Chapter IV: Agricultural Tribes (4)

The principal cause of the commutation of labour dues for money was that the lord let portions of the demesne instead of cultivating it through his bailiff or reeve. He had now less need for the services of the villeins; for these services had consisted mainly in working on the demesne [1451]. This change in the mode of cultivation was perhaps due partly to political circumstances (absence of the lord at court or in war), as in Germany it certainly was. But we think there were economic causes also at work. In early times, when land was abundant, it was necessary for the lord to keep the cultivators he wanted in personal subjection; he therefore made them work in his presence and under the supervision of his bailiff. But now the villeins had come to attach value to their holdings, they were no longer inclined to run away, for it would have been difficult for them to find land to live upon. The villein claimed an hereditary right to the land he cultivated, and the question as to whether he had any such right already began to be discussed by the lawyers [1452].

At the beginning of the 14th century most of the cultivators were still bound to the soil [1453], but the first germs of a thorough change were already present. There were free tenants who could sell their lands; tenancies at will already occurred, though not frequently [1454]; and a class of free labourers arose. In Grossteste’s rules, dating from 1240 or 1241, it is said that servants and retainers “are to do what they are bid immediately without any grumbling or contradiction; if they show any such disloyal spirit they must be dismissed, for many can be had to fill their places” [1455]. And there were also agricultural labourers who, though holding small pieces of land, had not enough land to live upon, and were partially dependent on wages. Even where the peasants were still obliged to cultivate the demesne, they did not usually perform such work themselves, but hired labourers to do it; the usual phrase is that they have to “find” a man for the work [1456].

Here again our theory holds. Population had increased, land became scarce, and the transition from serfdom to freedom commenced. If the population of England had continued increasing, most of the villeins would probably have become freeholders or copyholders, whereas the lands that the lords had kept in their own hands would have been leased. And poor people who had neither land of their own nor capital enough to become farmers would have served for wages.

But an unexpected event entirely changed the economic condition of England. The Black Death, which made its first appearance in 1349, swept away a large part of the population. Whole villages were practically annihilated and large tracts of land went out of tillage. The economic consequences were such as we should expect. “As one immediate result there was great difficulty in getting labourers; the difficulty was aggravated in those cases where the tenants had died off and the lords were left with large holdings on their hands and no means of working them; while they lost the predial services of these deceased tenants on the home farm. There was consequently an immensely increased demand for hired labourers at the very time when their numbers were so much thinned, and it seemed as if the agriculture of the country was completely ruined” [1457]. Land was now again abundant, and so “instead of ousting tenants, lords of land found it hard enough to retain them even with lightened services” [1458]. And the natural consequence was that the landlords attempted to re-attach tenants and labourers to the soil. Whether, as Professor Thorold Rogers asserts, the customary tenants, who had commuted their labour dues for money, were forced back into the servile position of their ancestors, is not certain [1459]. At any rate “we may grant that, now that labour had become so costly, the lords would insist on the exact performance of such labour dues as had not yet been commuted, and on the punctual payment of all money rents. There is much reason to believe, moreover, that they abused their power of imposing “amercements” on their tenants in the manor courts for trivial breaches of duty” [1460]. This severe and unaccustomed pressure on the villeins, who were becoming comfortable copyholders, resulted in Wat Tyler’s revolt of 1381 [1461].

Nor were the labourers any longer allowed to dispose freely of their labour power. “While the plague was actually raging parliament could not meet, but a proclamation was at once issued by the king with the advice of certain prelates and nobles, of which the preamble states that, “many seeing the necessity of masters and great scarcity of servants will not serve unless they get excessive wages”, and that consequently the land can be scarcely tilled. Everyone, free or villan, who can work and has no other means of livelihood, is not to refuse to do so for anyone who offers the accustomed wages; each lord is to have the preference in hiring the men on his own estate, but none is to have too many men for his work; no labourer is to leave his employment before the specified time; nor to receive more rations or wages than he did in the twentieth year of the king and the common years before that; none are to give or take more wages in town or country” [1462].

The depopulation of this time caused a reappearance of free land, i.e. of land which had practically no value, and so agricultural labourers were scarcely to be had. Therefore the lords to some extent reattached the cultivators to the soil.

These measures, however, were of little avail. It was not easy to prevent an employer from secretly giving more than the statutory wages. The penalties for infraction of the regulation were rendered more severe, the fines being replaced by imprisonment; yet the whole legislation proved a failure [1463].

And even if the statutes of labourers had been everywhere enforced, “many landowners would have been left in a position of great difficulty; if there was no one to do the work it did not much matter what they were to be paid, and in not a few villages scarcely any one was left to carry on the ordinary agricultural operations.” Therefore new expedients had to be devised, of which the most general appears to have been the stock and land lease; “the new tenant took the land and the stock off the lord’s hands and made in return a definite annual payment.” These tenants “probably sprang from the class of free labourers, as the surviving villains who already had their own holdings, would not be so easily able to offer for a portion of the domain land which the lord desired to let” [1464].

Here again we see the consequences of the abundance of land. The land alone could not fetch a reasonable price; stock and land had to be leased together.

As these leaseholders were taken from the labouring class, this measure, of course, still further diminished the supply of labour.

All these palliatives could not, indeed, better the position of the landlords to any considerable extent. They had to wait for an increase of population which would render to the land the value that it had before the Black Death. As, however, the plague recurred several times, the population appears to have scarcely increased [1465].

The landlords remained in this difficult position till about 1450 [1466], when a new and very efficacious remedy was suggested to them: they applied a new mode of working their estates, which rendered them the practical command over the land, without need of a denser population. The extension of the wool trade and the dearth of labour made it far more profitable to keep large flocks of sheep than to grow corn. Consequently much land was laid down in pasture; there was a steady increase of sheep farming during the 15th century and a corresponding decrease of corn growing [1467].

In our chapter on pastoral tribes it has been shown that the care of flocks and herds does not require much labour. We can, therefore, easily understand that after the rise of sheep farming there was far less need for agricultural labour than before. There had been scarcity of labour; now there was over-population and many people were thrown out of employment; for over-population exists, not only when there are more people than the land can support, but when there are more people dependent on wages than can be profitably employed by the owners of land and capital [1468].

Sheep farming was introduced in the first place on the manorial demesnes, of which the lords had the free disposal. The demesne usually formed from one-third to a half of the whole arable area of a manor. Since the labour services of the villeins had been commuted, the tillage of the demesne had furnished employment to many small tenants and landless cottagers who, partly or entirely, depended on wages. The substitution of pasture for tillage on the demesne, therefore, brought many of them to ruin; for none but a few shepherds could thenceforth be employed [1469].

But far graver evils resulted from the appropriation by the lords of the commons and the land held by villeins or customary tenants.

The commons, i.e. the common pasture and waste, had always been used jointly by the lord and villeins. Whether the latter had any legal right to them is not certain; probably they had not; but they had always been accustomed to have the free use of them. Now the lords began to inclose large parts of these commons for the formation of sheep runs. The consequence was that many of the customary tenants, who had relied on the commons for pasturing their cattle, could no longer keep the cattle necessary for the cultivation of their holding. Their farming became unprofitable, and they had to leave their lands, which were instantly occupied by the lords and laid down in pasture [1470].

Even when the cultivator had not left his tenement, the lord sometimes appropriated and “inclosed” it.

The inclosures which took place, especially in the 16th century, are a fact of foremost importance in the history of English agriculture. The term “inclosure” has two different meanings. In medieval England the lands of the villeins, with those of the lord interspersed between them, lay scattered in a number of acre or half-acre strips, no two strips held by one man being contiguous. This system, dating from a time of extensive tillage, fell short of the exigencies of advanced culture, and had to be removed before any improvement in the mode of cultivation could be made. Therefore inclosures have often, especially in the reign of Elizabeth, been made with the common consent of all the landholders concerned, the result being that every tenant, instead of many scattered strips, obtained one or a few fields lying together. “But in the earlier part of the same movement, during the period which may be roughly defined as from 1450 to 1550, inclosure meant to a large extent the actual dispossession of the customary tenants by their manorial lords. This took place either in the form of the violent ousting of the sitting tenant, or of a refusal on the death of one tenant to admit the son who in earlier centuries would have been treated as his natural successor” [1471]. It was this latter kind of inclosure that was condemned by several writers of the 16th century, for instance by Hales, who by inclosure did not mean “where a man doth enclose and hedge in his own proper grounds where no man hath commons. For such enclosure is very beneficial to the commonwealth; it is a cause of great encrease of wood; but it is meant thereby when any man hath taken away and enclosed any other men’s commons, or hath pulled down houses of husbandry and converted the lands from tillage to pasture” [1472].

Ashley, discussing the question as to whether the lords had a right to turn out the villeins, arrives at the conclusion that “during historical times and until comparatively modern days, the cultivators of the soil were always in a condition of dependence, and held their lands at the arbitrary will of their lords. For centuries the lord knew no other way of getting his land cultivated, and had no wish to get rid of a tenant; whenever he did so, it was altogether exceptional. But with the tendency to limitation and definition so characteristic of the feudal period, custom tended to harden into law, and it would seem to have been on the point of becoming law when a change in the economic situation,—the increasing advantage of pasture over tillage,—prompted the lords to fall back on their old rights. Then followed a struggle between a legal theory becoming obsolete, but backed by the influence of the landowners, and a custom on its way to become law, backed by public sentiment and by the policy of the government” [1473].

This is in perfect keeping with our theory. In former times land was abundant, and therefore the lord “had no wish to get rid of a tenant,” for he “knew no other way of getting his land cultivated”. But now sheep farming made appropriation of the whole of the land possible, and so the lord was no longer in need of the villeins; he even went so far as to evict those whom his ancestors had attached to the soil. And even where the cultivators remained on the land, they often, and not always voluntarily, became leaseholders instead of copyholders; and “in many cases a lease was but a stepping-stone to tenure at will” [1474]. The lords no longer contented themselves with the customary payments; instead of villeins they wanted leaseholders, whose rents they could raise at the end of each term, according as the value of the land had increased. “Rents were raised with great rapidity as the tenant had to pay a sum equivalent to the utility of his holding as part of a large pasture farm.” [1475].

There was also far less need for agricultural labourers than before. “The decay of tillage and lack of rural employment, during this century,” says Professor Cunningham “rest on unimpeachable evidence” [1476]. In the 14th century “the problem of the unemployed, as it now presents itself, had not yet arisen.” But the agrarian changes “deprived great numbers of the agricultural labouring class,—small customary tenants and cottagers,—of the means of support in their old places of abode, and sent them wandering over the country” [1477].

The appropriation of the whole of the land had thus given to the rural economy of England a new and essentially modern character: there were now leaseholders and tenants at will, labouring poor and unemployed. And the ancient institution of serfdom could not hold its own in the presence of such thorough changes. “The slow agricultural revolution which rendered their services less useful to the manorial lords, gradually set the villans free by removing the interest their masters had in retaining a hold upon them.” “In some instances the exaction of predial services from villans by manorial lords can be traced as late as the time of Elizabeth; but though no change was made in the law, the lords seem to have found that it was not worth their while to assert their rights over the persons of their bondmen” [1478].

There were, however, many parts of England in which scarcely any inclosures took place [1479]. Here the villeins remained on their lands and gradually became copyholders. They were still bound to services, which, however, were generally commuted for small money payments, so the conditions of their tenure were annoying rather than oppressive. Moreover, their obligations were no longer personal, but territorial; they were not astricted to the soil. And as they had an hereditary right to their holdings, they differed but little from freeholders. The “innocuous curiosities of copyhold,” survivals of ancient serfdom, have lasted up to modern times [1480].

Our theory can thus be of much use in accounting for the changes which have taken place in the rural economy of England. As long as there was still free land, i.e. land which, though sometimes claimed by an owner, could not fetch any reasonable price, the cultivators were astricted to the soil; but as soon as the proprietors had got the practical command over the whole of the land, many of the villeins were evicted and replaced by leaseholders or tenants at will or became such themselves; and the remainder became copyholders, i.e. proprietors obliged to some services or payments without being personally unfree.

We shall inquire now whether in Germany too the appropriation of the whole of the land coincided with the transition from serfdom to freedom.

§ 11. The rural classes of medieval Germany.

In the time of the Merovingians the greater part of the country was covered with forests and people relied on the products of the forests for a considerable portion of their subsistence. Land was abundant, and even the cultivated land had hardly any exchange value [1481].

Much new land was, however, already being taken into cultivation. The village communities, consisting of free peasants, as well as separate members of these communities, cleared considerable portions of the waste land lying round the villages. In the 8th century some communities already forbade individuals to reclaim land; but this was still of rare occurrence; generally speaking the waste could be appropriated by whoever chose to take it into cultivation [1482].

The bulk of the population consisted of free peasants. There were two unfree classes: slaves and lites (a kind of serfs); but these were not numerous [1483].

The free peasant, though he had plenty of land, was rather poorly off; he had no slaves and so could only dispose of the labour power of himself and his family; and in this time of extensive tillage the produce of each man’s labour was small [1484].

Great proprietors were still rare. They worked their own lands with slaves. Sometimes, however, they gave pieces of land in use, generally to slaves; for, says our informant, the free peasants did not like to take the land of the nobles and so make themselves dependent on them [1485]. And when land was given in use to free peasants (especially by the church) this was done on very advantageous terms, often at a nominal rent [1486].

Land was thus abundant, slavery existed, and tenant farmers and free labourers were absent.

In the Carolingian period the clearing of forests went on continually. Some land was still reclaimed by free peasants, but much more by the great proprietors who controlled abundant labour forces [1487]. The lords were already beginning to claim much uncultivated land, the reclaiming of which they only allowed on condition of the cultivator subjecting himself to them. There was far less unappropriated land than in the foregoing period, and such as there was was claimed by the king [1488]. Yet we cannot speak of an appropriation of the whole of the land; for we know that a claim of the king to large tracts of uninhabited land is practically of little consequence. Accordingly our informant states that land was still abundant. The free peasants were already in a difficult position, not, however, because land was scarce, but because they could not provide the labour necessary to convert woods and marshes into arable land [1489].

In this period the free peasants began to be absorbed by the great proprietors. The latter wanted labourers and did their utmost to astrict the common freemen to their estates. Many people placed themselves under the protection of nobles; others, being reduced to poverty (especially through the institution of the wergild, and the compulsory military service which interfered with the cultivation of the land) fell into the hands of the lords; and some were straightway made serfs by violence. As the landlords had the right of jurisdiction and other public rights, they could easily subject the small landholders under some pretext or even without any. Former free peasants, lites, and such slaves as had received a piece of land in use, though designated by different names, came to form practically one class, the labouring as opposed to the ruling class [1490]. A manorial organization arose similar to that which existed in England. There were some slaves for personal service and agricultural labour and a great number of dependent peasants of various kinds, who had to cultivate the demesne of the lord and yield him part of the produce of their own holdings [1491].

Free labourers were found rarely if at all [1492].

Our informant in several passages speaks of freemen destitute of land [1493]. But these people are not in any way to be identified with the poor of modern times who depend on wages. They were generally foreigners who had no rights in any village community; but the lords were always ready to receive them and give them a piece of land in use on condition of their rendering services and paying tributes. The natural increase of the labouring population and immigration of foreign labour did not yet cause any difficulty [1494].

Most of the cultivators of this time had not the right of leaving the manors to which their holdings belonged [1495].

We see that in this period there was still much free land; slavery existed and serfdom was on the increase; leaseholders, tenants at will and free labourers were wanting. All this agrees with our theory.

In the next period colonization and reclaiming of waste land went on on a large scale. But at the same time the population increased and the value of the land increased with it. Lamprecht, speaking of the 13th century, writes: “Colonization and reclaiming of land had entirely changed the condition of the rural population between the 10th and the 13th century. In the time of the Carolingians wood and land had still been regarded as inexhaustible goods of the nation, like the sun, air and water; but now the limitations of the geographical basis of national life appeared more and more clearly. There had been an immense range of land to grow food upon; but now the supply of land became limited, chiefly and first on the Rhine, in Suabia and Franconia, afterwards in Saxony, and finally in Bavaria, the Tyrol, and Styria; people had to shift on a limited area. The soil became, more than before, an object of economic value; its price kept continually increasing. In the 12th century, in some prosperous districts, land seems to have attained twelve times the value it had in the 9th; and even afterwards, down to the second half of the 13th century, an increase of about 50 per cent. is to be observed. Taking into consideration that land was still regarded, especially by the ruling classes, as the only basis of social and political influence (though already other sources of large incomes were gradually arising), we may understand how intense the struggle for the possession of the soil must have been at this period” [1496].

The right of the king to unappropriated land was now enforced more strictly than before, and the lords began to claim a right of property over the commons surrounding the villages, which, however, were often still left to the use of the peasants [1497].

However, there was no over-population as yet. The proprietors did their best to attract people to the vast newly colonized districts, especially to the eastern parts of Germany [1498].

During the whole of this period the landlords went on subjugating the rural population, so that at the end of it the peasant proprietors, who had once formed the bulk of the population, had almost entirely disappeared, and most of the land was taken up with the estates of the great proprietors [1499].

But the increase in the value of land already made itself felt in the way in which the lords managed their estates. They less and less frequently worked their own lands; their chief aim was no longer the disposal of the labour of their dependents, but the receiving of rent. The labour dues were often commuted for money payments [1500].

Labour was not worth so much to the lords as it had been. They sometimes emancipated their slaves, retaining the land which they had given them in use [1501].

At the same time a class of free tenants arose. Lamprecht remarks that while the value of land had considerably increased the tributes which the villeins had to pay had remained unchanged for several centuries. In an economic sense the landlords had been dispossessed of a large proportion of their property in the land. Therefore it was not their interest to let serfdom continue.

“At this time, especially since the middle of the 12th century, the villeins and landlords of the most progressive districts settled their mutual relations by free contract. Serfdom was abolished, sometimes entirely, sometimes for the greater part, some formalities only subsisting. The former villein acquired the right to emigrate, and remained as a free tenant on the land he had till then occupied. Thus, by leasing his lands for terms of years, and sometimes for life or on hereditary tenancy, the landlord got back the full rent of his property; and this system, especially the lease for years, enabled him to raise the rent at the end of each term, according as the value of the land had increased in the meantime” [1502].

Inama-Sternegg does not quite agree with this view of Lamprecht’s. Even where the rent was higher than the former customary payment, he says, the leaseholder was free from the labour dues and additional payments to which the villein had been bound, so the transition from fixed payment to rent did not always mean an enhancement of the obligation of the peasant [1503]. Yet this writer too states that the leasing of land became more and more frequent. There were free contracts between proprietor and tenant, which did not interfere with the personal liberty of the latter; even non-fulfilment of his obligations by the tenant had only pecuniary consequences [1504].

We cannot but think that the reason given by Lamprecht for the transition from servile to free tenure is true. For even when the original rent was not higher than the former customary payment plus the value of the labour dues, the possibility of raising the rent after each term remained.

We hear of free tenants in this period, but not yet of free labourers. This is exactly what our theory teaches us to expect. Land, in some parts of Germany, had already acquired a high value; such land must have been very remunerative, and so people were ready to pay a rent for its use, even though there was still land to be had gratis or at a nominal rent, but far from the market and therefore less profitable. But the country was not yet so densely peopled that there were men who could not secure the use of any piece of land; therefore a class of people dependent on wages did not yet exist.

In the 13th century much new land was still taken into cultivation, in Western as well as Eastern Germany; but in the following centuries very little land was added to the arable area. The woods, which had formerly been regarded as inexhaustible, were no longer present in great abundance, and the rulers of the German states as well as the landlords exerted themselves to preserve the remainder and forbade the peasants to clear them. From the middle of the 14th century these prohibitive measures became general [1505].

As the population continued to increase, land became scarce. In many parts of Southern and Western Germany the lords parcelled out their lands in small portions, and farms of the size which had been customary for centuries became rare [1506].

The rights of the peasants to the use of the commons, on which they had always relied for a considerable portion of their subsistence, were now restricted, and the lords asserted their claims to the commons more strictly than before [1507].

Another consequence of the increase of population was that cattle-keeping was no longer possible on such a large scale as formerly when the common pasture occupied a great part of the land. At the end of the Middle Ages there was a scarcity of meat, and people had to rely, more than before, on vegetable food [1508].

The need of the landlords for the services of the peasants went on diminishing. They no longer worked their own estates; nearly the whole of their income consisted of the payments in kind and in money which they received from their dependents [1509].

In Lower Saxony and part of Westphalia the lords, as early as the 13th century, emancipated considerable numbers of villeins in their own interest. For the villeins had gradually acquired some right to their holdings, and the landlords, by setting them free, got back the free disposal of the land, which they thenceforth let out to free tenants [1510].

In the 14th century the lords began to turn out peasants (Bauernlegen) and lease the land of which they thus re-acquired the free disposal [1511].

Free tenancies became now general, parts of the demesne, as well as lands which had been held in servile tenure, being leased. The increased demand for land enabled the lords to let small allotments at extravagant prices [1512].

Even where the customary tenures remained, the obligations of the peasants, which had been personal, in many cases became territorial, the holder of the land as such being subject to payments. And the conditions of this tenure were so little servile that sometimes nobles and knights received such land in use and took the obligations on themselves [1513].

The difference between farmers and agricultural labourers now first came into existence. The latter most often held a small patch of land, but this was not sufficient to live upon; they depended on wages. Besides agricultural labourers there were male and female servants for household labour. The regulation of wages by law, which occurred especially after the ravages of the great plague, proves that in the southern and western parts of Germany free labour had become general. Such servile work as still remained was often done by labourers hired by the peasant to whose duty the work fell, just as in the case of the English peasant who “found” a man [1514].

All land was now held as property; consequently the land was more and more held by free tenants and worked with free labourers dependent on wages, whereas serfdom gradually died out.

In the 15th century, however, according to both Lamprecht and Inama-Sternegg, serfdom and even slavery reappeared.

Lamprecht, after speaking of the raising of rents by the landlords, adds: “But more disastrous in its consequences than all this was the manner in which the landlords dealt with the increasing surplus population of the farms occupied by their villeins. Formerly, younger sons of villeins, as well as children of free parents, had removed to the woods for the purpose of clearing them; and it was with their help that the landlords had in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries extended their landed properties. In later times such younger sons had often gone to the towns or the newly colonized districts of Eastern Germany. Now there was a stagnation among them as well as among the small remainder of the free population. There remained no other alternative but to divide the farms of the villeins. But the interest of the landlord was opposed to this. He had no security of receiving rent and services from farms parcelled out into small allotments. Therefore he did not, as a rule, divide the farms into more than four parts; and those of the servile population who could not secure the use of such a small holding were regarded as slaves. This institution, the origin of which went back to the first half of the 12th century, had till then been almost entirely foreign to the development of Germany. Together with a rural proletariat destitute of nearly everything, a real slavery came now for the first time into existence on German ground.... And this new slave class went on continually increasing; in the first half of the 15th century they already formed a considerable number, about whose fate patriots were very uneasy.... Nor did the evil stop here. The term slavery, used first with regard to villeins who occupied no farm, was soon applied to all villeins, in order to tax them more and more heavily and dispute their right of succeeding to the farms of their parents, which had been established at least since the end of the 12th century. Finally the landlords came to regard even free tenants as slaves and slavery as the only status of the rural population” [1515].

We can easily understand that the lords designated these proletarians by the most contemptuous name they could devise. But were they really slaves? A slave, as opposed to a free labourer, is not allowed to leave his master. Now it is remarkable that Inama-Sternegg, describing the condition of the rural population in the different states of Germany, though he states that in the newly colonized eastern parts of Germany the peasants, who had been free, were restricted in their right of leaving their lords, mentions no such particulars of Western Germany [1516]. And the chief aim of the peasants, in their revolts at the end of the 15th century, was not to acquire personal freedom, but to retain the use of the commons, which the lords were appropriating [1517].

The peasants were, indeed, obliged to more services in the 15th than in the 13th and 14th centuries. But we cannot regard this as a mark of returning serfdom or slavery; for Inama-Sternegg explicitly states that the greater oppression of the rural classes in the 15th century was chiefly due to the increase of the services required by the rulers of the several German states. The services exacted by the landlords had rather diminished [1518].

The same writer, recapitulating his conclusions as to the condition of the rural population at the end of the Middle Ages, begins by saying that the cultivators, who formerly had had an hereditary right to the land on condition of paying a fixed sum, were now far more heavily taxed and had little security of remaining on the land [1519]. We think that this is what the statements of our informants about the reappearance of slavery mean. The cultivators were not slaves, but impoverished and despised tenants at will and agricultural labourers.

At any rate, in the 16th century eviction of peasants, which is the reverse of astriction to the soil, became of frequent occurrence. Ashley, who has consulted some of the best literature, states that “the Bavarian code of 1518 laid down that the peasant had no hereditary right to his holding, and not even a life interest unless he could show some documentary evidence. In Mecklenburg a decree of 1606 declared that the peasants were not emphyteutae but coloni, whom their lords could compel to give up the lands allotted to them, and who could claim no right of inheritance even when their ancestors had held the land from time immemorial. In Holstein, again, a great number of the peasants were expelled from their holdings, and such as remained became tenants at will” [1520].

Serfdom, in Southern and Western Germany, thus died out towards the end of the Middle Ages, at a time when population had become numerous and land scarce.

The eastern parts of Germany had quite another agrarian history. Here serfdom was not common before the 16th century. From this time, however, and especially after the Thirty Years’ War, it became more and more general. As this is quite a separate history we shall not speak of it any further [1521].

We think the above remarks on England and the older parts of Germany may suffice to show that our theory can throw some light on the agrarian history of Western Europe.

We are fully aware that the condition of the rural classes must have been determined by many more circumstances of greater and lesser importance. But it seems to us that the general cause of which we have spoken in these paragraphs is second to no other in its operation [1522].

§ 12. Open and closed resources.

We have said that among agricultural peoples slavery, as an industrial system, only exists where there is still free land; it disappears as soon as all land has been appropriated. We have also seen that slavery does not prevail to any considerable extent where subsistence is dependent on capital [1523]. We may now combine these two conclusions into this general rule: slavery, as an industrial system, is not likely to exist where subsistence depends on material resources which are present in limited quantity.

A tribe or nation cannot subsist without labour (though the amount of labour required is sometimes small); but, besides this, material resources are always necessary. The resources which man uses to procure his subsistence are of two kinds: gifts of nature, and products of human labour. The latter are commonly termed capital; their supply is always limited. Most of the former (air, water, the heat of the sun, etc.) exist in unlimited quantity, i.e. there is so much of them that nobody wants to appropriate them. Land is also a gift of nature, and in some very thinly peopled countries, where there is much more fertile ground than can be cultivated, it has not any more value than air and water. But as all land has not the same properties, it soon comes to pass that the most fertile and most favourably situated land is appropriated by some men to the exclusion of others. This is the origin of rent. Finally, when the less valuable grounds have also been appropriated, free land no longer exists; there is no piece of land but has its definite owner [1524]. This last state of things has social consequences very similar to those which exist where subsistence depends on capital. In both cases indispensable means of production are in the hands of definite persons; therefore a man destitute either of land or of capital (according as subsistence depends on the former or the latter), cannot subsist independently of the owners, but has to apply to them for employment. Moreover, in both cases more than a limited quantity of labour cannot be profitably employed: the owner of capital, or of a limited space of land, cannot derive any profit from employing more than a certain number of labourers. Therefore in either case slavery, as an industrial system, is not likely to exist.

These considerations lead us to an important conclusion. All the peoples of the earth, whether they subsist by hunting, fishing, cattle-breeding, agriculture, trade or manufactures, may be divided into two categories. Among the peoples of the first category the means of subsistence are open to all; every one who is able-bodied and not defective in mind can provide for himself independently of any capitalist or landlord. Among some of these peoples capital is of some use, and some valuable lands are already held as property; but those who are destitute of such advantages can perfectly well do without them, for there are still abundant natural supplies open to them. Among the peoples of the other category subsistence depends on resources of which the supply is limited, and therefore people destitute of these resources are dependent on the owners. It may be convenient to suggest technical names for these two categories. We shall speak of peoples with open resources and peoples with closed resources. We think the meaning of these terms is clear, and they may be convenient for use. The distinction is an important one. We suppose we have sufficiently proved that the relations between the social classes differ largely, according as resources are open or closed: only among peoples with open resources can slavery and serfdom exist, whereas free labourers dependent on wages are only found among peoples with closed resources [1525]. Our distinction may prove valuable in other respects also, e.g. over-population and lack of employment are unknown among peoples with open resources; war, which, when resources are open, has sometimes rather the character of a sport, becomes more serious when resources have become closed, for then its object is to extend the supply of land or capital at the cost of the enemy [1526]; pessimism is more likely to prevail among peoples with closed than among peoples with open resources, etc. [1527]. We shall not, however, enlarge upon these points any further.

Most savage tribes have open resources. All hunters have (with the exception, perhaps, of some Australians): neither the game nor the hunting territories are held as property. Further, most fishers: fishing is carried on in a simple manner and does not yet require capital. And finally, most agricultural tribes; among them superest ager, as Tacitus says of the ancient Germans [1528].

Savage tribes with closed resources are: 1º possibly some Australian hunters, if it is true that among them every inch of ground is held as property, 2º the Eskimos (fishers), who cannot get on without a boat, or a sledge and dogs, 3º all pastoral tribes, 4º the agricultural tribes inhabiting most of the Polynesian and Micronesian islands, the Fijians and perhaps a few agricultural tribes outside Oceania.

We shall not inquire whether the civilized nations of ancient and modern times have, or had, open or closed resources. We will only remark that in Western Europe resources, from open, have become closed. Yet they are not altogether closed, as long as there are still thinly peopled countries open for emigration. Whether the white races will still have room for expansion for a considerable time, we cannot know.

When we were preparing the first edition of this work, we thought the distinction between countries with open and with closed resources had not been made before. Since we read Lange’s book on the labour problem and saw that the author speaks in the same sense of open and closed countries or open and closed economy. We give here the passages of most interest, bearing on the subject. “There is a great difference between the economy of open and closed civilized countries. In the former there is still an abundance of land fit for cultivation, of which every labourer has the free use; in the latter all land has been taken into cultivation and appropriated. This difference is so fundamental, that it would be best to formulate a separate economic theory for either of the two cases and then, in applying the theory to the facts, to examine how far, in every instance, the characteristics of open or closed economy are present. The latter proceeding is always necessary, for the important distinction we have made is a relative one, no country presenting exclusively the conditions of either open or closed culture.” In another chapter the author dwells more at length on the idea, laid down in the last sentence. “The earth still contains large territories, not yet taken into cultivation, which in a certain sense are open to every one; but there are such factors as habits, prejudices, etc., which bind people to their own country, and there are further material impediments to emigration from old civilized countries, which are so great, that the economy of such countries may practically be regarded as closed, without being such in an absolute sense. On the other hand, even in the most open colonial country there are always circumstances which make the occupation of uncultivated land difficult and so the economy of such a country presents some characteristics of a closed economy. Between these two types there are numberless intermediate stages and therefore economic life is in reality subject to the influences of both open and closed economy. But in theory a sharp line of demarcation must be drawn between these two states of society; for only so can we attain to a right understanding of real economic life” [1529].

In the following paragraphs we shall speak of the effect of secondary causes among agricultural tribes. We shall not, however, enter into many details. The difficulty, in our branch of science, is always, that we have so few works of predecessors to rely upon. For instance, we shall speak of the influence of trade among agricultural tribes. Now, if any accurate researches had been made into the general effects of trade, we should be able to conclude that trade having been proved to have such general effects, it must have such an influence on slavery. But as such is not the case, we should be obliged, if we were thoroughly to investigate the subject, to inquire what are the general effects of trade. An equally close study of militarism, of the condition of women, etc., would be required. And as in this way our book would never come to an end, we shall content ourselves with giving a few outlines, which we hope may turn the attention of other ethnologists to the important problems which the ensuing paragraphs will contain.

§ 13. Condition of women.

As we have remarked before, the position held by the women of a tribe determines to some extent whether or not slaves are wanted. Where all the drudgery is performed, and can be performed, by the women, and the men do not want to relieve them of it, there is no great use for slave labour. But where women enjoy high consideration, the men are more likely to procure slaves who are to assist the women in their work.

We shall speak first of the latter fact, of slaves performing female labour. It is very often stated that slaves are employed for domestic labour. And as, in countries where slavery does not exist, domestic labour is nearly always incumbent on the women, slaves who perform such work alleviate the women’s task. Where slavery prevails to a great extent it even occurs that slave-owners, female as well as male, have scarcely anything to do, all work falling to the share of the slaves. The slave-owners, in such case, form the aristocracy; the slaves, and the poor freemen unable to purchase slaves, are the labouring classes. We may remind the reader of ancient Rome, where the domestic slaves, the familia urbana, performed all domestic services required by the rich, and of the women of the upper classes in Mohammedan countries, who spend their time in idleness in the harems.

We have seen that among some pastoral tribes domestic labour is the chief occupation of the slaves. We do not recollect having found any instance of a similar state of things among any agricultural tribe, and cannot think that such will anywhere be the case. A rich cattle-keeper can easily support, by the produce of his cattle, some domestic slaves who perform no productive labour. But among agricultural tribes it is otherwise: subsistence here depends almost entirely on labour; therefore slaves performing unproductive labour can only be kept if there are other slaves who till the soil and procure food for the family. It is not probable that the master will himself undertake the cultivation required to feed the slaves who assist his wife in her work; nor would the wife be glad to receive slaves from her husband, if she had to provide for them by working on the field. The Romans would not have kept a familia urbana, if there had not also been a familia rustica.

Hitherto we have spoken of unproductive female labour. But women, in primitive agricultural societies, often perform productive labour also: in many cases the tilling of the soil is incumbent on them. We may suppose that the introduction of slaves has often served to free the women from this task. We shall not, however, proceed to a closer examination of this point; for this would require a digression on the division of labour between the sexes, which falls beyond the scope of the present volume.

On the other hand, the place of slaves is often supplied by wives. We have seen that among the Australian hunters polygamy widely prevails and serves economic purposes. The same is the case among some agricultural tribes.

In § 8 the non-existence of slavery in most of the Melanesian islands has been left unexplained. We shall see now that in several of these islands a “slavery of women” prevails which bears much resemblance to slavery proper. Purchase of wives is in vogue; and most of the women are bought by the rich, many of whom possess a large number of wives. And the women must work hard to increase the income of their owners [1530].

Guppy, in his description of the Solomon Islands, states: “The powerful chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits usually possess a large number of wives of whom only the few that retain their youth and comeliness enjoy much of the society of their lord. The majority, having been supplanted in the esteem of their common husband, have sunk into a condition of drudgery, finding their employment and their livelihood in toiling for the master whose affections they once possessed. I learned from Gorai, the Shortland chief, who has between eighty and a hundred wives, that the main objection he has against missionaries settling on his islands is, that they would insist on his giving up nearly all his wives, thereby depriving him of those by whose labour his plantations are cultivated and his household supplied with food. A great chief, he remarked, required a large staff of workers to cultivate his extensive lands, or, in other words, numerous women to work in his plantations and to bring the produce home” [1531].

This statement is very remarkable. In the second chapter of Part I we have seen that in these same islands of Bougainville Straits boys are captured from the neighbouring islands. Guppy calls them slaves, but at the same time tells us that they “enjoy most of the rights of a native of the common class” [1532]. There is thus no difficulty in obtaining slaves; yet slavery is little developed, for the simple reason that polygamy perfectly serves the purposes of slavery.

Ribbe equally remarks that on Bougainville polygamy is common. The wife is the slave of her husband: she has to till the fields, to perform most of the domestic work and to take care of the children. In the Shortland Islands (near Bougainville) the wife is the slave and beast of burden of her husband, rather than his companion [1533].

In the Nissan Islands, according to Sorge, most of the work is done by the women [1534].

In the New Hebrides polygamy also prevails. The price paid for a wife varies from 10 to 20 pigs, “according to her capabilities as a worker in the yam-patch.” “They [the women] learn in their girlhood all that fits them to be man’s slave and toiler in the fields”. “Women are degraded to the level of brute beasts, doing all the hard field work, and being made to carry loads which appear quite disproportionate to their ugly-shaped bodies and thin legs” [1535]. Hagen and Pineau give a similar account of female labour, and add that a man’s wealth depends on the number of his wives [1536].

De Vaux, speaking of the women of New Caledonia, says: “All the drudgery is incumbent on them. They perform the clearing and digging of the soil, carry on their backs crushing loads of ignames and taros to the village, and, if a chief has promised you assistance in some fatiguing work that you want to have quickly done, he will send you a gang of these miserable beings who may scarcely be called women.” Turner remarks: “Chiefs had ten, twenty, and thirty wives. The more wives the better plantations and the more food.” “If a wife misbehaved, the chief did not divorce her, but made her work all the harder”. And Rochas tells us that the New Caledonians keep no servants, but have many wives instead; rich men have as many wives as they want for the cultivation of their fields [1537].