Past and Present Publications The Brenner Debate Past and Present Publications General Editor: PAUL SLACK, Exeter College, Oxford Past and Present Publications comprise books similar in character to the articles in the journal Past and Present. Whether the volumes in the series are collections of essays - some previously published, others new studies - or monographs, they encompass a wide variety of scholarly and original works primarily concerned with social, economic and cultural changes, and their causes and consequences. They will appeal to both specialists and non- specialists and will endeavour to communicate the results of historical and allied research in readable and lively form. For a list of titles in Past and Present Publications, see end of book. The Brenner Debate Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe Edited by T. H. ASTON and C. H. E. PHILPIN H CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211 USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Past and Present Society 1976, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1987 First published 1985 First paperback edition 1987 Reprinted 1990, 1993, 1995 Library of Congress catalogue card number: 84-21507 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The Brenner debate: agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe. - (Past and present publications) 1. Europe - Social conditions I. Aston, T. H. II. Philpin, C. H. E. III. Series 940.1'9 HN373 ISBN 0 52126817 6 hard covers ISBN 0 521 34933 8 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2002 WD Contents Preface page vii Introduction 1 R. H. HILTON 1 Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe 10 ROBERT BRENNER 2 Population and Class Relations in Feudal Society 64 M. M. POSTAN and JOHN HATCHER 3 Agrarian Class Structure and the Development of Capitalism: France and England Compared 79 PATRICIA CROOT and DAVID PARKER 4 Peasant Organization and Class Conflict in Eastern and Western Germany 91 HEIDE WUNDER 5 A Reply to Robert Brenner 101 EMMANUEL LE ROY LADURIE 6 Against the Neo-Malthusian Orthodoxy 107 GUY BOIS 7 A Crisis of Feudalism 119 R. H. HILTON 8 In Search of Agrarian Capitalism 138 J. P. COOPER 9 Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Bohemia 192 ARNOST KLIMA 10 The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism 213 ROBERT BRENNER Index 329 Preface The Brenner debate, as it has come to be called, may justifiably lay claim to being one of the most important historical debates of recent years, and goes back, in one form or another, to at least the time of Marx. In general terms, it bears witness to the continuing interest among historians and scholars in allied fields in the epoch-making theme of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. More specifi- cally, it maintains the tradition of Past and Present in fostering and stimulating discussion and debate on the fundamental issues of the past of which Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660 (published by Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1965) was the first and perhaps the most catalytic. The debate now reprinted from the journal has been long in the making, from Robert Brenner's original article, published in Past and Present in 1976 but stemming from an earlier version given as a paper to the social science seminar of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in April 1974, until his response published in 1982. Regrettably two of the contributors, Professor Sir Michael Postan and Mr J. P. Cooper, died before the debate was concluded, but their contributions stand as outstanding examples of their own different but equally stimulating approaches to the question. Doubtless they and some of the other authors would now put their points in slightly different form, but it was decided, if only to pre- serve the structure of the debate, that the essays should be reprinted as they originally appeared in the journal, save only for minor corrections and alterations. The debate has already aroused a most widespread interest among academics in many fields, as well as among ordinary readers, whether they are concerned with social, economic or demographic history, with the medieval or early modern periods, or whether their interests are directed to England, France or other countries of west- ern and central Europe; it has also had a most welcome readership among sociologists, historians of ideas, historiographers and stu- Vll viii Preface dents of peasant societies and indeed of western civilization as a whole. But it cannot aspire to be definitive and we would not wish it to be seen in that light. Rather it is our hope and belief that it will advance discussion of the great issue with which it is concerned in a most material way and that it will be essential reading for all his- torians and scholars in allied fields whatever the period with which they are specifically concerned. We are most grateful to all those at the Cambridge University Press who have assisted in the preparation of the volume, and especially to Mrs Fiona Barr for kindly compiling the index. T.H.A. C.H.E.P. Introduction R. H. HILTON Robert Brenner's challenging article, "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe", published in issue no. 70 of Past and Present (February 1976), initiated a debate of intense interest, not only to historians, but to all con- cerned with the causes behind transitions between successive social formations. In some respects it might be regarded as a continuation of that other well-known debate concerning the transition from feudalism to capitalism, which had been sparked off by the criticism by the American economist Paul Sweezy of the analysis given by Maurice Dobb in his Studies in the Development of Capitalism. That debate, however, which began in the American journal Science and Society in 1950, was largely conducted between Marxists.1 And although it undoubtedly had a resonance beyond them, it was inevitable that it should be seen as a debate within Marxism rather than one addressed to a wider public. This so-called "Transition debate" is hardly referred to in the "Brenner debate", even though there is considerable overlap in subject-matter, and even though Brenner himself, in a critique of Paul Sweezy, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, referred extensively to the Transition debate in the pages of the New Left Review in 1977.2 Nevertheless, those interested by the discussion in the pages of this volume would find much of interest in the Dobb-Sweezy controversy. The responses to Brenner's article were of varying character. Since Brenner was attacking what he considered to be a form of demographic determinism in the interpretation of the development 1 M. Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (London, 1946; repr. London, 1963, 1972). The Science and Society debate was republished, with supplementary material, as The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, introd. R. H. Hilton (London, 1976). 2 R. Brenner, "The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo- Smithian Marxism", New Left Rev., no. 104 (1977). 1 2 R. H. HILTON of the pre-industrial European agrarian economies (and to a lesser extent a commercial interpretation), some of the earliest responses were from historians whom he designated as "neo-Malthusians". Whatever these historians may have said about the deficiencies or otherwise of Brenner's factual basis, the main conflict was between rival explanatory theories concerning historical development. This seems to have been the principal motivation behind the responses of M. M. Post an and John Hatcher and of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. Another weighty theoretical critique of Brenner's thesis came, how- ever, not from a neo-Malthusian but from as severe a critic of neo- Malthusianism as Brenner himself. This was Guy Bois, whose then recently published Crise du fcodalisme, a detailed study of late medieval Normandy, had paid particular attention to population movements between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.3 Somewhat different reactions came from historians who did not concern themselves so much with overarching theoretical interpret- ations as with the factual underpinning of Brenner's argument. Patricia Croot and David Parker questioned Brenner's perception of agrarian structures and developments in early modern France and England. Heide Wunder expressed doubts about his appreci- ation of the agrarian histories of western and trans-Elbian Germany. The remaining contributors were not in fact so locked into the argument with Brenner as were those historians already mentioned. My own essay was based on a lecture given in Germany in 1977 and was unrelated to the Brenner debate, but included in the symposium because of the relevance of its theme. J. P. Cooper's article, unre vised because of his death, was, no doubt, influenced by the debate but was a development of his own particular interests in the economic and social history of early modern Europe. It would seem too that ArnoSt Klima's article is similarly a development of his own preoccupation with the early history of Bohemian capitalism rather than a specific response to Brenner. As will be seen, then, the contributions to the symposium relate to issues raised by Brenner but in rather different ways. Brenner's long and comprehensive summing up brings together most of these rather disparate contributions, absorbing and synthesizing, and, it must be said, giving no ground to his critics as far as his original 3 G. Bois, Crise du fiodalisme (Paris, 1976); Eng. trans., The Crisis of Feudalism (Cambridge, 1984).