1 Jerome Blum introduced the notion of the ‘second serfdom’ into discussions of Eastern European, including Russian, agrarian relations in ‘The rise of serfdom in Eastern Europe’, American Historical Review 62 (1957), 807–36.Google Scholar The ‘second serfdom’ differed from its medieval predecessor by the much more pronounced market orientation among landowners, which led to the treatment of the enserfed peasantry as primarily a captive labour force. See also Blum, , The end of the old order in rural Europe (Princeton, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Domar, Evsey, ‘The causes of slavery and serfdom: a hypothesis’, Journal of Economic History 30 (1970), 18–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Domar, Evsey and Machina, Marck J., ‘On the profitability of Russian serfdom’, Journal of Economic History 44 (1944), 919–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thorner, Daniel, Kerblay, Basile, and Smith, R. E. F. eds. and trans., A. V. Chayanov and the theory of the peasant economy (Homewood, Ill., 1966)Google Scholar; and Paul, E.Durrenberger, ed., Chayanov, peasants, and economic anthropology (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

2 Brenner, Robert, ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’, and ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, in Ashton, T. H. and Philpin, C. H. E. eds., The Brenner debate: agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe (Cambridge, 1987), 10–63, 213–327Google Scholar. See also Hagen, William W., ‘Capitalism and the countryside in early modern Europe: interpretations, models, debates’, Agricultural History 62 (1988), 13–47.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Mendels, Franklin, ‘Protoindustrialization: the first phase of the industrial process’, Journal of Economic History 32 (1972), 241–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Medick, Hans, ‘The proto-industrial family economy: the structural function of household and family’, Social History 1 (1976), 291–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levine, David, Family formation in the age of nascent capitalism (New York, 1977)Google Scholar; Gutmann, Myron P. and Leboutte, Rene, ‘Rethinking protoindustrialism and the family’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14 (1984), 587–607CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gutmann, , Toward the modern economy: early industry in Europe, 1500–1800 (Philadelphia, 1988)Google Scholar; Kahk, Juhan, Peasant and lord in the process of transition from feudalism to capitalism in the Baltics (Tallinn, 1982)Google Scholar; Kula, Witold, An economic theory of the feudal system: towards a model of the Polish economy, 1500–1800 (1970), trans. Garner, Lawrence (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Shanin, Teodor ed., Peasants and peasant societies, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar; Defining peasants: essays concerning rural societies, expolary economies, and learning from them in a contemporary world (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Scott, James C., Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Haven, 1985)Google Scholar; Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts (New Haven, 1990)Google Scholar; Tilly, Louise A. and Scott, Joan W., Women, work, and the family (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Ehmer, Josef and Mitterauer, Michael eds., Familienstrukturen und Arbeitsorganisation in landlichen Gesellschaften (Vienna, 1986)Google Scholar; and Hareven, Tamara, ‘The history of the family and the complexity of social change’, American Historical Review 96 (1991), 95–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Accentuation of the powerlessness of enserfed Baltic peasants and of the determinative role of landowners is found in virtually all interpretations of agrarian relations in the Baltic area, for reasons sometimes having to do with the fact that landowners possessed the land (the means of production), and sometimes because the landowners were Baltic Germans, Poles, or Russians (and therefore ‘invaders’) and the peasantry Estonians and Latvians (and therefore the ‘colonized’). See, for example, Soom, Arnold, Der Herrenhof in Estland im 17. Jahrhundert (Lund, 1987)Google Scholar; Dunsdorfs, Edgar, Latvijas vesture 1710–1800 [History of Latvia 1710–1800] (Stockholm, 1973)Google Scholar; Strods, Heinrihs, Zemnieku un muizu saimniecibu skaita im strukturas izmainas Latvija (18.gs. beigas-19.gs. I.puse) [Changes in the number and the structure of landed estates in Latvia from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 19th century] (Riga, 1984)Google Scholar; Kahk, , Peasant and lord; and Dzidra Liepina, Vidzemes zemnieki un muiza 18.gs. pirmaja puse [The peasants andestates ofLivlandin the first half of the nineteenth century] (Riga, 1983)Google Scholar; and Agraras attiecibas Rigas lauku novada vela feodalisma posma (17.–18.gs.) [Agrarian relations int eh rural district of Riga in the period of late feudalism (17–18th centuries)] (Riga, 1962).Google Scholar

5 Temin, Peter, ‘Economic history in the 1980s: the future of the new economic history’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 (1981), 179–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Ibid., 189, 190, 189.

7 The best survey of the Riga patrimonial estates up to the end of the eighteenth century is Liepina, , Agraras attiecibas.Google Scholar

8 For a discussion of the origins of the 1804 reform law, see Schwabe, Arveds, Grundriss der Agrargeschichte Lettlands (Riga, 1928), 293–340.Google Scholar

9 The Pinkenhof Wackenbuch documents are in the Central National Historical Archive in Riga, Latvia. We have used the copy in Baltic Microfilms, D91, Oekonomie Expedition d.Stadt-Cassa Collegiums IV E.I, s. 773–85, J. G. Herder Institute, Marburg a.d. Lahn, Germany.

10 Seventh (1816) Imperial Revision, Central National Historical Archive, Riga, Latvia. Baltic Microfilms, D112, Oekonomie-Expedition d. Stadt-Cassa Collegiums IV E.4, Revisionsliste Gut Pinkenhof, Library of the J. G. Herder Institute, Marburg a.d. Lahn, Germany.

11 The Pinkenhof Wackenbuch, concluded in 1809, contains information on 92 farms, with the signatures of estate officials appearing after the ninety-second entry, which suggests that the officials considered the list of 92 complete. The 1816 soul revision, however, contains information on 136 residential units in the estate, suggesting that a substantial number of these were not included in the main corvee system and that their inhabitants were not obligated by the corvee attached to farmsteads (Bauerngesinde), although these peasants were still required to participate in various kinds of collective work such as road repair, cartage, and upkeep of ‘public’ buildings such as postal way-stations. Among the residential units not listed in the Wackenbuch were a flour mill, a school, a hospital, the pastorate, three foresters’ dwellings, five taverns, the main and two subsidiary estate farms, twenty-five additional farm plots (Grundstucke), and five apparently new farmsteads. We discuss the demography of Pinkenhof in the Appendix, below.

12 The Pinkenhof peasants held a total of 1,204 acres of arable land and 3,816 acres of pasture land; Liepina, , Agraras attiecibas, 64.Google Scholar

13 We cannot say whether these allocations were comparatively large or small. In Pinkenhof in 1816, Ihe per capita ratio of arable acreage for the 92 farms (assuming that 25 per cent lay fallow) was 1.0, while in Hungary in 1841 it was 6.0. No such disparity exists, however, between Pinkenhof and Petrovskoe in interior Russia. Between 1810 and 1859 in Petrovskoe, there were roughly 4.6 acres per serf, while in Pinkenhof there were 4.8 in 1816. The Hungarian comparison is taken from Komlos, John, ‘Agricultural productivity in America and Eastern Europe: a comment’, Journal of Economic History XLVIII (1988), 657.Google Scholar See also Clark, Gregory, ‘Productivity growth without technical change in European agriculture before 1850’, Journal of Economic History XLVII (1987), 419–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Petrovskoe, see Hoch, Steven, Serfdom and social control in Russia: Petrovskoe, a village in Tambou (Chicago, 1986), 26–7, 41.Google Scholar

14 On the notion of retirement in traditional peasant societies, see Plakans, Andrejs, ‘Stepping down in former times: a comparative assessment of “retirement” in traditional Europe’, in Kertzer, David I. and Schaie, K. Warner eds., Age structuring in comparative perspective (Hillsdale, N.J., 1989), 175–95Google Scholar; and Plakans, and Wetherell, , ‘Migration in the later years of life in traditional Europe’, in Kertzer, David ed., Old age in past times: the historical demography of aging (Berkeley, forthcoming, 1992).Google Scholar

15 Pinkenhof's demesne of 875 acres was undoubtedly dispersed, rather than consolidated, since the uneven topography of the estate would have made it difficult to establish as a single farm; see Plakans, and Wetherell, , ‘The kinship domain in an East European peasant community: Pinkenhof, 1833–1850’, American Historical Review 93 (1988), fig. 2, 379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 The question of who was sent to do corvee labour is discussed in Liepina, , Agraras attiecibas, 134Google Scholar; Strods, Heinrihs, Kurzemes krona zemes un zemnieki 1795–1861 [Crown lands and crown peasants in Kurland 1795–1861] (Riga, 1987), 165Google Scholar; Svabe, Arveds, Latvijas vesture 1800–1914 [History of Latvia 1800–1914] (Uppsala, 1958), 187Google Scholar; Dunsdorfs, , Latvijas vesture 1710–1800, 425Google Scholar; and, generally for Europe, by Blum, , The end of the old order in rural Europe, 50–9.Google Scholar

17 The distribution of male and female labour requirements for the 92 farmsteads listed in the Wackenbuch are as follows: 1 M, 1 F (N = 2, 2.2%); 2 M, 1 F (TV = 67, 72.8%), 2 M, 2 F (N = 21, 22.8%); 3 M, 2 F (N = 2, 2.2%).

18 Komlos, John, ‘The end of the old order in rural Austria’, Journal of European Economic History 14 (1985), 517.Google Scholar

19 Estate regulations reckoned harness corvee on the basis of a 50-week work year for those farms owing five or more days per week and a 52-week year for those owing less than five days per week;’ Reglement Onera Publica welche die Baurenschaft…’, Baltic Microfilms D91, Oekonomie Expedition d. Stadt-Cassa Collegiums IV E.I, s. 809–17, J. G. Herder Institute, Marburg a.d. Lahn, Germany.

20 In his analysis of the seasonal nature of labour dues for Estonian estates, Kahk, came to a similar conclusion, Peasant and lord, 46–7.Google Scholar

21 See Plakans, ‘Stepping down in former times’. In 1816, 21.7% (20) of all farmsteads in Pinkenhof contained co-resident brothers, 6.5% (6) farms contained married sons, and another 2.2% (2) married daughters.

22 Thirty-six of the forty-six males who left the estate between 1833 and 1850 were conscripted; Plakans, and Wetherell, , ‘The kinship domain’, 367.Google Scholar

23 On internal and external migration in Pinkenhof, see Plakans and Wetherell, ‘The kinship domain’, 366–7, 374–4, and ‘Migration in the later years of life in traditional Europe’.

24 The mean adult sex ratios and standard deviations for the three pools of labour were as follows: head's CPU, 125 (76); co-resident kin, 109 (32.6); farmhands, 99.3 (55.8).

25 Historians have long dealt with the many implications of the family developmental cycle in peasant life. See, for example, Plakans, Andrejs, ‘Siegneurial authority and peasant family life: the Baltic area in the eighteenth century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5 (1975), 629–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Serf emancipation and the changing structure of rural domestic groups in the Russian Baltic provinces: Linden estate, 1797–1858’, in Netting, Robert McC., Richard, , Wilk, R., and Arnold, Eric J. eds., Households: comparative and historical studies of the domestic group (Berkeley, 1984), 245–75Google Scholar; Kahk, , Peasant and lord, 42–4Google Scholar; Kingston-Mann, Ester, ‘Peasant communes and economic innovation: a preliminary inquiry’, in Kingston-Mann, and Mixer, eds., Peasant economy, culture, and politics, 23–51Google Scholar; and Chayanov, , ‘Peasant farm organization’, in Thorner, , Kerblay, , and Smith, eds., A. V. Chayanov and the theory of the peasant economy, 29–269.Google Scholar

26 Czap, , ‘“A large family: the peasants” greatest wealth’: serf households in Mishino Russia, 1815–1858’, in Wall, Richard et al. eds., Family Forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Both terms in the Latvian language (which the Pinkenhof peasantry spoke) are classificatory and undoubtedly imply a greater uniformity of condition than actually existed. There were farmhands who did not move for years as well as landless people whose plight was temporary. See Mierina, A., Agraras attiecibas un zemnieku stavoklis Kurzeme 19. gs. II. pus [Agrarian relations and the condition of the peasantry in Courland during the second half of the 19th century] (Riga, 1968), 14–69Google Scholar; and Svabe, , Latvijas vesture 1800–1914, 83.Google Scholar

28 Hoch, , Serfdom and social control, 160–90Google Scholar; and ‘Serfs in Imperial Russia: demographic insights’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 13 (1982), 233–42.Google Scholar

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30 Svabe, , Latvijas vesture 1800–1914, 83.Google Scholar

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32 Scott, James C., The moral economy of the peasant: rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven, 1976), 3Google Scholar. The notion of ‘moral economy’ originated with E. P. Thompson. See his The making of the English working class (New York, 1963)Google Scholar, and ‘The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century’, Past and Present 50 (1971), 76–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Scott's particular formulation has been extensively debated. See, especially, Popkin, Samuel L., The rational peasant: the political economy of rural society in Vietnam (Berkeley, 1979)Google Scholar; and Weller, Robert P. and Guggenheim, Scott E. eds., Power and protest in the countryside: studies of rural unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America (Durham, N.C., 1982).Google Scholar

33 The age-heaping index (which reveals rounding of ages) for the 671 females with known ages in 1816 was 326.1, as compared with 106.4 in 1833 and 90.5 in 1850. See Shyrock, Henry J. and Siegel, Jacob S. et al. , The methods and materials of demography (Washington, 1973), vol. 1, 205–6.Google Scholar

34 Plakans, and Wetherell, , ‘The Kinship Domain’, 385Google Scholar. Eighth (1833) and Ninth (1850) Imperial Revisions, Central National Historical Archive, Riga, Latvia. Baltic Microfilms, D112, Oekonomie-Expedition d. Stadt-Cassa Collegiums IV E.4, Revions-liste Gut Pinkenhof, J. G. Herder Institute, Marburg a.d. Lahn, Germany.

35 On Mishino, see Czap, Peter, ‘Marriage and the peasant joint family in Russia’, in Ransel, David ed., The family in Imperial Russia (Urbana, Ill., 1978), 103–23Google Scholar, ‘The Perennial multiple family household, Mishino, Russia, 1782–1858’, Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 5–26Google Scholar, and ‘“A large family: the peasants’ greatest wealth”’.

36 We address this larger issue in Plakans and Wetherell, ‘Fertility and culture in Riga, 1867–1881’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, New Orleans, La., 31 October to 2 November 1991. On the early fertility decline in the Baltic and Russia generally, see Coale, Ansley J. and Watkins, Susan Cotts eds., The decline of fertility in Europe (Princeton, 1986)Google Scholar; and Coale, Ansley J., Anderson, Barbara A., and Harm, Erna, Human fertility in Russia since the nineteenth century (Princeton, 1979).Google Scholar