The organization and rise of land and lease markets in northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000-1800

Continuity and Change

Volumn 23, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 13-53

  Van Bavel, B J P ^a  

^a UTRECHT UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC HISTORY; LAND MARKET; MARKET SYSTEM; MIDDLE AGES; ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE; STATISTICAL ANALYSIS;

EURASIA; EUROPE; ITALY; NORTHERN EUROPE; SOUTHERN EUROPE;

EID: 42149108580     PISSN: 02684160     EISSN: 1469218X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0268416008006668     Document Type: Article

References (144)

1. J. Williamson, 'Norfolk: Thirteenth century', in P. D. A. Harvey ed., The peasant land market in medieval England (Oxford, 1984), 30-105
2. and P. R. Schofield, 'Dearth, debt and the local land market in a late thirteenth-century village community', Agricultural History Review 45 (1997), 1-17.
3. See also the remarks by P. R. Hyams, 'The origins of a peasant land market in England', Economic History Review 23 (1970), 18-31.
4. B. J. P. van Bavel, 'Land, lease and agriculture: The transition of the rural economy in the Dutch river area from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century', Past and Present 172 (2001), 3-43.
5. E. Thoen, 'A "commercial survival economy" in evolution: The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages-19th century)', in P. Hoppenbrouwers and J. L. van Zanden eds., Peasants into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages-19th century) in the light of the Brenner debate, CORN publication series 4 (Turnhout, 2001), 102-57, esp. pp. 113-19
6. and B. M. S. Campbell, 'Land markets and the morcellation of holdings in pre-plague England and pre-famine Ireland' (unpublished paper, IEHA Congress Helsinki, 2006).
7. For the Netherlands see B. J. P. van Bavel, 'Agrarian change and economic development in the late medieval Netherlands', forthcoming in R. Brenner, J. de Vries and E. Thoen eds., Agrarian change and economic development in Europe before the Industrial Revolution
8. and for Italy see G. Federico and P. Malanima, 'Progress, decline, growth: Product and productivity in Italian agriculture, 1000-2000', Economic History Review 57 (2004), 437-64
9. or P. Malanima, 'Urbanisation and the Italian economy during the last millennium', European Review of Economic History 9 (2005), 97-122, esp. pp. 107-14, albeit with a di.erent explanation of the causes of agrarian growth.
10. Compare also the article by M. Cerman in 'Social structure and land markets in late medieval central and east-central Europe', in this number of Continuity and Change.
11. For instance by calculating differences in annual turnover of land in the market: See B. J. P. van Bavel and P. C. M. Hoppenbrouwers, 'Landholding and land transfer in the North Sea Area (late Middle Ages - 19th century)', in van Bavel and Hoppenbrouwers eds., Landholding and land transfer in the North Sea area (late Middle Ages - 19th century) CORN publication series 5 (Turnhout, 2004), 13-43, esp. pp. 28-31.
12. See R. J. Faith, 'Peasant families and inheritance customs in medieval England', Agricultural History Review 14 (1966), 77-95, esp. p. 86
13. and C. Howell, 'Peasant inheritance customs in the Midlands, 1280-1700', in J. Goody, J. Thirsk and E. P. Thompson eds., Family and inheritance: Rural society in Western Europe 1200-1800 (Cambridge, 1976), 112-55, esp. pp. 139-43.
14. See the comparison between Norfolk and Midlands England by J. Whittle in 'Individualism and the family-land bond: A reassessment of land transfer patterns among the English peasantry', Past and Present 160 (1998), 25-63
15. and also R. M. Smith, 'Families and their land in an area of partible inheritance: Redgrave, Suffolk 1260-1320', in R. M. Smith ed., Land, kinship and life-cycle (Cambridge, 1986), 135-95.
16. R. W. Hoyle, 'The land-family bond in England', Past and Present 146 (1995), 151-73, esp. pp. 154-8.
17. O. Moorman van Kappen, Met open buydel ende in baren gelde. Enkele beschouwingen over het oud-vaderlandse naastingsrecht (Deventer, 1973), esp. pp. 4-11.
18. See J. Heringa, De buurschap en haar marke (Assen, 1982), esp. pp. 10 and 16, for some fifteenth-century examples.
19. See A. Macfarlane, The origins of English individualism: The family, property and social transition (Oxford, 1978), 23-4, basing his picture of a peasant society mainly on eastern European material.
20. F. Ellis, Peasant economics: Farm households and agrarian development (Cambridge, 1988), 8, 12 and 134.
21. de eeuw (Brussels, 1995), 422 and 427.
22. See D. Nicholas, Town and countryside: Social, econornic, and political tensions in fourteenth-century Flanders (Bruges, 1971), 280-81
23. and R. Koerperich, Les lois sur la mainmorte dans les Pays-Bas catholiques (Louvain, 1922), 1 22.
24. Opsommer, 'Omme dat leengoed', 463 71 and 478-80.
25. See the examples for Norfolk given by Williamson in 'Norfolk: Thirteenth century', esp. 93, 96 and 98-9, but even more those from the Midlands: R. M. Smith, 'The English peasantry, 1250-1650', in T. Scott ed., The peasantries of Europe from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries (London, 1998), 339-71, esp. pp. 355-60.
26. Whittle, 'Individualism', esp. pp. 57-8 and 60-1.
27. S. Brakensiek, 'Farms and land - a commodity? Land markets, family strategies and manorial control in Germany (18th-19th centuries)', in van Bavel and Hoppenbrouwers eds., Landholding and land transfer, 218-34.
28. J. Whittle, The development of agrarian capitalism: Land and labour in Norfolk, 1440-1580 (Oxford, 2000), 93 and 99.
29. The extent of lordly power is nuanced in B. M. S. Campbell, 'The agrarian problem in the early fourteenth century', Past and Present 188 (2005), 3-70, esp. pp. 21-44.
30. Faith, 'Peasant families', 86-92.
31. However, this idea is nuanced, or even refuted, by Z. Razi, in 'Family, land and the village community in later medieval England', Past and Present 93 (1981), 3-36.
32. See Section 7, below.
33. See M. North, 'From land mobility to immobility: The emergence of the early modern manorial economy', in S. Cavaciocchi ed., Il mercato della terra secc. XIII-XVIII: Atti delle "Settimane di Studi" e altri convegni 35 (Prato, 2003), 261-9.
34. S. Brakensiek, Gemeinheitsteilungen in Europa: Die Privatisierung der kollektiven Nutzung des Bodens im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2000)
35. N. Vivier, Propriété collective et identité communale: Les biens communaux en France, 1750-1914 (Paris, 1998)
36. and various articles in M. de Moor, L. Shaw-Taylor and P. Warde eds., The management of common land in Europe, c. 1500-1850, CORN publication series 8 (Turnhout, 2002).
37. Z. Razi, 'The myth of the immutable English family', Past and Present 140 (1993), 3-44
38. and P. Schofield, Peasant and community in medieval England, 1200-1500 (Houndsmills, 2003), 81-7.
39. P. C. M. Hoppenbrouwers, Een middeleeuwse samenleving: Het Land van Heusden (ca. 1360-ca. 1515), AAG Bijdragen 32 (Wageningen, 1992), 368.
40. H. van der Linden, 'Het platteland in bet Noordwesten met de nadruk op de occupatie circa 1000-1300', Algemene geschiedenis der Nederlanden 2 (1982), 48-82, esp. pp. 73-8.
41. H. van der Linden, De cope: Bijdrage tot de rechtsgeschiedean van de openlegging der Hollands-Utrechtse laagvlakte (Assen, 1956).
42. J. de Vries and A. M. van der Woude, The first modern econorny: success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch econorny, 1500-1815 (Cambridge, 1997), 159-65.
43. See E. Kerridge, Agrarian problems in the sixteenth century and after (London, 1969), 65-93
44. and R. Hoyle, 'Tenure and the land market in early modern England, or a late contribution to the Brenner debate', Economic History Review 43 (1990), 1-20, esp. pp. 1-6.
45. W. M. Ormrod, 'England in the Middle Ages', in R. Bonney ed., The rise of the fiscal state in Europe, c. 1200-1815 (Oxford, 1999), 19-52, esp. pp. 21-33.
46. W. P. Blockmans, 'The Low Countries in the Middle Ages', in Bonney ed., The rise of the fiscal state, 281-308, esp. pp. 284-8.
47. P. K. O'Brien and P. A. Hunt, 'England 1485-1815', in Bonney ed., The rise of the fiscal state.
48. More extensive with respect to Italy see Section 5, below.
49. Opsommer, 'Omme dat leengoed', 427 and 533-53.
50. de-eerste helft 16de eeuw) (Ghent, 1988), 779-880
51. E. Scholliers and F. Daelemans, De conjunctuur van een domein: Herzele, 1444-1752 (Brussels, 1981), 59-62
52. and G. Fourquin, 'Le temps de la croissance', in Histoire de la France rurale, part I (Paris, 1975), 377-547, esp. pp. 500-2.
53. B. M. S. Campbell, 'Population pressure, inheritance and the land market in a fourteenth century peasant community', in R. M. Smith ed., Land, kinship and life-cycle (Cambridge, 1986), 87-134, esp. pp. 107-8.
54. See for instance D. Kastner, Das Schöffenbuch der Stadt Zülpich und die Urkunden des Stadtarchivs (Cologne, 1996), esp. pp. 12 14
55. and Das Troisdorfer Schöffenbuch (Cologne, 1997) esp. pp. 9-13.
56. P. L. Nève, 'De overdracht van onroerend goed in de middeleeuwen', De levering van onroerend goed, Ars notariatus 32 (Deventer, 1985 , 23-37, esp. pp. 27-9.
57. F. C. J. Ketelaar, 'Van pertinent register en ordentelijk protocol: overdracht van onroerend geed in de tijd van de Republiek', De levering van onroerend goed, Ars notariatus 32 (Deventer, 1985), 39-56, esp. pp. 39-42.
58. F. F. X. Cerutti, Hoofdstukken uit de Nederlandse rechtsgeschiedenis (Nijmegen, 1972), 192 and 247-51.
59. F. F. J. M. Geraedts, 'De registratie van de gerechtelijke eigendomsoverdracht in het Kwartier van Veluwe, 1538-1733', Bijdragen en Mededelingen Gelre 85 (1994), 40-60, esp. pp. 43-4.
60. J. A. E. Kuys, De ambtman in het Kwartier van Nijmegen (ca. 1250-1543) (Nijmegen, 1987), 151-2.
61. One of the finest examples - the protocol of 's-Hertogenbosch-is analysed by M. H. M. Spierings in Het schepenprotocol, 1367-1400 (Tilburg, 1984)
62. and was used extensively by H. P. H. Jansen in Landbouwpacht in Brabant in de veertiende en vijftiende eeuw (Assen, 1955).
63. G. Béaur, Histoire agraire de la France au XVIIIe siècle: inerties et changements dans les campagnes françaises à la fin de l'époque moderne (Paris, 2000), 37.
64. For silent renewal of the lease see Section 6, below. For inland Flanders see E. Thoen, 'A "commercial survival economy" in evolution', esp. pp. 128-9.
65. D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leur familles: Une étude du catasto florentin de 1427 (Paris, 1978), 261-2 and 274-8.
66. A. J. Maris, De reformatie der geestelijke en kerkelijke goederen in Gelderland (The Hague, 1939), 75, 83, 221 and 490.
67. For the seventeenth century see also P. Brusse, Overleven door ondernemen: De agrarieschiedenis van de Over-Betuwe, 1650-1850, AAG Bijdragen 38 (Wageningen, 1999), 140-5.
68. J. A. E. Kuys and J. T. Schoenmakers, Landpachten in Holland, 1500-1650, Amsterdamse historische reeks 1 (Amsterdam, 1981), 26 and 34 (a picture of a poster dating from 1603).
69. Moorman van Kappen, Met open buydel ende in baren gelde, 8 and 10, for instance in West Friesland.
70. D. W. Sabean, Property, production, and family in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870 (Cambridge, 1990), 356.
71. See the examples in L. Feller, 'Quelques problèmes liés à l'étude du marché de la terre durant le Moyen Âge', in S. Cavaciocchi ed., Il mercato della terra, 21-45.
72. C. Wickham, 'Land sales and land market in the eleventh century', in his Land and power: Studies in Italian and European social history, 400-1200 (London, 1994), 257-74
73. and Mountains and the city: The Tuscan Appenines in the early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), 242-56.
74. P. Toubert, 'L'Italie rurale aux VIIIe-IXe siècles: Essai de typologie domaniale', in I problemi dell'Occidente nel secolo VIII (Spoleto, 1973), volume I, 95-132, esp. pp. 104-11.
75. Wickham, Mountains and the city, 27-8 and 231-5.
76. Remaining the case until far into the modern era; see G. Levi, Le pouvoir au village: Histoire d'un exorciste dans le Piémont du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1989), 112-18.
77. See P. J. Jones, 'From manor to mezzadria: A Tuscan case-study in the medieval origins of modern agrarian society', in N. Rubinstein ed., Florentine studies (London, 1968), 193-241, esp. pp. 206-14
78. and S. R. Epstein, 'The peasantries of Italy, 1350-1750', in T. Scott ed., The peasantries of Europe, 88-9.
79. G. Corona, 'La propriété collective en Italie', in N. Vivier ed., Les prapriétés collectives face aux attaques libérales (1750-1914) (Rennes, 2003), 156-73.
80. E. Huertas, 'Between law and economy: "divided property" and land market in Tuscany, 12th-13th century' (unpublished paper, COST a35 Conference, Gregynog, 2006).
81. C. Violante, 'Quelques caractéristiques des structures familiales en Lombardie, Emilie et Toscane aux XIe et XIIe siècles', in G. Duby and J. le Goff eds., Famille et parenté dans l'occident médiéval (Rome, 1977), 87-147, esp. pp. 118-24.
82. Jones, 'From manor to mezzadria', 215.
83. P. Jones, The Italian city-state: From commune to signoria (Oxford, 1997), 240.
84. See D. J. Osheim, 'Countrymen and the law in late-medieval Tuscany', Spectum 64 (1989), 317-37, for the Lucca area, where the situation was relatively favourable.
85. P. Schulte, Scripturae publicae creditur... das Vertrauen in Notariatsurkunden im kommunalen Italien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 2003), 100-8.
86. See M. Aymard, 'From feudalism to capitalism in Italy', Review 6 (1982), 131-208, esp. p. 193
87. and J. P. Cooper, 'Patterns of inheritance and settlement by great landowners from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries', in J. Goody, J. Thirsk and E. P. Thompson eds., Family and inheritance: Rural society in Western Europe, 1200-1800 (Cambridge, 1976), 192-327, esp. pp. 277-88.
88. D. Sella, Italy in the seventeenth century (London and New York, 1997), 27 and 63-9.
89. B. J. P. van Bavel, 'The emergence and growth of short-term leasing in the Netherlands and other parts of Northwestern Europe (11th-16th centuries): A tentative investigation into its chronology and causes', to be published in B. J. P. van Bavel and P. Schofield eds., The rise of leasing, forthcoming in CORN publication series, 10.
90. See R. H. Britnell, 'Tenant farming: Eastern England', Agrarian history, part III 611-24, esp. pp. 613-16
91. and J. L. Bolton, The medieval English econorny, 1150-1500 (London, 1980), 40-2, 88-9 and 208-20.
92. E. Miller, The abbey and bishopric of Ely: The social history of an ecclesiastical estate from the tenth century to the early fourteenth century (Cambridge, 1951), 104 and 109-10.
93. Britnell, 'Tenant farming: Eastern England', esp. pp. 615-16.
94. According to one of the few estimates made; see J. Whittle, 'Leasehold tenure in England c. 1300-c. 1600', to be published in B. J. P. van Bavel and P. Schofield eds., The rise of leasing, forthcoming in CORN publication series, 10.
95. See R. L. Hopcroft and R. J. Emigh, 'Divergent paths of agrarian change: Eastern England and Tuscany compared', Journal of European Economic History 29 (2000), 9-51, p. 14
96. and Jones, 'From manor to mezzadria', 205 and 220-1.
97. See F. L. Galassi and J. S. Cohen, 'The economics of tenancy in early twentieth-century southern Italy', Economic History Review 47 (1994), 585-600, nuancing the older picture on this point.
98. Kuys and Schoenmakers, Landpachten in Holland, 23-5, and
99. J. T. de Smidt, Rechtsgewoonten. De gebruiken en plaatselijke gebruiken waarnaar het burgerlijk wetboek verwijst (Amsterdam, 1954), 105-6 and 126-33. ('After-letting' was the assumed right to carry on with the tenancy on the same conditions for some time after the term of a lease had expired.)
100. As in the village of Langerak (1502); see B. J. L. de Geer ed., ' De heerlijkheid van Langerak en hare rechten', Verslagen en Mededeelingen Oud-Vaderlandsch Recht 3 (1898), 163-81.
101. C. Cau, S. van Leeuwen et al. eds., Groot placaet-boeck, part I, cols. 329-42 (1580) and 363-4 (1515), part II, cols. 2515-20 (1658) and part III, col. 586 (1452).
102. Hoyle, 'Tenure and the land market', 9 and more extensively his 'Long-term trends in tenure in the British Isles, 1300-2000: A comparative survey', unpublished paper for the ESSHC conference in The Hague (2002), E. Miller, 'Tenant farming: Yorkshire and Lancashire', The agrarian history of England and Wales, part III (Cambridge, 1967 2000), 596-611, esp. pp. 597-8 and 608
103. and M. Bloch, French rural history: An essay on its basic characteristics (Berkeley, 1966), 179-80.
104. P. Bowden, 'Agricultural prices, farm profits, and rents', Agrarian history, part IV, 593-695, esp. pp. 685-6.
105. Jansen, Landbounpacht, 77-83.
106. See B. J. P. van Bavel, 'Elements in the transition of the rural economy: Factors contributing to the emergence of large farms in the Dutch river area (15th-16th centuries)', in Hoppenbrouwers and van Zanden eds., Peasants into farmers?, 179-201.
107. H. K. Roessingh, 'Garfpacht, zaadpacht en geldpacht in Gelderland in de 17e en 18e eeuw', Bijdragen en mededelingen Gelre 63 (1968/ 1969), 72-97.
108. E. Sabelberg, Der Zerfall der Mezzadria in der Toskana Urbana. Entstehung, Bedeutung und gegenwärtige Auflösung eines agraren Betriebssystems in Mittelitalien (Cologne, 1975), 116-46 and 217-19.
109. A. Bhaduri, 'Cropsharing as a labour process', Journal of Peasant Studies 10 (1983), pp. 88-93. More empirical research is needed to test this assumption.
110. For urban dominance in product markets see S. R. Epstein, ' Cities, regions and the late medieval crisis: Sicily and Tuscany compared', Past and Present 130 (1991), 3-50, esp. pp. 15, 28-33 and 38-9.
111. See for instance B. Poulsen, 'Rural credit and land market in the Duchy of Schleswig c. 1450-1660', in van Bavel and Hoppenbrouwers eds., Landholding and land transfer, 203-17
112. and the careful discussion by G. Béaur, 'Foncier et crédit dans les sociétés préindustrielles: Des liens solides ou des chaínes fragiles?', Annales ESC 49 (1994), 1411-28.
113. D. A. Ackerberg and M. Botticini, 'The choice of agrarian contracts in early Renaissance Tuscany: Risk sharing, moral hazard, or capital market imperfections?', Explorations in Economic History 37 (2000 , 241-57.
114. See M. Toch, 'Lords and peasants: A reappraisal of medieval economic relationships', Journal of European Economic History 15 (1986), 163-82, esp. pp. 168 77
115. and Thoen, Landbouwekonomie, 569-88.
116. See Epstein, 'The peasantries of Italy', 98-101
117. and a more pessimistic view in Hopcroft and Emigh, 'Divergent paths of agrarian change', 16.
118. See also D. Herlihy, 'Population, plague and social change in rural Pistoia, 1201-1430', Economic History Review 18 (1965), 225-44.
119. J. Zuijderduijn, 'Medieval capital markets: Markets for renten between state formation and private investment in Holland (1300-1550)' (unpublished PhD thesis, Utrecht University, 2007), 186-91.
120. D. A. Ackerberg and M. Botticini, 'Endogenous matching and the empirical determinants of contract form', Journal of Political Economy 110 (2002), 564-91, esp. pp. 575-6.
121. Jones, 'From manor to mezzadria', 226-7.
122. For the Netherlands see van Bavel, 'Land, lease and agriculture'.
123. E. Thoen and T. Soens, 'Appauvrissement et endettement dans le monde rurale: étude comparative du crédit dans les différentes systèmes agraires en Flandre au bas Moyen Age et au début de l'Epoque Moderne', in Cavaciocchi ed., Il mercato della terra secc. XIII-XVIII, 703-20, esp. pp. 710-11.
124. J. Zuijderduijn, 'Assessing the rural economy: Household wealth, economic traffic and the domestic market in Holland and Tuscany, 15th and 16th centuries', unpublished paper (Florence/Utrecht, 2007)
125. and 'Medieval capital markets', 182-6.
126. P. Godding, Le droit foncier à Bruxelles (1960), 205, 213-16 and 220-31.
127. The following examples are taken from Smith, 'Families and their land in an area of partible inheritance', 135-195, esp. p. 153
128. and P. Glennie, 'In search of agrarian capitalism: Manorial land markets and the acquisition of land in the Lea Valley c.1450-c.1560', Continuity and Change 3 (1988) 11-40, esp. p. 20.
129. This applies to the period before 1350, as well as to the sixteenth/ seventeenth centuries. See the overview by Whittle, 'Individualism', 49-50 and 55-6.
130. See also, for instance, the general impression one obtains from A. Jones, 'Bedfordshire: Fifteenth century', in P. D. A. Harvey ed., The peasant land market in medieval England (Oxford, 1984), 178-251, esp. pp. 192-223.
131. For instance see Campbell, 'Population pressure, inheritance and the land market', esp. pp. 107-20.
132. B. J. P. van Bavel, Transitie en continuïteit: De bezitsverhoudingen en de plattelandseconomie in het westelijke gedeelte van het Gelderse rivierengebied (ca. 1300 - ca. 1570). (Hilversum, 1999), 418-23.
133. Van Bavel, Transitie en continuïteit, 536-7.
134. See G. Bois, Crise du féodalisme (Paris, 1976), 219
135. P. Vandewalle, 'Het pachtkontrakt in westelijk Vlaanderen, 1550-1645: een analytische studie', Handelingen van het genootschap voor geschiedenis 'Société d'Emulation' 118 (1981), 5-61, esp. pp. 26-7 and 44
136. Thoen, Landbouwenomie, 361-3
137. Jansen, Landbouwpacht in Brabant, 91-2
138. and C. Reinicke, Agrarkonjunktur und technisch-organisatorische Innovationen auf dem Agrarsektor im Spiegel niederrheinischer Pachtverträge, 1200-1600, Rheinisches Archiv 123 (Cologne and Vienna, 1989), 127-31.
139. L. Genicot, L'économie rurale Namuroise au bas moyen âge, 1199-1429 (Louvain, 1943), 280-1
140. Reinicke, Agrarkonjunktur, 127-31
141. and Cooper, 'In search of agrarian capitalism', in T. H. Aston and C. H. E. Philpin eds., The Brenner debate: Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe (Cambridge, 1985), 163 and 172.
142. Corresponding to the impression of the peasant land market in England having evolved earliest in East Anglia, or in eastern England in general; see Hyams, 'The origins', 19.
143. W. Achilles, Deutsche Agrargeschichte im Zeitalter der Reformen und der Industrialisierung (Stuttgart, 1993), 109-20.
144. B. J. P. van Bavel, 'Agrarian change, property rights and economic growth: Regional divergencies in the late medieval Netherlands', paper presented at workshop 'Property rights, the market in land and economic growth in Europe', Gregynog, 2006.