•The renowned historian Chris Wickham, in his 2021 article “How Did the Feudal Economy Work? The Economic Logic of Medieval Societies” published in the journal Past & Present, examines how medieval economies functioned, the critical role of peasants in this development, and why centuries of economic growth did not automatically lead to capitalism. Wickham is known to have recently passed away.
This peasant-landowner relationship was, according to Wickham, a defining feature of feudalism. He uses the term in a very economic sense, rather than in the political relationships between kings, nobles, and vassals that are usually meant by the term.
Wickham places great importance on northern and central Italy, one of the most economically developed regions in medieval Europe. From the late 12th century, cities such as Milan, Genoa, Venice, and Florence experienced significant commercial and industrial expansion. These industries were based on extensive trading networks. Italian merchants imported wool from Castile and England, after North Africa. Cotton came from Sicily and the eastern Mediterranean, and wheat was brought to the northern Italian cities, whose growing populations could no longer be fed solely by the surrounding countryside. Banking and credit also expanded; Italian financial institutions eventually lent money to rulers across Europe.
This did not mean that medieval rural societies were peaceful or equal. Landowners could impose new burdens with difficulty; Wickham gives examples from France, Italy, and Spain, where the expanding landowning authority increased the burdens on rural communities. The development of more restrictive forms of slavery in parts of Eastern Europe also showed how landowners could strengthen their control over agricultural labour.
When these peasants took advantage of commercial opportunities, their lands could become more secure, reducing their vulnerability to losing their property and becoming dependent on wage labour. Thus, commercial growth did not necessarily lead to capitalism. When trade contracted, peasants could often revert to producing more for their own consumption. This flexibility allowed medieval economic systems to survive periods of growth and decline without fundamentally altering their structure. Wickham points to the eventual transformation of rural England as an important example of this, but stresses that the precise causes of the Industrial Revolution are beyond the scope of his article.
Wickham further developed these arguments in his 2023 book, The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950–1180. Published by Oxford University Press, the book offers a comprehensive comparison of the economies of Egypt, North Africa, Sicily, Byzantium, Islamic Spain, and northern and central Italy. Based largely on archaeological and written evidence, Wickham argues that regional economic developments—including the purchasing power of peasants—were more important than long-distance trade alone in shaping Mediterranean prosperity. As a comprehensive expansion of the ideas explored in the article, the book shows how peasant-landowner-market relationships shaped economic development in the medieval Mediterranean. This approach reflects much of his broader work, which involves questioning familiar historical assumptions, comparing totals across geographical boundaries, and understanding the structures of everyday life beyond the king and political institutions.
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