Tag: Economic

• Power and Politics in Medieval Iberia: What Primary Sources can tell us about Rulers and Ruled

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  The historian’s enigma is to extract a logical and reliable narrative from material that is generally neither of those things. This statement is especially true for medieval primary sources which are rightfully considered articles whose information must be assessed with particular scrutiny. The often-sparse number of medieval sources available related to any singular topic compounds this problem and severely limits the historian’s capacity to gleam information via comparison. In this article for example, when researching the Asturian Kingdom, there are only three substantial sources to draw upon to assess its 192 year period: The Chronice of Albelda, The Chronicle of Alfonso III, and The Chronicle of Sampiro, and all three have been proved to be incorrect on several accounts. This article must therefore admit that medieval primary sources are limited in the extent to which they can tell us about relations within medieval hierarchies; we cannot claim that they reveal all facets of these relationships to us.

  However just as these sources are not perfect, they are also not altogether flawed. There are certain types and areas of hierarchical relationships within Christian Iberia that our primary source material can be said to specialise in; this specialisation is primarily upon commercial transactions. Medieval records concerning what people are willing to pay for or receive in a transaction are appreciably more substantial than in other categories and financial information is unlikely to be falsified when multiple parties are involved who hold each-other accountable. Constructing a reliable economic history of power dynamics can therefore be achieved, with some influence from political history. Contrarily, producing a social, cultural, or intellectual history would be extremely challenging in this context. Economic sources like the Liber Feudorum Maier inform us about land allocation within a noble’s territory, the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris elucidates the practice of profiliatio whereby peasants enter into dependence of a lord, and the Historia Roderici refers to the cash payments given to vassals as reward for good service. The first thing these economic sources tell us is that the relationship between rulers and ruled in Christian Iberia was not one based upon intrinsic faith, authority, or right; from peasant to lord to monarch there was always an economic incentive provided to maintain the existing structures of power. The reason behind why unpaid slaves are scarcely mentioned in the primary sources for this period is because they were not involved in such commercial transactions. The extremely high value of slaves during this period also meant that they were infrequently traded, meaning they are rarely mentioned even as commodities.

  The fact that our best historical sources concern economics and politics means that the aristocracy de facto becomes a further specialisation of our material. We can better assess the relationships within the aristocracy, wherein significant proportions of wealth are often traded, than between itself and the peasantry, even though the difference in relationship would evidently be far greater in the latter case. There are several categories of document that pertain almost exclusively to the aristocracy: fueros set out legal conditions for prestimonio, the process by which land could be taken away from the peasantry, property conveyances denote land acquired by nobles such as those of Count Suero and Countess Enderquina, often in relation to inheritance, and charters such as The Charter of 1152 show the priming of new land for exploitation. The fact that all these economic documents relate to land is also telling and shows the particular form of economic relationship that existed between rulers and ruled in this period, one that existed under what has been called a ‘quasi-feudal’ model.

  What is the difference between a ‘quasi-feudal’ society and a simply “feudal” one, and what does that mean for relationships within the model? Firstly, our primary sources show us that the relationships between rulers and ruled in medieval Christian Iberia were to a certain extent symbiotic; each level of the hierarchy relied upon the others to either generate or protect income for them. Additionally, the nobility and monarchy were involved an exchange process of prestige; kings and queens would look to the endorsement of nobles as vindications of their legitimacy whilst nobles placed much importance on receiving titles, particularly comites. However, it would be incorrect to frame this power structure as a pyramid, with the monarch in absolute control, as a feudal model is traditionally constructed. Indeed, the influence of noble families could often rival or exceed that of the monarch, as seen in the war between Alfonso VII and Gonzalo Peláez in which the king was forced to make significant concessions to the rebel as documented in the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris. Medieval Iberia was quasi-feudal because its royals had high status but their power rested on their ability to control their ‘regional potentates’.

  These relationships were as volatile as they were co-dependent. If economic incentives were insufficient for one level of social strata, they could turn on another; as the veneer of a united Christian front against Islamic oppressors fell rapidly away. In the records of the Cortes we can see how co-operation was only managed between monarchy and nobility when tax concessions were made. The Usages of Barcelona carefully draws a separation between independent levels of aristocratic power in terms of who has which right to extract wealth from the land. Indeed, conflict existed not just between levels of hierarchy, but also within them; Alfonso VI was required to act as a ‘chief justiciar’ to mediate between the various nobles and factions within his court.

  Despite our sources primarily pertaining to aristocratic power dynamics, we can draw some conclusions which apply to the proletariat by asking the right questions of our material. Why were rebellious local lords not turned upon by their own vassals in favour of the monarch who was, after all, their ultimate leader? The answer must be that the people did not hold unswerving allegiance to the royalty. Indeed, the medieval Christian Iberian peasant held a distinctly ‘de-centred’ world view, within which they held loyalty to people, not positions. A new ruler would have to act quickly to establish themselves as worthy of their own rank, they could not simply rely on being unquestioningly accepted into the role, as shown with Queen Urraca in the Historia Compostelana. Monarchs such as Alfonso II and Alfonso III likened themselves to old Visigoth rulers in their self-propaganda in order to make themselves palatable to their subjects. This devolutionary perspective was a symptom of medieval Christianity, which envisaged a universal “kingdom of Christ” that all rulers were ultimately subservient to. Conceptually this world-wide dominion could not be escaped no matter your ruler, as is evident from descriptions within the Consilia of Oldradus da Ponte. This relative ambivalence to leadership was expedited by the significant periods of unrest that the people of medieval Iberia experienced, most infamously during the time of the “party kings”. Cities and peoples found it difficult to foster an attachment to their ruler when they expected they may be replaced in the not-too-distant future. Even outside of these times the upper classes were not a fixed establishment and powerful families could rise as well as fall from grace relatively often.

  Religion institutionally played a far divergent role from that which it played conceptually. Our economic primary sources reveal a relationship dynamic between the papacy and the aristocracy in which who could be called ruler and who could be called ruled is difficult to assess. Ultimately, I would deem the aristocracy to hold more power than the church but not to such a significant level that it could be said to rule over it. This conclusion is reached because in several other contemporaneous European countries, most notably in the regions of what we today call France and Germany, peoples lived more by canon law than civil, but this was not the case in Iberia. Primary accounts like that of the Bayan or the Cronica Albeldero reveal to us the image of a monarchy of distinctly secular character that saw little need to go through the church to claim connection to god. However other sources such as monastic cartularies show us the economic power of the church; the land and wealth accrued by monasteries and cathedral churches meant that rulers still had to be careful to heed the word of bishops for fear of losing the income they could provide.

   Primary records that relate directly to the power dynamics of common people are rare. Generally we find that sources only exist where disputes have turned into more active forms of resistance such as the rebellion on the estate of the House of Lara in the early 14th century, which appears part of a wider trend of resistance beginning in the 1300s. However it must be noted that the remains of archives of noble families are effectively non-existent pre-14th century and so there was likely more popular resistance to seigneurial power in the preceding centuries for which we have little documentary evidence. This highlights a weakness of primary material, the sources we don’t have can be just as influential on our assessments of the past as those that we do.

  Ultimately, with consideration of their flaws, medieval primary sources in an economic context are able to reveal certain facets of the relationships between rulers and ruled in Christian Iberia. They tell us that within a de-centred quasi-feudal world the peasants, aristocrats, monarchs, and bishops were often reliant on one another to exist symbiotically. However, they also tell us that these were relationships fraught with conflict and complex power dynamics that did not always fall into a neat pyramidical structure. For each-other they were their greatest allies whilst simultaneously being potentially potent enemies.

  Author Publisher: Louis Lorenzo

  Date of Publication: 8th of December 2018

  2018.12.08

• The Generalising Crisis of the 17th Century

  ‘The mid-seventeenth century experienced a “general crisis” in which a wave of economic, social and political upheavals swept over many parts of the northern hemisphere’ (Parker, 2001, p.20)

  To accurately assess this statement, it is necessary to first define the term ‘general crisis’. For the purposes of this article the definition used herein has been devised from a plain amalgam of ‘crisis’ and ‘general’. Crisis being defined as ‘a decisive stage in the progress of anything… applied esp. to times of difficulty’ and general as ‘approximately universal within implied limits’. Therefore, we define ‘general crisis’ as:

  “A period of decisive change that affects a significant proportion of the global population, commonly caused by times of difficulty.”

  By this definition, the ‘general crisis’ theory is not controversial, it is commonplace. Difficulty resulting in change is what you may simply term, “history”, and by extension, historiography itself, the study of change. Certainly the 17th century is no exception to this rule and Parker’s own contribution illustrates this convincingly. His figures on state-breakdowns, popular revolts, wars, and mortality rates are both global and numerous and his use of historiographical metrics gives a clear framework for what is meant by ‘general crisis’. Indeed, this clarity is what makes Parker’s argument superior to the efforts of many who preceded him, including the efforts of two highly influential crisis historians; Eric Hobsbawm and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Hobsbawm’s crisis emphasises trade depression and methods of production whereas Trevor-Roper’s describes a societal and political crisis based on unwieldy bureaucracy. These are fine premises but lack precision, never fully circumscribing ‘general crisis’ in the manner Parker manages. Their lack of empirical clarity has been widely criticised, particularly Trevor-Roper, who was heavily belied in a responding review. Therein, J.H Hexter asserts that ‘Trevor-Roper paints his picture… with such bold strokes and so broad a brush that he occasionally obscures rather than clarifies’.

  The Problem with The Crisis Theory

  However, no matter if we accept the crisis theory, we cannot avoid the debates’ wider issue for which I conclude that the term must be abandoned. Why do we find so many articles on the crisis that begin with a definition rather than a proposition? It is because the ‘crisis’ is no one instance, it is a theoretical grouping of events, the problem being that these events aren’t known quantities. What counts as the ‘general crisis’? Everybody will inevitably reach unique conclusions on this matter because there are no boundaries to choosing what constitutes ‘general crisis’. As we have seen, historians may include whatever they please.

  This results in a debate which keeps returning to definitional matters, an intellectual vacuum in which agreement is unattainable as we continue to talk at cross purposes. The ‘general crisis’ debate is therefore detracting from other possible 17th century discussion, generalising all debate on the period under the uncertain theme of ‘crisis’. To learn further from the 17th century then, we must change the game, because currently we’re all playing by different rules.

  The 17th century is unique in befalling this ‘generalising crisis’ because it lacks identity. The century has ‘Renaissance and Reformation on the one side, Enlightenment and Revolution on the other’, appearing inconspicuous in comparison to its neighbours. Naturally, we wish to seek what defines the 17th century as well. What the ‘general crisis’ theory did, and why it became so popular, was give the 17th century an identity. Unfortunately, this identity was not one that grew from the history, but was imposed upon it. Eric Hobsbawm devised the crisis to suit a Marxist historiography, the purpose always being to “show” a transition from a feudal to a capitalist economy. Such histories encourage cherry picking evidence to serve a conformation bias. This may have been inconsequential had it remained within Marxist historiography, but its subsequent envelopment of 17th century writing has led to an eternally skewed approach to the century, we lack the balance of differing approaches. The reality has become that we are writing within a framework that was purposefully designed to limit our scope.

  That said, this does not mean we may simply discount all generalist historiography. Contrariwise, most of this work is valid in identifying important 17th century occurrences and their origins. The problem lies only in how these events are then interpreted as we attempt to integrate them into a flawed theorem.

  New Approaches to the 17th Century

  Understanding this, we can examine further these ‘economic, social and political upheavals’ and explore several ways in how we can better understand the 17th century without this ‘generalising crisis’ obscuration.

  Looking through prior crisis articles we find the important economic events of the 17th century to be: the trade depression of the 1620s to 1650s, the “tulipomania” of the 1630s, the economic independence of colonies, the multiplication of costly offices, and the thirty years’ war, due to estimates being as high as 50% for national expenditure upon it. A generalist historian must value these factors on how they conform to their crisis thesis, but we can assess them purely on individual merit.

  To begin, we consider how these are exclusively European occurrences, not global. Further to this, we notice that these problems stem categorically from imperialist nations. The ‘tulipomania’ contained to a Dutch economic bubble, the expanding office bureaucracy concentrated within Britain. An increased independence of European colonies factoring toward a European trade depression. The thirty years’ war being motivated by imperialism as much as devoutness. Abandoning a generalist perspective reveals not a ‘Crisis of the European Economy’ generically, but an issue within European empire specifically. We see the economic costs of maintaining empire; particularly how increased economic independence of colonies leads to a long-term desire for political independence, as with North America. We also see a short-term impact of economic depression, all of which can be exacerbated by large-scale war, as with the thirty years’ war.

  Hobsbawm’s article comes almost to this conclusion, describing how ‘large and expanding markets’ brought economic downturn, but his focus on ‘crisis’ leads him toward the irrational conclusion of ‘transition from a feudal to a capitalist economy’. He misses the angle on empire, the maintenance of it, and the effects of war upon it. It becomes evident that allowing economic independence for colonies, especially during wartime, can hurt your economy even more greatly than may first appear. For Britain particularly, this helps us understand the economic roots of the decline of empire in the 20th century. Britain may well have handled its colonies with greater tact during the first and second world wars had it been aware of the consequences that may occur from neglect during wartime. As it was, we see events such as the Bengal famine of 1943 leading to an increased desire for political independence in colonies, one that felt additionally earned due to their efforts in the world wars.

  Politically, the 17th century was defined by a weakening of nobility as a result of a consolidation of power toward the crown as well as an expanding bureaucracy, as before mentioned in economic terms. Despite seeing this across the ‘northern hemisphere’ in both the east and west, and contrary to a generalist view, we only find political crisis on account of this in the west. Quite adversely, the Tokugawa period in Japan (1600-1868) and the Ming dynasty in China (1364-1644) have been determined to be unusually stable leaderships, the Ming dynasty especially, described as ‘one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history’. What can we learn from this? We learn that political events cannot be a central factor toward causing crisis. The multitudinous revolts, breakdowns and wars cannot have been politically driven, at least in majority, otherwise we would have seen greater political instability in the east than we do. However, we do still see a degree of volatility in the east, an example being the Shimabara rebellion of 1637-8, so we must search for other factors that may have caused this.

  Social factors haven’t been explored as thoroughly as others when it comes to the general crisis. This is most likely due to the locality of social trends of the time. Very unlike the globality of politics and economy in the 17th century, social movements were far more localised, with only a handful of countries having postal services. Thus, social factors don’t fit well into the ‘general crisis’, because they weren’t very general. However, it is still clear to see the dominating social force in Europe in the 17th century: Religion. The thirty years’ war is a prime example of this but we can also point to the rise of religious polemics like Jonathan Swift, the glorious revolution, the eighty years’ war, and the abolition of the edict of Nantes. Here we do spot a consistency with the east, despite rebellions being rare the Shimabara rebellion of 1637-8 was directly a result of religious tension. Additionally, this was a European-exported tension as the conflict was between the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Roman Catholics. Also in the east, we see the rise of the Sabbatean movement. One conclusion here may be that Europe managed to export its religious troubles to the east and this is why we see some social parallel between the two continents.

  Centrally, this article explores the benefits of approaching the 17th century without thinking of ‘general crisis’. There is a far richer history to be found if you are prepared to cast the century in different lights, the surface of which we have not even scratched in this article. You may disagree with some, or many, of my conclusions, and that’s great. There is no lens through which you must view the 17th century, approach it in a manner which is logical to your interests.

  Author / Publisher: Louis Lorenzo

  First Published: 05th of April 2017

  Last Modified: 05th of April 2017

  2017.04.05

• The 17th Century Economic and Political Crises Compared

  The problem with the debate around ‘the general crisis of the 17th century’ arose as soon as the phrase was put to paper, it’s the same problem that plagues debates over ‘brexit’, the central term is nebulous. Historians must decide for themselves what ‘general’ refers to, which causes great conflict like that we see between Hobsbawm and Trevor-Roper. It’s inevitable you will produce different paintings when you aren’t working from the same palette. We will hardly, therefore, draw fair conclusions by simply comparing the two articles, we must look for more useful approaches to this debate. Historians such as Roger B. Merriman have answered this by drawing the conclusion that the crisis did not exist, if there is no central understanding of its existence, how can it? However, this, although logical, is side-stepping the problem rather than tackling it, invalidating all previous discussion is counter-productive. Contributing constructively will be to accept the existence of a general crisis but to create a definitive core idea of what the crisis consisted of. This will allow fair debate and comparative historical writing on this topic. How will we achieve this? The answer is simple; by studying articles on the crisis and finding the key events that bind them together. Hobsbawm and Trevor-Roper are excellent initial candidates for this as they approach the debate from such antithetical positions that finding commonalities in their arguments is certain to reveal the core of this crisis.

  Hobsbawm’s Marxist interpretation is that the crisis is centrally economic whereas Trevor-Roper regards the crisis as primarily political, his viewpoint is concertedly ‘anti-Marxist’. These are such disparate standings that their articles seem bound to draw diametrically opposite conclusions. Indeed, Trevor-Roper’s article is even antagonistic towards the Marxist interpretation. However, their articles are not so divergent, in fact, they complement each other on the import of several key areas. These are: the expansion of empire in the 1500s, the multiplication of crown ‘offices’, the 1620 ‘decay of trade’ and the 30 years’ war (1618-48). These are our first key commonalities that we can use to definitively construe this crisis. So why, if the two articles agree on so much, would Trevor-Roper preface his article with a critique of Hobsbawm’s? Directly put, Trevor-Roper vehemently opposed how Hobsbawm utilised the crisis to justify the Marxist idea of inevitable progression from feudalism to capitalism. This anti-Marxism even went so far as to cause private hostility between Trevor-Roper and Hobsbawm. We can therefore safely write off Trevor-Roper’s initial attack on Hobsbawm as too personally motivated to be taken seriously as a critique. We can focus on what’s important accordingly; the arguments that the two historians forward regarding ‘the general crisis of the 17th century’.

  So how do they agree as wholly as is being implied if they attribute the crisis to different causes? Contrary to first impressions, these two lines of argument are not incompatible but work in tandem, there was both political and economic (alongside social and cultural) attributes to the crisis. Indeed, Hobsbawm himself recognises this commonality of purpose in a following article, remarking that their views “are complementary rather than competitive.”.  As is always the case with history there is a web of causation and no single factor lies withstanding from all others. The two historians are, of course, aware of this but in arguing the significance of their own chosen factor they have overlooked the importance of others.

  Both argue the importance of the expansion of empire during the 1500s. Hobsbawm describes it as “large and expanding markets… of the later 15th and 16th centuries” that had reached “the limits… of feudal or agrarian society”, and now, “when (they) encountered them, (they) entered a period of crisis”. These “limits” that Hobsbawm refers to are the limits of a feudal/manorial society that had little need for trade. In new, large empires, and with movements like the agricultural revolution which was facilitating trade, feudalism was proving ineffective and causing crisis as countries struggled to maintain the trade levels required to sustain themselves. Feudalism wasn’t an aggressive enough system, unlike the more competitive systems that would replace it. Trevor-Roper argues the same point: “The expansion of Europe (created) greater markets” and these “vast new empires (were) vaster than they (could) contain for long without internal change”. This is the same economic argument that Hobsbawm contends; that the economies of these countries had grown too large to be supported by a feudal system of commerce.

  Trevor-Roper furthers this economic point by adding a parallel political factor: “The political structures of Europe are not changed in the sixteenth century: they are stretched to grasp and hold new empires”. By ‘stretching’ he means a “multiplication of ever more costly offices (that) outran the needs of state”. The crowns of Europe were selling bureaucratic ‘offices’ in abundance and were letting the country pick up most of the cost, in Britain, 75% fell on the country: “this was an indirect, if also a cumbrous and exasperating way of taxing the country” Trevor-Roper argues “So ‘the Renaissance State’ consisted, at the bottom, of an ever-expanding bureaucracy which… had by the end of the sixteenth century become a parasitic bureaucracy.” These economic and political arguments are closely related; as the economy begins to hit its “limits” at the end of the 16th century it is pushing the crown to expand a “parasitic” bureaucracy which makes money for them in the short term. However, longer term it is further damaging the economy as the superfluous expenses continue to increase.

  Another significant factor the two historians point to is the universal depression of 1620, what Trevor-Roper refers to as the “decay of trade”. Hobsbawm describes it as “a general balance of rising and declining trade (that) would produce export figures which did not rise significantly between 1620 and 1660”. As you may imagine, this caused recession in the new societies of trade and empire and was caused by the debasement of currency in the early 1600s. This was the end of great economic expansion and it brought the frivolous expenditure of the 16th century into sharp clarity. The rise of puritanism during this time clearly shows that people were sick of the “gilded merry-go-round”, this is when the weight of the crown offices and the limits of feudalism began to show themselves, having been previously masked by a boom economy.  

  Both also concur over the significance of the 30 years’ war. Trevor-Roper arguing that the war “undoubtedly prepared the groundwork for revolution” and Hobsbawm that it “intensified the crisis”. The war made the illnesses of Europe’s economy acute, estimates are as high as 50% for national expenditure on the war, from all parties. It’s also important in how it diminished the influence of the pope, allowing puritanism to spread at an unusually fast rate and animosity toward traditional structures of power with it. It’s noteworthy that both historians don’t place as much emphasis on the war as you might expect. They present it as a more minor force that furthered the ‘greater’ change brought by political and economic factors. This can certainly be attributed to the fact that it neither falls strictly under economic or political history, but military history. As such the effects of the war in causing the general crisis are somewhat overlooked. However, the fact that it’s in both articles yet in neither historians’ chosen field proves its significance.

  In the interests of brevity, we will not discuss factors that Hobsbawm and Trevor-Roper have not spoken on: the expansion of the middle class, intellectual revolution, famine, disease, and many others. What’s clear is that more research needs to be done into these factors that straddle the multitudinous accounts on the crisis. But here we have the start, it’s not so that Hobsbawm and Trevor-Roper disagree, whatever their own thoughts on the matter. The political and the economic crises, specifically linked to the expansion of empire and the multiplication of ‘offices’, are two sides of the same coin and two of these ‘base factors’ that can be used to build a cohesive understanding on this crisis. They work alongside factors such as the decay of trade and the 30 years’ war to create separate crises in different countries which produce a sum-total of general crisis in the 17th century.

  Author / Publisher: Louis Lorenzo

  First Published: 05th of April 2017

  Last Modified: 15th of May 2017 (Grammar Corrections)

  2017.04.05