Upland Communities: Environment, Population and Social Structure in the Alps since the Sixteenth Century

341 Pages·1989·7.42 MB·English

by  Pier Paolo Viazzo

Upland communities
Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and
Society in Past Time
Series Editors:
PETER LASLETT, ROGER SCHOFIELD AND E. A. WRIGLEY
ESRC Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
and DANIEL SCOTT SMITH
University of Illinois at Chicago
Recent work in social, economic and demographic history has revealed much
that was previously obscure about societal stability and change in the past.
It has also suggested that crossing the conventional boundaries between these
branches of history can be very rewarding.
This series will exemplify the value of interdisciplinary work of this kind,
and will include books on topics such as family, kinship and neighbourhood;
welfare provision and social control; work and leisure; migration; urban
growth; and legal structures and procedures, as well as more familiar matters.
It will demonstrate that, for example, anthropology and economics have
become as close intellectual neighbours to history as have political philosophy
or biography.
1 Land, kinship and life-cycle Edited by RICH ARD M. SMITH
2 Annals of the labouring poor: social change and agrarian England 1660-1900
K. D. M. SNELL
3 Migration in a mature economy: emigration and internal migration in England
and Wales 1861-1900 DUDLEY BAINES
4 Scottish literacy and the Scottish identity: illiteracy and society in Scotland and
northern England 1600-1800 R. A. HOUSTON
5 Neighbourhood and society: a London suburb in the seventeenth century JEREMY
BOULTON
6 Demographic behavior in the past: A study of fourteen German village populations
in the nineteenth century JOHNE. KNODEL
7 Worlds within worlds: the structures of life in sixteenth-century London STEVE
RAPPAPORT
8 Upland communities: environment, population and social structure in the Alps
since the sixteenth century PIER PAOLO VIAZZO
Upland communities
Environment, population and social structure
in the Alps since the sixteenth century
PIER PAOLO VIAZZO
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© Cambridge University Press 1989
First published 1989
British Library cataloguing in publication data
Viazzo, Pier Paolo
Upland communities: environment,
population and social structure in the
Alps since the sixteenth century -
(Cambridge series in population, economy
and society in past time, 8)
1. Europe. Alps. Social change, 1600-
I. Title
303.4'09494'7
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Viazzo, Pier Paolo.
Upland communities: environment, population, and social structure
in the Alps since the sixteenth century/Pier Paolo Viazzo
p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in population, economy, and
society in past time: 8)
Bibliography
Includes index.
ISBN 0 521 30663 9
1. Alps, Western - Population - History. 2. Alps, Western - Economic
conditions. 3. Alps, Western - Social conditions. 4. Human ecology - Alps,
Western - History I. Title. II. Series.
HB3581.V531989
304.6'09494'7- dc 19 88-18973
ISBN 0 521 30663 9
Transferred to digital printing 2004
BS
For Davide and Giuliana

Contents
List of illustrations page ix
List of tables xi
List of abbreviations xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction: anthropology, historical demography and
the study of mountain societies 1
1 Environment, population and social structure: the
Alpine village as an ecosystem 16
2 Open systems, open questions 31
3 Anthropologists in the Alps 49
4 The changing demography of Alpine communities 67
5 The traditional economy and its demise 100
6 The causes and consequences of Alpine emigration 121
7 The wealth from the earth: mining and immigration 153
8 Population, resources and homeostatic regulation 178
9 The domestic domain 224
10 Upland communities 258
A summary of conclusions 286
Bibliography 297
Index 318

Illustrations
FIGURES page
2.1. Malthus's 'closed system' model 45
2.2. Malthus's 'open system' modei 46
4.1. Population by age, sex and marital status in Alagna, 1935
and 1980 79
6.1. Monthly distribution of 2nd- and higher-order births in
Alagna, 1583^1612 and 1681-1720 133
7.1. Births, deaths and marriages in Alagna 1731-1790 161
7.2. Monthly distribution of births in Alagna 1731-1800 167
7.3. Monthly distribution of 2nd- and higher-order births in
Alagna, 1681-1700 and 1751-1770 168
8.1. Age-specific marital fertility rates in Alagna Torbel and
Andermatt, 1701-1750 204
8.2. Age-specific marital fertility rates in Alagna, Torbel and
Andermatt, 1751-1800 205
8.3. Age-specific marital fertility rates in Alagna, Torbel and
Andermatt, 1801-1850 206
8.4. Age-specific marital fertility rates in Alagna 1701-1850 207
9.1. Males by age, marital status and headship position in
Alagna, 1838 236
9.2. The household of Giovanni Ferraris and its fission, 1833-
1841 239
9.3. Males by age, marital status and headship position in
Entracque (1730) and in Pontechianale (1826) 243
9.4. Males by age, marital status and headship position in
Villgraten, 1781 248
IX
x Upland communities
MAPS
Map 1. Main linguistic groups in the Alps 10
Map 2. Major regional subdivisions in the Alpine area 88
Map 3. The Western Alps 193