Prices and Production: Agricultural Supply response in Fourteenth Century England

Eric Schneider

University of Oxford

Abstract

This  paper  challenges  the  growing  consensus  in  the  literature  (Stone,  2005;  Dodds, 2007) that medieval English peasants and manorial managers were price responsive in their production decisions. Using prices of and acreages planted with wheat, barley, and oats on 49 manors held by the bishop of Winchester from 1349-70, we estimate price elasticities of supply for each grain in aggregate and on each particular manor. Aggregate  price  elasticities  of  supply  for  wheat  and  oats  were  not  significantly different  than  zero,  and  barley  aggregate  elasticities  of  supply  were  significant  but very  low.  These elasticities  are  low  compared  with  price  elasticities  of  supply estimated  for  developing  and  developed  countries  in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth centuries.  Attempting  to  explain  the  variation  in  the  estimated  price  elasticities  for individual  manors,  market  concentration  had  a  significant,  positive  effect  on  price elasticities of wheat and oat supply. In the end, the low levels of price responsiveness in the post-Black Death period suggest that commercialisation was not as dominant in the  medieval  English  economy  as  has  been  argued.  Thus,  the  institutional  and structural changes highlighted by Marxist and Neo-Malthusian historians may need to take a more prominent role in explanations of medieval economic change.