PRELIMINARY DRAFT. PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR DISTRIBUTE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHORS. ALL EQUAL IN THE FACE OF DEATH? Explaining regional differences in wealth inequality after the Black Death. The case of social agrosystems in rural Hainaut (1250-1500). Joris ROOSEN (Utrecht University)
[email protected] Sam GEENS (FWO, University of Antwerp)
[email protected] Despite its longstanding historiographical tradition, the topic of wealth inequality has gained particular momentum during the last decade. Especially the Global Financial Crisis of 2007- 2008, with its negative effects on unemployment and poverty levels, has spurred the interest of social scientists and policy makers. In search of the drivers of inequality, scholars have not only focused on the present day, but have increasingly turned towards premodern societies. Most notably, the EINITE-project under the supervision of Guido Alfani has retraced evolutions of wealth in Italy and the Low Countries between the fourteenth and nineteenth century.1 In both regions, inequality tended to increase over the whole period except for the century after the Black Death. Other studies, although few and with a more limited geographic or chronological scope, seem to confirm this universal rise of inequality.2 These new results challenge us to rethink traditional theories on the distribution of wealth. In his pioneering work, Jan Luiten van Zanden extended the ideas of Simon Kuznets to premodern times and argued that, in this period, economic growth went hand in glove with increasing inequality.3 However, his hypothesis seems improbable in the light of recent studies on stagnating and declining economies, such as early modern Florence or Flanders, where inequality increased just the same.