1. Society and Economy Under the Old Regime in the 18th Century
Chapter 15
Society and Economy Under the Old Regime in the 18th Century

2. The Old Regime
ancien régime: the patterns of social, political, and economic relationships in France before 1789; broadly, the life and institutions of pre-revolutionary Europe.
Politically: Rule of absolute monarchs with growing bureaucracies and aristocratically led armies.
Economically: A scarcity of food, predominance of agriculture, slow transport, low level of iron production, unsophisticated financial institutions, and competitive commercial overseas empires.
Socially: People see themselves less as individuals, rather members of distinct corporate bodies that possessed certain privileges or rights as a group. Tradition, hierarchy, privilege, corporate feeling

3. Major Features of the Old Regime
Hierarchical society characterized by:
Aristocratic elites with inherited legal privileges.
Established churches closely associated with the state and the aristocracy.
Urban labor force usually organized into guilds.
Rural peasantry subject to high taxes and feudal dues.

4. The Aristocracy 1–5 % of population
Widest degree of social, political, economic power
wealth based on land.
manual labor considered beneath the.m
interest in economic growth, innovation (like commercial classes)

5. “Robert Andrews and His Wife” 1748-49 by Thomas Gainsborough

6. The Aristocracy (cont.)
To be an aristocrat was a matter of birth and legal privilege.
This was common across Europe, but in every other respect, they differed from country to country.
British nobility—smallest, wealthiest, best defined, most socially responsible
about 400 families, eldest males of each in House of Lords (also controlled House of Commons through corruption of Electoral system)
owned about ¼ of all arable land
few significant legal privileges, but great political power
French nobility—less clear-cut; about 400,000 nobles
“nobles of the sword”—nobility derived from military service
“nobles of the robe”—from service in bureaucracy, or purchased
some wealthy, some poor, but all shared certain hereditary privileges (exempt from taxes; did not pay the land tax)

7. The Aristocracy (cont.)
Eastern European nobilities—military traditions important; extensive repressive power over serfs.
Austria-Hungary: nobility has broad judicial powers. Various degrees of exemption from taxation.
Prussia: Junker nobility strong, due to wars of Frederick the Great. (officers)
Russia: Peter the Great essentially creates the nobility. State service and the Table of Ranks established a class identity.
Charter of the Nobility: Catherine the Great legally defined the rights and privileges of noble men and women in exchange for the assurance that the nobility would serve the state voluntarily.

8. Aristocratic Resurgence
Europe-wide reaction to threat from expanding power of monarchies
tried to preserve privileges by making nobility harder to attain.
pushed to reserve high-ranking military/government/church appointments for nobles
sought to leverage existing noble-controlled institutions (British Parliament, French parlements, German provincial diets, etc.)
tried to shore up wealth through new tax exemptions, raising rents

9. Peasants & Serfs
lives of economic and social dependency, exploitation, vulnerability
power of European landlords increased from west to east
French peasants:
banalitiés (feudal dues): use-for-payment of lord’s mill or oven.
corveé (annual forced labor)
Habsburg serfs: near-slavery; robot (compulsory service to lord)
Russian serfs: worst off; noble wealth measured by number of serfs, not acres. Rather economic commodities. They also had the right to punish their serfs. Serfs had no legal recourse against lords.
Ottoman Empire (SE Europe):
peasants nominally free. M
Marginally empowered by scarcity of labor.
Cift: Domain of a landlord.
Landlords resemble medieval relationship of refuge for peasants.

10. Vernet, “Construction of a Road”

11. Peasant Rebellions Emelyan Pugachev
Russia: Over 50 revolts between
Pugachev’s Rebellion (1773–1775)
Land promised to serfs.
eventually crushed .
largest 18th c. uprising.
Eastern Europe: smaller revolts in Bohemia (1775), Transylvania (1784), Moravia (1786), Austria (1789)
Western Europe: almost no revolts, but rural riots in England; usually attempts to assert traditional rights against innovations—thus conservative
Emelyan Pugachev

12. English Game Laws
Clearest example of aristocratic dominance of the countryside and of aristocratic manipulation of the law to its own advantage was legislation on hunting.
1671–1831: English landowners had exclusive legal right to hunt game animals.
Only persons owning a particular amount of land could hunt.
Excluded: renters, merchants who did not own land, poor in cities and countryside.
upheld superior status of aristocracy (over peasants) and landed gentry (over commercial classes)
Prime example of legislation directly related to economic and social status.

13. English Game Laws
gentry hired gamekeepers to guard against poachers; killing deer by unauthorized persons became capital crime
poaching nonetheless popular—a source of food for the hungry
black market driven by urban demand for luxury meat
1831: laws rewritten to permit landowners to allow others to hunt

14. Family Structure
family economy: family was basic unit of production and consumption in preindustrial Europe
Northwestern European households:
nuclear family—married couple, children through early teens, servants; appx. 5–6 members average
More than 2 generations in same home rare.
High Mortality and late marriage prevented families of 3 generations or more.
married late—average age 26 (men), 23 (women). Children almost immediately.
Premarital sex very common.
servants—young people working in exchange for room, board, wages; not necessarily socially inferior to employers; normally ate with family, not necessarily someone looking after the needs of the wealthy.
Neolocalism: practice of moving away from home.

15. Family Structure (cont.)
Eastern European households
marriage usually before 20, consequently children born to much younger parents.
Often, wives were older.
extended family—3-4 generations, 9-20 members or more in rural Russia (early marriage)
aided by landlord’s need for labor

16. Family Economy
Living alone almost impossible and viewed with suspicion. Perceived as criminal, disruptive, or viewed as needing charity.
Household basic unit of production and consumption. All household members worked; work products went to family, not individual.
Farming major occupation, but rarely adequate—one or more family members might work elsewhere and send wages home (harvester, fisherman).
Skilled artisans—father chief artisan, wife often sold the wares, children learned the trade
Western Europe: death of the father often meant disaster; high mortality rate meant high personal and economic vulnerability.
Widows look to remarry quickly to prevent dependency on others.
High Mortality rate also means “second” families.

17. Women and the Family Economy
Women’s lives largely determined by her ability to establish and maintain a household.
marriage an economic necessity that also fulfilled sexual and psychological needs.
Because economic independence was rare, women first sought to maintain their family homes, then they would devise a means to getting her own household to live in as adult.
Housework began at age 7. Would stay as long as her worth was maintained.
Once she leaves home, woman’s chief goal was to accumulate enough capital for a dowry. Her savings would make her eligible for marriage. This acquisition of wealth may take up to ten years, thus marriage was usually later in life.
Dominant concern was adequate food supply; necessity of limiting number of children—birth control.

18. Children and the Family Economy
18th c. childbirth dangerous for both mother and child due to contagious diseases, puerperal fever, and unsterilized medical instruments.
Midwives not skilled practitioners.
Mothers gave birth in conditions of immense poverty and wretched housing.
Wet nursing industry—well-developed, necessary because full-time motherhood usually impossible due to the need to support a family economically.
Children from the city could be sent to wet nurses in the country for months or even years.

19. Children and the Family Economy
Birth of a child often meant increased economic hardship; some infanticide.
“Foundling hospitals” established for abandoned children, usually victims of poverty or illegitimacy.
Paris Foundling House (1670)
London Foundling House (1739)
In peak year of 1772, children sent here.
Education not even a thought in terms of children’s development until the late 19th century

20. Agricultural Revolution
Main goal of traditional peasant society was stable food supply.
Resistance to changes that might endanger food supply.
Food supply never certain, especially if you went eastward.
Failure of harvest meant hardship and death.
Vulnerability to poor harvests, fluctuations in price of grain (bread)
Slow rise in grain prices through 18th c. triggers series of innovations in farm production: Agricultural Revolution
Peasants often resisted and were brutally repressed

21. Agricultural Innovations
Dutch, 16th & 17th c.: found better ways to drain land; experimented with new crops (clover, turnips) used for animal fodder and soil restoration
English, 18th c.: biggest popularizers of earlier innovations
Jethro Tull (1674–1741)—agricultural experimenter; invented seed drill
Charles “Turnip” Townsend (1674–1738)—instituted crop rotation
Robert Bakewell (1725–1795)—improved methods of animal breeding
enclosure: replaced open-field or village method; created large tracts of farmland out of small plots, common land, and waste areas; put land into more productive use but caused turmoil for peasant farmers; commercialization of agriculture
improvements more limited in the East

22. Jethro Tull ( )

23. Population Increases
Europe had seen population increases before but war, disease, and famine had balanced things out.
The increase of population put pressure on food prices, drove the agricultural innovation and spurred the Industrial Revolution.
Approximate population of non-Ottoman Europe:
1700: 100–120 million
1800: 190 million
1850: 260 million

24. Population Increases
Such extraordinary sustained growth put new demands on all resources and pressure on the existing social organization.
The death rate declined due to fewer wars and epidemics in the 18th century.
Better medical knowledge did not decrease deaths however. The more important medical advances came after the initial population increase.
Changes in food supply led to population sustainability.
Grain production
The potato: A single acre could feed a family for an entire year.
Food supply enables people to live longer and thus rear children of their own.

25. Population Increases Cannot be overestimated.
Creates demand for food, goods, services, and jobs.
Provides new pool of labor.
Migration increases.
Leads to social and politically discontent.
Social practices of Old Regime literally outgrows its traditional bounds.

26. 18th c. Industrial Revolution
Second half of 18th Century: beginning of industrialization of European economy.
Virtually uninterrupted economic growth.
Made possible the greatest production of goods and services in history.
New means of production leads to new kinds of skills.
Large labor force.
Met immediate demand and led to new demands.
Raised standard of living and overcame rampant poverty.

27. Consumer Revolution
Production of new goods driven by increases in demand (learning to want things)
Clothing, buttons, toys, china, furniture, rugs, candlesticks, brass/ silver/ pewter/ glassware, watches, jewelry, soap, beer, wine, foods.
Sparks the ingenuity of designers and inventors.
Social Factors:
Dutch (17th C.) enjoy enormous prosperity.
Growth in disposable income (causes uncertain)
Income allows people to buy consumer goods that previous generations would not have been able to.
New methods of entrepreneurial marketing
Development of fashion industry

28. Consumer Revolution Josiah Wedgwood
Gains business with elite then produces less expensive versions of items for middle class.
Used advertising, showrooms, and traveling salesmen to market his products.
New fashions and styles always better than the previous ones.
Fashion publications brought awareness of stylistic trends.
Changes of consumption of food and drink led to the need for different types of dishware.
Tea and coffee staples of society. Need for new types of cups and mugs.
Brewing industry commercialized.
Consumer economy became permanent feature of European economy, despite conflicts with Christian ethics

29. Industrialism in Great Britain
Britain was the home of the Industrial Revolution; industrial leader of Europe through mid-19th c.
Factors:
London: largest city in Europe, center of fashion, taste.
Prominence of newspapers (advertising), increases consumer wants.
Social structure encourages imitation of social superiors.
Largest free-trade area in Europe
Rich in coal & iron ore
Stable political structure, secure property, sound financial system
Comparatively high social mobility. People who had money or could earn it could rise socially.

30. Textile Production
Earliest industrial change took place in countryside, not cities
Domestic or putting-out system of textile production (family economy): urban textile merchants send wool and other fibers to homes of peasants who spun thread and wove cloth
Growing demand causes production bottlenecks, leading to famous inventions:
Spinning jenny, c (James Hargreaves)—multiple spindles of thread spun on one machine; broke bottleneck between spinners & weavers. Initially 16 spindles but rose to 120 spindles by end of century.
Water frame, 1769 (Richard Arkwright)—water-powered device that produced purely cotton fabric, rather than cotton and linen; took cotton textile manufacture out of the home and into the factory
Cotton output increased 800%, 1780–1900

31. Spinning Jenny
James Hargreaves
Water Frame
Richard Arkwright

32. Steam Engine
Provided for the first time in history a steady and virtually unlimited source of inanimate power.
Portable source of power not dependent on nature (i.e. water or wind power) rather coal.

33. Steam Engine Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) James Watt
First practical engine to use steam power.
Large and inefficient.
James Watt
Scottish engineer.
1776 His version of steam engine finds first commercial application pumping water from mines.

34. Watt’s Steam Engine

35. Iron Production
Chief element of all heavy industry and land or sea transport.
Production limitations, early 18th c.:
Less than 25,000 tons of iron annually.
In the early 18c. Charcoal (derived from wood) rather than coke (form of coal) used to smelt ore. Charcoal does not burn as high and also wood was becoming scarce.
before steam engine, furnaces couldn’t achieve high enough blasts
limited demand
elimination of first two problems eliminated the third.

36. Iron Production
Coke was abundant and the steam engine provided new power for the blasts.
This provides increase of iron production and iron demand.

37. Impact on Working Women
Displaced many of women’s traditional economic roles in agriculture and textile manufacture as men took over heavy and skilled tasks and pushed women out
Women increasingly associated with work in the home rather than outside the home
Men’s pay began outstripping women’s

38. Growth of Cities
1500: 156 cities with more than 10,000 people; 4 with more than 100,000
1800: 363 with more than 10,000; 17 with more than 100,000
greatest growth among capitals and ports, due to monarchical state-building and expansion of overseas trade

39. Urban Classes urban rich segregated from poor
modern sanitation unknown, almost no pure water, farm animals roaming the streets
Upper Class: nobles, large merchants, bankers, financiers, clergy, government officials—the small oligarchy that ran the city
Middle Class (bourgeoisie): merchants, tradespeople, bankers, professionals; diverse and divided; normally supported reform, change, economic growth; feared poor, envied nobility
Artisans: grocers, butchers, fishmongers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, smiths, printers, tailors, etc.—largest group in any city; like peasants, were in many ways conservative; economically vulnerable; guilds still important

40. Urban Riots
outlet for artisans’ displeasure, often over price of bread
bread riots: leaders confiscate bread or grain and sell it for “just price,” with money returned to proprietors
danger of bread riots restrained merchants’ greed
highly ritualized social feature of Old Regime economy of scarcity
other riots: religious
riots became increasingly political toward end of 18th c.; often became a tool of upper classes—use “the crowd” against the monarchy, or against minorities

41. The Jewish Population most Jews lived in Eastern Europe
commonly regarded as a kind of nonresident alien, usually denied citizenship privileges unless specifically granted
lived everywhere in separate communities from non-Jews: ghettos in the city or primarily Jewish villages in countryside
“the age of the ghetto”—did not mix with mainstream societies
a few became famous for helping rulers finance wars, but most lived in poverty