Suchergebnisse

"The majority of studies on the agricultural history of Japan have focused on the public administration of land and production, and rice, the principal source of revenue, has received the most attention. However, while this cereal has clearly played a decisive role in the public economy of the Japanese State, it has not had a predominant place in agricultural production. Far from confining its scope to a study of rice growing for tax purposes, this volume looks at the subsistence economy in the plant kingdom as a whole. This book examines the history of agriculture in Japan from the 8th to the 17th century, dealing with the history of agricultural techniques and food supply. It analyses each of the farming operations from sowing to harvesting, and the customs pertaining to consumption. It also challenges the widespread theory that rice cultivation has been the basis of 'Japaneseness' for two millennia and the foundation of Japanese civilization by focusing on the biodiversity and polycultural traditions of Japan. Further, it will play a role in the current dialogue on the future of agricultural production from the viewpoints of ecology, biodiversity, dietary culture and food security throughout the world as traditional techniques such a crop rotation are explored in connection with the safeguarding of the minerals in the soil. Surveying agricultural techniques across the centuries and highlighting the dietary diversity of Japan, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, the history of science and technology, medieval history, cultural anthropology and agriculture"--

This volume investigates the use of mortgages in the European countryside between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. A mortgage allowed a loan to be secured with land or other property, and the practice has been linked to the transformation of the agrarian economy that paved the way for modern economic growth. Historians have viewed the mortgage both positively and negatively: on the one hand, it provided borrowers with opportunities for investment in agriculture; but equally, it exposed them to the risk of losing their mortgaged property. The case studies presented in this volume reveal the variety of forms that the mortgage took, and show how an intricate balance was struck between the interests of the borrower looking for funds, and those of the lender looking for security. It is argued that the character of mortgage law, and the nature of rights in land in operation in any given the place and period, determined the degree to which mortgages were employed. Over time, developments in these factors allowed increasing numbers of peasants to use mortgages more freely, and with a decreasing risk of expropriation. This volume will be appealing to academics and researchers interested in financial history, credit and debt

AbstractThe Matenadaran, Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, is a unique repository of Armenian and Oriental manuscripts. The Oriental Collection of the Matenadaran (known usually as Arabo-Persian Collection), including manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Indian and other languages (total ca. 2,500), is formed over a long time and is regularly augmented by purchases and gifts. This collection covers nearly all subjects of human and natural sciences and culture, including theology, jurisprudence, Qur'ānic sciences, Tafsīrs, Hadīthes, lexicography, literature, poetry, history, politics, philosophy, logic, astronomy, magic, mathematics, medicine, veterinary, and agriculture. Among them there are some Sufi codices from the period of the 15th to the 19th century, illustrated and illuminated in the various ateliers in Iran and the region. The article presents the analysis of some Oriental medieval miniatures from the Matenadaran Collection connected with the Sufi motifs in their compositions. The most important are illustrative cycles of a copy dating back to 1848-1849 of the Commentaries of the Seven Qasidas by Husayn Ibn Ahmad al-Zuzani (Ms. no. 1610); of the Afghan manuscript of the 18th century Gulshan-i Afghan by 'Ali Akbar Oraqzay (Ms. no. 538); of a manuscript (no. 599) dated from 1841-1842 and containing the poem Yusuf va Zuleykha by 'Abd ul-Rahman Djami; and of a manuscript of 1629 (no.1036), the travel diary of the Iranian diplomat Muhammad 'Ali Bek Isfahani; as well a number of single miniature compositions from the collection of Louise Aslanian (Paris) (no.1999).

The aim of this paper is to combine two types of source that are usually kept apart in the study of the Italian later Middle Ages: direct tax assessments and local court records. The purpose of putting these two sources together is to discover more about the operation of the local vicariate courts (another neglected element of Italian states) and about wealth distribution and litigation in the Italian countryside. The tax assessments are first analysed for what they reveal of agriculture, migration and wealth, then the court records for the identity of plaintiffs and defendants, and the nature of pleas. To interpret the resulting pattern of debts and credit, cooperation and conflict, concepts from English medieval historiography are used to explore the relationship between debtors and creditors.

Tally sticks worked as ubiquitous stores of numerical knowledge and tools of accounting and administration in medieval Europe. Previous research emphasized both the potential and value of the wooden notched sticks not only for the social and economic history of the Middle Ages, but also for the history of writing, intellectual history. This article combines the analysis of archival objects and written sources from England and Germany analysing their various contexts of use. These involve the centralised, highly professional and ritualised tax accounting at the English Exchequer, husbandry and agriculture, consumer taxation as well as public credit and circulating money-substitutes. Furthermore tallies were often used as evidence in court and functioned alongside written administration.

Intro -- Title -- Table of Contents -- Special Issue: Farming the City -- Erich Landsteiner/Tim Soens: Editorial: Farming the City -- Tim Soens: Urban Agriculture and Urban Food Provisioning in Pre-1850 Europe: Towards a Research Agenda -- Roberto Leggero/Mirella Montanari: Two Experiences of Urban Agriculture in Medieval Piedmont. A Comparison of Chieri and Novara (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries) -- Henry R. French: "... a great hurt to many, and of advantage to very few". Urban Comon Lands, Civic Government, and the Problem of Resource Management in English Towns, 1500-1840 -- Piotr Miodunka: The Longue Durée in Polish Towns: Agriculture from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century -- Pieter De Graef/Wouter Ronsijn: From Home Food Production to Professional Farming. The Social and Geographical Continuum of Urban Agriculture: Nineteenth-century Oudenaarde and Kortrijk, Belgium -- Ines Peper: Between Village, Utopian Settlement, and Garden City: Urban Agriculture in the Company Housing Project of Eisenheim (Founded in 1844) in Historical Context -- Åsa Ahrland: Fields, Meadows, and Gardens - an Integral Part of the City. The Example of Södermalm in Stockholm, Sweden -- Erich Landsteiner: Urban Viticulture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Central Europe -- Johannes Koder: Landwirtschaft beiderseits der Stadtmauern. Konstantinopels Versorgung mit Gemüse aufgrund der Geoponika -- Articles -- Carine Pachoud/Markus Schermer: Reconciling Tradition and Innovation in Traditional Mountain Cheese Value Chains: The Role of Social Capital. The Case of the Artisanal Serrano Cheese Value Chain in Southern Brazil -- Impressum.

The present article seeks to identify the nature, extent, and impact of the Great Bovine Pestilence in England and Wales, between 1318 and 1350. The murrain, which killed around 62 per cent of the bovine animals in England and Wales in 1319–20, had a tremendous impact within both the seigniorial and peasant sectors of late medieval agriculture. In particular, the pestilence, which decreased the overall population of dairy cattle, depressed the overall levels of milk supply available for human consumption. Is it possible that the bovine crisis of 1319–20, and the subsequent protein shortage, were instrumental in weakening the immune system of humans and making them prone to the pestilence some 30 years later?

By c.1500 the Holland economy had already acquired modern traits, as witnessed by the occupational structure and the urbanization rate. This article tries to explain the remarkable development of the Holland economy between 1350 and 1500, linking it to the specific occupation history of the region in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. The combination of high wages in this frontier economy with increasing difficulties in arable agriculture as a result of the subsidence of peat soils, and the absence of feudal restrictions in production and marketing, resulted in the rise of capital‐intensive industries, benefiting from converging wages and increasing market integration.

Although it would now seem established beyond question that agriculture in most parts of India had been exposed to commercial influences from medieval times, there can be little doubt that a variety of developments from the second half of the nineteenth century greatly strengthened those influences. Railways and road transport made possible a huge expansion in cash cropping, for national and international markets, and production regimes across the subcontinent were placed in a new context of opportunity—and of pressure. While so much would scarcely be disputed among historians, what has become—and remained—more controversial, however, is an understanding of the implications of this extended commercial logic for agrarian economy and society. Since colonial times, opinions would seem to have been divided between 'optimists', for whom commercialization marked progress and a growing prosperity for all; 'pessimists', for whom it marked regress into deepening class stratification and mass pauperization; and 'sceptics' who held that it made very little difference and that its impact was largely absorbed by preexisting structures of wealth accumulation and power on the land.

Based on a modest sample of skeletons from northern Europe, average heights fell from 173.4 centimeters in the early Middle Ages to a low of roughly 167 centimeters during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Taking the data at face value, this decline of approximately 6.4 centimeters substantially exceeds any prolonged downturns found during industrialization in several countries that have been studied. Significantly, recovery to levels achieved in the early Middle Ages was not attained until the early twentieth century. It is plausible to link the decline in average height to climate deterioration; growing inequality; urbanization and the expansion of trade and commerce, which facilitated the spread of diseases; fluctuations in population size that impinged on nutritional status; the global spread of diseases associated with European expansion and colonization; and conflicts or wars over state building or religion. Because it is reasonable to believe that greater exposure to pathogens accompanied urbanization and industrialization, and there is evidence of climate moderation, increasing efficiency in agriculture, and greater interregional and international trade in foodstuffs, it is plausible to link the reversal of the long-term height decline with dietary improvements.

Late medieval astrological predictive texts (iudicia, calendars, almanacs etc.) are an interesting source of knowledge about the past. The practice of publishing such texts was a result of the development of the so-called Krakow school of astronomy and astrology. The Krakow masters, who held the position of professors at the chair of astronomy and astrology, were obliged to prepare the said predictive texts annually. The publications included astrological predictions based on forthcoming positions of heavenly bodies and concerned almost every sphere of life of the contemporary society. They referred to trade and agriculture, including prognoses of abundant or failed harvests. They covered political issues, but also problems pertaining to marriage, as well as to children and their upbringing. Vast passages were devoted to weather forecasting, that is, astrometeorology. However, special emphasis was put on the medical topics, as health and disease were an issue of key importance for the representatives of all social strata. Astrological predictive texts, indicating the best (from the viewpoint of astrology) time for attempts to maintain or regain health, were meant to interpret theoretical knowledge with recommendations concerning the practice, which was difficult to verify with regard to sources. ; Późnośredniowieczne prognostyki astrologiczne (iudicia, kalendarze, almanachy, etc.) to ciekawe źródło do poznania przeszłości. Zwyczaj ich publikowania związany był z rozwojem tzw. krakowskiej szkoły astronomiczno-astrologicznej. Mistrzowie krakowscy piastujący funkcję profesorów katedry astronomii i astrologii zobligowani byli do układania rokrocznie prognostyków, w których zamieszczali bazujące na mającym nastąpić układzie ciał niebieskich prognozy astrologiczne dotyczące niemalże każdej płaszczyzny życia ówczesnego społeczeństwa – prognozy odnoszono do handlu, gospodarki rolnej, urodzaju lub nieurodzaju; obejmowano nimi zagadnienia natury politycznej, ale też kwestie małżeństwa, posiadanego potomstwa i jego wychowania; obszerne ustępy poświęcano prognozowaniu pogody, a więc astrometeorologii. Jednakże szczególny nacisk kładziono na zagadnienia medyczne, albowiem kwestia zdrowia i choroby stanowiła kluczowe zagadnienie, które było istotne dla przedstawicieli wszystkich, bez wyjątku, stanów społecznych. Prognostyki astrologiczne natomiast, wskazując odpowiednią, z punktu widzenia astrologii, porę na podejmowanie starań o utrzymanie dobrej kondycji lub powrót do zdrowia, miały stanowić wykładnię wiedzy teoretycznej z zaleceniami dotyczącymi trudnej do zweryfikowania źródłowo praktyki.