Note 157 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Now we must admit that commutation of labour dues for money payments was not possible before money was used. Yet the fact that commutation of services for payments in kind, which does not suppose money economy, also occurred157, shows that the rise of money economy cannot have been the sole cause of this change. We may even go farther and say: if it has been a cause at all, it has not certainly been one of the principal causes. The commutation of the labour dues means that the demesne was thenceforth either worked with free labourers or let for rent. The existence of a class of freemen dependent on wages cannot, however, be accounted for by money economy. Nor can we see how money economy can have led to the letting of the demesnes which the landlords had formerly kept in their own hands. Ochenkowski supposes that in England, after the Norman Conquest, the need of the landlords for money led to commutation158. But there is no reason why the landlords could not, instead of receiving money payments, obtain money by selling the produce of their lands. As long as there was no market for agricultural products the landlord, whether he himself had the lead of agricultural operations or let the demesne on condition of receiving a payment in kind, could not obtain money. As soon as there was a market he could make money in three ways: by working the demesne himself and selling the produce, by letting it on condition of receiving part of the produce, which he could bring to the market159, and by letting it for a rent in money. Money economy seems to have had little to do with the commutation.