Europe in the Middle Ages 1000 –1500

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Europe in the Middle Ages 1000 –1500 Introducing Focus Europe in the Middle MAKING CONNECTIONS Ages 1000 –1500 What caused the Section 1 Peasants, Trade, and Cities formation of Section 2 Medieval Christianity universities? Section 3 Culture of the High Middle Ages Activate prior knowledge by hav- Section 4 The Late Middle Ages ing students categorize the types of institutions that provide post- secondary education. Ask: What MAKING CONNECTIONS is a university? (Possible response: What caused the formation of It is an institution of higher learning universities? that usually contains several col- The intellectual revival of the High Middle Ages led to the creation of universities. The University of Oxford, shown in this photo, formed leges and offers advanced degrees when Henry II banned English students from the University of Paris in in many subjects.) Explain that the 1167. In this chapter you will learn more about culture and society concept of the modern university during the Middle Ages. • How has the University of Oxford changed since the High traces its origins to the late Middle Middle Ages? Ages. OL • What clues in the photograph on this page tell when the University of Oxford was built? Teach The Big Ideas As students study the chapter, remind them to consider the section-based Big Ideas included in each section’s Guide to Reading. The Essential Questions in the activities below tie in to the Big 1216 Ideas and help students think 1073 Dominic de Guzmán about and understand important Gregory VII founds Dominican chapter concepts. In addition, the EUROPE elected pope order Hands-on Chapter Projects with 1000 1100 1200 their culminating activities relate THE WORLD 1100 1279 the content from each section to Problems arise between Christian Axum Kublai Khan establishes the the Big Ideas. These activities and its Muslim neighbors in Africa Yuan dynasty in China build on each other as students 332 progress through the chapter. (t) Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY, (b) AAAC/Topham/The Image Works, Jason Hawkes/CORBIS Section activities culminate in the wrap-up activity on the Visual Summary page. Peasants, Trade, and Cities Medieval Christianity Essential Question: How do advances in Essential Question: What happens when agriculture affect both farmers and city there is no separation of church and state? dwellers? (Improvements in agriculture lead (Religious and government leaders have no clear to food surpluses, which in turn allow for special- boundaries and may get involved in each other’s ization of labor and the growth of cities.) Point concerns. Laws about religious beliefs may be out that in Section 1, students will learn how imposed on people or affect broader areas of new farming practices supported population life.) Point out that in Section 2, students will growth, and the revival of trade led to eco- learn how the Catholic Church’s strong leader- nomic changes and the rise of cities in medi- ship helped it to become a dominant presence eval Europe. OL in European society in the Middle Ages. OL 332 Introducing More About the Photo Visual Literacy The University of Oxford is famous for its spectac- ular Gothic architecture, which can be seen in its many structures located throughout the city of Oxford itself. It is believed that Oxford was a center of teaching as early as 1096, and around 1167 it started to grow quickly into a major learning institution. Today, the University of Oxford consists of 39 colleges and 7 permanent pri- FPO vate halls, with well over 15,000 students attending annually. Dinah Zike’s Foldables Dinah Zike’s Foldables are three- dimensional, interactive graphic organizers that help students practice basic writing skills, review vocabulary terms, and identify main ideas. Instructions for creating and using Foldables Cause E ffect can be found in the Appendix at Identifying Cause In!uence of Catholic Church the end of this book and in the 1347 1430 and Effect Use a Dinah Zike’s Reading and Study Plague English capture 1500 Two-Tab Book to describe causes and effects related to the influence of the Skills Foldables booklet. spreads to Joan of Arc Eighty universities Catholic Church in Medieval Europe. Italy and during Hundred exist throughout Select events from each century (the France Years’ War Europe 1000s, 1100s, and 1200s) and identify two or more cause-and-effect relation- 1300 1400 1500 ships for each. (ISTORY /.,).% 1492 Christopher Columbus Introduce students to chapter reaches the Americas (ISTORY /.,).% Chapter Overview—Visit glencoe.com to preview Chapter 10. content and key terms by hav- ing them access the Chapter 10 Jason Hawkes/CORBIS, Stapleton Collection/CORBIS Overview at glencoe.com. Culture of the High Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages Essential Question: How does architecture Essential Question: How do changes in the reflect a society’s values? (Students may men- size of population affect a society? (Students tion buildings that occupy the most important may suggest that decreases in population may position in a community, such as government weaken a society by leading to fewer people to buildings. They may also mention styles that sug- do necessary jobs. A larger population might gest values such as order.) Point out that in strengthen a society, but also strain its resources.) Section 3, students will learn about new forms Point out that in Section 4, students will learn of church architecture as well as other aspects how disastrous forces, including epidemic dis- of medieval culture, including universities and ease and war caused widespread changes in literature. OL medieval Europe. O L 333 CHAPTER 10 • SECTION 1 Focus Peasants, Trade, and Cities During the High Middle Ages, new farming methods enabled Bellringer GUIDE TO READING Europe’s population to grow. The revival of trade led to a Daily Focus Transparency 10.1 money economy and the growth of cities. Many serfs worked Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. The BIG Idea ANSWERS UNIT 1. 450 acres 2. 600 acres 3. three-field 4. to avoid wearing out the soil 2 DAILY FOCUS SKILLS Chapter 10 New farming prac- the land under the manorial system, while merchants and TRANSPARENCY 10-1 Order and Security Peasants, Trade, and Cities 1 How many acres were 2 How many acres were 3 Which system would 4 Why is it a good idea tices supported population growth, and the revival planted each year planted under the yield more food? to leave a field fallow artisans revived old cities and founded new ones. under the two-field three-field system? for a year? system? of trade led to a money-based economy and the A Small Change—A Big Reward rise of cities. Two-Field System on a 900-Acre Farm Fallow Planted 450 450 Acres Acres The New Agriculture Three-Field System on a 900-Acre Farm Content Vocabulary Fallow Planted Planted 300 300 300 • carruca (p. 334) • bourgeoisie (p. 339) Acres Acres Acres New inventions for farming and more efficient use of land contrib- • manor (p. 336) • patricians (p. 340) uted to population growth in the High Middle Ages. • serfs (p. 336) • guilds (p. 341) HISTORY & YOU A farmer can plant a very large area today using modern equip- • money economy • apprentice (p. 341) ment. Read to learn how new devices helped medieval farmers grow more food. GUIDE TO READING (p. 338) • journeymen (p. 341) • commercial capitalism • masterpiece (p. 341) (p. 338) In the Early Middle Ages, Europe had a relatively small popula- Answers to Graphic: tion. In the High Middle Ages, however, population increased Effects: merchants and artisans settled in cities, Academic Vocabulary dramatically—doubling between 1000 and 1300 from 38 million townspeople given basic liberties, city governments • technology (p. 334) • crucial (p. 334) to 74 million people. developed, guilds established What caused this huge increase? For one thing, conditions in Places Europe were more settled and peaceful after the invasions of the • Venice (p. 338) • Flanders (p. 338) Early Middle Ages had stopped. This increased peace and stabil- ity also led to an expansion in food production after 1000. Reading Strategy In part, food production increased because the climate changed Determining Cause and Effect As during the High Middle Ages and improved growing conditions. Section Spotlight Video you read, use a chart like the one below to show In addition, peasants cultivated more land when they cut down the effects of the growth of towns on medieval trees and drained swamps during the 1000s and 1100s. By 1200, To generate student interest and European society. Europeans had more land for farming than they do today. provide a springboard for class Cause Effects Changes in technology also aided the development of farming. discussion, access the Chapter 10, The Middle Ages witnessed an explosion of labor-saving devices. For example, the people of the Middle Ages harnessed the power Section 1 video at glencoe.com or Growth of of water and wind to do jobs once done by human or animal on the video DVD. Towns power. Many of these new devices were made from iron, which was mined in various areas of Europe. Iron was used to make scythes, axes, and hoes for use on farms. It was also used in ham- mers and nails for building. Iron was crucial in making the carruca, a heavy, wheeled plow with an iron plowshare. Unlike earlier plows, this plow easily turned over heavy clay soils. Because of the weight of the carruca, six or eight oxen were needed to pull it. However, oxen were slow. The inventions of a new horse collar and the horseshoe made it possible for a series of horses to pull the carruca faster and plow more land in the rocky, heavy clay soil of northern Europe.
Recommended publications
  • Domar Source: the Journal of Economic History, Vol
    Economic History Association The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis Author(s): Evsey D. Domar Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 30, No. 1, The Tasks of Economic History (Mar., 1970), pp. 18-32 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2116721 Accessed: 18-09-2015 10:24 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Economic History Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Economic History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.199.207.113 on Fri, 18 Sep 2015 10:24:51 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Causes of Slaveryor Serfdom: A Hypothesis I THE purposeof thispaper is to present,or morecorrectly, to revive,a hypothesisregarding the causes of agriculturalserf- dom or slavery (used here interchangeably).The hypothesiswas suggestedby Kliuchevsky'sdescription of the Russian experience in the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies, but it aims at a wider applicability.' Accordingto Kliuchevsky,from about the second half of the fif- teenthcentury Russia was engaged in long hard wars against her westernand southernneighbors.
    [Show full text]
  • Northerners' Perspectives on American Emancipation and the End of Russian Serfdom
    University of Central Florida STARS Honors Undergraduate Theses UCF Theses and Dissertations 2021 Northerners' Perspectives on American Emancipation and the End of Russian Serfdom Mariana S. Kellis University of Central Florida Part of the United States History Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the UCF Theses and Dissertations at STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Undergraduate Theses by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Kellis, Mariana S., "Northerners' Perspectives on American Emancipation and the End of Russian Serfdom" (2021). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 947. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/947 NORTHERNERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON AMERICAN EMANCIPATION AND THE END OF RUSSIAN SERFDOM By: MARIANA KELLIS A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors in the Major Program in History in the College of Arts and Humanities and in the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term, 2021 Thesis Chair: Barbara Gannon, Ph.D. Abstract This thesis explores the various perspectives that Northern Americans had on Russian serfdom and its emancipation. This era was significant to both Russia and the United States because each country experienced tremendous reforms including the abolitions of their unfree labor institutions. Generally, Northern Americans viewed serfdom as a milder form of forced labor and suspected that it would be eradicated soon. Abolitionists used rumors of Russian emancipation to advocate for the end of American slavery.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gulag As a Reinvention of Serfdom in Soviet Russia
    READING COPY ONLY NOT FOR CITATION The Gulag as a Reinvention of Serfdom in Soviet Russia By David J. Nordlander Intractable for centuries, forced labor has proven to be an enduring legacy of Russian history. What began as a gradual restriction of peasant movement in earlier times became institutionalized within a state that ultimately relied upon coercion as a chief lever of economic policy in both the tsarist and Soviet periods. The most notable measure of unfree labor, the institution of serfdom, constituted the base of a pyramid that upheld the tsarist polity. But the endemic problems of a cash-poor economy and imbalanced labor supply did not end with the Bolshevik Revolution, and thus helped shape the outlines of the Soviet era. The idealism of October quickly gave way to a harshening of labor policy, culminating in the extreme response of Stalinism that essentially led to a reenserfment of the peasantry and a pernicious expansion of the most repressive aspects of tsarism. The Gulag in particular encapsulated these trends and became the embodiment of Soviet coercion in the twentieth century. The continuities between the tsarist and Soviet epochs were both obvious and subtle. Imprisonment, exile, and restriction of movement were to be found in both eras, albeit in an even more harsh form under Stalin. While trumpeting an idealistic and 2 liberationist rhetoric, the Soviet experiment in reality soon revived and expanded upon the economic and political coercion of its tsarist predecessor. Just as significantly, social and cultural parallels also were noteworthy. In spite of their progressive cant, Soviet bosses essentially formed a new ruling elite that contentedly reshaped the privileges of power and formed a revived aristocracy.
    [Show full text]
  • State Capacity and the Rise and Fall of Serfdom in Europe
    STATE CAPACITY AND THE RISE AND FALL OF SERFDOM IN EUROPE Tracy Dennison California Institute of Technology March 2021 Motivations for This Project Two questions emerged from Voshchazhikovo study: 1) How do the estate- Summary: ➢Role of the state is key to understanding institutional context of serfdom ➢Serfdom is part of a weak state equilibrium; ruler must make concessions to other powerful actors to obtain services/revenues/cooperation. Serfdom is a constraint on fiscal aims of the crown. ➢In order to loosen this constraint, state has to be able to perform administrative functions that its noble agents perform in exchange for their privileges. ➢This happens gradually over 17th- 19th cc in Prussia (and earlier in much of western Europe). Decline of serfdom reflects underlying institutional reconfigurations. ➢In Russia serfdom is formally abolished, but the state still remains weak vis-à-vis other groups with limited options for surplus extraction. ➢Key difference: law - legal practices and processes - esp enforcement of property rights emerges as an important tool for states in western/central Europe but not in Russia ➢This suggestive finding has implications for our understanding of origins of ”inclusive”/”open access” institutions and emergence of strong central states Larger Political Economy of Serfdom Towns Merchants State Craft Guilds MerchantsNobles Peasants Even Larger Political Economy of Serfdom Towns Merchants State Craft Guilds MerchantsNobles CHURCH Peasants Institutional Framework of Serfdom Key Points (and Caveats): ➢State concedes privileges to different groups – all of which (including the state) are competing for surpluses - in exchange for: administration (tax collection, conscription), military service, revenue, loans, loyalty ➢These groups are not monolithic – nor is the state; there is internal conflict and there can be shifting alliances.
    [Show full text]
  • Serfs and the Market: Second Serfdom and the East-West Goods Exchange, 1579-1857
    Serfs and the Market: Second Serfdom and the East-West goods exchange, 1579-1857 Tom Raster1 Paris School of Economics [email protected] This version: June 2, 2019 Abstract Using novel shipment-level data on maritime trade between 1579 and 1856, this paper documents the evolution in grain exports from from Western to Eastern Europe and the rise of unfree labor in the former. Hypotheses first formulated more than 60 years ago, that export opportunities spurred labor coercion, motivate the exploration of this relationship. A new dataset of key labor legislation dates in the Baltic area captures de-jure unfree labor (e.g. serfdom or mobility bans). We also capture de-facto variation in coercion using existing data on coercion proxies (land holdings, serf manumission and/or wages) in Denmark, Prussia and Scania and novel household-level corvée data in Estonia. Our findings suggest that increases in grain prices and exports to the West happen, in many instances, concurrently with increases in de-jure and de-facto coercion in the East; thus, providing support for the hypothesis. Specifically, we observe that locations with better export potential see higher de-facto la- bor coercion; a finding that cannot be reconciled with existing models which predict less coercion in the proximity of cities due to outside options. We rationalize these findings in a new, open-economy labor coercion model that explains why foreign demand for grain is particularly likely to foster coercion. Our empirics may also be interpreted as evidence that Scania’s opening of the land market to peasants allowed them to benefit from trade and reduced labor coercion even in the absence of any coercion-constraining labor policies.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Serfdom, Emancipation, and Land Inequality: New Evidence
    Russian Serfdom, Emancipation, and Land Inequality: New Evidence Steven Nafziger1 Department of Economics, Williams College May 2013 Note to Readers: This long descriptive paper is part of an even larger project - "Serfdom, Emancipation, and Economic Development in Tsarist Russia" - that is very much a work in progress. As such, some obvious extensions are left out. I apologize for any inconsistencies that remain. Abstract Serfdom is often viewed as a major institutional constraint on the economic development of Tsarist Russia, one that persisted well after emancipation occurred in 1861 through the ways that property rights were transferred to the peasantry. However, scholars have generally asserted this causal relationship with few facts in hand. This paper introduces a variety of newly collected data, covering European Russia at the district (uezd) level, to describe serfdom, emancipation, and the subsequent evolution of land holdings among the rural population into the 20th century. A series of simple empirical exercises describes several important ways that the institution of serfdom varied across European Russia; outlines how the emancipation reforms differentially affected the minority of privately owned serfs relative to the majority of other types of peasants; and connects these differences to long-run variation in land ownership, obligations, and inequality. The evidence explored in this paper constitutes the groundwork for considering the possible channels linking the demise of serfdom to Russia’s slow pace of economic growth prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. JEL Codes: N33, Keywords: Russia, economic history, serfdom, inequality, land reform, institutions 1 Tracy Dennison offered thoughtful questions at the onset of this project. Ivan Badinski, Cara Foley, Veranika Li, Aaron Seong, and Stefan Ward-Wheten provided wonderful research assistance.
    [Show full text]
  • THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Freeman and Slave, Patrician And
    THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? Two things result from this fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself. To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London, and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages. I. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild- master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. 240 THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO 241 in the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a compli- cated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank.
    [Show full text]
  • Government Finance and Imposition of Serfdom After the Black Death
    Government Finance and Imposition of Serfdom after the Black Death Margaret E. Peters∗ University of California, Los Angeles Abstract After the Black Death, serfdom disappeared in Western Europe while making a resurgence in Eastern Europe. What explains this difference? I argue that serfdom was against the interests of the sovereign and was only imposed when the nobility, most of whom needed serfdom to maintain their economic and social standing, had leverage to impose their will. One way the nobility gained this power was through financing the military. Using data from the fourteenth to through the eighteenth centuries, I show that serfdom was imposed in areas where sovereigns had few other resources to pay for war or defense. This paper addresses the causes of a historical institution that scholars from Moore (1966) to Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) have argued played an important role in the development, or lack thereof, of democracy and long-term economic growth. ∗Department of Political Science, UCLA, 4289 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095, [email protected]. I would like to thank Jessica Clayton, Stephen Moncrief, and Mark Toukan for their research assistance. I would also like to thank Maarten Bosker, Davide Cantoni, David Stasavage, and Nico Voigtländer for sharing their data. and Allison Carnegie, Jeff Colgan, Mark Dincecco, Steve Haber, Seva Guinitsky, Andrew Kerner, Frances Rosenbluth, David Steinberg, Felicity Vabulas, and the participants of the Stanford Comparative Politics Workshop, the 2013 IPES Conference, the 2014 International Studies Association Annual Conference, and the Yale International Relations Workshop for their comments. All errors remain my own. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3320807 Introduction In Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, the laws governing the lives of peasants in Europe diverged.
    [Show full text]
  • Macmaster2016.Pdf (2.463Mb)
    This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 580 - 720 Thomas J. MacMaster Thesis submitted for PhD The University of Edinburgh 2015 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 1 580-720 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 2 580-720 Declaration: This is to certify that that the work contained within has been composed by me and is entirely my own work. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signed: T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 3 580-720 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 4 580-720 Table of contents 4 List of Abbreviations 6 Introduction: Slave trading between antiquity and the middle ages 8 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Is That Racist?: One White Family Interrogating Whiteness
    IS THAT RACIST?: ONE WHITE FAMILY INTERROGATING WHITENESS AND CONSTRUCTING ANTIRACIST CURRICULUM A DISSERTATION IN Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Leadership Policy and Foundations Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by RHIANNA KAY THOMAS M.A., University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2008 B.A., Avila University, 2003 Kansas City, Missouri 2019 IS THAT RACIST? ONE WHITE FAMILY INTERROGATING WHITENESS AND CONSTRUCTING ANTIRACIST CURRICULUM Rhianna Kay Thomas, Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2019 ABSTRACT Despite attempts by white teachers and families to avoid talk about race (Apfelbaum, Paulker, Ambady, Sommers, & Norton, 2008; Bartoli, Michael, Bentley- Edwards, Stevenson, Shor, & McClain, 2016; Boutte, López-Robertson, & Powers- Costello, 2011; Lesane-Brown, Brown, Tanner-Smith, & Bruce, 2010; Pahlke, Bigler, & Suizzo, 2012; Vittrup & Holden, 2010), children learn race and racism at a young age (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010; Miller, 2015; Park, 2011; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001). While there is a limited body of literature on racial socialization in schools (Park, 2011; Priest, Walton, White, Kowal, Baker, & Paradies, 2016; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001) and white racial socialization in the home (Bartoli et al., 2016; Miller, 2015; Vittrup & Holden, 2011), this study examines the ways white children come to understand race in the context of an emergent antiracist home curriculum. Using a critical sociocultural orientation, this study employs parent child autoethnography and poetic inquiry to demonstrate how two white children used race words, metaphor, analogy, and political action to construct understandings of race. iii APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, have examined a dissertation entitled “Is That Racist? One White Family Interrogating Whiteness and Constructing Antiracist Curriculum” presented by Rhianna K.
    [Show full text]
  • Serfdom and State Power in Imperial Russia
    Roger Bartlett Serfdom and State Power in Imperial Russia The institution of serfdom has been a central and much debated feature of early modern Russian history: it has sometimes been described as Russia’s ‘peculiar institution’, as central to the Russian experience as black slavery has been to the American.1 It is striking, however, that the rise and dominance of serfdom within Muscovite/Russian society coincided closely in historical terms with the rise to European eminence and power of the Muscovite state and Russian Empire. The subjection of the peasantry to its landlord masters was finally institutionalized in 1649, at a time when for most of the rest of Europe Muscovy was a little-known and peripheral state, in John Milton’s words, ‘the most northern Region of Europe reputed civil’.2 When Peter I proclaimed Russia an empire, in 1721, it had displaced Sweden to become the leading state of Northern Europe; one hundred years later Russia was the premier European land power. Its loss of international status after the Crimean War in 1856 helped to precipitate the abolition of serfdom (1861); but the ‘Great Reforms’ of the 1860s did not enable it to regain the international position achieved after the Napoleonic Wars. Thus the period of history from the mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, when serfdom became a securely entrenched legal and economic institution, was also the period in which Russia — the Muscovite state and Russian Empire — became relatively more powerful than at any other time in its history before 1945. This article seeks to examine some of the features of serfdom in Russia, to look briefly at its place in the structure and dynamics of Russian society, and to investigate the relationship between the establish- ment of serfdom in practice and the success of Russian govern- ments both in domestic affairs and on the international stage.
    [Show full text]
  • Hayek Road to Serfdom.Indd
    The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek (1899–1992) CHAPTER 6 PLANNING AND THE RULE OF LAW Recent studies in the sociology of law once more confirm that the fundamental principle of formal law by which every case must be judged according to general rational precepts, which have as few exceptions as possible and are based on logical subsumptions, obtains only for the liberal competitive phase of capitalism. ―Karl Mannheim 1 Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principles known as the Rule of Law. Stripped of all technicalities, this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand— 5 rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge.1 Though this ideal can never be perfectly achieved, since legislators as well as those to whom the administration of the law is intrusted are fallible men, the essential point, that the discretion left to the executive organs 10 wielding coercive power should be reduced as much as possible, is clear enough. While every law restricts individual freedom to some extent by altering the means which people may use in the pursuit of their aims, under the Rule of Law the govern- ment is prevented from stultifying individual efforts by ad hoc action. Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, 15 certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.
    [Show full text]