Only eleventh-century population growth internally spurred the bourgeoisie’s rise

Evidence

The economic organization of demesne production was characterized by Pirenne as a “closed domestic economy one which we might call, with more exactitude, the economy of no markets.” In fact, there were markets, local ones, but their function and existence had no part in the development of the markets of long-distance trades that were the basis of the merchant class’s development. The mercati, whose existence predates the bourgeoisie, dealt not in trade but foodstuffs at the retail level. The one factor “internal” to the feudal order that did contribute to the rise of the bourgeoisie was the eleventh century’s population growth. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 140