Society and Economy Under the Old Regime in the 18th Century

1
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

• 15 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 Wife1748-49 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 nobilitysmallest, 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 nobilityless clear-cut about 400,000
  nobles
• nobles of the swordnobility derived from
  military service
• nobles of the robefrom 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 nobilitiesmilitary 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
  lords 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

• Russia Over 50 revolts between 1762-1769.
• Pugachevs Rebellion (17731775)
• 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 innovationsthus
  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.
• 16711831 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 populara 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 familymarried couple, children through
  early teens, servants appx. 56 members average
• More than 2 generations in same home rare.
• High Mortality and late marriage prevented
  families of 3 generations or more.
• married lateaverage age 26 (men), 23 (women).
  Children almost immediately.
• Premarital sex very common.
• servantsyoung 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 family3-4 generations, 9-20 members or
  more in rural Russia (early marriage)
• aided by landlords 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 adequateone
  or more family members might work elsewhere and
  send wages home (harvester, fisherman).
• Skilled artisansfather 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

• Womens 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, womans 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 childrenbirth
  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 industrywell-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, 7600 children sent here.
• Education not even a thought in terms of
  childrens 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 (16741741)agricultural
  experimenter invented seed drill
• Charles Turnip Townsend (16741738)instituted
  crop rotation
• Robert Bakewell (17251795)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 (1674-1741)
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 100120 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. 1765 (James Hargreaves)multipl
  e 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-powere
  d 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, 17801900

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)
• 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
Watts 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 couldnt 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 womens 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
• Mens pay began outstripping womens

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 officialsthe
  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 classesuse
  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 ghettodid not mix with
  mainstream societies
• a few became famous for helping rulers finance
  wars, but most lived in poverty