Page 73 - 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. 73
peasant income integration in early modern slovenia: a historiographical review
pothesis cannot be easily confirmed, since, with the exception of salt pro-
duction,9 all of the industries that have been mentioned for the area of Is-
tria have been poorly researched in Slovenian historiography. Moreover, it
is difficult to identify the classes of the population in the towns and the hin-
terland. In addition to noblemen, the towns were also inhabited by the pop-
ulari, i.e. the lower class urban population, which included “salt workers,
shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen,” craftsmen, merchants and peasants. They
are usually mentioned in literature by the name of the town or the craft they
were engaged in (e.g. inhabitant of Piran, inhabitant of Koper, salt worker,
etc.), and not by their social class. According to Pahor, there were alleg-
edly many “distinctly urban peasants-populari” in Koper in 1610, whereas
there were few of them in Piran or even none at all. Populari are thus en-
countered as e.g. professional salt workers, who worked the salt pans of the
townspeople and nobility as tenants (tenant farmers or koloni), or as own-
ers of a (usually very small) section of the salt pans (Pahor 1972, 32, 34, 57).
Let us take a brief look at the rest of the above-mentioned industries:
fishery, viticulture, oil manufacture and sericulture. It is known that the
fishermen of Piran engaged in the contraband fishing and selling of fish
outside of town (Pahor 1972, 61). Sericulture began to develop in north-
west Istria at the end of the 17th century; weaving and spinning were pres-
ent even before that time. In 1763, two entrepreneurs from Koper set up silk
spinning mills in order to provide work and subsistence to the “poor local
population” by selling silk “to Austrian provinces.” As was the case in the
County of Gorizia, the authorities and individuals in coastal towns pro-
posed that peasants be directed towards this profitable culture by planting
and cultivating mulberry trees for sericulture. However, the peasants were
more inclined to the traditional Istrian agricultural industry, i.e. viticulture
(Darovec 2004, 244, 247, 280), whose produce was one of the main export
products of coastal towns.
2.5 Inner and Lower Carniola
Let us take a look at the last two regions to be discussed; in Valvasor’s time
they were divided into two parts of Carniola, namely Inner Carniola and
Lower Carniola, and today encompass the eastern part of the Notranj-
ska region and the region of Dolenjska. Valvasor noticed many carriers,
craftsmen and merchants there, who traded in linen, oxen and other lives-
tock, honey and dormouse pelts; he did not fail to mention the “mighty fo-
9 See e.g. Pahor 1957, 1972; Vilfan 1962, 1963; Z. Bonin 2005, 2009; F. Bonin 2016; etc.
71
pothesis cannot be easily confirmed, since, with the exception of salt pro-
duction,9 all of the industries that have been mentioned for the area of Is-
tria have been poorly researched in Slovenian historiography. Moreover, it
is difficult to identify the classes of the population in the towns and the hin-
terland. In addition to noblemen, the towns were also inhabited by the pop-
ulari, i.e. the lower class urban population, which included “salt workers,
shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen,” craftsmen, merchants and peasants. They
are usually mentioned in literature by the name of the town or the craft they
were engaged in (e.g. inhabitant of Piran, inhabitant of Koper, salt worker,
etc.), and not by their social class. According to Pahor, there were alleg-
edly many “distinctly urban peasants-populari” in Koper in 1610, whereas
there were few of them in Piran or even none at all. Populari are thus en-
countered as e.g. professional salt workers, who worked the salt pans of the
townspeople and nobility as tenants (tenant farmers or koloni), or as own-
ers of a (usually very small) section of the salt pans (Pahor 1972, 32, 34, 57).
Let us take a brief look at the rest of the above-mentioned industries:
fishery, viticulture, oil manufacture and sericulture. It is known that the
fishermen of Piran engaged in the contraband fishing and selling of fish
outside of town (Pahor 1972, 61). Sericulture began to develop in north-
west Istria at the end of the 17th century; weaving and spinning were pres-
ent even before that time. In 1763, two entrepreneurs from Koper set up silk
spinning mills in order to provide work and subsistence to the “poor local
population” by selling silk “to Austrian provinces.” As was the case in the
County of Gorizia, the authorities and individuals in coastal towns pro-
posed that peasants be directed towards this profitable culture by planting
and cultivating mulberry trees for sericulture. However, the peasants were
more inclined to the traditional Istrian agricultural industry, i.e. viticulture
(Darovec 2004, 244, 247, 280), whose produce was one of the main export
products of coastal towns.
2.5 Inner and Lower Carniola
Let us take a look at the last two regions to be discussed; in Valvasor’s time
they were divided into two parts of Carniola, namely Inner Carniola and
Lower Carniola, and today encompass the eastern part of the Notranj-
ska region and the region of Dolenjska. Valvasor noticed many carriers,
craftsmen and merchants there, who traded in linen, oxen and other lives-
tock, honey and dormouse pelts; he did not fail to mention the “mighty fo-
9 See e.g. Pahor 1957, 1972; Vilfan 1962, 1963; Z. Bonin 2005, 2009; F. Bonin 2016; etc.
71
