Three Models of Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism: England, France and Prussia 1

Abstract

This chapter presents the three examples of England, France and Germany to highlight the complexity of processes that determined and shaped the development of capitalism in agriculture: the institution of full private property rights; the nature of control exercised by the feudal lords over the state; the kind of taxation policy of the state; the demand for agricultural goods; availability of legal recourse for the tenants and peasants to challenge feudal control over their land and labour and other social institutions. Groups of such tenants argued that the lords could not make increased demands on them as under the law they also had rights. In England, a feudal landlord class, rendered obsolete by class struggle waged by a united peasantry, was transformed into a progressive, capitalist landlord class. The potential revolutionary role of tenant farmers in France was limited. The French Revolution cleared the ground for a possible unleashing of capitalism.