Wed Dec 13 04:34:46 EST 2006
Published by EH.NET (December 2006)
Christopher Dyer, _An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in the
Later Middle Ages_. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2005. vi + 293 pp. $65 (hardback), ISBN: 0-19-822166-5.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Joseph P. Huffman, Department of History,
Messiah College.
Medievalists for some time now have been about the business of
questioning the traditional boundaries between the medieval and early
modern periods. It all started with taking down the Renaissance a few
pegs in Charles Homer Haskins' _The Renaissance of the Twelfth
Century_ (1927) and has been followed by such works as Lynn White's
_Medieval Technology and Social Change_ (1962), Joseph R. Strayer's
_On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State_ (1970), Pierre
Chaplais' _English Diplomatic Practice_ (1982), Colin Morris' _The
Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200_ (1987), and Giles Constable's
_The Reformation of the Twelfth Century_ (1996), all of which argue
persuasively that characteristics and trends we have deemed "modern"
appeared much earlier than the post-1500 western world.
What these scholars have wrought in the areas of cultural, political,
technological, and religious history, the eminent historian
Christopher Dyer (University of Leicester) has accomplished in the
area of English socio-economic history. Originally delivered as the
Ford Lectures (University of Oxford, Hilary Term 2001), this book's
fundamental thesis is "that many of the tendencies of the end of the
Middle Ages had their roots in a much earlier period ... [and that]
the advance of commercialization, as towns grew and markets
multiplied in the thirteenth century, has led to doubts about whether
the changes of the long fifteenth century were of much significance"
(p. 3). He continues on to assert that "Just as the commercial growth
of the thirteenth century prepared the way for the structural changes
of the fifteenth, so developments before 1500 can be connected with
the trends of the early modern period" (p. 3). Prosperous rural
yeomen, wage laborers, innovative farming techniques, occupational
specialization, and the rise of a consumer economy were not the
turning points of the early modern period but rather quite typical of
England before 1500.
Dyer is not fashioning a wholly new thesis here about English
economic history, but rather offering a wonderfully detailed yet
thoroughly readable account of the scholarship produced by a
generation of Anglo-American socio-economic historians (himself
perhaps foremost among them) in the past fifteen years or so: Richard
H. Britnell, Bruce M.S. Campbell, Stephan R. Epstein, John Hatcher,
Edward Miller, David Palliser, Derek Keene, Mavis Mate, Jim
Masschaele, Mary Ann Kowaleski, Wendy Childs, and Jenny Kermode, for
example. These scholars have produced ground-breaking evidence of a
rapidly commercializing economy in thirteenth-century England -- a
trend overlooked in the past because it was hidden in the local and
regional economies of towns rather than documented in multiple
metropolitan areas as one finds on the continent. Based on this
relatively recent scholarship, the picture of England's
socio-economic development looks much more matured before 1500 than
previously believed and the crisis of the fourteenth century proved
to be a period of economic innovation and advancement by the lower
ranks of society even though the aristocracy experienced decline.
Chapter one, entitled, "A New Middle Ages," articulates the thesis in
more detail. Dyer emphasizes the active agency of the lower ranks of
society in overcoming the challenges faced in the later Middle Ages,
as they used the market to their advantage. The twelfth and
thirteenth centuries no longer appear as a "false start" of a modern
economy, but rather as the foundation that weathered the storms of
the fourteenth century; continuities in urbanization,
commercialization, and transportation infrastructure remained the
norm well past 1500. Although the aristocracy lost economic ground
and social control in the later Middle Ages, the more entrepreneurial
among the social ranks beneath them proved resilient and even
prospered as a result of the crisis period. Dyer concludes, "the 'new
middle ages' contradicts the strongly held belief that decisions were
made by the powerful elite, and that change was directed from above
... many features of the period, from family structures to farming
methods, bear a strong resemblance to those prevailing in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (p. 40). It should also be
obvious that traditional views of the "transition from feudalism to
capitalism" are no longer viable, since the peasantry appears every
bit as entrepreneurial and commercial-minded as the gentry and urban
middle classes of the late fifteenth century.
The remainder of the book contains topical chapters of real interest
to economic historians. Chapter two considers the shifting boundaries
between private property and communal welfare. Dyer's case studies
reveal that conflicts driven by individual self-interest were not
early modern phenomena; indeed, peasants (not just lords) pressed for
'privatization' of common fields, and their retirement, inheritance,
and landholding practices reveal a desire for privacy and
independence between generations. Yet while a high rate of migration
and the transformation of the land market in the later Middle Ages
recalibrated communal village life, evidence shows that parish life
was vibrant with church ales, entertainment, fraternities, and a
great deal of church building and repair. Thus while family bonds
were weakened, civic bonds of sociability were actually strengthened
in this period.
Chapter three considers the relationship between authority and
freedom as magnates abandoned direct demesne farming and village
management in the later Middle Ages in response to a declining
capacity to extract wealth from a shrinking rural population.
Economic dynamism and market-based entrepreneurialism existed among
the gentry and peasantry, however, which collectively responded to
the new economic conditions of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Before royal government filled the political space vacated
by the magnates, the peasantry in particular enjoyed a period of
unparalleled freedom of migration and economic innovation. High
wages, low prices, low rents, and population decline as a result of
the plagues enabled untold peasants to migrate, to be freed from
serfdom and compulsory labor services, and to benefit from
opportunities in land and agricultural markets. Because of such
political and economic changes, Dyer argues that the peasantry
developed "puritan" social attitudes and a sense of belonging to the
political community as early as 1450.
Chapter four explores the results of recent research in the areas of
late medieval consumption and investment. Much of this evidence has
come from archaeological investigation of structures and artifacts,
and it entirely refutes the traditional view that consumerism did not
exist until the "consumer revolution" of the eighteenth century. As
Dyer asserts, "There is no value in announcing yet another
revolution, but we can recognize consumerism in the Middle Ages, and
identify episodes and characteristics in the material culture of our
period which have some similarity with those of the eighteenth
century" (p. 128). Of course the contracted economy of the later
Middle Ages (ca. 1375-1500) does not compare in size with that of the
eighteenth century, but when viewed from the point of view of
consumption rather than production, remarkably similar patterns
emerge. After the Black Death, likely because of lowered prices and
the concomitant increase in spending power, the pattern of
consumption changed markedly. Per capita expenditure for foodstuffs
and manufactured goods increased significantly: wheat bread replaced
rye and barley, more meat was consumed (indeed, more _fresh_ meat and
fish), and more ale brewed (now from barley malt instead of oats).
New building, metal products, and ceramic pottery (replacing wooden
cups and bowls) are signs of changing manufacturing patterns. Even
fashion became a significant aspect of consumption, with shops
beginning to advertise in order to create demand: one need only think
of the notorious poulaine shoe with its four-inch long toes and the
close-fitting short garments of the era. Increased expenditures on
consumer goods, however, did not in fact inhibit investment. Again,
although lords invested less in the later Middle Ages, new groups
(farmers, entrepreneurs, artisans) spent much more on infrastructure,
textile mills, ironworks, and even facilities to brew hopped beer on
a large scale.
Dyer extends the economics of consumption and investment further in
chapter five, which considers the relationship between subsistence
living and markets in this period traditionally understood as one of
economic contraction. He concedes that the volume of economic
activity obviously shrank during this period. Yet he persuasively
argues that the "ingrained habits of marketing and the employment of
credit and money continued" (p. 173). Though it was an era of
economic contraction for some, it was also an age of opportunity and
prosperity for many (like entrepreneurial farmers, artisans, and even
wage-earners), who in time subverted the social hierarchy by dressing
and eating above their traditional status. We are reminded of the
Statute of Laborers, the sumptuary laws, and the _Canterbury Tales_
in this context.
What attitudes toward work and leisure developed among the lower
ranks of society during this period? In chapter six Dyer considers
this question, and though he rejects the view that a "proletariat"
class of wage earners emerged in the later Middle Ages he does assert
that definite attitudes toward the value of work and leisure
appeared, which had profound implications for the traditional ethic
of charity. "Voluntary idleness" became unacceptable given a strong
work ethic; therefore charity was increasingly reserved for the
"deserving poor" with vagrancy and begging frowned upon as mere
laziness. In a rather modern-looking development, familial care at
retirement diminished given the smaller number of children and their
mobility during this period and so the community was turned to for
support. The net affect was one of pragmatism rather than charity,
akin to our modern attitudes toward welfare. For their part,
employers conceived of a "work ethic" because of the labor shortage
(i.e. they needed to maximize their labor resources). But we also
find this ethic among wage-earners who were seeking to better
themselves through hard work. Dyer concludes, "'Modern attitudes
towards leisure and social security, which are so often thought to
have developed under Protestant influence, were emerging in
association with the work ethic" (p. 241).
Dyer does a masterful job of using new types of sources that shed
light on the dynamic and vital aspects of late medieval economic
history. Reliance on traditional sources of estate records from the
aristocracy and church obviously renders a picture of slow economic
decline and decay of social control. Yet inclusion of wills and
archaeological sites of buildings provides additional dimensions that
reveal continuity and even entrepreneurial adaptation to changing
economic times among those below the aristocracy and upper clergy.
Thereby Dyer has effectively defended the thesis that "the supposed
turning point around 1500 has been given excessive importance, as
many features of the early modern period can be observed well before
1500 and even before 1300" (p. 244).
The socio-economic patterns Dyer articulates so well in this
monograph are by now well known to medievalists. The
historiographical aspects have been anticipated by John Hatcher and
Mark Bailey's _Modeling the Middle Ages: The History and Theory of
England's Economic Development_ (Oxford University Press, 2001).
Indeed, one will find this understanding of late medieval economic
trends throughout histories that include continental Europe; for
example, Fran=E7ois Crouzet's _A History of the European Economy,
1000-2000_ (University of Virginia Press, 2001) has already asserted,
"The European economy of the late Middle Ages and the early modern
period ... was not fundamentally different from the one that had
emerged in the thirteenth century." Peter Spufford's _Power and
Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe_ (Thames & Hudson, 2002) has
also declared, "The whole period from this commercial revolution
[i.e. of the thirteenth century] to the industrial revolution of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries possessed an economic unity ..."
Though the bibliography of this volume is extremely thorough when it
comes to English historiography, Dyer could have taken his volume
beyond the Hatcher/Bailey historiography by connecting late medieval
England's economic history with that of the larger economic history
of Europe (and of contemporary continental historiographies). The
signal benefit of this book, though, is that we see English economic
patterns in line with those on the continent, even though England
only had one major metropolitan region.
But this is asking more than was intended for this fine book. Dyer
was hoping to build bridges with Anglophone socio-economic historians
of the early modern era rather than with medievalists, and we can
only hope that they will take up this book and engage with him anew
the subject of the "age of transition" toward a modern economy. If
this book becomes mandatory reading for all scholars of English
economic history, as it should well be, we can be sure that there
will emerge a clearer and more unified view of English economic
history from the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries.
Joseph P. Huffman is academic dean of the School of the Humanities at
Messiah College and Professor of European History. He has authored
_Family, Commerce and Religion in London and Cologne: Anglo-German
Emigrants, c. 1000-1300_ (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and _The
Social Politics of Medieval Diplomacy: Anglo-German Relations
(1066-1307)_ (University of Michigan Press, 2000).
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