Did the French revolution matter?
The impact of civil and fiscal reform on the rural land market in the
Southern Low Countries, 1710-1812.
Pieter De Reu and Nicolas De Vijlder –
Economy, Ecology and Demography research group
Department of History, G hent University
Work in progress - please do not quote
July 2013
Did the French revolution matter?
1
Abstract
In this paper we investigate to what extent the French invasion of the Austrian Netherlands in
1795, and the resulting legal reforms, impacted on the rural land market. This study centres on
the parish of Eke, a community near Ghent, for which we collected a continuous series of land
sales records stretching from 1710 to 1812. Our analysis is threefold. First, we assessed the level
of the market’s equilibrium (e.g. price level and yearly turnover) before, during and after the
French occupation. Secondly, we highlighted the changing geographical origin of propertybuyers; from local residents to inhabitants of nearby cities and towns. Finally, we used a hedonic
regression analysis to evaluate the price formation for single plots of land throughout the
eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In the short term a rupture in the market equilibrium
arose, as an immediate consequence of the installation of a new fiscal-military state, a flawing
mortgage system and the lack of a land-registration system. Over a period of 3 to 5 years
however, activity on the land market picked up as both the value and transferred acreage
increased. We showed that the institutional changes had both a direct and indirect effect. On the
one hand, the introduction of the Code Civile caused for the disappearance of the premium for
freehold land, and thus a lower overall price level. On the other hand, these new institutions
created a more transparent land market in the property’s intrinsic qualities accounted for a
larger amount of the observed price differences.
Did the French revolution matter?
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Introduction
'Dans nos grandes familles il s'est conservé quelque chose de l'esprit d'économie, d'ordre et de
prévoyance, qui animait la vieille Flandre et en même temps quelque chose de l'esprit lent et
progressif d'agrandissement territorial de la féodalité; elles s'arrangent pour doubler leur avoir
en vingt-cinq années de mariage, et pour laisser ainsi à chacun de leurs quatre enfants une
fortune égale à celle de père et mère, lorsqu'ils se sont mariés; c'est par là qu'elles retardent le
morcellement et la décadence (dont Dieu les préserve), vers lesquels les poussent le partage
égal du code civil et le mouvement matériel de notre société.'
In 1837 opinion maker and old retainer of the Belgian government Joseph Ferdinand Toussaint
wrote a remarkable open letter to the central fiscal administration.1 He addressed Charles
Joseph Faider, general director of the mammoth administration levying real estate transaction
taxes: the undisputed queens of taxation at that time. Influenced by American agrarianism, like
fellow utopian socialists, Toussaint feared the fragmentation and ever growing scarcity of land
(for the small Flemish farmers) and the diminution of a ‘land bond’ in present-day economy. In
his ‘épître d’économie politique’ he attacked the greedy behavior of modern industry and
(urban) nobility, shaping the free-market economy. But above all, he warned about the fiscal and
administrative institutions that made the land market even more irresistible to speculator
behavior. In Toussaint’s mindset these institutions, established during and after the French
revolution, severely ruptured the age-old peasant land market (insofar it ever existed).2 Yet up
to this date, no long-term analysis of the rural land market in the Southern Low Countries has
been carried out. However, role of the French revolution on long-term economic growth has
since long generated considerable interest amongst economists and historians alike. The farreaching reforms that were instilled in France, as well as in neighbouring countries had
profound effects on these societies. Urban guilds were abolished, as were the remaining traces of
feudalism. While the rigid feudal system that governed rural societies during the middle ages
had largely disappeared in North-western Europe by the sixteenth century, both the aristocracy
and the clergy still had substantial prerogatives in both economic and judicial matters. Hence,
the decomposition of their entitlements in the aftermath of the French Revolution had profound
effects on these communities. A uniform legal system was established, creating equality before
the law amongst the populace and making way with the complex entanglement of property
rights of the previous centuries. Consequently, by the start of the nineteenth century, a largely
new regulatory framework was in place.
Over the past decades, there has been substantial literature on the pivotal role of the French
revolution of the economic, social and legal development of continental Europe in the late
eighteenth and nineteenth century. On the one hand, several authors have highlighted that the
French Revolution and the reforms it brought with in society had positive effects on economic
growth in the long run.3 Most recently, an elaborate macro-economic analysis showed that the
events of 1789 and the consecutive occupation of large parts of Europe during the following
decades had positives effects on economic growth in the long run.4 However, other scholars have
stressed the highly disruptive effects on both the political and economical level as being
impediments to economic growth.5
This paper focuses on the rural land market in the Southern Low Countries, and attempts to
assess the if and how the rural land market was affected by the reconfiguration of the
institutional framework. First, a birds-eye view of the institutional changes during the period
VANHAUTE, 1996: 105 there: TOUSSAINT, 1837: 514.
See for example Sheilagh Ogilvie or Bas van Bavel on the existence of a advanced rural land market in seventeenthcentury North-Western Europe. OGILVIE 2001; VAN BAVEL 2008.
3 MOKYR 1990; ROSENTHAL, 1994
4 ACEMOGLU et al., 2010
5 LANDES, 1969; BLANNING, 1986.
1
2
Did the French revolution matter?
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under consideration is provided. This is followed by a thorough analysis of the land market, in
which we highlight the geographical mobility of the market participants, give an summary of
some general trends in market activity and disentangle the price formation on the land market.
Finally, some preliminary conclusions are given.
Did the French revolution matter?
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Context
1. Land rights, land markets and their institutions in Flanders
Historical evidence shows that large parts of Western Europe possessed secure property rights
from the Middle Ages onwards. In England for example, land markets for freehold land truly
came into existence after legal reforms in the 1170s and 1180s during the reign of Henry II. 6
Two elements brought along by the legal reforms were especially significant. First, an increased
alienability by tenants enabled the emergence of land markets. Second, as a consequence of the
reforms, land could be used as a security for loans. This resulted in an increased liquidity of land
as an economic resource. A similar overnight transformation of the legal system did not take
place in Continental Europe. The evolution towards secure property rights was fragmented,
mirroring the scattered political and institutional contexts. In general terms, common law
became established in France and the Low Countries somewhere during the thirteenth and
fourteenth century.
Key elements in this evolution were the gradual disappearance of the feudal system, the
amelioration of the social and judicial position of the peasantry after the Black Death and the
gradual urbanization. 7 By the end of the Middle Ages however, property rights were
institutionalized within larger legal frameworks throughout North-Western Europe. Land
became a ‘commodity’. Likewise, both land and credit could be transferred through respectively
land and credit markets.8
Ancien Régime sale deeds were frequently officialized by either notaries, Aldermen benches or
the manorial court. In densely populated areas, such as certain regions of the Southern Low
Countries, official surveyors were even set out to trace the exact boundaries of each plot. This
depended however on the formal initiatives of local lords. In the case of the parish of Eke (cf.
infra) private contract sales – in which buyer and seller vouched for the transaction themselves
– appeared in front of the local justice. Those were the majority of the transactions. But the
contracts could still – if thought to be necessary – ‘pass’ by notary or Aldermen bench hands.
Public sales (i.e. real estate auctions) were the exclusive domain of the notary or Aldermen
bench.9 These traditions in Eke are a mere example of land market transactions customs. For
real estate transactions always fell victim to regional particularism.
Hence, a universal system of land title registration was absent at regional, let alone the national
level. In the Southern Countries, the Austrian administration developed some strategies – state
strategies which didn’t ask for a large infrastructural power – towards the land market
economy.10 The central government decided on March 19th 1777 to dispose the confiscated
Jesuit immovable, after the banishment of the religious order by pope Clement XIV. The sales
helped funding the nation’s debts. And at the end of the century, physiocratic ideas drove
remaining common land into private hands. Yet: Collective forest and land was for a long time
absent in the village of Eke, and its eighteenth-century land registers didn’t list Jesuit goods.11
Furthermore, property rights themselves were far from perfect as well. First of all, since
different rights over land coexisted next to each other, property rights were never exclusive. It
could very well be that several people could claim to own rights established on the same piece of
land. The monarch could give a domain in fief to his vassal, who could then exploit part of it as
copyhold. The copyholder could turn manage the land as it was his exclusive property. Without
the lord’s consent, he could sell, mortgage or lease out the plot as he pleased. Since there was no
6
PALMER, 1985: 7-10; CAMPBELL, 2009: 79-106
7 VAN DEN BERG, 1988: 17-19; HOWELL, 2010: 42-59; VERHULST, 1958:241-259
8 VAN BAVEL & HOYLE, 2010
9 WIEME,
2005
YERNAULT, 2011: 83-84
11 COPPIETERS, 1991: 270-274
10
Did the French revolution matter?
5
central registration or publication office, land could be remortgaged several times, increasing
the possibility of over-indebtedness and defaults.
To sum up, the limited regulatory framework, absent registration and publication offices and the
entanglement of, albeit mutually exclusive, rights increased information cost dramatically. This
severely impacted the proper working of the land and credit market during the Ancien Régime.
Consequently, land market participants were overwhelmingly locals or their relatives, since only
they had sufficient knowledge to estimate the net worth of a piece of land.12 Therefore, urban
(speculator) investments were often made with the support of a local ‘procurator’.13 Similarly,
credit in rural areas remained limited to informal networks of relatives, neighbors or the local
nobility.
The formal annexation of the Southern Low Countries to the French Republic in 1795 came with
a redefinition of property rights. With a total subversion of civil society, a new ‘social pact’ was
agreed upon and property rights were institutionalized between civilian (for instance the
inhabitants of Eke) and state. The central state guaranteed and protected individual, land rights,
and the individual paid his occurring and periodical land taxes. This pact was e.g. formalized in
the 1789 ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ and the following Constitutions of
the French governments. The French parliament gave birth to a set of fiscal and administrative
laws. Needless to say that these innovations brought along a profound reconfiguration of the
institutional framework.
Soon after the invasion of the French, the former prerogatives of the nobility and the church in
the Southern Countries were abolished. This was almost immediately followed by the state’s
acquisition of Austrian and religious belongings, such as buildings, lands and forests. France set
up a hierarchic patrimonial service, in which state officials did no more than to search through
local Ancien Régime archives in order to find feudal titles and evidences of immovable
ownership. Many ‘discoveries’ brought abandoned real estate to the central state’s domain. The
selling of nationalized lands and buildings was a lucrative business for a state constantly
balancing on the edge of bankruptcy (the bulk of auctions did not occur until 1797), and it lasted
for more than a decade.14 We will make no allowance for these first sales of nationalized goods
of clergy and nobility in Eke, because the sales were not incorporated in the capitalist land
market we want to study.15 It was the provincial authority – as an intermediate structure
between state and tax office – who regulated the sales in capital Ghent. This ‘activation’ of
nationalized goods simply had to make easy money for the central state. Moreover, looking at
the eager buyers, the clientele carried out specific goals other than the demands on the private
land market.16 Nevertheless, we do take stock of these buildings and lands, when the tax office
itself acts as a regular participant (buyer or seller) on the Eke land market – or when earlier
nationalized goods came back as ‘normal’ immovable in the land market economy. To round off
with some figures: ecclesiastic institutions hold 3,4 percent of the property in Eke in 1762, as
this surface was diminished to 1,1 percent after the Belgian independence of 1830 – when
however 3,3 percent of the land was already bought by religious individuals, having no
privileges to other land market visitors).17
DAVID, 1971: 272-279
LIS & SOLY, 1980
14 Since 1823, the Dutch government could vote the establishment of the infamous ‘Amortisatiesyndicaat’. This
syndicate had as the most important duty to feed the national treasury with the ‘activation’ of nationalized goods –
without a through control of the parliament. By the sales of lands and buildings for the greater part laying in the
former Southern Low Countries, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands could pay off the huge national debts of the
former Dutch Republic.
15 LAMBERT, 1969
16 State archives at Beveren, fund Scheldedepartement, nr. D-5000 & D-5001: alphabetical tables of the sales of
nationalized clergy property.
17 COPPIETERS, 1991: 270-274
12
13
Did the French revolution matter?
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The French Revolution gave rise to new notary acts and civil law, especially after the codification
of the Napoleonic administration in the spring of 1804. The Napoleon Code of 1804 immediately
shaped the civil and fiscal framework in which the economy could shell – it was a model of
economic law, also in the Southern Low Countries. The Code itself incorporated far-reaching
civil liberties – perhaps to conceal the lack of political freedom at that time?18 Real estate
transactions could only be officialized by mediation of a public notary, they were never
submitted to private contract sales. Private contracts could only be provided, when a real estate
sale agreement was made. It was the notary’s accountability to draw up the transaction contract
according to the state’s guidelines, as he was the intermediary between land market clientele
and the fiscal state. This responsibility went even further (cf. infra).
The state providing individual property rights added an elevated fiscal barrier, yet levying now
the whole rural and urban society. A periodical (annual) real estate tax was developed, in which
the fiscal margins of the individual property were uniformly and consistently pruned away to
the national treasury. This annual tax again was influenced by physiocratic doctrine: the
property tax was given a major role in the state’s fiscal revenue and the weight of the taxation
definitely lay on (agrarian) land. But with a non-existent general cadaster, the formation of land
registers and the tax recovery fell under – surprisingly – local authority’s accountability.
Therefore, the municipalities made abundant use of the Ancien Régime land registers and land
use registers on the one hand side, and the most recent Austrian tax rolls.19 The first local
attempts - following national guidelines - began from November 1802 onwards. But only when
state officials conducted the surveying and valuating of plots at the end of 1807 instructed by
Napoleon, a new central cadastral survey could secure a correct property inventory. These
cadastral operations were crossed by regime shifts (Dutch rule and Belgian independence),
what made the establishment of a general and up-to-date cadaster and of a network of land
survey offices in 1834/1835. Soon afterwards, the commercialization of that cadaster began.
Several tax officials for instance made individual and convenient Eke cadasters, which everyone
could buy. The first attempt in the 1840s to duplicate land and property title registers lacked
success, by the absence of proprietor lists. The latter endeavor in 1860 was a popular try.
More important in terms of fiscal revenue and of land market economy, was the registration of
real estate transactions. Numerous land registry offices were raised, each with a given territory.
These taxation offices worked very adequate and efficiently since their inception in 1796.20 Local
state officials made the registration of property mutation, by writing an abstract of every notary
deed. Therefore, they enforced a percentage on the value of every sold arable land, meadow,
forest, house, farm, etc. Only when the registration tax was paid, the real estate transactions
counted as official and legal. It was the notary’s accountability to bring every single deed to the
land registry office, within a couple of days.
Making the property changes publicity and judicial proof – which gave birth to new property
titles–, was another crucial task of the fiscal administration. Therefore, mortgage law registry
offices secured mortgages and property evidence and stood for a formal registration of the land
market transactions in the public domain. These offices were established even before the land
registry offices arose, in the summer of 1795. Yet, the early mortgage law system experienced
some initial organizational problems. Within this flawing system during the first years, the
publicity (which made that lands and buildings could be called one’s property) was not obliged
nor was it generalized. Proprietors or people with a mortgage claim could declare their real
estate property ‘known’ by visiting the public notary themselves. Following this, the notary sent
a declaration to the mortgage law office. 21 This practice caused short-term failures. 22 A
YERNAULT, 2011: 94
DE REU, 2013a
20 DE REU, 2011
21 DE REU, 2011: 317-318
22 GARAUD, 1959
18
19
Did the French revolution matter?
7
reinstitution of the mortgage law system was established in 1799 (in full force since 1800). The
new mortgage law was not perfect, yet the gathered information was reliable and the publicity
of property was ensured. This system was completed around 1852.
Table 1: Important institutional changes before and after the French Revolution.
Period
Event
Austrian Netherlands
1777
* Sale of nationalized Jesuit property
18th c.
* Transformation of common land into private land
French Republic
1795
* Annexation of the Southern Low countries to France, since the 30th of November 1796,
French laws immediately became in force.
* Establishment of land registry offices (operational since the Spring of 1796)
* Establishment of (flawing and imperfect) mortgage law registry offices
* Redefinition of property rights
1797
* Sale of nationalized goods
1800
* Establishment of mortgage law registry offices
1804
* Introduction of the Civil Code
1808 et seq.
* Toilsome establishment of a general cadaster: a dynamic inventory of all national plots
Thus: shift from land use taxation to land property taxation
The Netherlands
1814-1815
1823
* Union with the Netherlands
* Establishment of the ‘Amortisatiesyndicaat’, activation of nationalized goods
Belgium
1830
* Independence of Belgium (pursue from 1830 to 1839)
1834
* Establishment of a general, more correct and up-to-date cadaster
1840s
* Commercialization of the Eke cadaster (low success)
1850s
* Adaptation of fiscal law: death duty taxes and mortgage (law) taxes
1860
* Commercialization of the Eke cadaster (greater success)
Did the French revolution matter?
8
2. Presenting the case study- the Flemish village of Eke
Eke is a small town embracing the river Scheldt, in the countryside surrounding the county and
provincial capital city Ghent. It is part of the historic region the Scheldeveld, being a part of
nowadays East-Flanders.23 Under Austrian hegemony, it laid at the borders of the Oudburg
chatelaine in the renowned County of Flanders. The landscape consequently always was
susceptible of both urban and rural influence.
The seigniory of Eke consisted of the parish of Eke and a small district called ‘Splete van Eke’ in
present-day Nazareth. We only take the land market economy of the parish into account (see:
Sources). This parish became an independent locality from 1800 onwards. Since 1977, the town
of Eke is a part of the larger village of Nazareth.
Map 1: Eke (-Nazareth) within the administrative arrondissement of Ghent in the proivince of East-Flanders
Eke was a true patchwork of different types of terrain. The larger part of the village was
occupied by arable land. Between 1762 and 1834 these agrarian lands were even expanded, in
an attempt to gear-up the food supply to the population growth.24 Between 1710 and 1795, the
population had almost doubled from roughly 800 to 1,500 inhabitants. This number reached
1,950 after the Belgian Independence. Especially meadows and even built-on plots (5-10
percent) had to make way for cultivated grounds. The meadows (25 percent) could be found in
the dominant alluvial area of Eke.25 Forest was very scarce since centuries (4-6 percent).
The land market had 927 plots of land at its disposal in 1762. According to the cadaster of 1834,
the plots had increased to 1788 parcels, pointing towards an increasing morcellization of
property. In both reference years, 90-95 percent of these plots were in private circulation.
With a zoom in on the land market behavior in Flemish countryside under Austrian hegemony
and in modern time, we will take the pulse of a changing civil society.
23
VAN DEN ABEELE, 1972.
24 VAN SCHANDEVYL, 1986; COPPIETERS, 1991: 61-62.
25 WIEME, 2005.
Did the French revolution matter?
9
Research results
This paper focuses on impact on the rural land market of the changing institutional context in
the Southern Low Countries between the end of the Ancien Régime and the foundation of the
Belgian state in 1831. As we’ve thoroughly illustrated in the previous paragraph, the
institutional framework of the rural land market was considerably altered during the two
decades between the start of the French revolution and the formation of the United Kingdom of
the Netherlands in 1815. The alteration of the institutional environment significantly changed
‘the rules of the game’ that had previously governed the rural land market for well over four
hundred years. Thus, we hypothesise that these changes had both a qualitative and quantitative
impact. For example, disappearance of feudal rights and the creation of a unified land-registry
office could cause an increase the participation of urban property buyers and at the same time
alter the price formation on the land market (qualitative and quantitative impact respectively).
Since this duality should accordingly be reflected in our research strategy, we opted to split up
our argument in a quantitative and a qualitative section. In the former, elements such as the
yearly turnover, average transferred plot size and the geographical origin of buyers will be
looked upon in more detail. In the latter, a hedonic price regression will be constructed in order
to uncover the structural determinants of the price of land, assess long-term trends in price
formation and evaluate the impact of the aforementioned institutional changes during the
period 1790-1810 hereon.
1. Land market transactions
Did new institutions make a stronger free market economy? Having a first look at the number of
immovable transactions, it is difficult to answer this question. The amount of proprietors stayed
the same between 1762 and 1834.26 On average, there was a real estate sale every month since
the French Revolution. Only a few sales per year more than on the Eke land market under
Austrian rule. Furthermore, there seems to be no significant changes in the number of
transactions, because of the relatively smallness of the Eke land market. The annual balance
sheet however shows a marked difference (see Graph 1).
Graph 1: Number of real estate sales in Eke(five year moving average)
26
COPPIETERS, 1991: 264
Did the French revolution matter?
10
A few patterns prove the socio-economic position in which the land market transactions of Eke
took place. Graph 1 shows the apparent recovery from French devastations at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. There also was a normalization of the land market commerce after the
turmoil of the Austrian Succession. Despite the flying start the land registry office made, we did
not find real estate sales for 1796, and only one transaction in the Spring of 1797. Yet every
crisis has its opportunists. Is it possible that François Claus and François Rekenaere, both
inhabitants of Eke, were the only brave ones to close a deal in the first revolutionary years? This
was the time in which the use of ‘assignats’ paralyzed economic behavior. Many people thought
that old laws were rescinded, and the fear of losing newly gained property during the
nationalization of lands and buildings lashed out.27 In fact many purchases were postponed to
avoid French taxes.28 As a result of the rigid occupation policy and the numerous disturbances,
there was a dropping notary activity until the turn of the century – afore the perpetuation of the
regime and the temporary peace in Europe provided a revival.29 Yet, it is not unthinkable that
some transactions slipped to the fiscal net.
Having a further look at the long eighteenth century, we notice a clear tendency towards a more
intensive land market activity.
With this, bigger investments were made (see Table 2), even if we take the historic inflation of
the currency into account. However the plot sizes that passed into other hands certainly were
not bigger than before the French Revolution. Eke land market visitors paid more for smaller
plots. This is also evident in the ‘yearly turnover’ (the ratio between sold area and total land
market surface): The brief heights of the turnovers in the beginning of the eighteenth century
were rarely reached again. The end of 1726 marked an astonishing 7,18 percent of the marketed
Eke territory. The French period knew strong fluctuations between 0,05 and 2,35 percent (with
an average of 0,92 percent).
2. Geographical mobility on the land market
On the Flemish land market economy there was a free and capitalist trade, with great mobility,
as Wieme already pointed out.30 An important determinant of such a free land market, was the
absence of a so-called ‘family-land bond’. The purpose of a sale was not to keep the real estate in
hands of the family, but to gain the best profit. In eighteenth century, not even 5 percent of all
immovable transactions were concluded intra familia. This is not a significant parameter in our
evaluation.
So can we find evidence of an even greater mobility caused by the establishment of republican
institutions? Looking at the origin of sellers and buyers, the preliminary results are quite
stunning (see Table 2). According to the Belgian cadaster, 41,5 percent of the plots in Eke were
in hands of city-dwellers from neighboring Ghent and not even 40 percent was owned by
inhabitants. Since the revolutionary years, one sale out of three or four was sealed by foreigners.
This indicator of urban speculator behavior is emphasized by the fact that of almost half of the
real estate deals there was either an external buyer or seller.31 A remarkable difference with the
Ancien Régime land market.32 Graph 2 shows the percentage of buying and selling by nonresidents during the last years of our early modern reference years, in contrast with the
percentages of the French period.
RAPPORT, 2002
VERHAEGEN, 1935 vol. 2: 187-190, 502
29 STEVENS, 1994: 192-196
30 WIEME, 2005.
31 DE KEZEL, 1988
32 DE VIJLDER 2012; DE VIJLDER 2013.
27
28
Did the French revolution matter?
11
Graph 2: Buying and selling of non-residents on Eke's rural land market (in relation to the number of transactions)
Table 2: Eke's land market- key figures
1710-1812
1710-1788
1797-1812
Average yearly number
9,4
9
11,4
Average transferred plot size (in hectares)
1,48
1,56
1,52
Transactions
Prices volumes (in franks)
Average yearly price
1780,91
1462,1
3335,13
Average yearly price per hectare
1,37
1,47
0,92
Yearly turnover (percentages)
1,37
1,47
0,92
Sellers, non-resident of Eke
26,4
20,3
50
Buyers, non-resident of Eke
23,4
18,9
41,2
Sellers and buyers, non residents of Eke
9,8
5,1
28,0
Origin of participants (percentages)
Did the French revolution matter?
12
3. Assessing the impact of institutional change
For the third and final part of our analysis, a straightforward multivariate hedonic OLS
regression will be used to assess whether the price formation on the land market altered in due
time and to what extent theses changes were influenced by development of new institutions
from 1794 onwards.
Since inherent qualities of different plots of land could vary widely, calculating average prices
per hectare directly from the sale deeds, in order to construct a price index across time would be
nonsensical. A statistical solution to this problem is a hedonic price analysis. This technique,
created by Andrew Court, has its origins in Detroit’s automotive industry in the 1930‘s. During
the twenties and thirties, car prices rose steeply. Contrary to the general accepted fact that this
was due to oligopolistic behaviour, Court showed through hedonic price analysis that it was due
to newly offered options that cars became more expensive.33 Since it inception, hedonic
regression has increasingly become the standard for deriving real estate prices.34 In recent
decades, the statistical technique has for example been used to estimate the effects of pollution
on housing prices.35 On historical datasets however, it’s use on has been relatively limited. David
Ryden and Russel Menard used this technique for their study on the eighteenth-century colonial
land market of South Carolina.36 Herein they showed that local differences in price variation
were driven purely by differences in the expectations of future economic growth. Especially in
the ‘Low-country’ region, which harboured the ideal prerequisites for a plantation-driven
economy, prices for land soared.37 In an earlier paper, we similarly showed that regional
differences in both economic growth and future net-yields were key-drivers for land prices in
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flanders and Brabant.38 For the contemporary period, research
on price formation for agricultural land is abundant. Here, findings similarly point towards
expected future cash flows as being the prime mover in prices for agricultural land.39
As mentioned earlier, most land sales in the Low Countries were officialized in aldermens
registers by the start of the sixteenth century. The detail that was contained within sale deeds
improved significantly as time progressed. By the start of the eighteenth century, elements that
were included range from the size of the property, the type of land transferred and whether or
not it was leased out (and to whom) to the specific location within the parish and the origin of
both the seller and the buyer. When in 1797 the aldermens benches were dissolved in favour of
the newly formed registration offices, a similar amount of detail was jotted down in their
accounts.
Consequently, for the approximately 890 transactions registered between 1710 and 1812,
several variables were collected (see table 1).
Whereas Ryden and Russel had to settle for just one dummy (improved or not) to define relation
to the intrinsic quality of the transferred plot (due to archival problems) 40, our source material
gave enough detail. Consequently a differentiation could be made between several types of land
(arable, meadows, woodland, farmyard) and whether or not it had a building on it. Although the
price per hectare is the depended variable, we opted add the surface of the plot separately in the
regression as well, since the obtained coefficient will provide us with some sort of indication as
to the price differentiation between smaller and larger plots. We furthermore collected data on
the current use of the plot (whether it was leased out), the place the sale deed was registered
and the origin of both the buyer and the seller. Furthermore, a distinction between several types
33 BERNDT 1991
34 GATZLAFF and LING 1994, CASSEL and MENDELSOHN 1985, and KASK and MAANI 1992.
35 MICHAEL, BOYLE and BOUCHARD, 2000 and KANEMOTO, 1988.
36 RYDEN and MENARD 2005
37 RYDEN and MENARD 2005
38 DE VIJLDER 2012.
39 XU, MITTELHAMMER and BARKLEY, 1993 and READY and ABDALLA, 2005.
40 RYDEN and MENARD 2005: 614-615.
Did the French revolution matter?
13
of land sales was made, ranging from public sales, successions and forced sales to private sales
(which became prohibited by 1796 but remained to come up in the sales registers for several
years after this date.
Did the French revolution matter?
14
Table 3: Collected variables
Variable name
Variable
Operationalization
Price_fr_ha
Price in Belgian francs per hectare
Continuous variable, calculated natural
log
Farm_D
Was plot improved with a farm?
Dummy variable
Farmyard_D
Was plot identified as farmyard?
Dummy variable
Meadow_D
Was plot identified as meadow?
Dummy variable
Woodland_D
Was plot identified as woodland?
Dummy variable
Arable_D
Was plot identified as arable land?
Dummy variable, base value
Surface
Surface of the plot in hectares
Continuous variable, calculated natural
log
Leased
Was plot leased out?
Dummy variable
B_tenant
Was the plot bought by the former tenant?
Dummy variable
B_origin
Origin of the buyer
Dummy variable (Other than Eke equals
1)
S_origin
Origin of the seller
Dummy variable (other than Eke equals
1)
S_rec_eke
Was the sale registered in Eke?
Dummy variable (other than Eke equals
1)
Priv_sale
Private sale/deed
Dummy variable
Succession_sale
Sale as part of a succession
Dummy variable
Forced_sale
Court-ordered/forced sale
Dummy variable
Normal_sale
‘Normal’/ public sale
Dummy variable, base value
Inhab_eke
Number of inhabitants Eke
Continuous variable, calculated natural
log
D1710-D1812
Time dummies, per decennium
Dummy variable, D1810 is base value
jan_d - dec_d
Month dummies
Dummy variable, January is base value
Rye_p
Price for 100 kg of rye in Belgian francs.
Continuous variable, calculated natural
log
Rye_p-1
Price of 100 kg of rye in Belgian francs in year Continuous variable, calculated natural
prior to sale.
log
y_t_value
Yearly turnover, in value
Continuous variable, calculated natural
log
y_t_acreage
Yearly turnover, in acreage
Continuous variable, calculated natural
log
Rye_yield_hl_ha
Average yield of rye in hectolitres per hectare. Continuous variable.
Nat_d_1793
Nationalisation of ecclesiastical goods
Did the French revolution matter?
Dummy variable
15
Annex_dummy_1795
Annexation with France
Dummy variable
Regis_dummy_1796
Foundation of registration office
Dummy variable
Morg_dummy_1800
Implementation of new mortgage laws.
Dummy variable
Civil_code_dummy_1804
Implementation of civil code
Dummy variable
Land_reg_dummy_1810
Land registration dummy.
Dummy variable
We furthermore controlled for the number of inhabitants within the parish of Eke, general price
movements (using the price of rye) and the fluctuating variations in grain yields. Similarly, both
the yearly turnover of the land market in both value and acreage were controlled for, as well
seasonal variation. In both cases, we opted to use rye in favour of wheat, since throughout the
eighteenth and nineteenth century, 79 per cent of the arable land used for grain cultivation, was
sown with rye.41
Finally, several dummies were inserted for to account for the institutional changes between the
1793 and 1810. Of most continuous variables the natural log was calculated, to ensure that
normality assumptions of both the dependent and independent variables were met.
Whereas Ryden and Menard used the natural log of the selling price of an individual land sale as
the dependent variable, we used the natural log of the price per square metre as the dependent
variable. For interpretational purposes the only difference this makes is that their estimated
coefficients had to be either ≧0 and ≦1 to be inelastic and ≥1 to be elastic. On our model on the
contrary, the coefficient has to be either negative to be inelastic or positive to be elastic.
As can be seen in the formula above, the natural log of the average price per hectare of a plot of
land was expressed as a function a series of qualities of that plot (a summation of several Xi’s )
and the decennium in which the sale took place (Dt). Since their are to few observations per
single year (9-10 on average), we opted to use one dummy for every two-year period. Both
beta's and gamma’s are the unknown coefficients that will be estimated in the model.
Furthermore, α and ɛ are respectively the constant and the error term.
The final estimates this aforementioned model calculates will yield the net weight that each
independent variable contributes to the land price. Furthermore, since the natural log was
calculated of each continuous variable, these estimates will express the elasticity between the
dependent and independent continuous variable. Finally, this regression will also provide our
hedonic price index. This will be obtained by multiplying the natural antilog of each estimated
gamma-coefficient by 100.42
Several hypotheses can be tested using the above-mentioned model. As we already noted,
previous research has shown that prices for rural land were highly correlated with expected
future cash flows. Land with a high net-yield or on more which demanding crops could be sown
or cattle could be grazed, were in general more expensive. As a consequence, we expect a
positive relationship between the type of land and the price per square hectare in the parish of
41
42
VANDENBROECKE 1972.
The reference category will by 100 since gamma equals 0 and (e^0)*100=100.
Did the French revolution matter?
16
Eke. In other words, we expect meadows to be more expensive than plain arable land and less so
for woodland. Applying the same logic, one could suppose that farmyards would similarly a
positive coefficient. However, it is well known that in (inland) Flanders, agriculture relied
heavily on a high degree of labour input arable land.43 Hence the likelihood of a price
differentiation between farmyards and arable land (due to the limited difference in yields) is not
very likely.
The main research question in this paper however, is how and to what extent the French
revolution and the successive institutional rearrangements had an impact on the way prices
were formed on the land market. Currently, our dataset is still incomplete for some years,
especially 1790-1796. Consequently, we’d like to stress that the following hypothesis are by no
means final, nor are the regression results concerning them. Nonetheless, we’ve tried to
construct some preliminary hypotheses in order to distil some general trends and stylized facts.
From 1793 onwards, a massive nationalisation of both and Austrian nobility and ecclesiastical
property took place. However, we expect that the effect of these evolutions remained limited. As
mentioned earlier, these nationalisations and the subsequent sell-off on seized goods took place
through distinctly different channels (e.g. not local markets but more centralized), for a
noticeably different public, hence creating two segmented markets.
The following years, roughly between 1796 and 1804, a host of new legislative initiatives were
started. In April 1796, a new properly run registration office was founded in the nearby Deinze.
Four years later, a new mortgage system was founded. It was disconnected from the judicial
system and the registration of new mortgages was no longer the responsibility of the tax official
but came under the auspices of the local notary. Four years later, during the summer of 1804,
the maze of local and regional rules laws and privileges were abandoned and replaced by
uniform set of laws, the Code Civil. This had caused the former privileges of the nobility and the
church on land to finally belong to the past. At the same time, property rights became better
define (simply put, only one person/legal entity could claim the full ownership of a piece of
land). However, the consequences of this reconfiguration of the judicial framework for the price
formation are rather ambiguous. One the one hand, these changes could entice the urban
population to make additional investments in the rural land market and thus drive up land
prices. On the other hand, through the aforementioned changes in legislative framework, the
age-old distinction between copyhold and freehold disappeared. This could result in lower price
levels for freehold land, since a) the reason for the premium over copyhold land had
disappeared and b) the supply had increased. The biggest change however, is to be expected
around 1810. Around this period, the land cadastre became fully operational. Consequently, the
base on which property taxes were levied shifted definitely from land use to land ownership.
This made buying land for investment purposes less desirable. Therefore, a negative
relationship between the dummy land_reg_1810 and the price per hectare is to be expected.
The table on the following pages present the main results of our regression analysis. Our most
basic model (M1), only comprised of several elements to specify the type of real estate, succeeds
at explaining more than 58 per cent of the variation in the price per hectare of the sold plots.
Variation in prices is as expected for a large part determined by the (future) economic value of
the sold property. For example, whether or not a farm building was built on a plot of land would
increase the price instantaneously with 60 per cent.44 Meadows were similarly priced 60 %
more expensive than plain arable land. Woodland on the contrary, was some 25 % cheaper. Note
furthermore a slightly positive demand elasticity of the price per hectare (the positive an highly
significant coefficient of the variable Inhab_eke). Finally, our basic model also shows a negative
and inelastic relationship between the price per hectare and the total surface of the plot. An
increase in the size of the property consequently leads to a reduction in it’s the price per hectare.
43
44
THOEN and DEJONGH 1999.
Calculated as:
Did the French revolution matter?
or
17
This negative relationship highlights the buyers’ preference for smaller plots.45 The second
model (M2), which focuses specifically on how prices behave as market activity grows, yields
roughly the same results for our basic explanatory variables. It furthermore shows that as the
total amount of property that changed hands increased, and hence supply increased, the average
price per hectare declined just over a quarter. 46 Reversely, as the value of the sales rose, and
thus the quality of the plots increased, a positive spill over effect was created and the average
price per hectare has higher.
Whereas the previous models have highlighted the effects of either intrinsic qualities of the
transferred plots or market activity, models three and four (M3-M4) delve deeper into the
judicial context and socio-economic background of both buyers and sellers. In the previous
paragraphs, we’ve noted that a significant amount of both buyers and sellers originated from
outside the parish of Eke. Within these “outsiders” two groups can be distinguished. Either they
were well-off farmers and craftsmen from surrounding villages or they were burghers form the
nearby Ghent. The demand for arable land, as a type of investment, from non-farming
individuals had an enormous impact on the rural land market. As we’ve noted earlier, the
institutional uniformisation in the aftermath of the French Invasion had led to a surge in the
number of urban property buyers (graph 2). Accordingly, those plots that were already leased
out were particularly prized (average price per hectare +27%). Please note that those higher
prices for leased plots can not be explained through a tenant-buy-out-channel (in which tenants
who bought the plot from their former landlord would be inclined to buy at an above average
price since they had already invested time, money and labour in the upkeep and productivity of
the plot), since the variable B_tenant is insignificant. In model four, the impact of investors from
outside Eke is somewhat nuanced. It is clear that investors clearly had an impact on the general
price level, but that does not imply that the price paid by non-residents of Eke was significantly
higher (B_origin is insignificant). It seems as if although this specific group of buyers were not
residing in Eke, they could estimate the value of property fairly accurately. However, only when
the official deeds were registered in another jurisdiction than that of the Aldermen’s bench of
Eke for the period up to 1796 and the registration offices in Deinze hereafter, significantly
higher prices per hectare were achieved.
The renewed interest of urban investors in rural real estate from the final decade of the 18th
century onwards was linked to the aforementioned new institutional context. The question still
remains however as to the impact of these changes on the price-formation of the land market
itself. Models five and six present some of our preliminary findings heron, respectively without
and with time-dummies. As one can see in table four, we had to eliminate several dummies
(Nat_d_1793, Annex_dummy 1795 and Regis_dummy_1796) out of our regression due to a lack
of data points for this period (a problem we hope to alleviate as soon as possible). Nonetheless,
some interesting results come forward out of M5 and M6. Only the direct impact of the
institutional changes of 1804 garnered significant coefficients. The reinstatement of the
mortgage law and corresponding registration offices had no significant coefficients in model 5.
The introduction from the Civil Code, however, had a clear and significant negative effect,
causing a 28 % drop in land prices. Apparently the disappearance of the distinction between
freehold and leasehold caused for a significant drop in the premium that had to be paid for
freehold land. Moreover, these findings findings are robust since the addition of time-dummies
(M6) does not affect the significance nor the magnitude of the coefficient. The institutional
changes not only moved land prices directly, they had an indirect impact as well. The addition of
both Civil_code_dummy_1804 and Morg_dummy_1800 significantly altered the magnitude of the
coefficients of other explanatory variables as well (see for example the coefficient of Farm_D). As
a result, one could argue that these newfound institutions created better-functioning land
markets, or in any case created environments in which intrinsic qualities of the property
Obviously this preference is a direct consequence of the dire socio-economic situation of the Flemish countryside at
the end of the Ancien Régime, whereby many peasant families had to come by with a only limited amount of land.
46 Contra-intuitively, the correlation between ln_y_t_value and y_t_acreage is limited (0,2587). Consequently, the risk
for collinearity is limited.
45
Did the French revolution matter?
18
accounted for a larger impact on the price per hectare than before. Some word of caution
however is necessary. As for now, we have only collected a limited amount of data for the period
1797-1812 (approximately 180 sale deeds). In the near future, the scope of our analysis will be
broadened in both time (collecting data up to 1835) and space (by adding two additional casestudies).
Did the French revolution matter?
19
Table 4: Regression results47
Lnprice_fr_ha
R2
M1
M2
M3
M4
0,582
0,597
0,589
0,600
F( 8, 733) = F( 10, 731) = F( 10, 731) = F( 14, 727) =
127,32
108,11
104,66
77,66
7,344
3,344
7,330
7,089
0,470
0,430
0,486
0,411
(3,86)***
(3,58)***
(4,02)***
(3,26)***
0,181
0,229
0,150
0,266
-1,410
(1,81)**
(-1,17)
(1,98)**
0,489
0,453
0,486
0,480
(5,99)**
(5,63)***
(-0,6)***
(5,91)***
-0,289
-0,262
-0,273
-0,281
(-2,47)**
(-2,28)**
(-2,35)**
(-2,44)**
Base value
Base value
Base value
Base value
M5
0,620
F( 21, 720)
=55,82
2,924
0,547
(4,08)***
0,109
(0,75)
0,442
(5,53)***
-0,265
(-2,33)**
Base value
M6
0,634
F( 40, 701)
=30,31
2,648
0,565
(4,17)***
0,090
(0,61)
0,436
(5,41)***
-0,240
(-2,09)**
Base value
-0,446
(-17,410)***
0,003
(16,96)***
0,069
-0,520
-1,380
(-2,5)**
-0,470
(-18,01)***
0,002
(7,51)***
0,045
(0,33)
-0,425
(-0,69)
0,192
(2,83)***
-0,153
(-1,18)
0,073
(1,03)
-0,026
(-0,37)
0,288
(2,81)***
-0,067
(-1,00)
0,161
(0,75)
-0,450
(-3,34)***
Base value
-0,474
(-17,91)***
0,000
(-0,41)
0,115
(0,76)
0,167
(0,24)
0,202
(2,9)***
-0,151
(-1,15)
0,073
(1,03)
-0,045
(-0,64)
0,249
(2,37)**
-0,042
(-0,62)
0,128
(0,59)
-0,402
(-2,94)***
Base value
0,310
(4,77)***
-0,168
(-2,56)**
Omitted
Omitted
Omitted
0,077
(0,4)
0,304
(4,18)***
-0,157
(-2,23)**
Omitted
Omitted
Omitted
1,473
(2,35)**
Civil_code_dummy_180
4
-0,356
-0,421
(-1,83)**
-0,123
(-0,69)
(-2,09)**
Land_reg_dummy_1810
F-statistic
Constant
Farm_D (coefficient)
t-value
Farmyard_D
Meadow_D
Woodland_D
Arable_D
Surface
Inhab_eke
Rye_p
Rye_yield_hl_ha
-0,447
(-17,39)***
0,002
(6,97)***
-0,030
(-0,23)
-0,452
(-0,79)
Leased
B_tenant
B_origin
S_rec_eke
Priv_sale
Succession_sale
Forced_sale
Normal_sale
y_t_acreage
-0,465
(-18,05)***
0,003
(16,22)***
0,026
(0,2)
-1,246
(-2,28)**
0,076
(1,07)
-0,012
(-0,18)
0,355
(3,46)***
-0,099
(-1,53)
0,119
(0,57)
-0,511
(-3,79)***
Base value
S_origin
y_t_value
-0,458
(-17,78)***
0,003
(17,43)***
0,103
(-0,79)
-1,460
(-2,66)**
0,246
(3,58)***
-0,117
(-0,88)
0,316
(4,97)***
-0,179
(-2,75)**
Nat_d_1793
Annex_dummy_1795
Regis_dummy_1796
Morg_dummy_1800
De1710
De1720
De1730
47
***, ** and * indicate significance levels of 99, 95 and 90 per cent respectively.
0,053
(0,29)
0,300
(1,38)
0,342
(1,48)
De1740
De1810
0,390
(1,62)
0,7382178
(2,57)***
1,083
(2,74)***
1,152
(2,37)**
1,222
(2,64)***
0,170
(0,93)
Base value
jan_d
Base value
feb_d
0,176
(1,43)
0,009
(0,07)
0,102
(0,83)
-0,005
(-0,04)
0,004
(0,03)
0,162
(1,28)
0,278
(1,4)
0,165
(1,27)
-0,100
(-0,81)
0,126
(1,08)
-0,009
(-0,07)
De1750
De1760
De1770
De1780
De1790_1800
maa_d
apr_d
mei_d
jun_d
jul_d
aug_d
sep_d
okt_d
nov_d
dec_d
Did the French revolution matter?
21
Conclusion
In this paper we investigated to what extent the French invasion of the Austrian Netherlands in
1795 and the resulting legal reforms altered the rural land market? Did the reconfiguration of
the institutional framework open the door to even more speculative behaviour, as was stated by
Toussaint? Or were these new institutions merely window-dressing and could no real changes
be observed?
In this paper we showed that from 1777 onwards a host of new institutions (either directly or
indirectly connected to the land market) were created. Some were straight off successful, others
needed some tweaking before they could take effect. The parish of Eke, a community near Ghent,
served as a case study. We collected a nearly continuous series of land sales, from 1710 to 1812,
on which we preformed a threefold analysis. First, we assessed the level of the market’s
equilibrium (eg. price level and yearly turnover) before, during and after the French occupation.
Secondly, we highlighted the changing geographical origin of property-buyers; from local
residents to inhabitants of nearby cities and towns. Finally, we used a hedonic regression
analysis to evaluate the price formation for single plots of land throughout the eighteenth and
early nineteenth century.
We are well aware that some remarks are in order. At this moment, our dataset is arguably far
from complete. The earliest institutional rearrangements fell out of the scope of this analysis,
since the data for the period 1789-1795 still has to be collected. The accounts of the registry
office furthermore present an inexplicable hiatus for the period 1796-june 1797. In addition, a
more in-depth approach as to the behaviour of market participants is desirable.
While the main purpose of this paper was to test our explanatory model, some preliminary
conclusions can be presented. In the short term a rupture in the market equilibrium arose, as an
immediate consequence of the installation of a new fiscal-military state, a flawing mortgage
system and the lack of a land-registration system. Over a period of 3 to 5 years however, activity
on the land market picked up as both the value and transferred acreage increased. We showed
that the institutional changes had both a direct and indirect effect. On the one hand, the
introduction of the Code Civile caused for the disappearance of the premium for freehold land,
and thus a lower overall price level. On the other hand, these new institutions created a more
transparent land market in the property’s intrinsic qualities accounted for a larger amount of
the observed price differences.
Did the French revolution matter?
22
Appendix: A note on sources
Due to some heuristic problems, recent economic history research in this field mainly focuses on
qualitative or fractured archival sources (e.g. SUTHERLAND, 2002). Our aim is to span this
significant and roaring period in time by means of a thoroughly quantitative approach. A
renewed, long term analysis can provide insights in economic behavior of market participants
and a rural society as a whole during a period or social and political turmoil.
Choosing a case study
The present-day Belgian municipalities were given territorial and administrative autonomy and
importance after the abolition of the (larger) French cantonal municipalities in 1800. Lots of
village boundaries and surfaces had shifted or changed since the Austrian Ancien Régime. To
construct a meaningful, significant record linkage inquiry between two datasets, we had to find
two series of land market transaction of a village that underwent no border changes. Eke was a
perfect match (VAN SCHANDEVYL, 1986, 36), and by measuring a surface of 955,78 hectares it
was a suitable case study to hold grip on the multitude of transactions and land market actors
(DEJONGH, 1996, 6-8).48
Quantitative sources for a record linkage
We used some static structure analyses of Eke as a well-funded, qualitative framework to
become acquainted with our case study community, of which we can regard the thesis of
Coppieters as a classic example (COPPIETERS, 1991). This regrettably is one of the few
comprehensive socio-economic studies, comparing the two institutional epochs to another. We
continued building on the clever retrogressive trajectory analysis of Wieme, who studied the
dynamics of the eighteenth-century Eke land market transactions (WIEME, 2005; on the
different methodology approaches, see DE REU, 2013b).
In order to conduct a record linkage of two different regimes, crossing a century and a half of
land market transactions, researchers can merely depend on modern statutory writings and
nowadays fiscal documents. The first are obvious, classic records; the second are – surprisingly –
scientifically untouched.
Regarding the modern time sources, we explored the so-called ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (legal
transactions) in the local Aldermen bench logbooks: In this paper we relied on a complete set of
fifteen registers (for the period 1710-1787) and three sheaves of papers (for the period 17871795). Every contract concerning the transaction of buildings and grounds laying in the
respective village of Eke should have been registered (SOLY, 1974; DAMBRUYNE, 1988).
According to the Flemish formal and customary laws (GODDING, 1987: passim), we make claim
that these real estate transaction sources are exhaustive. Since land transactions only make up a
relatively small percentage of the total number of transactions, vastly outnumbered by rent
transactions, the registers are a real challenge to scientific examination (DE VIJLDER, 2012, 14).
But in this way legal contracts of the local Aldermen bench provide serial archival sources of the
Austrian period in Flanders (eighteenth century).
Yet, with an ‘Ancien Régime’-based or even non-existing cadaster, available and adequate
sources for the first half of the nineteenth century were scarce until now. The sources of the
newly archived federal tax offices render assistance. From their inception in the early months of
1796 the numerous land registry offices had to generate taxes consistently – French rule was
In this regard, we should mention a fairly large Eke enclave “the Splete van Eke” which was located in present-day
Nazareth (DE POTTER & BROECKAERT, 1864: 3) and measured well over 210 hectares. We could filter the data of the
enclave out of the Ancien Régime dataset.
48
Did the French revolution matter?
23
after all, at least the first years, a military occupation in need for money (RAPPORT, 2002). The
entries for the Eke region started at March 3rd 1796. The voluminous registers of the land
registry office of Deinze hold a continuity in information about land property transactions in Eke
(and a dozen other surrounding villages) until March 1808. From April 1808 onwards the land
registry office of Kruishoutem handled all registration of land and building exchange in Eke. This
is the ideal source to study (DE REU, 2013c), much more favorable than for instance the notary
deeds. Because at least for the first years of French rule, there were no executing public notaries
in Eke. And above all: every seller and buyer had a free choice to visit a notary they wanted –
even if this was at the other side of the country. Consequently the notary information is not
compiled geographically (so a notary in Eke never overlooked the whole Eke land market).
We however did not use the registrations themselves, just the extensive syntheses in the
alphabetic tables of the tax office of Kruishoutem (DE REU, 2011: 264-267). When the land
registry of Kruishoutem was operational, the employees instantly copied the first twelve years
of immovable transactions of seventeen villages (of which was Eke) registered in Deinze.
Through this we could rely on 44 alphabetic registers – and 1 register we used as a checking
document – in which we gathered all Eke real estate sales and purchases.
Quantitative variables
In order to construct our record linkage dataset and to intercept exogenous influences in our
data comparison, we of course needed more parameters. We had to set off price fluctuations by
referencing the different prices per acre to the prices of bread grains. We used the Ghent rye
prices (JACKS, 2004; JACKS, 2005), since the village of Eke was part to the market catchment
area of the city of Ghent (RONSIJN, 2011: 137). We also had to hold pace with demographic
evolution. Population numbers were adopted from already published figures (DE BOCK, 1980:
annex Eke; COPPIETERS, 1991: 190-192; VRIELINCK, 2000: 1690-1693). The prices were
converted to franks, and we choose the metrics system for all area measures.
Did the French revolution matter?
24
Sources
State archives Ghent
Seigniory, manorial court and parish of Eke
 53: sheats of paper ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1786-1788)
 54: sheats of paper ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1789-1792)
 55: sheats of paper ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1793-1795)
 57: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1714-1717)
 58: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1718-1722)
 59: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1723-1728)
 60: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1728-1733)
 61: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1733-1741)
 62: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1741-1747)
 63: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1747-1753)
 64: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1753-1763)
 65: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1763-1766)
 66: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1767-1771)
 67: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1772-1775)
 68: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1775-1779)
 69: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1779-1784)
 70: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1783-1787)
 152: register ‘wettelijke passeringen’ (1706-1714)
State archives Beveren
Fund Scheldedepartement
 D-5000: alphabetical tables of the sales of nationalized clergy property
 D-5001: alphabetical tables of the sales of nationalized clergy property
Fund Land registry office Kruishoutem
 18: alphabetical table form 1/9 (1827 Jan. 1 - 1829 May 1)
 19: alphabetical table form 1/10 (1828 Aug. 8 - 1829 Dec. 31)
 20: alphabetical table form 1/11 (1829 April 9 - 1830 Dec. 31)
 21: alphabetical table form 1/12 (1830 April 1 - 1831 Dec. 31)
 22: alphabetical table form 1/13 (1830 Sept. 6 - 1832 Dec. 31)
 23: alphabetical table form 1/14 (1833)
 24: alphabetical table form 1/15 (1832 July 2 - 1834 June 30)
 25: alphabetical table form 1/16 (1833 Feb. 26 - 1835 Oct. 31)
 26: alphabetical table form 1/17 (1835 Jan. 1 - 1837 Aug. 5)
 27: alphabetical table form 1/18 (1837 Feb. 27 - 1838 June 26)
 28: alphabetical table form 1/19 (1837 Dec. 11 - 1839 Nov. 6)
 29: alphabetical table form 1/20 (1839)
 30: alphabetical table form 1/21 (1839 Oct. 21 - 1841 March 23)
 31: alphabetical table form 1/22 (1840 Oct. 3 - 1841 Dec. 28)
 32: alphabetical table form 1/23 (1841 June 23 - 1842 June 28)
 33: alphabetical table form 1/24 (1842 July 1 - 1843 March 24)
 34: alphabetical table form 1/25 (1843 Jan. 5 - 1843 Dec. 28)
 35: alphabetical table form 1/26 (1844 Jan. 5 - 1844 Dec. 24)
 36: alphabetical table form 1/27 (1844 Oct. 24 - 1846 Aug. 3)
 37: alphabetical table form 1/28 (1845 Jan. 24 - 1846 Nov. 5)
 38: alphabetical table form 1/29 (1846 July 8 - 1847 June 21)
 39: alphabetical table form 1/30 (1847 Feb. 11 - 1848 April 25)
 40: alphabetical table form 1/31 (1848 Feb. 24 - 1849 May 31)
 41: alphabetical table form 1/32 (1849 April 19 - 1850 Aug. 3)
Did the French revolution matter?
25





















42: alphabetical table form 1/33 (1850 Jan. 14 - 1851 Dec. 1)
43: alphabetical table form 1/34 (1851 March 31 - 1853 June 27)
44: alphabetical table form 1/35 (1853 Feb. 26 - 1854 June 12)
45: alphabetical table form 1/36 (1854 April 1 - 1855 June 26)
46: alphabetical table form 1/37 (1854 Nov. 27 - 1855 Dec. 1)
47: alphabetical table form 1/38 (1855 Oct. 6 - 1856 Oct. 30)
48: alphabetical table form 1/39 (1856 April 21 - 1857 Nov. 21)
49: alphabetical table form 1/40 (1856 Nov. 21 - 1858 March 3)
50: alphabetical table form 1/41 (1857 Nov. 12 - 1858 Oct. 31)
51: alphabetical table form 1/42 (1858 March 6 - 1859 April 6)
52: alphabetical table form 1/43 (1858 Oct. 28 - 1859 Nov. 28)
53: alphabetical table form 1/44 (1859 Feb. 14 - 1860 Nov. 2)
54: alphabetical table form 2/1 (1796 April 21 - 1811 Feb. 13)
55: alphabetical table form 2/2 (1809 April 10 - 1813 Jan. 20)
56: alphabetical table form 2/3 (1811 Dec. 14 - 1817 Dec. 23)
57: alphabetical table form 2/4 (1817 April 2 - 1821 Jan. 1)
58: alphabetical table form 2/5 (1818 Aug. 13 - 1822 June 3)
59: alphabetical table form 2/6 (1820 June 7 - 1825 March 21)
60: alphabetical table form 2/7 (1823 June 12 - 1827 Feb. 21)
61: alphabetical table form 2/8 (1826 July 1 - 1827 Dec. 27)
62: alphabetical table form 2/9 (1827 March 16 - 1829 June 9)
Dataset land market transaction in the Eke region (1710-1779)
 WIEME T. (2005), De rurale immobiliënmarkt in Vlaanderen (18de eeuw). Casus:
Heerlijkheid Eke, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History
Department).
Datasets grain prices on the Ghent market
 JACKS D. (2004), Market Integration in the North and Baltic Seas, 1500-1800, in Journal
of European Economic History, vol. 33-3, p. 285-329.
 JACKS D. (2005), Intra- and International Commodity Market Integration in the Atlantic
Economy, 1800-1913, in Explorations in Economic History, vol. 42-3, p. 381-413.
Did the French revolution matter?
26
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