From Manor to Market: Structural Change in England, 1536-1640

Richard Lachmann offers new answers to the old question of how England became the first nation to undergo the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Lachmann identifies conflicts among elites within the feudal ruling class- rather than conflicts between classes - as the primary dynamic within the feudal system that accounted for the timing and direction of structural change. His original research and analysis should be of interest to sociologists, political scientists, historians, and others concerned with English history, peasant studies, and economic history. The interaction of elite and class conflict, says Lachmann, explains the particular development of land and labor markets and of agrarian capitalism in 17th century England. The author builds upon the concern in Marxist works on the transition with changes in the organization and relations of agrarian production. He analyzes feudal manors to gain an understanding of their stability in the face of the heightened class struggles that accompanied the demographic crisis of the 14th century Black Death. Lachmann, by diagramming English social structure over the subsequent centuries, finds that relations among clerical, landlord, and state elites were transformed prior to class relations at the point of production. The 1536 Dissolution of the Monasteries is shown to be critical in allowing the monarchy to consolidate power at the national level. Lachmann analyzes the effects that removal of clerical and crown regulation within manors had upon the dynamic of landlord-peasant conflict. The study of class conflict on manors demonstrates that the significant 16th century development was the consolidation of the several elites' powers in the hands of the gentry, giving that new class, organized on the county level, the upper hand against both a court-based monarchy and peasants on manors. In the theoretical conclusion, Lachmann argues that this historical analysis suggests that a focus upon the economics and politics of porduction is mistaken. The totality of social structure must be examined to find the sites of efficacious political action. Feudalism is distinguished by a duality of such sites - national and local - and a duality of struggles - elites and class. As a result, early capitalist social formations can only be understood as structural artifacts of those dual struggles.