The peasantry in the feudal mode of production: Towards an economic model

Over the last thirty years a substantial body of historical writing has evolved which deals in one way or another with the nature and tendencies of feudal economy. From the shorter conjuncture‐studies published in Annales, the regional monographs sponsored in France, the monographic estate‐studies popular in England, to the more concentrated historical synopses based on them, this literature1 covers a vast field, geographically and chronologically—sufficiently broad, in fact, to stimulate the recent tendency of historical writing to explore the character of feudal economy at a deeper level of abstraction. Kula's study [1970] stands today as the major forerunner of this tendency. Based largely on Kula's book, this short essay sketches a framework within which it becomes possible to explore more concretely the connections between commodity‐economy and feudal production, and the specific historical relationships between the enterprises of feudal production and the peasantry.2