Scholarlink

<p>Adam Smith’s account of medieval towns in Book III of <i>The Wealth of Nations</i> remains one of the most influential analyses of how commerce transformed feudal Europe. This paper formalizes Smith’s argument as a game between kings, lords, and towns. The king-town alliance emphasized by Adam Smith emerges when towns are wealthy enough to offer fiscal and military support but lords remain a serious threat. However, when kings become excessively predatory, towns may ally with lords (as in the Magna Carta crisis); when towns are too weak to offer substantial support, kings ally with lords instead (as in Eastern Europe). A dynamic extension shows that the king-town equilibrium is self-undermining: commercial growth erodes lordly military power through Smith’s “diamond buckles” mechanism, eventually enabling royal absolutism. In contrast, the king-lords equilibrium is self-reinforcing, suppressing urban development and preserving feudal institutions. The framework highlights how small differences in initial urban development could generate dramatically different long-run trajectories and illuminates both the brilliance and the limitations of Smith’s conjectural history.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Adam Smith and the role of the towns in feudal Europe

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月2日

查看全文
  • Mark Koyama

摘要

Adam Smith’s account of medieval towns in Book III of The Wealth of Nations remains one of the most influential analyses of how commerce transformed feudal Europe. This paper formalizes Smith’s argument as a game between kings, lords, and towns. The king-town alliance emphasized by Adam Smith emerges when towns are wealthy enough to offer fiscal and military support but lords remain a serious threat. However, when kings become excessively predatory, towns may ally with lords (as in the Magna Carta crisis); when towns are too weak to offer substantial support, kings ally with lords instead (as in Eastern Europe). A dynamic extension shows that the king-town equilibrium is self-undermining: commercial growth erodes lordly military power through Smith’s “diamond buckles” mechanism, eventually enabling royal absolutism. In contrast, the king-lords equilibrium is self-reinforcing, suppressing urban development and preserving feudal institutions. The framework highlights how small differences in initial urban development could generate dramatically different long-run trajectories and illuminates both the brilliance and the limitations of Smith’s conjectural history.