Daily Life During The Reformation (5 page)

ECONOMY

The economies of Europe differed from region to region
depending on trade routes, fertility of the soil, mineral deposits, and the
stability of governments and levels of taxation. Factories as we know them
today did not exist. Manufactured goods were produced in shops run by the
artisan owner. With the exception of printing, there were few innovations in
technology, but capital was beginning to flow more freely, and the middle class
was starting to rise mostly through commerce and credit provided by the growth
of banks.

Agriculture

The vast majority of people cultivated the land, the size
of which varied widely, growing mostly wheat, barley, and rye as well as fruit
and vegetables. A poor family might work half-a-dozen acres living at
subsistence level, while the average farm in another area might be ten times
larger.

When the peasant paid his rent in cash, the amount was
usually fixed, and he was better off as demand and prices rose as they did in
the sixteenth century, especially if he had a surplus to sell at the market.
When the peasant paid in kind, the landowner prospered; when prices went up,
the peasant suffered.

Most held their farms for life and upon death, the land
reverted to the lord. Often, however, the farm went to the tenant’s heir upon
payment of a fee and sometimes under a new rental agreement. Peasants who
leased the land on a short-term basis such as two, three, or ten years were worse
off. In southern Germany on ecclesiastical estates, the tenant had to renew his
contract every year giving the Church annual opportunities to collect contract
fees and raise rents.

Still more economically deprived were sharecroppers who
worked the land with no other rights except a share in the produce. Around
cities such arrangements were increasing throughout this period as merchants
bought up land and worked it to maximum profit using day laborers. This same
working arrangement would have been practiced on many ecclesiastical estates,
as the system left the landholder free to sell or sublease the property as he
pleased, avoiding peasants’ privileges, ancient or recent.

Among rural society also were agricultural servants who
worked year round or were hired just for planting and harvesting. They lived in
cottages, but did not own them, and found work on the farms of others for a
little pay. They tended to be sedentary, living in the same cottages for
generations.

An agricultural boom during the sixteenth century put more
land under cultivation. Irrigation projects were initiated and swamps were
drained, while previously forested land came under the plow. Many of these
expansions were accomplished with urban capital and the new farmers living in
the city were generally the leaseholders.

Livestock

Cattle trading was well underway by the sixteenth century.
Animals raised in Denmark, Poland, Hungary and Ruthenia (today roughly Belarus
and Ukraine) were in great demand for meat and leather. Among leading destinations
for the cattle trade were Hamburg, Antwerp, Lu¨ beck, Koln, Nurnberg,
Frankfurt, and Venice. Herds ranging from about 30 to 300 animals were driven
to market by the rough and ready drovers of the time. They lived mostly out of
doors and carried their belongings in a saddle pack.

The lives of cattle drovers was hard and basic. Progress
was slow along the special tracks they were obliged to follow; four miles a day
was good with a rest every third day. The pace was deliberately slow, so the
cattle would not lose much weight and their value diminish. One drover for
every 20 or so head of cattle was typical along with a forager who arranged
inns and pasture in advance. There were various custom posts, where the animals
had to be registered and fees paid. The business was large, as thousands of
cattle annually supplied the European market.

The industry was controlled by nobles from whom the
merchants bought the animals and then hired the drovers. Peasants could only
sell their animals in local markets. Cattle plagues in 1518 and 1559 eradicated
entire herds and left many drovers unemployed.

Commercial sheep owners required room and fodder for their
animals in the winter months and pasturage in summer. Sheep were typically kept
in one area over the winter and then moved to another pasture for the summer.
For these migrations, known as transhumance, the owners hired shepherds.

Spain and England were the two countries with the greatest
numbers of sheep, and the transhumance often caused friction. Millions of sheep
on the move strayed onto farms and village pastures creating an enormous amount
of damage to crops. In Spain, the sheep owners formed an association, the
Mesta, which received royal recognition that gave the shepherds the right to
drive their animals across fields and through villages along designated
corridors. The export of wool and meat from which the king gained revenues was
too valuable to worry about farmers’ complaints.

In England, too, the sheep were a mixed blessing. As
European cloth centers grew in importance, sheep were kept to maintain the
supply of wool. Landowners found that these animals were more lucrative than
grain crops and used whatever means they could to fence in previously open land
to contain the animals. Beginning several centuries earlier, the process, known
as enclosure, was the source of much conflict between sheep owners and grain
farmers. Forced from the land, many farm families moved to the cities to look
for work. Often destitute, they begged for a living when jobs were scarce.

Fishing

Fish from both fresh and oceanic waters was an important
element of diet and eaten everywhere in Europe. In Scotland, for example,
foreign trade was based entirely on the fisherman, the shepherd (for wool), and
the huntsman (for skins). The North Sea and Baltic yielded huge catches of
herring and cod for shipment all over the continent that was pickled, dried, or
salted for the winter months.

The hardy fishermen and their families faced numerous
dangers in their quest for a living. It was a long and risky journey from the
coasts of Europe to the shores of Newfoundland, where the cod was abundant.
Dense, disorienting fog, ice, and pirates were always a threat, and in the
North Sea, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean, a sudden storm could send a ship
to the bottom.

The industry was of great benefit to Catholics who were
prohibited from eating meat on Fridays. Mediterranean seafood was usually sold
in local markets or on the shore directly from the fishing boats and consumed
within a day or two.

Banking

Gold and silver poured into Europe from Spanish discoveries
in the New World. The bonanza of an entire mountain of silver at Potosı in
Bolivia in 1544 sent prices soaring in Europe. Along with an increase in silver
production in the mines of central Europe and an increase of the gold trade
with Africa, there was too much money around for the amount of available goods.
With little access to money, the very poor suffered proportionately, and food
riots were frequent. Money came in the form of coins of gold, silver or copper,
often mixed with nickel or some other metal.

This century marks the period of credit expansion across
Europe. Lending also increased, usually through merchants and rich peasants.
The recipients of the loans might be destitute farmers whose crops had failed
due to bad weather, others who wished to expand their holdings, a master
craftsman who wanted to buy another premises, and other merchants who had lost
a ship and its precious cargo at sea to storms or pirates or had been ruined by
war.

A type of rural loan developed in which a farmer could
pledge his land as collateral if he owned it. He could also put some of his
anticipated crop against a loan. This was risky, of course, since a crop
failure could ruin him. If a harvest failed, it might be possible to forestall
the loan until the next harvest but with several bad years in row, he would be
perpetually in debt. Widespread crop failures did occur in the late sixteenth
century and again in the first half of the seventeenth that ruined both debtor
and creditor. Such cases led to relocations of people and riots. Many were in
debtors’ prisons. By around 1600, interest charged on loans was approximately
10 percent. Large transactions could take place with major currencies such as
the German mark, the French livre, or the British pound, but these were not in
coins but markers used by merchants.

Another way of carrying on commerce was through bills of
exchange that could be assigned to a third party in payment of debt. These
bills became a kind of negotiable bond. Checks, or bank notes, a signed piece of
paper authorizing a banker to withdraw money and pay it to the person whose
name was on the paper, were also employed.

No money was required when two merchants held accounts at
the same bank. One could simply go to the bank and order a transfer of money
into the other’s account. If they lived in different cities, they opened
accounts at each other’s banks and performed transactions through
representatives in the relevant city.

Trade Fairs

At large trade fairs, such as those at Frankfurt or Lyon,
merchants came from all over Europe. They did not carry great amounts of coin.
Instead bankers appeared at the fairs and kept track of the transactions on
paper and could debit or credit the merchant’s account accordingly.

At Medina del Campo in Spain, for example, all the streets
and squares of the town were a marketplace. The primary purpose was to promote
wool, textile sales, and books. It was regularly attended by some two thousand
merchants and about fifteen bankers. At the great fair at Piacenza in northern
Italy, millions of scudi changed hands on paper.

These seasonal clearing operations became permanent with
the opening of exchanges known as the Bourse or Longa, an early form of stock
market. They opened in London in 1517, Antwerp in 1531, and Amsterdam in 1611.
The Amsterdam exchange that first opened as a bank was the only institution in
the city allowed to pay or transfer bills of exchange more than 600 florins in
value. All except small merchants had to have an account there. As the city
grew, it eventually became the chief clearing house of Europe. The bank was
backed by the city government and was the most reliable on the continent.

Guilds (Urban Industries)

Almost everyone with a common interest or craft, formed
themselves into a brotherhood or guild. They received their chartered right
from the king or prince of the realm. Some guilds were organized as service
trades and included doctors, teachers, notaries, and barber-surgeons. They performed
a service rather than manufacturing a product. With demand relatively constant
they maintained a steady clientele.

There were some trades that sold but, with some exceptions,
did not produce such as innkeepers and grocers. Owning several such establishments
provided potential for wealth, but balanced against costs, there was small
chance of becoming rich. The really wealthy merchants made their fortunes in
wholesaling.

Craftsmen formed associations based on their trades
including textile workers, masons, carpenters, butchers, candle-makers,
glassworkers, shoemakers, bakers, and so forth. The guilds maintained the
secrets of traditionally transmitted technology, the mysteries of their crafts.
The founders were generally free, independent master craftsmen.

It was important to recognize the honor of the craft and to
insist on the dignity it brought its members. Thus, behavior of the members of
guilds was strictly supervised as everything the individual did reflected on
the group as a whole. Anyone who brought shame to the group was liable to be
expelled. One of the requirements was the legitimate birth of its members. When
the city of Augsburg suffered from overpopulation caused by migration from the
country to the town, the guild members were instrumental in closing off trades
to outsiders and restricting how many migrants could reside within the town.

Guilds maintained funds to support infirm or elderly
members, widows and orphans of guild members, funeral benefits, and a traveling
allowance for those needing to look for work in other regions.

Long periods of apprenticeship made it difficult for people
to establish shops of their own or, without the approval of their peers, to
acquire materials or knowledge, or to sell in certain markets where the guild
held monopolistic rights.

Guilds that engaged in fine crafts such as gold and silver
jewelry or exquisite silk clothing and expensive materials and sold their
products to wealthy clients were the most prestigious. The excellence of the
work in metal, wood, or cloth and the exalted stature of the clients elevated
the craftsman himself. Goldsmiths were universally of high status, but even
they could end up destitute when a noble client failed to pay.

Not unlike today, status and connections were important.
People who worked as confectioners carried more prestige than ordinary bakers
although they might belong to the same guild. Carpenters were lower than
joiners who made cabinets, chests, or ornate small boxes or performed detail
work on window frames, ceilings, and decorative doors. Some had their own
wood-working shops, others traveled to construction sites to perform a job.
They often worked under contract to produce specific furniture pieces for the
wealthy.