R.H. Hilton – Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism, Essays in Medieval Social History
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R.H. Hilton - Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism, Essays in Medieval Social History
revised edition [Verso 1990] buy new or used at abebooks.co.uk | buy new at amazon.co.uk 
If you use either of these links to purchase this item breviary stuff will receive 5% commission Some of the liveliest and fruitful debates in recent historical writing have been about the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Rodney Hilton's vast and distinguished body of work on medieval society has been a major reference point in these debates. Throughout his work the dominant theme has been has been his argument that the 'prime mover' in the development of medieval society was the conflict between landlords and peasants over the appropriation of the peasants' surplus product. This is the class conflict that gives the present volume its title. The wide ranging collection, updated to include some of Hilton's most recent writings, explores not only the peasant economy and peasant movements but also the nature of towns and their principal classes. Essays include a fascinating study of women traders in medieval England, and an account of medieval tax revolts — all informed by his lucid, undogmatic attention to broad theoretical issues as well as empirical detail. This is a book not only for historians, but for anyone interested in the evolution of capitalism or the larger questions of historical process and social change.
It is differentiated from the 'slave' or 'ancient' mode in that the exploited class from which surplus is exacted is, though servile, in possession of its own means of subsistence. The serfs are an unfree peasantry. The ruling class consists of landowners/landlords who take the surplus of peasant production either in the form of labour on the demesne, rent in kind or in money. It is, of course, differentiated from the capitalist mode of production where the owners of capital exploit a free but powerless class of wage workers by the extraction of surplus value in the manufacturing process, by paying wages less than the full value of their labour.
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