The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487–1726
A Rural Society in Early Modern Europe

A detailed reconstruction of the peasant society of the Benedictine monastery of Ottobeuren.

Govind P. Sreenivasan (Author)

9780521044585, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 October 2007

412 pages, 2 maps
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.619 kg

'… enormously rich and detailed … an incisive and compelling analysis of the rapidly increasing commercialization of the rural economy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.' German History

The Peasants of Ottobeuren offers an interesting perspective on one of the enduring problems of early modern European history: the possibilities for economic growth and social change in rural society. Based on the voluminous records of the Swabian Benedictine monastery of Ottobeuren, this study underscores the limitations of the traditional narrative of a sixteenth-century boom which foundered on the productive rigidities of the peasant economy and then degenerated into social crisis in the seventeenth century. Population growth did strain resources at Ottobeuren, but the peasantry continued to produce substantial agricultural surplus. More importantly, peasants reacted to demographic pressure by deepening their involvement in land and credit markets, and more widely and aggressively marketing the fruits of their labour. Marriage and inheritance underwent a similar process of commercialization which made heavy demands on the peasantry, but which maintained a degree of social stability through the devastations of war, plague and famine.

List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Note on weights, measures and currencies
Introduction
1. Right and might (c.1480–c.1560)
2. The discrete society (c.1480–c.1560)
3. A crisis of numbers? (c.1560–c.1630)
4. Integrity and the market (c.1560–c.1630)
5. Living on borrowed time (c.1560–c.1630)
6. To empty and to refill (c.1630–c.1720)
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of places
General index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Sociology: work & labour [JHBL], Population & demography [JHBD], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]