Chapter 3. Early
Modern
3.1 Overview
of the cycle
As the start of the cycle we take
the year when the Tudor dynasty was established, marking the end of the long
period of instablity culminating in the Wars of the Roses. The year of 1485 is
also a good candidate for the turning point in the population history of
Trends in population and economy
Population trajectory of
early-modern
Figure
3.1 Detrending population trajectory for
England (Turchin 2005, see also Appendix at the end of this chapter). (a) Population numbers (in million), net yields (in bushels
per acre), and the estimated carrying capacity (in million of people) in
The main variable in the
Malthusian-Ricardian theory is not the total number of people, but the number
of people in relation to resources, or population pressure on resources.
Population pressure can be estimated by dividing actual population numbers by
the maximum number that can be fed within a certain geographic region given
current technology. The Appendix at the end of this chapter calculates the
carrying capacity of
We see that at the same time that
population numbers stagnated, population pressure decreased substantially—due
to increasing agricultural productivity of cropland. As a result, between late
fifteenth century and mid-eighteenth century population pressure, but not
numbers, traced out a typical secular cycle. To check on our calculations, we
also plotted the “misery index” (inverse real wage) in Figure 3.1b. The general
parallelism between the two curves supports our procedure for estimating the
population pressure.
This period also saw a very rapid
inflation—the famous price revolution of the sixteenth century (Figure 3.2).
Between the 1540s and 1600 the price of wheat quadrupled, from 20 to over
Figure
3.2. The dynamics of prices (decadal
averages) in
Social structure and elite dynamics
The apex of the social hierarchy in
early-modern
The bulk of the middle-rank elites
consisted of the county gentry—esquires, knights, and (later) baronets,
numbering between 1,300 and 4,400 (Table 3.1b). The numbers of the lesser
elites, the “parish gentry”, varied between 5,000 and 15,000 (Table 3.1c). In
addition to the landed gentry, the elite stratum included the lawyers above the
barrister level, the urban elites (wholesalers, large-scale exporters, customs
farmers, and financiers), and the parish clergy.
Table
3.1. The numbers and average incomes of
elites during the Tudor-Stuart cycle
(a) Magnates (Mingay 1976)
|
Period |
Number of
peers |
Income,
£ |
Income,
quarters |
Tons of
wheat |
|
1500 |
60 |
|
|
|
|
1540 |
60 |
400–1400* |
1000–3500 |
220–760 |
|
1600 |
55 |
|
|
|
|
1615 |
81 |
|
|
|
|
1628 |
126 |
|
|
|
|
1640 |
160 |
6,000** |
2600 |
567 |
|
1700 |
170 |
|
|
|
*1524 (Britnell 1997:191)
**(Stone 1965:762)
(b) Middle ranks (county elites)
|
Period |
Middle
ranks |
Average
income, £ |
Income, quarters |
Tons of wheat |
|
1500 |
1,300
county gentry (500 knights
+ 800 esquires) |
|
|
|
|
1524* |
1,300 (500
knights + 800 esquires) |
Knights:
120–200 Esquires:
50–80 |
320–520 130–210 |
70–115 28–46 |
|
1640 |
4,400 (1,400
baronets and knights + 3,000
esquires) |
Knights:
500–1000 Esquires:
100–300 |
220–430 45–130 |
48–94 10–28 |
|
1700 |
3,000 (1,000
greater gentry + 2,000
lesser gentry) |
|
|
|
*(Britnell 1997:191)
(c) Lesser elites (parish gentry)
|
Period |
Lesser
landholders |
Avg income, £ |
Income, quarters |
Tons of wheat |
|
1500 |
5,000
gentlemen |
17 |
64 |
14 |
|
1540 |
5,000
armigerous gentry |
|
|
|
|
1640 |
15,000
armigerous gentry |
<100 |
<43 |
9 |
|
1700 |
10,000
country gentlemen |
240 |
100 |
22 |
As to commoners, Stone (1976:240) describes a tripartite division. (1) The lesser and the more
substantial yeomen, the husbandmen, the artisans, shopkeepers, and small
traders. (2) The living-out laborers, both rural and urban, agricultural and
industrial. (3) The apprentices and living-in servants, and the dependents on
charity (widows, aged, and unemployed).
Before 1540 the numbers of aristocrats
of all ranks stayed flat (Table 3.1). Between 1540 and 1640, however, elite
numbers roughly tripled. Because general population increased during this
period only by 80% (from 2.8 to 5.1 million), the English society became
significantly more top-heavy. After 1640, the numbers of middle-rank and lesser
elites declined by about one-third, while the number of peers continued to
grow, although at a much slower rate than before 1640 (Table 3.1).
The changes affecting lesser clergy
were more complex. There were 9,000–10,000 parishes in the medieval England (Moorman 1946:5). Towards the end of the
Plantagenet cycle, however, a high proportion of parishes did not have a resident
curate, or even a parish church. During the disturbed period of 1540–1560 there
was a sharp decline in numbers entering ministry (Stone 1972:80). In the diocese of
State finances
In nominal terms the state revenues
continued to increase throughout the cycle, with what appears as minor
fluctations around the trend. When deflated by the price of wheat, however, the
pattern of change becomes more complex (Figure 3.3). During the first phase
until c. 1550, real revenues increased dmore than three-fold. During the second
half of the sixteenth century, the trend inversed, and the purchasing power of
the Crown revenues lost two-thirds of its value. This reversal was entirely due
to the price inflation of the sixteenth century. Between 1600 and 1640 revenues
fluctuated at a low level. Interestingly, because population continued to
increase, on the eve of the Great Revolution per capita tax rates declined to a
half of what they were in the late fifteenth century.
Figure
3.3. Total revenues of the English
state, 1485–1755 (ESFDB 1995). Dotted curve: revenues expressed in silver equivalent.
Solid curve: revenues in terms of wheat. Broken curve: real per capita
revenues.
The Revolution saw the first spurt
of increase, followed by slight decline under the Restoration. Finally, there
was a great and sustained growth in real revenues in the decades around 1700,
which finally took them to levels beyond the mid-sixteenth century peak (Figure
3.3).
Sociopolitical stability
The period between the end of the
Wars of the Roses and the onset of the Great Revolution was quite peaceful
(Table 3.2). A partial exception was the two decades in the mid-sixteenth
century that were characterized by dynastic instability, religious strife, and
financial difficulties—the so-called Mid-Turdor Crisis (Jones 1973). This instablity, however, never escalated into a fullblown
crisis (Matusiak 2005). A series of rebellions that flared up between 1536 and 1554
(the Pilgrimage of Grace, Cornwall Rising, Kett’s and Wyatt’s rebellions) were
regional in character, did not seriously threaten the central authorities, and
were rapidly suppressed (Loades 1999: 150-3, 173, 177-8, 193-5).
Table 3.2. Occurrence of rebellions, coups
d’état, civil war and other instances of internal war in
|
Period |
Description |
|
1536–7 |
Pilgrimage
of Grace (the Catholic rebellion in |
|
1549–50 |
Kett’s
Rebellion, Cornwall Rising |
|
1554 |
Wyatt’s
Rebellion |
|
1639–40 |
Scottish
rebellion: the Bishops’ Wars |
|
1642–7 |
Civil War |
|
1648–51 |
Second
Civil War |
|
1655 |
Penruddock
rising in Salisbury |
|
1660 |
Monk’s
coup; restoration of James II |
|
1666 |
Revolt of
Scottish Covenanters |
|
1679 |
Revolt of Scottish
Covenanters |
|
1685 |
Monmuth
and Argyll rebellions |
|
1687–92 |
Glorious
Revolution, with intervention by France |
|
1715–6 |
Jacobite
rebellion in Scotland |
|
1745–6 |
Scottish
rising (Jacobite pretender) |
The period of 1640–60, by contrast,
saw a full-scale state collapse followed by a lengthy and bitter civil war.
There was a relatively peaceful interlude during the Restoration, which was
followed by a second period of instability, involving violent overthrow of the
government, during 1685–92 (Table 3.2). The eighteenth century was very
peaceful, apart from two Jacobite risings in
The coin hoards trajectory during
1500–1800 is dominated by the peak associated with the Great Revolution (Figure
3.4). Two secondary peaks are also present. One of them reflects the second
period of sociopolitical instability, associated with the Glorious Revolution.
Another one, in the mid-sixteenth century, probably has less to do with
internal instability in
Figure
3.4. The number of coin hoards per
decade in the British Isles, 1500–1800 (Brown 1971). Thick solid curve:
3.2
Expansion: 1485–1580
General population and economy
After a long period of stagnation,
the population of
Analysis of Lay Subsidies of 1524
and 1525 suggests a population of 2.3 mln people (Cornwall 1970), which is the same as the estimated minimum during the
fifteenth century. A later re-evaluation suggests an even lower number (Campbell 1981), which is, however, difficult to reconcile with the firmer
estimate of 2.8 mln people in 1541 (see below). Population increase from 2.3 to
2.8 million between 1520s and 1540s implies a relative growth rate of 1 percent
per year, which is somewhat above the growth rate after 1540 for which we have
solid data: the back projection suggests that the annual rate of population
growth between 1541 and 1556 was 0.87 percent (Wrigley and Schofield 1981:566).
One important aspect of the early
stages of population expansion was that it was accompanied by a significant
shift in the urban/rural population balance. With the exception of
The general dynamic underlying
deurbanization was the reverse of the trend observed during the stagflation
phase of the previous cycle. A shrunken elite stratum coupled with reduced
consumption levels by an average elite household translated into a depressed
demand for luxuries and manufactures. As a result, towns offered reduced
employment opportunites to potential
immigrants from rural areas. Meanwhile rural areas became more
attractive places to live as political stability returned under the Tudor
regime. There arose new possibilities of expanding the carrying capacity by
internal colonization of previously abandoned lands. Thus, both “pull” and
“push” factors aligned to reduce the inflow of rural migrants to towns. As a
result, urban populations shrank because of high mortality and low birth rates
prevailing in premodern towns. Incidentally, this redistribution of population
between the urban and rural locations may help explain why it is so difficult
to directly document the early phase of population increase (1480–1540). Unlike
urban shrinking, rural recolonization is not easily detectable (except by using
indirect measures, such as peasant house construction and parish church
rebuilding).
Whatever the timing and tempo of the
early population expansion, by 1541 the total was 2.8 mln (Wrigley et al. 1997), a substantial increase over the fifteenth century level.
Due to the excellent research by the Cambridge Group for the History of
Population and Social Structure, the population trajectory of post-1540
Rapid population growth during the
second half of the sixteenth century, combined with torrents of precious metals
from the
In the early sixteenth century,
before the price revolution, laborer’s wages provided for a standard of life
that was modest, but well above the starvation level. Assuming that a worker
could find employment for 150 days a year, and that the daily wage rate was 4
d., Hoskins (1976:113) estimated the annual income of 50 s. (master cradtsmen would
be paid 50% more, since their daily wage was 6 d.). Five quarters of wheat
(14.5 hl, a resonable index of food consumption for a family of five) would
cost 30 s., and consume 60% of the annual income. Other expenses were much
smaller. The typical rent was 5 s. per year. Working-class clothing cost 4 s.
per person per year, but it is unlikely that laborers spent that much. Most
clothing was probably made at home and poor people wore others’ cast-offs. A
pair of shoes for “poor people” cost a shilling. Where woodland was within easy
access, the poor collected wood for fuel. Where woodland was scarce, they
burned the dried haulms of peas and beans and even dried cow-dung (Hoskins 1976:116), or did not heat their dwellings at all. Life was not easy,
but the laborer’s wages were sufficient for food and basic shelter.
Additionally, the wife and children could supplement the family income, either
by working in the textile industry, or by seasonal employment in agriculture.
During the sixteenth century wages
grew slower than prices, collapsing in real terms. For example, agricultural
wage in southern England stayed constant at 4 d./day until 1550, and then grew
to 8 d./day by the 1580s and 1590s (Thirsk 1967:864). The purchasing power of the wage rate, however, declined by
50% by the 1590s (Thirsk 1967:865).
Land rents rose, but initially
slower than prices, shifting the distribution of agricultural profits from the
landlord to the tenant (Stone 1972:68). As we shall discuss below, during the stagflation phase
rents increased faster than prices, and the direction of the flow of profits
was reversed.
Elites
Until the middle of the sixteenth
century the expansion of elite numbers lagged behind general population growth.
Throughout most of the century, the numbers of peers fluctuated near 60 (Mingay 1976). The numbers of knights increased from
In the mid-sixteenth century the
elite fortunes were dramatically changed by the greatest land transfer in the
English history after the Norman conquest—the dissolution of monasteries. The
net yearly income of the Church was estimated by Hoskins (1976:121) as £400,000, at least 60% of which passed to the
Crown. During 1536–54 a large part of this land (valued at £1.1 million)
was sold to the gentry (Stone 1972:154), creating the economic basis for the subsequent expansion of
the elite class.
3.3 Stagflation: 1580–1640
Population and economy
Population continued to grow, but at
a decelerating rate, and reached 5.3 million during the 1640s (Wrigley et al. 1997). Thus, between 1480 and 1640 English population more than
doubled. “The doubling of the population in the 120 years before the civil war
is the critical variable of the period, an event the ramifications of which
spread out into every aspect of the society” (Stone 1972:67, see also Russell 1990:1, Kishlansky 1997). One consequence of population growth was a drastic decline
in the land/peasant ratio. For example, whereas prior to 1560, 57% of
landholdings were
Overall the price of grain rose
almost eight-fold from 1500 to 1640 (in nominal terms; when expressed in g
silver, the increase was six-fold). To investigate factors that were
responsible for this inflation, Jack Goldstone (1991: Table 3) fitted a simple regression model with log-transformed population,
an index of harvest quality, and time (the dummy variable for technical change)
as independent variables to the data. The model explained 99% variance in the
log-transformed prices, and indicated that the most important factor driving
inflation was population growth.
Expansion of money supply, resulting
from large-scale importation of bullion from the
Table
3.2. Relative increases in prices of
food and fuel (grain, livestock, and wood) versus manufactures (Fischer 1996:74).
|
years |
grain |
livestock |
wood |
manufactures |
|
1450-1469 |
99 |
100 |
102 |
101 |
|
1470-1489 |
104 |
101 |
102 |
101 |
|
1490-1509 |
105 |
105 |
88 |
98 |
|
1510-1529 |
135 |
128 |
98 |
106 |
|
1530-1549 |
174 |
164 |
108 |
119 |
|
1550-1569 |
332 |
270 |
176 |
202 |
|
1570-1589 |
412 |
344 |
227 |
227 |
|
1590-1609 |
575 |
433 |
312 |
247 |
|
1610-1629 |
788 |
649 |
500 |
294 |
Another indicator suggesting that
price inflation was driven primarily by population growth is real wages, which
declined by more than 40% between 1500 and 1640 (Allen 2001). Land rents also increased at an accelerating rate (Table
3.3). During the sixteenth century rents increased in line with prices, but
after 1580 rents rapidly outpaced inflation. As a result, real rents stagnated
during the expansion phase so that the only way for landlords to increase their
revenues was to get more land. During the stagflation phase, by contrast, real
rents grew rapidly, and the landlords enjoyed a substantial increase in their
incomes. For example, the standard of living of the average gentry in
Warwickshire increased by nearly 400% between the 1530s and 1630s (Stone 1972:74).
Table
3.3. Rents. Data from (Kerridge 1953) and (Allen 1992). Peaks in real rents are emphaszied in boldface.
|
|
|
Kerridge |
|
Allen |
|
year |
d./acre |
real rent |
year |
real rent |
|
1515 |
6.562 |
1.00 |
1462.5 |
1.1752 |
|
1525 |
6.235 |
0.75 |
1487.5 |
1.2217 |
|
1535 |
13.283 |
1.65 |
1512.5 |
1.0736 |
|
1545 |
13.796 |
1.37 |
1537.5 |
1.3542 |
|
1555 |
20.192 |
1.22 |
1562.5 |
0.7887 |
|
1565 |
22.902 |
1.33 |
1587.5 |
4.1571 |
|
1575 |
28.551 |
1.51 |
1612.5 |
5.3031 |
|
1585 |
21.577 |
1.00 |
1637.5 |
4.3822 |
|
1595 |
35.927 |
1.20 |
1662.5 |
4.2364 |
|
1605 |
44.070 |
1.54 |
1687.5 |
4.2230 |
|
1615 |
54.405 |
1.67 |
1712.5 |
7.1223 |
|
1625 |
45.867 |
1.36 |
1737.5 |
6.6528 |
|
1635 |
57.838 |
1.44 |
1762.5 |
6.1794 |
|
1645 |
42.572 |
0.99 |
1787.5 |
5.3608 |
|
1655 |
55.447 |
1.47 |
1812.5 |
5.3611 |
Urbanization and trade
During the sixteenth century the
growth of
The dynamics of trade and industry
parallelled those of urbanization. Shipping owned in London rose from 12,300
tons in 1582 to 35,300 tons in 1629, and to about 150,000 tons by 1686 (Clay 1984a:202). Between 1622 and 1700 the value of imports of food and raw
materials to London increased from £1 million to £3 million (Clay 1984b). The growth of industry can be illustrated with some numbers
on iron production. In 1500 this was a mere 140 tons p.a., while by 1600 it
grew to
Elites
Between 1540 and 1640 the numbers of
various elite strata expanded much faster than the general population (Table
3.1). While population grew by 80% (from 2.8 to 5.1 mln), the elite numbers
tripled (from 6,300 to 18,500 aristocratic families). The radical increase of
aristocratic numbers affected all elite strata: the number of peers increased
from 60 to 160, baronets and knights from 500 to 1400, esquires from 800 to
3,000, and armigerous gentry from 5,000 to 15,000 (Stone 1972:72).
As the numbers of the gentry grew,
so did their involvement in the local and central government. For example, the
number of men appointed as Justices of the Peace in four sample counties (Kent,
Norfolk, Warwickshire, and the North Riding of Yorkshire) increased from
The expansion of landed elites was
accompanied by the rise of professions. The numbers of lawyers, doctors and
other practicioners of medicine, and secretarial/administrative assistants
showed sustained and striking increase, generally peaking in 1640 (Stone 1976:34). For example, the number of attorneys enrolled in the court
of Common Pleas rose between 1578 and 1633 from 342 to 1,383. The numbers of
the clergy also increased, starting in 1560 and reaching a peak in 1640 (Stone 1976:34).
The causal factors underlying the
“rise of the gentry” are well understood. In the first phase, roughly 1540–60,
the gentry profited from the massive land transfer of the church property. In
the second phase, after 1580, the gentry benefited from rising real rents. Additionally,
as the Crown finances worsened, it was forced to sell more land. The value of
the Crown lands sold between 1589 and 1635 was £2.1 million (Stone 1972:154), and most of it ended up in the hands of the gentry.
The rise of the gentry was
accompanied by ever increasing levels of conspicuous consumption, as well as
increasing degree of inequality. “In 1485 most English people, even well to do,
wore similar dress. Women wore plain, loose-fitting garments and men did
likewise. Fine but simple linen was as acceptable in formal costume as ornate
silk. … The third and fourth decades of the sixteenth century, however, saw an
explosive growth in the consumption of expensive and ornate costume. Demand
rose enormously, especially among the wealthy, who purchased expensive
brocades, velvets, and silks for new and splendid costumes. … During the reign
of
At a certain point, however, the
elite numbers icreased beyond the “sustainable level.” As a result, competition
for jobs and patronage gradually intensified, with all the dire consequences
for political stability of the English society. Goldstone (1991) proposed two ways in which we can quantify intraelite
competition. First, we can examine the data on university enrollments.
University enrollments increased drastically during the second half of the
sixteenth century, and reached the peak in 1640. We know that this secular
trend was not simply a part of the much longer (“millenial”) increase in the
general level of European literacy and education, because by the 1750s, when
intraelite competition greatly subsided, the enrollments declined to pre-1600
levels (Figure 3.5). “The universities were turning out an educated clergy and
laity in excess of suitable job opportunities, and were thus creating a large
and influential group of discontented ‘Outs’ ” (Stone 1972:96).
Figure 3.5.
Enrollments at
The second indicator of intraelite competition
was the amount of litigation among gentry. “In 1640, there was probably more
litigation per head of population going through the central courts at
A third indicator of intraelite
competition, in addition to the two proposed by Goldstone, was the veritable
epidemic of dueling that afflicted the English aristocracy in the late
sixteenth century. The number of duels and challenges mentioned in newsletters
and correspondence jumped from
The rise of dueling coincided with
(and perhaps was a part of) the crime wave that inundated the English society
in the late sixteenth century and peaked in the early seventeenth. Data on
homicides assembled by Eisner (2003) suggests that the general incidence of crime increased and
declined in step with population pressure and inverse real wages (Figure 3.6).
Figure 3.6.
Homicides
The state
The final major consequence of
population growth was the increasing fiscal strain on the English state. The
state revenues were strong under Henry VII and continued to increase until the
mid-sixteenth century. After that point, revenues declined in real terms
(Figure 3.3), while expenses continued to rise. The state’s fiscal difficulties
mounted during the sixteenth century and reached a peak on the eve of the Great
Revolution (Figure 3.7a). The basic problem was that the Crown’s real expenses
increased proportionately to population numbers, while real income declined.
Additionally, the expanded elite numbers imposed greater patronage costs on the
state. Increasingly, from mid-sixteenth century on, the Crown was forced to
sell assets, levy forced loans, and seek parliamentary grants even in peacetime
(Goldstone 1991: 93). By the 1630s, the Crown lands were largely gone, and the
unpaid Crown debt reached the point where the interest on it was greater than
the ordinary revenues. Furthermore, prior efforts to secure extraordinary
revenues have alienated the elites to the point where they were unlikely to
aquiesce to further fiscal demands or entreaties by the Crown.
Figure 3.7.
(a) An index of the state’s fiscal distress (Goldstone 1991:Figure 4). Goldstone’s index of fiscal distress varies from 0 =
adequate income and credit to 4 = total bankruptcy (Goldstone 1991:105).
Here are some numbers. The state
debt grew from £400,000 in 1603 to £900,000 in 1618 (Hughes 1991:27). Under Elizabeth “perks” of £8,000 per annum were
distributed to the peers; under James I this increased to £105,000 (Hughes 1991:151). By 1626 pensions rose to £140,000 per year, or about
a quarter of the total cash revenues of the Crown (Stone 1965:419). Some of these pensions were due to legitimate demands of
the government service, but an increasing part went to fuel “the growth of a
parasitic court aristocracy preying upon the revenues of the Crown” (Stone 1965:419). In the 1630s more than half of government revenue was
absorbed by official salaries (Clay 1984b:261).
3.4 Crisis: 1640–60
The Onset of the Civil War
By 1640 the social pressure
resulting from population expansion, elite overproduction, and growing state
insolvency reached the breaking point. In his seminal work, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern
World, Jack Goldstone (1991) used several social and political indicators to quanitfy the
growing pressure.
The first index is the mass
mobilization potential (MMP) of the general populace. One population group is
of particular importance—the urbanized workers and artisans, especially in the
capital, because they are located near the centers of power. Goldstone proposed
three measurable components in the MMP: (1) the degree of misery affecting the
urban masses by the dynamics of real wages; (2) youthful age structure, which
increases mobilization potential of the crowd; and (3) urban growth, which
concentrates the poor young sons and other discontented commoners, and thus
should play an important multiplier role in ampliying the popular discontent
brought about by increasing poverty. Goldstone proposed a formula combining the
effects of these three mechanisms in one measure of mass mobilization
potential. The estimated MMP for
Increased mass mobilization
potential by itself was not enough to cause the state collapse when the elites
were unified and determined to prevent it. Thus, the second trend contributing
to state breakdown was the loss of elite unity. Favorable economic conjuncture
for landowners during the stagflation phase resulted in massive expansion of
elite numbers. However, the amount of surplus that could be wrung from the
peasants stagnated and even declined after 1620. For example, real rents peaked
during the first quarter of the seventeenth century and declined thereafter
(Table 3.3). The direct consequence of these two opposing trends was that the
average income per elite capita declined on the eve of the Great Revolution. As
usually happens, the pain was not spread evenly, and while many elite families
were greatly impoverished, others continued to do well. Thus, not only was
there a growing segment of elites who faced the prospect of downward mobility,
there was also a visible rise in inequality. One avenue for preserving the
elite status was to seek employment with the state, church, or the magnates.
But employment opportunites could not keep pace with the growing numbers of
elite aspirants (most of whom had university degrees). “Limits on available
land, civil and ecclesiastical offices, and royal patronage led to increasingly
polarized factional battles between patron-client groups for available spoils” (Goldstone 1991:119). When one elite faction won, it attempted to completely
exclude its rivals. This is what happened when the faction led by George
Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, managed to monopolize the Court’s patronage
from about 1617 to his death in
The rising clamoring of the elites
for positions aggravated the third trend, the fiscal difficulties of the state.
The state finances were also under pressure from rising miltiary costs due to
the military revolution of the sixteenth century. The revenues, however,
ultimately failed to match the pace of increase in the outlays. In fact, real
revenues declined during the second half of the sixteenth century, and
stagnated from 1600 to 1640 (Figure 3.3). Thus, the ability of the state to
raise revenue could not keep up with the increasing fiscal demands on it. The
Crown used a variety of expedients to provide short-term relief—the sale of
Crown lands, offices, and titles, debasement of coinage, and borrowing from the
city of
Economic consequences of the Civil
War
The civil wars started in 1642 and
lasted with intervals until 1651, followed by a period of continuing political
instability until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. During this period
of civil war and governmental confusion some 10% of the male population was
killed. Towns such as
Enormous amount of land changed
hands (although much of it was later reversed), including £3.5 million of
Crown lands, £2.5 million of ecclesiastical lands, and over £1
million of Royalist lands (King 1971:355). This transfer of land caused significant dislocation in the
countryside. Purchasers of confiscated lands were anxious to secure quick
returns and tenants who could not produce written evidence of their titles were
liable to eviction (Hill 1982:125).
The rural poor in
To sum up, the civil war did
enormous damage to the economic infrastructure of
Population
Thanks to the work by Wrigley,
Schofield and co-workers on the population reconstruction of the early modern
Wrigley, Schofield, and coworkers
showed that a large proportion of variance in the crude birth rate was
explained by nuptiality. The proportion of population never marrying increased
from 5% in the mid-sixteenth century to over 25% by 1650, before declining back
to 5% during the next hundred years (Wrigley and Schofield 1981:262). Average age of first marriage also increased between 1550
and 1650, reducing the average number of children per married woman by at least
one (Wrigley et al. 1997:136).
The seventeenth century was an era
of steadily worsening mortality, which reached the maximum around 1680. There
was an improvement around 1700, and then another mortality peak during the
1720s, particularly affecting infants and children (Wrigley et al. 1997:283). The eighteenth century saw a gradual (and not always
monotonic) improvement in the expectation of life. Migration began growing in
1550, peaked in 1650, and then entered a secular decline until the 1780s (Wrigley and Schofield 1981:220).
The explanations of the worsening
demographic regime are provided by the “usual suspects” of famine, disease, and
war. The worst famine of the period occurred during the years 1594–7, which saw
the longest run of bad harvests of the sixteenth century (Clay 1984a:19). A generation later, in 1622–3, a rise in the price of grain
coincided with a severe depression in the cloth industry, leaving many people
without money to buy food. There is clear evidence from both periods of deaths
from starvation, especially of vagrants, elderly widows, and pauper children.
Other subsistence crises followed, but by the middle of the seventeenth century
widespread famine seems to have become a thing of the past (Clay 1984a:19).
The plague, which relaxed its grip
on the English population by the end of the fifteenth century gradually
increased during the sixteenth (Biraben 1975). The century between 1570 and 1670 was a period of recurrent
plague epidemics, culminating in the great plague of
3.5 Depression: 1660–1730
Population stagnation
The population of
Figure 3.8.
Infanticide indictment rates per 100,000 (Roth 2001).
We believe that three factors, two
endogenous and one exogenous, can help us understand this puzzling phenomenon
(but not a unique one, recollect that a similar period of population stagnation
occurred during the depression phase of the Plantagenet cycle). First, there
was a strong negative effect of urbanization on population growth. As we
discussed above, the peak of urbanization was considerably lagged with respect
to the population peak. Between 1700 and 1750
Second, the data on rents collected
by Robert Allen suggests that real rents jumped by 70% from the last quarter of
the seventeenth to the first quarter of the eighteenth century (Allen 1992:172). It is likely that, once the period of intraelite disunity
was over, the elites were in a much better position to “turn the screws on” the
peasants. Although the increased rent was partly compensated by the increase in
productivity achieved by the English agriculture during the seventeenth
century, it still must have substantially decreased personal consumption of
peasants. This is a very tentative interpretation, and not free of problems.
For example, real wages during this period generally kept increasing (although
they never reached their fifteenth century maximum). But if peasants were
over-exploited, then this should have spilled off into real wages, which we do
not see. Perhaps increased rents simply retarded the growth of the rural
population, thus contributing indirectly to slow population growth. This issue
requires further investigation.
The third factor was the general
worsening of the climate in the early eighteenth century (associated with the
Maunder Minimum of solar activity). The climate cooling affected Europe from
The elites
The Civil War resulted in serious
deterioration of the economic position of the landed elites. Particularly
affected were the Royalists whose lands were confiscated and sold. The combined
value of these properties was over £1.25 million. This land transfer was
partially reversed because many Royalists bought their estates back before 1660
(Hill 1982:126). However, most of them had to incur heavy debt to do so.
Nearly £1.5 million was raised from some 3,000 Royalists by the Committee
of Compounding. On top of these and other exactions came heavy taxation. In
order to pay composition fines after a long period of receiving no rents,
Royalists had to sell part of their lands, and these lands were not restored
after 1660. Thus, although the bulk of Royalist landlords retained their
position, many were greatly impoverished in the process, and some lesser elite
families had a stiff fight to keep their heads above water (Hill 1982:126).
During the last quarter of the
seventeenth century almost all landlords experienced a further reduction in
their incomes as a result of low agricultural prices and falling rents (Clay 1984a:162). On top of this, again, they had to bear a much great rate
of taxation. For example, after 1692 taxes were absorbing one fifth of the
income of many gentry. Many of those at the lower fringes of the gentry had to
part with their land (Clay 1984a:162). Declining economic fortunes of the gentry were reflected in
their consumption patterns. Wheras the early seventeenth century witnessed a
rapid expansion in the imports of luxury (Clay 1984a:26), after the Civil War there was significant change of ethos
among the elites, leading to a reduction of conspicuous expenditure upon
houses, clothes, and entertaining (Clay 1984a:160).
The economic malaise affecting
gentry extended into the eighteenth century. Thus, the average wealth of
esquires in Norfolk and Suffolk was £700 in 1628–40 and then declined to
£330 for the period of 1700–40, a drop of more than 50% in real terms (Overton 1996:39). The result was increased downward mobility, with an almost
automatic descent by younger sons into lower social strata. For example, in
Cumbria between 1680 and 1750 only one younger son of the gentry was able to
purchase land and climb back up into the group (Beckett 1986:23). The upward mobility into the ranks of the gentry was
similarly restricted. “With a few exceptions, the days when a man of fortune
converted his wealth into landed acreage were already numbered by the end of
the seventeenth century, and the practice had more or less disappeared by the
mid-eighteenth century” (Beckett 1986:69).
The numbers of elites shrank from
the late seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. Partly this was a
result of diminished upward and enhanced downward mobility. Partly it was a
result of the elite demographics (Hollingsworth 1964). Replacement rate (average number of adult sons per father)
among the upper-rank elites declined below one after 1650, and kept declining
(to below 0.8) until the first quarter of the eighteenth century (Figure 3.9).
During the next quarter century it increased to 1.1, but it was not until after
1750 that the replacement rate achieved a healthy level of 1.3–1.4 it was to
have to the middle of the nineteenth century. “Collectively, the peerage,
baronetage and knighthood totalled only 1075 by
Figure 3.9. Replacement rates of peers (Hollingsworth 1964).
Table 3.4.
Numbers of upper rank elites (Beckett 1986). There were also Irish and Scottish peers, not shown here.
|
year |
Peers |
Baronets |
Knights |
Total |
|
1700 |
173 |
935 |
290 |
1398 |
|
1710 |
167 |
924 |
180 |
1271 |
|
1720 |
190 |
892 |
180 |
1262 |
|
1730 |
189 |
836 |
150 |
1175 |
|
1740 |
183 |
800 |
70 |
1053 |
|
1750 |
187 |
738 |
70 |
995 |
|
1760 |
181 |
713 |
70 |
964 |
|
1770 |
197 |
706 |
110 |
1013 |
|
1780 |
189 |
725 |
90 |
1004 |
|
1790 |
220 |
747 |
160 |
1127 |
|
1800 |
267 |
779 |
160 |
1206 |
Consequences of the Civil War:
changed social mood
When the Civil War began in 1642,
the English could look back to a century of internal peace. “The risings of 1549
were quelled without undue difficulty. … The overthrow of
The two decades following 1640 were
the most protracted and intense period of sociopolitical instability in
The turn-around point: the
mid-eighteenth century
By the mid-eighteenth century, the
last echoes of the early modern crisis have dissipated. Real wages increased
throughout the early eighteenth century and reached a peak around 1750. The
last serious disturbance of internal peace in
3.6
Conclusion
The demographic, economic,
political, and social trends that we examined in this chapter generally moved
in ways that were consistent with the predictions of the demographic-structural
theory. The case of the English Revolution fits the demographic-structural
theory particularly well, as was argued earlier by Goldstone (1991). The three ingredients of the revolution were the financial
crisis of the state, acute competition and factionalism among the elites, and
the existence of a large body of disaffected commoners who could be mobilized
by parliamentary leaders against the royalists in
As in the previous case study of the
Plantagenet cycle, we found that the operation of the demographic-structural
machinery was influenced and modified by other factors. The geopolitical
environment apparently played a minor role during this cycle. Although it was
the invasion by the Dutch Statholder, William of
Long-term fluctuations of climate
were probably important in contributing to population stagnation of the late
seventeenth–early eighteenth century. During this cycle there were no traumatic
exogenous events comparable to the arrival of the Black Death in 1348. The
increase in the incidence of epidemics during the seventeemth century was
apparently an endogenous process.
The most important factor outside
the core variables of the demographic-structural theory was the acceleration of
social evolution that eventually resulted in the Industrial Revolution. Because
of scientific and agronomic advances, crop yields began increasing shortly
after 1600. During the seventeenth century yields doubled. As a result, the
carrying capacity also doubled. We believe that it was this dramatic increase
in the carrying capacity that explains why population numbers in
Figure
3.10. Population dynamics in
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 3: DETRENDING POPULATION DATA
(from Turchin 2005)
Population numbers for the period
1540–1800 were taken from Table A.9.1 in Wriglely et al. (Wrigley et al. 1997). The quinquennial data of Wrigley et al. were resampled at
decadal intervals. For the period 1450–1525 population data were taken from
Hatcher (Hatcher 1977), also sampled at 10-y intervals (all data analyzed here were
sampled at 10-y intervals). The value for 1530 was interpolated. The population
data show an increasing long-term trend. Such nonstationarity violates one of
the most important assumptions of nonlinear time-series analysis; thus, data
need to be detrended (Turchin 2003a:175).
Detrending the English Population
Data
Agrarian revolution in England
started during the seventeenth century (Grigg 1989, Allen 1992, Overton 1996). We can trace this revolution using data on long-term
changes in grain yields (Grigg 1989, Overton 1996). Average wheat yields in the thirteenth century were around
10 bushels of grain per acre. Yields declined slightly during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries to 8 bushels per acre (perhaps as a result of the
worsening global climate). Even as late as the 1580s, the yields were still at
their late medieval level. During the seventeenth century, however, yields
began improving, increasing to ca.
We can obtain an approximate
estimate of the carrying capacity by assuming that it was proportional to the
net yield. Assuming the total potentially arable area of 12 mln acres (Grigg 1989) and that one individual (averaging over adults and children)
needs a minimum of one quarter (8 bushels or 2.9 hectoliters) of grain per
year, we calculated the carrying capacity of England shown by the broken line
in Figure 10a (by coincidence 1 bushel of net yield per acre translates exactly
into 1 million persons of carrying capacity).
We can now detrend the observed
population numbers by dividing them with the estimated carrying capacity. The
detrended population, which can also be thought of as “population pressure on
resources” is defined as N'(t)
= N(t)/K(t). Note that the
critical assumption here is that K is
proportional to the net yield, Y;
since Y is the only quantity varying
with time in the formula, other components (total arable area, consumption
minimum) being constant multipliers, K
will wax and wane in step with Y. In
other words, the exact values of constant multiples do not matter, since we are
interested in relative changes of population pressure. Note that the estimate
of K is based not on the area that
was actually cultivated (this fluctuated up and down with population numbers),
but on the potentially arable area. The latter quantity fluctuated little
across the centuries (for example, as a result of some inundation of coastal
areas during the Middle Ages or more recent reclamation using modern methods)
and can be approximated with a constant without a serious loss of precision.
A test of the appropriateness of
this detrending was obtained by regressing the estimated population pressure on
real wages reported by Allen (2001). There was a very close inverse relationship between these
two variables, and not a very good one if we were to use the non-detrended
population numbers. As Figure 10b shows, population pressure and inverse real
wage fluctated virtually in perfect synchrony.