Chapter 15: Society and Economy under the Old Regime in the

18th Century
 After the French Revolution, previous customs were called ancien régime (Old Regime)
 Absolute monarchies with growing bureaucracies and aristocratically led armies
 Unsophisticated financially, less food
 Socially, people are part of a group, rather than individuals
 tradition
 hierarchy
 corporate feeling
 Changing
 Farming becoming commercialized
 American colonies → demand for European goods
 Preparing for war → new demands for resources

Major Features of Life in the Old Regime

 Basis of pre-revolutionary Europe
 aristocrats have tons of inherited legal privileges
 established churches that worked with the gov or aristocracy
 urban labor force usually organized into guilds
 rural peasantry who paid high taxes
 Maintenance of Tradition
 Most people did not want change or innovation
 Nobles had an ancient right
 Peasants wanted customary manorial rights
• access to particular lands, courts, or grievance procedures
 Quality and quantity of grain was very important
 Hierarchy and Privilege
 New law: You could not wear clothing like that of your superiors
 Made social hierarchy visible
 Corporate nature of social relationships was more effective
 people belonged to communities
• had rights based on which communities they belonged to
• ex. guild, church, university, etc.

The Aristocracy
 18th century: great for aristocracy
 1-5% of population
 often had their own house of parliament
 Land was their main source of revenue
 Manual labor beneath them
 Except for England and France
• nobility innovated to protect their wealth
 Varieties of Aristocratic Privilege
 British nobility
 400 families
• eldest male from each → House of Lords
 • younger sons moved into military, commerce, or the Church
 smallest, wealthiest, most defined, most socially responsible aristocracy
 collected and paid taxes
 few significant legal privileges, but influenced local politics
 French nobility
 400,000 nobles
• of the sword: from military service
• of the robe: from bureaucracy or purchased
 Nobles wanted high positions (would give them tons of wealth)
 hobereaux- provincial nobility
• only a little better than wealthy peasants
 Legal privileges
• exempt from taxes
• rarely paid the vingtième (income tax) in full
• exclusive hunting and fishing privileges
• could collect feudal dues from peasants
 Eastern European Nobilities
 szlachta- the Polish nobility
• exempt from taxes until 1741
• possessed the right of life and death over their serfs until 1768
• Most of the nobility were poor
 Austria and Hungary
• nobility controlled the judicial system
• Prince Esterhazy of Hungary, the wealthiest, owned 10 mil acres
 Prussia
• After Frederick the Great (1740), they became stronger
• most of the officers in the military
• extensive judicial authority over serfs
 Russia
• 18th century created the nobility
• Determined to resist compulsory state service
• 1785: Charter of the Nobility
 Catherine the Great defined the rights of nobles
 Nobles would serve the state voluntarily
 Aristocratic Resurgence
 Nobility's reaction to the threat to their social position and privileges
 Make it more difficult to become a noble
 reserve the highest appointments in the military, bureaucracy, government, and Church
 To resist the monarchy's power
 Use aristocratically controlled institutions to resist the power of the monarch
 Ex. Parliament
 Improve financially
 Get exempt from taxes

The Land and its Tillers

 Land → money, power, social status
 ¾ of Europeans lived in the country
 Peasants and Serfs
  The class that owned the land usually controlled the government
 Obligations of Peasants
 West to East: power of landowner increases
 French peasants paid banalités (feudal dues)
• seigneur's: use-for-payment of the lords
• Could include corvée (forced labor)
 Landowners had enormous power over serfs
• Habsburg lands: serfs required to provide service (robot) to the lords
 Russia serfdom similar to slavery
• A landowner could exile a serf to Siberia
 Ottoman empire serfs had freedom
• landlord managed estate through an overseer
• Scarcity of labor gave the peasants their freedom
• Serfs became dependent on the landowners for protection and tools
 Peasant Rebellions
 Russian monarchy contributed to degradation of serfs
• Peter the Great gave villages to nobles
• Catherine the Great told nobles they had authority over serfs
• in exchange for their cooperation
• 50 peasant revolts 1762-69
• Pugachev’s Rebellion
• He promised peasants freedom/land
• Brutally suppressed
• Sig: any thought of improving serf’s condition set aside
• Smaller disturbances in Bohemia, Transylvania, Moravia, & Austria
• No revolts in West, but England had rural riots
• Wrath directed at property, not persons
• Conservative in nature (keep things how they are, no new taxes on them and stuff)
 Aristocratic Domination of the Countryside: English Game Laws
 Related to economic and social status
 1671-1831: English landowners could hunt game
 Hares, partridges, pheasants, moor fowl
 Shooting a deer when you don’t own land = capital offence in 18th century
 Cannot hunt:
 Renters of land
 Wealthy city merchants who didn’t own land
• Gentry wanted to show who’s boss
 Poor people in city and country
• Gentry thought it would undermine work
 Gentry enforced laws
 Parliamentary reps. And justices of peace
• J of p fined wealthy poachers (farmers who rented land)
• Gentry employed gameskeepers
• Protect game, kill poacher’s dogs
 Poaching = one way for poor to find food
 Black market
 Demand in cities for premium meat
 Village/country locals would steal game and sell it to higglers (later coachmen)
 Higglers/coachmen smuggled game into city, poulterers sold it for premium price
  Aristocrats constructed game reserves
 Rural poor lost the communal land
 Amount of poaching/penalties for poaching increased in 1790s after outbreak of French Rev.
 Britain involved in wars = more hardship for poor and huger in cities
 1820s- landowners/reformers want law change
• 1831: Parliament rewrote game laws: Landowner had possession of game, but could
allow others to hunt on it

Family Structures and Family Economy

 Family Economy- productive families hard no more than a handful of people outside the family working for
it
 Most lived in Rural areas
 Households
 Northwestern Europe
 Nuclear
 A couple, children (to teenage years), grandparents, and a few servants
 High death rates late marriage- no families more than 3 generations
 Children
• Lived w/ family ‘til early teens, then left home to become young servants
• Marry and form independent households
• Neolocalism- process of moving away from home
• Marriages - men: 26+ women: 23+
• Premarital sex common
• Couple would hire a servant (usually a young person who helped out the
household and was not necessarily poorer)
• Some servants for 8-10 years, which accounts for the late marriage age
 Eastern Europe
 Marriage before 20
 Wives older than husbands (especially w/ Russian serfs)
 Larger household
• 3 or 4 generations
 Marriage = not starting new household, but staying in same one
 Landholding structure
• Eg: Poland
• Landowners did not want their serfs to marry outside of the estate
• Widows/widowers remarry to assure adequate labor for a plot of land
• Polish laborers frowned upon hiring free laborers (like servants in the West) but
rather preferred serfs
• Inhibited formation of independent households
• Russia
• Landlords required families in their villages to arrange early marriages
• Landlords unfavorable to 1st generation families- death of one person = land
uncultivated
 The Family Economy
 Household was the basic unit of production and consumption
 Impossible for ordinary individuals to support themselves
 Everyone worked
 Work for family, not for yourself
  Many would work elsewhere and send money back to the family
 Skilled urban artisans
 Father employed servants, but also expected children to work
 In Western Europe: dead husband → disaster
 widow tried to remarry quickly
 Personal, emotional, and economic vulnerability
 Women and the Family Economy
 Women tried to establish and maintain a household
 Marriage was a necessity
 Except for aristocrats or members of religious orders, women could not be economically
independent
 An artisan's daughter would stay in the house until marriage
 A farmer's daughter would leave at age 12-14
 Most of the farming was done by men
 Became a servant at another farm
• Chief goal: get enough money for a dowry
 Once married, chief concern = have enough money for food
 Artisan wives would help run the finances of the business
 Women had less education, fewer opportunities, and lower wages than men
 Children and the World of the Family Economy
 Childbirth → fear and vulnerability
 Tons of diseases
 Many used wet nurses
 Aristocracy for convenience
 Peasant women didn't have the time
 Many babies were unwanted
 New interest in preserving the lives of abandoned children
 Paris Foundling Hospital (1670)
 London Foundling Hospital (1739)
 10% of abandoned children lived past age 10
 The rich began to educate their children

The Revolution in Agriculture

 Tillers resisted change the might endanger their food supply
 A rising price of grain put pressure on the poor
 Land owners with surplus made a lot of money
 New Crops and New Methods
 Dutch farmers planted turnips to cultivate fields and increase animal fodder
 English landlords later hired Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer
 Jethro Tull
 Iron plows to turn the earth more deeply
 planting wheat by drill
 Charles “Turnip” Townsend
 Crop rotation using wheat, turnips, barley, and clover
 More livestock could be raised
• And fed during winter
 Robert Bakewell
 new methods of animal breeding
  Arthur Young wrote a book about the whole thing: Annals of Agriculture
 Enclosure Replaces Open-Field Method
 Open-Field method
• Individual farmers tilled an assortment of unconnected strips
• Common land for animals to graze
 Enclosures
• To increase profitability of land
• Fencing common lands
• Peasants hated the enclosures
 Benefits
• increased food production and innovation
 Bad stuff
• disrupted small traditional communities
• forced independent farmers off the land
 Landlords began to care less and less about the welfare of their peasants
 Limited Improvements in Eastern Europe
 Dutch had efficient farming
 French limited enclosures, but people wanted them
 Prussia, Austria, Poland, and Russia had little improvement
 Expansion of the Population
 Need to provide consumer goods for increasing population fueled the “demand side” of Industrial
Rev.
 Agriculture innovations
 Pop. of Europe 1700 (excluding Ottoman Emp.): 100-120 mill.
 1800: 190 mill.
 1850: 260!
 England and Wales, France, and Russia saw significant increases in population
 Growth in countries and cities
 Cause of growth:
 Fewer wars/epidemics
 Hygiene/ sanitation improvements
 Medical techniques NOT direct cause (advances came after boom)
 Food improvements
• Grain production
• Cultivation of potato
• From New World, peasants planted a lot o’ ‘em
 Impact:
 Demands for foods/jobs/services
 New pool of labor
 More people lived in countryside than there was employment
 Migration +
 Society & social regime literally outgrew traditional bounds

The Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century

 Industrial Rev.- 2nd ½ of 18th century, sustained economic growth
 Production of more goods and services than ever before
 Demanded new skills, discipline in work, large labor force
 Raised standard of living
  What happened in Brit. was the = of politically what happened during French Rev, thus it was an
Industrial Rev
 It was slow but it had a big impact on society
 A Revolution in Consumption
 Inventions increased supply of goods, but demands for those everyday goods created supply
 Demand for goods sparked ingenuity of designers/inventors
 Change in consumption
 Dutch prosperous
• Most likely b/c of farming advancements
 Not quick
• New methods of marketing-
• People persuaded to buy goods
• Josiah Wedgwood
• Made quality product and sold it to rich, made cheaper duplicate
product for others to buy
 New fashions
 Consumer goods raised standard of living in 18th century
 Industrial Leadership of Great Britain
 Ind. Rev. started in G.B.
 Remained industrial leader ‘til mid. 19th century
 London
 Largest city in Europe
• Consumers
• Advertising
 Center of a world of fashion and taste
 Britain – largest free trade area in Europe
 No trading tolls or trade barriers
 Stable political structure
 Sound system of banking and public credit = stable for investments
 Heavy taxation, but taxes were fair and approved by Parliament
 Indirect taxes
 All social classes/regions had same taxes
 People were able to rise socially and join the aristocracy if wealthy enough, or enjoy wealth outside
aristocracy
 These factors added w/ Britain’s agricultural advancements provided a advantage to create new mode
of economic production
 New Methods of Textile Production
 Textile industry pioneered I.R.
 Much of the earliest industrial changes happened in country
 Domestic system of textile production
 Agents of urban textile merchants took wool or other unfinished fibres to homes of peasants
where they spun it into thread
• Agent then took it to other peasants who wove thread into finished product
• Sometimes the peasant cottages had equipment, but by middle 18th the merchant
capitalist owned the machinery and raw material
• Demand for cotton textiles growing faster than production especially in Britain
 Spinning Jenny
 Spinners could not produce the amount of thread to keep up w/ the demand of weavers
 James Hargreaves invented spinning jenny
 • 1765
• Initially allowed 16 spindles of thread to be spun, end of century 120 spindles
 The Water Frame
 Richard Arkwright
 1769
 Took cotton textile manufacture out of home and into factory
 Water powered device designed to permit the production of a purely cotton fabric containing
linen fiber for durability
• Many water powered factories popped up near streams
 Cotton output increased 800% 1780-1800
 1815 cotton = 40% value of British domestic exports
• 1830, 50%
 I.R. began in 1780s, but not economically/socially felt ‘til early 19th century
 Incorporation of new inventions was slow
• Edmond Cartwright invented power loom 1780s, but not until 1830s were there more
power-loom weavers than hand-loom weavers
• First cotton mills used water power, were located in the country, had few workers
• James Watt invented steam engine so factories could be located near urban
centers
 Made possible the combination of urbanization and industrialization
 The Steam Engine
 Allowed industrialization to expand
 steady, unlimited source of inanimate power
• never got tired (unlike humans or animals)
 burning coal
 Invented by Thomas Newcomen
 Large and inefficient
 used to pump water from coal mines
 James Watt improved the design in 1769
 separate condenser from piston to increase efficiency
 Worked with Matthew Boulton (toy maker) and John Wilkinson (cannon maker) to make the
precise metalwork
 Design spread slowly until 1800 because Watt held the patent
 Boulton convinced Watt to modify the steam engine so that it could be used for cotton mills
 Iron Production
 Most industrial things require lots of iron
 Very low iron production in Britain
 Charcoal (rather than coke) used to smelt the ore
• becoming scarce, and does not burn as hot
 Until steam engine, could not achieve high enough blasts
 Began to use coke
 abundant because of numerous coal deposits
 Henry Cort introduced a new puddling process (to stir/melt molten ore)
 Purer iron
 Shape the molten metal, rather than pounding it later
 Iron became cheaper
 result → increased demand
 The Impact of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions on Working Women
 lower importance and role of women in the work force
  Traditionally, they gleaned grain and managed the cheese and milk industries
 Men began to operate machinery
 Gleaning became banned
 Women began to seem useless in the agricultural work force
 Textile manufacturing used to be a woman's job
 Many ex-weavers moved to the cottage industries (knitting, button making, etc.)
• Very little pay (many became criminals or prostitutes)
 Many women became domestic servants
 Result of the shift in female employment
 Women's work became associated with the home
 Women only did traditional work (not new technologies)
 Women work to supplement husband's income
 Men paid more than women

The Growth of Cities

 1500: 5% living in cities; 1800: 9% living in cities
 Patterns of Pre-industrial Growth
 Lots and lots of city growth in the 18th century
 Expansion mostly took place in already established cities
 Growth of Capitals and Ports
 The most rapid growth
• Capitals from increase in bureaucrats
• Ports from overseas trade
 Decline in some cities
• landlocked trading centers, Church places, and medieval industrial centers
 Emergence of New Cities and the Growth of Small Towns
 mid-eighteenth century: growth of existing cities declined, while new cities emerged
 Factors
• Population increase
• Growth of smaller towns near factories in the countryside
• Improved agricultural production allowed farmers access to consumer goods
 Urban Classes
 Notable division b/tw urban rich and poor
 Aristocrats/middle class- nice town houses
 Poorest- along rivers
 Small merchants/artisans lived above shops
• Whole families in one room
 Little sanitation
 Animals roamed streets
 Poverty worse in countryside, but more visible in city (begging, prostitution, etc.)
 Disease and degradation; overall bad life for poor folks in cities
 London’s “gin-age”
 Liquor consumption killed poor
 All over Europe public executions by ruling classes contrasted serenity of upper-commercial class life
w/ poor life
 Instruments of torture- Paris
 Public floggings- Russia
 Upper Classes
 Nobles, large merchants, bankers, financers, clergy, gov’t officials
Controlled city politically/economically
Oligarchy governed city through its corporation or city council
• Selected its own members
• Sometimes artisans controlled corporation, but usually nobility
 Middle Class
 Merchants, trades people, bankers, professionals
 Most dynamic
 Known as bourgeoisie
 Diverse & divided
• Some resented those who drew incomes from commerce and those connected to nobility
through business relations
 Income had little to do w/ land
 Benefitted from trade/commerce
 Eager; willing to put capital & energy to work
 Supported reform, change, economic growth
 Regulations on trade/commerce (like prog. aristocrats)
 Fostered on consumption revolution
• Some produced & sold, others bought
• Material comfort and prosperity
 Aristocracy wanted to preserve privileges and protect their wealth while middle-class wanted
social mobility
• Both seeking to increase political power and prestige
• Most tensions during 18th century between the classes involved political influence, not
clashes over goals/values
 Feared lower class
• Threat to property, drain on national resources
 Artisans
 $hopkeepers, artisans, wage earners
• Grocers, butchers, fishmongers, carpenters, etc.
 Conservative
 Economic position vulnerable (bad harvest raised price of food- businesses suffered)
 Contributed to revolution in consumption (tried to emulate middle class)
 Leaved near their shops
• Primary institution was the guild, but that faded end of 18th , but can’t be ignored
• Strong in central Europe
• Tried to preserve skills/jobs of members
• Determined who could pursue a craft (lessened competition)
• Framework for economic/social advancement (one could move up ranks in the
guild)
• Artisans could receive social benefits from guilds
 The Urban Riot
 Conservative, rioted if they felt something was economically unjust
 Ex: baker/grain merchant announces price considered too high
• Riot: artisan leaders confiscate bread, sell it for better price, give money back to
banker/merchant
• Riots restrained greed of merchants
• Were not irrational acts of screaming, but ritualized social phenomena
 Other riots
 • Religious bigotry led to riots
• 1753
 London Protestant mobs compelled gov’t to withdraw an act to legalize
Jewish naturalization
• 1780
• Same group in Gordon Riots
• Lord George Gordon had raised the specter of an imaginary catholic plot
after the gov’t relieved military recruits from having to take specifically
anti-Catholic oaths
 Violence directed at property
 Rioters were shopkeepers, freeholders, artisans, and wage earners who wanted to restore
traditional right/practice
 Last ½ of century- riots involved political ends
• Involved economic disturbances
• Nonartisan leadership or instigators
• A “Crowd” often was the tool of the upper classes
• Paris- Parlement urged crowd action in disputes vs. monarchy
• Geneva- middle class supported artisan riots vs. oligarchy
• Britain 1792- gov’t incited mobs to attack English sympathizers of French Rev.
• Showed mob entered political/social arena before French Rev.

The Jewish Population: Age of the Ghetto

 Jewish communities of Amsterdam/ other Western European cities famous for intellectual life/financial
institutions, but most Jews lived in Eastern Europe
 Majority in Poland, Lithuania, Ukrane
 150,000 in Hapsburg lands (mostly Bohemia around 1760)
 <100,000 Germany
 40,000 France England/Holland <10,000
 1762: Catherine the Great of Russia excluded Jews from settling in Russia
 Relaxed exclusion yrs. Later, but they still wanted protection against ordinances of local officials
 Did not enjoy rights and privileges others had
 Lived in separate communities
 Ghettos- distinct districts of cities
 Self-governing in Poland
 17th century- some Jews helped finance the wars of major rulers
 “Court Jews”
 Sam Oppenheimer
• Financed Hapsburgs vs. Turks & defense of Vienna
• However, loans often not repaid
 Married among themselves
 Most lived in poverty
 Laws/social institutions made them inferior to Christians
 Discrimination based on religious separateness during Old Regime
 Could be required to listen to sermons that insulted their religion, or be subjected to leave their houses
 Children could be taken away and taught Christian instruction

In Perspective
 Era remained largely traditional and corporate b/c of an economy of scarcity
 However, increased commercial spirit
 Led to mindset of human beings as individual rather than members of communities
 Spirit manifested in Agricultural/Industrial Revolutions and drive towards more consumption
 Expansion of population stimulated change, too
 More labor- cities and guild had to accomadate
 New wealth = birth meant less in social relationships except roles assigned to sexes
 Lines of class structure/social hierarchy blurred
 Conflicting ambitions of monarchs, nobility, & middle class generated innovation
 In persuit of new revenures, monarchs interfered w/ nobles
 Nobles attempted to secure/expand social privileges in name of ancient rights
 Middle class growing wealthier
 Wanted influence = to wealth
 Rejected tradition