Page 81 - 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. 81
innovations in agr icultur e and population growth in fr iuli ...
On the basis of the information contained in the surveys of 1629 and
1656, I am able to study the evolution of the population of 116 villages, which
rose from 26,649 inhabitants to 28,760. Considering that the most terrible
famine in the history of Friuli had occurred close to the first date, there is
no doubt that the population was resilient. However, although the popula-
tion had grown between 1629 and 1656, there were different trends in differ-
ent communities. In 38 villages the population, in fact, decreased. It is pos-
sible, of course, that some of the results are incorrect, but the general trend
that emerges from the available information cannot be subverted.
Maize and population growth
In this part of the paper I use data on population and on the availabili-
ty of cereals to build a statistical model that allows us to see if the spread
of maize determined the population growth of Friuli in the first half of the
seventeenth century. The model is a multiple regression in which the de-
pendent variable, or the characteristic that is explained by the other varia-
bles, is population growth between 1628 and 1656.
With this model I am not proposing a simple association between the
presence of maize and population growth, but I introduce other variables
that can help to explain its increase. The first, and the main one, concerns
the diffusion of maize in individual villages, recognized as the percentage
of the quantity of maize stored in the granaries of a village and the total
amount of spring cereals. The second variable concerns the availability in
absolute terms of spring cereals and legumes at the village level. This infor-
mation was introduced as the quantities of per capita consumer products,
limited to those used by rural populations, without considering wheat and
rye, which may also influence population growth. The assumption is that
there is a direct relationship between the availability of consumer goods
and the population. It must also be said that, due to the survey methods,
I suspect there is a serious bias in this information. The census trackers,
who, as we have seen, were the heads of village councils, had every interest
in underestimating the quantities of cereals. This underestimation, which
we can consider systematic, certainly varied from subject to subject. On the
contrary, I think that, if only to preserve a certain consistency in the data,
these same officers were more careful to ensure a balance in the propor-
tions of the different cereals, which is the method used in this paper to re-
construct the spread of maize across the territory. The third variable is the
average number of members per household at the village level. The basic as-
79
On the basis of the information contained in the surveys of 1629 and
1656, I am able to study the evolution of the population of 116 villages, which
rose from 26,649 inhabitants to 28,760. Considering that the most terrible
famine in the history of Friuli had occurred close to the first date, there is
no doubt that the population was resilient. However, although the popula-
tion had grown between 1629 and 1656, there were different trends in differ-
ent communities. In 38 villages the population, in fact, decreased. It is pos-
sible, of course, that some of the results are incorrect, but the general trend
that emerges from the available information cannot be subverted.
Maize and population growth
In this part of the paper I use data on population and on the availabili-
ty of cereals to build a statistical model that allows us to see if the spread
of maize determined the population growth of Friuli in the first half of the
seventeenth century. The model is a multiple regression in which the de-
pendent variable, or the characteristic that is explained by the other varia-
bles, is population growth between 1628 and 1656.
With this model I am not proposing a simple association between the
presence of maize and population growth, but I introduce other variables
that can help to explain its increase. The first, and the main one, concerns
the diffusion of maize in individual villages, recognized as the percentage
of the quantity of maize stored in the granaries of a village and the total
amount of spring cereals. The second variable concerns the availability in
absolute terms of spring cereals and legumes at the village level. This infor-
mation was introduced as the quantities of per capita consumer products,
limited to those used by rural populations, without considering wheat and
rye, which may also influence population growth. The assumption is that
there is a direct relationship between the availability of consumer goods
and the population. It must also be said that, due to the survey methods,
I suspect there is a serious bias in this information. The census trackers,
who, as we have seen, were the heads of village councils, had every interest
in underestimating the quantities of cereals. This underestimation, which
we can consider systematic, certainly varied from subject to subject. On the
contrary, I think that, if only to preserve a certain consistency in the data,
these same officers were more careful to ensure a balance in the propor-
tions of the different cereals, which is the method used in this paper to re-
construct the spread of maize across the territory. The third variable is the
average number of members per household at the village level. The basic as-
79
