Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-ksm4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T22:12:06.845Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An Economic Analysis of the Organization of Serfdom in Eastern Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Robert Millward
Affiliation:
Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Salford, Salford MS 4WT, Great Britain.

Abstract

The rise of serfdom in the sixteenth century undoubtedly has political explanations, but the form that it took has economic explanations. In particular, it took the form of forced labor on enlarged manorial farms. The economic explanation, buttressed with evidence from the period, is that an enserfed labor force must be watched more than free renters and the watching is best done in a manorial framework. The model is stated formally and its implications compared point-by- point with the voluminous evidence for Poland and neighboring regions.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Zytkowicz, Leonid, “The Peasant's Farm and the Landlord's Farm in Poland from the 16th to the Middle of the 18th Century,” Journal of European Economic History, 3 (Spring 1972), p. 137.Google Scholar

2 Kula, Witold, An Economic Theory of the Feudal System: Towards a Model of the Polish Economy, 1500–1800 (London, 1976), p. 61.Google ScholarRusinski, W., “Some Remarks on the Differentiation of Agrarian Structure in East Central Europe from the 16th to 18th Century”, Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 13 (1978), 8990;Google ScholarZytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” p. 142.Google Scholar

3 Kay, Cristobal, “Comparative Development of the European Manorial System and the Latin American Hacienda System”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 2 (10, 1974), p. 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Rusinski, “Differentiation of Agrarian Structure,” p. 90.Google Scholar

5 Maczak, Antoni, “Export of Grain and the Problem of the Distribution of National Income in the Years 1550–1650”, Acta Polonine Historicae, 18 (1968), 8690;Google Scholaridem., “Agricultural and Livestock Production in Poland: Internal and Foreign Markets”, Journal of European Economic History, 1 (Winter 1972), 674;Google ScholarKula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, pp. 119–26.Google Scholar

6 Fenoaltea, Stefano, “Authority, Efficiency, and Agricultural Organization in Medieval England and Beyond: A Hypothesis,” this JOURNAL, 35 (12 1975), 713–17.Google Scholar

7 Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” p. 140;Google ScholarMakkai, Laszlo, “Neo-Serfdom: Its Origin and Nature in East Central Europe”, Slavic Review, 34, part 2 (06 1975), 237;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, p. 180;Google ScholarMalowist, Marian, “The Problem of Inequality of Economic Development in Europe in the Later Middle Ages”, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 19, no. 1 (1966), 26;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMalowist, , “Problems of the Growth of the National Economy of Central-Eastern Europe in the Late Middle Ages”, Journal of European Economic History, 3 (Fall 1974), 342;Google ScholarWallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1974), pp. 87114.Google ScholarSee also Topolski, Jerzy, “The Manorial Serf Economy in Central and Eastern Europe in the 16th and 17th Centuries”, Agricultural History, 48, part 3 (07 1974), 347.Google Scholar

8 Wallerstein, Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture;Google ScholarDomar, E. D., “The Causes Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis,” this JOURNAL, 30 (03 1970), 1832.Google Scholar

9 Dobb, Maurice, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, rev. ed. (London, 1963), p. 67.Google Scholar

10 Carsten, F. L., The Origins of Prussia (Oxford, 1954), pp. 107–8;Google ScholarMalowist, , “The Economic and Social Development of the Baltic Countries from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries,” Economic History Review, 12, no. 2 (1959), 182;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMalowist, “National Economy of Central-Eastern Europe,” p. 342;Google ScholarRosenberg, Hans, “The Rise of the Junkers in Brandenburg-Prussia 1410–1653,” American Historical Review, 49 (1943/1944), 231;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBogucka, Maria, “The Monetary Crisis of the XVIIth Century and its Social and Psychological Consequences in Poland,” Journal of European Economic History, 6 (Spring 1975), 145–46.Google Scholar

11 Malowist, “Economic and Social Development of the Baltic Countries,” p. 186; Malowist, “Inequality of Economic Development in Europe,” p. 28;Google ScholarTopolski, , “Economic Decline in Poland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries,” in Essays in European Economic History, 1500–1800, ed. Earle, Peter (Oxford, 1974), p. 138;Google ScholarTopolski, “Manorial Serf Economy,” p. 350; Maczak, “Export of Grain,” p. 76; Makkai, “Neo-Serfdom: Origin and Nature,” p. 237; Rusinski, “Differentiation of Agrarian Structure,” pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

12 The monopolization of land ownership is thus, following Kahan, A. (“Notes on Serfdom in Western and Eastern Europe,” this JOURNAL, 33 [03 1973], 8699) treated as a significant determinant of the workings of agriculture in Eastern Europe.Google Scholar

13 North, Douglass and Thomas, Robert P., The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (Cambridge, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Aubin, H., “The Lands East of the Elbe and German Colonization Eastwards,” in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 1, The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages, ed. Postan, M. M., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 467, 471.Google Scholar

15 Rutkowski, J., “Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary,” in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 1, The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages, ed. Postan, M. M., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1966), p. 503.Google Scholar

16 Carsten, F. L., Origins of Prussia, chap. 6.Google Scholar See also Wunder, H. (“Peasant Organization and Class Conflict in East and West Germany,” Past and Present, no. 78 [02 1978], pp. 4850) for East Elbian Germany generally.Google Scholar

17 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

18 Skwarczynski, P., “The Problem of Feudalism in Poland up to the Beginning of the 16th Century,” Slavonic and East European Review, 34 (06 1956), 304.Google Scholar

19 Compare Aichian, Armen and Demsetz, Harold, “Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization,” American Economic Review, 62 (12 1972).Google Scholar

20 Compare Millward, Robert, “The Emergence of Wage Labour in Early Modern England,” Explorations in Economic History, 18 (01 1981), 2139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Rutkowski, “Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary”, p. 504.Google Scholar

22 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 79.Google Scholar

23 Skwarczynski, “Problem of Feudalism in Poland”, p. 307.Google Scholar

24 Aubin, “Lands East of the Elbe”, p. 418.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 479.

26 In all this there is a precise analogy with the military requirements of the prince. Defense and wars involved supervised teamwork and were organized either in the form of conscripted unpaid military labor services of the peasants or in the form of mercenaries—that is, wage labor financed ultimately from the money land taxes of the peasants.Google Scholar

27 Rutkowski, “Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary,” p. 503.Google Scholar

28 In Brandenburg there were servile domestics and the seasonal teamwork of dependent tenants, supplemented by a class of gardeners with a scrap of land and characterized by their Slavonic label, kossaten; an even more indicative label for their type of work is the term used in Meissen, handfröner, the handservers (Aubin, “Lands East of the Elbe”, p. 478). There are examples in Brandenburg of villages with Wends rendering services and also in Silesia of servile holdings within German villages. Labor services in only partially transformed settings were to be found in the fourteenth century in German villages in Prussia (on demesnes of the Order producing fodder for herds of cattle and horses) in the delta of the Vistula on old Slav soil, as well as on some estates of private landlords. Similarly in Poland by the fifteenth century there were still cases of only partly assimilated villages with dues similar to those under German law but with others aspects of the legal position basically Polish. Some villages in the East were completely unchanged, retaining precolonial manorial dues and customsGoogle Scholar(Rutkowski, “Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary,” p. 505).Google Scholar

29 Compare Loewe, Karl von, “Commerce and Agriculture in Lithuania, 1480–1600,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 26 (02 1973), 2337;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRutkowski, “Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary”; andGoogle ScholarFrench, R. A., “The Three-Field System of Sixteenth-Century Lithuania,” Agricultural History Review, 18, part 2 (1970), 106–25.Google Scholar

30 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, chap. 8;Google ScholarBlum, , “The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe,” American Historical Review, 62 (07 1957), 820–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Makkai, “Neo-Serfdom: Origin and Nature,” p. 232.Google Scholar

32 Blum, , The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe (Princeton, 1978), p. 58. For skepticism on the role of legislation,CrossRefGoogle Scholarsee Rosdolsky, R., “The Nature of Peasant Serfdom in Central and Eastern Europe,” Journal of Central European Affairs, 12 (07 1952), 128–39.Google Scholar

33 The two are precisely equivalent if each of the given peasant populations has the same prospective income in other regions (Y) or if the rent-fixing cartel can discriminate between individuals.Google Scholar

34 Ignoring conspicuous consumption and extra peasant man-hours, the latter omission being consistent with the concentration in this paper on the extensive margin. Compare Engerman, Stanley, “Some Considerations Relating to Property Rights in Man,” this JOURNAL, 33 (03 1973), 46.Google Scholar

35 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, pp. 156–62.Google Scholar

36 Skwarczynski, , “Poland and Lithuania,” in New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 2, Counter Reformation and Price Revolution 1559–1610, ed. Wernham, R. B. (Cambridge, 1968), p. 379;Google ScholarZytkowicz, L., “The Peasant's Farm,” p. 148.Google Scholar

37 Bogucka, “The Monetary Crisis,” p. 146.Google Scholar

38 Maczak, A., “Money and Society in Poland and Lithuania in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Journal of European Economic History, 5 (Spring 1976), p. 96.Google Scholar

39 Rosdolsky, R., “The Distribution of the Agrarian Product in Feudalism,” this JOURNAL, 11 (Summer 1951), 262–63.Google Scholar

40 French, “Three-Field System,” Loewe, “Commerce and Agriculture in Lithuania.” Blum, “Rise of Serfdom,” p. 832; Blum, End of the Old Order, p. 53.Google Scholar

41 Ford, Guy S., “The Prussian Peasantry before 1807,” American Historical Review, 24 (07 1919), 372–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Similarly while considerations relating to the size of the production surplus (compare Engerman, “Property Rights in Man”) would suggest that serfdom will be associated with an extension of the margins of cultivation, the presence of enforcement costs vitiates any such conclusions. Thus under a free rental system any exogenous increases in population are absorbed by the economy as long as the peasant surplus is positive. Once the point is reached where the surplus disappears, further population increases would lead to emigration, as peasant income would be less than what can be earned elsewhere. A serf economy would absorb this second round of population increase as long as the margin of Y over subsistence income levels exceeds the incremental enforcement costs. If, however, the incremental cost is greater than Y-S then not even the first round of population increase would be wholly absorbed by the serf economy: either some population is allowed to emigrate or serfdom is abandoned in favor of market rents. Analogously the length of day that is worked by serfs would exceed that freely done by a rent-paying peasantry only if marginal enforcement costs are negligible—quite apart from the possibility that the innovating efficient peasant would have greater inducements to work longer.Google Scholar

43 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 149;Google Scholaridem, “The Origins of the Junkers,” English Historical Review, 62 (April 1947), 164–65.Google Scholar

44 Skwarczynski, “Poland and Lithuania,” p. 379; Maczak, “Export of Grain”; Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm.”Google Scholar

45 Wyczanski, A., “Tentative Estimates of Polish Rye Trade in the 16th Century,” Acta Poloniae Historicae, 4 (1961), 121–22.Google Scholar

46 Loewe, “Commerce and Agriculture in Lithuania,” p. 27.Google Scholar

47 Zytkowicz, , “An Investigation into Agricultural Production in Masovia in the First Half of the 17th Century,” Acta Poloniae Historicae, 18 (1968), pp. 102–4;Google ScholarKula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, p. 117.Google Scholar

48 Gieysztorowa, Irena, “Research into the Demographic History of Poland: A Provisional Summing-Up,” Acta Poloniae Historicae, 18 (1968), Table 1;Google ScholarSkwarczynski, “Poland and Lithuania,” p. 377.Google Scholar See also Wyrobisz, Andrzej, “Small Towns in 16th and 17th-Century Poland,” Acta Poloniae Historicae, 34 (1976), 153–63 on urban populations.Google Scholar

49 Makkai, “Neo-Serfdom: “Origin and Nature,” p. 232.Google Scholar

50 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, pp. 158–62; Rosenberg, “Rise of the Junkers,” p. 232.Google Scholar

51 Makkai, “Neo-Serfdom: Origin and Nature,” p. 232; French, “Three-Field System,” p. 109; Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” pp. 138–39;Google ScholarKaminski, A. J., “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” Slavic Review, 34 (06 1975), p. 261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 For all this paragraph see French, “Three-Field System,” pp. 108–9; Blum, End of the Old Order, p. 53;Google ScholarMaczak, , “The Social Distribution of Landed Property in Poland from the 16th to the 18th Century,” Third International Conference of Economic History: Munich 1965 (Paris, 1968), p. 469;Google ScholarMaczak, “Export of Grain,” p. 78; Zytkowicz, “Agricultural Production in Masovia,” p. 110; Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” pp. 150–51; Kaminski, “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” pp. 264–65; Rosdolsky, “Distribution of the Agrarian Product,” pp. 262–63; Skwarczynski, “Poland and Lithuania,” p. 379.Google Scholar

53 If all land on an estate was of the same quality the demesne would presumably be located near to the manor house, the location of which would be affected by such nonagricultural considerations as defense. If land was not uniform there would be further savings of supervision time if the demesne were located on the better land as in the Lithuanian wloca reform.Google Scholar

54 Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” pp. 138–39; Makkai, “Neo-Serfdom: Origin and Nature,” p. 232.Google Scholar

55 Ford, “Prussian Peasantry before 1807,”, p. 367;Google ScholarSpiesz, A., “Czechoslovakia's Place in the Agrarian Development of Middle and East Europe of Modern Times,” Studio Historica Slovaca, 6 (1969), 25.Google Scholar See also Spiesz, “Czechoslovakia,” p. 22 for references to the consolidation of demesne on the best land in Livonia.Google Scholar

56 French, “Three-Field System,” p. 110 and footnote.Google Scholar

57 Topolska, Maria B., “Peculiarities of the Economic Structure of Eastern White Russia in the Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries,” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 6 (1971), 3749;Google ScholarFrench, “Three-Field System”, pp. 106–18; Blum, End of the Old Order, p. 157.Google Scholar

58 On this paragraph see French, “Three-Field System,” p. 112; Blum, “Rise of Serfdom,” pp. 830–32; Skwarczynski, “Poland and Lithuania,” p. 379; Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” p. 148; Topolski, “Manorial Serf Economy,” p. 350; Carsten, Origins of Prussia, pp. 104–5, 109–10, 157–58, 162;Google ScholarBath, B. H. Slicher van, “Serfdom in Eastern Europe”, in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 5, The Economic Organisation of Early Modern Europe, ed. Rich, E. E. and Wilson, C. H. (Cambridge, 1977), chap. 2(5), p. 118;Google ScholarLoewe, “Commerce and Agriculture in Lithuania”; Kaminski, “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania”, p. 265.Google Scholar

59 Kaminski, “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” p. 257; Blum, End of the Old Order, pp. 53–54; Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 158.Google Scholar

60 For example, Topolski, “Economic Decline in Poland,” pp. 138–39; Maczak, “Social Distribution of Landed Property,” p. 469.Google Scholar

61 French, “Three-Field System”, p. 111.Google Scholar

62 Rutkowski, “Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary,” pp. 491–92.Google Scholar

63 Aubin, “Lands East of the Elbe,” p. 478.Google Scholar

64 See for example, Wallerstein, Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture, pp. 87–114; Engerman, “Property Rights in Man,” pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

65 Kaminski, “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” pp. 264–65;Google ScholarZytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” pp. 150–51;Google ScholarMaddalena, Aldo De, “Rural Europe 1500–1750,” in Fontana Economic History of Europe, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Cipolla, C. (Glasgow, 1974), chap. 4, p. 288.Google Scholar

66 Rosdolsky, “Distribution of the Agrarian Product”; Blum, End of the Old Order, p. 105; Ford, “Prussian Peasantry before 1807,” pp. 371–72.Google Scholar

67 Compare Molenda, D., “Investments in Ore Mining in Poland from the 13th to the 17th Centuries,” Journal of European Economic History, 5 (Spring 1976), 151–69;Google ScholarLeskiewicz, J., “Les Entraves Sociales au Développement de la ‘Nouvelle Agriculture’ en Pologne,” Deuxiéme Conference Internasionale d' Histoire Economique: Aix-en-Provence, 1962 (Paris, 1965), p. 241.Google Scholar

68 Kaminski, “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” p. 261; Ford, “Prussian Peasantry before 1807,” p. 372; Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, pp. 116, 149; Leskiewicz, “Les Entraves Sociales,” p. 238.Google Scholar

69 Blum, End of the Old Order, p. 54.Google Scholar

70 Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

71 Compare Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, p. 135.Google Scholar

72 Zytkowicz, “Agricultural Production in Masovia,” pp. 112–18. See also Topoiski, “Economic Decline in Poland”, p. 132.Google Scholar

73 The church tithe was often levied as a percentage of the crop and hence left an incentive to the peasants to maximize production, even though peasant income was reduced, other things being equal, relative to activities which did not carry such a tax.Google Scholar

74 Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, p. 139.Google Scholar

75 Blum, “Rise of Serfdom,” p. 832; Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 162; Ford, “Prussian Peasantry before 1807,” p. 365; Blum, End of the Old Order, pp. 41–42.Google Scholar

76 Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” p. 140; Ford, “Prussian Peasantry before 1807,” p. 359;Google ScholarTopolski, , “La Rêféodalisation dans l'economie des grands domaines en Europe centrale et orientale (XVIe-XVIIIe ss),” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 6 (1971), p. 59.Google Scholar

77 Ford, “Prussian Peasantry before 1807,” pp. 366–67.Google Scholar

78 Blum, End of the Old Order, p. 106.Google Scholar

79 Maczak, “Export of Grain,” pp. 94–95; idem, “Money and Society”, pp. 99–101.

80 Topolski, “Economic Decline in Poland,” pp. 134–138.Google Scholar

81 Blum, End of the Old Order, pp. 105–10. This surely accounts for Kaminski's puzzle (“Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” p. 266) that many landless laborers did not take up the life of the cottager even though there was enough land.Google Scholar

82 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, pp. 160–64.Google Scholar

83 Maczak, “Social Distribution of Landed Property,” p. 458; Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” p. 138.Google Scholar

84 Maczak, “Export of Grain,” pp. 9495.Google Scholar

85 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 161; Topolski, “Economic Decline in Poland,” pp. 134–38; Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” pp. 141–42.Google Scholar

86 Blum, “Rise of Serfdom,” pp. 358, 370 fn; idem, End of the Old Order, p. 30.

87 Blum (End of the Old Order, pp. 30–32)Google Scholar suggests that the proportion of peasants who were free at the end of the eighteenth century was higher in East than West Germany and higher in Poland and the Danubian principalities than in all the servile lands.

88 Topolska, “Eastern White Russia,” p. 43.Google Scholar

89 Maczak, “Export of Grain,” pp. 8690.Google Scholar For Polish colonization of the Russian lands see Lyashchenko, P. I., “White Russia and the Ukraine under the Polish Yoke of Serfdom during the 14th to 17th Centuries,” History of the National Economy of Russia, (New York, 1970), chap. 14.Google Scholar

90 Topolska, “Eastern White Russia,” p. 42; Kaminski, “Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” p. 261.Google Scholar

91 Zytkowicz, “Agricultural Production in Masovia,” pp. 117–18.Google Scholar

92 Wyczanski, “Polish Rye Trade,” p. 118; Maczak, “Export on Grain,” pp. 91–94.Google Scholar

93 Maczak, “Export of Grain,” pp. 9495.Google Scholar

94 Compare Maczak, , “The Balance of Polish Sea Trade with the West, 1565–1646,” Scandianvian Economic History Review, 18 (1970), 107–42;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRusinski, W., “The Role of Polish Territories in the European Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 3 (1969), 115–34; and Wyczanski's (“Polish Rye Trade”) estimate that 90 percent of grain exports were rye.Google Scholar

95 This can be deduced from Zytkowicz's figures (“Agricultural Production in Masovia”, pp. 117–19).Google Scholar

96 Maczak, “Export of Grain,” Table 2. See also Wyrobisz, “Small Towns in Poland,” for the activities of merchants.Google Scholar

97 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, chap. 8; Rosenberg, “Rise of the Junkers,” p. 234.Google Scholar

98 Zytkowicz, “The Peasant's Farm,” pp. 137, 144–45.Google Scholar

99 Zytkowicz, “Agricultural Production in Masovia,” pp. 113–18.Google Scholar

100 Maczak, “Export of Grain,” Table 2.Google Scholar

101 Maczak, “Balance of Polish Sea Trade”.Google Scholar

102 Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, pp. 9293; Wyczanski, “Polish Rye Trade,” p. 130.Google Scholar

103 Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, pp. 93100Google ScholarBogucka, , “Merchants' Profits in Gdansk Foreign Trade in the First Half of the 17th Century,” Acta Poloniae Historicae, 23 (1971), 7390;Google ScholarBogucka, , “The Role of Baltic Trade in European Development from the XVIth to the XVIIIth Centuries,” Journal of European Economic History (Spring 1980), p. 7.Google Scholar On this whole paragraph see also Abel, W., Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (New York, 1980), part 2.Google Scholar

104 Maczak, “Agricultural and Livestock Production,” p. 675; Kula, Economic Theory of the Feudal System, p. 127 and fn.Google Scholar