Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets curve: western Europe during the early modern period

In some respects comparative research into the inequality of income and wealth in western Europe during the early modern period is virgin territory. There are a large number of studies on the assessment lists of several kinds of taxes on (components of) wealth, such as land, merchant capital, and houses, that give an impression of the degree of inequality in this period.' But the analysis is virtually always confined to the construction of a benchmark estimate of the inequality of wealth or of the social structure in a specific region or city. Only a few studies attempt to present a longterm view on the development of inequality based upon a comparison of data from a number of towns and villages. Nevertheless, they have not ventured beyond the observation that the late medieval sources show a large measure of inequality and that this pattern persisted in the cities of the early modern period.2 Research into the inequality in early modern western Europe is in need of a theoretical framework that allows for a consistent interpretation of the results of the various case studies. The historiography of the development of income inequality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has gained a measure of conceptual unity by means of the Kuznets curve, a hypothesis dating from I955.3 During the first phase of 'modern economic growth' Kuznets found an increase in income inequality. After i900 or I920 this trend ended and a process of continuous levelling of incomes began, which persevered until the 1970S as can presently be established. On the strength of these findings Kuznets argued that the relation between modern economic growth and the inequality of income displayed an inverse U-shaped curve. During the I970S this hypothesis was revived by the work of Lindert and Williamson on inequality in the United States and Great Britain.4 Despite their research, the 'upswing' of inequality in Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century remains controversial. In a scathing review Feinstein has sharply criticized Williamson's conclusions.5 In a recent survey