1381 and the Malthus delusion

Gregory Clark⁎University of California, Davis, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 28 December 2010Available online 7 September 2012

What were income trends before the Industrial Revolution? Clark (2007b) argued both theo-retically and empirically that pre-industrial income fluctuated, but was not trending upwards, aposition Persson (2008) labeled “the Malthus Delusion.” Clark (2010a), in particular, estimatedthat pre-industrial English incomewas as high on average as in 1800. In contrast, Broadberry et al.(2011) estimate that income tripled between1270 and 1800. One test of early income estimates isthe share employed in farming. This paper, focusing on the poll tax returns of 1379–1381, showsthat only 56–59% of the English population was in farming or fishing. This small share impliesincomes in 1381 equivalent to those of 1800.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

JEL classification:N10N13N30N34O40O47

Keywords:Malthusian economicsPre-industrial growthPre-industrial demography

1. Introduction

A Farewell to Alms (Clark, 2007b) argued that before 1800 the logic of the Malthusian Economy implies that there should be noupward trend in incomes. In particular, it presents evidence that England in 1800was notmuch richer than inmost of its history since1200. Fig. 1 summarizes these income estimates for 1200–1869, with 1860–9 estimated at $4116 (2005$) (Clark, 2010a). The wideswings in income in pre-industrial England are argued to stem from changes in population size, rather than technological advance orregression, showing how demographic factors dominated income determination in the pre-industrial world.

The mass opposed opinion has been that England and the Netherlands escaped Malthusian constraints long before 1800. Therewas an intermediate period of growth in these societies in the Early Modern era, a Smithian phase, between the no-growthMalthusian era (pre-1200) and the fast growthmodern era. See, for example, Allen (2008), Broadberry et al. (2011), De Vries (2008),Maddison (2008), Persson (2008), Wrigley (1985), Van Zanden (2002), and Van Zanden and van Leeuwen (2012). By implicationearly pre-industrial societies, and in particular England before 1600, were at the income levels of the poorest modern countries suchasMalawi or Tanzania. Fig. 2 shows the preferred, stylized picture of growth in northwest Europe. Persson (2008) has indeed labeledthe Malthusian implication of trendless pre-industrial incomes “the Malthus delusion.”

For comparison with Clark (2010a), Fig. 1 also shows the Broadberry et al. (2011) estimates (hereafter referred to as BCKOV) ofEnglish/British GDP per person for benchmark dates, with 1860–9 also assumed as $4116. These are in linewith received opinion of aSmithian growth phase (Persson, 2008). For the years before 1550, the Clark estimates are typically double those of BCKOV. In

Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

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particular, for the 10 years centered on 1381 BCKOV estimates a GDP per person only 55% of that in 1800, whereas Clark estimatesincome per person circa 1381 to have equaled that in 1800.1

These very different estimates of pre-industrial growth in England stem from different sources and assumptions. The Clark (2010a)estimates are built from estimates of income: day wages, land rents, house rents, returns on capital. In particular, it is the high level ofreported daywages even in themiddle ages, both for urban and rural workers, that underpins the failure of income per person estimatesto grow between 1200 and 1800. Real wages elsewhere in the pre-industrial world tell a similar story of stagnation or decline between1400 and 1800. In Italy, Spain, Sweden, theNetherlands, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan, there is no clear trend toward higher realwagesas the Industrial Revolution approaches, but instead just swings associated with population movements.2 If the Clark (2010a) incomeestimates are wrong, then in general the best available source on living standards in the pre-industrial world – real daywages –must besystematically misleading.3

One thing that has given credence to the idea of significant income growth in England between 1200 and 1800 is the low level ofurbanization of England before 1500. This was a largely rural society with small cities. There were only 23,314 taxpayers in London in1377, 7248 in York, and 6345 in Bristol, the three largest towns, out of a national total of 1.36 million (Powell, 1896, 121–3).4 In total only5% of the population lived in cities with 5000 or more people. A lack of urbanization is normally the sign of a low income society wherethe bulk of production and consumption is of food. If thewage data indicate true living standards, then urbanization is not a good guide inthe pre-industrial era to income levels. Rural areas in pre-industrial England must have had a significant share of employment innon-farm activities.

1 Van Zanden and van Leeuwen (2012) estimate a similar growth of output per person in the Netherlands between 1347 and by the 1790s, with the 1790sbeing 2.75 the level of 1347, and an implied growth rate of 0.19% per annum over these 450 years.

2 See, for example, the real wage trends in north and central Italy, 1270–1800 (Malanima, 2003, Sweden 1365–1800 (Edvinsson and Söderberg, 2011, Fig. 8),the Netherlands, 1450–1800 (Van Zanden, 2002, Fig. 3), Antwerp, 1399–1800 and Valencia, 1413–1800 (Allen, 2008, Figs. 7 and 8), Ottoman Turkey 1480–1800(Özmucur and Pamuk, 2002, Table 1), Japan 1741–1850 (Bassino and Ma, 2005).

3 Hatcher (2011) for example, proposes that fifteenth century English wages must not be a reliable guide to worker's annual earnings.4 The national return did not include any tax payments for the counties of Chester and Durham.

0

500

1,000

1,500

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2,500

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3,500

4,000

4,500

1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800

Rea

l Inc

ome

($20

05)

BCKOV

Clark

Notes: The solid line shows the Clark estimate for England. The dotted

line links the BCKOV benchmarks. All estimates are given in terms of 2005 $.Sources: Clark (2010a, figure 9), Broadberry et al. (2011, table 7).

Fig. 1. Competing income estimates, England (Britain) 1200–1869.

0

1

2

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4

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6

1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900

Inco

me

per

Pers

on (

1200

= 1

)

Smithian Growth Era

Notes: The figure is drawn roughly to the scale of the incomeper person estimates inBroadberry et al. (2011, table 7).

Fig. 2. Stylized picture of the three regime view of economic growth.

5G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

The BCKOV estimates depend importantly on an estimate of farm output in England that Clark (2012) argues greatly understatesfarm output before 1700. The purpose of this paper is to make an estimate of the share employed in farming 1379–81 and show thatthis estimate is consistent with the Clark (2010a) income series, but implies that the BCKOV GDP estimates are too low.

Clark (2012) estimates the relationship between the share of the population employed in farming, forestry and fishing in countries1946 from 2005, where there were reports from censuses, labor force surveys, or household surveys that had per capita incomes for thesameyear below$4500 in $2005.5 The best fitting relationship between the farmshare and incomeper capita is linear and suggests that ifwe know the real income and farm employment share in England in a later period, thenwe can infer its likely earlier farm share by usingthe slope of the regression line. The linear relationship implies that the income elasticity of demand for farm output varies with income.6

For the lowest income estimated by BCKOV it would be as high as 0.88, while by the nineteenth century it is below 0.5. Between theBCKOV incomes of $852 in the 1270s and $4116 in the 1860s, the average income elasticity of demand for farm produce from Eq. (1) is0.58. This elasticity is reasonable given the evidence from poor English workers' budgets in 1787–96, 1837–4, and 1863 of a foodexpenditure elasticity of 0.60–0.63, these workers having incomes per head that averaged $1040.7

Fig. 3 showswhat happens if we project this employment share back in time, using the estimated coefficient on income per capitaunder both the Clark and BCKOV estimates of pre-industrial incomes. A complication in inferring farm employment shares fromincome arises for England in the years after 1770 when imported food and raw materials became an important share of nationalconsumption. By the 1860s imported food and rawmaterials was an estimated 22% of net national income in England (Clark, 2010a,249). Assuming output perworker in England in farmingwas the same as output perworker in the rest of the economy,we can derivethe corrected farm share just by subtracting these import shares from the share predicted by the linear relationship described above.

A second complication in the case of England was the replacement of wood fuel, wood in construction, and animal feeds fromthe agricultural sector through the coal industry, which heated homes, fired bricks, and powered steam engines. To correct forthis, I also deduct the share of employment in coal mining from the share implied by the linear relationship. These adjustmentsmake substantial differences only for 1770 and later. In 1379–81 and 1553–9 England was a large exporter of wool, mainly in theform of cloth. England in these years typically exported wool in this cloth equivalent to 20,000 sacks, or 7.3 million lbs of wool,worth £0.25 million, about 1% of English income in both periods (Rorke, 2006, 275, Fig. 3).

The differences between Clark and BCKOV in the implied farm employment share are dramatic for most of the years before 1700,particularly in the fifteenth century. In particular Clark implies a farm share in 1379–81 of 56%,whereas BCKOV implies a share of 72%.

2. The poll tax returns

The poll taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381 were planned as a tax on everyone, male and female, who was not indigent or in clericalorders, aged 14 and above in 1377, 16 or above in 1379, and 15 or above in 1381. Many lists of the taxpayers have survived forindividual locations. The lists from 1379 to 1381 sometimes, at the whim of local administrators of the tax for the hundred orwhapentake, contained occupations for taxpayers. But these occupation lists, drawn up through individual initiatives, classifyoccupations idiosyncratically. Only some reveal the farm/non-farm split. Here I use 335 returns, 3% of the total, with such informationto estimate the national share of workers engaged in farming, fishing and forestry 1379–81.8

5 There are 66 countries and a total of 182 observations in the sample. Observations from a given country and a given type of source were taken at a maximumof once in every 5 years. A regression with country fixed effects yields a slope estimate of −0.00981 (s.e.=0.00075). There is no statistically significant breakfrom linearity all across this income range. See Clark (2012) for further discussion and a scatterplot of the data.

6 If θ=α−βy, where θ is farm share and y is income per capita, and relative output per worker in farming as in the economy as a whole is constant, then theincome elasticity of demand for farm output is ε=(α−2βy)/(α−βy). As y gets smaller the income elasticity gets bigger, maximizing at 1.

7 Clark et al. (1995, 223–4) find an income elasticity of food demand for the poorest English families in 1787–96, 1837–41, and 1863 of only 0.60–63. Thesefamilies had average per capita incomes of $684, $1436 and $1000 in 2005 $.

8 The 1381 returns record a total of taxpayers only two-thirds that of 1377, so there must have been much evasion by 1381. Evaders tended to be younger andfemale. But such evasion will not create an underestimate of the farming share of the population unless farmers were more likely than others to evade.

0

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20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800

Shar

e in

Far

min

g (%

)

BCKOV

Clark

Fig. 3. Implied farm employment shares, 1200–1869, Clark vs BCKOV.

6 G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

Most of these returns are from 1381. The 1381 returns reported consistently smaller numbers of tax payers than the 1377 and1379 taxes, with about a third of the population reported in 1377 missing by 1381. It has been shown that the people andhouseholds omitted in 1381 tended to be poorer — servants and laborers principally, and also more women than men (Goldberg,1992, 374–5; Poos) 296–298. The 1381 returns thus reported 75% as many men as in 1377, but just 60% as many women.

As long as the main criterion for omission in 1381 was low earnings, it should not bias the occupational share against farming.There was little gap in 1381 between the wages of laborers in farming compared to urban occupations. Poorer male workers werefound in both farm and non-farm occupations (Clark, 2007a). Since women, as we shall see, were less likely than men to beemployed in agriculture, their disproportionate omission in 1381 will tend to overstate the farm share in employment. Below, Icalculate the farm share as a weighted average of the male and female farm share, but employ varying weights for men andwomen to consider the effects of omission of lower status women.

There are two problems in inferring employment shares from the poll tax returns. The first concerns male employment. Mostof the surviving poll tax returns classify a large fraction of the male population under the terms “laborares” or “operares” or“serviens”. Many sons residing with fathers are called just “filio.” Some men have no label of any type. But searching through theextant poll tax lists (Fenwick, 1998, 2001, 2005) we do find a modest number of hundreds, covering more than 800,000 acres,where the uncertainty about the fraction of the male population in agriculture is narrow enough to get estimates of the overallmale farm share. In this exercise I use only those hundreds or parishes where at least two thirds of men have an occupation,counting those identified as just “son of” as having the same occupation as the father. Thus the records for the hundred of Thingoein Suffolk in 1381 showed 36 tax payers with farm occupations, 67 with non-farm occupations, and 461 with an unknownoccupation. Such communities do not allow much confidence in estimating the split between farm and non-farm and are notused. For the parishes used, the average share with unknown occupations was only 16%.

Each man in the tax record was assigned one of four statuses: farm, forestry and fishing (f), non-farm (nf), unknown (u), andnot counted.9 The not counted category includes men for whom damage to the original poll tax returns left no record of theiroccupation. The secular10 fraction engaged in farming is then calculated as

FARMM ¼Nf þ Nu

Nf

NfþNnf

� �

Nf þ Nnf þ Nu:

This formula divides up the secular men of unknown occupations between farm and non-farm in proportion to the shares in themen with known occupations. There is no reason to expect that the undifferentiated “laborar” or “operar” or “serviens” weredifferentially actually engaged in agriculture. Such workers, for example, were not a larger share of the employed in parishes wherethe known labor force is heavily agricultural. Plenty of them are found in communities with more “urban” occupations.

For women only a small minority at any location were assigned specific occupations. Most wives are described just as “ux.”.Daughters living with parents are typically called just “filia.” Finally widows are mostly denoted just as “vidua.” Female servants andlaborers with a master were assigned the status of the master: farm/non-farm/unknown/not counted. This for sure assigns morewomen to farming than in reality, since some female servants of those in farming would in fact be in domestic service.

Since where wives' or daughters' occupations are listed separately, as in Yorkshire, they often differ from those of husbands orfathers, I assigned these to the “not counted” category unless they are explicitly called “serviens” or the like. In this case they wereassigned the occupation of the husband or father. The female farm share is then calculated in the same way as for men.

Under this assignment, women constitute a small share of the 1381 secular workforce (14%, compared to an estimated 33% in the1861 census), and amajoritywere employedoutside farming.Manywomendescribed as justwives or daughterswill actually have anoccupation. And some of the 20% ofwomen additionally omitted compared tomenwill also be employed. Thus, the true proportion ofwomen in the workforce was greater than 14%, probably closer to 33%. Appendix Table A1 lists how the assignments to farm/non-farm/unknown were done for both men and women.

3. The farm share, 1379–81

To calculate the overall share in farming I divide locations into “rural” and “urban.” Classed as urban were places with 1000 ormore taxpayers in 1377: 7.8% of taxpayers in England in 1377.11 The “rural” sector as defined here has small towns such as Hadleigh,Reading, Chelmsford, and Liverpool, since there is no clean line between urban and rural in these years, but a continuum. Setting theurban limit at 1000 allows for a clear list of urban places from the 1377 returns, as well as urban areas with few, if any, farmoccupations. The overall farm share in the secular population is calculated below as the rural farm employment share times 0.922 plusthe urban share times 0.078.

Table 1 summarizes, by county, the information on occupations from the rural parishes in 1379 and 1381. The rural parishes inthe table are drawn from 16 of 43 counties, and constitute 3% of the area and taxpayers of England. Fig. 4 shows the locationdistribution in the rural sample. There is a wide geographic distribution: from Lancashire and Yorkshire in the north, to Dorsetand Hampshire in the south. The most urbanized location in the rural sample is Reading with 583 taxpayers, and an estimated

9 “Farmer” for cultivators in 1381 is an anachronism, but “agriculturalist” is too cumbersome.10 Below I make an allowance for the clerical population also.11 Powell (1896, 123–4).

7G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

Table 1Secular farm shares, by county, 1379–1381.

County Area (acres) Taxpayers Taxpayers/acre Fractionunknown

Sharemen

Sharewomen

Shareall

1379Hampshire 118,185 4276 0.026a 0.13 0.80 0.72 0.79Lancashire 73,514 1354 0.015a 0.15 0.87 0.79 0.87Yorks — ER 30,577 2097 0.050a 0.21 0.62 0.36 0.54

1381Berkshire 26,763 1404 0.052 0.14 0.60 0.67 0.61Derby 134,526 2796 0.021 0.11 0.80 0.68 0.78Dorset 34,606 741 0.021 0.13 0.56 0.04 0.53Essex 20,537 872 0.042 0.15 0.34 0.17 0.33Gloucester 37,354 860 0.023 0.30 0.56 0.30 0.53Leicester 83,967 3226 0.038 0.11 0.80 0.72 0.78Norfolk 11,260 795 0.071 0.06 0.29 0.17 0.28Shropshire 53,670 1035 0.019 0.23 0.84 0.54 0.81Somerset 10,176 310 0.030 0.13 0.45 1.00 0.46Stafford 82,704 2210 0.027 0.18 0.75 0.61 0.73Suffolk 55,646 3583 0.064 0.21 0.46 0.16 0.41Surrey 39,953 2069 0.052 0.23 0.67 0.35 0.62Wiltshire 7500 368 0.049 0.18 0.60 0.25 0.57All rural 821,638 20,269 0.032 0.16 0.70 0.49 0.67

1381, UrbanOxford – 2005 – 0.02 .02 0.0 0.02York – 4005 – 0.13 .00 0.0 0.00

Notes:Source: Fenwick (1998, 2001, 2005).

a Reduced to a 1381 basis, by multiplying by .67.

Fig. 4. Distribution of 1381 rural locations with occupation details.

8 G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

total population of 993 people. Also shown in the table are two towns from “urban” locations — Oxford and York. Both thesetowns had populations of 4000 or more in 1377, small by modern standards.12

Column 2 of Table 1 shows the area in acres of these hundreds in 1841, column 3 the number of taxpayers, and column 4 thetaxpayers per acre standardized to 1381. The overall density of taxpayers per acre in England in the area covered by the poll taxreturns of 1381 was 0.031 per acre, and for rural England 0.029. The density for the rural sample in Table 1 is 0.032 per acre, so isclose to representative of rural England.13

Column 5 of Table 1 shows the share of taxpayers in these counties with no assignable occupation. Columns 6 and 7 show theestimated fraction of secular men and women engaged in farming and fishing. Finally, column 8 shows the overall share infarming for all taxpayers (aside from clerics) with known occupations.

These columns tell a consistent story, summarized in Table 2. Rural England in 1379–1381 had large numbers employed innon-farm occupations. Even in rural areas only 70% of men and 49% of women farmed. Considering also urban dwellers the malefarm share among the secular falls to 64%, the female to 45%. To get the overall share of the population engaged in farming wemust allow for clerical population, assumed non-farm. In 1381 there were 27,835 clerical taxpayers, compared to the lay list forthe same areas of 896,451.14 The share of all employed in the church depends on what assumption we make about the share ofwomen employed in the lay tax list. If that share was only the 14% of the employed with explicit occupations who were women,then clerics would be 4.6% of the employed population in England, and the shares of men, women and all workers in farmemployment would be 61%, 43%, and 59%.15

Many women are returned just as “wife” or “daughter” in 1379–81 and would likely have employments, however. Even in1861 the census counts women as being 33% of the labor force. Assuming women were 33% of the secular labor force, and thattheir share in farming in rural areas was the 49% observed for those with explicit occupations, then clerics would be only 3.6% ofthe employed. Now the overall percents in farm employment would be men, 62, women, 43, and both 56. Thus it does not mattertoo much what share of women we assume were actually employed. Across the feasible range the share of the populationengaged in farming ranges from just 56–59%. This 56–59% employment in farming and fishing in 1379–81 is modestly above theshare of 56% implied by the Clark income estimates, but substantially below the BCKOV implied farm employment share of 73%.

One reason for this surprisingly low share of the employed being engaged in farming is that many very small towns in ruralareas had substantial shares of the population engaged in other occupations. Chelmsford, in Essex, for example, with 248taxpayers in 1381, had 64% of the population in non-farm occupations. Liverpool, with a mere 110 tax payers in 1379, was 68%non-farm. And Stowmarket in Suffolk, with 202 tax payers, had only 1 person with a listed farm occupation.

The surprisingly non-rural character of much of rural England in the late middle ages has been noted by others. ChristopherDyer has thus argued that medieval England had an unusual urban structure with many more small urban locations, that wouldnot easily be distinguished from later purely rural settings. He concluded that if all such urban locations were included, then evenin 1300 15–20% of England was urbanized (Dyer, 1994), 207.

One potential criticism the poll tax estimates of occupational distributions is the importance of by-employments inpre-industrial society. Many people had more than one occupation: carpenters who also kept cattle, for example. Might theoccupation records which record just one occupation miss much of this farming activity?

But while by-employments adds noise to the estimates of the fraction engaged in farming, there is no reason to expect theywould systematically lead to an underestimate of the farm share. For just as craftsmen engaged in some farming, so did earlyfarmers engage also in construction, manufacturing, and services such as trade or transport. Farm households, for example,

12 Detailed occupation lists are available for other towns such as Canterbury, Salisbury and Southwark. But for estimating farm shares there was enough datafrom Oxford and York.13 The appendix lists the specific locations employed.14 Powell, 1896, 123–4 gives the total numbers of clerics recorded by diocese in 1381.15 This is assuming all clerics paying the clerical poll tax were employed. Clerics were 3.1% of the taxed, but here we are assuming a large fraction of the femaletax payers were not employed.

Table 2National farm share, 1381.

Ruralsecular

Urbansecular

Allsecular

Clerics All

Women 14% of the employedPopulation share 0.879 0.075 0.954 0.046 1.00Men 0.70 0.01 0.64 0.00 0.61Women 0.49 0.00 0.45 0.00 0.43Both 0.67 0.01 0.62 0.00 0.59

Women 33% of the employedPopulation share 0.889 0.075 0.964 0.036 1.00Men 0.70 0.01 0.64 0.00 0.62Women 0.49 0.00 0.45 0.00 0.43Both 0.63 0.01 0.58 0.00 0.56

9G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

routinely engaged in the production of homespun cloth, shoes, baskets, and wooden objects. If people are listed on average by theoccupation they spend the majority of their time in, this will underestimate the farm share only if the people who spend most oftheir time in non-farm pursuits engaged in more farm activities than the corresponding people who were mainly in farming.16

There is no evidence of such an asymmetry.Indeed the poll tax records suggest that, if anything, the listing of people under only one occupation will likely overstate the farm

share. Consider the occupational listing for men in the rural community of Branston in Leicester. Under our classification there are 17with farm occupations, and 3 unknown, so that the farm share here would be 100%. Yet many of these men bore surnames thatsuggest that either they, or their father, had engaged in a non-farm trade. Thus the list in detail, with occupational surnames in bold,wasWaltero Buss (cult), Thoma Tailour (cult), Edo Randolfe (cult), Roberto Rothele (cult), Petro Smyth (cult), Thoma Randolf (cult),Johanne Wright (cult), Roberto Fisscher (operar), Willelmo Wright (cult), Johanne Berisby (cult), Willelmo Milner (cult), RicardoDey (cult), Johanne Robertson (cult), Ricardo Wright (operar), Johanne othe Hyrne (cult), Willelmo Tailour (cult), Roberto Treche(cult), Thoma Seriaunt (caruc), Ricardo Personman (caruc), Thoma Brown (operar), Johanne Tasker (–). Six of those described ascultivators or plowmen have artisanal surnames. So either there was a mass migration of urban craftsmen to this rural village, ormany in rural areas had significant non-farmby-employments, which led to their surnames. So the existence of a continuumofmixedemployments between farming and non-farming is not inherently a problem.

4. Non-farm employments in England, 1379–81

The poll tax records also give a rough picture of what the 41–44% of people in 1381 not engaged in farming or fishing were doing.To estimate this I calculate overall employment shares separately for the urban areas and for rural areas listed in Table 1, for non-farmemployments, from 6118 occupation statements for non-farm workers. The national share is then the weighted average of the ruraland urban. Table 3 shows the shares of the rural and urban employed under the major occupations, and the implied national shares.

These occupation reports summarize the employment shares for masters and artisans, and independent female workers. Manycraftsmen andmerchants have servants listed, butwith no indication as towhether theywere employees in the business, or domesticworkers. In calculating non-farm occupation shares I assigned such servants to the non-farm sector, since it did not matter whetherthey were employed in the trade or as domestic servants. But in estimating employment shares within the non-farm sector we needsome assumption about what fraction were indeed domestic workers.

By 1841, domestic servants were 17% of all employees. To make allowance for domestic servants in this group in 1379–81, Iassume that such servantswere 15% of the labor force in towns, and 5% in the country (which includes aswe saw small towns), for anoverall share of 6%. This is less than in 1841, but at lower income levels we would expect a lower proportion of such workers. Ifdomestic servants were 15% of the labor force in 1381, the shares listed for the other secular occupations would be reduced by aboutone quarter.

I also assume that clergy were 3.6% of employment in both rural and urban areas. With these assumptions the rural populationengaged in manufacturing and trade outside domestic service and the church will be 31% in rural areas and 80% in urban areas.

16 This point is discussed at more length in Clark (2012).

Table 3The non-farm occupations of England, 1379–81.

Occupation 1379–81 Rural(% of employed)

1379–81 Urban(% of employed)

1379–81 National(% of employed)

1841(% of employed)

All non-farm 40 99 44 74Domestic servants (5) (15) (6) 16.7Cloth manufacture: weavers, spinners, fullers,dyers, clothworkers, combers

7.4 11.5 7.7 9.6

Tailor, dressmaker, seamstress, hatter, Hosiers 3.4 7.5 3.8 4.3Clergy 3.6 3.6 3.6 0.3Brewer, maltster 3.0 3.0 3.0 0.3Carpenter 2.7 2.0 2.7 2.4Shoemaker 1.7 3.7 1.9 3.2Smith 2.0 0.7 1.9 1.4Butcher 1.3 2.4 1.4 0.8Merchant 1.0 2.7 1.1 0.2Baker 0.7 3.0 0.9 0.7Draper/mercer/haberdasher 0.4 5.4 0.8 0.5Cutler 0.7 0.3 0.7 0.1Miller 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.4Laborer 0.0 7.1 0.6 5.8Mason 0.4 1.1 0.5 1.0Skinner 0.4 1.8 0.5 0.0

Notes: The clergy are assumed to be equally distributed per occupied person across the rural and urban areas.Sources: Fenwick (1998, 2001, 2005). United Kingdom, Parliamentary Papers, 1844.

10 G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

Table 3 reports the share in the total labor force of the major listed occupations in rural and urban areas, and overall. The table alsoshows the corresponding occupational shares in 1841.

The occupational structures in 1381 support the idea that this was a high income society. The largest non-farm occupation in1381 was the production and distribution of clothing and shoes, 14% of the labor force. The corresponding share in 1841 was 18%.But by 1841 England's major export was textile fabrics. Since in the pre-industrial period for woolen clothing the raw materialswere still a substantial share of the cost – perhaps 50% – this share of employment in clothing and shoes in 1381 implies as muchas 20% of household expenditure was on clothing and shoes.

Brewing beer occupied one adult in forty, suggesting alcohol consumption was at high levels. 1.4% of the occupied werebutchers, compared to only 0.8% in 1841. Meat was clearly a major component in the diet. Meat eating is again a sign of a highincome society. A reflection of the importance of meat consumption in late medieval England appears in the numbers of butchersfound in medieval markets. By the 1390s, butchers occupied 35% of the food retailing stalls in Sudbury market in Suffolk(compared to 24% in the 1340s before the onset of the Black Death) (Bailey, 2007), 268. By the 1420s and 1430s, the income of themeat and leather trades in Dunwich market was twice that of grain traders. By the 1440s, the income from butcher stalls inWoodbridge market was four times that of bakers and grocers combined (Bailey, 2007), 269.

Other rarer occupations also bespeak a prosperous society. Goldsmiths (0.14%) were found in numbers both in town andcountry, as were spicers (0.17%). There were also some very infrequent occupations that suggest a high degree of tradespecialization such as mustarder, garlic monger, and saucemaker. However, there were other activities that were surprisinglylimited among the secular population (perhaps because they were carried out by the clergy). Thus, the 6118 people withidentified non-farm occupations included only one schoolmaster and two attorneys (some of the clerks may, however, have beenlawyers). Interestingly, there were also almost no people with explicitly military functions.

5. Other evidence of high incomes in 1381

There was a regional dimension to the fraction of the population employed outside farming in 1381. In particular, this fractionis high even in rural areas in East Anglia: Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. There is other evidence that these were indeed prosperousareas in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In East Anglia in 1381, the poll tax returns suggests 14% of the rural populationwere engaged in cloth production, compared to 6% for rural England as a whole.

Suffolk has 500 surviving medieval churches. A fine example is that of St Mary's in Hadleigh, which was constructedprogressively from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, when it assumed its present form, 163 ft long, with a tower of 135 ft.17 In1381 the estimated population of Hadleigh from the poll tax returns, allowing for non-payers, was under 1800 people (by 1801Hadleigh still had only 2332 inhabitants). That a community of 1800 people could call upon the resources to build and maintain achurch of this size is testament to the fact that England was living at an income level well above that where food was theirdominant expenditure, as suggested by the BCKOV income estimates. Yet the church is not the only impressive structure inHadleigh dating to the fifteenth century. Next to the church is the imposing 52 ft tall surviving gatehouse of the Palace planned byArchdeacon Pykenham, the rector of Hadleigh.18 Also near the church is the Guildhall, dating from the fifteenth century, which isthree stories tall, and has a hall on the second floor 80 ft long and 22 ft wide.19

Little Saxham, was about one tenth the size of Hadleigh, a rural village of 180 people in 1381. Yet its church, completed in itscurrent form just before the Reformation of the Church in the 1530s, is also an impressive edifice.20 The 180 inhabitants,theoretically living on the verge of physical subsistence were able to construct and maintain a building more than 3000 squarefeet in floor area, with an interior height of at least 30 ft, and large area of glass windows.

An even more spectacular church is that in Lavenham, built around 1486–1525. We do not have precise population figures formedieval Lavenham from the poll tax returns, but its population in the fifteenth century cannot have exceeded 2000 (by 1801 itspopulation was only 1776). Not only was the church large in size, with the tower 140 ft tall, and the building 156 ft in length, butit was filled with elaborately carved stonework and woodwork.21 In addition to its church, Lavenham supported a substantialguildhall that survives to this day, built in 1529 by the Guild of Corpus Christi, one of four medieval guilds operating in the town.22

The BCKOV income estimates for pre-industrial England suggest that incomes per capita before 1700 were at the level of muchof modern day sub-Saharan Africa: Uganda (72.5% in farming), Zambia (73%), Tanzania (73.5%), Kenya (75%), Burundi (78%),Ethiopia (79%), Rwanda (79%), Mozambique (81%), Malawi (83%).23 I venture the hypothesis that the typical community of 180people, or even 2000 people, in any of these countries would not contain any communal religious or social edifices comparablethe local parish churches and guildhalls of medieval Suffolk. In my book, A Farewell to Alms, there is an aerial picture of a typicalvillage in rural Malawi in 1988 (Clark, 2007b, Fig. 3.2). This community, with a population likely equivalent to Little Saxham in1381, shows no structures that would survive for more than a few years, never mind a structure of the size and permanence ofLittle Saxham church. England in 1350–1550 and such societies as Malawi now are, based just on this physical evidence, societiesat very different levels of income per person.

17 Pevsner (1961, 222–3) and Pigot (1860, 30–61). Simon Knott's website provides photos of this and other churches: http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/.18 Pykenham died in 1497, putting an end to the project.19 Pevsner (1961, 223–4) and Pigot (1860, 17).20 Pevsner (1961, 310–11).21 Pevsner (1961, 296–8).22 Pevsner (1961, 300).23 Farm employment shares from the International Labor Organization: http://laborsta.ilo.org/STP/guest

11G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

6. Low employment shares in farming and the BCKOV GDP estimates

Broadberry et al. (2011) accept that the employment share in England in farmingwas close to the level calculated in this paper for1381. Estimating the farm share from the poll tax data in a different way than employed above, they calculate a similar farmemployment share as here (Broadberry et al., 2012, Table 1). There is agreement that from at least the late medieval period Englandhad an unusually small share of employment in farming compared to pre-industrial economies observed in the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries.

However, BCKOV still holds that Englandwas poor in 1381, and grew substantially richer between then and 1801. Their reasoninghere is that farm employment shares, on their calculations, were even lower in England in 1688, 1759 and 1801, implying risingincomes between 1381 and 1801. Their farm employment shares are calculated from a source of unknown reliability, the social tablesof Gregory King, JosephMassie, and Patrick Colquhoun. But they find these shares to be consistentwith recent provisional estimates ofmale employment shares from parish records in 1710 and 1755 (Shaw-Taylor et al., 2010). The proposed shares, summarized inTable 4, are remarkably low for a pre-industrial economy: 39% in 1688, 37% in 1759, and 32% in 1801. England, they argue wassubstantially industrialized long before the Industrial Revolution. There must therefore have been substantial income growthbetween 1500 and 1700. Smithian growth lives.

However, these suggested employment shares, those for 1688 and 1759 in particular, are even more inconsistent with the laterobserved relationship between income and farm employment shares than is the earlier share for 1381. To show this, consider Fig. 5.The line in Fig. 5 shows the expected relationship between income per person and the farm employment share, absent food importsand exports, based onmodern data. The dark squares show the relationship of income and farm employment shares for India in 1950,1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. Notably, the Indian relationship falls exactly along the predicted line. The BCKOV income/farmshare estimates are shown as the light squares, where the farm shares have been adjusted by adding to them the share of net farmimports in national income, as given in Table 4. Thus in 1851, BCKOV calculate a farm employment share of 24%. But in that year net

Table 4BCKOV estimated farm employment and expenditure shares.

Period Income BCKOV($2005)

Farm employmentshare implied byincome BCKOVa (%)

BCKOV employmentshare estimates (%)

BCKOV employmentshare estimates adjustedfor farm imports (%)b

BCKOV farm expenditureshare estimates adjustedfor farm imports (%)c

1379–81 1395 72 57 55 441522 1408 72 58 56 381688 1804 68 39 39 271759 2148 64 37 34 281801 2476 61 32 48 471851 3480 51 24 46 411865 4116 45 19 42 –

Notes:a Assuming no imports or exports.b Adjusting by adding net imports of food and raw materials as a share of national income. These are assumed to be 1379–81, −2%, 1553–9, −2%, 1688, 0%,

1759, −3%, 1801, +16%, 1851, +22%, 1865, 23% based on Clark (2010a) for England.c Farm outputs as a share of GDP from Broadberry et al. (2012), Table 7, adding net farm imports as above.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000

Shar

e in

Far

min

g (%

)

Income per person ($2005)

BCKOV

Average Modern

India, 1950-2000

Sources: Table 4.

Fig. 5. Farm employment shares (adjusted for imports) and income, 1381–1865.

12 G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

food and rawmaterial imports into England was a full 22% of national income. The effective farm share in employment was 46%.24 Incontrast, amuchpoorer England in 1688, then largely self-sufficient in farmoutputs, supposedly employed only 39% of the populationin farming. If we were to accept the new employment share estimates for 1688 and 1759, then they would imply that England1688–1759 had higher incomes per capita than England in 1801 or 1851.

Broadberry et al. (2012) also give the implied output share for the primary sector in their accounting. If we add to these outputshares an allowance for imports and exports of food and raw materials as a percent of national income, then we get the impliedshares of farm output and raw material consumption in total expenditure, as is shown in the last column of Table 4. By theseestimates, primary output expenditure is only 44% of all expenditure in 1381, but had actually risen to 48% by 1801, when incomewas supposedly nearly double its level in 1381. There should be a strong inverse relationship between the primary expenditureshares and income per person. As Fig. 6 shows not only is the inverse relationship missing, but with small changes in income wealso see dramatic increases in the primary expenditure shares as we go from 1759 to 1801. The figure also shows the expectedexpenditure share as a function of income based on 1851, and as can be seen for all years before 1800 these shares are too low.The shortfall is dramatic for 1759 and 1688, but also substantial for 1381.

Thus, the BCKOV income estimates for earlier years do not fit with their calculated shares of farm employment before 1800, orwith the shares of expenditure on farm and raw material outputs. The only way to make them reconcile with the observedemployment shares for 1381 is to recognize that income must have been much closer to that in 1801 than they estimate.

7. Conclusion

The poll taxes of 1379–81 offer convincing evidence that per capita income levels in England around 1379–81 were close totheir level in 1800. The best estimate of the share of the population employed in farming or fishing in 1381 is only 56–59%. Even ifevery person of unknown occupation turned out to be employed in farming in the poll tax returns, there would still only be that63% of the population engaged in farming 1379–82.25 Farm employment shares in areas like rural East Anglia were even lower in1379–81 than in the country as a whole. The prosperity of even rural East Anglia in this period is borne witness by parish churchesand guildhalls that greatly exceed in their size and complexity any such structures that would be seen now in, for example, thepoorest countries of Africa.

The estimated farm employment share for 1379–81 is only slightly higher than would be implied by the income series forEngland of Clark (2010a). But it sharply conflicts with the BCKOV income series. Thus, it is likely that there was little incomegrowth in England over the years 1200–1800. In another work I have developed further the case for high pre-industrial Englishincomes. Clark et al. (2012) shows that the share engaged in 1560–79 was 60%, and in 1652–60 was 59%, suggesting that incomesin these years were similar to the level of 1800 also.

Clark (2012) details why the farm output estimates of BCKOV are too low for the years 1700 and before. The key problem isthat they assume too small an arable acreage in the years before 1700, and given their method of estimating farm output this inturn implies too small a volume of farm output. A test that demonstrates that the assumed BCKOV arable acreage is too smallcomes from estimating the implied man-days of labor at the peak harvest season. There is good evidence that the harvest fullyemployed the English farm labor force in all years 1200–1850. Farm day wages were higher by about the same amount across allthese years. Per male worker there were more than 30 days of employment in harvest in 1851. Yet, on the BCKOV assumptions on

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000

Prim

ary

Exp

endi

rue

Shar

e (%

)

Income per person ($2005)

1851

1801

Sources: Table 4.

Fig. 6. Primary expenditure shares (adjusted for imports) and income, BCKOV.

24 Assuming value added per worker in farming was the same as in the rest of the economy.25 Assuming women were one third of the labor force.

13G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

arable acreage in 1300, there were only 20 days of harvest employment per male farm worker. Arable acreage per worker musthave been typically 50% higher than BCKOV assume for pre-industrial England, and thus farm output also 50% greater.

Clark (2010b) shows that the “Consumer Revolution” of 1600–1750, and the seeming substantial rise of incomes it indicated,is likely just the artificial product of a change in the frequency of probates 1600–1750.

Real wage estimates for England before 1800 correlate closely with overall income estimates. This is because labor income wasthe majority of all income, even in the pre-industrial era. Also other important elements of income, such as the implied rental ofthe housing stock, correlate well with real wages. If real day wages are thus a good guide to likely levels of overall income in thepre-industrial world, then real wage series from elsewhere in Europe in the years 1300–1800 suggest that the pattern we see inpre-industrial England will be the norm. Most countries in Europe saw no income growth during the years 1200–1800. Incomeswere not trending upwards as Europe approached the Industrial Revolution, even in the most prosperous parts of Europe.

Appendix A

Locations used for occupation share estimates, 1379–1381

Berkshire: (Reading Hundred) — Beech Hill, Beenham, Bradfield, Bucklebury, Burghfield Abbots, Burghfield Regis, Coley,Crookham, Englefield, Grazeley, Hartley Dummer, Henwick, Nunhide, Padworth, Purley, Purley Parva, Reading, Sheffield Bottom,Stratfield Saye, Sulhampstead Abbots, Sulhamstead Bannister, Tidmarsh, Woolhampton.

Derby: (High Peak Wapentake) — Ashford, Bakewell, Baslow, Blackwell, Bowden, Buxton, Darley, Eyam, Glossop, Tideswell,Wormhill, Youlgreave.

Dorset: (Ancient Demesnes) — Corfe Castle, Wareham, (x); (Hasler Hundred) — Arne, Blashenwell, Bradle, Creech, Egliston,Encombe, East Holme, LangtonMatravers, Povington, Tyneham East, TynehamWest; (Rowbarrow Hundred)— Afflington, Kingston,Ower, Renscombe, Rollington.

Essex: (Chelmsford Hundred) — Chelmsford; (Dunmow Hundred) — Thaxted; (Hinckford Hundred) — Middleton, Rayne,Twinstead; (Thurstable Hundred) — Tollesbury.

Gloucester: (Brightwells Barrow Hundred) — Ablington, Aldsworth, Barnsley, Bibury, Coln St Aldwyn, Eastleach Martin,Eastleach Turville, Eycotfield, Fairford, Hatherop, Kempsford, Lechlade, Quenington, Southrop.

Hampshire (1379/81): (Fareham Hundred 1381) — Crockerhill, Fareham; (Isle of Wight 1379) — Adgestone and Kern, Afton,Arreton, Ashey, Atherfield, Barnsley, Beech Hill, Bowcombe, Brading, Brook, Broughton, Calbourne, Carisbrooke, Chale, Chillerton,Compton, Crockerhill, East Standen and Merston, Freshwater, Gatcombe, Godshill and Stenbury, Hardley and Yaverland, Kingston,Knighton, Liss Abbas, Mottistone, Newchurch, Newtown, Newport, Ningwood, Niton, Northwood, Pan and Fairlie, Rockley, Roud,Sandown, Shalfleet, Shanklin, Shide, North Shorwell, South Shorwell, St Helens, St Lawrence andNettlecomb,West Standen, StratfieldSaye, Swainston, Thorley, Watchingwell, Week, Whippingham, Whitwell, Wootton, Wroxall, Yarmouth; (Meonstoke Hundred1379) — Burwell, Corhampton, East Hoe, Meonstoke, Soberton, Warnford, Westbury; (Thorngate Hundred 1379) — Broughton.

Lancashire (1379): (West DerbyWapentake)— Atherton, Aughton, Bickerstaffe, Eccleston, Formby, Halsall, Hindley, Huyton withRoby, Ince in Makerfield, Knowsley, Liverpool, Lowton with Kenyon, Parr, Pennington, Rixton with Glazebrook, Scarisbrick withHurlston, Wavertree, Westleigh, Windle.

Leicester: (FramlandHundred)— Ab Kettleby, Barkestone, Bescaby, Bottesford, Branston, Brentingby, Buckminster, Burton Lazars,Cold Overton, Coston, Croxton Kerrial, Little Dalby, Eastthorpe, Eastwell, Eaton, Edmondthorpe, Eye Kettleby, Freeby, Garthorpe,GoadbyMarwood, Harby, Harston, Holwell, Hose, Kirby Bellars, Knipton, LongClawson,MeltonMowbray,Muston, Nether Broughton,Normanton, Plungar, Redmile, Saltby, Saxby, Scalford, Sewstern, Somerby, Sproxton, Stapleford, Stathern, Stonesby, Sysonby, ThorpeArnold, Waltham on the Wold, Welby, Withcote, Wyfordby, Wymundham.

Norfolk: (Tunstead Hundred) — Crostwight, Ridlington, Smallberghe, North Walsham, Witton, Worstead.Shropshire: (Brimstree Hundred) — Halesowen; (Stottesdon Hundred) — Aldenham, Astley Abbots, Aston Botterell, Billingsley,

Bransley, Chelmarsh, Chetton, Cleobury Mortimer, Doddington, Duddlewick, Dudston, Earnwood, Eudon Burnell, Eudon George,

Table A1The assignment of tax payers to occupational categories.

Gender Descriptor Sector

Male ‘cult’, ‘curac’ (plowman), ‘firmar’, ‘terr ten’, ‘nat ten’, ‘agricola’, shepherd or ‘bercar’, ‘nethird’, ‘swynhird’,‘thresher’, ‘tasker,’ ‘baly,’ ‘serviens’ where master is in farming

Farm

Male ‘filio’ of man or woman with farm occupation FarmMale ‘armiger’, ‘squire,’ ‘laborar’, ‘operar’, ‘serviens’ (master's occupation unknown), no stated occupation UnknownMale ‘filio’ of man or woman with unknown occupation UnknownMale ‘artifex’, or any other occupation, or ‘serviens’ of master with non-farm occupation Non‐farmMale ‘filio’ of man or woman with non-farm occupation Non‐farmMale occupation not recorded, ‘leper’, ‘impotent,’ ‘lame’ Not countedFemale ‘cult’ or ‘terr ten’ or ‘agricola,’ or ‘serviens’ of a person with farm occupations FarmFemale ‘laborar’, ‘operar’, ‘serviens’ of non-farm worker, ‘filat’, ‘spynnere’, ‘bras’, any other occupation Non-farmFemale ‘laborar’, ‘operar’, ‘serviens’ (no master), or occupation not recorded UnknownFemale ‘vidua’, ‘ux.’ or ‘filia’ Not counted

Note: *this is the sector assignment for such workers under the second female occupations measure.

14 G. Clark / Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013) 4–15

Hampton, Harcourt, Highley, Hopton Wafers, Kinlet, Morville, Neenton, Oldbury, Rudge, Sheinton, Shipley, Sidbury, Stottesdon,Sutton, Tasley, Timberth, Upton Cresset, Wheathill, Wrichton and Walkerslow.

Stafford: (Cuttlestone Hundred) — Acton Trussel with Bednall, Befcote, Blymhill with Brineton, Brewood and Gunstone,Brocton, Cannock with Membris, Church Eaton, Coven, Cowley, Dunston with Drayton, Gnosall, Haughton, High Onn, Knightley,Lapley and Wheaton Aston, Levedale, Little Onn, Longnor, Marston, Meretown, Mitton, Moreton and Wilbrighton, Norbury,Otherton and Rodbaston, Pentridge, Pillaton, Rugeley, Shareshill, Sheriff Hales, Stockton and Walton, Stretton, Weston Jones,Weston under Lizard, Whiston with Bickford, Woolaston and Shredicote.

Somerset: Closworth, Hardington Mandeville, Sutton Bingham, West Coker.Suffolk: Benacre, Bramfield, Bulcamp, Buxhall, Buxlow, Combs, Dagworth, Euston, Fakenham Magna, Great Finborough,

Flixton, Gipping, Hadleigh, Haughley, Hinderclay, Ixworth Thorp, Old Newton, Pakefield, Rushford, Sizewell, Stowlangtoft,Stowmarket, Thwaite, Walsham Le Willows, West Creeting, Wetherden, Wordwell (plus 3 other unidentified locations).

Surrey: (Blackheath Hundred) — Gomshall, Shalford, Shere; (Dorking Hundred) — Betchworth, Dorking, Milton, Paddington,Westcote; (Godalming Hundred)— Artington, Catteshall, Chiddingfold, Compton, Farncombe, Godalming, Hambledon, Hurtmore,Peper Harow, Witley.

Wiltshire: (Mere Hundred) — Charnage, Kingston Deverill, Mere, Stourton, West Knoyle, Woodlands, Zeals.Yorkshire (East Riding) (1379): (Howden Liberty and Howdenshire Wapentake)— Asselby, Balkholme, Barlby, Barmby on the

Marsh, Belby, Burland, Eastrington, Gardham, Greenoak, Howden, Kilpin, Knedlington, NorthDuffield, Owsthorpe, Riccall, Sandholme,Scorborough, Skelton, Skipwith, Thorp, West Cottingwith with Thorganby, Yokefleet.

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