Wirtschaft—Reformation—Revolution, I: Vergleichende, soziohistorische Strukturgitteranalysen, and II: Wyclifs Sozialethik, der Aufstand von 1381 und Übergänge zur Moderne. Studien zur historischen Gesellschaftswissenschaft und zur Gesellschaftsgeschichte, by Norbert Fabian

Abstract

This massive two-volume book is unusual in every way. It is the author’s 2019 Bochum University Ph.D. dissertation, and seeks nothing less than to craft a ‘pluralistically oriented, historical-theoretical approach thereby [combining] critical dialectical theory with historicised, functional-structural theory’ (author’s own English abstract, no pagination). Further, this new approach is heralded as having a deep impact on not only the writing of history but also on the general understanding of historical theory and, not least, its didactic implications. That is a huge claim indeed. As a case-study to support his claims, Fabian analyses the ‘transformational’ society or ‘mixed economy’ of late medieval England—more precisely, the beginning of the Lollard movement, the uprising of 1381 and its aftermath. The basic claim of this study concerns the regional and ‘meso-economic’ beginnings of larger transformations of societies, be that the transition from feudalism to capitalism or from agricultural to industrialised economies. That is certainly plausible, though nothing new. An interesting twist Fabian brings into this narrative, however, is the role of social movements which—at least on the surface—do not discuss poverty, hunger or other aspects of moral economies. In the Lollards he sees such a movement. Rather than presenting new historical findings, however, Fabian has produced a meta-study interested in historical sociology and patterns of historical progress, and thus he devotes the first volume of more than 500 pages solely to theoretical discussions; only in the second volume (another 700-plus pages) does he apply these ideas to his reading of contemporary sources and historical literature. Furthermore, his reading of Wyclif is explicitly inspired by ‘[p]aradigms of 20th-century socio-critical theology’ (author’s own English abstract, no pagination), which might add to its application in terms of democratisation and world societies, but remains rather vague in its impact on historical interpretation.