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feat(llm): add LLM integration module with OpenRouter and Claude Code adapters

Browse Source 
Implements markitect/llm/ package with concrete LLMAdapter implementations:
- OpenRouterAdapter: HTTP via urllib with retry/backoff on 429/5xx
- ClaudeCodeAdapter: subprocess-based Claude CLI with stdin piping
- Factory pattern: create_adapter("openrouter") or create_adapter("claude-code")
- API key resolution chain: constructor > env var > project-root key file
- 42 unit tests, 2 integration tests (gated on API key / CLI availability)

Also adds the infospace-with-history example with Wealth of Nations VSM
analysis pipeline, templates, schemas, source chapters, and processed
output for chapters 1-2. process_chapters.py now supports --provider
and --model flags for automatic LLM-driven processing.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Bernd Worsch
2026-02-11 01:17:58 +01:00
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---
id: book-3-chapter-02
title: "OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ANCIENT STATE OF EUROPE, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE."
book: "3"
chapter: 2
artifact_type: content
---
CHAPTER II.
OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE
IN THE ANCIENT STATE OF EUROPE, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
When the German and Scythian nations overran the western provinces of the
Roman empire, the confusions which followed so great a revolution lasted
for several centuries. The rapine and violence which the barbarians
exercised against the ancient inhabitants, interrupted the commerce
between the towns and the country. The towns were deserted, and the
country was left uncultivated; and the western provinces of Europe, which
had enjoyed a considerable degree of opulence under the Roman empire, sunk
into the lowest state of poverty and barbarism. During the continuance of
those confusions, the chiefs and principal leaders of those nations
acquired, or usurped to themselves, the greater part of the lands of those
countries. A great part of them was uncultivated; but no part of them,
whether cultivated or uncultivated, was left without a proprietor. All of
them were engrossed, and the greater part by a few great proprietors.
This original engrossing of uncultivated lands, though a great, might have
been but a transitory evil. They might soon have been divided again, and
broke into small parcels, either by succession or by alienation. The law
of primogeniture hindered them from being divided by succession; the
introduction of entails prevented their being broke into small parcels by
alienation.
When land, like moveables, is considered as the means only of subsistence
and enjoyment, the natural law of succession divides it, like them, among
all the children of the family; of all of whom the subsistence and
enjoyment may be supposed equally dear to the father. This natural law of
succession, accordingly, took place among the Romans who made no more
distinction between elder and younger, between male and female, in the
inheritance of lands, than we do in the distribution of moveables. But
when land was considered as the means, not of subsistence merely, but of
power and protection, it was thought better that it should descend
undivided to one. In those disorderly times, every great landlord was a
sort of petty prince. His tenants were his subjects. He was their judge,
and in some respects their legislator in peace and their leader in war. He
made war according to his own discretion, frequently against his
neighbours, and sometimes against his sovereign. The security of a landed
estate, therefore, the protection which its owner could afford to those
who dwelt on it, depended upon its greatness. To divide it was to ruin it,
and to expose every part of it to be oppressed and swallowed up by the
incursions of its neighbours. The law of primogeniture, therefore, came to
take place, not immediately indeed, but in process of time, in the
succession of landed estates, for the same reason that it has generally
taken place in that of monarchies, though not always at their first
institution. That the power, and consequently the security of the
monarchy, may not be weakened by division, it must descend entire to one
of the children. To which of them so important a preference shall be
given, must be determined by some general rule, founded not upon the
doubtful distinctions of personal merit, but upon some plain and evident
difference which can admit of no dispute. Among the children of the same
family there can be no indisputable difference but that of sex, and that
of age. The male sex is universally preferred to the female; and when all
other things are equal, the elder everywhere takes place of the younger.
Hence the origin of the right of primogeniture, and of what is called
lineal succession.
Laws frequently continue in force long after the circumstances which first
gave occasion to them, and which could alone render them reasonable, are
no more. In the present state of Europe, the proprietor of a single acre
of land is as perfectly secure in his possession as the proprietor of
100,000. The right of primogeniture, however, still continues to be
respected; and as of all institutions it is the fittest to support the
pride of family distinctions, it is still likely to endure for many
centuries. In every other respect, nothing can be more contrary to the
real interest of a numerous family, than a right which, in order to enrich
one, beggars all the rest of the children.
Entails are the natural consequences of the law of primogeniture. They
were introduced to preserve a certain lineal succession, of which the law
of primogeniture first gave the idea, and to hinder any part of the
original estate from being carried out of the proposed line, either by
gift, or device, or alienation; either by the folly, or by the misfortune
of any of its successive owners. They were altogether unknown to the
Romans. Neither their substitutions, nor fidei commisses, bear any
resemblance to entails, though some French lawyers have thought proper to
dress the modern institution in the language and garb of those ancient
ones.
When great landed estates were a sort of principalities, entails might not
be unreasonable. Like what are called the fundamental laws of some
monarchies, they might frequently hinder the security of thousands from
being endangered by the caprice or extravagance of one man. But in the
present state of Europe, when small as well as great estates derive their
security from the laws of their country, nothing can be more completely
absurd. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the
supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal
right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but that the property of
the present generation should be restrained and regulated according to the
fancy of those who died, perhaps five hundred years ago. Entails, however,
are still respected, through the greater part of Europe; In those
countries, particularly, in which noble birth is a necessary qualification
for the enjoyment either of civil or military honours. Entails are thought
necessary for maintaining this exclusive privilege of the nobility to the
great offices and honours of their country; and that order having usurped
one unjust advantage over the rest of their fellow-citizens, lest their
poverty should render it ridiculous, it is thought reasonable that they
should have another. The common law of England, indeed, is said to abhor
perpetuities, and they are accordingly more restricted there than in any
other European monarchy; though even England is not altogether without
them. In Scotland, more than one fifth, perhaps more than one third part
of the whole lands in the country, are at present supposed to be under
strict entail.
Great tracts of uncultivated land were in this manner not only engrossed
by particular families, but the possibility of their being divided again
was as much as possible precluded for ever. It seldom happens, however,
that a great proprietor is a great improver. In the disorderly times which
gave birth to those barbarous institutions, the great proprietor was
sufficiently employed in defending his own territories, or in extending
his jurisdiction and authority over those of his neighbours. He had no
leisure to attend to the cultivation and improvement of land. When the
establishment of law and order afforded him this leisure, he often wanted
the inclination, and almost always the requisite abilities. If the expense
of his house and person either equalled or exceeded his revenue, as it did
very frequently, he had no stock to employ in this manner. If he was an
economist, he generally found it more profitable to employ his annual
savings in new purchases than in the improvement of his old estate. To
improve land with profit, like all other commercial projects, requires an
exact attention to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a
great fortune, even though naturally frugal, is very seldom capable. The
situation of such a person naturally disposes him to attend rather to
ornament, which pleases his fancy, than to profit, for which he has so
little occasion. The elegance of his dress, of his equipage, of his house
and household furniture, are objects which, from his infancy, he has been
accustomed to have some anxiety about. The turn of mind which this habit
naturally forms, follows him when he comes to think of the improvement of
land. He embellishes, perhaps, four or five hundred acres in the
neighbourhood of his house, at ten times the expense which the land is
worth after all his improvements; and finds, that if he was to improve his
whole estate in the same manner, and he has little taste for any other, he
would be a bankrupt before he had finished the tenth part of it. There
still remain, in both parts of the united kingdom, some great estates
which have continued, without interruption, in the hands of the same
family since the times of feudal anarchy. Compare the present condition of
those estates with the possessions of the small proprietors in their
neighbourhood, and you will require no other argument to convince you how
unfavourable such extensive property is to improvement.
If little improvement was to be expected from such great proprietors,
still less was to be hoped for from those who occupied the land under
them. In the ancient state of Europe, the occupiers of land were all
tenants at will. They were all, or almost all, slaves, but their slavery
was of a milder kind than that known among the ancient Greeks and Romans,
or even in our West Indian colonies. They were supposed to belong more
directly to the land than to their master. They could, therefore, be sold
with it, but not separately. They could marry, provided it was with the
consent of their master; and he could not afterwards dissolve the marriage
by selling the man and wife to different persons. If he maimed or murdered
any of them, he was liable to some penalty, though generally but to a
small one. They were not, however, capable of acquiring property. Whatever
they acquired was acquired to their master, and he could take it from them
at pleasure. Whatever cultivation and improvement could be carried on by
means of such slaves, was properly carried on by their master. It was at
his expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of husbandry, were
all his. It was for his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing but
their daily maintenance. It was properly the proprietor himself,
therefore, that in this case occupied his own lands, and cultivated them
by his own bondmen. This species of slavery still subsists in Russia,
Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Germany. It is only
in the western and south-western provinces of Europe that it has gradually
been abolished altogether.
But if great improvements are seldom to be expected from great
proprietors, they are least of all to be expected when they employ slaves
for their workmen. The experience of all ages and nations, I believe,
demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only
their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any. A person who can
acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as much and to
labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is
sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by
violence only, and not by any interest of his own. In ancient Italy, how
much the cultivation of corn degenerated, how unprofitable it became to
the master, when it fell under the management of slaves, is remarked both
by Pliny and Columella. In the time of Aristotle, it had not been much
better in ancient Greece. Speaking of the ideal republic described in the
laws of Plato, to maintain 5000 idle men (the number of warriors supposed
necessary for its defence), together with their women and servants, would
require, he says, a territory of boundless extent and fertility, like the
plains of Babylon.
The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so
much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever
the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he
will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen. The
planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expense of slave cultivation.
The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the
English colonies, of which the principal produce is corn, the far greater
part of the work is done by freemen. The late resolution of the Quakers in
Pennsylvania, to set at liberty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us
that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable
part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to.
In our sugar colonies., on the contrary, the whole work is done by slaves,
and in our tobacco colonies a very great part of it. The profits of a
sugar plantation in any of our West Indian colonies, are generally much
greater than those of any other cultivation that is known either in Europe
or America; and the profits of a tobacco plantation, though inferior to
those of sugar, are superior to those of corn, as has already been
observed. Both can afford the expense of slave cultivation but sugar can
afford it still better than tobacco. The number of negroes, accordingly,
is much greater, in proportion to that of whites, in our sugar than in our
tobacco colonies.
To the slave cultivators of ancient times gradually succeeded a species of
farmers, known at present in France by the name of metayers. They are
called in Latin Coloni Partiarii. They have been so long in disuse in
England, that at present I know no English name for them. The proprietor
furnished them with the seed, cattle, and instruments of husbandry, the
whole stock, in short, necessary for cultivating the farm. The produce was
divided equally between the proprietor and the farmer, after setting aside
what was judged necessary for keeping up the stock, which was restored to
the proprietor, when the farmer either quitted or was turned out of the
farm.
Land occupied by such tenants is properly cultivated at the expense of the
proprietors, as much as that occupied by slaves. There is, however, one
very essential difference between them. Such tenants, being freemen, are
capable of acquiring property; and having a certain proportion of the
produce of the land, they have a plain interest that the whole produce
should be as great as possible, in order that their own proportion may be
so. A slave, on the contrary, who can acquire nothing but his maintenance,
consults his own ease, by making the land produce as little as possible
over and above that maintenance. It is probable that it was partly upon
account of this advantage, and partly upon account of the encroachments
which the sovereigns, always jealous of the great lords, gradually
encouraged their villains to make upon their authority, and which seem, at
least, to have been such as rendered this species of servitude altogether
inconvenient, that tenure in villanage gradually wore out through the
greater part of Europe. The time and manner, however, in which so
important a revolution was brought about, is one of the most obscure
points in modern history. The church of Rome claims great merit in it; and
it is certain, that so early as the twelfth century, Alexander III.
published a bull for the general emancipation of slaves. It seems,
however, to have been rather a pious exhortation, than a law to which
exact obedience was required from the faithful. Slavery continued to take
place almost universally for several centuries afterwards, till it was
gradually abolished by the joint operation of the two interests above
mentioned; that of the proprietor on the one hand, and that of the
sovereign on the other. A villain, enfranchised, and at the same time
allowed to continue in possession of the land, having no stock of his own,
could cultivate it only by means of what the landlord advanced to him, and
must therefore have been what the French call a metayer.
It could never, however, be the interest even of this last species of
cultivators, to lay out, in the further improvement of the land, any part
of the little stock which they might save from their own share of the
produce; because the landlord, who laid out nothing, was to get one half
of whatever it produced. The tithe, which is but a tenth of the produce,
is found to be a very great hindrance to improvement. A tax, therefore,
which amounted to one half, must have been an effectual bar to it. It
might be the interest of a metayer to make the land produce as much as
could be brought out of it by means of the stock furnished by the
proprietor; but it could never be his interest to mix any part of his own
with it. In France, where five parts out of six of the whole kingdom are
said to be still occupied by this species of cultivators, the proprietors
complain, that their metayers take every opportunity of employing their
master’s cattle rather in carriage than in cultivation; because, in the
one case, they get the whole profits to themselves, in the other they
share them with their landlord. This species of tenants still subsists in
some parts of Scotland. They are called steel-bow tenants. Those ancient
English tenants, who are said by Chief-Baron Gilbert and Dr Blackstone to
have been rather bailiffs of the landlord than farmers, properly so
called, were probably of the same kind.
To this species of tenantry succeeded, though by very slow degrees,
farmers, properly so called, who cultivated the land with their own stock,
paying a rent certain to the landlord. When such farmers have a lease for
a term of years, they may sometimes find it for their interest to lay out
part of their capital in the further improvement of the farm; because they
may sometimes expect to recover it, with a large profit, before the
expiration of the lease. The possession, even of such farmers, however,
was long extremely precarious, and still is so in many parts of Europe.
They could, before the expiration of their term, be legally ousted of
their leases by a new purchaser; in England, even, by the fictitious
action of a common recovery. If they were turned out illegally by the
violence of their master, the action by which they obtained redress was
extremely imperfect. It did not always reinstate them in the possession of
the land, but gave them damages, which never amounted to a real loss. Even
in England, the country, perhaps of Europe, where the yeomanry has always
been most respected, it was not till about the 14th of Henry VII. that the
action of ejectment was invented, by which the tenant recovers, not
damages only, but possession, and in which his claim is not necessarily
concluded by the uncertain decision of a single assize. This action has
been found so effectual a remedy, that, in the modern practice, when the
landlord has occasion to sue for the possession of the land, he seldom
makes use of the actions which properly belong to him as a landlord, the
writ of right or the writ of entry, but sues in the name of his tenant, by
the writ of ejectment. In England, therefore the security of the tenant is
equal to that of the proprietor. In England, besides, a lease for life of
forty shillings a-year value is a freehold, and entitles the lessee to a
vote for a member of parliament; and as a great part of the yeomanry have
freeholds of this kind, the whole order becomes respectable to their
landlords, on account of the political consideration which this gives
them. There is, I believe, nowhere in Europe, except in England, any
instance of the tenant building upon the land of which he had no lease,
and trusting that the honour of his landlord would take no advantage of so
important an improvement. Those laws and customs, so favourable to the
yeomanry, have perhaps contributed more to the present grandeur of
England, than all their boasted regulations of commerce taken together.
The law which secures the longest leases against successors of every kind,
is, so far as I know, peculiar to Great Britain. It was introduced into
Scotland so early as 1449, by a law of James II. Its beneficial influence,
however, has been much obstructed by entails; the heirs of entail being
generally restrained from letting leases for any long term of years,
frequently for more than one year. A late act of parliament has, in this
respect, somewhat slackened their fetters, though they are still by much
too strait. In Scotland, besides, as no leasehold gives a vote for a
member of parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account less respectable
to their landlords than in England.
In other parts of Europe, after it was found convenient to secure tenants
both against heirs and purchasers, the term of their security was still
limited to a very short period; in France, for example, to nine years from
the commencement of the lease. It has in that country, indeed, been lately
extended to twentyseven, a period still too short to encourage the tenant
to make the most important improvements. The proprietors of land were
anciently the legislators of every part of Europe. The laws relating to
land, therefore, were all calculated for what they supposed the interest
of the proprietor. It was for his interest, they had imagined, that no
lease granted by any of his predecessors should hinder him from enjoying,
during a long term of years, the full value of his land. Avarice and
injustice are always short-sighted, and they did not foresee how much this
regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt, in the long-run,
the real interest of the landlord.
The farmers, too, besides paying the rent, were anciently, it was
supposed, bound to perform a great number of services to the landlord,
which were seldom either specified in the lease, or regulated by any
precise rule, but by the use and wont of the manor or barony. These
services, therefore, being almost entirely arbitrary, subjected the tenant
to many vexations. In Scotland the abolition of all services not precisely
stipulated in the lease, has, in the course of a few years, very much
altered for the better the condition of the yeomanry of that country.
The public services to which the yeomanry were bound, were not less
arbitrary than the private ones. To make and maintain the high roads, a
servitude which still subsists, I believe, everywhere, though with
different degrees of oppression in different countries, was not the only
one. When the king’s troops, when his household, or his officers of any
kind, passed through any part of the country, the yeomanry were bound to
provide them with horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price regulated
by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I believe, the only monarchy in Europe
where the oppression of purveyance has been entirely abolished. It still
subsists in France and Germany.
The public taxes, to which they were subject, were as irregular and
oppressive as the services. The ancient lords, though extremely unwilling
to grant, themselves, any pecuniary aid to their sovereign, easily allowed
him to tallage, as they called it, their tenants, and had not knowledge
enough to foresee how much this must, in the end, affect their own
revenue. The taille, as it still subsists in France may serve as an
example of those ancient tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed profits
of the farmer, which they estimate by the stock that he has upon the farm.
It is his interest, therefore, to appear to have as little as possible,
and consequently to employ as little as possible in its cultivation, and
none in its improvement. Should any stock happen to accumulate in the
hands of a French farmer, the taille is almost equal to a prohibition of
its ever being employed upon the land. This tax, besides, is supposed to
dishonour whoever is subject to it, and to degrade him below, not only the
rank of a gentleman, but that of a burgher; and whoever rents the lands of
another becomes subject to it. No gentleman, nor even any burgher, who has
stock, will submit to this degradation. This tax, therefore, not only
hinders the stock which accumulates upon the land from being employed in
its improvement, but drives away all other stock from it. The ancient
tenths and fifteenths, so usual in England in former times, seem, so far
as they affected the land, to have been taxes of the same nature with the
taille.
Under all these discouragements, little improvement could be expected from
the occupiers of land. That order of people, with all the liberty and
security which law can give, must always improve under great disadvantage.
The farmer, compared with the proprietor, is as a merchant who trades with
burrowed money, compared with one who trades with his own. The stock of
both may improve; but that of the one, with only equal good conduct, must
always improve more slowly than that of the other, on account of the large
share of the profits which is consumed by the interest of the loan. The
lands cultivated by the farmer must, in the same manner, with only equal
good conduct, be improved more slowly than those cultivated by the
proprietor, on account of the large share of the produce which is consumed
in the rent, and which, had the farmer been proprietor, he might have
employed in the further improvement of the land. The station of a farmer,
besides, is, from the nature of things, inferior to that of a proprietor.
Through the greater part of Europe, the yeomanry are regarded as an
inferior rank of people, even to the better sort of tradesmen and
mechanics, and in all parts of Europe to the great merchants and master
manufacturers. It can seldom happen, therefore, that a man of any
considerable stock should quit the superior, in order to place himself in
an inferior station. Even in the present state of Europe, therefore,
little stock is likely to go from any other profession to the improvement
of land in the way of farming. More does, perhaps, in Great Britain than
in any other country, though even there the great stocks which are in some
places employed in farming, have generally been acquired by fanning, the
trade, perhaps, in which, of all others, stock is commonly acquired most
slowly. After small proprietors, however, rich and great farmers are in
every country the principal improvers. There are more such, perhaps, in
England than in any other European monarchy. In the republican governments
of Holland, and of Berne in Switzerland, the farmers are said to be not
inferior to those of England.
The ancient policy of Europe was, over and above all this, unfavourable to
the improvement and cultivation of land, whether carried on by the
proprietor or by the farmer; first, by the general prohibition of the
exportation of corn, without a special licence, which seems to have been a
very universal regulation; and, secondly, by the restraints which were
laid upon the inland commerce, not only of corn, but of almost every other
part of the produce of the farm, by the absurd laws against engrossers,
regraters, and forestallers, and by the privileges of fairs and markets.
It has already been observed in what manner the prohibition of the
exportation of corn, together with some encouragement given to the
importation of foreign corn, obstructed the cultivation of ancient Italy,
naturally the most fertile country in Europe, and at that time the seat of
the greatest empire in the world. To what degree such restraints upon the
inland commerce of this commodity, joined to the general prohibition of
exportation, must have discouraged the cultivation of countries less
fertile, and less favourably circumstanced, it is not, perhaps, very easy
to imagine.