THE B-PHASE

For Slicher van Bath, the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of the periods of agricultural expansion and contraction in Europe since the Carolingian era is the rise and fall in the price of cereals, vis-à-vis other merchandise and wages. It was a question of favorable or unfavorable terms of trade for cereals. He sees a contraction, meaning unfavorable terms of trade, for cereals in the period from 1600 (or 1650) to 1750. It is important to underline this definition of contraction, because the relative decline of the price of wheat in Slicher van Bath's belief, is far more important than its absolute decline. Side by side with a shift in the terms of trade (avoiding, for the moment, all suggestion of causal sequence) is what K. Glamann calls a turning point around 1650 in "the great east–west grain trade," apparently occurring because "southern and western Europe [seemed] to have become more self-sufficient in grain." This self-sufficiency is attributed to an "increased production of foodstuffs in western Europe during the second half of the seventeenth century, coinciding with a general stagnation of population," resulting presumably in oversupply. However, Glamann also notes that at this same time "Europe was glutted with pepper."

But how can oversupply be suggested when the problem of the times was presumably too little food? Schöffer speaks of "permanent, sometimes latent, structural phenomena" existing in Europe "from the disasters of the fourteenth century until far into the eighteenth century," primarily "the continuous tension between food production and food distribution on the one hand and the population's food requirements on the other." The result was "a situation where malnutrition was endemic, hunger often epidemic." Domenico Sella sees the well-being of the early modern period as dependent "on whether food supplies kept pace with population," yet others speak of production rising faster than population. Clearly we have an anomaly that can only be resolved with a clearer notion of the sequence of events. Let us see first what other events occurred.

Certain agronomic shifts are reported for the seventeenth century: the process of land reclamation was at least slowed down, probably stopped, possibly reversed. Unlike the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, which "invented land" (in Chaunu's felicitous image), the seventeenth century, especially after 1650, was a time of "consolidation," but a consolidation "without merit." In addition to the cessation of expansion of land area, the average yield ratio of cereals fell throughout Europe in the period between 1600 and 1699, to a greater degree for barley and oats than for wheat and rye, and fell more sharply in central, northern, and eastern Europe than in western Europe. De Maddalena calls this fall of yield ratios "a remarkable phenomenon." Another major agronomic shift was in the choice of crops to be cultivated: first, a shift in the use of land for cereals to its use for pasturage in the cooler areas and for wine in the warmer areas; second, a shift from the cultivation of cereals to increased production of forage crops, vegetables that require intensive labor, and commercial crops (flax, hemp, hops, rapeseed, madder, and pastels);12 and third, a shift from high-priced cereals (rye arid wheat) to low-priced ones (barley, oats, and buckwheat) and a reduction in the purchase of fertilizer (both humus and marl) for the production of cereals.

Alongside the purely agronomic changes, a number of shifts in the social organization of agricultural production occurred. De Maddalena speaks of a general "degredation of the peasant class" during the seventeenth century, during which "the landowners, adducing 'urgens et improvisa necessitas' proceeded to confiscate farms formerly owned by peasants." He notes also the "expropriation—it might better be termed usurpation—of a third of the communal property (hence the term 'triage')," which affected the peasants by reducing the area in which they had rights for pasturage and wood gathering. Slicher van Bath agrees that the rural population suffered for the most part more than the urban population, but he distinguishes between the small farmers and the cottagers on the one hand and the laborers and house servants on the other; the former pair having "had it relatively worse" than the two wage-earning categories. Meuvret finds a very obvious explanation for this:

For every cultivator-owner/tenant (laboureur) who complains of his small profit because of the price of wheat, how many laborers (manoeuvners) or artisans rejoice at the lower price they have to pay on those few occasions when they must purchase it.

In general, Slicher van Bath argues that the unfavorable financial position of the peasant owners and tenants (fermiers-proprietaires) went along with a reduction in tenancies (fermages) and especially in the number of small tenant-farmers (petits fermiers). The two reductions were paralleled by the fact that in general the si/e of the agricultural unit (exploitation agricole) became larger. Nonetheless, despite larger units and more costly labor there was less improvement in agricultural equipment in the seventeenth century than in the sixteenth, although there were more innovations in the tools used in dairy farming, such as the improvement in the churn.

Industry, like agriculture, is said to have lost its "force of acceleration" in the seventeenth century, although somewhat later. It is not clear what this meant in terms of total European production. Sella argues that the fluctuations were relatively small because when population expanded in the sixteenth century, real wages declined, and thus things were "basically unchanged"; when there was a rise in per capita incomes after 1650, however, the increased individual demand "may have been offset [globally] in part by sagging population figures." The uncertainty of such an analysis is stated bluntly by Hobsbawm: "What happened to production? We simply do not know."

What we do seem to know is that there was a shift in the location of industry. For Slicher van Bath, it is "well known that during periods of agricultural contraction—end of the Middle Ages and of the seventeenth century—rural industry appears on the scene, especially the textile industry." This occurred, it is argued, because of the cheapness and attractiveness to industry of underemployed rural labor. Since such industry was based on a low ratio of fixed capital, at least until the mid-eighteenth century, Romano argues that "consequently, it was extremely easy to liquidate a business, taking out one's capital"; this may have been true of the textile industry,...