Agricultural Trends in Brabant

Abstract

It is not our intention to reconsider the problem of the vast agricultural depression in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in its entirety, but only to present a few critical remarks and to test the value of the general theories as far as the duchy of Brabant is concerned. It is frequently, and by Postan in a brilliant way, explained by a theory of relative overpopulation, combined with defective agricultural technique. Great importance is also attached to the law of diminishing returns and its fatal consequences, such as malnutrition and the ensuing low resistance to epidemics¹. In reply to Robinson’s critical remark that the income elasticity of demand and the effective demand should be taken into account², Postan rightly maintained that the agricultural economy was dominated by the self-sufficiency of the peasant producer³. Yet, is this self-sufficiency so typical of the whole of Europe without any exception? Even if we leave out transcontinental trade, which touched no more than the surface of the economy⁴, it cannot be accepted as far as the Low Countries with their dense urban population are concerned. Indeed Abel has shown that huge agricultural areas were needed for feeding the urban population, although the towns on the whole were mostly still rather small agglomerations: the explanation is to be found in defective contemporary technique⁵. Consequently urban demand influenced the peasants’ income far outside the urban area and, as long as the grain price continued to rise⁶, the law of diminishing returns played a weaker role or none at all.