This is an interdisciplinary study of a large Italian estate which
belonged to the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The Medici administrators
kept detailed records of the activities of their subjects and these have
been used by the author to analyse the demographic, social, economic and
political history of the village. The records cover two centuries, which
span a harsh economic depression and the 'general crisis' of the
seventeenth century. An aim of the book is to gauge the impact of the
general European crisis upon a regional society, and to assess the
contribution of agrarian economic and social trends towards that crisis.
It analyses the broad issues of population change, economic performance
and social organization within a rural community, demonstrating how the
contractual relationships between landlord and tenant selectively
distributed the effects of the economic crisis, and how the strong
economic bonds that linked lord and peasant helped to control the dogged
resistance for which the people of Altopascio were notorious.