Money, Land and Marriage

Banking and a money economy 货币经济

• Innovations in banking and finance promoted the growth of urban financial centres and a money economy.
• A money economy is one in which obligations are settled in coin or credit rather than in labour or produce.
• So the same century that produced the Renaissance produced the instruments that paid for it.

But most people still farmed

• Most Europeans derived their livelihood from agriculture and oriented their lives around the seasons, the village or the manor, although economic changes began to alter rural production and power.
• The CED writes the continuity first and the change second — the same shape as 1.1's notwithstanding.
• Economic change produced new social patterns, while traditions of hierarchy and status continued.

Commercial agriculture freed peasants in the west and bound them in the east

East and west went opposite ways

• As western Europe moved toward a free peasantry and commercial agriculture, serfdom 农奴制 was codified in the east, where nobles continued to dominate economic life on large estates.
• One commercial pressure, two opposite legal outcomes — which makes this the unit's best controlled comparison.
• The same demand for grain that freed labour in one place bound it in another.

Pressure produced revolt

• The attempts of landlords to increase their revenues by restricting or abolishing the traditional rights of peasants led to revolt.
• Migrants to the cities challenged the ability of merchant elites and craft guilds to govern, and strained resources.
• So both the countryside and the town were under pressure from the same commercial change.

The European marriage pattern

• From the late 16th century on, Europeans responded to economic and environmental challenges, such as the Little Ice Age 小冰期, by delaying marriage and childbearing.
• This European marriage pattern restrained population growth and ultimately improved the economic condition of families.
• It is a rare case of a demographic decision taken widely and privately, with a measurable economic result.