Polish Grain on the Markets of Feudal France

Abstract

The deliveries of Polish grain to France have been discussed in the historical literature mainly in general terms, emphasizing their periodic character during famines. Only the period of Louis XIV has been analyzed in more detail. The full period from the earliest mentions to the decline of the ancien regime has not yet been treated synthetically.
This article presents the deliveries of Polish grain on the markets of feudal France from the earliest mentions to the end of the ancien regime, analyzing their volume and periodicity and determining the role of these cereals on the French market during periodic famines.
The principal source is the Sound Toll Tables (Tabeller), supplemented by the statistics of Biernat for 1651-1815 and of Gierszewski for 1670-1815. For the French market side, the author drew on the Pontchartrain-Polignac correspondence, the Correspondence of the Controllers-General of Finances edited by Boislisle, and the works of Turgot and Necker.
The deliveries were periodic in character, linked to famines and serious food shortages: the Hundred Years War, the crises of 1692-1693, 1709-1710, 1740, and 1767-1772. Gdańsk dominated as the port of dispatch: in 1562-1657, Gdańsk shipments accounted for 89.9% of all grain exported by French vessels from the Baltic; in 1721-1783, Gdańsk still supplied 65.9% of deliveries from the four main Baltic ports. France regarded Poland as its principal grain supplier from the North. French grain trade policy - constrained by internal customs barriers and oscillating between Colbertism and the physiocrats - shaped the reception of these imports. After the first partition of Poland, the excessive customs duties of Frederick II caused a sharp decline in Gdańsk deliveries in favor of Königsberg.