Chris Wickham on 'The Economic Logic of Medieval Societies': A Response.

This article critically examines Chris Wickham's theory of the feudal economy, which centers on the majority of peasants having direct, non-market access to their subsistence needs and the economy being driven primarily by lordly demand. While Wickham's model fits the period up to around 1200, the article argues that from the 13th century onward, increasing rural stratification and market dependence among peasants and sub-peasant classes significantly altered economic dynamics. It contends that non-elite demand, including for goods essential to social as well as biological survival, became substantial enough to challenge the primacy of lordly demand, creating high-functioning, high-equilibrium economies that were neither strictly feudal nor capitalist. The article emphasizes the need to understand these pre-capitalist economies on their own terms, without assuming an inevitable transition to capitalism or relying solely on models predicated on unmarketized subsistence.