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The Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Critical Comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Andrew Jones
Andrew Jones
Affiliation:
University of London
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Extract

In a recent issue of this Journal North and Thomas outlined a model of the rise and fall of the manorial system, with special reference to England. Unfortunately, their model contains a number of inaccuracies which weaken quite seriously its applicability. The propositions of the model are based upon a confusion of terms and an oversight of authorities, both of which have led to a questionable factual and theoretical interpretation. In the following paragraphs an attempt will be made to elaborate upon these criticisms, and to suggest an alternative approach.

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Note
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 1972 , pp. 938 - 944
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1972

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References

1 North, D. and Thomas, R., “The Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Theoretical Model,” Journal of Economic History, XXXI (Dec. 1971), 777–803CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Bloch, M., Feudal Society, II, trans. Manyon, L. A. (Paperback edn. London: Routledge, 1965), p. 442Google Scholar.

3 These characteristics are drawn from Bloch, Feudal Society, pp. 442–3; Strayer, J. R. and Coulborn, R., “The Idea of Feudalism,” Feudalism in History, Coulborn, R. (ed.) (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956), pp. 4–9Google Scholar; J. R. Strayer, “Feudalism in Western Europe,” ibid. p. 16; and Ganshof, F. L., Feudalism, (London: Longman, 1952), p. xvGoogle Scholar.

4 See Stephenson, C., Medieval Feudalism, (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 11th ed, 1967), p. 98Google Scholar; and for an interesting study, Nell, E. J., “Economic Relationships in the Decline of Feudalism: An Examination of Economic Interdependence and Social Change,” History and Theory, VI, 3 (1967), 313–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 328 ff.

5 North and Thomas, “Rise and Fall …, ” p. 777.

6 E. J. Hobsbawm, Introduction to Marx, K., Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, Cohen, J. (trans.) (London: Laurence and Wishart, 1964), pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

7 Dobb, M., Studies in the Development of Capitalism, (London: Routledge, 1946), pp. 54–5Google Scholar; Hilton, R. H., “The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism,” Science and Society, XVIII (1953), 340–8Google Scholar.

8 Hilton, “Transition …,” p. 345; Kosminsky, E. A., “The Evolution of Feudal Rent in England from the XIth to the XVth Centuries,” Past and Present, VII (1955), 12–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, pp. 114–5; Dobb, Studies …, p. 48.

10 North and Thomas, “Rise and Fall …,” pp. 793–4.

11 Postan, M. M., “The Rise of a Money Economy,” Economic History Review XIV (1944), 123–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For a critique of this view see, Rotenstreich, N., “The Idea of Historical Progress and its Assumptions,” History and Theory, X, 2 (1971), 197–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 297, 201.

13 North and Thomas, “Rise and Fall …,“pp. 794–7; Postan, M. M., “The Fifteenth Century,” Economic History Review IX (1939), 160–7Google Scholar; “Rapport Moyen Age, Histoire Economique,” IXth International Congress of Historical Sciences, I, Rapports, (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1950), 225–241Google Scholar; “Some Economic Evidence of Declining Population in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review II, 3 (1950), 221–246Google Scholar.

14 Postan, “Money Economy,” p. 129.

15 Postan, “Fifteenth Century,” p. 166.

16 Postan, “Money Economy,” p. 131.

17 North and Thomas, “Rise and Fall …,” pp. 780–1.

18 Shanin, T., “The Peasantry as a Political Factor,” Peasants and Peasant Societies, Shanin, T. (ed.) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 241Google Scholar; D. Thorner, “Peasant Economy as a Category in Economic History,” Ibid. pp. 205–6.

19 For some examples of the importance of by-laws after 1500 see Ault, W. O., Open Field Husbandry and the Village Community: A Study of Agrarian By-Laws in Medieval England (Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 55, pt. 7, 1965)Google Scholar.

20 Everitt, A., “Farm Labourers,” Agrarian History of England and Wales, IV, 1500- 1640, Thirsk, J. (ed.) (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), p. 459Google Scholar.

21 Franklin, S. H., “Systems of Production: Systems of Appropriation,” Pacific Viewpoint, VI, 2 (1965), p. 147Google Scholar.

22 See Inkeles, A., What is Sociology? (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 33Google Scholar; and Nash, M., “The Organization of Economic Life,” Tribal and Peasant Economies: Readings in Economic Anthropology, Dalton, G. (ed.) (New York: Natural History Press, 1967), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

23 Everitt, “Farm Labourers, p. 400.

24 For an example, see Hoskins, W. G., The Midland Peasant: The Economic and Social History of a Leicestershire Village (Paperback edn, London: MacMillan, 1965), pp. 190–2Google Scholar.

25 Thorner, “Peasant Economy as a Category,” p. 207.

26 Shanin, “The Peasantry as a Political Factor,” p. 240.

27 Shanin, Peasants and Peasant Societies, p. 15.

28 Postan, M. M., “Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime—England,” The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages, Postan, M. M. (ed.) (Cambridge: University Press, 1966), pp. 625–6Google Scholar: “To a wealthy peasant as much as to a poor one, the possession of land was an object to be pursued in all circumstances and at all costs. To him, land was not only a ‘factor of production,’ but also a ‘good’ worth possessing for its own sake, and enjoyed as a measure of social status.”

29 This may be judged at two levels: first, the total economy of the country, and second, the farming community, The criteria for distinguishing a peasant economy as the characteristic feature of a region or country have been spelt out by Thorner, “Peasant Economy as a Category,” pp. 203 ff. His argument is further crystallized by Franklin, S. H., “Reflections on the Peasantry,” Pacific Viewpont, III, 1 (1962), pp. 4–9Google Scholaret passim. At the level of the farm the criteria for separating peasants from “agriculturalists” are summed up by Henshall, J. D., “Models of Agricultural Activity,” Socio-Economic Models in Geography, Chorley, R. J. and Haggett, P. (eds.) (London: Methuen, 1968), pp. 430–432Google Scholar.

30 For an expansion of this point see, Prince, H. C., “Real, Imagined, and Abstract Worlds of the Past,” Progress in Geography, III, Board, C., Chorley, R. J., Haggett, P. and Stoddart, D. R. (eds.) (London: Edward Arnold, 1971), pp. 14Google Scholar, 23–4.

31 Perhaps the most important advances in recent years have sprung from the translation of Chayanov, A. V., The Theory of Peasant Economy, Kerblay, B., Thorner, D., AND Smith, R. E. F. (eds. and trans.) (Homewood, Illinois: American Economic Association, Translation Series, 1966)Google Scholar, and from the work of Franklin, S. H. in “Systems of Production: Systems of Appropriation,” Pacific Viewpoint, VI, 2 (1965), 145–166Google Scholar; “The Case of the Missing Chef” (Review of Chayanov), Pacific Viewpoint, IX, 2 (1968), 196–201Google Scholar; and, The European Peasantry: The Final Phase, (London: Methuen, 1969), pp. 1–19Google Scholar. The work of Chayanov, first published in the 1920's, relates to the Russian peasantry under the last decades of Tsarism. In 1969, Franklin wrote, “… looking at the same phenomenon [peasant economy] generations apart we [Chayanov and Franklin] produced a similar sort of explanation,” The European Peasantry, p. xiii.

32 See Bloch, M., “Toward a Comparative History of European Societies,” Enterprise and Secular Change: Readings in Economic History Lane, F. C. and Riemersma, J. C. (eds.) (Homewood, Illinois: American Economic Association, 1953), pp. 494–521Google Scholar. For further formulations see, Raftis, J. A., “Marc Bloch's Comparative Method and the Rural History of Medieval England,” Medieval Studies, XXIV (1962), 349–368CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sewell, W. H. Jr. “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History,” History and Theory, VI, 2 (1967), 208–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 This approach has been pioneered by Raftis, J. A., Tenure and Mobility: Studies in the Social History of the Medieval English Village, (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts 8, 1964)Google Scholar, and taken further by his pupil DeWindt, E., Land and People at Holywell-cum-Needingworth (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts 22, 1971)Google Scholar.

34 For example, Gluckman, M., “The Utility of the Equilibrium Model in the Study of Social Change,” American Anthropologist, LXX, 2 (1968), 219–237CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 N. J. Smelser, “Toward a Theory of Modernization,” Tribal and Peasant Economies, pp. 29–48.