market. But this gave lords a greater incentive to keep the
labor market extractive and the peasants servile. In
England this motivation had been in play, too, as reflected
in the Statute of Laborers. But workers had sufficient power
that they got their way. Not so in Eastern Europe. After the
plague, Eastern landlords started to take over large tracts
of land and expand their holdings, which were already
larger than those in Western Europe. Towns were weaker
and less populous, and rather than becoming freer, workers
began to see their already existing freedoms encroached
on.
The effects became especially clear after 1500, when
Western Europe began to demand the agricultural goods,
such as wheat, rye, and livestock, produced in the East.
Eighty percent of the imports of rye into Amsterdam came
from the Elbe, Vistula, and Oder river valleys. Soon half of
the Netherlands’ booming trade was with Eastern Europe.
As Western demand expanded, Eastern landlords
ratcheted up their control over the labor force to expand
their supply. It was to be called the Second Serfdom,
distinct and more intense than its original form of the early
Middle Ages. Lords increased the taxes they levied on their
tenants’ own plots and took half of the gross output. In
Korczyn, Poland, all work for the lord in 1533 was paid. But
by 1600 nearly half was unpaid forced labor. In 1500,
workers in Mecklenberg, in eastern Germany, owed only a
few days’ unpaid labor services a year. By 1550 it was one
day a week, and by 1600, three days per week. Workers’
children had to work for the lord for free for several years. In
Hungary, landlords took complete control of the land in
1514, legislating one day a week of unpaid labor services
for each worker. In 1550 this was raised to two days per
week. By the end of the century, it was three days. Serfs
subject to these rules made up 90 percent of the rural
population by this time.
Though in 1346 there were few differences between
Western and Eastern Europe in terms of political and
economic institutions, by 1600 they were worlds apart. In
the West, workers were free of feudal dues, fines, and
regulations and were becoming a key part of a booming
market economy. In the East, they were also involved in
such an economy, but as coerced serfs growing the food