Page 203 - 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. 203
dlands as a source of income integration in peasant economies: the pontifical state
the work in the fields and the total income that could be obtained. Accord-
ing to such a view, the farmer, as a simple labourer only active during cer-
tain periods of the year, would be transformed into a member of the share-
cropping system (mezzadria), an always active production unit.
An aspect that can explain the purposes of the papal government is
the initiative to reward the new plantations of trees, which started in 1830
and perpetuated with more funds during the 1850s. Between 1831 and 1842,
308,000 olives and 205,000 mulberries were planted. In the decade between
1850 and 1859, 243,000 olives, 362,000 chestnuts, 240,000 poplars, 57,000
mulberries and 10,000 almonds were planted, in addition to citrus fruits,
walnuts, pines, firs and oaks (Pescosolido 1994, 103–4). On one hand the
initiative of the peasants, who acted autonomously to integrate their in-
come, was subjected to the penalty of forest laws, while on the other hand
the papal government wanted to increase the industriousness of the coun-
tryside, promoting a market integrated farming system.
Some conclusions
The activities carried out by peasants to integrate their income have been
traditionally included by historiography in the interpretative category of
pluriactivity. The researches inspired by pluriactivity had a particularly
‘fertile’ time about the end of the 1980s. Within Italian historiography they
had the chance to specify in which way this idea had to be understood as
a “strategy pursuing new income and job opportunities for some members
of the [peasant] family”, instead of a “pure and simple occasional income
integration” (Cazzola 1988, 83). Paolo Villani, in the introduction to the spe-
cial issue of the journal Annali dell’Istituto Alcide Cervi dedicated to pluri-
activity, distinguished between the value of this interpretative category in
French historiography, which speaks of “pluriactivité” or “multiactivité”,
only in the presence of another activity in the secondary or tertiary sec-
tors, and the Italian historiography, in which the term is referred also to
the “additional employments” within the agricultural sector. However, “the
very definition of pluriactivity in the rigorous French meaning of a sec-
ond, off-farm activity seems insufficient to account for multi-professionali-
ty or job insecurity among the inhabitants of the Italian countryside” (Vil-
lani 1989, 16–7). The reference was constituted by collected essays published
in France in 1984 and 1988 (Association des ruralistes francais 1984; Gar-
rier and Hubscher 1988). Recently, starting from Gauro Coppola’s consid-
erations on the early modern Alpine economy as an “integrated economy”
201
the work in the fields and the total income that could be obtained. Accord-
ing to such a view, the farmer, as a simple labourer only active during cer-
tain periods of the year, would be transformed into a member of the share-
cropping system (mezzadria), an always active production unit.
An aspect that can explain the purposes of the papal government is
the initiative to reward the new plantations of trees, which started in 1830
and perpetuated with more funds during the 1850s. Between 1831 and 1842,
308,000 olives and 205,000 mulberries were planted. In the decade between
1850 and 1859, 243,000 olives, 362,000 chestnuts, 240,000 poplars, 57,000
mulberries and 10,000 almonds were planted, in addition to citrus fruits,
walnuts, pines, firs and oaks (Pescosolido 1994, 103–4). On one hand the
initiative of the peasants, who acted autonomously to integrate their in-
come, was subjected to the penalty of forest laws, while on the other hand
the papal government wanted to increase the industriousness of the coun-
tryside, promoting a market integrated farming system.
Some conclusions
The activities carried out by peasants to integrate their income have been
traditionally included by historiography in the interpretative category of
pluriactivity. The researches inspired by pluriactivity had a particularly
‘fertile’ time about the end of the 1980s. Within Italian historiography they
had the chance to specify in which way this idea had to be understood as
a “strategy pursuing new income and job opportunities for some members
of the [peasant] family”, instead of a “pure and simple occasional income
integration” (Cazzola 1988, 83). Paolo Villani, in the introduction to the spe-
cial issue of the journal Annali dell’Istituto Alcide Cervi dedicated to pluri-
activity, distinguished between the value of this interpretative category in
French historiography, which speaks of “pluriactivité” or “multiactivité”,
only in the presence of another activity in the secondary or tertiary sec-
tors, and the Italian historiography, in which the term is referred also to
the “additional employments” within the agricultural sector. However, “the
very definition of pluriactivity in the rigorous French meaning of a sec-
ond, off-farm activity seems insufficient to account for multi-professionali-
ty or job insecurity among the inhabitants of the Italian countryside” (Vil-
lani 1989, 16–7). The reference was constituted by collected essays published
in France in 1984 and 1988 (Association des ruralistes francais 1984; Gar-
rier and Hubscher 1988). Recently, starting from Gauro Coppola’s consid-
erations on the early modern Alpine economy as an “integrated economy”
201
