Introduction
The post-war historians thought traditional societies did not
experienced growth in per caput income due to the lack of technological
innovation. But recent research has shown they could be much more
productive then formerly thought, so pre-modern societies operated well
below their potential: technology was not a fundamental
constraint. In agriculture, only a handful of regions were reaching
their technological frontier: Essex, Flanders, Lombardy, etc.
Elsewhere, the bulk of the medieval innovations was still to be
introduced (38). Commercial progress also allowed specialisation to take place, but warfare regularly reversed these improvements (39).
So, what if the structural crisis that preceded and is said to
have greatly helped the Black Death, was little more than a cyclical
shock caused by warfare, bad weather and epidemics? That is not to say
that Europe did not experience some regional showdown such as the
1315-7 Great Famine.
The pessimist case
After 1280, the post-war historiography goes, a crisis was building up due to:
- primitive technology
- lack of investment (coming from the risk-adverse culture of the peasantry)
- rise of the cost of warfare which caused taxation to rise (40).
This crisis pushed the individuals to their physiological limits,
increased mortality rates and prepared the ground for the Black Death.
Medieval societies needed these crisis to keep their rising demography
in check.
Problems with the teory
This issue is that some regions in Europe went on growing
economically and/or demographically all the way till 1347-8 such as
Castile and Flanders (41). Thus there is little evidence of a generalised European
crisis between 1280 and 1347. Our records for these crisis are
overwhelmingly urban (while the population was mostly rural) and they
dont differentiate between the tax payers who died and those who
simply migrated.
The increase of the levels of volatility of urban grain prices is often used as an evidence of failing agricultural output (42).
The rational being that excess population were driven unto less
productive lands and led to an intense process of land fragmentation.
But as prices volatility remained high after the Black Death, showing
that the cause thereof was distribution, not production.
Consistently low levels of food intake do not generally raise
susceptibility to mortality crisis. On the other hand, strong
fluctuation in food intake [] do increase susceptibility to infectious
disease. The cause of the crisis was thus poor commercial structures
rather than agricultural backwardness (43). As a result,
cities (which enjoyed a better provisioning than the countryside)
received many rural migrants in times of famine.
Five limits to the Ricardo-Malthusian model
- There was a positive correlation between peasant wealth and family
size, showing that birth control methods were well known of the
medieval peasants (44). Theoretically, the 14th-century populations had the means to maintain equilibrium between population and resources (45).
- More than backward peasant nobility, it is likely that the lack of
transport systems, credible justice and political stability (due to
political and jurisdictional fragmentation) were the disincentives for
the low rate of investment in medieval agriculture (46).
- Unlike the rise/check dynamics that has often been described, it
is likely that the correlation between agricultural productivity and
population density was a long-term relationship. As a result, the most
productive regions were also the most populated.
- This is confirmed that grain production was not as overwhelmingly
dominating as it has often thought it was. The importance of cereals
decreased (40% of English GNP by 1300), rural populations had
occupational alternatives (wool, cattle, by-employment in services or
manufactures). This involves that the price of food (despite urban
volatility) was relatively decreasing and explains how peasants manage
to deal with land fragmentation (47).
- Finally despite what has often been said, the peasantrys
self-sufficiency is a myth. Markets for goods, land, labour and credits
were prevalent (48).
Crisis and feudal economy
Feudal lords were one of the main limits to growth: they created
uncertainty for peasants, they were not producers so had little
incentives to encourage agrarian innovations (50) and they
drawn part of their revenues from the sale of privileges and monopolies
over trade and production (and thus opposed a freer economy). They also
opposed the central authorities expansion through war which on the
long-term increased jurisdictional and political integration, thus
reducing transaction costs (51).
After 1280, the incidence of feudal warfare was on the rise (52).
This was particularly disruptive and created institutionally induced
crisis of distribution. As warfare was more prevalent in some regions
than others, it explains the differences demographic and economic
growth of the 1280-1346 period (53).
Positive warfare
Brenner assumes that a contingent balance of class power led the
transition from feudalism to capitalism. Braudel on the other hand
assigns that role to intercontinental trade. Could it be that the prime
mover explaining that process came from within feudalism? Since the
11th century, state warfare had slowly emerged. War required taxation
and taxation required [] political consensus, sovereignty and
administrative resources that were new (54).
The Black Death empowered the few remaining peasants against their
lords (end of serfdom) and hasted the latters fall, but it would have
very likely happened anyway as the pressure against them from the
peasant elite-urban elite-sovereign alliance had been building up for
at last two centuries. In other words, a prime example of creative
destruction (55).
Black death and golden age
As a result, living standards increased significantly after 1348. In
Genoa for example between 1341 and 1398 the population decreased by 40%
but the wine consumption did so by 25%. This trend is made clear by the
rise of urban population, 60% in England from 1330 to 1520 (56).
There was a widening and a deepening of the markets reach. More
goods and a greater variety thereof were traded. The process that took
place resembles the 17th-century Industrious Revolution: people were
working more to consume more. Un- and under-employment decreased over
the period. New crops (rice, sugarcane) and commercial crops
(vineyards, hops) helped distribute labour more evenly during the year (57). Micro-level specialisation is made clear by the late 14th-century increase in the number of butchers, brewers, etc.
Deflationary pressure
A series of institutional innovations took place at the same time
and decreased the crippling coordination problems of the pre-modern
period. Monetary unions flourished (Alsace, Swabia) and central places
imposed their money on the peripheries (Milan, France) lowering the
changing costs (58). Gold coinage facilitated international
payment. States strived to standardise their measurements as well.
Their new-found abilities to enforce contracts allowed the rise of
fairs that became the institutional backing of market integration and
coordinating flows of credit, labour and goods (59).
The law of reprisal that made one liable for his countrymen debts
abroad disappeared. The legal system and the merchant law became more
sophisticated. As many tariffs and trade barriers went down grain price
volatility decreased noticeably (60). Public interest rates
collapsed from 20-30% in 1350 to 8-10% in 1450 for large monarchies (it
is particularly noticeable since the consolidated debt soared in the
mean time). Private interest rates went from 10% to 4.5% from 1350 to
1500. The European enjoyed a real free lunch that allowed the
substitution of capital for labour (61). Investments were safer and more valuable as profit could be spent on more goods.
A brand new world
More people were living in towns. Many backward regions (Bohemia,
England) were quickly catching up with the more advanced ones. That
were in stagnation (Catalonia). The centralising states took down
numerous urban privileges, but also flooded the towns with
unprecedented levels of administrative resources. A few pan-continental
trade started such as cattle or salt (63), but many elements
(weak synchronicity in epidemics and recovery from the Black Death)
indicate a regionalisation of the economies after 1350. Regional
economies, protected by tariffs and enjoying sophisticated labour
specialisation, became more independent one from another (64).
Technical diffusion more than compensated for the population
decline, mostly through mobile workers. Lesser interest rates and
higher demand spurred investment which created better and new product
that in turn favoured market extension such as transportable hard
cheeses or double entry book-keeping (65).
Conclusion
Despite the crippling population losses of the Black Death, the
1350-1500 period was one of intense change and innovation. Agricultural
best practice enjoyed a notable diffusion (England) and political
integration helped decrease transaction costs, as an evidence of this
larger chunks of territory started speaking the same language, for
instance the Parisian langue doil became Frances national language (68).
Ultimately ,the crisis brought [the European economies] closer to
their technological frontier and established a new dynamic
equilibrium. Diet became more varied and more good were consumed. The
most significant effect was the acceleration of the political
centralisation (69)