第78章

Two important factors co-operated to give the country an exceptionally privileged position. England was the only country in Europe with a firmly constituted government. The Norman Conquest had powerfully worked in the sense of social feudalism, but it had arrested the disruptive tendencies of political feudalism. The opposition between the two races, the necessity for both to keep together, the complexity of political questions which arose from conquest and settlement on the one hand, from the intercourse with Normandy and France on the other, -- all these agencies working together account for a remarkable intensity of action on the part of the centripetal forces of society, if I may use the expression: there was in England a constant tendency towards the concentration and organisation of political power in sharp contrast with the rest of Europe where the state had fallen a prey to local and private interests. One of the external results of such a condition was the growth of a royal power supported by the sympathy of the lower English-born classes, but arranging society by the help of Norman principles of fiscal administration. Not less momentous was the formation of an aristocracy which was compelled to act as a class instead of acting as a mere collection of individuals each striving for his own particular advantage; as a class it had to reckon with, and sometimes represent, the interests and requirements of other classes. In all these respects England was much ahead of Germany, where tribal divisions were more powerful than national unity, and the state had to form itself on feudal foundations in opposition to a cosmopolitan Imperial power; it was not less in advance of France, where the work of unification, egotistically undertaken by the king, had hardly begun to get the upper hand in its conflict with local dynasties; not less in advance of Italy, so well situated for economic progress, but politically wrecked by its unhappy connexion with Germany, the anti-national influence of the Papacy, and the one-sided development of municipal institutions. By reason of its political advantages England had the start of other European countries by a whole century and even by two centuries. The 'silver streak' acted already as a protection against foreign inroads, the existence of a central power insured civil order, intercourse between the different parts of the island opened outlets to trade, and reacted favourably on the exchange of commodities and the circulation of money.

Another set of causes operated in close alliance with these political influences. The position of England in relation to the European market was from the first an advantageous one. besides the natural development of seafaring pursuits which lead to international trade, and always tend to quicken the economic progress, there were two special reasons to account for a speedy movement in the new direction: the woollen trade with Flanders begins to rise in the twelfth century, and this is the most important commercial feature in the life of North-Western Europe;then again, the possession of Normandy and the occupation of Aquitaine and other provinces of France by the English opened markets and roads for a very brisk commercial intercourse with the Continent. As an outcome of all these political and economical conditions we find the England of the thirteenth century undoubtedly moving from natural husbandry to the money-system.

The consequences are to be seen on every side in the arrangements of state and society. The means of government were modified by the economic change. Hired troops took the place of feudal levies; kings easily renounced the military service of their tenants and took scutages which give them the means of keeping submissive and well-drilled soldiers. The same process took place all through the country on the land of secular and ecclesiastical lords. They all preferred taking money which is so readily spent and so easy to keep, which may transform itself equally well into gorgeous pageants and into capital for carrying on work, instead of exacting old-fashioned unwieldly ploughings and reapings or equally clumsy rents in kind.

On the other hand, the peasants were equally anxious to get out of the customary system: through its organisation of labour it involved necessarily many annoyances, petty exactions and coercion; it involved a great waste of time and energy. The landlord gained by the change, because he received an economic instrument of greater efficiency; the peasant gained because he got rid of personal subjection to control; both gained; for a whole system of administration, a whole class of administrators, stewards, bailiffs, reeves, a whole mass of cumbrous accounts and archaic procedure became unnecessary.

In reality the peasantry gained much more than the lord. Just because money rents displaced the ploughings and reapings very gradually, they assumed the most important characteristic of these latter -- their customary uniformity; tradition kept them at a certain level which it was very difficult to disturb, even when the interests of the lord and the conditions of the time had altered a great deal. Prices fluctuate and rise gradually, the buying strength of money gets lowered little by little, but customary rents remain much the same as they were before. Thus in process of time the balance gets altered for the benefit of the rent payer. I do not mean to say that such views and such facts were in full operation from the very beginning: one of the chief reasons for holding the Glastonbury inquest of 1189 was the wish to ascertain whether the rents actually corresponded to the value of the plots, and to make the necessary modifications. But such fresh assessments were very rare, it was difficult to carry them into practice, and the general tendency was distinctly towards a stability of customary rents.