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Article: Peasantry
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PEASANTRY
PEASANTRY.
The existence of a European peasantry did not change fundamentally between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, but during those three hundred years significant shifts in the status, occupation, and livelihood of peasants occurred at various times and places. Generally speaking, the fortunes of Europe's agriculturalists conformed to a cycle of upswing until the later sixteenth century, followed by depression or even crisis, which lasted in some parts of Europe until the late seventeenth century, to be succeeded by a recovery in the eighteenth. Although Europe's peasantries had been the prisoners of Malthusian checks
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with war, famine, and disease serving ...