Markets for Land, Labor, and Capital in Northern Italy

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xli:4 (Spring, 2011), 503–531. MARKETS FOR LAND, LABOR, AND CAPITAL Bas J. P. van Bavel Markets for Land, Labor, and Capital in Northern Italy and the Low Countries, Twelfth to Seventeenth Centuries A major debate in the history of late medieval and early modern Western Europe concerns the re- lationship between town and country. Can towns be considered Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/41/4/503/1699154/jinh_a_00201.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 the stimuli for the development of an otherwise stagnant and con- servative countryside, or were they a paralyzing inºuence on a po- tentially energetic and productive rural economy? Those engaged in this question have paid ample attention to market exchange between town and country but more with regard to commodity markets than to the markets for land, labor, and capital. Witness, for example, the abundant literature on urban food provisioning, market integration, and agrarian specialization as a response to urban demand, as well as on the institutions of the commodity markets through which this interaction between town and countryside occurred.1 Although some of these studies include a discussion of the possible negative roles of towns—including the effects of their market privileges or monopolies—most recent literature stresses the innovative, modernizing effects of urban stimuli on the rural economy. The temptation to attribute this positive role to the towns is even greater with respect to the rural markets for land, labor, and capital. Although systematic investigations of these factor markets as bridges between town and countryside are lacking, it seems logical, on ªrst glance, to privilege the role of the towns in Bas J. P. van Bavel is Professor of the Economic and Social History of the Middle Ages, Utrecht University. He is the author of Manors and Markets: Economy and Society in the Low Countries, 500–1600 (New York, 2010); “The Organization and Rise of Land and Lease Mar- kets in Northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000–1800,” Continuity and Change, XXIII (2008), 13–53. The author thanks Bruce Campbell, Paolo Malanima, Maarten Prak, and the participants in the workshop “Economic Town-Country Relations in Europe in the Later Middle Ages and at the Beginning of the Early Modern Period” (Vienna, 2007) for comments on an earlier version of this article. Thanks also are owed to the late Larry Epstein for his energy and will- ingness to exchange ideas. © 2011 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc. 1 For the historiography of the debate, see Stephan R. Epstein, “Introduction,” in idem (ed.), Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800 (New York, 2001), 4–9. 504 | BAS J. P. VAN BAVEL the exchange of land and rural labor, which were otherwise often assumed to have been encapsulated in feudal, manorial, or familial networks. This article overcomes such teleological assumptions, on the basis of a long-term, comparative analysis of the organization of factor markets between town and countryside. The cases compared are two of the most advanced and urbanized economies of Europe, those of north-central Italy and the Low Countries.2 These two regions differed politically during the later Middle Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/41/4/503/1699154/jinh_a_00201.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Ages. In north-central Italy, urban elites were dominant, whereas in the twelve principalities of the Low Countries, territorial lords/ princes, town patriciates, and the rural nobility all had a political role. But in other respects, especially in economics and demogra- phy, the two areas had many similarities. First, they were the most densely populated parts of Europe, though their respective chro- nologies of population growth differed. North-central Italy reached its late medieval peak in population density c. 1300. Be- fore the Black Death, Tuscany’s population was roughly sixty people per km2; in north-central Italy, the ªgure was around forty-ªve to ªfty. After the mid-fourteenth century, however, population numbers plummeted, only to return slowly to their c. 1300 levels during the late sixteenth century. In the Low Coun- tries, the impact of the Black Death was less severe; population growth quickly returned to its former levels. The late ªfteenth and sixteenth centuries saw relatively strong population growth in the Low Countries compared to other parts of Europe. By the late sixteenth century, the Low Countries had almost caught up with north-central Italy in population density, with roughly forty people per km2.3 2 See, for example, George W. Grantham, “Espaces privilégiés: productivité agricole et zones d’approvisionnement dans l’Europe pré-industrielle,” Annales: Histoire, sciences socials, LII (1997), 697–725; Bruce M. S. Campbell et al., A Medieval Capital and Its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region c. 1300 (London, 1993). This privileg- ing of towns has a pedigree going back to Adam Smith (ed. W. B. Todd), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York, 1979), 411–417. In Book III, Chapter 4, “How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country,” Smith’s list of improvements includes order and good government and the liberty and security of individuals who had before lived almost in a continual state of servile dependency on their superiors. 3 Giorgio Chittolini, “Cities, ‘City-States’ and Regional States in North-Central Italy,” Theory and Society, XVIII (1989), 689–706; Wim P. Blockmans, “Stadt, Region und Staat: ein Dreiecksverhältnis: Der Kasus der Niederlande im 15. Jahrhundert,” in Ferdinand Seibt and Winfried Eberhard (eds.), Europa 1500 (Stuttgart, 1987), 211–226; Giovanni Federico and Paolo Malanima, “Progress, Decline, Growth: Product and Productivity in Italian Agricul- ture, 1000–2000,” Economic History Review, LVII (2004), 445–447; David Herlihy, “Popula- MARKETS FOR LAND, LABOR, AND CAPITAL | 505 The two regions also formed the most urbanized parts of Eu- rope, Italy again taking the lead. Compared to most other parts of Europe, Italian towns were already prominent in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But urbanization was especially rapid in northern Italy during the thirteenth century, when population increased sharply in the large cities of Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Milan. Around 1300, 21 percent of north-central Italy’s population lived in cities—a ªgure almost three times higher than that in most Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/41/4/503/1699154/jinh_a_00201.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 other parts of Europe. From the mid-fourteenth century onward, however, the degree of urbanization slowly declined, to approxi- mately 18 percent c. 1600.4 In the Low Countries, urbanization started later but took place more rapidly than in Italy. The process gained momentum during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the urbanization rate in the Low Coun- tries was roughly 20 percent, the highest proportion being in the south, primarily Artois and Flanders. After the Black Death, abso- lute population numbers in the cities temporarily declined, but, unlike in Italy, the urbanization rate in the Low Countries contin- ued to increase. In the late ªfteenth century, the urbanization rate for the Low Countries was already as high as 34 percent. These urban dwellers were scattered among a host of small and medium- sized towns. In the mid-sixteenth century, the rate in the Low Countries had risen even further, especially in Holland; at this point, the Low Countries had become by far the most urbanized part of Europe, despite having only a few large cities.5 Both regions, Italy ªrst, underwent strong economic development, and even some real growth, in the later Middle Ages. In the thirteenth century, Italy was the most advanced economy in western Eurasia. At the time, both gdp per capita and agricultural output per worker were far higher in Italy than in the surrounding areas. After the fourteenth century, however, the economy stag- nated and then precipitously declined, as indicated by the substan- tial and long-lasting fall in real wages that began during the tion, Plague and Social Change in Rural Pistoia, 1201–1430,” Economic History Review, XVIII (1965), 225–244. 4 Malanima, “Urbanisation and the Italian Economy during The Last Millennium,” Euro- pean Review of Economic History, IX (2005), 101–103. 5 Blockmans et al., “Tussen crisis en welvaart: Sociale veranderingen 1300–1500,” Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, IV (1980), 42–86; Jan de Vries, European Urbanization (London, 1984), 28–43, 271–276. 506 | BAS J. P. VAN BAVEL ªfteenth century in northern Italy. During this period, economic leadership in Europe shifted to the Low Countries, which developed continuously from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Around 1600, gdp per capita in the northwestern part of the Low Countries was at a level almost double that of the surrounding parts of Europe, and nominal wages were much higher than any- where else in Europe, including Italy.6 A ªnal point of similarity is that the market exchange of land, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/41/4/503/1699154/jinh_a_00201.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 labor, and capital in both places emerged relatively early, that is, in the high and late Middle Ages. The speciªc rules and arrange- ments of their respective markets, however, differed considerably. The distinctive organization of each market played a major role in blocking or promoting the further rise of market exchange and concomitant competition, and in shaping its trajectory and pace of economic and social development. This article leaves aside these possible effects, concentrating instead on a comparison of how the institutions of market exchange developed in the countrysides of north-central Italy and the Low Countries.

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