HISTORY OF THE ALPS, 1500 - 1900: ENVIRONMENT, DEVELOPMENT, AND SOCIETY

7. Territories during the Early Modern Period

161 7 Territories during the Early Modern Period From the end of the Middle Ages until the French Revolution, agrarian structures shifted less rapidly, generally speaking, than they did from the late eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the early modern period witnessed numerous changes and, moreover, a great variety of political structures. In order to try to grasp the whole range of early modern developments that occurred within the Alpine space, this chapter will look at three regional examples from different parts of the mountain system: Savoy in the west, the Grisons in the center, and Carinthia in the east. The duchy of Savoy corresponded roughly to today’s French departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie, and belonged to the Savoyard-Piedmontese state formation that stretched across the Alps into the northern Italian plain. The Grisons, often called the Freestate of the Three Leagues, was a relatively independent polity that encompassed , in addition to the existing Swiss canton, also a bordering subject region—what is now the Italian province of Sondrio. The duchy of Carinthia, a hereditary land of the house of Hapsburg, provided the name for the federal Land in current-day Austria situated in the same area, on a slightly smaller territory. In terms of surface area, these three territories all measured between 10,000 and 11,000 square kilometers. Savoy had by far the highest population level, though Carinthia experienced the greatest Chapter Seven 162 rates of growth during the early modern period. The development of political structures was very different in each of these three Alpine regions over the course of these centuries—a fact that makes for very fruitful comparative study.1 For many of the themes discussed here we must turn to the different perspectives and traditions represented in the scholarly literature of each region, along with their respective strengths and weaknesses. Practically the only Alpine-wide studies that exist to date are those dealing with domestic units and families, although (or perhaps even because) historical-anthropological research on the family has only developed as a self-standing field within the past few decades. In this context, the most important study is the recent work by the anthropologist Dionigi Albera on L’organisation domestique dans l’espace alpin: Équilibres écologiques, effets de frontières, transforma­ tions historiques (Household organization in the Alpine space: Ecological equilibria, the impact of borders, historical transformations). This book presents the author’s historically-oriented research, carried out in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont, mainly in the Val Varàita. Then it provides an overview of local and regional family studies from many parts of the Alps, on the southern side from Piedmont to Friuli and Slovenia , and on the western and northern sides from Provence to the Valais and all the way to the Austrian Länder.2 Albera gives particular attention to methodological and theoretical issues. He criticizes research tendencies that portray the family as autonomous and objectified, and argues for a relational approach that sees it as a network of relationships within a constantly changing social context. In this way he de-emphasizes the value of family typologies and positions himself against efforts to construct a European cartography of simplistic family types. His study shows, in detail, that abstract approaches such as this one have generated unrealistic and contradictory representations of an Alpine space already saddled with clichés. The various family types identified by Albera for the study area are thus situated on a medium level of generalization and are explicitly defined as ideal types, that is, as tools of orientation, rather than as immediately realistic descriptions. In my view, these conceptual instruments thus provide a useful introduction to the broad scope of early modern family structures and domestic units. If we synthesize the key points, these types can be described as follows: Agnatic type: insertion of the family in kinship and neighborhood networks of small settlements; prominent position of the masculine line (agnatic); egalitarian partible inheritance for sons, daughters compensated with dowries; Territories during the Early Modern Period 163 patrilocal residence followed often by co-residence of married brothers; boundaries of house and family not specified, but constantly interacting with surrounding environment and migrating members. Examples from the Italian Alps. Bourgeois type: insertion of the family into the organization of the commune, which often includes larger settlements; egalitarian partible inheritance among all children; bilateral kinship; modest social stratification...