ABSTRACT
The transformation of western European society from feudalism to capitalism is a historical problem whose formulation is chiefly attributable to Marx. The notion of a distinction between the transition and the preconditions of transition is therefore unworkable and needs to be jettisoned. This means, to put the same point differently, that the causes of the transformation from feudalism to capitalism are not to be found in any one identifiable historical epoch and that the search for such an epoch is certain to be frustrated. Marx believed that a change in economic behaviour took place in the course of the great transition because production has different aims under feudalism and capitalism, and is characterised by different productive relations. The increased incidence of enclosure in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is sometimes used as evidence of a new spirit of capitalism.
