Page 78 - Mocarelli, Luca, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2020. Maize to the People! Cultivation, Consumption and Trade in the North-Eastern Mediterranean (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century). Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 78
maize to the people!
pieces of information: the number of deaths and the number of assenti,
people who had temporarily emigrated to escape the crisis. Although the
results of the census provide an important body of information, the territo-
rial coverage was only partial. In fact, we estimate that several hundred vil-
lages are missing. In addition, the numbers of the deceased and absent were
omitted for some centres. Some locations are repeated more than once and
there are several other inaccuracies. Despite its shortcomings, however, the
document is the most complete survey that has been passed down to us re-
garding the population of seventeenth-century Friuli.
The second census, called the Grimani Survey, the name of the
Venetian governor in Friuli, was promoted by the central authorities in
1656. The War of Candia had been fought for more than ten years and
the Republic was constantly looking for resources to continue the strug-
gle. In this context, it decided to carry out a survey relating to Friuli to
assess whether there was the possibility of extracting grains for the sup-
ply of the fleet. The survey has reached us largely incomplete and con-
cerns 137 villages scattered throughout the country. To determine how
much grain to extract, however, it was necessary to establish what the
province’s needs were. For this reason, the survey has two parts6. In the
first one, all the households of individual communities are listed, often
including the number of males, females and putti, and in some cases the
names of individual family members. In the second part, information is
provided on the stocks of cereals and legumes kept by the households in
their granaries. In this regard, two clarifications must be made: 1) The in-
vestigation took place in November, therefore a short time after the har-
vest of the spring cereals, when only a small part of these cereals had been
consumed, while more than five months had passed from the harvest of
the winter cereals. 2) Spring cereals, since they were the basis of the rural
classes’ diets, were kept in private homes, while winter cereals were largely
transferred to the manor houses, to monasteries, and to the public grana-
ries of urban centres. The 1656 survey is an important and, in some ways,
unique document, because it allows us to connect the demographic and
the economic characteristics of a considerable number of villages. Used
jointly with the survey of 1629, it also allows us to study the evolution of
the population of the Patria del Friuli, taking into consideration the dif-
ferent diffusion of maize in the territory at the end of the period.
6 The source was used partly in Pietra (1944) and in Fornasin (1999).
76
pieces of information: the number of deaths and the number of assenti,
people who had temporarily emigrated to escape the crisis. Although the
results of the census provide an important body of information, the territo-
rial coverage was only partial. In fact, we estimate that several hundred vil-
lages are missing. In addition, the numbers of the deceased and absent were
omitted for some centres. Some locations are repeated more than once and
there are several other inaccuracies. Despite its shortcomings, however, the
document is the most complete survey that has been passed down to us re-
garding the population of seventeenth-century Friuli.
The second census, called the Grimani Survey, the name of the
Venetian governor in Friuli, was promoted by the central authorities in
1656. The War of Candia had been fought for more than ten years and
the Republic was constantly looking for resources to continue the strug-
gle. In this context, it decided to carry out a survey relating to Friuli to
assess whether there was the possibility of extracting grains for the sup-
ply of the fleet. The survey has reached us largely incomplete and con-
cerns 137 villages scattered throughout the country. To determine how
much grain to extract, however, it was necessary to establish what the
province’s needs were. For this reason, the survey has two parts6. In the
first one, all the households of individual communities are listed, often
including the number of males, females and putti, and in some cases the
names of individual family members. In the second part, information is
provided on the stocks of cereals and legumes kept by the households in
their granaries. In this regard, two clarifications must be made: 1) The in-
vestigation took place in November, therefore a short time after the har-
vest of the spring cereals, when only a small part of these cereals had been
consumed, while more than five months had passed from the harvest of
the winter cereals. 2) Spring cereals, since they were the basis of the rural
classes’ diets, were kept in private homes, while winter cereals were largely
transferred to the manor houses, to monasteries, and to the public grana-
ries of urban centres. The 1656 survey is an important and, in some ways,
unique document, because it allows us to connect the demographic and
the economic characteristics of a considerable number of villages. Used
jointly with the survey of 1629, it also allows us to study the evolution of
the population of the Patria del Friuli, taking into consideration the dif-
ferent diffusion of maize in the territory at the end of the period.
6 The source was used partly in Pietra (1944) and in Fornasin (1999).
76
