Economic History Association

An Economic Analysis of the Organization of Serfdom in Eastern Europe

Author(s): Robert Millward
Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Sep., 1982), pp. 513-548
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association
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 An Economic Analysis of the
Organization of Serfdom in
Eastern Europe
ROBERT MILLWARD

The rise of serfdom in the sixteenth century undoubtedlyhas political explana-

tions, but the form that it took has economic explanations.In particular,it took
the form of forced labor on enlargedmanorialfarms. The economic explanation,
buttressedwith evidence from the period, is that an enserfedlaborforce must be
watched more than free renters and the watching is best done in a manorial
framework.The model is stated formallyand its implicationscomparedpoint-by-
point with the voluminousevidence for Polandand neighboringregions.

INTRODUCTION

T HE primary concern of this paper is with three questions. First,

what explains serfdom in Eastern Europe in the sixteenth, seven-
teenth, and eighteenth centuries and in particularwhy did it take the
form of corvee labor? Second, is there an economic explanationfor the
coexistence of productionby serf labor on demesne land with rents (in
kind and in money), wage labor, and extensive peasant marketsales of
grain? Third, in what way, if at all, is the organizationof serfdom in
Eastern Europe connected with productionfor the market, and espe-
cially for the export market?It shouldbe emphasizedthat the concern is
not with the causes of enserfment, which probablylie in a political and
sociological analysis of the cohesiveness of the nobilityand the relations
of the nobility to territorialprinces and peasants. The concern is rather
on the form serfdom took. The focus is on some of the major grain-
producing parts of Eastern Europe, namely, East Elbian Germany
(defined here as Brandenburg,Pomerania,Mecklenburg,Silesia), Prus-
sia (using that term in the restrictivesense of WesternRoyal Prussiaand
Eastern Ducal Prussia), the central provinces of Poland (GreatPoland,
Masovia, Little Poland), and with less detail the rest of the Polish-
Lithuanianstate. The growingevidence now availableand on which the
paper draws relates mainly to central Poland and Prussia.
The question of why serfdomtook the form of corvee labor has rarely
been posed. One or two writers have explicitly recognized that on the

Journal of Economic History, Vol. XLII, No. 3 (Sept. 1982). ? The Economic History
Association. All rightsreserved. ISSN 0022-0507.
The author is Professor in the Departmentof Economics, University of Salford, Salford M5
4WT,GreatBritain.Thanksfor commentsand suggestionsare due to participantsat the University
of Salford'sEconomics ResearchSeminarand at the Universityof Manchester'sModernHistory
Workshop,and to Donald N. McCloskey in his editorialcapacity.

513
514 Millward

face of it an alternative to demesne-serf production could have been

simply increased rents in kind or money. Why not extract the profit
from forced immobility as a rent? Why is unpaid demesne labor
associated with enserfment?Zytkowicz has stated that demesne farm-
ing was more profitablethan what he calls "feudal rents" but does not
explain why.' Kula raises the issue and speculates that an increase in
money rent was inhibited by the primitive degree of commercial
exchange in the Polish economy; and in the same vein Rusinski and
Zytkowicz have suggested that money rents persisted or grew in areas
where local markets were well developed.2 There are two problems
here. One is the evidence to be reviewed later. Manyenserfed peasants,
required now to pay labor dues rather than rents, in fact participated
extensively in marketsales of grain.Whererents did persist and grow-
as in Royal Prussia or in areas near to towns-there are indicationsthat
these were paid by free peasants, not as demandedin the Rusinski and
Zytkowicz argumentby the serfs. Another problemis the logic: even if
it were the case that enserfed peasants paid money rents when local
markets were well developed, in other areas a rent in kind might easily
have been extracted; the commercializationargument,in other words,
cannot by itself explain what did happen, namelythe growthof demesne
production.
One furtherline of thought, and one which is explored in this paper,
stems from the element of work supervision associated with serfdom.
Kay states that "demesne production ensured a greater degree of
control over cereal productionfor exports."3This is suggestive but not
conclusive; what was there in productionthat needed to be supervised?
SimilarlyRusinski's suggestionthat the feudallord's superiorityrelative
to wholesale merchantsin largermarketswas due to his exemptionfrom
tolls and tariffs and his access to servile labor in transportcannot be
used as an explanation of demesne production.4Why did lords not
simply act as merchants,exploitingthe largeincentives inherentin self-
directed peasant production but drawing both rents and merchanting
profits? That certain advantagesaccrued to lords with large estates has
been extensively documented by Maczak and Kula.' But these are
l Leonid Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farmand the Landlord'sFarmin Polandfromthe 16thto
the Middleof the 18thCentury,"Journalof EuropeanEconomicHistory, 3(Spring1972),p. 137.
2 Witold Kula, An Economic Theoryof the Feudal System: Towardsa Model of the Polish
Economy,1500-1800(London, 1976),p. 61. W. Rusinski,"Some Remarkson the Differentiationof
AgrarianStructurein East Central Europe from the 16th to 18th Century," Studia Historiae
Oeconomicae, 13 (1978), 89-90; Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," p. 142.
3 CristobalKay, "ComparativeDevelopmentof the EuropeanManorialSystem and the Latin
AmericanHaciendaSystem," Journal of Peasant Studies, 2 (Oct. 1974),p. 76.
4 Rusinski, "Differentiationof AgrarianStructure,"p. 90.
5 Antoni Maczak, "Export of Grainand the Problemof the Distributionof NationalIncome in
the Years 1550-1650," Acta Poloniae Historicae, 18 (1968), 86-90; idem, "Agriculturaland
Livestock Productionin Poland:Internaland ForeignMarkets,"Journalof EuropeanEconomic
History, I (Winter1972),674; Kula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, pp. 119-26.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 515

issues connected with the concentration of ownership of estates, not

with the organizationof production. All the Polish scholars agree that
the methods of agriculturalproductionon the demesne-serfestate were
similar to those on peasant land. Fenoaltea acknowledged that the
similarityin methods in the East conflictedwith his hypothesis concern-
ing agriculturalproduction with supervised labor.6Fenoaltea believed
that in Western Europe, where it is supposed that methods differedon
demesne and peasant land, serfdom entailed work methods that inher-
ently required supervision (such as joint production) or that were
innovative and required supervision during the learning process. In
Eastern Europe, he claimed, the form of serfdom(namely, corvee labor
services) was a mere exercise of authorityto underminethe bargaining
strength of the peasant class. Although the argumentcannot be ruled
out, it is claimed here that the organizationof serfdomcan be explained
by more straightforwardeconomic interests of the noble class.
Current answers to the question of how corvde labor could coexist
with more "modern" forms are unsatisfactory. The suggestion by,
among others, Zytkowicz, Makkai, Kula, Malowist, and implicitly
Wallersteinthat wage labor was "costly" and (as some writersgo on to
say) was found thereforeonly where the landwas particularlyfertileand
near to markets (compareRoyal Prussia)is analyticallyunconvincing.7
Serf labor on the face of it can always undercutlaborpaid a free market
wage above subsistence, independentof the productivityof land and the
size of transportcosts. Analogously, the propositionthat proximity to
markets fostered a free rent-payingpeasantryis dubious:again, enserf-
ment can raise the lord's income whether or not local markets are
developed. This is not to deny a quite separate point-which is not
elaborated in this paper-that the growth of towns created havens of
escape for .runawayserfs.
The view that serfdomis more likely to be found where laboris scarce
(compare Domar, Wallerstein)is not without some analytical founda-
tion.8 It will be shown, however, that labor scarcity at most puts in

6 Stefano Fenoaltea, "Authority,Efficiency,and AgriculturalOrganizationin MedievalEngland

and Beyond: A Hypothesis," this JOURNAL, 35 (Dec. 1975),713-17.
7 Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," p. 140; Laszlo Makkai, "Neo-Serfdom:Its Originand
Nature in East Central Europe," Slavic Review, 34, part 2 (June 1975), 237; Kula, Economic
Theoryof the Feudal System, p. 180;MarianMalowist, "The Problemof Inequalityof Economic
Developmentin Europein the Later MiddleAges," EconomicHistoryReview, 2nd ser., 19, no. 1
(1966), 26; Malowist, "Problems of the Growth of the National Economy of Central-Eastern
Europe in the Late Middle Ages," Journal of EuropeanEconomic History, 3 (Fall 1974), 342;
ImmanuelWallerstein,The Modern WorldSystem: CapitalistAgricultureand the Originsof the
EuropeanWorldEconomy in the Sixteenth Century(London, 1974),pp. 87-114. See also Jerzy
Topolski, "The ManorialSerf Economy in Central and Eastern Europe in the 16th and 17th
Centuries,"AgriculturalHistory, 48, part 3 (July 1974),347.
8 Wallerstein,Modern WorldSystem: Capitalist Agriculture;E. D. Domar, "The Causes of
Slavery or Serfdom:A Hypothesis," this JOURNAL, 30 (March1970), 18-32.
516 Millward

Dobb'swordsa premiumon enserfment.9 It is nota sufficientcondition,

and the growing rejection of the labor scarcity hypothesisis not
surprising.Finally, it is frequentlysupposedthat the rise of labor
servicespartlystemmedfromthe impactof the fifteenth-andsixteenth-
centuryinflationson the real value of moneyrents.'0The supposition
carries the implicationthat a change in money rents is difficult,
presumablybecauseof theircustomarynature,butthatthe introduction
or increasein laborservicesis not difficult,even thoughthey too were
customary.
The propositionthat EasternEuropecereal exports were closely
connectedwiththe rise of serfdomin the sixteenthcenturystillretains
some influence." It is being questionedon empiricalgrounds,with
evidencethatthe demesnesproducedalso for the domesticmarketand
that marketsales involvedconsiderableamountsof grainoriginating
frompeasantplots. The preciselogicalconnectionbetweenenserfment
andmarketsales, includingexports,has not, however,beenexamined,
and since a significantproportionof demesneproductionin the six-
teenth and seventeenthcenturiesdid involve the export crop (rye),
some explanationof the connectionis required.

THE THEORY OF FREE MARKET RENTS

A modelof freelycontractedrents,laborservices,andwagelaboris
now developedwith two aimsin mind.Oneis to providean analytical
benchmarkfromwhichthe organizational featuresof serfdomcan later
be developed.The otheris to providean explanationof many-though,
as will be noted later, not all-of the main elementsof agricultural
organizationin EasternEuropeby the earlyfifteenthcentury,on the
eve of enserfment.Considerthereforean economicregionwith the
followingfeatures:
1. The requirementsof the productionmethodof the mainoutput,
cereal, can be met from peasant families each workinglargely as

MauriceDobb, Studies in the Developmentof Capitalism,rev. ed. (London, 1963),p. 67.

10F. L. Carsten, The Originsof Prussia (Oxford, 1954),pp. 107-8; Malowist, "The Economic
and Social Developmentof the Baltic Countriesfromthe Fifteenthto the SeventeenthCenturies,"
EconomicHistoryReview, 12, no. 2 (1959), 182;Malowist,"NationalEconomyof Central-Eastern
Europe," p. 342; Hans Rosenberg,"The Rise of the Junkersin Brandenburg-Prussia 1410-1653,"
American Historical Review, 49 (1943/44), 231; Maria Bogucka, "The MonetaryCrisis of the
XVIIthCenturyand its Social and PsychologicalConsequencesin Poland,"Journalof European
EconomicHistory, 6 (Spring 1975), 145-46.
" Malowist, "Economic and Social Development of the Baltic Countries,"p. 186; Malowist,
"Inequalityof EconomicDevelopmentin Europe," p. 28; Topolski, "EconomicDecline in Poland
from the Sixteenthto the EighteenthCenturies,"in Essays in EuropeanEconomicHistory, 1500-
1800,ed. PeterEarle(Oxford,1974),p. 138;Topolski, "ManorialSerf Economy," p. 350;Maczak,
"Export of Grain," p. 76; Makkai, "Neo-Serfdom: Origin and Nature," p. 237; Rusinski,
"Differentiationof AgrarianStructure,"pp. 87-88.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 517

separate units within open fields, a more individualizedform of produc-

tion than the communal and sometimes shifting cultivation associated
with earlier Slavonic tribal organization.
2. Land ownership is vested exclusively in a noble class, access to
which is strictly limited and enforced by territorial governments.
Productionyields vary geographicallybecause of climate and soil. Each
lord is free to use the land as he pleases, except that he cannot sell it to
peasants.12
3. Peasants are free to move and make contractualarrangementswith
lords for access to land, and indeed are free to move outside the
economic region.
4. Marketedproductionis small and largely localized.
5. The lords have a demandfor products, over and above cereals, in
the form of housing, travel, and so forth.
The latter part of the paperwill add only two more features, supposed
to characterizeearly modernPoland:that serfdombecomes possible in
some areas and that there is an exogenous increase in the demand for
cereal exports.
Income maximization by lords and peasants would under these
assumptions lead to a system of free market rents, as follows. In the
short run the population of peasants in the region is fixed and it is
assumed temporarilythat not all land is occupied. Suppose that on the
least productive land that is occupied the expected annual output of a
peasant is Qmwhere o signifies "occupied" and m "marginal."On the
best unoccupied land production would have been lower, at Qu (in
which u signifies "unoccupied"), while on a typical piece of intramar-
ginal land productionis higher,at Q0(in which o is, again, "occupied").
It is important to understand the notation, used extensively in the
sequel.
Since peasants cannot buy land they will wish to hireit, and to the end
of maximizingtheir own income would therefore bid up rent offers for
the better land. At the limit an intramarginalplot would be bid up to a
rent in kind or in money equivalent to Q0 - Quqthe whole additional
output available from occupation. In leasing his land the lord or his
bailiff will be involved in a certain amount of costly administrationand
monitoring. In anticipation of the importance of supervision under
serfdom, I shall formally denote these costs as No defined in cereal
units. Thus the lord's income is Q0 - No - Quqwhich is lower the less
productivethe occupied land or the less efficienthis administrationof it.
Marginalland earns no net rent. Thereforeon the least efficient leased
estate and on marginal land the rent would, in the long run with a

12 The monopolizationof land ownership is thus, following A. Kahan ("Notes on Serfdomin

Westernand Eastern Europe," this JOURNAL, 33 [March 1973], 86-99) treated as a significant
determinantof the workingsof agriculturein Eastern Europe.
518 Millward

sufficientnumberof lords, be just sufficientto offset the supervision

costs, leaving no net rent. That is, recallingthat the superscriptm
signifies"marginal,"
QO-No -Qu = 0. (1)
On unoccupiedlandthe rentcan be treatedas zero:the peasantgets all
the output. Further,the peasant,competingwith others, can get no
more. His income is drivendown to Qu. If the peasantcould move
to other regionswhereexpectedearningsare Y he earnsa surplusof
Qu- Y fromlocatingin this region.The peasant'sincomeis of course
inverselyrelatedto the size of the population.Therentalincomeof the
nobleclass is smallerthe smalleris the ratioof laborto land.The more
peasantson an acreandthe moreacresundercultivation,the betterfor
the noblesand the worsefor the peasants.
The lordcannotset renton occupiedlandsuchas to expropriateany
of the peasantsurplusas longas thepeasantis freeto moveandproduce
such a surpluson unoccupiedland. The noble class could extractthe
surplusif they behavedtogetheras a cartel,restrictingthe amountof
landleased.To someextentthiswas the case in thetenth,eleventh,and
twelfthcenturies,since the territorialprincesin EasternEuropecon-
trolledlandgrantsto lords.WithGermancolonizationin thetwelfthand
thirteenthcenturies,withGermanization underPolishownershipin the
fourteenthandlatercenturies,andwiththe increasein allodialproperty
from the fourteenthcenturyonwards,competitionbetweenlords for
tenantswas presentandgrowing.
To be sure, peasantswill differin their efficiencyand innovative
capabilities,so that in practiceproductivityon any giventype of land
will tendto varywiththese capabilities.To whatextentwoulda lordbe
able to seize the additionalsurplusesarisingfrom innovationand
superiorefficiency?Probablynot very much. As long as there is
competitionbetween landlords,a ceiling on rents on any particular
piece of landis set at the differencebetweenpeasantproductionon that
landandpeasantproductionon unoccupiedland.Peasantswill be able
to retainthe fruitsof theirdifferentialinnovationandefficiency.
Peasant productivity,it should be noted, is monitoredby other
peasants. If a peasant lies about what he is able to produce-and
thereforewhathe is able to pay in rent-other peasantsstandreadyto
take up his holding.The peasantthereforemustproducethe maximum
amountfeasible:if he does not his rentpaymentwillnotfall, sinceother
peasantscompete;rather,his own consumptionwill fall.

RENTS IN EASTERN EUROPE AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Althoughthere are some importantqualifications

to be noted later,
the evidence on the majorform of agriculturalorganizationby the
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 519

beginning of the fifteenth century is consistent with the theory of the

previous section. Germancolonizationof the previoustwo centuriesleft
a heritageof free peasantfamilies occupying standardizedholdings. The
prince or grand-dukeclaimed ownership of all unoccupied land and
settlement was everywhere on land of which a lord or prince was the
superior owner receiving the rents and dues, though some accrued to
the original organizer of the settlement. A fee was sometimes paid by
the peasant for settling and the tenure was heritableand saleable. Why
the annualquitrentswere sometimes payable in kind in the form of rye,
barley, or oats rather than in money payments-which were increas-
ing-and why this was supplementedby dues payable duringdifferent
seasons of the year are not issues central to the present argument.It is
possible that they constituted a saving in the transactionscosts of the
lord's consumption pattern.'3Of more significanceis that these obliga-
tions showed signs of reflecting the scarcity of land: fees tended to
increase with the pace of colonizationand there is evidence of rents and
dues being higher on late foundations and on land near Elbing and
Danzig.14 In Poland there is evidence of money rents being raised when
prices rose.'" New settlements were often divorced from any manorial
framework, but even on many of the manorial estates, old or newly
established, the demesnes were either leased out for rents or were of
such a small size that they were worked essentially like a large-peasant
holding. The Cistercians, for instance, were importantcolonizers and
innovators but over time their farms were let out for rent. The princes
established many estates for knight's service, but again the primary
income was in the form of peasant rents and dues. Many of the
demesnes of the Slavonic lords were broken up for settlement and
colonization. The organizer of the settlement was often granted more
land, of higherquality and free from dues, than the average peasant but
he too often put tenants on his land.
For Silesia and Brandenburg,Carsten has suggested that in most
villages Brandenburgof the fourteenth century there was no manorial
farm and in other villages there was seldom more than one, and that was
small.16
In Prussia settlement during the thirteenthand fourteenth centuries

13 Douglass North and Robert P. Thomas, The Rise of the WesternWorld:A New Economic
History(Cambridge,1973).
'4 H. Aubin, "The Lands East of the Elbe and GermanColonizationEastwards,"in Cambridge
EconomicHistoryof Europe, vol. 1, TheAgrarianLife of the MiddleAges, ed. M. M. Postan,2nd
ed. (Cambridge,1966),pp. 467, 471.
15 J. Rutkowski, "Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary," in CambridgeEconomic History of
Europe, vol. 1, The AgrarianLife of the Middle Ages, ed. M. M. Postan, 2nd ed. (Cambridge,
1966),p. 503.
16 F. L. Carsten, Originsof Prussia, chap. 6. See also H. Wunder("PeasantOrganizationand
Class Conflictin East and West Germany,"Past and Present, no. 78 [Feb. 1978],pp. 48-50) for
East ElbianGermanygenerally.
520 Millward

underthe organizationof the TeutonicKnightswas extensivelyassoci-

ated with rentalarrangements,the "census" beingthe mainpeasant
due. The lay knightsdid not workthe demesnesbut livedoff rentsand
dues from villagesassignedto themby the Order.The Prussianserfs
weretreatedseparatelyin the initialphasein statusandobligations,but
duringthe fourteenthcenturythey also formedpartof the settlement
movementand by the end of the centuryhad becomeintegratedwith
Germanization."7 SettlementunderGermanlaw in Poland,including
Ruthenia,occurredthroughthe fourteenthand fifteenthcenturiesand
the Germanizationof Polish villages continuedinto the sixteenth
century.The typicalone wioca (about40 acres)holdingof the settler
involveda moneyrentto thelordas wellas occasionalduesin kindsuch
as eggs, chickens,cheeses, andhoney;andtherewere specialfees for
hunting,fishing,and cuttingtimber.The settlementorganizers,who
oftenbecamevillageheadmen,hadmoreandbetterlandbutoftenlet it
to tenantsfor rent. Manorialfarmswere of no greatsignificance,and
even by the early sixteenth century the typical manorialholding,
includinghouse, buildings,and farm,was small(about160acres or 4
wioca) with revenue coming mainlyfrom rents and the income of mills,
ponds,inns and so forth.'8

HIRED LABOR AND CONTRACTED LABOR SERVICES

The advantagesto lords of this self-directedpeasantcultivationof

cereals lay in the incentivesto the peasantsto raise productionfor
themselves and thereby for the lord in the absence of substantial
supervision.Thepeasant'sincomewas preciselyrelatedto his output-
thatis, grossagricultural
productionless therenttakenby thelord-and
the peasant'sproductivityandits relationshipto incomewas monitored,
as alreadynoted, by marketpressuresfromotherpeasants.
The other productsof this economycould not be organizedin the
same way. In view of the similarityto supervisionunderserfdom,it is
worth consideringthem in some detail. The productswere, first,
domesticfood, comfort,andleisureof the lordandhis retinue,supplied
by personalattendants,cooks, falconers,andthe like. Theseinvolved
teamworkamonglaborers,withexpensivetools. So too didthe produc-
tion of housing, that is, repair and handicraftwork on manorial
buildings.Andtransportandcommunication involvedteamsof messen-
gers and cartersand tools, wagons, and horses. Second, there were
specializedagriculturalactivitiessuchas kitchengardensor the raising
of animals,whichrequiredclose attentionandsupervision,in Mecklen-
17 Carsten,Originsof Prussia, pp. 68-69.
18P. Skwarczynski, "The Problem of Feudalism in Poland up to the Beginningof the 16th
Century,"Slavonic and East EuropeanReview, 34 (June 1956),304.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 521

burg and Silesia and on the knights' demesnes in Poland. Third, there
was the grinding of grain in mills, the running of inns, and the
development of fisheries-all involving large pieces of equipment.
Finally, even the peasant holding would in some cases require some
supplementary-and supervised-labor, especially of course at harvest.
The productionmethod for such products naturallyentailed supervi-
sion. The teamworkand the joint use of a largetool impliedthat a single
worker's output was not readilyidentifiable.It was naturalthat there be
a supervisor to monitor work performance and relate the worker's
income to his performance.'9Special attention was often necessary,
again makinga supervisor natural.In other words, where the worker's
marginalproductis not readilyidentifiablethere is inadequateincentive
for full work effort, and the worker'sinputhas to be monitored,because
his output cannot.
Wage labor would be the naturaloutcome here.20The form this took
in Eastern Europe can be explained by the introductionof a further
hypothesis, namely, that self-directedwork is preferredby the peasant
to workingundersupervision. In other words, gangwork is desirablefor
productivitybut peasants do not like it. This dislike implies that for the
same man-hoursa higher wage is requiredif supervisionis involved. It
also implies that the paymentto the workercould partlytake the forjnof
access to a landholding.Furtherinsightis providedby drawinga formal
analogy with the rent-paying peasant. Under the contracted labor
system the peasant spends some or all of his time underthe supervision
of the lord. Suppose for simplicitythat, notwithstandingthe wide range
of products made at the manor, the peasant's output under supervision
is measured in cereals and denoted as Qd (d for "demesne"). The
peasant is given a holding, and the time which is effectively left to him
after work on the demesne allows an output of, say Qh (h for "hold-
ing"). Thus the peasant's total production is the total of these two
items, Qd + Qh. He may receive a wage income for working on the
demesne, W, measured in the same units. The lord's income consists
therefore of the peasant's outputwhile workingundersupervisionnet of
wages and net of supervision costs, called Nd. While most estates
contained a mixture of peasant renters, cottagers, and wage labor, it is
instructive to imagine an estate without rents. On a marginalmanaged
estate just breaking even it would be the case that the lord's income
would be, signifying marginalvalues by a superscriptm,
Q- N - W = 0. (2)
In other words, as peasants compete for laboringjobs the wage rate is
19
CompareArmenAlchianand HaroldDemsetz, "Production,InformationCosts and Econom-
ic Organization,"AmericanEconomic Review, 62 (Dec. 1972).
20 CompareRobert Millward,"The Emergence of Wage Labour in Early ModernEngland,"
Explorationsin Economic History, 18 (Jan. 1981),21-39.
522 Millward

driven down in the long run to the level of output net of supervision
costs on the marginalmanagedestate. The precise amount of employ-
ment in the economy as a whole that this implies will depend in part on
how much the peasant prefers to work for himself rather than as
supervised labor. As supervised labor his income consists of the wage
plus the product of his own plot. On rented estates the least efficient
peasant's income is Qu, his output on unoccupied (and unsupervised)
land. Under the assumptionthat self-directedwork is preferred,such a
peasant would require an income greater than Qu if he were to work
fulltime under supervision. The income would have to exceed Qu by a
premiumwhich would differacross peasants, partlybecause of varying
dislikes for laboring work and partly because of varying abilities in
unsupervised work on the peasant's plot. The average premiumwould
therefore tend to be bigger the larger the level of employment in any
given peasant population. Of course, the small plot of land granted to
the contracted labor provides some offset to this. Let the premium
required by the least efficient peasant be denoted as a. It follows that
the wage rate would have to be such that his overall income, wage plus
output on his holding, W + Qh, is no less than Qu + a. If it were less he
would move to unoccupiedland, raisingthe W the lord would be willing
to offer for the labor remaining.In other words, the wage would tend to
a level
W = QU + (a -Qh). (3)
In the case of fulltime labor Qh is zero because all workingtime is used
by the lord. The smalleris the proportionof the peasant's time spent as
supervised labor the smalleris W, the smalleris a, and the largeris Qh.
Note that at the extreme the absence of a wage is consistent with some
supervised work. The peasantwould be providingunpaidlabor services
but the time left on his own land is such that the resulting production
and income, Qh, would be better (to the tune of a) than the income
which would accrue, Qu, when operating on a holding which had no
labor service obligations.
The implications of wage labor for the lord can be illustrated by
comparingthe marginalrentedestate with the marginalmanagedestate.
The three equations above simplify to:
Qd +Qh -QO=a+ Nd -

That is, the higheroutput on the demesne is matchedby highercosts of

supervision and by the premium(in wages) for gang labor. Even though
managed estates, or indeed supervised labor on mixed estates, may
have a productivityadvantageover rented estates, their proliferationis
limited by the increase in supervision costs and by the peasant's
preference for self-directedwork. That the preferencefor self-direction
was significant is suggested by the small number of cases in which
unpaid labor services were contracted by a free peasant with a large
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 523

holding. In fourteenth-centuryPoland the peasant holding of standard

size carried an obligation of work for the lord in the fields, in hay
cutting, in transportingtimberfrom the forest, and in furnishingthe lord
with conveyances for hisjourneys, but this was only for some two to six
days each year.2' There is evidence of labor services in Brandenburgin
the fourteenth and early fifteenth century connected with plowing,
though never apparentlyexceeding six days per year.
Since the premium a is bigger the more innovatingand efficient the
peasant, it is to be expected that the managed estate, or supervised
labor more generally, would be more profitablethe smaller were the
workers' alternative incomes and hence that the bulk of wage-laborers
and cottagers would originate from a low income stratum. This is the
case, In practice the hired labor was parttimeand sometimes migratory.
Migratorylabor is recorded in fourteenth-centuryBrandenburg,possi-
bly working in some cases as servants, as did peasant children.22In
Poland the village headmen, knights, and the standardpeasant holder
employed workers in their farmwork, paying them in money or a
mixture of payment in money and in kind. There is evidence of the
knights' need for money for repairsand improvementsto buildingsand
ponds, which is suggestive of the payment of wages.23Hired plowmen
were known in Prussia on the estates of the Teutonic knights who
excelled in their agriculturalmanagementand yields.
The majorsource of labor was neitherfulltimenor seasonally hired. It
was the cottager with his own plot and workingparttimefor the lord.24
This suggests that the preferencefor self-directedwork is strongenough
to ensure that part of the laborer's income takes the form of access to
land. The cottagers received a grant of a small plot of land (three acres)
but with some wage in money or in the form of keep. In Poland the
village headmen settled gardenerswith small plots of land. In additionto
their paid work, these gardenersin some cases had laborobligationsof a
similar nature but lighter than the standardpeasant landholder. Some
craftsmen worked parttimefor the richer peasants and since they were
housed in cottages with small gardens were classed as gardeners. In
Prussia settled gardeners appear in the records from 1305. Aubin notes
that the threshing gardener on the Silesian ecclesiastical manor was
working in intensive arable farmingon good black earth soil.25Cottag-
ers in Brandenburgperformed similar labor services to peasants in
addition to their paid work.26
21 Rutkowski,"Poland, Lithuania,and Hungary,"p. 504.
22 Carsten,Originsof Prussia, p. 79.
23 Skwarczynski,"Problemof Feudalismin Poland," p. 307.
24
Aubin, "Lands East of the Elbe," p. 418.
25 Ibid., p. 479.
26 In all this there is a precise analogywith the militaryrequirementsof the prince. Defense and
wars involved supervisedteamworkand were organizedeither in the form of conscriptedunpaid
militarylaborservices of the peasantsor in the form of mercenaries-that is, wage laborfinanced
ultimatelyfrom the money land taxes of the peasants.
524 Millward

Three qualificationsare necessary to the evidence presented above.

First, the model predicts that hired labor, including cottagers, will be
used when work supervision is necessary. Otherwisethe land would be
let out for rent. In some cases, however, the evidence is not always
explicit about the type of work. Thus some of the village headmen in
Poland were described by Rutkowski as farmingtheir own land in the
style of a big landowner, that is using hired labor, but precisely what
kind of agriculturalwork is involved is not clear.27
Second, the whole of Eastern Europe was neither completely Ger-
manizednor free. There was colonization underSlavonic lords or under
Polish law where only a partialtransformationtook place, where claims
to services were not forsaken by the lord, and there were estates of
Slavonic lords where no transformationtook place and where the lords
retained the right to extend their demesnes. In such cases while the
servile workforce undertook duties that included those performed in
other places by the free wage laborersand cottagersthey also undertook
a wider range of agriculturalwork.28
Third, by the early fifteenth century Lithuaniahad been affected by
colonization and Germanizationonly in its towns. Podlasiabecame the
exception in the latter part of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century,
but the agriculturalsystem that developed by then included corvee.
EarlierLithuaniawas characterizedby a more communalform of agri-
culture, with the tenement containing often several peasant families.29
By the end of the fourteenth century the majority of peasants were
free, the relatively small demesnes on crown and private estates being
worked by bondslaves, debtors, and some free men with smallholdings.
The major form of dues of the peasants appears to be levies of the
Crown, one in the form of grain and the other an annual money tax.
THE ANALYSIS OF ENSERFMENT

In Eastern Europe from the fifteenth to the late eighteenth century

large numbers of peasant families were effectively prevented from
27 Rutkowski,"Poland, Lithuania,and Hungary,"p. 503.
28 In Brandenburgthere were servile domestics and the seasonal teamwork of dependent
tenants, supplementedby a class of gardenerswith a scrap of land and characterizedby their
Slavonic label, kossaten; an even more indicativelabel for their type of work is the term used in
Meissen, handfroner,the handservers(Aubin, "Lands East of the Elbe," p. 478). There are
examples in Brandenburgof villages with Wends renderingservices and also in Silesia of servile
holdingswithinGermanvillages. Labor services in only partiallytransformedsettingswere to be
foundin the fourteenthcenturyin Germanvillages in Prussia(on demesnesof the Orderproducing
fodderfor herdsof cattle and horses) in the delta of the Vistulaon old Slav soil, as well as on some
estates of privatelandlords.Similarlyin Poland by the fifteenthcenturythere were still cases of
only partlyassimilatedvillages with dues similarto those underGermanlaw but withotheraspects
of the legal position basically Polish. Some villages in the East were completely unchanged,
retainingprecolonialmanorialdues and customs (Rutkowski,"Poland,Lithuania,and Hungary,"
p. 505).
" CompareKarlvon Loewe, "Commerceand Agriculturein Lithuania,1400-1600,"Economic
HistoryReview, 2nd ser., 26 (Feb. 1973),23-37; Rutkowski,"Poland,Lithuania,and Hungary";
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 525

leaving their holdings without the lord's permission, deprived of all

rights in the location, quantity, and disposition of their labor time, and
deprivedof all property rights in their holdings. While there were many
local variations,these three attenuationsof peasant rightsconstitute the
key features of serfdom. The legislation to this effect, largely of the
sixteenth century, is not always a good guide to their presence or
strength. During the fifteenth century the nobility were active in
preventing peasants from leaving their estates, in pressing the towns
and others for the return of runaways, and in flouting contractual
arrangementsfor labor services.30 There is evidence in the sixteenth
century of nobles buying out peasant holdings at an "estimated" price
prior to any legal authorization of this practice.3' Even by the eigh-
teenth century the labor draft of peasant childrenwas not specifiedas a
separate legal obligation in Poland, Mecklenburg,and Swedish (West-
ern) Pomerania since the lord had sufficient authority to exercise it
already.32
The economic implications may be analyzed initially by considering
the erstwhile rent-paying peasantry in the context of the previous
model. The immediate implications are several. On intramarginalland
the peasant's expected output was Q. and the maximumthe lord could
extract as rent was Q. - Qu since the peasant could previously always
leave and produce Qu on unoccupied land. Since the peasant could no
longer move to unoccupied land the lord could now extract more than
Q. - Qu from him. On the other hand, the lord's knowledge before
serfdom of the maximumrent that he could extract was not based on a
close monitoringof production but on the rent offers he received from
other peasants. These now disappearedunder serfdom, so that the lord
had to devise an alternative mechanism for acquiringknowledge of the
maximumhe could extract from the peasant.
Under a free rent system any differentialproductivity of peasants
arising from differences in efficiency and innovative capacities was
largely retained by the peasants, because the more innovative peasant
could always exercise his skills on unoccupied land. Such differential
income could now be expropriated by the lord, because the peasant
movement to unoccupied land was restricted. On the other hand since
the inducementto innovate and be efficientdisappears,such differential
productivity might be lost under enserfment. It is possible to imagine
that the lord mightprovide inducements to innovate-since this is in his

and R. A. French, "The Three-Field System of Sixteenth-CenturyLithuania," Agricultural

HistoryReview, 18, part 2 (1970), 106-25.
30 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, chap. 8; Blum, "The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe,"
AmericanHistoricalReview, 62 (July 1957), 820-21.
31 Makkai,"Neo-Serfdom:Originand Nature," p. 232.
32 Blum, TheEnd of the Old Orderin RuralEurope(Princeton,1978),p. 58. For skepticismon
the role of legislation,see R. Rosdolsky, "The Natureof PeasantSerfdomin Centraland Eastern
Europe," Journalof CentralEuropeanAffairs, 12 (July 1952), 128-39.
526 Millward

own self-interest. I presume in what follows, however, that the produc-

tivity differentialdisappears.
The maximum additional income that the lord can extract from a
peasant consists of two components. One is the differencebetween the
output on "frontier" land within the region (Qu), and the income that
the peasant could previously have expected to earn by migratingoutside
the region(Y). The expropriationof this surplus,it should be recalled, is
not unique to enserfment, which meant thereforein EasternEuropethat
the nobility could dispense with the alternative of a rent-fixingland
cartel.33Second, and independent of the level of Y, the income of the
peasant might be driven to a subsistence level (S). Thus in total it is the
scarcity value of labor above subsistence that constitutes the maximum
potential additionalincome of the lord.34If this were the only issue the
lord could simply raise peasant payments to Q. - S on intramarginalland
and to Q' - S on marginalland. Suppose, however, that the lord decides
to exact this in the form of a money payment. The old money rent (and
entry fees) corresponded to the maximumthen extractableas revealed
by competition by peasants for access to this holding. No such
independent estimates now exist. Perhaps the lord instead might take
his income in the form of produce, a payment in kind. Q0 and Q' were
the maximumamounts producibleby the peasant in a context where he
had every inducement to produce the maximum and where market
pressures revealed what part the lord could exact as a rent in kind. The
lord therefore has two problems: knowing what productionlevel is just
sufficient to sustain the peasant family and discovering the maximum
amount producible. Let it be assumed for the moment that the lowest
level of consumption, S, consistent with subsistence is known by the
lord who would therefore be expropriatingany productionabove S and
thereby providinga complete disincentive to the peasant to produce the
maximum amount, Q0 or Q'. The lord's problem resolves in such a
context to knowing how much of a surplus above S could be exacted
and what organizationalframeworkwould maximizethe surplus.In sum
the lord cannot expect in the long run to maintainrents within the old
organizational framework because the system relied on competition
between peasants for land and peasant mobility. A payment could be
exacted but the lord can no longer be sure this corresponds to what
peasants would freely offer for use of the land; even less can he expect
to exact higher payments without close monitoringof peasant produc-
tion and hence a change in the organizationalframework.
3 The two are precisely equivalent if each of the given peasant populationshas the same
prospective income in other regions (Y) or if the rent-fixingcartel can discriminatebetween
individuals.
3 Ignoringconspicuous consumptionand extra peasant man-hours,the latter omission being
consistent with the concentration in this paper on the extensive margin. Compare Stanley
Engerman,"Some ConsiderationsRelatingto PropertyRightsin Man," this JOURNAL, 33 (March
1973),46.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 527

The evidence suggests indeed that the lords' income from enserfment
did not take the form of a simple increase in rents in money or in kind.
There is clear evidence for enserfed peasants of quitrents being com-
muted in Brandenburgfrom 1540, and being cancelled in Rugen in the
1570s and in mainlandPomeraniain the 1580s.35In Poland duringthe
sixteenth century money rents were allowed to fall in real value in the
face of inflation,and it has been estimated that by the end of the century
only 15 percent of the productionof a self-sufficientserf family accrued
to the lord as rent and related services.36 The contraction of money
quitrents in response to the mid-seventeenth century monetary crisis
was not offset by rents-in-kindbut by other obligations.37There is some
evidence for the Tapiau estate in Ducal Prussia, covering the period
1550-1695, that the grain rents that did remain, far from varying
proportionatelywith the size of peasant production, were proportion-
ately bigger the poorer was the harvest.38Data referringto 100Galician
villages for the period 1785-1789 indicates that only 380 out of 6,487
tenancies involved obligations solely in produce or money, and Ros-
dolsky estimated that the obligations in money or kind of the class of
serfs with the largest landholdingwere equivalent to only one-sixth of
their other obligations to the lords.39The reorganizationand standard-
ization of land and serfdom in the reforms in Lithuania of the 1560s
involved the recognitionof differentclasses of serf; one of these classes
had obligations primarilyin money or produce, but over time there is
evidence of its decline relative to other groups, and by the end of the
eighteenth century servile peasants paying quitrents were not the
common pattern.40Similarly, evidence from the accounts of several
large estates in East Prussia indicates that by the end of the eighteenth
century dues in kind were neither burdensome nor a source of com-
plaint, and though there was a money payment it seems to be dwarfed
by the peasant's other obligations.4' None of this is to suggest that rents
were insignificantin Eastern Europe but, as will be argued later, the
high rents were paid by peasants who retainedtheir freedomthroughout
or whose enserfment was unprofitable.
The analysis so far is, however, insufficientto explain the corvde. All
35 Carsten,Originsof Prussia, pp. 156-62.
3 Skwarczynski,"Polandand Lithuania,"in New CambridgeModernHistory,vol. 2, Counter
Reformationand Price Revolution1559-1610, ed. R. B. Wernham(Cambridge,1968),p. 379; L.
Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," p. 148.
37 Bogucka, "The MonetaryCrisis," p. 146.
38 A. Maczak, "Money and Society in Poland and Lithuaniain the 16thand 17thCenturies,"
Journalof EuropeanEconomic History, 5 (Spring 1976),p. 96.
39 R. Rosdolsky, "The Distributionof the AgrarianProductin Feudalism,"this JOURNAL, 11
(Summer1951),262-63.
4 French, "Three-FieldSystem"; Loewe, "Commerceand Agriculturein Lithuania."Blum,
"Rise of Serfdom," p. 832; Blum, End of the Old Order,p. 53.
4' Guy S. Ford, "The PrussianPeasantrybefore 1807," AmericanHistoricalReview, 24 (July
1919),372-73.
528 Millward

it does suggest is that in order to acquire knowledge of production

possibilities the lord or his stewards would have to monitorproduction
on the peasant holdings, monitor marketprices of grain, and then exact
the payment in money or in kind. There would be no expansion of
demesne or labor services. The organizationof productionwould differ
from the rental system only in the considerably enhanced role for
supervision. But therein lies a problem and its solution, since with no
other change in the basic characteristics of the peasant holding and
cultivation supervision of all the labor time of the peasant would be
necessary even though a large part of the resultant produce would
accrue to the peasant. A saving in supervision time would thereforebe
made if some of the inputs to productionwere clearly markedoff as due
to the lord so that only those inputs need be supervised. This is the
solution to the problem.
Priorto exploringthe empiricalimplicationsit is useful at this stage to
briefly tie the analysis with the earlier formal model of free renting.
Because of the incentive and informationproblems of serfdom, addi-
tional supervision will be involved as compared to the freely rented
estate. Consider for comparison the estate of the lord on marginalland
who just broke even, as indicated by equation (1) above. Assume now
that the same level of output is only possible if the estate is reorganized
with enhanced supervisioninvolving increasedcosts of Cm.The process
of enserfingthe peasants would therefore raise the lord's income by an
amountto be denoted as Et where: Et (for "expropriation")is the sum
of the two expropriationsof serfdom minus its greater cost of supervi-
sion (the subscript t signifies "tenant" as the class enserfed):
Et = (QU -Y) + (Y -S) -Cmt .
That is,
tEt= QU -S -Ct * (5)
This is the income accruingto the (least efficient)lord on marginalland.
On intramarginalland income would be higher but the difference
correspondsto the rent that would in any case have been received under
a free market. Thus Et is the profitabilityof enserfing a rent-paying
peasant, irrespective of the type of land. A smaller population would
raise the reference level of production Qu (because productivity per
head would rise with fewer hands and with less use of inferiorland)and
hence would involve with a free peasantry a smaller proportion of
productionaccruingas rent. Hence labor scarcity does in Dobb's words
put a "premium" on enserfment; it does affect the profitabilityof
enserfment. But it need not make enserfment actually profitablesince
this will depend on the quality of land and technology (affecting the
productionsurplus Qu - S) relative to the level of enforcementcosts.42
42 Similarly while considerations relating to the size of the production surplus (compare
Engerman,"PropertyRights in Man") would suggest that serfdom will be associated with an
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 529

THE EVIDENCE ON REORGANIZATION

The empiricalimplicationsthat follow from the economics of supervi-

sion may be analyzed under the assumption that the composition and
size of the demandfor cereal output is unchanged.The predictionsare:
first, a growth in the ratio of demesne to peasant land and the
appearanceor rise in labor services required per standardizedunit of
peasant holding reflecting the form in which expropriation of the
peasant is exacted; second, a transferof land from peasant occupation
to demesne status and a fall in the average size of peasant holding, both
features being more likely the smaller the amount of unused, but
prepared, land that could be brought into the demesne; and third, a
consolidation of demesne strips in the open fields with newly estab-
lished serf-workeddemesnes located in self-containedfields or blocks,
the better to supervise the work.
There is no comprehensive data on the changing ratio between
demesne and peasant land for Eastern Europe. Consistent with such a
change, however, is the evidence of the increase in the absolute size of
demesne land and a fall in the average size of peasant holdings. That
demesne land grew in Eastern Europe from the early sixteenth century
to the late eighteenth century, albeit at different rates in different
regions, is universallyaccepted. Carstenhas pointedto the rapidgrowth
in demesnes in East Elbian Germany and Prussia duringthe sixteenth
century with, for example, the 347 villages in his data for the Middle
Mark showing an increase of 12 percent in the number of units of
demesne land from 1450 to 1570 and by over 50 percent from 1570 to
1624.43There seems general agreementthat demesne acreage increased
in Poland in the sixteenth century, especially in Little Poland and
Masovia." The estimate by Wyczanski that the demesne acreage was
equivalentto only 36 percent of the acreage of peasant-occupiedland in
Royal Prussia by the 1560s, as comparedto 48 percent in GreatPoland,
57 percent in Masovia, and 57 percent in Little Poland, is suggestive of

extension of the margins of cultivation, the presence of enforcement costs vitiates any such
conclusions.Thus undera free rentalsystem any exogenous increasesin populationare absorbed
by the economy as long as the peasant surplusis positive. Once the point is reachedwhere the
surplus disappears, further populationincreases would lead to emigration,as peasant income
wouldbe less thanwhat can be earnedelsewhere. A serf economy wouldabsorbthis second round
of populationincrease as long as the marginof Y over subsistence income levels exceeds the
incrementalenforcementcosts. If, however, the incrementalcost is greaterthanY-S then not even
the firstroundof populationincreasewould be wholly absorbedby the serf economy:either some
populationis allowed to emigrateor serfdomis abandonedin favor of marketrents. Analogously
the lengthof day that is workedby serfs would exceed thatfreely done by a rent-payingpeasantry
only if marginalenforcement costs are negligible-quite apart from the possibility that the
innovatingefficientpeasant would have greaterinducementsto work longer.
43 Carsten,Originsof Prussia, p. 149;idem, "The Originsof the Junkers,"EnglishHistorical
Review, 62 (April 1947), 164-65.
4 Skwarczynski, "Poland and Lithuania," p. 379; Maczak, "Export of Grain";Zytkowicz,
"The Peasant's Farm."
530 Millward

the association of demesne land with enserfment, consideringthat there

were more free peasants in Royal Prussia than in any of the other Polish
Crownterritories.45In Lithuaniathe reformof the 1560swas very much
concerned with the expansion of demesne on royal estates, but on
noncrown estates also there is evidence of demesne cultivationincreas-
ing, with demesne land rising from some 25 percent of peasant land in
the sixteenth century to 50 percent in the seventeenth century.46In the
seventeenth century an increase in demesne land in Poland seems more
probable for the second half; over the whole period 1500-1750 Kula
presumes the demesne area increased.47
Examples of transfer of land from peasants to lords are pervasive,
indicating that even when unoccupied land was available for the
demesne, there were costs in preparingit for cultivation. Evidence that
transfers of land rather than opening up of new land were sensitive to
the scarcity of land is more inferentialthan explicit. Populationdensity
generallywas lower the furthereast one moved. Towardsthe end of the
sixteenth century, for example, the population density was higher in
Germanythan in Poland and the numberof people per squarekilometer
has been estimated at 24 in Masovia, 19 in Great Poland, 12 in the
Lublin Palatinateof Little Poland (though 23 in the Cracow Palatinate),
7 in Volhynia and Podolia, and 3 in the Ukraine.48The opening up of
new land for demesne was of course more common the further east,
with the continuingcolonization movements into Little Poland, Ruthe-
nia, and the Ukraine, the lords usually following closely on the heels of
free peasants. Some of the initial transfers of land in Eastern Europe
took the form of buying up peasant land at an estimatedprice in favor of
the lord, and its recognition in law seems to have been earlier in the
western regions (Brandenburg 1531, Mecklenburg 1572, Pomerania
1616).49Indeed it was mainly East Elbian Germany that witnessed
outrightpeasant eviction. The legislation of 1540-1572in Brandenburg
confirmedthe Junkers'rightto peasant eviction and evidence of the late
sixteenth century indicates that this extended to the appropriationof
erstwhile grazing meadows, while in Western Pomeraniasome of the
towns rivaled the nobility in their eviction of peasants.50In contrast, in
Polandthe expropriationof land for the demesne involved a reductionin
45 A. Wyczanski,"TentativeEstimatesof PolishRye Tradein the 16thCentury,"Acta Poloniae
Historicae, 4 (1961), 121-22.
4 Loewe, "Commerceand Agriculturein Lithuania,"p. 27.
4 Zytkowicz, "An Investigationinto AgriculturalProductionin Masoviain the First Half of the
17th Century," Acta Poloniae Historicae, 18 (1968), pp. 102-4; Kula, Economic Theoryof the
Feudal System, p. 117.
4 Irena Gieysztorowa, "Research into the DemographicHistory of Poland: A Provisional
Summing-Up," Acta Poloniae Historicae, 18 (1968), Table 1; Skwarczynski, "Poland and
Lithuania,"p. 377. See also AndrzejWyrobisz, "SmallTowns in 16thand 17th-Century Poland,"
Acta Poloniae Historicae, 34 (1976), 153-63 on urban populations.
49Makkai,"Neo-Serfdom:"Originand Nature," p. 232.
" Carsten,Originsof Prussia, pp. 158-62; Rosenberg, "Rise of the Junkers,"p. 232.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 531

the size of a peasant's holding or the transfer of peasants from one

holding to another, as occurred also in the Lithuanianreform of the
1560s;there were only sporadic cases of peasant eviction.5'
The decline in the average size of holding of the former rent-paying
peasant is well documented for Poland. Whether this decline was
proportionatelybigger in areas with a smaller land-laborratio is not
clear; the issue is in any case complicated because peasant activities
away from the demesne were not so closely monitoredby the lord or his
stewards. For central Poland before the sixteenth century a 1-wioca
(41.5 acres) holding was deemed to be sufficientfor the standardsize
peasant family. By the end of the sixteenth century farmingmanuals
were prescribingonly half a wioca and the average size approximated
that figure, even though there is no evidence of a compensatingrise in
yields. The once important stratumof rich peasants, such as those on
the estates of the Bishop of Cujavia (Eastern Great Poland) with 2
wioca, had disappeared by the seventeenth century except in Royal.
Prussia. From inventories of the large estates of the Plock episcopate, it
appears that in Masovia the proportionof peasants holding 1 wioca or
more fell from 37 percent in 1595 to 19 percent in 1650. Similarlythe
independent peasants formed on average about 70 percent of the
peasants in 176 royal villages of the Palatinate of Cracow in Little
Poland in 1564. But by the first half of the seventeenth century this
figure had fallen to 58 percent and to 40 percent by 1660. The
independentpeasants on the propertiesof the Chapterand Bishopricof
Chelm were on average about 83 percent of the ruralpopulationin the
early seventeenth century, 64 percent by mid-century,and 60 percent
by the 1660sand 1670s. In 12 villages of the crown estate of Korczyn in
Royal Prussia the numberof independentpeasants halved in 1600-1660
though most of this was in the 1650s. By the end of the eighteenth
century the number of half-wloca holdings had grown considerably.
This could sufficefor an average-sizedpeasant householdonly in a good
year, but by this period the quarter-wlocaholdingwas a "proper" size.
It has been estimated that about 80 percent of the peasant population
had no more than half a wioca each. The tenancies of the standard
peasant holder in the 1785-1789 sample of Galician villages referredto
earlier averaged 25 acres but this was a more land-abundantarea.
Similarlyin the Lithuanianreformof i550s the standardpeasant holding
was about 60 acres though these had all but disappearedby the end of
the eighteenth century.52

5' Makkai,"Neo-Serfdom:Originand Nature," p. 232; French, "Three-FieldSystem," p. 109;

Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," pp. 138-39; A. J. Kaminski, "Neo Serfdom in Poland-
Lithuania,"Slavic Review, 34 (June 1975),p. 261.
52 For all this paragraphsee French, "Three-FieldSystem," pp. 108-9; Blum, End of the Old
Order,p. 53; Maczak, "The Social Distributionof LandedPropertyin Polandfromthe 16thto the
18thCentury,"ThirdInternationalConferenceof EconomicHistory:Munich1965(Paris,1%8),p.
532 Millward

There are several examples of the consolidation of demesne land,

though whether this process was pervasive is not clear.53In central
Poland the expropriationof peasant land often took the form of taking
parcels of holdings and reallocating peasants from one holding to
another, which is consistent with the development of more adjacent
demesne strips.54In the three-fieldsystems of East ElbianGermanyand
Prussia by the eighteenth century the demesne strips were not always
scattered and indeed there was a marked tendency in the east towards
consolidated holdings5 The large-scale reorganizationand standard-
ization of holdings associated with the 1560s reforms of Sigismund
August in Lithuania show the best examples of consolidation and are
suggestive of similar patterns elsewhere in that they are thought to be
based on Polish experience. Following the compulsoryexchange of land
between peasants and the crown each peasant holdingconsisted of one
strip of about 20 acres each in each of the three fields. "Generallythe
manorialdemesne had its own three fields and for them the best land
was chosen. Out of 24 royal manors with demesnes, described in
surviving cadastres, only 4 were in the same fields as the peasant
holdings."56The demesne was worked largely by a class of peasants
whose obligations were mainly in labor service and it is worth noting
that the class of peasants paying money and produce was often located
well away from the manor. The work of the reform was apparently
complete in the three principalprovinces of Lithuaniawithina periodof
12 years. Evidence of the late eighteenth century suggests that the
demesne was usually still separate from the land of peasants. In the
conquered Russian provinces the system was gradually brought in
during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, though
physical impediments such as the swampy areas in the basin of the
Pripyatprecluded the same uniformity, so that rents and older forms of
ruralorganizationpersisted for some time.57

469; Maczak,"Exportof Grain,"p. 78; Zytkowicz, "AgriculturalProductionin Masovia,"p. 110;

Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," pp. 150-51; Kaminski,"Neo Serfdomin Poland-Lithuania,"
pp. 264-65; Rosdolsky, "Distributionof the AgrarianProduct," pp. 262-63; Skwarczynski,
"Polandand Lithuania,"p. 379.
53 If all landon an estate was of the same qualitythe demesnewould presumablybe locatednear
to the manorhouse, the locationof which wouldbe affectedby such nonagricultural considerations
as defense. If land was not uniform there would be further savings of supervisiontime if the
demesne were located on the better land as in the Lithuanianwioca reform.
54 Zytkowicz, "The Peasant'sFarm,"pp. 138-39;Makkai,"Neo-Serfdom:OriginandNature,"
p. 232.
55 Ford, "PrussianPeasantrybefore 1807," p. 367; A. Spiesz,
"Czechoslovakia'sPlace in the
AgrarianDevelopmentof Middleand East Europeof ModernTimes," StudiaHistoricaSlovaca, 6
(1969),25. See also Spiesz, "Czechoslovakia,"p. 22 for referencesto the consolidationof demesne
on the best land in Livonia.
56 French, "Three-FieldSystem," p. 110 and footnote.
57 MariaB. Topolska, "Peculiaritiesof the Economic Structureof
EasternWhiteRussia in the
Sixteenth-EighteenthCenturies," Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 6 (1971), 37-49; French,
"Three-FieldSystem," pp. 106-18; Blum, End of the Old Order,p. 157.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 533

The now well-documentedappearanceand rise of labor services over

the period suffers not so much from a lack of standardizationwith
respect to the size of holding, but ratherfrom the difficultyof knowing
the length of the year over which the obligations of so many days per
week should extend and the size of peasant families affected. But the
rise in labor time per peasant family using the holding of the self-
sufficientearly sixteenth-centurypeasant as benchmarkis not in doubt.
Nor is its early appearancein the fifteenth century. In Brandenburgthe
customary six or seven man-days per year were showing some signs of
an increase while in Prussia there were complaints by freemen and by
Prussians about uncustomary labor services. There is evidence from
central Poland of labor services being extended to one day per week,
and in Lithuania towards the end of the century there were new land
grants allowing one day per week in contrast to the 14 days per year
recorded on service estates for the earlier part of the century. By the
end of the fifteenth century and early sixteenth century some land
grants in Lithuania were allowing two days per week and there is
evidence of two to three days per week on some private manors. The
statutes of the early sixteenth century in Poland set a standardobliga-
tion of one day per week but practice was tendingtowards two to three
days per week by the middle of the century as it was in Brandenburg.
The 1550s and 1560s saw high norms established in Silesia, though the
actual practice was much lighter. Decrees of the 1570sallowed unlimit-
ed services in parts of Brandenburg;there is evidence in the Priegnitzof
unlimiteddemands in practice; in the Zechlis in the second half of the
sixteenth century three days per week was standard as it was in
Mecklenburg.Duringthe last part of the century practiceof six days per
week is recorded in Pomeraniaand in Poland, yet there is also the view
that two to three days was still more common for Poland. In the
Lithuanianreform of the 1550s labor service was set at two days per
week but it was not long before this rose to three.58
The evidence is not so clear for the seventeenth century. The early
part of the century saw Pomeranian regulations allowing unlimited
services and the Margrave'scourt deciding that all peasants were liable
for unlimited services unless they could prove otherwise. By the late
eighteenth century three days per week was still standardin Branden-
burg and was recognized as lower than in other parts of East Elbian
Germanyand in Prussia. By the 1760s in Upper Silesia Polish peasants
owed five to six days per week in summerand three to four per week in

58 On this paragraphsee French, "Three-FieldSystem," p. 112;Blum, "Rise of Serfdom,"pp.

830-32; Skwarczynski,"Poland and Lithuania,"p. 379; Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," p.
148;Topolski, "ManorialSerf Economy," p. 350; Carsten,Originsof Prussia, pp. 104-5, 109-10,
157-58, 162; B. H. Slicher van Bath, "Serfdom in Eastern Europe," in CambridgeEconomic
Historyof Europe,vol. 5, TheEconomicOrganisationof EarlyModernEurope,ed. E. E. Richand
C. H. Wilson (Cambridge,1977), chap. 2(5), p. 118; Loewe, "Commerceand Agriculturein
Lithuania";Kaminski,"Neo Serfdomin Poland-Lithuania,"p. 265.
534 Millward

winter. In Mecklenburgthe obligation was six days per week on some

private estates, slightly less on sovereign land, while some peasant
households in Swedish Pomeraniahad to supply two people every day.
On private estates in the Ermeland district near Koenigsburg, three
days per week for two people was common. In other parts of East
Prussia the lords demanded two people for six days. For Poland it has
been suggested that five days per week was standardin the Vistulabasin
in the first part of the seventeenth century; by the late eighteenth
century there is evidence of a full holding carryingan obligationof two
people for three days per week in Lithuaniaand in some privateestates
of central Poland four to six days, scaled down for smallerholdingsand
slightly less on Church and Crown land.59

PRODUCTIVITY UNDER SERFDOM

The organizationof the corvde is accounted for, then, by the absence

under serfdom of independent estimates of extractable rents and the
excessive supervision costs that would be associated with a scattered
location of peasant work for the lord. The overall effect of mere
enserfment on agriculturalproductivity, excluding for the moment the
time and activities still left on the peasant's own land, consists of the
rise in costs associated with greater supervision and the loss of the
differentialproductivityof the innovative peasant. The expropriationof
the scarcity value of labor is an offset to the first only for the lord; from
the point of view of national productivity it is a redistribution.Such
might be an explicit set of argumentsto support the widely expressed
belief that serfdom is inherently unproductive.'
Yet team production or particularattention to product quality offers
productivitygains, limited only by rising supervision costs and by the
premiumfor gang work demandedby free men. Thus serfdompermitsa
move away from peasant methods to more productive methods. It
follows that it would also be profitableto the lords. This may be seen by
considering the enserfment of the wage laborer on the managedestate
and comparing the result with the earlier result on enserfment of the
rent-payingpeasant. The worker on the managedestate received a wage
income plus the product (Qh) of whatever holding he had. The product
in practice was always small. To be more precise it will now be
presumed that the product of this plot is not big enough to sustain his
family, leading him to work for wages. It follows that enserfmenthere
takes the form of setting a compulsory wage (Wf)below the level of the

5 Kaminski,"Neo Serfdomin Poland-Lithuania,"p. 257; Blum,End of the Old Order,pp. 53-

54; Carsten,Originsof Prussia, p. 158.
1 For example, Topolski, "Economic Decline in Poland," pp. 138-39; Maczak, "Social
Distributionof LandedProperty,"p. 469.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 535

free marketwage. For the managedestate thatjust broke even it is now

assumed that the same level of output is possible under serfdom if the
lord incurs a rise of CQ'in supervision costs (note the subscript f for
famulus, or "wage worker"). Enserfing the wage workers would
thereforeraise the income of the lord by an amountto be denoted as ET
(E again for expropriation), where EWis the expropriationfrom a low
wage minus the greater cost of supervision:
ET = (W-Wf)-QCT. (6)
This is the income accruing to the least efficient lord using the least
efficient peasant on marginal land. The incomes accruing to more
efficient lords or better land are higher, but only to the extent of the
profits that would in any case have been received by them under a free
wage labor system. Thus EfPrepresents the profitabilityof enserfingan
agriculturalwage laborerirrespective of the quality of land or entrepre-
neurship. Note that Wf would be set such that the enserfed wage plus
the income from the holding(Qh) equaled bare subsistence;or, turningit
around,
Wf = S - Qh (7)

Consequently, the profit advantages of runninga managed serf estate

rather than one that uses the same productionmethods as the peasant
farm may be seen by comparing Ef' with E' in equation (5). Using
equation (3) to eliminate Qu from equation (5) and using equation (7) to
eliminate Wf from equation (6), the difference is:

ETm- EtM= a + Ctm- CT. (8)

In other words managed estates involve a higher productivity, by
assumption, but in a context of freely negotiated contracts their
proliferationat the expense of rented estates is limitedby the increase in
supervision costs and by the work premium (a) involved in market-
determined wage rates. With serfdom the productivity advantage of
managed work accrues, on the margin, to the lord rather than as the
worker's premium;moreover the total supervisioncosts are unlikely to
be significantly bigger than where enserfment involves no change in
productionmethods. Thus the incrementalsupervisioncosts in moving
from free to compulsory wage labor, Cf, are likely to be less than those
involved in enserfing a rent-paying peasantry, Ce'. The limits to the
proliferationof estates with extensive joint productionor other super-
vised production methods are much less with serfdom. It is not
surprisingtherefore that labor systems which are not freely negotiated
often involve supervised teamwork, sometimes with large capitalequip-
ment. Thus the bonded workers of Eastern Europe before the coloniza-
tion movement were invariablyused in such work. Before the sixteenth-
536 Millward

century reforms in Lithuania, the principal workforce of the manor

consisted of slaves living at the manorand receiving subsistence rations
and, if we canjudge from the work of their post-reformsuccessors, they
looked after the kitchen gardens and livestock and did day-to-daywork
about the manor.61 Bondsmen on the larger estates of twelfth- and
thirteenth-centuryPoland were part of the manor's permanentbody of
servants employed as personal attendants of the lord's family, in
kitchen gardens and cattleshed, and as artisans, apartfrom work in the
fields.62Moreover the slaves and tied cottagers (comparethe Kossatii in
the Marks of Brandenburg)who remainedin the fifteenthcentury seem
invariablyto have been involved in team services in transport,domestic
service, and seasonal teamworkon the land.63More generallythere are
the examples of slave sugar plantationsclosely involved with the use of
primitive capital equipment, the integratedteamworkfor cotton in the
southernUnited States, and the indenturedlaboron SoutheasternAsian
rubber plantations.'4The new production methods, to which compul-
sory labor systems can readily be adapted, could involve such an
improvement as to offset the loss from greater supervision and less
incentive to work hard. On a priori grounds, enserfment need not
involve a fall in productivity in the conventional way in which that is
measured.
One would expect in Eastern Europe a growthin the proportionof the
serf class whose landholdingsand disposition of labor time correspond
closely to those of the cottager. This can be expected for two reasons.
One is that the erstwhile rent-payingpeasant would be spendingless of
his time on his own land and more under supervision, and the land that
he would be able to cultivate would be smaller, approachingthat of a
cottager. The other reason is that the expropriationof the scarcity value
of labor of the cottager need involve few disruptiveland transferssince
it can take the form of a reduction in wages in money, kind, or keep. In
other words, an easy way of raisingthe ratio of demesne to peasantland
would be to settle people on terms analogous to the enserfed cottager.
Thus the number of smallholders and cottagers in Poland is generally
thoughtto have increased from the sixteenth to the eighteenthcentury.
The fall in the proportion of the self-sufficient peasants in the rural
populationof the sample of royal villages in the Cracow Palatinatefrom
1564 to 1660 and in the bishopric and chapter of Chelm from the early
seventeenth century to the 1660sand 1670swas matchedby a rise in the
proportionof tiny farms and small kitchen gardens. Similarlywhile the
numberof independentpeasants in the 12 villages of the crown estate of
61
French, "Three-FieldSystem," p. 111.
62
Rutkowski, "Poland, Lithuania,and Hungary,"pp. 491-92.
63 Aubin, "Lands East of the Elbe," p. 478.
6 See for example, Wallerstein, Modern World System: CapitalistAgriculture,pp. 87-114;
Engerman,"PropertyRights in Man," pp. 49-50.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 537

Korczyn was falling, the numberof smallholdersrose from 107 in 1600

to 234 in 1660.65Other indications of the size of the smallholdingclass
by the late eighteenth century are available, though without direct
comparisonwith earlier periods. Of the 6,487 tenancies in Rosdolsky's
100 Galician villages in 1785-1789 only 2,012 belonged to the larger
landholdingpeasants, while there were 3,239 peasants owning a small
piece of land adjacentto the house and, in addition, 1,236cottagerswith
a vegetable garden. Similarly by the second half of the eighteenth
century in East Elbian Germany and Prussia a considerable part of
estate labor (at least a half on some estates) came from cottagers, with a
garden and a customary wage, as well as wholly landless day laborers.
In the Kurmarkprovinces of Brandenburgthere is evidence of small-
holders and cottagers accounting for over half of the landholding
peasants, though its full significance is qualified by the demographic
upsurge during the century and by the changes in agriculturaltech-
niques towards the end.66
A second prediction would be that the old rent-payingpeasant would
now be spending more time on new tasks under supervision. There is
some evidence of this: peasant children were increasinglydraftedinto
domestic service; the peasant himself was involved in carting, cutting
timbers, guardingthe lord's harvest, transportingwood, and workingin
the lord's mills, breweries, distilleries, leadworks.67But in the basic
agriculturalwork most of the evidence is that the same production
methods were used as those on the peasant farm. The peasant took his
own draft animals and tools with him and worked on plowing, planting,
tilling, harvesting, and threshingon the demesne in the same way as on
his own land, with yields per acre if anythingslightly lower on demesne
land.' Despite the impressiongiven by phrases such as "efficientlyrun
latifundia," "efficiently administered estates," and in some cases by
references to active participationin work supervisionby the landlordor
his stewards, there is no evidence that the supervision involved
productivityimprovements in the use of agriculturallabor and land.
A third prediction is that the line between cottager and landholding
peasant should be blurred. Since the basic peasant class came to work
65 Kaminski, "Neo Serfdom in P~pland-Lithuania," pp. 264-65; Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's
Farm," pp. 150-51; Aldo De Maddalena, "Rural Europe 1500-1750," in Fontana Economic
Historyof Europe, TheSixteenthand SeventeenthCenturies,ed. C. Cipolla(Glasgow,1974),chap.
4, p. 288.
' Rosdolsky, "Distributionof the AgrarianProduct";Blum,Endof the OldOrder,p. 105;Ford,
"PrussianPeasantrybefore 1807," pp. 371-72.
67 Compare D. Molenda, "Investments in Ore Mining in Poland from the 13th to the 17th
Centuries,"Journalof EuropeanEconomicHistory, 5 (Spring1976),151-69;J. Leskiewicz, "Les
Entraves Sociales au Ddveloppement de la 'Nouvelle Agriculture'en Pologne," Deuxieme
ConferenceInternationaled'HistoireEconomique:Aix-en-Provence,1962 (Paris, 1965),p. 241.
' Kaminski, "Neo Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,"p. 261; Ford, "PrussianPeasantrybefore
1807," p. 372; Kula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, pp. 116, 149; Leskiewicz, "Les
EntravesSociales," p. 238.
538 Millward

under supervisionthey became in that sense on a par with the cottagers.

There was therefore no reason why the cottagers' work should not
extend to the traditionalagriculturaltasks as well as the more special-
ized work alluded to earlier. Thus increasingly over time there is
evidence of cottagers performinglabor services, that is "unpaid"work
additionalto that for which their wage was officialcompensation. Thus
by the second half of the eighteenth century in Brandenburgpeasant
households with substantialholdings had to do three days a week with a
team of draft animals, but cottagers with only a house or yard had also
to do three days, and in the Uckmarkfour to six days.69In the Galician
villages of the 1780s the annual number of days of forced labor with
animalsand of hand services averaged out for the smallholdingpeasant
at 93 or only some 15 percent less than the obligation of the larger
landholdingpeasant, while the cottagers and labor serfs averaged 32
days.
A finalimplicationof the incentive structurerelates to the activities of
the peasant on his own land. The organizationalfeatures of serfdom in
Eastern Europe had two importantcorollaries for peasant production.
First, the lord had to estimate the maximumquantitiesof land and labor
time to leave to the peasant for his sustenance. Kula particularlyhas
stressed the great difficultiesin doing this and the gradualencroachment
of peasant land to which it led, as well as the surplusmanpowerthat it
sometimes left on peasant land.70Second, however, peasantproduction
and sales in connection with their own time were not monitoredclosely.
Whateverland and labor time he finishedup with the peasant had every
incentive to be highly productiveand every incentive to sell any surplus
over consumption. The scale of peasant productionand of peasant sales
to the market has long been a puzzle, apparentlyinconsistent with the
nonprogressive character of enserfment.7'Perhaps the explanationlies
in the necessary crudeness with which the lords adjustedthe peasants'
time to their needs.
Zytkowicz's data from the 1595 and 1650 inventories of the Plock
episcopate suggest that a peasant family of 7.5 equivalentadultswith an
officially recorded holding of 1 wioca and with average yield from seed
of 22/3:1 would not be able to sustain itself.72After makingprovisionfor
seed corn, meeting manorialtributes of 7.5 bushels of grain per wioca,
and church dues of about 10 percent the balance would not be enough
for the family's normal consumption requirements. Indeed half-wloca
peasant families would produce a surplus of productionover consump-
tion, seed, and manorialobligationsonly in years of good yields of 4:1 or
69 Blum, End of the Old Order,p. 54.
70
Kula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, pp. 49-50.
71 CompareKula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, p. 135.
72
Zytkowicz,"AgriculturalProductionin Masovia," pp. 112-18.See also Topolski,"Economic
Decline in Poland," p. 132.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 539

more and 1-wloca families when yields were 3:1 or more. In fact
peasants nibbled away at vacant plots, rooted up thickets, harrowed
unplantedland, and tilled pastures and meadows not used intensively.
They could underfeed the draft animals used primarilyon the demesne
and could manuretheir own land better than the demesne. Some would
work outside agricultureas craftsmenor as wagoners. The peasantplots
would be intensively cultivated as fruit gardens and for raisingpigs and
poultry. Evidence from Masovia from the sixteenth century suggests
that if we allow for the produce surrenderedto the Church,which would
thereafter often be sold, some 30 percent of peasant grain production
finished up as market grain sales and 85 percent of total market sales
involved grain produced on peasant land.73Nor can it be argued over
the long term that these activities can be explained solely in terms of the
peasant's need to finance manorialdues in cash, since the cash income
was spent in other ways. A survey of royal estates in Poland showed
that the revenue from alcohol sales in the landlords'inns accounted for
only 0.3 percent of manorialmoney income in 1564 and 6.4 percent in
1661, but this had risen to 37.6 percent in 1764 and 40.1 percent in
1789.74

THE LABOR MARKET

One of the implications of enserfment just noted is the imbalance

between the supply and demand for labor. It can be discussed in terms
of the formal model. If free rents on one estate happened to be lower
than rents on another estate, the lord being equally efficientand the land
equally productive, a movement in the long run of peasants from one
estate to the other would equalize the rental payments. Likewise, when
populationrose in one region of the whole area and fell in another, we
would predict a movement of peasants. The same applies to the
benchmarkcase of the lord renting marginalland to the least efficient
peasants. Peasant movement would ensure that on each estate the rent
was equalized and just sufficient to cover administrationcosts for the
least efficient lords, as in equation (1) above. To the extent that peasant
income from the plot, Qu, exceeds what can be earned outside the area
(Y) then in the even longer run some immigrationwould be expected,
given enough land and lords, thereby changingthe location and identity
of the marginalestates.
Enserfment stops immigrationand forecloses the other equalizing
tendencies. With a given population of peasants, Et in equation (5)

73 The churchtithe was often levied as a percentageof the crop and hence left an incentiveto the
peasants to maximizeproduction,even though peasant income was reduced, other things being
equal, relative to activities which did not carry such a tax.
74 Kula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, p. 139.
540 Millward

constitutes the profits of enserfing the tenants on the benchmark

marginalestate. There is no reason to expect that it will be the same for
all lords and lands of the same productivitysince it would vary with the
local costs of subsistence and the particularorganizationalfeatures of
enserfment. Thus profits from serfdom will be higher in some places
than in others. Even if they were not different initially, rises in
populationin one region and falls in others would have a similareffect.
Thus even with a constant aggregatepopulationthe economic value of a
serf will be higherin some estates and regions than in others. The value
in the case of the benchmarkestate is simply Em.An analogousproblem
of imbalance applies for labor used in teamwork. Movement of free
peasant labor would have ensured the same wage rate for comparable
work circumstances, tending to the level of net output on the marginal
managedestate, as shown by equation (2). The profitsto the lord from
the enserfmentof the agriculturallaborer, EFrin equation(6), are likely
thereforealso to vary. To the extent that Emand EFTvary across regions
or activities there are sectoral imbalances between labor supply and
demand. To the extent that they are positive, there is an overall excess
demandfor serf labor.
The immediate implicationof this analysis is that economic pressure
is likely to exist for the growth of marketsin serfs whose annualhiring
rates would be bid up towards ET and Em,the price beingthe capitalized
values of these amounts. Sales of serfs did occur in EasternEurope, but
such a debasement of the peasant's right to remainin his home village
was not widespread. What the analysis does suggest, however, is that if
sales of serfs did not grow sufficientlyto exhaust the excess demands
impliedin Emand ET',then residualeconomic pressureswould exist for
other solutions. Such pressures can perhapsexplain the growingmarket
in freely contracted wage labor (to make up the misallocations of
serfdom), the resilience of free market rents in some regions, and the
highly active land market (if one cannot buy serfs, one can buy the
land).
There are reports of sales of serfs in Eastern Pomeraniain the late
sixteenth century and by that time the law in Lithuaniaallowed lords to
sell their peasants, but in general the sale of serfs seems to have been a
phenomenon of the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century.
In Brandenburga 1681 law allowed the sale of serfs, but despite some
authenticated cases the trade does not seem to have been large. In
Mecklenburg there was an active open trade in serfs from the mid-
seventeenth century even though this was not officially sanctioned by
the goverment until 1757. There were governmentbans on sale in 1773
in East Prussiaand in 1759in PrussianSilesia, thoughreportsof sales in
the lattercontinued to 1795.They were common in Swedish Pomerania,
where as late as the 1780s legislation specifically permittedthe sale of
serfs without land as well as mortgagingand exchanging them. Eight-
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 541

eenth-centuryjurists decided that despite the silence of the law, Polish

lords could sell serfs. The evidence suggests much of the trade was
local, though there were some long-distance sales and even some to
Germany.75
Such transactions appear, however, to be dwarfed by the reports of
usage of free-wage labor. To explain why some agriculturallabor was
not enserfed is outside the scope of the paper. That free wage labor is
often found in Prussia is symptomaticof the prevalenceof free peasants
in that region, as are the reports of the use of day laborersnear some of
the larger towns (to which threatened free peasants often migrated).76
Whatthe analysis does suggest, however, is that the price or annualhire
rate for serfs, or the incrementalsupervision costs, could be such as to
render serf labor no more profitable than free wage labor. The two
systems exhibited by equations (2) and (6) could coexist if the additional
supervisioncosts entailed in the enserfmentof free labor, CY',were high
enough or if the hiring rate approachedthe level of BEV,the expropria-
tion yielded by their enserfment. Thus it has alreadybeen noted that by
the late eighteenth century a considerable part of the labor of some
estates (up to half in some) in East Elbian Germanyand Prussia came
from a group embracing landless laborers and cottagers. On some
estates the number of day laborers equaled the numberof landholding
peasants.77It has been estimated that in the Kurmarkof Brandenburg
by the end of the eighteenth century there were three times as many
landless peasants as there were peasants with holdings.78In Prussia in
the sixteenth century the nobility, towns, and large peasantfarms hired
servants, milkmaids, oxherds, and numerous seasonal workers, many
coming from Masovia (whence labor also migratedto Silesia). Most of
the wage was a payment in kind. Maczak's calculationof wage rates in
Poland and Prussia for the late sixteenth century, suggestingrelatively
higher rates near to towns and in Prussia, supportthe propositionthat
the incidence of wage labor rather than serfdom cannot be explained
simply in terms of the degree to which wage labor is costly. The growth
of day laborers has been seen as part of the expansion of Royal Prussia
in the sixteenth century.79In the seventeenth century there is evidence
that the farms of the nobility employed more day laborersthan serfs and
that recovery from the depression of the mid-seventeenthcentury was
partly based on such labor supplies.80By the eighteenth century there
" Blum, "Rise of Serfdom," p. 832; Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 162; Ford, "Prussian
Peasantrybefore 1807," p. 365; Blum, End of the Old Order,pp. 41-42.
76 Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," p. 140;Ford, "PrussianPeasantrybefore 1807," p. 359;
Topolski, "La Refdodalisationdans 1'economie des grands domaines en Europe centrale et
orientate(XVIe-XVIIIe ss)," Studia Historiae Oeconomicae,6 (1971),p. 59.
77 Ford, "PrussianPeasantrybefore 1807," pp. 366-67.
78 Blum, End of the Old Order,p. 106.
79 Maczak, "Export of Grain," pp. 94-95; idem, "Money and Society," pp. 99-101.
80 Topolski, "Economic Decline in Poland," pp. 134-138.
542 Millward

were many thousands of landless in Prussia earningtheir living as farm

laborers. It has been estimated that in East Prussia as early as 1700the
69,231 peasants with holdings were outnumbered by 72,611 landless
farm laborers. In general the free wage labor of Eastern Europe of the
eighteenth century dwelt in huts, sometimes rented, sometimes in the
quartersof other peasants. If they marriedand took a plot they merged
with the cottage class with all its obligations.8'
The existence of free labor is to be explained in two ways: there were
groups who for reasons not explored here were not enserfed and
enserfmentitself involved its own costs so that in some cases it was no
more profitablethan free wage labor. Likewise rents could persist for
some free peasants, and other rent-paying peasants would escape
serfdom when the costs to the lord outweighed the expropriationof the
scarcity value of labor.
The prevalence of free peasants in Prussia is partly traced to the
German freemen of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries
who were granted Culmic law by the Teutonic Knights. In the fifteenth
century the Bishopric of Ermlandwas separatedfrom Prussia and was
not secularized later, remaininga district with a strongpeasantry.82The
royal domains were also important;by the 1570s they are estimated to
account for about 10-15 percent of all villages in Poland, but in Royal
Prussia were 32 percent, or 49 percent of all taxable peasant land.
Moreover, of all Polish crown provinces, large noble estates in Royal
Prussia showed the weakest growth and were the last to develop.83In
the sixteenth century there was a growth in peasant farmingby plowing
of wastelands and by enlargement of farms. The latter was especially
noticeable in the fertile regions of the Vistula estuary where there was a
free land market and where by the end of the century many peasant
farms had grown to 60 hectares, twice as big as those in the Upper
Vistula.84By the early seventeenth century the peasant farms in Royal
Prussiastill retainedtheir independence. There were no demesnes in the
widespreadpossessions of the cities of Elbing and Gdansk,whose lands
were mostly leased for rents. In Ducal Prussiait has been estimatedthat
15 percent of all land was owned by the Colmer.The recovery in Royal
Prussia after the mid-seventeenth century was based on tenant farming
and rents as well as the day labor noted above, and the stratumof free
peasants in Prussia was also being enlarged by Dutch colonists.85
81 Blum, End of the Old Order,pp. 105-10. This surely accounts for Kaminski'spuzzle ("Neo
Serfdomin Poland-Lithuania,"p. 266) that many landless laborersdid not take up the life of the
cottagereven though there was enough land.
82
Carsten,Originsof Prussia, pp. 160-64.
83 Maczak, "Social Distributionof Landed Property," p. 458; Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's
Farm," p. 138.
4 Maczak, "Export of Grain," pp. 94-95.
85 Carsten, Origins of Prussia, p. 161; Topolski, "Economic Decline in Poland," pp. 134-38;
Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," pp. 141-42.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 543

By the eighteenth century the term Colmer was being used through-
out East ElbianGermanyand East Prussiafor free peasantsthoughthey
still predominatedin East Prussia. They could still sell their land, but
were increasingly liable to dues when they were on royal and noble
estates, and needed to obtain the superior owner's consent for alien-
ation. Nevertheless it is estimated that by 1798 twenty-one percent of
peasant holdings in East Prussia belonged to free peasants.86Nor was
Poland as a whole by that stage much different;of one million holdings
at the end of the eighteenth century some 20-30 percent were held by
free men.87Many were immigrants,especially runawaysfrom Pomera-
nia and Silesia, welcomed by Polish landownerswho were content with
quitrents. Others were residents of towns, holdingland on free tenures
on the basis of city privileges granted in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
The evidence of Eastern White Russia is less clear. It has been
suggested that one of its most characteristic features, as part of the
Polish-LithuanianState, was the delay in the execution of the wioca
reforms.Associated with this was a low proportionof demesne landand
of corvee at least until the latter part of the seventeenth century.
Manuscriptsrelated to the estates around Szklow suggest that peasant
sales of hemp flourished,that mills, distilleries, rents, and tributeswere
the dominantform of income for the magnateclass up to the 1670sand
that the numberof cottagers was small.88Apparentlythe administrative
and organizationalcosts of enserfmentmeant a slow developmentof the
demesne-serf economy.
Finally, it is notable that a highly active marketin land predatedthe
marketin serfs. If the land was settled with serfs, as opposed to simply
vacant land, sales are consistent with the thesis of an economic pressure
arising from imbalances in the supply and demand for serfs, lacking
direct sale of the serfs. Maczak has pointed to incessant propertysales
involving cash and credit in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Po-
land.89Data from the voivodship of Cracow suggest that on average
three to four manors changed hands each year and in some years the
number was very large. More generally the whole colonization move-
ment to the East in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries invariably
involved peasant settlers followed by Polish nobles ratherthanthe other
way around.

8 Blum, "Rise of Serfdom," pp. 358, 370 fn; idem, End of the Old Order,p. 30.
87
Blum(Endof the OldOrder,pp. 30-32) suggeststhatthe proportionof peasantswho were free
at the end of the eighteenthcenturywas higherin East than West Germanyand higherin Poland
and the Danubianprincipalitiesthan in all the servile lands.
8 Topolska, "Eastern White Russia," p. 43.
89 Maczak, "Exportof Grain,"pp. 86-90. For Polish colonizationof the Russianlands see P. I.
Lyashchenko,"WhiteRussiaand the Ukraineunderthe PolishYoke of Serfdomduringthe 14thto
17thCenturies,"History of the National Economyof Russia, (New York, 1970),chap. 14.
544 Millward

MARKET GRAIN SALES AND EXPORTS

Some of the major features of the corvee in Eastern Europe can

thereforebe explained without invoking the traditionalexplanation,the
rise in demand for cereal exports. The analysis has demonstratedthat
serfdom can be profitable to the lords independent of any exogenous
increase in marketdemand. Indeed there is some direct evidence that in
Great and Little Poland in the sixteenth century 75 percent of land was
owned by the middle gentry, who continued to use their small demesnes
largely to satisfy the needs of their own households and servants.
Similarly in Eastern White Russia in 1645 in the 45 Szklow villages
leased by the middle gentry demesne accounted for some 19 percent
of land, and the manors produced mainly goods consumed by the
owners.' There is nothing in the logic of corv~e to suggest that market
grain sales or exports would be uniquely associated with demesne-serf
productionor that demesne grain sales would be restrictedto exports.
Nor does the increasingbody of evidence for Eastern Europe suggest it
was so. Grainsales, and in particulartheir increase in the sixteenth and
first half of the seventeenth century, were not uniquely associated with
demesne production. Indeed the demesne is possibly not even prepon-
derant. The evidence from the 1585 and 1650 inventories of the Plock
episcopate in Masovia indicated that while 24 percent of demesne grain
was sold, rather than consumed, the figure for peasant land was 26
percent; as noted earlier, of total grain sales 85 percent involved the
produce of peasant land. While the percentageof grainoutput account-
ed for by the commercial crop, rye, rose during 1595-1650proportion-
ately more on demesne land than on peasant land, it did nevertheless
rise on peasant land from 60 to 70 percent.9' It has been estimated that
towardsthe end of the sixteenth century in Royal Prussiathe proportion
of productionthat was sold was higher (at 50 percent)than in the other
Polish Crown territories and yet, as already noted, this was a region
with the highest proportionof free peasants and the lowest percentage
of land under demesne.92
Moreover, neither exports in total nor their increase in the sixteenth
and first half of the seventeenth century was uniquely associated with
demesne production.It is recognized that in Royal Prussiaan important
part of the export increase over 1580-1650 was met by peasant
clearance of wastes and peasant sales.93Grainexports throughGdansk
are known to have been dominatedby rye and the evidence of the Plock
Episcopate is that the proportionof sales accounted for by exports was

90Topolska, "EasternWhiteRussia," p. 42; Kaminski,"Neo Serfdomin Poland-Lithuania,"

p.
261.
9' Zytkowicz, "AgriculturalProductionin Masovia," pp. 117-18.
92 Wyczanski, "Polish Rye Trade," p. 118; Maczak, "Export on Grain," pp. 91-94.
93 Maczak, "Export of Grain," pp. 94-95.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 545

twice as big for rye (40 percent) as for other grains.94Since about 30
percent of peasant rye productionin Masovia was sold it is highly likely
that some ended up as exports.95 It is known that lords bought up
peasant grain. Similarly the evidence from the river registers for the
second half of the sixteenth century suggests that merchants, who
boughtcorn from peasants, accounted for 10percentof the Vistulagrain
trade from Little Poland, 16 percent Ruthenia and Volhynia, and 33
percent Masovia, all of which areas were associated with the export
increase.' More generally the evidence indicates that the Teutonic
Knights were great exporters in the fourteenth century but their grain
came from peasant rents in kind as well as from demesnes. In any event
the early date of the rise of corvde in East Elbian Germanyand Prussia
has cast doubt on its empirical association with the rise in exports.97
And sales from demesne-serf estates were not restrictedto exports. It is
now agreed that in Poland it was demand in the domestic market that
accompaniedthe initial expansion of demesne in the central provinces.
In Silesia big farms grew up in the fifteenth century catering for the
domestic market. In Western Pomerania demesne productionfor the
market grew at the end of the fourteenth century, responding to the
urbandemand from Stettin.98
The analysis so far has ignored the fact that enserfmentby definition
involves a redistribution of real income from peasants to lords and
hence a change in the pattern of consumption demand. Consider an
extreme case where initially the free peasant is not engaged in market
sales; partof productionis consumed and the rest forms a rent in kindto
the lord who (to take again the extreme case) consumes all of it.
Enserfmentinvolves a ceteris paribus reductionin peasantconsumption
and an increase in produce available to the lord. Assume that the lord
wishes his increase in real income to take a form other than the previous
production pattern. He either so directs the serf that the range of
productsis changed (which no doubt happenedto some extent, but will
here be ignored) or he attempts to sell the produce and buy new
consumption goods. The direct implication, then, is that as long as
enserfmentinvolves extra supervision costs its profitabilitywill depend

9 CompareMaczak, "The Balance of Polish Sea Tradewith the West, 1565-1646,"Scandina-

vianEconomicHistoryReview, 18 (1970), 107-42;W. Rusinski,"The Role of PolishTerritoriesin
the EuropeanTradein the Seventeenthand EighteenthCenturies,"Studia Historiae Oeconomi-
cae, 3 (1969), 115-34; and Wyczanski's ("Polish Rye Trade") estimate that 90 percent of grain
exports were rye.
95 This can be deduced from Zytkowicz's figures ("AgriculturalProductionin Masovia," pp.
117-19).
96Maczak, "Export of Grain," Table 2. See also Wyrobisz,"SmallTowns in Poland,"for the
activitiesof merchants.
97Carsten,Originsof Prussia, chap. 8; Rosenberg,"Rise of the Junkers,"p. 234.
9 Zytkowicz, "The Peasant's Farm," pp. 137, 14445.
546 Millward

on the terms of trade, including transport costs, between demesne

produce and the new consumption goods.
Whether or not the extra demesne produce is sold will therefore
depend in part on the initial real income levels of lords and their
consumptionpreferences. The evidence does suggest that the increased
real income of the lords took the form in part of market purchases.
During the first half of the seventeenth century, for example, the
production of the commercial crop rye on the demesnes of the Plock
episcopate in Masovia rose from 39 percent of total grainproductionto
47 percent.99Evidence from the Vistula registersfor 1555-1576suggests
that good harvests in Great and Little Poland, Ruthenia, and Volhynia
elicited a proportionately larger increase in river transport of grain
belonging to merchants, clergy, and the middle gentry than for the
category embracing magnates and rich gentry.'0?The first part of the
seventeenth century witnessed also a considerable rise in imports at
Gdanskof finertextiles and "colonial goods. "'0' Furthermoreit is clear
that market demand was influenced very much by exports. They have
been estimated to be of the order of 25-45 percent of rye sales
throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.102 Whatever the
margins of error in such figures, exports were clearly an important
componentof demandand the evidence is that export demandwas price
elastic, absorbing many of the variations in local harvests.'03 The
evidence that grain prices in Poland declined as one moved inlandfrom
Gdanskis therefore suggestive of a relatively competitive setting where
costs of productionvaried geographicallybecause of the transportcosts
ratherthan other costs. 104
It is therefore analyticallypossible that the profitabilityof enserfment
was determinedin some places or periods by the profitabilityof exports.
This has two implications. Of two estates differentiatedonly by their
access to markets, one might have demesne serf productionfor market
sales while the other mighthave a free peasantrypayingrents. A second
implicationis that there are special advantagesto lords who are engaged
in the marketto extend their enserfmentto transportduties, and indeed
to use all their noble power to obtain advantageousterms of trade.
99Zytkowicz, "AgriculturalProductionin Masovia," pp. 113-18.
'? Maczak, "Export of Grain," Table 2.
Maczak, "Balance of Polish Sea Trade."
102
Kula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, pp. 92-93; Wyczanski,"Polish Rye Trade,"
p. 130.
103 Kula, Economic Theoryof the Feudal System, pp. 93-100; Bogucka, "Merchants'Profitsin
GdanskForeignTradein the First Half of the 17thCentury,"Acta PoloniaeHistoricae,23 (1971),
73-90; Bogucka, "The Role of Baltic Trade in EuropeanDevelopmentfrom the XVIth to the
XVIIIth Centuries,"Journal of EuropeanEconomic History (Spring 1980),p. 7. On this whole
paragraphsee also W. Abel, AgriculturalFluctuations in Europefrom the Thirteenthto the
TwentiethCenturies(New York, 1980),part 2.
104Maczak, "Agriculturaland Livestock Production,"p. 675; Kula, Economic Theoryof the
Feudal System, p. 127 and fn.
 Serfdom in Eastern Europe 547

There is clear evidence of the extensive use of serfs in carting

demesne produce and of course in the involvement of lords in river
transportand in obtaining special commercialprivileges at the expense
of urbanmerchants. The evidence of periods when exports were clearly
decisive in encouragingenserfment is not so clear-cut. That exporting
estates in Masovia, Ruthenia, and Little Polandwere on the riverroutes
and that in the more Easternregions they were located nearto the rivers
Bug and San could simply be indicating that grain-sellingdemesnes
whose produce was exported had better access to long-distancetrans-
port. It has earlier been recorded, moreover, that there were demesne-
serf estates which sold to local markets, and some that catered largely
for the lord's own consumption. The proposition that market demand
for grain was decisive in affecting the profitability (as opposed to
possibility) of enserfment does not imply that, in the absence of such a
rise in demand, demesne estates would have been cateringfor the lord's
consumption. It implies that enserfment would not have taken place at
all. By extension, the proposition that export demand was decisive
implies that enserfment would otherwise not have taken place on many
estates and estate income would have been based largelyon the rents of
free peasants. In the Eastern regions there is some basis for thinking
that in the more remote areas the unattractiveness of exports was
associated with a delayed process of enserfment, but this needs firmer
documentationthan appears to exist at present.

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of the fifteenth century Eastern Europe had a free

peasantry. The model developed here shows how, in the context of a
noble monopoly of land ownership, the basic production process of
peasant grain cultivation yields maximumincome to lords and peasants
under a system of rents, and the evidence is consistent with that. In
addition it has been demonstrated that insofar as they require super-
vised productionprocesses, the other products of this economy-noble
leisure, housing, specialized agriculturalproducts, and so forth-would
yield a set of contractualrelationshipsinvolving wage laborof one form
or another.
Eastern European serfdom of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries
was definedin terms of its attenuationof peasant rights. By extension of
the above model it was then shown that, in the central activity of
peasant grain cultivation, a reorganization of production would be
requiredin order to minimize the supervision costs inherentlyassociat-
ed with enserfment. It is this consideration that explains the rise of
corvee, the rise in the ratio of demesne to peasant land, and that also
predicts an element of demesne strip consolidation for which there is
548 Millward

some evidence. It was shown also that, by its inherentinvolvementwith

supervision, the use of serf labor in work methods, which even under
freely contracted arrangementswould have involved supervision, be-
comes especially profitablebecause of its expropriationof work premi-
ums and its low incrementalsupervision costs. The use of serf labor in
domestic work, distilleries, lead mining, mills, and so forth follows
naturally, though an unsolved question is why this did not apparently
lead to any improvementsin the use of agriculturallabor and land.
Some writers have explained the incidence of free wage laborandfree
marketrents in Eastern Europe of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries
in terms of the fertility of particular areas and their proximity to
markets. It is shown in this paper that such propositionsare analytically
unsound and that the incidence of free systems of labororganizationare
to be explained on the one hand simply by the fact that some peasants
never became enserfed, and on the other, given the prospective
imbalancesbetween labor demand and supply inherentto serfdom, free
wage labor and market rents could be as profitableas serf agriculture
insofar as the latter involved significantsupervision costs or significant
hiringrates for serfs.
Finally, it has been demonstrated that any decisive connection
between exports and enserfment would have to rest first on serfdom
having significant supervision costs and second on exports being a
particularlyprofitable part of market grain sales. There is inadequate
evidence available at present to suggest that exports had such a decisive
effect in the sense of there being switches from free peasantry to
serfdom which would not have happened but for the rise in export
demand.