Refeudalization in the Economy of Great Estates in Central and Eastern Europe (16th-18th Centuries)

Abstract

The tendency toward refeudalization constitutes one of the most characteristic phenomena of European economic evolution in the early modern period, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. It went hand in hand with the development of pre-capitalist and capitalist structures, making the overall picture complex and contradictory. The causes and mechanisms of this process in comparative European perspective have not yet been fully analyzed.
This article analyzes the causes and stages of refeudalization in the noble estates of Central and Eastern Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, examining the genesis of noble economic activity, the emergence of the corvée-based demesne system, the deterioration of the terms of trade for noble exporters, and the ways out of the noble revenue crisis in the 18th century.
The analysis draws on comparative data from Marc Bloch, W. Abel, M. M. Postan, and other medievalists, on Polish agricultural price data from Rybarski, and on the author's own earlier work on the birth of capitalism in Europe in the 14th-17th centuries.
The proposed causal chain is as follows: the seigneurial revenue crisis at the end of the Middle Ages triggered increased noble economic activity - a general European phenomenon in the 16th century. The forms of this activity varied according to natural conditions, the degree of disappearance of serfdom, and market character. In Central and Eastern Europe it led to the corvée-based demesne system. In the 17th century, deteriorating terms of trade and wars aggravated the crisis; Polish data show that the purchasing power of noble exports fell sharply. Peasant revolts multiplied. In the 18th century, the ways out were substitution of corvée by money rent and industrialization of great estates. The noble sclerosis ultimately led in Western Europe to the French Revolution and in Central and Eastern Europe to agrarian reforms in the 19th century.