The argument by which Hildebrand attempts to prove this is rather strange. The development of town life and manufactures, according to him, enables the labourers to find employment in manufactures; they are now no longer dependent on the landlords. The manufacturing capitalists pay them money-wages [[357]]which they can spend in whatever way they like, and so they become more free than they were before.
We think this argument is quite insufficient. The labourers find employment in manufactures, says Hildebrand. But he had told us before that they were astricted to the soil. What enables them now to leave the landlords? Further: why do not the town labourers become slaves or serfs? Here Hildebrand’s reasoning is very strange. They receive money-wages which they can spend in whatever way they like. Now one who receives money with which he can buy all kinds of commodities is in a certain sense more free than one who, under a system of natural economy, receives bread and meat which he cannot sell. But this has nothing to do with the legal status of the labourer. A slave who receives pocket-money from his master is free to buy with it what he likes, yet he remains a slave.
But the condition of those of the labouring classes who remain on the land also undergoes a change, according to Hildebrand. The landlord can now sell the produce of his land for money, and this money enables him to hire free labourers.
We cannot see why this should be so, why the mere possibility of paying money-wages (all other circumstances having remained the same) should lead to free labour contracts. We should rather think that the afflux of labourers to the towns of which Hildebrand speaks would make agricultural labour scarce, and each landlord would be most anxious to retain those labourers that had not yet escaped to the towns; they would now, more than ever before, be astricted to the soil.
Hildebrand, however, thinks it will be the interest of the landlord to put an end to the hereditary tenures of his serfs and work his lands with free labourers. And he adds that the dues in kind and services are commuted for money payments. The cultivator who was a serf becomes now either a free landholder or a free labourer.
Whether Hildebrand means to say that the commutation of dues in kind and services for money payments is identical with the transition from serfdom to freedom, does not clearly appear.
We think that the regarding of this commutation as the main fact in the economic history of the later Middle Ages [[358]]lies at the root of the evil and has given rise to this theory. Money economy, according to Hildebrand, leads to commutation, and commutation is the same as, or at any rate leads to, the disappearance of serfdom.
What does this commutation mean? Formerly the peasants had to work on the demesne which was cultivated for the immediate benefit of the lord; in later times they paid money instead. What was the reason of this change? It must have been that the demesne was cultivated in some other way so that their services were no longer wanted. Sometimes free labourers were employed. “It is evident” says Ashley “that the lord would not have consented, first to partial and then to complete commutation, had he not been able to hire labourers”[154]. But the main reason was that portions of the demesne were let for rents. “If the lord found it his interest to let portions of the demesne instead of cultivating it through his bailiff or reeve, his need for the services of the villeins would be pro tanto diminished, and he would be readier to accept commutation”[155]. The same was the case in Germany, where between the 10th and 13th centuries the extent of the land which the landlords kept in their own hands was continually diminishing, so that there was less and less use for the services of the villeins, and commutation took place on a great scale. The landlords, who formerly had taken the lead of agricultural operations, became now mere receivers of rent[156].
Now we must admit that commutation of labour dues for money payments was not possible before money was used. Yet the fact that commutation of services for payments in kind, which does not suppose money economy, also occurred[157], shows that the rise of money economy cannot have been the sole cause of this change. We may even go farther and say: if it has been a cause at all, it has not certainly been one of the principal causes. The commutation of the labour dues means that the demesne was thenceforth either worked with free labourers or let for rent. The existence of a class of freemen dependent on wages cannot, however, be accounted for by [[359]]money economy. Nor can we see how money economy can have led to the letting of the demesnes which the landlords had formerly kept in their own hands. Ochenkowski supposes that in England, after the Norman Conquest, the need of the landlords for money led to commutation[158]. But there is no reason why the landlords could not, instead of receiving money payments, obtain money by selling the produce of their lands. As long as there was no market for agricultural products the landlord, whether he himself had the lead of agricultural operations or let the demesne on condition of receiving a payment in kind, could not obtain money. As soon as there was a market he could make money in three ways: by working the demesne himself and selling the produce, by letting it on condition of receiving part of the produce, which he could bring to the market[159], and by letting it for a rent in money. Money economy seems to have had little to do with the commutation.
Hildebrand’s theory is: money economy led to commutation and commutation led to freedom. We have seen that the first half of this does not hold. What about the second half? Can the commutation have loosened the ties which bound the cultivator to the soil? We think not. For if the landlord could not let the villein who worked on the demesne leave the manor, because he was difficult to replace, he had exactly the same reason for keeping the villein who paid money astricted to the soil. The use of money and the rise of commerce had not augmented the number of agricultural labourers; they had even decreased, as many of them had gone to the towns. And it was even more difficult to replace the money-paying than the labouring villein; for the former had to be a fit person who could conduct his business well enough to be able at the end of the year to furnish the required sum, whereas any able-bodied man could perform agricultural labour under the supervision of the lord’s bailiff. Our conclusion is that money economy did not lead to commutation, and that commutation did not lead to freedom.