Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cca.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!cca!g-rh
From: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Feudalism
Message-ID: <5489@cca.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Jan-86 18:03:05 EST
Article-I.D.: cca.5489
Posted: Sat Jan  4 18:03:05 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jan-86 20:46:24 EST
References: <883@mmintl.UUCP> <28200419@inmet.UUCP> <> <5438@cca.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge
Lines: 32
Summary: 

In article <> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>In article <5438@cca.UUCP> g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>>This was more or less the case in earlier feudal times when liege lords
>>collected their due in kind. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there
>>was a major shift.  Towns had become more common and the cash market for
>>agricultural products had revived.  There were mass freeings of serfs.
>>The obligations in kind were replaced by cash obligations which were
>>definite and fixed.  "Heavy as these obligations might be, he was no
>>longer subject to the aribtrary will of his lord."  The replacement of
>>obligations in kind by fixed cash rents had important consequences;
>>over time prices rose steadily (particularly after the black death in
>>the fourteenth century) to the profit of the peasants and the loss of
>>the lords.
>>
>>Reference: A History of the Middle Ages, Sidney Painter, 1958, Knopf,
>>pp 240-242.
>
>I would describe these changes as the end of pure feudalism, and the
>beginning of a mixed feudal/capitalist system, which evolved into the
>modern capitalist system.  I would say the mass freeings of serfs are
>a strong argument for this point of view.
>

At first sight this seems reasonable, but, upon reflection, I can't agree.
It is certainly true that there was a major change in the high middle
ages, but I wouldn't associatiate the term 'capitalism' with it.  A
better term might be mercantilism.  The key factor in capitalism is the
importance of capital as a factor of production.  This did not occur
until the industrial revolution.  The money economy (such as it was)
was a trading economy which is a precondition for capitalism.

Richard Harter, SMDS.