The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487-1726

ISBN-13: 9780521834704 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 410 str.

Govind P. Sreenivasan; Lyndal Roper

Opis

Focusing on the lands of the Benedictine monastery of Ottobeuren and based on a mass of archival data, this study presents a detailed reconstruction of peasant society in early modern Germany. It argues that the German rural economy performed much better than has previously been believed. The Ottobeuren peasantry generated large agricultural surpluses, became progressively more active in land and credit markets, and traded in ever wider circuits of commerce. Their peasant society is shown therefore to have been stable economically, and surprisingly resilient to war, plague and famine.

Recenzje

'… enormously rich and detailed … an incisive and compelling analysis of the rapidly increasing commercialization of the rural economy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.' German History

Spis treści

List of figures; List of maps; List of tables; Acknowledgements; Note on weights, measures and currencies; Introduction; 1. Right and might (c.1480–c.1560); 2. The discrete society (c.1480–c.1560); 3. A crisis of numbers? (c.1560–c.1630); 4. Integrity and the market (c.1560–c.1630); 5. Living on borrowed time (c.1560–c.1630); 6. To empty and to refill (c.1630–c.1720); Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of places; General index.