The Feudal Origins of Manorial Prosperity: Social Interactions in Eleventh-Century England

Vincent Delabastita and Sebastiaan Maes

The Journal of Economic History, 2023, vol. 83, issue 2, 464-500

Abstract: Does the prosperity of medieval manors depend on their position in the feudal system? How large are these effects? And what are the underlying economic mechanisms? Using Domesday Book, a unique country-wide survey conducted by William the Conqueror, we reinterpret the eleventh-century English feudal system as a network in which manors are linked to one another based on their common ownership structure. Both a reduced-form and a more structural approach reveal the existence of external economies of scale: manorial prosperity was closely intertwined with the fortune of feudal peers. Our findings quantitatively establish the existence of feudal coordination in High-Medieval agricultural activities, revealing how institutionalized interactions could serve to mitigate transaction costs.

Date: 2023
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