THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THE CATHOLIC AGRICULTURAL ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY LIAM MANNIX CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2018 For James Table of Contents List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..iv List of Charts……………………………………………………………………………………...v List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………….vii List of Measures………………………………………………………………………………...viii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….………ix Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..……xii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..……1 Chapter One: Improvement in Practice………………………………………………………......35 Chapter Two: Notre-Dame de Paris……………………………………………………………...70 Chapter Three: Improving Abbeys……………………………………………………………..111 Chapter Four: Power from Utility…...………………………………………………………….139 Chapter Five: Accounting for Improvement……………………………………………………182 Chapter Six: The Indispensible Proprietor……………………………………………………...222 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...269 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………282 iii List of Tables Table 1 “Réparations” as a Percentage of Rents and Arpents……………………………66 Table 2 Notre-Dame’s Accounts, 1759-1788………………….…………………………76 Table 3 Notre-Dame’s Expenditure on Rural Repairs and Reconstruction………………84 Table 4 Notre-Dame’s Expenditure on Reconstruction per Decade……………………...88 Table 5 Lease History of the Major Fermes of Notre-Dame……………………………101 Table 6 Debts of the Congrégation de Saint-Maur……………………………………...117 Table 7 Leases of Saint-Denis and Marling Costs, 1700-1778…………………………126 Table 8 Account Balances at the Ferme of Noisy, 1732-1735………………………….196 Table 9 Destinations of Crops at the Ferme of Noisy, 1731-1735……………………...198 Table 10 Compte Générale of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 1738………………………….207 iv List of Charts Chart 1 Notre-Dame’s Growth in Revenue, 1759-1787……….…………………………77 Chart 2 Notre-Dame's Rental Property in Paris, 1760-1787.……………………………..79 Chart 3 Notre-Dame's Signals for Investment?…………………………………………..89 Chart 4 Notre-Dame’s Rents from Belloy, 1759-1787……………………………….…..95 Chart 5 Notre-Dame’s Rentes Payable……..…………………………………………….97 Chart 6 Notre-Dame's Annual Income, 1759-1787……………………………………..100 Chart 7 Wastage of Wheat in Notre-Dame’s Granaries, 1759-1788……………………168 Chart 8 Notre-Dame’s Efficiency in Wheat Conservation, 1759-1787…………………170 Chart 9 Tithe and Champart Receipts for the Lazarist Ferme of Coudres……………...188 v List of Figures Fig. 1 The Chateau and Ferme of the Commanderie of Saint-Vaubourg……………...35 Fig. 2 The Rebuilt Farmyard at Belloy-en-France, c. 1780…………………………..160 Fig. 3 Duhamel du Monceau’s Plan of an Ideal Farmyard, 1779…………………….162 Fig. 4 Duhamel du Monceau’s Crible incliné and crible cylindrique…………………..166 Fig. 5 Inside-Cover illustration in Saint-Denis’ lease book for 1752-1775…………..222 Fig. 6. Frontispiece, Léon-Christophe Féroux, Vues d'un solitaire patriote…………...248 vi List of Abbreviations AC Actes Capitulaires AG Agence générale du clergé de France AN Archives Nationales BN Bibliothèque Nationale CEL Célestins (Benedictine: Independent) CM Congrégation de la Mission (“Lazarists”) CSM Congrégation de Saint-Maur (Benedictine confederation) Lt Livres tournois ND Chapitre de Notre-Dame de Paris OM Ordre de Malte SD Abbaye de Saint-Denis (Benedictine: Saint-Maur) SG Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Benedictine: Saint-Maur) SGN Abbaye de Sainte-Geneviève (Augustinian: “Génofévains”) SM Prieuré de Saint-Martin-des-Champs (Benedictine: Cluny) vii List of Measures 1 arpent de Paris = 0.4041 hectares = 0.9986 imperial acres 1 acre de Normandie = 2.39 arpents de Paris 1 muid de Paris = 12 setiers = 18.72 hectolitres = 53.12 US bushels 1 pied de Paris = 324mm = 1’ ¾” imperial feet and inches viii Acknowledgements The good days in researching, preparing, and writing this dissertation were very good, but neither my project nor my time at the University of Chicago would have been possible without the patience, advice, and practical help of the many teachers, colleagues, and friends who have supported me over the years. The foremost of these was the chair of this dissertation, Paul Cheney, who saw the merit in an unfashionable topic and who expressed that opinion in no uncertain terms, which sustained me when the going was tough. Paul’s good-humored and generous advice, not to mention his well-judged criticism, encouraged my growing confidence in a methodological approach that matched my skills with the sources I found, and his exacting standards in lucid writing and presentation were essential not only to the development of my argument, but in my successful applications for research funding. I was very fortunate to have had Paul as a teacher and then as chair, and I am very glad that I managed to impress him, once or twice. I was also fortunate that Paul and the other members of my committee - Jan Goldstein, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, and Robert Morrissey - made it their practice to raise issues that I had been unable to resolve (a typically innocuous example being, “What’s religious about church investment?”). Addressing such problems helped turn apparent contradictions in the evidence into breakthroughs, and so was the best thing the committee could have done for this project. In addition, there were many other occasions when the committee provided advice and practical help during my time at Chicago, from classes and seminars, to orals preparation, to teaching, and throughout my work on this dissertation. My thanks also go to the organizers and members of the Modern France Workshop, and particularly to Bill Sewell, for their careful and acute questions, commentary, and recommendations on my draft chapters, which I drew on to improve my work. ix My life at Chicago relied on academic support that began long before I got there. At DePaul University, Roshanna Sylvester and Valentina Tikoff of the History Department, and Andrew Suozzo and Pascale-Anne Brault of the French Department, provided me with a rigorous and ambitious foundation in literature, investigation, analysis, argument, and writing. As my dissertation progressed, Simone Zurawski and Dr. Edward Udovic of the Vincentian Studies Institute both encouraged my project and provided financial support for my research in France. Once in Chicago, Bernard Wasserstein gave me my first teaching experience and many other lessons. Comradeship mattered too: the work and much needed wit, diversion, and friendship of my fellow graduate students – Emily Marker, Elisa Jones, Tyson Leuchter, Emily Fransee, and Eleanor Rivera - encouraged me when things seemed to go awry. Sonja Rusnak and David Goodwine of the History Department and Brett Baker of the Division of the Social Sciences were ever helpful in keeping me on the right side of the administrative law. I benefitted from an Eric Cochrane Travel Grant during my research, and I was honored with a Markowitz Fellowship from the Division of the Social Sciences to help complete this dissertation. My thanks are due to the France Chicago Center, which supported my archival research through the Chicago Exchange Fellowship with the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, in 2012 and in 2014. On both occasions, Gérard Béaur very kindly acted as my sponsor at the Ecole and welcomed into his seminar on the Histoire économique et sociale des campagnes, where I presented my first findings, and through which I met Tim Le Goff, who encouraged me in my methodological ambitions. Loïc Charles and Arnauld Orain gave me the honor of presenting at a journée d’études at which I had the singular experience of directly criticizing an opinion of Steven Kaplan, as he sat opposite me (we both survived). I was glad of the comforts of the Chicago Center in Paris, including the student workshop, the advice of Arnaud Coulombel, and x the practical help of Sébastien Greppo, and I am grateful for other scholars who were kind enough to help with my project, notably Gilles Postel-Vinay and Jacob Soll. Lastly, and unforgettably, my time in Paris was rounded off by the welcome accorded by Thibaut Sainte- Beuve, proprietor of the farm of Belloy-en-France, who one sunny June day took the time to show me around the magnificent eighteenth-century farmyard whose archival traces had become central to my dissertation. In the end, though, none of this plentiful academic support would have mattered without the love of my family, my mother, Peg, my late father, John, and - above all – that of my long- suffering partner and now husband, James O’Toole. James enabled me to pursue my dream of going back to school to take up the work that I was most suited for. Very few people get such a second chance, and very few are lucky to enjoy support of the kind that I enjoyed from James, who kept me going when running away seemed the best option, and for whom this dissertation is dedicated as a small token of my love and gratitude. xi Abstract THE CATHOLIC AGRICULTURAL ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE This dissertation helps explain how and why agriculture escaped its Malthusian structures through the practices of the ecclesiastical proprietors that owned the most productive land around Paris in late ancien régime France. It shows how a confluence of agricultural, social, religious, intellectual, and political factors enabled and encouraged clerics, armed with unique corporate advantages, to build a partnership with tenants that was among the most dynamic in the late ancien régime economy.