So I've been looking at France in the 1500's and it seems as if the economy was almost wholly localised: road, canal and trade systems were very basic and undeveloped. A place like England in the same time, however, had a more developed economy which was less of a patchwork thing.
How far, then, was the relatively primitive nature if economies until the late modern era due to centralised governments? I know economic theory etc had not really been introduced, but it seems to me that even local leaders would have benefitted from better infrastructure and farming techniques - I read somewhere that the techniques used by Clovis and his franks in the 400's to farm were not vastly less advanced than those of the 1500's.
I read somewhere that the techniques used by Clovis and his franks in the 400's to farm were not vastly less advanced than those of the 1500's.
Basically stuff like this needs to be looked at in relative terms.
Medieval agriculture underwent a huge period of advancement, for instance, the three-fields system is much more efficient than the two-fields system used in the 400s. The introduction of the mailed horse-shoe and the transition from ox to horse as the primary farm animal all boosted agricultural productivity. There was a real agricultural revolution in the Middle Ages which peaked in the 1100s.
Relative to modern agricultural advancement it's not a big deal, but relative to its own time it certainly was.