Beyond Lords and Peasants: Rural Elites and Economic Differentiation in Pre-Modern Europe PDF Download

Author: Frederic Aparisi & Vicent Royo
Publisher: Universitat de València
ISBN: 8437092620
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 176

View

Book Description
The present volume explores the process of economic stratification within the rural societies in the Middle Ages and in the Pre-modern period, paying special attention to the leading sectors of the community. Established experts and younger scholars in the field examine the rural elites and its relation with the emergence of agrarian capitalism through different observatories ranging across European regions, from Wiltshire (England), the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant (Low Countries) to the Kingdom of Valencia (Crown of Aragon). The contributions analyse the differentiation within the peasantry from various perspectives such as the social conditions, the evolution of communal structures, the investment strategies, the expenses for burials, the means for social promotion and the uses of the common lands. The book employs a variety of historical methods and draws on a wide range of diverse sources including court records, wills, law codes, manuals of institutional landowners and notarial registries. Considering the interest of the issue and the newness of the observatories, this volume will be essential reading for specialists on rural history and also engage a more general readership interested in conditions and structures in pre-industrial societies.

Author: Giulio Ongaro
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315299747
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

View

Book Description
Early-modern Venice is predominantly remembered as a maritime power, yet historians have become increasingly interested in its political and military aspirations within the Italian mainland. Adding to the growing literature on this subject, Giulio Ongaro’s book addresses the practical management of the Venetian military apparatus in this period. Focusing on two provinces - Vicenza and Brescia - he interrogates a broad spectrum of primary source documents produced by these rural communities that illuminate Venetian military activities between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the War of Candia in 1670. From the production of the saltpeter, the construction of the fortresses, the supplying and the training of the rural militia and the quartering of troops, this book shows how essential military activities were managed and overseen at the local level. In so doing, it demonstrates how local autonomy over the management of Venetian military apparatus - particularly from an economic point of view - did not necessarily conflict with wider, ongoing processes of state building or moves towards the centralization of particular public functions. Indeed the state appeared to encourage local élites (initially urban, then rural) to take a leading role in overseeing the localised management of military tasks. The result was a system that both supported the resilience of the local economy (both public and private), and which strengthened and improved the Republic's military assets, allowing it to remain the only Italian state free from the domination of European monarchies.

Author: Janet Burton
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783270527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

View

Book Description
Fruits of the most recent research into the "long" thirteenth century.

Author: Richard Lachmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195159608
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330

View

Book Description
Here, Lachmann offers a new explanation for the origins of nation-states and capitalist markets in early modern Europe. Comparing regions and cities within and across England, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands from the 12th through 18th centuries, he shows how conflict among feudal elites---landlords, clerics, kings, and officeholders---transformed the bases of their control over land and labor, forcing the winners of feudal conflicts to become capitalists in spite of themselves as they took defensive actions to protect their privileges from rivals in the aftermath of the Reformation.

Author: Markus Cerman
Publisher: Red Globe Press
ISBN: 0230004601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
This new study provides an up-to-date survey of social and economic developments in early modern Eastern European rural societies. Markus Cerman revises the traditional images of mighty lords and poor, powerless 'serf peasants', discussing the theories which led to the assumption that serfdom existed throughout the region. Cerman contrasts the interpretation of a long-term backwardness with a fresh view of the legal, social and economic status of villagers, their living standards and their role in actively shaping rural communities. Featuring helpful tables, a glossary and a comprehensive bibliography, this is a stimulating reassessment for anyone studying this period and often neglected topic in European history.

Author: Kenneth Pomeranz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217181
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 404

View

Book Description
A landmark comparative history of Europe and China that examines why the Industrial Revolution emerged in the West The Great Divergence sheds light on one of the great questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe? Historian Kenneth Pomeranz shows that as recently as 1750, life expectancy, consumption, and product and factor markets were comparable in Europe and East Asia. Moreover, key regions in China and Japan were no worse off ecologically than those in Western Europe, with each region facing corresponding shortages of land-intensive products. Pomeranz’s comparative lens reveals the two critical factors resulting in Europe's nineteenth-century divergence—the fortunate location of coal and access to trade with the New World. As East Asia’s economy stagnated, Europe narrowly escaped the same fate largely due to favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas. This Princeton Classics edition includes a preface from the author and makes a powerful historical work available to new readers.

Author: Maarten Prak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134604416
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

View

Book Description
This volume takes stock of recent research on economic growth, as well as the development of capital and labour markets, during the centuries that preceded the Industrial Revolution. The book underlines the diversity in the economic experiences of early modern Europeans and suggests how this variety might be the foundation of a new conception of economic and social change.

Author: R.J. Holton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135675279
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

View

Book Description
Cities, Capitalism and Civilization looks at the character and distinctiveness of Western Civilization. R.J. Holton sets out to challenge the belief that cities and urban social classes have formed the main component of the advance of civilization, and the principle dynamic of Western capitalism. This book was first published in 1986.

Author: Giorgio Riello
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108643523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 525

View

Book Description
This is the first global history of dress regulation and its place in broader debates around how human life and societies should be visualised and materialised. Sumptuary laws were a tool on the part of states to regulate not only manufacturing systems and moral economies via the medium of expenditure and consumption of clothing but also banquets, festivities and funerals. Leading scholars on Asian, Latin American, Ottoman and European history shed new light on how and why items of dress became key aspirational goods across society, how they were lobbied for and marketed, and whether or not sumptuary laws were implemented by cities, states and empires to restrict or channel trade and consumption. Their findings reveal the significance of sumptuary laws in medieval and early modern societies as a site of contestation between individuals and states and how dress as an expression of identity developed as a modern 'human right'.

Author: Robert S. Duplessis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521397735
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

View

Book Description
Between the end of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution, the long-established structures and practices of European agriculture and industry were slowly, disparately, but profoundly transformed. Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe, first published in 1997, narrates and analyzes the diverse patterns of economic change that permanently modified rural and urban production, altered Europe's economy and geography, and gave birth to new social classes. Broad in chronological and geographical scope and explicitly comparative, the book introduces readers to a wealth of information drawn from thoughout Mediterranean, east-central, and western Europe, as well as to the classic interpretations and current debates and revisions. The study incorporates scholarship on topics such as the world economy and women's work, and it discusses at length the impact of the emergent capitalist order on Europe's working people.