THE CRISIS OF THE LATE THE CASE OF

JAMES L. GOLDSMITH' Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021

For nearly fifty years, historians have thought of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in France in terms of the crisis, or rather crises, of the late Middle Ages. Our intention here is not to review once again the historiography of the crisis debate in its entirety,1 but to examine a considerable body of monographic literature which casts light on, and raises doubts about, widespread interpretations of the economic-demographic crisis of the late Middle Ages. Historians initially viewed the economic-demographic crisis of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in France as the result of the Hundred Years War and the . Depopulation, war destruction and dislocation of the economy produced distress and depression in the agricultural sector. Robert Boutruche's famous study of the Bordelais reflected this conceptualiza- tion of the crisis.2 Soon after the appearance of Boutruche's thesis, Edouard Perroy introduced French readers to a different notion of an economic and demographic crisis which appeared before the Hundred Years War and the Black Death.3 Perroy spoke of a succession of crises. The severe grain shortages of 1315-20 thinned the population, and the financial crisis of 1335-40 weakened the economy even before the arrival of the catastrophic Black Death of 1348. Although Perroy opted for a population figure of 10 or 11 million for France in the early fourteenth century rather than Lot's figure of 15 or 16 million, he still argued that France was overpopulated for its primitive agricultural systems. The fertile areas were saturated with people. Only poor soil pastures and forest remained to be cleared, the ploughing of which produced only low yields and threatened the survival of the livestock. France faced a severe economic crisis by the early years of the fourteenth century. The Hundred Years War added to the misery, not so much from war destruction, but through the imposition of ever more burdensome taxes on an economy and

* The author is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, University of Oklahoma. 1 See the six successive editions of J. Heers, L'Occident aux xiif et xtf siecles (1963-93); R-H. Bautier, 'Les mutations agricoles des xiv* siecles et les progres de Pelevage', B PhilolHist (1967), 1- 27; P. Contamine, 'La guerre de Cent Ans en France: une approche economique', B I Hist R, 47 (1974), 125-49; E. Carpentier, 'Autour de la peste noire. et epidemies dans I'histoire du xiv* siede', Annales ESC 17 (1962), 1062-92. 2 R. Boutruche, La arise d'une sodete: seigneurs et pay sans du Bordelais pendant la guerre de Cent Ans (1947). 3 E. Perroy, 'A I'origine d'une economie contractee. Les crises du xiv* siede', Annales ESC (1949), 167-82.

© Oxford University Press 1995 French History, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 417-450 418 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES population in severe contraction. Moreover, the French crisis was only one manifestation of a more general European economic and demographic crisis of the late Middle Ages. While few historians today would accept the idea of a generalized economic and demographic crisis for all of ,4 the crisis theory remains a fundamental theme in historical accounts of late medieval France. The French interpretation undoubtedly drew inspiration from British scholarship, especially 5 from the work of M. M. Postan; Philippe Wolff in France lent his support. Later Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 in the hands of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, the early fourteenth-century crisis became part of a much broader theory of economic and demographic stagnation in which cycles of expansion and contraction alternated ineluctably from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century in an essentially stable ecosystem. Le Roy Ladurie has argued the case for cyclical economic and demographic crises forcefully and brilliantly in a great number of books and articles that span a quarter of a century.6 The basic features of Le Roy Ladurie's Malthusian-Ricardian ecosystem model will be familiar to most readers: at the time of the famous 1328 fiscal survey, France had a population of some 20 million souls, 85 to 90 per cent of whom were peasants. France was vastly overpopulated in terms of its agrarian and general economic structures. Total grain production peaked in the fourteenth century at a level barely able to sustain the population in good years. The recurrent famines of the first half of the fourteenth century were a clear sign that population was pushing at the limits of the food supply. Likewise, the fragmentation of peasant tenures into microproperties underscored the extent of overpopulation. The Black Death fell on a society which was already weak from malnutrition. Le Roy Ladurie argued further that levels of population and of grain production reached ceilings in the early fourteenth century which remained unsurpassed until the mid-eighteenth century. France was locked in an ecosystem in which cycles of population expansion, land fragmentation and lower-class impoverishment led inevitably to famines and disease, population decline and the resumption of the cycle anew. This Malthusian-Ricardian ecosystem was a Mercantilist world in which profits, wages and rents fought for slices of a largely static pie. Le Roy Ladurie's viewpoint of a stagnant ecosystem has been enormously influential in French scholarship. It appears as a fundamental interpretative framework in the most authoritative scholarly syntheses of the last twenty-five

* Heeis, L'Occident, 6th edn, pp. 384-9; P. Wolff, Automne du moyen age ou printemps des temps nouveaux: I'economie europeenne aux xitf et xtf siecles (1986). 5 M. M. Postan, Essays on medieval agriculture and general problems of the medieval economy (1973); P. Wolff, Commerce et marchands de , vers 1350-vers 1450 (1954), p. 630. 6 E. Le Roy Ladurie, Les paysans de Languedoc (1966); idem, 'Dimes et produit net agricole, xv'-xviii* siecles', Annales ESC, 24 (1969), 826-32; idem, 'L'histoire immobile', Annales ESC, 29 (1974), 673-92; idem, 'Les paysans francais au xvi' siecle', Conjoncture economique, structures sociales (1974), pp. 333-52; idem, 'L'hlstoriographie rurale en France, xiv'-xviiie siecles. Essai d'histoire agraire systematique ou eco-systematique', Marc Blocb aujourd'bui (1990), pp. 223-52. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 419 years: in the Histoire econotnique et sociale de la France? in the Histoire de la France rurale;6 and more recently in the Histoire de la population francaise.9 The notion of an early fourteenth-century crisis prior to the Hundred Years War and the Black Death figuresals o in recent surveys of the period.10 Nevertheless, despite the widespread acceptance of much, if not all, of Le Roy Ladurie's interpretation, there is a considerable body of monographic literature which paints a very different picture of France in the late Middle Ages. It is quite

possible that France was not overpopulated in the early fourteenth century, but Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 actually underpopulated; possible also that the agrarian systems, far from having reached an unsurpassable ceiling of production, were operating, so to speak, at less than half throttle. It is possible that the famines of the early fourteenth century pointed not to a fundamental imbalance between food supply and population, but rather to an entirely different set of problems, unrelated to the level of population or the level of food production. In short, it is possible that the French economy and society of the early fourteenth century did not face a crisis at all; possible that both economy and population continued to expand in most areas right up to the Black Death. It is possible that France, in the early fourteenth century, had not reached the limits of a Malthusian-Ricardian ecosystem in a state of exhaustion, but rather was in full stride when the exogenous and infortuitous forces of and war temporarily knocked it off course.

I At issue here is the nature of the fundamental structures of the French economy and society in the late Middle Ages, rather than the Hundred Years War and the Black Death per se, the structures not the conjuncture. Historians of all persuasions are in substantial agreement about the dislocation and recession that warfare and the plague produced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The disputed point is this: were the French socio-economic systems at an impasse by the early fourteenth century? Let us begin with population. Was France overpopulated for its economic structures on the eve of the Black Death? Theories of overpopulation rest on estimates derived from late medieval fiscal sources and comparisons of these figures with population estimates for 1700-50, or later.11 The use of fiscalsource s for demographic purposes is a very

7 F. Braudel and E. Labrousse (eds.), Histoire econotnique et sociale de la France. I. De 1450 a 1660 (1977), pp. 484-647. 8 G. Duby and A. Wallon (eds.), Histoire de la France rurale. II. L'dge classique des pay sans, 1340-1789 (1975), pp. 19-39. 9 J. Dupaquier (ed.), Histoire de la population francaise. I. Des origines a la (1988), pp. 301-7. 10 M. Bourin-Derniau, Temps d'equilibres, temps de ruptures, xiif siecle. Nouvelle bistoire de la France medievale, IV (1990), pp. 261-70; R. Fossier, Le moyen age. 111. Le temps des crises, 1250- 1520 (1983 and 1990). 11 Le Roy Ladurie, 'L'historiographie rurale', p. 224 n. 1. 420 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES old tradition in French scholarship, but one fraught with perils.12 For the fourteenth century, the basic document is the famous 1328 tax roll for the war in . One is tempted to say that nothing has misled French historians more than this 1328 fiscalrecord . Indeed, without this levy and the population estimates based on it, historians might well have had a substantially different view of France in the late Middle Ages. Although there are unquestionably fiscal sources of the late Middle Ages which contain inventories of hpuseholds, the 1328 document was to a great Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 extent simply a tax assessment based on estimates of wealth with index figures, not a census.13 Fourquin in his famous study of the population of the basin in the fourteenth century prudently refused to offer population figuresbase d on the 1328 document.14 Nevertheless, the 1328 tax roll figures prominently in estimates of French population in the late Middle Ages. In recent years, high estimates of 15 to 20 million15 have predominated over low estimates of 10 to 11 million.16 Historical demographers have argued endlessly over the numbers of real people to assign to a fiscalheart h without, understandably, reaching any convincing conclusion. What we need is a different methodology. If we reconstruct our image of France in the early fourteenth century from the bottom-up, from the local monographic literature, rather than from the top- down, through estimates of aggregates of population, food production, and so on, we see a very different picture. We discover that estimates of 200,000 for Paris and 20 million for France are strikingly at odds, indeed frankly incompatible, with everything else we know about the structures of the French economy and society in the late Middle Ages. Let us turn to some questionable estimates of urban population. In 1954, Philippe Wolff published his pathbreaking study of Toulouse in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This was the first methodologically modern study of a French medieval town. Wolff brilliantly analysed the social and economic structures of this sleepy regional capital. Toulouse was still overwhelmingly rural. The lower classes were composed of peasants and part-time artisans who were more fully engaged in agriculture than in industry. The merchant class itself was still half peasant in investments and actions. Wolff also noted that most people in Toulouse normally fed themselves without recourse to the market, from grain grown on dieir own lands, or from rentes paid in grain. Indeed, it was only in years of shortage that there was much of a market in grains at all. The social and economic structures of Toulouse were clear, but how many people lived there in 1300-40? Wolff used fiscal sources to estimate

12 F. Lot, Letat des paroisseset des feux de 1328', BiblEcCb (1929), 51-107, 256-315;J. Heers, 'Les limites des methodes statistiques pour les recherches de demographie medievale', Ann Demog Hist (1968), 43-72. 13 Dupaquier, Histoire de la population francaise, i. 259-64. 14 G. Fourquin, 'La population de la region parisienne aux environs de 1328', Moyen Age, 62 (1956), 63-91. 15 Braudel and Labrousse, Histoire economique et sociale de la France, i. 485; Dupaquier, Histoire de la population franfaise, i. 262. 16 Perroy, "A l'origine d'une economie contractee', p. 168. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 421 total population and, without other studies to serve as a control, advanced the figure of 35-40,000 prior to the Black Death.17 Since the appearance of Wolff s study, urban monographs have multiplied. It is now firmlyestablishe d that the vast majority of towns in France in the first half of the fourteenth century had fewer than 10,000 people, indeed fewer than 5,000.18 Important towns like Bordeaux had perhaps 20-30,000,19 while Lyon certainly had less than 20,000.20 Wolff placed the population of Toulouse at 35-40,000. But from what we now know of urban institutions, the structures he described so carefully were not Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 those of a large town of 35-40,000, but of a much smaller town, of 10-15,000. The most famous example of inflated estimates of population is that of Paris. Historians working with fiscal sources have advanced figures for the early fourteenth century which vary from 70-80,000 to over 200,000, with a majority opting for the higher estimates.21 To control our estimates of the population of Paris in 1328, we must look at the structures of towns and their hinterlands. We know from a multiplicity of studies that as the population of French towns increased, the social and economic structures of both towns and their rural hinterlands changed. Patterns of land ownership and land use in the rural areas evolved as the town's food supply needs and social structure changed. Likewise in the towns, the patterns and the extent of investments of urban dwellers in rural farmland, in rural rentes, in urban properties, and so on, all evolved in tandem with the growth of towns.22 Bourgeois ownership of rural land is particularly revealing. By bourgeois we mean the urban upper classes who were not traditional nobles or churchmen. In the Middle Ages, bourgeois ownership of rural land near even the bigger towns of the period, those with 10 to 30,000, was very limited. This was true everywhere in France, near the tiny towns of Brittany,23 and also near Bordeaux,24 Lyon,25 Toulouse,26 Besan^on,27

17 Wolff, Commerce et marcbands, pp. 68-73; P. Wolff (ed.), Histoire du Languedoc (1967), p. 217; J-N. Biraben, 'La population de Toulouse au xiv* et xv* siecle',/ Savants (1964), 284-300. 18 G. Duby (ed.), Histoire de la France urbaine. II. La ville medievale des carolingiens a la Renaissance (1980), 401-5; Dupaquier, Histoire de la population francaise, i. 267-312. " Y. Renouard (ed.), Histoire de Bordeaux. III. Bordeaux sous les rois d'Angleterre (1965), p. 224; C. Higounet (ed.), Histoire de Bordeaux (1980), pp. 101-2; Dupaquier, Histoire de la population francaise, i. 304. 20 M-T. Lorcin, Les campagnes de la region lyonnaise aux xitf et xtf siecles (1974), p. 195. 21 P. Dollinger, 'Le chiffre de la population de Paris au xiv* siecle: 210.000 ou 80.000', Rev Hist, 216 (1956), 35-44; R. Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin (1959), p. 493; E. Carpentier and J. Genisson, 'La demographie francaise au xiv* siecle', Annales ESC, 17 (1962), 109-14; R. Cazelles, 'La population de Paris avant la peste noire', CR Ac Inscr (1966), 539-50; Duby, Histoire de la France urbaine, ii. 190; Dupaquier, Histoire de la population francaise, i. 305-6. 22 Duby, Histoire de la France urbaine, ii. 244-8, 440-6,608-9; iii. 49, 57-76; Duby and Wallon, Histoire de la France rurale, ii. 145-56, 259-75. 23 J-P. Leguay, 'Le paysage peri-urbain au xv* siecle: l'aspect et le role de la campagne voisine dans la vie des cites bretonnes au moyen age', Mem S Hist Arcbeol Bretagne, 57 (1980), 63-127. 24 C. Higounet (ed.), Histoire de Bordeaux (1980), pp. 97-124; Renouard, Histoire de Bordeaux, iii. 215-35, 425-35. 25 R. Fedou, Les hommes de loi lyonnais a la fin du moyen age (1964), pp. 211-17; Lorcin, Les campagnes, pp. 191-5, 366-83. 26 P. Wolff (ed.), Histoire de Toulouse (1974), pp. 163, 193-205. 27 R. Fietier, La cite de Besancon de la fin du xif au milieu du xitf siecle (1978), pp. 1488-94. 422 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES Marseille,28 Tours,29 Angers30 and Chartres.31 In the Middle Ages, the large market-orientated farms located near towns belong overwhelmingly to feudal nobles, the Church, the or the local duke or count. It was not until the rapid increase in urban population in the pushed the towns up to and beyond 20-30,000, or until a substantial class of robe officials appeared, that bourgeois ownership of rural farmland became significant.32 In the case of Lyon, historians have traced, step by step, the expansion of bourgeois ownership in the Lyonnais and Beaujolais regions Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 from the fourteenth to the twentieth century.33 The medieval town of less than 20,000 had scant evidence of bourgeois ownership of rural properties in either the Lyonnais or the Beaujolais; in 1700-50, with a population of 100-150,000, bourgeois ownership in both regions ranged from substantial to overwhelming, depending on the parish in question. Let us now return to Paris. In the early modern centuries, historians have traced without difficulty the expansion of bourgeois ownership of rural properties in an ever-growing radius, in tandem with the expansion of the city and its administrative-judicial personnel. This topic has long interested scholars who have studied it exhaustively.34 What about medieval Paris? If Paris had a population of 200,000 in 1328, bourgeois investments in rural land in the Paris basin would have consisted of more than just a band of vineyards around the city and along the nearest river valleys, more than timid investments in the Soissonnais, the Plaine de France, and of scattered

28 E. Baratier (ed.), Histoire de Marseille (1973), pp. 151-3. 29 B. Chevalier, Tours, ville royale, 1356-1520 (1974), pp. 113-31. 30 M. Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines a la fin du moyen age (1982), pp. 164-92. 31 A. Chedeville, Chartres et ses campagnes, xf-xiif siecles (1973), pp. 489-93. 32 Duby, Histoire de la France urbaine, iii. 23-94. 33 M-T. Lorcin, '[.'appropriation du sol dans la region d'Anse aux xiv* et xv* siecles', B Centre Hist Econ S Region Lyon (1980), 1-35; idem, Les campagnes, pp. 191-5, 366-83; G. Durand, Vin, vigne et vignerons en Lyonnais et Beaujolais, xvf-xviif siecles (1979), pp. 201-9; idem, "Les citadins aux champs a la fin de l'ancien regime (Anse, vers 1780)', B Centre Hist Econ S Region Lyon (1980), 37-60; S. Dontenwill, 'Mutations foncieres lors des crises de 1652 et 1709 dans l'election de Roanne', Act 98 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Hist Mod (1973), ii. 29-52; E. Gruter, La naissance d'un grand vignoble: les seigneuries de Pizay et Tanay en Beaujolais au xvf etxvif siecle (1977); G. Garner, 'Ruraux et citadins: de la propriete fonaere au pouvoir villageois', Hist Econ S (1978), 93- 113; M. Garden, Lyon et les Lyonnais au xviif siecle (1970), pp. 361-89; L. Champier, 'Lyon et sa region agricole (fin du xviii' et premiere moitie du xix" siecle)', Act 89 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Geog (1964), 33-46. 34 A. Soboul, 'Concentration agraire en pays de grande culture. Puiseux-Pontoise (Seine-et-Oise) et la propriete Thomassin', Pensee, July-September 1946, 51-66; M. Venard, Bourgeois etpaysans au xvif (1957), pp. 13-62; M. Fontenay, 'Paysans et marchands ruraux de la vallee de I'Essonne dans la seconde moitie du xviie siecle', Mem Paris Ile-de-France, 9 (1957-8), 157-282; E. Mireaux, Une province francaise au temps du Grand Roi: la Brie (1958); P. Brunet, Structure agraire et economie rurale des plateaux tertiaires entre la Seine et I'Oise (I960), pp. 277-90; M. Vovelle, 'Propriete et exploitation dans quelques communes beauceronnes de la fin du xviiic siecle au debut du xix* siecle', Mem S Arcbeol Eure-et-Loir (1961), 12-29; J. Jacquart, La crise rurale en Ile-de- France, 1550-1670 (1974), pp. 101-27, 232-79, 681-740; M. Baulant, Trois fermes cerealieres en pays boise aux xviie et xviiic siecles', Evolution et eclatement du monde rural (1986), pp. 107-19. For an overview: M. Mollat (ed.), Histoire de l'Ile-de-France et de Paris (1971), pp. 185-9, 210-80; Duby and Wallon, Histoire de la France rurale, ii. 241-75. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 423 acreages elsewhere.35 likewise, Beauce, which was a principal source of grains for Paris under the Bourbon , would not have sat in 1300-40 in economic isolation, unaffected by a Paris market of 200,000.36 The estimate of 200,000 is too high; 70-80,000, or less, is a much more plausible figure. Similarly, the structures of rural France in the fourteenth century are totally at odds with the usual estimates of 20 million people. So pervasive is the notion of rural overpopulation that we find, even in the best monographic studies, a curious juxtaposition: detailed analyses of social and economic structures Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 which strongly suggest light population and general economic underdevelop- ment, on the one hand, combined with jarring claims of overpopulation, on the other.37 To illustrate the point, take the example of the western section of Basse Auvergne. Here we encounter the familiar claim that the rural area under study was as densely populated in the early fourteenth century as it would be in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.38 Comparisons of this sort are highly misleading and open to serious methodological objections. Population figures for the early fourteenttvcentury rural areas are typically based on fiscal or seigneurial sources, sample villages and extrapolations. Urban centres are excluded from these comparisons of rural population across the centuries. Even if we can arrive at acceptable figures for urban and rural population, what we need to know is the structure of the entire society and economy, urban and rural, not just the raw figures. A sample of peasant villages with, say, a hundred households in both 1328 and in 1780 might well be underpopulated in the earlier period and overpopulated in the later, depending on the social and economic structures of the two dates: distribution of land within rural society, employment opportunities, markets for agricultural products, and so on. This is precisely what we find in the western mountains of Basse Auvergne.39 In the late Middle Ages, western Basse Auvergne had tiny urban centres and a stable rural society composed of peasant landowners who worked small and medium- sized farms. We find neither substantial, land-engrossing peasant elites, nor a mass of landless cottagers.40 But in the eighteenth century, the urban centres were substantially larger. The nearly homogeneous peasant society of the earlier period had crumbled and polarized. Much rural land formerly in the hands of peasants now belonged to noble and bourgeois investors. Rural society was highly unstable, and many landless day labourers sought relief from poverty in temporary and permanent migration.41 The rural population figures may have been the same for selected villages in Basse Auvergne in 1328 and in the late eighteenth century. But the total regional population with urban centres

35 G. Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne a la fin du moyen age (1964), pp. 59- 118, 336-56, 430-92, 504-27. 36 Chedeville, Cbartres et ses campagnes, pp. 455-6. 37 P. Charbonnier, Une autre France: la seigneurie rurale en Basse-Auvergne du xitf au xvf siecle (1980), p. 288; Chedeville, Chartres et ses campagnes, p. 82. 38 Charbonnier, La seigneurie rurale, p. 288. 39 A. Poitrineau, La vie rurale en Basse-Auvergne au xviif siecle, 1126-1789 (1965). 40 Charbonnier, La seigneurie rurale, pp. 115-405. 41 Poitrineau, La vie rurale, i. 141-237. 424 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES included was larger, and the economic and social structures were totally different. Let us now move back to the national level. Everything we know about the social and economic structures of France in the early fourteenth century suggests not overpopulation, but light population: a France closer to 10 million than 20 million inhabitants. Likewise, the socio-economic structures of rural France in 1700 or 1750, when the kingdom had 20 million or more inhabitants,

were strikingly different from the structures prior to the Hundred Years War. To Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 cite only the most significant changes, we may recall that it was after 1500 that the rural textile industry spread throughout western France. Carding, spinning and weaving provided work for millions of impoverished cottagers in western France in 1700, but not in 1300.42 Similarly, in 1700, the Lyonnais region was one of the most industrialized, urbanized and densely populated parts of France, but not in 13OO.4} Likewise, the spread of peasant vineyards that produced common wine for popular consumption dates essentially from after 1450-15OO.44 In the first half of the fourteenth century, most areas of France were very lightly populated and contained far fewer people than they would in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. If we take the case of Brittany, we may start with the fiscalsurve y of 1426-30 which contains reliable census data. In 1426-30, the northern coast of Brittany was more densely populated than the southern; everywhere, a narrow band of land along the coast, the armor, supported far more people than the largely vacant interior, the argot. Near Treguier on the northern coast, peasant hamlets within 10 km of the sea had slightly more than fifteen households, but at 20 km the figure dropped to less than seven. On the southern coast, in the Vannetais, the largest hamlets rarely had more than ten households, while the most typical settlements had two or three.45 Increase all of these figures by a third or 40 per cent for the decades prior to the Black Death, and the picture is substantially the same: tiny clearings lost in a massive, uncultivated lande. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Vannetais region of Brittany underwent widescale clearings which, in all likelihood, were several multiples of the surfaces cleared in the

42 J. Pinard, 'Les transformations des industries textiles de l'ouest de la France du moyen age au xtx* siecle', Ann Bretagne, 97 (1990), 281-9- 43 M. Garden, 'La region Rhone-Alpes: une construction de l'histoire encore incertaine', Lyon et I'Europe: bommes et societes (1980), i. 267-80; G. Garner, 'La formation d'un complexe econo- social de type rhodanien: Chaponost (1730-1822)', Structures economiques etproblemes sociaux du monde rural dans la France du sud-est, ed. Pierre Leon (1966), pp. 315-69; J-P. Houssel, 'Les petites villes textiles du Haut-Beaujolais: de la tradition manufacturiere a l'economie moderne', Rev Geog Lyon, 46 (1971), 123-97; A. Latreille (ed), Histoire de Lyon et du Lyonnais (1975), pp. 111- 78, 207-51. ** Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin, pp. 425-605; M. Lachiver, Vins, vignes et vignerons: bistoire du vignobleJranfais (1988). •" J. Kerherve, L'Etat breton aux 14* et 15' siecles (1987), ii. 548-9; J. Gallet, La seigneurie bretonne, 1450-1680: I'exemple du Vannetais (1983), pp. 169-70; J-P. Leguay and H. Martin, Fastes et malbeurs de la Bretagne ducale (1982), pp. 213-17, 264-75. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 425

Middle Ages.46 Likewise, the total population of Brittany in the mid-eighteenth century was at least three times what it was at the end of the fifteenth century, and, most plausibly, twice what it was prior to the Black Death.47 This pattern of patchy clearing and light population in the Middle Ages followed by substantial new clearing and significant increases in total population from the sixteenth through to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is found also in most of the bocage areas of western France: in Anjou and the Val de Loire,48 Maine49 and Poitou.50

Likewise, the south-west of France had only a light dusting of population in the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 early fourteenth century. Bordeaux, thanks to the wine , had a significant population of perhaps 20-30,000, but forests, heath and marshes surrounded the city on all sides. The Medoc was still virtually uninhabited and uncultivated.51 For the Bordelais as a whole, the great expansion of the vineyards lay in the , during the early modern centuries.52 The vast Landes de Gascogne had,

46 Gallet, La seigneurie bretonne, pp. 311-40; T. J. A. Le Goff, Vannes and its region: a study of town and country in eighteenth century France (1981), pp. 10-12. *y Kerherve, L'Etat breton, ii. 537-51; A. Croix, La Bretagne auxxvf etxvif siecles (1981), pp. 150-2; F. Lebrun, 'La demographie de la Bretagne sous l'ancien regime', Evolution et eclatement, pp. 27-8. 48 Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines, pp. 56-192; F. Lebrun, Les hommes et la tnort en Anjou aux xviC et xviif siecles (1971), pp. 43-68, 92-104; idem (ed.), Histoire des pays de la Loire (1972), pp. 243-53; C. Chereau, 'Recherches d'histoire angevine dans les vallees de la Sarthe et du Loir', Act 97 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Geog (1972), 121-34; R. Dion, Le val de Loire (1934), pp. 352- 478, 510-30. 49 A. Bouton, Le Maine: bistoire economique et sociale de origines au xiv* siecle (1962), pp. 212-86, 309-32; idem, Le Maine: bistoire economique et sociale, xitf, xif etxvf siecles (1970), pp. 228-312; R. Delatouche, 'Reflexions sur revolution agricole du Maine du moyen age au xviiie siecle', CR Ac Agric France, 57 (1971), 1167-74; B. Gamier, 'Structure et conjoncture de la rente fonciere dans le Haut-Maine aux xviie et xviiic siecles', Problemes agraires et sodete rurale (1979), pp. 101- 26; J. Heers, 'Manoir seigneurial et metairies dans le Perche (vers 1390-1400)', Rev Nord, 72 (1990), 471-82; R. Latouche, 'Coup d'oeil sur la vie rurale du Maine dans le passe', Prov Maine, ser. 2, 33 (1953), 187-94; idem, Sexploitation agricole dans le Maine du xii' au xvie siecle', Ann Bretagne (1944), 218-29; R. Musset, Le Bos-Maine (1917), pp. 205-60. 50 G. Debien, En Haut-Poitou: defricbeurs au travail, xtf-xviif siecle (1952); E-R. Labande (ed.), Histoire du Poitou, du Limousin et des pays cbarentais (1976), pp. 220-4, 292-300; L. Merle, La metairie et devolution agraire de la Gatine poitevine (1958); idem, 'Une explication: origines et evolution d'un bocage, I'exemple de la Gatine poitevine', Annales ESC, 12 (1957), 613- 18; R. Saniacon, Defricbements, peuplements et institutions seigneuriales en Haut-Poitou du x* au xiie siecle (1967). 51 Renouard, Histoire de Bordeaux, iii. 215-40; Higounet, Histoire de Bordeaux, pp. 97-124; Boutruche, La arise d'une sodete, pp. 5-30; J. Cavignac, 'La vigne en Haut-Medoc au xvie siecle', Vignobles et vins d'Aquitaine (1970), pp. 79-92; C. Higounet, 'L'arriere-pays de Bordeaux au xiii' siecle. Esquisse cartographique', Rev Hist Bordeaux, 4 (1955), 201-10; idem, 'Les hommes, la vigne et les eglises romanes du Bordelais et du Bazadais', Higounet, Paysages et villages neufs du moyen age (1975); idem, 'Paysages, mise en valeur, peuplement de la banlieue sud de Bordeaux a la fin du xiiie siecle', Rev Hist Bordeaux, 26 (1977), 5-25. 52 Higounet, Histoire de Bordeaux, pp. 143-72; R. Boutruche (ed.), Histoire de Bordeaux. IV. Bordeaux de 1453 a 1715 (1966), pp. 91-138, 455-506; F-G. Pariset (ed)., Histoire de Bordeaux. . Bordeaux au xviif siecle (1968), pp. 155-323; H. Enjalbert, 'Naissance des grands vins et la formation du vignoble moderne de Bordeaux: 1647-1767', Geographic historique des vignobles, ed. A. Huetz de Lemps (1978), i. 59-88; C. Higounet (ed.), La seigneurie et le vignoble de Chateau Latour (1974), i. 109-234; R. Pijassou, Un grand vignoble de qualite: le Medoc (1980), i. 296-490; idem, 'La viticulture bordelaise dans la deuxieme moitie du xviiie siecle', Vignobles et vins d'Aquitaine, pp. 237-60. 426 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES unsurprisingly, only the most tenuous of permanent settlements along its periphery in the Middle Ages and even later in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.53 Further inland along the rivers of Aquitaine, English and French kings, nobles and monasteries continued to encourage settlement in what was essentially an uninhabited frontier zone through the establishment of new towns and fortified settlements. A century of efforts, 1250-1350, produced some significant gains.54 Even so, the growth of the economic hinterland of Bordeaux, the haut pays along the Dordogne and Garonne rivers, in Perigord, Agenais and Quercy, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 came much later, frequently after 1600 or even 17OO.55 By contrast, Beam, the Pays de I'Adour and the Comte de Bigorre had at least a solid core of settlements in the early fourteenth century, but certainly did not suffer from overpopulation.56 Further east in the Midi, Toulouse in the period 1300-40 was at most a modest regional capital for a large, underpopulated and economically underdeveloped area which stretched from the Massif Central in the north to the Pyrenees in the south. The productive capacity of this region was still

53 M. Bordes (ed.), Histoire de la Gascogne des origines a nos jours (1977), pp. 83-122; L. Papy, 'Le desert landais', Rev Geog Pyrenees, 44 (1973), 129-49; idem, 'L'ancienne vie pastorale dans la Grande Lande', ibid. (1947-8), 6-16; P. Feral, 'L'evolution de l'agriculture lectouroise du xvie au xix* siecle', idem, Histoire de Lectour (1972), pp. 213-75. M C. Higounet, 'Pour l'histoire de l'occupation du sol et du peuplement de la France du sud-ouest du xic au xiv* siecle', idem, Paysages et villages neufs, 373-97; idem, 'L'occupation du sol du pays entre Tarn et Garonne au moyen age', Ann Midi, 65 (1953), 301-30. 55 J. P. Rajchenbach, 'L'emprise fonciere d'un bourg garonnais sous l'ancien regime: Langon', Cab Bazadais, 23 (1983), 3-39; For Perigord: J. Beauroy, 'Aspects de l'ancien vignoble et du commerce du vin a Bergerac du xiv* au xviii' siecle', Ann Midi, 77 (1965), 275-92; idem, 'Geographic et structures des vignobles de la vallee de la Dordogne (xiiie et xviiic siecles)', Recberches sur l'occupation du sol du Perigord, ed. C. Higounet (1978), pp. 153-63; idem, Vin et societe a Bergerac du moyen age aux temps modernes (1976); C. Higounet, 'Avant propos', idem, Rechercbes sur l'occupation du sol, pp. 3-6; Histoire du Perigord, ed. A. Higounet-Nadal (1983), pp. 9-17, 71-89, 131-237; idem, 'Perigueux et la campagne aux xiv* et xv* siecles', Higounet, Recberches sur l'occupation du sol, pp. 111-24; G. Legay, 'L'occupation du sol et le peuplement dans la chatellenie d'Ans', ibid. pp. 53-9; R. Pijassou, 'Aspects geographiques de l'occupation du sol en Perigord', ibid. pp. 165-78; idem, 'Structures agraires traditionnelles et revolution agricole dans les campagnes perigourdines', Rev Geog Pyrenees, 37 (1966), 233-62. For Agenais and Quercy: L. d'Alauzier, 'Un aspect du repeuplement du Lot apres la guerre de Cent Ans. Les accensements collectifs', BPbilolHist (1965), 413-26; M. Bastard-Fournie, 'Un terroir viticole: Rabastensa la fin du moyen age', Gaillac et le pays tarnais (1976), 57-89; M. Benejeam, 'Agriculture et alimentation en Quercy de la fin du moyen age au xviii' siecle', Quercy-Recherche, 55 (1983), 26-33; E. Fourastie, 'La vie rurale et l'agriculture au xiv* siecle dans le sud-ouest de la France', Rec S Sci Belles-Lettres Art Tarn-et-Garonne (1886), 159-83; J. Lartigaut, Les campagnes du Quercy apres la guerre de Cent Ans (vers 1440-vers 1500) (1978); idem, 'Le domaine rural des seigneurs d'Ays', B S Etud Lit Sci Art Lot, 92 (1971), 67-95; P. Deffontaines, Les hommes et leurs travaux dans les pays de la moyenne Garonne (1932), 1-177, 214-56, 275-388; R. Brunet and G. Suere, 'Le vignoble entre Tarn et Garonne', Rev Geog Pyrenees (1959), 135-67. ** M. Berthe, Le comte de Bigorre: un milieu rural au bas moyen age (1976), pp. 39-51; J. Caput, 'Les anciennes coutumes agraires dans la vallee du Gave d'Oloron', B S Sci Lett Arts Pau, 15 (1954), 62-70; idem, 'La formation des paysages agraires bearnais. Observations et problemes', Rev Geog Pyrenees (1956), 219-42; H. Cavailles, La vie pastorale et agricole dans les Pyrenees des Gaves, de I'Adour et des Nestes (1931), 26-161; Ecologie de la vallee d'Ossau: recbercbespour une synthese (1978), pp. 73-85; C. Higounet, 'Les artigues des vallees luchonnaises', idem, Paysages et villages neufs, pp. 83-99; S. Lerat, Les pays de I'Adour: structures agraires et economie agricole (1963), pp. 13-135; F. Taillefer (ed.), Les Pyrenees, de la montagne a I'bomme (1974), pp. 116-62, 215-60; P. Tucoo-Chala, 'Forets et landes en Beam au xiv» siecle', Ann Midi, 67 (1955), 247-59. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 427 largely unexploited in the early fourteenth century.57 Impressive growth in population and in agricultural production occurred here later in the early modern centuries. First came the boom in vegetable dye in the sixteenth century,58 and then the rapid expansion of grain production, after the construction of the Canal du Midi in the late seventeenth century. Once again, the levels of population, of agricultural and industrial production in the Toulouse region of Upper or Haut Languedoc were in the early fourteenth century far below what they would be later in the sixteenth to eighteenth Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 centuries.59 Parts of Lower or Bas Languedoc, studied by Le Roy Ladurie, were both more densely populated and more economically advanced in the fourteenth century than Toulouse and Haut Languedoc. The area near Beziers has been well studied. Along the coast, we encounter a close-knit network of small and medium-sized towns. Agriculture was at least semi-intensive; regional and even international trade flourished. But this level of development was exceptional in Bas Languedoc as a whole. As you moved inland from the coast, population thinned rapidly and archaic socio-economic structures reap- peared.60 Because coastal Languedoc was already quite advanced economically, socially and administratively in the late Middle Ages, the growth of the early modern centuries in population and in production was less significant than in more backward areas. It was less significant, but not absent.61 The contrast

57 Wolff, Commerce et marchands, pp. 12-15, 31-3, 119-273; R. Brunet, Les campagnes toulousaines (1965), pp. 297-428; C. Higounet, Le comte de Comminges (1929), ii. 413-92; idem, "La firange orientate des bastides', Higounet, Paysages et villages neufs, pp. 255-63. 58 G. Caster, Le commerce du pastel et de I'epicerie a Toulouse, 1450-1561 (1962); G. Bernet, 'L'economie d'un village du Lauragais au xviie siecle: le consulat de Pugneres de 1593 a 1715', Ann Midi, 78 (1966), 481-512. " G. Freche, Toulouse et la region Midi-Pyrenees au siecle des Lumieres, vers 1670-1789 (1974); idem, 'L'economie viticole de la region toulousaine du debut du xvic siecle a la Revolution', Freche, Castres et pays tarnais (1970), pp. 325-50; R. Descimon, 'Structures d'un marche de draperie dans le Languedoc au milieu du xvie siecle', Annales ESC, 30 (1975), 1414-46; G. Maugard, 'Assolement et polyculture dans le Haut-Languedoc au xviiie siecle', Beziers et le Biterrois (1970), 229-336; F. Mauro, 'Nouveaux aspects de l'histoire economique toulousaine', Act 21 Congr Fed S Languedoc-Pyr-Gascogne (1965), 181-90; P. Wolff, 'La draperie en Languedoc du xiic au debut du xviii' siecle', idem, Regards sur le Midi medieval (1978), pp. 437-70. 60 M. Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievauxen BasLanguedoc (1987), ii. 11-32, 197-264, 282-3. Bourin-Derruau's study refutes, point by point, the Malthusian, cyclical stagnation interpretation of Bas Languedoc found in the work of Le Roy Ladurie. M. Gramain, 'Un exemple de demographie meridionale: la viguerie de Beziers dans la premiere moitie du xiv* siecle', Ann Fac. Lett Nice, 17 (1972), 33-51; idem, 'Les formes de I'elevage en Bas-Languedoc occidental aux xiiie et xiv* siedes', L'elevage en Mediterranee occidentale (1977), pp. 137-52; K. L. Reyerson, Business, banking and finance in medieval Montpellier (1985). 61 E. Le Roy Ladurie, Les pay sans de Languedoc (1966); J-P. Barry and E. Le Roy Ladurie, 'Histoire agraire et phytogeographie', Annales ESC, 17 (1962), 434-47. Le Roy Ladurie's view of cyclical stagnation for the period 1300-1750 appears as the basic interpretative framework for many of the monographic studies of the 1970s and 1980s for Bas Languedoc. For example: J. Combes, 'Beziers dans les premieres decennies du xv* siecle', Beziers et le Biterrois, 221-35; M. Christol, 'Un compotx languedocien du xvii' siecle: Castelnau-de-Guers en 1680', Pezenas: ville et campagnee, xiif-xsf siecle (1975), pp. 161-84. Taken as a whole, the historical literature of Le Roy Ladurie and his disciples maximizes the negative impact of population increase, as in the fragmentation of peasant landholdings; minimizes the positive economic consequences of the multiplication of better-equipped, better-structured and better-worked farms constructed from heretofore fragmented 428 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES between light or moderate levels of population and land use in the early fourteenth century and much higher population, much more intensive land use in the early modern period appears also in the history of ,62 the Lyonnais-Beaujolais area63 and virtually all of the Massif Central.64 Indeed, most peasant tenures; and largely ignores the wider issues of economic development. For evidence of economic growth for Languedoc in the early modern centuries: A. Cheron and G. de Sarret de Coussergues, Une seigneurie en Bas-Languedoc Coussergues et les Sarret (1964); J. Dupaquier and E. Le Roy Ladurie, 'Quatre-vingt villages (xiii'-xx* siede)', Anriales ESC, 24 (1969), 424-33; D. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 Faucher, 'la polyculture meridionale', idem, La vie rurale vue par un geograpbe (1962), pp. 43- 50; idem, 'Routine et innovation dans la vie paysanne', ibid. pp. 115-21; C. Fohlen, 'En Languedoc, vigne contre draperie', Annales ESC (1949), 290-7; G. Galtier, 'Le vignoble et le commerce des vins en Languedoc', B S Languedoc Geog, 91 (1968), 141-53; G. Geraud-Parracha, Le commerce des vins et des eaux-de-vie en Languedoc sous lancien regime (1956); G. Larguier, 'Structures agraires, structures sociales d'un village narbonnais: Ouveillan (fin xvii'-debut xx* siecle)', Economie et sodete en Languedoc-RoussiUon de 1789 a nos jours (1978), 143-67; R. Laurent, 'Les quatre ages du vignoble du Bas-Languedoc et du Roussillon', ibid. pp. 11-44; P. Marres, 'La garrigue. Son exploitation a travers les ages', Rev Hist Lit Languedoc (1944), 178-90, 380-93; M. Pouget, 'La formation de la grande propriete et revolution de la structure agraire dans le Bas-Biterrois', Act 86 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Geog (1961), 291-342; S. Savey, 'Essai de re-constitution de la structure agraire des villages de Sardan et d'Asperes sous l'ancien regime a l'aide des compoix', Ann Midi, 81 (1969), 41-54; L. Teisseyre-Sallmann, 'Urbanisme et sodete: l'exemple de Ntmes aux xviie et xviif* siecles', Annales ESC, 35 (1980), 965-86. 62 E. Baratier (ed.), Histoire de la Provence (1976), pp. 144-59, 176-286. 315-25, 343-89; idem, 'Les communautes de Haute-Provence au moyen age. Problemes d'habitat et de population', Provence Hist, 21 (1971), 237-61; idem (ed), Histoire de Marseille (1973), pp. 95-153; idem, 'Production et exportation du vin du terroir de Marseille, du xiv* au xvie siecle', B PhilolHist (1959), 239-49; L. Stouff, 'Peuplement, economie et sodete de quelques villages de la montagne de Lure (1250-1450)', Cab Centre Etud S Medit (1966), 35-109; M. Zerner, Mise en valeur des terres et population dans le Midi de la France a la fin du moyen age: comparaison avec le xviii' siecle d'apres les cadastres de Cavaillon et sa region', Provence Hist, 26 (1971), 237-61; M-C. Amouretti et al., Campagnes mediterraneennes: permanences et mutations (1977), pp. 125-242; R. Livet and A. Roux, Elements d'histoire agraire d'un terroir provencal: Saint-Satumin-les-Apt (1957), pp. 17- 85; E. Benevent, 'La vieille economie provencale', Rev Geog Alp, 27 (1938), 531-69; G. Duby, 'Recherches recentes sur la vie rurale en Provence au xiv* siecle', Provence Hist, 15 (1965), 99-111; idem, 'Techniques et rendements agricoles dans les Alpes du Sud en 1338', Ann Midi, 70 (1958), 403-13. 63 A. Latreille (ed.), Histoire de Lyon et du Lyonnais (1975), pp. 91-26, 133-78, 207-80; Garden, 'La region Rhone-Alpes', pp. 267-80; Lorcin, Les campagnes, conveniently summarized in 'Les campagnes de la region lyonnaise aux xiv* et xv* siecles', B Centre Hist Econ S Region Lyon, 3 (1973), 1-13; idem, 'Le vignoble et les vignerons du Lyonnais aux xiv* et xv* siecles', Le vin au moyen age: production et producteurs (1978), pp. 15-52; Gruter, La naissance d'un grand vignoble, pp. 9-121, 132-5; J-P. Houssel, 'Les campagnes du Haut-Beaujolais au temps de I'apogee de la manufacture textile', Rev Geog Est (1986), 141-54; idem, 'Les petites villes textiles du Haut- Beaujolais', pp. 141-54; F. Bayard, 'Ville et campagne dans la fortune de Pierre Perrachon, noble lyonnais de 1642 a 1688', Villes et campagne, xif-xx* siecles (1977), pp. 105-31; Champier, 'Lyon et sa region agricole', pp. 33-46; G. Durand, Vin, vigne et vignerons en Lyonnais et Beaujolais, xvf-xviif siecles (1979), pp. 211-34; G. Garner, 'Premieres lignes d'une recherche collective: I'appropriation fondere dtadine dans la region Rhone-Alpes du xiv* au xx° siecle', B Centre Hist icon S Region Lyon (1975), 43-59. 64 A. Fel, Les bautes terres du Massif Central (1962), pp. 102-37; P. Bonnaud, 'Les problemes du peuplement du Massif Central vus par un geographe', Rev Auvergne, 83 (1969), 1-38; idem, 'Les toponymes relatifs a la vegetation et aux defrichements, et 1'evolution du paysage rural en Auvergne, Bourbonnais et Velay', Rev Auvergne, 85 (1971), 199-230; P. Charbonnier, 'Les communautes a plusieurs etages en Auvergne et en Bas-Iimousin', Les communautes villageoises en Europe ocddentale du moyen age aux temps modernes (1984), 211-14; idem, 'Les communautes familiales en Auvergne d'apres les terriers', Rev Auvergne, 95 (1981), 7-16; idem, 'L'elevage de "montagne" dans les Monts Dore du xiv* au xviii' siecle', L'elevage et la vie pastorale dans les JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 429 of France in the early fourteenth century was underpopulated, not over- populated. The only part of France where the density of population and the intensity of land use came anywhere near the levels of the early modern centuries was in a narrow band of land which ran from Rouen and the lower Seine in Normandy, through Picardy, the northern half of the Paris basin and on eastward along the border of the southern .65

II Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 The crisis interpretations of the late Middle Ages in France overlook important regional differences in densities of population and in levels of socio-economic development. To clarify our understanding, we can divide the country into four admittedly broad categories for the first half of the fourteenth century. Firstly, there were areas with light population and rudimentary socio-economic structures. Secondly, there were areas which combined light population and rudimentary socio-economic structures with a largely isolated colonial export sector. A third category comprised the areas with zones of at least moderate population density and fairly advanced socio-economic structures. The fourth and final category comprised areas with significant population densities and advanced socio-economic structures. More than half of France fell into the first of these categories; two-thirds, if we add the second category. Because most of France had light population and rudimentary socio-economic structures, we must examine in some detail the fundamental features of these regions. It is against a standard of pervasive social and economic underdevelopment that France must be judged -when assessing the reality of a pre-Black Death crisis. In most areas of France, light population, limitless expanses of unfarmed land and rudimentary socio-economic structures combined to provide what we can montagnes de l'Europe au moyen age et a I'epoque moderne (1984), 227-47; idem, 'Le mouvement de la population dans le village de Bravant du xiv* au xviie siecle', B Pbilol Hist (1963), 701-10; idem, 'Les villages dispams de la region des ', B Pbilol Hist (1965), 357-77; J. Delaspre, 'La naissance dun paysage rural au xviiie siecle sur les haut plateaux de 1'est du Cantal et du nord de la Margeride', Rev Geog Alp, 40 (1952), 493-7; M. Dermau, La grande Limagne auvergnate et bourbonnaise (1949), pp. 19-312; E. Martres, "Les paysans et leur terroir dans une haute vallee cantalienne. Albepierre du xiiie au xix* siecle', Rev Hte-Auvergne, 35 (1956-7), 157-84; Poitrineau, La vie rurale en Basse-Auvergne, pp. 141-237; N. Lemaltre, Bruyeres, communes et mas: les communaux en Bas-Limousin depuis le xvf siecle (1981); idem, Un horizon bloque: Ussel et la montagne limousine aux xvif et xviif siecles (1978), 94-147; J. Tricard, 'Les limites d'une reconstruction rurale en pays pauvre a la fin du xv* siecle', Etud Rurales, 60 (1975), 5-40; L'Aubrac etude etbnologique, UnguisHque, agronomique et economique d'un etablissement humain (1970), U. 25-116, 221-55; H. Enjalbert (ed), Histoiredu Rouergue (1979), pp. 9-28, 100-248; C. Higounet, 'Observations sur la seigneurie rurale et I'habitat en Rouergue du ix* au xiv* siecle', idem, Paysages et villages neufs, pp. 151-60; P. Bozon, 'La transhumance sur les hauts plateaux du Vivarais du moyen age au xx* siecle', L'elevage et la vie pastorale, pp. 283-8; P. Guichard, 'D'une societe repliee a une societe ouverte: revolution socio-economique de la region d'Andance, de la fin du xviie siecle a la Revolution', Structures economiques et problemes sodaux, ed. Leon, pp. 141- 217; A. Molinier, Stagnation et croissance: le Vivarais aux xvif-xvtif siecles (1985), pp. 45-229; R. J. Bernard, 'L'elevage du mouton en Gevaudan aux xviie et xviiic siecles', L'elevage et la vie pastorale, pp. 335-54; H. Smotkine, "Economic rurale et demographie dans la Cevenne', Etud Rurales, 22-4 (1966), 174-87. 65 See note 96 below. 430 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES call the system of petite culture. Roger Brunet provided a penetrating analysis of the petite culture socio-economic system in his study of the Toulouse region.66 To Brunet's basic model we may add the details for the medieval period derived from a number of particularly well-documented studies: Pierre Charbonnier's thesis on Basse Auvergne;67 the works of Jean Kerherve, Jean Gallet, Jeanne Laurent, Raymond Delatouche, Jean-Pierre Leguay, Herve Martin and Andre Meynier for Brittany;68 Michel Le Mene's study of Anjou and the work of Maurice

Berthe, Higounet and Roger Brunet for and the foothills of the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 Pyrenees;69 and the studies of Philippe Wolff and Pierre Brunet himself for Haut Languedoc.70 Finally, to complete our composite model, we may sharpen the analytical focus with the insights of Malassis, Colin Clark and Margaret Haswell on the role of agriculture in twentieth-century economic underdevelopment and development.71 In the petite culture regions, underpopulation and economic underdevelopment worked together in systematic interdependence and produced a characteristic set of social and economic structures. The peasant population, whether huddled in crowded valleys or dispersed in tiny hamlets on largely uninhabited plateaux, consisted overwhelmingly of small holders. The level of existence of the majority of peasants can best be described as egalitarian mediocrity. Poverty, but not destitution, was all-pervasive. The farms were poorly equipped; the people poorly clothed, housed and fed. The basic farming system was a variety of undercapitalized peasant polyculture whose aim was economic self-sufficiency not only in foodstuffs, but in what would be called in more developed economies the products of industry and services. Peasant economic autarchy was the ideal. The peasant hierarchy was characteristically truncated. In more economically developed and more densely populated regions, the peasant social hierarchy was more highly stratified and wealth more polarized. The top and the bottom of the peasant social hierarchy were largely absent in the petite culture areas. We find neither wealthy capitalist tenant farmers nor masses of landless day labourers, but rather a relatively homogeneous peasantry with small and medium-sized farms. Most peasants lived in tiny hamlets or small villages in which all households were engaged in agriculture.

66 Brunet, Les campagnes toulousaines, pp. 243-428. 67 Charbonnier, La seigneurie rurale en Basse-Auvergne, pp. 117-238, 259-668, 739-828; M. Sauvadet, 'La seigneurie d'Ambert a la fin du moyen age', Rev Auvergne, 100 (1986), 159-82. 68 Kerherve, L'Etat breton, pp. 416-581, 723-40, 861-938; Gallet, La seigneurie bretonne, pp. 15-278; Legauy and Martin, Pastes et malbeurs, pp. 39-55, 210-77; Leguay, 'Le paysage peri-urbain au xv* siecle', pp. 63-127; J. Laurent, Un monde rural au xtf siecle: la quevaise (1972); R. Delatouche, 'Une teneur originate, la quevaise medievale', CR Ac Agric France, 65 (1979), 1482-9; J- P. Leguay, Un reseau urbain au moyen age: les villes du duche de Bretagne auxxiif etxtf siecles (1981); A. Meynier, 'La genese du parcellaire breton', Norois, 13 (1966), 595-610. 69 Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines, pp. 93-499; Berthe, Le comtede Bigorre, pp. 39-59, 73- 169; Higounet, Le comte de Comminges, pp. 413-93; R. Brunet, 'Paysages ruraux de I'Aquitaine', Rev Geog Pyrenees, 31 (I960), 233-75. 70 Wolff, Commerce et marcbands, pp. 12-22, 31-6, 114-273, 622-32; Brunet, Les campagnes toulousaines, pp. 243-428. 71 L. Malassis, Agriculture and the development process (1975); C. dark and M. Haswell, The of subsistence agriculture, 4th edn (1970). JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 431

The towns were small in the petite culture areas. The largest ones in the early fourteenth century had 5,000 or 10,000 inhabitants, rarely more. Even the larger towns were structurally little more than overgrown peasant villages in which at least half the households were composed of peasant formers and gardeners. The artisanal-industrial sector of the towns, held back by the habits of peasant economic self-sufficiency, barely existed beyond the most basic occupations. We encounter blacksmiths, tanners, a few weavers, and the like, all of whom were

also engaged in farming. Most of the leading towns, like Tarbes, Angers or Rennes, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 were administrative-judicial centres, feudal capitals, bishoprics or the seats of important monasteries. Petite culture areas produced at most modest regional economic centres, such as Toulouse, which were a bit larger than, but structurally similar to, the lesser towns. The bourgeois class in the towns was characteristically small, poor and redolent of its peasant origins. Petty merchants occupied themselves with local trade in grains, livestock, hides and wool. Men with a smattering of legal training and a little capital turned to seigneurial administration. Indeed, seigneurial administration widely conceived, for nobles, churchmen, the count, the duke or the king, gave rise to the largest-scale operations and provided the surest road to upward mobility. This frail bourgeois class as a whole owned little farmland, apart from long-held family lands of peasant ancestors, and the occasional vineyard or hayfield near town. The typical concerns of this embryonic bourgeois class were rentes in kind or cash, herds of livestock for profitable lease to peasant neighbours, usurious consumer loans to nobles and to peasants alike. The social elite in the petite culture provinces consisted of the ancient feudal classes: the bishops, canons, monks and nobles. Churchmen and nobles drew their revenues from a variety of sources: from the tithe, seigneurial dues and the proceeds of justice; increasingly, from royal, ducal or comital office; from non- seigneurial rentes of various sorts; and from domain farms. Domain farms were particularly important. Because population densities had always been low in the petite culture regions, the social elites had never been able to rely too heavily, certainly not exclusively, on payments from peasant tenants. Domain farms, often referred to as metairies or bories, were normally a mainstay of all but the largest seigneurial budgets. In the absence of a capitalist class of peasant tenant farmers and with only a weak labour market, the seigneurs worked their domain farms directly, or relied on permanent or long-term sharecroppers. Domain farms of this sort rarely belonged to members of the bourgeois class. Poor peasants, poor bourgeois and poor nobles. The economic logic of petite culture was in evidence everywhere. Small-scale operations predominated in every sector, in every region, in every class. Small villages or hamlets, small towns and the total fragmentation of the market meant that the same limited process of socio-economic development repeated itself endlessly. Economic growth and development were insufficiently robust to lift the largest towns up to positions of unquestioned dominance, to assign subordinate roles to lesser satellite settlements and to shape the entire network of urban centres into a clearly structured economic pyramid. Instead, a myriad of small villages and towns which were all virtually identical spread out across the land. 432 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES But as rudimentary as the petite culture structures were, they displayed a rock-like stability even in the most difficult times. A drop in population of even 50 per cent in the worst years of the Black Death had no perceptible impact on socio-economic structures. This stability is highly revealing. Often vacant peasant tenures located even in the most fertile regions stood empty for decades until population recovered. The survivors were simply too poor to take on larger farms. Here we come face to face with one of the principal features of

the lighdy populated and economically underdeveloped regions of France in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 the late Middle Ages. It was not shortage of land which condemned the peasantry to small farmsteads, but poverty. The disappearance, temporarily, of up to half the peasant population did not usher in a golden age, free from the burdens of population pressures, in •which peasants were suddenly able to farm decent-sized holdings. No, usually nothing much happened. These under- developed regions had never been overpopulated; they had never had a shortage of land. When the population level recovered, the vacant tenures were farmed again, much as diey had been before, as small or medium-sized peasant holdings suitable to the needs and resources of a poor peasant population. Whether in Bigorre, Auvergne or Brittany, the pattern was the same. Occasionally as in Quercy, new settlers took on enormous tenures, but they effectively farmed only a fraction of the land. After two or three generations, subdivisions brought back the characteristic small peasant farmstead, identical in size, in equipment and in agricultural techniques to what had existed prior to the Black Death.72 Elsewhere in Provence, the troubles of the late Middle Ages resulted in an unusually dramatic abandonment of small villages and hamlets, the concentration of population in the strongest and often most defensible sites, and the annexation of the territories of the abandoned settlements to those of the surviving villages. The abandoned farmsteads were used, but typically as sheep runs, while ploughing and gardening remained concentrated near die population centres.73 With minor differences of detail, die system of petite culture with light population, limitless expanses of unfarmed land and rudimentary socio- economic structures appeared in most areas of France in the early fourteenth century, not only in Auvergne, Brittany, Anjou, Gascony, die foodiills of die Pyrenees and Upper Languedoc,74 but also in Lower Normandy,75 Maine and

72 J. Lartigaut, Les campagnes du Quercy apres la guerre de cent arts, vers 1440-vers 1500 (1978), pp. 61-137; L. d'Alauzier, 'Un aspect du repeuplement du Lot apres la guerre de cent ans. Les accensements collectUs', B Pbilol Hist (1965), 413-26; J. Clemens, 'Structures foncieres et sociales dans la seigneurie de Caumont-sur-Garonne en 1525', Montauban et le Bas-Quercy (1972), pp. 333-44. 73 Baratier (ed.), Histoire de la Provence, pp. 191-9; J-J. Letrait, 'Les actes d'habitation en Provence, 1460-1560', B Pbilol Hist (1965), 183-226; N. Coulet, 'Encore les villages disparus: depeuplement et repeuplement amour d'Aix-en-Provence (xiv*-xvic siecles)', Annales ESC (1973), 1463-83. 7< See notes 66 to 70. 75 M. Campserveux, 'La condition economique et sociale de la noblesse du Cotentin a fin du moyen age', Rev Avrancbin, 59 (1982), 215-56. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 433

Touraine,76 Sologne and Berry,77 Rouergue,78 most of Aquitaine,79 Dauphine and the French Alps,80 Franche-Comte81 and virtually all of Burgundy.82 Likewise, similar petite culture systems almost certainly prevailed in the late Middle Ages in the rest of the Massif Central: in Limousin, Bourbonnais,

76 See note 49 for Bouton, Delatouche, Heers, Latouche and Musset. Also R. Delatouche, 'Quelques exemples de metayage dans le Maine et PAnjou, du xie au xiv* siecle', Etud Soc, 14-16 (1951), 13-18; idem, 'Le rouleau de la dame d'Olivet (1335-1342). Notes d'economie rurale', B Com Hist Arcbeol Mayenne, ser. 2, 65 (1955), 3-14; R. Grantf 'Presentation d'une etude de M. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 Delatouche sur le metayage dans le Bas-Maine", CRAcAgric France, 32 (1953), 238-41; R. Maury, 'Les paysages coupes. Un exemple: la Touraine', Paysages et sodetes, peninsule iberique, France, regions attantiques (1990), pp. 399-418. 77 I. Guerin, La vie rurale en Sologne aux xixf etxtf siecles (1960), pp. 44-96, 163-92, 233-88; G. Devailly, Le Berry du x* siecle au milieu du xiif (1973), pp. 99-310, 519-85; idem (ed.), Histoire du Berry (1980), pp. 132-74; F. P. Gay, La champagne du Berry (1967), pp. 12-127; F. Michaud-Frejaville, 'Le Berry au temps de Jacques Amyot, aspects economiques et sociaux', Fortunes de Jacques Amyot (1986), pp. 87-102. 78 Enjalbert, Histoire du Rouergue, pp. 9-24, 116-78; Higounet, 'Observations sur la seigneurie rurale', pp. 151-60. For the opposite interpretation of medieval overpopulation: A. Guery, 'La population du Rouergue de la fin du moyen age au xviiie siecle', Annales ESC, 28 (1973), 1155-76. 79 See note 55. 80 P. Arbos, La vie pastorale dans les Alpes francaises (1923), pp. 31-213; P. Guichonnet (ed.), Histoire et civilisation des Alpes (1980), i. 11-60, 163-264; ii. 5-90; M. Baudot, 'Les communautes rurales d'une haute vallee de Tarantaise au xv* siecle', Act 108 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Philol (1983), 141-60. J. Blache, Les massifs de la Grande Chartreuse et du Vercors (1931), ii. 1-315; B. Bligny (ed.), Histoire du Dauphine (1973), pp. 12-25, 140-90; L. Champier, 'Le defrichement de la foret de Bievre (Bas-Dauphine). Essai d'interpretation d'un type de terroir meridonal', Rev Geog Lyon, 24 (1952), 435-50; G. Montpied, 'La societe grenobloise a la fin du moyen age d'apres les revisions des feux et les roles de taille', Act 108 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Philol (1983), 51-65. For die opposite view of medieval overpopulation: A. Fierro, 'Un cycle demographique: Dauphine et Faucigny du xiv* au MX* siecle', Annales ESC, 26 (1971), 941-59. 81 M. Berthet, 'Le peuplement du Haut-Jura du x* au xiv* siecle', S Emuljura Trav (1965-9), 294- 8; J. Bouchard, 'Evolution historique de la foret dans le nord du Jura', Ann Lit Univ Besancon Geog, 2 (1955), 61-78; S. Daveau, Les regions frontalieres de la montagne jurassienne (1959), pp. 14-86; R. Fietier (ed.), Histoire de la Francbe-Comte (1976), pp. 154-221; P. Gresser, La Franche-Comte au temps de la guerre de cent ans (1989), pp. 11-38, 114-58, 295-362; W. Kriesel, 'Structures agraires de "Waldhufendorf" dans le Jura', Rev Geog Lyon, 44 (1969), 85-113; R. Lebeau, "Les paysages du Jura francais: genese et devenir', S Emuljura Trav (1986-7), 61-82; idem, La vie rurale dans les montagnes dujura meridional (1955), pp. 26-223; P. Pegeot and J-C. Voisin, 'Etude du peuplement dans la chatellenie de Passavant (Doubs). Bourg casual et amenagement du territoire villageois', B M S Emul Montbeliard, 83 (1987), 283-313; P. Pegeot, 'Le mouvement d'abandon de terres et desertion a la fin du moyen age dans la region de Montbeliard', B At S Emul Montbeliard, 81 (1985), 29-44; R. Scheurer, 'La seigneurie de Vuillafans-le-Neuf a la fin du xiv* et au debut du xv* siecle', Acad Sd BeUes-Lettres Arts Besancon, 185 (1982-3), 73-84. 82 F. Amblard, 'La gruerie du duche de Bourgogne au temps de Geoffrey de Blaisy (1352-1360)', Mem S Hist Droit Bourguignons (1987), 121-46; C. Beck, 'Le cheptel des exploitations paysannes dans le Val de Saone aux xiv* et XV* siecle', Act 109 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Hist Med (1984), ii. 113-29; P. Beck, 'Demographie et peuplement du Nuiton aux xiv* et xv* siecles', Ann Bourgogne, 56 (1984), 81-102; idem, Une ferme seigneuriale au xitf siecle: la grange du Mont (Charny, Cote-d'Or) (1989); M. Belotte, 'Les possessions des eveques de Langres . . . du milieu du xiie au milieu du xiv* siecle', Ann Bourgogne, 37 (1965), 161-97; P-H. Billy, 'La condamine, institution agro-seigneuriale', Mem S Hist Droit Bourguignons (1989), 7-49; R. Gadille, Le vignoble et la cote bourguignonne (1967), pp. 138-40, 351-4; J-P. Moreau, La vie rurale dans le sud-est du bassin parisien (1958), pp. 11-67; J. Richard, 'Aspects historiques de 1'evolution du vignoble bourguignon', Geograpbie historique des vignobles (1978), i. 187-96; P. Beck, 'Les etablissements intercalaires en Bourgogne medievale', Histoire et archeologie de lhabitat medieval (1986), pp. 29-38; C. Bossardfleck, Villages et terroirs d'elevage dans le Val de Saone en Bourgogne medievale (1983); M-T. Caron, •Seigneurs et paysans en Tonnerrois au debut du xv" siecle', Rev Nord, 72 (1990), 601-19; J. Chififre, 434 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Nivernais and in Poitou.83 Even less evolved, more archaic societies and economies can be found in the high valleys of the Pyrenees, for example.84 Everywhere, the driving forces of these underdeveloped parts of France were decidedly not those suggested in the usual crisis interpretations of the late Middle Ages. We do not find overpopulation and land shortage, but rather light population, an abundance of land, and generalized social and economic underdevelopment.

The second category of regions in early fourteenth-century France consisted of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 those few areas which, while still fundamentally underpopulated and under- developed as in the petite culture category, had a largely isolated, foreign- dominated colonial sector. Bordeaux with its wine exports to is the best- known example; less well known is Provence with its wool exports to the textile cities of northern . Bordeaux, situated far from any major trade route and with only infertile soils, was suddenly called upon, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to supply the English market and English merchants with wine.85 A vast' and expanding market beckoned, but Bordeaux and the Bordelais were too lightly populated, too weakly capitalized, too underdeveloped in a word, to produce enough wine to satisfy the English demand. Bordeaux did its best, planted new vineyards, but after a century of efforts Bordeaux and the Bordelais still could

'Campagnes et bocages dans la genese des paysages agraires bourguignons', Act 108-109 Congr NatSSav Sect Geog (1983-4), 231-42; O. Martin Lorber, 'Sexploitation d'une grange cisterdenne a la fin du xrv* et au debut du xv* siecle', Ann Bourgogne, 29 (1957), 161-80; J. Chiffre, 'Granges et villages nouveaux en Bourgogne aux xvie et xviie siecles. Le role des abbayes dans la transformation du paysage rural', Rev Geog Est, 22 (1982), 183-97; J. Richard, 'Les defrichements medievaux et les modifications du paysage bourguignon', Cab Centre Etud Reg Bourgogne (1983), ii. 3-9. 83 See notes 50 and 64. Also, M. Aubrun, P. Charbonnier and G. Fournier, 'Le moyen age dans les paysages ruraux auvergnats', Rev Nord, 62 (1980), 221-31. 84 H. Cavailles, La vie pastorale et agricole dans les Pyrenees (1931), 26-146. Ecologie de la vallee d'Ossau (Pyrenees occidentals): recbercbespour une synthese (1978), pp. 53-6, 73-85; G. Gavignaud, 'L'organisation economique traditionnelle communautaire dans les hauts pays Catalans', Conflent, Vallespir et montagnes catalanes (1978), pp. 201-15; Lerat, Les pays de iAdour, pp. 13- 135; P. Luc, Vie rurale et pratique juridique en Beam auxxitf etxtf siecles (1943), pp. 3-229; F. Taillefer, 'Etudes sur les paysages ruraux du sud-ouest', Rev Geog Pyrenees (1950), 97-126, 234-57; idem (ed.), Les Pyrenees, de la montagne a I'bomme (1974), pp. 45-69, 103-63, 249-98; M. Chevalier, La vie humaine dans les Pyrenees ariegeoises (1956), pp. 66-132; Berthe, Le comte de Bigorre, pp. 39-59, 73-102. 85 Boutruche, La arise d'une sodete, pp. x-l6l; Higounet, Histoire de Bordeaux, pp. 97-141; Renouard, Histoire de Bordeaux, iii. 53-555; R. Fijassou, Un grand vignoble de qualite: le Medoc (1980), i. 296-320; Barennes, Viticulture et vitrification en Bordelais au moyen age (1912); M. K. James, Studies in the medieval wine trade (1971); J. Beauroy, 'L'Angleterre et le commerce des vins de Gascogne a la fin du moyen age: l'oeuvre de Margery James', Rev Hist Bordeaux, 21 (1972), 29-40; J-C. Cassard, 'Vins et marchands de vins gascons au debut du xiv* siecle1, Ann Midi, 90 (1978), 121-40; C. Higounet, 'Cologne et Bordeaux, marches du vin au moyen age', Rev Hist Bordeaux, 17 (1968), 65-79; idem, 'Paysages, mise en valeur, peuplement de la banlieue sud de Bordeaux a la fin du xiii' siecle', Rev Hist Bordeaux, 26 (1977), 5-25; J. Beauroy, 'Aspects de l'anden vignoble et du commerce du vin a Bergerac du xiv' au xviii' siecle', Ann Midi, 77 (1965), 275-95; idem, 'Geographie et structures des vignoblcs de la vallee de la Dordogne (xiiie et xviiie siecles)', Recbercbes sur I'occupation du sol du Perigord, ed. Higounet, pp. 153-63; idem, Vin et sodete a Bergerac du moyen age au temps moderne, pp. 51-240; A. Higounet-Nadal (ed.), Histoire du Perigord (1983), pp. 71-154; idem, 'Le vignoble et le vin a Perigueux aux xiv* et xv* siecles', Vignobles et vins d'Aquitaine, pp. 27-77; idem, 'Perigueux et la campagne aux xiv1 et xv* siecles', Recbercbes sur I'occupation du sol du Perigord, ed. Higounet, pp. 111-24. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 435 produce less than half of the wine the English wanted in the early fourteenth century. The rest came from the vineyards of the hinterland, along the Dordogne and the Garonne. Without doubt, the sheer volume of wine produced in the early fourteenth century was astounding, more than 100,000 tonnes, by some interpretations of the official figures. But, as large as this trade in wine was, there is no evidence to suggest that this colonial export market stimulated a general process of socio-economic development in the late Middle Ages, either in

Bordeaux or in its large hinterland. The English supplied the ships, and English Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 merchants handled the bulk of the cargo. Bordeaux, the Bordelais and the Aquitaine hinterland increased production, but did so, it would seem, largely within the existing pre-capitalist, seigneurial economic structures. The archbishop of Bordeaux was one of the principal wine exporters, and the bulk of his wine came from the tithe and the antique seigneurial dues of one-fifth or one-quarter assessed on perpetual tenants, not from his domain farms.86 To perceive the true extent of this economic backwardness, compare the archbishop of Bordeaux, who drew most of his revenues from archaic feudal sources, with the abbot of Saint-Denis in the Paris basin, who derived at most 2 per cent of his income from seigneurial payments and the rest from modern, capitalist domain farms, and from the sale of wood cut from well-managed forests.87 Wool and transhument sheep were to Provence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries what wine and vineyards were to Bordeaux and Aquitaine. In the early fourteenth century, Provence was one of the least densely populated provinces in France, in part because of the aridity and sterility of much of its territory, in part also because of the absence, for geographical reasons, of a great metropolis sitting on a principal navigable river and draining a vast hinterland. The history of Provence and Marseille would have been entirely different if the Rhone had not degenerated at its mouth into 50 km of virtually impassable swamp.88 As it was, hampered by enormous problems of transportation, Provence did what it could to respond, along with many other underdeveloped regions, to the insatiable demand of the textile cities of for wool of all qualities. The great seigneurs, ecclesiastical and noble, took the lead in developing transhumance commercially on their domain farms and on the vast summer pastures of the Alps.89 The wool trade acted as a

86 Boutruche, La arise d'une societe, p. 150. 87 Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, pp. 149-51. 88 E. Baratier, La demographieprovenfale du xiif au xvf siecle (1961); idem (ed.), Histoire de la Provence (1976), pp. 143-206; idem (ed.), Histoire de Marseille (1973), pp. 95-154; idem, Les communautes de Haute-Provence au moyen age. Problemes d'habitat et de population', Provence Hist, 21 (1971), 237-61. 89 T. Schlafert, Cultures en Haute-Provence: deboisement etpaturages au moyen age (1959); E. Baratier, 'Production et commercialisation de la laine en Provence du xiiic au xvic siecle', La lana come materia prima (1974), pp. 301-13; J. Richard, 'La laine de Bourgogne: production et commerce (xiiie-xvc siecles)', ibid. pp. 325-40; L. Stouff, 'Peuplement, economie et societe de quelques villages de la montagne de Lure, 1250-1450', Cab Centre Etud S Medit (1966), 35-109; Amouretti, Campagnes mediterraneennes, pp. 93-4, 153-64; P. Coste, 'L'origine de la transhumance en Provence: enseignements d'une enquete sur les paturages comtaux de 1345', L'elevage en Mediterranee occidental (1977), pp. 113-19. 436 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES largely isolated colonial sector in what remained a generally underdeveloped economy. At most, the commercial expansion of sheep farming and the trade in wool enhanced the growth of the towns, but did not stimulate any generalized socio-economic development in Provence as a whole in the late Middle Ages. Local livestock merchants of peasant origin grew in numbers as transhumance expanded, but they remained clearly subordinate to the Italian and Jewish traders, the men with capital and connections, who controlled the export of 90 wool. As in the petite culture regions that had no export sector, we find in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 Provence a seemingly endless multiplication of small towns which were all nearly identical in socio-economic structures. All trafficked in wool, hides, fleeces, livestock and, inevitably, in grains.91 The colonial sector was not sufficiently strong to alter the basic economic structures of an underdeveloped and underpopulated province. Indeed, the very lightness of population stood in the way of any significant intensification of agriculture, beyond the usual band of gardens and vineyards that surrounded every town.92 Aries with its extensive sheep and grain farming was typical of Provence as a whole: a small town of a few thousand souls lost in a territory of some 100,000 hectares.93 The third category of territories consisted of those areas which while still lightly populated compared to what they would be around 1700 had at least some moderately advanced social and economic structures. Here we can place two quite different regions, the Lyonnais94 and Bas Languedoc. The case of Bas Languedoc is particularly instructive since Monique Bourin-Derruau's thesis amounts to a point-by-point refutation for the Middle Ages of the Malthusian- Ricardian view of the same region found in Le Roy Ladurie's Paysans de

90 L. Stouff, Aries a la fin du moyen age (1986), i. 179-259; Baratier, 'Production et commercialisation de la laine', pp. 308-13. 91 Stouff, Aries, i. 179-481; P-L. Malaussena, La vie en Provence orientate auxxitf et xtf siecles (1969); P. Paillard, Lelevage a Salon-de-Provence de 1470 a 1550', B PbilolHist (1968), 319-30; idem, 'Vie economique et sociale a Salon de Provence de 1450 a 1550', Provence Hist, 19 (1969), 227-306; ibid. 20 (1970), 189-223. 92 Prior to the widespread availability of irrigation in the mid-nineteenth century, the intensification of agriculture in Provence appeared in very labour-intensive forms in vineyards, orchards, gardens and terraces. But, it was not until the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that the population was sufficiently dense to provide both the labour and the markets for these intensive types of agriculture: M. Zerner, 'Mise en valeur des terres et population dans le Midi de la fin du moyen age: comparaison avec le xviiie siecle . . .', Provence Hist, 26 (1976), 3-19; Baratier, Histoire de Marseille, pp. 151-3; idem, 'Production et exportation du vin du terroir de Marseille du xiiie au xvie siecle', B Pbilol Hist (1959), 239-49; Amouretti, Campagnes mediterraneennes, pp. 125-7, 131-5; G. Duby, 'Techniques et rendements agricoles dans les Alpes du Sud en 1338', Ann Midi, 70 (1958), 403-13; P-A. Fevrier, 'Quelques aspects de la vie agricole en Basse-Provence a la fin du moyen age1, B Pbilol Hist (1958), 299-317; R. Iivet and A. Roux, Elements d'bistoire agraire du terroirprovencal: Saint-SatuminAes-Apt (1957), pp. 17-85. 93 Stouff, Aries, p. 477. ** Latreille (ed.), Histoire de Lyon et du Lyonnais, pp. 91-137; Lorcin, Les campagnes de la region lyonnaise (1974), conveniently summarized by the author in 'Les campagnes de la region lyonnaise aux xiv* et xv* siecles', B Centre Hist Econ S Region Lyon, 3 (1973), 1-13; Fedou, Les hotnmes de lot lyonnais, pp. 13-65, 159-79, 211-373; Garden, 'La region Rhone-Alpes', pp. 267- 80; M-T. Lorcin, 'Le vignoble et les vignerons du Lyonnais aux xiv* et xv* siecles', Le vin au moyen age:production etproducteurs (1978), pp. 15-52; Gruter, La naissance d'un grand vignoble, pp. 9-64. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 437 Languedoc. Bourin-Derruau's interpretation is supported by the data contained in a mass of local monographic literature even when, as is often the case, the authors placed their findings in the framework of the long-dominant Malthusian-Ricardian interpretation.95 In the early fourteenth century, Bas Languedoc displayed a disconcerting mixture of development and back- wardness. The densely populated coastal area with its towns and innumerable semi-urban villages contrasted sharply with a lightly populated hinterland.

Along the coast, socio-economic development went hand in hand with Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 enhanced personal legal status and careful regulation of seigneurial obligations. In the interior, underdevelopment was accompanied by a residual, serf-like status of restricted freedom and heavy seigneurial burdens. Near the towns and villages, a sizeable segment of the peasant population worked gardens; sheep and grain farms boasted semi-intensive plantings; vineyards, producing both for local and regional trade, multiplied. The woollen textile industry was ubiquitous, and merchants in the leading towns were in regular contact with northern Italy. In the coastal towns, local traders handled both regional and international commerce, although on a scale considerably smaller than that of the leading Italian merchants. Bas Languedoc imported cattle from the mountain pastures of the Pyrenees and the Massif Central, grains from Upper Languedoc, and sold oil and wine to both in return. Maritime trade in grain was not uncommon, especially in years of shortage, and Bas Languedoc sold -wool and even crude textiles to northern Italy. We have here at least the beginnings of regional economic specialization and a degree of reliance on a wider market which set Bas Languedoc apart from lesser developed areas of France that typically remained locked in their local economies. The combination of semi-intensive fanning at home with regular reliance on trade for livestock and grains revealed a fine economic calculation. It •was easier and cheaper to import much of the

95 Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievaux en Bas-Languedoc, ii. 9-44, 197-264, 272-83, 312-19, 333-9; C. Bouladou, 'La vallee du Gardon de St-Germain-de-Calbert (Lozere)', B S Languedoc Geog (1946), 38-59; A. CastaJlo, 'Crise du xiv* siecle et demographie dans la region piscenoise: l'exemple de Conas', Pezenas: ville et campagne, xiif-xx? siecles (1976), pp. 49-65; G. Cholvy (ed.), Histoire de Montpellier (1984), pp. 52-75; J. Combes, 'Aspects economiques et sociaux du Pezenas medieval', Pezenas: ville et campagne, 5-29; idem, "Les foires en Languedoc au moyen age', Annales ESC, 13 (1958), 231-59; R. Dugrand, La garrigue montpellieraine: essai d'explication d'un paysage (1964); D. Faucher, 'Polyculture ancienne et assolement biennal dans la France meridionale', Rev Geog Pyrenees, 5 (1934), 241-55; idem, "Le Languedoc et les civilisations mediterraneennes', Faucher, La vie rurale vue par un geograpbe (1962), 209-18; G. Galtier, Le vignoble du Languedoc mediterraneen et du Roussillon (I960), i 38-115; J. Guilaine and D. Fabre (eds.), Histoire de Carcassonne (1984), pp. 88-99; M. Gramain, 'Les formes de 1'elevage en Bas- Languedoc occidental aux xiie et xiv* siecles', L'elevage en Mediterranee ocddentale, pp. 137-52; E-R. Labande, 'L'administration du due d'Anjou en Languedoc aux prises avec le probleme du ble (1365-1380)', Ann Midi, 61 (1950), 5-14; M-J. Larenaudie, 'Les famines en Languedoc aux xiv* et xv* siecles', Ann Midi, 63 (1952), 27-39; P. Mazier, 'L'habitat rural dans la Costiere des environs de Ntmes', B S Languedoc Geog, ser. 2, 27 (1956), 265-366; G. Romestan, 'Les consuls de Beziers et l'abolition de la gabelle des draps', Beziers et le Biterrois, pp. 191-219; idem, "Perpignan et les foires de Pezenas et de Montagnac aux xiv* et xv1 siecles', Pezenas: ville et campagne, pp. 75-103; P. Wolff, 'La draperie en Languedoc du xiic au debut du xviic siecle', idem, Regards sur le midi medieval, Ayi-ld. 438 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES food from afar than to demand more from the poor soils at home than they could profitably yield. Finally, we come to the last and least characteristic of our four categories: areas with dense population and advanced socio-economic structures. The band of territory extending from Upper Normandy, through Picardy, the northern part of the Paris basin eastward to the southern border of the Low Countries was the only part of France in the early fourteenth century where

population densities and commercial activities were sufficient to produce large Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 urban centres and across-the-board economic development in all sectors of the economy.96 Here was an area that w.as thriving. We find the voracious Parisian market itself which stimulated viticulture, grain and sheep farming, livestock breeding and industries of all sorts. The river merchants of Paris controlled trade on the Seine and ensured adequate supplies of foodstuffs at all times. In addition, there was the important export market of the Low Countries which absorbed wine and grain. In the primary sector, the vast grain farms of the Plaine de France and the Soissonnais which belonged to the leading ecclesiastical and noble seigneurs were true model farms: the last word in technology, equipment and yields. Vineyards which belonged to the upper classes and to the peasants lined the river valleys and surrounded the cities. The peasant social hierarchy was highly stratified, not flat as in backward areas. At the top stood the coqs de village with 7 to 10 hectares or more. These men were capitalist farmers capable of leasing the 150-hectare grain farms that belonged to the great seigneurs. Next came a majority of middling peasants with plough teams who held 1 to 5 hectares and often leased more. Finally, there were the day labourers who accounted for one-third or one-quarter of the

96 Dupaquier, Histoire de la population francaise, i. 242-52. For Normandy: G. Bois, Crise du feodalisme (1976); M. de Bouard (ed.), Histoire de la Normandie (1970), pp. 159-286; J. Favier, 'Un terroir cauchois au debut du xv" siecle. Le domaine de LangueU', Ann Normandie, 13 (1963), 151-64; F. Pilette, 'Les bourgs du sud du Pays d'Auge du milieu du xic au milieu du xiv* siecle', Ann Normandie, 30 (1980), 211-30; R. Carabie, La propriete dans le tres ancien droit normand, xf- xiif siecles (1943); F. Concato, 'La technique drapiere en Normandie a la fin du moyen age (xiv'-xv* siecles)', Ann Normandie, 25 (1975), 75-98; L. Musset, 'Autour de la seigneurie rurale normande. Quelques problemes devolution', Rev Hist Droit, 32 (1954), 160-2; idem, 'Peuplement en bourgade et bourgs ruraux en Normandie du x" au xiiie siecle', Cab Civ Med, 9 (1966), 177-208; A. Sadourny, 'Les rentes a Rouen au xiiic siecle', Ann Normandie, 21 (1971), 99-108; J. Sion, Les paysans de la Normandie orientate (1909), 1-164. For the Ue-de-France: Mollat, Histoire de I'lle- de-France et de Paris, 7-20, 103-340; Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, 59-190; idem, 'Le droit parisien de la fin du moyen age. Droit de notables', Etudes d'histoire du droit parisien (1970), 375-95; J-P. Gutton, 'Les communautes villageoises de la France septentrionale aux temps modernes', Les communautes villageoises en Europe occidentale (1984), pp. 165-84. For Picardy: R. Fossier, La terre et les bommes en Picardie jusqu'a la fin du xiif siecle (1968), i. 305- 434; ii. 603-86; idem, 'Les communautes villageoises en France du nord au moyen age', Les communautes villageoises en Europe occidentale, pp. 29-53; idem (ed.), Histoire de la Picardie (1974), pp. 107-320. For the French Low Countries: H. Neveux, Vie et declin d'une structure economique: les grains du Cambresis, fin du xitf-debut du xvif siecle (1980), pp. 7-186; G. Sivery, Structures agraires et vie rurale dans le Hainault a la fin du moyen age (1977, 1980), i. 13-342; ii. 363-412. And for the vineyards: Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin, pp. 1-61, 174-309; J. Craebeckx, Un grand commerce d'exportation: les vins de France aux anciens Pays-Bas, xiif- xvf siecle (1958). JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 439 population with holdings of only one-third to half a hectare. Thanks to the remunerative market in wine and an abundance of work on the grain farms, in the vineyards, in industries of all sorts, in transportation and in construction, this class of day labourers was in no danger of perishing. At a higher level, we find an economic hierarchy of towns. Paris had its economic satellites such as Melun, Corbeil, Meaux, Pontoise and Saint-Denis; on a lesser scale, Rouen had its tributaries. Near Paris, the lesser towns had populations of several thousands

and developed specialized economies which served the Parisian market. Some Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 towns were grain milling centres, others handled the livestock trade, yet others baked bread. The Paris basin and the band of territory along the northern border of the realm had more in common economically and socially with Flanders and Brabant than with the rest of France. Historians of the medieval Low Countries have described with admirable clarity the mechanics of economic growth and development which animated this advanced region. The works of Herman Van der Wee, Eddy Van Cauwenberghe, Marie-Jeanne Tits-Dieuaide and David Nicolas are particularly useful.97 Similar processes of economic growth, specialization and diversification enlivened both the broad northern Paris basin and the Low Countries. The differences were matters of degree, intensity and markets. The plains north of Paris, blessed with some of the best grain-growing lands in France, developed the large, market-orientated grain and sheep farms which produced not only for Paris but for the export market in the Low Countries. Likewise, the river valleys near Paris were among the most northerly sites in Europe where vineyards still grew reasonably well. Paris in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries continued to produce wine for export to the Low Countries, but faced increased competition from areas further south. In the later Middle Ages, the economic and social structures of the Paris basin were remarkably stable even under the strains of economic recession and population loss.98 Here was an advanced region which had found its vocation. When population fell, migrants streamed in and took the lands and jobs of those who had perished. When war and politics closed the export market to the Low Countries temporarily, marginal grain-growing regions in Hainault phased out the three-field system and converted to pasture for livestock. But the biggest farms in the best grain-growing lands made money even in a slack market.

97 H. Van der Wee, The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy, fourteentb-sixteentb centuries (1963); idem and E. Van Cauwenberghe (eds.), Productivity of land and agricultural innovation in the Low Countries, 1250-1800 (1978); M-J. Tits-Dieuaide, 'Les campagnes Samandes du xiiie au xvii' siecle, ou les succes dune agriculture traditionnelle', Annales ESC, 39 (1984), 590-610; idem, 'devolution des techniques agricoles en Flandre et en Brabant du xiv* au xvic siecle', ibid. 36 (1981), 362-81; D. Nicolas, 'Structures du peuplement, fonctions urbaines et formation du capital dans la Flandre medievale', ibid. 33 (1978), 501-27; B. H. Slicher van Bath, "The rise of intensive husbandry in the Low Countries', Britain and the (I960), pp. 130-53; H. Van der Wee and E. Van Cauwenberghe, 'Histoire agraire et finances en Flandre du xiv* au xvii' siecle', Annales ESC, 28 (1973), 1051-65. 98 Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, pp. 116-17. 440 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES There, owners and farmers simply waited for better days." In this privileged area, it was market forces, not the needs of a subsistence peasantry, which mainly shaped economic and social structures. Not all of the Paris basin was as economically advanced and densely populated in the early fourteenth century as the northern part. Brie and Hurepoix were still only lightly populated. Further afield, Beauce, which would be a significant source of grains for Paris under the Bourbon kings, was as yet unaffected by the economic pull of 100

Paris. The most densely populated areas in France in the late Middle Ages Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 stood next to vast, largely unoccupied expanses of forest and unfarmed land. Only a few kilometres separated the busy port of Rouen from the dispersed hamlets and lonely solitudes of the bocage in Lower Normandy. Everywhere, population was far less evenly distributed in France in 1300 than it would be later in 1700.im

III If we review the four categories into which we have divided France in the early fourteenth century, we come away with the impression, everywhere, of being fairly near the beginnings of a process of growth. The loosely organized and poorly formed agrarian systems found in the late Middle Ages at most foreshadowed the fully developed systems of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The striking regional contrasts in the physical appearance of fields and landscapes which so impressed observers of eighteenth century France were far less apparent in the late Middle Ages.102 Even after the clearings of the eleventh to the early fourteenth centuries, forests and remnants of forests covered much of the northern half of France and still served as political and seigneurial boundaries.103 Throughout western France, the vast network of enclosed and semi-enclosed fields,th e bocage, was just beginning to emerge.104

99 Sivery, Structures agraires, ii. 477-507, 569-71. 100 R. Dion, 'La part de la geographic et celle de I'histoire dans I'explication de l'habitat rural du bassin parisien', Pub S Geog Lille (1946), 6-80; Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, pp. 59-118; Chedeville, Chartres et ses campagnes, pp. 431-56, 528. 101 J. Dupaquier, La population rurale du bassin parisien a t'epoque de Louis A7K(1979); idem, Histoire de la population franfaise, i. 242-59; idem, 'Reflexions d'un historien sur les problemes de la repartition geographique du peuplement et de ses variations', B Centre Hist Econ S Region Lyon, 2 (1973), 1-8. 102 For an overview of a vast literature: A. Meynier, Lespaysages agraires (1958), pp. 148-77; R. Pitte, Histoire du paysage franfais (1986), i. 107-26; P. Flatres, 'Geographie agraire et amenagement rural: reflexions sur une evolution', La pensee geographique francaise contempor- aine (1972), pp. 431-42; R. Lebeau, Les grands types de structures agraires dans le monde (1972), pp. 5-66; E. JuUlard, A. Meynier et al., "Structures agraires et paysages ruraux', Ann Est, 19 (1957); idem, 'Geographie et histoire agraire', Ann Est, 21 (1959). 1M Charles Higounet, 'Les grandes haies forestieres de l'Europe medievale', Rev Nord, 62 (1980), 213-20; Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines, pp. 116-17. 104 A. Meynier, 'La genese du parcellaire breton', Norois, 13 (1966), 595-610; R. Maury, 'Les paysages coupes. Un exemple: la Touraine', Paysages et societes: melanges en bommage au Professeur Abel Bouhier (1990), pp. 399-418; Pitte, Histoire du paysage franfais, i. 116-20; Laurent, Un monde rural en Bretagne, pp. 133-44; Leguay and Herve, Pastes et malbeurs, pp. 54- 5, 213-19; Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines, pp. 116-37. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 441

In Brittany, infield-outfield arrangements combined fairly intensive cultivation of regular fields with temporary cultivation of parts of the boundless lande.105 The open pasture regulations for grazing animals on the fallows and hayfields, so common all over France in the Middle Ages, were not, as is often assumed, the result of overpopulation and shortage of pasture. In parts of western France, in the Massif Central, in the Pyrenees and in various parts of the Midi, where the cultivated lands were just so many tiny clearings in a vast expanse of

unimproved forest, heath, lande or garrigue, the open pasture arrangements Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 appeared in the early stages of the intensification of agriculture and were intended to concentrate precious animal fertilizer on the fields.106 In the Paris basin, in Picardy, in Cambresis and Hainault, it was not usually until the mid-thirteenth century, more typically not until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that we find the first scattered evidence for the large-scale, regulated three-field system.107 It is notable that it was the great landowners with a keen commercial sense who promoted the regulation on a large scale of cropping and pasturing in the three-field system, not land-poor, subsistence peasants who were desperate to find pasture for starving animals. Here, in the most favourable setting, the regulated three-field system was just in its infancy in the late Middle Ages, far from its adult stature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. We are at the beginning of a long process of intensification, not at the end of it. Indeed, nowhere in France in the period 1300-1500, neither in the economically underdeveloped, nor in the economically advanced provinces, had the agrarian systems reached the limit of their development. But, what about the fragmentation of peasant holdings that is often cited as proof of overpopulation and of economic distress? Robert Fossier has made much of this line of interpretation.108 It is not always easy or even possible to

105 P. Flatres, 'Les structures rurales de la frange atlantique de I'Europe', in 'Geographie et histoire agraire', Ann Est, 21 (1959), 193-202; Gallet, La seigneurie bretonne, pp. 194-205; Leguay and Herve, Fastes et malbeurs, pp. 213-19. 106 For Brittany see note 105. Also: A. Fel, 'Reflexions sur les paysages agraires des hautes terres du Massif Central francais', in 'Geographie et histoire agraire', Ann Est, 21 (1959), 155-67; idem, Les hautes terres du Massif Central, pp. 17-31, 102-37; E. Alicot, '[.'agriculture de la Plaine de Tarbes', Rev Geog Pyrenees (1931), 201; Berthe, Le comte de Bigorre, 91-7; J. Caput, 'Les anciennes coutumes agraires dans la vallee du Gave d'Oloron', B S Sri Lett Arts Pau, 15 (1954), 62-70; Cavailles, La vie pastorale et agricole dans les Pyrenees, 97-9; Ecologie de la Vallee d'Ossau, pp. 79-82; Lerat, Les pays de I'Adour, pp. 111-35; Luc, Vie rurale . . . en Beam, p. 134; Taillefer, Les Pyrenees, p. 260; Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievaux en Bas-Languedoc, ii. 197-200. 107 R. C. Hoffman, 'Medieval origins of the common fields', European peasants and their markets, ed. W. N. Parker and E. L. Jones (1975), pp. 23-71; Pitte, Histoire du pay sage francais, i. 113-17; R. Fossier, 'Etapesde l'amenagment dupaysage agraire au pays de Montreuil', Rev Nord, 62 (1980), 97-120; idem, La terre et les hommes en Picardie, pp. 304-45; idem, 'Observations sur le parcellaire', Marc Bloch aujourd'hui, pp. 219-22; Neveux, Les grains du Cambresis, pp. 218-21; X. de Planhol, 'Essai sur la genese du paysage rural des champs ouverts', in 'Geographie et histoire agraire', Ann Est, 21 (1959), 414-24; Sivery, Structures agraires, i. 80-165; idem, 'Recherches sur l'amenagement des terroirs de plateau du Hainault-Cambresis a la fin du moyen age', Rev Nord, 51 (1969), 5-26; Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, pp. 76-7; C. Higounet, La grange de Vaulerent (1965), pp. 41-51. 108 Duby, Histoire de la France rurale, ii. 29; Fossier, La terre et les hommes en Picardie, ii. 646- 56; idem, Le moyen age. III. Le temps des crises, pp. 22-6. 442 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES measure actual farming units with the documentation at our disposal. But, even when we can be reasonably sure that we are dealing with tiny farms, operational units composed of small, scattered fields that added up to one hectare or less, we cannot automatically conclude that we are faced with overpopulation. The argument we encounter frequently in the literature runs like this. In a given province, assuming average grain yields and local cropping practices, a typical peasant family would need say 5 hectares to feed itself

without heavy reliance on the market. The subsistence grain-farming peasant Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 who practised economic autarchy is taken, implicity or explicity, as the norm. Because 25 to 30 per cent of the peasant households in the more densely populated regions of France held less than 5 hectares, often a mere hectare or less, the conclusion drawn is that the area under consideration was overpopulated.109 There are several problems with this type of argument. Let us take the example of Bas Languedoc, a province allegedly overpopulated in the early fourteenth century.110 First of all, in the late Middle Ages as well as in the early modern period, most of the microholders were not subsistence grain farmers at all, but gardeners. They cultivated their lands far more intensively with hoe and spade than the average subsistence grain fanner with his plough and team. They grew some grain, but also raised vegetables, kept a considerable number of chickens, a few sheep, or a goat for milk. Fragmentation of holdings was often a sign of intensification of agriculture with positive, not negative economic consequences.111 Secondly, this class of peasants practised what one historian of eighteenth-century France has called the 'makeshift economy' of the poor.112 Husband and wife worked along with the children in the occasional jobs in the fields, in construction, in transportation, in textiles, and so on. These people did not rely exclusively on their lands to sustain themselves. Thirdly, at least some of the microholders were engaged in artisanal activities and were even less reliant on their lands than the day labourers.113 Finally, and fundamentally, the Malthusian-Ricardian model in which population expansion leads ineluctably to land fragmentation and overpopulation is too narrow and drastically oversimplifies the actual historical process of socio-economic development in pre-industrial Europe. In Bas Languedoc and in the Low Countries, historians have reconstructed the process step by step by which a society of economically self-sufficient peasants moved forward to an ever more diversified economy and society.114 As population

109 See note 108. 110 E. Le Roy Ladurie, Les paysans de Languedoc (1966), pp. 15-19. 111 Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievaux en Bas-Languedoc, ii. 237-64. 112 O. H. Hufton, The poor of eighteenth century France (1974), pp. 107-27. 113 Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievaux en Bas-Languedoc, ii. 254; Combes, 'Aspects economiques et sociaux', pp. 5-29; idem, 'Les foires en Languedoc', pp. 231-59; Romestan, 'Les consuls de Beziers', pp. 191-219; idem, 'Perpignan et les foires de Pezenas', pp. 75-103; Wolff, 'La draperie en Languedoc', pp. 437-70. For fiill citations see note 95. 114 Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievaux en Bas-Languedoc, ii. 333-40; Nicolas, 'Structures du peuplemenf, pp. 501-27. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 443 expanded, we encounter, among other things, a growing concentration of population, an intensification of agriculture, the development of distinct artisanal and commercial sectors, and the appearance of a class of multipurpose, part-time day labourers with small land-holdings. The economy as a whole relied heavily on the labour of these people. The emergence of this class of microholders was not inevitably the sign of overpopulation and impending catastrophe, but often an indication of economic growth. That this class was frequently desperately poor is

undeniable, but poverty and low standards of living were symptomatic of the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 entire, technologically underdeveloped, pre-industrial period in Europe. Furthermore, we must be careful not to read back into the Middle Ages the problems of a later era. In particular, we must not lose sight of differences in scale. It is not until the sixteenth, seventeenth or eighteenth century that we encounter a very large class of impoverished cottagers working in the rural textile industry.115 Likewise, it is not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the numbers of urban poor were sufficiently large to induce municipal authorities to move beyond the poor relief efforts of the Middle Ages. In the medieval centuries, municipal authorities relied essentially on private and church-run charities supplemented with occasional direct intervention to handle the problems of poor relief. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with substantially larger numbers of poor to manage, the medieval solutions appeared inadequate. Municipal governments greatly expanded the poor relief effort, erected permanent, publicly funded institutions, and brought private and church-run charities under municipal oversight.116 The undeniable similarities between the social problems of the Middle Ages and those of the early modern centuries must not blind us to the important differences in magnitude. The irreducible problems of pre-industrial employment, underemployment and generalized lower-class poverty belong to the early modern centuries, not to the Middle Ages. It is not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the unmistakable signs appear of a significant imbalance between population expansion and economic growth. Moreover, in the late Middle Ages, it was precisely the most densely populated, economically advanced areas of France which always acted as magnets that drew in population from less densely populated, less economically advanced provinces. Peasant tenures in the northern Paris basin, no matter how fragmented, never stood vacant long.117 If France had been seriously overpopulated in terms of its economic structures in the late Middle Ages,

115 J. Pinard, 'Main d'oeuvre et transformations techniques dans les anciennes industries textiles de l'ouest de la France', Hommes Terres Nord, 2 (1984), 82-5; de Bernard, Histoire de la Normandie, pp. 246-307; F. Lebrun, Les hommes et la mort en Anjou aux xvif et xviif siecles (1971), pp. 144-386; Houssel, 'Les petites villes textiles du Haut-Beaujolais', pp. 123-97; Latreille, Histoire de Lyon, 212-53. 116 Duby, Histoire de la France urbaine, ii. 536-46; iii, 83-9, 206, 223-43; J-P. Gutton, La societe et les pauvres: I'exemple de la generalite de Lyon, 1534-1789 (1971); P. Deyon, 'A propos du pauperisme au milieu du xviie siede', Annales ESC, 22 (1967), 137-53. 117 Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, pp. 349-86; Mollat, Histoire de I'lle-de- France, pp. 167-9. 444 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES people would have fled in great numbers from the more populated regions, where they could not make a living, to the vast and largely uninhabited areas which abounded in France. Some people did precisely that. New clearings and colonization of untamed lands continued in many areas of France right up to the time of the Black Death, in the Val de Loire for example, or in south-western France.118 But, the most significant population movements in the late Middle Ages were to, not from the more densely populated zones.119 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021

IV In the crisis interpretations of late medieval France, it is often alleged that by the early fourteenth century the agrarian systems had reached some sort of limit in their productive capacities. France could barely feed itself in good years; in bad, it faced devastating famines. There are a number of separate issues here which we must sort out carefully. Had the French agricultural systems reached a limit in their ability to produce food? The argument for a grain production ceiling, in place from the early fourteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, is based on the tithe records.120 As many historians have noted, the use of tithe returns for estimates of total grain production is methodologically hazardous.121 It is simply impossible to measure, even to estimate plausibly, total national or regional agricultural production in the late Middle Ages or even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the sources at our disposal. Despite its widespread acceptance in general interpretations of the late Middle Ages, the ceiling of grain production remains a disputed theory, not an established fact. Moreover, the local monographic studies certainly do not suggest that the French agricultural systems had reached the limit of their productive capacities in the early fourteenth century.122 Now it is undeniably true that the best-equipped

118 Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines, pp. 104-5. For the southwest, see note 55. "' Dupaquier, Histoire de la population francaise, i. 382-405; G. Duby, 'Demographie et villages desertes', Villages desertes et histoire economique, xf-xviif slide (1965), pp. 13-24. M. Roycayolo, 'Geographic et villages desertes', ibid. pp. 25-47; J. Glenisson and J. Misraki, 'Desertions rurales dans la France medievale', ibid. pp. 267-86; R. Boutruche, 'Les courants de peuplement dans l'Entre-deux-Mers. Etude sur le brassage de la population rurale', Ann Hist Econ S, 7 (1935), 13-37, 124-54; Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, 430-62. 120 E. Le Roy Ladurie, 'Dimes et produit net agricole, xv'-xviii' siecles', Annales ESC, 24 (1969), 826-32; idem and J. Goy (eds.), Les fluctuations du produit de la dime: conjoncture decimate et domaniale de la fin du moyen age au xviif siecle (1972); Le Roy Ladurie and Goy, 'Prestations paysannes, dimes et mouvements de la production agricole dans les societes pre-industrielles', P Seventh Ann Int Econ Hist Congr (1978), i. 113-28. 121 G. Freche, 'Dime et production agricole. Remarques raethodologiques a propos de la region toulousaine', Les fluctuations du produit de la dime, ed. Le Roy Ladurie and Goy, pp. 214-44; M. Morineau, 'Reflexions tardives et conclusions prospectives', ibid. pp. 320-33; M. Baulant, 'Du bon usage des dimes dans la region parisienne', ibid. pp. 25-43; A-L. Head-Konig, 'Rente fonciere et dimes dans le Lyonnais aux xvii* et xviiie siecles: leur concordance', ibid. pp. 153-64; B. Bonnin, 'A propos de la productive agricole: l'exemple du Dauphine au xviic siecle', Annales ESC, 23 (1968), 368-74. 122 See notes 45-6, 48-9, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61-4, 66-70, 74-84, 85-9 and 90. For a later period: M. Morineau, Les faux semblants d'un demarrage economique: agriculture et demograpbie en France au xvii? siecle (1971). JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 445 and skilfully managed domain farms were often as productive in the early fourteenth century as they would ever be in the pre-industrial period. Studies from all over France demonstrate levels of production which at their best were on a par with the highest returns, locally, of the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. But these were model farms, and not even all of the domain farms of the upper classes met these high standards.123 More significandy, the vast majority of peasant farms came nowhere near the high levels of production

found on the best domain farms. Most farms in France in the early fourteenth Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 century operated far below the limit of production possible with the agricultural techniques of the day. Small and medium farms with modest levels of equipment and livestock were the rule in most areas of France because that was all that the peasants could afford. Low production, low capitalization and under-utilization of resources were all key features of the generalized economic underdevelopment which characterized most of France in the early fourteenth century. Nevertheless, French farming had made very considerable progress since the , in ploughs, in other agricultural equipment, in draft animals and in intensity of working the soil.124 There is no convincing evidence to suggest that advances in French agriculture had halted or had reached a bottleneck in the early fourteenth century. Progress was simply slow and uneven. Capital accumulation was slow in the agricultural sector. The lacklustre markets of most underdeveloped areas afforded few occasions for profit. Similarly, weak markets kept the pace of economic diversification slow and limited opportunities for labour-intensive, specialized farming. It was only in die most economically advanced regions of France, in die nonhern Paris basin, that the condition of agriculture was substantially better. The structure of die peasant hierarchy bears witness to die status of agriculture. Here capital accumulation and upward mobility within the peasantry had just begun to produce a peasant elite of wealthy tenant farmers. The capitalist peasant tenant farmers of Soissonnais, Hainault and Cambresis were the timid ancestors of that formidable class of peasant laboureurs-fermiers who controlled the great grain

123 H. Neveux, 'Bonnes et mauvaises recoltes du xiv° au xix* siecle. Jalons pour une enquete systematique', Rev Hist icon Soc, 53 (1975), 177-92; idem and M-J. Tits-Dieuaide, 'Etudes structurelles des fluctuations courtes des rendements cerealiers dans I'Europe du nord-ouest, xiv*- xvie siecles', Problemes agraires et societe rurale: Normandie et Europe du nord-ouest, xitf-xvf siecles (1979), pp. 15-42; G. Duby, 'Techniques et rendements agricoles dans les Alpes du Sud en 1338', Ann Midi, 70 (1958), 403-13; M. Bourin-Derruau, 'Un exemple d'agriculture monastique en Lauragais. Les domaines de Prouille en 1340', Le Lauragais: histoire et archeologie (1983), pp. 115- 25; Sivery, Structures agraires et vie rurale, pp. 311-42, 391-7; M. Morineau, 'Cambresis et Hainault: des freres ennemis?', Rev Hist, 257 (1977), 323-43; idem, Les faux semblants, pp. 33, 37; Fourquin, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, p. 79; Neveux, Les grains du Cambresis, pp. 199-237; G. Sivery, 'Les profits de I'eleveur et du cultivateur dans le Hainault a la fin du moyen age', Annales ESC, 31 (1976), 604-30; Charbonnier, La seigneurie rurale en Basse-Auvergne, pp. 118- 21, 178; Heers, 'Manoir seigneurial et metairies dans le Perche', pp. 471-82; Delatouche, "Le rouleau de la dame d'Olivet', pp. 3-14. 124 G. Duby, L'economie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans I'Ocddent medieval (1962), pp. 170-202. 446 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES and sheep farms of northern France from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.125 The point is worth emphasizing: this class of peasant capitalists was just beginning to emerge in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the most economically advanced regions of France. Elsewhere, this class had not appeared at all. Many have argued that that was precisely the problem. French agriculture was so underdeveloped that the country faced recurrent famines. The famines

of the first half of the fourteenth century, particularly those of 1315-20 in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 northern France and those of the in the Midi, have long been interpreted as clear signs that France faced serious economic and demographic problems before the Black Death. Likewise, the reappearance of grave food shortages in the early sixteenth century has been seen as evidence that French population had once again grown beyond the grain producing capacities of the agricultural systems.126 Yet this interpretation is no longer tenable. Here, the work of Maurice Berthe is particularly significant.127 Famines were a permanent feature of pre-industrial France. Where documentation is sufficiently abundant, they appear with depressing regularity long before the early fourteenth century. Famines did not suddenly appear in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century as population reached its medieval high point; nor did they disappear when, locally, population fell by 30 to 50 per cent. The size of the population had no direct impact on the frequency or the severity of famines. Furthermore, nothing was more characteristic of France in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than periodic .128 The famines of the late Middle Ages were not the result of a simple imbalance between food supply and population. Rather, they were the product of a number of interrelated, mutually reinforcing weaknesses in the economy and in public administration. The structure of agriculture, the operation of markets, the structures of income and effective demand, the levels of technology and of productivity in all sectors of the economy were interrelated. If from this nexus we had to select one or two variables to explain in personal terms why the people faced recurrent food supply problems, our choice would fall on low

125 Neveux, Les grains du Cambresis, pp. 45-7, 257-67; Sivery, Structures agraires et vie rurale, pp. 203-4, 260-9, 612-14; G. Fourquin, 'Les debuts du fermage: l'exemple de Saint-Denis', Etud Rurales, 22-4 (1966), 7-81; idem, Les campagnes de la region parisienne, p. 480; Higounet, La grange du Vaulerant, pp. 50-60; Mollat, Histoire de l'Ile-de-France, pp. 143, 209-10, 248-50; Jacquart, La crise rurale en Ile-de-France, pp. 151-8, 348, 509-22; J-M. Moriceau, Lesfermiers de l'lle-de-France:xif-xvif siecle (1994); A. Paris, "L'ascension dune bourgeoisie rurale: les fermiers laboureurs des la region de Montfort-L'Amaury', Act 102 Congr Nat S Sav Sect Hist Mod (1977), ii. 287-305; G. Postel-Vinay, La rente fonciere dans le capitalisme agricole (1974). 126 Fossier, Le temps des crises, pp. 24-5, 44-5; Duby and Wallon, Histoire de la France rurale, ii. 19-39, 100; A. Demurger, Temps de crises, temps d'espoirs, xiif-xtf siecle. Nouvelle bistoire de la France medievale, 5 (1990), p. 215. See also Le Roy Ladurie, note 6. 127 M. Berthe, Famines et epidemies dans les campagnes navarraises a la fin du moyen age (1984), pp. 199-451, 527-68, 597-602. Berthe reviews the entire corpus of French scholarship on famines in the Middle Ages. G. Sivery, L'economie du royaume de France au siecle de Saint-Louis (1984), pp. 70-3. 128 Duby and Wallon, Histoire de la France rurale, ii. 100, 120-1, 186-90; Braudel and Labrousse, Histoire economique et sociale de la France. I. De 1450 a 1560, ii. 733-7. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 447 income for consumers and high food prices. Famines persisted in France until across-the-board economic growth and technological advances in the nine- teenth century allowed wages to rise and food prices to fall to the point where food costs drained off a relatively low proportion of family budgets. In that setting, the inevitable short-term price increases from bad weather caused relatively mild distress among consumers. In the late Middle Ages, the famines took different forms in different settings.

In the economically underdeveloped, petite culture economies with narrow, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 local grain markets, minor shortages appeared as often as every two or three years. At least once, possibly twice a decade, a real famine occurred.129 Recurrent food supply problems arose in large part because of the poorly developed markets. Grain markets in normal years were lisdess because most of the grain consumed locally never entered die market at all. Self-sufficient peasants, peasant-artisans in town, seigneurs, both noble and ecclesiastical, town-dwelling notables with rentes in kind, all supplied dieir tables widiout recourse to die market. Also in die absence of strong, permanent demand, large-scale farming for die market was of scant importance. In die under- developed regions, typically 20 per cent of the population was poor, and permanendy so. Here we encounter die broken families widiout a male breadwinner, the aged widows, die households widi too many children to feed. This was a class which even in the best of times lived a precarious existence and a class which, because of its low purchasing power, had litde influence on die market. When local food production fell significantly below die norm from bad weadier, grain prices increased dramatically. While most people eidier had enough grain from their own resources or could afford to buy at higher prices, die poor faced starvation. Local governmental authorities, essentially seigneurs and small town syndics, were helpless in die event of serious crop failures. The poor went hungry and provided a fertile ground for disease.130 These underdeveloped societies could experience eidier a substantial increase or decrease in dieir numbers widiout any fundamental change in die structure of die economy or die food supply problem. This is precisely what happened in die fourteendi and fifteenth centuries. Famines were as frequent and severe after die loss of a diird or a half of die population as diey had been prior to die Black Deadi. The economic structures were the same at every level of population: tiny towns, weak markets, subsistence peasants, and a permanent substratum of roughly 20 per cent of die population which regularly faced food supply problems.131 In the parts of France widi moderately advanced and advanced economies, famine presented itself somewhat differendy. Here regular long distance trade lessened reliance on local grains, calmed and integrated local grain prices with prices for imported stocks, and in

129 Bcrthe, Famines et epidemies, pp. 199-451, 527-68, 597-602. 130 Ibid. 131 Ibid. pp. 272-3. 448 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES most years ensured an adequate supply at affordable prices.132 A very sizeable proportion of the population in the towns and the villages were workers, vinedressers and artisans who always relied on the market for much, even for all, of their food. These consumers could normally afford to feed themselves and their families, but, with modest incomes, faced grave danger in the event of a significant increase in prices. When a serious food supply problem arose, the fate of this class of regular market patrons as well as the fate of the substratum

of indigent consumers depended on the ability and willingness of municipal Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 governments, charitable institutions, wealthy merchants and occasionally higher governmental authorities to secure stocks of grain and feed the people, if necessary, at heavily subsidized prices. If famines were a permanent, recurrent feature of the economies of all levels of development in late medieval France, we might well ask what impact they had. Surprisingly, the famines had little durable impact on either demographic or economic structures. The famines of the first half of the fourteenth century were unable by themselves to halt the expansion of the population. In most provinces of France, population continued to grow right up to the arrival of the Black Death.133 At most, famines slowed the expansion temporarily. The dramatic population losses of the late Middle Ages and of the early modern period were the result of epidemic disease, not of famine.134 Economically, the famines of the first half of the fourteenth century had an equally muted impact. In Bas Languedoc, Basse Provence, Basse Auvergne, in the Lyonnais, the Bordelais and even in Haute Normandie there was no important economic- demographic crisis prior to the Black Death.135 In the Ile-de-France, lacklustre grain prices in the decades prior to the Black Death were the result of a number of trends in the international market, among them, quite probably, an increase in the volume of grain traded.136 Indeed, we search in vain in France for a pre- plague, economic-demographic crisis of significant proportions. The famines had a somewhat greater impact on French institutions. They certainly contributed to the development of provincial estates and forced municipal governments to expand their role in regulating charities.137 But they

132 Sivery, L'economie du royaume de France, pp. 11-29, 51-87. 135 Dupaquier, Histoire de la population franfaise, i. 217-20. 134 Ibid. i. 313-66, 421-62; ii. 175-219; M. Lachiver, 'Trente annees de demographie historique en France', Ann Sociol, 34 (1984), 183; J. Dupaquier, 'Statistiques et demographie historique', Annales ESC, 30 (1975), 394-401; F. Lebrun, 'Les crises demographiques en France au xviic et xviiie siecles', ibid. 35 (1980), 205-33. 135 Bourin-Derruau, Villages medievaux en Bas-Languedoc, ii. 205-23, 237-64; Stouff, Aries, pp. 98-119; Charbonnier, La seigneurie rurale en Basse-Auvergne, pp. 283-91, 400-2; Lorcin, 'Les campagnes de la region lyonnaise', pp. 7-8; Higounet, Histoire de Bordeaux, pp. 130-40; Renouard, Histoire de Bordeaux, iii. 251-87; Bois, Crise du feodalisme, pp. 39-52, 73-7. Bois presents a novel Marxist interpretation, but has no firm evidence of either an economic or a demographic crisis in Upper Normandy prior to the Black Death. 136 R-H. Bautier, 'Les mutations agricoles des xiv1 et xv* siecles et les progres de l'elevage', B Philol Hist(\96T), 1-13. 137 Larenaudie, 'Les famines en Languedoc', pp. 27-39; Duby, Histoire de la France urbaine, ii. 536-41. JAMES L. GOLDSMITH 449 did not lead to the creation of permanent institutions to feed the people as a whole. France was able to feed itself from its own agricultural resources and from normal market transactions in most years. Famines resulted in only temporary governmental intervention. Nowhere in France do we find, in the late Middle Ages or in the early modern period, permanent, governmentally sponsored or controlled institutions responsible for feeding the bulk of the population or even a sizeable portion of it on a regular, annual basis.

Permanent, governmental food supply systems certainly existed in other parts Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 of Europe, in the towns of northern Italy and parts of , and in many towns in the Holy Roman .138 In France, the permanent, governmental institutions dealing with food supply date essentially from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and were poor relief institutions, not institutions for the population at large.139 The French response to famine was revealing: supervision of the market, occasional direct intervention and alms for the poor. France had public regulation or supervision of markets, not public food supply systems. French policy was similar to that of the Low Countries. In France, the regulation of the food supply took place essentially at the urban level, with occasional intervention from higher authorities. Municipal governments monitored open market sales, regulated prices and weights of bread in terms of the free market prices, but held back from direct involvement in the supply of grain or in the arbitrary fixing of prices except in years of grave shortage.140

To conclude, France did not face a serious economic or demographic crisis in the half-century prior to the Black Death. France was not trapped in a Malthusian-Ricardian dilemma in which population increase outstripped food production. France was not overpopulated in terms of its economic structures and there was no shortage of land. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, France displayed the classic features of an underdeveloped, pre-industrial European economy. It was only along the northern border, in the broad Paris basin, that we find a more developed socio-economic system. Significantly, the

138 M. Aymard, 'L'approvisionnement des villes de la Mediterranee ocddentale, xvie-xviiie siedes', L'approvisionnement des villes de I'Europe ocddentale au moyen age et aux temps modemes (1985), 165-85; B. Bennassar, 'L'approvisionnement des villes de Castille aux temps modemes', ibid, pp. 155-64; F. Irsigler, "L'approvisionnement des villes de l'Allemagne ocddentale jusqu'au xvie siede', ibid. pp. 117-44; J-P. Kintz, 'L'approvisionnement en vivres des villes des pays du Main et du Rhin superieur, xvic-xviic siedes', ibid. pp. 257-64. 139 Duby, Histoire de la France urbaine, ii., 57-64, 160-201, 223-43. Even Lyon, a dty which relied almost entirely on long-distance trade for grain, never, despite innumerable plans, effectively operated a permanent public granary. A. Rambaud, La chambre d'abondance de la ville de Lyon, 1643-1777 (1911). 140 R. Van Utyven, 'L'approvisionnement des villes des andens Pays-Bas au moyen age', L'approvisionnement des villes, pp. 75-116; P. Wolff, 'L'approvisionnement des villes francaises au moyen age', ibid. pp. 11-31; F. Desportes, Le pain au moyen age (1987). 450 THE CRISIS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES most densely populated regions of France were invariably the wealthiest, not the poorest, parts of the kingdom; the most economically developed, the most diversified in socio-economic structures and the furthest removed from peasant economic autarchy. In the early fourteenth century, as in the period 1000- 1300, sustained population increase was one of the most powerful forces for economic growth and diversification. This is not to say that population expansion was the only cause of economic growth, but no single force was

more powerful as a stimulus to socio-economic development. In the first half of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/9/4/417/622520 by guest on 01 October 2021 the fourteenth century, the trajectory of economic growth was upward, not downward. Had it not been for the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, there is every reason to believe that the French economy and population would have continued in the upward trajectory of growth. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in France were not the opening phase of several centuries of cyclical stagnation, but at most a temporary interruption in a long wave of social and economic development that extended from the early Middle Ages through the entire pre-industrial era. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the most powerful negative force was unquestionably the Black Death. The Hundred Years War compounded the effects of die Black Deadi, through war destruction and disturbance of normal markets. Together, these disasters shook France violently, but temporarily. Ultimately, neither the Black Death nor the Hundred Years War had a durable impact on the basic socio-economic structures of France. What Michel Le Mene noted for die region around Angers in die fourteenth and fifteendi centuries was true for almost all of France: 'en depit de la recession generate et des crises successives, la province traversera la periode sans modification profonde de son milieu economique . . . ce qui frappe finalement, quand on considere d'un peu haut l'ensemble de la periode, c'est avant tout la perennite des structures sociales et foncieres. Tout se passe comme si, sous l'orage, le monde angevin avait courbe l'echine pour passer avec moins de dommage a travers la tourmente.'141 Widi peace and the population recovery of the second half of die fifteenth century,

141 Le Mene, Les campagnes angevines, p. 504.