and agricultural goods demanded in the West. It was a
market economy, but not an inclusive one. This institutional
divergence was the result of a situation where the
differences between these areas initially seemed very
small: in the East, lords were a little better organized; they
had slightly more rights and more consolidated
landholdings. Towns were weaker and smaller, peasants
less organized. In the grand scheme of history, these were
small differences. Yet these small differences between the
East and the West became very consequential for the lives
of their populations and for the future path of institutional
development when the