Abstract
We know very little about the unlanded population (obesuttna) in Sweden before 1750. Still, knowledge of this group is vital not only to our understanding of the proletarianization process, but also to the understanding of rural Sweden before the changes of the 18th and 19th centuries. This article takes a step towards filling this gap. Tax registers and church records from 17th-century Västmanland shows substantial proportions of unlanded people, i.e. crofters, cottagers, soldiers, artisans, and lodgers, around 1640 and 1690. The age structure of this group, which can be studied for the latter part of the period, shows that it mostly consisted of people in working age. In conclusion, the article argues that there was a significant group of smallholders and wage labourers in 17th-century Sweden, comparable to the labouring poor of other European countries.
Highlights
In Swedish and European historiography, the part of the rural population with little or no land is generally associated with the proletarianization process, the agrarian revolution, and the rise of capitalism, i.e. with the transition from one economic regime to another
According to Dyer, more than half of all households in rural England lived on holdings inadequate for the support of a family as early as around 1300, while Hindle reports that the proportion of ‘labourers’ in the English rural population increased from 20–30% in 1520 to 50% in 1650.5
Proportions of unlanded households in the livestock registers from Västmanland in 1640 varied from under 10% to more than 50%
Summary
In Swedish and European historiography, the part of the rural population with little or no land is generally associated with the proletarianization process, the agrarian revolution, and the rise of capitalism, i.e. with the transition from one economic regime to another Their growth in number over time has been used as an indication of a new mode of production, characterized by wage labour and the dissolution of the household as the unit of production.[1] Different classification practices in historical sources as well as among historians makes comparisons difficult. After discussing previous literature and introducing the study area and the vocabulary, the section uses livestock registers to map the unlanded population in Västmanland in 1640 It demonstrates a substantial group of landless or semilandless households, and great variation. The results point to the importance of including labourers and smallholders in the analysis of Swedish rural society before the transformations of the 18th and 19th centuries
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