensification of land use, changing crop ratios etc.) to one number. All the factors just mentioned show nearly the same regional patterns of significantly higher growth rates or changes of farming systems towards intensification in regions with good connections to increasing markets (Kopsidis, 1995, 1996: 155). 12 Detailed descriptions of the estimates can be found in Kopsidis (1995: 165). 13 Agricultural net product for the whole research area grew by 138% between 1830 and 1880 (table 2). The net product out of wheat increased by 275%, out of raw milk by 198% and out of pork meat by 185%. The share of wheat in the agricultural net production changed from 7.1% to 11.2%, of raw milk from 25.5% to 31.7% and of pork meat from 7.2% to 8.6%. In contrast the share of rye – the traditional Westphalian (subsistence) grain – fell from 38.8% to 22.5% (own calculations based on data from Kopsidis (1995: 156). 11

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affected by the need to supply the Ruhr. In regions far from the Ruhr, with no more than a weak infrastructure, agriculture stagnated.

IV. Growth inducing structural changes on agricultural markets Since the connection of a region to the emerging industrial belt at the Ruhr with its steadily growing demand for food had a strong impact on agricultural growth, it is necessary to investigate more closely the process of market integration shaping a domestic market. Following integration and spatial theory between 1780 and 1880 two developments must have had a strong impact on Westphalian agricultural markets (Kopsidis, 1998b). The first development was the abolishment of most custom frontiers and internal tariffs within Westphalia between 1800 and 1820, first by the Napoleonic tariff reforms and later by the creation of the Prussian province Westphalia from more than twenty small states which had been independent before the French wars. The second development was the very fast extension of the railway network after 1844 significantly reducing transport costs within Westphalia, which is provided with only few natural waterways useful for transportation. Thus, it is possible to investigate for Westphalian agricultural markets the consequences of a radical trade liberalisation under the condition of a poor infrastructure between 1800 and 1820, and of the improvement of the infrastructure three decades later. For this study the outcome of the market integration process will be defined as an increasing independence of the local price formation from the local harvest. Using several indicators allows to examine increasing market integration in a more solid way than by using only one. If all indicators show the same direction the thesis of increasing market integration between 1780 and 1880 can be supported with more evidence. Because market integration is a development process in time and not a static phenomenon, applying different indicators also allows to distinguish between different phases of the process. Three groups of indicators are used. Some indicators served to measure the price volatility for different products (variation coefficient14, range from price maximum to minimum, rate of price change) and others describe the correlation or the absolute difference between several cities’ prices. A third group of indicators look at causal relationships between spatial differentiated prices using co-integration analysis (Kopsidis, 2002b). Indicators of the latter two types indicate the emergence of a market area with a uniform price, while indicators of the former type detects the elimination of seasonal food shortages that depend on the crop cycle. Despite the severe methodological shortcomings of correlation analysis in investigating market integration (Harris, 1979) the use of this simple approach to examine market integration can be justified in our case. It has been shown by empirical studies which compared the results of correlation analysis to co-integration analysis that the A variation coefficient may serve as an indicator of price volatility if and only if the time series exhibits no trend. For most products and decades the price series do not show any significant trend. Thus for these cases the variation coefficient’s values are acceptable deviation measures. The average rate of price changes in table 5b has been given as a supplementary measure in order to avoid misinterpretations of the variation coefficient. This deviation measure cannot be distorted by trends.

14

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Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

former method at least is sufficient to distinguish between a state of nearly complete spatial market fragmentation and the existence of any form of market integration within an area (Wyeth, 1992). Exactly this is the question, which shall be examined for Westphalia in this study. In addition the application of correlation analysis is reasonable because only yearly prices are available for the time before 1815. Annual prices do not allow analysing adjustment processes on markets, which normally is the purpose of co-integration models in this field. Any further questions concerning market integration like the identification of leading markets, the intensity of market integration and the efficiency of a market could only be answered for the period 1820–1870 by using co-integration models.15 To gain first insights into the degree of market integration around 1800 for 10 towns in Westphalia and the Rhineland (from east to west: Minden, Münster, Hamm, Soest, Herdecke Wetzlar, Xanten, Cologne, Aachen and Saarlouis) the yearly prices of wheat, rye, barley and oats are correlated for the period 1784 to 1819. Furthermore for five towns (Aachen, Cologne, Herdecke, Münster and Berlin) the correlations for 1784–1819 and 1820–1860 are compared (Kopsidis, 1998b). An increase in the coefficient determinant (r2) over time could be seen as a sign for the expansion of a uniform market area with local prices not moving independently anymore. Market integration has an impact on price volatility as well. A smoothening of seasonal or annual price fluctuations indicate the disappearance of food shortages caused by bad harvests. The market is more and more able to balance out temporal and spatial market disequilibria. In Westphalia and the Rhineland the period of significant increases in the r2-values for different cities’ prices and the period of a substantial reduction of price volatility do not coincide. The statistical analysis of price series shows that two phases of market integration can be distinguished in the 19th century, and that the process of integration was not continuous. The correlation of prices for wheat, rye, barley and oat for ten important Rhenanian-Westphalian cities between 1784 and 1819 shows, that 74 out of 180 correlations have r2 -values of less than 0.5. Only 16 cases show a rather close relation, with r2-values around 0.8 (Kopsidis, 1998b: 173). Similar correlations reveal a totally different situation for the years 1820-1860. In the first period 1784–1819 the correlation coefficients for Aachen, Cologne, Herdecke, Münster and additionally Berlin spread between 0.05 and 0.93, whereas in the second period correlation coefficients covered the interval between 0.76 and 0.99. After 1820 only two cases showed correlation coefficients of less than 0.8. In contrast to 1784–1815, the spatial distance does not play a major role for the correlations coefficient’s values after 1820. Correlations of the hierarchically ordered prices of the four most important cereals wheat, rye, barley and oats (40 observations per city for five cities 1790/99–1850/59, per decade) reveal that no integrated grain market for a large area did exist before the Napoleonic era (table 4a, for further comments on

Up to now monthly data on agricultural prices for Westphalian towns covering several decades are only available for the years after 1818. They formed the basis for the co-integration study about Westphalian market integration. Unfortunately, for the 18th century monthly prices are rare, and the available time series are mostly incomplete.

15

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Food supply, demand and trade

these price series and their interpretation look at the remarks of table 4a). At the end of the eighteenth century highly integrated grain markets are observed for small regions only. In a few regions like Cologne and the Hellweg there was at least for one cereal, mostly wheat or rye, a closer correlation of their price movements across market towns. This situation of only local market integration did not change before the first decade of the nineteenth century. In the Napoleonic period, the considerable reduction of the number of states, and thorough tariff reforms, led to a significant approximation of absolute price levels of spatially differentiated prices within Westphalia and the Rhineland. Until 1830 the subsequent Prussian tariff reforms extended this process on the entire Prussian Kingdom (Kopsidis 1998a, Fremdling and Hohorst, 1979: table 4b). All correlations with Berlin significantly improve during the decade 1810/19, whereas the correlation of the price movements between Münster, Herdecke, Aachen and Cologne improve substantially for the previous decade 1800/09 (table 4a).16 However, even after the customs reforms, the produce moved by cross-country trade within Westphalia accounted only for a small fraction of Westphalia’s domestic output. According to estimates for the research area (Regierungsbezirke Münster and Arnsberg) around 1830 grain consumption exceeded domestic production by 4.23 % only. The net import surplus of the two administrative districts Münster and Arnsberg with their adjacent non-Prussian territories amounted to 1.52 % of domestic production. The residual net import could be covered by supplies from the adjacent Prussian territories especially the Rhineland.17 All in all, Westphalian demand for agricultural products could be satisfied by its own production around 1830.18 No important consequences of the tariff reforms for agricultural production can be established. Local harvests were still the most important factor determining agricultural prices. To sum up the results of statistical and econometric analysis before 1810 the Westphalian area was clearly fragmented into isolated local grain markets. Radical Napoleonic, and afterwards Prussian, tariff reforms seemed to improve market integration between 1810 and 1830 only marginally. The available data and information provided strong evidence that, during the first phase of market integration between 1810–1830, domestic and external Westphalian grain trade increased only slightly compared to previous decades. Price fluctuations continued to be high, proving that an adequate interregional exchange of grain via markets to prevent food shortages could not be realised. Co-integration analysis and the investigation of agricultural price’s volatility clearly prove that regional grain markets remained poorly integrated in the 1820s and that supra-regional market integration only improves after 1850 (Kopsidis 1998b, 2002a). Now it has to be explained why The significant reduction of the absolute price difference for grain prices in Aachen, Cologne, Münster and Berlin began in 1810–1819. This reduction serves as an additional indicator of a starting integration process of the Prussian grain market after 1810 (table 4b). 17 For details of the procedure used to compute grain demand and foreign trade in Westphalia for 1830 and 1880 see Kopsidis (1996: 244, 299, 515). 18 These empirical results correspond fully to the opinion of contemporary Prussian experts who saw Westphalia around 1840 as a nearly self-sufficient province concerning its food supply (von Lengerke, 1847: 120). 16

200

91.8 94.9 88.2 97.9 96.3 99.3 99.6

60.3 76.8 86.1 86.9 92.7 97.5 97.3

51.0 73.3 79.0 87.9 93.0 96.5 96.9

89.3 88.9 86.1 92.9 96.6 97.5

85.7 92.5 97.3 91.8 95.4 98.8

63.4 83.8 89.4 94.3 97.8 99.1

69.9 65.4 80.5 92.9 89.9 91.8

52.4 50.6 70.2 90.7 93.4 93.7 97.5

55.7 59.5 79.9 87.5 89.6 92.6 97.2

68.9 46.6 79.7 90.2 88.9 91.3 97.2

Cologne = Münster = Münster = Herdecke = Herdecke = Herdecke = Herdecke = Berlin = Berlin = Berlin = f (Aachen) f (Cologne) f (Aachen) f (Aachen) f (Cologne) f (Münster) f (Berlin) f (Aachen) f (Cologne) f (Münster)

Source: Kopsidis (1998b: 178). Notes: Each grain price series contains the wheat, rye, barley, and oat prices, and was computed for every decade (40 observations per decade for every market town). This procedure implicitly assumes that price differentials between grains can be expressed as deterministic linear functions. The prices of wheat, rye, barley and oats are closely related to each other over the whole period. The r-squared of different decades are comparable because there are no significant trends present in any of the price series. The r2-values can be interpreted as an indicator of the intensity of price linkages between two market towns, considering grain trade as a whole and not one single grain.

1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59

Decade

Correlation measurement = R-Squared (20.0= 20%)

Table 11.4a Coefficients of Determination (R-Squared Values) for grain prices 1790/99–1850/59 for the market towns Aachen, Cologne, Herdecke, Münster and Berlin for each decade

Food supply, demand and trade

Table 11.4b Average yearly variation coefficient of grain prices of Aachen, Cologne, Münster and Berlin for each decade from 1790/99–1850/59 Variation coefficient (20.0 = 20%) Decade

Wheat

Rye

Barley

Oat

1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59

16.38 19.34 7.87 7.40 5.41 6.21 4.25

20.37 20.86 12.18 11.32 7.89 9.28 5.40

14.36 19.46 14.19 8.58 8.96 9.36 5.67

17.73 23.38 13.59 8.40 9.51 4.75 5.60

Source: Kopsidis (1998b: 179). Notes: The variation coefficient of the prices of the four towns was calculated for every year between 1790 and 1859. These coefficients were than summed up and divided by ten to get the average variation coefficient per decade for the four market towns for wheat, rye, barley and oat. a small amount of traded grain was sufficient to induce an approximation of absolute levels of spatially differentiated prices after 1810, indicating at least the disappearance of total fragmentation of Westphalia’s local markets. The marketable surplus of favoured agrarian regions for normal or good crop years still remained low during the first phase of market integration. Even in the Westphalian granary, the Hellweg region, three quarters of production were needed to cover local demand (Kopsidis, 1996: 250). Highly specialised agricultural belts did not exist around 1830. A lot of evidence additionally indicates a short-term inelastic demand for staples like grain. This has the following consequence: Given inelastic short-term demand and heavy fluctuating supply, the lower the normally available grain surplus within an integrated market area the more likely will even small amounts of traded grain lead to high correlations of prices and to convergence of absolute price levels with continuing extreme price volatility. Compared to a state of local regional autarky, the industrial high-income regions can get part of the agrarian output of low-income agrarian regions through the market. The increase of prices in the former type of regions can be dampened after bad harvests, whereas in underdeveloped areas the increase becomes intensified. Convergence of absolute prices and of the price volatility on a high level can be observed for both kinds of regions. Under this condition even small amounts of marketed grain are sufficient to adjust price movements of large areas. Even with high transportation costs this first phase of market integration can be realised. The only necessary condition for the beginning of trade is the fact that transportation costs must sink under the “prohibitive price” of the autarkic state. Furthermore, high transportation costs and an insufficient infrastructure prevent that in remote but fertile regions cost-intensive efforts were undertaken to increase long-term output. Only after crop failures, high prices jus-

202

0.246 0.179 0.276 0.192 0.113 0.074

1.49 1.88 2.41 2.91 3.00 3.54

0.367 0.337 0.664 0.558 0.337 0.263

Source: Kopsidis (1998b: 180).

1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79

0.302 0.212 0.339 0.248 0.255 0.306 0.232 0.149 0.084

1.84 2.08 2.26 1.34 1.70 2.07 2.54 2.36 2.39

0.555 0.441 0.768 0.333 0.435 0.633 0.590 0.351 0.199

0.288 0.171 0.289 0.207 0.196 0.264 0.186 0.119 0.079

0.181 0.217 0.302 0.254 0.199 0.099

0.38 0.43 0.68 1.02 1.01 1.22

0.069 0.094 0.205 0.259 0.202 0.120

0.083 0.039 0.061 0.155 0.083 0.076

Peas Potatoes Var. Average Standard- Var. Average Standard- Var. Coeff. Price deviation Coeff. Price deviation Coeff.

0.924 0.554 0.768 0.429 0.577 0.556 0.756 0.440 0.316

0.371 0.192 0.257 0.229 0.260 0.198 0.232 0.139 0.096

1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79

2.49 2.88 2.99 1.87 2.22 2.81 3.26 3.16 3.29

Wheat Rye ­ verage Standard- Var. Var. Average Standard- Var. A Coeff. Price Deviation Coeff. Price deviation Coeff.

Decade

0.369 0.264 0.486 0.219 0.252 0.414 0.366 0.233 0.168

0.409 0.200 0.246 0.191 0.128 0.241 0.229 0.123 0.106

0.91 0.97 1.03 0.71 0.82 0.99 1.27 1.26 1.41

1.94 2.29 2.69 3.30 4.45 5.94

0.162 0.089 0.165 0.512 0.369 0.449

0.104 0.107 0.117 0.204 0.085 0.041

2.45 3.00 3.47 4.59 5.30 6.39

Beef Pork ­Average Standard- Var. A ­ verage Price deviation Coeff. Price

1.28 1.55 1.68 1.06 1.28 1.57 1.96 1.95 2.13

Barley Oat A­verage Standard- Var . A ­ verage Price deviation Coeff. Price

0.255 0.320 0.406 0.936 0.449 0.264

Standarddeviation

0.374 0.194 0.253 0.136 0.105 0.239 0.292 0.155 0.149

Standarddeviation

Table 11.5a Average variation coefficients of annual prices for each decade 1790–1880 (Reichstaler per Prussian bushel), and its determinants mean and standard deviation Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

203

Food supply, demand and trade

Table 11.5b   Average difference of yearly prices within a decade in percent for the period 1790–1880 Decade

Wheat

Rye

Barley

Oat

Peas

Potatoes

Beef

Pork

1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79

27.7 16.5 22.1 13.8 15.9 14.3 13.4 12.5 9.9

25.5 19.8 26.4 18.5 15.5 22.7 15.5 11.5 9.3

22.5 18.4 22.9 16.3 12.7 19.3 11.3 8.4 7.2

31.7 24.2 20.7 16.8 11.5 20.6 14.8 6.7 8.8

– – – 18.9 12.7 16.5 12.3 7.8 6.9

– – – 23.5 15.2 19.3 21.8 18.4 11.6

– – – 5.9 3.3 3.2 5.4 3.5 5.9

– – – 9.1 6.3 7.3 7.9 5.8 3.8

Source: Kopsidis (1998b: 181). Notes: The percentage price difference was calculated for two successive years using the absolute values of growth rates. All growth rates were summed up and divided by ten to get the average percentage price difference within a decade.

tify the expensive transport of larger amounts from regions far away. Therefore, in most areas a low-risk planning environment, which is necessary for long-term market oriented production decisions, was missing.19 The high price fluctuations changed only with the rapid extension of the railways from the middle of the 1840s onwards. A clear reduction in price fluctuations appeared in the middle of the 1850s, a trend, which continued over several decades (table 5a and 5b). Until the middle of the 1850s the forced completion of the railway system had taken place within a single decade in the Ruhr, the adjacent fertile Hellweg region and some of the Kernmünsterland´s districts near the Ruhrtgebiet. 75 stations were put into service in places with more than 2000 inhabitants between 1847 and 1875 in the research area (Regierungsbezirke Münster and Arnsberg). 27 of these were built in the period between 1847 and 1855. During the first years important agrarian regions had already reached a density of railway stations, without any further increase in density in the following twenty years (Kopsidis, 1996: 317). Security of supplies and the quantity of Westphalian grain production transported in domestic trade increased substantially with the building of the railways. Until about 1870, railway construction led primarily

The relative disadvantage of low-income agrarian regions in terms of adequate food supply were first examined by the French historian Jean Meuvret for France in the seventeenth and eighteenth century; Grantham (1989c). For the German case see Bass (1991) and Bergmann (1979).

19

204

Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

to an increasing intensification of farming within Westphalia and not to an increase in imports from outside Westphalia.20 At the beginning of the 1860s the Prussian administration conducted extensive district surveys, which dealt with the economic performance of a district. The results were published in so called “Kreisberichte” (Kopsidis, 1996: 326). These surveys were ­undertaken to reassess the land tax. They describe quite comprehensively the decisive role of railways for the agricultural upswing in the 1850’s. The slow process of reclaiming land and a lack of effort to intensify farming in remote regions of the Münsterland is seen as a result of the poor infrastructure, and the agricultural upswing and intensification of farming in other regions is explained by railway construction or the proximity to the expanding market of the Ruhr area with its consistently high price level for agrarian products. As a result of the considerable reduction in transport costs and the steadily-rising demand in the industrialised parts of Westphalia, it became in many areas for the first time profitable to intensify farming in order to achieve permanent surpluses. In the two decades after 1850, the reduction of the price fluctuations coincided with grain prices that were constantly on a high level. The latter resulted from increasing demand rather than from bad harvests. In addition, meat prices rose continuously over several decades, with only slight deviations from the trend (Kopsidis, 1996: 346). Both developments gave the farmers expectations of permanently rising incomes with increasing security of income, especially in market-related meat production from livestock farming. The fact that the decades before 1870 are often called the “golden age” of European agriculture can be explained by the coincidence of several factors: a long term high price level for agricultural products and the concomitant sharp rise of peasant income, diminishing price oscillations over time together with an increased safety of agricultural incomes. There is convincing evidence that shows that railway buildings significantly speeded up agricultural growth in Westphalia. It was only rail links that enabled the agricultural producers of a region to profit from the high prices between 1850 and 1870. One can speak of a second phase of market integration from 1850 onwards, especially because the railways eliminated the local harvest as the most important factor influencing prices. In addition the share of output traded on the market increased significantly within the market area. Summing up, one can conclude that the reduction of transport costs caused by railways led to an expansion of the “Thünenschen Kreise” and the area where intensive

The grain ‘imports’ and ‘exports’ of the two administrative districts Münster and Arnsberg can be calculated for 1826/28 and 1886/87 by using custom figures for the first and traffic statistics for the second period. For ‘identical custom borders’ a trade volume (import and export) of 5.751 t (1826/28) and 42.150 t (1886/87) is calculated (for details see Kopsidis, 1996, pp. 308). This results support the view of the geographer Müller-Wille that up to 1870 the Ruhrgebiet’s increased grain demand was satisfied primarily by Westphalian supplies; Müller-Wille (1981), p. 249. The Ruhrgebiet’s food grain supplies transported by railway amounted to 10.900 t in 1886. Of this amount only 3.500 t originated from areas outside Westphalia. Supplies transported to the Ruhrgebiet by ship sharply increased not until 1870 and reached 13.800 t in 1886; author’s own calculation based on Köttgen (1890), pp. 50.

20

205

Food supply, demand and trade

farming was profitable. Growing agricultural production and domestic trade volume led to more efficient markets. Now it was possible to balance out spatial and temporal market disequilibria much faster. As a consequence the volatility of agricultural prices diminished significantly during the second phase of market integration (1850–1880). For the first time in peacetime, it proved possible to ensure permanently food supplies through markets. This was a turning point that can be termed revolutionary; it could not have been achieved by customs and agricultural reforms alone. The economic conditions offered favourable preconditions for increasing the factor input in agriculture. Many questions concerning the sectoral production function and the relative importance of single input factors are still open for 19th century Westphalian ­agriculture. However, the statistical material permits to draw first conclusions about the role of labour for the increasing output. The still weak mechanisation of agricultural production in Westphalia around 1880, shown in the statistical data, is really striking (Kopsidis, 1996: 233). This fact and a lack of organisational-technical progress, suggests the hypothesis, that during the decades before 1880 the marked increase of agricultural output and yield per unit of land was primarily the result of increased farm labour. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that agricultural population increased by about 50 % between 1849 and 1882 in regions with very intensive farming like the Ruhr and the Hellweg, whereas areas with extensive farming, like Sandmünsterland or Sauer- and Siegerland, experienced growth rates of 15 % and 28 %, respectively (Kopsidis, 1996: 242). Since agricultural growth was mainly labour-intensive, smallholders who were better equipped with labour than large farms where favoured. Between 1830 and 1880 the alleged backward peasant agriculture in Westphalia achieved a rise of its agricultural sector’s net product by about 138 %, whereas farmland area grew only by about 13 % (Kopsidis, 1995: 167).

V. Peasant farmers and agricultural markets Farmers’ account books are a unique source for agricultural history research insofar as they allow analysing peasant producers’ economic calculations and the functioning of rural markets empirically by using peasant self portrayals (Kopsidis, 1996: 396; 2002a). Many farmers’ account books include a vast number of identical records of transactions, recording sales prices and amounts traded. These have been largely neglected in the cultural-historical-oriented research about farmers’ ledgers and account books, although they are very useful for computer-based quantitative-statistical analysis.21 Our study is the first one for Germany, which carries out a comparative statistical analysis of several farmers’ account books of the 18th and 19th centuries. Even if the important small- and medium-size peasant farms cannot be considered, the available records of eight farms between 30 and 70 hectares - only one farm is bigger - covers a group of peasant producers which played a central role within the Westphalian peasant economy. It should be mentioned here that, on the basis of a sample of eight farms solely, only first conclusions can be drawn, which need a stronger foundation in further research but are nevertheless important.

Concerning the manifold problems of a statistical analysis of peasant account books and their validity see more detailed in Kopsidis (1996: 396, 538 and Kopsidis (2002a).

21

206

Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

The analysis of smallholders’ ledgers and books reveals an advanced degree of commercialisation in the relations between the players in the rural economy of Westphalia already around 1800 before the agricultural reforms had started. Three specific features can be seen as the main characteristics of Westphalian agricultural local markets: 1. The labour, land leasing and credit markets, as well as the sales market for peasant agricultural products were all closely connected. Normally a farmer was simultaneously the employer, landlord, creditor, grain and wood trader for his workers. 2. Mutual liabilities and claims were almost always evaluated in monetary terms, even if no monetary transaction occurred. 3. All markets mentioned above except the fully flexible sales markets for grain and some other agricultural products were characterised by a specific mixture of rigid conventions and variable elements. On the one hand the remuneration for certain operations and services did not change over decades and long-term close relationships could be observed on all markets; on the other hand a wide range of variation in the determination of important contractual elements is also evident in many negotiations. The form of contractual instruments affecting the labour, capital and goods markets allowed a multiplicity of arrangements so that the peasant sector could flexibly react on markets. Labour relations and credit transactions in the rural economy showed elements of a market oriented free ownership economy, although interest rates and wages were more or less fixed. Between 1750 and 1880 interest rates of peasant personal loans fluctuated in a narrow range between 3 % and 5 %. Wages, which had been inflexible with respect to short and medium term horizons, began to change not until 1850. Peasant employers and creditors were not restricted in their economic decisions through long-term contracts. Despite the short duration and easy termination of most contracts, labour relations continued for decades. This became evident by the fact that the same names of day labourers, farmhands, maidservants, debtors or tenants appear in the peasants’ ledgers and books over long periods of time. This does not mean, that a flexible labour market did not exist. The farmers were able to react sensitively to a short term changing labour demand and were not obliged to employ their workers the same duration every year. The workforce, by whom the changing labour demand was covered, was connected to the farm in manifold ways. In most cases a farmer was not only the employer of his workers but also their creditor and landlord as well. Despite the farmer’s superior economic position mutual settlements of accounts between farmers and employees can be considered as correct following the peasant’s ledgers and books. In many cases large shares of the wages were used to offset employees’ grain- and timber purchases as well as other liabilities (rents or debts) and were not paid in cash. On the other hand, farmers were often obliged to pay outstanding wages over several years, often when an annual employment contract had ended or was not prolonged. All the mutual claims and liabilities, even for the smallest sums, were most accurately calculated and were not lost sight of, even years later.22 Therefore, the rural lower classes

A comprehensive description of the relations between agricultural labourers and the farmers can be found in Kopsidis (2002a).

22

207

Food supply, demand and trade

had to have a sophisticated system of “internal bookkeeping”. The personal or family type character of these economic relations did not weaken economic pressures on farm workers but instead allowed a more effective and complete enforcement of contracts. Even if agricultural wages remained constant until 1850 workers on a farm had to obtain agricultural products at fluctuating prices, just as outside customers did. Already at the end of the eighteenth century grain prices of rural retail trade – mostly with agricultural labourers as customers - reacted sensitive to short-term changes of supply. Farm workers primarily bought their grain from farmers directly but did not get any preferred sales conditions. Prices in local retail trade with grain were disrupted in rural markets by similarly severe fluctuations like in urban markets. Already around 1800, the series of prices from smallholders’ ledgers show very high rates of correlation with the series of town-market prices (table 6).23 A consideration of the farm gate price volatility of rye supports the hypothesis that price formation on peasant farms was linked to markets. The development of the intensity of oscillations of farm gate prices and of the aggregated Westphalian price series shows the same trend (table 7). Although some of the peasants’ records of ledgers and books are partly incomplete, it is still possible to conclude that the results of the quantitative analysis of the eight books examined all in all support the view of a market oriented peasant economy. Concurrently in the account books clear evidence is given that the peasant economy underwent significant changes during the 1850s and 1860s caused by development processes on agricultural markets. This can be shown by analysing peasant grain sales, the behaviour of farm gate prices and wages. Especially from 1850 onwards, the increasing importance of particular market products for the peasant sector can be deduced from the pattern of sales. The growing influence of the demand of the industrial urban region on agricultural production can be seen from sharply increased wheat purchases after 1850. In the 1880s rye as the most important cash crop had been removed by wheat (table 8). The changes of output in peasant account books document the growing importance of wheat cultivation for Westphalian agriculture between 1830 and 1880 as can also be proved by looking at highly aggregated crop statistics. A second indicator to analyse the market orientation of the peasant economy is to look at the behaviour of farm gate prices recorded in peasant account books. A look at the development of price volatility within a year (seasonal price movements) and within a decade based on annual prices using variation coefficients as a measure of dispersion supports the view of a market orientation of farm gate rye prices. The variation coefficient used to measure the average seasonal price volatility per decade is normally a little higher than for urban market prices, but the trend of both variation coefficients is the same (Table 7). The price volatility of farm gate prices and urban market prices smoothened after 1850. Quite similar is the development of the variation coefficient of both price series using annual prices per decade. Thus, the volatility of local prices in rural areas developed parallel to urban or interregional markets, even though with some delay in some rural areas. The risk reducing smoothening of the market price-volatility as well as the increasing prices were to a large extent transmitted to peasant producers.

Relatively high correlations between farm gate prices and market prices can be observed (r2 > 0.75) for farms that show the same density of data in their records like urban price records.

23

208

0.34 0.74 13.3 0.79 47

0.49 1.82 11.8 0.83 30

1851–1880

–0.68 2.18 20.9 0.86 70

0.59 1.54 4.7 0.54 19

1.18 0.55 4.0 0.47 18

1798–1818 (not 1808) 0.53 1.71 6.1 0.67 19

1798–1816

Wheat: Pmarket= a+b*Pfarm

-0.22 1.16 18.1 0.92 31

Farm Janning 1798–1816

0.68 1.72 9.2 0.74 30

1851–1880

0.63 1.61 7.3 0.64 30

Farm Wenning 1851–1880

0.72 0.98 10.9 0.79 32

1848–1880 (not 1875)

0.33 1.13 9.3 0.77 26

0.84 0.73 12.6 0.76 52

Farm Meierherm Farm Schuth1848–1850 (not Schepsmeier 1869–1873 1826–1877 and 1875)

Source: Kopsidis (1996: 479). Notes: obs. = number of observations. P = price. The significance level for all regressions is lower or equal 0.05.

Constant Coeff. t-value R2 Obs.

Constant Coeff. t-value r2 Obs.

Farm Schulte Farm Schulze Farm Behmer/ zu Dellwig Froning Schulte 1810–1856 1811–1880 1790–1820

Rye: Pmarket= a+b*Pfarm

Table 11.6 Correlation of peasant farm gate rye and wheat prices with average urban market prices in Westphalia, 1810–1880 Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

209

210

0.3182 0.2686 0.3875 0.4264

0.1493 0.1418 0.1410 0.1238

Farm Janning

Farm Wenning

Farm Meierherm

0.2727 0.1783 0.3028 0.2216 0.2039 0.2636 0.2155 0.2307 0.1710 0.0651

0.2030

0.2533 0.1667 0.0672

0.2032 0.1810 0.1137

Average variation coefficients of yearly prices for each decade

0.2728 0.2992 0.2116 0.1221

0.3023 0.2116 0.3396 0.2476 0.2551 0.3059 0.2323 0.1487 0.0837

0.1392 0.1245 0.1093 0.1030 0.0993 0.1161 0.1118 0.0781 0.0565

Farm Aggregated Schuthwestphalian Schepsmeier price serie

Average variation coefficients of the monthly rye prices within a year for each decade 0.1426 0.1037 0.1196 0.1671 0.1780 0.1633 0.1377 0.1153 0.1422 0.0988 0.1350 0.1009 0.1383 0.0929 0.1028 0.1171 0.0929 0.1195 0.0774 0.0735 0.0406

Farm Farm Behmer/ FarmSchulze Schulze zu Schulte Froning Dellweg

Source: Kopsidis (1996: 480). For every year the variation coefficient of monthly prices was calculated and these coefficients were then summed up for every decade and divided by ten.

1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79

1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79

Decade

Table 11.7 Average variation coefficients of monthly rye prices within a year for each decade and average variation coefficients of average yearly prices for each decade 1790–1879 Food supply, demand and trade

Peasants and markets: market integration and agricultural development in Westphalia 1780–1880

Structural changes, which affect central elements of the peasant economy, cannot only be observed on peasant sales markets, but also on rural labour markets. The few wage quotations in the account books suggest that, beginning in the early 1850s, the wages for agricultural workers rose significantly within only a few years, especially near industrial areas (Kopsidis 1996: 411). The proceeds from tenancies and loans played an important role, especially for larger peasant farms. Loans ranged from a couple of Reichstaler to sums exceeding 1000 Reichstaler. The loan’s duration varied between several months and some decades. Westphalian

Table 11.8 Share of wheat and rye (in %) in the total amount of grain sold by eight Westphalian farms 1750–1889 SzDel rye 1790/99 1800/09 1810/19 1820/29 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79 1880/89

1750/59 1760/69 1770/74 1830/39 1840/49 1850/59 1860/69 1870/79 1880/89

SzDel wheat

61 89 89 91 94

4 1 8 5 1

Wen rye

Wen wheat

59 65 52 15

34 26 39 82

Be/S rye

Be/S wheat

84 86 89

10 9 6

Meh rye

Meh wheat

25 27 11 20

49 59 69 55

SFron SFron rye wheat

88 84 86 89 84 70 74 45 Sc-S rye

64 69 65 54 13

8 11 4 7 13 24 23 54

Jan rye Jan wheat

52

Sc-S MzM rye wheat

5 12 12 28 79

77 82 87

16

MzM wheat 8 0 0

Source: Own calculations, Kopsidis (1996: 438). Notes: SzDel = Farm Schulte zu Dellwig, Be/S = Farm Behmer/Schulte, SFron = Farm Schulze Froning, Jan = Farm Janning, Wen = Farm Wenning, Meh = Farm Meierherm, Sc-S= Farm Schuth- Schepsmeier, MzM = Farm Meyer zur Müdehorst.

211

Food supply, demand and trade

rural credit during the first half of the nineteenth century is often seen as a non-reciprocal relation between peasants as debtors and traders as creditors (Blömer, 1990). It remains to examine, whether or not a significant part of rural credit transactions were confined to the peasant economy and whether relations between peasants and traders were really a “one way street” with peasants as “everlasting” debtors and traders as superior creditors. At least for the large peasant farms, between 30 and 70 ha considered in this study, such dependencies did not exist. The data material of the peasants’ ledgers and books allows to examine the effectiveness of a diversification strategy to stabilise agrarian income streams. A comparison of farms’ variation coefficients for the total earnings on the one hand and earnings from grain and animal sales and proceeds from credits and tenancies on the other hand reveal that in six out of eight cases the variation coefficients of total earnings are lower than for single income sources (Kopsidis, 1996: 470). It seems that diversification was a more useful strategy to reduce income oscillations than specialised grain cultivation or pure animal production. Diversification meant for a farm to develop a broad business activity, which covered credit transactions, lumber trade, tenancies, carriages, retail trade or other businesses (pubs, mills, distilleries etc.). This strategy could be realised at the local level only if the rural economy was sufficiently commercialised. Overall, it can be seen as the main result of the analysis of the peasants’ ledgers and books’ that farmers reacted sensitively to market changes. Although recent German studies view agrarian reforms of much less importance for agricultural development than previous ones, even there government policy is the focus of attention. Quite often a rather uncritical approach dominates the literature, which overemphasises the power of governmental reforms to initiate or accelerate long-term development processes in the nineteenth century. For Westphalian agriculture the Prussian agrarian reforms and the Prussian administration are still seen in some studies as the engine for agricultural progress in the first decades of the nineteenth century (for example Teuteberg, 1981). This study takes a very different stance. It argues against the overwhelming influence of agrarian reforms on agricultural development. The significant regional differences of the agricultural sector’s growth rates and the divergent development within Westphalia cannot be explained by agrarian reforms but by spatial differences in the process of market integration. Recent studies of the French and English cases, which discuss very critical whether governmental pressures to enforce enclosures were essential for high growth rates of the agricultural sector or not, are important for understanding German agricultural development as well (Allen, 1992; Grantham, 1975, 1978, 1980; Heywood, 1991). Even in some recent studies the assertion is made, that a commercialisation and market orientation of the peasant economy did not occur until the beginning of agrarian reforms (Pierenkemper, 1989: 17). The results of this study prove that the commercialisation of the Westphalian rural economy had been already under way at the end of the eighteenth century, several decades before the agrarian reforms began. No proof concerning the western parts of Germany has been given until now, that agrarian reforms had fostered the emergence of market structures and market oriented economic rationality within the agricultural sector. To summarise, it can be said that during the period covered by this study, there was a close relationship between a long-term growth of the agricultural

212

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sector and the process of market integration. This can be shown at both the macroeconomic and microeconomic level. The role played by the governmental agricultural reforms in agricultural development needs to be reassessed for Germany in view of long-term demographic and economic processes, such as proto-industrialisation and industrialisation, which encouraged market integration and thus brought about increases in production in the agricultural sector.

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