1

Real estate markets

and the French Revolution

A long-term analysis from an institutional-economics perspective

Pieter De Reu & Nicolas De Vijlder *

Ghent University

November, 2013

Abstract

In this preliminary paper we investigate to what extent the French invasion

of the Austrian Netherlands in 1794/1795, and the resulting legal reforms,

impacted on the rural real estate market. Our analysis is twofold. First, we

assessed the level of the market’s equilibrium (e.g. price level and yearly

turnover) before, during and after the French occupation. We highlighted the

changing geographical origin of property-buyers; from local residents to

inhabitants of nearby cities and towns. Secondly, we used an econometric

regression analysis of the value of land 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 survey 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. Yet, the resonance of the brief but radical

institutional change lasted for fifteen years. We will show that the

institutional changes had both a direct and indirect long-term effect. On the

one hand, the introduction of the Civil Code 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 socio-economic qualities accounted for a larger amount of the

observed price differences.

* The authors would like to thank Koen Schoors, Michael Limberger, Eric Vanhaute and

Erik Thoen, as well as the participants of the 38th

Annual Meeting of the Social Science

History Association (November 2013) and The European Historical Economics Society

Conference (September 2013) for their useful comments.

2

I 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.

1 VANHAUTE E. (1996), Chacun est propriétaire ou espère le devenir. Het grondbezit in

Vlaanderen, begin 19de-begin 20ste eeuw, in Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, vol. 26-

1-2, p. 105; TOUSSAINT J. F. (1837), Le nombre des propriétaires fonciers diminue chaque jour dans

les campagnes flamandes. Explication de ce fait, in Nouvelles archives historiques, philosophiques, et

littéraires, Ghent, vol. 1, p. 514.

3

2 Institutional reform and economic growth: The French revolution

and the real estate market

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.3

However, the role of the French revolution on long-term economic growth

has since long generated considerable interest amongst economists and

historians alike. The far-reaching reforms that were instilled in France, as

well as in neighboring 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.4

Most recently, an elaborate

macro-economic analysis showed that the events of 1789 and the

2 See for example Sheilagh Ogilvie or Bas van Bavel on the existence of a advanced rural land

market in seventeenth-century North-Western Europe. OGILVIE S. (2001), The economic world of the

Bohemian Serf. Economic concepts, preferences, and constraints on the estate of Friedland, 1583–

1692, in The Economic History Review, vol. 54, nr. 3, p. 430-453; VAN BAVEL B. (2008), The

organization and rise of land and lease markets in northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000-1800, in

Continuity & Change, vol. 23, p. 13-53.

3 THOEN E. (2006), The rural history of Belgium in the Middle Ages and the Ancien Régime.

Sources, results and future avenues for research, in THOEN E. & VAN MOLLE L., Rural History in the

North Sea Area. A State of the Art (Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area 1) (Comparative

Rural History of the North Sea Area 1), Turnhout, p. 177-215.

4 MOKYR J. (1990), The Lever of Riches. Technological Creativity and Economic Progress,

New York; ROSENTHAL J. (1994), Rural credit markets and aggregate shocks: The experience of

Nuits St. Georges, 1756–1776, in The Journal of Economic History, vol. 54, nr. 2, p. 288-306.

4

consecutive occupation of large parts of Europe during the following

decades had positives effects on economic growth in the long run.5

However, other scholars have stressed the highly disruptive effects on both

the political and economic level as being impediments to economic

growth.6

In this paper, we investigate the judicial and economic consequences of the

French revolution and the reforms that were imposed on rural

communities throughout Europe as a consequence of the Revolutionary

Wars. This research of course is not new. Quite the contrary, it is deep-

seated in a classic French historiographic debate (see Bibliography). But

this paper tests the causal impact of the overthrow of pre-modern society,

and institutional reform on a peculiar rural economy – with a refreshing

econometric model, refueling the debate. We study radical reform, during

and after the French occupation, by analyzing Toussaint’s Flemish farmer

or noble city-dweller who applied different survival or speculative

strategies and real estate market traditions. Because, the impact of this

institutional reconfiguration at micro-economic level is much less studied.

‘Insitutions’ being very encompassing, we focus on the set of rules

regulated by the state to secure property rights (property right

institutions) and the private law transaction strategies and price setting

(contracting institutions).

In the second section, we assess the changes to the institutional

framework. Section three provides a descriptive analysis of the rural land

market between 1720 and 1820. Section four discusses the evidence of a

better functioning (e.g. higher price transparency and price expectancy)

price mechanism in the land market after the institutional reconfiguration

of the Revolutionary wars. A conclusion is given in the fifth and final

section.

5 ACEMOGLU D., CANTONI D., JOHNSON S. & ROBINSON J. (2011), The Consequences of

Radical Reform. The French Revolution, in The American Economic Review, vol. 101, nr. 7, p. 3286-

3307.

6 LANDES S. (1969), The Unbound Prometheus. Technological Change and Industrial

Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge-New York.; BLANNING

(1986).

5

3 Historical overview

3.I Land holding and land transfer in Belgium before the Revolution

Historical evidence shows that large parts of Western Europe possessed

secure property rights from the Middle Ages onwards.7

Two elements

brought along by the legal reforms were especially significant. First, an

increased alienability by tenants enabled the emergence of land and real

estate 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. An 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.8

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.9

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

7 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 (PALMER R. (1985), The origins of

property in England, in Law and History Review, vol. 3, p. 7-10; CAMPBELL B. (2009), Factor markets

before the Black Death, in Continuity and Change, vol. 4, p. 79-106).

8 VAN DEN BERG G. (1979), Eigendom. Grepen uit de geschiedenis van een omstreden

begrip, Deventer, p. 17-19; HOWELL M. (2010), Commerce before capitalism in Europe, 1300-1600,

Cambridge), p. 42-59; VERHULST A. (1958), De Sint-Baafsabdij te Gent en haar grondbezit (VIII-XIV

eeuw). Bijdrage tot de kennis van de structuur en de uitbating van het grootgrondbezit in Vlaanderen

tijdens de middeleeuwen, Brussels (Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en

Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren, Verhandeling vol. 30), p. 241-259.

9 VAN BAVEL B. & HOYLE R., eds. (2010), Social relations, property and power, in Rural

Economy and Society in Northwestern Europe, 500-2000, Turnhout, vol. I.

6

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.10

Real estate transfer costs reached a fixed costs

of approximately 0.27 francs per written page (recto verso, in threefold),

an unknown sum of local court administration costs and about 3.15 francs

for placard and bill costs, made by the clerk.11

Feudal compensation added

10 percent of the value of the property to the sale deed and sometimes the

buyer took care of overdue seigniorial or mortgage rents. These traditions

in Eke are a mere example of land market transactions customs. For real

estate transactions always fell victim to regional particularism. By contrast,

there was a so-called ‘Eeuwig Edict’, making transaction registration

mandatory. This ‘Eeuwig Edict’ of 1611 was in many views the first civil

code of the Southern Netherlands.12

Nonetheless, 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.13

And at the end of the century, physiocratic ideas drove

remaining common land into private hands.14

Furthermore, property rights

themselves were far from perfect as well. First of all, since different rights

10

WIEME T. (2005), De rurale immobiliënmarkt in Vlaanderen (18de eeuw). Casus:

Heerlijkheid Eke, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History Department), p. 9; DE

RIDDER F. (1920), Het formalisme bij openbare verkoopingen onder het oude regiem, Antwerp.

11 We use analogous pre-modern notary clerk earnings: LAMBRECHT T. (2009), Rural credit

and the market for annuities in eighteenth-century Flanders, in SCHOFIELD P. & LAMBRECHT T.,

Credit and the rural economy in North-Western Europe, c. 1200-c. 1850 (Comparative Rural History

of the North Sea Area; CORN Publication Series. 12), Turnhout, p. 75-98.

12 LAMBRECHT T. (2009), Rural credit and the market for annuities in eighteenth-century

Flanders, in SCHOFIELD P. & LAMBRECHT T., Credit and the rural economy in North-Western

Europe, c. 1200-c. 1850 (Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area; CORN Publication Series.

12), Turnhout, p. 75-98.

13 YERNAULT D. (2011), L'État et la propriété. Permanences et mutations du droit public

économique en Belgique de 1830 à 2011, Brussels, unpublished PhD thesis (Université libre de

Bruxelles Law Departement), p. 83-84. 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. Alienation of ecclesiastical possessions was not new.

Indeed, it had become the standard practice of reformist monarchs, often with the agreement of the

Papacy: WOOLF S. (1991), Napoleon’s Integration of Europe, London-New York, p. 202. But few

Flemish villages’ eighteenth-century land registers did list Jesuit goods: COPPIETERS G. (1991), Eke

1571-1834. Een landschap in historisch perspectief aan de hand van kadastrale documenten, Ghent,

unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History Department), p. 270-274.

14 Collective forest and land was for a long time absent in our case study; The village of Eke

7

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 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.15

Therefore, urban (speculator) investments were

often made with the support of a local ‘procurator’.16

Similarly, credit in

rural areas remained limited to informal networks of relatives, neighbors

or the local nobility.

3.2 The Revolution and its institutional changes

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. During the summer of 1804, the maze of local and

regional rules laws and privileges were officially abandoned and replaced

by a uniform set of laws, the Code Civil: the formal codification of the

15

DAVID N. (1971), Town and countryside. Social, economic and political tensions in

fourteenth-century Flanders, Bruges, p. 272-279.

16 LIS C. & SOLY H. (1980), Armoede & kapitalisme in pre-industrieel Europa, Antwerp.

8

existing, republican legislative framework. 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.17

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 (see

Figure 1). 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. Furthermore, 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.

Figure 1 – Property rights in:

Pre-modern framework Modern framework

* Virtually unlimited possibilities through a huge * Unification and standardization

variety in legal rights of legal immovable property rights

* Not mutually exclusive and themselves transferable * only one property title per immovable18

free ownership vs. copyhold vs. perpetual copyhold freehold and usufruct (freehold ownership)

many different rights to tax: surplus (tithes), vs. lease

alienation of property, rents issuance

17

GARAUD M. (1959), La Révolution et la propriété foncière. Histoire générale du droit privé

français, de 1789 à 1804, Paris.

18 If applicable shared by different people.

9

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.19

We will make

no allowance for these first sales of nationalized goods of clergy and

nobility, because the sales were not incorporated in the capitalist land

market we want to study.20

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.21

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.

The following years, roughly between 1796 and 1804, a host of new

legislative initiatives were started. 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?22

Real estate

transactions could only be officialized by mediation of a public notary, they

19

DE REU P. (2011), De geschiedenis van de Algemene Administratie van de

Patrimoniumdocumentatie (1796-2006). Organisatie, bevoegdheden, ambtsgebieden, archiefvorming

(Miscellanea Archivistica. Studia 198), Brussels. 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. 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.

20 LAMBERT J. (1969), Het aandeel van de landbouwers in de koop van nationale goederen in

België (1796-1821), in Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent,

vol. 23, p 39-61.

21 State archives at Beveren, fund Scheldedepartement, nr. D-5000 & D-5001: Alphabetical

tables of the sales of nationalized clergy property.

22 YERNAULT D. (2011), L'État et la propriété. Permanences et mutations du droit public

économique en Belgique de 1830 à 2011, Brussels, unpublished PhD thesis (Université libre de

Bruxelles Law Departement), p. 94.

10

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).

Table 1 – The changing rules of the game

A) Registration of real estate transfer

By Ancien Regime procedures, sale deeds had to…

be registered

‘pass’ the local court (Aldermen bench), yet challenged by urban public notaries

There was a formal registration duty according to the ‘Eeuwig Edict’ (1611), but:

sometimes not only in one, yet in several courts (resulting in double or triple transaction costs)

formalization by notaries was not obligatory

The purpose of the registration was twofold:

property (right) was fully guaranteed

there often was an added feudal compensation cost, as the manor was a services and exploitation

center

But from the nineteenth century onwards, sale deeds had to…

be officialized by public notaries: Intermediate between tax payer and tax levying government

be registered

The functioning of Ancien Regime local justice after mid-1795 merely existed in facilitating new laws

and institutions. The civil-fiscal infrastructure relied upon:

land registry office = fiscal revenue

mortgage law office = registration of mortgages & publicity of property titles

cadastral (survey) office = dynamic inventory of the Belgian landscape

B Immovable property transactions customs

By Ancien Regime customs, …

no universal system of land title registration

local habits and particularism

sale deeds with the expertise of local procurators

the use of notary official merely existed in providing assistance in the sale deed

From the nineteenth century onwards, …

notary acts were mandatory (if desired proceeded by a private contract)

there was a large range of administrative or judicial acts (mostly contracting institutions)

11

The state providing individual property rights added an elevated fiscal

barrier, yet levying now the whole rural and urban society: initially a

transfer cost of 2 percent; 4 percent from December 1799 onwards. And

without the former feudal obligation of the so-called ‘wandelkoop’,

additional real estate transfer costs disappeared after 1795. Toussaint’s

feudal nostalgia was in this respect inappropriate. 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.23

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 (see also Table 2).

Numerous land registry offices were raised, each with a given territory.

These taxation offices worked very adequate and efficiently since their

inception in 1796.24

Local state officials made the registration of property

23

DE REU P. (2014), forthcoming.

24 DE REU P. (2013), Patrimoniumdocumentatie als een dynamische atlas van de

eigendomsverdelingen en bezitsverhoudingen in België (1795-heden), in Les Carnets du

Développement durable, Namur, vol. 6, p. 51-60 (special edition: ‘Archives, histoire de

l’environnement et développement durable’). In April 1796, a new properly run registration office was

founded in the nearby Deinze, responsible for the real estate market in Eke.

12

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. This contrasted the lower fixed transaction costs

of the Ancien Regime slightly.25

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.26

This practice caused short-term failures.27

A

reinstitution of the mortgage law system was established in 1799 (in full

force since 1800). The mortgage law organization 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. 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. The publicity taxes were – as they still

are nowadays – very low.

25

LAMBRECHT T. (2009), Rural credit and the market for annuities in eighteenth-century

Flanders, in SCHOFIELD P. & LAMBRECHT T., Credit and the rural economy in North-Western

Europe, c. 1200-c. 1850 (Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area; CORN Publication Series.

12), Turnhout, p. 90. Our dataset indicates that the abolition of feudal rights lowered transfer prices

after December 1799 by almost thirty percent. Land holding taxes (direct taxation) also shifted from a

land use taxation to a real estate property taxation from 1810 onwards. The land tax burden decreased

from 6,5 francs per capita to 3,3 francs per capita: VANHAUTE E. (2001), Rich agriculture and poor

farmers. Land, landlords and farmers in Flanders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in Rural

History, vol. 12-1, p. 39-40.

26 DE REU P. (2011), De geschiedenis van de Algemene Administratie van de

Patrimoniumdocumentatie (1796-2006). Organisatie, bevoegdheden, ambtsgebieden, archiefvorming

(Miscellanea Archivistica. Studia 198), Brussels, p. 317-318.

27 GARAUD M. (1959), La Révolution et la propriété foncière. Histoire générale du droit privé

français, de 1789 à 1804, Paris.

13

As Gerard Béaur already indicated for French case studies, this new

civil-fiscal infrastructure simplified the land market organization and made

it far more transparent.28

This of course influenced buying and selling

behavior and thus the real estate market dynamics and price formation.

Table 2: 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 * Union with the Netherlands

1823 * 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)

28

BÉAUR G. (2004), Land markets in the Parisian Basin (17th-19th centuries). Changes over

time and variation in space, in VAN BAVEL B. & HOPPENBROUWERS P., eds., Landholding and land

transfer in the North Sea area (late Middle Ages-19th century) Comparative Rural History of the North

Sea Area (CORN Publication Series. 5), Turnhout, p. 94.

14

4 Long-term analysis (1720-1820): The real estate market dynamics

We collected a continuous series of land sales records of the parish of Eke,

a community near Ghent, stretching from 1720 to 1830.29

Under Austrian

hegemony, it abutted the borders of the Oudburg chatelaine in the

renowned County of Flanders. The landscape consequently always was

susceptible of both urban and rural influence. Therefore, it makes a

representative showcase for the Flemish rural economy and the Belgian

real estate (in general) and land (in particular) markets.30

The village

embraced the river Scheldt and by doing so it had a heterogenous subsoil;

The town community always was subject to the city sphere, large

demographic pressure, proto-industry and its proletarization processes,

etc.

With a zoom in on the real estate market behavior in Flemish

countryside under Austrian hegemony and in modern time, we will take

the pulse of a changing civil society.

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.31

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.

29

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 P. (1986), Eke (Nazareth). Een historisch-geografische studie a.d.h.v. landboeken,

Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University Geography Department), p. 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 G. (1996), Krachtlijnen in de ontwikkeling van het

agrarische bodemgebruik in België, 1750-1850 (Workshop in Quantitative Economic History Research

Paper 96.01), Leuven, p. 6-8).

30 VAN DEN ABEELE R. (1972), Agrarische beschrijving van de gemeenten in het gebied

Scheldeveld (1808-1818), in Jaarboek van de Heemkring Scheldeveld, vol. 3, p. 11-30: Eke is a small

town, 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.

31 VAN SCHANDEVYL P. (1986), Eke (Nazareth). Een historisch-geografische studie a.d.h.v.

landboeken, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University Geography Department);

COPPIETERS G. (1991), Eke 1571-1834. Een landschap in historisch perspectief aan de hand van

kadastrale documenten, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History Department), p.

61-62.

15

The meadows (25 percent) could be found in the dominant alluvial area of

Eke.32

Forest was very scarce since centuries (4-6 percent).

Table 3 - Case study figures

Census years

1762 1834

Inhabitants 100 (= 1200) 162.5

Number of houses 100 (= 175) 180.6

Plots of immovables 100 (= 927) 192.9

Arable land (acreage of productive land) 56 % 70 %

Land in hands of smallholders (-5 hectares) 37 % 32 %

Plots of immovables in private circulation 90-95 % 90-95 %

Plots of immovables in hands of inhabitants unknown 39 %

Based on: COPPIETERS G. (1993); Statistique territoriale du royaume de Belgique (1839)

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: 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).33

The centre of this paper is the 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

1830/1831. 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 hypothesize that these changes had

32

WIEME T. (2005), De rurale immobiliënmarkt in Vlaanderen (18de eeuw). Casus:

Heerlijkheid Eke, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History Department).

33 COPPIETERS G. (1991), Eke 1571-1834. Een landschap in historisch perspectief aan de

hand van kadastrale documenten, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History

Department), p. 270-274.

16

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 market dynamics section

and a study of price formation and price expectancy on the real estate

market. In the former long-term analysis, 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, an econometric

price regression will be constructed in order to uncover the structural

determinants of the price of arable land, assess long-term trends in price

formation and evaluate the impact of the aforementioned institutional

changes during the period 1790-1820 hereon.

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 1834.34

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. Property rights becoming

theoretically absolute and exclusive rights, impacted the market economy.

A positive trend is noticeable, but a sudden, disruptive change is lacking.

Even if we restrict the term real estate market to land market, and only

count the transferred arable land plots. This insight sticks to the few

earlier immovable property market studies. The annual balance sheet

however shows a marked difference (see Graph 1 and Table 4).

34

COPPIETERS G. (1991), Eke 1571-1834. Een landschap in historisch perspectief aan de

hand van kadastrale documenten, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History

Department), p. 264.

17

Table 4 - real estate market dynamics

period (1) (2) (3) period (1) (2) (3)

1706-1710 13 65.92 1766-1770 41 272.03 +

1711-1715 81 87.19 + 1771-1775 65 128.10 -

1716-1720 77 104.02 - 1776-1780 39 266.24 +

1721-1725 30 53.67 - 1781-1785 48 183.31 -

1726-1730 29 42.23 - 1786-1790 62 363.27 +

1731-1735 30 75.12 + 1791-1795 22 143.70 -

1736-1740 32 284.08 + 1796-1800 38 352.35 +

1741-1745 46 103.39 - 1801-1805 56 300.30 -

1746-1750 24 128.69 + 1806-1810 58 279.36 -

1751-1755 59 110.48 - 1811-1815 72 264.58 +

1756-1760 39 120.52 + 1816-1820 61 289.97 +

1761-1765 31 245.23 +

Legend:

(1) number of transactions; (2) average price per hectare in hectoliters rye; (3) land rent evolution

(ratio sell price/rent price) towards the previous years

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Graph 1 - Number of real estate transactions

18

The market’s activity shows the expected ups and downs.35

Within the real

estate market’s trend, one can see a cyclical real estate transfer model. A

few patterns prove the socio-economic position in which the land market

transactions of Eke took place. These were moments when the transfer

cycles got subverted. Table 4 and Graph 1 show 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. The French Revolutionary army of course caused

for a disturbance too.

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.36

In fact many purchases were postponed to avoid French taxes.37

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.38

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, even if we take the historic inflation of the

currency into account (see Table 5). 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

35

BÉAUR G. (2004), Land markets in the Parisian Basin (17th-19th centuries). Changes over

time and variation in space, in VAN BAVEL B. & HOPPENBROUWERS P., eds., Landholding and land

transfer in the North Sea area (late Middle Ages-19th century) Comparative Rural History of the North

Sea Area (CORN Publication Series. 5), Turnhout, p. 92.

36 RAPPORT M. (2002), Belgium under French occupation. Between collaboration and

resistance, July 1794 to October 1795, in French history, vol. 16, p. 53-82.

37 VERHAEGEN P. (1935), La Belgique sous la domination française, Brussels, vol. 2, p. 187-

190; p. 502.

38 STEVENS F. (1994), Revolutie en notariaat. Antwerpen 1794-1814, Antwerp, p. 192-196.

19

land market surface: see Graph 2): 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). After a short low, the yearly

turnover in acreage rose again. Observing the long-term activity (Graph 2),

we also notice the cyclical trends of the total acreage sold on the land and

housing market. In economic less prosperous years, property became a safe

haven, resulting in a smaller yearly turnover on the real estate market.

On the Flemish land market economy there was a free and capitalist trade,

with great mobility, as Wieme already pointed out.39

Can we find evidence

39

WIEME T. (2005), De rurale immobiliënmarkt in Vlaanderen (18de eeuw). Casus:

Heerlijkheid Eke, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University History Department), p. 81:

Daily or weekly urban newspapers spread information of many future sales to every corner of the

country. Interested parties could reply to the announcements – often by intermediation of a local

procurator. The advertisement always was short and to the point. Only the wanted selling price and the

quality or yields were found important. Even the exact location of the immovable property did not

really matter!

0

5

10

15

20

25

17

21

17

26

17

31

17

36

17

41

17

46

17

51

17

56

17

61

17

66

17

71

17

76

17

81

17

86

17

91

17

96

18

01

18

06

18

11

18

16

Graph 2 - yearly turnover in acreage

20

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 5). 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.40

A remarkable difference with the Ancien Régime

land market.41

Table 7 shows the percentage of buying and selling by non-

residents during the last years of our early modern reference years, in

contrast with the percentages of the French period. If we take a look at the

evolution of land rents, we can presume a speculative demand from the

neighboring city. For that matter, the rent pressure on the laboring class

was a factor which should not be underestimated: From the mid-

eighteenth to the early twentieth century, one third of the gross yield of

rye had to be sold in order to pay for the rent of one hectare land.42

With the republican laws, future buyers who did not make part of

the village community (but often lived many miles away), did not have to

appeal local procurators. There was also no need for (paying for)

registration in different public offices – ensuring their property titles in

different regions. The buyer only had to choose whatever public notary. In

exchange for an ample fee (including the indebted transaction taxes), the

latter was in charge of sending the written deed to the fiscal authorities.

The notary intermediation moreover made sure the agreed sum was more

or less conform the market prices. The notaryship hence became a

respected institution of civil-fiscal expertise and continuity, with large

accountability and responsibility.43

40

DE KEZEL L. (1988), Grondbezit in Vlaanderen, 1750-1850. Bijdrage tot de discussie over

de sociaaleconomische ontwikkeling op het Vlaamse platteland, in Tijdschrift voor sociale

geschiedenis, vol. 14-1, p. 61-102.

41 DE VIJLDER N. (2012a), The rural land market in the Southern Low Countries, fifteenth to

sixteenth centuries, Ghent, unpublished master thesis (Ghent University General Economy

Department); DE VIJLDER N. (2013), Two contrasting experiences. The rural land market in sixteenth

century Flanders and Brabant. EED working paper, Ghent University.

42 VANHAUTE E. (2001), Rich agriculture and poor farmers. Land, landlords and farmers in

Flanders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in Rural History, vol. 12-1, p. 34.

43 DE REU P. (2011), De geschiedenis van de Algemene Administratie van de

Patrimoniumdocumentatie (1796-2006). Organisatie, bevoegdheden, ambtsgebieden, archiefvorming

(Miscellanea Archivistica. Studia 198), Brussels. This in contrast with the pre-modern period, in which

the formalization by notaries was not obligatory.

21

Table 5 - Eke's land market key figures

1720-1820 1746-1770 1771-1795 1796-1820

Long-term dynamics quarter century evolution

Total land market

Yearly turnover in value (in hectoliters of rye) 1444.22 1049.69 1387.80 2123.66

Yearly turnover in acreage 11.19 11.50 10.28 9.71

Average price per hectare (in hectoliters of rye) 193.86 179.13 196.65 218.71

Individual transactions

Average transferred plot size 1.52 1.76 1.25 1.11

Average number of transactions per year 9.36 7.76 9.44 10.92

Geographical mobility: non-residents of Eke

Sellers 28.7 17.5 29.2 52.2

Buyers 24.0 16.0 22.9 42.0

Sellers & buyers 10.7 6.7 7.2 27.1

22

5 Assessing the impact of institutional change

In the previous sections we’ve shown that the French Revolution and the

ensuing annexation of the Southern Low countries resulted in an

uprooting of established norms and values. As we’ve illustrated, age-old

arrangements, concepts and practices were discarded for an, in some ways,

entirely new institutional framework.44

We subsequently showed that the

social and political instability as caused by first the Brabant Revolution

(with neighboring Ghent as an important patriotic center) and

subsequently the French invasion caused havoc in Eke’s rural land market.

In the short term, market activity plummeted, resulting in sharp year over

year changes in market turnover and traded volume.

As each exogenous shock followed the other quickly, the return of market

stability became painstakingly slow process during the period 1790-1810.

44

For the French case see: BÉAUR G. (2002), Les rapports de propriété en France sous l'Ancien

Régime et dans la Révolution. Transmission et circulation de la terre dans les campagnes françaises du

XVIe au XIX

e siècle, in VIVIER N. (ed.), Ruralité française et britannique XIII

e-XX

e siècles. Approches

comparées , Rennes, p. 187-200; BÉAUR G. (2004), Land markets in the Parisian Basin (17th-19th

centuries). Changes over time and variation in space, in VAN BAVEL B. & HOPPENBROUWERS P.,

eds., Landholding and land transfer in the North Sea area (late Middle Ages-19th century) Comparative

Rural History of the North Sea Area (CORN Publication Series. 5), Turnhout, p. 86-100.

-40000

-30000

-20000

-10000

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

17

11

1

71

4

17

17

1

72

0

17

24

1

72

7

17

30

1

73

4

17

37

1

74

0

17

43

1

74

9

17

52

1

75

5

17

58

1

76

1

17

65

1

76

8

17

71

1

77

4

17

78

1

78

1

17

84

1

78

7

17

90

1

79

3

17

99

1

80

2

18

05

1

80

9

18

12

1

81

5

18

18

Graph 3 - yearly turnover (value)

23

Yet, as soon as the overall situation stabilized from 1805 onwards, those

detrimental effects were rather short-lived. Furthermore, despite them

causing short-term instability, the events that took place between 1790

and 1810 were not impacting certain long-term trends in the land market

(see graph 3 and previous sections). For example the gradual decline in the

average transferred plot size, as well as the structural decline in the yearly

turnover of the land market was not altered nor reversed because of the

institutional reforms. Similarly, the increasing importance of non-residents

on the rural land market was not halted as a result of the institutional

reforms. Better yet, we showed that after the French Revolution, these

‘outsiders’ gradually gained the predominant position on the rural land

market, as a consequence of lower information costs. The question still

remains whether or not the price-formation on the land market was altered

because of the institutional reforms highlighted earlier. As noted earlier,

the current historiography has not yet been able to shed light on this

question.

We hypothesize for example that the abolishment of the multitude

of property rights that could be asserted on a single property, for a more

transparent system, which differentiated only between ownership and

usufruct, increased price transparency. During the Ancien Régime the

price of a plot of land was related to the economic value of the plot and the

plot’s particular constellation ius ad rem (implying the collection of

exercisable rights over a piece of property).45

However, with the

introduction of the French Code Civil in 1804 the full property (ius in re)

that was previously held by the state (in case of the Southern Low

Countries the Austrian monarchy) was transferred to the landowner.

Similarly, the new institutional framework made way with the local

particularism, which previously curtailed outside investment due to high

information costs. Consequently, our working hypothesis is that as a result

of the drastic reconfiguration of the institutional framework by the French

government between 1794 and 1810, the economic (intrinsic) value of

45

For an eleborate discussion on the concepts see: MAGNOU-NORTIER E. (1996), La

féodalité en crise. Propos sur «Fiefs and Vassals » de Susan Reynolds, in Revue Historique, vol. 296, p.

253-348 and the work of Robert Feenstra. FEENSTRA R. (1998), Dominium utile est chimaera, in

Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis, vol. 66, p. 381-397; FEENSTRA R. (1989), Dominium and ius in re

aliena. The Origins of a Civil Law Distinction, in BRIKS P., ed., New perspectives in the Roman Law of

Property. Essay for Barry Nicholas, Oxford, p. 111-122. CONTE E. & NOVELLA BORGHETTI M.

(2002), Droit medieval. Un Débat historiographique italien, in Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales,

vol. 57, nr. 6, p. 1593-1613.

24

land would account for a larger part of the sale price achieved within the

market.

Over the past years, considerable research has been done on the

econometrics of land prices. 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.46

On historical datasets however its use on has

been limited. This is partly due to the data requirements, in combination

with the fact that only recently, rural historians (unlike their social and

economic counterparts) have adopted more advanced statistical tools.

Most recently, a long-run hedonic price index (from 1644 till 1840) was

constructed for Beijing by Daniel Raff, Susan Wachter and Se Yan. Their

empirical analysis showed that in Beijing’s urban real estate market,

intrinsic qualities of the property determined a large part of the price

variation (over 50 percent) from the Qing Dynasty onwards.47

With respect

to long-term price-evolutions, in real terms only a minor upward trend was

noticeable. Earlier, Piet Echholtz had come to a similar conclusion for

Amsterdam’s housing market between the Dutch Golden Age and the

twentieth century.48

Regarding rural real estate, David Ryden and Russel

Menard previously, used a similar statistical technique for their study on

the eighteenth-century colonial rural land market of South Carolina.49

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 harbored the ideal

46

XU F., MITTELHAMMER R. & BARKLEY P. (1993), Measuring the contributions of site

characteristics to the value of agricultural land, in Land Economics, vol. 69, p. 356-369; READY R. &

ABDALLA C. (2005), The amenity and disamenity impacts of agriculture: estimates from a hedonic

pricing mode, in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 87, p. 314-326; FRANCIS F. (2000),

An Econometric Model of Land Prices in England, Nottingham; PETERSON W. (1986), Land quality

and prices, in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 68, nr. 4, p. 812-819; KIM S. (1992),

Search, hedonic prices and housing demand, in The Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 74, nr. 3,

p. 503-508; MARGO R. & RENTAL T. (1996), Price of housing in New York City, 1830-1860, in

Journal of Economic History, vol. 56, nr. 3, p. 605-625; MOORHOUSE J. & SMITH M. (1994), The

market for residential architecture. 19th century row houses in Boston's south end, in Journal of Urban

Economics, vol. 35, nr. 3, p. 267-277; NICHOLAS T. & SCHERBINA A. (2011), Real estate prices

during the roaring twenties and the great depression (UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Research Paper No. 18-09), Sacramento; CASE K. & SHILLER R. (1987), Prices of single-family homes

since 1970. New indexes for four cities, in New England Economic Review, p. 46-56.

47 RAFF D., WACHTER S. & YAN S. (2013), Real estate prices in Beijing, 1644 to 1840, in

Explorations in Economic History, vol. 50, nr. 3, p. 368–386.

48 EICHHOLTZ P. (1997), A long run house price index. The Herengracht Index, 1628-1973, in

Real Estate Economics, vol. 25, p. 175-192.

49 RYDEN D. & MENARD R. (2005), South Carolina’s Colonial Land Market. An Analysis of

Rural Property Sales, 1720-1775, in Social Science History, vol. 29, nr. 4, p. 599-623.

25

prerequisites for a plantation-driven economy, prices for land soared.50

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.51

As already touched upon in an earlier section, most land sales in

the Low Countries were officialized in aldermen 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 aldermen benches were dissolved

in favor of the newly formed registration offices, a similar amount of detail

was jotted down in their accounts. The collected variables for each of the

1,072 transactions registered between 1710 and 1836, are shown in table

6. As can be seen, our source material provides an abundant amount of

data. Hence, 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.

Table 6 - 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

50

RYDEN D. & MENARD R. (2005), South Carolina’s Colonial Land Market p. 619-623.

51 DE VIJLDER N. (2012b), A macroeconomic analysis of the land market in the county of

Flanders and the duchy of Brabant. (fifteenth and sixteenth century). EED working paper, Ghent

University.

26

Arable_D Was plot identified as arable land? Dummy variable, base value

Surface Surface of the plot in hectares Continuous variable, calculated natural log

Rye_p Price for 100 kg of rye Continuous variable, calculated natural log

in Belgian francs

Rye_p-1 Price of 100 kg of rye Continuous variable, calculated natural log

in Belgian francs in year prior to sale

Rye_yield_hl_ha Average yield of rye Continuous variable

in hectolitres per hectare

Using aforesaid variables, we’ve constructed a model that tries to

encapsulate the economic determinants for the price hectare of each plot.

Following Ryden and Menard, we constructed a simple hedonic regression

to account for differences in price variation of rural land. Although we had

sufficient data to differentiate between arable land, meadows, woodland

and farmhouses, or final model only tries to capture the price formation for

arable land. This choice was motivated by several elements. First, we have

insufficient data on the input and output of woodland and meadows.

Second, the variety in the intrinsic qualities of the farmhouses (and thus

the price) was huge. In practice Farm_D could refer to either a small stable

or a full-fledged farmhouse with several outbuildings. Consequently, we

opted to only incorporate arable land in our analysis. 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 controlled for the

number of inhabitants within the parish of Eke, the movements in the

price of the output (through the annualized growth rate of rye for the past

6 years). Rye was preferred over wheat since throughout the eighteenth

and nineteenth century, 79 per cent of the arable land used for grain

cultivation in the region, was sown with rye.52

Of most continuous

variables the natural log was calculated, to ensure that normality

assumptions of both the dependent and independent variables were met.

Our final model, describes the price per hectare of plot of land as being

52

VANDENBROEKE C. (1972), Graanbevoorrading en graanaanvoer te Gent en Brussel tijdens

de eerste helft der 19e eeuw, in Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te

Gent, Ghent, vol. 26, p. 93-115.

27

depended from the past evolution of rye prices (output,

annugrwtRYE6year), the population pressure, the surface of the plot, the

price for leasehold land and the average crop yield (lnprijs_fr_per =

annugrwtRYE6year + bev_index + lntotoppha lease_index +

productivity_hl_ha).

The explanatory model is as follows. We hypothesize that the

institutions installed by 1810 – when the General Cadaster became fully

operational in East-Flanders53

– created a more transparent market, where

the economic value of a property was better reflected in the sale price.

Hence, we ran our model twice, once for the period 1750-1789 and once

for the period after 1810. For both models we tested for heteroscedasticity

using the Breusch-Pagan test, which test the null hypothesis that the

variance of the residuals is homogenous. However, in both cases the p-

values were >0,512 and >0,582 implying that the H0 has to be accepted.

Multicollinearity was assessed calculating the VIF-values, none of which

were larger than 3,8. Consequently, both models were overall robust. The

first model succeeds hardly at explaining the observed variation in the land

prices, suggesting that the intrinsic economic value of arable land in itself

was barely reflected in the final price. Only the surface of the plot is

succeeds marginally explaining some of the variations in land prices, the

negative sign indicating that as the total surface of the property grew, the

average price per hectare went down (albeit with a factor smaller than 1).

This is hardly surprising given the economic context of inland Flanders

where smallholders were predominant.54

The second model on the other hand succeeds at explaining over

50% of the variation in land prices. Three variables are significant, the

surface of the property, the yield-ratio (as expected, an increased yield-

ratio resulted in higher land prices) and finally, the 6-year average of the

annualized growth-rate of rye. Here, the negative coefficient indicates that

as the six-year average of the annualized growth rate a positive impact on

land prices is to be expected. The interpretation is as follows. When in the

medium term, rye prices were declining, the expectation would be that a

53

DE REU P. (2014), Van landboek en ommeloper naar hedendaags kadaster. ‘Comme un très-

grand pas fait dans le nouveau travail', in De landboekhouding in het graafschap Vlaanderen (16de-

18de eeuw). Onderzoeksgids, forthcoming.

54 THOEN E. & DEJONGH G. (1999), Arable Productivity in Flanders and the Former

Territory of Belgium in a Long-term Perspective (From the Middle Ages to the end of the Ancien

Régime), in VAN BAVEL B. & THOEN E. (eds), Land Productivity and Agro-systems in the North Sea

Area (Middle Ages – 20th century). Elements for Comparison (Comparative Rural History of the North

Sea Area; CORN Publication Series. 2), Turnhout, p. 30-64.

28

rebound of rye prices would follow, pushing up future cash-flows and

hence the land price itself.

Table 7 – Regression results 1750-1789 & 1810-1829

M1 = 1750-1789 M2 = 1810-1829

F (5.136) = 5.76 F (5.17) = 7.01

R2 = 0.1748 R2 = 0.6735

AnnugrwtRYE6year 0.0547 -5.4337**

t-value 0.0600 -2.5600

Bev_index 0.0087 -0.2798

t-value 1.5700 -1.0400

Lntotoppha -0.0933* -0.2415**

t-value -1.8500 -2.3300

Lease _index 0.0019 0.1313

t-value 0.5500 1.3300

Productivity_hl_ha 0.0136 0.7855**

t-value 0.3100 2.8700

Constant 4.9142 -4.7759

t-value 7.2700 -0.8100

29

5 Concluding remarks

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 real estate market? Did the reconfiguration of the institutional

framework open the door to even more speculative behavior, 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 1797 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 and building sales, from 1720 to 1820, on which we performed a

threefold analysis. 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

property-buyers; from local residents to inhabitants of nearby cities and

towns. Finally, a simple OLS regression was used to evaluate to what

extent the economic value of the property was able to explain the variation

in the price. Both models suggest that after the institutional

reconfiguration, the amount of variation in the price that can be explained

using the intrinsic quality of the plot, is remarkably higher. Hence we can

tentatively suggest that the French Revolution did matter, and had

moreover a positive effect on the market mechanisms, making price

formation more transparent. After all, as soon as all institutions were in

place, our simple model with a few economic variables succeeds

remarkably well at explaining price variation.

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 Civil 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

30

intrinsic qualities accounted for a larger amount of the observed price

differences.

31

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7 Attachment

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 1720-1787) and three sheaves of papers (for the period 1787-1795). 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 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.

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.