The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe (Past and Present Publications)

349 Pages·1987·6.65 MB·English

by  T. H. Aston

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).