entrenched across Europe in the twelfth century, economic life involved no economic choices. If you were born into the landed gentry, it would never cross your mind to sell your ancestors’ land. And if you were born a serf, you were compelled to toil the land, on the landowner’s behalf, free of any illusion that, one day, you might own land yourself. In short, neither land nor labour power was a commodity. They had no market price.
