Book Review Spanish Peru 1532-1560, A Colonial Society. By JAMES LOCKHART (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. (original) (raw)
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Taxes & Occupation In Search of Social Class in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries
Thanks to a number of superb archival sources, sixteenth-century 's-Hertogenbosch comprises a first-rate test case for the study of pre-industrial social stratification, inequality and mobility in a typical urban context. This essay especially draws attention to the concept of 'social class', and advocates, firstly, that it can only be meaningfully incorporated in the toolbox and vocabulary of historical research after stringent empirical testing. This goal is pursued, second, by confronting HISCLASS and SOCPO, two recently developed classification schemes, with a series of highly detailed tax lists in order to assess congruencies in occupation and wealth/income levels. Thirdly, a number of life-chances are 'fitted' into social class models based on HISCO and fiscal outcomes in order to test the empirical and theoretical usefulness of 'big' classes based on either occupation or income/wealth. The life-chances discussed here include home ownership and fiscal intragenerational mobility. It appears that occupation and wealth/income levels are poor predictors for one another, as is the former for both life-chances analyzed.
2012
The Inkas developed the largest native empire in the Americas (ca. 14th-16th c. CE) and transformed much of their heartland region into productive royal estates. Noble factions built palaces, intensified agricultural resources, and re-settled provincial and local populations as estate retainers. While Inka researchers enjoy a vast historical background relevant to these processes, archaeologists have not yet sought the material evidence for the royal estate economy’s operation and organization. Such an undertaking is vital to modeling the role of factionalism in imperial development and consolidation, especially in empires where noble economies claimed significant portions of resources and labor. In order to assess the role of the royal estate within the Inka political economy, this dissertation evaluates two aspects of the estate: 1) the organization of production of subsistence and craft goods on estate lands and 2) the domestic economies of non-elite laborers and intermediate elite administrators living on the estate. This evaluation is contextualized by a wealth of recent regional survey and archival research. While previous archaeological, ethnohistorical, and architectural investigations of the estate have limited their approaches to just the palace complex and monumental sites, this project takes a new perspective by examining a production enclave and retainer settlement located seven kilometers from the nearest palace complex. Research on estate labor and administration was conducted via archaeological excavation at the site of Cheqoq in Maras, Cuzco, Peru and contextualized within recent regional studies. Through horizontal excavation of six laborer households, a storehouse, and pottery workshop, I analyzed domestic economy and production to reconstruct the royal estate economy and its relation to the larger imperial political economy. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of artifacts provided a database for assessing production and consumption by household and as a site on the whole. These comparisons indicate production and consumption patterns similar to some of those laid out through chronicle and archival documents in the early Colonial period (16th to 17th c. CE). However, I find that laborers and administrators negotiated status and identity relative to each other and to their noble patrons in complex and heterogeneous ways. While estate laborers had no status in the empire beyond their attachment to a noble faction, they had access to some goods beyond their station due to their proximity to and participation in estate wealth production. As producers of imperial style pottery and administrators of stored crop surpluses, these non-elites found ways to assimilate Cuzco-Inka material culture into their daily lives. Data on domestic economy and estate production at Cheqoq contribute to developing a baseline for evaluating the role of royal and noble estates within imperial economies. The methods and results from this study may be applied to other cases within the Inka empire and in other early states and empires. This study can thus increase our understanding of how factionalism promoted imperial growth and how laborer and administrator households participated in the transformation.
Social Estates, Occupation, and HISCO: A New Study of Odesa in 1897
East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies
Odesa was one of the largest and most important cities in the Russian Empire. Numerous studies have addressed the economic development and social structure of Odesa, but there are some gaps in the knowledge of the social stratification during the nineteenth century. Although most studies of the social and economic histories of Ukraine provide qualitative or highly aggregated quantitative data, micro-data at the level of individuals and households in Ukraine are rare. This paper provides new micro-data from the 1897 census in Odesa. It is the first attempt to code occupations of Odesa workers according to the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO). Of the 2,435 individuals in the 457 sampled households analyzed, 1,443 individuals demonstrate 86 of the unique occupations coded with the international HISCO scheme. The analysis compares these HISCO occupations by the social estates, the gender, and the language of the surveyed individuals. The study conf...
Blood, Land and Power. The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Nobility and Lineages in the Early Modern Period, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021
The analysis of land management, lineage and family through the case study of early modern Spanish nobility from sixteenth to early nineteenth century is a major issue in recent historiography. It aims to shed light on how upper social classes arranged strategies to maintain their political and economic status. Rivalry and disputes between old factions and families were attached to the control and exercise of power. Blood, land management and honour were the main elements in these disputes. Honour, service to the Crown, participation in the conquest and ‘pure’ blood (Catholic affiliation) were the main features of Spanish nobility. This book analyses the origins of the entailed-estate (mayorazgo) from medieval times to early modern period, as the main element that enables us to understand the socio-economic behaviour of these families over generations. This longue durée chronology within the Braudelian methodology of the research aims to show how strategies and family networks changed over time, demonstrating a micro-history study of daily life.