The recent debate between Chris Wickham and Shami Ghosh exposes different interpretations of the political economy of Europe, with Wickham arguing for the persistence of the feudal economy up to about 1700, and Ghosh imagining a distinct phase in which economic development was not yet capitalist but was no longer decisively shaped by the demands of lords. This article contributes to the discussion with the story of Flanders, where two contrasting trajectories interlocked. On the one hand, coastal Flanders saw the rise of agrarian capitalism from the fourteenth century onwards, when small-scale farms were amalgamated into large agricultural enterprises that relied on the wage-labour of dispossessed peasants and their descendants as well as temporary labour migration from nearby regions. Inland Flanders, by contrast, saw the persistence of a peasant society dominated by small-scale landownership. ‘Middle-class lordship’ was critically important for this divergence. The peasants of inland Flanders acquired an unusual measure of control over seigneurial courts and their regulatory capacities, using them to stimulate the commercialization of society while thwarting experiments with agrarian capitalism. The Flemish evidence thus complicates narratives about feudalism in Europe, showing that the spectrum of possibilities in the political economy of lordship deserves closer scrutiny.

中文翻译：

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佛兰德斯领主领主的政治经济学，约 1250-1570 年


克里斯·威克姆 （Chris Wickham） 和沙米·高什 （Shami Ghosh） 之间最近的辩论揭示了对欧洲政治经济学的不同解释，威克姆主张封建经济持续到 1700 年左右，而高什则设想了一个独特的阶段，在这个阶段，经济发展还不是资本主义的，但不再受到领主要求的决定性影响。本文有助于与法兰德斯故事的讨论，其中两条截然不同的轨迹环环相扣。一方面，沿海的佛兰德斯见证了 14 世纪以来农业资本主义的兴起，当时小规模农场被合并为大型农业企业，这些企业依赖于被剥夺财产的农民及其后代的雇佣劳动以及附近地区的临时劳动力迁移。相比之下，内陆佛兰德斯见证了由小规模土地所有制主导的农民社会的持续存在。“中产阶级领主制”对这种分歧至关重要。佛兰德斯内陆的农民获得了对领地法院及其监管能力的不寻常的控制措施，利用它们来刺激社会的商业化，同时挫败农业资本主义的实验。因此，佛兰德的证据使关于欧洲封建主义的叙述复杂化，表明领主权的政治经济学中的可能性范围值得更仔细地审查。