TIPOS DE CONFLICTOS

As we shall see later, in the centuries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance there was marked technological progress. Undoubtedly, the levels of productivity prevailing in Europe at the end of the sixteenth century were considerably higher than they had been six hundred years earlier. But by our standards they were still abysmally low. After all, Europe started her ascent from an extremely primitive stage at the turn of our millennium; and until the seventeenth century, the lack of a systematic criterion of experimentation and research made every innovation dependent upon wearisome and rough empiricism.

The productivity of labor was adversely affected by the poverty and scarcity of the equipment and by the low educational levels of the labor force itself. The productivity of capital remained depressed because of the low technological levels and by the limited availability of sources of energy, which were essentially still of animal and vegetable nature.⁵ Land was by far the most important available natural resource, and its yield was limited.

All this is interesting but extremely vague. Adjectives such as low, reduced, limited, are like mist: they leave too much to the imagination. Let us try to emerge from the fog with a few figures, beginning with agriculture.

A pioneer in the quantitative study of agricultural history is Slicher van Bath. Having gathered data on yield-seed ratios from various European countries, van Bath calculated synthetic averages for wheat, rye, barley, and oats. The results are summarized in Table 3.1.⁶

Figures of this kind must be taken with more than a simple grain of salt.⁷ J.Z.Titlow, who patiently collected a vast amount of data on agricultural returns in medieval England, has shown that, by extending the sample, one obtains results which differ noticeably from those of van Bath (Table 3.2). At any rate, in both Tables 3.1 and 3.2, averages for the various countries are not based on comprehensive data but on scattered information derived from a relatively small number of cases.

Table 3.4 contains analogous data for selected areas of Italy, from the fertile plain of the Po Valley (Imola), to the Tuscan farms, to the poor soils of the Ligurian Appenines (Montaldeo). Table 3.5 is based on an exceptionally comprehensive statistic regarding the whole territory of Siena, which was by far the most important grain-producing area of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

A cursory glance at the figures in the following tables is enough to show that agricultural yields varied greatly from one year to the next and from one area to another, owing to the very poor control of man over the forces of nature. Consequently, in the presence of these massive fluctuations, statistical averages have little meaning. Moreover even when one takes the most fertile areas and the most propitious periods, one still finds miserably low yields. The yield ratio for wheat reached the level of 6

PRODUCTIVITY AND PRODUCTION 77

Table 3.1 Average gross yields per seed for wheat, rye, barley, and oats in selected European countries, 1200–1699 Grains yielded per seed planted

Period England France Germany

1200–1249 3.7

1250–1499 4.7 4.3

1500–1699 7.0 6.3 4.2

Source: Slicher van Bath, “Yield Ratios,” p. 15.

Table 3.2 Average yields per unit of wheat seed in England, 1200–1349

According to Slicher van Bath According to Titow

1200–49 2.9 3.8

1250–99 4.2 3.8

1300–49 3.9 3.9

Source: Titow, Winchester Yields, p. 4.

Table 3.3 Mean yield ratios on the estate of the bishopric of Winchester, 1209–1453

Date Wheat Barley Oats

1209–70 3.85 4.32 2.63

1271–99 3.79 3.36 2.21

1300–24 3.90 3.57 2.21

1325–49 3.96 3.74 2.25

1349–80 3.66 3.53 2.43

1381–1410 3.88 4.13 2.93

1411–53 3.66 3.64 3.03

Source: D.L.Farmer, “Grain yields on the Winchester manors in the later middle ages,” Ec.H.R., 2nd ser., 30 (1977), p.

560.

only in the best years, while today in the American wheat belt it normally reaches the level of above 30.

In the territory of Bologna (Italy) in the second half of the fifteenth century 2.5 acres of vineyard produced on average fifty gallons of wine per year. Today in the same region production is seven times greater and of much better quality.⁸ The land produced little because seeds were not selected, crop rotation and implements were primitive, pesticides were

Table 3.4 Average yields per unit of wheat seed in selected areas of Italy, 1300–1600

Area Year Yield Area Year Yield

Arezzo¹ 1386 5.3 1625–34 5.6

1387 11 1635–44 5.7

1390 6.5 1645–54 4.9

Parma² 1510–19 2.4–5.6 1655–64 5.5

1520–29 2.6–6.0 1665–74 6.6

1530–39 2.5–5.7 1675–84 6.0

Area Year Yield Area Year Yield

Sources: 1. Cherubini, “Proprietà fondiaria,” p. 40.2. Romani, Nella spirale di una crisi, p. 137. 3. Conti, Formazione della Struttura Agraria, vol. 1, p. 359. 4. Rotelli, “Rendimenti.” 5. Doria, Uomini e Terre, p. 29.

unknown, and last, but not least, manure, the only known fertilizer, was always in very short supply; on the landed property of the abbey of Staffelsee in the Dark Ages the manure available was barely sufficient for 0.

5 percent of the land, and in the thirteenth century in the regions around Paris, certainly one of the more advanced areas of the time, fields were fertilized with manure only once in every nine years.⁹

The animals, like the land, performed rather poorly, because they were not adequately fed and there was no adequate selective breeding. Cows’ milk production was meager. It is estimated that milk production per cow in

Table 3.5 Quantity of grain sown and harvested and yield ratios in the territory of Siena, 1593–1609 Quantity of grain (in moggia)

Quantity of grain (in moggia)

Year Sown Harvested Yield

1596–97 18,727 102,717 5.5

1598–99 21,540 89,294 4.1

1599–1600 20,048 92,010 4.6

1600–01 18,048 76,545 4.2

1602–03 17,500 90,327 5.2

1603–04 17,630 70,089 4.0

1606–07 16,281 74,741 4.6

1607–08 15,888 94,983 6.0

1608–09 16,297 74,151 4.5

Source: Diaz, Il Granducato di Toscana, p. 339. A moggio was equivalent to 583 litres.

fourteenth-century England was about 500 liters per year, with a low butterfat content.¹⁰ In the late 1960s in the United States, though state averages varied noticeably, the overall national average was almost 3,000 liters per year, with a high (about 4 percent) butterfat content.

Since the animals were small, they produced little meat. Table 3.6 shows data comparing seventeenth-century cattle weights in the Montaldeo area (Italy) with weights of cattle of similar age today. The disparity is striking. Data available on northern Europe in the seventeenth century fail to paint a rosier picture: even on pastures which were richer than in Montaldeo, oxen

Table 3.6 Deadweight of male cattle in the district of Montaldeo (Italy), seventeenth century Weight in pounds

Year Age of animal 17th century 20th century

1684 5 months 72 245

1690 1 year 130 540

1686 2 years 240 880

1675 3 years 320 1,100

1675 4 years 480 1,310

1675 5 years 560 1,550

Source: Doria, Uomini e Terre, p. 57.

weighed only between 400 and 500 pounds and cows about 220 pounds.¹¹

For the nonagricultural sectors information is much poorer. However, much of the available data suggests that productivity in these areas was hardly more encouraging than in the agricultural sectors. We know, for instance, that at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the situation of the woollen manufacturers in Florence was as follows:¹²

1604 1627

Number of firms 120 52

Number of looms 1,420 782

PRODUCTIVITY AND PRODUCTION 81

1604 1627

Number of weavers: males 878 268

females 1,457 1,315

1604 1627

Total 2,335¹³ 1,583

Number of pieces¹⁴ produced annually 14,000 7,998

Value of annual production (in scudi) >900,000 430,000

Precent of wages on value of production 55

From the above data one derives the following ratios:¹⁵

1604 1627

Number of weavers per firm¹⁶ 19 30

Number of looms per firm 12 15

Number of weavers per loom 1.6 2

Number of pieces produced annually per firm 117 154

Number of pieces produced annually per loom 10 10

Number of pieces produced annually per weaver 6 5

In Florence, during the 1458–62 period, a weaver would take 4 to 5 weeks to produce roughly 30 metres of taffeta, 6 to 10 weeks to produce the same length of satin, about 8 weeks for damask and 10–14 weeks for velvet.¹⁷ In Genoa, at the end of the sixteenth century, a weaver produced on average slightly more than 16 inches (28 inches wide) of velvet per day.¹⁸ In Milan at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a weaver produced, on average, little more than half a yard of velvet per work day.¹⁹ In Venice, also at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the average daily production of a silk-loom varied between a minimum of 0.4 yards for the gold velvets to a maximum of 1.5 yards for satin and damask, and with a general average for all the various types of silk materials of about 1.2 yards.²⁰ In Yorkshire in the 1580s it took about fifteen persons one week to make a short broadcloth measuring 12 yards by 1.75 yards.²¹ In the fifteenth century in England a miner could extract a maximum of 30–40 pounds of lead mineral.²² In the Dean (England) four furnaces built by 1613 produced a minimum of about 250 tons and a maximum of 700 of cast iron per furnace per year.²³ In 1621, John Browne claimed that in the foundry at Brenchley (England), he could cast two hundred iron cannon in 200 days; in all likelihood, 200 was the number of working days in a year at the furnace. At about the same time in Sweden, a foundry produced between 100 and 150 tons a year of cast-iron cannons.²⁴ In Italy, again in the seventeenth century, most of the paper mills possessed only one or two vats and the average daily production of one vat did not exceed a maximum of 4,500 sheets—in this instance, approximately 110 pounds of paper.²⁵

Low labor productivity obviously meant that production processes were labor-intensive. When the population of London numbered only about 35,000 people, the building of Beaumaris Castle provided employment for 400 masons, 30 smiths and carpenters, 1,000 unskilled workers and 200 carters.

The building industry is most definitely one in which little if any improvement was accomplished as far as labor productivity is concerned until very recent times. In a number of other sectors, however, noticeable improvements were achieved in the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In iron production in England, for instance, between 1350 and 1550, productivity allegedly increased seven or eightfold.²⁶ Although, in regard to book production, it would be absurd from an esthetic point of view to compare a handwritten book with a printed one, it is not absurd from the point of view of the diffusion of ideas, to compare the number of manuscripts a copyist could prepare in one year with the number of volumes a printer could print within the same period. After Gutenberg’s invention, a continuous series of technical improvements

progressively increased printers’ productivity. The first printers succeeded in printing (in the language of the trade, “pulling”) about 300 pages a day. By the end of the fifteenth century, the average had risen to over 400. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, two printers could pull about 200 pages an hour, that is, given the high number of working hours per day in those times, about 2,500 pages a day. In the shipping sector, the ratio of crew to cargo improved even if defense requirements slowed down this progress. About the year 1400 the crew-to-cargo ratio averaged one sailor for every 5 or 6 tons. By the middle of the sixteenth century, the ratio was one man per 7 or 8 tons. When peace and a decrease in piracy reduced the needs for defense, the ratio dropped to one man per 10 tons. Of course these gains in the crew-to-cargo ratio must also be considered in the light of the notable gains in the speed and safety of ships and in the rate of their utilization.

The main reason for productivity gains was technological progress, and we shall discuss this in Chapter 6. The gains which were achieved in western Europe in the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were conspicuous when compared to the productivity levels typical of the traditional agricultural societies. But the highest productivity levels reached by preindustrial Europe still look abysmally low when compared with the productivity levels of an industrial society.

Once the foregoing facts about preindustrial European productivity have been established, one important qualification remains to be made. The data which allow us to measure productivity in the past refer exclusively to quantity and leave aside quality. Now, it is simply not true that all the products of the preindustrial era were of better quality than those of the industrial era. Our maps, even if less artistic, are qualitatively better than those of the preindustrial era, and so are our telescopes, our microscopes, and perhaps also our fruit and vegetables. But if one simply states that the average production of a weaver consisted of so many yards of cloth a day, that the average production of a cabinetmaker consisted of so many pieces of furniture a year, or that of the locksmith so many locks a month, one ignores the fact that some of those pieces of cloth, many of those pieces of furniture and many of those locks were exquisite works of art, infinitely more beautiful and better than analogous, contemporary products. If one could adequately take into consideration the qualitative element, then the productivity of the craftsmen of the preindustrial age would appear under a different light.