Abstract This article explores the complex relationships between lay lords and local communities in Late Medieval Catalonia, with a particular focus on examples from its north-eastern region during the mid-14 th to late-15 th centuries, a period traditionally associated with economic decline and a purported crisis of the nobility. It examines the extent to which personal and familial affairs of lords and their lineages shaped the lives of their subjects and the economic activities within their domains. Additionally, it challenges the prevailing assumption that baronial manors operated in isolation, relying solely on the personal status of their lords. It also suggests that such manors instead performed as effectively as communities with other jurisdictional status.
As part of a wider literature challenging the notion that many lords engaged in extensive surplus extraction, a recent study focused on inland Flanders has argued that we need to decouple seigneuries, the institutions which structured lordship on the ground, from the exercise of lords' power. It argues that seigneuries were instead characterised by "middle-class lordship", being used by tenants to preserve an economic status quo that prevented capitalist development. This article explores these ideas using the case study of fifteenth-century East Anglia. It examines the operation of lord's manor courts, quantifying their activities for two cross-sections in c.1400 and c.1500. It finds that courts remained important for the objectives of lords across the fifteenth century, but that these aimed to preserve courts as a forum for landholding, rather than to generate arbitrary rents. However, it also finds that while peasants did use courts for collective and individual purposes, this was in decline across the 15(th) century, suggesting that the role of courts in providing an institutional framework for economic activity in East Anglia was waning in contrast with their counterparts in inland Flanders. This helps explain why these two regions followed different economic trajectories in the long run.
This article explores the complex relationships between lay lords and local communities in Late Medieval Catalonia, with a particular focus on examples from its north-eastern region during the mid-14th to late-15th centuries, a period traditionally associated with economic decline and a purported crisis of the nobility. It examines the extent to which personal and familial affairs of lords and their lineages shaped the lives of their subjects and the economic activities within their domains. Additionally, it challenges the prevailing assumption that baronial manors operated in isolation, relying solely on the personal status of their lords. It also suggests that such manors instead performed as effectively as communities with other jurisdictional status.
Seigneurial lordship is often considered detrimental to economic development. Through exercising their claims to political power, lords are believed to have hindered the rise of pervasive and efficient factor and commodity markets, presenting disincentives for competition, innovation and profit maximisation. This article claims that seigneurial backing of land markets did not necessarily lead to development, while seigneurial disruption of these markets could stimulate change. The focus is on two settlements in the eastern Low Countries that were governed by the same seigneurial lord who used his political authority and landownership to foster a competitive market for leasehold land. Crucially, a new type of large-scale, capital-intensive and highly commercialized pastoral farming only gained ground in one of the two settlements. Although geological conditions played a major role, the contribution of the seigneurial administration should not be underestimated. During the first decades of the 16th century, it let out many newly formed large pastures on uncompetitive terms, providing breathing space for new entrepreneurial farmers. The case study shows that competitive land markets did not guarantee dynamism while seigneurial disruption of these markets could provide the necessary support for economic development.
Scottish historiography often describes late medieval Scotland as experiencing socio-economic stagnation while at the same time witnessing a shift from feudal to post-feudal lordship. This paper reevaluates that interpretation through a case study of the Abbey of Arbroath's estate management in northeast Scotland in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Drawing on previously underused cartularies and leases, the study demonstrates that rising lordly demand for cash - particularly the need to meet papal financial requirements - triggered active estate management, increased leasing, and partial commercialisation. Contrary to the narrative of stagnation, rents and land values improved earlier than assumed, and rural commercialisation was underway in the 15(th) century. The continued collection of labour and in-kind dues nevertheless shows the persistence of feudal economic structures, which were shaped and limited by lordly demand. This bottom-up, regional perspective calls for a revision of conventional assumptions, arguing that late medieval Scotland's feudal economy was more dynamic, adaptive, and commercially engaged than previously recognised.
Historians dispute the nature of medieval English serfdom. For some, it represents one of the most powerful and pervasive systems of serfdom in medieval Europe, highly extractive of peasant surpluses: consequently, only concerted peasant resistance in the century after the Black Death could trigger its dissolution. Others, however, criticize this view for relying too heavily on the legal theory of villeinage and not enough on evidence for its practice on the ground: in reality, serfdom was relatively weak even at its peak and it dissolved rapidly through market forces in the wake of the Black Death. Such incompatible claims can only be resolved through more case studies, preferably focusing on the operation of the lord’s manorial court as the principal medium through which seigneurs enforced their legal powers over serfs. This article presents an empirical study of the manorial court rolls of Bredfield (Suffolk), a middling manor held by a lower status lay landowner. Such lordships were typical of English manorial forms, although they feature infrequently in the current scholarship on serfdom. The study reveals the relative weakness of serfdom on the eve of the Black Death and the chronology and reasons for its subsequent decline.
This article is concerned with a series of clashes between the successive lords of Eksaarde, a village in Flanders, and their peasants. More so than in other parts of Europe, seigneurial institutions were dominated by peasants rather than lords, but the evidence from Eksaarde reveals that lords tried to protect their rights and that the heavy-handed rule of Duke Charles the Bold (1467-1477) over the Low Countries created opportunities for aggressive lords to intimidate their subjects. A series of legal confrontations before a princely court of law reveals how peasant communities successfully organized themselves against such threats to their autonomy and that even extremely aggressive lords could not alter the basic economic arrangements of seigneurial lordship, which were highly favourable to peasant control over the land.
Heriot was a due paid by manorial tenants to their lords when they died, traditionally in the form of their best beast. Unlike other customary dues associated with serfdom that gradually disappeared from manorial courts in the later 14th and 15th centuries, heriot proved surprisingly resilient to social and tenurial change, even though it often came to be collected by a cash payment or the render of household goods. In this article I explore why heriot proved so durable. First, I argue that because heriot was owed on the basis of landholding, rather than personal status, it was more easily assimilated into the new formulations of customary tenure; its connection with death meant that it came to be understood as a requisite for the inheritance of customary land. Secondly, however, I argue that heriot’s unusual durability must also be understood within the broader continuity of seigneurial prerogatives to tenants’ household goods through legal procedures in the manor court. The example of heriot allows us to revisit narratives about serfdom in late-medieval England; rather than the traditional narrative of decline, heriot suggests a more complex reformulation of lordship and its customary entitlements.
This article uses case studies from eastern Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria to analyse economic relationships between feudal lords and peasants in the late Middle Ages. The focus is on agriculture. In principle, this was an asymmetrical relationship, as the feudal tenants were bound to their lords of the manor by feudal law and were therefore dependent upon them for their property and, in some cases, also personally. The aim of this article is to show that, despite the dependence of peasants on their lords, a certain consensus between them was common in everyday economic life.In the late Middle Ages, the region under study was dominated by the manorial system (Rentengrundherrschaft). The holders of fiefs had great power of disposal over the estates granted to them by the lords of the manor. Peasants acted entrepreneurially and promoted select agricultural sectors together with their lords. Co-operation between feudal lords and peasants was also common when it came to investing in the maintenance and expansion of the fiefs. The relationship required a certain degree of trust. The presence of landlords with institutions that served as an internal market for economic exchange with their fiefholders was important. In addition, lords of the manor sometimes coordinated the exchange between individual farmers.
Some recent theories have sought to rehabilitate serfdom, postulating that it could have been economically beneficial because lords used their institutional power to address pre-modern market failures. This article tests these claims through a detailed case study of a large lordly estate in early modern Bohemia. It investigates the supposed benefits of lordly mills, credit provision, money dues, labour services, demesne enterprises, and manorial administration. The analysis of extensive archival evidence reveals a picture very different from the one proposed by the rehabilitation theories. Peasant enterprise, private credit, and nonmanorial mills were widespread, while lordly interventions often proved to be extractive, monopolistic, and inefficient, creating obstacles to peasant initiative. The study concludes that strong lordship, far from being a solution to market imperfections, was frequently part of the problem, and that peasant enterprise developed more effectively in interstices free of lordly coercion.
The connection between public spending and the ambitions of urban elites is a common topic in the historiography of the late Middle Ages. However, it is still unclear how city finances and private capital interacted before the use of sophisticated financial systems of the late 13th to early 14th centuries. The case study of Siena provides an analysis of many different archival sources that date back to the first half of the 13th century. Data show a cycle starting with deficit spending by the city to support the war effort. The deficit was financed by the municipality with large-scale borrowing from wealthy citizens, later repaid with revenues from direct taxes. For the lenders, this was a very low-risk investment that yielded medium-low returns. However, loans to the city were more a political tool to secure a position of power, rather than just an economic opportunity.
Evidence on the economic costs of the Spanish flu pandemic between 1918 and 1920 in Germany is still scarce. An analysis of the second-largest German sickness fund at the time, which covered mineworkers in the Ruhr area, helps assess two types of short term costs to the German economy in 1918, the first, and worst, year of the pandemic: the direct monetary costs to the health insurance system arising from excess sick claims; and, by combining morbidity evidence on the fund’s membership with a distributional perspective, the loss in overall economic performance. For 1918, total excess health costs are estimated at 0.1 percent of gross national product (GNP). The estimated GNP loss due to flu-related excess sick leave in 1918 is 1 percent, which accounts for about one third of the overall decline in GNP by –2.7 percent. This estimate can serve as a historical benchmark for a pandemic’s impact on a large, developed economy when globalization effects are largely absent.
Epidemics and pandemics have been a constant feature of human life across all regions and historical periods. They have led to individual suffering, brought on far-reaching societal challenges and shaped demographic trends. Their effects persist far into the future and are not fully understood yet. One area that still merits further research concerns the economic costs attached to pandemics in the short, medium, and long term. The articles assembled in this thematic special issue include a wide range of case studies across different time periods, geographic contexts, and types of pathogens. Collectively, they contribute to our historical understanding of the socioeconomic backgrounds of epidemics and pandemics, societal responses to them, and their impact on key areas of social life. This special issue reflects the inherently interdisciplinary nature of economic and social history which serves as a bridge between historical scholarship and the social sciences, particularly economics. This introduction focuses on distilling key insights from the growing body of literature on the economic costs of epidemics and pandemics. Our aim is to identify the lessons that history has clearly taught us about economic costs so far, while also drawing attention to those areas of knowledge that remain only partially understood and deserve future research.
In this survey, I discuss the literature on historical economic geography that followed from both new economic geography (NEG) and the gravity model, with a focus on applications in economic history since 1991, especially in Europe and Germany. This discussion is organized around four themes: the starting point is the measurement of market potential and its components over the long-run. This includes attempts to estimate regional GDP, as well as changes in the accessibility of markets due to changing transportation costs, tariffs or political borders. Next, I discuss various attempts to measure the effect of market potential (or its components) on economic outcomes, that can be seen as direct empirical tests of NEG models. I also discuss several papers that try to identify the underlying microeconomic mechanism behind market potential, notably localized externalities, spillover effects, and the interplay between changes in transport infrastructure and structural change. Finally, I consider a literature which has examined the non-ergodicity implied by NEG theory, namely path dependence and multiple equilibria. I conclude with some suggestions for further research.
The deregulation of interest rates in 1967 gave West German banks the opportunity of price discrimination among their customers. In the savings deposit market, banks used secret bonus payments paid on top of the regular interest rate to compete for funds. This article explores the practice of bonus payments using two case studies: the Sparkasse Bielefeld (1970 to 1975) and the Volksbanken in Harburg county (1979 to 1984). Both cases are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Informed by the case studies, I estimate that between 10 and 20 percent of savings deposits in West Germany received bonus payments at the peak of this practice. Banks limited the extent of these payments primarily by exploiting and reinforcing a strong asymmetry in the price transparency between savings accounts and other financial assets. Thus, the main advantage of bonus payments for banks was the exclusion of uninformed savers with larger accounts rather than the exclusion of small savers.
The objective of this paper is to study whether and to what extent the 1866 cholera epidemic reflected social and economic differences. Individuallevel information on the deceased in Poznań in 1866 was collected from parish death registers. The different exposure levels, sickness and death rates in the different city districts of Poznań are discussed at length. What becomes evident from the quantitative results: the poorest social groups were the most frequent victims of cholera, due to poor living conditions, malnutrition, poor hygiene, lack of awareness of the risks, and pursuit of professions that increased the risk of exposure to germs. Women, who performed domestic work as servants or at home, were at especially high risk of exposure and death. However, cholera also affected those better off: while they contracted the disease less often, if they did so, they were more likely to succumb to it. The approach and methods used show the complexities of a 19th century local epidemic in great granularity.
This paper presents the first comprehensive quantitative account of epidemic cholera in 19th-century Germany. Using a new dataset based on archival sources, it documents nearly half a million cholera deaths, along with outbreak timing and population at risk, across 2,685 cities and 852 rural counties within the 1871 German Empire. Five stylized facts come to light: First, cholera was primarily an urban disease, with city death rates averaging 3.5 times higher than in rural areas. Second, mid-sized cities (1,000 to 3,000 inhabitants) were the most severely affected. Third, cholera’s geographic epicenter focused on the less developed north-eastern territories (Central Poland today) but shifted South-West over time. Fourth, outbreaks spread more rapidly across regions and within cities over time, despite declining overall mortality. Fifth, local epidemics converged in severity across locations but became more spatially clustered over time. Understanding these complex patterns requires analysis of cholera’s interaction with dominant trends of 19th-century Western development, including public health reforms, urbanization, market integration, and political change. While the rich cholera historiography has long recognized these links, it merits greater attention from quantitative social scientists, including economic historians. Datasets like this one are the foundation for such research.
This article examines how international scientific cooperation addressed the malaria pandemic in the 1920s, focusing on the local context of Catania, Sicily, and a study trip to Sicily by the League of Nations Malaria Commission. In 1925, the Rockefeller Foundation established a field laboratory in San Giuseppe La Rena on the outskirts of Catania, and Italy became a key site for international scientific collaboration. Drawing on League of Nations archives and contemporary publications, the article demonstrates that integrating local and international perspectives proved to be a major challenge. Malaria varied greatly in its manifestations and underlying causes depending on local conditions, making targeted local interventions more effective than broadly-based international comparative approaches. The Malaria Commission sought to synthesize diverse regional problems and control strategies across Europe to develop general assessments and recommendations. However, it ultimately failed to translate these findings into concrete influence on local policy; at least in the case of Catania, as this study shows, the impact remained limited.
Despite clear warnings from scientists and a long history of pandemics, the economics profession was largely unprepared for COVID-19 and especially the drastic policy responses it triggered. While the risk of pandemics had been quantified – with estimated global annual costs of up to $500 billion – this knowledge was not integrated into mainstream economic thinking, modelling, or policy planning. Economists underestimated the sweeping public health interventions – particularly non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) like lock-downs, social distancing, and school closures, which were largely overlooked in economic literature. This gap was mirrored by institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and OECD, which had flagged pandemic risks but did not incorporate them into core forecasting frameworks. Academic economics also fell short, with limited pandemic-related research and little cross-disciplinary collaboration with health sciences. Several factors contributed to this underinvestment in preparedness: complacency from decades of global stability, distorted risk perception (e.g., viewing pandemics as issues for developing countries), and the invisibility of successful prevention. Pandemic preparedness, as a global public good, suffers from collective action problems: everyone benefits, but few want to pay. The COVID-19 crisis revealed a major blind spot in economic thinking: the failure to anticipate and model the economic implications of large-scale health policies. Going forward, stronger integration between economics and epidemiology is essential. Policymakers must also remain cautious in assessing the full cost of the pandemic, as data continues to be revised. This experience calls for humility and a rethinking of how economics addresses systemic global risks.
