Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism

298 Pages·1978·16.53 MB·English

by  Perry Anderson

Perry Anderson
NLB
Passages
from Antiquity
to Feudalism
0 NLB, x974
NLB, 7 Carlisle Street, London, WI
Type set in Monotype Fournier
and printed by Western Printing Services Ltd, Bristol
Foreword 7
PART ONE
I. Classical Antiquity
I. The Slave Mode of Production 28
2. Greece 29
3. The Hellenistic World 45
4. Rome 53
II. The Transition
I. The Germanic Background I 07
2. The Invasions z 12
3. Towards Synthesis 228
PART TWO
I. Vestern Europe
I. The Feudal Mode of Production 247
2. Typology of Social Formations 254
3. The Far North 273
4. The Feudal Dynamic 282
5. The General Crisis 197
II. Eastern Europe
I. East of the Elbe 223
2. The Nomadic Brake 227
3. The Pattern of Development 229
4. The Crisis in the East 246
5. South of the Danube 265
Index of Names 294
Index 6f Authorities 302
Foreword
Some words are necessary to explain the scope and intention of this
essay. It is conceived as a prologue to the longer study, whose subject-
matter follows immediately on it: Lineages of the Absolutist State. The
two books are articulated directly into each other, and ultimately
-
suggest a single argument. The relationship between the two
antiquity and feudalism on the one hand, and absolutism on the other
- is not immediately apparent, in the usual perspective of most treat-
ments of them. Normally, ancient history is separated by a professional
chasm from mediaeval history, which very few contemporary works
attempt to span: the gulf between them is, of course, institutionally
entrenched in both teaching and research. The conventional distance
between mediaeval history and early modern history is (naturally or
paradoxically?) much less: but it nevertheless has typically been
enough to preclude any examination of feudalism and absolutism
within, as it were, a single focus. The argument of these interlinked
studies is that in certain important respects this is the way in which the
successive forms which are its concern should be considered. The
present essay explores the social and political world of classical
antiquity, the nature of the transition from it to the mediaeval world,
and the resultant structure and evolution of feudalism in Europe;
regional divisions, both of the Mediterranean and of Europe, are a
central theme throughout. Its sequel discusses Absolutism against the
background of feudalism and antiquity, as their legitimate political heir.
The reasons for preceding a comparative survey of the Absolutist
State by an excursion through classical antiquity and feudalism will be-
come evident in the course of the second work itself, and are sum-
marized in its conclusions. These attempt to situate the specificity of
8 Foreword
European experience as a whole within a wider international setting, in
the light of the analyses of both volumes.
It is necessary, however, to stress at the outset the limited and pro-
visional character of the accounts presented in each work. The scholar-
ship and skills of the professional historian are absent from them.
Historical writing in the proper sense is inseparable from direct
research into the original records of the past - archival, epigraphic or
archaeological. The studies below have no claim to this dignity.
Rather than an actual writing of history as such, they are based simply
on a reading of the available works of modern historians: a very
different matter. The accompanying apparatus of references, therefore,
is the opposite of that which denotes a work of scholarly historio-
graphy. He who possesses authority, does not cite it: the sources them-
selves - the primary materials of the past - speak through him. The
type and extent of the notes which support the text in both these
works merely indicate the secondary level at which they are situated.
Historians themselves, of course, have occasion to produce works of
comparison or synthesis without always necessarily having intimate
acquaintance with the full range of evidence across the field concerned,
although their judgement is likely to be tempered by their command of
their specialism. In itself, the effort to describe or understand very
broad historical structures or epochs needs no undue apology or
justification: without it, specific and local researches fall short of their
own potential significance. But it is nevertheless true that no inter-
pretations are so fallible as those which rely on conclusions reached
elsewhere as their elementary units of evidence: for they remain
constantly open to invalidation by new discoveries or revisions of
further primary investigation. What is generally accepted by historians
of one generation can still be disproved by the research of the next.
Any attempt to generalize on the foundations of existing opinions,
however erudite the latter, must therefore inevitably be precarious and
conditional. In this case, the limits of the essays involved are par-
ticularly great, because of the span of time covered. In effect, the
broader the range of history surveyed, the more compressed the treat-
ment accorded to any phase of it will tend to be. In this sense, the full
and difficult complexity of the past - which can only be captured on
Foreword 9
the rich canvas painted by the historian - remains largely outside the
scope of these studies. The analyses found below, for reasons of both
competence and space, are rudimentary diagrams: no more. Brief
sketches for another history, they are intended to propose elements for
discussion, rather than to expound closed or comprehensive theses.
The discussion for which they are designed is primarily one within
the field of historical materialism. The aims of the method chosen for
the usage of Marxism in them are set out in the foreword to Lineages of
the Absolutist State, where they become most clearly visible in the
formal structure of the work. Here there is no need to do more than
state the principles which have governed the use of sources, in both
studies. The authorities drawn upon for this survey, as for any basically
comparative enquiry, are naturally extremely diverse - varying greatly
in both intellectual and political character. No special privilege has been
granted to Marxist historiography as such. Despite the changes of
recent decades, the great bulk of serious historical work in the 20th
century has been written by historians foreign to Marxism. Historical
materialism is not a finished science; nor have all its practitioners been
of a similar calibre. There are fields of historiography which are
dominated by Marxist research; there are more, in which non-Marxist
contributions are superior in quality and quantity to Marxist; and there
are perhaps even more, where no Marxist interventions exist at all. The
only permissible criterion of discrimination, in a comparative survey
which must consider works coming from such different horizons, is
their intrinsic solidity and intelligence. Maximum awareness and respect
for the scholarship of historians outside the boundaries of Marxism is
not incompatible with rigorous pursuit of a Marxist historical enquiry:
it is a condition of it. Conversely, Marx and Engels themselves can
never be taken simply at their word: the errors of their writings on the
past should not be evaded or ignored, but identified and criticized. To
do so is not to depart from historical materialism, but to rejoin it. There
is no place for any fideism in rational knowledge, which is necessarily
cumulative; and the greatness of the founders of new sciences has never
been proof against misjudgments or myths, any more than it has been
impaired by them. To take ‘liberties’ with the signature of Marx is in
this sense merely to enter into the freedom of Marxism.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Anthony Barnett, Robert Browning, Judith
Herrin, Victor Kiernan, Tom Nairn, Brian Pearce and Gareth Stedman
Jones for their critical comments on this essay, or its sequel. Given the
nature of both, it is more than conventionally necessary to absolve them
of any responsibility for the errors, of fact or interpretation, which
these contain.
Part One
I. Classical Antiquity