Page 398 - 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. 398
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
Introduction
Once in a memoir to the 18th century parliament, the Swedish Manufacture
office wrote in dismay that “the town-burgher ploughs and sows, while the
peasant is weaving and trading.” This expressed an attitude of the autho-
rities, according to which each particular category of inhabitants should
stick to their destination.1 Certain town burghers, guild members, and par-
ticular social categories enjoyed royal privileges to develop and carry out
certain trades. Even the cultivation of tobacco, much urged for, was desi-
gnated to be an urban occupation with which peasants should not spoil ti-
mes and resources needed to produce more grain (Morell 2013a). Other so-
cial groups were supposed not to compete with town burghers and risk
destroying the profitability of their trades and crafts.
Similarly, the most important economic sector, apart from agricul-
ture proper in Sweden, was iron making, and it was organised in a way
that designated special roles to peasant landowners and tenants. They were
supposed to produce ore collectively in their mines, they were expected to
make crude iron in their village furnaces, but they were not to make pro-
cessed bar iron. That was a privilege for larger units, often owned by enno-
bled burghers, who were allowed a certain level of privileged production
and were also expected to allocate capital to the activities. Instead peasants
were expected to deliver wrought iron, ore, charcoal and transport services
to these ironworks owners aka feudal landowners, both for pay and as part
of farmed out royal taxes. In fact, the national policy was to attract foreign
capital to the iron making sector, by allowing feudally rooted advantages
and secured cheap services and charcoal deliveries, to the emerging iron
works entrepreneurs (Hildebrand 1992; Bredefeldt 1994; Morell 1995).
Peasant’s travels over county borders were restricted, there were local
customs to be paid entering towns with goods, and peasants were expect-
ed to sell their goods at regulated markets where the burghers of the clos-
est towns were the only buyers. Ideally, all manufacturing was similarly
restricted. These ideals could however never be fully upheld and a simple
reason for that was that fully obeyed restrictions would have made too lit-
tle trade possible. Towns were few, far between and small, and this has been
taken as proof of Sweden being a comparatively poor country. A counter
argument was that there was a lot of internal division of labour in the coun-
tryside with lots of parish craftsmen, in place of town craftsmen (Gadd 1991,
345–9).
1 This policy had medieval origins, Cf. Sandström 1996.
396
Introduction
Once in a memoir to the 18th century parliament, the Swedish Manufacture
office wrote in dismay that “the town-burgher ploughs and sows, while the
peasant is weaving and trading.” This expressed an attitude of the autho-
rities, according to which each particular category of inhabitants should
stick to their destination.1 Certain town burghers, guild members, and par-
ticular social categories enjoyed royal privileges to develop and carry out
certain trades. Even the cultivation of tobacco, much urged for, was desi-
gnated to be an urban occupation with which peasants should not spoil ti-
mes and resources needed to produce more grain (Morell 2013a). Other so-
cial groups were supposed not to compete with town burghers and risk
destroying the profitability of their trades and crafts.
Similarly, the most important economic sector, apart from agricul-
ture proper in Sweden, was iron making, and it was organised in a way
that designated special roles to peasant landowners and tenants. They were
supposed to produce ore collectively in their mines, they were expected to
make crude iron in their village furnaces, but they were not to make pro-
cessed bar iron. That was a privilege for larger units, often owned by enno-
bled burghers, who were allowed a certain level of privileged production
and were also expected to allocate capital to the activities. Instead peasants
were expected to deliver wrought iron, ore, charcoal and transport services
to these ironworks owners aka feudal landowners, both for pay and as part
of farmed out royal taxes. In fact, the national policy was to attract foreign
capital to the iron making sector, by allowing feudally rooted advantages
and secured cheap services and charcoal deliveries, to the emerging iron
works entrepreneurs (Hildebrand 1992; Bredefeldt 1994; Morell 1995).
Peasant’s travels over county borders were restricted, there were local
customs to be paid entering towns with goods, and peasants were expect-
ed to sell their goods at regulated markets where the burghers of the clos-
est towns were the only buyers. Ideally, all manufacturing was similarly
restricted. These ideals could however never be fully upheld and a simple
reason for that was that fully obeyed restrictions would have made too lit-
tle trade possible. Towns were few, far between and small, and this has been
taken as proof of Sweden being a comparatively poor country. A counter
argument was that there was a lot of internal division of labour in the coun-
tryside with lots of parish craftsmen, in place of town craftsmen (Gadd 1991,
345–9).
1 This policy had medieval origins, Cf. Sandström 1996.
396
