3.2 The Discouragement of Agriculture in Europe
Smith considers a number of factors that occurred in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire that led to the discouragement of agricultural production - which, as the fist step in the progress toward prosperity, prevented the welfare of the people from improving much from that time to the recent present.
During the age that followed the fall of the Roman empire, greater expanses of land were consolidated into the hands of a small number of people by various means. Smith notes, particularly, the custom and law of primogeniture, in which all the land possessed by an individual was required to be passed to a single heir, most often the eldest son, rather than divided among all the children of the deceased in an attempt to maintain power into the hands of a few rather than of the many.
The problem with tying land to nobility is that those of noble birth are seldom capable of doing so, having been raised since his infancy as the "petty prince" of a small territory, he is rather accustomed to leisure than work, and looks upon the pedestrian business of agriculture as beneath his station. His interest lie only in producing what is sufficient to his own needs, and any excess is squandered on ornamentation.
The peasants under such lords were likewise disinterested in productive work. Given that the land and all things afforded by it were property of their lord, there was little incentive for them to produce in excess of what was strictly necessary to satisfy the demands of their own master and the barest sustenance of their own existence. Such is the mentality of a serf or slave with no hope of freedom or self-improvement, in any society and in any age.
There is some historical evidence of a kind of freeman farmer known as a "metayer" in France. In this situation, an individual is granted license to farm the fields of a lord, at a cost of half his product. The principle of this arrangement is that the efforts exerted benefited himself as much as his lord, and that the laborer was thus encouraged to increase his produce. But given a tax of fifty percent, and the inclination of noblemen to provide little equipment and make virtually no improvement to the land, meant that even the most dedicated effort could yield a metayer little profit.
Another common problem was that the nobleman who owned the land was the sole authority over his estate, and the only law within it, which made the position of the farmer precarious. His lord could evict him from the land at any time, and take the product of their labor. A peasant farmer who suffered "the violence of their master" had no course for redress or appeal to any higher authority.
It was not until the rule of Henry VII of England in the late fifteenth century (a few hundred years prior to Smith's writing), that masters were held to honor their agreements with yeoman farmers. While noblemen were free to evict their tenants, they were required to pay reparations for the seizure of their crops, and pay compensation for any improvement to the land. This legislation, coupled with a separate act that provided for the establishment of long-term leases (more than one year), gave the tenant the security to make improvements to the land, and to apply himself with honest endeavor to his toils, which Smith believes is perhaps the greatest contribution to the present welfare of England.
Another custom that was counterproductive to the development of land was the service owed to a lord by any who dwelled within his domain. The inhabitants of an estate were required to serve at the command of their lord, most often as soldiers, though in other cases the nature of service was not so specific. There was no limitation to the amount of time that servitude to the lord was to be granted, such that a tenant could not count on having sufficient time to tend to his crops.
A third custom is that of "purveyance," by which the population of a lord's estate were required to provide him with whatever things he demanded of them. A lord might demand of his subjects anything they had, including their livestock and provisions. Not only did the lord have the ability to command those materials necessary to production, but he could also demand to be granted, without recompense, any good his subjects might obtain by the labor of their own efforts.
Under all these discouragements, little improvement could be expected from those who occupied the estates. And the economic progress of the nations of Europe, in the few centuries preceding Smith's writing, were in proportion to the degree to which these discouragements were rescinded.