Preliminary Programme

The interrelation between lack of population and agrarian system was the main “question” of Ancient Régime’s Alentejo economic growth. All those who, since the 17th century, reflected upon the problem of this South of Portugal’s region established that connexion, even if they might disagree as far as it concerned the causality relation.

In fact, while some (Severim de Faria, Costa Lima or Oliveira Martins, for instance) argue that it was the structure and the regime of land property in Alentejo that restricted the settlement of this province and the increase of its inhabitants, others (Menses, Birot, etc.) alleged that its was the lack of population that conditioned its agrarian structure.

As so, Alentejo’s economic growth has been historically condemned, either by the property regime and the and farming and cattle raising system, either by the demography, an idea that recent studies put in question, first of all because, contrarily to what has been said, this is not an uniform region.

The aim of this paper is, precisely, to enlighten the demographic and economic diversities of this territory in 18th century, relating the areas of population attraction and repulsion with the natural resources, the agrarian system and the “possibilities” (Lucien Lebvre ‘s concept) they offered at that time. (Show less)

My oral presentation describes the cultural influence of Paris on the surrounding countryside. My purpose is to answer questions regarding the material and cultural environment of Montreuil-sous-Bois inhabitants during the reign of king Louis XIV.
The population'study helps to determine to what extend the inhabitants of this village adopted a way of life close to that of the urban population. The analysis of the different social groups (labourers, gardeners, winegrowers), and more particularly the elites (such as merchants, butchers, farmers) is at the core of the research method used. The sources consist essentially of probates inventories, wills, parish registries and sollicitor's records of Montreuil-sous-Bois and Paris.

Keywords : Rural elites, Parisian influence, probates inventories, material civilisation, cultural identities and exchanges, butchers, gardeners, social mobility, rural life, seventeenth century. (Show less)

The land in «Terra da Maia», as generically happened in all the Northern Portugal, was an entailed property. The inheritance system was ruled by a tradition through which the land was transmitted to the first-born son. The law of 19 of May 1863 ended with this system and the Civil Code instituted the equal division in all the heirs. This makes that the property, already small, successively sprays in as many remnant pieces how many the heirs. This situation, frequently catastrophic, compelled the farmer to use some strategies such as the preparation, since childhood, of the children for the fact of only one to be the heir of the household. The parents assured the fruition of certain parcels through endows and donations, and the other brothers were compensated in many ways.
This strategy although forbidden by law, was in use till the middle of the twentieth century.
All the land transmission and the heritage process was commanded by this system and deeply influenced the kinship and family organization and the typical rural solidarity networks.
In this work, thanks to wills, dowry contracts and other documents, we try to portray this typical “institution” and to study its importance for the reproduction and perpetuation of the rural society. (Show less)

Whereas it is now too urbanized, Ile de France was an exclusively rural area during the Ancient Regime. According to the historiographic tradition, the parisian countryside is just made up of large cereal-growing areas aiming to supply the kingdom’s capital city with cereal.
However, the landscape of this openfield area cannot be reduced to whea-ear growing on huge plots of land. Less than ten kilometers away from the north of Paris, the Vallée de Montmorency ant its environnment were landscaped much differently. This presentation focuses on the capacity of a very urban city to develop the surrounding rural areas. We will also try to determine to what extent the local population agreed on uniformizing the environnment they were used to.
In order to make an acute account of the evolution of this landscape, a long time span has been decided upon, starting right after La Fronde (in the 1650’s), from which emerged a new local agricultural policy, to the upheaval caused by the French Revolution in the 1790’s. This century and a half being characterized by an alternation of times of crisis and times of prosperity, it is interesting to evaluate the consequences of these economic cycles on the local population’s capacity to develop their landscape.
This chronological time span will be used as a basis to study three specific aspects which characterize the Vallée de Montmorency.
First, we have to concentrate on the land distribution, which cannot be found anywhere else near Paris. Although the country side is designed according to the openfield system, the land strutcure of the valley is based on a division of the land which became more and more important generation after generation, and which resulted in numerous micro land plots. Analyzing this structure will lead us to focus on the equal inheritance system imposed by “La Coutume de Paris”.
But this landscape is also characterized by its dynamic agriculture, based on wine growing and fruit tree cuktivation. We will aim at explaining the reasons why the inhabitants of the valley preferred these two cultures to cereal growing. It is also crucial to concentrate on the chronological evolution of these cultures in order to understand the complex structure of landscaping because population grew steadily during the last century of the Ancient Regime. In order to meet the over-growing demands from Paris, peasants resorted to these two cultures from the 1650’s, just before the demand became huge because of the Great Winter of 1709.
Thisd presentation aims at underlining the human and environnmental relationships and the impact of a great European city on its surrounding area during the Ancient Regime. (Show less)

The transition from craftsmanship to industrialisation had a profound effect on the development of the societies. Emerging industrialisation took place especially in the urban areas but the changes were also visible in rural areas. Industrial facilities, for example iron works, sawmills and dyeing houses, were established in the countryside. In addition, traditional craftsmanship encountered challenges and had to adapt to the requirements of the changing environment. This transition began later in Finland than, for example, in Britain and France.

This study explores entrepreneurial activities in the Finnish countryside before the major breakthrough of industrialisation. The time span of the current study covers almost four decades, from the early 1810s to the early 1850s, during which time the economic and political environment changed significantly in Finland. Our aim is to explore the development that took place in rural areas by investigating and comparing different types of entrepreneurs. We focus on industrialists and independent artisans and investigate how they operated in the countryside. The paper asks what were the advantages and disadvantages when operating and running the business in rural areas. How industrialisation and modernisation influenced their lives and welfare? This study reveals how industrialists and artisans employed emerging opportunities and what kind of strategies they developed in order to survive and adapt.

In the 19th century Finland was an agrarian society and the majority of the population lived in the countryside. Although various issues relating to rural life and welfare have been investigated from several perspectives, knowledge of the entrepreneurship and modernisation in the countryside is far from complete. Industrial activities and artisanship are generally considered as urban phenomena. However, we argue that the situation is more complex and diversified.

Besides historical sciences, the study is closely connected to economics and sociology through its concepts and research perspectives. Methodologically our research combines quantitative and qualitative approaches. We employ several case studies in order to explore the wide variety of entrepreneurial activities. Diverse archival sources (governmental, ecclesiastical and private archives) are used in order to enhance our knowledge of development and change in rural areas. (Show less)