Monday, August 15, 2011

Making of Early Medieval Western Europe

In order to understand the process of transformation from Antiquity to Feudalism, first we need to look at classical Antiquity. Graeco - Roman civilization was urban based. Yet at the same time it always had the effect of the trompe l’ oeil facade, on its posterity. Every municipal order was essentially dominated by agrarian proprietors. As Graeco – Roman world was located on the coastal areas; their inter-local trade was carried out mainly through water-ways. In the words of Perry Anderson, “the slave mode of production was the decisive invention of the Graeco – Roman world, which provided the ultimate basis both for its accomplishments and its eclipse.” Although, slavery was the dominant form of labour, free peasants, dependent tenants and urban artisans also existed. The binding force between rural producers and urban appropriators was the commercial act of commodity purchase realized in towns, where the slave markets existed. The slave mode of production tended to paralyze productivity in both agriculture and industry, although this phase witnessed certain developments, e.g. spread of oil and wine cultures, rotary mills etc. Now we should look in detail in specific areas. In Greece, local kingship was overthrown by tribal aristocracies and cities were founded under the domination of these nobilities. The social structure of these towns still reflected much of the tribal past with hereditary units. One decisive development towards classical Greece was ‘slavery’. Initially, it was done to solve the problem of labour shortage but gradually their number started increasing, e.g. in the 5th century there were80, 000 - 100, 000 slaves in Athens to 30 – 40,000 citizens.

In Rome, a hereditary nobility kept unbroken power through an extremely complex civic constitution. The republic was dominated by Senete. Some slow changes led to the broadening in the composition of the Senete which resulted in the formation of widened nobility, including both ‘patrician’ and ‘plebeian’ families. The struggle of the poor classes to gain more rights resulted in the creation of the tribunate of the plebs which formed a secondary and parallel executive agency, designed to protect the poor from the oppression of the rich. In the early 3rd century, the tribal assemblies which elected the tribunes gained legislative powers. The decisive innovation of the Roman expansion was economic in nature which was the introduction of slave latifundium. The advent of slavery as an organized mode of production inaugurated the classical phase of Roman civilization. The spectacular series of campaigns won by Rome provided it with the manpower that was required by large land holdings emerging from the late 3rd century. Roman power integrated the Western Mediterranean and its northern hinterlands into classical world. Perry Anderson says that the slave agriculture was the most profitable to the landowners but its dynamic was very restricted as it rested on the annexation of labour rather than exploitation of land. The two major inventions of this period were water mill and reaping machine.In Hellenistic world, majority of the population were free tenant peasants and there was relatively little slavery. Even urbanization was minimal.

The system of slave mode of production was not a successful one. In the words of George Duby, “at the end of the 6th century, Europe was profoundly an uncivilized place.” Therefore, some internal crisis occurred in this system. J. Le Goff says, “Rome exploited its empire without creating anything. No technical innovation had occurred since the Hellenistic age. Rome’s economy was fed by pillage; successful wars provided slave manpower and precious metals drawn from the hoarded treasures of the east.” In addition to its internal problems Western Europe suffered from Germanic invasions in two phases. The first great invasion took place when a loose confederation of Suevi, Vandals and Alans crossed Rhine on 31st December 406. They were followed by Visigoths, vandals and others which shattered the military, political and economic unity of Western Europe. The next set of invasions was led by Frankish take over of northern Gaul and Anglo-Saxons’ control over most farmlands of Britain at the beginning of 7th century. J. Le Goff quotes St. Jerome, “the city which conquered the universe is itself conquered.”

Now we must look in detail at the changes brought by these Germanic invasions in Western Europe. As a result of the first wave of invasions, provinces freed themselves and then turned into conquerors; Spaniards, Gauls and Orientals invaded the Senate. Yet the Germanic tribes were capable in themselves of constituting a new political system. Therefore, they depended heavily on the pre-existent imperial structures. The regime of hospitalitas was imposed on local Roman landowners by the Visigoths, Burgundians and Ostrogoths. All surviving pacts between Romans and barbarians, governing the division of land, involved only the provincial landowner and one Germanic partner. Initially, sortes (allocated land) was not a hereditary property but within a generation or so Germanic aristocracy was consolidated on the land, with a dependent peasantry beneath it. In this scenario, state formation was ineluctable. The political and judicial shape of the new Germanic States was founded on an official dualism, separating the realm administratively and legally into two distinct orders: the inability of the invaders to master the old society and organize a coherent new polity. These were rudimentary monarchies. All the major Germanic invaders were still pagan. The Christian religion consecrated the abandonment of the subjective word of the clannic community. Therefore we can say that the first wave of Germanic invasions had, comparatively, a little impact on Western Europe.

According to Perry Anderson, the second wave of Germanic invasion determined the later map of Western feudalism. J. Le Goff agrees with Anderson on this point. Peter Heather says that much information about this period and its chronology is gathered from archaeological evidences, family tree, and kings’ lists. By CE 600, lowland Britain was dominated by Germanic speaking elites. The new understanding shows that the province’s population was much too large to make ethnic cleansing, but the linguistic evidence from post CE 600 shows little sign of indigenous influence on the Germanic tongue of the Anglo-Saxon world. Still there is a debate among historians over the exact number of Germanic immigrants. The Romano-British population outnumbered the immigrants, but, gradually, both the cultures got mixed into each other. At the same time Frankish power was building up west of the River Rhine. Frankish groups figured more prominently in the declining Western Empire’s affair from the 460s. The rigid dualism now disappeared and there was no further resort to hospitalitas system. The village communities became widely entrenched, first in France. Villages multiplied, while villa declined, especially in England. In the Frankish kingdoms taxation progressively lapsed. On the other hand, Franks adopted Catholicism directly with the baptism of Clovis in the last years of the 5th century. In the whole process the victim was trade networks. Therefore, in order to carry out trade, water routes were discovered. As a result, the ancient cities which were not on the water routes declined.

Another major factor responsible for transition was emergence of Christianity. In CE 312, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as official religion of Rome. With the passage of time, the Church started acquiring power and land which later became an important characteristic of Medieval West. In this regard Perry Anderson comments, “In late Antiquity, the Christian Church, indubitably contributed to the weakening of the powers of resistance of the Roman imperial system. Yet the same Church was also the moving site of the first symptoms of liberation of technique and culture from the limits of world built on slavery.”

Apart from the above mentioned factors there were other factors also which contributed in the process of transition. These factors include the natural world and population. Throughout this period, forest held sway over the whole natural world. There were also great variations in soil type and in addition to that droughts and heavy rains created troubles. Climatic variations along with outbreaks of epidemics led to dramatic demographic changes, e.g. there was a decline in population of Europe during the 6th century due outbreak of plague.

The synthesis of the two cultures resulted in the rise of feudalism. Karl Marx says that the result of the Germanic conquests as a process of interaction and fusion generated a new ‘mode of production’ which was a synthesis of its two predecessors. Some obstacles came in this intermingling of cultures. Here, Marc Bloch says, ‘the action of one civilization upon another is not necessarily in proportion to the balance of the numbers present.’ Perry Anderson talks about the feudal characteristics that descended from various groups: the vassalage may have its roots in either the German comitatus or the Gallo – Roman clientele, or contribution of both; on the other hand, manors certainly descended from Gallo – Roman villas; the medieval villages were Germanic inheritance. Serfdom probably descended from classical statute of colonus and from the slow degradation of free Germanic peasantry by quasi-coercive commendation to clan warrior; at the peak of the medieval polity, the institution of feudal monarchy itself represented a mutable amalgamation of the German war leader and Roman imperial ruler. Church was the only institution which survived from Antiquity to middle ages. Most of the people in the new society knew no Latin, so it became monopoly of the elites. Christian Church was the first one to advocate this. Also, Church’s victory in the later did nothing to alter traditional attitudes to either technology. It was the epoch of Charlemagne which led to the critical synthesis between donations of land and bonds of service. During the end of 8th century, vassalage and benefice slowly fused. The other characteristic features of feudalism are: a large autocratic estate composed of a demesne and a multitude of small peasant plot; the size of the nobles’ domain ranged between 2, 000 to 4, 000 acres; agrarian yields remained extremely low (in the ratio of 1:1); great bulk of dependent rural labour force; a pseudo – centralized empire of Rome; dynastic wars among regional magnates. With these characteristics feudalism solidified in Europe for next two centuries.

Thus, Medieval Europe was born from Antiquity following the phase of transition which lasted for about four centuries.

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