Chapter 18 - The 18th Century: States, War, and Social Change

Economic Expansion and Social Change

Was There an Agricultural Revolution?

Did improvements in agricultural practices and methods in the eighteenth century lead to an agricultural revolution? The topic is much debated. Some historians have noted the beginning of agrarian changes already in the seventeenth century, especially in the Low Countries. Others, however, have questioned the use of the term, arguing that significant changes occurred only in England and that even there the upward trend in agricultural production was not maintained after 1750.

Eighteenth-century agriculture was characterized by increases in food production that can be attributed to four interrelated factors: more farmland, increased crop yields per acre, healthier and more abundant livestock, and an improved climate. Climatologists believe that the “little ice age” of the seventeenth century declined in the eighteenth, especially evident in moderate summers that provided more ideal growing conditions.

The amount of land under cultivation was increased by abandoning the old open-field system, in which part of the land was allowed to lie fallow to renew it. The formerly empty fields were now planted with new crops, such as alfalfa, turnips, and clover, which stored nitrogen in their roots and thereby restored the soil’s fertility. They also provided winter fodder for livestock, enabling landlords to maintain an ever-larger number of animals.

The more numerous livestock increased the amount of meat in the European diet and enhanced food production by making available more animal manure, which was used to fertilize fields and produce larger yields per acre. Landed aristocrats with an interest in the scientific experimentation of the age also adopted innovations that increased yields. In England, Jethro Tull (1674-1741) discovered that using a hoe to keep the soil loose allowed air and moisture to reach plants and enabled them to grow better. He also used a drill to plant seeds in rows instead of scattering them by hand, a method that had lost much seed to the birds.

The eighteenth century witnessed greater yields of vegetables, including two important American crops, the potato and maize (Indian corn). Although they were not grown in quantity until after 1700, both had been brought to Europe from America in the sixteenth century. The potato became a staple in Germany, the Low Countries, and especially Ireland, where repression by English landlords forced large numbers of poor peasants to survive on small plots of marginal land. The potato took relatively little effort to produce in large quantities. High in carbohydrates and calories, rich in vitamins A and C, it could be easily stored for winter use.

The new agricultural techniques were considered best suited to large-scale farms. Consequently, a change in landholding accompanied the increase in food production. Large landowners or yeomen farmers enclosed the old open fields, combining many small holdings into larger units. The end of the open-field system led to the demise of the cooperative farming of the village community. In England, where small landholders resisted this process, Parliament, dominated by the landed aristocracy, enacted legislation allowing agricultural lands to be legally enclosed. As a result of these enclosure acts, England gradually became a land of large estates, and many small farmers were forced to become wage laborers or tenant farmers working farms of 100 to 500 acres. The enclosure movement and new agricultural practices largely destroyed the traditional patterns of English village life (see the box on p. 552).

In the eighteenth century, the English were the leaders in adopting the new techniques behind the agricultural revolution. This early modernization of English agriculture, with its noticeable increase in productivity, made possible the feeding of an expanding population about to enter a new world of industrialization and urbanization. In other parts of Europe, however, noble privileges and heavy taxes on the peasants prevented the adoption of new agricultural practices. Nobles maintained rights of usage to all lands and often pastured animals on fallow fields; although the animals’ manure could fertilize the soil, overgrazing could destroy the fields. In addition, lords often levied taxes on certain crops, such as wheat and rye, which prevented the introduction of fodder crops.

New Methods of Finance

A decline in the supply of gold and silver in the seventeenth century had created a chronic shortage of money that undermined the efforts of governments to meet their needs. The establishment of new public and private banks and the acceptance of paper notes made possible an expansion of credit in the eighteenth century.

Perhaps the best example of this process can be observed in England, where the Bank of England was founded in 1694. Unlike other banks accustomed to receiving deposits and exchanging foreign currencies, the Bank of England also made loans. In return for lending money to the government, the bank was allowed to issue paper “banknotes” backed by its credit. These soon became negotiable and provided a paper substitute for gold and silver coins. In addition, the issuance of government bonds paying regular interest, backed by the Bank of England and the London financial community, created the notion of a public or “national debt” distinct from the monarch’s personal debts. This process meant that capital for financing larger armies and other government undertakings could be raised in ever-greater quantities.

These new financial institutions and methods were not risk-free, however. In both Britain and France in the early eighteenth century, speculators provided opportunities for people to invest in colonial trading companies. The French company under John Law was also tied to his attempt to create a national bank and paper currency for France. When people went overboard and drove the price of the stock to incredibly high levels, the bubble burst. Law’s company and bank went bankrupt, leading to a loss of confidence in paper money that prevented the formation of a French national bank. Consequently, French public finance developed slowly in the eighteenth century (see Chapter 19).

This was not the case in Britain, however. Despite crises, public confidence in the new financial institutions enabled the British government to borrow large sums of money at relatively low rates of interest, giving it a distinct advantage in the struggle with France. According to a contemporary observer, Britain’s public credit was “the permanent miracle of her policy, which has inspired both astonishment and fear in the States of Europe.” Despite Britain’s growing importance in finance, however, the Dutch Republic remained the leader in Europe’s financial life, and Amsterdam continued to be the center of international finance until London replaced it in the nineteenth century. One observer noted in 1769:

If ten or twelve businessmen of Amsterdam of the first rank meet for a banking operation, they can in a moment send circulating throughout Europe over two hundred million florins in paper money, which is preferred to cash. There is no Sovereign who could do as much.... This credit is a power which the ten or twelve businessmen will be able to exert over all the States of Europe, in complete independence of any authority.

As Dutch trade, industry, and power declined, Dutch capitalists were inclined to lend money abroad because they had fewer opportunities at home.

European Industry

The most important product of European industry in the eighteenth century was textiles. Woolen cloth made up 75 percent of Britain’s exports in the early part of the century. France, too, was a leader in the production of woolen cloth, and other major states emulated both France and Britain by encouraging the development of their own textile industries.

COTTAGE INDUSTRY Most textiles were still produced by traditional methods. In cities that were textile centers, master artisans used timeworn methods to turn out finished goods in their guild workshops. But by the eighteenth century, textile production was beginning to shift to the countryside in parts of Europe. In the countryside, textiles were produced by the “putting-out” or “domestic” system. A merchant-capitalist entrepreneur bought the raw materials, mostly wool and flax, and “put them out” to rural workers, who spun the raw material into yarn and then wove it into cloth on simple looms. Capitalist entrepreneurs sold the finished product, made a profit, and used it to manufacture more. This system became known as the cottage industry because spinners and weavers did their work in their own cottages. The cottage industry was truly a family enterprise: women and children could spin while men wove on the looms, enabling rural people to earn incomes to supplement their pitiful wages as agricultural laborers.

NEW METHODS AND NEW MACHINES The cottage system employed traditional methods of manufacturing and spread to many areas of rural Europe in the eighteenth century. But significant changes in industrial production also began to occur in the second half of the century, pushed along by the introduction of cotton, originally imported from India. The importation of raw cotton from slave plantations in the Americas encouraged the production of cotton cloth in Europe, where a profitable market developed because of the growing demand for lightweight cotton clothes that were less expensive than linens and woolens. But the traditional methods of the cottage industry proved incapable of keeping up with the growing demand, leading English cloth entrepreneurs to develop new methods and new machines. The flying shuttle sped up the process of weaving on a loom, thereby increasing the need for large quantities of yarn. In response, Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) invented a “water frame,” powered by horse or water, which turned out yarn much faster than cottage spinning wheels. This abundance of yarn, in turn, led to the development of mechanized looms, invented in the 1780s but not widely adopted until the early nineteenth century. By that time, Britain was in the throes of the Industrial Revolution (see Chapter 20), but already at the end of the eighteenth century, rural workers, perceiving that the new machines threatened their traditional livelihood, had begun to call for the machines’ destruction (see the box on p. 554).

THE NEW CONSUMERS As agricultural innovations in the eighteenth century reduced the need for agricultural workers, other occupations were expanding. Small merchants, craftspeople, and shopkeepers were growing in number, aided by the developments in industry. This led to the beginnings of a consumer revolution that was primarily centered in England in the eighteenth century. Consumers purchased a host of newly available goods including china, silverware, cut glass, mahogany furniture, teapots, and ready-made clothing. The consumer products of the eighteenth century quickly became international commodities.

Mercantile Empires and Worldwide Trade

As we saw in Chapter 14, the growth of commercial capitalism led to integrated markets, joint-stock trading companies, and banking and stock exchange facilities. Mercantilist theory had posited that a nation should acquire as much gold and silver as possible; that it should maintain a favorable balance of trade, or more exports than imports; and that the state should provide subsidies to manufacturers, grant monopolies to traders, build roads and canals, and impose high tariffs to limit imports. Colonies were also seen as valuable sources of raw materials and markets for finished goods. Mercantilist theory on the role of colonies was matched in practice by Europe’s overseas expansion. With the development of colonies and trading posts in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, Europeans embarked on an adventure in international commerce. This increase in overseas trade has led some historians to speak of the emergence of a truly global economy in the eighteenth century.

Although trade within Europe still dominated total trade figures, overseas trade boomed in the eighteenth century. As we saw in Chapter 14, of all the goods traded in the eighteenth century, perhaps the most profitable were African slaves. The African slave trade and the plantation economy in the Americas that depended on it were an integral part of the new Atlantic economy, which enabled the nations of western Europe to experience greater prosperity than the states in central and eastern Europe.

During the eighteenth century, trade between European states and their colonies increased dramatically. In 1715, 19 percent of Britain’s trade was with its American colonies; by 1785, that figure had risen to 34 percent. The growing trade of Europe with the Americas, Africa, and Asia was also visible in the expansion of merchant fleets. The British, for example, had 3,300 merchant ships carrying 260,000 tons in 1700; by 1775, those numbers had increased to 9,400 ships carrying 695,000 tons.

Flourishing trade also had a significant impact on the European economy, especially visible in the growth of towns and cities. The rise of the Atlantic trade led to great prosperity for such port cities as Bordeaux, Nantes, and Marseilles in France; Bristol and Liverpool in Britain; and Lisbon and Oporto in Portugal. Trade also led to the growth of related industries, such as textile manufacturing, sugar refining, and tobacco processing, and to an increase in dock workers, building tradesmen, servants, and numerous service people. Visitors’ accounts of their visits to prosperous port cities detail the elegant buildings and affluent lifestyle they encountered.


Next Reading: 18.6 (The Social Order of the Eighteenth Century)