Subsistence economy reigned supreme in Europe in the first centuries of the Middle Ages. In the countryside, the peasant family itself produced agricultural products and handicrafts, satisfying not only their own needs, but also paying dues to the feudal
chalu. A characteristic feature of the subsistence economy was the combination of rural and industrial labor. On the estates of large feudal lords, there were only a small number of artisans who did not or almost did not engage in agriculture. There were also few peasant craftsmen who lived in the countryside and were specially engaged in some kind of craft along with agriculture. The exchange of products was mainly reduced to trade in such rare, but important items in the economy, which could be obtained only in a few places: iron, tin, copper, salt, etc. This also included luxury items that were not produced in Europe at that time and were brought from the East: expensive jewelry, weapons, silk fabrics, spices, etc. This exchange was carried out by traveling merchants (Byzantines, Arabs, Syrians, etc.). The production of products intended for sale was almost not developed. In exchange for imported goods, merchants received only an insignificant part of agricultural products.
In the early Middle Ages, there were cities that survived from antiquity. New cities were built as administrative centers, fortified points, or church centers (residences of archbishops, bishops, etc.). But under the conditions described, these cities could not be the focus of crafts and trade. The only exceptions were some cities of the early Middle Ages, where already in the VIII - IX centuries. there were markets and handicraft dominance developed. In general, this did not change the picture.
By the X - XI centuries. important changes took place in the economic life of Europe. Technique and handicraft skills were developed, individual crafts were improved: mining and processing of metals, blacksmithing and gunsmithing, dressing of fabrics, rut processing. There was a production of more advanced clay products using a potter's wheel. Construction, mill business, etc. developed. Further specialization of the craftsman was required. But this was incompatible with the position of the peasant, who had his own farm and worked simultaneously as a farmer and as an artisan. There is a need to transform handicrafts from auxiliary production in agriculture into an independent branch of the economy.
A certain progress in the development of agriculture and animal husbandry also prepared the separation of handicrafts from agriculture.
1o economy. Significant increase in labor productivity
in agriculture has become possible thanks to the improvement of tools and methods of tillage. This was especially favored by the spread of the iron plow, two-field and three-field. Thanks to this, the number and variety of agricultural products in agriculture has increased. The time for their production was reduced, and the surplus product appropriated by feudal lords and landowners increased. Part of the product began to remain in the hands of the peasant, which made it possible to exchange part of the agricultural products for handicrafts.

The development of the economy and economic thought of European civilization in the Middle Ages (V-XV centuries)

Economic development of Western European countries in the Middle Ages

The medieval economy was based on the ownership of the land by the feudal lords and their incomplete ownership of the producers, the krypachenyh peasants.

The main income people received from the land is the main wealth. The persons who owned it dominated the society. The peasants were in personal, land, judicial-administrative and military-political dependence on the landowners. Subsistence farming dominated. Exchange played a secondary role. Almost all the wealth of society was created by manual labor. The tools of labor were primitive. The energy of wind and rivers, coal and wood began to be used only in the late Middle Ages and at first it was very limited.

A person's place in society was determined not by her personal qualities or merits, but by origin: the son of a lord became a lord, the son of a peasant became a peasant, the son of an artisan became a craftsman.

The peasants were allotted land and had their own farms. They were obliged to cultivate the land of the feudal lord with their tools or to give him an additional product of their labor - rent (from lat. - I return, I cry).

Three forms of feudal rent:

1. developmental (corvee)

2. grocery (natural quitrent)

3. money (cash quitrent).

Basic forms economic activity were:

Feudal patrimony (French lordship, English manor)

Craft workshop, trade guild.

In general, the economy was agrarian-handicraft, which united it with the economy of ancient civilizations and gave reason to call the civilization that existed until the end of the 15th century Agrarian-handicraft, and society - traditional.

So, the feudal economy of the Middle Ages is characterized by the dominance of private ownership of land.

The development of the economy of the Middle Ages can be divided into three periods:

1) Early Middle Ages ^ X century) - The defining features of the feudal economy were formed and established (genesis period)

2) XI-XV centuries. - The period of maturity of the feudal economy, internal colonization, development of cities, crafts and commodity production;

3) The late Middle Ages (XVI - the first half of the XVII century) - the market economy was born, signs of industrial civilization appeared.

The genesis and development of new economic forms in medieval Europe were formed mainly on the basis of the socio-economic heritage of the Roman Empire and the economic achievements of the Germanic tribes.

The formation of the medieval economy can be traced on the example of the Kingdom of the Franks (B-IX centuries), which was created by the German tribes of the Franks on the territory of the former Roman province - Northern Gaul (modern France), and from the VIII century. took over most Western Europe.

In the V-VI century. in the Frankish kingdom, a process of transformation of the tribal agricultural community into a neighboring one took place - brand, in which the individual family economy prevailed - the main production link Frankish community. All land was collectively owned by the community. As an inheritance (sons, brothers of the deceased) allotments of arable land, gardens, vineyards, forests, meadows and pastures were transferred. There was private ownership, which extended to a house with a personal plot of land and movable property. Indivisible lands were the common property of the members of the community. The Franks did not know the rights of alienation (free disposal) of land.

Property and social differentiation, which took place in the Franks continued to increase significantly after the conquest and colonization of Gaul. A significant part of the land and other wealth was received by kings, nobility, combatants. At the same time, the economy of those members of the community who died in the war, as well as due to diseases, epidemics and other causes, was ruined. The dualism between collective property and parcel (individual) farms intensified. Gradually, hereditary allotments increased and turned into allod - private family property, freely alienated - sold, exchanged, bequeathed and donated without the permission of the community(brands). The mark was thus based on private ownership of arable land, collective ownership of land, and the free labor of its members. At the same time, the landed property of the Gallo-Roman population and the church was preserved. Roman law continued to protect this property. At the same time, the landownership of the Frankish kings and nobility grew.

In the eighth-ninth centuries. in the Kingdom of the Franks, agrarian relations underwent a complex evolution, the catalyst for which were constant wars and the strengthening of the role of the state in economic life. Since wars and military service were too burdensome for the peasantry and led to their ruin, the national militia lost its significance. The basis of the then army, the service in which was prestigious, was heavily armed equestrian warrior-knights. Karl Martel, king of the Frankish state (714-751), carried out military and agrarian reform. Its essence was to provide the warrior-knights with life-long allotments of land - benefice - subject to their military service and the vassal oath of allegiance to the senior king. Owners-beneficiaries gave part of the received lands to their vassals. So it happened beneficiary - conditionally service, temporary land tenure, which was based on seignioral-vassal relations. Ownership of land was retained by the lord, who provided it and could take it away in case of refusal to serve or treason.

At the same time, the reform prepared the conditions for the disintegration of the community, limiting the rights and obligations of its members and exempting them from military service, participation in court, and local government. During the reign of the Carolingian dynasty (since 751), the provision of beneficiaries became a system. In the ninth century vassalage became hereditary. Beneficiary turned into fief (flax) - the main, most common form of land tenure of the middle. The feudal economy was established and developed within seigneurial estates. Royal charters were granted to feudal lords immunity - privileges to exercise in their possessions the functions of state power: fiscal and judicial-administrative. The earth was divided into domain, where the landowner himself was in charge, and peasant allotments. Seniors of the usual type were of considerable size (several hundred hectares). The arable land of the domain with grain production accounted for almost a third of its total area. The monopoly of the feudal lords on land grew, which was expressed in the principle "there is no land without a lord."

Simultaneously with the growth of large landownership, a feudally dependent peasantry was formed. It included servos (descendants of former slaves, columns), who were in personal hereditary dependence on seniors. Free Frankish soldiers and small Gallo-Roman landowners gradually passed into the state of peasants. their transition was due to various circumstances - large taxes, debts, wars and civil strife, the elements, the natural nature of the economy, which made people dependent on natural conditions and made other activities impossible. Were distributed precarious agreements, known since Roman times, according to which the allod of a free small landowner was alienated in favor of a seigneur or a church, and then returned to the peasant for life use as a precarium (land issued at the request). Gradually, the precaria became hereditary, the relationship between peasants and landowners was conditioned by the payment of rent in kind or cash, the fulfillment by the peasant of duties in favor of the feudal lord and the duties of lords in relation to the peasants. There were other ways of transition to the peasant class and forms of their dependence. Peasants of different categories, origins and dependencies were distinguished by the provision of land, the duties of the landowner. Most of the villagers were not hereditarily dependent, their duties were preserved as long as they used the allotment in this seigneury. The peasants were not attached to the land, and the attempts of Charlemagne (768-814) to forbid the departure of the peasants from the land were not successful.

Western Europe reached its highest socio-economic rise under the reign of Charlemagne (771-814). During the four decades of his reign, he managed to consolidate the feudal system of land tenure, increase grain yields through the introduction of a more rational land use system with elements of irrigation. . he united under his rule most of the lands of the Western Roman Empire, including the territory of modern France, West Germany, Northern Italy, Belgium and Holland, Austria and Switzerland. Roman law was restored. Robbery on the repaired roads gradually stopped, which allowed the development of trade and crafts. Monasteries were built, people were attracted to science and art. Charlemagne completed the land reform begun by Charles Martell, that is, there was a division of land. After the death of Charles, his empire was divided into three parts: French, German and Italian.

Thus, for Art. in the Frankish state, a classical form of feudal service land tenure and seigneurial peasant relations was formed. The small economy of the Franks, based on alodal property, displaced the feudal estate-seigneury - a closed subsistence economy, the owner of which (seigneur) had full power in his territory.

Feudal relations in France, as in England, Germany and other European countries, reached maturity in the 11th-15th centuries. In the XI-XIII Art. feudal land ownership of three types dominated - royal, secular, church. The hierarchical structure of land tenure (supreme, seigneurial and vassal property) limited the rights of an individual feudal lord to land. However, during the period of political fragmentation, fewer possessions began to be alienated. The values ​​and sizes of vassal property have grown, primarily due to forests, meadows, and pastures. Senior rights were expanded and strengthened.

From the 13th century in France, and then in other countries, the crisis of the corvée system begins. The subsistence economy of the feudal estates is exhausting its possibilities. Therefore, the feudal lords carry out a mass transfer of serfs from corvée to natural, and subsequently cash quitrent. This process has been named "rent switching". Its economic basis was higher labor productivity in peasant economy than on the corvee. The growth of cities and the development of commodity-money relations contributed to the spread of monetary rent. It was profitable for the feudal lords to receive money from the peasants, transferring the problem of selling an additional product to the sphere of agriculture.

In the XIV-XV centuries. feudal farms are increasingly drawn into commodity-money relations. At the same time, the legal and property status of the peasant is changing, gradually leaving the jurisdiction of the feudal lords, their land ownership is growing. Appear new economic and legal forms of relations between feudal lords and peasants - rent, rent, etc., oriented to the market.

At the beginning of the 11th century, a rapid economic and demographic rise began in Western Europe, which contributed to the acceleration of economic development, the population is growing steadily and reaches 73 million people in 1300. Qualitative characteristics have also improved somewhat. Child mortality has slightly decreased. Physical parameters have grown: weight for men - up to 125 pounds (55 kg), height - up to 5 feet (157 cm).

With the beginning of the new millennium, a gradual revival of forgotten skills and crafts begins. In 1150, coal mining will begin, and gunpowder will be borrowed from China in 1240, which will begin to be used in military affairs, which will subsequently provide Europe with an important advantage in the struggle for world domination.

The horse will gradually begin to replace the ox as a tractive force. A three-field system is being created. The cultivation of the land is improving - oranka is carried out up to 4 times. Land is being cleared for new arable land.

The first paper mills will be built in Spain, which in turn will lead to the widespread use of paper in book business. The first non-monastic educational centers appeared: Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, Charles University.

During this period, many new cities appear. Only in Central Europe - more than 1500. The old cities of Lutetia (Paris, 60 thousand inhabitants), Toulouse, Lyon, Bordeaux, Genoa (50-70 thousand inhabitants each), Venice (65-100 thousand), Naples are also being revived (about 80 thousand), Florence (100 thousand), Milan (80 thousand), Seville (about 40 thousand), Cologne (25-40 thousand). The share of the urban population is growing rapidly and reaches 20-25%.

But a typical medieval town is very small. So in Germany at that time there were more than 4,000 cities with a population of less than 2,000 inhabitants each, 250 cities with a population of 2 to 10,000, and only 15 cities with a population of more than 10,000 inhabitants. The area of ​​a typical city is also very small - from 1.5 to 3 hectares.

Cities ranging from 5 to 30 hectares were already considered quite significant, and over 50 - just huge. By the beginning of the 18th century, the streets of the most important French cities, as well as the largest cities in Europe such as Prague, will be paved with stones.

As the number of cities increases, so does their importance. The division of labor is growing. In the largest cities, there are already up to 300 craft specialties, in the smallest - at least 15.

Diverse people flock to the cities: poor pilgrims, scientists, students, merchants. The free world of the city will set a faster pace of life than in the countryside. Life in the city is less tied to natural cycles. Cities are becoming centers of exchange in the broadest sense of the word.

• N.K. Cherkasy. Economic history: Tutorial. - Kyiv: TsUL, 2002. -p.41.

Economy. Agriculture middle ages.

The main branch of the economy of Western European countries in the period, as before, was agriculture. The main characteristics of the development of the agricultural sector as a whole was the process of rapid development of new lands, known in history as process of internal colonization. It contributed not only to the quantitative growth of the economy, but also to serious qualitative progress, since the duties imposed on the peasants on the new lands were predominantly monetary, and not in kind. The process of replacing in-kind duties with monetary ones, known in the scientific literature as rent switching, contributed to the growth of economic independence and entrepreneurial spirit of the peasants, to increase the productivity of their labor. The sowing of oilseeds and industrial crops is expanding, and oil and winemaking are developing. Grain yield reaches the level of sam-4 and sam-5. The growth of peasant activity and the expansion of the peasant economy led to a reduction in the economy of the feudal lord, which in the new conditions turned out to be less profitable.

Progress in agriculture was also facilitated by the liberation of peasants from personal dependence. The decision on this was also made by the city near which the peasants lived and with which they were connected socially and economically, or by their lord-feudal lord, on whose land they lived. The rights of peasants to land allotments were strengthened. Increasingly, they could freely pass on land by inheritance, bequeath it and mortgage it, lease it, donate it, and sell it. So gradually formed and becomes wider land market. Commodity-money relations develop.

Medieval cities. the most importantcharacteristic thisperiod was the growth of cities and urban crafts. In the classical Middle Ages, old cities quickly grow and new cities appear - near castles, fortresses, monasteries, bridges, river crossings. Cities with a population of 4-6 thousand inhabitants were considered average. There were very large cities, such as Paris, Milan, Florence, where 80 thousand people lived. Life in a medieval city was difficult and dangerous - frequent epidemics claimed the lives of more than half of the townspeople, as happened, for example, during the "black death" - a plague epidemic in the middle of the 13th century. Fires were also frequent. However, they still aspired to the cities, because, as the proverb testified, “city air made a dependent person free” - for this it was necessary to live in the city for one year and one day. Cities arose on the lands of the king or large feudal lords and were beneficial to them, bringing income in the form of taxes from crafts and trade.

At the beginning of this period, most cities were dependent on their lords. The townspeople fought for independence, i.e. for the transformation into a free city. The authorities of independent cities were elected and had the right to collect taxes, pay the treasury, manage city finances at their own discretion, have their own court, mint their own coin, and even declare war and make peace. The means of struggle of the urban population for their rights were urban uprisings - communal revolutions , as well as the redemption of their rights from the seigneur. Only the richest cities, such as London and Paris, could afford such a ransom. However, many other Western European cities were also rich enough to gain independence for money. So, in the XIII century. About half of all cities in England gained independence in collecting taxes - 200 cities. The wealth of cities was based on the wealth of their citizens. Among the wealthiest were usurers andchangers. They determined the quality and usefulness of the coin, and this was extremely important in the context of the constantly practiced mercantilist governments defacing coins; they exchanged money and transferred them from one city to another; took on the preservation of free capital and provided loans.

At the beginning of the classical Middle Ages, banking activity was most actively developed in Northern Italy. There, as well as throughout Europe, this activity was concentrated mainly in the hands of the Jews, since Christianity officially forbade believers from engaging in usury. The activities of usurers and money changers could be extremely profitable, but sometimes (if large feudal lords and kings refused to return large loans) they also became bankrupt.

GENERAL REMARKS. The formation of the European peasantry and the formation of feudal relations in the early medieval village was already considered in the first part of our manual, in the topic " Agrarian orders". Now let's turn to the further history of the medieval peasantry in Europe west of the Bug.

It has already been noted that rural life and medieval agrarian practices are the basis and cornerstone of feudalism. If the city in the process of its development outgrew the framework of the system and gradually destroyed it, the village preserved the established order with its way of life. It was on them that feudal landownership, the estate system, relied. And only under the influence of the city, gradually, changes began to ripen in the rural world: forces appeared that were interested in eliminating the noble monopoly on land. As a result, huge masses of the rural population supported the bourgeoisie born in the cities, and in the course of bourgeois revolutions it seized political power - the so-called era of capitalism began.

Thus, the main processes of the existence of feudal society were connected with the history of the medieval peasantry. It developed, in fact, precisely in the Middle Ages. The separation of peasants from the general mass of the population began, as noted in the first part of the manual, even in the barbarian kingdoms. The formation of the peasantry proper was completed with the allocation of handicrafts and the beginning of the formation of cities.

natural conditions, critical to rural life, were also discussed in the first part of the manual. Here we add that from the middle of the VIII century. warming begins, which lasted, in general, until the end of the 13th century. The warmest were the 11th-12th centuries. - the warmest time in the last two thousand years. From the fourteenth century the climate again begins to change for the worse - the instability of the weather increases: rotten winters and wet summers are more common. XV century was characterized by a temperate climate. And from the middle of the XVI century. a new cooling begins, even called the “Little Ice Age”. Thus, the most optimal for agriculture in the medieval era were the 11th-12th centuries. However, it should be noted that for agricultural activity, not so much the warmest weather is more acceptable as stable, without sharp changes from droughts to floods, to which it was impossible to adapt, and which were real disasters for the peasants. So unstable was the fourteenth century.

It has already been pointed out that the early medieval population settled in the river valleys. In the IX-X centuries. in the conditions of the beginning of an economic upsurge, an improvement in the climate and a stable growth of the population in some places in Western Europe, the development of wooded uplands began. In the XI-XII centuries. the development of watersheds throughout Western and Central Europe (from England to Poland and the Czech Republic inclusive) took on a massive character and was called internal colonization or “Great clearings”: forest lands were cleared for villages and fields, virgin, primeval forests were reduced, villages were no longer “tied” to rivers and were more often located along land roads. Water has already been taken from wells. As a result, the Western and Central European population, separated in the early Middle Ages by vast virgin forests, acquired geographical unity, which, we note, also affected the political consolidation that had begun (more on this later). By the fourteenth century Almost all suitable lands were involved in the economic turnover, almost all the villages that existed later were founded, that is, a modern agricultural landscape was formed. In the process of internal colonization, linear (ribbon) villages, located on both sides of the roads, and street villages (larger ones in several parallel rows) became predominant. Modern research does not trace any ethnic differences in rural planning.

The size of villages, as in the early Middle Ages, rarely exceeded 10–15 manor houses. There were settlements with several households, and even farms. Later, there were more larger villages, but most remained small. This was due to the availability of economic lands. There were also many small-yard villages, their number also increased in the course of colonization, when part of the excess population from old settlements spun off to new places. But if the place for the settlement was chosen well, the farm or small village gradually grew. This was the initial history of most modern villages. And if the village was at the crossroads of trade routes or in another favorable place, it could develop into a city. Conversely, if the trade routes and the administrative center moved or disappeared, the city gradually left its specific inhabitants, and the remaining population became agrarianized.

ECONOMY. XI-XIII centuries characterized by a further rise in the rural economy. Agricultural machinery developed - a heavy plow with an iron blade (instead of the former wooden one) is spreading. By the XIII-XIV centuries. have already become the leading arable tool in the main agricultural regions of Europe. Such a long distribution of the plow was associated not only with its complexity, but, hence, with the high cost and the need to use a more powerful draft force than for the ral. Sometimes (on heavy lands and for a heavy plow) even a pair of horses or even oxen was not enough. Peasants often started one plow for several yards. There is also a new type of axe, more convenient for cutting trees. As a draft force, a horse is increasingly used, the endurance and carrying capacity of which, primarily due to the improvement of the food supply, is gradually increasing.

Three fields are becoming more and more common. The significance of the transition to the three-field was enormous. 2/3 of all field lands were used annually. Field work was distributed more evenly - with one inventory and livestock, a 2 times larger area was cultivated than with two fields. Since the crop matured in different weather conditions, the risk of losses was reduced. But the three fields intensified the fragmentation of allotments. It also led to rapid soil depletion, was possible on quality lands and therefore required careful cultivation and fertilization. This explains the slow introduction of the three-field system. And it did not take root everywhere. The two-field system was preserved in the south, in the Mediterranean, where, due to hot and dry summers, there was not enough moisture for spring crops. On the northern lands: in Scandinavia, North-Eastern Europe, because of the harsh winters in the sown areas, one crop barely had time to ripen, which also did not contribute to the introduction of the three-field.

However, in the main areas of agriculture, agriculture improved. Three times plowing was often used, the quality of the fields was often improved with the help of drainage. The sowing of wheat and fodder crops is expanding. The stall keeping of livestock is spreading, which made it possible to fertilize the soil more regularly. All this led to an increase in productivity: in the Rhine lands in the XII-XIII centuries. it was CAM-3 - Sam-4, in Tuscany XIII-XIV centuries. - CAM-4 - CAM-5, in the Paris region - up to CAM-8 (which was 15 centners of grain per hectare).

But livestock, even cattle, remained undersized, unproductive, used primarily for meat. Cows and pigs predominated. Selection, breeding of special meat and dairy breeds, stall keeping of livestock has been noted, first of all, in the Netherlands and Germany since the 14th century. Then the level of Roman animal husbandry was finally exceeded. Geese and ducks were considered ornamental birds for a long time and were distributed only in the households of feudal lords.

Social factors also contributed to the gradual rise in agriculture: an increase in demand for food and raw materials due to the growth of the urban population, the general development of commodity-money relations. In accelerating the pace of agricultural development, the above-mentioned internal colonization also played an important role, which consisted in expanding the areas of cultivated land through the development of wastelands, draining swamps, and deforestation. The technical improvements noted above contributed to the development of new lands. The accumulation of agricultural experience also had an effect. If in the early Middle Ages the old lands were considered the best, then with their depletion and the emergence of new opportunities, the peasants began to prefer new, virgin lands. Therefore, they began to resort to clearings even where land hunger had not yet been felt. It stimulated internal colonization and the growing demand for agricultural products from the townspeople, as well as increased pressure on the peasants from the feudal lords (from the 13th century). In turn, internal colonization contributed to the progress of agriculture: the three-field system was more often used precisely on new lands, because there were no communal restrictions such as a system of open fields, etc. The development of new lands by peasants also contributed to the separation of the domain from communal orders, the concentration of master lands into one array. Internal colonization also contributed to the emergence of a new phenomenon in European agriculture - the formation of commodity specialization of individual regions.

But it was clearings, massive deforestation that contributed to the deterioration of the climate. The flow of melt and rainwater from the uplands accelerated, which led to catastrophic spring floods and swamping of river floodplains. In addition, an increase in the flow of water into the World Ocean led to an increase in ice in the north and, as a result, to a cooling of the 15th-16th centuries.

Regional features of economic development. In the northern part of France, in Germany, England, as well as in the Slavic lands, peasant fields did not have fences - there was a system of open fields, consisting of narrow long strips of each family. In France, south of the Loire, there were various fields of irregular shapes. The same was true in Italy. Communal orders here were less obligatory, and in the south they did not exist at all, and the fields had permanent hedges. Peasants under both systems had several plots in different "pieces" of land.

In England, the highest rise in agriculture took place in the second half of the 13th and early 14th centuries, when the three-field system finally won and commercial grain farming expanded. The progress of agriculture was faster in the farms of the feudal lords, who had the resources for innovation, in particular, for the purchase of a heavy plow that required 4 or even 8 oxen. For many peasants, such costs were unbearable. Since that time, the transformation of sheep breeding for the production of wool into one of the most important branches of the English economy has been noted. But the breeding of sheep required large areas for pastures and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. began the offensive of the feudal lords on communal lands.

XIII - beginning of the XIV century. - the time of the most intensive agricultural development of France. By the beginning of the XVI century. the main agrarian specialization is already taking shape. In the north, where the system of open fields previously dominated, in the conditions of the spread of a heavy wheeled plow, peasant fields were long narrow strips (belt fields) in order to minimize the turns of the plow. In the south, where individual peasant allotments had already spread since Roman times, block fields of various shapes (rectangular, square, etc.) developed. A light plow was used here (without a wheeled limber), which did not require much space for a turn. The country is also characterized by the development of poultry farming, the improvement of horticulture, especially in the cultivation of grapes.

The German peasants west of the Elbe until the fourteenth century. the main thing was arable farming. Then specialization began: areas with predominant breeding of large cattle, pigs, sheep, with horticulture and viticulture. The area under grain crops was reduced, but the best lands remained under them. By the fifteenth century in the production of grain for sale, the role of the East German regions increased. As in France, poultry farming developed, especially chicken breeding. The role of cattle breeding has been increasing since the 14th century. due to increased demand from residents. This stimulated the improvement of forage extraction methods. In previous times, the main livestock - pigs - fed on acorns and beech nuts all year round on communal forest pastures. With such a shepherdless way of grazing, pork was inexpensive. But internal colonization led to a sharp reduction in forest pastures. And where forests remained, oak and beech were replaced by conifers, valued as construction material. Pigs began to be transferred to stall keeping, feeding them grain, flour, which made their maintenance less profitable and the role of cattle, horses, and sheep began to increase. Breeding of more productive breeds of cows began. Increased attention to grassland. Unproductive, depleted fields began to be turned into meadows. In the XIV-XVI centuries. there is a significant increase in the role of horticulture and horticulture. Garlic ("peasant medicine"), as well as onions, cabbage, etc., played an important role in the diet. Dried fruits and fruit juices are prepared for sale.

In Italy there was a shift of advanced agriculture from south to north. If in the early Middle Ages in the south, less devastated by the barbarians, which experienced Byzantine and Arab influences, ancient agrarian traditions were preserved, and even cotton, sugar cane, citrus fruits were grown in Sicily, then in the developed Middle Ages, the massive development of cities in the north contributed to the progress of agriculture there. If in the countries discussed above, the yield did not rise above CAM-4 - CAM 5, then in Northern Italy in the 13th century. she reached CAM-10. As a result, the agricultural economy of northern Italy overtook the south, and this difference has persisted to this day.

Sharp differences were also observed in medieval Spain. In the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula, among the Arabs, irrigation was used, the soil was carefully cultivated, rice, sugar cane, citrus fruits, and cotton were grown. In the Christian north, the level of agriculture was much lower. The cultivation of grain (oats, millet) prevailed, horticulture was practically absent, but cattle breeding was developed. The gradual conquest of Arab Spain by Christians erased these economic differences, although the geographical differences between the mountainous north and the flat south undoubtedly had an effect. In the 14th-15th centuries, due to the increase in European demand for wool, sheep breeding was greatly developed in the arid mountain plains of northern and central Spain. From other industries high level reached horticulture.

Byzantine agriculture is characterized by routine. Back in the ninth century. the plowing system of Homeric times was preserved with the help of a light plow without a blade (rather, a plow). In the developed Middle Ages, a light wooden plow with an iron tip has been preserved. They plowed exclusively on oxen. Three fields wins in the XIII-XIV centuries. At the same time, clearing of forests is noted, although in general, internal colonization was hardly noticeable.

In the Czech Republic, Hungary, and even more so in Poland and further to the east of Europe, the development of agriculture took place in less favorable conditions than in the West. The heritage of Roman agriculture was almost inaccessible here. It was necessary to create arable plots, cutting down centuries-old forests and draining swamps. But this is not yet an internal colonization, but the creation of a minimum of arable land, scattered along with settlements among difficult forests. Here, rye, resistant to weeds, cold and undemanding to fertilizers, was the most popular. It appeared in the 11th-13th centuries, earlier than in the West. In the XII-XIV centuries. account for the spread of the steam system, including the three-field.

By the 11th century, the areas occupied by forests had shrunk in Western and Central Europe. In the dense forest thickets, the peasants cut down trees and uprooted stumps, clearing land for crops. The area of ​​arable land has expanded significantly. The two-field was replaced by the three-field. Improved, albeit slowly, agricultural technology. The peasants had more tools made of iron. There are more orchards, orchards and vineyards. Agricultural products became more diverse, crops grew. Many mills have appeared that provide faster grinding of grain.

In the early Middle Ages, the peasants themselves made the things they needed. But, for example, the manufacture of a wheeled plow or the manufacture of cloth required complex devices, special knowledge and skills in labor. Among the peasants stood out "craftsmen" - experts in a particular craft. Their families have long accumulated work experience. In order to be successful in their business, artisans had to devote less time to agriculture. The craft was to become their main occupation. The development of the economy led to a gradual separation of handicrafts from agriculture. The craft turned into a special occupation of a large group of people - artisans. Over time, wandering artisans settled down. Their settlements arose at crossroads, at river crossings and near convenient sea harbors. Merchants often came here, and then merchants settled. Peasants came from the nearest villages to sell agricultural products and buy the necessary things. In these places, artisans could sell their products and buy raw materials. As a result of the separation of craft from agriculture, cities arose and grew in Europe. A division of labor developed between the city and the countryside: in contrast to the village, whose inhabitants were engaged in agriculture, the city was the center of crafts and trade.

The subsistence economy in Europe was preserved, but the commodity economy also gradually developed. A commodity economy is an economy in which the products of labor are produced for sale on the market and are exchanged through money.

Trade in times of feudal fragmentation was profitable, but difficult and dangerous business. On land, merchants were robbed by "noble" robbers - knights, at sea pirates lay in wait for them. For passage through the feudal lord's possessions, for the use of bridges and crossings, one had to pay duties many times. To increase their income, the feudal lords built bridges in dry places, demanded payment for the dust raised by wagons.

The development of the social structure and statehood among the peoples of Western Europe during the Middle Ages went through two stages. The first stage is characterized by the coexistence of modified Roman and German social institutions and political structures in the form of "barbarian kingdoms". At the second stage, feudal society and the state act as a special socio-political system, described below. At the first stage of the Middle Ages, the royal power played the most important role in the feudalization of barbarian societies. Large royal land grants, as well as the distribution of tax and judicial privileges to magnates of the church, created material and legal framework senior government. In the process of social stratification and the growth of the influence of the landed aristocracy, relations of domination and subordination naturally arose between the owner of the land - the lord and the population sitting on it.

The economic conditions that had developed by the 7th century determined the development of the feudal system, characteristic of all regions of medieval Europe. This is, first of all, the dominance of large landed property based on the exploitation of small, independently managing peasant farmers. For the most part, the peasants were not owners, but only holders of allotments, and therefore were in economic, and sometimes also in legal and personal dependence on the feudal lords. In the property of the peasant, the main tools of labor, cattle, and estates were usually preserved.

The basis of the feudal system was the agrarian economy. The economy was predominantly subsistence, that is, it provided itself with everything necessary from its own resources with almost no recourse to the market. The gentlemen bought only for the most part luxury goods and weapons, and the peasants - only the iron parts of agricultural implements. Trade and crafts developed, but remained a minor sector of the economy.

A characteristic feature of the feudal society of the Middle Ages was its estate-corporate structure, which followed from the need for separate social groups. For both peasants and feudal lords, it was important not so much to increase material wealth as to preserve the won social status. There. Neither the monasteries, nor the large landowners, nor the peasants themselves showed a desire for a continuous increase in income during this period. The rights of individual groups-estates were legally fixed. Gradually, with the development of cities, an urban estate also developed: the burghers, which in turn also consisted of a number of groups - the patriciate, the full-fledged burghers and the incomplete plebs.

One of the hallmarks of medieval society was corporatism. Medieval man always felt part of a community. Medieval corporations were rural communities, craft workshops, monasteries, spiritual and chivalric orders, military squads, and the city. Corporations had their own charters, their own treasury, special clothes, signs, etc. Corporations were based on the principles of solidarity and mutual support. Corporations did not destroy the feudal hierarchy, but gave strength and cohesion to various strata and classes.

A characteristic feature of medieval Europe is the domination of Christianity, to which morality, philosophy, science, and art were subordinated. However, Christianity in the Middle Ages was not united. In III-V centuries. There has been a division into two branches: Catholic and Orthodox. Gradually, this split took on an irreversible character and ended in 1054. From the very beginning, a strict centralization of power developed in the Catholic Church. The Roman bishop, who received in the 5th century BC, acquired a huge influence in it. name of the pope. The system of education in medieval Europe was actually in the hands of the church. Prayers and texts of Holy Scripture in Latin were studied in monastic and church schools. The episcopal schools taught the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.

The mentality of a person of that era, first of all, was determined by belonging to a community, regardless of whether the person was an aristocrat or a peasant. Corporate norms and values, traditions and rituals of behavior (up to the prescribed type of clothing), supported by the Christian worldview, were considered to prevail over personal desires.

The world of a man of that time, it would seem, connected the incompatible. The preaching of Christian mercy and the mercilessness of wars, public executions, the thirst for a miracle and the fear of it, the desire to protect oneself from the world with the walls of one's own house and the movement of thousands of knights, townspeople and peasants to unknown lands during the Crusades. A peasant could sincerely fear the Last Judgment for sins and repent of them and at the same time furiously indulge in the most violent revelry during the holidays. Clergymen with genuine feeling could celebrate the Christmas mass and openly laugh at parodies of the church cult and creeds well known to them. Man's fear of death and God's judgment, a sense of insecurity, sometimes the tragedy of being, was combined with a certain carnival worldview, which found expression not only in the city carnivals themselves, where a person acquired a feeling of looseness, where hierarchical and class barriers were abolished, but in that comic culture, which came in the Middle Ages from the ancient world, retaining, in fact, a pagan character in the world of Christianity.

A person sometimes perceived the world around him just as realistically as the other world. Heaven and hell were as real to him as his own home. The man sincerely believed that he could influence the world not only by plowing the land to get a harvest, but by praying or resorting to magic. The symbolism of the worldview of medieval man is also connected with this. Symbols were a significant part of medieval culture: from the cross as a symbol of salvation, the knight's coat of arms as a symbol of family and dignity, to the color and cut of clothing, which was rigidly attributed to representatives of various social groups. For a medieval person, many things in the world around him were symbols of the divine will or some mystical forces.