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Participating is more important than winning: the impact of socio-economic change on commoners' participation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Flanders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

TINE DE MOOR
TINE DE MOOR
Affiliation:
Research Institute for History and Culture, Utrecht University.
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Abstract

In this article the participation profile of commoners of a Flemish case-study is reconstructed in order to identify their individual motivations for using the common, in some cases even becoming a manager of that common, in some cases only just claiming membership. Nominative linkages between membership lists, book-keeping accounts and regulatory documents of the common on the one hand and censuses and marriage acts on the other allow us to explain the behaviour of the commoners. It becomes clear why some decisions were taken – for example, to dissolve a well-functioning cattle-registration system – and how these affected the resource use of the common during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The analysis explains how internal shifts in power balances amongst groups of active users and those who did not have the means or willingness to participate could jeopardize the internal cohesion of the commoners as a group.

Participer est plus important que gagner: quel impact les changements socio-économiques ont-ils eu, dans les flandres du 18e et 19e siècles, sur la participation des membres des communautés à la jouissance des communaux

Nous reconstituons ici, dans une étude de cas concernant les Flandres, le type de participation des membres des communautés à la jouissance des communaux afin de comprendre leurs motivations individuelles dans l'usage de ceux-ci, soit en devenant leurs gestionnaires, soit seulement en affirmant leur participation à l'usage de ces communs. Nous comprenons leur comportement en établissant des liens nominatifs entre d'une part les documents concernant ces communaux (liste de membres, tenues de comptes, règlements) et d'autre part recensements et actes de mariage. On voit clairement pourquoi certaines décisions ont été prises – par exemple celle de mettre fin à un système d'enregistrement du bétail qui fonctionnait bien – et dans quelle mesure ces décisions affectèrent l'usage des ressources propres à ces communs au cours du 18e et 19e siècle. Nous voyons ainsi le pouvoir passer d'un groupe d'utilisateurs à l'autre à l'occasion de conflits internes; nous comprenons aussi que ceux qui n'avaient pas les moyens ou la volonté de participer pouvaient compromettre la cohésion interne des utilisateurs de communaux comme groupe.

Teilnehmen ist wichtiger als gewinnen: die auswirkungen des sozialökonomischen wandels auf die nutzung der allmende in flandern im 18. und 19. jahrhundert

Dieser Beitrag untersucht in Form einer Fallstudie die Nutzungsformen der Allmende in Flandern und fragt nach der individuellen Motivation der Nutzung, wobei in einigen Fällen jemand sogar zum Verwalter der Allmende wurde, während andere lediglich einen Nutzungsanspruch erhoben. Durch Namensabgleich zwischen Mitgliederlisten, Buchhaltung sowie Aufsichtsakten der Allmende einerseits und Volkszählungslisten und Heiratsregistern andererseits sind wir in der Lage, das Verhalten der Allmendenutzer zu erklären. Es wird klar, warum bestimmte Entscheidungen – etwa, ein gut funktionierendes System der Viehregistrierung aufzugeben – getroffen wurden und wie dadurch die Nutzung der Allmende als Ressource im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert beeinflusst wurde. So erklärt sich auch, wie interne Verschiebungen in der Machtbalance zwischen den Gruppen der aktiven Nutzer und denjenigen, die nicht die Mittel oder den Willen zur Partizipation besaßen, den inneren Zusammenhalt der Allmendenutzer als Gruppe gefährden konnten.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , December 2010 , pp. 405 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

ENDNOTES

1 I have not found any historical studies on commons that actually consider the effect of group size and heterogeneity on the behaviour of commoners or on the functioning of commons. If we consider other than purely historical literature, Mancur Olson was the first to refer to the effect of group size (in The logic of collective action: public goods and the theory of groups (Cambridge University Press, 1965)); he claimed that collective action becomes less effective when groups become larger. His work has been challenged by authors such as Oliver, Pamela E. and Marwell, Gerald (in ‘The paradox of group size in collective action: a theory of the critical mass. II’, American Sociological Review 53, 1 (1988), 1–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar), who claim that Olson incorrectly believed that larger groups are less likely to support collective action than smaller ones. They claim that the effect of group size depends on cost. If the cost of collective goods increases with the number of participants, larger groups act less frequently than smaller ones. If the cost varies little with group size, larger groups should exhibit more collective action than smaller ones because larger groups have more resources and are more likely to include a critical mass of highly interested and resourceful actors. The positive effects of group size increase with group heterogeneity and social ties. Other scholars, such as Marilynn B. Brewer and Roderick M. Kramer, have focused on the psychological effect of group size (see their ‘Choice behavior in social dilemmas: effects of social identity, group size, and decision framing’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50 (1986), 543–9)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Whereas some of the eighteenth-century rulers (such as Maria Theresa of Austria) had proposed – though unsuccessfully – social ways of subdividing the commons, the mid-nineteenth-century legislation of many continental European governments that aimed at the dissolution of the commons was as ruthless. Most of the commons in Western Europe had disappeared by the end of the nineteenth century. Elsewhere in continental Europe they were considerably reduced. The most comprehensive overviews in this regard are given in M.-D. Demélas and N. Vivier eds., Les propriétés collectives face aux attaques libérales (1750–1914): Europe occidentale et Amérique Latine (Rennes, 2003), and Rosa Congost and José Miguel Lana eds., Campos cerrados, debates abiertos: análisis histórico y propiedad de la tierra en Europa (siglos XVI–XIX) (Pamplona, 2007).

3 Wander Jager, M. A. Janssen, H. J. M. de Vries, J. de Greef and C. Vlek, A. J., ‘Behaviour in commons dilemmas: homo economicus and homo psychologicus in an ecological-economic model’, Ecological Economics 35 (2000), 357–79Google Scholar.

4 Whether the payment of a membership fee was needed depended on the local ‘access rules’. In some cases being a villager was sufficient to claim rights; elsewhere being a tenant would give access rights. For a discussion of access rights within north-western Europe, by country, see the different chapters in Martina De Moor, Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Paul Warde eds., The management of common land in north west Europe, c. 1500–1850 (Turnhout, 2002).

5 J. L. Hammond and Barbara Hammond, The village labourer 1760–1832: a study in the government of England before the Reform Bill (London, New York, Bombay and Calcutta, 1911).

6 L. Shaw-Taylor, ‘Proletarianisation, parliamentary enclosure and the household economy of the labouring poor, 1750–1850’, unpublished D. Phil. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1999.

7 Elsewhere I have written an overview of the literature on commons according to the authors' views on commons, and I have explained how their views on the economic, ecological and social meaning of the commons is mostly entertwined; see T. De Moor, ‘La función del común: la trayectoria de un communal en Flandes durante los siglos XVIII y XIX’, in Congost and Lana eds., Campos cerrados, 111–40.

8 Hardin, See Garrett, ‘The tragedy of the commons’, Science 162, 3859 (1968), 1243–8Google ScholarPubMed.

9 The main advocate of the claim that commoners are indeed able to make their commons work and avoid over-exploitation is 2009 Nobel-prizewinner Elinor Ostrom (see her Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action (Cambridge, 1990)). Amongst historians, Susan Cox was long the only scholar who offered historical counter-evidence for Hardin's theory (see her ‘No tragedy on the commons’, Environmental Ethics 1 (1985)Google Scholar, 49–61). In the meanwhile this group of historians has now grown, and various projects on the team of commons and their exploitation are currently running. There is even an association – the International Association for the Study of the Commons – that is entirely devoted to bringing together scholars from all over the world to study the functioning of commons.

10 In experimental sociology the effect of micro-level processes (such as individual behaviour) on macro-level outcomes is studied, but in an entirely different way. See for example Jager et al., ‘Behaviour in commons dilemmas’, passim) on how homo economicus and homo psychologicus would act in an virtual situation of a dilemma over the commons. He concludes that the incorporation of a micro-level perspective on human behaviour within integrated models of the environment yields a better understanding and eventual management of the processes involved in environmental degradation.

11 Group size and the internal heterogeneity of the group are two issues that are receiving increasing attention amongst students of present-day commons. The issue of group size has been around since Olson's ground-breaking study The logic of collective action; however, no consensus exists about the role played by this factor and the factor of group heterogeneity in the management of commons and the use of its resources. According to Poteete, Amy R. and Ostrom, E. (in ‘Heterogeneity, group size and collective action: the role of institutions in forest management’, Development and Change 35 (2004), 435–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar), this is due to a lack of uniform conceptualization of these factors, the existence of non linear relationships and the mediating role played by institutions. They come to the conclusion that some forms of heterogeneity do not negatively affect some forms of collective action. Institutions can affect the level of heterogeneity or compensate for it. Group size appears to have a non-linear relationship to at least some forms of collective action.

12 See the archival records numbered 59 to 124 of the archives of the Gemene and Loweiden common, preserved in the City Archives of Bruges (hereafter CAB). An extensive description and an inventory of the sources preserved for this particular common can be found in De Moor,'De Gemene en Loweiden in Assebroek als één van de laatste gemene gronden in Vlaanderen: beknopte geschiedenis van de instelling en inventaris van het archief', Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis, Gesticht onder de Benaming ‘Société d'Émulation’ te Brugge: Driemaandelijks Tijdschrift voor de Studie van Geschiedenis en Oudheden van Vlaanderen, 142 (2005), 3–45.

13 I used both parish registers for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that list data on births, marriages and burials and nineteenth-century population registers, in particular those on marriage, for the villages of Assebroek and Oedelem and a number of surrounding villages. These are in the CAB.

14 See also Moor, Tine De, ‘Avoiding tragedies: a Flemish common and its commoners under the pressure of social and economic change during the eighteenth century’, Economic History Review 62, 1 (2009), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Although this is not the most regular way to restrict access to a common, restriction via inheritable rights is often found elsewhere in Europe as well. See De Moor et al., The management of common land, 261.

16 In the first book several women are mentioned. In the act of 1514 it was stated that both women and men could become members (‘zoo wat vrauwen ofte mannen die aen dese vrye geprivilegierde weede ende meersch van Assenbrouc amborchtich worden …’). See article 8 of archival document no. 2 in the archive of the Gemene and Loweiden (late 1600s) (hereafter AGL), in the CAB. For a complete overview of all the documents that can be found in the archive of the Gemene and Loweiden, see De Moor, ‘De Gemene en Loweiden in Assebroek’, passim.

In July 1622, for example, Mayken van Ghistele, unwedded daughter of Absoloen from the neighbouring village of Male became a member of the common; CAB, AGL 12, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1622–1703.

17 The regulation says: ‘vrauwe ofte man, dan weduwe ofte weduwenare zynde, vervremt ende onbekent gherekent van zyn ambordtichede’. If they had children from a marriage with a rightful commoner, however (‘kinderen commende vande voorseide ambortichede’), then these would remain commoners (‘daer innen gherecht als amborteghe by generatie ende recht van hoirie van geboorten naer oude costumen‘); CAB, AGL 2, art. 8.

18 Westvlaams M. De Bo, Westvlaams idioticon (Ghent, 1892). The name aanborger (or a variation) can also be found elsewhere. Gilliodts-van Severen, for example, refers to an account of the heerlijkheid Zotschore (of 1547) in which it was mentioned: ‘Ontfaen ter causen van der herfvelicke rente van Zotschoore in veltschattinghe die diversche persoonen en de ambochten jaerlicx ghelden telcken S. Jans avende mits somers’. See Louis Gilliodts-van Severen, De la coutume de Franc de Bruges (Brussels, 1879).

19 For an overview of access regulation on Flemish commons see De Moor, ‘Common land and common rights in Flanders’, in De Moor et al., The management of common land.

20 Today the common even has members from overseas. Every three years they meet to elect a new board but the use of the common can in no way still be compared to its original use in the eighteenth century and before.

21 The archive of the Gemene and Loweiden common contains a number of original hoofdboeken (or copies) and a number of separate lists of aanborgers. Important for this article are the following sources: Rijksarchief Brugge (hereafter RAB), Aanwinsten 1984, 68, ‘Bouck van de geslachten van de Gemeene weede: register van inschrijvingen als aanborger van 1515 tot 1703’; the numbers mentioned below are from the CAB, AGL: 12, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1622–1703; 13, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1718–1767 (copy); 14, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1769–1889; and 15, ‘Hoofdboek van de aanborgers’, 1889–1981. The hoofdboeken were not systematically foliated, hence source references to these books do not refer to a specific place in them.

22 In the remainder of this article I refer to these aanborgers as members or rightful users of this common.

23 See a full description in Martina De Moor, ‘Tot proffijt van de ghemeensaemheijt: gebruik, gebruikers en beheer van gemene gronden in Zandig Vlaanderen, 18de en 19de eeuw’, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Ghent University, 2003, 163–8.

24 For a further explanation of the specificities of commons in Flanders, see De Moor et al., The management of common land, passim.

25 See a comparison in the conclusion of De Moor et al., The management of common land, 249–59.

26 See De Moor, ‘La función del común’, 101–30.

27 Because not all the data on the lives (dates of birth, death, marriage, etc.), work (occupation) and property (especially ownership of cattle) could be retrieved for all commoners, I have used a number of samples for the analysis. The sample that was used to retrieve the occupations of the aanborgers does to a certain extent include periods other than the sample used to analyse the average age at which the aanborgers became commoners.

28 Considering that we could not retrieve data on the deaths of all aanborgers, it is not possible to put this proportion of active participants among those who once registered in relation to the total number of aanborgers at any given moment in time. It can be assumed, however, that the total number of commoners was growing over time, as the number of newly registered commoners increased as well.

29 Bernardus Dermulle, commoner from 1804; see CAB, AGL 14, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene-en Loweede’, 1769–1889.

30 This becomes clear on the basis of the censuses to be found in Provinciearchief West-Vlaanderen, Modern Archief (2de reeks, TBO7), Nos. 701–708, ‘Numerieke staten van het belastbaar vee (hoornvee, schapen en paarden)’, 1823.

31 Franciscus van den Berghe became aanborger in 1832; see ibid.

32 Laurentius van Belleghem became aanborger in 1802; see ibid.

33 In 1815 he paid his debts (for a lease) of 1812; see the accounts ending in 1815, in CAB, AGL 108, ‘Rekening’, 1811–1813.

34 De Moor, ‘Avoiding tragedies’, 10–17.

35 See De Moor, ‘Tot proffijt van de ghemeensaemheijt’, 297–9.

36 Joannes de Scheppere, commoner from 1752; see CAB, AGL, 13, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1718–1767 (copy). The first registration of the family De Schepper(e) was by Lieven de Scheppere, commoner from 1679 onwards (see CAB, AGL, 12, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1622–1703).

37 Joannes Claeys became aanborger in 1831 and Ignatius Claeys in 1821; see ibid.

38 Frans Tanghe did not have any cattle on the common because by the time of his first participation the system of schatgelden was already abolished. This was a system in which a given sum of money was paid per head of cattle grazed on the common. The land he leased from the common could have been used for pasturing, however.

39 Frans Tanghe participated on average 3.78 times a year (during his membership), which included 2.59 economic participations between 1836 and 1879.

40 De Moor, ‘Tot proffijt van de ghemeensaemheijt’, 273–4.

41 Although it should also be mentioned that it was not unlikely that youngsters left the parental home to work as servants before marriage, which was quite typical for this part of Europe. See Tine De Moor and Jan Luiten Van Zanden, Girlpower: the European marriage pattern (EMP) and the development of labour markets in the North Sea Region during the late medieval and early modern period (Utrecht, 2006), and Richard Smith, ‘Some reflections on the evidence for the origins of the “European marriage pattern” in England’, in C. Harris ed., The sociology of the family: new directions for Britain, (Sociological Review, monograph 28; Chester, 1979), 74–112.

42 These results are entirely based on a dataset comprised of 64 aanborgers who became commoners in the first half of the eighteenth century and who appeared in the population census of 1748. No other census material was used. Of these 64, 60 were known as active on the common, which is not surprising considering the high participation level around this time, as mentioned earlier in this article. The other percentages for the periods thereafter are based on a large number of diverse sources, ranging from registers of birth/baptism (for occupations of parents who were aanborgers), marriage and death/burial, composed by the parish priest in the Ancien Régime and by the local government thereafter. In combination with the data on the registration of the commoners retrieved from the hoofdboeken, I obtained a sample of 710 aanborgers for the whole period 1700–1900, of whom 418 can be considered as active.

43 These data were collected on the basis of a variety of sources: resolution books, book-keeping records, hoofdboeken, parish registers, population registers, demographic and economic censuses.

44 For 1748 we can compare the occupational structure of the commoners to the overall occupational structure of the villages of Assebroek and Oedelem: 65% of the inhabitants of these villages were active in agriculture either as farmers (23% of the total) or as wage-labourers (41% of the total), which is only slightly less than the 69% of the aanborgers active in agriculture in 1748. We can do this because all information on the occupations of the commoners for the period 1700–1750 is based on the 1748 census. (See the notes above.) For the other periods such a comparison would not be reliable, as the data on the commoners' backgrounds come from various sources.

45 Andreas de Rijckere was a commoner from 1757; see CAB, AGL, 13, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1718–1767 (copy).

46 Jan de Rijckere was a commoner from 1698; see CAB, AGL, 12, ‘Hoofdboek: boek van de geslachten van de Gemene en Loweede’, 1622–1703. Pieter de Rijcker was a commoner from 1779; see CAB, AGL, 14.

47 Bruno de Rijcker was a commoner from 1787, Henricus de Rycker from 1820, Ludovicus de Rycker from 1825, Bernardus de Rijckere from 1833 and Felix de Rijckere from 1839; see CAB, AGL, 14.

48 We are dealing here with Adriaen de Rijcker, who became aanborger in 1728 (CAB, AGL 13) and who was also the grandfather of Andreas de Rijcker, who became aanborger in 1786 (CAB, AGL 14).

49 This refers to Andreas de Rijcker, aanborger from 1786; see CAB, AGL 14.

50 The occupation of Adriaen de Rijcker, who became aanborger in 1728 (CAB, AGL 13), is not known.

51 Tan, Elaine, ‘“The bull is half the herd”: property rights and enclosures in England, 1750–1850’, Explorations in Economic History 13 (4) (2002), 470CrossRefGoogle Scholar–89, 472.

52 See M. De Moor, ‘Les terres communes en Belgique’, in M.-D. Demélas and N. Vivier eds., Les propriétés collectives 1750–1914: les attaques du libéralisme en Europe et Amérique latine (Rennes, 2003), 119–38.

53 E. Van Looveren, ‘De gemeentegronden in de provincie Antwerpen: de privatisering van een eeuwenoud gemeenschapsgoed, en totaalbeeld en vier case studies’, in E. van Looveren ed., De privatisering van de gemeentegronden in de provincie Antwerpen: vier case studies, Bijdragen Hertogdom Brabant, LXVI (1983), 189–219.

54 For many references to the regulations, see M. De Moor, ‘Common land and common rights in Flanders’, in De Moor et al., The management of common land, 113–42, for Flanders, and for examples of other Western European countries, see the other chapters in De Moor et al., The management of common land.

55 Experimental research claims that inspection and sanctioning of behaviour does not necessarily encourage people to behave better. In this sense it can be questioned whether external monitoring/inspection can be considered a valuable alternative for social control. Ostmann, See A., ‘External control may destroy the commons’, Rationality and Society, 10 (1998), 103–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 It is unclear – in the absence of accounts for the period 1843–1868 – whether the committee in charge of the management of the common recorded this expense every year. The sekwester was the person who took charge of the management of an organization during a lawsuit concerning it.

57 See De Moor, T., ‘The silent revolution: a new perspective on the emergence of commons, guilds, and other forms of corporate collective action in Western Europe’, The International Review of Social History (special issue on guilds), 53 (suppl. 16) (2008), 175–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also http://www.collective-action.info for further information on various kinds of institutions for collective action.