Page 11 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

An Introduction to Long-Run Micro Perspectives on Uplands

by a long period of demographic and economic stagnation during and after
the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which lasted well into the eighteenth
century. The social and economic conditions of the peasant population
were on the one hand characterized by a rather high degree of indebted-
ness, while on the other different groups had quite differing labour duties
to the landlords. Skořepová argues that ‘the economic stability of full-sized
farms and later also cottages was very fragile and depended on the abili-
ty of householders to remain in the position of the head of the household
throughout their productive period.’ This was due to the obligation to pay
inheritance shares, which ‘created an ever-renewing cycle of debts hang-
ing on both large and small homesteads.’ Their success seems therefore to
have depended perhaps more on fortunate combinations of circumstances
than on management skills. Nevertheless, cottagers with little land com-
bined agriculture with wage labour and, at least in the nineteenth century,
the production of textiles, allowing for a ‘relative prosperity of small home-
steads.’
Matteo Di Tullio and Claudio Lorenzini focus on the Billiani family in
thevillageof Somplagoin theFriulianAlps(Carnia). Theywereabletobase
their case study on a particularly ‘rare and peculiar source, such as the ac-
count books of an entrepreneurial family’ that cover the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. The family enterprises turn out to be of an ‘integrat-
ed character,’ since they combined ‘pastoral and forestry and agricultural
spheres,’ the latter comprising trade in agricultural products of fields as
well as gardens, and the ‘craft sector for yarn production,’ This ‘reinforces
the pluriactive character of mountain workers,’ both male and female. Di
Tullio and Claudio Lorenzini convincingly argue that the ‘resilience’ and
the long-term ‘continuity of the economic activities’ by the Billiani, as is
the case of other family groups, seem to derive precisely ‘from this di-
versification of economic activities.’ Another activity whose importance is
emerging ever more clearly is that of credit, on the one hand as an addi-
tional source of income and on the other as a tool with which the Billiani
managed to maintain their social pre-eminence over the other families in
the mountain community of Somplago. Finally, ‘the presence of clergymen
and notaries within the family group facilitated the maintenance of the po-
sition achieved and, in fact, amplified the inequality’ between the Billiani
and other families in the village.
Aleksander Panjek and Miha Zobec present the case of the Černe, a
wealthy peasant family with extensive landed properties from the Karst
(Habsburg Carniola) during three centuries. Based on parish registers,

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