Page 173 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 173
the equilibrium of the mountain economy in the apennines
jewellery (Sulmona, Pescocostanzo, Scanno and Guardiagrele), worked
copper and bells (Agnone), and confectionery (sugared almonds from Sul-
mona, Aquila liqueurs, preserves).1 What little information is available lar-
gely refers to the textile sector.
In all cases, it is difficult to identify the internal organisation or distin-
guish between handicraft, home-made manufacturing (pluriactivity), pro-
to-industry or a putting out system.
We may assume that the presence or absence of external contractors
supplying financial capital and/or raw materials while bearing the trade
risks, seems to be a very important element that marks the difference be-
tween pluriactivity, whose purpose was essentially self-consumption and
short-range trade, and proto-industry. While the former was almost ex-
clusively the province of women, who produced unrefined output entire-
ly within the home, the latter involved skilled male workers with a clearly
defined division of labour and evident integration with the urban and arti-
sanal environment from which the merchants who commissioned the work
mostly came, dictating the conditions and distributing the raw materials or
semi-finished products, while the tools of the trade were worker owned (De
Majo 1990, 319–31).
The urban environment was the most suitable market for the sale of
finished products and the supply of raw materials. The wool industry is best
known for its wide distribution within the mountain environment and had
been considered the prototype of the industry from medieval times (Maitte
2004, 16). The dynamics of the proto-industrial model are well known
thanks to the theories developed through the work of Mendels, the Göttin-
gen group (Kriedte, Medick, and Schulbohm), Levine, and the subsequent
innumerable works on a regional scale that have allowed scholars to veri-
fy the postulates of the model, establishing new variables, revising and crit-
icising it. At its most basic, it involved a shift of manufacturing from the
cities to the countryside, with farmers driving the manufacturing activi-
ties. This phenomenon brought about some significant changes, the first of
which was related to the demographics of the population involved, record-
ing a significant increase thanks to the end of dependency on the land and
the limitations on the formation of new families (Ogilvie 2008).
Recent studies have shown that southern European proto-industry
came into being as the result of a crisis in the 17th century and the major
1 This is partial information, because so far the mapping of the manufacturing activi-
ties in the Abruzzo Mountains still remains to be done.
171
jewellery (Sulmona, Pescocostanzo, Scanno and Guardiagrele), worked
copper and bells (Agnone), and confectionery (sugared almonds from Sul-
mona, Aquila liqueurs, preserves).1 What little information is available lar-
gely refers to the textile sector.
In all cases, it is difficult to identify the internal organisation or distin-
guish between handicraft, home-made manufacturing (pluriactivity), pro-
to-industry or a putting out system.
We may assume that the presence or absence of external contractors
supplying financial capital and/or raw materials while bearing the trade
risks, seems to be a very important element that marks the difference be-
tween pluriactivity, whose purpose was essentially self-consumption and
short-range trade, and proto-industry. While the former was almost ex-
clusively the province of women, who produced unrefined output entire-
ly within the home, the latter involved skilled male workers with a clearly
defined division of labour and evident integration with the urban and arti-
sanal environment from which the merchants who commissioned the work
mostly came, dictating the conditions and distributing the raw materials or
semi-finished products, while the tools of the trade were worker owned (De
Majo 1990, 319–31).
The urban environment was the most suitable market for the sale of
finished products and the supply of raw materials. The wool industry is best
known for its wide distribution within the mountain environment and had
been considered the prototype of the industry from medieval times (Maitte
2004, 16). The dynamics of the proto-industrial model are well known
thanks to the theories developed through the work of Mendels, the Göttin-
gen group (Kriedte, Medick, and Schulbohm), Levine, and the subsequent
innumerable works on a regional scale that have allowed scholars to veri-
fy the postulates of the model, establishing new variables, revising and crit-
icising it. At its most basic, it involved a shift of manufacturing from the
cities to the countryside, with farmers driving the manufacturing activi-
ties. This phenomenon brought about some significant changes, the first of
which was related to the demographics of the population involved, record-
ing a significant increase thanks to the end of dependency on the land and
the limitations on the formation of new families (Ogilvie 2008).
Recent studies have shown that southern European proto-industry
came into being as the result of a crisis in the 17th century and the major
1 This is partial information, because so far the mapping of the manufacturing activi-
ties in the Abruzzo Mountains still remains to be done.
171
