The Village and the Outside World in Golden Age Castile: Mobility and Migration in Everyday Rural Life

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Cambridge University Press, Nov 28, 2002 - History - 272 pages
This 1996 book, based upon a vast range of documentary and secondary sources, shatters the disproven but persistent myth of the closed immobile village in the early modern period. It demonstrates that even in traditionalist Castile, pre-industrial village society was highly dynamic, with continuous inter-village, inter-regional, and rural-urban migration. The book is rich in human detail, with many vignettes of everyday life. Professor Vassberg examines such topics as fairs and markets, the transportation infrastructure, rural artisans and craftsmen, relations with the state, and life-cycle service. The approach is interdisciplinary, and pays special attention to how rural families dealt with economic and social problems. The rural Castile that emerges is a complex society that defies easy generalizations, but one which is unquestionably part of the general European reality.

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Contents

The village community
11
Market contacts with the outside world
25
Manufacturing and artisanal contacts with the outside world
48
Inmigration and outmigration
67
Family relations with the outside world
86
Relations with the state
104
Contacts with travelers and aliens
129
Additional contacts with the outside world
155
Conclusion
171
Notes
176
Bibliography
219
Index
244
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