Agrosystems and Labour Relations in European Rural Societies: Middle Ages-Twentieth Century (Rural History in Europe) [Illustrated] 9782503529547, 2503529542

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Rural History in Europe 3

COST Action A 35 PROGRESSORE

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Agrosystems and Labour Relations in European Rural Societies (Middle Ages-Twentieth Century)

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This publication is supported by COST, the Centre de Recherches Historiques (U MR 8558, C NRS E HESS , Paris, France). It is the result of the work launched in the working group 3 ‘Peasant Societies’ of the COST Action A 35. It came into existence thanks to funding provides by ESF (COST) and the Government of Lower Austria. We are grateful to Anne Varet-Vitu (UMR 8558, CNRS-EHESS ZKRFUHDWHGWKHÀQDOOD\RXWRIWKHERRN Cover: Rye harvest in Austria in the 1980s. Private collection. © Gertraud Seiser D/2010/0095/139 ISBN 978-2-503-52954-7 Printed on acid free paper.

© 2010 Brepols Publisher n.v., Turnhout, Belgium and COST All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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The Series Rural History in Europe

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1.

Agrosystems and labour relations

Erich LANDSTEINER & Ernst LANGTHALER I.

Introduction

If we were to describe the subject of this collection of articles in the simplest ZD\ LW PLJKW EH SXW LQ WKLV ZD\ 'R WKH VSHFLÀF IHDWXUHV RI DJUDULDQ SURGXFWLRQ condition the forms and social relations of production? The answers given to this question by authors representing the various strands of the social sciences concerned with agrarian production and rural society constitute a wide spectrum ranging from ‘yes, decisively’ to ‘no, not at all’, with a variety of intermediary positions such DVWKHVSHFLÀFIHDWXUHVRIDJULFXOWXUDOSURGXFWLRQSURFHVVHV¶FRQWULEXWHWR²EXWGR QRWLQWKHPVHOYHVH[SODLQ²WKHJUHDWGLYHUVLW\RIVRFLDORUJDQLVDWLRQDQGSURGXFWLRQ relations in agriculture’ (Pudup & Watts, 1987: 368). The anthropologists, economists, geographers, historians, and sociologists who are inclined to give a positive answer GUDZRXUDWWHQWLRQWRWKHQDWXUDOFRQVWUDLQWVRQWKHFKRLFHRIFURSVLQVSHFLÀFUHJLRQV the biological growth processes of plants and animals, the seasonality of the labour process, the uncertainties of weather and the resulting output-related risks, and the effects these features may have (had) on the material and immaterial traits of culture such as settlement patterns, household composition, techniques and technology, perceptions of the environment, the possibilities to intensify the production process, WKH FKRLFH RI FRQWUDFWV VRFLDO VWUDWLÀFDWLRQ DQG SURSHUW\ ULJKWV ,Q VKRUW WKH\ DUH ÀUPO\ FRQYLQFHG WKDW DJULFXOWXUH LQ JHQHUDO GLIIHUV IRUP DOO RWKHU VHFWRUV RI WKH HFRQRP\GXHWRLWVHFRORJLFDOHPEHGPHQWDQGPRUHVSHFLÀFDOO\WKDWJURZLQJFHUHDOV tree- or garden-crops, raising cattle, or processing raw materials produced on the land makes a difference for the socioeconomic characteristics of local rural societies. Those who, on the contrary, give a negative answer to the question raised, prefer class- and power-relations, the size distribution of agricultural holdings, household structure, factor proportions and market development as explanatory variables for the constitution and the dynamics of rural societies without paying much attention to what they actually grow and how it is grown. Unless we are quite mistaken, the second approach would seem to have prevailed among rural historians during the last decades. On the other hand, anthropologists, economists, geographers and rural sociologists have paid much more attention to

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Agrosystems and labour relations

the material constraints of agrarian production processes and their effects on social organization and behaviour. The cultural turn in the historical sciences, whose shortcomings are beginning to be discussed more intensely now, has in some respect further contributed to this neglect. The workshop on ‘Agrosystems and Labour Relations’ in the context of working group 3 of PROGESSSORE1, out of which this collection of papers has emerged, aimed at redressing the balance by calling for FRQWULEXWLRQVWKDWSD\FORVHDWWHQWLRQWRWKHVSHFLÀFIHDWXUHVRIDJUDULDQSURGXFWLRQ systems and their interaction with labour organization and labour deployment.

II.

Colonisation of nature and societal metabolism

One way of framing the interchange with nature practiced by agrarian populations is the idea of a ‘societal metabolism’. The concept of metabolism is usually seen to derive from biology and ecology, but it has been applied to social processes already by Karl Marx who used it ‘in conjunction with the basic, almost ontological, description of the labour process’ (Fischer-Kowalski, 1997: 122; see also Foster, 1999: 380-383; Godelier, 1986: 1-5): ¶/DERXULVÀUVWRIDOODSURFHVVEHWZHHQPDQDQGQDWXUHDSURFHVVE\ZKLFKPDQWKURXJK his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature. […] Through this movement he acts upon external nature and changes it, and in this way he simultaneously changes his own nature’. (Marx, 1976: 283)

With regard to agriculture the human interaction with the natural world could EH VHHQ DV D SURFHVV RI ¶FRORQL]DWLRQ· GHÀQHG DV ¶WKH LQWHQGHG DQG VXVWDLQHG transformation of natural processes by means of organized social interventions’ (Weisz & al., 2001: 124). Natural ecosystems become transformed into agro-ecosystems through the continuous application of human labour; new genotypes are created through the long-term processes of selection and domestication of plants and animals. But this colonization of natural ecosystems has, as every process of colonization, strong repercussions on the colonizer since it generates patterns of thought and behaviour (Simmons, 2008: 58-60). It is as much a process of submitting to the reproductive dynamics in the natural world as it converts nature into an instrument for human purpose. To grow something is not the same as to make something. ‘The idea that production consists in action upon nature […], is an essentially modern 1

Ten papers were presented and discussed at this meeting which took place in Retz (Austria) on 1 and 2 September 2006. Anne-Lise Head, Jürgen Schlumbohm, and Jon Mathieu acted as discussants. We thank them as well as the referees who assessed the papers submitted for publication for their efforts. 2XUWKDQNVDOVRJRWRWKHLQVWLWXWLRQVZKLFKKHOSHGWRÀQDQFHWKHPHHWLQJ&RVW$FWLRQ$DQGWKH government of Lower Austria, or provided material support (the magistrate of Retz). We also thank AnneLise Head and Jürgen Schlumbohm for their valuable comments on a previous version of this chapter.

14

Erich Landsteiner & Ernst Langthaler

one’, connected to industrial production processes, whereas ‘regimes of plant and animal husbandry may best be distinguished in terms of ways in which human beings involve themselves in establishing the conditions for growth’ (Ingold, 2000: 81, 86). This way of addressing the question raised above is particularly attractive because it provides a bridge between the opposing answers usually given to it in social science research concerned with the socioeconomic features of rural societies. Although it is RXULQWHQWLRQWRSD\FORVHDWWHQWLRQWRWKHVSHFLÀFSUREOHPVDQGHFRORJLFDOFRQVWUDLQWV of agrarian production, we are not proposing an exercise in environmental history. The approach pursued here implies a focus on production and the organisation of the labour process. This focus has the double advantage of integrating the ecological DQGWKHHFRQRPLFÀHOGVDQGRISURYLGLQJ¶WKURXJKLWVLQWLPDWHOLQNDJHZLWKZRUN organization […], a principal nexus of articulation between the ecological/economic ÀHOGDQGWKHVRFLRFXOWXUDOV\VWHP·&RRN 

III.

Why agriculture is different

‘The relationship with environment has always been a distinctive feature of agriculture, but its nature has changed deeply in the recent decades’ (Federico, 2005: 5). In his impressive analysis of the global economic history of agriculture during the ODVW WZR FHQWXULHV *LRYDQQL )HGHULFR GUDZV RXU DWWHQWLRQ WR IRXU VSHFLÀF IHDWXUHV of agricultural production, differentiate it from other economic sectors. These are: natural constraints on the choice of crops; the seasonality of work; output related risk due to weather variability, the impact of diseases, and insect infestation; and the effect of cultivation on soil fertility (Federico, 2005: 5-12). Others before him have tried to explain production relations in agriculture as well as the barriers to the formation of intertemporal and factor markets ‘as endogenous consequences of a FRPPRQVHWRIFOLPDWLFWHFKQRORJLFDODQGULVNFRQÀJXUDWLRQVLQWKHUXUDOSURGXFWLRQ environment’ (Binswanger & Rosenzweig, 1986: 535). They urge us to consider the material attributes of agriculture as behavioural determinants of agrarian production relations. Rural sociologists, arguing in a Marxist framework, have gone so far as to DWWULEXWHZKDWWKH\FDOO²LQDWUDGLWLRQVWUHWFKLQJEDFNWR.DUO.DXWVN\²WKH¶DJUDULDQ question’, i.e. the question, why capitalism is not able to take hold on agriculture in the same way as it happened within industry (Goodman &Watts, 1994), to the material and biological peculiarities of agriculture. Susan A. Mann and James M. Dickinson have LQVLVWHGRQWKHDUJXPHQWSUHÀJXUHGE\0DU[WKDWWKHQRQLGHQWLW\RISURGXFWLRQWLPH and labour time in agriculture due to biological growth processes constituted and still constitutes an important obstacle to the development of capitalist agriculture through LWVHIIHFWVRQWXUQRYHUWLPHSURÀWVPDUNHWLQJDQGWKHXWLOL]DWLRQRIPDFKLQHU\DQG wage labour (Mann & Dickinson, 1978; Mann, 1990: 28-46). Institutional economists

15

Agrosystems and labour relations

likewise insist that it is the seasonality of agrarian production processes which best explains why farming in many regions continues to be dominated by family farms. ¶8QGHUVWDQGLQJIDUPRUJDQL]DWLRQUHTXLUHVPDUU\LQJWKHPRGHUQWKHRU\RIWKHÀUP to seasonal constraints placed on production by nature. Seasonality is the main feature that distinguishes farm organization from industrial organization’ (Allen & Lueck, 1998: 345). Seasonality has several important consequences for the economic constitution and social organization of rural societies. It is the reason for the widely acknowledged phenomenon of seasonal underemployment; it produces bottlenecks in the labour supply in peak seasons such as the harvest period; it limits the gains from specialisation; and it hampers the realization of economies of scale in farming (Allen & Lueck, 1998; Federico, 2005: 136-137). With respect to the last point it has been observed that ‘the “Industrial Revolution” in agriculture is merely a spectacular change in the implements of production, whereas in industry it is a further revolution in the sequence in which men use their implements’ (Brewster, 1950: 70). Operations in farming have to be carried out sequentially, one after the other, at the right time; they cannot be organized synchronously and concentrated spatially. Althought dramatic changes in technology have separated the provision of inputs and the processing of farm products from the actual farming process in the course of the last two centuries, the biological growth stages of agricultural production remain very much the domain of small, family-based farms. There might even be diseconomies of scale due to incentive and supervision problems connected with the employment of large numbers of wage labourers in farming operations. All this has also been acknowledged by historians of agriculture and rural society. We are not able to go into details here and provide an exhaustive overview of historical ZRUN 7KHUHIRUH WZR UHPDUNV ZLWK UHVSHFW WR VHDVRQDOLW\ PXVW VXIÀFH *HRUJH Grantham has, among others, advocated the thesis that the constraints to the division of labour in early modern European societies ‘were imposed not so much by low absolute levels of labour productivity as by the problem of organizing labour to meet the seasonal needs from specialized corn growers’ (Grantham, 1993: 479). Labour availability in the harvest season was therefore a serious constraint on production and land productivity (Sharp & Weisdorf, 2007). Before the mechanization of grain harvesting, three to four harvesters were needed to reap the area ploughed and seeded by one person. This gave rise to labour migration, the seasonal switch of large proportions of the population in and out of farming activities and the creation of institutions to ensure local supplies of temporary workers, poor law provisions, labourexchange relations between smallholders and larger farmers, and the timing of labour FRQWUDFWV ,W LV FHUWDLQO\ QRW E\ DFFLGHQW WKDW PHFKDQL]DWLRQ DLPHG ÀUVW DW FXUELQJ

16

Erich Landsteiner & Ernst Langthaler

these seasonal peaks of labour demand, especially harvesting. With the development of transport facilities in the nineteenth century seasonal migration could extend to global scales. By the end of the nineteenth century large numbers of labourers, socalled golondrinas (‘swallows’), left Italy after the grain harvest to go to Argentina for the winter harvest. They stayed for a year until the next harvest, and then returned to Italy for the summer harvest. By exploiting the different timing of agricultural seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres, these migrant workers managed to harvest four times in two years (Adelman, 1994: 112-118; Federico, 2005: 59). The seasonality of agrarian production has also conditioned the spatial distribution of proto-industry in early modern Europe. Franklin Mendels has suggested that WKH GLIIHUHQWLDO VHDVRQDOLW\ RI VSHFLÀF DJUDULDQ V\VWHPV SOD\HG D PDMRU UROH LQ WKH implantation and development of proto-industrial production. Given the rhythm of high and low seasons, which is very pronounced in grain farming with a short-fallow V\VWHP%RVHUXS ¶DEDODQFHKDGWREHIRXQGEHWZHHQWKHFRQÁLFWLQJ DLPVRIVHFXULQJDVXIÀFLHQWODERUIRUFHDWSHDNWLPHDQGRIPLQLPL]LQJWKHFRVWRI supporting an idle labor force at slack time’ (Mendels, 1980: 179). This could partly EHDFKLHYHGWKURXJKWKHGLYHUVLÀFDWLRQRISURGXFWLRQRUPRUHHIIHFWLYHO\WKURXJK the countercyclical combination of agriculture and industrial activity. In this respect, it is instructive that proto-industry usually did not develop in regions where the main crop was less seasonal in its labour requirements than was the case for cereals. Mendels pointed to the fact that wine-growing regions, although very often marked by the prevalence of smallholdings and a high degree of farm fragmentation, were not prone to proto-industrial development because cultivating vines demanded constant effort from the cultivator throughout most of the vegetation period. Therefore ‘the vineyard and the loom were substitutes, not complements’ (Mendels, 1980: 184; see DOVR3ÀVWHU/DQGVWHLQHU 7KHSURGXFWLRQRIRWKHUODERXU intensive crops or highly developed mixed farming systems like the Mediterranean coltura promiscua could have the same effect.

IV.

Agrosystems – concepts and scholarly traditions

Because of the great diversity of agrarian production systems and livelihoods, discussing agriculture in general is of little value. Various strands of the social sciences since quite a while struggle to come to terms with this diversity by constructing typologies and concepts. The regional approach preferred by geographers has the ORQJHVWKLVWRU\RIDOOWKHVHFODVVLÀFDWLRQVFKHPHVVHHWKHRYHUYLHZE\*ULJJ  Where the delimitation of such regions is not based on purely physical features, crop and livestock combinations, farming methods, and, less frequently, institutional IHDWXUHV DUH XVHG IRU FODVVLÀFDWLRQ 6LQFH YLUWXDOO\ HYHU\ DXWKRU LQ WKLV ÀHOG XVHV

17

Agrosystems and labour relations

somewhat different combinations of criteria, the International Geographic Union set XSD¶&RPPLVVLRQRQ$JULFXOWXUDO7\SRORJ\·LQWRHVWDEOLVKXQLIRUPFULWHULDE\ ZKLFKIDUPVVKRXOGEHFODVVLÀHG*ULJJ *HRJUDSK\KDVKDGDQLQÁXHQFH on historical work mainly in France where monographs on single regions often used to contain an introductory tableau géographique largely unconnected to the other parts of the text (see the incisive critique of this practice by Bertrand, 1975: 40-41). For historians, the frustrating feature of this approach is that it neglects virtually HYHU\WKLQJWKH\DUHLQWHUHVWHGLQ*HRJUDSKHUVDQGUHVHDUFKHUVIURPUHODWHGÀHOGVRI study are well aware of the problems connected with this approach. Nevertheless, the authors of what is probably the most ambitious recent project dedicated to an analysis of global agroeecosystems, after stating that ‘the most appropriate agroecosystem concept […] would have been to identify frequently occurring agroecological and VRFLRHFRQRPLFSDWWHUQVWKDWJDYHULVHWRJOREDOO\VLJQLÀFDQWOLYHOLKRRGVWUDWHJLHV· HQG XS ZLWK D FODVVLÀFDWLRQ VFKHPH EDVHG H[FOXVLYHO\ RQ DJURFOLPDWLF IDFWRUV declivity, and irrigation (Wood, Sebastian & Scherr, 2000: 24-27). $WWKHRWKHUHQGRIWKHVSHFWUXPZHÀQGWKHIDUPPDQDJHPHQWRUIDUPV\VWHP analysis practiced by agrarian economists with its focus on markets, prices, technological development, and productivity. Dissatisfaction with this approach and the unequal results of agricultural research and development programs led to more holistic, interdisciplinary and systems-oriented research schemes such as the Farming Systems Approach and a new type of agroecosystem analysis in the 1970s and 1980s 1RUPDQ&RQZD\ :KDWWKH\KDYHLQFRPPRQLVDVWURQJGHYHORSPHQW policy orientation and a more participatory spirit aiming at understanding the problems of farmers from the perspective of farmers. Although the relationship between these kinds of applied research and more basic, academic analysis is not without frictions (see Brush, 1986), their holistic perspective constitutes a progress beyond older, more one-sided approaches because they try to integrate the socioeconomic, ecological, technological and political aspects of the systems under investigation and to extend the analysis to systems above and below the farm. This is also clearly visible in more academic treatments of the farming systems approach2. In agrarian history, Marc Bloch’s concept of ‘agrarian regime’ as an intricate complex of techniques and social relations (Bloch, 1988: 82), through which he tried to grasp the interrelations EHWZHHQWKHVKDSHRIÀHOGV\VWHPVWHFKQRORJ\FRPPXQDORUJDQL]DWLRQDQGODERXU relations, was an early attempt to pursue similar lines of investigation.

2

See the volume edited by TURNER & BRUSH (1987), which comes very close to our intentions. See also BIELEMAN (1999), for the possible synergies between farming system research and agricultural history, and BIELEMAN (2008), for its application to the history of agriculture in the Netherlands.

18

Erich Landsteiner & Ernst Langthaler

9DULRXVVWUDQGVRIDQWKURSRORJ\QDPHGDOWHUQDWLYHO\&XOWXUDO(FRORJ\1HWWLQJ 1997), Ecological Anthropology (Orlove, 1980), or Agrarian Ecology (Netting, 1974), have dealt extensively with the interaction of social and economic factors with WKHHQYLURQPHQW&RUUHODWLQJIHDWXUHVRIVRFLDORUJDQL]DWLRQZLWKW\SHVRIDJULFXOWXUH KDV EHHQ WKH FHQWUDO FRQFHUQ KHUH7KH VRFLDO RUJDQL]DWLRQ DQG FXOWXUH RI VSHFLÀF mainly small-scale, populations are treated as functional adaptations that permit these populations to exploit their environments successfully. These ways of conceptualizing the interrelations between environment and ‘culture’ soon came under attack for their excessive functionalism, their ecological reductionism, and for drawing the boundaries RI WKH ¶V\VWHPV· XQGHU VWXG\ DOO WRR QDUURZO\ &XOWXUDO HFRORJLVWV RIWHQ DGYRFDWH simple correlations and causal relationships between an extra-cultural, primordial environment and social organization. Ecosystemic approaches, which emphasize self-regulation, homeostatic mechanisms, and energy transfers, suppose a kind of closure that may, if at all, apply to simple, classless, and isolated communities closely or exclusively dependent for their reproduction on the colonization of the natural environment (see e. g. Biersack, 1999). From a historical viewpoint, these approaches are overtly ahistorical even in their evolutionist strands since their functionalist attitude leaves little room for actor-centred interpretations and social processes. This has become even more evident as cultural ecologists tried to adapt their approach to the study of European rural societies (see Viazzo, 1989: 1-15, 49-66). When Robert 0F&1HWWLQJORRNHGEDFNRQKLVSLRQHHULQJDQDO\VLVRIWKH6ZLVVPRXQWDLQYLOODJH of Törbel (Netting, 1981), he declared himself ‘guilty of the ecosystemic fallacy. This common anthropological error involves an overemphasis on functional integration, stability, and regulatory mechanisms within the community and a relative neglect of disequilibrium, changes emanating from more inclusive political-economic systems, and instances of evolutionary maladaption’ (Netting, 1990: 229). European HWKQRORJLVWV ZKR DGRSWHG WKH SHUVSHFWLYH RI &XOWXUDO (FRORJ\ WKHUHIRUH LQVLVW WKDW agrarian ‘ecotypes’ should be conceptualized as ‘pattern(s) of resource exploitation within a given macro-economic framework’ (Löfgren: 1974, 101). The shortcomings and limitations of agroecological research in anthropology should, however, not make us forget that these approaches have generated detailed descriptions of agrarian production systems spread all over the globe and have raised the attentiveness about the systemic nature of the interactions between the agrarian environment and modes of social organization. Through their focus on the labour process, the composition of households, the division of labour within and between KRXVHKROGVWKHPRGDOLWLHVDQGSURFHVVHVRIDJUDULDQLQWHQVLÀFDWLRQDQGWKHLUHIIHFWV on land tenure and work organisation, they may still provide valuable starting points for further research (see e. g. Netting, 1993, for a balanced and elaborated synthesis of research on smallholder agriculture on a global scale). After all, Julian Steward,

19

Agrosystems and labour relations

ZKR HVWDEOLVKHG &XOWXUDO (FRORJ\ ZLWKLQ DQWKURSRORJLFDO UHVHDUFK LQ WKH V has insisted from the very beginning that, ‘although technology and environment prescribe that certain things must be done in certain ways if they are done at all, the extent to which these activities are functionally tied to other aspects of culture is a purely empirical problem’, and that historical processes have be taken into consideration in the analysis of particular types of agrosystems and their dynamics (Steward, 1955: 41). What is missing in all these attempts to come to terms with the diversity of farmingand agro-systems is the aspect of agency. Single farms and local rural societies are represented as systems interacting with natural and socio-economic environments, but the purposeful creation and selection of particular circumstances usually does not receive much attention. What is depicted as components of a system are, after all, patterns and regularities created by farmers in and through their interaction with other actors and the environment. It remains to be seen if the actor-oriented perspective of ‘farming styles’ as particular complexes of norms, practices, and strategies within VWUXFWXUHGFRQWH[WVZLOOEHDEOHWRÀOOWKLVYRLG9DQGHU3ORHJ  When we apply agrosystemic concepts here, we see them as heuristic devices WKDWDOORZLQYHVWLJDWLRQVRIWKHSRVVLEOHUHODWLRQVEHWZHHQVSHFLÀFDJURHFRV\VWHPV technologies, and social relations of production. The term ‘system’ is understood in its broadest sense as a set of interrelated components in which changes in any component effect and condition changes in the others. These systems have a spatial and a historical dimension. Labour relations are understood as social relationships mediating between the agrarian production process and the institutions and social organisations of the actors involved. This wide and loose interpretation of ‘agrosystems’, and the consideration of the manifold social relationships involved in their reproduction and evolution, should not, however, lead to the neglect of all those features of agrarian production which we have mentioned above. Erik Thoen’s recent conceptualisation of a ‘social agrosystem’ as ‘a rural production system based on WKHUHJLRQVSHFLÀFVRFLDOUHODWLRQVLQYROYHGLQWKHHFRQRPLFUHSURGXFWLRQRIDJLYHQ geographical area’ (Thoen, 2004: 47) is an example for this neglect. Although we XQGHUVWDQGKLVGLVVDWLVIDFWLRQZLWKH[LVWLQJGHÀQLWLRQVRIDJURV\VWHPVKLVGLVWLQFWLRQ of primary and secondary factors, which privileges social property relations and power structures at the expense of ecological and technological factors of agrarian SURGXFWLRQDJDLQQHDUO\HOLPLQDWHVDOOWKHVSHFLÀFDJUDULDQFRPSRQHQWVRIWKHV\VWHP devised in this manner. This can result in paradoxical statements such as that labour organisation is determined by the proportion between large farms and small holdings (Thoen, 2004: 50). But what then determines this proportion, given the well established

20

Erich Landsteiner & Ernst Langthaler

fact that the size distribution of holdings and the exchange relations between holdings of unequal size are conditioned in many ways by the agrarian production system?

V.

Labour relations

Our focus on the colonization of nature through human labour necessarily leads to the question how the material and behavioural determinants of agrarian production relations might constrain the modes of organizing the labour process in the context RI VSHFLÀF DJURV\VWHPV 7KH GLIIHUHQW VROXWLRQV WR WKH SUREOHP RI PDWFKLQJ ODQG biological growth processes, and labour deployment have led to a wide variety of agrarian institutions (property rights, contracts, markets for goods and factors etc.). 6FLHQWLÀFDFFRXQWVRIWKHVHLQVWLWXWLRQVGLIIHULQWKHLUIRFXVRQWKHIRUFHVDQGIDFWRUV that could have determined their establishment, persistence, and change. One way of classifying is to sort them out according to exogenous or endogenous explanations of agrarian institutions (Federico, 2005: 123). Property rights and types of contract FDQEHHLWKHUVHHQDVLPSRVHGE\RXWVLGHIRUFHVSRZHUIXODFWRUVRUVSHFLÀFFXOWXUDO traditions, and are therefore often assumed to change through the impact of revolution, reform, or forces of ‘modernization’ such as technological progress. They can also be LQWHUSUHWHGDVFRUUHVSRQGLQJZLWKDQGUHDFWLQJWRWKHVSHFLÀFIHDWXUHVDQGFRQVWUDLQWV of different agrosystems. The incidence and concrete forms of agrarian contracts for labour are then either seen as the sole consequence of an existing pattern of landowning and the power relations in a given rural society without paying much attention to what is actually produced and how it is produced (see, e.g., Thoen 2004), or they are related to the material constraints and behavioural determinants of the relations of production in the FRQWH[WRIVSHFLÀFDJURV\VWHPVZKLFKRIWHQOHDGVWRWKHQHJOHFWRIOHJDODQGVRFLR political constraints on the choice of particular contract forms (see, e.g. Binswanger & Rosenzweig, 1986). To give just one example: in the 1980s Michael Mitterauer HPSOR\HGWKHFRQFHSWRI¶HFRW\SH·GHÀQHGDVDVSHFLÀFSDWWHUQRIDJUDULDQ UHVRXUFH exploitation within the context of a given macroeconomic framework, according to Löfgren, 1974) to identify types of rural households within the boundaries of presentday Austria during the early modern period. He combined the analysis of serial nominal population listings with research on regional economic structure and farming systems and concluded that the agrosystemic constraints on labour organization determined the composition of families and households. Focusing on the recruitment and the various forms of integration of extra-familial labourers into rural households, Mitterauer claimed that the agro-pastoral system of alpine regions corresponded to rural family economies relying on the employment of permanent farm hands (Gesindegesellschaft) whereas intensive cash-crop production such as commercial

21

Agrosystems and labour relations

viticulture favoured the recruitment of wage-labourers on a daily basis to secure additional inputs of labour at peak times (Taglöhnergesellschaft) (Mitterauer, 1986, and Mitterauer, 1992, for an abridged English version of the argument). This bold generalisation has sparked a lively debate on its validity. Opponents pointed to the fact that household composition and forms of labour recruitment varied greatly within the same agrosystemic context and that socio-political factors (such as lordship and statebuilding) might therefore better account for the observable variation in household structure and labour relations (Viazzo 1989; Mathieu, 2000; see also Langthaler, 2009, for a review of the debate). But these critiques do not invalidate this kind of endogenous approach (somehow avant la lettre, since Mitterauer completely ignored the vast body of literature produced by institutional economics) to the problematic. They remind us that it is simply too hasty to conclude that there would be only one way of labour organization suited for a particular type of agrosystem. Institutional economists, drawing on principal-agent and transaction cost approaches, have produced an impressive amount of theories and models for the endogenous explanation of agrarian institutions. They usually centre on the choice of contracts and the conditions for the emergence or absence of factor and product markets, but they also contain important arguments to explain the persistence of family farms in those stages of agrarian production dealing with biological growth processes3. In its most ambitious versions this strand of research aims at constructing a general model that interprets tenancy, the employment of wage-labour, and cultivation by the landowner and its household labour force as alternatives within a continuous spectrum of contract choices. Due to the unequal distribution of land in most societies, the stickiness of land markets, and the social and political role of land ownership, the matching of land and labour is mainly achieved by transferring labour. The choice RIDSDUWLFXODUFRQWUDFWÀ[HGUHQWYHUVXVVKDUHFURSSLQJWHQDQF\SHUPDQHQWYHUVXV casual wage labour, etc.) is seen to be conditioned by problems of contract enforcement PRQLWRULQJDQGWKHUHVXOWLQJVXSHUYLVLRQFRVWV WKHFKDUDFWHULVWLFVRIVSHFLÀFIDFWRUV RI SURGXFWLRQ DVVHW VSHFLÀFLW\  WKH DSSURSULDWHQHVV RI SDUWLFXODU W\SHV RI ODERXU RUJDQL]DWLRQWRSDUWLFXODUWDVNVWDVNVSHFLÀFLW\ SURGXFWLRQULVNVDQGDWWLWXGHVWRZDUG risk by the contracting partners, the seasonality of the agrarian production process, and the resulting limits to the division of labour and to specialisation. The great advantage of this kind of analysis over purely exogenous explanations of agrarian LQVWLWXWLRQV LV FOHDU DOO WKH FULWHULD DVVXPHG WR LQÁXHQFH FRQWUDFW FKRLFH DUH PRUH RU OHVV FORVHO\ FRQQHFWHG ZLWK WKH PDWHULDO DQG HFRORJLFDO VSHFLÀWLHV RI SDUWLFXODU types agrarian production. It might therefore be able to provide important insights for

3 See BARDHAN (1991); OTSUKA, CHUMA & HAYAMI (1992); ALLEN & LUECK (1998 and 2005); FEDERICO (2005: 117-142); KOPSIDIS (2006), for introductions and overviews.

22

Erich Landsteiner & Ernst Langthaler

future research agendas designed to investigate the links between agrosystems and labour relations in historical perspective.

VI.

Contributions to this volume

This volume consists of eight chapters, which address the interactions between agrosystems and labour relations in Europe from the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century from different angles and perspectives. Due to the geographically biased response to our proposal to dedicate a conference of the PROGRESSORE action to WKLVVXEMHFWWKH(XURSHDQODQGVFDSHLVFRYHUHGYHU\XQHYHQO\VHHÀJXUH  Figure 1.1. The geographical location of regions analysed in the contributions to this volume

7KHÀUVWFKDSWHUE\$QWRQL)XULyDQG)HUUDQ*DUFLD2OLYHUDQDO\VHVWKHLQWHUDFWLRQ between the agrosystems of the Valencian county (Spain), divided between irrigated areas and dry-farming zones, and the characteristics of the local rural society by focusing on land ownership, household composition, and labour relations in single rural and urban communities during the late Middle Ages. The authors portray a rural society marked by the preponderance of small holdings owned by nuclear families in hereditary tenure practicing mixed farming of food and cash crops. Nevertheless, the high labour intensity of farming and more substantial holdings farmed by urban landowners, noble lords, and well-to-do peasants, located mainly in the irrigated costal plains and the surroundings of the city of Valencia, conditioned a strong demand for additional labour secured by permanent farm hands, day labourers and some slaves

23

Agrosystems and labour relations

during peak seasons. It becomes evident that markets for land, credit, and labour had already left their imprint on social relations in this part of the Iberian peninsula in the late Middle Ages. The following two chapters are dedicated to rural societies based economically on a combination of subsistence farming and industrial activities. Hermann Zeitlhofer DQDO\VHVWKHLQWHJUDWLRQRIÁD[JURZLQJDQGÁD[SURFHVVLQJLQWRWKHDJURV\VWHPRI a rural community in the southern part of early modern Bohemia, which led to the LQWHQVLÀFDWLRQ RI IDUPLQJ DQG D GLVWLQFWLYH UHJLRQDO GLYLVLRQ RI ODERXU LQ WKLV SDUW RI &HQWUDO (XURSH +H LV DEOH WR VKRZ WKDW ÁD[ JURZLQJ DQG WKH VSLQQLQJ RI \DUQ pervaded all subgroups of the local rural society and left a deep imprint on the social and economic relations of its members. The highly unequal distribution of land was counterbalanced by the leasing of plots of cleared woodland by the lord to the landSRRULQKDELWDQWVIRUFXOWLYDWLQJÁD[7KLVLQWXUQSURYLGHGWKHEDVLVIRUVXEVWDQWLDO demographic growth in an otherwise poor agrarian environment. :KHUHDV=HLWOKRIHUKHVLWDWHVWRWHUPWKHÁD[JURZLQJDQGÁD[SURFHVVLQJDFWLYLWLHV of the South Bohemian rural population ‘proto-industrial’, Herdis Kolle interprets the involvement of the members of rural communities in one district of the Moscow textile Region in mid-nineteenth century Russia as a variant of a dual economy based on the association of arable farming and proto-industrial silk and cotton production. She analyzes how labour relations within the complex rural households developed under WKH LQÁXHQFH RI SURWRLQGXVWULDOLVDWLRQ KRZ WKLV DOWHUHG WKH SRZHU EDODQFH ZLWKLQ the household and how it changed the internal structure of the repartitional village commune. The work requirements of arable farming conditioned distinctive seasonal work patterns, and engagement of workers in textile production virtually stopped during the harvest season. Within the households Kolle discerns a correlation between KRXVHKROGSRVLWLRQDQGRFFXSDWLRQUHVXOWLQJLQDJHDQGJHQGHUVSHFLÀFSDWWHUQVRI labour force participation. Senior household members, and especially male heads of households, concentrated on agrarian tasks while younger as well as female members worked mainly in the textile sector. Household size and composition therefore FRQGLWLRQHGSDWWHUQVRIODERXUGHSOR\PHQWDQGWKLVLQWXUQLQÁXHQFHGWKHWUDGLWLRQDO patriarchal structure of households. The increased status and additional income of young textile workers not only changed the internal hierarchy of the households but also enabled them to put up independent households at a comparatively young age. Margareth Lanzinger’s paper deals with the problems of mountain farmers in ÀQGLQJ D VSRXVH LQ QLQHWHHQWK FHQWXU\ DOSLQH UHJLRQV 7\URO DQG 9RUDUOEHUJ  E\ analysing their arguments brought forward in applications for marriage dispensation. Isolation of settlements and harsh working conditions led to a high degree of local

24

Erich Landsteiner & Ernst Langthaler

endogamy and strengthened the role of kin in recruiting and supplanting marriage SDUWQHUV7KHVSHFLÀFODERXUUHTXLUHPHQWVRIPRXQWDLQIDUPLQJDQGWKHKXJHZRUNORDG were, together with arguments about angustia loci, integral parts of dispensation applications. By analysing the ecological and socio-economic features of a Western Mediterranean DJUDULDQHFRV\VWHP²WKH9DOOqVFRXQW\RI&DWDORQLDLQWKHSHULRG²5DPRQ *DUUDERX (QULF7HOOR DQG ;DYLHU &XVVR DLP DW EXLOGLQJ WUDQVGLVFLSOLQDU\ EULGJHV between history, economics and the natural sciences in order to gain a co-evolutionary understanding of socio-environmental change. They distinguish between driving IRUFHVHQHUJ\ÁRZVDQGWHFKQLFDOVHWWLQJV DQGUXOLQJIRUFHVLQVWLWXWLRQVDQGSRZHU relations) in order to assess how natural resources affected economic development and to determine the impact of economic change on the local agro-ecosystem. PolyFXOWXUDO ODQG XVH ZDV VWURQJO\ FRQGLWLRQHG E\ VRLO DSWLWXGH DQG HQHUJ\ HIÀFLHQF\ WXUQVRXWWRKDYHEHHQPXFKKLJKHUWKDQDWSUHVHQW5XUDOVRFLHW\LQWKH9DOOqVFRXQW\ became increasingly split between the owners of scattered farmsteads (masies) and a landless class of immigrants and non-inheriting descendants of local farmers based on winegrowing within the framework of the rabassa morta-contract. Two of the following three contributions, all dealing with agrosystems and labour relations in the twentieth century, highlight the policy-dimensions of the subject. Ernst Langthaler’s paper on agrosystems and labour markets in Lower Austria during the Nazi regime analyses the deployment of forced labourers (prisoners of war, forced civil labourers, Jewish slave labourers) to compensate for the shortage of farm labour due to conscription and rural exodus in the period 1938-1945. Labour relations are conceptualized as power relations according to J. K. Galbraith’s concept of power, and Langthaler looks at them from the double perspective of the political-economic system and the everyday practice conditioned by the labour requirements of the different agrosystems in this region. Rural labour markets and labour relations were fundamentally restructured by the Nazi regime through the introduction of forced labourers and the subordination of other segments of the agrarian labour market to the UHSUHVVLYHSRZHURIWKHVWDWHDJHQFLHV7KHPDQLIROGFRQWUDGLFWLRQVEHWZHHQRIÀFLDO policy aims and practical requirements of the agricultural labour process as well as the social relations on the farm level become evident. Langthaler stresses, among others, the systemic contradiction between the forced labourers’ inclusion in farming households and their exclusion by the political-economic system. Rita Garstenauer’s contribution moves the focus into the period after World War II. The substantial drain of workforce from agriculture during the post-war period produced the phenomenon of the part-time farmer and the proliferation of sideline

25

Agrosystems and labour relations

occupations connected with agrarian production. By drawing on statistical data on the occupation of the agrarian family labour force in two districts of present-day $XVWULD²RQHDOSLQHWKHRWKHUORZODQG²FROOHFWHGLQWKHODWHVVKHLVDEOHWR examine two patterns of income and occupational strategies in correspondence with two different agrosystems in great detail. Two bundles of factors conditioned the employment and income-pooling patterns of farm families in the two districts: the peculiarities of the agrarian labour process, the size of holdings, inheritance patterns, DQG SURSHUW\ ULJKWV LQ VSHFLÀF UHVRXUFHV VXFK DV IRUHVWV UHVXOWLQJ IURP GLYHUJLQJ historical trajectories of these regions on the one hand; not merely the availability, but also the adjustability of off-farm employment opportunities to the agrarian work schedule on the other hand. Finally, Ottar Brox gives an account of the economic system on the frontier of DJUDULDQ1RUWKHUQ(XURSH²1RUWKHUQ1RUZD\²LQZKLFKKHVWUHVVHVWKHLPSRUWDQFH RI ÀVK LQ WKH HFRQRPLF DGDSWDWLRQ RI $UWLF SHDVDQWV ² VPDOOKROGHUV SUDFWLFLQJ VXEVLVWHQFHDJULFXOWXUHDQGÀVKLQJ²WRWKLVHQYLURQPHQW2QWKDWEDVLVKHDQDO\VHV the political process enabling the protection of common maritime resources against privatisation, which lead to rural revitalization based on self-employment and smallscale resource harvesting between 1935 and 1980. Relying on a model developed by Fredrik Barth, he traces the lessons which could be drawn from the Norwegian path of agrarian economic development, and the political struggle connected with it, for development policy in general.

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Agrarrevolutionen

und

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LANGTHALER, E. (2009), ‘Ökotypen’, in F. JAEGER (ed.), Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, vol. 9, Naturhaushalt-Physiokratie, Stuttgart, col. 419-423. LÖFGREN, O. (1974), ‘Peasant ecotypes. Problems in the comparative study of ecological adaption’, Ethnologia Scandinavica, 6, p. 100-115. MANN, S. A. (1990), Agrarian capitalism in theory and practice&KDSHO+LOO MANN, S. A. & DICKINSON, J. M. (1978), ‘Obstacles to the development of a capitalist agriculture’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 5, p. 466-481. MARX, K. (1976), Capital, vol. 1, New York [1867]. MATHIEU, J. (2000), ‘From ecotypes to sociotypes: peasant household and state-building in the alps, sixteenth-nineteenth centuries’, The History of the Family, 5, p. 55-74. MENDELS, F. (1980), ‘Seasons and regions in agriculture and industry during the process of industrialization’, in S. POLLARD (ed.), Region und Industrialisierung, Göttingen, p. 177-195. MITTERAUER, M. (1986), ‘Formen ländlicher Familienwirtschaft. Historische Ökotypen und familiale Arbeitsorganisation in ländlichen Gesellschaften im österreichischen Raum‘, in M. MITTERAUER & J. EHMER (eds), Familienstruktur und Arbeitsorganisation in ländlichen Gesellschaften, Wien, p. 185-324. MITTERAUER, M. (1992), ‘Peasant and non-peasant family forms in relation to physical environment and the local economy’, Journal of Family History, 17, p. 139-159. NETTING50F& ¶$JUDULDQHFRORJ\·Annual Review of Anthropology, 3, p. 2156. NETTING50F& Cultural ecology0HQOR3DUN&DOLI NETTING50F& Balancing on an alp. Ecological change and continuity in a Swiss mountain community&DPEULGJH NETTING 5 0F&   ¶/LQNV DQG ERXQGDULHV 5HFRQVLGHULQJ WKH DOSLQH YLOODJH DV an ecosystem’, in E. F. MORAN (ed.), The ecosystem approach in anthropology. From concept to practice, Ann Arbor, p. 229-245. NETTING50F& Smallholders, householders. Farm families and the ecology of intensive, sustainable agriculture6WDQIRUG&D NORMAN, D. W. (2002), ‘The farming system approach: A Historical perspective’, http:// ZZZFRQIHUHQFHLIVDXÁHGXLIVDSDSHUVLQYLWH1RUPDQGRc (04.05.2009). ORLOVE, B. S. (1980), ‘Ecological anthropology’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 9, p. 235-273. OTSUKA, K., CHUMA, H. & HAYAMI, Y. (1992), ‘Land and labour contracts in agrarian economies: theories and facts’, Journal of Economic Literature 30, p. 1965-2018. PFISTER, U. (1997), ‘Protoindustrie und Landwirtschaft’, in D. EBELING & W. MAGER (eds), Protoindustrie in der Region, Bielefeld, p. 57-84.

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PUDUP, M. B. & WATTS M. J. (1987), ‘Growing against the grain: Mechanized riceIDUPLQJLQWKH6DFUDPHQWR9DOOH\&DOLIRUQLD·in B. L. TURNER II & S. B. BRUSH (eds), Comparative farming systems, New York, p. 345-384. SHARP, P. & WEISDORF, J. (2007), ‘A Malthusian model for all seasons. A theoretical approach to labour input and labour surplus in traditional agriculture’, http://www.econ. ku.dk (discussion paper no. 07-19) (03.12.2008). SIMMONS, J. G. (2008), Global environmental history 10,000 BC to AD 2000, Edinburgh. STEWARD, J. H. (1955), ‘The concept and method of cultural ecology’, in J. H. STEWARD, Theory of culture change, Urbana, p. 30-43. THOEN, E. (2004), ‘Social agrosystems as an economic concept to explain regional differences. An essay taking the former county of Flanders as an example (Middle Ages ²th century)’, in B. J. P. VAN BAVEL & P. HOPPENBROWERS (eds), Landholding and land transfer in the North Sea area (Late Middle Ages-19th century), Turnhout, p. 47-66. TURNER II, B. L. & BRUSH, S. B. (eds) (1987), Comparative farming systems, New York. VAN DER PLOEG, J. D. (2003), The virtual farmer. Past, present and future of the Dutch peasantry, Assen. VIAZZO, P. P. (1989), Upland communities. Environment, population and social structure in the alps since the sixteenth century&DPEULGJH WEISZ, H. & al. (2001), ‘Global environmental change and historical transitions’, Innovation 14, p. 117-142. WOOD, S., SEBASTIAN, K. & SCHERR, S. J. (2000), Pilot analysis of global ecosystems: Agroecosystems, :DVKLQJWRQ'&

29

2.

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society. The Valencian country in the late Middle Ages Antoni FURIÓ & Ferran GARCIA-OLIVER

I.

Introduction

For a long time, until the tourist over-exploitation and the building explosion came recently and suddenly to replace it, the Valencian agrarian landscape was dominated by the orange. Not only did orange groves occupy the fertile plains near the coast, but they scaled the mountainsides, displacing all other crops, and became the chief distinguishing feature of local agriculture, synonymous with wealth and plenty. The orange not only symbolised the essence of the Valencian identity, it constituted the main source of income for the regional economy and of hard cash to Franco’s Spain. The sea of citrus trees stopped only in the marshes near the Albufera and the mouth RI WKH ;~TXHU ZKHUH ULFH ZDV NLQJ DQG LQ WKH DULG ODQG RI WKH VRXWK ² WKH ÀUVW to be transformed by tourism. But this fertile, ‘traditional’ landscape, supposedly representative of the Valencian territory, is a relatively recent construct. Just over two hundred years ago, orange trees were still a rarity: an ornamental tree which was planted in the patios of private mansions or in public squares. Only at the end of the eighteenth century did its large-scale cultivation for commercial purposes begin. It did not become generalised, however, until the second half of the nineteenth century (Garrabou, 1985; Furió, 1995; Giralt, 2004). Up to then Valencian agriculture had been characterized by other monocultures: the mulberry-tree, whose leafs were used for breeding silkworms; sugar cane, whose production was affected by competition from America; linen, hemp and the produce of the large area of irrigated land surrounding the cities; raisins, exported since the 0LGGOH$JHVÀUVWWR,WDO\DQGIURPWKHHLJKWHHQWKFHQWXU\RQZDUGVWR(QJODQGDQG naturally, as in the rest of the Mediterranean basin, cereals, vines, and olives. But not HYHQWKHVHFURSVJREDFNLQGHÀQLWHO\LQWLPH6XJDUFDQHRQO\EHJDQWREHFXOWLYDWHG LQWHQVLYHO\IURPWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\LQUHODWLRQWRH[WHUQDOGHPDQGZKLFKH[SODLQV its decline a century later, while the diffusion of the mulberry-tree in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries was linked to the rise in manufacturing in those three centuries, likewise declining when the silk industry collapsed (Santos, 1981; Watson, 1983; Ardit, 1993; Garcia-Oliver, 1999; Guichard, 1999; Franch, 2000).

31

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

7KHDJUDULDQODQGVFDSHLVQRWVRPHWKLQJÀ[HGDQGLPPXWDEOH,WKDVDKLVWRU\DQG underwent massive changes in accordance the different social and cultural systems that have followed one another in time. Not even the traditional Mediterranean trio based on cereals, vines, and olives, reinforced without doubt by the Christian conquest in the thirteenth century, could in itself sum up the complexity and variety of the Andalusian1 agrarian landscape, in which irrigation agriculture took pride of place. We would encounter other, different landscapes, if we continued going back in time, before the Muslim conquest of the eight century or even before Roman colonization, reading and interpreting the footsteps left on this palimpsest that is the landscape by the different uses that have succeeded one another through the centuries and the cultures (Chevallier, 1976; Trillo, 1999; Furió, 2001; Soto, 2003). Historically, however, Valencian agriculture has had to face up to two permanent structural characteristics of the environment: the aridity of the land, due to low, uneven rainfall, and the persistence of marshlands along the coastline. To combat both of them, the Valencian peasants, from the Roman period to the present day, have acted ingeniously and tenaciously. They have designed and developed irrigation techniques and a complex network of channels in order to take maximum advantage of the available water and to drain the wetlands (Glick, 1970; Rosselló, 1995; Barceló, 1996; González Villaescusa, 1996; Furió & Lairón, 2000). The entire coast of Valencia, except for the few rocky islets, was occupied – and still is to a great extent – by a series of lagoons, marshes and lowlands. It is not a characteristic peculiar to the physical geography of Valencia, but a part of the marshy border that runs along the entire Western Mediterranean coastline, from Lazio to Andalusia. It is no wonder then that settlements, communication routes, and agriculture have appeared on a second line behind this long narrow strip of PDUVKODQGWKDWVHSDUDWHVLWIURPWKHVHD7KHÀUVW,EHULDQWRZQV$UVH(GHWD6DLWL  stood on raised hilltops amid these marshy areas that were beginning to be cleared. $JULFXOWXUDOFRORQL]DWLRQLQWHQVLÀHGZLWKWKH5RPDQFRQTXHVWWKHEXLOGLQJRIFLWLHV in the territory, and the construction of the Via Augusta from Rome to Cadiz. The cultivated area – the ager – was found above all near the urban centres and the major roads, where eloquent examples of centuriations, laid out in squares from the roads, remains of villas, and other rural farmsteads have been found. The spread of DJULFXOWXUH ² FKLHÁ\ FRPPHUFLDO GHVWLQHG IRU XUEDQ FRQVXPSWLRQ DQG H[SRUWDWLRQ – may well have required the development of hydraulic infrastructure then, both to GUDLQWKHPDUVKODQGVDQGWRLUULJDWHWKHFURSÀHOGV7KHUHPDLQVEURXJKWWROLJKWXS to now by archaeology only record water channels – the monumental aqueducts, 1

‘Andalusian’ is used here to designate the Moorish population and culture in Valencia before the Christian conquest. Al-Andalus is the Arabic name for all the Iberian Peninsula.

32

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

especially – for human consumption in the large cities (Rosselló, 1974; Arasa & Rosselló, 1995; Glick, 1979). Figure 2.1. The Valencia region

Source. Designed by the author.

Much more fragile, the irrigation networks, had they existed in the Roman period, ZRXOGEDUHO\KDYHEHHQDEOHWRVXUYLYHWKHFULVLVRIWKHODWH(PSLUHDQGDERYHDOOWKH VXEVHTXHQW *HUPDQLF DQG 0RRULVK LQYDVLRQV ÀIWKHLJKWK FHQWXULHV  ,QGHHG XQWLO the twentieth century the water distribution channels were mere ditches dug in the JURXQGDQGWKHUHIRUHKLJKO\YXOQHUDEOHWRWKHGHVWUXFWLYHDFWLRQRIÁRRGLQJKHDY\ rainfall, and the movement of men and animals. Without constant maintenance these

33

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

fragile structures, which only the continuity of settlement and stable political power could ensure, would sooner or later fall into disrepair. It is very possible, as some historians uphold, that the Moors had to start from scratch and that the morphology and the irrigation techniques in Valencia were imported by the new Arab and Berber colonists from Syria and North Africa. In any case, the Moorish Andalusian agricultural landscape was completely different from the one prevailing in the Roman period: it was marked by rural hamlets (alqueries) instead of great estates (villae), an LUUHJXODUÀHOGSDWWHUQEHWWHUDGDSWHGWRWKHVLQXRXVQHVVRIWKHWHUUDLQLQVWHDGRIWKH orthogonal, regular plot divisions of the centuriations, and, above all, the introduction of a dense network of irrigation all over the country (Barceló, 1996). The Christian conquest of the thirteenth century, a fundamental landmark of the country’s history, led to the expulsion of the native Muslim population from the rich LUULJDWHGÀHOGVRIWKHFRDVW²UHGLVWULEXWHGDPRQJWKH&KULVWLDQFRORQLVWV²DQGWKHLU FRQÀQHPHQW WR WKH PRXQWDLQRXV LQWHULRU RU DV UHVHUYHV RI ODERXU SRZHU QHDU WKH cities and towns. It brought with it the introduction of a new agrarian regime, the feudal system. Valencian feudalism, imported by the conquerors from the north, had singular characteristics. Firstly, there was the hegemony of the small peasant holding and, with it, of the nuclear family, composed of the parents and unmarried children. Secondly, there was the limited territorial extension of the manors, circumscribed in the main to the ambit of a single hamlet or rural community; in fact, the predominant SURÀOHRIWKH9DOHQFLDQQREOHPDQLVWKDWRIWKHPLQRUNQLJKW$QGWKLUGO\WKHUHZDV the weight of the cities – especially the capital of the kingdom, the city of Valencia, ZKHUHEHWZHHQDÀIWKDQGDTXDUWHURIWKHWRWDOSRSXODWLRQZDVFRQFHQWUDWHGEXWDOVR the string of medium-sized towns that were spread around the territory – and with it, the central position of the market and the monetarisation of exchange (Guichard, 1990-1991; Furió, 1995).

II.

A dynamic agriculture

We have just stated that the agrarian landscape, as the most visible element of the HQYLURQPHQWLVQRWVRPHWKLQJÀ[HGDQGLPPXWDEOH1HLWKHULVLWVRPHWKLQJQDWXUDO Actually, there is no ‘natural’ landscape. On our planet, which seems to be smaller every day, all of them, from the nearest to the most distant, have been more or less PRGLÀHGE\WKHPDQ·VKDQGDQGJLYHQDQDQWKURSRPRUSKLFVKDSH7KHODQGVFDSHLV a human creation, changing in accordance with the social, economic, political and cultural demands of every society, as well as with their technological level. At the same time, human societies, equally historical and changing, are determined, among other factors, by the environment itself and its structural characteristics. We have said before that in the Valencian case these traits are the aridity of the land and the persistence

34

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

LQ WLPH DQG VSDFH RI VLJQLÀFDQW ZHWODQG DUHDV 7KH VXFFHVVLYH VRFLHWLHV WKDW KDYH followed one another in the Valencian territory have had to look for solutions to these environmental conditions. The articulation of ecological and socioeconomic elements produces an agrosystem or, as it is also been called, an agro-ecosystem2. Our aim is to analyze the Valencian agrarian system in the Late Middle Ages, from the feudal FRQTXHVWRIWKHWKLUWHHQWKFHQWXU\WRWKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKH(DUO\0RGHUQ3HULRG7KDW is to say, in what measure the environment factors contributed to the structure of the Valencian rural society and, vice versa, in what measure the society that sprung from WKHFRQTXHVWPRGLÀHGWKHHQYLURQPHQW:HZLOOGRWKLVE\VWDUWLQJIURPWKHDQDO\VLV of the household and the labour relations in the bosom of the rural community. The Valencian Country was the result of both the feudal and commercial expansion of Catalonia and Aragon over the eastern side of al-Andalus in the thirteenth century. The conquest was not restrained to a mere military domination, as it was in the crusade kingdoms in Palestine. Instead, it implied the settlement of Christian colonists who had come to replace the Moslems (Torró, 1999; Torró, 2000), who, nevertheless, VWLOOPDGHXSDWKLUGRIWKHWRWDOSRSXODWLRQZKHQWKH\ZHUHÀQDOO\H[SHOOHGLQ The new social system introduced by the conquest organized the rural territory in small-scale lordships, and, at the same time, built itself around a network of towns and villages spread along the country constituting its spinal column. It was in these urban or semi-urban centres that the demographic, economic and political weight of the kingdom was concentrated. As for its main physical and environmental characteristics, the Valencian Country in the Middle Ages extended to around 21,200 km2 (a bit less than today’s 23,244 km2), with a pronounced contrast between the coastal plains, most of them irrigated, and the inland mountains3. The climate is very irregular, typical of the Mediterranean regions, with high average sunshine (more than 300 days per year) and very low rainfall. In the littoral strip, the average annual temperature ranges from 9º C in the winter to 27º C in the summer, although it may surpass 40º C when acting in combination with the dry winds from the west. Rainfall amounts to less than 500 mm per year, a deceptive average in any case, since it is mostly concentrated in autumn (October). Leaving aside the sierras and the high inland plains, in the lowlands by the coast the soils DUHFOD\H\DQGVDQG\VRWKH\KDUGO\UHWDLQPRLVWXUH1RWZLWKVWDQGLQJWKHLQÁXHQFH of secular irrigation over alluvial and colluvial reworked sediments has created a soil where the human trace is more important than the lithologic or sedimentary 2

 7KRHQ GHÀQHV WKH DJURV\VWHP DV ¶D UXUDO SURGXFWLRQ V\VWHP EDVHG RQ WKH UHJLRQVSHFLÀF VRFLDO relations involved in the economic reproduction of a given geographical area’. THOEN (2004: 47). 3 Now the forest and agricultural areas occupy the same space, the latter having drawn back markedly in the last decades. They take up 40 percent of the territory each, while urban, industrial and uncultivated DUHDVDQGYHU\IHZSDVWXUHODQGVSHUFHQW ÀOOWKHUHPDLQLQJSHUFHQW

35

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

conditions (Rosselló, 1995). It is in these lowlands that the productive and highly SURÀWDEOHDJULFXOWXUHLVFRQFHQWUDWHGDQGRULHQWDWHGLQJUHDWPHDVXUHWRWKHPDUNHW since the Middle Ages. Reversely, the pasturelands were located inland, or in precisely delimited areas (bovalars) away from the protected orchards forbidden to the cattle. The majority of the population congregated in the urban and semi-urban centres (ciutats, viles and llocs: cities, towns and villages)4 – partly because of military, social, and economic reasons due to the frontier character of the kingdom during the thirteenth century and the persistence of the Moorish population, and partly because RIWKHXSNHHSRIWKHFRPSOH[DQGH[SHQVLYHLUULJDWLRQV\VWHP+RZHYHUZHÀQGDV well, especially around the urban centres, a great number of isolated farms (alqueries, masos), belonging to landowners living in villages and towns, and operated by leaseholders and sharecroppers. The weight of the cities and their role as regulating centres of the surrounding rural belts must be emphasised. The short distance between them, twenty to thirty NLORPHWUHVOHWQRDUHDHVFDSHIURPWKHLULQÁXHQFHVRWKDWLWLVKDUGWRÀQGVHFOXGHG VHOIVXIÀFLHQWLVOHWVDZD\IURPXUEDQG\QDPLFVDQGWKHPDUNHW·VLQGXFHPHQW)RU the greater part of the Middle Ages, most of the cities and the seaboard lowlands were the king’s property. Instead, the nobility’s estates – both lay and ecclesiastical – would form small enclaves inside the land or, the biggest of them would spread, with certain exceptions, over the mountain territory of the north and the interior, poorer in agricultural terms. Only at the end of the period did this lordship map change substantially, with the concentration of several manors in great feudal estates and vast portions of the king’s properties passing on into the hands of the big feudal aristocracy, some important towns included (Furió, 1997). %HVLGHVWKLVJUHDWVLJQLÀFDQFHRIWKHXUEDQQHWZRUNWKHHDUO\FRPPHUFLDOL]DWLRQ RIWKH9DOHQFLDQHFRQRP\YHU\VRRQLPPHUVHGLQWKH0HGLWHUUDQHDQDQG(XURSHDQ mercantile circuits, and, above all, the factor of distortion performed in every sense by the kingdom’s capital must also be stressed. The City of Valencia acted like a big PDJQHWDWWUDFWLQJÁRZVRISRSXODWLRQFRPLQJIURPLQVLGHDQGRXWVLGHWKHFRXQWU\ and using up a good deal of its resources. Counting more than 60,000 residents at WKHHQGRIWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\²DÀIWKRIWKHWRWDOSRSXODWLRQ²WKHELJFLW\ZDVDQ insatiable belly directed towards the agricultural surplus of the rural lands. 4

55 percent of 55,631 houses that the kingdom of Valencia had in 1510 were located in towns comprised of more than 200 houses (a thousand inhabitants), which we think is the threshold of urbanization. This vigorous urban development was of uneven distribution: the main part was concentrated in the coast strip under royal dominion (72 percent), in opposition to the 21 percent under noble jurisdiction and the residuary 7 percent in the hands of the Church. VALLDECABRES (2002) has recently published the census of 1510.

36

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

In this essay, we will focus mainly on the central and most developed area of the country, near the city of Valencia, in a long-term historical perspective, considering, among others, the structures of local property and tenancy, the size of the peasant holding, the family unit and the wage-labour.

III.

The peasant holding

In the medieval kingdom of Valencia, the map of land ownership does not FRUUHVSRQGWRWKDWRIODQGH[SORLWDWLRQ%\WKHHQGRIÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\  manorial domains covered three-quarters of the territory (55 percent lay manors and 18 percent ecclesiastic), while the kings occupied just the remaining quarter, but concentrated 42 percent of the population (Guinot, 1992), and it was here also where free peasant ownership predominated; the king’s lands (reialenc) were not only the most populated but also the richest and best connected, preferably on the coast DQGLQWKHLUULJDWHGÀHOGVRIWKHPRVWLPSRUWDQWFLWLHV+RZHYHUWKHVPDOOSHDVDQW holding was hegemonic above all in the manorial areas, where the predominant form of land management was hereditary tenure (emphyteutic), while on the royal lands this came together with other forms of land management like sharecropping (mitgeria), short-term leases and wage-labour, applied above all on compact holdings EHORQJLQJWRXUEDQRZQHUVDOWKRXJKWKHVHRWKHUIRUPVZHUHQHYHUYHU\VLJQLÀFDQW  In other words, even though most of the land was in the hands of the lords, the fact that, generally, manors were small and lords resided in towns and cities and that the demesne reserve had hardly any importance and occupied an absolutely marginal place in land management explains the predominance of the peasant holding in the domains of the Valencian nobility and, by extension, the entire kingdom. The peasant KROGLQJZDVDOVRTXDQWLWDWLYHO\VLJQLÀFDQWRQWKHNLQJ·VODQGVEXWDVZHKDYHMXVW said, much of the land here belonged to the urban class, which combined different forms of management and work, from copyhold establishment to the contract of sharecropping, wage-labour and even bonded labour (slavery). The peasant holding was far from being a compact unit. It was not always formed by a single tenure, dependent on a single lord; it was not concentrated in a single territorial area; it was not devoted to a single crop; nor, of course, were all of them the same size, nor did they have the same technical equipment available. Just the opposite: the small peasant holding was made up of a group of small plots, of differing legal VWDWXVIUHHKROGKHUHGLWDU\WHQXUHOHDVHKROG ÀVFDOEXUGHQTXLWHGLIIHUHQWOHYLHVLQ kind and money), and productive usage (arable, livestock; cereals, vines and olives, commercial crops; dry-ground and irrigated), spread all around the municipal territory and even in more than one single municipality. The land of a peasant holding could be spread, then, in more than one local community and on more than one manor. The

37

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

peasant had perforce to have his residence or capmajor in a single place and a single manor, which was where he paid his royal and municipal taxes, but he could have lands in different places and manors and pay rent to different lords. This situation was arrived at due to the action both of inheritance and the market. In short, the peasant holding was a sum of very diverse plots acquired also by very diverse means: by inheritance, by manorial copyhold establishment, by sharecropping or leasing from the owner, or by purchase. There was not even, in most cases, a central nucleus of plots that were handed down from fathers to sons, within the same family, but each new household formed its own farm with lands inherited, purchased, established and leased, according to its own needs and the size of the family group (Furió & Garcia, 1985-1986; Cruselles, 1995; Furió, 1998; Mira & Viciano 2002). It has to be said that, in practical terms, there was really no great difference between freehold land and copyhold land, the two predominant forms of possession. In both cases, the peasant was free to sell, swap, alienate or mortgage the land. This was a freedom established in the legal code of the kingdom, the Furs, and included explicitly in sale and purchase contracts in a formula that remained unchanged whether it was an allodial plot or a plot held in fee: ‘Ita quod ex nunc vos et vestri etiam successores habeatis predictam venditionem cum RPQLEXV VXLV PHOLRUDPHQWLV IDFWLV HW ÀHQGLV WHQHDWLV SRVVLGHDWLV HW LQ SDFH SHUSHWXR explectetis, ad dandum, vendendum, alienandum, obligandum, excomutandum, impignorandum et alia faciendum vestras et vestrorum omnimodas et perpetuo voluntates’.5

The sole important difference is that on the copyhold plots the peasant needed the lord’s prior authorisation to be able to alienate it, but the authorisation was usually a matter of form and the lord granted it easily and even with a vested interest, as he earned 10 percent of the sum of the transaction through laudemium. This made it easy for the peasants to be able to buy and sell land to members of the rural community and the manor to which it belonged, as well as to outsiders, so that, in the end, their holdings would be spread over several jurisdictional territories. The fact is, however, that lords did not approve of their peasant vassals being able to purchase land in other manors due to the legal confusion that this generated and because, often, this confusion made tax evasion easy. In the monastery of Valldigna, the abbot’s administrator complained that many of his vassals, particularly the richest ones, ‘they double-cross6 […] and 5

‘In that way, from this very moment, you and your descendants will have and own the above said sale with all its improvements, the ones already done and the ones that are still needed to do. And farm it forever in peace. You will also have the faculty to give, sell, transfer, obligate, exchange and pawn it to perpetuity’. Document núm. 248, ‘Vendicio terre’, in Formularium diversorum instrumentorum. Un formulari notarial valencià del segle XV, ed. by CORTÈS, Sueca, 1986. 6 ‘Se fan conills de dos caus’ (‘They are rabbits of two rabbit holes’) in the original text.

38

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

against the contents of the mentioned Furs (the Valencian laws), moreover showing a great disrespect towards the revered lordship, for the purpose of transgression and to commit some breaches and misdeeds, they have made and still are making themselves the vassals of Alzira and other masters’7. Both the hegemony of the small peasant holding and the map of ownership and exploitation had their origins in the sharing out of the land in the kingdom after WKHFRQTXHVWLQWKHWKLUWHHQWKFHQWXU\7KHODQGVFRQÀVFDWHGIURPWKH0RRUVZHUH distributed by the king among the military nobility and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In turn, knights and prelates, and the king himself as lord of his own domains, gave the lands to the colonising settlers in family lots, in general, of nine hectares, within a range that could go from four to twelve hectares. Perhaps the intention of the king, James I, was to consolidate the conquest and the military occupation through the FUHDWLRQ DQG VHWWOHPHQW RI D VWDEOH DQG VHOIVXIÀFLHQW SHDVDQWU\ DW OHDVW LQ ODQG However, a generation or two later, still in the same years of the colonisation of the new kingdom, we see a sharp reduction in the size of the holdings and the marked IUDJPHQWDWLRQRIWKHSORWVZKLFKLQWKHIRXUWHHQWKDQGÀIWHHQWKFHQWXULHVWXUQHGLQWR an authentic atomization. Over three-quarters of the agrarian holdings in the town RI$O]LUDZHUHE\WKHHQGRIWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\VPDOOHUWKDQÀYHKHFWDUHVEXWWKH reduction of the holdings was even greater in one of the extra-mural quarters (raval) of this same town. On the other hand, in some hamlets in the municipal territory of Alzira, the peasant holdings withstood reduction better: in Carcaixent, in 1474 only SHUFHQWDQGLQSHUFHQWZHUHEHORZÀYHKHFWDUHV7DEOH  In total, as we see in table 2.1, only a third of the holdings in the territory of Alzira LQWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\ZHUHRYHUÀYHKHFWDUHV7ZRIDFWRUVKDGLQWHUYHQHGVLQFHWKH years immediately following the conquest in the changes to the original design of the structure of ownership, in the gradual reduction of the size of the holdings, and the individual plots that made them up: the hereditary system, which imposed the sharing out of the family patrimony among all the children, including the girls; and WKHODQGPDUNHWZKLFKKDGEHHQYHU\DFWLYHULJKWIURPWKHVWDUWIURPWKHÀUVWGD\V of colonization. In Alcoi, for example, 44.5 percent of the land transfers recorded between 1296 and 1303 were purchases, as opposed to family inheritances. Inheritance and the market cyclically fragmented and dispersed family patrimonies. But at the same time, the market acted as a regulating mechanism by facilitating the formation of new holdings and correcting the dispersal caused by the hereditary partitioning. What is more, the market allowed the peasant not only to buy plots nearer and sell 7 ‘Se fan conills de dos caus [...] e contra enteniment dels dits Furs e enquara en gran menyspreu de la reverent senyoria, per atentar e fer algunes tacanyeries e ribalderies, se són fets e se fan vassalls de Algesira e de altres senyors’. GARCIA-OLIVER (1998).

39

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

RQHVIDUWKHUDZD\EXWDOVRWRWU\WRDFKLHYHDVRXJKWDIWHUSURGXFWLYHGLYHUVLÀFDWLRQ adding to grain-growing the cultivation of vines, olives and other crops (Furió, 1986; 1995; 1998; Torró, 1992). Table 2.1 Agrarian holdings in the territory of Alzira 1442 Town Vila Raval de l’Alquenència Raval de Barralbeb Countryside Carcaixent Benimaclí Ternils Cogullada Guadassuar Toro Cabanyes Algemesí Total

1500

Total

> 5 ha

%

Total

287 143

68 35

23 24

252 123 74

> 5 ha 59 21 30

% 23 17 40

103 31 22 71 101 20 17

53 12 7 22 49 11 2

51 38 32 31 48 55 11

795

259

32.5

97 17 19 42 88 19 13 148 892

63 6 7 18 39 11 1 58 313

65 35 36 43 44 58 7 39 35

Source. FURIÓ (1986: 451).

We should not base ourselves solely, however, on the size of the holdings that the ÀVFDOVRXUFHVVKRZXVWRHYDOXDWHWKHLUHFRQRPLFYLDELOLW\DQGWKHLUSRVVLELOLWLHVIRU reproduction. For the freehold or copyhold land that appears to have been included in the tax registers, the peasants, especially the middling to well-off ones, were able to add to, enlarge and supplement their holdings with certain other plots held on leasehold or, to a lesser extent, on a sharecropping basis. Furthermore, the peasant could supplement his income from the land by taking advantage of the natural resources of WKHVXUURXQGLQJDUHDKXQWLQJÀVKLQJDQGFROOHFWLQJLQWKHPDUVKHVWKHIRUHVWDQGWKH mountains, an authentic countryman’s larder) and by the wage-labour of some or all of the members of the family, inside or outside the household, as day labourers, servants, DQGODERXUHUVRQDWKRXVDQGVPDOOMREVTXDOLÀHGRUXQTXDOLÀHGIURPVSLQQLQJDWKRPH to the slaughter of the pig or the maintenance of the hydraulic infrastructures. The size of the holding, we insist, cannot be the only indicator of its economic viability. But HYHQLIZHDFFHSWWKHÀJXUHVWKHWKUHVKROGRIÀYHKHFWDUHVZKLFKZHKDYHEHHQXVLQJ DERYHDQGZKLFKKDVEHHQSURSRVHGE\VRPHKLVWRULDQVDVWKHOLPLWRIVHOIVXIÀFLHQF\ %RLV ZRXOGKDYHWREHTXDOLÀHGDQGDOPRVWFHUWDLQO\UHGXFHGDWOHDVWLQWKLV rich alluvial and irrigated land of the Valencian coast.

40

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

/HWXVWDNHDVDQH[DPSOHDW\SLFDOIDUPRIÀYHKHFWDUHVVSLOWEHWZHHQGU\JURXQG and irrigation, with an average productivity of 1,200 litres per hectare (it should be said that on irrigated land productivity was logically higher) and yields (ratio) of 1:5 per unit of seed. From the average harvest, estimated at 6,000 litres, we have to deduct the amounts set aside for the next sowing (1,200 litres), consumption (1,400 litres IRU D IDPLO\ RI ÀYH RQ WKH EDVLV RI IRXU KXQGUHG OLWUHV SHU DGXOW SHU DQQXP DQG two hundred litres per children per annum), taxes and manorial dues (1,800 litres). Once the three basics had been deducted, the peasant still had 1,600 litres, i.e. approximately three hundred ant twenty sous, at an average sales price of 40 sous the cafís (one cafís = 201 litres), to be able to invest in productive improvements (the repair and purchase of tools8, purchase of work animals9, repairs to the house), to satisfy other consumption needs, to cancel debts contracted before the harvest or to face up to extraordinary situations (Garcia-Oliver, 1991; 1998; 2003; Viciano, 1991; Furió, 1997; 2004). :LWKÀYHKHFWDUHVRIFXOWLYDWHGODQG²SDUWO\RZQHGDQGSDUWO\OHDVHG²WKHSHDVDQW could balance income and expenditures or even tip the balance towards the former, because he still had cash to invest or spend. What seems clear is that he did not save, as attested by the many post mortem inventories that hardly mention cash among the peasant’s assets. Five hectares of land seems to be, then, a clear ceiling among the 9DOHQFLDQSHDVDQWU\7KHIHZZKRFOLPEHGDERYHLWZHUHDEOHWRPDNHPRUHSURÀW IURPWKHODQGLQYHVWLQRWKHUHFRQRPLFDFWLYLWLHVDQGUHDIÀUPWKHLUSRVLWLRQDPRQJ the rural elites. The vast majority, however, had to supplement agricultural production ZLWKRWKHULQFRPHPDLQO\IURPZDJHODERXU7KLVGRHVQRWPHDQWKDWÀYHKHFWDUHV ZHUHWKHOLPLWRIVXEVLVWHQFHDFRQFHSWPRUHRYHUGLIÀFXOWWRVSHFLI\,QWKHWHUULWRU\ RI$O]LUD WZRWKLUGV RI WKH KROGLQJV GLG QRW UHDFK WKH VL]H RI ÀYH KHFWDUHV )URP this we should not conclude that they were verging on poverty, reducing thereby the majority of Valencian peasants to the condition of paupers. Five hectares are, rather, WKHIURQWLHURIVHOIVXIÀFLHQF\WKHPLQLPXPDPRXQWRIODQGQHFHVVDU\WRJXDUDQWHH the reproduction of the small family business without the need to resort to other sources of income. And there were very few who could break through this barrier. The vast majority of the peasants could not, but they were not poor because of this. At close hand there was an entire range of resources and mechanisms deriving from communal life with which to supplement the income from the land. The fact that they were not great landowners did not prevent them from gaining access to a series of goods essential for agricultural work and to the minimal needs of consumption. From the second-hand markets, generated basically by post mortem auctions, they 8 9

A plough cost around 20 sousLQWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\ A young mule costs around 250 sous, a pair of oxen 300 sous.

41

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

obtained tools, furniture and clothes at low prices; from the religious brotherhoods they received care and assistance; from the network of neighbourly solidarity they obtained loans of money or animals. We have to bear in mind, moreover, that the returns were even greater on the irrigated land, where there was less or no fallow land, and that from the small enclosed orchards, which were completely untaxed, they stocked up with produce for daily consumption (greens, pulses, fruit). ,WLVKHUHZKHUHWKHPDLQERG\RIWKHSHDVDQWU\ZDV7KHIURQWLHURIVHOIVXIÀFLHQF\LV a long way up and seems more than anything an ideal. The peasants in this intermediate stratum had to combine working on their own holdings with wage-labour on other holdings or other activities. This is how they ensured their economic reproduction. However, below them, there was yet another important group of peasants, povertystricken, landless and with no other resources than the sale of the strength of their arms, which barely enabled them to reach the threshold of subsistence. In numerical terms they were important, but their farms represented virtually nothing in the area of cultivated land as a whole or in the agricultural production generated. In Carcaixent, the peasants with less than three hectares, including those who had none, made up a third of the total number of holdings, but as a group they hardly represented more than 4 percent of the productive space. On the other hand, the farms with more than nine hectares, also a third of the total, owned almost two-thirds of the cultivated land. In between, the medium-sized ones came up to a third both of the total number of holdings and the area cultivated (Furió, 1986). ,QWKH9DOHQFLDQFRXQWU\VLGHLQWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\ZHÀQGWKHQWKUHHOHYHOVRI peasantry: the poor, already proletarian, who depend on wage-labour and are important in quantitative terms, not only in the outskirts of the towns; a middling group, the most numerous, combining the direct management of their own holding, which is not big enough, with wage-labour; the rural elites, made up of well-off peasants, HDVLO\VXUSDVVLQJWKHÀYHKHFWDUHVWKUHVKROGZKRSRVVHVVPRVWRIWKHFXOWLYDWHGODQG supply the main body of agricultural produce, farm the royal taxes, the manorial levies, and the ecclesiastic tithes, lend to the poorest peasants, local communities and even to lords. By the type of activity they do appear to us as agrarian managers or businessmen that combine agricultural with mercantile and speculative activities, the tenure of municipal and manorial posts, and have close links with businessmen in the cities (Viciano, 1995; Furió, 2007). If all the peasants are sensitive to the market, it is the latter, the well-off farmer, who is most inclined to respond to the demands of FRPPHUFLDOLVDWLRQDQGWHFKQLFDOLQQRYDWLRQV$VZHVKDOOVHHEHORZLQWKHÀIWHHQWK century an entire series of new crops burst onto the scene, especially rice and sugar FDQHVRXJKWDIWHUE\PDMRULQWHUQDWLRQDOWUDGHZKLFKEURXJKWZLWKWKHPVLJQLÀFDQW PRGLÀFDWLRQV LQ WKH ZD\V RI PDQDJHPHQW WKH RUJDQL]DWLRQ RI ZRUN WKH WHFKQLFDO

42

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

equipment and, in general, the whole productive system (Garcia-Oliver & al., 1999; Viciano, 2003).

IV.

Household, life-cycle and family work

(DFKKROGLQJFRUUHVSRQGVWRDIDPLO\$OOWKHGRFXPHQWDU\HYLGHQFH²capbreus, llibres de peita, cadastres, betrothals, wills – show the absolute predominance of the nuclear family prevailing in the Valencian countryside. Other members, YHUWLFDOO\RUKRUL]RQWDOO\UHODWHGDUHRQO\UDQGRPO\LQFRUSRUDWHGGXHWRYHU\VSHFLÀF circumstances, generally because they were on their own or because their respective households had broken up. It was an exercise in solidarity because the formation of a family stemmed from an economic contract that linked a woman with her dowry to a man who contributed to it with the donatio propter nuptias or creix, exactly KDOI RI ZKDW VKH FRQWULEXWHV ,Q9DOOGLJQD GXULQJ WKH ÀIWHHQWK DQG HDUO\ VL[WHHQWK centuries, among the Christians the average dowry stood at 670 sous, equivalent to 223 days work paid at a rate of 3 sous, the common salary for seasonal workers and day labourers in the Valencian countryside, or at 3,367 litres of wheat at an average price of 40 sousHTXLYDOHQWWRDOPRVW\HDUV·FRQVXPSWLRQRIDIDPLO\ZLWKÀYHDGXOW members (Garcia-Oliver, 2003). Although the management of the domestic patrimony was the husbands duty, the wife had a say and fundamental responsibilities by virtue of her rights over the dowry, recognised by law. Thus, she took part in economic operations along with the husband, from the buying and selling of immovable assets to the taking out of loans. She at times worked for herself, and, if the marriage had prospered, they mutually named heirs and usufructuaries on behalf of the still under aged and as yet unmarried children. As the dowry was untouchable and took precedence over possible creditors, the wife preserved a nucleus of assets for the upkeep of the family, and even recovered LWLQWKHHYHQWRIEDGPDQDJHPHQWE\WKHKXVEDQGDIWHUWKHÀOLQJRIWKHFRUUHVSRQGLQJ lawsuit – clam – in the local court (Furió, 1996). As a general rule every new couple set up home in their own house, different to their parents, and with a few plots to start their own holding given to them by their parents in the form of a dowry (the wife) or, especially, the donatio propter QXSWLDVWKHKXVEDQG ,QRWKHUFDVHVZKHQWKHIDPLO\UHVRXUFHVZHUHLQVXIÀFLHQW the young couple commended themselves to the calculated generosity of the lords, who established them in hereditary tenure or in sharecropping and even advanced them wood, stone and roof tiles to build the house with seeds for sowing, animals for ploughing, and, sometimes, money. With these loans the lords made sure that their vassals were tied to the land and could not leave until they had settled the debt. The

43

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

married children, however, could also establish collaborative links with their parents, who continued managing the holding and retained the assets. :KHWKHUWKHFKLOGUHQVWD\HGDWWKHLUSDUHQWV·KRPHRUQRWWKHÀVFDOVRXUFHVGRQRW DOZD\VUHÁHFWUHDOLW\7KHUHZHUH\RXQJPDUULHGPHQZKRLQDFFRUGDQFHZLWKWKHLU immovable assets, we would have to be placed in the ranks of the poorest people in the community. But in reality they were well-off individuals, just completely dependent on their parents’ holding and with expectations of becoming the future heirs. The ÀVFDOVRXUFHVPRUHRYHUGRQRWFRQGHQVHWKHZKROHHFRQRPLFVWRU\RIDIDPLO\UXQ KROGLQJWKH\SURYLGHDJOLPSVHRIDVSHFLÀFPRPHQWLQLWVOLIHF\FOH$PRQJWKH taxpayers, there are small holdings, belonging to young, recently set up families, and ODUJHKROGLQJVLGHQWLÀDEOHZLWKIDPLOLHVDWWKHWRSDQGRWKHUVÀQDOO\RQWKHYHUJH RIH[WLQFWLRQ,QWKHÀUVW\HDUVRIOLIHWKHQHZIDPLOLHVJHQHUDOO\DFFXPXODWHGODQG through parental gifts, seigniorial establishment or purchase; in their last phase, on the way down, the aging parents gave away plots to their children who were marrying and setting up on their own. Here, once again, we see how inheritance and the market combined closely in the setting up of new holdings, and the fundamentally regulatory role – although not only – that the land market played in the medieval rural world (Furió, 1990; 1995). Moreover, the consideration of the life cycle allows us to qualify the division of the Valencian peasantry according to the amount of land held, in the sense that a QXPEHU RI KROGLQJV ZLWK LQVXIÀFLHQW DPRXQWV RI ODQG DQG WKHUHIRUH RQ WKH ORZHVW rungs of the hierarchy would actually correspond to certain moments – initial or ÀQDO²LQWKHOLIHF\FOHRIWKHKRXVHKROG7RJHWKHUZLWKWKHODQGOHVVODERXUHUVDQGWKH SRRUHVWSHDVDQWVWKHVH\RXQJSHRSOHZLWKDVWLOOLQVXIÀFLHQWKROGLQJDUHWKRVHWKDW supplied the wage-labour market. The documentary sources that make possible the internal reconstruction of families coincide with a period of demographic stagnation, which in the central and northern DUHD RI WKH9DOHQFLDQ &RXQWU\ ZDV FRQFHQWUDWHG DERYH DOO LQ WKH ÀIWHHQWK FHQWXU\ With birth rates impossible to evaluate, in peasant families only one or two children managed to succeed their parents in the inheritance of the family property. As a result, the reproduction rate did not reach the level of replacement. In Alzira, a town thirty kilometres south of Valencia, only a quarter of the families contained in the censuses taken between 1399 and 1428 had more than two children; about a third had two children, and the rest show a clearly negative replacement rate with just one child VXUYLYLQJLWVSDUHQWVRUHYHQQRQH2QO\DVXVWDLQHGPLJUDWRU\ÁRZFRXOGKDOWWKH decline of the population. The arrival of newcomers was also behind the growth of WKHVRXWKRIWKHNLQJGRPLQWKHVHFRQGKDOIRIWKHÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\DQGDERYHDOORI

44

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

the capital, the city of Valencia, whose population rose to over 60,000 inhabitants, almost certainly double what it had been a century before. The peasant community of the Cistercian manor of Valldigna, which bordered the municipal territory of Alzira, shows a similarly rising tendency, perhaps in this case because the majority ethnic component was Moorish and its demographic behaviour varied considerably. In any case, the composition of 228 families between the closing stages of the fourteenth century and 1530 reveals that the most frequent case is that of the nuclear family with two children among both Christians and Moors (Table 2.2). Table 2.2. Number of children per family in La Valldigna (1400-1530) Number of children per family

Total number of families Moors

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Totals

Christians

Total number of children

Percentage of families

Moors

Christians

Moors

7 22 59 48 39 9 4 1 1 0

2 4 15 7 3 5 1 0 0 1

0 22 118 144 156 45 24 7 8 -

0 4 30 21 12 25 6 9

3.7 11.6 31.1 25.3 20.5 4.7 2.1 0.5 0.5 -

190

38

524

107

100.0

Christians 5.3 10.5 39.5 18.4 7.9 13,8 2.6 2.6 100.0

Source. GARCIA-OLIVER (1986: 336).

Due to high infant mortality rates, women married very young, usually under the age of twenty, in order to favour quick and successive births. Among men, on the other KDQGWKHPDUU\LQJDJHZDVSRVWSRQHGXQWLODERXWWKHDJHRIWZHQW\ÀYHSUREDEO\ GXHWRWKHGLIÀFXOWLHVLQYROYHGZLWKHQVXULQJWKHHFRQRPLFLQGHSHQGHQFHRIWKHQHZ family cell, made up of the dowry and the creix. The age difference would explain the survival, as a general rule, of the wife with respect to the husband in the Ribera del Xúquer and, therefore, the notable abundance of widows as the heads of family units all over the Valencian Country in 1300. In Alcoi – a town about seventy kilometres south of Valencia – they represented 14 percent of the taxpayers, 18 percent in Alzira in 1433, and 20 percent in Sueca in 1510. The majority of the widows were poor and some were almost poverty-stricken, the death of the head of the household being such a severe blow. But there were also some rich ones, possessors or usufructuaries on behalf of the children of a large amount of property. The assets they possessed

45

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

allowed them to surround themselves with a large number of servants to attend to them at all times. Personally or through administrators, they ran the household. Also a son or grandson might take charge (of the mother or the grandmother and the estate), attention that without doubt would be rewarded, even before the will. The small sizes of Valencian households are merely the corollary of the small size of holdings. Indeed, the large families coincide with well-off families: the most ideal, and cheapest, work force came after all from the household nucleus. All the members KDGVRPHVSHFLÀFWDVNVDVVLJQHGWKDWZHUHVKDUHGRXWWKURXJKRXWWKHIDUPLQJ\HDU 2EYLRXVO\ ORRNLQJ DIWHU WKH ÀHOGV DQG WKH GRPHVWLF DQLPDOV WRRN XS PRVW RI WKH work time of the family members. The little ones acted as shepherds, the women sewed for the home or for the lord, the daughters kneaded the dough for bread and cleaned the clothes, the elder sons assisted their father in the hardest tasks10. To avoid the coercions of the market and to get to the end of the agricultural cycle with most guarantees – i.e. to the wheat harvest – the Valencian peasants tried to integrate the greatest number of crops into the holding. The hegemony of wheat, barley, and oats is beyond question, especially wheat, but they did not hesitate to incorporate the smaller cereals (millet, sorghum), plots of vines and olives and other Mediterranean trees and, from the end of the fourteenth century, cash crops like sugar, saffron, mulberry, quality wines, pomegranate, nuts, and raisins. In some parts of the country, such as the north, specialisation, encouraged by the environment, led to livestock farming and the wool trade. The wealthy and powerful farmers, from the north to the south, DGGHGWRWKHLUVWULFWO\DJULFXOWXUDOSURÀOHFOHDUO\VSHFXODWLYHDFWLYLWLHVDLPHGDWWKH control of surplus local produce. Any peasant family, well off or not, deployed its economic strategies around three annual forecasts: sowing, the payment of duties, and consumption. The tiny holdings frequently spoiled the forecasts. In the lean years, the choice could be dramatic. The lack of liquidity explains the proliferation of debts and the constant resorting to credit. However, we have to bear in mind that the expansion of the credit market placed capital at low rates of interest within reach of the peasants, with which they could carry out investment operations, as well as resolving urgent problems of consumption. The viability of any family holding meant achieving a balance between the number of members and the size of the holding. In this respect families showed a great capacity IRUDGDSWLQJWRWKHVSHFLÀF FLUFXPVWDQFHV:KHUHYHU LW ZDV LPSRVVLEOH WR VXLWDEO\ feed all the children, not to mention leaving them inheritances, rapid amputations occurred: the exit from the household of some of them in search of wage-labour to 10   7KH VSHFLÀF HYLGHQFH IRU WKLV GHVFULSWLRQ RI IDPLO\ ZRUN RUJDQL]DWLRQ FRPHV IURP WKH QRWDULDO registers and above all from the court rolls which illustrate the functions and the tasks of every member of WKHIDPLO\LQWKHFRQWH[WRIWKHGDLO\FRQÁLFWVFURIÓ, MIRA & VICIANO (1994); GARCIA-OLIVER (2003).

46

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

another holding needing help, another community, another manor, or another city. In many cases, the employment was channelled through work contracts and longlasting apprenticeships; in others, through annual contracting, the case especially for VHUYDQWVDQGPDLGVLQRWKHUVÀQDOO\E\ZD\RIVSRUDGLFMREVRQSXEOLFEXLOGLQJVRU in farm labour on large holdings. At the other extreme, the rich households, despite the abundance of children, found themselves forced to recruit labour, above all DW FULWLFDO PRPHQWV LQ WKH IDUPLQJ \HDU$QG WKH\ IRXQG LW ÀUVW RI DOO DPRQJ WKH neighbours, those with least land and in the bosom of the most numerous households. Above and beyond, then, the variability of the family fortunes, they are similar in showing a pronounced capacity to adapt to the circumstances and to the domestic cycle, marked by the birth of children, their gradual incorporation into the labour and marriage markets, the evolution of the patrimony and the death of parents. This elasticity highlights the important role of wage-labour in the Valencian countryside.

V.

Day-labourers, servants and slaves

7KHÀVFDOVRXUFHV²DQGZLWKWKHPWKHKLVWRULDQV²VWUHVVWKHSURPLQHQFHRIWKH small peasant holding and there are certainly more than enough reasons for this. On the one hand, municipal land registries and manorial registers attest the pulverisation of the productive space into thousands of small holdings, broken down in turn into an LQÀQLWHQXPEHURIVPDOOSORWV2QWKHRWKHUWKHÀVFDOVRXUFHVIRFXVRQWKHSD\HUVRQ the tax units, the conjugal cell, which do not always coincide with the productive unit. Finally, both the legal framework and custom and, moreover, the forms of landholding leave the fundamental decisions in productive matters and the organisation of the work on the holding in the hands of the head of the household, the father. Historians KDYHLQVLVWHGWRRPXFKRQWKHLGHDORISHDVDQWVHOIVXIÀFLHQF\JRLQJVRIDUDVWRSODFH WKH WKUHVKROG RI WKLV LGHDO DW ÀYH KHFWDUHV %XW ZKHWKHU ZLWK ÀYH KHFWDUHV RU ZLWK more, small and large holdings were unable to avoid the different markets in which for some time the rural economy had been immersed. They comprised the produce market, to sell the harvest and buy grain for sowing or for consumption; the land market, to purchase the plots necessary to complete and ‘rationalise’ the holding or, on the contrary, sell those that could not be worked, the farthest away or those that just had to be alienated when an emergency arose; the credit market, to obtain the cash to deal with an urgent need or to make improvements on the house and the holding, and to invest part of the income obtained from the different economic activities, within DVWUDWHJ\RIGLYHUVLÀFDWLRQRILQYHVWPHQWVDQGULVNVWKHODERXUPDUNHWZKHUHWKH small peasants and young people found work, and where the owners of the mediumsized and large holdings found labour. Nobody, large or small, could avoid the market RUEHWRWDOO\¶VHOIVXIÀFLHQW·

47

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

On the other hand, although hegemonic in quantitative terms, the small peasant holding was a long way off supplying all the productive space and singularising the agrarian landscape. In Carcaixent, we have already seen that almost two-thirds of the cultivable area was taken up by holdings larger than nine hectares, and a similar share is found in Alzira where, moreover, three single holdings (which only make up 0.9 percent of the total) exceeded eighty-three hectares each and owned 24.1 percent RI WKH FXOWLYDEOH ÀHOGV $PRQJ WKHP ZDV WKH HVWDWH WKDW WKH ORUG RI %HQLPXVOHP possessed in that same hamlet, of 130 ha, the most extensive of the score or so of large holdings that the minor urban knights possessed in the hamlets around Alzira and which together came close to 500 hectares. To these noble estates we have to add those of urban elites made up of notaries, jurists, merchants, doctors and drapers, also in possession of medium-sized and large holdings, inescapably in need of paid labour to run them with. This same pattern is found in the outskirts around all the cities in the country and, most especially, the city of Valencia, where the sphere of XUEDQLQÁXHQFHVSUHDGRXWRYHUDUDGLXVRIPRUHWKDQÀIWHHQNLORPHWUHV7KHODUJHDQG medium-sized holdings were not only located around the cities nor were they in the hands of knights and urban owners. In the rural communities the well-off farmers were also in possession of large holdings, which covered most of the cultivated area – as we have seen in Carcaixent – and required hands from outside the family to run them. The large holding, then, was incomparably smaller in Valencia than in the greater SDUWRIWKH(XURSHDQUHJLRQV$SURSHUW\RIWHQKHFWDUHVZRXOGUHDOO\PDNHLWVSHDVDQW owner a member of the local elite. It is a large holding because of the intensive nature of cultivation, leading to optimum surplus. In any case, it is made up of a mixed farming of multiple combinations – the winter corn being the main culture, but also admitting openly speculative produces, like sugar cane, mulberry or good-quality wines. It would often include livestock breeding, the farmer’s own, or, through a partnership contract, someone else’s herd. The property owners would organize this intensive exploitation around constant irrigation, and a very demanding, periodical DQG²GHSHQGLQJRQWKHMRE²ZHOOTXDOLÀHGZRUNFDOHQGDU)RUWKLVVHOHFWHGJURXS RI ZHOORII SHDVDQWV DJULFXOWXUH DOWKRXJK EHLQJ WKH PDLQ VRXUFH RI SURÀW LV RQO\ one more of the several deals in which they are involved, mainly the leasehold of seigniorial and ecclesiastical levies, and the credit business. In this state of things, they rather became small-scale managers of an agrarian enterprise compelled to hire labour force, especially in the peak season of the annual cycle. However, even in WKH FDVH RI D SHUVRQDO PDQDJHPHQW RI WKHVH ODUJHU WKDQ ÀYHKHFWDUH KROGLQJV WKH well-off peasant could not help but turn to day-labourers for some particular tasks, thus supporting his family’s forces, consisting of his sons, the servant – called mosso in the Valencian documents – and the occasional slave. The equinox storms, in the time of the reaping and the grape picking (St. John’s day in June, St. Michael’s day

48

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

in September), could spoil a whole year’s work. Swiftness was required; they had to do the harvesting in a few days, so they had to appeal to people from outside their families. Nevertheless, it was the lords and the townsmen, that is, those who kept in their hands the major number of large holdings and the biggest cultivated areas, who created the wide market of labour, made up of wandering teams and poor countrymen looking for some discontinuous revenues to increase those from their meagre lands. Wage-labour was not, then, a marginal phenomenon in the rural society and economy of Valencia in the late Middle Ages. In the small and medium-sized holdings, it occasionally supplemented the family workforce, but on the large holdings it was a structural necessity; and, given the importance we have seen that these had in the agrarian geography of Valencia, it must have been a factor of the ÀUVWRUGHULQWKHIDUPLQJV\VWHPDQGDVa result, it was far more widespread than has been supposed up to now. Servants, slaves and day labourers did the wage-labour in the Valencian countryside, three forms of work that correspond to different protagonists, functions and remuneration. The servants were basically young men, hired for long periods, sometimes years, in the houses and the holdings of the richest peasants, but also LQ WKRVH RI ORUGV DQG EXUJHVVHV 7KHLU VWDWXV ZDV GHÀQHG E\ LWV WUDQVLWRU\ QDWXUH in keeping with their age. In fact, for many marriage meant the end of this period, when they had accumulated the necessary money. The same thing happened with housemaids: they entered a house at an early age, at times as children, and the end RI ZRUN ZDV À[HG DW DERXW WKH DJH RI HLJKWHHQ DIWHU KDYLQJ UHFHLYHG WKH VDODU\ about 500 sous, that would serve to constitute their dowry. Alongside children and DGROHVFHQWV ZH DOVR ÀQG DGXOW SHDVDQW VHUYDQWV HYHQ PDUULHG DQG ZLWK WKHLU RZQ holding, but too small to guarantee their subsistence (Furió & al., 1994). 6HUYDQWVDQGLQDFHUWDLQZD\PDLGVWRRKDGQRVSHFLÀFWDVNVDVVLJQHGWRWKHP They could work in the house or on the land. They did digging or sowing, worked as shepherds or labourers, delivered messages or ran errands for the master. They ate at the same table as the family and slept in a room in the house. Privacy, then, required a KLJKGHJUHHRIWUXVWWKHUHDVRQZK\WKHKLULQJRIDVHUYDQWZDVRIWHQÀOWHUHGWKURXJK the networks of the neighbours’ social acquaintances. Moreover, it was solemnised by the notary’s presence in a contract that listed the retribution and the obligations of the parties, but also the compensation in case the young man or woman hired ran away or fell ill. The same family members were obliged to guarantee the continuity of the servant in the master’s house and to compensate with their own assets in the event of them running away. On 5 July 1505 Miquel Puig, a local merchant from Simat de Valldigna, reported his servant Pelluixet to the judge, ‘because, after hiring him as a

49

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

servant in the rainy season and when wheat was scarce, he has run off without giving any reason. Therefore, he lodges a protest against him, against his brother and against his mother, who had contracted him out’ (Garcia-Oliver, 2003). The case of Sueca shows us that servants were not only found in the houses of rich farmers. In this rural community of about two hundred families we have been able to record ninety servants between 1501 and 1519. In many cases, the servants were recruited among the families in the same community, but there were also many from outside, even outside the kingdom (a third of the total) (Furió, 1994). The servants, like the day labourers, occupied the lowest positions in the rural communities. They had neither land nor houses. Some were recent immigrants. But, unlike the day labourers, servants, thanks to the salaries – between 100 and 200 sous per annum – and the fact of not having to spend money on food, could accumulate PRGHVWVXPVWKDWLQVNLOIXOKDQGVFRXOGJLYHVXUSULVLQJUHWXUQV,QWKHÀUVWKDOIRIWKH ÀIWHHQWKFHQWXU\-RDQ1DYDUUROHIWWKHSRRUPRXQWDLQVLQWKHQRUWKRIWKHFRXQWU\WR move to Riola, attracted almost certainly by the need for farm labour in the rich lands of the centre. When he died, on 15 September 1450, he possessed just two FDÀVVRV of barley and a few clothes, but above all he had credit bonds against third parties, mostly for unpaid salaries or for small sales of grain or cloth, and even loans, which amounted in all to 802 sous, a respectable sum, more than the dowry of the daughters of many peasants. Joan Navarro, then, worked as an agricultural servant in the service of another well-off farmer, hired himself out for long periods of one year or more, and speculated on the small loans-market with his own salaries. Among the loans owed him are, as well as small sums of money, the price of a hoe, clothes and seed for sowing that he had sold (Furió, 2003). Along with the servants, a not inconsiderable part of the domestic and agricultural work was done by slaves. Slaves in Valencia came from many parts: Moors from the country captured during the conquest; Moors taken prisoner and reduced to slavery to avoid the death penalty; Moors from North Africa captured on the high seas in pirate assaults; Turks, Tartars, Greeks, Albanians, Slavs in general and Sardinians. They were generally domestic, urban and, to a great extent, female slaves supplied by Italian merchants. Some of them worked on the rural holdings of lords and burgesses. 7KLVZDVQRWDWDOOFRPSDUDEOHKRZHYHUZLWKWKHÁRRGRIEODFN6XE6DKDUDQVODYHV that followed the raiding of the west coast of Africa by the Portuguese and Castilians IURP WKH PLGÀIWHHQWK FHQWXU\ RQZDUGV 9DOHQFLD ZDV WRJHWKHU ZLWK /LVERQ DQG Seville, one of the most important places in the slave market, from where they were redistributed to the interior of the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean. %XWDODUJHSDUWRIWKLVWUDGHLQPHQUHPDLQHGLQWKHFLW\LWVHOIRULQÀOWUDWHGWKHUXUDO

50

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

counties, thanks to the fall in prices caused by the unusual increase in the supply. ,Q6XHFDZHÀQGDERXWWKLUW\RIWKHPUHFRUGHGEHWZHHQDQGWKHVDPH period in which we have ninety servants accounted for. These thirty black slaves belonged to a score of owners – out of the two hundred residents in the community – all of them rich or reasonably wealthy farmers who used them either at home or LQWKHÀHOGVDQGZKRFRPELQHGWKHSRVVHVVLRQRIVODYHVZLWKWKHKLULQJRIGRPHVWLF servants and day labourers. In fact, they all did the same jobs. But the slaves were more docile and disciplined and, above all, cheaper. One could buy a slave for the amount of a servant’s salary for two years. All in all, black slavery was no more than a circumstantial situation, linked to the continual supply. When the slave trade was directed decidedly towards the plantations of America in the mid-sixteenth century, black slaves vanished from the Valencian countryside (Furió, 2006). Servants and slaves were still expensive – even though in Sueca, we insist, out of a total of two hundred families, twenty possessed slaves and sixty servants – and not all families could afford permanent supplementary labour. To reinforce the family workforce on certain jobs and, above all, during the crucial moments in the farming cycle, such as the sowing and harvest, the peasants, large and small, as well as the EXUJHVVHVDQGWKHORUGVUHVRUWHGWRGD\ODERXUHUV,WZDVQRWXQXVXDOWRÀQGYHULWDEOH itinerant gangs of day labourers going from one village to another, keeping up with the farm-work calendar. In most cases, they were local seasonal workers, but in others they came from Castile, Aragon, or even Andalusia. Not all were young men; among them there were many married peasants who had left their wife, children and KRXVHIRUDPRQWKRUWZRWRHDUQDWWUDFWLYHVDODULHVLQWKHÀHOGVRI9DOHQFLD$PRQJ the seasonal workers there were also peasants from the same village who worked for wages for a few days or a week on the holdings of kinsmen and friends, probably within a context of reciprocity regulated by the salary. Finally, there were those who had nothing or almost nothing, who were poverty-stricken and wandered from one place to another in search of work. Alí Jannit confessed in September 1416 that he was a peasant who sometimes goes outside the said Valldigna to earn some money digging, ploughing, reaping, and making lime in Cullera and other places. And the other day, at grape picking time, he went to Valencia to earn some money, and was hired to take grapes with a horse and cart to Sogorb (Garcia-Oliver, 2003). If the cereals required a great deal of labour during the nine months of their cycle, even greater and more specialised was the volume of work demanded by the vines, in the hands mainly of urban owners. We do not have any statistics on wage-labour, but all the indications show that it must have been considerably widespread. The SURSRUWLRQRIODUJHDQGPHGLXPVL]HGKROGLQJVUHFRUGHGE\ÀVFDOVRXUFHVWKHSULYDWH accounts – especially tutelages of orphans and merchants’ lists – and the continuous

51

Household, peasant holding and labour relations in a Mediterranean rural society

municipal regulation of the work of day labourers suggest that their numbers must have been extraordinarily high. In Alzira, repeatedly, in 1344, 1362, 1381 and 1405, or in Valencia in 1429 and 1439 (the only years to have been studied up to now), in Gandia, in Vilareal, in Castelló and in many other towns and villages, the work of seasonal labourers was scrupulously regulated: the place of hiring, the working hours (different according to the seasons), the breaks and, especially, the salary. Around the cities and towns, or even inside the walls, there were groups of day labourers who went each morning at dawn to be taken on to work all day on the land of a burgess or a knight, i.e., the urban patriciate so in need of paid labour and who saw to it from the corridors of municipal power it monopolized that the labour market was reined in11.

VI.

Conclusions

Historically, Valencian agriculture has emerged in areas of water, or in areas where water was absent. The peasant communities have struggled to overcome both excess and scarcity. Domesticating the water or taking it where there was none has been an age-old task of millenary. Feudal agriculture took advantage of and improved the Moors’ hydraulic technology, extended the irrigation networks and, with them, the irrigated surface area. The market gardens (huertas) that characterise the Valencian landscape at least from the time of the Moors are not a work of nature, not an element provided by the environment, an environment dominated by dry ground and marshes. The work of the countryman has basically consisted of irrigating the dry ground and draining the marshes. The huerta, a human product, was born of this double transformation. Coordinated in communities of irrigators or individually, it was the peasants themselves who carried out this transformation, gaining day after day a small SLHFHRISURGXFWLYHODQG2QO\WKHJUHDWK\GUDXOLFZRUNVUHTXLUHGWKHÀQDQFLDODLGDQG the technical management of more agents involved: the manor, the city, the king. ,UULJDWLRQDQGIHUWLOHVRLOVRIJUHDWTXDOLW\SURGXFHGHIÀFLHQWDJULFXOWXUHDQGDERYH DYHUDJHSURÀWV2QO\VXFKKLJKUHWXUQVFDQH[SODLQWKHOLPLWHGVL]HRIPRVWRIWKH peasant holdings. Their viability, however, could be ensured in three different ways: mixed-crop farming with cereals predominant, which also integrated the rearing of domestic animals (producers of natural manure); technical innovation, with the introduction of alternative crops (sugar, mulberries, and rice, among the most LPSRUWDQW  DQG WKH LQWHQVLÀFDWLRQ DQG LPSURYHPHQW RI DJULFXOWXUDO ZRUN JUHDWHU 11 Libre de diverses statuts e ordenacions fets per lo Consell de la vila de Algezira, ed. by A .J. LAIRON (ed.), Valencia, 2001; Llibre d’establiments i ordenacions de la ciutat de València. I. (1296-1345), ed. by A. FURIÓ & F. GARCIA-OLIVER, Valencia, 2007; El llibre d’establiments de Gandia. Imatges i missatges d’una vila medieval, ed. by F. GARCIA-OLIVER, Gandia, 1987; Ordenances municipals de Vila-real, ed. by V. GIL, Valencia, 2002; Libre de ordinacions de la vila de Castelló de la Plana, ed. by Ll. REVEST, Castelló, 1957.

52

Antoni Furió & Ferran Garcia-Oliver

dedication, greater labour specialisation, better tools); and, above all, the resort to paid labour, essential for the subsistence of this great majority of small holdings that, otherwise, could not survive, and indispensable for the functioning for the large and even medium-sized holdings (peasant, manorial and burgess). The fertile lands of the Valencian coastal area were exceptionally suited to the FXOWLYDWLRQRIFRPPHUFLDOFURSV5LFHZDVSDUWLFXODUO\VXLWDEOHIRUÁRRGDEOHDUHDV RI WKH PDUVKHV VXJDU FDQH IRXQG DQ H[FHOOHQW HQYLURQPHQW LQ WKH LUULJDWHG ÀHOGV the mulberry bush spread on both dry ground and especially on irrigated land. The driving force behind these changes, these substantial transformations in the agriculture of Valencia at the end of the Middle Ages, was commercial capital and, behind it, international demand, within an increasingly integrated Mediterranean economic space. But the changes took place on both the small and large holdings, because they all received the stimuli of the market, and even the small peasants made room in their holdings for the new speculative crops. All this, however, had a limit with regard to H[WHQVLRQ6XJDUWKHPRVWSURÀWDEOHFURSRIDOOQHYHUH[FHHGHGSHUFHQWRIWKH productive space on the manors where it was grown. On the other hand, the peasants never ceased to be conservative and wanted to make sure of the regular supply of FHUHDOVQDPHO\EUHDG$QGÀQDOO\WKHSHDVDQWV·ULJKWVRIRZQHUVKLSJXDUDQWHHGE\ copyhold and by a great spread of free, allodial, land, never ceased to be, as in other SDUWVRI(XURSHLQVXSHUDEOHREVWDFOHVIRUWKHGLVSRVVHVVLRQRIWKHSHDVDQWU\DQGWKH concentration of the land in the hands of the rural elite.

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56

3.

Flax and the local economy. Labour relations and agrosystem in South Bohemia (seventeenth–nineteenth centuries) Hermann ZEITLHOFER

I.

Introduction

This article is concerned with labour relations in a regional agrosystem dominated E\ÁD[JURZLQJDQGÁD[SURFHVVLQJLQWKHKLVWRULFDOUHJLRQRIWKH%RKHPLDQ)RUHVW (ŠumavaLQ&]HFK LQWKHVRXWKDQGVRXWKZHVWRIWKHSUHVHQWGD\&]HFK5HSXEOLF 7KHÀUVWSDUWIRFXVHVRQWKHUHJLRQDOGLYLVLRQRIODERXUDQGWKHPRUHJHQHUDODVSHFWV RI WKH KLVWRULFDO GHYHORSPHQW RI ÁD[ JURZLQJ DQG SURFHVVLQJ LQ WKLV UHJLRQ 7KH VHFRQGSDUWLVPDLQO\EDVHGRQDFDVHVWXG\RIWKHVPDOOSDULVKRI.DSOLĀN\ORFDWHG LQWKHVRXWKHUQPRVWSDUWRI%RKHPLDFORVHWRWKH$XVWULDQERUGHU7KHPDLQLVVXHV DGGUHVVHG DUH WKH IROORZLQJ WR ZKDW H[WHQW ZDV ÁD[ SURFHVVLQJ LQWHJUDWHG LQWR WKHUHJLRQDODJURV\VWHPDQGLWVGLYLVLRQRIODERXUEHWZHHQDVZHOODVZLWKLQUXUDO KRXVHKROGVKRZIDUGLGÁD[SURFHVVLQJFRQWULEXWHWRDVLJQLÀFDQWLQWHQVLÀFDWLRQRI WKHORFDOHFRQRP\DQGÀQDOO\ZKDWZDVWKHLPSDFWRIÁD[SURFHVVLQJRQWKHUHJLRQ·V VRFLDODQGGHPRJUDSKLFWUDQVIRUPDWLRQVLQWKHHDUO\ PRGHUQSHULRG" $V LQ PDQ\ RWKHU SDUWV RI SUHLQGXVWULDO (XURSH LQ VRXWKHUQ %RKHPLD ÁD[ SURFHVVLQJ DQG OLQHQ ZHDYLQJ IRUPHG D VLJQLÀFDQW SDUW RI WKH UHJLRQDO DJUDULDQ HFRQRP\ EXW ² LQ FRQWUDVW ZLWK RWKHU VHFWRUV RI SUHLQGXVWULDO WH[WLOH SURGXFWLRQ VXFK DV FRWWRQ ZHDYLQJ ² LW GLG QRW WUDQVIRUP WKH ZKROH UHJLRQDO VRFLHW\ LQWR DQ LQGXVWULDOL]HGRQHDQGZDVQRWHYHQWKHGRPLQDQWHFRQRPLFIDFWRULQWKHUHJLRQ1)OD[ JURZLQJDQG\DUQVSLQQLQJQHYHUFDPHWREHWKHVROHDFWLYLW\RIDVLJQLÀFDQWQXPEHU RISHRSOH+RZHYHUWKHZD\ÁD[JURZLQJDQGÁD[SURFHVVLQJZHUHFRPELQHGZLWK RWKHUDJULFXOWXUDODFWLYLWLHVDVZHOODVWKHUDQJHRIGLIIHUHQWVRFLDOJURXSVRFFXSLHGLQ LWZHUHLQPDQ\ZD\VGHFLVLYHIRUWKHIXUWKHUHFRQRPLFGHYHORSPHQWRIWKHUHJLRQ,W ZLOOEHVKRZQWKDWÁD[SURFHVVLQJDQG\DUQVSLQQLQJUHVXOWHGLQERWKVWLPXODWLQJDQG VWDELOLVLQJWKHVRFLDODQGGHPRJUDSKLFGHYHORSPHQWRIWKHUHJLRQ 1 $OWKRXJKLWLVQRWWKHWRSLFRIWKLVSDSHUWKHLVVXHVGLVFXVVHGKHUHPLJKWEHWHUPHGWKH¶FODVVLFDO· LVVXHV RI WKH SURWRLQGXVWULDOL]DWLRQ GHEDWH ,QGHHG WKH WKHRU\ RI SURWRLQGXVWULDOL]DWLRQ ZDV RQH RI WKHÀUVWVRFLDOKLVWRULFDOFRQFHSWVWRV\VWHPDWLFDOO\GLVFXVVWKHLQWHUUHODWLRQVRIHFRQRPLFVRFLDODQG GHPRJUDSKLFFKDQJHV6HHMENDELS DQGKRIEDTEMEDICK & SCHLUMBOHM $VDUDWKHU FULWLFDO VXPPDU\ RQ WKH FRQFHSW E\ RQH RI LWV PRVW SURPLQHQW RULJLQDO H[SRQHQWV VHH SCHLUMBOHM  

57

Flax and the local economy. Labour relations and agrosystem in South Bohemia

7KLVVWXG\IRFXVHVRQRQHVPDOOSDUWRIWKLVELJWH[WLOHSURGXFLQJDUHDLWVVRXWKHUQ DQG VRXWKHDVWHUQ SDUWV ZKLFK DUH UHSUHVHQWHG KHUH E\ WKH IRUPHU HVWDWH RI WKH &LVWHUFLDQ PRQDVWHU\ RI 9\ååt %URG ORFDWHG FORVH WR WKH$XVWULDQ ERUGHU 'XULQJ WKHHLJKWHHQWKDQGLQWKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKHQLQHWHHQWKFHQWXULHVWKLVDUHDVSHFLDOLVHG PDLQO\LQÁD[JURZLQJDQGÁD[SURFHVVLQJZKHUHDVOLQHQZHDYLQJDSSHDUVWRKDYHKDG VRPHLPSRUWDQFHIRURQO\VKRUWSHULRGVRIWLPH'HWDLOHGUHVHDUFKLVEDVHGSULPDULO\ RQQRPLQDWLYHUHFRUGOLQNDJHRIGLIIHUHQWVRXUFHVIRUWKHSDULVKRI.DSOLĀN\7KHVH VRXUFHVDUHODQGUHJLVWHUVOLVWLQJWKHWUDQVPLVVLRQVRIODQGDQGKRXVHVIURPWKHODWH VL[WHHQWKFHQWXU\RQZDUGV2VHYHUDOWD[UHJLVWHUV3WZRFHQVXVOLVWV4DQGLQDGGLWLRQ YDULRXVPDWHULDOVIURPSDWULPRQLDODVZHOODVIURPVWDWHUXQDUFKLYHV Figure 3.1. The territorial context of the region under study in Bohemian Forest

Source.'HVLJQHGE\WKHDXWKRU

2 6WiWQtREODVWQtDUFKLYVWDWHUXQGLVWULFWDUFKLYHIXUWKHUFLWHGDV62$ 7ʼnHERļIRQG&9\ååt%URG 3R]HPNRYpNQLK\ĀĀĀĀĀĀDQGĀ,QPDQ\FDVHVWKHVHVRXUFHVDOVR FRQWDLQLQIRUPDWLRQRQHFRQRPLFDFWLYLWLHVHLWKHURIWKHKRXVHRZQHUVRURISHRSOHUHODWHGWRWKHP 3 1iURGQt DUFKLY 3UDKD 1DWLRQDO$UFKLYHV 3UDJXH  %HUQt 5XOD IXUWKHU FLWHG DV 1$ 3UDKD %5  2  %5 7HUH]LDQVN\.DWDVWU7. IRO 7.  4 1$3UDKD605%HFK$UFKLY.ODåWHUD9\ååt%URG$UFKLYHVRIWKH$EEH\RI9\ååt%URG KHOGDWWKH$EEH\ .DUWĀ

58

Hermann Zeitlhofer

II.

The historical textile region of the Bohemian Forest

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II.1.

Inter-regional division of labour

0LGZD\ WKURXJK WKH KXJH %RKHPLDQ )RUHVW DUHD D KLVWRULFDO ZDWHUVKHG ZLWK UHVSHFWWRWKHGLIIHUHQWVWHSVRIÁD[SURFHVVLQJDQGWH[WLOHSURGXFWLRQFDQEHGHWHFWHG 2QERWKVLGHVRIWKH$XVWUR%RKHPLDQERUGHUDOLQH²RQO\DIHZNLORPHWUHVZHVW RI9\ååt%URG²DSSHDUVWRKDYHGLYLGHGLWLQWRDUHJLRQWRWKHZHVWZKHUHZHDYLQJ ZDV VLJQLÀFDQW DQG D UHJLRQ WR WKH HDVW ZKHUH PRVW RI WKH WLPH ÁD[ JURZLQJ DQG ÁD[SURFHVVLQJSUHYDLOHG)RUWKHODUJHVRXWKHUQ%RKHPLDQHVWDWHRIÿHVNì.UXPORY ZHVWRI9\ååt%URG WKHUHDUHUHSRUWVRQYLOODJHVDQGVPDOOUHJLRQVZLWKVLJQLÀFDQW QXPEHUV RI ZHDYHUV ZKHUHDV LQ QHLJKERXULQJ 9\ååt %URG VXFK FHQWUHV RI ZHDYLQJ ZHUHPLVVLQJ7KHROGHVW%RKHPLDQVWDWLVWLFVRQPDQXIDFWRULHVIURPUHFRUGHG ZHDYHUVIRU6RXWK%RKHPLD6RPHÀYHKXQGUHGVRIWKHPOLYHGRQWKHELJHVWDWH RI ÿHVNì .UXPORY DORQH DQG ZHDYLQJ ZDV VLJQLÀFDQW PDLQO\ LQ WKH PRXQWDLQRXV SDUWVRIWKHVRXWKHUQ%RKHPLDQ)RUHVW+RUQt3ODQi'ROQt9OWDYLFH5\FKQśYHN DW WKDWWLPH7KLVZDWHUVKHGVRPHZKHUHZHVWRI9\ååt%URGLVDOVRLQGLFDWHGE\WDEOH ZKLFKFRPSDUHVWKHQXPEHUVRIZHDYHUVLQ9\ååt%URGRYHUWLPHZLWKWKRVHLQVHOHFWHG QHLJKERXULQJWRZQVDQGYLOODJHVHDVWRILW,QWKHFDVHRI+RUQt3ODQiIRULQVWDQFH WKHUHDUHUHSRUWVWKDW¶KHUHOLQHQZHDYLQJZDVERRPLQJOLNHQRZKHUHHOVH>@,QQHDUO\ HYHU\KRXVHWKHUHZDVDKDQGORRPRUHYHQVHYHUDORIWKHP·0DUNXV $W WKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKHQLQHWHHQWKFHQWXU\LQWKHVPDOOUHJLRQRI=YRQNRYi*O|FNHOEHUJ  ²WKHYHU\SODFHZKHUH%RKHPLD%DYDULDDQG$XVWULDLQWHUVHFW²KDQGORRPV

59



136

15

72

115







17

62

23



22

85

Houses 1654

11

Weavers 1654

27

28

 

29

4

46

4

8

Weavers 1682











Weavers per 100 houses in 1654

74

62

117

15

144

23

86

Houses 1682















Weavers per 100 houses in 1682



22

15

14

36

6

6

Weavers 1720-25

62

115

86

25

149

23

91

Houses 1720-25















Weavers per 100 houses in 1720-1725

35

35

15



136

"

6

Weavers 1753

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+RUQt3ODQi (town)

9\ååt%URG (town) 39ìWRļ YLOODJH 5\FKQśYHN SDULVK 'ROQt9OWDYLFH (town) +RʼnLFH (town) &KYDOåLQ\ (town)

Towns/ Villages

Table 3.1. Number of weavers per year in selected settlements of South Bohemia (in relation to the number of houses), 1654-1753

Flax and the local economy. Labour relations and agrosystem in South Bohemia

Hermann Zeitlhofer

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II.2. Flax growing and yarn spinning in the south-east of the Bohemian Forest: the estate of Vyšší Brod 2YHUWKHFRXUVHRIWKHHDUO\PRGHUQSHULRGWKHUHJLRQDURXQG9\ååt%URGLQWKH VRXWKHUQPRVW SDUW RI WKH %RKHPLDQ )RUHVW VSHFLDOL]HG LQ \DUQ VSLQQLQJ DQG ÁD[ SURFHVVLQJ%RWKÁD[JURZLQJDQGVSLQQLQJZHUHQRWIXOOWLPHRFFXSDWLRQVEXWRQO\ SDUWRIDPL[HGDJUDULDQHFRQRP\7KHZLGHVSUHDGSUDFWLVHRIJURZLQJÁD[LQWKH UHJLRQZDVGXHWRHFRORJLFDOIDFWRUVVXFKDVDERYHDYHUDJHUDLQIDOOVZKLFKPDGHLW SRVVLEOHWRJURZÁD[RIKLJKTXDOLW\HYHQLQPRXQWDLQRXVSODFHVDWDERXWPHWUHV DERYHVHDOHYHO*DOOLVWO %\FRQWUDVWHYHQDWWRPHWUHVDERYHVHD OHYHOWKHFXOWLYDWLRQRIJUDLQZDVRQO\RIOLPLWHGLPSRUWDQFHDQGZKHDWXVXDOO\ZDV QRWFXOWLYDWHGDWDOO,QWKHVHZRRGHGUHJLRQVIRUHVWVXVXDOO\FRYHUHGSHUFHQWDQG VRPHWLPHVPXFKPRUH RIWKHODQGHYHQLQWKHQLQHWHHQWKFHQWXU\'HVSLWHVLJQLÀFDQW 5

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61

Flax and the local economy. Labour relations and agrosystem in South Bohemia

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',g$%UL[HQ&RQVLVWRULDO$UFKLYHVIDVFD5RPDQ'LVSHQVDWLRQVQRWKHDSSOLFDWLRQ was refused).  ',g$%UL[HQ&RQVLVWRULDO$UFKLYHVIDVFD5RPDQ'LVSHQVDWLRQVQRWKHGLVSHQVDWLRQ ZDVJUDQWHG 7KHHYDOXDWLRQVRIP\ORFDOPLFURVWXG\RI,QQLFKHQKDYHVKRZQWKDWLQ\HDUVRQO\ one man from the market town had married into one of the 27 mountain farms on Innichenberg, and his EULGHKDGEHHQDZLGRZ6HYHUDOZRPHQPDUULHGLQWRDPRXQWDLQIDUPEXWWKHPDMRULW\RIWKHVHIDUPV ZHUHORFDWHGQHDUWKHYDOOH\DQGWKHLURZQHUVZHUHPRVWO\ZHDOWK\IDUPHUVZKRKDGVHYHUDOVHUYDQWV LANZINGER   ',g$%UL[HQ&RQVLVWRULDO$UFKLYHVIDVFD5RPDQ'LVSHQVDWLRQVQRWKHGLVSHQVDWLRQ was granted). In the original the words here in italics are underlined.

109

Mountain farmers’ labour requirements and their arguments for the choice of a spouse

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IV.

Mixed perspectives and ethnographic views

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110

Margareth Lanzinger

VSRXVHLQDQRWKHUYLOODJHZKRZDVZLOOLQJWROLYHLQ3OHQDLO,WZDVWKHUHIRUHVHFRQGO\ EHFDXVHRIWKLVIDFWWKDWSHRSOHIURP3OHQDLOGHSHQGHGRQSHRSOHIURP3OHQDLOIRU their marriages and were propter Angustiam LociH[WUHPHO\UHVWULFWHGLQWKHLUFKRLFH 7KDW3OHQDLOZDVRQO\DVPDOOSODFHIROORZHGIURPWKHIDFWWKDWLWDFFRUGLQJWRWKHODVW FHQVXVRIWKHORFDOFRXUWFRXQWHGQRPRUHWKDQVRXOV·. Educational elites added pictures of the life on a mountain farm to the matrimonial H[DPLQDWLRQWKHOHWWHUVRIVXSSOLFDWLRQWKHH[SHUWV·UHSRUWVDQGWKHFHUWLÀFDWHV7KHVH SLFWXUHVSDUWO\FRUUHVSRQGZLWKWKRVHRIORFDOUHSUHVHQWDWLYHVEXWDOVRVXUSDVVWKHP 7KHHWKQRJUDSKLFYLHZLVPRVWFOHDUO\UHFRJQL]DEOHZKHQWKHZD\RIOLIH/HEHQVDUW  is being discussed. In his report on Franz Bacher from Egg, the dean of Stilfes, who was responsible for this case, talked about the food and said that ‘since his farm is ORFDWHGRQDVWHHSPRXQWDLQWKDWZDVPRVWGLIÀFXOWWRIDUPDQGVLQFHLWZDVRQHDQG D KDOI KRXUV DZD\ IURP WKH FKXUFK QR ZRPDQ ÀWWHG WKLV WDVN RWKHU WKDQ RQH ZKR had been brought up on this mountain herself and who was used to the hardships of this life and to the bad and coarse food’$SSOLFDWLRQVIURP:DOVHUVHWWOHPHQWV RIWHQ XVHG WKH ¶SHFXOLDU OLYLQJ FRQGLWLRQV· DV DQ DUJXPHQW H[SODLQLQJ ZK\ WKH bride Theresia Matt had turned down a ‘stranger’s’ marriage proposal, the priest of +LUVFKHJJVDLGWKDW¶WKLVSURSRVDOZDVWXUQHGGRZQE\WKH0>DULD@7KHUHVLD0DWWLQ TXHVWLRQIRUPDQ\UHDVRQV6KHLVD:DOVHUWKDOHUGHHSO\DWWDFKHGWRKHUKRPHYDOOH\ OLNHDOOWKHQDWLYHVWKHUHDQGFRQYLQFHGWKDWZLWKKHUSHFXOLDU:DOVHUPDQQHUVLQDQ\ DQGHYHU\UHVSHFWVKHGRHVQRWHDVLO\ÀWLQWRDQHZSODFH·. Unlike the folkloristic GLVFRXUVHRIWKHKRPHODQGPRYHPHQWDWWKHHQGRIWKHQLQHWHHQWKFHQWXU\ZKLFKDOVR IRFXVVHGRQWKH¶H[RWLF·DQGRQEHLQJDVWUDQJHUWRRQH·VRZQFRXQWU\WKHFRQWH[WRI VXFKVWDWHPHQWVKDGQRWKLQJWRGRZLWKDJORULÀFDWLRQRIQDWXUHRUD¶EXFROLFP\WKRI SDUDGLVH·2HVWHU ²TXLWHWKHRSSRVLWH

V. Kinship concentration on certain regions, and the applicants’ perseverance ¶0RVWRIWKHIDPLOLHVDUHUHODWHGWRHDFKRWKHU·¶DOOWKHSHRSOHKHUHDUHUHODWHG WR HDFK RWKHU RU DUH LQODZV· ¶WKH NLQ JURXSV DUH YHU\ ODUJH· ¶RQO\ LQ UDUH FDVHV 

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111

Mountain farmers’ labour requirements and their arguments for the choice of a spouse

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112

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VHFRQGGHJUHH²QDPHO\FRXVLQVDQGDWOHDVWRIWKHWKLUGDQGWKHIRXUWKGHJUHHV WKH EULGH KDG  RI WKH VHFRQG GHJUHH DQG PDQ\ PRUH RI WKH WKLUG DQG WKH IRXUWK degrees. The second application was successful. Once this strategy of reasoning had been successful, it was kept up and all further applications from these three parishes PHQWLRQHGLQHDFKVLQJOHFDVHDQGZLWKLQFUHDVLQJSUHFLVLRQWKHQXPEHURIUHODWLYHV 2QWKHZKROHFHUWDLQDUJXPHQWVLQIDYRXURIPDUULDJHVEHWZHHQFORVHUHODWLYHVRU LQODZVZHUHVSHFLÀFIRUPRXQWDLQRXVDUHDVDQGZRXOGQRWFRXQWLQRWKHUSODFHVRU ZRXOGEHDSSOLFDEOHWKHUHWRDFHUWDLQH[WHQWRQO\7KLVGRHVKRZHYHUQRWPHDQWKDWWKH FORVHGHJUHHVZHUHXQDYRLGDEOHDVDPDUULDJHFLUFOH$JUHDWHUSDUWRIWKHDSSOLFDWLRQV focussed on few places of origin only, and the number of mountain farms was also considerably high in the east of the diocese. One should, therefore, ask whether the VK\QHVVRIPDUU\LQJDFORVHUHODWLYHRULQODZZDVFRQWLQXHGRUNHSWXSWRUHVWULFWWKH marriage circle to the third and fourth degrees, for which Episcopal dispensation was got rather easilyRUWRH[SDQGWKHFLUFOHWRWKHRXWVLGH, or was this shyness dropped DQGZHUHWKHORFDOSULHVWVZLOOLQJWRVXSSRUWVXFKPDUULDJHSURMHFWV"

VI.

Conclusion

In the dispensation applications from all the different social milieus one repeatedly FRPHV DFURVV DUJXPHQWV WKDW IDYRXU KRXVHKROGV KHDGHG E\ D FRXSOH UDWKHU WKDQ FRQVWHOODWLRQVLQZKLFKWKHZLIH·VRUWKHKXVEDQG·VSRVLWLRQLVUHSODFHGE\VHUYDQWV )RUWKLVSUHIHUHQFHGLIIHUHQWUHDVRQVFRXOGEHJLYHQVRPHWLPHVWKHVRFLDOTXDOLWLHVRI WKHUHODWLRQVKLSZHUHDUJXHGZLWKLQVRPHFDVHVHFRQRPLFHIÀFLHQF\ZDVIRFXVVHG RQDQGLQRWKHUFDVHVWKHPRUDOLW\RIWKHKRXVHRUWKHGRPHVWLFRUGHUZDVPHQWLRQHG &RPSODLQWVDERXWWKHVHUYDQWV·XQUHOLDELOLW\XQGHUVFRUHGWKDWWKHZLIHRUWKHKXVEDQG was irreplaceable. ,QWLPHVRIFULVLVDQGRULQGLIÀFXOWVLWXDWLRQV²ZKHQDZLIHKDGGLHGDQGKDGOHIW WKHKXVEDQGZLWKVHYHUDOVPDOOFKLOGUHQ²LWZDVWKHUHODWLYHVRULQODZVZKRRIIHUHG help and were willing to work under bad conditions or marry into a poor household. In many cases such projects were preceded by a working relationship, which would EHDFHUWDLQJXDUDQWHHWKDWWKHEULGHRUWKHJURRPGLGPHHWWKHODERXUUHTXLUHPHQWV 

',g$%UL[HQ&RQVLVWRULDO$UFKLYHVIDVFD5RPDQ'LVSHQVDWLRQVQR )RUWKHGHFDGHVEHWZHHQDQGQR(SLVFRSDOGLVSHQVDWLRQÀOHVKDYHEHHQIRXQG\HW)RU WKH 7\UROHDQ SDUWV RI WKH GLRFHVH WKH\ DUH ÀUVW DYDLODEOH IRU  IRU WKH \HDUV DIWHU  WKH\ DUH incomplete.  :KHQLVRODWLRQLVVWUHVVHGRQHDOZD\VKDVWREHVFHSWLFDO,QWKHODVWWZHQW\\HDUVDOSLQHPLJUDWLRQ KDVEHHQVWXGLHGDORWDQGDQXPEHURIWKHVWXGLHVKDYHKHOSHGWRVHHWKLVWRSLFIURPPRUHWKDQRQHDQJOH DQGWRJLYHXSWUDGLWLRQDODSSURDFKHVLORENZETTI FONTAINE VIAZZO (1998). For demographic GHYHORSPHQWVVHHMATHIEU  



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Mountain farmers’ labour requirements and their arguments for the choice of a spouse

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IIDA 7   ¶:LHGHUKHLUDWHQ XQG 9HUZDQGWVFKDIWVQHW]H DXI GHP XQWHLOEDUHQ +RI %DXHUQ %GQHU XQG (LQOLHJHU GHV EUDQGHQEXUJLVFKHQ $PWHV $OW5XSSLQ LP  Jahrhundert’, in&KDUHAMELLE -SCHLUMBOHM (eds), Eheschließungen im Europa des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Muster und Strategien*|WWLQJHQS JARZEBOWSKI &   Inzest: Verwandtschaft und Sexualität im 18. Jahrhundert, &RORJQH:HLPDU9LHQQD JOHNSON &K   ¶'DV ¶*HVFKZLVWHU $UFKLSHO· %UXGHU6FKZHVWHU/LHEH XQG .ODVVHQIRUPDWLRQLP)UDQNUHLFKGHV-DKUKXQGHUW·L’Homme. Z.F.G. S LANZINGER0 'DVJHVLFKHUWH(UEH+HLUDWLQORNDOHQXQGIDPLOLDOHQ.RQWH[WHQ Innichen 1700-19009LHQQD&RORJQH:HLPDU LANZINGER 0   ¶8PNlPSIW YHUKDQGHOW XQG YHUPLWWHOW 9HUZDQGWHQHKHQ LQ GHU NDWKROLVFKHQ (KHGLVSHQVSUD[LV GHV  -DKUKXQGHUWV· in M. LANZINGER  ( SAURER (eds), Politiken der Verwandtschaft. Beziehungsnetze, Geschlecht und Recht*|WWLQJHQ S LANZINGER 0  SAURER (   ¶3ROLWLNHQ GHU9HUZDQGWVFKDIW (LQOHLWXQJ· in M. LANZINGER (SAURER (eds), Politiken der Verwandtschaft. Beziehungsnetze, Geschlecht und Recht*|WWLQJHQS LORENZETTI/ ¶'LHgNRQRPLHGHU:DQGHUXQJLQGHQLWDOLHQLVFKHQ$OSHQ +LVWRULRJUDSKLVFKH$QVlW]HXQGQHXH3UREOHPH·Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie S MANTL, E. (1997), Heirat als Privileg. Obrigkeitliche Heiratsbeschränkungen in Tirol und Vorarlberg 1820-1920, Vienna/Munich. MANTL( ¶/HJDO5HVWULFWLRQVRQ0DUULDJH0DUULDJHDQG,QHTXDOLW\LQWKH$XVWULDQ 7\UROGXULQJWKH1LQHWHHQWK&HQWXU\·The History of the Family S MATHIEU, J. (1998), Geschichte der Alpen 1500-1900. Umwelt, Entwicklung, Gesellschaft, 9LHQQD&RORJQH:HLPDU MATHIEU- ¶)URP(FRW\SHVWR6RFLRW\SHV3HDVDQW+RXVHKROGDQG6WDWH%XLOGLQJ LQWKH$OSV6L[WHHQWK1LQHWHHQWK&HQWXULHV·The History of the Family S MATHIEU, J. (2002), Verwandtschaft als historischer Faktor. Schweizer Fallstudien und 7UHQGVHistorische AnthropologieS MERZARIO, R. (1992) ‘Terra, parentela e matrimoni consanguinei in Italia (secoli XVIIin M. BARBAGLI ',KERTZER (eds), Storia della famiglia italiana 1750-1950, %RORJQDS

XIX)’,

OESTER, .   Unheimliche Idylle. Zur Rhetorik heimatlicher Bilder &RORJQH :HLPDU9LHQQD SABEAN': .LQVKLSLQ1HFNDUKDXVHQ&DPEULGJH SABEAN': ¶.LQVKLSDQG3URKLELWHG0DUULDJHVLQ%DURTXH*HUPDQ\'LYHUJHQW 6WUDWHJLHV DPRQJ -HZLVK DQG &KULVWLDQ 3RSXODWLRQ· Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook  S

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