238 THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
What our critic alludes to here is what I shall call "the medieval
legacy"—what European (as opposed to British or American) histori
ans would call "feudalism," which they see as persisting to the French
Revolution and, in other countries, beyond. The Old Regime, in other
words.* This was a big complex of customs, laws, practices, attitudes,
and values—the work of centuries—but for the purposes of this analy
sis, three aspects are specially germane.
The Status of the Peasantry
In the Middle Ages, most peasants had been reduced (or raised, for
slaves) to a condition of bondage or serfdom. Typically the peasant was
tied to the soil, not free to leave without the consent of his lord. Serf
dom sometimes also implied a personal, "bodily" tie of serf to master,
so that the lord could move the peasant about, and the peasant, even
leaving with permission, continued to owe dues.
In western Europe during the high and late Middle Ages, these
bonds relaxed, pardy because the monetization of the economy and the
growing appetite for exotic goods led landlords to commute labor ser
vices into money rents, even more because the rise of cities provided
points of exit from the seignorial system. By 1500, England, France,
the Low Countries, and western Germany had few serfs in the old
sense. The process had proceeded farthest in England, where land was
farmed either by yeomen or by free tenants; agricultural laborers, them
selves often owners of small plots inadequate to their sustenance, were
hired as needed. France and the others were not far behind, except for
local vestiges and the widespread persistence of seignorial dues over
and above commercial rents. The French Revolution simply abolished
these remnants in France and areas annexed. This did not mean the
peasant stopped paying; he just acquired a new lord, the state, and his
dues became taxes. The lords got no compensation for their loss, which
was seen as overdue justice.
In the diversity that was Germany, the nature of serfdom varied.
West of the Elbe River, it resembled the French arrangement: gener
ally money rents plus seignorial dues, litde or no payment in labor, and
- In Anglo-American historiographical usage, the word "feudal" (from the word
feudum or fief) is reserved to relations among lords or between lord and vassals—rules
and practice above the line. Rules and practice between lord and peasants (across the
line) are typically denoted as "seigneurial" or "manorial." Continental practice is to use
"feudal" for those aspects of the society and economy that hark back to medieval
usage—in effect, the Old Regime.
