Page 196 - 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. 196
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
stealing of live growing timber […] it would be impossible to find a
more elegant and at the same time more simple method of making
the right of human beings give way to that of young trees. On the
one hand, after the adoption of the paragraph, it is inevitable that
many people not of a criminal disposition are cut off from the green
tree of morality and cast like fallen wood into the hell of crime, infa-
my and misery. On the other hand, after rejection of the paragraph,
there is the possibility that some young trees may be damaged, and
it needs hardly be said that the wooden idols triumph and human
beings are sacrificed! (Marx 1842).
In other contexts, as in the case of the Ariege or the Franche-Comte
forests, Marx’s disconcert about the decisions of the Rhine Diet turned into
valiant resistance to the 1827 French forest code by rural populations ac-
customed to living in a quite autonomous regime (Sahlins 1994; Matteson
2015). These events remind us of the conflicts within English forests, caused
by the introduction of the Black Act in 1732, between two differing points of
view on property, one in line with big agrarian capitalism, while the other,
that of the poachers, was linked to traditional rights or customs (Thomp-
son 1975).
Table 8.2: Impact of professional categories on forest offences
Category Number Percentage
Peasants 777 71
Landowners and timber merchants
(proprietari, commercianti di legnami, amministratori di tenute) 100 9
Loggers (boscaioli, lavoranti del legname)
Artisans 107 10
Cattle farmers (allevatori) 62 6
Priests 27 2.5
Total 18 1.5
1,091 100
Source: ASR, Tribunale della sacra consulta, bb. 801–809, old numbering.
By the analysis of about four hundred sentences from the Tribunal of
the holy consult, that have allowed us to reconstruct the professional iden-
tity of 1091 individuals, it has been possible to determine the impact of the
different professional categories of whom had been accused of forest of-
fences.
194
stealing of live growing timber […] it would be impossible to find a
more elegant and at the same time more simple method of making
the right of human beings give way to that of young trees. On the
one hand, after the adoption of the paragraph, it is inevitable that
many people not of a criminal disposition are cut off from the green
tree of morality and cast like fallen wood into the hell of crime, infa-
my and misery. On the other hand, after rejection of the paragraph,
there is the possibility that some young trees may be damaged, and
it needs hardly be said that the wooden idols triumph and human
beings are sacrificed! (Marx 1842).
In other contexts, as in the case of the Ariege or the Franche-Comte
forests, Marx’s disconcert about the decisions of the Rhine Diet turned into
valiant resistance to the 1827 French forest code by rural populations ac-
customed to living in a quite autonomous regime (Sahlins 1994; Matteson
2015). These events remind us of the conflicts within English forests, caused
by the introduction of the Black Act in 1732, between two differing points of
view on property, one in line with big agrarian capitalism, while the other,
that of the poachers, was linked to traditional rights or customs (Thomp-
son 1975).
Table 8.2: Impact of professional categories on forest offences
Category Number Percentage
Peasants 777 71
Landowners and timber merchants
(proprietari, commercianti di legnami, amministratori di tenute) 100 9
Loggers (boscaioli, lavoranti del legname)
Artisans 107 10
Cattle farmers (allevatori) 62 6
Priests 27 2.5
Total 18 1.5
1,091 100
Source: ASR, Tribunale della sacra consulta, bb. 801–809, old numbering.
By the analysis of about four hundred sentences from the Tribunal of
the holy consult, that have allowed us to reconstruct the professional iden-
tity of 1091 individuals, it has been possible to determine the impact of the
different professional categories of whom had been accused of forest of-
fences.
194
