AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain why commercialization produced different labor systems in western and eastern Europe
- Identify the main causes of declining serfdom in the West after the late Middle Ages
- Describe how the **second serfdom** developed east of the Elbe
- Recall key examples, including Poland by **1520** and Russia by **1649**
- Compare **cash rents**, **wage labor**, and **corvée labor**
- Build AP-style arguments about causation, comparison, and continuity/change in peasant life

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand the regional effects of the Commercial Revolution on peasants, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

![Western Europe’s shift from serfdom to cash rents and eastern Europe’s second serfdom under corvée labor, including Poland and Russia.](https://static.pastpaperhero.com/images/ap-european-history-the-commercial-revolution-west-freed-peasants-east-codified-serfdom_00.png)

_Commercialization produced divergent peasant labor regimes: greater mobility and money rents in the West, intensified lordship east of the Elbe._

- Know that the Commercial Revolution did not affect all of Europe in the same way
- Identify why serfdom generally declined in much of western Europe by the 15th and 16th centuries
- Explain how rising western demand for grain helped strengthen serfdom in eastern Europe
- Understand the meaning of **second serfdom** and the phrase **east of the Elbe**
- Distinguish between **cash rents** and **labor obligations** such as **corvée**
- Recognise major regional examples such as Poland, Prussia or eastern Germany, and Russia
- Know that Poland saw major tightening of serfdom by **1520** and Russia legally entrenched it in **1649**
- Evaluate whether the Commercial Revolution increased freedom in Europe overall

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why did peasants in western Europe generally become freer while peasants in eastern Europe often became less free?
2. What is meant by the term **second serfdom**?
3. How did western grain demand affect nobles in Poland and Prussia?
4. What is the difference between **cash rents** and **corvée labor**?
5. Why is **1649** important for Russian serfdom?

## Introduction

One of the most tested contrasts in Unit 1 is that Europe did not move in one social direction during the Commercial Revolution. Expanding trade and markets linked European regions more closely, but they did not produce one common labor system. In much of western Europe, peasants gained mobility, labor services weakened, and landlords more often accepted money rents. In much of eastern Europe, nobles tightened control over peasants and expanded forced labor.

That contrast matters because it turns a simple story into a real AP argument. The Commercial Revolution helped spread markets, but market growth could support either greater freedom or greater coercion depending on local political power, labor supply, and access to trade.

> **Key Term: Commercial Revolution**
> The expansion of trade, markets, and financial activity in Europe from roughly the 16th to 18th centuries, linked to growing commerce at home and overseas.

### Why western Europe moved toward freer peasantry

To understand the western side of the contrast, start before the Commercial Revolution fully accelerated. The late medieval crisis, especially the **Black Death** of **1347–1351**, killed a huge share of Europe’s population. That mattered because labor suddenly became scarcer. When there are fewer workers, surviving workers become more valuable. Lords found it harder to force peasants to stay under old conditions.

In western Europe, this produced several connected effects. First, many peasants could bargain for better terms. Instead of owing days of unpaid labor to a lord, they increasingly paid **cash rents**. That was attractive to landlords because a money economy was growing, and cash could often be more useful than supervising peasant labor. Second, peasants had more alternatives. Towns were growing, trade was expanding, and some rural households could earn income through newer forms of production. If a peasant could leave for town work, seasonal wage labor, or small-scale market production, lordly control weakened.

> **Key Term: cash rents**
> Money payments made by peasants to landlords instead of older labor services owed on the manor.

A third factor was political. In much of western Europe, nobles did not always have unchecked local power. Stronger monarchies and stronger towns could limit what landlords demanded. This did not mean peasants became equal citizens overnight. Many still paid rent, remained poor, and faced social hierarchy. But the older model of full serfdom weakened.

England is a useful example of this trend, even though its path had its own harshness. Enclosure and rising land values pushed many smaller farmers off land, but that very process increased labor mobility. In other words, western peasants often became “freer” in the sense that they were less legally tied to a manor, not in the sense that life became easy. AP students often miss this distinction.

> **Key Term: peasant mobility**
> The ability of peasants to leave the manor, move for work, or bargain for better terms instead of being legally fixed to one estate.

Cause and effect is the key chain here:

- population loss after plague
- labor scarcity
- stronger bargaining power for peasants
- labor services commuted into rents
- more movement toward wage labor and tenant farming

This is why western commercialization often weakened old manorial ties rather than strengthening them.

> **Test Tip:** If an SAQ asks why western peasants became freer, do not give only one cause. A stronger answer links **Black Death labor shortages**, **urban growth**, and the **rise of a money economy**.

### Why eastern Europe moved toward second serfdom

Eastern Europe faced a different set of conditions. In many regions east of the Elbe River, population density was lower, towns were weaker, and nobles held stronger local power. When western Europe’s population and cities grew, demand for grain rose. That gave eastern landlords a major opportunity: produce cereals for export and profit from long-distance trade, especially through the Baltic.

This is where the Commercial Revolution had the opposite result. In the West, market growth could widen peasant choices. In the East, market growth often encouraged landlords to lock peasants down more tightly so they could guarantee labor for export agriculture.

> **Key Term: second serfdom**
> The tightening or revival of serfdom in eastern Europe from about the 15th to 17th centuries, especially through stronger labor obligations and restrictions on movement.

The phrase **east of the Elbe** is important because it signals the broad zone where this pattern was strongest: eastern Germany or Prussia, Poland-Lithuania, Bohemia, Hungary, parts of Austria, and later Russia. Landowners expanded their **demesnes**, the part of the estate farmed directly for the lord’s profit. To work those larger estates, they increased **corvée labor** and reduced peasant freedom of movement.

> **Key Term: corvée labor**
> Unpaid compulsory labor owed by peasants to a lord, often performed on the lord’s own land.

Think through the logic carefully:

- western demand for grain rises
- eastern nobles see export profit
- nobles expand estates for market production
- labor becomes the main problem
- nobles solve that problem by coercion, not wages
- serfdom hardens

This is why historians call the development a paradox of commercialization. More trade did not automatically mean freer labor. In eastern Europe, trade could make coercion more profitable.

Poland is one of the clearest examples. Noble-run estates, often called **folwarks**, produced grain for export through Baltic routes, especially via **Danzig/Gdańsk**. By **1520**, major legal and social changes had strengthened the ability of nobles to demand labor and restrict peasant mobility. That date matters because it shows second serfdom was not vague or late; it was already becoming established in the 16th century.

Prussia and eastern Germany offer another classic case. The **Junkers**, the landed aristocracy, controlled large estates and dominated peasant labor. This pattern would matter later too, because it helped shape the alliance between monarchy, army, and landed elites in Prussian history.

> **Key Term: Junkers**
> The landed aristocracy of Prussia and eastern Germany, known for controlling large estates and peasant labor.
>
> **Test Tip:** In comparison essays, use the memory line: **West = mobility, cash rents, wage labor; East = noble power, grain exports, corvée labor.** That gives you a clean structure fast.

### How politics and economics worked together

Students often explain second serfdom as if western grain demand alone caused it. That is incomplete. Demand mattered, but political structure determined how elites responded.

In the West, landlords could not always force peasants back into labor bondage because peasants had alternatives and because monarchies or urban institutions could check noble power. In the East, nobles often dominated weaker towns and influenced or constrained monarchies. That meant there were fewer barriers to coercion.

So the difference was not just economics. It was economics plus power.

A useful comparison looks like this:

- In western Europe, land could be valuable, but labor scarcity made coercion harder
- In eastern Europe, abundant land and weaker labor supply made landlords anxious to bind workers
- In western Europe, commercialization encouraged rents and wages
- In eastern Europe, commercialization encouraged export estates and forced labor

This is also why the AP exam rewards precise phrasing. If you say “serfdom ended in Europe,” that is wrong. If you say “serfdom declined in much of western Europe but intensified in much of eastern Europe,” that is accurate and analytical.

Russia shows the strongest long-term version of the eastern pattern. Although Russia is sometimes treated separately because its development intensified later, it fits the broader eastern trend. The state and nobility increasingly supported peasant bondage, and by **1649** Russian law formally codified serfdom. That legal entrenchment made peasant flight even harder and bound peasants more tightly to estates and landlords.

> **Key Term: serfdom**
> A system in which peasants are legally or customarily bound to the land and owe labor or dues to a landlord.

That 1649 codification matters on exams because it gives a precise anchor for a broad process. Poland by 1520 shows early modern tightening in east-central Europe. Russia by 1649 shows full legal reinforcement farther east.

### How to write about this on the AP exam

This subtopic appears most often through comparison and causation. A strong answer does more than list “West freer, East less free.” It explains why those paths diverged and qualifies the result.

A good LEQ or SAQ line of reasoning might look like this:

Western Europe moved away from classic serfdom because plague-era labor shortages, stronger markets, and wider peasant options weakened landlord control. Eastern Europe moved toward second serfdom because nobles used their political dominance to exploit western grain demand through coerced estate production.

That argument does three strong things:

- gives both sides of the comparison
- includes economic and political causes
- shows that commercialization had opposite social effects

You can also build continuity and change into your answer. Change: labor systems diverged more sharply between west and east from the 15th to 17th centuries. Continuity: peasants in both regions still lived under hierarchy and hardship; western freedom did not mean equality.

> **Test Tip:** For a strong LEQ thesis, avoid saying “The Commercial Revolution helped peasants.” Instead write a split argument: it **reduced peasant bondage in much of the West but strengthened noble coercion in the East**.

Common student mistakes include:

- treating the Commercial Revolution as uniformly liberating
- forgetting the role of the Black Death in weakening western serfdom
- ignoring noble political power in the East
- overstating western freedom as if peasants became socially equal
- failing to use precise regional language like **east of the Elbe**

If a document on the exam mentions grain exports, Baltic trade, nobles, labor dues, or peasant restrictions, think second serfdom. If it mentions rents, markets, towns, or labor shortage, think western decline of serfdom.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- The Commercial Revolution created a major west-east divergence in peasant labor systems
- In much of western Europe, serfdom declined by the 15th and 16th centuries
- The **Black Death (1347–1351)** increased labor scarcity and improved peasant bargaining power in the West
- Western landlords increasingly accepted **cash rents** instead of labor services
- Western peasants often gained greater mobility and access to wage labor
- In eastern Europe, nobles expanded estates to produce grain for western markets
- Rising western grain demand helped produce the **second serfdom**
- Second serfdom meant stronger landlord control, reduced mobility, and heavier **corvée labor**
- The key zone of intensified serfdom was **east of the Elbe**
- Poland was a major early example of second serfdom by **1520**
- Russia legally codified serfdom in **1649**
- Commercialization did not create uniform freedom; it could strengthen coercion where nobles dominated politics

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Commercial Revolution
- cash rents
- peasant mobility
- second serfdom
- corvée labor
- Junkers
- serfdom


The Commercial Revolution - West freed peasants east codified serfdom