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Saturday 15 April 2023 14.00 - 16.00
H-15 RUR08 The Inventories of the Rural Poor. What do they tell us?
B33
Network: Rural Chair: Christine Fertig
Organizers: Rosa Congost, Rosa Ros Discussant: Christine Fertig
Henning Bovenkerk : Living on Alms in the Countryside. Material Culture of the Rural Poor, Northwestern Germany, 17th -18th Centuries
A wealth-based bias is a problem of historiography since starting to use and analyse different kinds of inventories – even more for rural areas, where these sources are more scarce. These facts hamper the research of poor, rural classes and lead to an underrepresentation of these social groups in recent ... (Show more)
A wealth-based bias is a problem of historiography since starting to use and analyse different kinds of inventories – even more for rural areas, where these sources are more scarce. These facts hamper the research of poor, rural classes and lead to an underrepresentation of these social groups in recent research.
The presented paper sheds light on this research desideratum and presents data of the rural poor in early modern Northwestern Germany. The data is taken from a certain type of probate inventories, which allow to get insights in the material culture and consumption of the population in the countryside: The inventories were on the one hand especially made for serfs, thereby representing one of the major groups living in the countryside in the research area. On the other hand, the creation of the inventories was mandatory, thereby preventing the exclusion of poor households. In fact, even people living on alms were inventoried.
The results of the paper focus on two aspects: First, it presents the material culture of the poor households and shows their limited consumption possibilities; second, these households are compared to better of households to analyse the dimension of wealth inequality in early modern rural Germany and the different consumption patterns that originate from this inequality. (Show less)

Rosa Congost, Rosa Rost & Enric Saguer : The Assets of those who had Almost Nothing. The Treballadors of North-eastern Catalonia in the 18th Century
This paper discusses the possibilities of relative enrichment of the most humble sectors of the rural society in the Girona region (north-eastern Catalonia) in the eighteenth century. By studying a sample of 933 post mortem inventories of treballadors (literally workers, although many of them were smallholders), we will firstly analyse ... (Show more)
This paper discusses the possibilities of relative enrichment of the most humble sectors of the rural society in the Girona region (north-eastern Catalonia) in the eighteenth century. By studying a sample of 933 post mortem inventories of treballadors (literally workers, although many of them were smallholders), we will firstly analyse the changes in this group’s real estate assets, as well as the signs of productive specialization processes. Secondly, we will examine how far down the social scale did the new consumption opportunities descend, in comparison to the poor rural groups in north-western Europe, where an “industrious revolution” allegedly took place. It should be noted that there is no strong social bias in the inventories of the Girona region and that treballadors are well represented in these records, which confer robustness to our conclusions. (Show less)

Josep Mas Ferrer : Forks and Napkins on the Table of the Poor. Consumption Patterns among the Rural Population at the End of the Ancien Régime (Northeastern Catalonia, c.1750-1800)
The main purpose of this paper is to show some preliminary results of an ongoing study on the consumption patterns of rural society in the northeastern Catalonia towards the end of the Ancien Régime. More specifically, we carried out our analysis in the region known as La Selva; a forested ... (Show more)
The main purpose of this paper is to show some preliminary results of an ongoing study on the consumption patterns of rural society in the northeastern Catalonia towards the end of the Ancien Régime. More specifically, we carried out our analysis in the region known as La Selva; a forested area predominantly dominated by poor peasants and forestry labourers.
Thus, we have examined a database of more than three hundred inventories of goods from the second half of the 18th century. Our results suggest that although luxury was still limited to very small landowning elite, new consumer goods (many of them associated with individual habits) were penetrating among the middle peasantry as well as the artisan and the small merchant. Hence, as chairs slowly began to replace benches, napkins started to do the same with kitchen towels, and regarding the tools for carrying food to the mouth, forks were beginning to share space with the once hegemonic spoons.
In any case, this does not in itself mean that we are witnessing a manifestation of rising living standards, since these new goods, especially on the second-hand market, could be acquired at a very affordable price. For instance, the daily wage of an agricultural labourer is equivalent to three to four brass forks by the end of the 18th century. Nevertheless, it is still very interesting to observe how in these key decades of the late 18th century new consumption habits were penetrating, albeit at a modest levels in likewise modest households. (Show less)

Belen Moreno Claverias : Being Poor in a Rural Area of Pre-industrial Catalonia: the Alt Penedès Region in the Second Half of the 18th Century
What did it mean to be poor in the agrarian areas of the eighteenth century? Which were the social sectors most likely to fall into poverty? What strategies were put in place to deal with it? This work aims, from a micro perspective, to identify and characterize the poor people ... (Show more)
What did it mean to be poor in the agrarian areas of the eighteenth century? Which were the social sectors most likely to fall into poverty? What strategies were put in place to deal with it? This work aims, from a micro perspective, to identify and characterize the poor people of an agrarian area in a time of transition. Alt Penedès is a Catalan region that, in the second half of the 18th century, was undergoing a process of wine specialization, in such a way that families had to learn to live from the exploitation of a commercial product and, therefore, to relate more with the market. Did this affect their incomes and consumption patterns? Did the typology of poverty change?
The post mortem inventories of the less favored families, which -unlike other places- do exist in Catalonia, give clues about the forms that poverty adopted from the point of view of material culture, but also from the sources of income. It is true that the poorest, those who did not even have a place to stay, escape our analysis due to the scant trace they have left in the sources. Fortunately, there are indeed inventories of families -sometimes widowed women- who lived in rented houses, practically empty, where poverty was more than evident. The work tools present in this type of household allow us to approach the complementary income that was put in place to escape poverty, while other types of goods or their absence (clothing, household linen, furniture, cutlery, chocolate pots, etc.) give us clues about consumption patterns and living conditions.
Along with the inventories, the analysis of other notarial sources as well as the writings left by some personalities of the time in relation to poverty and the ways to mitigate it, will help to shed a little light on the most vulnerable social sectors and, therefore, the most invisible. (Show less)



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