Economics and History: Analysing Serfdom

doi:10.1017/9781009231053.015

14 - Economics and History: Analysing Serfdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 December 2022

Sheilagh Ogilvie

Edited by

Richard Bourke and

Quentin Skinner

Show author details

Richard Bourke: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Quentin Skinner: Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter considers the widely hypothesized antithesis between economics and history, and argues that the two disciplines are not substitutes but complements. It develops its argument through demonstration, by exploring how economics and history together provide complementary approaches to analyzing a specific historical institution: serfdom. To draw out general implications of such disciplinary complementarities, it scrutinizes three scholarly controversies about serfdom – how it shaped peasant choices, how it constrained these choices, and how it affected entire societies. To resolve these controversies, it shows, economics and history each brings special expertise, which have proven most productive when used jointly. The essay uses these debates about serfdom in particular to draw implications concerning the mutually reinforcing capacities of economics and history in general. It concludes that by working together, economics and history have improved our understanding of pre-modern society to a much greater extent than either discipline could have achieved in isolation.

Keywords

Economics history serfdom

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: History in the Humanities and Social Sciences , pp. 329 - 353

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009231053.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, R. C. 2000. ‘Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300–1800’, European Review of Economic History, 4: 1, pp. 1–25.Google Scholar

Allen, R. C. 2001. ‘The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War’, Explorations in Economic History, 38: 4, pp. 411–47.Google Scholar

Becker, G. S. 1968. ‘Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach’, Journal of Political Economy, 76: 2, pp. 169–217.Google Scholar

Brenner, R. 1976. ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe’, Past & Present, 70, pp. 30–75.CrossRef Google Scholar

Broadberry, S. 2016. ‘When and How Did the Great Divergence Begin?’, paper presented to the Fifth Asian Historical Economics Conference, Seoul National University, Seoul, September 2–3, 2016.Google Scholar

Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Klein, A., Overton, M. and Van Leeuwen, B.. 2015. British Economic Growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge.Google Scholar

Broadberry, S. and Gardner, L.. 2015. ‘Economic Development in Africa and Europe: Reciprocal Comparisons’, Revista de Historia Economica/Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 34: 1, pp. 11–37.Google Scholar

Broadberry, S., Guan, H. and Li, D. D.. 2018. ‘China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Study in Historical National Accounting, 980–1850’, Journal of Economic History, 78: 4, pp. 955–1000.CrossRef Google Scholar

Broadberry, S. and Gupta, B.. 2006. ‘The Early Modern Great Divergence: Wages, Prices and Economic Development in Europe and Asia, 1500–1800’, Economic History Review, 59: 1, pp. 2–31.Google Scholar

Brunner, O. 1968. ‘Das Ganze Haus und die Alteuropäische Ökonomik’ in Neue Wege der Sozialgeschichte, ed. Brunner, O.. Göttingen.Google Scholar

Campbell, B. M. S. 1984. ‘Population Pressure, Inheritance and the Land Market in a Fourteenth-Century Peasant Community’ in Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle, ed. Smith, R. M.. Cambridge.Google Scholar

Campbell, B. M. S. 2005. ‘The Agrarian Problem in the Early Fourteenth Century’, Past & Present, 188, pp. 3–70.Google Scholar

Carus, A. W. and Ogilvie, S.. 2009. ‘Turning Qualitative into Quantitative Evidence: A Well-Used Method Made Explicit’, Economic History Review, 62: 4, pp. 893–925.Google Scholar

Cerman, M. 1996. ‘Proto-industrialisierung und Grundherrschaft: ländliche Sozialstruktur, Feudalismus und proto-industrielles Heimgewerbe in Nordböhmen vom 14. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (1381–1790)’. PhD thesis, University of Vienna.Google Scholar

Cerman, M. 1999. ‘Gutsherrschaft und untertäniges Gewerbe: die Herrschaften Frýdlant und Liberec in Nordböhmen’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 47: 1, pp. 2–19.Google Scholar

Cerman, M. 2008. ‘Social Structure and Land Markets in Late Medieval Central and East-Central Europe’, Continuity and Change, 23: 1, pp. 55–100.Google Scholar

Cerman, M. 2012. Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300–1800. Basingstoke and New York.CrossRef Google Scholar

Chayanov, A. V., Thorner, D., Kerblay, B. and Smith, R. E. F.. 1966 [1925]. The Theory of Peasant Economy. Homewood, IL.Google Scholar

Cook, P. J., Machin, S., Marie, O. and Mastrobuon, G., eds. 2013. Lessons from the Economics of Crime: What Reduces Offending? Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar

Coppola, M. 2010. ‘The Biological Standard of Living in Germany before the Kaiserreich, 1815–1840: Insights from English Army Data’, European Review of Economic History, 14: 1, pp. 71–109.Google Scholar

Czap, P. 1978. ‘Marriage and the Peasant Joint Family in Russia’, in The Family in Imperial Russia: New Lines of Historical Research, ed. Ransel, D. L.. Urbana.Google Scholar

Dennison, T. 2006. ‘Did Serfdom Matter? Russian Rural Society, 1750–1860’, Historical Research, 79: 203, pp. 74–89.Google Scholar

Dennison, T. 2011. The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom. Cambridge.CrossRef Google Scholar

Dennison, T. and Ogilvie, S.. 2007. ‘Serfdom and Social Capital in Bohemia and Russia’, Economic History Review, 60: 3, pp. 513–44.Google Scholar

Dyer, C. 1980. Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540. Cambridge.Google Scholar

Dyer, C. 2007. ‘The Ineffectiveness of Lordship in England, 1200–1400’, Past & Present, 195, pp. 69–86.Google Scholar

Enders, L. 1995. ‘Individuum und Gesellschaft: bäuerliche Aktionsräume in der frühneuzeitlichen Mark Brandenburg’ in Gutsherrschaft als soziales Modell: vergleichende Betrachtungen zur Funktionsweise frühneuzeitlicher Agrargesellschaften, ed. Peters, J.. Munich.Google Scholar

Figes, O. 1989. Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution (1917–1921). Oxford.Google Scholar

Fogel, R. W. and Elton, G. R.. 1983. Which Road to the Past? Two Views of History. New Haven.Google Scholar

Freeze, G. L. 1976. ‘The Disintegration of Traditional Communities: The Parish in Eighteenth-Century Russia’, Journal of Modern History, 48: 1, pp. 32–50.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hagen, W. W. 2002. Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers 1500–1840. Cambridge.Google Scholar

Hatcher, J. 1981. ‘English Serfdom and Villeinage: Towards a Reassessment’, Past & Present, 90, pp. 3–39.Google Scholar

Hatekar, N. 2003. ‘Farmers and Markets in the Pre‐Colonial Deccan: The Plausibility of Economic Growth in Traditional Society’, Past & Present, 178: 1, pp. 116–47.Google Scholar

Hilton, R. H. 1975. The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford.Google Scholar

Himl, P. 2003. Die ‘armben Leüte’ und die Macht: die Untertanen der südböhmischen Herrschaft Ceský Krumlov/Krumau im Spannungsfeld zwischen Gemeinde, Obrigkeit und Kirche (1680–1781). Stuttgart.Google Scholar

Hoch, S. 1996. ‘The Serf Economy and the Social Order in Russia’ in Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage, ed. Bush, M. L.. Harlow.Google Scholar

Hodgskin, T. 1820. Travels in the North of Germany: Describing the Present State of the Social and Political Institutions, the Agriculture, Manufactures, Commerce, Education, Arts and Manners in that Country Particularly in the Kingdom of Hannover. Edinburgh.Google Scholar

Homans, G. C. 1941. English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century. New York.Google Scholar

Jensen, P. S., Radu, C. V., Severgnini, B. and Sharp, P.. 2018. ‘The Introduction of Serfdom and Labor Markets’, CEPR Discussion Paper DP13303.Google Scholar

Klein, A. 2014. ‘The Institutions of the “Second Serfdom” and Economic Efficiency: Review of the Existing Evidence for Bohemia’ in Schiavitu e servaggio nell’economia europea. Secc. XI–XVIII/Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy from the 11th to the 18th Centuries, ed. Cavaciocchi, S.. Florence.Google Scholar

Kula, W. 1972. ‘La seigneurie et la famille paysanne dans la Pologne du XVIIIe siècle’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 27: 4–5, pp. 949–58.Google Scholar

Levett, A. E. 1938. Studies in Manorial History. Oxford.Google Scholar

Little, I. M. D. 1982. Economic Development: Theory, Policy, and International Relations. New York.Google Scholar

Markevich, A. and Zhuravskaya, E.. 2018. ‘The Economic Effects of the Abolition of Serfdom: Evidence from the Russian Empire’, American Economic Review, 108: 4–5, pp. 1074–1117.Google Scholar

Melton, E. 1988. ‘Gutsherrschaft in East Elbian Germany and Livonia, 1500–1800: A Critique of the Model’, Central European History, 21: 4, pp. 315–49.Google Scholar

Mironov, B. N. 1990. ‘The Russian Peasant Commune after the Reforms of the 1860s’ in The World of the Russian Peasant: Post-Emancipation Culture and Society, ed. Eklof, B. and Frank, S.. Boston and London.Google Scholar

Moon, D. 1996. ‘Reassessing Russian Serfdom’, European History Quarterly, 26: 4, pp. 483–526.Google Scholar

North, M. 2014. ‘Serfdom and Corvee Labour in the Baltic Area 16th–18th Centuries’ in Schiavitu e servaggio nell’economia europea. Secc. XI–XVIII/Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy from the 11th to the 18th Centuries, ed. Cavaciocchi, S.. Florence.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. 2001. ‘The Economic World of the Bohemian Serf: Economic Concepts, Preferences and Constraints on the Estate of Friedland, 1583–1692’, Economic History Review, 54: 3, pp. 430–53.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. 2005. ‘Communities and the “Second Serfdom” in Early Modern Bohemia’, Past & Present, 187, pp. 69–119.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. 2014a. ‘Choices and Constraints in the Pre-Industrial Countryside’ in Population, Welfare and Economic Change in Britain, 1290–1834, ed. Briggs, C., Kitson, P. and Thompson, S. J.. Woodbridge.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. 2014b. ‘Serfdom and the Institutional System in Early Modern Germany’ in Schiavitu e servaggio nell’economia europea. Secc. XI–XVIII/Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy from the 11th to the 18th Centuries, ed. Cavaciocchi, S.. Florence.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. 2014c. ‘Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy: Contribution to Tavola Rotunda’ in Schiavitu e servaggio nell’economia europea. Secc. XI–XVIII/Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy from the 11th to the 18th Centuries, ed. Cavaciocchi, S.. Florence.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. and Carus, A. W.. 2014. ‘Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective’ in Handbook of Economic Growth, ed. Durlauf, S. and Aghion, P., vol. IIA. Amsterdam.Google Scholar

Ogilvie, S. and Edwards, J.. 2000. ‘Women and the “Second Serfdom”: Evidence from Early Modern Bohemia’, Journal of Economic History, 60: 4, pp. 961–94.Google Scholar

Pallot, J. 1999. Land Reform in Russia, 1906–1917: Peasant Responses to Stolypin’s Project of Rural Transformation. Oxford.Google Scholar

Plakans, A. 1973. ‘Peasant Families East and West: A Comment on Lutz K. Berkner’s “Rural Family Organization in Europe: A Problem in Comparative History”’, Peasant Studies Newsletter, 2: 3, pp. 11–16.Google Scholar

Plakans, A. 1975. ‘Seigneurial Authority and Peasant Life: The Baltic Area in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5: 4, pp. 629–54.Google Scholar

Polanyi, K. 1957. The Great Transformation. Boston.Google Scholar

Popkin, S. 1979. The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. Berkeley.Google Scholar

Raftis, J. A. 1996. Peasant Economic Development within the English Manorial System. Stroud.CrossRef Google Scholar

Rasmussen, C. P. 2014. ‘Forms of Serfdom and Bondage in the Danish Monarchy’ in Schiavitu e servaggio nell’economia europea. Secc. XI–XVIII/Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy from the 11th to the 18th Centuries, ed. Cavaciocchi, S.. Florence.Google Scholar

Razi, Z. 1980. Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish: Economy, Society and Demography in Halesowen 1270–1400. Cambridge.Google Scholar

Razi, Z. 1993. ‘The Myth of the Immutable English Family’, Past & Present, 140, pp. 3–44.Google Scholar

Redfield, R. 1956. Peasant Society and Culture: An Anthropological Approach to Civilization. Chicago.Google Scholar

Scott, J. C. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven.Google Scholar

Seppel, M. 2020. ‘The Semiotics of Serfdom: How Serfdom was Perceived in the Swedish Conglomerate State, 1561–1806’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 45: 1, pp. 48–70.Google Scholar

Shanin, T. 1971. ‘Introduction: Peasantry as a Concept’ in Peasants and Peasant Societies, ed. Shanin, T.. London.Google Scholar

Smith, R. M. 1974. ‘English Peasant Life-Cycles and Socio-Economic Networks: A Quantitative Geographical Case Study’. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar

Stanziani, A. 2014a. Bondage: Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries. New York.Google Scholar

Stanziani, A. 2014b. ‘Russian Serfdom: A Reappraisal’, Ab Imperio, 2, pp. 71–99.Google Scholar

Štefanová, D. 1997. ‘Herrschaft und Untertanen: ein Beitrag zur Existenz der rechtlichen Dorfautonomie in der Herrschaft Frýdlant in Nordböhmen (1650–1700)’ in Gutsherrschaftsgesellschaften im europäischen Vergleich, ed. Peters, J.. Berlin.Google Scholar

Štefanová, D. 1999. Erbschaftspraxis und Handlungsspielräume der Untertanen in einer gutsherrschaftlichen Gesellschaft: die Herrschaft Frýdlant in Nordböhmen, 1558–1750. Munich.Google Scholar

Stone, D. 1997. ‘The Productivity of Hired and Customary Labour: Evidence from Wisbech Barton in the Fourteenth Century’, Economic History Review, 50: 4, pp. 640–56.Google Scholar

Van Bavel, B. J. P. 2008. ‘The Organization and Rise of Land and Lease Markets in Northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000–1800’, Continuity and Change, 23: 1, pp. 13–53.CrossRef Google Scholar

Whittle, J. 1998. ‘Individualism and the Family–Land Bond: A Reassessment of Land Transfer Patterns among the English Peasantry’, Past & Present, 160, pp. 25–63.Google Scholar

Wolf, E. R. 1969. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York.Google Scholar

Wunder, H. 1985. ‘Der dumme und der schlaue Bauer’ in Mentalitat und Alltag im Spatmittelalter, ed. Meckseper, C. and Schraut, E.. Göttingen.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.