Page 194 - 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. 194
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to analyse some strategies of household income in-
tegration implemented by the rural population of the Pontifical State, with
particular reference to the present area of Latium, between the 18th and 19th
centuries. The examined strategies used forest products as an integrative
resource. The contrast between conventional woodland management, in
force until the 19th century and based on a wide variety of usages, and a
market-oriented management, that tends to exclude the traditional consu-
mers of the woodland, has already been defined in detail by Diego More-
no (1990). This paper aims to show, using court records, how it is possible
to reconstruct, in detail, a particular form of income-integration in peasant
economies, based on the exploitation of forest resources.
The use of the forest resources joined and integrated in to the daily
agricultural activities. In the case studies, the peasants who went into the
woods, sometimes of public property, sometimes of private property, act-
ed outside their daily activities. The obtained products were not used ex-
clusively for self-consumption, but they were often introduced into local
trade networks. This trade provided the peasant family economy with a
monetary integration. Moreover, timber could become a bridge between
the conventional activities within the rural world and the secondary sector,
although the latter remained in large part craft-based.
1. Court records as a source
At the end of the 18th century, the Pontifical State adopted a forest law valid
for the entire state territory. It followed the example of other Italian States
that, between the 18th and 19th centuries, promulgated a series of regulations
aimed at protecting the forest heritage. The laws could conform to liberali-
stic principles or to restrictive regulations. Beyond the differences, the pri-
mary aim of these laws was to safeguard specific economic and social in-
terests, related to the profit maximisation of the woods in favour of the big
merchants of timber or charcoal, through restriction or exclusion of the fo-
rest traditional usages. The necessity to optimise the yield in wood led, as
in the case of the Pontifical State, to the enactment of very restrictive fores-
tall laws that prohibited any cutting without permission.
192
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to analyse some strategies of household income in-
tegration implemented by the rural population of the Pontifical State, with
particular reference to the present area of Latium, between the 18th and 19th
centuries. The examined strategies used forest products as an integrative
resource. The contrast between conventional woodland management, in
force until the 19th century and based on a wide variety of usages, and a
market-oriented management, that tends to exclude the traditional consu-
mers of the woodland, has already been defined in detail by Diego More-
no (1990). This paper aims to show, using court records, how it is possible
to reconstruct, in detail, a particular form of income-integration in peasant
economies, based on the exploitation of forest resources.
The use of the forest resources joined and integrated in to the daily
agricultural activities. In the case studies, the peasants who went into the
woods, sometimes of public property, sometimes of private property, act-
ed outside their daily activities. The obtained products were not used ex-
clusively for self-consumption, but they were often introduced into local
trade networks. This trade provided the peasant family economy with a
monetary integration. Moreover, timber could become a bridge between
the conventional activities within the rural world and the secondary sector,
although the latter remained in large part craft-based.
1. Court records as a source
At the end of the 18th century, the Pontifical State adopted a forest law valid
for the entire state territory. It followed the example of other Italian States
that, between the 18th and 19th centuries, promulgated a series of regulations
aimed at protecting the forest heritage. The laws could conform to liberali-
stic principles or to restrictive regulations. Beyond the differences, the pri-
mary aim of these laws was to safeguard specific economic and social in-
terests, related to the profit maximisation of the woods in favour of the big
merchants of timber or charcoal, through restriction or exclusion of the fo-
rest traditional usages. The necessity to optimise the yield in wood led, as
in the case of the Pontifical State, to the enactment of very restrictive fores-
tall laws that prohibited any cutting without permission.
192
