Subsistence and sales: the peasant economy of Wurttemberg in the early seventeenth century
PAUL WARDE
Abstract
This article examines the engagement of peasant cultivators with the grain market in Germany in the seventeenth century. It demonstrates a differentiated propensity to sell in regard to different grains; a preference among cultivators for retaining subsistence foodstuffs; the importance of payment in kind in the labour market; and the lack of a clear-cut social structural divide between grain sellers and buyers among those who cultivate arable land. It is thus argued that the analytical concept of 'the peasant' retains its use in understanding this society, but that attitudes displayed by the peasantry to 'the market' must be clearly set in the context of the specific product markets and practices to retain any analytical value.
Article Type: OA
Page range: 289 - 319
Extent: 31 Page(s)
