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The Economy of Traditional Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

David Herlihy
David Herlihy
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

What are the new interests, the new methods, and the new conceptions of European economic development which over the past thirty years have formed or reformed our discipline? In partial answer to this difficult question, we shall first consider the economic history of what we may call traditional Europe, and which we shall extend, very roughly, from the early Middle Ages until the seventeenth century.

Type
Economic History: Retrospect and Prospect. Papers Presented at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 153 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

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References

1 We cite in the brief bibliography accompanying this article only a few of the many publications of the past thirty years which could illustrate recent trends in the economic history of traditional Europe. For full bibliographies, and for an introduction to the now current themes of European economic history, the reader may consult several recent surveys. Place of honor in any bibliography of European economic history belongs to the Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941 ff.)Google Scholar, with volumes devoted to medieval agriculture (I, 1941 and 1966; see note 2 below), medieval trade and industry (II, 1952), medieval economic organization and policies (III, 1963) and the European economy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (IV, pt. 1, 1967). Still more recent is the Fontana Economic History of Europe, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla; two of its projected four volumes concern Europe before 1700. Each chapter is written by a specialist, and the chapters are being published in pamphlet form as they are received; when the volumes are completed, library editions will be available. The chapters are designed to serve as introductions to students and a non-specialist audience; those so far published contain brief but informative bibliographies. For one-volume, general economic histories in English, see Heaton, H., Economic History of Europe (New York: Harper and Row, 1948)Google Scholar; Clough, S. B., The Economic Development of Western Civilization (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959)Google Scholar; Reynolds, Robert R., Europe Emerges: Transition towards an Industrial Society, 1600–1750 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961)Google Scholar; and for a more restricted chronological period, Latouche, R., The Birth of Western Economy (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961)Google Scholar; Miskimin, Harry A., The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300–1460 (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1969)Google Scholar.

Some excellent, general surveys in French are the following: Pirenne, H., Histoire économique et sociale du Moyen Age, Werveke, H. Van, editor, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1963)Google Scholar, an older work now endowed with a rich, updated bibliography; Fourquin, Guy, Histoire économique de l'Occident médiéval (Paris: Colin, 1969)Google Scholar; Heers, J., L'Occident aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Aspects économique et sociaux, Collection “Nouvelle Clio,” 23, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1966)Google Scholar, with excellent discussions and bibliographies concerning economic questions; Parias, L., editor, Histoire générale du Travail, Part I: L'Age de l'artisanat. (Ve-XVIIIe siècle), vols. 1–3 by Philippe Wolff (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie de France, 1960)Google Scholar. Mauro, Frédéric, Le XVIe siècle européen. Aspects économiques (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1966)Google Scholar; Braudel, Fernand, Civilisation matérielle et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, I (Paris: A. Colin, 1967)Google Scholar, the first of two volumes.

For the economic histories of individual states, see, most recently for England, Pollard, Sidney and Crossler, David W., The Wealth of Britain, 1085–1966 (London: Batsford, 1968)Google Scholar; for France, Labrousse, E., Léon, Pierre, Goubert, Pierre, Bouvier, Jean, Carrière, C. and Harsin, Paul, Les demiers temps de l'âge seigneurial aux préludes de l'âge industriel (1660–1789) (Histoire économique et sociale de la France, dirigée par Fernand Braudel et Ernest Labrousse, 2 (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1970)Google Scholar; for Italy, Luzzato, Gino, An Economic History of Italy from the Fall of the Roman Empire until the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, transl. Jones, Philip (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961)Google Scholar; for Spain, Vives, J. Vicens, An Economic History of Spain, transl. López-Morillas, Frances M. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Haussherr, Hans, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Neuzeit vom Ende des 14. bis zur Höhe des 19. Jahrhunderts, 3rd ed. (Cologne: Böhlan, 1960)Google Scholar, is a general economic history but with an emphasis on German lands.

2 Already in 1933, Marc Bloch was pointing out the conceptual fallacies behind several of these broad characterizations. See especially his “Natural Economy or Money Economy: A Pseudo-Dilemma,” Land and Work in Medieval Europe. Selected Papers by Marc Bloch, transl. Anderson, J. E. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 230–243Google Scholar, which was originally published in the Annales d'histoire sociale, V (1933), pp. 7–16.Google Scholar

3 The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages, 1st ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941)Google Scholar; 2nd ed. by M. M. Postan, Cambridge, 1966.

4 The new contributors are Philip Jones on Italy, Robert E. F. Smith on Russia, M. M. Postan on England, and Léopold Génicot on the agrarian crisis of the closing Middle Ages. Of those chapters taken from the first edition, about a third were revised by their authors and another third were reprinted without change.

5 Duby, Georges, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, transl. Postan, Cynthia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968)Google Scholar. His “Medieval Agriculture 900–1500,” Fontana Economic History of Europe, I, 5 (London, 1969)Google Scholar similarly eschews comment on the early Middle Ages.

For other general histories of European agriculture, see van Bath, B. H. Slicher, The Agrarian History of Western Europe, A. D. 500–1850, transl. Ordish, Olive (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Grand, Roger and Delatouche, Raymond, L'agriculture au Moyen Age de la fin de Vempire au XVIe siècle (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1950)Google Scholar; Jones, E. L., editor, Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1650–1815 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967)Google Scholar; Abel, W., Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft vom frühen Mittelalter bis zum XIX Jahrhundert (Deutsche Agrargeschichte, ed. Franz, G., 3; 2nd ed.Stuttgart: E. Ulmer, 1967)Google Scholar; Jones, Philip, “Per la storia agraria italiana nel Medio Evo: lineamenti e problemi,” Rivista Storica Italiana, LXXVI (1964), pp. 287–348.Google Scholar

6 It should be noted in interpreting the following figures that the second edition, although a larger book, has a shorter index (24 pages as against 35 in the first edition).

7 Kerridge, Eric, Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century and After (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969)Google Scholar. Thirsk, J., editor, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1540–1640 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1967)Google Scholar. Morineau, Michel, “Y a-t-il eu une révolution agricole en France au XVIIIe siècle?” Revue Historique, CCXXXIX (1968), pp. 299–326.Google Scholar

8 Henry, Louis, Manuel de démographie historique (Geneva and Paris: Droz, 1964)Google Scholar. Cf. for England the work of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure: Wrigley, E. A., editor, An Introduction to English Historical Demography from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1966)Google Scholar; Laslett, Peter, The World We Have Lost (London: Methuen, 1965)Google Scholar. The entire issue of Daedalus, vol. 97, is given over to an examination of these recent developments in historical demography. See also Mendels, Franklin F., “Recent Research in European Historical Demography,” American Historical Review, LXXV (1970), pp. 1065–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Russell, J. C., Late Ancient and Medieval Population, 43, no. 3 (Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1958)Google Scholar. Russell, J. C., “Population in Europe, 500–1500,” in Fontana Economic History of Europe, I, 1 (London, 1969, in progress)Google Scholar. Idem., “Recent Advances in Medieval Demography,” Speculum, XL (1965), pp. 84–101. Helleiner, Karl, “The Population of Europe from the Black Death to the Eve of the Vital Revolution,” Cambridge Economic History, IV, P. 1, pp. 1–95Google Scholar. Mols, R. J., S. J., Introduction à la démograpnie historique des villes d'Europe du XIVe au XVIIIe siècle 3 vols. (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1954–56)Google Scholar.

Among national or regional studies, Russell, J. C., British Medieval Population (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1948)Google Scholar, remains controversial in parts but still fundamental. For Italy, Beloch, Julius, Bevölkerungsgeschichte Italiens, 3 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Bruyter, 1937–61)Google Scholar, while based on research accomplished well before its publication dates, is still today the standard introduction. See also Fiumi, Enrico, “La popolazione del territorio volterrano-sangimignanese ed il problema demografico dell' età comunale,” Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani, I (Milan: Giuffré, 1962)Google Scholar, one of the author's many demographic studies; and Herlihy, D., “Population, Plague and Social Change in Rural Pistoia, 1201–1430,” Economic History Review, XVIII (1965), pp. 225–44.Google Scholar

French scholars have produced a plethora of demographic studies. See, for example, Fournier, G., Le peuplement rurale en Basse-Auvergne durant le Haut Moyen Age (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1962)Google Scholar; Ménager, L.-R., “Considérations sociologiques sur la démographie des grands domaines ecclésiastiques carolingiens,” Etudes d'histoire du droit canonique dediées à Gabriel Le Bras (Paris: Sirey, 1965), pp. 1317–35Google Scholar; Latouche, R., “Défrichement et peuplement rural dans le Maine du IXe au XIIe siècle,” Le Moyen Age, LIV (1948), pp. 77–87Google Scholar; Higounet, C., “Mouvements de population dans le Midi de la France du XIe au XVe siècle,” Annales-Economies Sociétés-Civilisations, VIII (1953), pp. 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Génicot, L.. L'économie rurale namuroise au Bas Moyen Age (1199–1429) (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1943)Google Scholar; Baratier, Edouard, La démographie provençale du XIIIe au XVIe siècle, avec chiffres de comparaison pour le XVIIIe siècle (Paris: SEVPEN, 1961)Google Scholar; Fossier, R., “Remarques sur les mouvements de population du Champagne méridionale au XVe siècle,” Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes (1964), pp. 177–216Google Scholar; Renouard, Yves, “Conjectures sur la population du duché d'Aquitaine en 1326,” Etudes d'histoire médiévale, I (Paris: SEVPEN, 1968), pp. 165–170Google Scholar; Arnould, M. A., Les dénombrements de foyers dans le comité de Hainaut (XIVe-XVIe siècle) (Brussels: Palais des académies, 1956)Google Scholar; Higounet, Arlette, Les comptes de la taille et les sources de l'histoire démographique de Périgueux au XIVe siècle (Paris: SEVPEN, 1965)Google Scholar; Desportes, P., “La population de Reims de XVe siècle d'après un dénombrement de 1422,” Le Moyen Age, LXXII (1966), pp. 463–509Google Scholar; Roupnel, Gaston, La ville et la campagne au XVIIe siècle. Etude sur les populations du pays dijonnais (Paris: SEVPEN, 1955)Google Scholar; Baehrel, René, Une croissance: la Basse Provence rurale (fin du XVIe sièicle-1789) (Paris: SEVPEN, 1961)Google Scholar; for Spain, see Nadal, Georges and Giralt, Emile, La population catalane de 1553 à 1717 (Paris: SEVPEN, 1960)Google Scholar.

10 See, most recently, the large bibliography and interesting studies contained in Saggi di storia dei prezzi raccolti e presentati da Ruggero Romano (Turin: G. Einaudi, 1967)Google Scholar. Other examples of the use of price history are Miskimin, Harry A., Money, Prices and Foreign Exchange in Fourteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and Cipolla, Carlo M., Money, Prices and Civilization in the Mediterranean World, Fifth to Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Sella, Domenico, Salari e lavoro nell' edilizia lombarda durante il secolo decimosettimo (Pavia: Fusi, 1968).Google Scholar

11 “Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750,” Cambridge Economic History, IV, Pt. 1, pp. 378–486.

12 White, Lynn Jr. “The Expansion of Technology, 500–1500,” in Fontana Economic History of Europe, I, 4 (London, 1969, in progress), p. 5Google Scholar. Recent surveys of technological history include idem., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); Gille, Bertrand, Histoire générate des techniques, Daumas, Maurice, editor, I (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1962), pp. 429–498Google Scholar; and II (1965), pp. 2–139; Singer, Charles et al. , editors, A History of Technology, 5 vols., (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954–58)Google Scholar; Forti, Umberto, Storia della technica dal Medioevo al Rinascimento (Florence: Sansoni, 1957)Google Scholar.

13 On agricultural yields, the most ambitious study is van Bath, B. H. Slicher, Yield Ratios, 810–1820 (Afdeling Agrarische Geschiedenis, 10; Wageningen, 1963)Google Scholar. Lynn White Jr. (above, n.12) has presented perhaps the most forceful argument that a technical revolution in cultivation occurred in the early Middle Ages. Georges Duby (above, n.5) with a different chronology considers that increased yields were achieved after the Carolingian period. Michel Morineau (above, n.7) and others find little evidence of improved yields before the nineteenth century.

14 Lane, F. C., “The Economic Meaning of the Invention of the Compass,” American Historical Review, LXVII (1963), pp. 605–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Schubert, H. R., History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, 450 B.C. to A.D. 1775 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957)Google Scholar. Lejeune, J., La formation du capitalisme moderne dans la principauté de Liège au XVIe siècle (Paris: E. Droz, 1939)Google Scholar. Vidalenc, J., La petite métallurgie rurale en Haute Normandie sous l'ancien régime (Paris: Domat-Montchrestien, 1946)Google Scholar. Frumento, A, Imprese lombarde nella storia della siderugia italiana (Milan: Società Acciaierie e Ferriere Lombarde Falclc, 1952)Google Scholar. Delumeau, J., L'alun de Rome: XVe-XIXe siècle (Paris: SEVPEN, 1962)Google Scholar. Coleman, D. C., The British Paper Industry, 1495–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958)Google Scholar. Sabbe, E., Histoire de l'industrie linière en Belgique (Brussels: Office de publicité, 1945)Google Scholar. Cipolla, Carlo M., Clocks and Culture, 1300–1700 (New York: Walker, 1967)Google Scholar. Febvre, Lucien and Martin, Henri, L'apparition du livre (Paris: A. Michel, 1958)Google Scholar; Sella, Domenico, European Industries, 1500–1700 (London: Collins, 1970).Google Scholar

15 The following citations mention only a few of the works of these prolific authors. Sapori, A., Studi di storia economica, 3 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1955–67)Google Scholar. Idem., Le marchand italien au Moyen Age (Paris: Colin, 1952); Renouard, Yves, Etudes d'histoire médiévale 2 vols., (Paris: SEVPEN, 1968)Google Scholar; Lane, Frederic, Venice and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966)Google Scholar. Lopez, Robert S., “The Trade of Medieval Europe: the South,” The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, II, pp. 257–354Google Scholar. de Roover, Raymond, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank (1397–1494) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

16 See, for example, Villages désertés et histoire économique, XI-XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: SEVPEN, 1965)Google Scholar; several of the studies in the volume make use of archaeological evidence.

17 La Mediterranée et le monde meditertanéen à l'époque de Philippe II, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris: A. Colin, 1966).Google Scholar

18 Goubert, Pierre, Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de 1600 à 1730. Contribution à l'histoire sociale de la France au XVIIe siècle (Paris: SEVPEN, 1960)Google Scholar. Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, Les paysans de Languedoc, 2 vols. (Paris: SEVPEN, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other examples would be Ruwet, Joseph, Agriculture et les classes rurales au pays de Herve sous l'ancien régime (Paris: Droz, 1943)Google Scholar; Boutruche, R., La crise d'une société. Seigneurs et paysans du Bordelais pendant la guerre de Cent Ans (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1947)Google Scholar. Plaisse, A., La baronnie du Neufbourg. Essai d'histoire agraire, économique et sociale (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1957)Google Scholar. Fourquin, G., Les campagnes de la région parisienne à la fin du Moyen Age (du milieu du XIIe siècle au déut du XVIe) (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1964)Google Scholar. Deyon, Pierre, Amiens—Capitale Provinciale (Paris: Mouton, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fossier, Robert, La terre et les hommes en Picardie fusqu'à la fin du XIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1968).Google Scholar

19 Finberg, H. P. R. and Skipp, V. H. T., Local History: Objectives and Pursuit (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1967)Google Scholar. Hoskins, W. G., Provincial England. Essays in Economic and Social History (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Conti, Elio, La formazione della struttura agrarid moderna nel contado fiorentino (Rome: Palazzo Borromini, 1965), 3 vols. to dateGoogle Scholar; Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, Studi Storici, fasc. 51–55 and 64–68.

For studies largely based on individual estates, see Finberg, H. P. R., Tavistock Abbey, A Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951)Google Scholar; Miller, E., The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely. The Social History of an Ecclesiastical Estate from the Tenth to, the Early Fourteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951)Google Scholar; Raftis, J. A., The Estates of Ramsey Abbey. A Study in Economic Growth and Organization (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1957)Google Scholar; idem., Tenure and Mobility Studies in the Social History of the Mediaeval English Villages (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1964).

20 Tagliaferri, A., L'economia veronese secondo gli estimi dal 1409 al 1635 (Milan: Giuffré, 1966)Google Scholar. Fiumi, E., Demografia, movimento urbanistico e classi sociali in Prato dall'età comunale ai tempi modemi (Biblioteca storica toscana, 14; Florence: Olschki, 1968)Google Scholar; idem., Storia economica e sociale di San Gimigano (Florence: Okchki, 1961); Herlihy, D., Pisa in the Early Renaissance. A Study of Urban Growth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; idem., Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia. The Social History of an Italian Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); Hyde, J. K., Padua in the Age of Dante (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1966)Google Scholar; Carpentier, Elisabeth, Une ville devant la peste. Orvieto et la Peste noire de 1348, Collection “Démographie et Sociétés,” 7 (Paris: SEVPEN, 1962)Google Scholar.

21 Chaunu, Pierre, “Histoire quantitative ou histoire sérielle,” Cahiers Vilfredo Pareto, III (1964), pp. 165–76.Google Scholar

22 See my article, “Quantification and the Middle Ages,” presented to the Conference on Quantification in History held at Ann Arbor, Michigan, November, 1967, and to be published with the other papers presented by Yale University Press.

23 Lopez, R. S. and Miskimin, H. A., “The Economic Depression of the Renaissance,” Economic History Review, XIV (1962), pp. 415–26.Google Scholar

24 See North, Douglass C. and Thomas, Robert Paul, “An Economic Theory of the Growth of the Western World,” Economic History Review, XXIII (1970), pp. 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Economic Growth. England in the Later Middle Ages (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962), p. 91.Google Scholar

26 Le Roy Ladurie, Les paysans de Languedoc, p. 654. “il naît trop tard, dans un monde trop neuf.”