Preliminary Programme

The 17th and 18th centuries were marked by important consumer and material culture changes, implying fundamental transitions in the material culture, changing elite cultures, shifting relative prices and ‘real inequality’ patterns. The extent to which the new material culture of the eighteenth century fundamentally (or not) changed the social vocabulary of consumption is far from clear. How ‘new luxury’ patterns interacted with the need of the elites to invest in culture and conspicuous consumption, still remains to be investigated. Nor do we have a clear idea about the ways in which (the less well known) consumption flows interacted with the well-documented ownership patterns. By studying expenditure patterns of different members of the Antwerp Moretus family, this paper explores the possibilities of household budget studies for the economic, social and cultural strategies deployed by elite families in a changing material world of the late early modern period. (Show less)

In the 17th century Western Siberia was a newly colonized territory, where peasants had plenty of arable land and mowing at their disposal. At the same time, there was significant demand for grain, since in Eastern Siberia, the furthest part of Russia, the opportunities of grain cultivation were very limited. Thus, the case of Siberian peasantry of the 17th century seems a good test of the “peasant mode of production” idea in Marshal Sahlins and Chris Wickham interpretation.

I address the question to which extent the consumption of Western Siberian peasantry of the 17th century was above the subsistence level and how often wage-labourers were employed. I calculated peasants' budgets, including grain stocks, taxes and payments for the commune needs, revenues from cattle production and fish trade. Then I dig deeper into the productivity of different groups of peasant households, measuring in grain, livestock and, where possible, money per capita. According to my calculations big households were significantly more productive than small ones and – at least sometimes – demonstrated considerable wealth far beyond subsistence level.

The sources of this research are census books, cadastral books, lists of tax-payers, governmental receipts and expenditure books, customs books and especially the lists of losses after Tatar attack in 1662 documented for more than 300 households of Verkhotur'e district. (Show less)

The Dutch Republic, if travelers’ reports are to be believed, was a land happily endowed with the charitable impulse. Homes for the young, old, ill, infirm, and even delinquent, were in plentiful evidence, and the envy of those who hailed from elsewhere. But what was the standard of living provided for those who came, either by force or misfortune, to live in a Dutch almshouse? How did it compare with the standard available to those who lived outside of any institution, particularly once we account for the variety of possible experiences dictated by the constraints of economic resources, social class and demographic situation. Twenty years ago, I completed a detailed study of the diet on offer at two prominent Amsterdam institutions for orphans (one for citizen children, the Burgerweeshuis, and the other for foundlings and non-citizens, the Aalmoeseniersweeshuis). Since that time, significant research efforts have uncovered a much richer picture of wages, prices, and living standards in the Dutch Republic of the 17th and 18th centuries than was available at the time of my initial work. The time is now propitious for a reexamination of my earlier work in comparative perspective to address the question of just how charitable the care, at least for orphans, really was. This work also yields new insight into the ways in which we can, and cannot, use institutional budgets as evidence of the standard of living of an early modern population more generally. (Show less)

According to some scholars, during the eighteenth century there was a radical transformation in lifestyle and of the dynamics of purchase and demand for goods. This significant change in private consumption patterns, the so-called consumer revolution, was one of the fundamental premises for the subsequent economic and industrial development. Today, it is believed that most of the early modern economies underwent some kind of consumer revolution. However, the empirical evidence to support this theory is almost exclusively based on the rich and advanced economies from the North-Atlantic areas. Few quantitative studies exist that address material living standards through changes in consumption patterns in European regions that only experienced industrial and economic development later. Therefore, numerous questions about these regions remain unanswered. What were the variations in the acquisition and consumption strategies in these areas? Was the process similar to that found in Northern Europe? What elements of a consumer society can be identified in these regions?
This study aims to fill this gap in knowledge by analysing the material well-being of one of the most important and populous centres of Southern Europe: Venice between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Over the last 40 years, the literature on consumer studies has extensively relied just on the use of probate inventories. These are for sure valuable historical sources but they provide just a static image of consumption, while the latter is and action that changes and evolves over time. This is the reason why this study aims to go beyond the “classic” approach to consumption, integrating the use of household budgets with probate inventories. In this way, it will be possible to give a vivid image of the evolution of actual patterns of consumption in early modern period looking at both the stock of material possessions and the flows of expenses. (Show less)