An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory Volume 1

An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory Sir W. J. Ashley Ph.D., M.A., M. Com. Professor of Commerce in the University of Birmingham Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford Late Professor in Harvard University Part I The Middle Ages First edition published 1888 Second edition published 1893 Third edition published 1894 Fourth edition published 1909 To The Memory of Arnold Toynbee Contents Preface ..................................................................................................................................................7 Book 1: From the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century. ...................................................................... 11 Chapter 1: The Manor and Village Community .................................................................................12 Chapter 2: Merchant and Craft Gilds .................................................................................................44 Chapter 3: Economic Theories and Legislation..................................................................................71 1. Preface Two causes, above all others, sometimes working separately, sometimes in conjunction, have gradually modified the character of economic science. These two causes are the growing importance of historical studies, and the application to society of the idea of evolution. The first to make itself felt was history: in the hands of Savigny it became the foundation of a new method of jurisprudence, the value of which has been signally illustrated in our own time by Maine; and from the lawyers the historical method passed to the economists. Yet the lessons of Roscher, of Hildebrand, and of Knies, remained for over a quarter of a century unheeded; nor did they begin to carry their due weight until the practical needs of modern life had shown the deficiencies of older economic methods. But, meanwhile, the idea of an orderly evolution of society had been slowly making itself felt,—an idea which, whether conceived, as by Hegel, as the progressive revela- tion of spirit, or, as by Comte, as the growth of humanity, or, as by Spencer, as the adaptation of the social organism to its environment, had equally the effect of opening to the economist undreamt-of perspectives of the past and the future. The nature of the change will be perceived if we examine the principles by which investigation is now guided. They may be thus stated— (1) Political Economy is not a body of absolutely true doctrines, revealed to the world at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, but a number of more or less valuable theories and generalizations. (2) No age, since men began to speculate, has been without its economic ideas. Political Economy was not born fully armed from the brain of Adam Smith or any other thinker: its appearance as an independent science meant only the disentanglement of economic from philosophical and political speculation. (3) Just as the history of society, in spite of apparent retrogressions, reveals an orderly development, so there has been an orderly development in the history of what men have thought, and therefore in what they have thought concerning the economic side of life. (4) As modern economists have taken for their assumptions conditions which only in modern times have begun to exist, so earlier economic theories were based, consciously or unconsciously, on conditions then present. Hence the theories of the past must be judged in relation to the facts of the past, and not in 8 / William J. Ashley relation to those of the present. (5) History seems to be proving that no great institution has been without its use for a time, and its relative justification. Similarly, it is beginning to appear that no great conception, no great body of doctrines which really influenced society for a long period, was without a certain truth and value, having regard to contemporary circumstances. (6) Modern economic theories, therefore, are not universally true; they are true neither for the past, when the conditions they postulate did not exist, nor for the future, when, unless society becomes stationary, the conditions will have changed. So much all economists would allow; and it need hardly be pointed out how considerable must be the effect of conceptions such as these, even with those who believe that the Political Economy of thirty or forty years ago is still the best clue to the questions of to-day. If no more is done, at any rate the belief in the perpetual validity of modern doctrines is destroyed; and while that remained, no real understanding was possible of the economic life of the past. But the same two influences have produced still further effects, and, in particular, a divergence of opinion as to the proper method to pursue in the investigation of present phenomena. There are many intermediate shades of opinion, many interesting attempts at eclectic compromise, but, in the main, economists tend in one of two opposite directions. Either they use the method of deduction, practised by Ricardo and defended by John Stuart Mill and Cairnes; or they proceed by way of historical inquiry, and the observa- tion of actual facts. The former start from certain assumptions, such as that man is governed by self-interest, that there is freedom of competition, that capital and labour are transferable: from these they deduce certain hypothetical conclusions —conclusions, that is to say, only true so far as the assumptions are true; and then they hope, by introducing this and that limitation, to arrive at an explanation of particular problems. The latter try to free their minds at the outset of all a priori theories, and to see things as they actually are and have been, using deductive reasoning only as an occasional help in interpreting the results of their investigation. Among these, again, there is considerable divergence of opinion as to the kind of results to be aimed at, and the shape Political Economy should assume. An increasing number,—“the historical school” in the strict sense of the word,—hold that it is no longer worth while framing general formulas as to the relations between individuals in a given society, like the old “laws” of rent, wages, profits; and that what they must attempt to discover are the laws of social development—that is to say, generalizations as to the stages through which the economic life of society has actually moved. They believe that knowledge like this will not only give them an insight into the past, but will enable them the better to understand the difficulties of the present. [Bibliography.—For the recent history of economic discussion, see J. S. Mill, Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, (1844), esplly. Essay V.; Cairnes, Logical Method of Political Economy, (2nd ed., 1875), esplly. Lectures II., IV.; Cliffe Leslie, Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy, (1879), esplly. Essays X, XI, XIV; Bagehot, Economic Studies, (1880); Ingram, Article on Political Economy (in Ency. Brit., 9th ed.), about to be published separately; H. Sidgwick, Principles of Political Economy, (1883), Introduction. For the present position of thought in Germany, see Nasse, in The Quarterly Journal of Eco- nomics, (Boston, U.S.A.), for July, 1887; in France, Gide, Chronique in Revue d’Economie Politique, No. 1, 1887. The best, easily accessible presentment of the “historical” point of view will be found in Knies, Die Politische Oeconomie vom Gesehichtlichen Standpuncte, (2nd ed., 1883), especially the Introduction; and Schmoller, Ueber einige Grundfragen det Reckts und der Volkswirthschaft, (1875), esplly. part 2.] Oxford, April, 1868. [Since the above bibliographical note was written, important developments have taken place in economic discussion. The most complete account of these is given in the collection of monographs pre- sented to Professor Schmoller on his 70th birthday, entitled Die Entwicklung der deutschen An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, volume one / 9 Wirthschaftslehre im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (1908). This contains an article by the present writer on The Present Position of Political Economy in England (also in the Econ. Journal, xvii. 467); and by Gide on L’École Française. See also Marshall, Principles (5th ed., 1908), I. App. B.; Schmoller, Grundriss (ed., 1908) Einleitung III.; and Gide and Rist, Histoire des doctrines Economiques (1909).] Edgbaston, June, 1909. Preface to the Third Edition In the present edition the opportunity has been taken so to modify a few passages as to remove certain inconsistencies between the first and second Parts, and also to make a number of verbal changes in the direction of greater accuracy. But the reader will remember that, although no very considerable discoveries have been made in the six years that have elapsed since the appearance of the first edition, the literature of the subject has been enriched in several directions. Professor Maitland in the Introduction to the Placita in Curiis Magnatum Angliae (Selden Society, 1889), and Mr. Blakesley in the Law Quarterly Review (April, 1889), have more than confirmed the suspicions here expressed (p. 61, n. 99) as to the legal doctrine of manorial courts, and, in particular, have shown good reason for believing that the “court baron” was not of “primitive” origin, but the comparatively late result of the growth of free tenure. Professor Paul Vinogradoff’s Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892) has cast a flood of light on the agrarian usages and the legal theories of the thirteenth and fourteenth

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